Meet the (Newer, Sexier) Team

Between my inability to find a game that holds my attention and my renewed excitement for the game because of its recent content patch, I’ve been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 lately.  That will change when The Sims 3 launches tomorrow, but that’s another blog post for another time.

I subscribe to Digg’s gaming feed, which means I see one interesting story out of every fifty that hits my feed reader.  The gaming section at Digg is rampant with sexism, from the almost daily articles that list the sexiest female video game characters of all time to the comment sections that are typically filled with negative opinions of female beauty (hint: if she doesn’t have a body like Lara Croft, she’s unworthy of a Digg user’s affections).

Criticizing Digg users, or Digg in general, is yet another blog post for another day, though.  I only mention Digg because, among the usual Top 10 articles and booth babe videos, occasionally a link will come down the line advertising something along the lines of “TF2 — with chicks!”

Parodies of TF2 are pretty common, perhaps because the characters are so iconic.  Along with a Left 4 Dead version and a rendition of the characters done with papercraft, an all-female TF2 cast is just one of the many interesting takes on the game.  While looking through the various female TF2 images recently, though, I realized that the majority of the depictions share a common feature: the lady versions of the classes are extremely sexualized.

I’ll preface this by saying that, no, not all of the depictions I’ve seen are sexualized.  There are a few images that manage to create a concept of an all-female TF2 team that isn’t overly sexualized.  This “Ladies’ Night” image is more cutesy than sexy, this rendering of an all-female “Team Fortress 3” shows the ladies looking both menacing and feminine, and this drawing of a female engineer depicts a builder who is certainly attractive but whose feminine assets aren’t absurdly exaggerated.

It’s fair to say, though, that the most well-known drawings of female TF2 characters are the ones that feature sexy, scantily clad women.  Arguably the most famous is the one created by Julia Lichty, pictured at right (click for full size).  Note the prominent breasts and skin tight clothing shared among all the women, even the sporty scout.  There is another line-up image created by T03nemesis, and while this artist drew a few of the classes in a slightly less sexual way — particularly the heavy and the demowoman, the latter of whom was inspired by “some crazy bitch [he] saw” — you can see that he also favors drawing the ladies with large breasts and tight, revealing clothing.

I’ve encountered a few other fan depictions over the last couple of months.  The following images of a pyro, demowoman, soldier, and scout (sadly I don’t know who drew them, so I can’t give credit) are drawn in a pin-up style.  In most of the drawings the body proportions are a bit more realistic, but the clothing and poses remain as sexualized as the others I’ve linked.

The point of this article is not to criticize the artists who are creating these images.  I enjoy looking at these images as much as anyone who appreciates the female body.  I even bought Boyfriend a bookmark from Lichty’s store that features her female spy.  I recognize that these illustrators are extremely talented artists and admire the work they’ve done.  No, the point of this article isn’t to criticize but to question.  Why are so many of the female versions of the TF2 classes sexualized when the original, male cast of TF2 is not?  Why is a female version of something automatically expected to be sexy, while a male version can be depicted as…normal?

Looking at the original drawing of the TF2 cast (at left, click to see full size), there’s nothing very attractive about any of the men.  Sure, the scout is athletic, the spy is suave, the medic has chiseled features, and the engineer has a homey sort of charm.  But it would be difficult to say that the men of TF2 are sexy.  They’re not intended to be sexy, I’d guess because appearance isn’t significant when it comes to protecting intelligence or carting explosives.

A couple of the TF2 cast members could even be considered unattractive, when judged along the lines of typical American standards of beauty.  The pyro is overweight, as is the heavy, and the demoman — the token member of color unless the pyro is something other than white beneath that face mask — is a self-described cyclops.  We’re not exactly getting eye candy out of this game, and yet when artists decide to create an alternative all-female cast, they naturally head toward the sexier end of the spectrum.

I’ve opened up the opportunity to start an enormous debate about the sexualization of men and women, standards of beauty, and other controversial topics, but since this is a (mostly) light-hearted blog, I’ll try to keep it lighthearted.  If an all-female TF2 cast gets a sexy makeover as part of its depiction, I propose that the original cast of TF2 undergo a sexy transformation as well.  All I’m asking for is equity, people.

Why not make the scout, an extremely fast runner, look like a young Bruce Jenner (or better yet, his handsome son Brody)?  How about a heavy or soldier who looks like Vin Diesel or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?  The sniper is an Aussie, so why not make him look like one of Australia’s sexiest exports: Hugh Jackman?  A digitally rendered Daniel Craig would make for a good spy update, thanks to his fame as the world’s most famous spy.  If not, then perhaps the world’s second most famous spy, “Burn Notice” star Jeffrey Donovan.  Obviously we’d need to see some tight muscle shirts on these updated models, or fitted t-shirts and curve-hugging jeans at the very least.

If I were an artist, I’d already be hard at work, sketching the newer and sexier TF2 cast.  Sadly, I’m pretty terrible with visual art, so unless one of my ten readers has the artistic capability and feels up to the challenge, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a sexy version of the male TF2 characters.  Because if there’s one thing that video game designers shun more than non-sexualized female characters, it’s overtly sexualized male characters.