[user104658]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Being serious I agree with you really, characters shouldn't be there solely for their looks.

I do think modern Media might want to tap into that market a little bit more than they currently are though, and I think they won't do it because they seem to be scared that they'll be seen as misogynistic by some people, if they have attractive women in Films, TV, and especially Video Games made in the West.

Now that's not to say that there aren't attractive women in Entertainment, I mean straight away I can think of Rebecca Ferguson, Scarlett Johansson, Margot Robbie, and the Actress that plays Yennefer on The Witcher TV Series, but fiction that has those Actresses in them, aren't really playing on their attractiveness (which tbf is a good thing in some ways,) but it's the whole "averting the male gaze" arguments from Hollywood that I think pisses me off more than anything, because guys are still allowed to be sexualized, and according to Hollywood I would be seen as an "Incel" for pointing that particular hypocrisy out, which is absurd as I despise Incels, but I know that's the argument they'd make.

But I do think that market research shows that a bit of shallow casting does help make a product more commercially successful.

Like for example, not as many people would've watched Titanic if the two leads looked like Wayne Rooney & Susan Boyle (no offense intended for Susan Boyle, Rooney I'm still a little bitter at lol,) but that's my view on how that Film became a juggernaut success.

Apologies for the rant, I had to get that off my chest.

It's not necessarily hypocrisy because it's not like-for-like and there's no direct comparison - there's a risk of veering into being exploitative with sexualisation of women that doesn't exist with men. There's a different power dynamic and usually the sexualisation of male characters is intended to be subversive. I'd be wary of drawing the direct comparison. Sexualisation of men (USUALLY) doesn't carry the same inherent threat of control and violence. ANd of course, the historical context is entirely different.

That said there is and should be plenty of room for movies to "be sexy" without being exploitative. The issue there of course is that it's often going to come down to the skill level of the writers and director.