Bayonetta: Innovative Advertising or Sexual Harassment Training?

The widely popular video game Bayonetta has had an advertising campaign that matches the on screen sexism of the game itself. In Tokyo a large billboard in the subway invited passersby to literally strip off flyers to reveal Bayonetta naked underneath. The campaign perpetuates and encourages sexual and physical harassment against women, an epidemic in Japan (and many other countries, including the United States).

♪ Intro Music ♪

Bayonetta is a wildly popular video game

that was released earlier this year in the US

and late last year in Japan for

the xbox 360 and playstation 3.

It sold over a million units in just four months

The game stars a character named

Bayonetta. Its your basic story of a

shapeshifting witch dressed in skin tight

leather who can turn into giant cats

and has a small arsenal of weapons

including whips.

Clip: Bayonetta says "Come On"

♪ Music ♪

And of course she's lost her memories

and there's some evil demands horde

and there's a magical gem of the world

something, something and so forth but

all of that is all besides the point when it

comes to this game

First the positive things about the game

She's a single mother... and...

ummm.... that's kind of it.

So on to the negatives.

She carries with her four pistols

two of which are strapped to her high heeled

boots which provide the perfect

opportunity for her to contorts her body into

pornographic poses including spreading

her legs and doing a little flip in the air

to kill the bad guys

When she lands she does a little

sexy pose for the player complete

with the sound of a camera shutter snaping

But it gets even better because one of her

most powerful weapons involves her

stripping all her clothes off and turning her

hair into an evil demon weapon

fighting machine

Did you get that? The whole taking all

her clothes off in order to use her hair

as a weapon? Because clearly you

can't use your hair to drag demons down to

hell if you're fully clothed.

Predictably, the internet is now infested

with gamers screen captures with various

ways they got Bayonetta naked

As if this pornographic, overly sexualized

animated representation isn't bad enough

The way that Bayonetta restores her power

is by sucking on a lollipop

But I'm not really here to discuss the

overly sexualized adolescent male fantasy

that Bayonetta is but rather talk about

part of the game's marketing strategy

To advertise the release of the game

it's marketing company placed two 6 foot

long banners in Shinjuku Station in Tokyo

This ad features the Bayonetta logo

with a large rectangular space filled

with small cards that enticed passersby

to peal them off and take them home

The cards had a lipstick kiss on the front

and Bayonetta's gun strapped leg

on the inside. Once a few of these

cards were removed it was clear that

Bayonetta was lying naked underneath

She only had her hair wrapped around

her body to cover up her naughty bits

Yes, that's right not only is the game

created to and encourages players to

undress her during game play

because it's basically a choose your own

patriarchal adventure porno fantasy

but now the advertisers are inviting

passersby to physically strip her naked

in the subway station

Instead of being at least a little bit outraged

by this bloggers all over the internet were

celebrating this as an innovative

and successful ad campaign

Women's bodies are constantly used to

to sell products including video games

specifically targeted at young men

but this interactive ad campaign takes

objectifying women's bodies to a whole

other level by asking people to actively

participate in doing misogyny

The ad encourages participation in

physical harassment and this is especially

alarming in context of how women are

treated in Japanese subways

In 2008 in Tokyo alone there were

2000 reported cases of men groping women

and that's only the amount that was reported

In another survey 64% of women reported

being groped on trains and subways

The harassment of women is so bad

that the subway system even introduced

women only passenger cars as a way to

curb this sexual harassment

Women's only passenger cars have been

introduced in many other places such as

Egypt, Taiwan, Brazil and Mexico

and frankly I'm surprised we don't have them

in the U.S. because the levels of

harassment that women face here as well

Harassment is at such epidemic levels that

they've even put up advertising campaigns

and public service announcements in

the Japanese subways. While there's action

being taken to try to curb this behaviour

such as women only passenger cars

and the public service annoucements

right next door is this Bayonetta ad that is

encouraging this predatory behaviour