Body shaming is the worst problem ever to hit America or anywhere else in the world ever.
Pernicious ideas of what an ideal body “should” look like persist in all forms of media, but for some reason video games are the absolute worst and should be singled out.
We at Heat Street are making Anita Sarkeesian proud by bravely rebooting these cartoon bodies to make our readers feel safe and included when playing video games. Thin privilege has to end — and the first step, of course, is by making fictional characters obese.
Link
Why wouldn’t the adventuring hero Link be obese? Health comes at any size and has absolutely nothing to do with diet or physical activity! This is how real heroes of time look.
Niko Bellic (Grand Theft Auto IV)
Real criminals have curves, and this new and improved Nico makes me feel good about playing GTA for two months straight without exercising.
Lara Croft
The old Lara Croft put unrealistic body expectations on women. The new Lara Croft can’t fit through narrow ancient caverns and tires out quite easily, but she does teach young women the importance of not taking care of their bodies.
Solid Snake
Just because Solid Snake is 150 pounds heavier does not mean he can’t sneak around and fight genetically engineered super soldiers just as well as before. But now he doesn’t suffer from thin privilege — only white, cis and male privilege.
Pacman
Pacman’s larger size unfortunately makes it impossible to complete the first level of the game. But competition promotes toxic masculinity, so, we’re all made safer for it, thank god.
Body shaming = real violence.
Follow me on Twitter @William__Hicks.