Nude video game characters reveal more than pixels

Through Murkey Waters

The October issue of Playboy magazine already is attracting attention on campus because of its "Girls of the ACC" feature, but another section of the magazine raises more of a debate than "Is this girl in my psychology class?"

This month’s "Gaming Grows Up" feature showcases four adult female video game characters rendered in a splendor previously reserved for the privacy of their designer’s drawing boards. Playboy has given them the full treatment, complete with interviews and full-page nude graphics.

At first glance, the choice to run a model-free feature should come as no surprise in an age dominated by digital animation in movies, television shows and, of course, video games. It was only a matter of time before someone took advantage of millions of gamers’ desires to interact with the game characters beyond the constraints of the consol.

However, the deeper concerns of this feature become apparent when one examines what Playboy truly is. Playboy always has been a way for men — the magazine would say gentlemen — to enjoy the sight of attractive women. The morals of pornography and erotica aside, since 1953, live models have graced Playboy’s pages with their bodies and their stories. The "Gaming Grows Up" feature removes the women from the magazine, sending the message that women really are just sex objects designed for the pleasure and entertainment of men. Personalities are irrelevant – they can be made up as the author pleases.

This concept also sends women another message — no matter how beautiful they are, they can never match the fantasies of men. This in and of itself is not an unfamiliar credo — the pressures women, especially teenagers, feel from the fashion and entertainment industry are well-documented. Playboy has taken this one step further, though — no matter what surgery its models had, they still were real. It is utterly impossible for a healthy woman to look like the sex idols an artist can produce, and so the message is that a woman never can live up to the expectations men put on her.

While Playboy has brought the issue home, the unreasonable expectations both genders place on each other have been well-acknowledged in recent popular culture. While men never will find the perfect looking woman, it seems women will never find a perfect lover. Television shows, such as HBO’s "Sex and the City" contain segments that reveal the characters’ inability at times to find lovers who can sexually satisfy them.

These aspects of media play off some of the greatest stereotypical gender fears — women’s concern over their looks and men’s fears of sexual inadequacy. Acknowledging these fears — even exploiting them for entertainment purposes — is not necessarily condemnable. What is condemnable is the cultural trend that says we never can be truly happy in a relationship or the trend that says members of the opposite sex only serve one role — sexual pleasure — and they are inadequate at fulfilling this role. A perfect picture or toy may provide satisfaction for a time, but perfection is an absolute and, as such, cannot admit variation. While both genders certainly should seek out that which satisfies them, it is the imperfections in a lover that make a relationship interesting and ultimately worthwhile. It is irresponsible of Playboy and media in general to suggest otherwise.

Alex Sirney is a sophomore SMAD/anthropology major.