Let me walk you through a video game premise. A witch uses her own hair as clothes, which magically disappear from her body when she summons demons. She fights angels with high-heel revolvers. She looks like an archetypical "hot librarian." She's also built like the Na'vi version of Barbie and constantly sucks on a lollipop.

Man, that sounds super-skeevy, doesn't it? Well, on paper, it is super-skeevy. And while my description is an accurate abstract of Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 for the Wii U, the games and their eponymous character aren't nearly as lurid or gross as they sound. In fact, Bayonetta herself is an excellent example of a strong female protagonist who fundamentally rejects sexual objectification.

Before I go on, I must present two caveats: One - Bayonetta is not a good character in terms of creating a fully developed fictionalized individual as part of remotely deep narrative; and two - Bayonetta was not created to be a strong symbol or icon in any way. Platinum Games made up Bayonetta as a sexy female version of Dante from Devil May Cry, and that studio has always put action, mechanics, and sheer spectacle far above storytelling on its list of priorities. No, Bayonetta wasn't made to shatter stereotypes or stand as a beacon of triumphant feminism in gaming, and yes, Bayonetta the series and Bayonetta the character are comically sexualized.

That said, Bayonetta ended up as a positive, if shallow, example of a female protagonist in a video game. She's a great character in the far too limited field of female main characters in games. She's strong and compelling not because she avoids sexualization as a character, but because she subverts it while demonstrating a superlative amount of personal agency in the games.

Bayonetta is a strong personality, and not just because she's an immortal witch who can punt cars and summon demons. She's a main character who deals with problems in a cool and collected manner, and maintains control of nearly all personal interactions. Whether she's talking to an angel, a god, a demon, or a leering man, she rules the conversation. She quips, she insults, and she deadpans to keep an iron grip on the scene. She spins wordplay and jabs with villains and side characters alike while never losing her cool. From a purely dialog perspective, she's a female James Bond.

She is sexualized. Heavily sexualized. Super-sexualized. The trailer for Bayonetta 2 (below) introduced her by panning between her legs. Male characters who don't simply want to kill her for getting in the way of their megalomaniacal plans joke about how she's built. Also, she tends to become naked when she summons demons from her hair, which is also her clothing. However, she is not a sexual object. She's not objectified, in the structure of the game. That's very important.

Whenever male characters flirt or leer at Bayonetta, she verbally disarms them. Her reaction to every wisecrack and stare at her feminine form is a gesture of either patronization or contempt, with the undercurrent that the viewer wouldn't have any idea what to do with her. Main male characters who aren't antagonists end up being comic relief, used as sources of information and toyed with but never indulged or strung along. She doesn't seduce or titillate. She just uses that some see her as seductive or titillating as another tool to control the scene.

She stands out as a strong female character despite (and, in a subversive sense, partly thanks to) her sexualization because she always maintains her agency. In no part of Bayonetta or Bayonetta 2 does she fall into the narrative traps of objectified female characters. Throughout both games, she takes control of her actions and the flow of the plot just like she takes control of her words and the flow of cut scenes. The fact that she's a centuries-old witch who's faster, stronger, and more dangerous than any mortal man makes her something very few women are in games: truly intimidating. She commands the scene, and her male supporting cast members rely on her to let them keep up.

She's not an object. She doesn't gets weak-kneed in the presence of men from her past, and would never, ever wait for a superior officer's permission before activating thermal armor while fighting a lava boss. And no, I still haven't gotten over Metroid: Other M.

The subversion of typical video game character objectification extends from the in-game narrative to the audience. I can't say this was an intentional act on the part of Platinum Games, but every time the player leers at Bayonetta, they're made to look as silly as supporting comic relief characters Luka and Enzo. When we unlock her skimpy alternate costumes and make jokes about the game having a one-handed mode, we're addressing a character who's unattainable not only as a fictional creation, but as an actor in the game's own narrative. Bayonetta isn't just too badass, composed, and unflappable for the men in the game. She's too much for the player.

There are several other examples of strong female characters in video games, but they're often either over-sexualized beyond any sort of thematic cohesion (Ivy's costumes in Soul Calibur, the very premise of the Dead or Alive and Rumble Roses series) or rendered completely non-sexual. The former is usually blatant objectification, because they're members of large rosters of characters in a genre where their visual design is the only thing we learn about them, and are made to look "sexy" compared to the male characters who look "strong" or "cool." The latter is preferable from a storytelling perspective because it puts women on an equal narrative ground as men, as identically capable actors in a story that doesn't touch romance.

Bayonetta combines strong and sexy into a character who is rarely objectified within the games. She's completely in control, and completely not interested. She won't blink or blush if you stare, and teasing glimpses or gestures are offered through her own personal agency. You might control her when she's fighting in the games, but she's always the one in control of what you get to stare at, and whether it even matters. And, because she's always in control and has no interest, it really doesn't.

For more, see Gamers Aren't Over, But We Need to Be Better.

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