Kingdom Death ran a Kickstarter campaign called Monster that was successfully funded earlier this month to the tune of over 2 million dollars, with over 5,000 people who backed it. Sounds pretty great, right? I'd seen people posting about supporting it and heard talk about how nice the sculpts were for a while before I actually saw the miniatures.
But when I did, I was pretty floored. I've never seen a set of miniatures that so enthusiastically degrades women. If you want to see them, go on over to Kingdom Death's website and look at their gallery (do not do this at work). I'm not posting them here.
From a technical standpoint- they're fantastic. The models are incredibly detailed, and I have to say, you need to be pretty creative to have lots of details on a model when the person is 85% naked. But the skill is undeniable. Some of the sculpts I might have considered buying if it wasn't for the overly sexualized women in the range (I say range as some models are for the game and some aren't).
Most of the female models on their web shop suffer from the problems that plague so many female miniatures across all major miniature ranges- nude or barely clothed, ones with just enough armor to cover nipples and crotch, and cheesecake poses.
This is not a problem that suddenly arose when Kingdom Death came along, but it's a problem that they turned to 11 with the ridiculously sexualized "pinup" minis they included in their Kickstarter solely to entice people to spend more money. The pinup options have absolutely no other purpose. It's the lowest common denominator of advertising and while it worked, their success doesn't make it any less objectifying.
It's unsurprisingly that their choice of promotional materials created some backlash. Lillian Cohen-Moore with Bitchmedia wrote Save vs. Sexism in response, and while I agree with most of what she wrote, it created a bit of a backlash of its own. She took the time to respond to most of it in a follow up under her original post.
Like Cohen-Moore, I don't care for the theme behind the Wet Nurse, but it's a horror monster and if they want to make "ballsack-breast monsters" that's their prerogative. It's not degrading anyone, it's just kind of weird. Same goes for their other genitalia-related monsters. Weird, but not offensive and the aesthetic is in line with the horror theme of the game they're trying to create.
That's what makes the female models so unnecessary- they don't fit with the aesthetic. She articulated one point particularly well, saying it's upsetting they "clearly prioritizes making quality figurines (and) chose to make those same quality figurines out of astoundingly sexist material." As I mentioned above, the quality and talent is clearly there. Why spend the time and talent on something degrading? It's completely unrelated to the product they're trying to sell, their only purpose is to be sexual.
If you're making a horror themed game and gave it a title like "Monsters," where are the actual monsters? There are currently only 3-4 monsters on their website (some not even for the game). The last thing the miniature world needs is more generic, scantily-clad female models. There are thousands of those readily available. It's a horror game, perhaps some horrific models are in order? We can never have enough imaginative, scary monsters.
All of this, though is lost on Larry Vela, author of the Bell of Lost Souls post that I was originally linked to. He opens by stating "No, we aren't pigs, and we don't live in our parent's basements. Still, its nice to see the old tropes are alive and well." His point is a bit of a straw man argument, as no one ever suggested this was the case. Cohen-Moore certainly never even insinuated such a thing in her post and the rest of his complaints about her article are similarly unfounded.
He laments that "All the standard complaints are" in Cohen-Moore's article. These "standard complaints" exist, have even become standard for a a very good reason- because these problems aren't getting any better. The mere fact that these complaints are considered standard says poor things about the hobby's ability to grow up and merely pointing out that these are "standard complaints" as a means of disparaging critics is upsetting.
Cohen-Moore makes several points including that KD's Kickstarter success "is a clear reminder that women remain outside the target audience of many game designers." This is the crux of her argument, not, as Vela postulates, that "women customers are overtly shunned" but rather that women are simply not thought of at all because the target audience is male.
I find it particularly sad that someone posting on BOLS, a site that not infrequently posts despairingly that more women don't play wargames, tries so hard to completely shut her down for the way these miniatures make her feel. He does precisely what he (falsely) accuses her of, by simply dismissing her arguments "with the flick of the wrist." He addresses none of her points with a counter arguement, but instead badmouths her for a perceived "lack of understanding of the tabletop wargaming industry." Trying to make her seem less credible is a weak tactic and does nothing to refute the arguments she makes.
In his conclusion, he writes that "...these types of arguments have been thrown around at various other industries for decades... Perhaps having them hurled at wargaming is a sign that we merit the attention these days". The very last thing this signals is any "merit" on behalf of wargaming- it's a signal that wargaming is still woefully behind the times in treating women like people rather than sexual objects.
The problem here isn't specifically Kingdom Death, the miniatures they produced are just indicative of a larger problem. Yes, it can be considered a "niche" game, but they're still part of our hobby and this situation works as a microcosm of the miniatures industry. Those models enforce and encourage the issues that the entire industry has with its depiction of women.
It's important to remember that it's not just looking at the individual models, but also how they reflect our culture. These figures don't exist in a vacuum. There is a larger issue of female miniatures being incredibly sexualized and, while that doesn't make a particular model or game inherently sexist, it does reflect the sexist tendencies of our hobby culture (and the culture at large). But sometimes these issues can be hard to see.
I've encountered an argument stating that "you don't see men getting upset over all the over-muscled male models that dominate miniature games." Of course you don't, because there are thousands of available alternatives! Muscly men do have the lion's share of the miniature market, but they are by no means the only male miniatures available, and very few of them are sexually exploitative. So, when miniatures like those in KD stop being a problem? When we have alternatives!
This can easily be solved by having more than a handful of miniatures that depict women in positive ways. If there were more miniatures that featured fully armored or clothed women in poses that do not exploit their sexuality, then cheesecakey models like those featured in KD wouldn't be a big deal. They'd be in the minority and KD's miniatures would truly be a niche in the market rather than the rule.