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Brother Vinni Provide You With a Damsel in Distress
November 13, 2013 by dracs
All the oldest stories have a hero rescuing a damsel in distress and there probably aren't many who are more distressed than this new Female Prisoner from Brother Vinni.
Now let's just get this out of the way first, I am not happy to see women victimised in such a way. It is a genuine problem in modern gaming, especially as there aren't nearly as many depictions of men in similar situations.
Speaking in purely gaming terms this model does make a good narrative objective marker. I could think up number of scenarios for Mordheim involving this miniature. Maybe she is a noblewoman who the Witch Hunters are planning to burn for witch craft, but a group of mercenaries have been hired to save.
What is your opinion of Brother Vinni's latest sculpt?
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Oh, would you look at the time!
Sam – totally with you here. Not right!
If as a community we want to be seen as more than drooling, greasy haired, metal loving, no hopers we can do one simple thing. Not buy this model. The law of commerce will quick change things. It’s technically a great job by Brother Vinni and I do like their other sculpts. My mini rant here is not focused on them at all, more industry wide.
I agree with Sam and Tinracer. I buy a lot of Brother Vinni’s models but none of his “victim” girls. I’d really like some captive figures for my gaming but they need to be men and women and the women need to be clothed.
NOBODY does these figures, I had hopes Mantic would for the Mars Attacks kickstarter but they changed them into panicking civillians instead
Leaving aside all aspects of the technical skill that obviously went into the sculpt, I agree with Sam – this is yet another entry into the depressing procession of models and imagery, created by various outlets within the hobby, that seem rather worryingly obsessed with the objectification and victimisation of women. The partial nudity in particular strikes me as entirely gratuitous, especially paired as it is with an iteration of the disempowered ‘damsel in distress’ trope.
It is rare to encounter any mini of a male character being depicted as restrained in this way at all, and you can bet your bottom unit of national currency that such a model would never be depicted in a comparable state of willfuly sexualised dishabille.
I know that this ground has been covered before, and I know that some people will probably find further discussion of it annoying, but tinracer is right that the image of the hobby, and the lingering taint of low level misogyny associated with it, is hardly helped by this kind of thing. More importantly, replicating this kind of depiction of women, even in model form, is unethical and harmful in and of itself, and that is reason enough to oppose it.
It may seem that we are swimming against the tide here, but at least if we say, on public forums such as this one, that this is not something that people (or at least not all people) in the wargaming community want or consider ethical, then it weakens any argument that such things are ‘just how the industry is/just what the fans want’ that might be wheeled out in justification.
Nope not never
I think what I feel has has already been said above and very well put too
A male prisoner would make for a fine narrative/scenario generator
Even a male and a female would work. But IMHO the open sexualisation of the subject is a very ill judged and a miscalculation on the part of Vinny Bros.
Waits for the inevitable accusation of prudery.
So be it.
She clearly looks like a victimized noblewoman… The nudity could be argued to be non-gartuitous (her tormentors would probably have outraged her in that way)… The miniature could be viewed as a tragic display piece…
But even so, it’s quite tasteless : This is from Brother Vinni, it’s not a 54mm diorama from Andrea (nor does it have that kind of quality or artistry)… you just know this is aimed at gamers, and wrongfully so.
I’m not against a little hanky panky now and then, and some suggestiveness (or even nudity) can be legitimate in many cases, but this is very, very wrong as a subject for a miniature.
I can understand and respect everybody’s points regarding this mini but to me I have no issue with it at all. It’s just a mini as far as I am concerned. I think its a great narrative piece and seeing as we game in a setting of heroes and villains, wizards and warlocks, Adventure and peril, its a cool little objective marker or great model for an exciting diorama. It’s not like we don’t have parity with the subject of women in miniatures these days! For this sculpt we also have the kick ass ladies of Infinity or Raging Heroes. The amazing thing for me as a painter and gamer is that there are at least sculptors and manufacturers out there who are prepared to tackle the more risqué subjects and images in miniature form. This gives us even greater variety to flex our imaginations, be it with wargaming, painting, sculpting or any of the other wonderful mediums that make up our hobby. I love the variety and wouldn’t want that to change. If you were gonna censor nudity (female or otherwise) in miniature sculpting then where does the line get drawn? Would you stop sculpting WW2 German troops because of Nazism? The whole issue is silly to me but each to their own opinion.
TBH if I was playing against a guy who was spouting Nazi propaganda, banging on about Jews, Gays, Gypsies etc I would most certainly pack up my little toy soldiers and let him know just how I feel about it.
Now if there was a special mission to try and rescue a female agent from the Gestapo or SS I would happily go along with it. Female agents put their lives on the line in occupied lines and if a figure depicted them like this model there would be every reason to be justifiably outraged.
Even so, the designers of a non specific female captive, have made a series of choices to ignore depicting a woman as a an active character, and instead resort to cheap B movie passive stereotypical portrayal of women as a sexualised object.
The narrative the figure suggests is narrow and unimaginative. It may have been acceptable 40 or 50 years ago but am very disappointed to see it in the second decade of the 21st century.
An interesting point, but one that implies that it’s okay to own or field something that represents something considered to be genuinely evil (or at the least, very bad!) as long the person who owns those minis is basically a regular, level-headed person. So what’s the difference between that and somebody who has this mini on a shelf or puts it on the table as a mission objective and DOESNT go “phoar yeah look at the knockers on that!” and is instead, that same regular, level-headed person in the previous example who just shrugs and says “I just thought it was kind of different.”
No more than an actor playing the role of an SS officer putting his gun to the back of the head of a Pole that had just dug his own grave and pulling the trigger. It does not demean the victim, nor does it instil desire for him.
Such a scene could lead us to identify with the victim rather than the aggressor.
The depiction of this victim is leaving little room in the iconography for the viewer to understand that there is a narrative of SEXUAL aggression.
The inference is, as Romain imho correctly points out below, that a rape has or is about to take place.
The woman has been subjugated purely because of her gender and sexuality. Any intention to allow for empathy with the woman is now competing with male fantasy.
The assumption has to be that the designer had every intention for that desire to be aroused in a heterosexual male viewer. Because of the way she is portrayed we are left little doubt of it.
Why not give her some clothes and make her look stoic, or even defiant?
And at best we are left with the male fantasy of rescue.
You’re right, both you are Romain right – It’s easy to see how this is supposed to appeal to the “rescue fantasy” trope and taken at face value, it’s a fair question to ask “What else about this mini would appeal to a potential buyer, if not the theme?”
These are sound reasons for not wanting to own the miniature. But is it possible that somebody could buy a mini like this without such a desire being aroused in the heterosexual male viewer? If one of the many professional female painters purchased this to paint it, should we make such assumptions about her?
IMHO the morality of this is such a grey area but I always appreciate the chance to have such a discussion with other adults.
I’ve been trying to figure our these guys for a while now. Certainly over on Dakka Dakka, Vinni gets quite a lot of flak for this line of miniatures but what disturbs me the most is the idea that people can look at their other work and say “From now on, you should only do this.” because I feel very uncomfortable telling an artist what he can and cannot create. There seems to be some sort of assumption that an artist has a moral responsibility to only create work that other people approve of which I just find.. kind of odd.
The way I see it, some of these miniatures (perhaps most, perhaps all of them) are non-exclusive commissions, just like the ShepLoo figure I brought from Vinni last year. If that’s the case, then it is likely to be one person who has commissioned this particular range over the last couple of years and that accounts for a significant portion of the Vinni catalogue. Should that work be turned down, or charged at an increased price appropriate for an exclusive commission so we don’t see these in the Vinni store? I don’t know. I’m sure they could make up for that lost revenue by sculpting not-GW figures just like everyone else (and indeed on DakkaDakka, that seem to be what most people want from him).
The other possibility is that he just likes sculpting these kinds of miniatures. What that does or does not say about his own tastes is irrelevant, I think, but coming back to my earlier statement, if he is sculpting these miniatures simply because he likes the topic then I don’t think it’s for me to say if he should or should not be creating them. Instead I am empowered to decide not to buy such miniatures and won’t go out of my way to promote them. That freedom is probably what appeals to these independents.
If you are producing miniatures for a ‘serious’ game such as 40k, I think you do have to ask yourself if your female miniatures are consistent with the male miniatures because if the answer is no, then you have probably fallen afoul of the muscle bound warrior / chainmail bikini problem. People are going to feel uncomfortable fielding your female minis alongside your male minis and you probably aren’t going to draw in a lot of female gamers. If you are producing miniatures for a very..er.. stylised game such as Relic Knights (bewbs!) or Monster (tentacles!) then I think you need to ask yourself that of your entire game.. and if you release it anyway then so be it. At least nobody can accuse you of making a statement about how women should look or act in real life when everything you release is so absurdly not realistic. But people are still going to chose to shun your game anyway.
As an independent sculptor I really don’t think you have the same level of responsibility to the hobby. You can, and should, be to put out whatever you feel like making IMHO (copyright issues aside). You just can’t be surprised if ‘Naked girl on a stick’ doesn’t sell very well.
whoops. be *able* to put out whatever you feel like making. Curse you, lack of an edit button!
It’s not about realism, it’s about style and context : This miniature is very (disturbingly) close to a rape victim, and she is in a series that’s well known for its purpose : ladies with bewbs indeed, choosing to play on the sexuality of it all.
As I said, I have no problem with (some) nudity, no problem with women being represented as sexy or in a sexual way, an no problem either when the women are not victimized or objectified/caricatured in that way.
Nothing wrong with arousal, sex or nudity… What’s wrong is rape and objectification, and this whole series of miniatures has that smeared all over. There’s quite a difference !
I’m not going to try and forbid Vinni for making these, as I would never presume as much, but as a feminist this is all kinds of wrong to me and i do encourage people NOT to buy from this company.
Whatever it may be, the model is actually a piece of art. So I’m gonna give it a pass at least ha ha.
If this series of mini’s from Vinni promotes rape and objectification, would we also consider the ‘wet nurse’ model from Kingdom Death in the same category?
Indeed, that is kind of my point. I do consider both to be in the same category which is why I own neither. But I certainly wouldn’t look down on somebody who did.
Wet nurse is more of a grey area than this one, as it’s clearly fantastical in nature, is clearly disturbing, and is intended to play upon that.
I would argue that a weird monster, albeit disturbing, is less shocking than a depiction of rape, but that’s just me.
I remember seeing a piece on Cool Mini or Not some time ago, a diorama of a stricken female eldar warrior and a group of guardsman. The arrangement of the diorama connoted the commencement of a sexual assault. It was a fantastic piece of art, painted beautifully and I admired the bravery of the artist to put something like that together.
Personally, I was particularly impressed with the ‘process’ behind the piece, using toy soldiers from a popular game aimed at a wide age range to depict a sadly very real war atrocity that takes place in real life to this day. It also made me think for the first time what a valid art form miniatures can be and how the form can be used to tell stories and provoke emotions and response far beyond rolling dice on a tabletop.
I think the shock and uproar we feel when we see miniatures or pieces in the medium that evoke taboos (nudity for example) can be attributed to this notion we all have on some level… that miniatures are toy soldiers for games. I think that’s why many feel these subjects have no place at all in the art form. However, that would be forgetting that our hobby is first and foremost AN ART FORM and people are perfectly entitled to express themselves in any way they see fit and are perfectly within their rights to do so.
I will conclude that we are, of course, all absolutely 100% entitled to feel the way we feel about certain pieces. We can all hate or feel disgusted about certain depictions. That’s our right as enthusiasts and consumers. There is nothing wrong with that at all. That’s just how you think about something, what it says to you. However, I personally think without unlimited freedom of expression our hobby would be a far poorer, less richer medium. I think challenging taboos gives the art form validity, whether them challenges are gratuitous or not. If just one diorama or miniature provokes a pause for thought then it further proves that our amazing hobby has been so much more than just toy soldiers all along. Something, I suspect, the majority of us have always known. 🙂
Correction, it not shock.
Disappointment, ennui, irritation, and embarrassment, but not shock
These bits of tit tat are ten a penny in the miniatures marketplace.
The Wet Nurse maybe had a certain shock value but that is not really sexploitation.
I remember that piece… and there’s a world between that diorama and the victim we’re seeing here.
That guardsmen diorama wasn’t “smut” per se, it was an artistic statement of how wrong rape is, and how war and fanaticism generate such horrors, fitting with the theme of the game. Was it arousing ? Not to me, and not to my (straight) friends.
Perhaps, to some people, in a very, very disturbing way (should they feel guilty ? I’m not a psychiatrist, and I’m no thought police either, so that’s neither here nor there).
The whole “victim girls” series, however, is smut, pure and simple.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Vinni has no right to do this, sell this, sculpt this (or anything, for that matter). Freedom of expression should definitely be paramount.
I’m saying I’m against anyone buying it, and I’m very much anticipating a time when everyone will at long last refuse to victimize anyone or condone things that do, period. I’d have the exact same reaction if the victim depicted here was male, or jewish, or of african descent, or transgendered, for example.
The question is, would you ? Would you react differently ? Would this sculpt be sold ? Would this sculpt have even been made if the victim was of a different sex/gender identity/ethnicity/background ?
That is the crux of the problem, here. The reason why this is a female victim with her boobs out, there, is that it’s porn. Not art. Not statement. Porn. And this one is rape-porn at that, which is IMHO outrageous and wrong.
Vinni has every right to do that, of course, but let’s not kid ouselves that this is anything else than exploitative porn (porn that condones exploitation instead of showing pleasure), and let’s not give it the attention that this clearly doesn’t deserve.
Well, there is no right or wrong answer to any of this. Just opinions because we all have different levels at which we feel offended. Art, being subjective in nature, always provokes a reaction. Some art can be considered pornographic and rightly so but in contrast some pornography can be considered artistic. Its interesting to see which side of the fence people stand on.
Oh, I don’t feel offended…
It’s not about the level at which one feels offended, it’s about the intent of the sculptor here. This si perfectly objective, and visibly porn. This is not artistic, not in its quality, not in its subject, not in its context or its range.
I agree that some porn can be art and vice versa, but this is not it.
Or perhaps it is art, but the subject matter and context is just too taboo and offensive for your personal taste?
Ask Vinni what the intent was.
I think it’s porn, but it’s besides the point : if it’s art, it’s neither good nor smart, so it’s best ignored.
Also, yes, @willy2fly … somehow, I have a strong “taboo” about condoning rape.
Really, I think you could say I have a pet peeve about people who like rape, and even that I am offended by people who glorify it. Who knew, right ?
Seriously now : are you suggesting that somehow this miniature, this piece, that unapologetically and gleefully depicts a rape (for obviously cheeky or arousing purposes, no less), is “just too taboo” for my personal taste ?
My personal taste ? Really ?
Not tolerating rape is a matter of “personal taste” ?
Wow.
I’m willing to somehow believe that you didn’t mean it and didn’t think about what you wrote, there.
Well, maybe shock was too strong a word. Lets use yours instead 🙂
I wouldn’t agree that the ‘Wet Nurse’ didn’t have elements of sexploitation though. It came with female slaves if I remember correctly, not to mention the extensive nudity and body parts depicted! That’s how I see it anyways.
Nah the wet nurse was straight up tentacle porn
Maybe that was an ill considered choice of phrase! lol
I challenge you to use that sentence “Nah the wet nurse was straight up tentacle porn” in the next group conversation you have. The conversation cant be about miniatures or war gaming either. 🙂
oh lordy, I like a challenge but chickening out seems the most sensible option! lol
Im not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination but I do think this model crosses a line.
If they had also done a similar piece with a male prisoner then I would have just let it slide, but the fact they have very clearly chosen to portray just a woman in this kind of pose strikes me as exploitative.
Some people may argue it is a ‘realistic’ scenario, but I would argue there are lots of realistic scenarios that should perhaps be left out of gaming.
Anyway, let the market decide if this is what we want or not.
My thoughts exactly !