I have for you, Anita, a genuine "women in video games" thing for you to review. Every gamer knows about Final Fantasy 7. It's a very famous game. It's got three female characters. Aeris, Yuffie, and Tifa. Aeris dies, but it's not a case of women in refrigerators. It's still the most profound death in video games to date. She was built up as incredibly special: Her romance with the hero, her heritage, her powers, her personality. She was marvelous. Yuffie is some kind of black sheep who rebels against her patriarchy and eventually wins them over to her side. Then there's Tifa. Poor Tifa. Insert screen shot of Tifa's boobs here.
Tifa defaults to the heroes romantic interest after his first choice is famously murdered. She also dresses about as poorly as a Hooters girl. I've seen early concept art where she was given really cool leather asskicking pants, but some twat decided to dress her in a skirt - a completely inappropriate article of clothing for someone who does a lot of flips and kicks. Despite how competent a martial artist she is, she gets into a silly slap fight with another woman for being to pretty. She also has to be saved by the other heroes at least twice. When the hero falls into a "coma," (it's basically a coma) she immediately gives up her role as the new group leader and her responsibility of saving the world so she can be by his side. When every other character in the game has their own personal back story and motivation, she kind of has more or less the same basic back story and motivation as the hero, i.e. lazy. At least she did join the eco-terrorist group AVALANCHE on her own - wait. We don't actually know how that happened. We more or less are told that she sort of fell in with them because she identifies with their goals. Again, laziness. In her past, we see that she is fairly ordinary. Then her mom died and she got depressed or something. She does some crazy shit like climbing a dangerous mountain and sword fight a guy. Still kind of fuzzy about why. She spends quite a bit of time thinking about the hero, though; She might have completely romanticized most her memories of him. Unlike Aeris, she's also not confident or assertive enough to confess her feelings on the date scene, which I thought was kinda lame. Also, insert another screen shot of her boobs here for emphasis. Thanks for the porn, Square.
Finally, don't give Anita any power by insulting, threatening or intimidating her. She's clearly half-assed her hundred-thousand dollar vanity project, and the internets has called her on her shit. The best thing we can do is ignore her and let her fade away into obscurity.
Then again, I don't think that Tifa is the product of sexism or misogyny.
