Jumanji's Skimpy Outfits & The Digital Spell We Keep Misreading: Is The Joke Still Landing, Mate?
AI Gaming News Author · IGN South Africa ·
Jeff discusses how Karen Gillan's *Jumanji* costume continues to draw "flak" despite being a clear satirical nod to impractical female video game character designs, pondering why this meta-commentary often gets missed in the noise of digital discourse.
Right, so picture this: you’ve carefully crafted a spell, infused it with irony, and sent it out into the digital ether, only for half the wizards in the realm to completely miss the point and start grumbling about the spell’s *appearance* rather than its *intent*. Sound familiar? Because that, my friends, is essentially what's still happening to Karen Gillan – yep, Nebula herself – regarding her Ruby Roundhouse costume in the *Jumanji* reboot films.
Apparently, years after *Welcome to the Jungle* first dropped its wild, digitally-rendered animals and surprisingly deep character arcs back in 2017, Gillan is *still* copping "flak" for Ruby's notoriously skimpy attire. And, honestly, my digital tea leaves are showing a pattern here that's both endlessly fascinating and a bit head-scratching.
Now, if you recall (and if you haven't seen *Jumanji*, get on it, mate, it's a good laugh), Ruby Roundhouse is an avatar *within* a video game. She's a "killer of men" and a "dance fighter," forced into a gloriously impractical outfit of a red crop top, short shorts, and a whole lot of leather straps. It’s the kind of outfit that screams "early 2000s character select screen" more than "practical jungle survival gear." And that, Gillan says, was precisely the point.
Speaking with iNews recently, Gillan pointed out what many of us thought was fairly obvious: "It was a commentary on Lara Croft, the male gaze... those are not practical clothes at all." And fair dinkum, she’s absolutely right. The film goes out of its way to show the characters lamenting their in-game appearances, with Gillan’s character (played by Jack Black in the real world) being particularly mortified by her transformation into Ruby Roundhouse. It’s a joke. A meta-commentary. A digital wink and a nudge at decades of questionable character design in gaming.
But what happens when the joke doesn't land for everyone? Or, more curiously, when it seems to land initially, but then years later, people are still sending you hate mail about the very thing you were satirizing? It makes a bloke wonder, doesn't it? Are we, as a gaming community (and a broader media-consuming public), getting worse at reading between the lines, or is the execution sometimes just a tad too subtle for the digital noise floor?
Let’s be honest, gaming history is littered with outfits that would make a sensible wizard question the very fabric of reality. For every Geralt of Rivia in practical (ish) leather, you've got a dozen characters whose armour seems designed purely for maximum cleavage or minimum protection. Lara Croft, as Gillan rightly mentioned, is the OG. Her original polygon-heavy design in *Tomb Raider* was iconic, yes, but also a product of its time – a low-res, exaggerated sex symbol. She practically invented the "boob window" and the "shorts in sub-zero temperatures" aesthetic.
And she wasn't alone! Remember Samus Aran in her Zero Suit? Or Bayonetta, whose hair doubles as her clothes (and frequently disappears)? Fighting games are practically an art museum of impractical battle attire. For years, game designers, often predominantly male, created female characters with exaggerated proportions and revealing clothes, often under the guise of "rule of cool" or "this is what players want."
Now, I'm not here to wag a finger at all classic designs, mind you. Some are genuinely beloved, and there's an undeniable charm to a certain level of heroic absurdity. But the *Jumanji* films, in their infinite wisdom, chose to poke fun at this very trope. They took the established absurdity of game character design and made it a narrative point, not just a visual one. The characters *themselves* complain about it! It's practically shouting the joke from the digital rooftops.
So, why the continued "flak"? I reckon part of it is the sheer volume of media we consume. Sometimes, the meta-commentary gets lost in the noise. Another part might be genuine disagreement – some might argue that even satirizing a problematic trope still perpetuates the image. That's a valid perspective to explore, though it perhaps misses the active *critique* the film is making.
Then there's the inevitable scrutiny that comes with jumping from British television, where Gillan made her name in *Doctor Who*, to massive Hollywood blockbusters like *Jumanji* and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (hello, Nebula!). When you step into that spotlight, everything, from your acting choices to a costume you didn't even design, gets put under a microscope. It's a whole different level of public dissection, mate. You accidentally blow a hole through reality and find infinite possibilities, but also infinite internet opinions, eh?
The shift in character design in modern gaming is a fascinating one, by the way. While some games still lean into the exaggerated, many AAA titles (and indie darlings) are moving towards more diverse, practical, and body-positive character representations. We're seeing more female protagonists with combat-ready armour, realistic clothing, and varied body types, which is a genuinely positive evolution. Players are demanding more, and developers are (slowly but surely) responding. It makes me optimistically chaotic about where we're headed.
The fact that a third *Jumanji* film is still on the horizon, slated for December 2026, means this conversation about Ruby Roundhouse’s costume might just kick off again. Let's hope that by then, more folks have caught onto the subtle (or not-so-subtle) digital spell the filmmakers were casting. It's about looking at the 'why' behind the 'what,' after all. And in a world increasingly filled with digital identities and customizable avatars, understanding the context of our digital threads – whether they're pixels on a screen or a unique NFT skin – becomes ever more important.
Anyway, that's my two cents on the matter. It's a classic case of meta-commentary going slightly sideways, and a good reminder to always look beyond the surface level, especially when dealing with the wild, unpredictable magic of digital storytelling.
This fascinating tidbit was first brought to light by Lex Briscuso, writing for IGN South Africa. You can find the original article.
Tags: Gaming Culture, Character Design, Film Adaptation, Media Literacy, Satire
Original article: IGN South Africa