quote:On Monday, prominent media critic, Anita Sarkeesian, posted a video to YouTube that criticized the use of women as background decoration, particularly in violent and sexual ways.
Many of those who shared the post received threats and harassment.
...
Death and rape threats forced Sarkeesian to leave her home for safety. These threats are merely a cross section of the cruel and frightening harassment Sarkeesian has faced in her career.
I actually disagree (mostly) with Sarkeesian's perspective on games, but it's really tragic to see the kind of backlash she receives just for expressing that perspective.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Eh, much of her perspective, what I remember from watching her stream...hmmm, about half a year ago?...seemed pretty darn spot on to me. As for this?
Frankly it would be significantly more surprising if her perspective were wrong. As a culture we're climbing out of the history of generalized misogyny. There's certainly a case to be made for that we're definitely more out than in that hole now than ever before. But videogames has been, until recently, an overwhelmingly male hobby. Female videogamers aren't considered surprising by some people on the basis of nothing, after all.
Take a broader society growing out of systemic problems with misogyny. Take a subset of that society, make them largely male. That subset is also often, though much less often now as generations shift, sometimes considered weaker, unmanly, etc. Is there something in that background that can be disagreed with? And if not, is it really a surprise that there would be a problem with female perspectives in video games?
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
The hate being directed at Sarkeesian makes me sick, but it also makes me sick when would-be representatives of the PROUD MEN OF GAMING excuse, minimize, or obscure it by harping on their view of her sincerity or qualifications.
To the latter: grow the *%*^ up, you ridiculous, pathetic gamehumpers. The market will continue to feed you what you want to buy. Stop feeding the trolls by displaying your insecurity. Personally, I think you could learn something from listening to Sarkeesian, but whether or not I'm right, "SHE IS A LYING LIAR WHO JUST HATES GAMES AND MEN AND WANTS ATTENTION" is not a response that reflects well on you.
N.B.: I have no problem with gaming enthusiasts in general and I've enjoyed many games that contain the things that Sarkeesian is criticizing. No really, it can be a really good game even if it really truly reflects and perpetuates adolescent views of women and sexism.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I don't necessarily disagree with her diagnosis of the culture, but I think she mistakenly approaches games from what you might call the perspective of "media" rather than "art." I think it can be worthwhile for art to explore, and even exploit, our darker natures. Halloween is a good movie. Deep Red is a great movie.
There should probably be more games that don't have that exploitation element, but I don't think it's a problem that many games do have it.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think one difference between games and other forms of art is the amount of time a consumer might tend to spend immersed.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I have been very affected by Anita Sarkeesian's work within Feminist Frequencies. It has totally changed how I view female characters in video games. I think virtually all the things she has been saying are spot on, and I think it's absolutely disgusting what the response to her videos has been from male gamers.
Posted by Raymond Arnold (Member # 11712) on :
I think receiving death threats is sort of positive evidence for the argument she's making.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
One of the more common 'rebuttals' I've seen is that Sarkeesian is to be blamed even for the threats of death and rape, or both, not always in that order: that she solicits them by posting things she knows will cause upset, and that since they could have been expected it's deceptive or whiny for her to complain.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I think receiving death threats is sort of positive evidence for the argument she's making.
No, it's not. It's evidence that gamers are like all people everywhere, and a certain percentage of them will make sickening threats in an anonymous internet venue against people they see as attacking them.
Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
I've thought about this a lot over the past few days and I think it is more a problem with the anonymity of the internet than it is a problem with this particular topic or with Sarkeesian.
If you visit the website of a conservative blogger, for example, you see the same kind of hate and anger. They get death threats every time they post something new.
To be fair, because she is a woman she gets some "special" threats that are horrendous. I acknowledge that. But on the whole, I don't think she gets more threats than most other internet celebrities.
Does anyone have a link to a study about this topic? I'd be interested in learning more.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I think feminist internet celebrities probably get more threats than most other kinds, but I doubt that the threats from the gaming community are worse than the ones from other communities where feminism has come under fire.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: I think one difference between games and other forms of art is the amount of time a consumer might tend to spend immersed.
It's entirely possible. Someone should do a study about whether that makes a difference to anything.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
the ****ing worst part about this is that anita's videos are pretty goddamned patient and comprehensive and actually do a pretty damn good job of advocating her point very well and providing lots of things to think about and does in a lot of ways advocate being much more careful with how women are used and portrayed in the medium of video games.
and this drives the various scum hives of gamers and MRA's absolutely insane and she gets this as a result, it's ridiculous
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
though at the same time the zoe quinn thing is ridiculous on all ends and there are only villains
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: the ****ing worst part about this is that anita's videos are pretty goddamned patient and comprehensive
Yeah. After reading about them and the responses, I was expecting them at least to be rather shrill, or maybe ignorant of the games referenced or taken out of context. I actually watched them this morning and they're quite fair and use specific examples in a reasonable manner. She also mentions that she enjoys many of the games mentioned, and participates in the gamer community, and goes out of her way to avoid offending gamers or making any generalizations or stereotypes. She simply talks about the sexist tropes used many in video games.
Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
The Zoe Quinn thing is a huge mess. I read her ex-boyfriend's account with all of the accompanying chat messages and it's clear she is a liar and cheated on him repeatedly. But having said that, what right does he have to ruin her reputation?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
what?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I didn't know about that Quinn story. Sounds kind of like the gaming version of the Anthony Weiner scandal: why would someone's private life matter to these people?
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: the ****ing worst part about this is that anita's videos are pretty goddamned patient and comprehensive
Yeah. After reading about them and the responses, I was expecting them at least to be rather shrill, or maybe ignorant of the games referenced or taken out of context. I actually watched them this morning and they're quite fair and use specific examples in a reasonable manner. She also mentions that she enjoys many of the games mentioned, and participates in the gamer community, and goes out of her way to avoid offending gamers or making any generalizations or stereotypes. She simply talks about the sexist tropes used many in video games.
Yeah, she is pretty thoughtful and fair-minded. She's just starting from what I would call a mistaken opinion about aesthetics, assuming that it's bad for games to include sexist tropes.
But many people are moralists about art these days. She's not alone in making that assumption.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
'These days'?
Anyway, by this strange metric you're using, all anything needs to be to be free from criticism is to call it art. Which is in any event an oversimplification of many video games. People don't tend to imagine themselves as the Thinker, projecting their own lives onto his and imagining adventures for it. People don't tend to go to conventions dressed in the garb of Renaissance figures, much. They don't spend tens or dozens or even hundreds of hours experiencing a single piece of art, however masterful.
Some form of art is necessary for a good game. Visual, aural, in terms of storytelling. But for better or worse, games- of all kinds-involve more interaction than art does. It's not just art, it's a game.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I don't think it should be free from criticism. I just object to the leap from "This work of art has morally problematic aspects" to "This work of art should not have been made, or should not have had those problematic features." Sometimes the thing to do is instead to note the morally troubling aspects of the work, pay attention to the role they play in the work, and enjoy it with that understanding in mind.
And of course while Sarkeesian herself focuses on games, others like her are swarming all over other art forms of all sorts, especially movies and TV--look at any random Jezebel article.
quote:People don't tend to imagine themselves as the Thinker, projecting their own lives onto his and imagining adventures for it. People don't tend to go to conventions dressed in the garb of Renaissance figures, much. They don't spend tens or dozens or even hundreds of hours experiencing a single piece of art, however masterful.
That may or may not make much of a difference to what people take away from games as opposed to, for example, other forms of fiction. It would take some careful work in social psych to really answer a question like that.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I put fiction on a similar level to...well, games that tell a story, for obvious reasons. Not all games do this, of course-and quite a lot of art tells a story too, and can be enormously powerful and meaningful. It's just usually shorter is all, and less of the viewer becomes invested in the story.
As for disapproving of the content, you know as well as anyone that moral and ethical judgments of art and story aren't new at all. It is in fact so very old that when people try it-to completely separate art and story from social conventions of morality-the result is often scorned. They'll lose funding or be threatened with boycotts or even from time to time attacked.
In any event, I don't see what is problematic in saying 'this conveys a toxic message, and we should work on getting over that toxicity as a society'. That's simply one of the ways culture grows and changes.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I don't think it should be free from criticism. I just object to the leap from "This work of art has morally problematic aspects" to "This work of art should not have been made, or should not have had those problematic features." Sometimes the thing to do is instead to note the morally troubling aspects of the work, pay attention to the role they play in the work, and enjoy it with that understanding in mind.
Which is, straight up, exactly what Sarkeesian makes sure to put down her position as:
quote:Remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
But I think her view is that the games she criticizes would have been better without the problematic aspects. I disagree with that.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
But I think her view is that the games she criticizes would have been better without the problematic aspects. I disagree with that.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Huh. Deleted post?
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
No, just a double post.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
So are you simply against critique of art, then? Because what you seem to be describing-'Here is how this might be better, here is what was especially good about it'-seems to be the heart of criticism of just about anything.
Her problem is not that people make games she disapproves of, it is this expression of cultural sexism. That's what she really disapproves of. So it seems as though when someone encounters an aspect of culture that they disapprove of, they should...what, just try to see the silver lining and be quiet or something?
I don't think that's what you're actually saying, mind. But this seems like one of those esoteric Destineer viewpoints, rather thoroughly divorced from real experience. I mean, 'now' people are moralistic about art? People should not criticize art and story they find problematic? And isn't this a bit ironic anyway>
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: But I think her view is that the games she criticizes would have been better without the problematic aspects. I disagree with that.
What do you think she defines as the 'problematic aspects?'
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:So are you simply against critique of art, then? Because what you seem to be describing-'Here is how this might be better, here is what was especially good about it'-seems to be the heart of criticism of just about anything.
No, I'm very much in favor of critiquing art as art. What I object to is people who act like the step from "there is a moral problem with this work of art" to "there is a problem with it as art" is obvious and doesn't need to be filled in.
Moreover, I object to people who criticize art on the basis that it cultivates harmful attitudes in people. Probably it does, probably watching Deadwood is likely to make some viewers more sexist, but that doesn't mean the artistic vision that went into Deadwood was in any way flawed, or that the show should have been made differently.
Let me give you an example of the way legitimate criticism of art can involve moral issues.
In the most recent season of Game of Thrones, there was an episode where Jaime Lannister raped Cersei. The director of the episode later revealed that it was ambiguous, in his opinion, whether the sex was consensual.
No sane person who watched the episode could possibly reach that conclusion. It was just a rape scene; she kept saying no the whole time. So there were at least two big things wrong with that episode as art. First, the director did not achieve his aim in creating an ambiguous scene. Second, Jaime--who had been garnering audience sympathy for some time now, which sympathy was important to his role in the story--suddenly looks like a horrible human being who would rape the person he loves the most. So we end up disgusted with a guy we're supposed to be rooting for, and nothing good for the story is achieved thereby.
Now, the moral badness of the scene is part of what makes it a bad scene aesthetically. It's a piece of the puzzle. But just pointing out the moral problems with it is not enough to criticize it aesthetically. I need to also do the work of showing that the moral faults of the work lead to aesthetic problems with it.
quote:I don't think that's what you're actually saying, mind. But this seems like one of those esoteric Destineer viewpoints, rather thoroughly divorced from real experience.
On the contrary, I think the view takes a bit of nuance to state, but it comes from a place of common sense. Anyone who has enjoyed a mean joke while fully recognizing how mean it is knows that moral badness can be funny. And humor is a form of art. What isn't always so obvious to people is that moral badness can be beautiful, or poignant, or good in all sorts of ways that matter to art.
quote:What do you think she defines as the 'problematic aspects?'
Well, for example, I gather from one of her videos that she thinks the scene with the dead hooker's ghost in Bioshock is problematic.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
This is a difficult one for me. I more or less see the problems in gaming that Anita points out and I think that people are definitely anonymously sending her terrible, misogynistic threats online.
On the other hand, I've found the videos of hers I've watched to be shallow and sometimes inaccurate and it disturbing that she disallows comments and doesn't engage with people who disagree with her respectfully. Just listing examples that you think (sometimes inaccurately) match your thesis without analysis or followup seems of limited use to me.
But that's fine. However, I've gotten a strong scammer vibe from her and a little bit of looking into her seems to potentially back this up. She's claimed to be a gamer, but there's video of her from before she was on this route saying that she never really played video games. I'm not doubting that she's received some pretty awful stuff, but she has struck me as consciously farming outrage to promote herself, similar to Susan Wilson.
In any contentious, emotional issue, there is plenty of room for people to con people without putting too much effort into it. This is a shame because they tend to be a lot better at attracting attention than people legitimately concerned with addressing it and they crowd these people out. Several seem to have glommed onto women in STEM and I get the feeling (though I could be wrong) that Anita is one of them.
So, I was primed to be skeptical of this and with that frame of mind, if you look at the tweet screenshot, there's a far bit about this that suggests to me the Anita may be behind this. Specifically, the screen shows someone looking at the tweets 12 seconds after the last one was posted. There was no search filled in and the user was logged out. It's possible that Anita (or whomever took the screen shot) somehow legitimately ended up with a screen like that, but that looks a lot like someone wrote those tweets, logged out so that the name wouldn't show up, and then took the screen shot.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Which screen shot are you talking about?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Here it is (warning: that link contains some really awful written statements)
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Seems unlikely that she'd put her home address up like that. And her parents' address.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I'd be interested to read respectful critics of her views, if you have any links you can share.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Seems unlikely that she'd put her home address up like that. And her parents' address.
If she faked the tweets, why would you think that she'd use the actual addresses in them?
They are blacked out in Anita's post and the tweets were quickly taken down, so they were only available for a likely very short time.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
When we're talking about disallowing comments is that that she is blocking Youtube comments on her Youtube video posts
I have no idea why that isn't considered a universally appropriate move. It's Youtube.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I've seen some fine, fine Youtube comments from time to time.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I have a few academic critiques of her points and her general analytical methodology and questions for her base premises but they get lost in an ocean of hate so
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
are we going to retroactively decide that she purposefully got her own videos taken off youtube to feed her feminist conspiracy or
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Dest, It's been a while since I looked at this. Most of the criticism were YouTube videos posted in response to hers. There are a wide range of them that are not abusive and raise what I felt were good points, although it is admittedly hard to determine at a glance between those and the abusive ones.
A lot of them were the of the sort that her opinions were simplistic and lacking in context (e.g. much of her Damsels in Distress focused on games from the 80s, but didn't acknowledge the context of games in the 80s). Many also pointed out that her descriptions of some of the games were way off base (the strippers in Hitman is a recent example of this). A few talked about how games are largely aimed at boys (and some men) because they are the ones by far the ones buying the games (Mass Effect and femShep from the Ms. Mister one springs to mind).
---
I do remember a few instances of bad behavior that also colored my opinion.
[ September 01, 2014, 07:13 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: When we're talking about disallowing comments is that that she is blocking Youtube comments on her Youtube video posts
I have no idea why that isn't considered a universally appropriate move. It's Youtube.
No we're not. At least I'm not. I'm talking about disallowing comments on FeministFrequency.com.
[editing out something unhelpful]
[ September 01, 2014, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: MrSquicky ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: are we going to retroactively decide that she purposefully got her own videos taken off youtube to feed her feminist conspiracy or
I'm not sure what the right way is to respond to this. I think that we'd all be better off if you behaved respectfully, but that doesn't seem like something that is going to happen.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
That's a tone argument, dude. Tool of the oppressors. Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I know this is apologetics but why couldn't she be a gamer who lost touch with them (Around 2010) and then reconnected with them since because she decided she was passionate about exploring the theme of feminism within the medium?
Maybe she felt embarrassed to admit she played video games growing up?
I dunno, I mean I'd be very interested in hearing her response to those clips for sure.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I'm actually not super interested in the question of whether she's a real gamer. Seems like an ad hominem to me. Whether she's a member of the community or an outside critic, it doesn't change the aptness (or not) of her observations.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: are we going to retroactively decide that she purposefully got her own videos taken off youtube to feed her feminist conspiracy or
I'm not sure what the right way is to respond to this. I think that we'd all be better off if you behaved respectfully, but that doesn't seem like something that is going to happen.
the right way to respond to this is to probably chill and not feel so immediately and directly assailed. especially don't use that assailment to patronize someone else's foregone apparent lack of capacity to behave respectfully.
the conspiracymongering around anita is at present literally insane. it really is. there is no denying it. i do not doubt for a second that people are going to literally accuse her of setting up her own youtube video takedown which was a real thing that actually happened.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I have seen one of the links Mr. Squicky shared, the one about her being a 'real gamer' or not.
I admit I have a problem seeking out evidence that might contradict her claims like I should. It's not the way a skeptic should think about things, but damnit, I *have* followed up on more than a few critiques of hers on the Internet and holy freaking hell, they so often tend to be horrifying, shameful expressions of violent misogyny to the extent of 'embarrassed to be a male gamer' occurs to me more than once. I know that's not the sum of criticism of her work, of course. Destineer for example criticizes her work and is entirely free of that sort of thing. (I'm not trying to damn you with faint praise or anything, Destineer. You're just an example is all.) You do as well, Mr. Squicky.
Now that said, the video linked there does seem to leap to its own desired conclusion. There is a flat out contradiction indicated by her lecture footage. The fact that it proves she is not or was not a 'real gamer', on the other hand, isn't quite proven. She certainly appears to be deceptive on that, and it would take some significant explanation before it could be set aside as an example of dishonesty, yes. But the question is: was she misleading in those lectures, or misleading in her critique of videogames?
I suppose my question becomes, though: what if she is a clever media manipulator? That's a problem if true and should definitely color perceptions of her and call for increased skepticism when viewing her work. But if she is? If all it needed was a little nudge to lift the lid on all this disgusting cultural slime bubbling just under the surface in gamer culture? Hey. I may not end up liking her as an honest commentator on culture, but that's still a useful freaking service.
(I say 'lift the lid' as though it's not known to anyone with even a little experience delving into an online video game or forum.)
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: So, I was primed to be skeptical of this and with that frame of mind, if you look at the tweet screenshot, there's a far bit about this that suggests to me the Anita may be behind this. Specifically, the screen shows someone looking at the tweets 12 seconds after the last one was posted. There was no search filled in and the user was logged out. It's possible that Anita (or whomever took the screen shot) somehow legitimately ended up with a screen like that, but that looks a lot like someone wrote those tweets, logged out so that the name wouldn't show up, and then took the screen shot.
Here's what it looks like to me. Someone starts getting horrible tweets directed to them in their timeline. They note the poster's handle, then hit block. The sooner you block someone, the sooner they are likely to stop tweeting at you since they know you won't see it anyway. (Or at least make a new account and start again.) But when you block someone, you can no longer see their tweets, and tweets that are harassing and threatening usually get deleted quickly to remove the evidence. So as soon as you block them, you log out and go to their timeline so you can grab a screenshot and have evidence that it happened. If you were online when the abuse started, which you likely were because the abuser probably waits until you tweet so they know you're there, you probably end up with a screenshot very much like that one.
Some women who deal with this tell their followers not to report the abuse to Twitter, because if Twitter agrees it's abuse all they do is delete the tweets, and if that happens before the person being harassed sees it and gets screenshots they don't have any evidence it happened for their "in case something happens" file.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I'm actually not super interested in the question of whether she's a real gamer. Seems like an ad hominem to me. Whether she's a member of the community or an outside critic, it doesn't change the aptness (or not) of her observations.
It is an ad hominem and intended to be so. I'm not trying to discredit her arguments; I'm trying to demonstrate why my image of her is someone who I could see creating fake rape tweets to garner publicity, which led me to react critically to this situation.
It is possible that I am majorly biased, but does my analysis of the posted screenshot seem completely off base to people? Do the things I noticed not seem kind of hinky? Is there an obvious other path to get those results that is completely innocent that seems reasonable?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
And Eljay provided one right before I posted. Yeah, that sounds reasonable. The piece I was missing was needing to log out to see the blocked poster. Given that, I think my initial suspicion is very likely wrong and this is more of the horrible stuff that's been dumped on her that no one should have to go through.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
The other thing is that there are just so many examples of people saying horrible things to her, why would she make this one up and risk her credibility if it comes to light? All else aside, she's media savvy and she's not stupid. The only thing this particular set of threats had that others apparently didn't is her home address. That's not a big enough differentiator in how people will view it to make it worth the risk.
So, yeah, I think it's real. And no matter what you think of her criticisms, the way a vocal minority of gamers respond to them make it clear that gaming does have a misogyny problem. Luckily, every time a new video comes out and this reliably happens more and more gamers and game media outlets are disgusted by it and take a stand with her. Men making it clear that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated is the thing that will do the most to stop it, unfortunately, because the men who are the problem don't value women's opinions.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
Hi, I'm a new poster. Interesting topic.
It's possible that Anita Sarkeesian got some genuinely harrassing comments from male teenagers who felt she was attacking their hobby. The problem is her reaction *afterwards* which seems to consist entirely of whining about these unpleasant insults/messages and entirely ignoring legitimate rebuttals to her arguments.
Playing the victim allows Anita Sarkeesian to avoid addressing well thought out rebuttals to her arguments. Playing up the fact that Sarkeesian received mean threats allows her supporters and ideological kin to avoid dealing with those same rebuttals.
She has said several times that she was attacked because her attackers were trying to preserve video games as a male space. It's a curious thing though, how women are just as free to spend their money on whatever that they'd like, and how they're free to spend their time however they'd like, yet the people who still end up being the core consumers of non-mobile gaming happens to be overwhelmingly male.
The answer that Social Justice Warriors and feminists have settled on is that women aren't part of the "serious" video game community as consumers because the male fans are, somehow, preventing them from being eager about spending endless hours playing Dark Souls or Diablo 3 because sexism.
The fact that the sexes could be pyschologically different and that spending endless hours playing challening or competitive games is inherently less appealing to women than men is never considered. One thing is clear, feminists and SJWs have noticed that the "serious" video game culture has developed to be a space occupied mainly by males, and they find this threatening.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Hi, and welcome to the forum.
The thing your argument misses is that there are plenty of women who do enjoy console and PC gaming, and do vote with our dollars, and would like more games that we can play without having to participate in sexist acts to advance the game and deal with sexist commentary if we play online and enter voice chat.
I am a 41 year old woman. I have a standing date every Monday night with 2 - 4 other women, depending on who's available, to shoot stuff on Xbox. I spent upwards of 12 hours over the weekend playing Diablo 3 with another group.
I am not going to list games to prove some sort of cred. We are here. We exist. But even if we didn't, games as an art are still a valid target of criticism. It's a sign that the medium is growing up that it is getting this sort of attention. You should be thrilled.
Also, how did you happen to come across the forum? Because from your post, I would guess that you're searching for forums having this conversation and then pasting the same response in all of them. Just an observation.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror: Hi, I'm a new poster. Interesting topic.
Hi Clive.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, few things are as obnoxious as 'whining' about 'unpleasant' attacks such as deluges of threats of death, rape, and death-rape. Such a nuisance!
You may very well not like what she says. Square deal! Maybe I am a feminist social justice warrior. But frankly? This stuff isn't 'unpleasant' and it's not 'whining' to object to it. Get on board with that, or get ready to continue being marginalized as a creep by everyone outside your particular choir.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Well, few things are as obnoxious as 'whining' about 'unpleasant' attacks such as deluges of threats of death, rape, and death-rape. Such a nuisance!
You may very well not like what she says. Square deal! Maybe I am a feminist social justice warrior. But frankly? This stuff isn't 'unpleasant' and it's not 'whining' to object to it. Get on board with that, or get ready to continue being marginalized as a creep by everyone outside your particular choir.
It's also not just "mean" either. He's going out of his way to trivialize what Sarkeesian (and others) have experienced. Trying to make it seem that she's just whining and overreacting, which is a very common way to dismiss and silence people.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
And as for around here, not speaking for the scuzzy stream of any kind of controversial topic commentary on YouTube, MrSquicky raised some reasonable and rational objections to Sarkeesian's work. A significant part of that is because he's got cred around here, but as and probably more important is that he didn't start off not just minimizing threats of death and rape but also actually criticized her for objecting to it.
If you're Clive, we'll know very soon.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Don't feed the obvious troll, people.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: So, yeah, I think it's real. And no matter what you think of her criticisms, the way a vocal minority of gamers respond to them make it clear that gaming does have a misogyny problem. Luckily, every time a new video comes out and this reliably happens more and more gamers and game media outlets are disgusted by it and take a stand with her. Men making it clear that this sort of behavior will not be tolerated is the thing that will do the most to stop it, unfortunately, because the men who are the problem don't value women's opinions.
I doubt there's much that can be done in the foreseeable future about online death and rape threats, except maybe through Anonymous-style hacktivist vigilante methods. The MRA types have successfully created a self-reinforcing echo chamber for themselves. It's probably not going to go away until a sufficient number of them die or lose interest.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
There's plenty *being* done that will solve this problem. Video game companies are starting to realize half their customers are women, and that increasingly men *do* care about interesting stories that don't marginalize one of the genders.
Game companies like Ubisoft were laughed at (by men) when they said rendering female assassins would cost to much.
I'm biased because Anita's videos have impacted me deeply. But I don't think I'm especially unusual, I'm just a man who was fed this his entire life, and still somehow managed to be shown how sordid and awful a lot of it was. I guess I was ready for the message, even though I'm sure I would have been very opposed to Anita's message as a teenager. I wouldn't have threatened her, but I would have probably joked about her being a lesbian, or being sexually frustrated, or not a real gamer.
If it turned out Anita was laughing all the way to the bank and kept 90% of the Kickstarter funds, it wouldn't change the truth of the things she had said, or the examples she provided. And for that I'll always be grateful.
The prophet of the church I belong to did (what I feel) are some pretty rotten things as well. If we're only willing to listen to non-sinners, we're pretty screwed.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I referred to the vocal minority for a reason. When people who don't think this crap is OK don't speak up, the people who do assume they agree. Views that are unpopular don't go away overnight, but they do become less comfortable. And that kills the echo chamber.
ETA: To Destineer.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: Hi, and welcome to the forum.
The thing your argument misses is that there are plenty of women who do enjoy console and PC gaming, and do vote with our dollars, and would like more games that we can play without having to participate in sexist acts to advance the game and deal with sexist commentary if we play online and enter voice chat.
I am a 41 year old woman. I have a standing date every Monday night with 2 - 4 other women, depending on who's available, to shoot stuff on Xbox. I spent upwards of 12 hours over the weekend playing Diablo 3 with another group.
I am not going to list games to prove some sort of cred. We are here. We exist. But even if we didn't, games as an art are still a valid target of criticism. It's a sign that the medium is growing up that it is getting this sort of attention. You should be thrilled.
The criticism is off a bullying kind. A serious hobby of many people is being attacked, and when legitimate rebuttals of that "criticism" are put forth, it's soundly ignored in favor of sensationalizing abusive comments from 14 year old males.
I don't doubt that a subset of serious game nerds are female, but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority is male. It's a development that has to be satisfyingly explained. I'm a Reagan millenial, and my female cohorts no doubt played "Sonic The Hedgehog" and "Mario" nearly as much as the boys, yet as we grew up, it's the males that continued to be into that stuff, that continued to buy the newer consoles and newer games while the girls by and large moved on. Why have things happened this way? This is the question that some feminists are wrestling with as they look out and see the video game industry as an ever growing and integral part of popular culture.
It was mainly dudes who bothered to line up at stores when consoles launch, who populate the various internet video game boards, who, by and large, produce and design video games (with some notable exceptions) and consume them. Random image from a "League of Legends" championship:
Where are the women? I'm pretty certain that most of those guys would be more excited to be there with more girls around, but the girls aren't there, and they aren't there because they aren't playing that game in question at the same rate that male gamers are, and that's hardly the sort of game you can write a "it's sexist!" treatise about.
In short, young women aren't as interested in video games that aren't on phones as much as men. This is no one's fault, but that doesn't deter some feminists from seeing that gaming community as a target of unanswerable shaming/bullying. The youtube vlogger "thunderoote" has taken great pains in rebutting Anita Sarkeesian, as have countless others, but I'm not sure why they're bothering, because Anita Sarkeesian and her allies are operating from the feeling that the core gaming community being mainly male is a threat, and you can't argue with feelings.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:the girls aren't there, and they aren't there because they aren't playing that game in question at the same rate that male gamers are
I have an attractive female friend who plays League of Legends. She went to one large convention, and will never go again because of how she was treated. In other words, quite specifically, she at least is not attending LoL championships because men treated her dismissively and abusively when she did.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Oy. So what if she pays attention to the rebuttals? Are you really saying that people feel "bullied" by her commentary? Are people with this *ahem* serious hobby *really* worried it's going to be taken away like a half eaten lollipop?
This is the important thing that makes death threats in response to academic criticism less noteworthy by comparison?
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:the girls aren't there, and they aren't there because they aren't playing that game in question at the same rate that male gamers are
I have an attractive female friend who plays League of Legends. She went to one large convention, and will never go again because of how she was treated. In other words, quite specifically, she at least is not attending LoL championships because men treated her dismissively and abusively when she did.
We're now supposed to look at the young men in that image as likely sexists who are keeping away the eager female LoL championship viewers. The question of if there are enough female gamers interested in "League of Legends" enough to attend LoL spectator events is entirely sidestepped. One the one hand you have the people who are perceiving the "maleness" of the video game industry and gaming consumers as a threat, on the other hand you have many male gamers who don't share that feeling but nonetheless want to score points with feminists/women by parroting Anita Sarkeesian's points and giving her awards to prove they aren't the bad guys (whoever those might be.)
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Oy. So what if she pays attention to the rebuttals? Are you really saying that people feel "bullied" by her commentary? Are people with this *ahem* serious hobby *really* worried it's going to be taken away like a half eaten lollipop?
The combination of her hectoring, and the fact that her hectoring is amplified by journalists in the gaming circles and in some mainstream outlets, while simultaneously silencing and ignoring rebuttals to her arguments, amounts to bullying. Basically those "serious" gamers are being seen as losers who should shut up and put up with with this hectoring/silencing because they're just gamer nerds anyway, how dare they talk back.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
I don't think you know what bullying means. But you're a troll anyway, so I shouldn't be surprised.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: I disagree. Check out this post, for example:
I referred to the vocal minority for a reason. When people who don't think this crap is OK don't speak up, the people who do assume they agree. Views that are unpopular don't go away overnight, but they do become less comfortable. And that kills the echo chamber.
ETA: To Destineer.
That's a strange blog post in the link... the suggestion that the only question under debate is whether players are allowed to choose the sex of their character in games is quite a distortion of the actual issue.
From the link:
quote:Literally the worst possible thing that can happen here is equality. That’s the worst outcome, that’s the nightmare scenario. If, today, every AAA publisher said “We will start to include women more in our games and represent them better”, the only actual difference this would make to anybody shrieking about how feminists are destroying games is that they might have to pick their gender in the next Call of Duty game. Terrifying, isn’t it. Stuff of nightmares.
This is just not an accurate way of portraying the issue. The real worry is that there may no longer be games with elements of exploitation, body horror, and sexual violence. If you think it's worthwhile to have games that explore these themes--which is my view, although I think many bad games do a poor job of exploring them--then there is a very real threat to some of the things you enjoy about the genre.
Anyway, people can say that sort of thing all they want, ban people from their forums, etc. I just don't see it having any appreciable effect on the amount of threats someone like Sarkeesian receives. The offenders will always have somewhere they can congregate, somewhere on 4chan or something, and I don't see much chance of them changing their ways.
@BlackBlade: I didn't say there's no way to make progress on the issues Sarkeesian concerns herself with. I said there's no way I can think of to stop the vocal/abusive minority from threatening her with death and rape.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by Risuena: I don't think you know what bullying means. But you're a troll anyway, so I shouldn't be surprised.
No seriously, this is bullying. Male gamers are being told to shut up and listen to Anita Sarkeesian and not talk back or rebut her. If you rebut her, your arguments will be ignored or deleted. Anita's voice is automatically given more legitimacy and weight than anyone who would respectfully disagree with her.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:One the one hand you have the people who are perceiving the "maleness" of the video game industry and gaming consumers as a threat, on the other hand you have many male gamers who don't share that feeling but nonetheless want to score points with feminists/women by parroting Anita Sarkeesian's points and giving her awards to prove they aren't the bad guys (whoever those might be.)
I think everybody should agree that people issuing death threats, or personally insulting Anita or people who agree with her, are most certainly bad guys.
Do you disagree?
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
I don't disagree. Do you disagree with the assertion that the death threats are being sensationalized by Sarkeesian and her allies allows them to ignore real counter arguments? That Sarkeesian shutting down comments on her youtube vids allows her to evade both death threats *and* legitimate criticism?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Ok, now we have a more definitive ding on the Clive detector with the 'males who disagree are fawning on feminists, not speaking authentic opinions' tripe. One or two more like that and I think it'll be fair to call it!
Anyway, you're doing it again, man. Unless you're just going to dispute the accuracy of Tom's anecdote, your response to a case of a female being actively driven away from the 'serious hobby' to use your words that she enjoyed enough to attent a convention was to totally pivot away from that as though it was irrelevant.
No one gets a pass to be a schmuck just because they really, really like a hobby.
Oh, I'm just going to head off a likely response to Tom assuming you do address it again: 'attractive female serious gamer' is not a contradiction in terms, nor is it an indicator that she was a 'fake' gamer seeking out male attention and money by playing on sex appeal.
(Mr Squicky, speaking for myself, if you amplify and multiply this stuff here by at least 5, you can imagine the difficulty in seeing I offensive, non hateful critiques of Sarkeesian.)
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
For example, how do you feel about the excessive amount of depictions of prostitutes (and violence committed against them) in video games?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror: I don't disagree. Do you disagree with the assertion that the death threats are being sensationalized by Sarkeesian and her allies allows them to ignore real counter arguments? That Sarkeesian shutting down comments on her youtube vids allows her to evade both death threats *and* legitimate criticism?
Death threats are a valid reason for anyone to shut down a YouTube comment thread. It's absurd to suggest it's not. Taking you seriously for a moment here, consider what you are saying: that for someone to espouse her position, threats of being murdered and raped are a reasonable price. It's nuts.
I'm sure you don't like to hear that, because it makes both your own side of this dispute so repellant and also so easy to dismiss, but there it is. You don't just get to *shrug off* when your camp has an ape throwing excrement. Sure, if he or she is doing so elsewhere there's a fine tradition in politics as old as politics itself for being allowed to pretend it doesn't happen.
You don't get to do that when they're right there in the mainstream debate, though. You've seen a way to have legitimate criticism responded to in this very thread. It's simple: don't roll your eyes and dismiss it when someone threatens to kill and rape someone for an idea.
If you can't refrain from that, you're not worth talking to anyway, and thanks for identifying yourself.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Do you disagree with the assertion that the death threats are being sensationalized by Sarkeesian and her allies allows them to ignore real counter arguments?
I'm deeply curious: what sort of dumbass counter-argument needs to be made against "video games and gamer culture in general should be more inclusive of women?" What is being asked of gamers that they should not want to supply? What is being demanded that is unreasonable?
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror:
quote:Originally posted by Risuena: I don't think you know what bullying means. But you're a troll anyway, so I shouldn't be surprised.
No seriously, this is bullying. Male gamers are being told to shut up and listen to Anita Sarkeesian and not talk back or rebut her. If you rebut her, your arguments will be ignored or deleted. Anita's voice is automatically given more legitimacy and weight than anyone who would respectfully disagree with her.
This is either an oversight or a lie. There are two people in this discussion besides yourself who are challenging Sarkeesian, and they aren't being told to shut up. They're both male as well, I think.
Your window on not being a proven liar on this is shrinking rapidly.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
Anita Sarkeesian provoked a strong response by attacking the hobby of millions of people as sexist. A small subset of those people violently threatened her. Unfortunate as that is, that does not give Anita Sarkeesian (and her journalist allies) an excuse to sidestep any legitimate rebuttals, which is the whole point of sensenationalizing those "threats." The narrative should be "Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats" instead of it being merely "OMG Anita got death threats, poor victim."
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
Also, note that objects in mirror has not actually rebutted Sarkeesian. Nor has he been told to shut up. He has just accused her and other women of being bullied, when they have been subject to harassment.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Do you disagree with the assertion that the death threats are being sensationalized by Sarkeesian and her allies allows them to ignore real counter arguments?
I'm deeply curious: what sort of dumbass counter-argument needs to be made against "video games and gamer culture in general should be more inclusive of women?" What is being asked of gamers that they should not want to supply? What is being demanded that is unreasonable?
Again, this is a distortion of the issue. I think games and gamers should be more inclusive and welcoming to women. But anyone who thinks this means Dragon Age or Bioshock Infinite should have been different in any way is wrong, IMO.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
Except Tom is calling out "video games and gamer culture in general" and not specific games. He may think that Dragon Age or Bioshock could be better or more inclusive, but he's not talking about them specifically. They don't represent games or the culture by themselves, they're one facet of the culture.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror:
quote:Originally posted by Risuena: I don't think you know what bullying means. But you're a troll anyway, so I shouldn't be surprised.
No seriously, this is bullying. Male gamers are being told to shut up and listen to Anita Sarkeesian and not talk back or rebut her. If you rebut her, your arguments will be ignored or deleted. Anita's voice is automatically given more legitimacy and weight than anyone who would respectfully disagree with her.
This is either an oversight or a lie. There are two people in this discussion besides yourself who are challenging Sarkeesian, and they aren't being told to shut up. They're both male as well, I think.
Your window on not being a proven liar on this is shrinking rapidly.
First of all, I have no idea why you're being so nasty. Calling me a liar is uncalled for.
Seocnd of all, I was not speaking specifically of this thread, but from what I see in feminist and certain gaming websites. There the tone is definitely one of bullying and "shut up and listen to Anita."
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Right, but Sarkeesian criticizes both those games heavily in her videos.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror: Anita Sarkeesian provoked a strong response by attacking the hobby of millions of people as sexist. A small subset of those people violently threatened her. Unfortunate as that is, that does not give Anita Sarkeesian (and her journalist allies) an excuse to sidestep any legitimate rebuttals, which is the whole point of sensenationalizing those "threats." The narrative should be "Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats" instead of it being merely "OMG Anita got death threats, poor victim."
The rebuttals can stand or fall on their own. She's not obligated to respond to them.
You're saying she's "sensationalizing" things by pointing out that they are occurring and mentioning - with such temerity - that they should not occur. You would seem to prefer she take it quietly, as if it's in some way deserved or acceptable.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
She criticizes a lot of games, and always with the disclaimer that it's possible to enjoy the games despite the issues she has with them. And she criticizes a lot of games because the issues she's pointing out are common throughout gaming.
Maybe the developers of Dragon Age and Bioshock have legitimate reasons to make the choices she criticized and maybe the story backs them up (I haven't played Bioshock and it's been a while since I've played Dragon Age). Other games, might too. But a lot of them are very much taking a lazy way out and using women as decoration, as objects or saying women are too hard too animate.
To my mind at least, her point isn't that any one or two or a handful of games have problematic depictions of women, but that many games have them.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Do you disagree with the assertion that the death threats are being sensationalized by Sarkeesian and her allies allows them to ignore real counter arguments?
I'm deeply curious: what sort of dumbass counter-argument needs to be made against "video games and gamer culture in general should be more inclusive of women?" What is being asked of gamers that they should not want to supply? What is being demanded that is unreasonable?
It's an unreasonable demand because the hardcore gaming world might have become a male space due to psychological differences between the sexes. Maybe women don't care to spend countless hours playing GTA V or Fifa 2014 soccer and are more likely to see that sort of thing as a waste of time. The demand of "video gamers and gamer culture shoudl be more inclusive of women" is unreasonable -- and insulting -- because it assumes that gamers and gaming culture were taking active steps in prohibiting would be female gamers from joining their ranks.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:But anyone who thinks this means Dragon Age or Bioshock Infinite should have been different in any way is wrong, IMO.
Wrong? Wrong? I mean, I played both games. I even enjoyed most of what they brought to the table, although my criticisms of each would be lengthy and varied (ranging from the brutal slog of the Deep Roads in DA to the false moral choices and abrupt tonal mismatches of BI). And some of those criticisms would indeed revolve around the games' treatment of women (although I think BI was less problematic than the original Bioshock in that regard, and both games were less problematic than Dishonored.) Dragon Age is a teenage male power fantasy that aspires to more and mostly fails to deliver; that it manages to aspire means that its failures -- especially the game's simplistic, demeaning handling of "relationships" -- are noticeable and jarring. Both BI and Dragon Age do a lot right. But I don't think that doing a lot right means that you can't come in for criticism for not doing even more right. Bioware insists that it's finally got the message, and that its portrayals of romance in DA3 will have some genuine depth and diversity. Of course, they've said that consistently, pretty much since Jade Empire. (I don't think the subject was on the radar much during KotOR.) As a company, they should be lauded for trying, but people should also call them out for consistently failing -- and consistently failing in many of the same ways, over and over again, because the people who make the games share an outlook with a fraction of their user base and thus don't seem to think outside those boxes.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Note: what I find *pathetic* is not that some people disagree and argue with Sarkessian. It's that some people think that their disagreement with Sarkeesian relegates the nasty crap happening to her to an afterthought. Like this:
"Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats"
Nobody has to try to address the threats if they don't want to, but when a discussion *about the threats* gets steered toward the topics of her gamer cred or the fairness of her critiques, it shows that some people think their view of her sincerity has some bearing on whether she deserves the treatment she's getting. And it really, really doesn't.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror: Anita Sarkeesian provoked a strong response by attacking the hobby of millions of people as sexist. A small subset of those people violently threatened her. Unfortunate as that is, that does not give Anita Sarkeesian (and her journalist allies) an excuse to sidestep any legitimate rebuttals, which is the whole point of sensenationalizing those "threats." The narrative should be "Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats" instead of it being merely "OMG Anita got death threats, poor victim."
The rebuttals can stand or fall on their own. She's not obligated to respond to them.
You're saying she's "sensationalizing" things by pointing out that they are occurring and mentioning - with such temerity - that they should not occur. You would seem to prefer she take it quietly, as if it's in some way deserved or acceptable.
She's not just pointing they're occuring -- her whole routine has now become one of wallowing in victimhood because some people threatened her online. The more she does this the more she can pretend her original arguments were so good that there's no need to respond to critical rebuttals. She may not be obligated to respond to them, but she would certainly be more brave and serious if she attempted.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:It's an unreasonable demand because the hardcore gaming world might have become a male space due to psychological differences between the sexes. Maybe women don't care to spend countless hours playing GTA V or Fifa 2014 soccer and are more likely to see that sort of thing as a waste of time.
What demands do you think feminists are making of the developers of FIFA that would negatively impact the existing player base?
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
"her whole routine has now become one of wallowing in victimhood because some people threatened her online"
That's not true, she's still producing critiques.
And it's wrong of you to call pointing out the misbehavior "wallowing in victimhood", and...truly curious that you don't think "my hobby is being threatened by FEMINISTS" isn't more wallow-y than that.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Note: what I find *pathetic* is not that some people disagree and argue with Sarkessian. It's that some people think that their disagreement with Sarkeesian relegates the nasty crap happening to her to an afterthought. Like this:
"Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats"
Nobody has to try to address the threats if they don't want to, but when a discussion *about the threats* gets steered toward the topics of her gamer cred or the fairness of her critiques, it shows that some people think their view of her sincerity has some bearing on whether she deserves the treatment she's getting. And it really, really doesn't.
Well, how about when she uses the threats themselves to buttress those same arguments, which she and her allies are obviously doing? The narrative is "Anita told hard truths and got death threats for it. This is obviously misogyny, not different from the sort of misogyny she was initially describing." The death threat issue and her thesis have been conflated by Sarkeesian's allies specifically as to buttress Sarkeesian's initial laughably weak arguments.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I feel like you don't need to be female to have the opinion that Fifa 2014 soccer is a special waste of time.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
Fair enough, but it's a popular series and I'm certain it's mainly dudes playing it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Note: what I find *pathetic* is not that some people disagree and argue with Sarkessian. It's that some people think that their disagreement with Sarkeesian relegates the nasty crap happening to her to an afterthought. Like this:
"Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats"
Nobody has to try to address the threats if they don't want to, but when a discussion *about the threats* gets steered toward the topics of her gamer cred or the fairness of her critiques, it shows that some people think their view of her sincerity has some bearing on whether she deserves the treatment she's getting. And it really, really doesn't.
Well, how about when she uses the threats themselves to buttress those same arguments, which she and her allies are obviously doing? The narrative is "Anita told hard truths and got death threats for it. This is obviously misogyny, not different from the sort of misogyny she was initially describing." The death threat issue and her thesis have been conflated by Sarkeesian's allies specifically as to buttress Sarkeesian's initial laughably weak arguments.
Probably because misogyny when challenged acts in precisely the way those making death threats, dismissing her points, or marginalizing the danger do.
If the boot fits.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Right, but Sarkeesian criticizes both those games heavily in her videos.
BI and DA are both exceptional games in that they're a not more thought out and nuanced than many games, but it's sort of like being the tallest dwarf among hobbits, in many respects.
I've been keeping quiet for the most part in this discussion because honestly, embarrassingly, watching her videos was the first time I really stopped to think about the sexist tropes in video games and it's taking me a while to figure out exactly what I think about this. I know, for example, there are also games that have strong female characters and pretty effectively avoid any overtly sexist tropes (I'm playing the android Chrono Trigger remake atm, which is a great example) and I'm not sure exactly how pervasive these tropes are.
But I really am enjoying reading the posts in this thread, so for the love of God, can you guys just all ignore Clive and carry on? It was really interesting before he showed up.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Anytime hatrack needs a single new poster all it has to do is get involved in a potentially contentious discussion involving women's issues
Posted by Mr. Y (Member # 11590) on :
I find it very disturbing that you just assume the new poster is in fact single. Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I do think this issue brings up something of interest on any controversial topic, whether it's political, social, economic, religious, cultural, anything contentious I can think of right now in fact.
It's what to do with the fringes of a given movement or idea. I don't think it's a slam dunk to dismiss someone based on idea association, but I also think it can be a useful indicator marking someone out as a sleaze or someone so fanatic useful conversation isn't possible. 'A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject' I think is close to the exact Churchill quote.
In this instance, sexist and outright misogynistic portrayals are frankly obvious enough that to dismiss them is an indicator. But if you follow that too strictly, you weed out useful discussion such as that offered by MrSquicky and Destineer.
So they get noted, so long as one doesn't associate ideas with fanatics too strictly, as having productive things to say that it's important to hear. But what to do with those really straddling the line of fanaticism? In this case we have a poster who is determined to either minimize the fact of threats of murder and sexual violence, or even to criticize the victim of such threats for complaining.
So I suppose one question is, when faced with someone who is aggressive about offering up something reprehensible that it is actually important to reject publicly, is it better to say 'I'm not discussing this as long as you bring up position x' or is it better to treat it as though they hadn't spoken the fanatic position, and address other points?
I often tend to the former, for a variety of reasons. Anger and distaste, a sort of preemptive weariness, but sometimes fascination (I have been called by one guy in particular both a communist and a royalist, of all things, with the utmost conviction).
But what's the best way to handle that sort of thing? One or the other, or a blend, or something else altogether?
('Fanatic' here is, to some extent, just shorthand. Although in this case I think an unwillingness to say 'threats of murder and sexual violence are unacceptable, those making them ought to be ashamed of themselves and I reject them, even if the person in question DID poke them with a stick beforehand' to be so absurd an so marginal as to be fanatical.)
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:But anyone who thinks this means Dragon Age or Bioshock Infinite should have been different in any way is wrong, IMO.
Wrong? Wrong? I mean, I played both games. I even enjoyed most of what they brought to the table, although my criticisms of each would be lengthy and varied
I suppose in the end my claim is that the moral problems with the portrayal of women in both games were all there to serve the story, and did so well enough that I wouldn't change anything of that sort. Although I like a long RPG and had no problem with the Deep Roads.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Dragon Age is a teenage male power fantasy that aspires to more and mostly fails to deliver; that it manages to aspire means that its failures -- especially the game's simplistic, demeaning handling of "relationships" -- are noticeable and jarring. Both BI and Dragon Age do a lot right. But I don't think that doing a lot right means that you can't come in for criticism for not doing even more right. Bioware insists that it's finally got the message, and that its portrayals of romance in DA3 will have some genuine depth and diversity. Of course, they've said that consistently, pretty much since Jade Empire. (I don't think the subject was on the radar much during KotOR.) As a company, they should be lauded for trying, but people should also call them out for consistently failing -- and consistently failing in many of the same ways, over and over again, because the people who make the games share an outlook with a fraction of their user base and thus don't seem to think outside those boxes.
Specifically to this point: this would be a good criticism if it were important to Dragon Age that the relationships be complex. But the relationships weren't there to be realistic. They were there to help lend the game an "epic movie" feel. So there was no need for them to be deeper or more fleshed-out than the relationships in a Lord of the Rings movie. I think they were a little deeper and more fleshed-out than that, but then the game was much longer than a movie. They served their purpose in the story.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I would also defend the problematic scenes in the original Bioshock, by the way. The game had strong elements of horror, and horror scenes with female victims are very effective. The reasons for this are indeed due to problems with our culture's conception of women. But that is the nature of horror, to lay bare our darker nature and exploit it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The thing is, that can be used to justify some of the most offensive lazy tropes in fiction, like the whole "fridging" issue -- i.e. killing a girlfriend or wife to motivate the hero. It's effective, but it's also horrible.
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
Fridging reminds of the following comment:
I think more male leads should be like Ned Stark.
Killed off to further the character development of his wife and children.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I've actually found that the whole thing involving Sarkeesian has just been a profound example of male gatekeeping — the organized response on the whole to claim that Sarkeesian "isn't a real gamer" is a very astounding thing which even at one point had one gamer analyzing how she uses her thumbs on a control pad and uses it as proof that she doesn't really a real gamers the video games lol.
"No real gamer presses the A button with the top of their thumb like she does. I can tell she obviously doesn't play a good amount of games just from me seeing this hand motion."
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: I would also defend the problematic scenes in the original Bioshock, by the way. The game had strong elements of horror, and horror scenes with female victims are very effective. The reasons for this are indeed due to problems with our culture's conception of women. But that is the nature of horror, to lay bare our darker nature and exploit it.
I think you're saying here that the effect is different from the one we'd get if the victims were portrayed as male. I just want to connect the dots a bit...
I think we're horrified no matter the sex or age of the victim, but for a male gamer there might be the following variations on a standard stop the madness game scene with victims of horrible acts:
Helpless children are being unhelped in really bad ways and it's up to me to be the hero, because they are children and they need help! It really sucks to see helpless miniature people being unhelped like that. Now mind the crossfire, poppets.
Helpless lady type people are being unhelped in really bad ways and it's up to me to be the hero, because they are not as strong and helpwise as me and that's why it's me a man doing the saving. Oh man that's pretty creepy how the Badster is all over those lady type people. Time to rocket grenade some benevolence into that mess.
Helpless man dudes are being unhelped in really bad ways and it's up to me to be the hero because I have the good guns and remember to use the health bolstering goodies I find around me unlike those helpless man dudes. Sawblade blaster FTW.
(Same as previous, but with slight additional wrinkle for some, perhaps) Ouch, it tingles bad to identify so much with those helpless man dudes.
All the variations on horribleness are horrible, of course. And many horror games are a mix of all of the above. But I'm not sure that one type of victim is more effective at inspiring horror.
What it might be more effective at is adding some kind of heroic or chivalric flavor to the experience.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by NobleHunter: Fridging reminds of the following comment:
I think more male leads should be like Ned Stark.
Killed off to further the character development of his wife and children.
...who are then also killed off.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: The thing is, that can be used to justify some of the most offensive lazy tropes in fiction, like the whole "fridging" issue -- i.e. killing a girlfriend or wife to motivate the hero. It's effective, but it's also horrible.
Well, note that what I said about female victimhood was restricted to the horror genre. Works outside that genre aren't necessarily as much about drawing out our dark side, and so it's harder to say that moral fault amounts to aesthetic success in those genres.
But it's also very difficult to codify rules for success in fiction. I can think of many works of fiction where "fridging" (never heard that term before) just succeeds and I would not criticize the author/director/whatever for including it.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
For example, how do you feel about the excessive amount of depictions of prostitutes (and violence committed against them) in video games?
Some mature video games have seedy and adult sequences, some of which depict violence against men and women, and the sleazy world of prostitutes. If a game like "Assassin's Creed" or "GTA V" wants to create a Godfather-esque universe, then it makes no sense to omit prostitutes. Moreover, as for the issue of sex/eroticism in video games in general,these sort of video games (and ones that don't even leave room for this sort of sleaze, like "Dark Souls") are mainly consumed and purchased by males, and I see no problem whatsoever with game designers including whatever erotic elements they'd like to better appeal to their overwhelmingly male base.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by objects in mirror:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Note: what I find *pathetic* is not that some people disagree and argue with Sarkessian. It's that some people think that their disagreement with Sarkeesian relegates the nasty crap happening to her to an afterthought. Like this:
"Anita made arguments that were soundly rebutted by many people, also she got some threats"
Nobody has to try to address the threats if they don't want to, but when a discussion *about the threats* gets steered toward the topics of her gamer cred or the fairness of her critiques, it shows that some people think their view of her sincerity has some bearing on whether she deserves the treatment she's getting. And it really, really doesn't.
Well, how about when she uses the threats themselves to buttress those same arguments, which she and her allies are obviously doing? The narrative is "Anita told hard truths and got death threats for it. This is obviously misogyny, not different from the sort of misogyny she was initially describing." The death threat issue and her thesis have been conflated by Sarkeesian's allies specifically as to buttress Sarkeesian's initial laughably weak arguments.
Probably because misogyny when challenged acts in precisely the way those making death threats, dismissing her points, or marginalizing the danger do.
If the boot fits.
Maybe real mysognists threatened her. That doesn't mean the other people who merely disagreed with her are misogynists, a position that's implicitly attributed to those who merely disagree Sarkeesian, especially when the general negative reaction to Sarkeesian keeps getting painted as one of misogyny rather than gamers merely defending their passion from fatuous critiques.
[ September 03, 2014, 08:22 PM: Message edited by: objects in mirror ]
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I do think this issue brings up something of interest on any controversial topic, whether it's political, social, economic, religious, cultural, anything contentious I can think of right now in fact.
It's what to do with the fringes of a given movement or idea. I don't think it's a slam dunk to dismiss someone based on idea association, but I also think it can be a useful indicator marking someone out as a sleaze or someone so fanatic useful conversation isn't possible. 'A fanatic is someone who won't change his mind and won't change the subject' I think is close to the exact Churchill quote.
In this instance, sexist and outright misogynistic portrayals are frankly obvious enough that to dismiss them is an indicator. But if you follow that too strictly, you weed out useful discussion such as that offered by MrSquicky and Destineer.
So they get noted, so long as one doesn't associate ideas with fanatics too strictly, as having productive things to say that it's important to hear. But what to do with those really straddling the line of fanaticism? In this case we have a poster who is determined to either minimize the fact of threats of murder and sexual violence, or even to criticize the victim of such threats for complaining.
So I suppose one question is, when faced with someone who is aggressive about offering up something reprehensible that it is actually important to reject publicly, is it better to say 'I'm not discussing this as long as you bring up position x' or is it better to treat it as though they hadn't spoken the fanatic position, and address other points?
I often tend to the former, for a variety of reasons. Anger and distaste, a sort of preemptive weariness, but sometimes fascination (I have been called by one guy in particular both a communist and a royalist, of all things, with the utmost conviction).
But what's the best way to handle that sort of thing? One or the other, or a blend, or something else altogether?
('Fanatic' here is, to some extent, just shorthand. Although in this case I think an unwillingness to say 'threats of murder and sexual violence are unacceptable, those making them ought to be ashamed of themselves and I reject them, even if the person in question DID poke them with a stick beforehand' to be so absurd an so marginal as to be fanatical.)
The problem here is that you're moving from the actual discussion itself to policing the discussing and labeling your opponents as "the fringe." Those who natter on about the "fringe" of the other side tend to almost always be blind to the fringe on their own side. It could just as well be that the real "fringe" here is Sarkeesian and her allies who want to create the equivalent of the Hays code for the video game industry, only in line with 3rd wave sjw feminism.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
The metaphorical "superweapon" he speaks of is now being mericlessly deployed against gamers.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Missed this earlier:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: All the variations on horribleness are horrible, of course. And many horror games are a mix of all of the above. But I'm not sure that one type of victim is more effective at inspiring horror.
What it might be more effective at is adding some kind of heroic or chivalric flavor to the experience.
My only rejoinder is that, if you follow the works of horror directors like Dario Argento and John Carpenter, you'll find that they make special use of women as victims, and that this is particularly effective on the screen.
In my opinion the reason has something to do with the same phenomenon that made "women and children first" the law of the sea. Consciously or not, we are taught to perceive women as more innocent and vulnerable than men, and so the bloody death of a woman is a more transgressive and disturbing thing to portray on screen than a man's bloody death. Other things being equal. It probably also has a lot to do with the fact that we're taught to see women's bodies as beautiful in a way that men's are not (both women and men are taught to feel this way), so the murder of an attractive woman is tinged with the sense that something beautiful is being destroyed. This probably explains why women are used in these scenes more often than children.
As always, though, there are no hard and fast rules about what works on screen or on the page, so this is just one aspect of what can work in on-screen horror, no doubt analyzed imperfectly by me.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The metaphorical "superweapon" he speaks of is now being mericlessly deployed against gamers.
In what way? What is all this conversation costing gamers? How are they being inconvenienced?
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
Anitia Sarkeesian and her allies (such as journalists who champion her) are seeking to gain social status by putting down, insulting and patrionizing gamers and pulling the Superweapon of "misogyny!!" accusations when that schtick is not well received by the people who played the games in question and are far more knowledgable than Anita about the context that the sequences she analyses occur in. To not challenge Anita Sarkeesian is to let her implicitly demean gamers and game designers as sexists.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
But game designers and gamers *are* often misogynistic. The body of work speaks for itself.
This conversation sounds so much like the arguments I have with my parents where I talk about the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and they think I'm talking about them. They do well for themselves, but the difference between what they do and what the upper 1% do is like night and day, and yet they feel a psychological need to associate with those who are called successful by society.
Gamers who are no misogynistic are great! But it's not a blemish on your membership in the fan club if you are willing to call a spade a spade. And when you speak out against mysogeny the overwhelming response is, "Get a load of the white knight loooool."
It's like the only way these people can conceive of relationships between men and women is the exchange of sexual favors. It's little wonder these men don't expect anything else out of the women in the games they play. And games can be *so* much better than that, but they haven't been without any exceptions until very recently. Last of Us, Portal, etc. But those are style outliers, not the norm.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Anitia Sarkeesian and her allies (such as journalists who champion her) are seeking to gain social status...
So? I'm curious: what's the worst-case scenario for you, here?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: It's like the only way these people can conceive of relationships between men and women is the exchange of sexual favors.
You know, that's one of the more baffling aspects of the MRA movement, and the way in which is sharply ignores reality. How do they account for the large number of men who are happily married/in committed relationships? Or relationships that are built on love, trust, friendship and mutual respect? Like, I know the MRAs treat the very concept of friendship with women with abject scorn and derision ("friendzoning"), but how do they explain any relationships that aren't transactional? My wife has sex with me because she enjoys it and wants to make me happy, and vice versa. There's no exchange of goods or favors. The idea that a woman is capable of sexual desire and can have sex simply because she wants to seems entirely foreign to them. In fact, they've created an entire system to explain how women trade their sexual "currency" for goods and/or status, which seems to completely ignore reality. At most, it could be an (IMO incorrect) model for explaining one night stands. It completely ignores the experiences of the vast majority of people.
All that being said, "white knighting" is something both Aros and Clive (in several of his iterations) has accused me and others of. Which makes me wonder, where exactly are the females I'm hoping to impress by defending them? My wife doesn't read what I write here, and even if she did, I doubt my opinions on sexist tropes in video games would have any impact on whether or not I have sex. So why would I care?
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I think a lot of the theory is built specifically around "unattainable" women who are sometimes conspicuously attainable by men with a lot of money or status. They think "I'm just as handsome as Donald Trump, therefore <theory>."
And...well, it's reasonably accurate for a very small subset of the population. It just doesn't reflect the majority, like you said, and ignores the whole develop relationships with people who are reciprocally interested strategy.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I don't think Anitia Sarkeesian is off-base in her critiques. I also don't think it takes away from what are some very good, very worthwhile video games. It's okay to like video games and think that there are also some problematic aspects to them (in fact, Sarkeesian states as much herself, multiple times, in her respective videos) Sometimes the first step to fixing an issue is simply showing others that there is a problem, and if Blackblade and Dogbreath are any indication, I'd say at least a few eyes are being opened as a result of her work, which I'd consider a net positive.
And if some feel that Sarkeesian's credentials, tone, or whatever are not up to snuff, allow me to present a counter example.
Extra Credits is probably the most dude-friendly medium that offers serious critiques of games and game culture. They were hosted on Penny Arcade for ages, for goodness sake. Almost across the board my nerdy, gamer, or game design-leaning friends recommend and enjoy it. I like it too, and I also like how occasionally, they use their considerable influence to really try to encourage players and designers to make games better for everyone. They not only recognize the problematic issues that exist in games and gaming culture, they try to come up with solutions to make gaming more inclusive to women, the LBGT community, and people of differing racial and cultural backgrounds. And they do it with what seems really quite close to an insider's perspective. There's a designer on the staff, and they seem to have the finger on the pulse of the industry to a remarkable degree. They love games, and they want the industry to succeed, and to be respected as a medium the same way film and television are. Part of that, they say over and over, is frankly for the industry to grow up, to stop pandering to the male teenage audience with things like boob physics, to be better about policing bad behavior, and to broaden the pool from which story and character ideas are taken. All steps would make an environment where as many people as possible, regardless of gender or background, can enjoy themselves, which is generally great for the industry and the bottom line of companies who produce games.
So if you don't want to listen to what Anitia Sarkeesian has to say for whatever reason, maybe consider a few of these:
A lot of these touch on Sarkeesian's points, but in a more general way than she does since she hits the specific feminist perspective. Heck, they're all good, and I'd be a bit surprised if most of the posters in this thread hadn't already heard of them, but just in case, here's their videography on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz/videos
[ September 04, 2014, 12:44 AM: Message edited by: sarcasticmuppet ]
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Maybe real mysognists threatened her. That doesn't mean the other people who merely disagreed with her are misogynists, a position that's implicitly attributed to those who merely disagree Sarkeesian, especially when the general negative reaction to Sarkeesian keeps getting painted as one of misogyny rather than gamers merely defending their passion from fatuous critiques.
Wrong. There are two examples in this thread of people who disagreed with her, without ever being accused of misogyny. What gets someone an accusation of misogyny is stuff such as labeling death and rape threats as 'unpleasant'.
quote:The problem here is that you're moving from the actual discussion itself to policing the discussing and labeling your opponents as "the fringe." Those who natter on about the "fringe" of the other side tend to almost always be blind to the fringe on their own side. It could just as well be that the real "fringe" here is Sarkeesian and her allies who want to create the equivalent of the Hays code for the video game industry, only in line with 3rd wave sjw feminism.
I was having an additional discussion, not sidestepping this one. And, again, I don't unilaterally label my opponents as the fringe. At this point I'm not sure what purpose is served by nodding to the examples of critics of Sarkeesian in this thread who aren't in any sort of fringe. I suspect you will continue to somehow miss that, again.
quote:Anitia Sarkeesian and her allies (such as journalists who champion her) are seeking to gain social status by putting down, insulting and patrionizing gamers and pulling the Superweapon of "misogyny!!" accusations when that schtick is not well received by the people who played the games in question and are far more knowledgable than Anita about the context that the sequences she analyses occur in. To not challenge Anita Sarkeesian is to let her implicitly demean gamers and game designers as sexists.
If you're going to complain about the unfairness of Sarkeesian attempting to control the debate unfairly, perhaps your best tactic might not be to insist they not express ideas you don't like.
Furthermore, she doesn't demean all gamers or game designers as implicitly sexist. Though some she does call out outright, quite fairly.
---------
(Hey, objects in a mirror, pay attention, this part of the post is directed to a critic of Sarkeesian who is in no way misogynistic-you could perhaps take a look at his thoughts and see how to do that.)
Destineer,
Of course I agree that there is value in referencing and even featuring uglier aspects of humanity in storytelling and art. Both are supposed to reflect and illustrate and enhance the human condition and all that, so that only makes sense.
I think the trouble comes, though, when a given bit of art or story panders. When it retreads old ground, aiming for the low-hanging fruits of titillation or outrage or self-righteousness, to the point where you can expect a series of things almost by default such as: most mainstream films will fail, and fail badly, the Bechdel test; women in games are much more likely to be either eye candy or motivation-as-victim or prize; that pointing out that these things do, factually, happen will often earn scorn and outrage from the broader community (see objects). So on and so forth.
It's not a case for such art needing to be stopped from being made. But I think things like this are a good basis for questioning its value as art.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Also, as others have mentioned: stop trying to claim spokesman status for gamers, objects. You don't get to do that. This is not a case of Sarkeesian and outsider journalists rabble-rousing.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I think the trouble comes, though, when a given bit of art or story panders. When it retreads old ground, aiming for the low-hanging fruits of titillation or outrage or self-righteousness,
A lot of work that does this sort of thing is bad. But the flip side is that a lot of it falls under the category of high-quality exploitation or camp. I'm thinking especially of movies like Sin City, the Dirty Harry trilogy, Showgirls, Django Unchained, most of John Carpenter's movies...
quote: to the point where you can expect a series of things almost by default such as: most mainstream films will fail, and fail badly, the Bechdel test; women in games are much more likely to be either eye candy or motivation-as-victim or prize; that pointing out that these things do, factually, happen will often earn scorn and outrage from the broader community (see objects). So on and so forth.
This is where I think we might have some common ground. I would like to see these things change as well, in terms of how common these tropes are. But I don't think a good way to make progress is by leveling purely moral critiques against good works of art.
To focus on one example, I think the Bechdel test is useful but easy to misuse. In the end, I would like to see way more good movies that pass the Bechdel test. But I would not like to see fewer good movies that fail the test. So if someone says to me, only X percent of movies pass the test, I agree that is a problem that should be changed. But if someone says, Blade Runner fails the Bechdel test, so there's something wrong with Blade Runner, that's where I get off the boat.
Let's focus our specific criticisms on the bad work, and make them artistic criticisms, not just moral ones. Some feminist media critics do this, although I often get the sense that the artistic critique is something they see as tacked-on and only secondarily important. Sarkeesian herself certainly picks some bad games to criticize along with the good, but she never critiques them as art, only purely morally. This is my problem with her approach.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Good post, sarcasticmuppet
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Actually, it seems that she doesn't really criticize the individual games at all. She uses them as examples of the prevelence of tropes in the media - like, say, testing various toys for traces of lead. You're not so much criticizing the product as the environment that made it.
That being said, afaik, there is no point in Blade Runner where two females speak to one another at all, so maybe it neither passes nor fails???
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Destineer,
quote:A lot of work that does this sort of thing is bad. But the flip side is that a lot of it falls under the category of high-quality exploitation or camp. I'm thinking especially of movies like Sin City, the Dirty Harry trilogy, Showgirls, Django Unchained, most of John Carpenter's movies...
Sure, as with anything cultural, there is no absolutely reliable standard. And many of them are only guidelines at best, with a ton of asterisks after the word. But when for example you look at that list I've seen Sin City, some of the Dirty Harry films, and some of Carpenter's films) you'll find campiness and exploitation of stereotypes and clichés, of course. But what makes them exceptional, really worthwhile on the basis of art? Is it that Dirty Harry is a badass cop sick of bureaucracy, who always gets the bad guy even if he has to break the ruler grrr! Well, that makes it fun-if done well. They story on its own was tedious. You needed those actors, that director, that all the other filmmaking staff, to bring it together.
Django Unchained? Hell, about the only mainstream film cliché that movie had was excessive violence and one-liners-a slave revenge story is hardly a cliché in American filmmaking after all! But plenty of terrible movies have exceptional stories behind them, and that's not enough to make them good. Other elements made that film great, in my opinion.
Perhaps another way to put it is that inclusion of cliché and camp doesn't always equal pandering.
quote:This is where I think we might have some common ground. I would like to see these things change as well, in terms of how common these tropes are. But I don't think a good way to make progress is by leveling purely moral critiques against good works of art.
I think that these critiques are a lot less 'purely moral' than you think they are. For example, mentioning that a story covers extremely well-trodden ground by its reliance on cliché isn't a moral criticism, even if it then goes on to object to the specific ground covered (which could be a moral criticism).
quote:To focus on one example, I think the Bechdel test is useful but easy to misuse. In the end, I would like to see way more good movies that pass the Bechdel test. But I would not like to see fewer good movies that fail the test. So if someone says to me, only X percent of movies pass the test, I agree that is a problem that should be changed. But if someone says, Blade Runner fails the Bechdel test, so there's something wrong with Blade Runner, that's where I get off the boat.
Given that the Bechdel test is much more often used as an indicator for filmmaking as a whole rather than a pass-fail measurement of individual films, well sure, but I'm not aware of many people who actually say 'no women, never seeing it, people who see it shouldn't'. On the other side, though, stories that are mostly or even exclusively about women (as many stories and films are-not just war movies) are marked out as unusual.
quote:Let's focus our specific criticisms on the bad work, and make them artistic criticisms, not just moral ones. Some feminist media critics do this, although I often get the sense that the artistic critique is something they see as tacked-on and only secondarily important. Sarkeesian herself certainly picks some bad games to criticize along with the good, but she never critiques them as art, only purely morally. This is my problem with her approach.
Nah, I'm gonna keep doing both. I don't think you've really made your case for why moral critiques of art ought not be made-rather you've expressed an opinion that they're not to your standards for measuring art. But when you widen the lens and apply that to moral critiques in general, you are in some sense making a moral criticism as well. As for Sarkeesian in particular, well of course she has a much narrower scope for how she evaluates things. That's made explicit right at the start. She isn't intending a standard, comprehensive critique. There's hardly a lack of that for video games, after all.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: That being said, afaik, there is no point in Blade Runner where two females speak to one another at all, so maybe it neither passes nor fails???
I think it fails because the underlying reason for the test is to measure the presence and importance of female characters to a film. If the females in a film never interact, I think it implicitly fails.
That said, if you believe that Deckard is a replicant, I'm not even sure two (human) male characters ever interact in the film.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I think the most frustrating thing about sociological or gender discussions is the tendency to take broad statements about general trends and turn them into specific rants about individual works or situations -- rants that don't actually exist. I remember talking to my own brother about lego's branding history and the lack of progress of women in STEM fields and and it somehow got twisted to him accusing me of resenting how our own mother raised me.
But I digress...
Sarkeesian discusses dozens of games that have existed since the 80s, and how together they contribute to a problematic narrative. BioShock (just to continue the example used previously) is a great game, she's not actually making any kind of argument that it isnt. But BioShock does not exist in a world where there are a multitude of different narrative techniques, if it did then there wouldn't be any issue at all -- Sarkeesian even states that theres nothing inherently wrong with women and girls in a dependent or disempowered position in narratives, since that relates to the general experiences of real people. The problem is when that is the only narrative well that designers and consumers ever dip into, making BioShock is just another drop in the sea of problematic depictions of women in all media, not just video games.
[ September 04, 2014, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: sarcasticmuppet ]
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Given that the Bechdel test is much more often used as an indicator for filmmaking as a whole rather than a pass-fail measurement of individual films ...
This is how I think about it.
Imagine a similar test for visible minorities or for black people in the US. Can we think of great films without any black people? Of course. Is it a healthy thing for society to across the board never have examples of black people interacting? Not really.
The test is a broad measure to note the rather high percentage of films that fail given that women comprise roughly half the population. It's not really supposed to be a scalpel that denotes films as being "bad" for failing (or "good" for merely passing for that matter).
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I've no problem with what Anita Sarkeesian is trying to do. I've a problem with how she goes about it.
Sometimes she can be extremely over the top. Calling "UP" a sexist movie because it didn't have two or more female characters? Come on.
I suppose she never had the opportunity to play Metroid. Not all video games show women being beaten.
The problem is she is applying the "Bechdel Test" (That is what she calls it) to video games. That being, even if the video game doesn't contain scenes of rape, torture, or violence towards women, the game is still sexist if there aren't two or more strong female characters that do something other than talk to men.
I guess by that test, Metroid is just as sexist, because even though Samus kicks ass, there is only one female character. :/
That doesn't discount the fact that there are real problems in the video game industry. She just has no idea how she should be going about it. Her lack of knowledge of the industry makes her look like a complete fool to those that are more familiar with it.
Extra credits brings up almost the exact same points, even regarding the bechdel test. EC even had a whole episode ranting specifically about Other M
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: I've no problem with what Anita Sarkeesian is trying to do. I've a problem with how she goes about it.
Sometimes she can be extremely over the top. Calling "UP" a sexist movie because it didn't have two or more female characters? Come on.
I suppose she never had the opportunity to play Metroid. Not all video games show women being beaten.
The problem is she is applying the "Bechdel Test" (That is what she calls it) to video games. That being, even if the video game doesn't contain scenes of rape, torture, or violence towards women, the game is still sexist if there aren't two or more strong female characters that do something other than talk to men.
I guess by that test, Metroid is just as sexist, because even though Samus kicks ass, there is only one female character. :/
That doesn't discount the fact that there are real problems in the video game industry. She just has no idea how she should be going about it. Her lack of knowledge of the industry makes her look like a complete fool to those that are more familiar with it.
As noted by others already, the Bechdel test isn't for assessing individual works. It was never supposed to say that a work that doesn't pass the test is a bad work.
You look at the percentage of works that fail the test, and that tells you something about the society that produced and consumed them.
Did Sarkeesian say Up was a bad movie because it failed the test? I doubt it. Has she said any individual work is bad because it failed the test? I doubt that too.
I'm not sure what you're talking about.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Geraine,
Well, as for the article mentioned, it's difficult for me to take it seriously because it says right out that 'tropes are unavoidable'. Which is technically true-not every work of art and story can be utterly ground-breaking, after all! But just because they can't be entirely expunged doesn't mean it's a guarantee that they have to be there.
quote:Sometimes she can be extremely over the top. Calling "UP" a sexist movie because it didn't have two or more female characters? Come on.
I suppose she never had the opportunity to play Metroid. Not all video games show women being beaten.
Does she actually say the film is sexist or bad because of this? If she does, I will be surprised and join you in scorning that outlook.
As for Metroid...the existence of a very few games with female protagonists, particularly when they are female basically in the sense that you are told they're female and that's it, hardly disproves or even erodes her thesis.
It's clear you completely misunderstand both what the Bechdel test is, and what it's used for, Geraine.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
I just watched the video where Sarkeesian discusses the Bechdel test, and she quite specifically is talking about how it demonstrates a *systemic* problem. She offers no opinion on the specific qualities of the individual works that fail the test, and says "it's not even a sign of whether it's a feminist movie, or whether it's a good movie".
There appear to be no examples of her applying this test to video games(?).
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
This is Sarkeesian talking about the Bechdel test:
quote:Again, to be clear this test does not gauge the quality of a film, it doesn’t determine whether a film is feminist or not, and it doesn’t even determine whether a film is woman centered. Some pretty awful movies including ones that have stereotypical and/or sexist representations of women might pass the test with flying colours. Where really well made films that I would highly recommend might not.
The Bechdel test is best when used as a tool to evaluate Hollywood as an institution, it can be applied to pretty much any grouping of mainstream movies such as the Golden Globes nominees or the top grossing films of any given year, all with similar results. The test helps us identify the lack of relevant and meaningful female roles as a larger pattern in the film industry as a whole. The problem isn’t restricted to any individual movie, director or genre.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
OK at this point Geraine I'm just gonna tease you a bit about 'complete lack of knowledge' and then drop it. Because that's a wicked ding, but no need to belabor it;)
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
Scifibum just proved my previous point remarkably well
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Geraine,
Well, as for the article mentioned, it's difficult for me to take it seriously because it says right out that 'tropes are unavoidable'. Which is technically true-not every work of art and story can be utterly ground-breaking, after all! But just because they can't be entirely expunged doesn't mean it's a guarantee that they have to be there.
quote:Sometimes she can be extremely over the top. Calling "UP" a sexist movie because it didn't have two or more female characters? Come on.
I suppose she never had the opportunity to play Metroid. Not all video games show women being beaten.
Does she actually say the film is sexist or bad because of this? If she does, I will be surprised and join you in scorning that outlook.
As for Metroid...the existence of a very few games with female protagonists, particularly when they are female basically in the sense that you are told they're female and that's it, hardly disproves or even erodes her thesis.
It's clear you completely misunderstand both what the Bechdel test is, and what it's used for, Geraine.
I might have misunderstood it. Her own comments on the Bechdel test though state:
quote: When I call it a systemic problem what I mean by this is that it’s not just a few people here and there that don’t like women, or don’t want women’s stories told, but rather the entire industry is built upon creating films and movies that cater to and are about men.
Next time you go to the movies just ask yourself these few questions. Are there two or more women in it and do they have names? Do they talk to each other? And do they talk to each other about something other then a man?
This right after she listed various movies that didn't pass the test. She is asking the reader to watch a movie and then ask those questions to determine if it is sexist or not. Being that she just listed movies that DIDN'T pass the test, she is pretty much calling them sexist.
Again, I could be misinterpreting or reading into her statement too much. It is just how I read it.
As for games, I am not denying there is a systematic problem with how video games portray women. I DO think that the problem is both better and worse than it used to be. The games that treat women well, such as the Mass Effect Series, couldn't have been done years ago. Likewise, due to technological advancements in gaming, the negative aspects have also been magnified. Twenty years ago you wouldn't be able to make realistic looking female characters being beaten and / or raped. (Grand Theft Auto comes to mind)
There are absolutely issues that need to be addressed. It would just be refreshing if Sarkeesian actually acknowledged that there are some games and companies that are getting it right instead of just pidgeon holing every single game and developer into the same "sexist" category. I've looked and looked but haven't been able to find any game she actually likes.
The fact that she posts on her twitter all of the death threats she receives and then asking for monetary support just smacks of hypocrisy. She posts Youtube videos, gets negative comments, waves them around in front of people to get people to contribute to her kickstarter, and made out like a bandit.
Yes, Mario games are evil when there is a damsel in distress. But I guess it's ok when you damsel for dollars.
The thing is she knows the more controversial she gets, and the more threats she receives, the more support she will get from feminists and white knights. That support translates into money. It is her meal ticket. She's not stupid, she's a friggin genius.
I agree with her message (though she cherry picks like a pro), I don't agree with her method.
Kind of unrelated, but this video made me laugh a bit:
[ September 04, 2014, 05:34 PM: Message edited by: Geraine ]
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:The fact that she posts on her twitter all of the death threats she receives and then asking for monetary support just smacks of hypocrisy. She posts Youtube videos, gets negative comments, waves them around in front of people to get people to contribute to her kickstarter, and made out like a bandit.
Are you sure this is the correct sequence of events?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Here is the full article from Feminist Frequency, for context.
You skipped over this part:
quote: It’s quite extraordinary actually how many movies don’t pass this test cause it’s not even a sign of whether its a feminist movie or whether its a good movie just that there is female presence in it and that they actually are engaging about things other then men.
Where she very explicitly says that she's NOT saying that these are bad movies or not feminist movies.
The definition of cherry picking is to pick examples to show something that isn't actually true. Since you agree with her message, I'm not sure how you can acuse her of cherry picking.
And she says at the start of every video that the fact that a game has some of these problematic issues does not mean that it's not a good game or she didn't enjoy it. But her videos aren't about her favorite games, they're about systematic issues with the portrayal of women in games. So I don't know why you'd expect to find her talking about games she likes. (I do think I've seen places where she has, though, but I don't have time to go hunting now. Maybe later.)
Your complaints about her retweeting her death threats are just silly, and if you don't understand why that is also something I don't have time for.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Um, the first video I watched by her (the one on violence I think) ended with an "and these are some games that do a really good job of handling this issue" followed by a description of why she liked them.
Posted by objects in mirror (Member # 13207) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh:
quote:Maybe real mysognists threatened her. That doesn't mean the other people who merely disagreed with her are misogynists, a position that's implicitly attributed to those who merely disagree Sarkeesian, especially when the general negative reaction to Sarkeesian keeps getting painted as one of misogyny rather than gamers merely defending their passion from fatuous critiques.
Wrong. There are two examples in this thread of people who disagreed with her, without ever being accused of misogyny. What gets someone an accusation of misogyny is stuff such as labeling death and rape threats as 'unpleasant'.
You know that Hatrack forums, where it looks like the same people have been posting together for over a decade, aren't the whole world, right? The narrative about Anita Sarkeesian focuses on her victimhood through getting "harrassed" and elides the fact that there's much intelligent rebuttals to her thesis. That some people who object to Sarkeesian are not being chased out of the Hatrack forums as misogynists does not mean that the overall rhetoric about Sarkeesian isn't one where people who disagree with her are implied to be misogynists or reactionary gamers.
quote: I was having an additional discussion, not sidestepping this one. And, again, I don't unilaterally label my opponents as the fringe. At this point I'm not sure what purpose is served by nodding to the examples of critics of Sarkeesian in this thread who aren't in any sort of fringe. I suspect you will continue to somehow miss that, again.
I didn't say that you always did, just that in this instance you seem to be moving the discussion to be about the debate itself and characterizing as "fringe" a hypothetical someone (wink wink). Regardless of whether it was a side discussion or where you want the debate to go, ad hominem is ad hominem.
quote: If you're going to complain about the unfairness of Sarkeesian attempting to control the debate unfairly, perhaps your best tactic might not be to insist they not express ideas you don't like.
Come again? The problem isn't that Sarkeesian is expressing ideas I merely dislike. The problem is that her ideas are wrong and have been soundly refuted and mocked by intelligent gamers, something that gets ignored when the mainstream media covers her. Anita Sarkeesian is someone who can at best be described as "controversial." Instead, she's a Feminist Hero because some dudebros possibly sent mean and threatening messages to her via Twitter.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
that right there is basically the ~intelligent gamers~ version of when george will called being a rape victim a coveted status
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
geraine
quote:It would just be refreshing if Sarkeesian actually acknowledged that there are some games and companies that are getting it right instead of just pidgeon holing every single game and developer into the same "sexist" category. I've looked and looked but haven't been able to find any game she actually likes.
so you ... haven't watched her movies, then?
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
At least not Damsels in Distress part three. One of her favorite games is Beyond Good and Evil for the xbox.
And seriously Geraine, either show me the time stamp where she says mario is evil because I'm at a loss to find it, or stop putting words in her mouth. Like I've said before, Mario isn't the problem. The problem is systemic and not to be blamed one one game or even company.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Django Unchained? Hell, about the only mainstream film cliché that movie had was excessive violence and one-liners-a slave revenge story is hardly a cliché in American filmmaking after all! But plenty of terrible movies have exceptional stories behind them, and that's not enough to make them good. Other elements made that film great, in my opinion.
Are you kidding? The whole initial premise of the movie's main plot is save-the-damsel-in-distress. It only really becomes a revenge movie quite late in the game.
quote:Given that the Bechdel test is much more often used as an indicator for filmmaking as a whole rather than a pass-fail measurement of individual films, well sure, but I'm not aware of many people who actually say 'no women, never seeing it, people who see it shouldn't'.
You don't know enough humanities academics, man. I know so many people who go on FB to say "I'm done seeing movies that fail the Bechdel test" or (this one I see more often) "I'm done seeing movies/shows with all-white casts."
quote:Nah, I'm gonna keep doing both. I don't think you've really made your case for why moral critiques of art ought not be made-rather you've expressed an opinion that they're not to your standards for measuring art. But when you widen the lens and apply that to moral critiques in general, you are in some sense making a moral criticism as well.
I'm not sure I see why I'm making a moral criticism--maybe you can fill in the steps there a bit for me.
But here's the risk you run in focusing on moral problems with good works of art that are not aesthetic problems. You risk convincing the artist who created that work, and any other artists who may be paying attention, that it's more important to morally whitewash their work than it is to create good art.
So the next time they have a great idea for an over-the-top horror game, they'll think, I can't do that because it involves a room full of bloody dead women. Or the next time they have a great idea for a movie that happens to have only male characters, they'll think, I'd better forget about that or else compromise my vision. And the next time a comedian thinks of a really funny joke that happens to mention rape, chances are they'll say forget it, I don't want to face that Jezebel shitstorm.
You will end up with worse art, whitewashed art which is dishonest and untrue to the artists' instincts and visions, and lots of great works of art never made because they didn't fit the SJW criteria of propriety.
I'm sure it's already happened many times.
I am aware, by the way, that the current system already stifles non-traditional voices of many sorts. Much needs to be done, and is being done, to get those voices out there. But I don't believe that making room for those voices should involve stifling the artistic talent we already have by subjecting it to the tut-tutting of moralists.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Destineer,
Posting mobile right now so I'll just say that Django Unchained was a slave revenge movie from the dang opening credits, man. Before we even knew his name. And the damsel being saved was being saved *from slavery*, after all.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:The narrative about Anita Sarkeesian focuses on her victimhood through getting "harrassed" and elides the fact that there's much intelligent rebuttals to her thesis.
I'm genuinely curious, Clive: what would you consider her "thesis?"
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:The narrative about Anita Sarkeesian focuses on her victimhood through getting "harrassed" and elides the fact that there's much intelligent rebuttals to her thesis.
I'm genuinely curious, Clive: what would you consider her "thesis?"
Since we all know it's Clive at this point, I'd appreciate it if we all just stopped talking to him.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: Destineer,
Posting mobile right now so I'll just say that Django Unchained was a slave revenge movie from the dang opening credits, man. Before we even knew his name. And the damsel being saved was being saved *from slavery*, after all.
In a sense, I totally agree. It's a great revenge movie. My point was just that it indulges in sexist cliche to a greater extent than you seemed willing to admit earlier.
Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: I think receiving death threats is sort of positive evidence for the argument she's making.
No, it's not. It's evidence that gamers are like all people everywhere, and a certain percentage of them will make sickening threats in an anonymous internet venue against people they see as attacking them.
I haven't caught up in this thread yet, but this is an important thing to bear in mind.
For example, it's not hard to find some examples of the numerous death threats and, yes, rape threats that Jack Thompson has received from angry gamers. Does anyone know how they stack up compared to Sarkeesian? I'm kinda betting nobody's bothered to look into this, because Jack Thompson isn't really a sympathetic figure. I'm not even sure if he's publicized a significant portion of the threats he's received or not. Probably has, and I just didn't notice. Because again, not a lot of sympathy there.
But it goes to the larger issue of whether or not the harassment she's received is indicative of a hostile climate towards women criticizing games, or just a hostile climate towards anyone who seems to be criticizing games.
Also, what counts as a hostile climate in the first place? If a few hundred, or even a few thousand, people harass someone, that's bad. But if they're some fractional percentage point of an overall group (e.g. people who play games)then it's important to have some perspective.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Dan Frank! Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:Also, what counts as a hostile climate in the first place? If a few hundred, or even a few thousand, people harass someone, that's bad. But if they're some fractional percentage point of an overall group (e.g. people who play games)then it's important to have some perspective.
The thing is, when you look at the overall numbers we're dealing with here it's important to have that perspective both ways. If only .01% of people are shouting at you, but that .01% equals a few thousand people, that's a lot of shouting. And if most of the rest are staying silent, the climate you are working in is thousands of people shouting at you. It doesn't really matter that those thousands are a small number of the overall gamers, they're still the ones making up your climate.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
How many people send death threats to Extra Credits for saying basically the same thing, but delivered by a male voice with undisputable video game cred?
I smell a double standard
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Since a majority of gamers are men who played it when it was their primary hobby and the trend towards wider inclusiveness is a recent one I have no doubt that the harassment of Anita is not only real, uncalled for, and ridiculous.
I also never seen her videos, I tend to prefer to watch Jim Sterling for my video game social news stuff, I don't even think I need to see her arguments to get 'both sides of the story', pretty sure gaming as a community needs to be the one with the burden of proof. Pretty sure the history is there.
Even if you agree with Ms. Sarkeesian, you'd do well to watch one of her videos. If nothing else, so you know what kind of critic she is, and how her arguments are presented.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
She uses the word "tropes" unironically, I think that's a point in her favour already!
e: Looking at the first video there her presentation and content seem fine but actually is kind of what I would get if I merged tvtropes and tumblr together; educational with a feminist viewpoint which I'm sure is useful if and when I need it as reference for my own games but isn't really my sort of thing in terms of "Must Watch Every Week Without Failure", ala Jimquisition, Extra Credits, Zero Punctuation and sometimes MovieBob.
She speaks in a matter-of-factly presentation style that's informative but not really entertaining and that's usually what I would like to look for in my youtube 'grmejrnalizm' viewing.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I'm not trying to persuade you to "like" Anita's style, only so when people say she's a frothing crazy lady who hates video games and video gamers, or that her arguments lack substance, you now know that is absolutely not the case. And you can make convincing counter-arguments to that effect.
It's totally fine you don't prefer her format. Thank you for watching one of her videos. Posted by Dan_Frank (Member # 8488) on :
Hi Destineer.
quote:Originally posted by ElJay:
quote:Also, what counts as a hostile climate in the first place? If a few hundred, or even a few thousand, people harass someone, that's bad. But if they're some fractional percentage point of an overall group (e.g. people who play games)then it's important to have some perspective.
The thing is, when you look at the overall numbers we're dealing with here it's important to have that perspective both ways. If only .01% of people are shouting at you, but that .01% equals a few thousand people, that's a lot of shouting. And if most of the rest are staying silent, the climate you are working in is thousands of people shouting at you. It doesn't really matter that those thousands are a small number of the overall gamers, they're still the ones making up your climate.
Yeah, I think that would be totally true. I disagree with some of the premises though.
In particular, I think I question the "most of the rest" staying silent part.
Now, I'd agree that most gamers are silent. I suspect most gamers aren't actually paying any attention to this issue at all. Same way I bet most gamers don't actually read a lot of game articles. There are hundreds of millions of gamers. How many readers/followers/etc. do any of the groups involved in the Sarkeesian back and forth actually have?
So I think it's a bit unfair to use the silence of the majority of gamers as any sort of statement. They're gamers because they play games, not because they're active in game development, game critiques, or the surrounding media. I think it's a relatively small group of gamers that are interested in that kind of thing.
Now, that aside, let's focus on that group. The ones that are interested in this stuff. My impression of your statement above is that you think most people that are paying attention are either harassing Sarkeesian or standing by and letting her be harassed. But that's not my take at all. It seems like the majority of articles and comments are extremely pro-Sarkeesian. The people harassing her seem to be a minority, not just of gamers as a whole, but of the subset of gamers that follow this sort of thing.
This is just my impression. I haven't studied the issue in detail. So if there's some data out there comparing the number of anti-Sarkeesian articles to pro-Sarkeesian articles, or anti tweets to pro tweets, or whatever, I'd love to see it. Otherwise I think we're both just gonna be drawing our conclusions based on the stuff we've self-selected to be exposed to.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Dan: A phenomenon I've noticed (in all circles, not particularly feminist ones) is the tendency to focus on negative responses disproportionately, or even frame a large number of negative but civil responses as being vicious and hostile when only a handful (or sometimes even no) responses of that nature exist. Aros and Herbley are good examples of people who do this on this very forum, and I can't tell you how many times someone has posted "he/she/I was savagely attacked for his/her/my views", only to go look at comments and read responses and find no such attacks, but simply polite disagreement. If you read the article Clive/Sa'eed/whoever posted in the other thread, it has a guy complaining about how he got "viciously attacked" by feminists in the comments section, only to actually read it and see that it's mostly polite discussion.
Which isn't to say that's what happened here, or that Anita hasn't gotten all sorts of awful threats. And I'm not trying to downplay or justify that either. Just that it's entirely possible the vast majority of the responses have been civil and decent... and ignored.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Dan_Frank:
quote:So I think it's a bit unfair to use the silence of the majority of gamers as any sort of statement
I don't disagree, but I would say most gamers are silently absorbing the programming. Of course they are also being programmed from numerous other sources, but I think the state of the medium is such that there is a very strong misogynistic thread that permeates it.
I don't believe video games force people to become chauvinistic, but if chauvinism or mysogyny is a behavior you can put on a spectrum, I would say it's impossible to argue that video games are even neutral in how they portray relationships between the sexes.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
Do you think games are really that much more misogynistic than other sorts of media? There are lots of misogynistic movies.
I'm not sure there's much reason to think that male gamers are more misogynistic than men generally. The main reasons to think so come from anecdotes like the one with Tom's friend. I suspect that what's going on is more that cons create an environment where women are likely to be seen as curious outliers, which in my experience makes men behave more misogynistically and probably makes it easier for woment to perceive them that way as well. I know that at my local game store, it's normal for the guys to be like "Dude, a HOT GIRL just came in!" whenever a girl shows up, which isn't normally how these particular guys would behave in a gender-balanced setting. Not that they are perfect specimens, but they're pretty average dudes IMO.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
So again, as Dan was suggesting, the main difference may be between people who aren't super serious members of the fan community, and those who are.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
The difference, Destineer, is that other media like film and television are enjoyed pretty much equally by men and women, which leads to the creation of media enjoyed by both men and women. Its certainly not perfect, but there's at least recognition of the fact that women pay to watch movies.
The console video game industry, conversely, has far less of a reach in the female market. Arguments that women just inherently don't like video games are pretty dumb, because after all there are quite a lot of women who create a fairly strong minority of the gaming market. The industry is not actually that great about encouraging women to play video games, partly due to the highly male-centric storytelling techniques that he to be used, and partly due to some truly misogynistic tendencies by both the industry (booth babes, etc) and the communities that the industry creates (harassment in online games and game forums).
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Do you think games are really that much more misogynistic than other sorts of media? There are lots of misogynistic movies.
Sure, so let's solve both problems? We don't have to give video games a pass for now and then once film/TV is fixed, return to the issue.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: Do you think games are really that much more misogynistic than other sorts of media?
1. yes
2. but I find this to in large part be a product of the adolescence of the media format.
3. however, there is a difficult to ignore element of production that is interlaced into that. game production as an industry is notoriously heavily sexist and most of the girls i worked with left because it was a pretty shit environment for them. the people most often at the top of the heap in dev circles or otherwise ingratiated into the industry are, well, we'll call it, "not sufficiently self-motivated to address their own problematic behavior or views towards women" and the industry suffers for it and needs to call out when these people are pathologically reliant on tropes like what Sarkeesian is providing an ample description of
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by sarcasticmuppet: The difference, Destineer, is that other media like film and television are enjoyed pretty much equally by men and women, which leads to the creation of media enjoyed by both men and women. Its certainly not perfect, but there's at least recognition of the fact that women pay to watch movies.
The console video game industry, conversely, has far less of a reach in the female market. Arguments that women just inherently don't like video games are pretty dumb, because after all there are quite a lot of women who create a fairly strong minority of the gaming market. The industry is not actually that great about encouraging women to play video games, partly due to the highly male-centric storytelling techniques that he to be used, and partly due to some truly misogynistic tendencies by both the industry (booth babes, etc) and the communities that the industry creates (harassment in online games and game forums).
Oh, I think it's reasonably clear both that games are marketed to men and that women are socialized by the broader culture to see games as "not for them." So while I think the game industry could attract a few more women by marketing to them, I have very little confidence that it could attract equal numbers of men and women unless the broader culture were to change too.
quote:Sure, so let's solve both problems? We don't have to give video games a pass for now and then once film/TV is fixed, return to the issue.
Absolutely. I think were you and I disagree is that I don't see the problematic gender subtext of good films and games like Django Unchained and Bioshock as a problem that needs solving. But I would definitely like to see less problematic stuff of the sort that appears in Grand Theft Auto, or the episode of Game of Thrones I was criticizing earlier. Stuff that undermines the quality of the art.
I was just pointing out, though, the fact that the games themselves have this misogynistic aspect isn't really a reason to think gamers will be worse than your average dude.
quote:1. yes
2. but I find this to in large part be a product of the adolescence of the media format.
That may very well be true. I play fewer games than I used to, mostly just strategy games and Bioware games, so I don't see a lot of the actual bad stuff myself.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: This is just my impression. I haven't studied the issue in detail. So if there's some data out there comparing the number of anti-Sarkeesian articles to pro-Sarkeesian articles, or anti tweets to pro tweets, or whatever, I'd love to see it. Otherwise I think we're both just gonna be drawing our conclusions based on the stuff we've self-selected to be exposed to.
I've actually done a twitter search on her handle to see if I can figure it out, and that's obviously not the right way to do it. The pro/con tweets are fairly balanced, depending on when you look... sometimes it seems like there is a streak of one or the other. But the search obviously doesn't show all the tweets that mention her... for one, there's not enough, and for two, there's tweets that I've seen in my timeline that mention her that aren't there. I don't know how twitter's search works, and if it only picks what it thinks are the top tweets or something. And, of course, she's actively reporting the abusive ones as abuse, so they're getting deleted and don't show up at all except the most recent ones.
Which means that there is no actual data driven way to figure it out.
But no, I don't think everyone else is silent. But I do think that the vocal minority, however large it is, is vocal enough that being a woman in gaming or game journalism can frequently feel like you're in a hostile environment. Another woman (Jenn Frank) just decided to "step back" from game writing after her op-ed in The Guardian brought out the trolls against her. It may have been a straw that broke the camel's back sort of thing, but she decided the abuse wasn't worth it anymore. People are trying to hack her phone, because she said it's sometimes hard to be a woman in the field. It's ludicrous.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:That may very well be true. I play fewer games than I used to, mostly just strategy games and Bioware games, so I don't see a lot of the actual bad stuff myself.
Games have had comparatively little time to marinate and grow as a medium, and there aren't a lot of giants around yet with shoulders worth standing on. We've even just barely broken out of real juvenile territory for the craft of game-making. Compare to film at its own relative period of adolescence — by now, early movies of the era take a lot of specific obsession with cinema for most anyone to even really sit through because they're generally just tryingly primitive and usually hilariously dumb. Stuff that was hailed as revolutionary for the time comes off as crude and quaint to us, at best (see: Birth of a Nation). Most games are the same way, and it doesn't take long sitting through a Sarkeesian video to remember that most video game plot and writing is laughably dumb and juvenile in a way we almost consciously try to forget.
Gaming is ruled by remarkably shallow trope, because, like the early language of cinema, you have tech-limited or market-limited methods of conveyance — you regurgitate the basics and the Damsels just to keep eyes locked to spectacle.
Gaming doesn't even get a leg up from how new it is and how much more progressively this era is to when film was an early medium, because it's similarly saturated with, wait for it, ohh, wait for it, ~male privilege~! and the environment is a great thing for a woman to be driven out of. It's like being a civil engineer, a bunch of intending and unintending old boys clubs with both pedestaling and harassment for women producers and coders.
There were some days in which it was just utterly embarrassing to watch. I have never once had room to disagree with a single one of my woman coworkers when they dropped out of any of the studios I was part of. And these are the Idea People who write these stupid games.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
I have watched Sarkeesians videos, and my opinion remains the same.
Her example on Hitman is especially misleading. In her video, she states that the player is encouraged to perform violent acts on female characters in a strip club, and that the player really has no choice but to beat the women.
In fact, it is completely the opposite. The entire encounter can be bypassed simply by walking by the room, and if any violence is directed towards either of the female characters (or any innocent for that matter) The player is penalized by a lower score.
Maybe we should have a conversation on how men are just disposable characters in video games and are killed off at a higher percentage than women? Most women in violent games tend to last until the end, while male characters are used as "trash" mobs and enemies. Play a shooter and tell me how many enemies you kill are male, how many end bosses are male, etc. Males may be over represented in games, but often not in a positive light.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
can i get a video and timestamp on her claims about the Hitman game that you are citing
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
I would ask for the same thing, Geraine, given your recollection of her thoughts on the Bechdel test.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I went back and skipped through the most recent video, because I thought I remembered the strip club scene. The one I found starts at about 4:10 in the most recent video, Women as Background Decoration 2, and in the section she's talking about using woman's corpses to make a scene feel dark or gritty. There's a brief clip of Hitman: Absolution, and then it cuts to a strip club scene in Mafia II: Joe's Adventure where a gun battle takes place over the dead bodies of women in a strip club.
Now, I didn't watch the entire thing again, like I said I skimmed through looking for strip club scenes. So maybe I found the wrong one. But also maybe you weren't paying very close attention when you watched the video, Geraine?
ETA: She never even talks about the Hitman scene, it's just one of two set-up clips before the Mafia II clip, which she says the name of as well as the name being on screen for the entire clip.
Posted by Risuena (Member # 2924) on :
Here's a video addressing some of the claims about Sarkeesian's use of Hitman (and some other games as well. It's specifically directed at one of her critics and it's not all good, but he does have some interesting points. The guy in this video points out that the penalty for killing the strippers is pretty minor and can be eliminating by hiding their bodies. He also asks why it was necessary for them to be strippers rather than guards or various other types of people (sure, variety, you don't want to have to sneak past the same people all the time, but I think the variety argument is somewhat negated when it seems like every game has a strip club or a brothel or some similar seedy place for color).
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
Germaine, the lack of good representations of women in games is something we have literally been discussing for this entire thread. I'd love to see more women soldiers, women crime bosses, and women villians, as well as women heroes. Patriarchy and violent machismo in media harm men as well as women, which PS is a common statement made in any kind of serious feminist critiques including Sarkeesian's. I'd love for a game character's gender to simply not matter, for it to more-or-less reflect the reality of the roughly 50/50 split of humanity and the varied experiences and occupations of real people.
Is this somehow not what you were arguing for?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I would ask for the same thing, Geraine, given your recollection of her thoughts on the Bechdel test.
You basically have to get sources from Geraine pretty much every time. His presentation of specific facts or ideas is flawed, I think, the majority of the time.
Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
Sarcastic Muppet - I'm playing a downloadable game on my PS4 right now called "Rogue Legacy" that I think would fit your criteria. Every time you die, one of your kids steps up and become the new hero and you play as them (so far I've played through 280 generations - an indication of how difficult the game is).
Males and Females are equally distributed and each character has 'traits' that affect their gameplay. A character with glaucoma makes the area around the character really blurry, but the rest of the world clear. One with nervous tics might not control correctly all of the time. One who is colorblind will play the game in monochrome.
But along with those 'traits' that affect gameplay, there are a few that do absolutely nothing. Being bald or being gay are two examples.
So one round you might be a dwarf lesbian warrior who is colorblind and the next you might be a tall and thin (when an enemy hits you it knocks you back further) spellcaster who has OCD.
I'm really enjoying it.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
Sounds interesting, I wonder if they port to the pc at all. Is it an indie game?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
It's a PC game, you can get it on Steam. Posted by DustinDopps (Member # 12640) on :
I would like to reiterate: it is hard. The graphics are intentionally old school and so is the gameplay.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I just remembered an experience I had when I was perusing Facebook and came across this post about Diablo's birthday awhile back.
Seemed relevant.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
For my current Intro to Game Dev class my suggestion to my team of two girls and one brazillian dude was to make a TPS with the protagonists as an all female fighting unit.
I feel like I'm fighting the good fight. (Even if subconsciously its probably because I find strong, confident women to be generally more attractive than ultra feminine doormats but that's probably fine as long as I recognize that during my privilege check)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Because an all girl fighting squad has never been done before.
It's not necessarily a good thing to create characters you are "attracted" to. You should create characters that are compelling and have a story to tell. Fan service is a thing after all, and it's kind of frustrating to deal with.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I would ask for the same thing, Geraine, given your recollection of her thoughts on the Bechdel test.
You basically have to get sources from Geraine pretty much every time. His presentation of specific facts or ideas is flawed, I think, the majority of the time.
Except it is in her videos, and I don't need to do your homework for you.
You can accuse me of flawed facts, but I've nothing to prove to you. It is there, you can find it yourself.
I agree about the spirit of the message, not the way she is going about it.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
quote: "Falsehoods about me are initially pushed by detractors who use them to post to 4Chan and Reddit to rally more people to the cause," Sarkeesian said. "It's bouncing from Twitter to Tumblr to Facebook to YouTube and back again. Once the cascade reaches a critical mass, it no longer matters what the facts are. It becomes a viral meme."
I've seen this happen first-hand - you can find many #gamergate types who claim I said gamers are worse than ISIS, even though I never said any such thing. It's the way an intentionally decontextualized and misrepresented statement gets bounced around and continuously distorted until it becomes fact. This isn't a web-only phenomenon, but Twitter certainly increases the speed at which truth mutates directly into lies.
As someone who's been called out twice in this very thread for misinterpreting or outright stating quotes that turned out to be false, I think a request for you to produce a time stamp is warranted. I even asked for one earlier.
quote: "I think it's fair to be called out on your s***," he said. "I think that it's a sad man that can never be self-reflective. I think that we tried to go and carry ourselves with respect, and try to respect sexuality and respect gender as much as we can, and sometimes we fail but hopefully we'll do better and continue to get better."
That man is all kinds of classy.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
It's awesome he can say that. Let's see what they actually do about it.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Because an all girl fighting squad has never been done before.
It's not necessarily a good thing to create characters you are "attracted" to. You should create characters that are compelling and have a story to tell. Fan service is a thing after all, and it's kind of frustrating to deal with.
I think you've missed the key context here.
It isn't to make them attractive, I am saying that the tropes that are generally considered positive in their portrayal of women are generally what I find appealing. Find me a girl dressed in complete combat uniform and that's something I'll find appealing.
What I'm saying is that I am recognizing that I'm not actually per se doing anything to advance a feminist cause or pov and probably more an accident that my tastes happen to align in such a way as to appear that they do. Though I content this is still probably preferable to the alternative.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I would ask for the same thing, Geraine, given your recollection of her thoughts on the Bechdel test.
You basically have to get sources from Geraine pretty much every time. His presentation of specific facts or ideas is flawed, I think, the majority of the time.
Except it is in her videos, and I don't need to do your homework for you.
You can accuse me of flawed facts, but I've nothing to prove to you. It is there, you can find it yourself.
Hey the bible says Geraine is a Juggalo. GO look it up i'm not doing your homework for you.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Like I'm serious we're running on full on maybe the tenth time you have made a very specific claim about something that immediately raised suspicions that you were misrepresenting something or repeating a well-known falsehood.
Here is your claim, for the record:
quote:In her video, she states that the player is encouraged to perform violent acts on female characters in a strip club, and that the player really has no choice but to beat the women.
EMPHASIS on: that she states that the player really has no choice but to beat the women.
If you can't provide evidence for that particular claim, I am going to state straightforwardly that no such claim exists in any Sarkeesian video and that you are misrepresenting as usual, because you have a history for this.
(also, you gotta tell me man what's with the faygo i have never understood the fascination)
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Find me a girl dressed in complete combat uniform and that's something I'll find appealing
I'm sure they'll be delighted.
Seriously, though, after a few days of patrols in 110+ degree heat and no showers to speak of, you may find their smell less than "appealing." (Not that they would care)
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Find me a girl dressed in complete combat uniform and that's something I'll find appealing
I'm sure they'll be delighted.
Seriously, though, after a few days of patrols in 110+ degree heat and no showers to speak of, you may find their smell less than "appealing." (Not that they would care)
This is like the Glasses Girl cunundrum, of how do you kiss a glasses girl without her glasses getting in the way? Well you take off the glasses, but now you ask, isn't she no longer a glasses girl? WRONG! A glasses girl is always a glasses girl! And a soldier girl is always a soldier!
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Better yet, get to know people and don't think of them in terms of a stereotype that they happen to resemble. Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
But that is not Moé!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Because an all girl fighting squad has never been done before.
It's not necessarily a good thing to create characters you are "attracted" to. You should create characters that are compelling and have a story to tell. Fan service is a thing after all, and it's kind of frustrating to deal with.
I think you've missed the key context here.
It isn't to make them attractive, I am saying that the tropes that are generally considered positive in their portrayal of women are generally what I find appealing. Find me a girl dressed in complete combat uniform and that's something I'll find appealing.
You said,
1: You recommended an all-girl fighting squad.
2: You are attracted to that concept.
That to me suggests that you recommend characters you are attracted to. There's nothing wrong with having characters you find enjoyable writing. Or even super teams where everybody is a hero. But you can't escape that part of the reason you want an all-girl justice squad is because you are sexually attracted to women, and particularly young looking militaristic types. Not trying to be critical of your preferences, I too personally like girls! But you have to internally review whether your characters exist to tell a compelling story and are complex people, or if they are a fantasy you want to see on paper.
quote: What I'm saying is that I am recognizing that I'm not actually per se doing anything to advance a feminist cause or pov and probably more an accident that my tastes happen to align in such a way as to appear that they do. Though I content this is still probably preferable to the alternative.
That's very introspective. But to be honest, an all-girl military squad can be just as anti-feminist as an all-girl brothel team.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
That would be hard to accomplish by accident however, that's the sort of thing that would only I think be true, if you set out to make the concept to in some way discredit the idea of it. Such as having a female fighting team that always failed because they're women. Otherwise simply just having the characters would act in of itself as a positive contribution.
[ September 17, 2014, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: Elison R. Salazar ]
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Their women what? What did their women do?
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: That would be hard to accomplish by accident however, that's the sort of thing that would only I think be true, if you set out to make the concept to in some way discredit the idea of it. Such as having a female fighting team that always failed because their women. Otherwise simply just having the characters would act in of itself as a positive contribution.
Not really. If the female soldiers are all representing some heavily objectified and shallow cartoon version of "woman", having all the fighters be women isn't really a positive from a feminist perspective.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
You saw nothing.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: That would be hard to accomplish by accident however, that's the sort of thing that would only I think be true, if you set out to make the concept to in some way discredit the idea of it. Such as having a female fighting team that always failed because their women. Otherwise simply just having the characters would act in of itself as a positive contribution.
Not really. If the female soldiers are all representing some heavily objectified and shallow cartoon version of "woman", having all the fighters be women isn't really a positive from a feminist perspective.
Right, this.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: That's very introspective. But to be honest, an all-girl military squad can be just as anti-feminist as an all-girl brothel team.
Could you elaborate on this?
Is this a statement that the worst portrayal of an all-girl military squad could be as bad as the worst all-girl brothel team? Is this a statement that the average portrayal of an all-girl military squad will be as bad as the average all-girl brothel team? What specific outcomes do you see coming out of the former team that would be just as bad as the outcomes from the latter team?
To be clear, I don't necessarily disagree. I just haven't formed an opinion on this yet.
Edit to add: Obviously, an objectified version of both would be worse than simply not objectifying women at all. That's trivial.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mucus: Take say Yoko from Gurren Lagann (An accomplished sniper/bounty hunter) and Inara from Firefly, and I think we could probably agree that the latter does more for feminism than the former.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Yeah, you know the fighting **** toy? This is just advancing it to the fighting **** toy squad.
Or at least whatever is being strangely fetishized here
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Check it out! It's an empowered military female promoting feminism from the new Metal Gear Solid game.
I'm honestly not trying to knock Blayne, so much as express how frustrating I find the state of female characters in video games.
edit: Also, if you saw her entire outfit you would realize that photo is probably more restrained in terms of flesh exposed.
[ September 18, 2014, 09:52 AM: Message edited by: BlackBlade ]
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Mucus: Take say Yoko from Gurren Lagann (An accomplished sniper/bounty hunter) and Inara from Firefly, and I think we could probably agree that the latter does more for feminism than the former.
Aside from how she's dressed I don't recall if Yoko acts or is written in an unrealistic or pandering fashion; I think the female characters in Naruto are probably much worse in their portrayal and in their consistent unimportance.
I think in my case I'll avoid the worst in that any dialogue would likely be what I would be likely to say or think in that moment; so again 'Accidentally Positive' in that I'm setting out to have funny or otherwise appropriate dialogue for the situation or story-beat but don't really have it in mind to go about "Is this what a girl in an all-clone military would say or think?". That's probably beyond me with my limited writing experience. Luckily the premise is somewhat alien anyways.
Sure I have two girls on my team but one is a basketcase who hasn't even read the emails I sent out five days ago for yesterday's meeting and the other my impression is that she's very focused on the technical aspects and questions pertaining to making the game but doesn't care about the creative direction (Yes I've asked her for input; "Should we have the protagonists be all female? We could also do a sort of feminist critique thing as well if we do?" - "Okay, will we find enough female meshes though?" C'est la vie).
I hope to at least have them review my dialogue Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:I don't recall if Yoko acts or is written in an unrealistic or pandering fashion
she is written in a wholly unrealistic and pandering fashion and is overtly visually sold as a sexual object
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
i can't believe this is even in question. she is a classic example of a male visual fantasy in a firmly juvenile show
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Gurren Lagann is generally plodded forward as a generally well written show with balanced characters, it would be odd for one of the centrally main characters to be the exception; I'll grant its been a while and certainly it was before I started paying attention to story structure and shit but I'm pretty sure her actions and personality if I recall correctly are generally not horrible.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Elison: Tell me what's wrong with this clip bearing in mind Yoko has literally said nothing that might indicate an anti-feminist agenda.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
"Aside from how she's dressed"
I'd add "shaped"
and note that you can not - just not - exclude those from the analysis and come up with a worthwhile answer.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: "Aside from how she's dressed"
I'd add "shaped"
and note that you can not - just not - exclude those from the analysis and come up with a worthwhile answer.
I'd also add moves her body.
Also, I think it's important we recognize that a character is a reflection of the author and themselves.
How Yoko is "dressed" reflects a conscious choice by the animator/designer and the character themselves expressing their personality that way.
By both accounts Yoko is fan service, and even her effectiveness in battle serves only to keep a male audience interested because if she was crappy at it, that would be uninteresting, except insofar as her clumsily getting herself into trouble leaves opportunities for the hero to swoop in and save her.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
(To be perhaps overly clear: I am not saying that the shape or dress of real people is an important part of analysis of their character.)
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Check it out! It's an empowered military female promoting feminism from the new Metal Gear Solid game.
The real thing is just a little less revealing, I'm afraid.
This is an almost universal trope, in video games, anime, movies, TV, books, etc. Men are usually allowed to wear appropriate and effective gear and armor (with the exception of helmets. For whatever reason, nobody's allowed to wear a helmet), whether that be chain mail or a Kevlar vest and fatigues. Women in the same fictional universe inexplicably have to fight while dressed like a stripper. Even in supposedly "realistic" shows that avert this, expect the female soldier to run around in a sexy tank top while her male counterparts wear full cammies and body armor.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Elison: Tell me what's wrong with this clip bearing in mind Yoko has literally said nothing that might indicate an anti-feminist agenda.
quote:she is written in a wholly unrealistic and pandering fashion and is overtly visually sold as a sexual object
quote: she is a classic example of a male visual fantasy in a firmly juvenile show
whether or not one enjoyed this show past or present as a guilty silly pleasure or whatever, which is fine, w/e, i am amazed that any adult would be unaware of how blatantly sexist, pandering, and adolescent the entire character is as a mechanism.
that's just plain oblivious
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:People who complain about her boobs annoy me, unlike other anime females Her boob are proportional to her body and the amount of jiggle is mainly because of the fact that she wears a bikini top. Her boobs are the most realistic ones I have ever seen in any anime(aside from sengoku basara).
ahhhhhh anime
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Kill La Kill?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Elison: I'd be pleased if you'd answer my question.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Mucus: Take say Yoko from Gurren Lagann (An accomplished sniper/bounty hunter) and Inara from Firefly, and I think we could probably agree that the latter does more for feminism than the former.
Ok thanks. You were saying something a bit more trivial than I expected and I agree.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
A lot of these shows/movies/games with tit-illating female characters are a little bit along the road to being porn. Which to me is not a problem. There's nothing wrong with porn as such.
To be perhaps unbecomingly frank for a moment: teenagers need something to jack off to. Better Metal Gear Solid than stuff that's actually incredibly demeaning like the Bang Bus.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: This is an almost universal trope, in video games, anime, movies, TV, books, etc. Men are usually allowed to wear appropriate and effective gear and armor ... Women in the same fictional universe inexplicably have to fight while dressed like a stripper.
There are other problems of course.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Oooohhh good counter examples Mucus.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Ahrrrrrrrg Hero
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Ahrrrrrrrg Hero
It's a fantastic film! My favorite Tony Leung role, which is saying a hell of a lot. Might be the best Zhang Yimou movie as well, although Raise the Red Lantern is a strong competitor.
Certainly far, far better than the overrated mediocrity-fest that is House of Flying Daggers.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Actually, I've been procrastinating, so I present a few more fun fight scenes from movies that I enjoyed with female fighters that are wearing clothes roughly as practical as the male leads.
And here's a comedic one from Journey to the West (1994). I'm actually not sure whether a bull demon is better protected than a spider demon that looks like a women, but she's protecting a guy while he runs away with their kid ... so I guess it kinda works https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCEIfoDtXVI&t=74m30s
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Elison: Tell me what's wrong with this clip bearing in mind Yoko has literally said nothing that might indicate an anti-feminist agenda.
I'm at work.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Ahrrrrrrrg Hero
It's a fantastic film!
Before you respond to that post, you should best know that that post was not true! But let me tell you what the real post was:
(spoiler alert, this retelling of the first post is also not true, but the third retelling will doubtlessly be the true post)
oh man, hero. Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Destineer:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Ahrrrrrrrg Hero
It's a fantastic film!
Before you respond to that post, you should best know that that post was not true! But let me tell you what the real post was:
(spoiler alert, this retelling of the first post is also not true, but the third retelling will doubtlessly be the true post)
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Elison: Tell me what's wrong with this clip bearing in mind Yoko has literally said nothing that might indicate an anti-feminist agenda.
I finally had some spare time, lets see, #1:
English Dub. Grrrrrrrrrrrr me angry.
Alright in all seriousness, yes, yoko is dressed fanservicey and we got treated to a possibly egregious underboob and ass shot that we don't particularly see with the male characters (One thing I think KLK gets right); but it doesn't discredit Yoko as a generally strongly and believably written female character (by Anime's standards).
Fanservice is generally so epidemic to anime that I just generally tune it out and roll my eyes and try to focus on the characterization.
Although, I've always found the Nasuverse shared universe to be a huge relief in how its characters tend to be conservatively dressed. Arcuid, Ciel, Taiga, Ilya, Caster/Medea, Irisviel, Saber, Sakura, and Shiki Ryougi generally wear long flowing clothes that cover most. Tohsoka Rin wears a skirt and the knee high socks as does Rider/Medusa so their kinda the odd ones out... But Rin is obviously the most awesome character so it balances out (She's the only other protagonist that we're shown her POV) as per my argument (I refer to the Visual Novels).
As you slide more towards the fanservicey end of the spectrum it matters less to a degree so long as the character is well written and believable.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Fanservice is generally so epidemic to anime that I just generally tune it out...
*laugh*
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
"but it doesn't discredit Yoko as a generally strongly and believably written female character (by Anime's standards)."
What a vicious and stinging indictment of all of anime as being irretrievably and horridly sexist then
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
So I get the line of thought that it's sexist to pervasively sexualize all your female characters. But then I start to think, it's not by itself sexist to make erotica that's pitched at heterosexual men, is it? Isn't that just what anime "fanservice" amounts to? In addition to whatever else they do, the movies/shows function as softcore erotica for the male portion of their audience. Is that a sexist thing for them to be?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Pornography is decidedly sexist too yo.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
I think anime, manga, american comics are the most checkered aspect of pop culture, when it comes to this sort of thing. In my opinion, female characters often come off more willful than the average of other aspects of pop culture.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of sexism going on.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Blayne: I was hoping you would notice that the sexism starts before Yoko even shows up.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: So I get the line of thought that it's sexist to pervasively sexualize all your female characters. But then I start to think, it's not by itself sexist to make erotica that's pitched at heterosexual men, is it? Isn't that just what anime "fanservice" amounts to? In addition to whatever else they do, the movies/shows function as softcore erotica for the male portion of their audience. Is that a sexist thing for them to be?
there is, uncharacteristically in this case, no need to overcharge it. basically, yoko is a clear example of an overtly sexualized object, a male visual fantasy designed around consumption by men as a visual fantasy. like, undeniably so. partitioned fanservice? not the problem, necessarily. it's that this becomes the overall representation of women in a media. if this is 'a generally strongly and believably written female character' to literally anyone, you have a problem
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Pornography is decidedly sexist too yo.
Not inherently so, though. While I agree that quite a bit of porn is rife with horrible sexist stereotypes, I don't think pornography is inherently sexist. Since the main point is titillation, focusing on the man/woman(/tentacle monster)'s sexuality mainly, or even to the exclusion of other aspects isn't necessarily problematic.
OTOH, when you have an show that portrays all the male characters as serious, well rounded, three dimensional characters, but the female(s) are mostly there to provide titillation, or sexual tension, or even to provide a "romantic subplot", then that's quite obviously sexist. Because it says "this is what I think women are good for." And for that to be considered "normal" or a characteristic of a strong female character is pretty horrific. (Not that having attractive characters is a bad thing, or even having characters fall in love. But when your male gets to be his own, complete person and the women shows up and is mainly there to be fallen in love with/lusted after/kidnapped and rescued, then she becomes merely an object in a world full of male characters and female objects)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Pornography is decidedly sexist too yo.
Not inherently so, though. While I agree that quite a bit of porn is rife with horrible sexist stereotypes, I don't think pornography is inherently sexist. Since the main point is titillation, focusing on the man/woman(/tentacle monster)'s sexuality mainly, or even to the exclusion of other aspects isn't necessarily problematic.
OTOH, when you have an show that portrays all the male characters as serious, well rounded, three dimensional characters, but the female(s) are mostly there to provide titillation, or sexual tension, or even to provide a "romantic subplot", then that's quite obviously sexist. Because it says "this is what I think women are good for." And for that to be considered "normal" or a characteristic of a strong female character is pretty horrific. (Not that having attractive characters is a bad thing, or even having characters fall in love. But when your male gets to be his own, complete person and the women shows up and is mainly there to be fallen in love with/lusted after/kidnapped and rescued, then she becomes merely an object in a world full of male characters and female objects)
Word. Pornography in every iteration I'm aware of (Admittedly not even most of it) in human history has been inherently sexist.
Now let me tell you all about how communism is not inherently totalitarian. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
According to my feminist activist friends, there is plenty of non-sexist (or at least non misogynist) porn. Though they also say very little of that stuff can be found on the free Internet porn sites.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: According to my feminist activist friends, there is plenty of non-sexist (or at least non misogynist) porn. Though they also say very little of that stuff can be found on the free Internet porn sites.
*nods* I too have a feminist friend who writes about feminist pornographers and such, and apparently there's been quite a big push in the industry as of late to make it more egalitarian and less misogynistic. (Possibly trying to broaden their horizons and attract more female customers) Not that I count myself a porn connoisseur by any means (it's always made me feel uncomfortable and a little gross), but I've seen enough to say I don't see any reason to assume it's all sexist.
Pornography is also the realm of dark male (or sometimes female) power fantasies, of several magnitudes worse than video games. But honestly, just as I see sexism in video games as indictive of our society as a whole rather than something inherent to the genre, I see sexism in pornography in much the same way. The amount of bigotry and malice in any community seems to inversely correlate to how much light and open, honest criticism is received and tolerated in that area. Video Games are now undergoing scrutiny that hasn't really been applied before (from an artistic standpoint, I mean). Few people enjoy indepth conversations about the porn they watch, the sexist stereotypes present in that media, and the impact it has on our culture's perception of sex, so it's seldom talked about despite being a multi-billion dollar industry. And in that darkness a lot of terrible stuff has been allowed to fester and grow, with no real conversation of how to address it or change it. (Other than trying to ban it, which is a now laughably ineffective strategy)
I think my generation's willingness to actually talk about this stuff has already caused a lot of good changes to happen, and I hope things continue along that path. We'll see, I guess.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: According to my feminist activist friends, there is plenty of non-sexist (or at least non misogynist) porn. Though they also say very little of that stuff can be found on the free Internet porn sites.
So if Utah is #1 in the nation for paid porn subscriptions, would they also be at the vanguard of feminist pornography? Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Probably! Utah is well known for being a bastion of feminism and liberalism.
(Do people in Utah not know about free porn?)
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
I can see the signs... "Welcome to Utah! The home of feminist pornography!"
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: According to my feminist activist friends, there is plenty of non-sexist (or at least non misogynist) porn. Though they also say very little of that stuff can be found on the free Internet porn sites.
Yeah i have some friends and a couple of old lovers who work in feminist porn. One in Australia. The only reason it seems to be catching on as a thing is because porn is finally becoming destigmatized enough to finally approach itself as a cultural force rather than something that is demonized as a countercultural depravity, and in the process have the opportunity and market to correct its own most sexist tendencies
also important is that girls are increasing consumers of porn as well
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Probably! Utah is well known for being a bastion of feminism and liberalism.
(Do people in Utah not know about free porn?)
Well at the time that stat came out, copious free porn was SLIGHTLY harder to find. I think shame plays into it...the more ashamed you are about looking at porn, the less rational your decisions about it will be. (Once you have isolated ashamed-but-looking-anyway, that is.) Plus not talking to anyone about it ever limits such insights.
Posted by stilesbn (Member # 11809) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Probably! Utah is well known for being a bastion of feminism and liberalism.
(Do people in Utah not know about free porn?)
Well at the time that stat came out, copious free porn was SLIGHTLY harder to find. I think shame plays into it...the more ashamed you are about looking at porn, the less rational your decisions about it will be. (Once you have isolated ashamed-but-looking-anyway, that is.) Plus not talking to anyone about it ever limits such insights.
Some conflicting stats have come out since 2009 that show the opposite story. The stats showing Utah has the highest rates of paid porn use was from one of the top 10 porn sites. The stats showing Utah ranks among the lowest is from PornHub data. So neither really give a great picture. So anyway, despite the fact that it has become conventional wisdom to accept that Utah has a higher rate than anyone else (and let's be honest, it's probably pretty high everywhere) I'm not sure that we have good enough data to say either way.
highest rates of people who don't know how to get free porn
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:highest rates of paid porn use
highest rates of people who don't know how to get free porn
Highest rate of fiscal conservatives who can't orgasm if a good/service is not exchanged for something of value.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:highest rates of paid porn use
highest rates of people who don't know how to get free porn
Highest rate of fiscal conservatives who can't orgasm if a good/service is not exchanged for something of value.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Seriously, though. It's one of those things that inspire a mix of pity and sadness. Like when I learned my parents were spending a lot of money paying for a (near worthless) anti virus program. Or that they actually paid $20 to register winzip.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:highest rates of paid porn use
highest rates of people who don't know how to get free porn
Highest rate of fiscal conservatives who can't orgasm if a good/service is not exchanged for something of value.
ok i can't top that
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:highest rates of paid porn use
highest rates of people who don't know how to get free porn
Highest rate of fiscal conservatives who can't orgasm if a good/service is not exchanged for something of value.
:claps:
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Blayne: I was hoping you would notice that the sexism starts before Yoko even shows up.
Yeah with Nya figuring out what she wants to do, but I got too distracted by it being a dub.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Isn't English your native language?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language, that's why that German Oblivion total conversion mod is pretty awesome according to the EC people.
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language
While this is also very untrue, I was actually trying to understand how being dubbed in (perfectly intelligible) English somehow made it impossible for you to see the sexism.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language
While this is also very untrue, I was actually trying to understand how being dubbed in (perfectly intelligible) English somehow made it impossible for you to see the sexism.
Maybe because he was so distracted by the acting that he wasn't listening to the actual dialogue?
Not that that's really a good explanation.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by MattP: According to my feminist activist friends, there is plenty of non-sexist (or at least non misogynist) porn. Though they also say very little of that stuff can be found on the free Internet porn sites.
Yeah i have some friends and a couple of old lovers who work in feminist porn.
out of curiosity did you participate in any of it?
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Basically, sam, we want to know:
1) Are you in fact a porn star irl and
2) What's your porn star name.
Thank you.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language
While this is also very untrue, I was actually trying to understand how being dubbed in (perfectly intelligible) English somehow made it impossible for you to see the sexism.
Maybe because he was so distracted by the acting that he wasn't listening to the actual dialogue?
Not that that's really a good explanation.
I would simply be happy with a rational one. Like, I didn't even mean it as a criticism, but rather because my meager brain is once again baffled by Blayne's logic.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Basically, sam, we want to know:
1) Are you in fact a porn star irl and
2) What's your porn star name.
Thank you.
so this is probably the most conceited thing you've ever heard, but none of those outfits even remotely paid anything even remotely worth the potential complications of being on screen, so i passed.
were i not to have passed, though, my porn star name would have been Edward Poontangenet, Duke of Pork
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Oh, no, I completely understand. I mean, I get 2, maybe 3 offers every month to be a porn star too, and I'm always like "I know you want to pay me a buttload of money to have sex with beautiful women, but no thanks."
Ok, for real though, when I was in college I worked for a little while as a waiter at an upscale tapas restaurant. I was 19 and very innocent, and one night this man looks me up and down and asks me if I can dance. I think well, I go swing dancing every Friday so I say "yeah, sure." Then he says "hey, how much do you make here every night?" I tell him whatever pathetic amount I usually took home, and he said "how would you like a chance to make 3 times that and I said "that sounds great!"
So he gave me his business card and told me to come by and "interview" next Monday. I should have figured it out from the name of the place (The White Unicorn IIRC) but I'm young and naive so I go down and check it out.
There are some things that cannot be unseen. Some memories that are too vivid to ever forget, no matter how much one might want to.
(I didn't take the job)
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
Basically, Dogbreath, we want to know:
1) What would have been your porn star name.
Thank you.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: Oh, no, I completely understand. I mean, I get 2, maybe 3 offers every month to be a porn star too, and I'm always like "I know you want to pay me a buttload of money to have sex with beautiful women, but no thanks."
oh i would have absolutely done it for a lot of money. but usually if girls want to be in a shoot with a guy at these studios they bring in their partners if their partners are willing to do it for free (when they can they will also cover costs for the battery of STD tests required). many are willing to do it for free. the girls prefer people they are already in some kind of relationship with, and it gets billed as an actual couples thing (which is imo way better because it's not so much the unrealistic standard of sexual relations that lots of porn generally fousts)
and the feminist friendly porn operations prefer that people actually be an organic unit — like, these are people who genuinely have found they enjoy having sex with each other, so you can watch some actually organic and realistic lovemaking, right? or barring that a small cadre of performers who are at ease about the whole thing and do not make anyone nervous. and, on top of that, some of the operations are entirely or nearly entirely solo or woman only shoots.
i get why people would sign up for it just for the hope to be having sex with a porn star, but i technically have that already covered if i'm dating one of the performers, so what's the appeal? vanity? proving you can perform well under reaalllly hot lights?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
vital continued viewing on the subject of porn as society's default sexual education
Admittedly, the character itself has always been eye candy. But with this iteration we've literally gone to a prominent woman character having her face totally hidden, while her breasts, stomach, crotch, and legs are all exposed. In the case of the naughty bits as much a literally possible without exposing nipples or labias.
But then again, maybe Nomura was just taking his cues from Western depictions of Catwoman.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language
While this is also very untrue, I was actually trying to understand how being dubbed in (perfectly intelligible) English somehow made it impossible for you to see the sexism.
Maybe because he was so distracted by the acting that he wasn't listening to the actual dialogue?
Not that that's really a good explanation.
Pretty much this. Gurren's dub is pretty bad and awkward like season 1 RWBY.
Plus the usual "Trying to pay attention to a specific thing so you miss the guy in a gorilla suit." I was watching out for more overt forms of sexism that the more subtle messaging was lost on me.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath:
quote:Originally posted by Elison R. Salazar: Dubs vary in quality. Its hard to notice any variance in acting if its a foreign language
While this is also very untrue, I was actually trying to understand how being dubbed in (perfectly intelligible) English somehow made it impossible for you to see the sexism.
Maybe because he was so distracted by the acting that he wasn't listening to the actual dialogue?
Not that that's really a good explanation.
Pretty much this. Gurren's dub is pretty bad and awkward like season 1 RWBY.
Plus the usual "Trying to pay attention to a specific thing so you miss the guy in a gorilla suit." I was watching out for more overt forms of sexism that the more subtle messaging was lost on me.
That's great you can understand that about yourself.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Final Fantasy's Tetsua Nomura redesigns Catwoman.
Admittedly, the character itself has always been eye candy. But with this iteration we've literally gone to a prominent woman character having her face totally hidden, while her breasts, stomach, crotch, and legs are all exposed. In the case of the naughty bits as much a literally possible without exposing nipples or labias.
But then again, maybe Nomura was just taking his cues from Western depictions of Catwoman.
As opposed to any other version of Catwoman, which showed only her eyes and mouth.
It just seems a little nit picky to me.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Final Fantasy's Tetsua Nomura redesigns Catwoman.
Admittedly, the character itself has always been eye candy. But with this iteration we've literally gone to a prominent woman character having her face totally hidden, while her breasts, stomach, crotch, and legs are all exposed. In the case of the naughty bits as much a literally possible without exposing nipples or labias.
But then again, maybe Nomura was just taking his cues from Western depictions of Catwoman.
As opposed to any other version of Catwoman, which showed only her eyes and mouth.
It just seems a little nit picky to me.
I'm not sure what you are saying. If other costumers only show her eyes and mouth how is that similar to the problem I am griping about?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
I actually don't see what you see. Her skin tone is the pale bit right below the mask. The shiny gray you say is "exposed" is another layer of her costume. It's skin tight and impossibly thin, but that's kind of a comic book convention. One which the male costumes employ more often than not.
I'm not saying it isn't objectionable. Just perhaps not for her exposing too much skin. The comic book convention of body paint like costumes seems to be the crux of the issue, along with some questionable anatomical emphasis and proportions.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I'm not so sure (And I'm feeling kinda squicky talking extensively about the minutae of the costume) but how do you have a visible innie bellybutton with even a skin tight layer of clothing over it?
Posted by Xavier (Member # 405) on :
You can't, except in comic books. There it happens all the time.
Here is a quick example and another. Same artist and same character, but I'm sure I could find many more examples. Granted, the belly buttons are typically only found on female costumes. The men typically just have impossibly defined abs and obliques.
It's dumb, but there you have it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Interesting.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
It's very clearly gray spandex and not skin.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
Remember the Batsuit nipples? Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by Destineer: It's very clearly gray spandex and not skin.
I don't know - if you miss the contrast with the exposed chin it's easy to assume it's a stylized depiction of skin.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I actually gave it a full 24 hours before posting this, its been around Facebook for a while, and even I have to admit the letter seemed trollish. I tend to trust the SLTrib though.
But I'm sure she's making the whole thing up, right Germaine?
[ October 15, 2014, 12:25 PM: Message edited by: sarcasticmuppet ]
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
Her tweet, according to the article:
quote:Forced to cancel my talk at USU after receiving death threats because police wouldn’t take steps to prevent concealed firearms at the event.
Utah's gun law is an extension of a constitutionally protected right. The police -of all people - aren't going to start making up places where state law does and doesn't exist.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
That is not even remotely the point. Gun laws only played a part in her having to cancel. The real issue is that the woman received death threats for daring to publicly speak about her critiques of media. I personally think the law is idiotic, but that's not an issue for this thread, even as off as it's gotten of late
As a friend of mine put it -- there is an inherent flaw to argument, "Video games are just a fantasy and don't actually make people act violently towards women, and if you keep saying they do, I'll beat you to death, you stupid bitch."
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
That really is the whole point. Did you read the article? She would have continued with the lecture had the police denied entry to anyone lawfully carrying a concealed firearm. She has lectured in the past, despite having threats against her life.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
There being no way to effectively mitigate the threat is the "whole point"? Not that there is a threat?
WORST ARGUMENT EVER.
Posted by capaxinfiniti (Member # 12181) on :
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: There being no way to effectively mitigate the threat is the "whole point"? Not that there is a threat?
WORST ARGUMENT EVER.
Don't be intentionally thick. I wasn't addressing the broader points of the discussion and you know it.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I'm not falling for the bait. Feel free to argue about gun control elsewhere. I'm trying to address the issue of a woman speaking about women's issues re: video games and getting repeated threats to her life and safety by dudebros who want to maintain the illusion of some hypermacho boys club that is their idea of gaming.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti:
quote:Originally posted by scifibum: There being no way to effectively mitigate the threat is the "whole point"? Not that there is a threat?
WORST ARGUMENT EVER.
Don't be intentionally thick. I wasn't addressing the broader points of the discussion and you know it.
I'll note that I was responding to a post where you were responding to a post that actually acknowledged the side issue and then redirected to the broader points of the discussion, and the content of your post was "yes huh it's the whole point".
I'm not being intentionally thick. You were very clearly saying that the more important thing to discuss is the gun control aspect.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: I wasn't addressing the broader points of the discussion and you know it.
Yeah, and we also know why you aren't
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
this article about nails it, including the 'show both sides' crap
and also reveals a major gamergater is a breitbarteer, which led to a literal lol from me
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
For those of you who (like me) have *no* idea what this #GamerGate deal is actually about, this is a pretty decent rundown of what exactly happened and why.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
quote:Originally posted by capaxinfiniti: Her tweet, according to the article:
quote:Forced to cancel my talk at USU after receiving death threats because police wouldn’t take steps to prevent concealed firearms at the event.
Utah's gun law is an extension of a constitutionally protected right. The police -of all people - aren't going to start making up places where state law does and doesn't exist.
What's your stance on free speech zones for Occupy protestors?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
"I have gone ahead with events that have been threaten with bombing attacks before — three times, in fact — but each time I felt appropriate security measures were taken by law enforcement and venue security personnel. This time it was different. When I spoke with Utah police about what security measures were in place to protect the campus, I specifically requested metal detectors or pat-downs to make absolutely sure no guns were in the auditorium. Police responded by stating that they would not do any type of screening whatsoever for firearms because of Utah's concealed-carry laws. At that point I canceled the speaking event because I felt it was deeply irresponsible for me or the school to put everyone's lives at risk if they can't take precautions to prevent firearms from being present at an event at an educational institution — especially one that was just directly, clearly threatened with a mass shooting spree. "
Makes sense to me. She recognized the police could not ensure her or the attendees safety because their hands were tied, so she cancelled. Doesn't sound like duplicity on her or the police's part.
But that does make me wonder what to do since the 1st and 2nd amendments are clearly banging into each other in this instance.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well, the 2nd as interpreted for maximum possible gun ownership and possession is obviously supremento anything else at any time.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I can understand though that a person, having found out that a threat has been made to kill Ms. Sarkeesian and those attending her speech, that they would want to attend the speech armed, and not rely on the police protect them.
I'm not sure what the solution is here. I definitely don't think Ms. Sarkessian or the police did anything wrong in this instance. The law is quite clear.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
So if the president was speaking on a campus in Utah would the Secret Service have to allow audience members to carry guns?
Posted by NobleHunter (Member # 12043) on :
BlackBlade, if neither Sarkessian or the police are in error perhaps the law is.
Arming oneself in the face of a mass-shooting threat seems like less than optional solution.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: So if the president was speaking on a campus in Utah would the Secret Service have to allow audience members to carry guns?
The President is guarded by SS because he represents a national security concern, you and I not so much.
If we modify this rule, I can basically shut down the entire 2nd Amendment by issuing a death threat. If I'm speaking at a public park, can I require the police to disarm the people there too?
Posted by Sean Monahan (Member # 9334) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: For those of you who (like me) have *no* idea what this #GamerGate deal is actually about, this is a pretty decent rundown of what exactly happened and why.
Thanks for this.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
This shit is such a circus show and on both sides. I might honestly quit gaming forever.
Posted by scifibum (Member # 7625) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: So if the president was speaking on a campus in Utah would the Secret Service have to allow audience members to carry guns?
I can't find a definitive answer to this. There's this:
quote:The White House, hoping to allay fears of a security threat, has said that people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality," spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
quote:The notion that geek-loved media and genres are disrespected just doesn’t jibe with reality. But more, I don’t know what alternative people are asking for. What would victory look like– what would it mean for them to be respected in the way people want? There’s this weird notion of active respect for art forms that just doesn’t occur in real life. Like, I sometimes think the people making these complaints imagine the rest of us sit around going, “hey, you know what genre I really respect? Cop shows.” “Totally. I also really respect cop shows.” Nobody gets that level of active respect for the things they like. But when you’re operating in an environment where you’re told that absolutely every minor dissatisfaction in your life is a political issue, there’s every reason to adopt the stance of “oppressed minority” rather than “human being dealing with the same constant dissatisfaction that we all do.” Even if that self-identification as oppressed person is absurd. I mean I will give them this credit: they are playing the media and the companies that advertise very well. This may be an absurd campaign to justify threats against women and other awful behavior through facile discussions of ethics in journalism, but it is also a savvy piece of media manipulation, undertaken by people who have learned the lessons of left-wing political critique too well. We wrote the book for them.
Argument is like all other human behaviors: subject to conditioning through reward and punishment. And we’ve created these incentives on the left: always politicize; always escalate; always ridicule. We’re living with the consequences of those tendencies now.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Well I know the first things I look for in a fair-minded and reasoned criticism of a given position are a) an opening assumption of fundamental dishonesty on the part of the criticized group and b) an assertion of some degree that a very widespread fault is the province of one particular side of a political divide.
I'm not sure to what extent this piece represents your own position, Destineer, but I hope it's not much. That's some grade-A schlock right there. Particularly since *both* sides of the Gamergate controversy claim victim status! And anyone with a moment's time to review political news today will in that moment that claiming to be a victim is a fundamental strategy of all sides now.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
It does represent my own views to a great extent. DeBoer isn't saying that only one side of the controversy is claiming victim status. He's saying that lefty "the-personal-is-political" type activists are the ones who invented the practice of over-using victim status in this way, and their opponents have only recently adopted it.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
I'm not sure what you mean by him assuming fundamental dishonesty on the part of the group he criticizes. In particular, he's not saying that lefty activists are lying when they claim to be victims. He's just saying that sometimes they're mistaken about whether they're victims, and it's poisonous to have an environment in which its unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim.
Posted by Rakeesh (Member # 2001) on :
Destineer,
quote:...but it is also a savvy piece of media manipulation, undertaken by people who have learned the lessons of left-wing political critique too well. We wrote the book for them.
Labeling a piece of behavior a 'savvy piece of media manipulation' seems to me to clearly suggest at least a lack of sincerity, which is also often referred to as dishonesty.
quote:It does represent my own views to a great extent. DeBoer isn't saying that only one side of the controversy is claiming victim status. He's saying that lefty "the-personal-is-political" type activists are the ones who invented the practice of over-using victim status in this way, and their opponents have only recently adopted it.
I get that he's saying that, and it's still bunk. Politicizing the personal, transforming a contentious issue into a personal attack and defending it as such and then attacking challengers as though they are challenging you personally is hardly a modern phenomena. It's pretty classic, really. 'Over-using' victim status is a value judgment anyway, and open to discussion, but the idea that the left 'invented' utilization of victim status is ridiculous. I can go back sixty years and find plenty of reactions to black voting drives along the lines of 'why do you want my daughter to marry one of those coloreds'. Claiming to be a victim is a classic, because if successful it puts the other party in the position as the aggressor, which is almost universally bad.
quote:I'm not sure what you mean by him assuming fundamental dishonesty on the part of the group he criticizes. In particular, he's not saying that lefty activists are lying when they claim to be victims. He's just saying that sometimes they're mistaken about whether they're victims, and it's poisonous to have an environment in which its unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim.
This is where things fall apart. 'Unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim'. Why exactly is it 'unacceptable', and how is this lack of acceptance transformed into some sort of restraint? It is 'unacceptable' to many people for others to claim victim status on any number of issues, and they try and shut down discussion themselves using precisely the same tactic!
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
quote:I get that he's saying that, and it's still bunk. Politicizing the personal, transforming a contentious issue into a personal attack and defending it as such and then attacking challengers as though they are challenging you personally is hardly a modern phenomena. It's pretty classic, really. 'Over-using' victim status is a value judgment anyway, and open to discussion, but the idea that the left 'invented' utilization of victim status is ridiculous. I can go back sixty years and find plenty of reactions to black voting drives along the lines of 'why do you want my daughter to marry one of those coloreds'. Claiming to be a victim is a classic, because if successful it puts the other party in the position as the aggressor, which is almost universally bad.
It's certainly not new to claim that some political controversy affects you personally, or to take someone else's political position personally. But that's not what the article is talking about.
What is relatively new is to take run of the mill interpersonal interactions in your own life as instances of political oppression (these are sometimes called microaggressions these days).
(Note that DeBoer says, and I agree, that a lot of the time these small events are oppressive. The problem lies in the assumption that if they seem oppressive to a marginalized person, that always means they are actually oppressive. This point of view is one tenet of standpoint theory, a philosophical position that I strongly disagree with.)
quote:This is where things fall apart. 'Unacceptable to disagree with someone about whether they're a victim'. Why exactly is it 'unacceptable', and how is this lack of acceptance transformed into some sort of restraint?
The way it works is that, if you try to suggest that someone's interpretation of their experience as oppressive is mistaken, you're lumped in with sexists, racists, etc. Since it's unacceptable to be sexist or racist, this is a way of treating disagreement as unacceptable.
This isn't what always happens, of course, but if you look at the dialogues surrounding a controversy like #CancelColbert or SF's "RaceFail09", it's a distressingly common pattern.
quote: It is 'unacceptable' to many people for others to claim victim status on any number of issues, and they try and shut down discussion themselves using precisely the same tactic!
Yeah, many right-wing communities have what is effectively the opposite problem.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Anita Sarkeesian wrote an op-ed in the NYTs today.
Wonderful read. I'm so pleased Nintendo's experiment with the Wii drew her back into videogames. Her final lines made me smile.
Posted by jakneiery (Member # 13234) on :
(Post neutered by JanitorBlade)
bleach anime game:bleach online thank you!
[ December 02, 2014, 10:28 AM: Message edited by: JanitorBlade ]
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Spam reported.
Posted by Jake (Member # 206) on :
Why do you want to stop people from having fun with bleach, Dana? What kind of monster are you?
Posted by CT (Member # 8342) on :
Bleach baths for everyone!
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
With ammonia for that extra clean feel!
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
Because you want to kill us all?
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
Well, no unclean thing can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, Jon Boy.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
You can't stop a meme, opposing it will only make it stronger. It's like riding a carnivorous rampaging rhinoceros. If you try to get off too soon it'll trample you to death.
I like the term, I think its funny and often on point for as long as console vs PC gaming is still a hot button topic for people.
On the other hand Wealthy PC Noble[s]men[/s]people is also humourful.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
You can't stop a meme, opposing it will only make it stronger. It's like riding a carnivorous rampaging rhinoceros. If you try to get off too soon it'll trample you to death.
I like the term, I think its funny and often on point for as long as console vs PC gaming is still a hot button topic for people.
On the other hand Wealthy PC Noble[s]men[/s]people is also humourful.
What I got out of this article.
"I'm not calling for political correctness, but I'm calling for political correctness."
I don't think ANYONE associates the meme with Nazis or Hitler. I'll have to tell my friends not to order Kamikaze shots at the bar, since "not associating oneself with Japanese suicide pilots is just good living."
I also think it is a fairly humorous term, especially when talking about console fanboys.
Posted by umberhulk (Member # 11788) on :
Greatness Awaits
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
You and 90% of Reddit are in agreement!
Although I'm not too sure, but I think its possible you forgot the original irony of the term.
Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation invented the term to refer to The Witcher which was a PC exclusive game because "Which as you know are made to be as complex and intuitive as possible so those dirty console playing peasants don't ruin it for the glorious PC Gaming Master Race [Insert Image]".
Which we [PC Gamers] took to with relish because we being slightly dense do think ourselves superior to 'the console fanboys' and thus use the term unironically.
The term doesn't refer to console fanboys (Which Yahtzee considered himself), it refers to us.
PC Gaming is thought to be: -More complex (Excel Spreadsheets, Flight Simulators, Keyboard & Mouse). -More expensive. -More difficult to get into.
Which we decided made us different and more awesome to have overcome that challenge and thus voila.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I love master race jokes. I tell them all the time and they don't make me seem like a weird nerd who doesn't really get it, not at all. Don't get me wrong, I have console using inferior race friends,
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Man, I really wish I was smart and tough enough to get into PC gaming.
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
There are just so many buttons on the keyboard, though. It's so confusing.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Hook to tv so confuse, not able do
Posted by Parkour (Member # 12078) on :
It is impossible to play computer games on a couch using your tv. This has literally never been accomplished. Checkmate, nerds
Posted by Dogbreath (Member # 11879) on :
Yeah, it's too bad they don't make any computers with HDMI ports.
Posted by Destineer (Member # 821) on :
So I guess the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld is forbidden. And like every other episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
Wrong thread!?
Posted by Elison R. Salazar (Member # 8565) on :
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