On Sleeping Dogs, Wei Shen, and sexually attractive male heroes

Polygon: "I've been live streaming games a lot lately. It's been a great way to feel connected to other folks in this hobby of ours during a rocky time. It's fun and, in some ways, important.

One recent stream allowed me to confront a topic I've been wrestling with for almost as long as I've been playing games: the treatment of characters as objects of desire.

We were streaming Sleeping Dogs (the newly released Definitive Edition), and the topic of protagonist Wei Shen's attractiveness came up. To be clear — we aren't far into the game, and I can't speak to the rest of Sleeping Dogs as it represents its hero and supporting characters. But immediately, we all noticed that Wei Shen was, well, a good looking fellow."

[caseh]

Waaahh, he's being objectified waaah waaah naked man waah waaah waaah clearly misandry waaaaaaaaaaaah.

*Ahem*

[Zero-One]

Just another boring news day. Move along, nothing to see here.

[Roccetarius]

Not once was i actually thinking about Wei Shen's attractiveness, while i was playing the game. Sure, i dressed him up in expensive suits and such, but it never really crossed my mind because he's a good character.

The regressiveness going on currently is mind boggling.

[kingdip90]

It's not progressive it's regressive.

Complaining about attractive characters in a work of fantasy! Should complaints like these effect change it will be limiting on what game makers can do.

I understand the article doesn't recognize that attractive male protagonists are sexualized as female ones are but I disagree. More skin does not necessarily make a character more sexualized.

If men find a female who Is scantily clad appealing and she is portrayed like that to be attractive on purpose then yes that's sexualization.

If women find a handsome rogue appealing and he is portrayed like that to be attractive on purpose then yes that's sexualization.

But what's wrong with playing out a fantasy? Why should men or women feel shame for enjoying media... why are people always trying to shame men simply for being men

[Roccetarius]

Sites like Polygon are becoming increasingly ''progressive'' ; in that they see this in each game, which is what's mind boggling.

If more people start to think like them, that's damaging to the industry.

[Mankey]

I'm done with sites like Loligon and Notaku. Just done.

[Donnywho]

We love boobies, we can't help it.

[Spotie]

Even if we could, would we want to?

This does once again bring up the question: why do the feminists attacking gaming always overlook that men are treated in the same way they women are portrayed in gaming?

[MookaTek]

In all of the years that I have been alive (33) there have been several constants. Rather than list them all, I will elaborate upon one that relates to this article: Most people like to look at attractive people. Don't worry, I'm not objectifying the rare group that likes to look at ugly people. Nor am I objectifying ugly people. Nor am objectifying the ugly parents of ugly people.

I think I'm done apologizing. Please don't write an article about my objectifying nothing, because I understand we must all love nothing for what it is: Beautiful.

Anyway, I like ass and titties and most girls like a six pack on a dude. Some dudes like a six pack on a dude and some girls like ass and titties. The fact that we exist in the year 2014, surrounded by technological wonders, with experts on TV ranting about anything and everything about nothing, whilst bigger and better bombs are being built and entire civilizations are being laid to waste, and babies are being popped out at an exponential rate, not one goddamn person in power has figured out that naked people are cool and made it acceptable is almost mathematically impossible.

Well, back to Sunset Overdrive, playing as a girl that I made as naked as possible because I like naked chicks.

[Ripsta7th]

Thats the rule of life, you are good looking and the world will throw itself at your feet

[masterfox]

pinche Wei esta bien flaco <-- This is spanish everyone learn it :P

[Adrian_v01]

"The important part is that the game doesn't know I find him attractive. It offers him as a character without serving the player his sexuality as if it was finger food."

Bitch please, without serving the player his sexuality? It's one of my fav games of last gen but com'on, every girl he met through the story wanted to sleep with him. She's just being subjective cause it's okay for girls to enjoy hot guys in games, but it's a scandal if it's the other way round.

[mochachino]

Pretty much every male game character has an incredibly fit upper and lower body and shows a lot of arm muscles via super tight shirts, but there're no boobs, so... you know, it's not objectification.

Not to mention that men and women rank physical features differently when assessing attractiveness. Men place body/looks at a higher level, while women place jobs, sense of humour, and social standing as more important than body/looks. So all these alpha leading males, that are the only persons capable of doing the job of saving the world, may be objectification of males, not so much their bodies, but by possessing extreme 99% percentile leadership abilities that females could find attractive. They're certainly not the average man.

Also let's not forget Commander Shepard's looks (dude could be a male super model) and the large package each male human character in Mass Effect has. In addition to perfect bodies, I also feel offended that all these male protagonists have perfect skin, not a blemish on them, that's not a realistic portrayal of a man their age....so must be objectification.

Don't even get me started on the lack of bald protagonists in games....how is it not an objectification of men when they all have perfect heads of hair!? Not talking sexy shaved military head, I'm talking about male pattern baldness, which any female will tell you is not sexy. As an average person, I wan't to see more hair thinning, baldness, and average male bodies in games because the character don't reflect the real world man, or his role in the real world (which mostly consists of being someones employee, and for most an underling, not saving the world in skin tight shirts and tight pants, which reveal large packages).

...Oh wait, it's a video game so like comics, movies, and TV, the people in them are hawt! But because games can make people look unrealistically hot they're now objectifying women. Computer drawings are not real, they are without limitations and don't have to obey the rules of the physical world. Why do artists have to fit into the average female archetype to be accepted.

Everyday is full average everything. Games are supposed to create people and worlds that could never exist in the real world.

The only reason half these people are going around in purple or blue hair is because Japanese game designers and anime artisits didn't want to make realistic people.

[its_JEFF]

Boy, at first I thiught maybe most important just hadn't read the article and were just flying off the handle because of the title... but now I'm starting to think some of you just don't like it when women give they're opinion. IDK how any of you are taking this article as negative or in negative way.

I'm really surprised that a lot of you didn't get what the article was mainly about.., The fact that she is able to openly discuss the attractiveness of a man with other men/women, gay or straight, and not have anybody be uncomfortable. Something she says that she probably couldn't do 5-10 yrs ago. She was praising how open people were.

Wow, some of the comments here are pretty sad. Make me think if some of you can't take a women's opinon without viewing it negatively...

[Adrian_v01]

Yeah that would have been the case if she didn't add the objectification of women and why Wei isn't being objectified when in fact he is. She had a clear idea on the message of the article and the message wasn't discussing game characters openly.