I know it's all political bullshit, but it's crazy how game studios and other kinds of companies have no issue making sexy babes turn on a dime for their next game or whatever the product is. It's like they skipped "boiling the frog slow". You can do this with just about any game dev or comic or whatever. Look what they last put out or were doing even just 3 years ago and look at what they make now. It's crazy how fast it is. Hence why I wonder if some have to be "punished" by making their next thing ugly as fuck.
So as a fellow Batsperg and tumblr phenomena watcher, I'm gonna offer a bit of my 2 cents. Bear with me, I promise this spergout has a point.
So back in the day there was a lot of young women and girls realizing that their reality has been warped from overconsumption of media and have been trying to shape their body image towards something literally impossible to achieve. For some, it was TV and movies, for others, it was cartoons and anime (as young people escape in those when they're dealt a shit hand). Some of them sat there, read up on how marketing affects women and society's perception of women, and yada yada, and took it upon themselves to try to change their views. Some tried to support more body types and features that are still lovely but not seen on your cookie cutter hollywood cutie, others did it by drawing more body types (because having one girl template is boring character design wise). Others made little communities on body positivity and made silly blogs joking about bad female anatomy (whether it was hyperstylized or the artist drew the pic with their boner at an inappropriate moment in a comic like when someone died). Those were usually in good fun and started off dedicated not to putting pretty women down, just to add more variety and ease younger impressionable tweens's worries.
However, that intention didn't last. Slowly, with more social justice warriors coming in and using identity politics to gain power (powergrabbing by social pressure! fun for teens, tweens, AND adults alike!) Mocking unrealistic beauty and hyperfocused body types wasn't enough: everyone wanted a slice. It could be insecure bitches getting back at pretty girls by demonizing their existence for fat shaming, it could be any sort of pretty or nonpretty people wanting to push the envolope and go "no, we need MORE acceptance, and I AM the most tolerant!", it could be hardcore sjw women wanting less pretty women to shit on men (and force men to their standards in a vinDICKtive move). Whatever combination of factors it was, it shifted from the understandable and beneficial goals to retards chasing fads and power. Ugly was IN in the sjw culture, fuck you patriarchy and white guys and everyone else!
Thus the genre of terrible, terrible sjw art was born. You can gander over there, but the more sticking it to the man or headcanony or feel good platitudes you got, the better. Art hos carried this and made it to a logical extreme of "let's just do the OPPOSITE of pretty because it's trendy and woque and the right thing to do!" Why yes, s someone who wanted general varied character design for women I am in pain right now.
These people slowly grew up into art positions, media managing, game development, etc.. What you're seeing now is big media playing catch up to an older fad they presume has some staying power because the young college grads fresh off the line say it is in and are getting more toes in the company. This will probably bounce back in another 5-10 years due to trends always happening like that, and pretty people sell.
There's nothing wrong with pretty women. There's nothing wrong with varied designs and having a few nonsexy women there. The problem is that it's done so lazily, poorly, or so shoved in your face that it doesn't work. Let the Gotham Sirens be sexy! Let women be pretty! Let them have varied face shapes and body types (not just for women - some men and gay women like apple shaped women some hourglass some buxom etc, some like round features some like sharp features and so on) without being a lumpy sack of potatoes or a fucking racial stereotype that looks like it came from the fuckin' early 20th century! It's not that hard people!
Lastly, consider that the arkham games are more widespread than the comics. Less people keep up with the comics than those who watch Batman movies and play games. DC will not abandon it's target audience during that time: we MUST bring the masses into this! Since the comics are less popular, DC (and Marvel, same with them) has been using them as a dumping ground to shove any trend to get people and kids to come back, but accidentally driving away their core audience of nerds who are already invested in the characters rather than the labels. The lunatics are running the asylum as usual. I know they're slowly, quitely, pulling the sjw dick out of their own asses but it's a slow process getting rid of tards without them reeing all at once.
Thanks, sorry about my sperging, I'm an artist who's been sitting on this for a while.
