I’m looking forward to Capcom’s for now. highly praised Resident Evil 4 remake, but not because I’m preoccupied with updated combat mechanics or graphical accuracy or any monsters, really – I was thinking about skirts.

Skirts caused one of the first controversies of the remake. Ashley Graham, the distressed blonde damsel who often accompanies blonde action man Leon S. Kennedy RE4, wearing green plaid mini skirt. In the remake, Ashley seems to be wearing instead a similar-looking top with gray tights, thus eliminating the hemline opportunities of the original basically.

Sexually frustrated fans of the series had Disappointeddoesn’t seem to understand that there are many websites that will show them exactly what they are looking for. But I am relieved. I want RE4 refactoring changes to signal better days for video game skirts and broader female character design allow both to migrate further. expressive, gender-fluent fashion real world women’s clothing since 2020. I went through the brief history of video game skirts to make the most of the possibility.

it was originally underskirt

Compared to the teardrop history of the rest of humanity, video games are very young. Not a physical skirt.

People have dressed themselves in flashy bottoms since dawn prehistoric; they were worn In Bronze Age ritualsand around construction pyramids. Improvements in men’s tailoring in the late Middle Ages pushed the skirt into a more feminine fashion category, but womenswear status in the West has not solidified so far. 19th centurywhen pants become more popular and meaningfuland provided greater scope during the tough day-to-day work of Industrial Revolution workers.

In many of her lifetimes, the skirt has been cut and drawn in many ways. It’s been long enough structured trace, like a snail. Shortened, made asymmetrical, then shortened. The latest social and design metamorphosis—small, removable skirts for women—is what often gets into video games.

The first video game skirts appeared first video game girls, all born in difficult circumstances; Home consoles in the early ’80s tried to compete with the burgeoning arcade market by inviting girls to their mostly shitty games. Among these extravagant yet female-focused games is the 1984 Sega game girl’s gardenthe protagonist wears a creamy pink skirt in the shape of a triangle; 1987 Sega role-playing game fantasy starthe protagonist wears an asymmetrical, rosy pink skirt; and in 1994 a female audience (or otome game) AngelWhere Angelique wore a raspberry-rich – you guessed it – pink skirt.

These primitive video game skirts may not have been original, but they were overwhelmingly innocent. Thigh-length, usually pacifier pink, is a visual abbreviation for the blushing youth of their typical teenage hero.

That changed when video games decided to market their games overwhelmingly to men, just as they do in arcades. Like 90’s fighting games fight to the death helped viewers get used to seeing attractive but untouchable women in their underwear, and the 1997s Final Fantasy VII Main hero Tifa Lockhart It got them used to seeing skirts more as a teaser, a sign of girlhood, but now. Tifa’s skirt is black, not pink. It seems to end at the top of her thighs as a necessity, she definitely doesn’t want to cover up more than she needs.

games like FFVII He recontextualized the skirt as a feminine item of clothing, not only for women to wear, but also to be sexualized in it.

Witness this in the next decade: Ashley squeaks and calls Leon a pervert inside Resident Evil 4The first release of 2005 gave the actress a quick glimpse of her white underwear while angling it correctly. in 2008, GamesRadar compiled underwear shots from several games including Tekken 6, Devil May Cry 4And no more heroes. He told readers to “make up the same excuse ‘But it’s satire’ that we used throughout the compilation of this feature,” but also congratulated readers on the horror game if they were spotted reading it. uncertain for “quickly presenting a full plate of the best free-roaming hemline”.

Brian Ashcraft warned in 2009 kotaku readers of an article officially Monster Hunter Limit magazine this taught players how to take screenshots of other players’ underwear. A few days later, Ashcraft directed them to another upskirt opportunity: an erotic game that uses webcam tracking that lets players kneel and look up at their characters. plaid mini skirts.

A mobile game named in 2011 under skirt! it was Rejected from the App Store. in 2012 lollipop chainsaw distributed upskirt achievements. In the last decade, gamers have found ways to wear skirts. The Story of the Seasons characters, to shatter characters, more observations characters. And in a misogynistic novelty, they learned how to sexually abuse female students. in virtual realitymore.

The future is (somewhat) less perverted

At this point you may be wondering how I can be hopeful of video game skirts. Capcom’s decision to change Ashley’s outfit and let her wear something cute without sexual baggage is the right choice, in my opinion, but a minor decision to consider after going through decades of alienated female and female characters. skirts and makes them more contentious than they have been since the 19th century.

But like all art, fashion erodes and re-establishes itself like sand dunes. FIDM Museum in Los Angeles there is a “skirt lifter”– A fork in his collection from 1876, decorated with an unfolded metal butterfly, not for tickling, but for the more comfortable walking of women in heavy skirts.

Fashion can be redefined and redefined. Outside of video games, skirts are again available for non-female self-identified people in 2023 to wear. Stylish women think about what it means to dress for themselves. “female gaze” or prioritizing art and romance over sexuality in stereotypical feminine outfits such as colored glittery eyeliner, lace-up corsets, and pink skirts.

despite Resident Evil 4 The remake’s outfit change stays out of the discussion instead of embracing the skirt as a more fluid, expressive tool than the past 20 years of games have allowed, I can understand that elbowing outside the boys’ club difficult.

But as the real world changes, I think video game fashion will change too. It’s been a long time since video games were marketed only to men. Now we are all searching. Kind regards.