Do you think the Sonic series is kind of sexist?

[Domino]

4 hours ago, CertifiedNobody said:

Rogue always had a well fleshed out personality.

Yeah, I'll second that. Rouge's mannerisms and modus operandi were established right out the gate. She was a jewel-loving, enemy-teasing, ulterior motive-having government spy in SA2 and just about all her appearances after that have been playing with those traits of hers. If you ask me, the fact that they've been able to naturally integrate her (relatively speaking) into so many plots shows they had something substantial to work with.

 

Also, am I the only one who thinks that people play up the idea that Rouge's design is hypersexualized a bit much? I mean, I can see where they're coming from to a degree, but I've never really thought she veered out of family-friendly territory. Even as a kid I never felt dirty looking at her. Is this one of those weird cultural differences or something?

[KnuxDLX]

7 hours ago, TailsGotTrolled said:

I thought security hall is annoying as shit because I just wanted to get to the next shadow level (out of only 4 in the dark campaign) and kept having to replay that stupid timed treasure hunt over and over.  I wish the game had just skipped to the part where she kicked the GUN mech to death.

Still I think most of these characters were pretty lame until ian flynn salvaged them, and I haven't seen anyone talking shit about tangle, whisper or surge (or IDW/boom amy). 

 

As for Rouge, I'm still fascinated by the idea that some sega exec looked at SA2 and said "you know what this game about cartoon animals needs?  Tits!"  And once again, I don't remember Rouge having much personality until the comics fleshed her out and injected some humor.

The biggest hurdle to my Security Hall playthrough was thinking the switches are anything but simply color-coded. lol

 

Also, I think Rouge had literally the most personality in SA2:

 

 

[TailsGotTrolled]

21 hours ago, Domino said:

Also, am I the only one who thinks that people play up the idea that Rouge's design is hypersexualized a bit much? I mean, I can see where they're coming from to a degree, but I've never really thought she veered out of family-friendly territory. Even as a kid I never felt dirty looking at her. Is this one of those weird cultural differences or something?

I feel like I'm the only one that noticed she's a cartoon bat.  Always thought her design was super off.

[Starry Skydancer]

I do think a bit, yes, but I do think in-part, once you've established your characters already, it's a bit...difficult? As I wouldn't want any characters to get made out-of-character or get replaced.

We have a cast where most of the characters, particularly the most competent are male.

I think Rouge, Amy, Cream, Elise, Zeena are all particularly female archetypes/stereotypes. In recurring female characters I feel we're kind of left with Blaze.

In the case of Rouge and Amy or maybe Cream I can see the case that that's not all they are, but I feel it's important to look at general rules in a work rather than necessarily whether X specifically is a good character.

I do think we aren't really doing female characters justice until we've got female cocky mascots and child gadgeteers or bruisers or rivals, the kind of tropes that happen to already be taken by male characters.

 

[TailsGotTrolled]

On 2/12/2022 at 12:48 PM, Original Character said:

I do think we aren't really doing female characters justice until we've got female cocky mascots and child gadgeteers or bruisers or rivals, the kind of tropes that happen to already be taken by male characters.

I think there’s a few of those in IDW (bringing that up because I’d love to see them in the games.). Tangle seems to have learned everything she can do through trial and error, does that count?

 

edit: I read your post a little more carefully and most of those are still tropes

 

Another edit:

On 2/12/2022 at 12:48 PM, Original Character said:

We have a cast where most of the characters, particularly the most competent are male.

I think Rouge, Amy, Cream, Elise, Zeena are all particularly female archetypes/stereotypes. In recurring female characters I feel we're kind of left with Blaze.

including zeena and elise in this comparison isnt fair because their games had bad writing in general and most of the male characters in those games weren't much better.

Something interesting about amy is that her hammer is definitely an anime girl comic relief trope but the people behind boom played it straight and animated her like she was swinging an iron mace.

[Dead]

I hate how Amy is portrayed as a ditzy love sick trope. Female representation is a little mixed in this series. I have not watched the recent show, but I sure hope they made her into something more than a teenaged girl acting a complete fool.

I also feel that with a little tweaking, even Rouge could become more respectable and not just hentai lovers special private time in their bedrooms.

[CertifiedNobody]

1 hour ago, Dead said:

I hate how Amy is portrayed as a ditzy love sick trope. Female representation is a little mixed in this series. I have not watched the recent show, but I sure hope they made her into something more than a teenaged girl acting a complete fool.

I also feel that with a little tweaking, even Rouge could become more respectable and not just hentai lovers special private time in their bedrooms.

Hating the way she's portrayed is fine, but one girl having nagative aspects of her personality doesn't make the series sexist. At the very least it adds variety to the female characters, and I could name at least 10 that aren't like that at all. Also, by "recent show", do you mean Sonic Boom? Because that's been over for years.

Rouge has always been respectable, and if you think she's just hentai-bait, then I doubt you're very familiar with the character.

[Muglés]

Rouge's design doesn't need to be "tweaked" to be more "respectable." If you can't respect someone because they have breasts or they choose to show cleavage then you might be the one who need some tweaking. Changing her design isn't going to fix what some people are attracted to.

People are always going to point to Rouge having a more pronounced figure (hips and breasts) as the controversial part but... it's just an abstract character design that borrows from realism here and there, just like all the other characters. People who have a problem with Rouge's design are uncomfortable with breasts in general, or at least that's the impression I get from it. There's nothing wrong with breasts or showing cleavage.

[KnuxDLX]

4 hours ago, Dead said:

I hate how Amy is portrayed as a ditzy love sick trope. Female representation is a little mixed in this series. I have not watched the recent show, but I sure hope they made her into something more than a teenaged girl acting a complete fool.

I also feel that with a little tweaking, even Rouge could become more respectable and not just hentai lovers special private time in their bedrooms.

Amy’s portrayal anywhere is neither the worst nor the most unrealistic portrayal of any teenage girl imho.
 

The second part is just unnecessary and not true. Rouge was always sexy and smart.

[KnuxDLX]

Another thought about Rouge: they expected you to write her off based on her appearance. There are actual young women who are employed as spies at least partially because of their  feminine charms. They go out into the field expecting their targets to not take them seriously so they’ll let their guard down. Not respecting Rouge because you are distracted by her bosom is exactly what she wants you to think.

I mean it’s too easy to write her off based on her appearance. She was ALWAYS so much more than that. Her appearance is simply a trap that apparently a lot of poor souls fell for. It certainly makes her job as a secret agent a lot easier.

 

[Cosmos Rogue]

Rouge is introduced in her first level as a credible threat to steal the Master Emerald, and in her second level she successfully infiltrated a conspiracy to take over the world. She didn't rely on "feminine charms" to accomplish either of these tasks, but her ability as a treasure hunter/thief, which is what she used to sell Eggman and Shadow on the idea that she'd be useful to their scheme(s). I really don't think we were ever intended to underestimate her because of her appearance, or for any other reason for that matter. She's clearly and immediately established in her debut game as good at what she does.

For Amy the problem isn't that she's so girly, but that they have a bad habit of making Amy girly and useless, if not an outright liability that needs to be rescued constantly. It associates femininity with weakness. They also have a bad habit taking theoretically neutral interests of Amy's, namely her desire to date Sonic, and ramping them up to an unhealthy and obnoxious degree.

[KnuxDLX]

I never said she relied on feminine charms, I just said they made her job that much easier and that is a realistic character analysis because there are actual 18-year-old girls working as government spies on specific missions because they’re pretty and their older male targets tend to underestimate them.

 

I’m just acknowledging the general reality of gender norms around the world. Rouge has already been written off as the weirdly sexy batgirl by a lot of people. I obviously did not do that as it’s been long already done, several times in this thread for instance. I do think that was the idea giving the double agent bat visible cleavage, that she would be even more shrewdly examined than their first major female character, Amy, and Rouge’s abilities would be even more underestimated (by some) before she had a chance to prove herself. And even though she more than proved herself as the most badass character in SA2, she does not get the same respect that other female characters like Blaze and Amy get, I guess, because, as seen many times throughout this thread, some are just more distracted by her voluptuousness. Which, yes, I do think was always kind of the idea and it was always supposed to be shame on them for thinking that…
 

Spoiler

 

[KnuxDLX]

Oh, and she went behind Eggman’s back. Did he see that coming? No. Because he underestimated her.

Quote

Hm, tricking that old doctor is just too easy!

 

[Eurisko]

I hate seeing this sort of debate dragged into the Sonic fandom. 
 

 

[CertifiedNobody]

1 hour ago, Eurisko said:

I hate seeing this sort of debate dragged into the Sonic fandom. 
 

 

I can't say I disagree. 

[KnuxDLX]

4 hours ago, Eurisko said:

I hate seeing this sort of debate dragged into the Sonic fandom. 
 

 

Why do you hate the exchange of information? Unfortunately, posts like this are why this sort of debate is necessary. 

[Eurisko]

57 minutes ago, KnuxDLX said:

Why do you hate the exchange of information? Unfortunately, posts like this are why this sort of debate is necessary. 

I don’t hate the exchange of information. That statement is pretty silly. If that was the case I wouldn’t even be on this site or any website really. 
I simply meant that this discussion even gets brought up for something like Sonic is a shame. 

[Dead]

Fair point on Rouge. Guess I was more fed up of seeing sexualized fanwork of her popping up everywhere and the fact that she has a bit of cleavage on view just attracts that kind of attention and then it gets made into something it was not meant to be. (pornographic) My bad for that.

I did much like the "Rosey the Rascal" theme she had a long time back. She felt like more of a complete character that wasn't too whacky or zany. 

[CertifiedNobody]

17 minutes ago, Dead said:

Fair point on Rouge. Guess I was more fed up of seeing sexualized fanwork of her popping up everywhere and the fact that she has a bit of cleavage on view just attracts that kind of attention and then it gets made into something it was not meant to be. (pornographic) My bad for that.

I did much like the "Rosey the Rascal" theme she had a long time back. She felt like more of a complete character that wasn't too whacky or zany. 

I'd hardly call Classic Amy a character.

[KnuxDLX]

8 hours ago, Eurisko said:

I don’t hate the exchange of information. That statement is pretty silly. If that was the case I wouldn’t even be on this site or any website really. 
I simply meant that this discussion even gets brought up for something like Sonic is a shame. 

Yes but why do you hate this discussion which is just an exchange of information? Unless you just don’t like the information that’s being exchanged? It’s the fact that you came in here just to say that you don’t like us talking about this that makes me think this is really why we should be talking about it.

 

I am thankful this topic exists here because the subreddit certainly would not allow for it. 

[Multikaris]

On this subject, isn’t it strange that the most prominent female representation in the live-action movies ATM are humans or realistic (even if she’s giant and can still at least talk) animals? Longclaw even lacks any merchandise. I wonder how 3 as well as the series plan to change this dynamic, as there’s still money on the table from it. 

[batson]

Yeah, it's strange that we've gone two whole movies without any major female anthro character. Granted the major anthro characters so far amount to only four, but in todays' entertainment climate I think even having four male characters without a single corresponding female character is pushing it. At the very least, if the third movie doesn't introduce a notable female anthro while at the same time introducing a fifth major male one, namely Shadow, there is gonna be controversy. Which is why I'm 100% convinced that we will see another female anthro in the film, and I'm 95% certain that it's gonna be Amy. Introducing a female anthro would also make sense from a merchandising standpoint since, undoubtably, a fair share of the little kids who are fans of these movies are girls. Put Amy on a backpack or a lunchbox and that's probably gonna sell well even if no boy would ever come near it.

[MetalSkulkBane]

To be fair, how many girls were in Detective Pikachu? I remember 1 (human Lucy), 2 if you wanna count Ditto (which are sexless).

Sonic has Longclaw and Pretzel Lady, and minor characters like Rachel and Jojo. Second movie expands on Longlclaw and completely wastes time gives a lot of screentime to Rachel.

So far it was very reasonable. Maaaybe Longclaw could have more time. Maaaaybe Agent Stone could played by woman (but then we loose man-crush). But we're mostly adapting a existing characters. There there was no room for Amy or Cream in 2nd movie.
In comparison Detective Pikachu was mostly OCs  Pikachu had to be Ryan Renalds, but human villain or protagonist could been female.

But I do agree that 3rd Movie must have Amy, it's non negotiable. Ideally Knuckles TV show will have Rouge as well.

[batson]

I know that we've had female characters in the Sonic movies, but other than Longclaw no anthros. In other words, no prominent female anthros, like major characters. And really, while the human cop guy (I forget his name) was basically the second main character in the first movie and from what I've understood also has a big role in the second movie (I haven't seen it yet), I think the fact of the matter is that with the obvious exception of Robotnik, the anthros are what sells these movies, and are basically the faces of the series. With this in mind, at least one prominent female anthro, someone who can feature on posters and merch and such, is required by the next movie. Honestly, I'd say that despite not making a cameo in the second movie, Amy is just as much of a guarantee for the third movie as Shadow is.

[Dr. Mechano]

Women in the movies are still good though.

For as much as people complained about the wedding subplot, I thought Rachel was hilarious. Natasha Rothwell knocked it out of the park and I hope she comes back and is even more over-the-top in movie 3.