{"id":811,"date":"2015-10-28T16:21:53","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T20:21:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/?p=811"},"modified":"2015-10-28T16:23:56","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T20:23:56","slug":"whole-hog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/whole-hog\/","title":{"rendered":"Whole Hog"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"dslc-theme-content\"><div id=\"dslc-theme-content-inner\"><p>This is a short post. But I am cranky.<\/p>\n<p>Like many people in the gaming culture\/press\/business\/what-have-you, I have spent many a moment over the past couple days looking at my Battle.net client longingly, hoping I too will suddenly receive a beta invite for Blizzard\u2019s upcoming <i>TF2<\/i>-alike, <i>Overwatch<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>To kill some time, I decided to look through their bios for the various playable characters. While many of them are colorful and cool and fun, I definitely get a <em>Street Fighter<\/em>-y <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/shes-got-the-look\/\">Cavalcade of Ethnic Stereotypes<\/a> vibe from the cast, which&#8230; isn\u2019t that great.<\/p>\n<p>And then I came upon <a href=\"http:\/\/us.battle.net\/overwatch\/en\/heroes\/roadhog\/\" target=\"_blank\">Roadhog<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The weird stereotype parade had me already a little on edge, and then this happened and I got kind of upset, because Roadhog basically breaks a ton of the suggestions I might have offered in, say, my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gdcvault.com\/play\/1022209\/Portrayals-and-Pitfalls-of-Fatness\" target=\"_blank\">GDC talk from this year<\/a>. It was seriously just a checklist of Shit I Don\u2019t Want To See Fat Characters Do Anymore. (For an example of a similarly lazy, irritating approach, see my <a href=\"http:\/\/laevantine.tumblr.com\/post\/121953877357\/nope\" target=\"_blank\">rant about changes to Birdie<\/a> in <em>Street Fighter V<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>So because it\u2019s a thing I do, I\u2019m gonna run through the aspects of Roadhog\u2019s design that really get under my skin. Before I do though, I want to say one thing:<\/p>\n<p><b>I am not, nor would I ever want to be, the\u00a0\u201cauthority\u201d on how fat bodies should be presented. <\/b>I am one voice. I believe in my views, but other folks with stake in the issue can and will have different opinions. You should consider their outlooks, too. Just putting that out there.<\/p>\n<p>Okay. That disclaimer being laid, here\u2019s a video that lays out Roadhog\u2019s abilities:<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"663\" height=\"373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5URzijwRPfk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Right. So let&#8217;s get to it:<\/p>\n<p><b>1.) Really tired of fat characters where their primary costume\/outfit focus is on not just exposing but emphasizing their belly with ill-fitting clothes<\/b>. Roadhog represents Australia, in game, so they\u2019re clearly going for a <i>Mad Max<\/i>\u00a0post-apoc sort of look for him (read his backstory, it\u2019s a pretty blatant ref). Fine, hence the gas mask and the license plate belt buckle and whatever. But why this harness-looking thing that just serves to scream\u00a0\u201cHEY HE\u2019S FAT LOOK AT THAT BELLY AND HOW FAT HE IS,\u201d design-wise? Never mind the really weird belly tattoo of an actual pig face with his outsized outie belly button as the pig snout. What is that even about?<\/p>\n<p>Remember that in games like this, a lot of storytelling comes from quick, visual hits (see also fighting games). Characters need to look distinctive. But this design is almost entirely focused around his fatness in a way that doesn\u2019t seem to do anything useful or interesting with it, other than to use it to make him seem abjectionable. It emphasizes that his body is strange\/weird, not normal, especially in combination with the gas mask. It\u2019s visual shorthand for\u00a0\u201cbeing gross.\u201d I could do without it.<\/p>\n<p><b>2.) I get you wanted a motorcycle\/\u201dhog\u201d joke, but was the pig motif really the best idea, here? <\/b>I mean&#8230; don\u2019t get me wrong. I know a couple big boys out there who are super into boars and boar imagery as a matter of reclamation and pride&#8230; but that\u2019s <i>very<\/i>\u00a0different than &#8220;we made a fat guy who rides a motorcycle so let&#8217;s pull in the pig imagery.&#8221; Also: a\u00a0<em>boar<\/em> is a scary, powerful, threatening animal that has a really different symbology than a farm pig, which is absolutely what&#8217;s being evoked with Roadhog&#8217;s belly tattoo\/belly button thing. A farm pig is a &#8220;cute&#8221; animal that also becomes bacon. I\u00a0<em>somehow<\/em> don&#8217;t find that a very empowering or even interesting rhetorical shorthand.<\/p>\n<p>As an aside: the &#8220;meat hook&#8221; attack makes a very clear link between Roadhog and\u00a0<em>Diablo<\/em> villain <a href=\"http:\/\/heroesofthestorm.gamepedia.com\/The_Butcher\" target=\"_blank\">The Butcher<\/a>, which&#8230; ngh.<\/p>\n<p>If you flip to the 00:45 second mark in the video, you&#8217;ll see Roadhog using one of his abilities, &#8220;Take a Breather.&#8221; It appears to be a heal that triggers after you make a kill? But for expediency&#8217;s sake, I&#8217;ve made a gif of how the ability looks in third-person view when it&#8217;s used (which you can see for yourself in the video around 00:52) &#8212;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_812\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-812\" style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-812\" src=\"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/roadhog_breather.gif\" alt=\"Roadhog using &quot;Take a Breather,&quot; from Overwatch\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-812\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If by &#8220;breather&#8221; you mean &#8220;eat something&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So, like:<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.) Stop giving fat characters abilities that are based on eating<\/strong>.\u00a0So, to be clear: he is not literally eating food. As far as I can tell he&#8217;s inhaling some sort of vapor or aerosol or whatever from a container through his gas mask (hence the pun name &#8220;Take a Breather&#8221;). I know this. But let&#8217;s be real: he&#8217;s eating something. Like, I just&#8230; it&#8217;s the laziest possible sidestep and it&#8217;s not even an\u00a0<em>effective<\/em> sidestep. I don&#8217;t even want to talk about how whatever he&#8217;s inhaling makes his belly inflate and the weirdness that represents. For all intents and purposes this is &#8220;make a kill, have a snack to restore health.&#8221; To be honest even the &#8220;whip something out and bring it up to your mouth&#8221; motion of the inhaling is enough to set my teeth on edge.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure a lot of people are calling me &#8220;oversensitive&#8221; right now, especially after that last point. Well, maybe I am being a little sensitive, I guess.<\/p>\n<p>But here&#8217;s the deal: while progress is slow indeed, I have some hope that games will do better at representing gender, sexuality, and race\/ethnicity in the future. I think those things are improving, and will continue to improve.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t actually have that hope, though, for fat bodies\/characters. It never feels like they&#8217;re ever getting any better. I can count the number of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/on-ellie\/\">fat characters that I like<\/a>, which manage to avoid at least a decent amount of lazy tropes, on one hand, and even those are complicated at best. For what it&#8217;s worth, I feel this way about disability and neuroatypicality, too, and for the same reason:<\/p>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s hard for thin people to conceive of better representation of fat bodies as worthwhile (and for the abled to think of representing disability as worthwhile), because it&#8217;s often seen as the fat person&#8217;s &#8220;fault.&#8221; There&#8217;s less of a moral imperative to believe that improving this sort of representation should even happen. I don&#8217;t say this to imply that the moral good of other facets of diverse representation &#8220;have it easy&#8230;&#8221; but like, to be blunt, it&#8217;s way easier for me to get people to care about my work when I&#8217;m talking gender and sexuality than it is when I&#8217;m talking about fat bodies.\u00a0It feels like the same lazy tropes about fat people will continue, unabated, into perpetuity, because nobody can be convinced to care enough to do anything.<\/p>\n<p>And to be honest, that&#8217;s exactly what this Roadhog design is: lazy. There&#8217;s no ingenuity, no cleverness, no subtlety, no parody or satire, here; just a fat man whose entire visual schtick is to draw attention to how fat he is as visual shorthand for his body being gross\/undesirable, attached to a generally unpleasant and weird character. The &#8220;hog&#8221; part\u00a0<em>could<\/em> be tied to a vision of wild pigs\/boars\/whatever as powerful and territorial animals; instead we get a Porky Pig-esque cartoon face on his big round belly with a comically too-large outie as the &#8220;snout.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This design feels like somebody got the assignment to &#8220;make a big dude&#8221; at 9am and was congratulating themselves on their smart work by lunch. I&#8217;m not a fan.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m still hype to try out this game. I hope it&#8217;ll be fun. But Roadhog is just one of a handful of lazy character designs relying on easy visual or rhetorical tropes that put marginalized bodies\/identities up for outside consumption disrespectfully. And while I get why games like\u00a0<em>Overwatch<\/em> or fighting games rely on quick, easily-identifiable visual markers, I think it is not just possible, but\u00a0<em>necessary<\/em>, for us to find ways to make these characters &#8220;pop&#8221; without dipping into a poisoned trope well.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a short post. But I am cranky. Like many people in the gaming culture\/press\/business\/what-have-you, I have spent many a moment over the past couple days looking at my Battle.net client longingly, hoping I too will suddenly receive a beta invite for Blizzard\u2019s upcoming TF2-alike, Overwatch. To kill some time, I decided to look&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/whole-hog\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Whole Hog<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[165,12,81,52],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/wholehog_poster.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3NfdI-d5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":816,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811\/revisions\/816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaoticblue.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}