Dissecting Smite #1: Oversexualization, Stereotyping, Double-Standards, and Other Misogyny in Smite

Introduction

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Dissecting Smite is a series of threads that I create to raise awareness of just what is wrong with Smite, how and why it is wrong, how it can improve, and examples of what can be done better. It's basically an information dispensing device.

Frankly, it's about the way Smite treats and portrays women. As you can see by the title, it isn't "well." I will show exactly how Smite does this, prove my points with examples, comparisons, and pictures, and in the end, I hope you will agree that the way Smite treats the female gender is both wrong and unacceptable.


I'd also like to thank nurisea, All4Games, TormentedTurnip, Nex the Slayer, and a whole bunch of other people, who've battled with me in all those arguments about sexualization, from the one with TT about an year ago, to the recent one a few weeks ago. Thank you for giving valuable insight, perspective, and support.

Yes, I'm opening this can of worms...or nest of vipers...

Oversexualization

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This is the biggest issue, and the issue I want to tackle first. Smite oversexualizes its goddesses.

And because I'll have to explain this eventually, oversexualization of women is bad because its part of the whole double standard that women face in...everything, really. You know, sort of like how James Bond can sleep with dozens of women and be described as be "cool" or "suave" or "a ladies man," while a woman who casually sleeps with more than one person is a "****." Or how women are expected to look sexy to attract customers, while men can look badass and cool and other ****. This is discriminatory, or unfair, which is BAD. Seriously, I can't believe I have to explain this ****.

What is Oversexualization?

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Oversexualization is simply an excess of sexualization. Now, what is sexualization?

Sexualization is making anything look sexual. It scales from making a character look more beautiful (yes, beauty is the mildest form of sexualization), to making them complete sex objects.

I need to say something: Sexualization, if not taken to excess, is fine. Yes, other MOBAs sexualize its female characters, too. But there's a difference between making someone look attractive, and looking like something out of a sexual fantasy.


Smite oversexualizes on both an individual and overall scale.

On an individual scale, nearly every single goddess is oversexualized - Neith, Serqet, Chang'e, etc. Why are war goddesses wearing utterly impractical clothes instead of armor? Why are thongs being worn at all? Why does Chang'e's card art give her a torpedo breast? I shouldn't have to explain this further.

As an example of non-oversexualization, here's Ahri:


Ahri is an attractive woman, but she doesn't go out of her way to look so, like a sane human being.

No one will say she's not sexualized. But she's nowhere near as sexualized as Serqet, or Isis, or even Athena, because unlike Smite's card arts, she's actually doing ****, doesn't go out of her way to pose, is wearing something that's not impractical and stupid, and League doesn't shove the woman's breasts in the center of the camera like a voyeuristic photography student.


Seriously, Freya is a goddess of love, fertility, but also war, valkyries, etc. Ahri is a gumiho who used to literally **** the life out of people for sustenance and power. And Ahri is LESS sexualized than Freya.

This is oversexualization in the individual scale - women being sexualized for no reason other than to seuxalize them. Not because of their backstory, lore, or character - just for its own sake.

If anyone wants to accuse me of cherrypicking, here are some more pictures!



Here's the thing that HiRez doesn't understand: Not every woman wants to **** someone unconscious as soon as possible. Some women, believe it or not, don't give a single **** about looking attractive. Some women would rather wear actual armor to battle instead of BDSM gear.


The point is, women are just as diverse as men are. It's perfectly fine for a woman to exercise her own agency and make herself look sexy, if she wants, just as it's fine for a woman to not care about such things. If a woman wants to look beautiful, great! If a goddess wants to be sexy, great! If every single goddess wants to look like a bedroom roleplaying scenario, not great.

The gods in Smite are varied, like they should be. Some, like Apollo try to look attractive over practicality, some are hedonistic, some are bloodthirsty, and some just don't give a ****. They actually represent diversity.

Meanwhile, 90% of goddesses dress like they want to look sexy. The only ones to not do that aren't legal, or are drastic outliers. While the men are wearing actual armor and stuff, the women are wearing literal ribbons and thongs. This is oversexualization in the wider scale - because not every woman in the world wants and craves sex to the point of risking their lives to get some. Or in other words, there is a complete lack of diversity in the goddesses, and the only flavor in this ice cream parlor is sex, sex, sex.

But...the lore!

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It is completely and utterly hypocritical to defend HiRez's artistic choices with the goddesses by citing the lore, when nudity, even in combat, was extremely widespread among gods of all pantheons, among other difference between the actual lore and Smite's depiction of them. But they don't because they're a bunch of hypocrites who gleefully embrace the double standard.


HiRez takes artistic liberties to make gods like Zeus or Loki, who are complete man-****s in mythology, into dignified, serious warriors. If HiRez can take liberties with the lore to make Hercules wear clothes and for Sobek to not have a human body, then they can make Athena wear a real breastplate and for Freya to be properly dressed, and all the other goddesses to not all wear lingerie into combat. Even "non-sexualized" examples, like Athena, are ridiculous, with the metal bikini seen again.

Sex Sells!

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Here's a question: Does HiRez care about money more than treating women like actual ****ing human beings, or are they just misogynistic *******s?

Oh, and here's another: If Sex Sells, then why aren't more male gods sexualized? Does HiRez think that women don’t play video games? Or do they assume that every woman who plays is a lesbian?

When you say, "Sex Sells." you're actually saying "Boobs Sell." They aren't the same. You're basically advocating stripping down women, not men, for no reason other than you making a point not to treat women and men the same. This is what you call a double standard, you prick.

Gods are SUPPOSED to be Beautiful!

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Firstly, you're a shallow idiot.

Second, you can make someone look beautiful without sexualizing them, idiot. You can make someone look attractive without giving them giant breasts and putting them in a metal bra and thong.

You just want them to be ugly!

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Yeah, I'm not even going to dignify this one with an answer.

But...the lore!

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Yeah, gods like Aphrodite and other gods with sex as a major aspect should get some slack.

Emphasis on major. We have gods like Freya who look pretty much like Aphro with a different fetish, and Neith, despite being war goddesses, just like Guan, Ares, Thor, etc. And some goddesses have nothing to do with sex or beauty but are sexualized regardless.

It's just Fanservice, like any other Game!

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Firstly, remember the degrees of sexualization I was talking about? It isn't "just like any other game." You cannot compare the fanservice of games like League to Smite. Smite goes so over the top with their misogyny that it goes right past sexualization or "heroic idealization" and into "pure sex." Here, I'll show you the difference:


Yes, fanservice is a thing. Yes, games can have even oversexualized characters without being awful.

But at a certain point, it changes from acceptable to unacceptable. I'd say when 98.5% of your women look like the hyper-sexualized example above, while the men are mostly "Heroically Idealized," you've crossed the line from casual, acceptable fanservice to an unacceptable, misogynistic, tawdry debacle.

The hilarious part of all this, is that Smite's own fans draw their goddesses better.


They're using the exact same model, but the difference is there's no ridiculous emphasis or exaggeration of breasts. The goddesses look like they're not just being eye candy. Which raises the question: Why does HiRez always draw them like eye candy?

Stereotyping

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Now that I've explained what oversexualization is, why it's bad, how HiRez ****s up, why other fanservicey games like League don't **** up, and how they do it better, it's time to move on to the next part of the List of Fun.

Stereotyping.

Confession: I lied. This issue is just as bad as Oversexualization.

I'll make this real easy to understand.

The List

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Aphrodite: She's a sex object. Yeah, I know, this is like the ultimate example of the golden mean: If I said Aphrodite shouldn't be in the game, I'd be advocating a deficit, much like how bravery in excess is recklessness while a deficit would be cowardice. But my problem with her isn't that she's (over)sexualized, it's how they change her character into this...modern idealization of the "perfect woman." In lore, Aphro didn't really give a damn about anything, slept with whoever she wanted to, was gleefully polyamorous, and didn't give a **** about her husband. In Smite, she's all about soul bonding to a single person, and talks about looking fat and ****. Just...my problems with her are more about cultural translations and interpretations, and aren't really relevant to the topic at hand, so I'll stop.

Arachne: Why is a monster trying to look sexy? And her personality is like every single "edgy" villainess I've seen in modern media. Is a living cliche a stereotype?

Artemis: God dammit, HiRez. Don't make even asexuals defined by their relationship to men, plz. Seriously, **** shaming Aphrodite, having lines about driving off men, I mean, really? You take a women known for not being attracted to men, and make her personality about men. Just...WTF. Have her talk about killing her brother's unfaithful paramours, or about her boar, or her hunting practices, or anything but that.

Athena: METAL ****ING BIKINI MY GOD. Athena is just as oversexualized (not as sexualized, there's a difference) as the other examples on this list. As for her voice, it's like HiRez had problems with the concept of a woman being renown for her intelligence, so they made her sound as stupid as possible, mocking her out of spite. Or they didn't want to pay for a proper voice actress for Athena, so they used an intern or something instead. Neither option is great for HiRez.

Bastet: Let's see, you have the obligatory catgirl, who uses a whip (out of many, many weapons), has a skin actually called dominatrix, talks about breaking nails, etc.

Chang'e: Nothing stereotypical, exactly, but...why is she mute? Tell me, why is she mute? It's not a thing in her lore. There is literally zero reason to be mute. Why the **** does she not talk? WTF? In some versions of the lore, Hou Yi becomes a despot and Chang'e drinks the potion out of desperation. In some versions, Chang'e is changed into a toad. In some versions, Chang'e dooms her husband by drinking the entire potion instead of half of it. In some versions, Chang'e was sent to the moon as a reward. In no version is Chang'e mute. And why is she a dancer? In the myth, we see a woman who takes some kind of proactive action, without her husband, against some kind of threat. So naturally, HiRez turns her into a dancer and makes her completely mute and dependent on a very masculine-sounding rabbit for communication. Just...why? Why? WHY?

Hel: On one hand, we got the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, complete with cookies and baking and goodness and all that ****. On the other hand, we got the standard hell*****. Two for one, hooray!

Eset: Powerful, proactive goddess of magic, let's have her talk about body measurements! And driving boys wild! Even though she's married and ****! Everyone does this, no one is excluded! Except for Osiris, who's she's married to! And every other male god!

Neith: She literally has light-side Hel's personality, but with more sewing jokes. Why did they emphasize the sewing part, instead of the war goddess part? Even her jokes, and other characters' lines about her, are all about how she's a great weaver and designer and some ****. In the actual lore, Neith is best-known for her being really fierce, being the eldest of the gods, as a psychopomp (or death goddess), etc. Her being a weaver is significant, but decidedly less so to her being this ancient war deity. Just...HiRez doesn't even mention the war bit, aside from the lore than no one cares about. It's all about weaving.

Nemesis: Let's do a comparison of living embodiments of Vengeance. League of Legends has an undead spirit of a betrayed woman, skeletal, clad in shattered armor, but is pretty terrifying (like the Predator with a human face and different motivations), that uses the spears that were stabbed into her back as her weapons, that binds others' souls to herself to avenge them. Oh, and she commands an army of souls, being a commander in both life and death. She only talks on matters of vengeance, rage at betrayers, and offering pacts to the betrayed. On the other hand, we got Nemesis, wearing a veil and fishnet leggings and a thong and a cloth bra, who fights with scissors and moans/berates others about her/their weight, because GODDESS OF BALANCE HAHA HURR DURR.

Nox: I don't really see much stereotyped about her, but I'll just point out that in the login screen and the front page of the Smite client, they literally made her jiggle with every step.

Nu Wa: Hmm, children. Protector. The constant spamming of "doing good." Eh, it's probably nothing. I guess an empty personality is better than a stereotypical one.

Scylla: I have nothing to say about her, specifically, but I do have an issue with her pets. Zoey is the lookout. The watcher. The one who helps Scylla run away. While Ajax and Achilles and Cyril are doing "the men's work", which is fighting. You know, they didn't have to do this. HiRez didn't have to name them, or they could have given the Sentinel one a male name, or one of the attacking ones a female name, or just make them all male. And yet, the only dog to not fight is the only one with a female name. The question is, why? There is literally nothing in the lore that gives her tentacles names. HiRez, out of a giant list of possible name combinations, made Zoey the runner. WHY.

Serqet: FASHION ACCESSORIES FASHION SHOPPING FASHION SEASON FASHION. Oh, did I forget to mention the FASHION FASHION DESIGNER CLOTHES FASHION HOT FASHION!!!!!

What else? Ah, there's also this one particular line, present on multiple goddesses: "Call me!" Naturally, no god shares this line, or even a similar line.

It's almost like HiRez didn't want to spend as much effort making female characters, so they just used outdated stereotypes as a lazy fill-in. That is the most GENEROUS explanation. The worst explanation is that HiRez is filled with misogynistic *******s. Whatever the answer, it doesn't exactly make Smite look good, does it?

Comparison

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NO ONE, NO ONE in Heroes of the Storm, Dawngate, League, or any other MOBA, as far as I can tell, makes their female characters' personalities about cookies and baking and shopping and fashion and weight watching and scales and calling each other ****s and dancing and other stereotypical feminine traits.

Normally, this might be alright. It's okay to have a cookie joke here and there. Nothing in excess, or deficit.

But when you get every single freaking goddess as one sort of stereotype or another...it crosses a line. It becomes unacceptable. Just like the oversaturation of sexiness that I ranted about previously.

Distribution

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This is a minor issue, but Smite has seventeen goddesses and forty-four gods, for a total of 27.8% women.

This is less than every MOBA I know. Just a thought. (Correlation cough cough)

Suitability

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There's a difference between a thin, sneaky type not being suited to wear a breastplate, and a war goddess wearing a metal bikini.

It's the difference between this:


And this:


Seriously. Don't give me **** about how Awilix is "unsuited" to wearing heavy armor. No one is asking everyone to look like this:


But there still has to be some moderation. Yes, some gods and goddesses aren't suited to wear full plate armor. But Mercury's wearing some kind of protection, and he's a glorified mailman and a squishy assasssin. So don't give me your ******** about how Freya/Awilix/Whatever SHOULD be wearing bikinis when Mercury isn't wearing a thong.

Gods and Realism

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Now, someone recently said some **** about how gods can fight naked if they choose to do so, because they're just that good. About how "it's gods and ****, so it can be unrealistic!"

Firstly, if armor wasn't important, then it wouldn't get so much prominence in mythology. Weapons and armor are treated as equally important, and together they let mortals fight off gods. You can't tell me that armor isn't useful, even to a god.

Second, if they don't need armor, they wouldn't ****ing wear the "armor" they have on, because armor is clunky and heavy.

Thirdly, Athena wearing a boob plate is only slightly less realistic and revolting than the idea of a sci-fi exoskeleton armor being only operable by women. There's a difference between "real life" realistic and "story logic and consistency" realistic.

It all leads back to the loop of hypocrisy. If Smite is "realistic" enough to give armor to the gods, they can do the same with the goddesses.

Examples of Improvement

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Equality is what it should be like. Just like how some men in Smite wear heavy armor, some won't, some don't care, and yes, some embrace their sexiness, the same can and should apply to women as well.

Here's a list of images that show a portrayal of the goddesses that DON'T oversexualize them. Take them as suggestions.


I'm too lazy to find a picture I like for every single goddess.

What's the Point?

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Internalized Sexism

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We all know that inequality, discrimination, etc, are all bad things. But the issue - the REAL issue - isn't from some giant problem like the Ku Klux Klan or sex slave trades or something like that. They are issues, don't get me wrong, but the biggest problem is in the little things.

You see, humans compartmentalize ideas. We sort things out and put it in a neat folder, and when we pull that folder out, other things come to the forefront of our brain, with it. This subconscious imprinting is called internalization, and yes, it applies to things such as misogyny and racism. And this isn't some theory or idea, it's an established fact. (Don't take my word for it, look it up.)

The point is, we absorb harmful ideas and associations throughout our lives. Even people who know that stereotyping is wrong can't help absorbing the stereotypes that are pervasive in our culture, and in the end, most people we condemn as being misogynistic or racist aren't particularly misogynistic or racist. They're just average people - which says something about the average.

This leads to unpleasant things like rape culture or victim blaming or even our tendency to shoot people of color before white people. So, no, it's not harmless.

Smite, among many other things, is one of those factors that influence you. And frankly, Smite is doing far worse than other MOBAs. That is why you should care, that is the point of all this; Smite's toxicity isn't something harmless. Out of many little things that quietly put words like "stupid" or "weak" or "sex" into your "female" folder, Smite is one of them. And that's why this social issue is so difficult to talk about: People tend to take it badly when you call them discriminatory, even if its subconsciously discriminatory.

Video games as a whole are guilty of this, and Smite isn't the biggest problem, but nor is it the smallest. This internalized sexism is why female gamers have problems like GamerGate, and why the industry is so hard to change. This leads to the second part.

Apathy and the Vicious Cycle

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It's all about apathy. Most people think that better representation or equality are "a noble quest" that needs a virgin's tear to drop on a rose on a warm sunrise in January. It's not. And let's cut the ******** excuses.

People do notice the sexism in this game. And they don't do anything about it. Why?

A developer makes a game like Smite. It's players notice its sexism since they're not blind, but they don't say anything about it, because it's part of life or it isn't their problem or they're too busy playing the game, despite how people criticize games for other issues while playing them. Said developer sees the lack of criticism and figures out that this is okay, and keeps doing it.

It's a vicious cycle, and being apathetic to it only perpetuates it.

Conclusion

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What is the point of me making this?

The game isn't harmless. And just letting this harmful sexism slide by isn't acceptable, either.

I made this to raise awareness of these two issues. To go over every pitfall, destroy every excuse, every justification, to prove that what Smite is doing is wrong, unacceptable, and sexist.

That is why I wrote this. That is the point of all this. That is why this is an issue. That is why this is a thing.

End

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That was my first in my Dissecting Smite series. Please let me know what you thought of it. If it sucked, if it was good, and if it made you think.

Finally, to end on a humorous note:

Yes, I know that this is probably the biggest single post in the history of time, that makes one of ICEN's rants look like a footnote, but I don't care.

There is nothing wrong with Smite. It's not an illegal product. It can and will be distributed in whatever manner they wish. Just because you don't like the way some of it looks doesn't mean you have any right to alter it, unless you are the developer. Hi-rez is a multi-million dollar company at this point and they're obviously not subservient to anyone's tender little feelings.

End.

"There is nothing wrong with Smite."

Spoken like a true sycophant. There's no point in talking to you.

No, not a scyophant, someone who understands the difference between a video game character and a real, breathing human being.

And no amount of boohooing and white knighting is going to change the fact that Hi-Rez has every right to make the game how they want and that you have no right to ask them to change that, again, unless you are on the development team or some kind of majority shareholder.

(I'm ignoring the flagrant disregard for the actual meaning of the word "sycophant", also. I think he means "sociopath".)

Cash makes right GabeLogic 2014

I have an idea: let's make a video game of a man being forced to drink his own piss, and it'll totally not offend anyone. After all, it's a bunch of pixels, not a human being.

Wow, I made you talk for the first time in over half a year, and you turn out to be a bit of a jerk. Color me downcast.

Oh, and it's S-Y-C-O-P-H-A-N-T.

Sure, there's already a game like that. It's something about getting to the toilet before he ***** his pants, called "Don't **** Your Pants". I'm not joking. I get the feeling you really disagree with Hotline Miami and games in that genre, too.

It's fine, everyone's entitled to an opinion. You aren't entitled to pressure someone into changing something they created to better suit yourself, of course, on the other hand.

And apparently I'm the jerk in the situation where you insult me and call me a sycophant, but I was saying that the developer has every right to make the game how they want. Oh, and a real sycophant wouldn't be able to differentiate between fictional and real humans, for the record.

Jfc.

Don't flatter yourself, I just checked the forums and your topic was first.

i almost want to just queue up the "wrong meme" song but i feel like that song should not be used to often.

there is nothing wrong with smite?

please tell me your only talking about what sub just wrote?

please for the love of potato's tell me you are not talking about smite as a whole?

so because its a buch of pixels it's okay?

so it's okay to be racist, a misoginist, a facist, a (child) rapist, a (child) murderer, etc. as long as i make it in pixels? and not involve actual human beings?

so i can just make a game that uses pixels in which a grown man rapes a child? well steam be ready for your new best seller! "rape simulator"!


excuse me while i hurl in a bucket.

On that note, there are rapists in Smite? Forgive me if I didn't notice. I'm assuming they're probably one of the jungle camps we get to kill over and over.


God forbid anyone hold a contrary opinion, that makes me the devil, I guess.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-ways-hipster-activism-hurts-people-its-trying-to-help_p2/

Last entry.

"I generally think that kind of criticism is really ****ing stupid, because people who use that term just throw it at any attempt to talk about social issues at all."

Oh no, we're talking about social issues that aren't things like genocide or mass rape! They're such awful people! Let's shut them down ASAP, because only people with money can discuss social issues!