Lulu: A Love-Hate Relationship
Maybe it’s not cool to admit it, but I loved playing Final Fantasy X. So much, I refused to finish it, restarting over and over just for the enjoyment of the storyline. I’m weird that way. Get over it. Loved the soundtrack, loved the goofy pseudo-basketball game, loved the game mechanics. Loved Lulu. Hated Lulu.
Lulu absolutely kicked ass. With her black magic spells, no matter how many times I played the game, she always seemed to be incredibly overpowered. Or maybe it was just that I loved playing her. The English-speaking actress voicing the US version had a commanding presence, and Lulu’s character was a true leader, protective of her charges and able to make key decisions on a dime….
But oh, the clothes (or lack thereof) she wore. She was a sorceress. I get that. Black hair, purple, all that. Cool. Quick and easy symbolism. But was it absolutely necessary to make her dress so skimpy that I caught both my husband and youngest son (at different times) trying to adjust camera angles to see more? (In case you’re wondering, no, her breasts never do fall out of that low cut neckline, and no, you can’t see up her skirt). (A pretty decent rendition is http://www.ffcompendium.com/art/10-lulu-a.jpg ). And she fights with dolls. Dolls. What’s up with that? A strong, independent woman, a leader in her own right, and she does black magic with dolls? And not traditional voodoo dolls, either, but Hello Kitty voodoo dolls, too cutesy to be dangerous, that hop up to the enemy looking oh-so-adorable until WHAM! the bad guy is dead.
Why take a character that is smart, and strong, and compassionate, and serious, and have her wear a dress that is essentially a bondage fantasy and have her use Hello Kitty as her weapon? The answer is, must be, that Lulu had to be put in her place. If her neckline had been three inches higher, her body less exaggerated in all its dimensions, if she wore serious clothes (even a serious mage’s gown) to go with her serious demeanor, then she would have had to have been taken as seriously as she deserved. The sexualization of the character, however, allows male players of the game to imagine owning Lulu. Possessing her. That made her safe, and acceptable. Her autonomy, unsexualized, would have made her too dangerous and subversive.
I’m serious. Same character face. Hell, even keep the body more or less the same, because it’s at least within the range of human diversity, more or less. But lose the bondage gear, and stuff the Hello Kitty Voodoo Dolls where the sun don’t shine. Give her magical familiars that leap from her arms and gracefully attack the opponents, instead. Give her a wizard’s robe that shows off her physique without threatening spillage. And lose the silly belts. All of them.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
She definitely looks like a mean warrior, until you get a look at the Mog doll and the belt “dress”. Seriously, how does she buckle them all?
The doll: she looks like she’s one of those “mistreated as a child” fighters whose dolls are really killer beasts in possession of demonic power. That said, the doll doesn’t look even mildly threatening. Maybe if there were spots of blood or even a hint that the doll was alive, the entire picture would make her look like some sort of psycho.
Her dress: Kimono… with hey, a flash of leg and lingerie underneath that mass of belts! The belts look cool, but that flash of leg just makes the whole thing look like bondage. Have you seen what Volo (or whatever his name is) from Soul Calibur looks like? He looks like a BS&M freak, with spikes and belts and ball gags, the whole shebang. And apparently, he is highly damaging, too.
Lesson? If you look like a dominatrix/bondage fetishist, you must kick tons of ass.
September 14th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Until just now, I didn’t realize that the mass of belts wasn’t solid. Confession: I don’t like Final Fantasy. Any of them, really. They’re not my thing. So, I was only aware of the characters in a sort of vague way, like “Oh, yeah, I think I’ve seen that character before somewhere… looks like a FF character. At the very least, it’s a Square or a Square knock-off.”
Anyway, For some reason, I always parsed the dress as being a solid mass. Then again, I’ve only seen a few of the rendered shots and drawings.
What a weird thing to do to a character. “I’ve got a great idea here! Let’s take this kick-ass character, and give her a dress made out of belts!”
“Great idea, Johnson. Now, about her attacks. I’m thinking that fireballs and death spells have been done to… well… death.”
“Haha, sir, very good!”
“Shut up Johnson. Give me a new attack.”
“Dolls, sir. She attacks… with dolls.”
Weird.
September 14th, 2007 at 11:03 am
“Scary clowns, sir. She attacks…with scary clowns“
September 14th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Now, see- if she attacked with clowns, people would be scared.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I have no problem with the dolls.. I’m a fan of the non-threatening facade hiding a messed up, vicious, killer. The dress looks retarded. The belts don’t even make sense, really. More evocative of a blind dressmaker than a BDSM fetish.
I don’t know that it was a conscious decision to put her in her place, but she is pretty much just eye candy made playable. I doubt designers even give a moment’s thought to the eye-candy requirement or the social implications of making such a character, it’s far too widespread and accepted in character design. At this point, it’s almost impossible to find a female mage character (especially one of the darker caster classes) dressed as anything but a sex fantasy. It probably takes more work to push a fully clothed sorceress (”wait, why is she so… covered up? she’s a dark witch! her clothes should be falling off to indicate her evil, heathen ways! and she be hawt! that’s the Way It Must Be!!!”)
And the sick part is, many people would be up in arms if she were fat and dressed that way.
September 14th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Just a note, I think the doll thing might be a cultural miscommunication. While dolls are definitely more aimed at women here, things like Hello Kitty are practically cultural mascots. Unlike in America, Japanese men engage in the consumption of characters (and all their associated merch, including dolls) without shame or fear of being seen as unmanly. Sure, a girl could probably get away with a huge doll collection more easily than a boy could, but a boy owning some stuffed animals isn’t “weird” here.
While the dolls may have been thought up as a weapon in order to be a feminine marker, I’m not sure that the message that it sends out to the Japanese players (or the intended message) was for that to rob her of her power or her authority. Ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that the Japanese have a different take on masculinity and femininity than we do, and so judging them only from a Western lens can be problematic.
September 15th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Lulu’s stat growth during the game makes her “Attack” command worthless for much of it; until you start taking her into other characters’ sections of the Sphere Grid, you won’t get any damage at all out of her dolls. As a practical matter, during most of the game, she attacks exclusively with her magic, and her dolls are mostly useful for the support effects.
I never noticed the belts, either. I just saw a black dress when playing the game, in keeping with her “darker” image. (Maybe my TV was bad?) I did find her attractive, but it seemed to have more to do with her face and voice than her neckline.
September 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Did you ever play FF X-2? Where Lulu is 9 months pregnant and still wearing the same bondage dress?
September 15th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Yeah… I did.
I never thought about it before, but now that you mention it, that is kind of weird.
In general, though, I tend to put “video game characters never change clothes” under Acceptable Breaks From Reality.