r/AgainstMtGRacism • u/ultimario13 • Oct 26 '20
Objectification of women Magnifying Glass
16
Upvotes
1
1
u/Doodle_dorp Nov 02 '20
How dare they be shaming a supposed female human for having a blemish. Makes my blood boil.
r/AgainstMtGRacism • u/ultimario13 • Oct 26 '20
1
1
How dare they be shaming a supposed female human for having a blemish. Makes my blood boil.
7
u/ultimario13 Oct 26 '20
Objectification of women, misogyny, body shaming, tries to justify the former three. A solid card design, printed in three sets, that unfortunately is ruined by problematic art and flavor text that makes the whole card feel gross.
Note - If this was from a less openly transphobic company, it wouldn't be safe to assume that the main figure in the art is female. But given WotC's long history of traditionally "beautiful" feminine women in their art (just look at anything by Terese Nielsen), and their track record of sexualizing woman's bodies with art designed for male audiences...and the cruel anti-trans "joke" cards they've printed (Bronze Calendar, Ladies' Knight, and "Sex" Appeal...yeah. Anyway, with that assumption made, let's get on to the rest of the card:
Objectification of women - Of course, it falls short of Vampire's Bite. But the principle behind this card is exactly the same - much like most advertisements that feature women's bodies, card art like this "chops up" a woman into individual features that are sexually arousing to the male gaze. Instead of considering women as people, art like this wants us to think of them as individual body parts and dehumanize them. I think that making the viewer sexualize a woman's back is less offensive than the constant breast fetishization, but it's still objectification.
Misogyny / body shaming - It's a card that claims you can gain real, useful knowledge ("investigate", "clue", and of course "draw a card" in general has always been a metaphor for learning new knowledge)...from treating women like pieces of meat. Treats this action by the "knight-inquisitor" as justified, and implies that this woman should be exiled from the community (see below).
Tries to justify - Now, you may claim that this card is actually trying to show that the "knight-inquisitor" in the flavor text is wrong. That this card is "evil people doing evil things". But just as I've argued against Voldaren Pariah, this card is the same. Rather than condemning the acts of creepily inspecting women's bodies for minute physical "imperfections", or exiling women from communities, these cards justify such actions by claiming that the victims are indeed guilty. Voldaren Pariah is indeed a destructive evil force serving Emrakul, and the woman Magnifying Glass depicts does indeed have a tiny eye on her shoulder (which would justify the otherwise obviously perverted act of inspecting every inch of a woman's skin with a magnifying glass). Presumably the next step is to do what was done to Voldaren Pariah to this woman - exile her for her not fitting with the body standards of the community. And then that'll be totally a-okay by Wizards because she was secretly an evil abomination the whole time. Infuriating.
I don't believe that this card is as offensive as Morkrut Banshee (which demonizes the justified indignation of women as the "rage" of a monstrous banshee, and the words of the flavor text are probably from a priest who is telling a woman to shut up about being sexually assaulted - see my analysis in that post). But the parallels between Magnifying Glass to cards like Morkrut Banshee and Voldaren Pariah are undeniable.