TY - JOUR AU - Harper, Todd PY - 2015/10/31 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - BEYOND BAYONETTA'S BARBIE BODY JF - AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research JA - SPIR VL - 5 IS - 0 SE - Papers H DO - UR - https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/8464 SP - AB - <div class="page" title="Page 1"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">In recent history, there have been few video game characters as divisive, hotly contested, or controversial as Bayonetta, the star of the game series of the same name from developer Platinum Games. Following in the footsteps of predecessors like </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial,Italic';">Devil May Cry</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">, </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial,Italic';">Bayonetta </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">is a “character brawler;” a third person action game of over the top </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">violence where the iconic main character is a significant selling point. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">Bayonetta herself, at first glance, seems to be everything wrong with the design of women main characters in video games today: her physical proportions are highly exaggerated, emphasizing traditionally sexualized characteristics such as a large bust and a long, thin, slightly S-</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">curved body that’s mostly leg. Platinum character designer Mari Shimazaki has discussed the ways in which she tried to make Bayonetta “more </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">appealing as an action game character by adjusting her proportions and extending her </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">limbs” (Shimazaki, 2009). A recurring in</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">-game gimmick for Bayonetta is that she magically conjures giant fists or feet to attack her enemies that are formed from her long hair, which also forms her outfit; the result is that, when she uses such attacks, she is left mostly naked. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">Unsurprisingly, both the character and the games have come under fire from critics for this sexualized representation, particularly from some feminist critics who argue that she is yet another in a long line of problematic women characters served up for heterosexual male consumption. Anita Sarkeesian of </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial,Italic';">Feminist Frequency </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">has said that </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">Bayonetta is at the center of her forthcoming “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games” series video, the “Fighting Fucktoy,” as the “quintessential example of the trope” </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">(https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/521788400538370048). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">However, critiques of Bayonetta that restrict themselves to her sexualized body are potentially missing a rich and interesting range of critiques from both feminist and queer points of view. Women players inhabiting Bayonetta as an avatar may have more complicated relationships with her than might be imagined at first glance. Similarly, </span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">more expansive reads of Bayonetta’s style and depiction suggest that s</span><span style="font-size: 12.000000pt; font-family: 'Arial';">he may be easily read as embodying the performative aspects of drag and camp, relying on excess, spectacle, and ironic subversion for some of her impact and charm. </span></p></div></div></div> ER -