(Sigma Shoes) I worked in a high security psych ward

General Discussion
61

Again, it being a trope does not exempt it from being problematic. Tropes can be problematic.

It would make just as much sense in-universe for him to use footwear as it would for him not to. The only reason he doesn’t is because the designer wanted to tap into the stereotypical “mental asylum look”.

I’m not inventing anything. It was literally the designer’s intent.
https://www.polygon.com/2019/7/24/20708347/overwatch-sigma-bare-feet-explanation-why-mental-health-concept-art

There is a stigma around people with mental illness being unstable and violent. The designer cites mental asylum patients not being allowed to wear shoes because they might cause harm with the laces, and uses that in the design for a character who, by the same designer’s own admission, would be in no danger from having access to footwear.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3698814/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5007563/
Here’s a couple articles about the stigma surrounding mental illness.

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62

Im not denying stigma around mental illness.

Lets remove the distraction here.

Would you have an issue with the hero if they played up the institutionalism, the mental illness, and instability angles, but he had shoes?

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I wouldn’t have an issue with it if they represented it in a respectful and educated manner. The problem is not that the character suffers from mental illness, the problem is that the people who designed him are uninformed about mental illness and care more about making sure he “looks mentally unstable” than about being respectful towards a serious real-world issue and properly representing it when they choose to include it in their work.
https://twitter.com/Gaohmee/status/1154030576023658497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This twitter thread does a pretty good job of summing up most of the issues people have with it.

It’s not about whether or not he has shoes, it’s the intent behind the design choice and the ways it feeds into stereotypes.

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i come on this forum just for post like this

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Ok, so thats…not the same as complaining about how a lack of shoes promotes the stigma of mental illness.

I’ve a complicated history with the topic and this ‘omg no shoes offends’ is just too childish for me to care about.

Ill look over the twitter thread, but the intent seems clear in the hero design, and its fine to me.

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Like I’ve said, it wasn’t even that big of a deal until the artist made that statement. If it was just “he floats so he doesn’t need shoes”, it’s just weird but not all that offensive. The problem is that the designer’s intent was to feed into problematic stereotypes that misrepresent mental health issues.

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I’ll stand by what Jeff said (I prefer his reasoning as to why sigma is barefoot) but another dev said the no shoes thing was to invoke the look of a “psych patient.”

If the other dev didn’t say this then no one would care. It’s admitting that they did the “no shoes” thing with the knowledge that there would be some controversial interpretations attached. Kinda like mild ignorance for the sake of art.

TLDR: other dev says otherwise. People are upset because if you’re going to purposefully portray the mentally ill through design, do it tastefully

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But I just don’t understand how no shoes = a bad thing. If it does feed into that stereotype like you were saying is it really a bad thing? I don’t excatly look at someone without shoes on and think “Man that guy is so weird and stupid looking” I just kinda think “ok he has no shoes” and move on with my day. I don’t disagree with your concern but you are blowing this way out of proportion. No one will care about this or think about it in like 6 months.

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69

I looked at the tweet, and I’ll just have to agree to disagree on this with you. OW play’s into tropes. This is a mad scientist, literally a mentally ill scientist, and this is how they chose to do it.

I’ll take this shoeless interpretation, over some of the other more…real life ways they could have represented this.

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I don’t get how you’re so caught up on the shoes when I have literally said multiple times it’s not about the shoes. The problem is the intent behind the design, and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes.

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71

Yes, and the problem people have is with them choosing to represent mental illness in an ignorant way.

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72

Would you have preferred they show it with ticks? With cutting scars up the arms? With random outbursts of emotion?

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Umm… his random voice lines actually do that already. Plus his idle animations

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Everything in the Overwatch universe is designed with a hint of sci-fi and absurdity, which is necessary. If Sigma more realistically resembled an actual mental health clinic patient, it could be considered insensitive. Blizz made a good call here.

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The problem I have is that no is going to look at Sigma and think about mental illness. When people look at this character they are just going to see a really cool looking dude who can float and make black holes. No one is going to think about the intent, which is why i’m saying you are blowing this out of proportion.

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76

Seems on point then.

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Yeah but if you already have those why do you need to make him barefoot?

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Visual design hooks are very meaningful in OW. I mean…look at the game.

79

Thanks for the clarification

From what I’ve been reading around, people seem to be mostly (genuenly?) Upset for 2 main reasons:

1.) The wording when explaining that they made him shoeless to “sell” the asylum look

2.) The implication that the guy is a ceazy bad guy that’s doing bad things because of his mental condition, a tired and damaging movie/tv trope

And really I think Blizzard has been clear that his evil doings are not because of his mental condition. The very first thing Blizzars said about Sigma was that, unbeknownst to him, he is being used by Talon for nefarious reasons . They are clear that it’s not his mental condition causing him to be a bad guy.

Now about the wording I guess there could’ve been a better way to rephrase it, but it wasn’t like an official blizzard statement or anything, it was an artist going through their decision process. Ibpersonally would’ve gone along the lines of “because of his accident and newfound gravitational abilities he is very sensitive to stimulation on his feet, which is why he is barefoot and also why he chooses to float”

But hey, to each his own I guess

80

Like the person in the thread noted, I don’t think this game is really an appropriate medium to portray a complex issue like this in the first place, especially when it’s only for aesthetics and not as genuine representation. But I think a tic would be a rather innocuous symptom to display, although I’m not sure how appropriate it would be to his specific condition. That’s just it, you have to put more effort and research into something like this than “he’s mentally ill so he doesn’t wear shoes because that’s what people think of when they imagine mental asylums” if you’re going to include it in your work.

1 Like