Leigh Alexander, I think you are overthinking it. If it sways its hips like a sexpot, and it sucks a lollipop like a sexpot, odds are good it was designed to be a sexpot, not an empowering and artistic statement on female sexuality.

Wait, let’s back up a bit. So, Bayonetta. What the hell is a Bayonetta? It’s a new console game, and the name of the main character, a witch with guns strapped to her legs and a suit made of her own magical hair. Why do we care? We don’t, it’s a crappy console beat-em-up. Except psuedo–intellectual faffing makes me twitch, so I wrote this after reading Leigh’s piece. Let’s analyse a bit and see if Leigh is right.

Bayonetta is a witch. In accordance with the rules of Anime, she is intelligent and sophisticated because she is wearing glasses. Let’s pretend the pink plastic guns aren’t bloody ridiculous and focus on the character :

When she does her special moves, her hair-suit (eww) unravels and forms some weapon which she uses to finish her foes with :

By Jove Watson, I think we can close this case! Hands up anyone who looks at these images and sees an empowering statement on female sexuality? Hands up everyone who sees a game who is going all out to stand out of the crowd of other games using sexy, half dressed anime girls to titillate teen boys? Yeah, I thought so.

But maybe the developers didn’t intend to focus so much on turning their characters into puerile sex objects? Let’s check the blog. Wait, here is a piece where one of the modellers talk about the difference between the two female leads, in terms of his art. Perhaps it is style, movement, facial features, character? Nope, it’s that one has smaller T&A than the other. Awesome.

Sorry Leigh.

As a woman, I haven’t often been satisfied by female character options that effectively boil down to “the same thing as a man, just with breasts and a ponytail.” Thanks to its innovative approach to the idea of female power, Bayonetta is the first action game heroine that’s made me directly conscious of how cool it is to be a girl.

Really? Because Lara Croft did it first. Actually, no, that was Charlie’s Angels. I’m not sure how “let’s sex her up a whole lot, but it’s not sexist because she beats up boys!” counts as an innovative design approach. And I think that’s the point of the feminist rants about things like this. If the sexing her up to the Nth degree is what leads to you being conscious of how cool it is to be a girl, the bra-burners have a point.

I already know that women can do all the same things men can. This time, I get to see a woman do plenty of things men can’t. And I love it.

Every “Ra-Ra women power!” piece I’ve read seems to conclude with something like this. Women can do everything men can, and more besides! Ignoring the silliness of the statement, it always sounds like they’re trying to convince themselves as much as their readers. I understand the need to self-affirm but it’s really a bit tedious.

If you ask me the whole thing sounds like she worked backwards. She liked the game and is now trying to justify to herself and others why it isn’t as exploitative as, say, Tomb Raider. It’s a magical anime chick who fights supernatural foes in an overblown anime setting, wearing skimpy outfits that periodically rip/peek to show her nubile flesh. This is hardly unfamiliar territory.