Okay I'll bite.
sexist is the belief or attitude that one sex is inherently superior to other. A girl in a bikini is not inherently sexist but having girls's only role being to fill out a bikini is. A fetish is attributing supernatural powers to an inanimate object and I'm pretty sure you just made sexish up
hashtagsarestupidIt's partly about cultural context. If the reduction of women to sexual objects wasn't a longstanding and ongoing trend in the media, and if women hadn't historically been afforded less privilege than men, there would be nothing wrong with the depiction of a woman in a bikini for decorative purposes. Barring other cultural factors (e.g. the nudity taboo), it might not even be slightly controversial. The controversy arises because objectification of the female form is so normal and is often just accepted.
edited 9th Jan '11 7:44:43 AM by BobbyG
Welcome To TV Tropes | How To Write An Example | Text Formatting Rules | List Of Shows That Need Summary | TV Tropes Forum | Know The StaffSexist can be defined as when one gender is treated as better, worse, or different than the other is situations where gender is not a factor. A girl in a bikini isn't sexist unless they are saying/implying she's stupider than men or useless as anything but a sex object.
Everything happens for a reason. The reason is a chaotic intersection of chance and the laws of physics.It's a little more complicated than that, Firestarter. Context is important. Let's say you have a show that periodically does a Beach Episode where all the characters, male and female, are in swimwear. Totally fine, right? Well, maybe. If the male and female characters have equal screentime in the normal episodes but suddenly the female characters are getting the lion's share of it in the beach episodes, that's suspicious. If the female characters having changed into their bikinis is heralded by a slow pan up their bodies that stops short of their faces, and this is not done to the male characters when they show up in trunks, that's even more suspicious. You probably get the idea.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexist
According to the 2nd definition, though, "sexist" and "true" are not mutually exclusive.
Meh, I don't know if pandering to the audience is really the same thing as sexism.
If the only female characters in a show are obviously there as part of marketing to titillate the audience, that's not particularly good writing, but even that's not really tantamount to saying "Females are only good as sex objects!"
If the only female characters in a show are obviously there as part of marketing to titillate the audience, that's not particularly good writing, but even that's not really tantamount to saying "Females are only good as sex objects!"
I'd have to agree with Bobby G above - it's not just about how female characters are portrayed in an individual movie/manga/soap ad/what have you, it's about whether or not that work repeats patterns that appear in a lot of other works. One TV show where men are portrayed as characters and women as a collection of sexy body parts isn't likely to harm anyone. Neither is one series of novels that depict women as perpetually hysterical and incompetent and men as ruthless, violent jerkasses.

I mean, not every depiction of a gal in a bikini can be called sexist. Where does one draw the line between a fetish and sexish?