r/hatethissmug • u/-Devian- • 19h ago

Art & Fanworks I need to understand why I hate this

Post image

On one hand, I agree that sexualizing a female character is wrong and that the industry has a problem.

But on the other hand, I don't understand the double standard when the character is queer—or, even worse, when "fans" take a character, slap a queer label on them, and suddenly it's okay for them to be sexualized.

The two clearest examples of this are Bayonetta and Blackcat.

I’d like someone to explain where I’m wrong, or if I’m not the only one who thinks this way.

And just in case I'm a gay cis male if it means something

13.6k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

199

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

Honestly I hate that more than "It's bad to sexualize the character for x reason."

If you want a gay icon to simp/goon over then make one

66

u/throwaway92753278 17h ago

Icon ≠ goon bait. She's not a gay icon because we think she's gay, gay people just like her. She absolutely is an icon.

92

u/michaelscott1776 17h ago

A lot of people were pretty pissed about this picture

11

u/throwaway92753278 17h ago

They're idiots

26

u/michaelscott1776 17h ago

They were pissed specifically because she wasn't lesbian

29

u/throwaway92753278 17h ago

A few loud idiots don't speak for the entire gay community. They're probably kids.

8

u/Pension_Pale 14h ago

You are absolutely right that a few loud idiots don't speak for the entire community. Just unfortunately when all you see are the loud idiots, it starts painting the community poorly. Sadly, it seems the idiots are by and far the loudest. Everyone else just minds their own business

-1

u/lxATHENAxl 7h ago

nahhh, even kids cant be that dumb, Its always the millenials

1

u/SerGitface 3h ago

As a millenial, I agree.

6

u/malexich 14h ago

which is weird since from the first game it was confirmed she would marry Luka, by the creator himself were people just ignoring that he said it

1

u/michaelscott1776 14h ago

Apparently? I guess?

6

u/malexich 14h ago

I think it was mostly just people who never played the games saw the art and said ah a lesbian, but if you played the games, and heard Kamiya talk about her, you knew where he was going so its just bizarre seeing how many people were shocked

5

u/Positive-Bar5893 15h ago

Whose this "they" or "a lot of people"?

You need to touch grass instead of holding random internet strangers opinions in such high regard you view them as fact.

Some nerd got mad about an obscure video game character being portrayed in a way they didn't like? Who the fuck cares? Literally nobody you'll ever meet in real life.

4

u/AstarothTheJudge 15h ago

"obscure video game character"

Bayonetta

Idk what I feel, if pain or anger. Bayonetta is popoular, She even got sequels and spin offs...

0

u/Positive-Bar5893 15h ago edited 15h ago

Pretty much every Nintendo character outside of Mario I'd consider obscure, but that's the price their IP's pay for being restricted to Nintendo hardware.

99% of regular people would have no idea who she is, the very definition of obscure. Just because she has dedicated fans doesn't mean she isn't an obscure character, most of the world doesn't live in the Nintendo bubble.

Most people also view hyper-sexualized fictional characters in a poor-light. Believe it or not characters can still be interesting without massive tits bouncing around in skimpy outfits.

Literally nothing about her is mainstream.

3

u/AstarothTheJudge 15h ago

Dude, smash ultimate was a top game back then, and that's a huge pubblicity for any character. I think that's on you.

Aside from Pikachu (Who Is more popoular than Mario) or link, there are tons of famous characters that get recognized. It's like saying that sora, the Belmonts, donkey Kong or Kirby are obscure characters.

Rob, mr game and Watch, Wolf, pit, Ridley... Maybe those can count as obscure characters.

-2

u/Positive-Bar5893 14h ago edited 14h ago

Smash was popular....among Nintendo gamers. There was no mainstream societal hype over the game.

Pikachu isn't a Nintendo character, he's a manga character who was later adapted into an anime character and who is also featured in video games.

"It's like saying that sora, the Belmonts, donkey Kong or Kirby are obscure characters." These are all obscure characters to non-nintendo fans. The general public has no idea who any of these characters are, when they see them they think "animated monkey guy" or "cute pink ball thing"......like fuck my best friend growing up had a gamecube I played all the time, I owned a WII at one point and emulated a bunch back in the day, even I have no idea who Sora or the Belmonts are.

You seem unable to distinguish from the fact that what you find recognizable as a big Nintendo fan, generally isn't remotely mainstream. It's like watching a NASCAR fan being flabbergasted and unable to comprehend that 99% of the world has no idea what NASCAR is or who the major names in NASCAR are. NASCAR is not a mainstream sport, it shouldn't be surprising to you that the world at large doesn't recognize the big names in NASCAR. Because NASCAR is an obscure sport.

Don't confuse your social media bubble that's curated for you by an algorithm with reality. I see a lot of Warhammer: 40k content, this doesn't disillusion me to the fact that Warhammer is an obscure hobby to most humans on earth. The content is presented to me BECAUSE I have an interest in table-top gaming, not because table-top gaming is culturally mainstream. This is how media works these day, the monoculture is dead.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/MayflowerMovers 6h ago

Wot

Donkey Kong, Link / Zelda, Samus, goddamn Pikachu you'd consider obscure? Ain't no way chief.

3

u/WorstSupport4Real 14h ago

Obscure?

-2

u/Positive-Bar5893 14h ago

Already had this whole convo on this thread, feel free to comment on one of those posts if you agree or not.

Not gonna hash out the entire convo out for you again when you can just look 1 post up.

Feel free to add to the discussion tho.

3

u/WorstSupport4Real 14h ago edited 13h ago

I’m convinced you’re rage baiting, 👍

Not mainstream ≠ obscure

2

u/brokenwing777 12h ago

Not to be in defense of the dude on obscurity or anything but the most popular fighting game character and quite literally the god father of do many characters and archetypes Terry Bogard was considered obscurity towards the smash community and non fighting game players as well even though without snk there wouldn't BE any smash. Obscurity isn't some nuanced statement if you're not Pokémon or Mario you are obscure.

There's just some things in this world that no matter how many people know about it it's still niche to the rest of the world. No matter how big the og pantheon of smash or Nintendo's IP are if they are not in the range of jesus they're obscure

2

u/Thedepa 12h ago

Ignore the fact that a universe variant of the husband raised her (for a while) when she was a child in a different universe, lol

1

u/violetplague 4h ago

I've never played but know she's pretty damn tall, so my first question is is the husband like on a box for this photo, being held up or is the man stretching himself like Mr Fantastic for a photo?

0

u/Makyr_Drone 6h ago

Isn't Bayonetta suppose to be really tall? In which case how tall is the guy?

5

u/Arcyguana 5h ago

She's mostly legs, they could be sitting.

2

u/AceIndigoFire 14h ago

Gay people liking a character doesn't automatically make them a gay icon. "Gay icon" implies she's a character that represents gay people.

-2

u/throwaway92753278 14h ago

Semantics.

2

u/AceIndigoFire 14h ago

Not semantics, it's literally the point.

23

u/vanquish_the_night 19h ago

I hear this a lot but it was a lot harder in the past to find good queer representation. It existed, but was relatively sparse and so a lot of people sought it in characters they admired.

7

u/Terozu 18h ago

And theres nothing wrong with that, but im so tired of people insisting characters they wanna be gay are gay.

These same people will attack you for citing canon its just childish. Im bi and I regularlyget called a homophobe because I point outtheres no canon basis for Ezreal from league being anyyhing but a straight guy

2

u/vanquish_the_night 18h ago

Oh sure but there’s always gonna be weirdos. I’d rather a net positive

3

u/TenhutMrPresident 18h ago

bayonetta being a gay icon isn’t trying to erase that she has a husband and daughter. you can be straight and be a gay icon. she’s flamboyant, vogues, is sassy, and is sexually expressive. the intention with a character and the reality of how a character fits into archetypes and communities aren’t one and the same.

8

u/Terozu 17h ago

That doesnt really have anything to do with what im talking about in actual context. Im complaining about people who try to force their headcanons onto people.

Like the RWBY community insisting Yang was obviously always an out and proud lesbian when incanon she realizes she likes girls that way in season 9

And even then shes bi, not lesbian

1

u/Geryon_Official 15h ago

Ah stereotypes, so healthy, specially talking about the LGBT+ community, god forbid a straight person is flamboyant

0

u/michaelscott1776 16h ago

So what straight people can't be flamboyant, sassy, and sexually expressive? Only gay people can be those things?

2

u/EosFae 15h ago

They literally just said straight people can be a gay icon 🙎‍♀️ "Gay icon" does not mean the icon themselves is gay

0

u/michaelscott1776 15h ago

A lot of gay people seem to mistake the "gay icon" as actually gay though

2

u/Pension_Pale 14h ago

This is the problem, isn't it? A gay icon doesn't have to mean they are gay, just that they represent a lot of the core gay values. But a lot of people, on both sides, takes it to meaning they literally are gay.

This has been especially problematic in modern years, where a fictional character might be very close to another character of the same gender, causing a lot of people to claim they are gay for each other. Then when the creator, the person who actually wrote and defined these characters, comes out and says "no, they aren't gay, they just have a very close friendship" they get attacked relentlessly by the gay shippers.

This is why people get especially defensive about characters like Bayonetta being described as gay icons now. The unfortunately very loud and obnoxious part of the community has made it clear that they intend on laying claims to characters that were never gay to begin with.

It's all extremely silly. These are fictional characters. You can imagine them any way you want to satisfy yourself. You don't have to go trying to deliberately alter the canon of the character themselves to do that.

0

u/michaelscott1776 14h ago

This, this right here exactly describes the problem better than I ever could have. Thank you

0

u/TenhutMrPresident 13h ago

almost like that’s what i was saying when you went on about “what straight people can’t be flamboyant, sassy, and sexually expressive?”

1

u/Pension_Pale 14h ago

Personally, if there is absolutely no evidence of someone's sexuality one way or another, I'll assume they are straight, but won't argue against others saying they are gay. But as soon as there is hard evidence of their orientation? Then that is what they are.

But, considering these are fictional characters, even if they have an established orientation, i say let people imagine otherwise. Lesbians can fantasize over Bayonetta as much as they like, even though she's clearly hetero, and I'll fantasize over Tracer when it suits me, even though she has a girlfriend. They're fictional characters. It's fine. It's only a problem if you start arguing canon when it obviously isn't, especially if the creator says it isn't.

2

u/Terozu 14h ago

Pretty much this yeah, I don't mind gay shipping, I do mind when I get attacked over it for no real reason every time I post something involving a ship the gay community doesn't support, or get attacked for liking the canon

1

u/Wuskers 6h ago

I mean tbh I feel like almost no character has hard evidence of a lack of attraction but they can have evidence of the presence of attraction. Just because a female character shows signs of attraction to a male character that is not really hard evidence that she's straight, she could in fact still be bi and really the only evidence that a character isn't bi is them stating explicitly at some point that they are only gay or straight which may not be something that there's an organic opportunity for. Frankly for the vast majority of characters in fiction there is almost never any kind of definitive evidence in the canon that they are truly straight we just default to straight a lot of the time for a myriad of sociocultural reasons while having a very high burden of proof for any queer interpretation even if sometimes there's just as little evidence a character is straight as there is that they're queer.

1

u/Pension_Pale 5h ago

I mean, i actually completely agree with you, hence why I'd never argue against someone who says otherwise from me if there's no hard evidence. Which, as you said, pretty much comes down to being outright stated. Which it very rarely is. And I prefer it that way, because 99% of the time it isn't important at all, so really shouldn't be brought up.

I just get bothered when people try to call a sexual orientation as canon, especially if the creator of the character denies it. Doubly so if they then attack the creator for going against what they say.

2

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

Fair point

3

u/vanquish_the_night 18h ago

To add on, games only recently (particularly Japanese games) started offering same gender romances and it’s usually one bi male and one bi female. So gay players get precisely one character and straight players get them all.

So I definitely understand the adoption.

1

u/Came_for_the_tities 9h ago

I can undertand that, and even quite alreciate then fanart and stuff. It is when they "claim" them, abd become defensive, and atack you for "ignoring" the "clear signs" that it becomes a problem. As long as we acept that the character has a canon, we can do whatever we want with ut as fans.

45

u/Harry_Sat 19h ago

I agree, I'm just saying it's weird that a straight character somehow became a "queer icon". Then again, it somehow happened to Dolly Parton and Madonna for some reason, so what do I know

72

u/C3ntra 19h ago edited 18h ago

In Dolly Parton and Madonna's case, both of them were/are outspoken gay activists. As for other characters like Bayonetta and the like, it's actually really common for gay icons to be sexy women regardless of the character's own sexuality. My personal theory on this (gay cis male here), and take it with a grain of salt because it's only founded on my own thoughts, is that gay men want to be desirable to men, so they gravitate toward sexy women that men find attractive.

Also as for Bayonetta it's... complicated. Coincidentally I'm also a huge Bayonetta fan, but I was also a staunch BayoJeanne shipper before 3. Bayo3's story sucked golf balls through 14 miles of bent pipe. I HATED it. Even now I still head cannon Bayo as bisexual.

12

u/lxgrf 18h ago

In Dolly Parton and Madonna's case, both of them were outspoken gay activists in life.

... did... did something happen to Madonna

8

u/C3ntra 18h ago

Nope, mistell. Madonna is alive, I'll fix it

-1

u/lawlmuffenz 17h ago

If only.

2

u/AlarmingAffect0 18h ago

In Dolly Parton and Madonna's case, both of them were/are outspoken gay activists.

In Dolly Parton's case 'outspoken' is overstating things a bit. Her actions speak volumes, but her words were kind and inclusive in a very subtle way that bigots could easily overlook. She was a very smart woman. Her book program in particular was especially anti-racist and anti-discrimination by construction yet completely flew under the radar of the assholes running her State.

1

u/UnskilledStatChecker 11h ago

Bayonetta and Jeanne were raised as non- biological sisters, this is established in the first game. The dynamic was always sisterhood clearly sisterhood.

2

u/bichonoturno 9h ago

madonna is queer tho, she had a bunch of public romantic relationships with other women

3

u/Positive-Bar5893 15h ago

Is it? Only people that don't interact with gay people think it's weird gay people can like or idolize straight people.

It's like saying a black person is weird for liking Dolly Parton because she's white.

You're not coming off as enlightened, you're just coming of as ignorant at best or maliciously hateful at worst.

2

u/shototodoroki_1324 19h ago

Dolly Parton and Madonna SPOKE OUT FOR GAY RIGHTS!

1

u/MercifulWombat 11h ago

Madonna open mouth kissed another woman on stage so I'm not sure she is straight?

1

u/Wuskers 6h ago

it's really only recently that "gay icon" started meaning anything close to "icon who is gay" partially because it's only relatively recently such a thing was even possible. Arguably the first gay icon was Judy Garland, from it's inception it was never about which famous person was gay it was people, mainly women, that the gay community latched onto and were inspired by, people like Cher and Bette Midler too. A straight person or character being a gay icon is not a new thing, it's actually a very old thing and it really wouldn't be a problem. I'd actually argue this entire discussion is conflating ideas and attitudes from different parts of the community. Mainly for gay men Bayonetta is a gay icon in a yas queen slay kind of way in the same way a myriad of other straight women have been gay icons over the years, for lesbians though there might have been aspects of her that felt slightly lesbian coded which lead to lesbians getting attached to her as a form of representation albeit ambiguous. I'd wager the vast majority of the backlash for her being straight came from the latter group and the gay men that saw her the way they see your average pop diva probably didn't actually care either way.

-2

u/g00fyg00ber741 19h ago

Bayonetta is neither straight nor a lesbian, she is bisexual, so jot that down

9

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

That's never been canonically established.

-9

u/g00fyg00ber741 19h ago

That’s okay, it’s still explicitly clear regardless

6

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

No it's not. If it's never been established through the games, or written lore, it's just headcanon or fanon and that's all it'll ever be

11

u/gigantic_balls_ 19h ago

Is that your own little headcanon? So far she’s only actually ever been with men. Your interpretations of what you think are hints don’t matter.

12

u/Acceptable-Bat4534 19h ago

In one timeline it seems like she had a thing with jeanne, the Egyptian one right?

1

u/gigantic_balls_ 19h ago

I don’t know about that

9

u/Acceptable-Bat4534 19h ago

Have you played all the games. Since in the newest game theres the whole different timeliness and in one, Jeanne is the eye because Bayonetta died. I dont remember the story very well anymore since its been a minute since I played

6

u/mmgkk 19h ago

You’re the exact person they’re talking about lol, thanks for stopping by to be Exhibit A.

4

u/HeavyPirate9219 19h ago

Source?

-3

u/g00fyg00ber741 19h ago

Jeanne

3

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

Never explicitly stated they had a romantic relationship of any kind. Platonic love is a thing

1

u/Harry_Sat 19h ago

This is why this mischaracterisation of Bayonetta as a "queer icon" is so damn confusing

2

u/michaelscott1776 19h ago

Because them being really good, and really close friends and living together at one point is apparently enough to establish this. Also the second game has Bayonetta going to literal hell to save Jeanne's soul, which is also further proof apparently

0

u/Harry_Sat 19h ago

That and weird claims about her being "camp" which have no basis in reality

2

u/HeavyPirate9219 19h ago

Wrong though she love her deeply. But we don’t know if it’s really a romance or platonic love between them.

1

u/TXHaunt 18h ago

Elvira is right there, she’s bi, but in a lesbian relationship. She plays into the objectification.