from the 'offensively bad idea' department

[coraa]

Wow.

"EA has a new way to annoy its own models: give out prizes for Comic Con attendees who commit acts of lust with their booth babes. Also, if you win, you get to take the lady out to dinner! This is going to end well for everyone involved."

What the hell? I mean, I've been annoyed by booth babes before, mostly because I think that it really reinforces the idea that it's only men who are their audience -- and also because the degree of objectification makes me squidgy -- but that sounds downright innocent compared to 'Commit random acts of lust with our models, take pictures of it, repeat, and you might win a sinful night with two beautiful women!' (And yeah, the 'acts of lust' and 'sinful night' wordings are right out of their ad. I'm not extrapolating anything.)

Because, you know, it's a great idea to literally reward stalking and groping with a date with a beautiful woman! That's a message we want to spread. And also, do these booth babes wear big signs or something? Is there some protection to keep non-EA-employee attractive women from being 'mistaken' for booth babes and, well, 'act of lust'-ed?

Argh.

EA, I love The Sims, but this is Not On.

EDIT: jmpava pointed out that these are the same geniuses who thought it was a good idea to promote their game (the same game, so probably the same Marketing/PR group) by staging a fake Christian protest. Which doesn't make it any less offensive, but geez, the stupidity....

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my first response -- before I'd even thought through all the implications -- was 'euuurgh.' Definitely not the response from someone you want buying your games. (And I have, in the past, given quite a lot of money to EA -- I bought not only both The Sims 1 and 2, but a whole hell of a lot of expansions. This will be on my mind when I consider The Sims 3, for sure.)

[paperclippy.livejournal.com]

So after seeing your post I looked up "booth babe" on wikipedia, and found out that booth babes were effectively banned from E3 (by a dress code) after they were harrassed too much.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Good for E3, I must say. I don't recall seeing booth babes at Anime Expo, either -- attractive members of both genders, yes, usually fully dressed, sometimes in costume but generally not too revealing. There probably were some, but they tend to be less obvious at anime cons, because so much of the clientele is female that it doesn't make sense. (Even the big booth that was selling imported hentai visual novels had a full-clothed jpop singer out front to draw the crowds, not a bikini girl.)

I know that some of my friends don't agree on this topic, but I think that booth babes are a real problem. For one thing, they are a strong message of 'we are catering to boys, boys, boys,' which is offputting to female fans. (And yeah, lesbians and bisexual girls exist, but most lesbians and bisexual girls that I know do not go for pneumatic women in thongs so much, so I'm pretty confident in saying the booth babes are for straight men.) For another thing, they promote objectification in a way that I find creepy. For yet another thing, it's insulting: are guys really that stupid that they'll look at a booth they otherwise wouldn't be interested in because it has chesty women wearing not a lot? But for a fourth, as with the E3 restrictions... I think it's really problematic to pay people to give the appearance of sexual availablility. It leads to harassment, stalking, groping, etc. It's just not fair to the women. And it leads to really bad expectations: that attractive women are there for your pleasure, that their purpose is to be your eye candy, that I think extends from the stall where the booth babe is employed and out into the convention at large. Every year, post-Comic Con, there's a lot of complaints from women that they were stalked, groped, and otherwise harassed, and I think that raising the expectation that that's the way women at a con are to be treated is irresponsible. (I say this as someone who was aggressively hit on at an sf/f con when I was fifteen. It was frightening.)

...long winded Cora is long winded!

[rb13.livejournal.com]

Many people are angry about the contest for this very reason, pointing out that the Con Anti-Harassment Project, which was started partially in response to sexual harassment at Comic-Con, shows that this is a big problem and that this contest encourages it. A "booth babe" spoke out against this contest, saying that it encourages the stalking and harassing behaviours that already exist in fandom cons. Her comment and a link round up are here (http://whilenotfinished.theirisnetwork.org/2009/07/24/eafail-link-roundup/).

A lot of the conversation is happening on Twitter, in real-time. Twitter is the main medium through which entries to the contest are submitted, so many people are speaking out there. Search for: #lust, #EAFail, and @danteteam (the development team of the game).

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the link. That's really interesting. (And yeesh, I hadn't even realized that they meant 'any booth babes at the show,' not just 'any EA booth babe'. I just... I have no words.)

[donaithnen.livejournal.com]

I know they were banned at E3 for awhile, but i'm not sure if that's still the case after the attempt to resurrect E3 from the dead this year.

[avani.livejournal.com]

They are back.