Tropes vs Women Ep.2

[Matt]

So, given your expectation that you are going to be attacked for presenting an opposing view, I want you to recognize that None of what I'm about to say is intended to be personal.

However, when I made reference to missing the point, this is prime example.

I would much prefer *literally anyone else ever* to present this, rather than Ms. Sarkeesian. The videos are so far apart, it's blatantly all been recorded months ago, even down to exact same clothing, as if it was all done at once.

...So what?

I have gone on record in the past stating that I'm not crazy about the tone Anita takes in her videos, and that I think her analysis is shallow.

But neither of those complaints means she isn't raising valid points. I may not like the way she presents her ideas, but the presentation is wholly independent from the point.

It doesn't matter when she recorded them, it doesn't matter what she's wearing, it doesn't matter if she's snarky, it doesn't matter if she's reading from a teleprompter. None of these things have any bearing whatsoever on the validity of her points.

So I might enjoy it more, or whatever, if someone else was making the points, but that doesn't invalidate the points themselves.

Watching these have only cemented my view. Anita Sarkessian: Deceit & Censorship and I spoke out to Feminist Frequency / Anita Sarkeesian In Person.

Please, for the love of all things holy, at least watch that second one. It is a video of a woman who spoke out against Anita at a live Q&A, with logical rebuttal, and has had to cover her face to protect her college job and course.

So, you know what censorship is?

Censorship ISN'T disabling contents. It is essentially impossible for an individual to censor or prohibit discussion of a piece of media posted on the internet.

What are we doing right now if not discussing and debating the merits of her video series.

Ms. Sarkeesian is stating a viewpoint through her videos. You may or may not agree with her viewpoint, but she is under no obligation to engage you or anyone else in a debate of that viewpoint - and that statement holds true regardless of the topic at the centre of debate.

Refusing to engage with an audience, especially one that has made a prolonged demonstration of open hostility and abusiveness, again, has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the points being raised, nor does it necessarily reflect on the confidence the individual making those points has in them.

It is common among social justice discourse for individuals in positions of marginalization who speak out actively against oppressions to experience argumentation fatigue, especially when faced with oppositions that are hostile, or that engage in topical derailment.

Furthermore, if you want to discuss deceit, consider the words of the person who made that first video.

He claims that any kickstarter that was significantly delayed would be trashed to hell and back if it was anyone else making it, but that Ms. Sarkeesian is granted some kind of exemption from criticism.

Aside from the fact that his first claim is patently and flagrantly untrue, his second is hilariously undermined by his very own criticism of how late her project is. (not to mention the literally hundreds of youtube videos and blog posts and comment threads that are virtually incandescent with rage at how she's "scamming everyone" by not delivering on time.

Beyond that there's the fact that he claims that MoarPewPewPls was forced to hide her identity in her video because she was being hounded by followers of Anita Sarkeesian, whereas MPPP claimed that she generally prefers to keep her identity a secret on youtube, but felt that it would help to ward off potential backlash that *might* occur.

Then there's his description of how Anita "shrugged off" MPPP's comments, when MPPP plainly states that after saying her piece she immediately turned tail and left the auditorium.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the comments were shrugged off. that is plainly a fabrication of the video creator.

The second video is, frankly, completely asinine, and represents an exceptionally juvenile approach to both social issues and entertainment. It betrays fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of criticism, of feminist theory, and of debate and discussion.

The long and the short of her comment was "I'm not personally bothered by the depictions of women in games, so I wish you'd just shut up about it already." She is literally asking Ms. Sarkeesian to stop holding games to a higher standard of artistic discourse.

The ultimate irony here is that critics like Yahtzee Croshaw, for instance, make a living shitting on all the trite, hackneyed, cliches games employ. He does nothing but identify and call out the boring, common, broken, lazy, dysfunctional elements present in games. He offers virtually no positive discussion of the things games do right. His sole purpose is to tear down, in the most intricate detail and the most creatively caustic way he can possibly manage, every flaw in every game that crosses his desk. He does this because he loves games. He does it because he wants to see games become something more than they currently are. And he is lauded as an internet superstar for doing so.

However, the moment Anita Sarkeesian (far more tamely) calls out all the lame, lazy, hackneyed, cliche ways that games portray women, for exactly the same reasons as Yahtzee does his thing, she is treated by a substantial, and extremely vocal plurality of internet users as literally the worst person since hitler.

There's also a majority of the games she mentions.. Where she seems to neglect to even look at the credits. *Women* are also lead devs and sometimes even artists that create some of this stuff.

And again, so what?

women do often work on these games, and sometimes they do so in leading roles, yes. They still make up a disproportionately small number of game developers, especially within lead roles, and, more importantly, they are still working within a system that inherently prioritizes the satisfaction of male gamers.

Anita had a past video tearing a game like Bayonetta apart.. Without noting any narrative context.. Or context in general. Hell, Suda51's games are pretty much always sexualised and/or gratuitous.. But they're done within narrative context.

and no... she actually didn't.

She had a video that briefly summarized Bayonetta's depiction of it's title character, which, I would tend to agree, was incomplete and off the mark as a deconstruction of the character.

HOWEVER, this summary was provided for the purposes of providing a contextual basis for the dismantling of a particular advertising campaign used to sell the game in Japan. The video was not about the game. It was about the sexual assault of women on subway trains, and how the particular advertising campaign in question was priming a sexual objectification response in a space that was already actively hostile to women.

Yeah, she ignored the fact that the character of Bayonetta was intended to lampoon the overt sexualization of female game characters in media. That's because it was beside the point.

...Oh, and as soon as I hear the words "male power fantasy" to label anything that is even remotely not like the trope or whatever.. I stop taking anything said seriously. It's *incredibly* dumb. Or need I mention Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, for example. Volgin molests/sexually harasses Big Boss, thrashes the absolute shit out of him.. And this is supposed to be different, or a "male power fantasy"?

So, you have identified a single example, in the form of a game created by a person who is widely regarded within the industry for his novel and often unconventional approaches to storytelling and advancement of the media form, of a male game character who is (debatably) disempowered via sexual assault in a single scene of a game based around the player's rise to prominence as the world's greatest super-soldier.

On the one hand, if I were to grant that this did negate the male power fantasy in the case of MGS 3, would you care to elaborate on how this invalidates the trope across the literally hundreds of other games that exemplify it, and on the other hand, if I didn't grant that, would you care to elaborate on why you believe this single scene makes MGS 3 something other than a male power fantasy on the whole?

There is nothing in the remainder of your post that was relevant to the Tropes vs Women video series, so I have omitted it.



-------

But here's the kicker, Anita won't accept any opposing view. At all. It's her classroom and what she says is literally 100% correct and you jus' gon' hav'ta deal wit' dat, suuuun. Or something.

Says who?

She routinely does live speaking engagements and is perfectly happy to engage audience members directly within a controlled and respectful environment. Turning off youtube comments and "not accepting any alternative viewpoint" are completely different things.

Furthermore, Considering she has a master's degree in social and political thought, granted her based on a thesis paper on the topic of the depiction of women in media, it might just be that she actually is an academic authority in the field, and has better things to do than teach internet dudebros the basics of patriarchy theory. Just because she doesn't find it particularly rewarding to debate MaekMeASammitch6969 on youtube, that doesn't indicate that she isn't willing to engage peers within her field who might have differing perspectives on the points she raises.

Now.. If this is to be believed at all, which trust me, I take most things with a grain of salt

You would be well advised to take that comment with an amount of salt roughly equivalent to the amount available in Bonneville.

It's because people dislike Anita because she's a huge proponent of censorship. It's ironic that now she herself is being censored by the same tools she uses.

No. Turning off youtube comments is not censorship. Moderating your facebook page is not censorship.

Ms. Sarkeesian's videos have been subject to youtube takedowns resulting from abuses of content flagging. This is not a "tool" that she has ever used to silence her opposition.

People dislike her because she does poor research, is insulting and uses censorship to antagonize those who disagree.

[CITATION NEEDED]

I used to be apart of her facebook group. When I made a mild but thoughtful comment disagreeing with one of the viewpoints in one of her prior videos, my comment was deleted and I was blocked from ever posting again. Don't think this was ever any flaming or derogatory remarks. It was just simply something she disagreed with and so I was dispelled from her classroom.

That sure is something that may or may not have happened and for which we are only reading one side of the story, retold in a way that is completely unverifiable.

Just a few examples from that video alone: She criticised Dinosaur Planet's transformation into Starfox, yet failed to make mention of or realize the original game centered around Krystal saving a princess, making it appear as if she was oddly praising a damsel in distress game.

...so? The references made to Star Fox Adventures were that Krystal was repurposed from protagonist to damsel, and that Star Fox was given the typically male role of rescuing a damsel in distress. Both true statements.

It is largely irrelevant that a game which never saw the light of day may have also featured a damsel in distress - the game was never made. It IS worth noting, however, that in the case that Krystal HAD been rescuing another damsel in distress, that plot contrivance wouldn't have been in service of the empowerment of a male lead, which would, in turn, mitigate the implications of the trope to some extent.

Regardless of that though, it is also possible to commend a game for featuring a female lead with the understanding that some other aspects of the game remain problematic.

She completely misunderstands the storytelling trope of when a protagonist is imprisoned, claiming it's a technique to display how cunning a male is, when that type of storytelling device is actually about how a protagonist is broken down and manages to survive.

So.. it's about how a male protagonist is broken down and then manages survive.... through their own perseverance and cunning?

She appears to be completely oblivious to Double Dragon being a homage to old kung-fu movies.

Homage is not (by itself) an excuse for perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

She calls it regressive crap and takes it for face value without looking into why its story was so simple (hardware limitations)

.

Even if this was an excuse for the use of harmful tropes historically (it isn't) it certainly wouldn't be a good excuse for their continued use today.

She also appears to be completely oblivious to the ending where the kidnapped girl smashes the main villains balls with a punch.

Except for where she explicitly makes reference to this, including a video clip, and makes the extremely relevant observation that this doesn't happen until AFTER the main villain is already defeated by the male protagonist and the danger to the female character already passed.

Flashing 70 game clips isn't really 'referencing" them imo, and as far as I know no one can access her research material unless you were within her $25 or more donor tier on kickstarter. Look it up.

... ok?

What is her intended solution? To demand game developers create games by committee from now on, constantly changing it because a group of people are grabbing pitchforks and torches?

Obviously not. The intent is to rais awareness among gamers and game developers of common storytelling tropes that portray women in regressive and disempowering ways - the hope being that game creators will recognize when thy are employing such a trope and try to find creative and interesting new ways to portray their female characters. The purpose is to inspire better storytelling, and diversity in storytelling.

How about Halo 4's borderline creepy slashfic romance plot between Master Chief and Cortana (a relationship which NEVER EXISTED in the Bungie universe.. Hell, Bungie wanted to end on Halo 2, Microsoft forced 3 out of them and ODST/Reach was literally Bungie wanting to move on to other aspects of the universe)..

What about it - feminist responses to Halo 4 near universally found the disempowerment of Cortana in Halo 4 to be disappointing and lazy. She would almost certainly agree?

BioShock Infinite literally had you "rescuing the girl", but it did so in such a way that it was respectful and Elizabeth was a competent, strong character. The narrative backed it up.

I would strongly contest that claim, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

I mean.. Final Fantasy XIII, for the supposed shitstorm it's received in the past by... Seemingly a very vocal minority, because quite a lot of people really enjoyed it and it was rather positively reviewed.. Lightning and Fang are both strong, confident, sometimes flawed characters.. But they worked their problems out by themselves, and with help from their friends. Vanille spent the majority of the damn game tortured with guilt that she betrayed/lied to her friend (Fang), dragged everyone else into the whole l'Cie mess, was the sole cause of Sazh's son, Dajh, and Snow's fiancée, Serah, being branded.. She had to deal with that and it was a character progression.

Ok, what of it? that's one example of a strong female lead (and I'd remind you here that literally no one is claiming that srong female leads NEVER exist). Anita has identified upwards of 100 examples that demonstrate just this one single trope, and there's still a third episode on this topic yet to come.

EDIT: ...Y'know, does anyone actually realise there's also a term for sexism against men (which *does* exist, especially all the body image and "men must be model gladiators hurrrrr" crap). It's misandry. Look it up. The fact that misogynist is a word that doesn't have a red underline in spell-check.. But misandry does? Means there's definitely not clear equality. BOTH genders (and because it ain't binary, trans* too) need to stop, take a breath, and start everything over again. Quit the hatred and fighting. Just stop.

No.

Misandry is not real.

"Misogyny" refers to the ingrained, systematic disenfranchisement an disempowerment of women (edit: more accurately, "the feminine") through social structures that disproportionately favour men (e: "the masculine").

No such equivalent social structure exists to disempower men, and virtually all examples of male disadvantage find their roots in the systematic disempowerment or malignment of traits regarded as feminine.

It is possible that an individual might hate you for being a man, but you wil never, ever, be subject to broad systematic oppression resulting from your maleness.

You're right that misandry has that funky little red line because of a systematic imbalance between men and women. That systematic imbalance is that men are fundamentally advantaged by society to the extent that they cannot experience socially-ingrained prejudice.

-m

[Drecon]

Time for my 2 cents I guess...

I really don't know this Anita person and don't really care about her or what she does or doesn't do.

What I do care about in this context is her message. And it is definitely valid.
There is a big problem in the games industry. It is that the companies are convinced their games are only played by teenage boys who like nothing more than see those icky girls get thrashed.
Of course we all now nothing could be further from the truth. Most gamers nowadays are adults who want a good story to go with their game.

So, whether you like her or her larger message at all, look at the actual valid issue that she's raising. Women are objectified in games and it is a problem.

[MattAn]

...So what?
I have gone on record in the past stating that I'm not crazy about the tone Anita takes in her videos, and that I think her analysis is shallow.
But neither of those complaints means she isn't raising valid points. I may not like the way she presents her ideas, but the presentation is wholly independent from the point.
It doesn't matter when she recorded them, it doesn't matter what she's wearing, it doesn't matter if she's snarky, it doesn't matter if she's reading from a teleprompter. None of these things have any bearing whatsoever on the validity of her points.
So I might enjoy it more, or whatever, if someone else was making the points, but that doesn't invalidate the points themselves.

Firstly, thanks for the assurance that you wouldn't get personal, I appreciate it.

The main reason I raise the point about clothing (normally, I don't like judging on clothing or whatever) because it's as if it was recorded months ago, before/during the Kickstarter campaign.. And then no one saw anything of it.. So it brings into question what exactly the money was used for. All those flights everywhere? It's not really mentioned, that's all. If the series was pretty much done, why wasn't it up sooner? Why has there been several *months* between videos that are barely 15 minutes in length?

Fair enough that you also noted the snarky attitude and how the analysis is rather.. Minimal. Well, that's how I've seen it, anyway.

So, you know what censorship is?
Censorship ISN'T disabling contents. It is essentially impossible for an individual to censor or prohibit discussion of a piece of media posted on the internet.
What are we doing right now if not discussing and debating the merits of her video series.
Ms. Sarkeesian is stating a viewpoint through her videos. You may or may not agree with her viewpoint, but she is under no obligation to engage you or anyone else in a debate of that viewpoint - and that statement holds true regardless of the topic at the centre of debate.
Refusing to engage with an audience, especially one that has made a prolonged demonstration of open hostility and abusiveness, again, has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the points being raised, nor does it necessarily reflect on the confidence the individual making those points has in them.
It is common among social justice discourse for individuals in positions of marginalization who speak out actively against oppressions to experience argumentation fatigue, especially when faced with oppositions that are hostile, or that engage in topical derailment.
Furthermore, if you want to discuss deceit, consider the words of the person who made that first video.
He claims that any kickstarter that was significantly delayed would be trashed to hell and back if it was anyone else making it, but that Ms. Sarkeesian is granted some kind of exemption from criticism.
Aside from the fact that his first claim is patently and flagrantly untrue, his second is hilariously undermined by his very own criticism of how late her project is. (not to mention the literally hundreds of youtube videos and blog posts and comment threads that are virtually incandescent with rage at how she's "scamming everyone" by not delivering on time.
Beyond that there's the fact that he claims that MoarPewPewPls was forced to hide her identity in her video because she was being hounded by followers of Anita Sarkeesian, whereas MPPP claimed that she generally prefers to keep her identity a secret on youtube, but felt that it would help to ward off potential backlash that *might* occur.
Then there's his description of how Anita "shrugged off" MPPP's comments, when MPPP plainly states that after saying her piece she immediately turned tail and left the auditorium.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the comments were shrugged off. that is plainly a fabrication of the video creator.

No. Banning youtube comments is not censorship. Moderating your facebook page is not censorship.
Ms. Sarkeesian's videos have been subject to youtube takedowns resulting from abuses of content flagging. This is not a "tool" that she has ever used to silence her opposition.

Actually, censorship IS disabling feedback. Us talking about Ms. Sarkeesian's video on an internet forum of a sketch comedy website is not including.. The creator of the video. She is literally throwing her words out, and not taking any criticism, even constructive. I've known of several people who have merely questioned certain aspects or points raised.. And those messages were ignored. I e-mailed her a completely respectful, researched query, mentioning Lollipop Chainsaw and its "content". Nothing. She's responded to people who are wholeheartedly Team Sarkeesian, but not once has she actually debated anything with people that have *constructive* criticism. MPPP did turn tail and leave.. Because Anita barely gave a clear response. She shrugged it off because it was an opinion that didn't line up with the radical cause. Sorry, but I don't call removing/ignoring legitimate opposing questions/feedback "moderating". That's just "ignoring the naysayers".

Women do often work on these games, and sometimes they do so in leading roles, yes. They still make up a disproportionately small number of game developers, especially within lead roles, and, more importantly, they are still working within a system that inherently prioritizes the satisfaction of male gamers.

Okay, I have to straight up call bullshit on this right here. You're making the assumption that women don't happen to like the same things as men and that it's solely targeting men? Right.. Right. Okay. Seems legit. Is that why women jumped on the DmC reboot because of the omghawt "new Dante"? Or the countless "Top 5 Eye Candy" that women literally always drool over. Claiming that it's just men that do such things is laughable at best. Jessica Nigri thrives on her Suda51 game character cosplays, among other "sexualized" versions of costumes. She does it because she chooses to, not because any male has *forced* her to.

and no... she actually didn't.
She had a video that briefly summarized Bayonetta's depiction of it's title character, which, I would tend to agree, was incomplete and off the mark as a deconstruction of the character.
HOWEVER, this summary was provided for the purposes of providing a contextual basis for the dismantling of a particular advertising campaign used to sell the game in Japan. The video was not about the game. It was about the sexual assault of women on subway trains, and how the particular advertising campaign in question was priming a sexual objectification response in a space that was already actively hostile to women.
Yeah, she ignored the fact that the character of Bayonetta was intended to lampoon the overt sexualization of female game characters in media. That's because it was beside the point.

Uh.. Where did you get the impression that Bayonetta was intended to "lampoon"? Hideki Kamiya (the original creator of Devil May Cry and the lead behind Bayonetta is constantly shrugging people off on Twitter for their nonsense questions. His most common quote is mentioning "cute babes". Where's the lampooning there? There is big difference between sexualising and sexuality. From what I've seen of a lot of the.. More radical feminists. Nothing is allowed to be even remotely "sexy". Everything must be covered up at all times forever.

And actually, the video *was* about the game. I watched it. Anita spent several minutes going over how the "only good thing about Bayonetta is that she's a single mother". What? How is any of that relevant to the actual game? Hell, when Kamiya was asked on Twitter back when the first Tropes vs Women video was released, he literally just went "Meh, I don't care. I'm not going to be told how I can and can't make my games." Anita doesn't just "point out these 'flaws' in games", she blatantly says how it's totally not allowed. If she wants to be a games developer, she can make whatever game she wants, however she wants. It's entirely up to the developer.

So, you have identified a single example, in the form of a game created by a person who is widely regarded within the industry for his novel and often unconventional approaches to storytelling and advancement of the media form, of a male game character who is (debatably) disempowered via sexual assault in a single scene of a game based around the player's rise to prominence as the world's greatest super-soldier.
On the one hand, if I were to grant that this did negate the male power fantasy in the case of MGS 3, would you care to elaborate on how this invalidates the trope across the literally hundreds of other games that exemplify it, and on the other hand, if I didn't grant that, would you care to elaborate on why you believe this single scene makes MGS 3 something other than a male power fantasy on the whole?

Debatably? Right. There's a friend of mine who'd take great issue with that. Much like Bane breaking Batman's back, NONE of that is a "male power fantasy".
That. Term. Is. Dumb. Sure, he becomes "the world's greatest super-soldier", but he had to go through a torturous amount of shit to do it! The term "male power fantasy" implies that there's absolutely no right way to do anything. Men are wrong, no matter what. A male character goes through a stressful stealth war situation (which there a many men in real life who suffer from depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to being involved in war. The "male power fantasy"... Thing is a term created by radical extremist feminists who hate all men and even if a male character has to work out their own inner demons and issues, they're still evil and it's a power fantasy. WHAT. There is zero sense in that!

She routinely does live speaking engagements and is perfectly happy to engage audience members directly within a controlled and respectful environment. Turning off youtube comments and "not accepting any alternative viewpoint" are completely different things.
Furthermore, Considering she has a master's degree in social and political thought, granted her based on a thesis paper based on the depiction of women in media, it might just be that she's actually an academic authority in the field, and has better things to do than teach internet dudebros the basics of patriarchy theory. Just because she doesn't find it particularly rewarding to debate MaekMeASammitch6969 on youtube, that doesn't indicate that she isn't willing to engage peers within her field who might have differing perspectives on the points she raises.

Controlled and respectful environment? Yeah, without any recording equipment, any college speaking situations, there are college guards. None of it can be recorded and she'll only refer to people who agree with her, rather than accept any form of opposing view whatsoever. She wants to put up her "research" on the internet for everyone to see, you have to take the good with the bad and actually listen to people (who aren't fucking arseholes) that still oppose her. But no, apparently everyone that opposes her is "one of the internet harassers".

...so? The references made to Star Fox Adventures were that Krystal was repurposed from protagonist to damsel, and that Star Fox was given the typically male role of rescuing a damsel in distress.
It is largely irrelevant that a game which never saw the light of day may have also featured a damsel in distress - the game was never made. It IS worth noting, however, that in the case that Krystal HAD been rescuing another damsel in distress, that plot contrivance wouldn't have been in service of the empowerment of a male lead, which would, in turn, mitigate the implications of the trope to some extent.
Regardless of that though, it is also possible to commend a game for featuring a female lead with the understanding that some other aspects of the game remain problematic.

So, it's totally okay for horrible things to happen to male characters, but it's never okay to happen to females? Right. I see absolutely zero reason/s how it is 100% a bad/problematic situation. Plenty of women love the "damsel in distress" thing. I'm neither here nor there on the whole thing, but don't ever make the assumption that it's only males that like/want to play that sort of thing. Plenty of women are super-traditional and expect the male to propose marriage, the male to do thy bidding, etc. "Repurposed".. Right. It's not an "oh woe is me, why is it always me", they're blank slate characters, which could be any gender. Hell, could even be trans*! I honestly don't see how that's such a big deal. Could they have had both genders selectable/switchable? Sure! Nothing stopping 'em, but they also don't have to. I don't tell a director/script writer how to make their movie. If I want something done differently, here's an idea, I'll do it myself. Equality means Equality. Did I make a big deal about Terra being the lead character in FFVI instead of Locke? No. Because they're characters and it's a story. Terra was a confident yet unsure character until she developed throughout the game. Cloud was an insane lunatic pretending to be Zack, do I immediately relate to him? No. Because he's a virtual character. Using this stupid "male power fantasy".. Thing.. Am I to assume that if the male character were captured (or in Cloud's case, went mental insane crazy-times).. If a female character happens to be the chosen one to save him (in Cloud's case, it was Tifa in Mideel and inside his corrupt mind in the Lifestream), is that suddenly some power fantasy because clearly there's no other option.. No one wins, everyone loses. Women lose because it's a male fantasy of the woman "looking after him".. Men lose if he has to go save her. ARGH. NO SENSE. WHAT.

Homage is not (by itself) an excuse for perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

So again, no matter what, there's no clear solution. Everything is a stereotype.

Except for where she explicitly makes reference to this, including a video clip, and makes the extremely relevant observation that this doesn't happen until AFTER the main villain is already defeated by the male protagonist and the danger to the female character already passed.

....So? How is this an issue? Would it be any different she did so before instead of after? No, because there was a male protagonist. There is literally no logical solution from that.

Obviously not. The intent is to raise awareness among gamers and game developers of common storytelling tropes that portray women in regressive and disempowering ways - the hope being that game creators will recognize when thy are employing such a trope and try to find creative and interesting new ways to portray their female characters. The purpose is to inspire better storytelling, and diversity in storytelling.

Okay. So every single stereotype has already been exhausted anyway, all that's going to happen is brand new stereotypes. And oh look, the roles are reversed! The only logical solution is to have every single character be genderless. Completely and utterly genderless. No way to tell male, female, both, neither.. They're just an amorphous blob. Seems legit. Every character is now Ultros. Or FFX's Sin. Or FFXIII's Cie'th, because nobody knows what the fuck they are.

What about it - feminist responses to Halo 4 near universally found the disempowerment of Cortana in Halo 4 to be disappointing and lazy. She would almost certainly agree?

But supposedly there's no other option. And.. Technically Cortana is genderless. It's an AI. A copy of someone, it's no longer them, it is a computer program, which just happens to have a female body appearance.

BioShock Infinite literally had you "rescuing the girl", but it did so in such a way that it was respectful and Elizabeth was a competent, strong character. The narrative backed it up.

I would strongly contest that claim, but that's a discussion for a different thread.

I'd be interested to hear this, considering the general consensus was that Elizabeth was literally perfect and the best female character ever ehrmergerd - Every 10/10 Review Ever.

Ok, what of it? that's one example of a strong female lead (and I'd remind you here that literally no one is claiming that strong female leads NEVER exist). Anita has identified upwards of 100 examples that demonstrate just this one single trope, and there's still a third episode on this topic yet to come.

Well to me, that's part of the problem. Complain about all the bad ones you can throw together, but not mention any good ones or offer any suitable suggestions as to how this whole mess could be sorted. That's what I want from Anita. Results. If she actually gave alternatives that were not offensive to anyone at all to ever exist ever (Good. Luck. With. That.), I'll be more inclined to take more interest in the whole thing. But while it's all "NOPE IT'S HORRID AND BAD, EVERYTHING IS AWFUL BECAUSE WOMEN ARE ALWAYS BEING SAVED BY MEN, BUT IF THE MAN IS IN DANGER, IT'S A MALE POWER FANTASY." ....What the hell is the solution to that!? Nothing!

...Well, I know one thing. This post took me.. About one and a half hours to write and format? And I'm done. I can't take any of this any longer. It's giving me a headache.

No.
Misandry is not real.
Misogyny is the ingrained, systematic disenfranchisement an disempowerment of women (edit: more accurately, "the feminine") through social structures that disproportionately favour men (e: "the masculine").
No such equivalent social structure exists to disempower men, and virtually all examples of male disadvantage find their roots in the systematic disempowerment or malignment of traits regarded as feminine.

Okay, calling bullshit yet again. The Amazing Atheist - It's Only Sexist When Men Do It Try and say that again. Yes, whatever, it's one example. But when it makes national television and the male is laughed at while the female who mutilated him is called a hero.. When he didn't even do anything. At all.

---------------------
Look, bottom line.. Yes, there's some pretty fucked up shit in games involving women. I don't buy those games. Is this also relevant for female villains who are justifiably.. "Fucking shit up"? And I mean being *evil*. Like.. Harley Quinn, evil.

And the accusation that developers somehow believes games are targeted solely to teenage boys and it's all against "those icky girls".. Why is that female gamers also play those games and enjoy them for the game they are?

Plenty of women play Dead or Alive and find it a ton of fun and think the female characters are genuinely sexy. Again, there is a BIG difference between sexualisation, and sexy/sexuality. Women who are comfortable with their sexuality are perfectly fine with games like DoA. Fanservice is not evil. Female gamers get male eye candy in games just as much, if not more. I've seen *way* too many "Top 5 Rugged/Handsome Men in Games To Drool Over" things. How is that magically okay?

Oh, here's another link. girlwriteswhat YouTube. Female. Anti-Feminism, Pro-Equality. Why Anti-Feminism? Because of the negativity that spawns within it. girlwriteswhat Feminism and the Disposable Male

[phlip]

The main reason I raise the point about clothing (normally, I don't like judging on clothing or whatever) because it's as if it was recorded months ago, before/during the Kickstarter campaign.. And then no one saw anything of it.. So it brings into question what exactly the money was used for. All those flights everywhere? It's not really mentioned, that's all. If the series was pretty much done, why wasn't it up sooner? Why has there been several *months* between videos that are barely 15 minutes in length?

Let me tell a story for a moment. A while back, I backed the Minecraft documentary on Kickstarter. It asked for, and got, several hundred thousand dollars in funding. I have no idea what exactly they did with that money... a not-insignificant amount of the filming had already been done, they showed some clips in the kickstarter video. They could very well have already filmed the whole thing and just used the money to buy cocaine, racecars, and cocaine-powered racecars. Then, not much was heard from them for a while, and then 21 months later, they sent me a DVD. I don't remember there being a huge outcry about this.

Meanwhile, the Tropes vs Women Kickstarter asked for much less money, got a bit less money, and took less time to be finished. And yet this is the one for which the claws come out. I'm just saying: I don't think it's a coincidence that all these "concerns" are being "noted" when they happen to apply to one of the Internet's red button issues.

Actually, censorship IS disabling feedback. Us talking about Ms. Sarkeesian's video on an internet forum of a sketch comedy website is not including.. The creator of the video. She is literally throwing her words out, and not taking any criticism, even constructive.

So, what you're saying is that every author, every radio show writer, every TV or Movie director, every website that doesn't have an attached forum or inline comments section... they're all committing censorship by default? No, that's silly. Censorship is removing your right to speak. You still have your right to speak. But Sarkeesian has the right not to listen. Just because she's chosen to not listen to the Internet's vitriol does not make it Censorship. Your example goes on to mention you sending her an email and not receiving a reply. Are you really claiming that that is Censorship?

[Tropes vs Women doesn't] mention any good ones or offer any suitable suggestions as to how this whole mess could be sorted.

Well, no, of course it doesn't. Can you imagine how much worse the Internet backlash would be if this woman dared to dictate what the games industry must do? Who does she think she is?!?

Less snarkily: The first step of fixing it is admitting you have a problem. The Internet has not completed that first step yet. Once that's happened, then suggesting solutions will be worthwhile.


I won't go point-by-point through the rest of your post, but you seem to be making two main points: "X should be OK to do against women because X is OK to do against men, and OMG DOUBLE STANDARD I THOUGHT YOU WANTED EQUALITY". The other is the straw man of "you don't want anything to exist that might offend anyone ever", see also every time you invoke the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" idea.

To the first: As you have said in this thread, context matters. One derogatory act towards a group is easy to brush off and ignore. One derogatory act among a societal background of many many more of the same can do a lot more damage. It's not linear - you do a lot more harm calling a black person a "nigger" than you do calling a white person a "cracker", even those, in a vacuum, look like equivalent acts... because one is multiplied by all the lingering baggage and oppression that goes along with it, while the other is just a silly name. Which is why the naive "gender-blind" equivalence principle will be the right and proper answer after equality is achieved, it is not the right answer to cause equality to be achieved (and indeed is actively harmful before that happens).

An example of a male character in a video game who's been designed to appeal aesthetically to a female viewer gets attention, because it's different, and it breaks expectations. An example of a female character in a video game who's been designed to appeal aesthetically to a male viewer gets ignored, because whatever, more of the same. So the former gets a lot more attention, and seems more prevalent. While the latter actually does more damage. It takes a large list of many many examples, like what's presented in TvW, to establish the prevalence of the latter, because just claiming it's prevalent is easily blown off, and a few examples are dismissed as outliers. You need the heavy stream of examples to actually establish the pattern.

To the second: We're not trying to rid the gaming world of everything that any single person would find "offensive". That's ridiculous. We don't even specifically want you (generic "you") to stop using this one trope altogether. Just be aware of what implications and subtexts come along with that trope as baggage, and consider them when weighing up story ideas for the next game you make. And maybe make the trope a bit less omnipresent. For a better example of this sort of thinking, look at the Bechdel test. It's a very simple test that can be applied to movies (and can be adapted to games that pretend to be movies, like a lot of AAA games tend to), as a measure of (a) female underrepresentation, and (b) female tokenism. Now, not every movie will pass this test, even in magical equality land. That wouldn't make sense to enforce. And a given movie isn't necessarily bad, or even necessarily problematic, for not passing this test. However, when the percentage of movies that fail the test is abysmally low, especially compared to the gender-reversed version of the test, then that's an indicator that the film industry still has A Problem. It doesn't offer a solution... just trying to make the minimal change necessary to satisfy a simple metric is what got us tokenism in the first place... but as I mentioned, recognising you have a problem is the first step. In the same way, in Ideal Magical Equality Land, games will still probably occasionally have Damsel in Distress plots, involving various combinations of genders. But it will be a lot less prevalent, and women will be a lot less disadvantaged in society at large, and that will take the sting out of if when it does show up.


Finally, for the sake of civility, I'm going to pretend you didn't endorse "The Amazing Atheist" and I'd appreciate it if you would do the same.

[AdmiralMemo]

Alright, I watched these videos for the first time. Here's my take:

Pros:

Her points are completely true and valid.
She points out major flaws in the system.

Cons:

She's not saying anything that other (possibly better) people haven't already said.
Her voice is annoying.
Those frickin' big earrings are majorly distracting, swinging around like that.

I have gone on record in the past stating that I'm not crazy about the tone Anita takes in her videos, and that I think her analysis is shallow.

But neither of those complaints means she isn't raising valid points. I may not like the way she presents her ideas, but the presentation is wholly independent from the point.

It doesn't matter when she recorded them, it doesn't matter what she's wearing, it doesn't matter if she's snarky, it doesn't matter if she's reading from a teleprompter. None of these things have any bearing whatsoever on the validity of her points.

So I might enjoy it more, or whatever, if someone else was making the points, but that doesn't invalidate the points themselves.

Pretty much this. Without her annoying voice, those distracting earrings, and this internet firestorm, I'd write her off as forgettable at best, since none of her points are unique to her.

These videos are great, even if they make me pissed off, but I'd venture to guess she's preaching to the choir to anybody who watches them all the way through.

The ultimate irony here is that critics like Yahtzee Croshaw, for instance, make a living shitting on all the trite, hackneyed, cliches games employ. He does nothing but identify and call out the boring, common, broken, lazy, dysfunctional elements present in games. He offers virtually no positive discussion of the things games do right. His sole purpose is to tear down, in the most intricate detail and the most creatively caustic way he can possibly manage, every flaw in every game that crosses his desk. He does this because he loves games. He does it because he wants to see games become something more than they currently are. And he is lauded as an internet superstar for doing so.

However, the moment Anita Sarkeesian (far more tamely) calls out all the lame, lazy, hackneyed, cliche ways that games portray women, for exactly the same reasons as Yahtzee does his thing, she is treated by a substantial, and extremely vocal plurality of internet users as literally the worst person since Hitler.

Indeed. Nothing she's said is really helping anything, but conversely, she's not hurting anything either. There is absolutely no logical reason for this abject hatred of her that she's receiving. Apathy should be the worst she should be receiving.

Misandry is not real.

Yes it is.

"Misogyny" refers to the ingrained, systematic disenfranchisement an disempowerment of women (edit: more accurately, "the feminine") through social structures that disproportionately favour men (e: "the masculine").

No such equivalent social structure exists to disempower men, and virtually all examples of male disadvantage find their roots in the systematic disempowerment or malignment of traits regarded as feminine.

It is possible that an individual might hate you for being a man, but you will never, ever, be subject to broad systematic oppression resulting from your maleness.

You're right that misandry has that funky little red line because of a systematic imbalance between men and women. That systematic imbalance is that men are fundamentally advantaged by society to the extent that they cannot experience socially-ingrained prejudice.

OK, by that definition that you made, it's not real. However, going by the basic definition of "the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men (i.e. the male sex)," it totally exists.
The main difference is exactly what you pointed out: misandry is isolated, and misogyny is (for the most part) systemic.

Misandry lacks the systemic, transhistoric, institutionalized, and legislated antipathy of misogyny.

[AlexanderDitto]

I was going to reply to your post, MattAn, but then Matt basically said every single goddamn thing I was going to say. Thank you for saving me the time, Matt.

I just can't let this one go:

censorship IS disabling feedback

She wants to put up her "research" on the internet for everyone to see, you have to take the good with the bad and actually listen to people (who aren't fucking arseholes) that still oppose her.

Let me make this abundantly clear, because it's one of the most ridiculous arguments I've seen floating around.

You have the right to say whatever the heck you want. Sarkeesian does NOT have to guarantee you a platform with which to speak to her. She does NOT have to listen to you, or me, or anyone else. She does NOT have to give you a megaphone with which to project your speech. The very idea that you or anybody else has a RIGHT to give her feedback and comments, or to write their feedback on her walls, and if she refuses to listen to them it's censorship, is patently ridiculous.

Consider: say there exists a webcomic on the internet. That webcomic doesn't have a forum, or a comments section. The person just posts their webcomic online. Is that person censoring you?

Say an author publishes a book. The book doesn't list the author's phone number, or address, or email, or website. It's just a fucking book. You read it. You have some comments, but there's clearly no way to contact the author. Is that person censoring you?

Stephen Spielberg makes a movie. You dislike the movie. Do you have the right to get up at the end of the movie, walk to the front of the theater, and start opining at the audience (who are in the process of exiting the theater) about how terrible the movie is? If the movie theater kicks you out when you do that, are they censoring you?

I publish my research in scholarly journals that are peer reviewed. Let's say you read one of my papers and think it doesn't make any sense. You make it abundantly clear in your email to me, though, that you have little to no background on automated statistical analysis of medical data. Is it censorship if I delete your email mostly unread?

The answer to all of these questions is NO. They are NOT.

Because you have every right to go make and publish your own webcomic, or book, or movie, or scholarly article, talking and discussing all the reasons you dislike or disagree with or even LIKE the webcomic, or book, or movie, or my paper. If, say, the government were to PREVENT you from writing that webcomic or book or movie that is critical of Stephen Spielberg's work, THAT would be censorship.

Let me reiterate: you have the right (in the US at least) to say whatever you want. You do NOT have the right to be guaranteed a platform to say it (if, say, nobody wants to publish your anti-Stephen Spielberg screed, that's not censorship either: you can always just self-publish it), and you do NOT have the right to be guaranteed an audience for your speech. Even if your speech is good, and positive; even if you wanted to PRAISE Sarkeesian. She does not have to listen to you!

This idea that everyone has a right to be listened to is entitlement. Sorry, I know you're not going to like this, but it's tied to your privilege. White males are often raised with this idea that everything they say has value, and that they're entitled to an audience for their genius (by no means is it limited to white dudes who act like this, but it's super prevalent among them. Sociologists have found, for example, that women tend to speak up less frequently at meetings not because they don't have ideas, but because they don't want to be perceived as "rude," whereas men tend to view speaking up or interrupting as part of the process). I've met plenty of people (mostly at our business school...) who really, sincerely think they're entitled to be heard, and Feminist Frequency is just underscoring this.

[Danielle Pepin]

I just took a Gender in Comics course that covered a lot of the same tropes. Women in refrigerators and all that happens in comics too. Interesting video.

Are there any examples of plots anyone can think of where the trope used for revenge motivation isn't the female victimization? Possibly money and/or drugs...blows to one's own power or ego....

[Matt]

stuff

I don't have time to respond to this in detail, but you may want to consider whether referring to one of the most vitriolic misogynists on the internet on the one hand, and a regular contributor to A Voice for Men on the other really meshes effectively with your claim that you don't enjoy being labelled an MRA.

-m

[AdmiralMemo]

stuff

I agree with your stance on "censorship." MovieBob said it best in Not Okay:

Of course, this will inevitably draw responses about "Free Speech" and the First Amendment from people who don't understand either of those things. "Free Speech" as a legal concept only guarantees you the right to speak. It doesn't guarantee you the right to be heard. It doesn't guarantee you the right to be agreed with. It certainly doesn't guarantee you the right for your speech to not be challenged by someone else's speech. And, most importantly of all, it doesn't mean you can't suffer consequences if and when your "Free Speech" is used to cause harm to someone, which is exactly what sexual harassment, racial slurs, and verbal bigotry are. That's not "censorship." That's fairness.

[WAYF]

Oh boy...
There have already been so many good points made in this thread.
I have only one more to offer.
But it's the one that bugs me most. Not Anita's voice. Not her earrings. Not even really her condescending attitude towards "male power fantasies" and "something resembling male character development", although if those hadn't been addressed already I certainly would make time.
No, what bothers me is this (emphasis mine):

[After fairly thorougly examining the trope of having to kill off the female lead for one reason or another]
Although the narratives differ slightly, the core element remains the same: In each case, violence is used to bring each woman back to their senses. These stories conjure up supernatural situations in which domestic violence perpetrated by men against women who have lost control of themselves not only appears justified, but is presented as an altruistic act done for the woman's own good. Of course, if you look at any of these games in isolation, you'll be able to find incidental narrative circumstances that can be used to explain away the inclusion of violence against women as a plot device. But just because a particular event might make sense within the internal logic of a fictional narrative, that doesn't in and of itself justify its use. Games don't exist in a vacuum, and therefore can't be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world. It's especially troubling in light of the serious, real-life epidemic of violence against women facing the female population on this planet. Every nine seconds a woman is beaten or assaulted in the United States, and on average more than 3 women are murdered by their boyfriends, husbands or ex-partners every single day. Research consistently shows that people of all genders tend to buy into the myth that women are the ones to blame for the violence men perpetrate against them. In the same vein, abusive men consistently state that their female targets deserved it, wanted it, or were asking for it. Given the reality of that larger cultural context, it should go without saying that it's dangerously irresponsible to be creating games in which players are encouraged, and even required, to perform violence against women in order to save them. Even though most of the games that we're talking about don't explicitly condone violence against women, nevertheless they trivialise and exploit female suffering as a way to ratchet up the emotional or sexual stakes for the player.

Now, she does go onto say (paraphrased) that games aren't going to immediately turn all males into Duke Nukem caricatures who love violence and objectifying women. But I'm pretty sure she correlated supernatural, fictional scenarios where women have to be knocked out/killed because they'll destroy the world if they don't, with real-world instances of domestic violence.
I just... is that okay? Are we okay that she did that? Haven't we been over this whole thing before, numerous times, with the whole "video games cause violence" thing?
Because that just strikes me as not okay. Gamers as a culture don't have many "finer moments", but the one area in which they all tend to agree and make sense is the lack of correlation between fictional depictions of sensationalized violence, and real world violence with actual consequences.

It's late, where I am, and I'm tired. Maybe I'm wrong or misinterpreting that somehow, but right now I am just REALLY not okay with that.

[Metcarfre]

Gamers as a culture don't have many "finer moments", but the one area in which they all tend to agree and make sense is the lack of correlation between fictional depictions of sensationalized violence, and real world violence with actual consequences.

A supposed lack of correlation that may or may not be true. It's a curious thing that any evidence that, for example, depicting violence in media can correlate to increases in violence in real life, or objectification of women in mainstream media or the consumption of pornography lead to worse relationships, social hardships, and even erectile disfunction, are hand-waved away as the work of some nefarious fun-hating cabal.

Perhaps the media we consume has more an effect on you than we would care to admit?

"citation needed", yes.

[Matt]

I just... is that okay? Are we okay that she did that? Haven't we been over this whole thing before, numerous times, with the whole "video games cause violence" thing?

Yes, this IS ok, because she, in as many words, said that (emphasis mine):

Likewise engaging with these games is not going to magically transform players into raging sexists. We typically don’t have a monkey-see monkey-do, direct cause and effect relationship with the media we consume. Cultural influence works in much more subtle and complicated ways, however media narratives do have a powerful cultivation effect helping to shape cultural attitudes and opinions.

Because that just strikes me as not okay. Gamers as a culture don't have many "finer moments", but the one area in which they all tend to agree and make sense is the lack of correlation between fictional depictions of sensationalized violence, and real world violence with actual consequences.

Except that the research virtually universally shows that there is correlation between violent imagery and aggressive behaviour.

The data simply doesn't show cause.

The unanimous shouting down of legislators who are trying to enact laws controlling depiction of violence in games has been understandable, but I would hardly regard it as one of gaming's "finer moments". It has also served to drown out and make taboo any real discussion of the possible negative consequences of media exposure.

-m

[AlexanderDitto]

I just... is that okay? Are we okay that she did that? Haven't we been over this whole thing before, numerous times, with the whole "video games cause violence" thing?
Because that just strikes me as not okay. Gamers as a culture don't have many "finer moments", but the one area in which they all tend to agree and make sense is the lack of correlation between fictional depictions of sensationalized violence, and real world violence with actual consequences.

The simplest way I can put it: just because we should fight to protect our right to say anything, doesn't mean we should say everything.

This is the problem with this "crusade" gamer groups (like Penny Arcade) raise to protect free speech: people conflate the protection of free speech with the idea that all speech is good, positive, healthy, and worthwhile.

Matt's already pointed out: exposure to violent media is correlated with aggressive behavior. There's no causal link. But to say people aren't in some way affected by the media they consume is ludicrous. It's difficult to pin down what that effect is, and it varies by person, of course. But that's why Sarkeesian is questioning why we are consuming a plurality of tropes that dis-empower women, or encourage violence against them? What could possibly be gained from it?

Again, game developers should be free to make whatever game they want. The question is what sort of games SHOULD they be making to make the world a more awesome place, or at least to not make the world suck more?

[Matt]

My responses here are going to be cursory, given the time available to me. Maybe someone else can take these and run with them.

The main reason I raise the point about clothing (normally, I don't like judging on clothing or whatever) because it's as if it was recorded months ago, before/during the Kickstarter campaign.. And then no one saw anything of it.. So it brings into question what exactly the money was used for. All those flights everywhere? It's not really mentioned, that's all. If the series was pretty much done, why wasn't it up sooner? Why has there been several *months* between videos that are barely 15 minutes in length?

There is literally no evidence of any kind as to when this series was filmed. It is quite possible (even likely) that the three parts of this particular video (Damsel in Distress) were filmed together, but that doesn't indicate when, and it certainly doesn't indicate that it was done before the series was even backed.

In response to your second question: not everyone is Graham / this question could be asked of literally any other kickstarter that's running behind. Why aren't people breaking down Doublefine's door?

Actually, censorship IS disabling feedback. Us talking about Ms. Sarkeesian's video on an internet forum of a sketch comedy website is not including.. The creator of the video. She is literally throwing her words out, and not taking any criticism, even constructive. I've known of several people who have merely questioned certain aspects or points raised.. And those messages were ignored. I e-mailed her a completely respectful, researched query, mentioning Lollipop Chainsaw and its "content". Nothing. She's responded to people who are wholeheartedly Team Sarkeesian, but not once has she actually debated anything with people that have *constructive* criticism. MPPP did turn tail and leave.. Because Anita barely gave a clear response. She shrugged it off because it was an opinion that didn't line up with the radical cause. Sorry, but I don't call removing/ignoring legitimate opposing questions/feedback "moderating". That's just "ignoring the naysayers".

This has been responded to already.

Okay, I have to straight up call bullshit on this right here. You're making the assumption that women don't happen to like the same things as men and that it's solely targeting men? Right.. Right. Okay. Seems legit. Is that why women jumped on the DmC reboot because of the omghawt "new Dante"? Or the countless "Top 5 Eye Candy" that women literally always drool over. Claiming that it's just men that do such things is laughable at best. Jessica Nigri thrives on her Suda51 game character cosplays, among other "sexualized" versions of costumes. She does it because she chooses to, not because any male has *forced* her to.

This is a deliberate misreading of what I said.

"inherently prioritizes" is not the same as "solely targets".

I also never said anything about whether women could or could not also enjoy media that sees men as it's primary audience - in fact, as Ms. Sarkeesian points out in her video participation in modern pop-culture essentially necessitates it (with the implication being that since properties are rarely made with the satisfaction of female interest as their primary concern, if women didn't find ways to enjoy them they would be excluded from a substantial portion of the media produced).

Uh.. Where did you get the impression that Bayonetta was intended to "lampoon"? Hideki Kamiya (the original creator of Devil May Cry and the lead behind Bayonetta is constantly shrugging people off on Twitter for their nonsense questions. His most common quote is mentioning "cute babes". Where's the lampooning there? There is big difference between sexualising and sexuality. From what I've seen of a lot of the.. More radical feminists. Nothing is allowed to be even remotely "sexy". Everything must be covered up at all times forever.

Either you can defend Bayonetta from the argument that it is exploitative and objectifying on the grounds that it was engaging in commentary on the oversexualization of female characters in games (and there are many analyses of the game that do just that), or you can accept that Ms. Sarkeesian's indictment of the game as perpetuating negative portrayals of women as apt in context.

And actually, the video *was* about the game. I watched it. Anita spent several minutes going over how the "only good thing about Bayonetta is that she's a single mother". What? How is any of that relevant to the actual game? Hell, when Kamiya was asked on Twitter back when the first Tropes vs Women video was released, he literally just went "Meh, I don't care. I'm not going to be told how I can and can't make my games." Anita doesn't just "point out these 'flaws' in games", she blatantly says how it's totally not allowed.

Except that, again - she details the depiction of bayonetta in the game in service of a point about the game's marketing.

Would you mind quoting for us where exactly she says anything even resembling "how it's totally not allowed."

If she wants to be a games developer, she can make whatever game she wants, however she wants. It's entirely up to the developer.

I don't have to be a chef to tell you the steak you served me is rotten. This argument only holds if you're willing to apply it to literally every media critic on earth.

Debatably? Right. There's a friend of mine who'd take great issue with that. Much like Bane breaking Batman's back, NONE of that is a "male power fantasy".
That. Term. Is. Dumb. Sure, he becomes "the world's greatest super-soldier", but he had to go through a torturous amount of shit to do it!

It's almost like the game illustrates a fantasy scenario in which an eminently capable male protagonist was empowered through his perseverance in the face of extreme adversity... *cough*

The term "male power fantasy" implies that there's absolutely no right way to do anything. Men are wrong, no matter what. A male character goes through a stressful stealth war situation (which there a many men in real life who suffer from depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder due to being involved in war. The "male power fantasy"... Thing is a term created by radical extremist feminists who hate all men and even if a male character has to work out their own inner demons and issues, they're still evil and it's a power fantasy. WHAT. There is zero sense in that!

I think you might actually have no idea of what a "male power fantasy" refers to or what an actually "radical" feminist looks like.

"Male power fantasy" is a plot structure wherein a male character is illustrated (on the whole) as powerful and capable in the face of adversity.

This says nothing about the character being evil or wrong in doing so. It is simply a plot trope that holds typically masculine character traits in esteem as they pertain to resolving the plot's central conflict.

Controlled and respectful environment? Yeah, without any recording equipment, any college speaking situations, there are college guards. None of it can be recorded and she'll only refer to people who agree with her, rather than accept any form of opposing view whatsoever. But no, apparently everyone that opposes her is "one of the internet harassers".

this, according to one person with an obvious agenda, as it pertains to a single speaking engagement.

She wants to put up her "research" on the internet for everyone to see, you have to take the good with the bad and actually listen to people (who aren't fucking arseholes) that still oppose her.

So you believe that, for instance, Stephen Hawking is OBLIGATED to defend his research to every twelfth grade physics student who misunderstands and disagrees with string theory?

Or would you agree that the public interest and advancement of understanding is better served by his committing time to continuing his research and engaging in discussion of the implications that research carries with other professionals in his field?

So, it's totally okay for horrible things to happen to male characters, but it's never okay to happen to females? Right. I see absolutely zero reason/s how it is 100% a bad/problematic situation.

You're putting words in my mouth. In fact, I quite explicitly sait that it was entirely possible to regard a game as both commendable for one thing and problematic for another. You're the one speaking in absolutes.

Plenty of women love the "damsel in distress" thing. I'm neither here nor there on the whole thing, but don't ever make the assumption that it's only males that like/want to play that sort of thing.

Literally no one has ever said that.

Plenty of women are super-traditional and expect the male to propose marriage, the male to do thy bidding, etc. "Repurposed".. Right. It's not an "oh woe is me, why is it always me", they're blank slate characters, which could be any gender. Hell, could even be trans*! I honestly don't see how that's such a big deal. Could they have had both genders selectable/switchable? Sure! Nothing stopping 'em, but they also don't have to. I don't tell a director/script writer how to make their movie. If I want something done differently, here's an idea, I'll do it myself. Equality means Equality. Did I make a big deal about Terra being the lead character in FFVI instead of Locke? No. Because they're characters and it's a story. Terra was a confident yet unsure character until she developed throughout the game. Cloud was an insane lunatic pretending to be Zack, do I immediately relate to him? No. Because he's a virtual character. Using this stupid "male power fantasy".. Thing.. Am I to assume that if the male character were captured (or in Cloud's case, went mental insane crazy-times).. If a female character happens to be the chosen one to save him (in Cloud's case, it was Tifa in Mideel and inside his corrupt mind in the Lifestream), is that suddenly some power fantasy because clearly there's no other option.. No one wins, everyone loses. Women lose because it's a male fantasy of the woman "looking after him".. Men lose if he has to go save her. ARGH. NO SENSE. WHAT.

If there is a coherent argument in this paragraph, I have yet to find it.

So again, no matter what, there's no clear solution. Everything is a stereotype.

Awfully fatalistic.

....So? How is this an issue? Would it be any different she did so before instead of after? No, because there was a male protagonist. There is literally no logical solution from that.

So... context matters?

There is no female empowerment in this scene. There are no stakes. She's been saved, and the enemy defeated on her behalf. That she gets a punch in on a defeated villain doesn't advance any particular point, except to serve as a punch line.

Okay. So every single stereotype has already been exhausted anyway, all that's going to happen is brand new stereotypes. And oh look, the roles are reversed! The only logical solution is to have every single character be genderless. Completely and utterly genderless. No way to tell male, female, both, neither.. They're just an amorphous blob. Seems legit. Every character is now Ultros. Or FFX's Sin. Or FFXIII's Cie'th, because nobody knows what the fuck they are.

That is clearly not the only solution.

But supposedly there's no other option. And.. Technically Cortana is genderless. It's an AI. A copy of someone, it's no longer them, it is a computer program, which just happens to have a female body appearance.

Your arguments at this point aren't even consistent with themselves.

Well to me, that's part of the problem. Complain about all the bad ones you can throw together, but not mention any good ones or offer any suitable suggestions as to how this whole mess could be sorted. That's what I want from Anita. Results. If she actually gave alternatives that were not offensive to anyone at all to ever exist ever (Good. Luck. With. That.), I'll be more inclined to take more interest in the whole thing. But while it's all "NOPE IT'S HORRID AND BAD, EVERYTHING IS AWFUL BECAUSE WOMEN ARE ALWAYS BEING SAVED BY MEN, BUT IF THE MAN IS IN DANGER, IT'S A MALE POWER FANTASY." ....What the hell is the solution to that!? Nothing!

Except the series is called TROPES vs. women.

it is a documentary series, THE SOLE STATED PURPOSE OF WHICH IS TO IDENTIFY COMMON NEGATIVE PORTRAYALS OF WOMEN.

Perhaps you should consider that what you are asking for is something other than the stated purpose of this series.

Look, bottom line.. Yes, there's some pretty fucked up shit in games involving women. I don't buy those games. Is this also relevant for female villains who are justifiably.. "Fucking shit up"? And I mean being *evil*. Like.. Harley Quinn, evil.

I don't see your point here - female characters can be problematic isn a whole host of ways. but the dynamics of, say, female on male violence are different and occupy a separate cultural context from male on female violence.

And the accusation that developers somehow believes games are targeted solely to teenage boys and it's all against "those icky girls".. Why is that female gamers also play those games and enjoy them for the game they are?

I think you're hyperbolizing.

You know the phrase, "Never attribute to malice what you can contribute to incompetence"?

On the one hand, this isn't part of an intentional process to engage in the prioritization of ale interest, i t is simply a cultural status quo that manifests itself in the products generated by cultural actors who are not aware of it, or working to counteract it.

You're also overstating the power of market segmentation, and targeted marketing. Just because a property is geared towards satisfying male gamers as it's primary audience doesn't mean that there aren't men who won't/i] find it interesting any more than it means there aren't women who [i]will.

The product is simply likely to appeal to a larger proportion of the particular demographic being targeted than it will to other audience segments.

Plenty of women play Dead or Alive and find it a ton of fun and think the female characters are genuinely sexy. Again, there is a BIG difference between sexualisation, and sexy/sexuality. Women who are comfortable with their sexuality are perfectly fine with games like DoA. Fanservice is not evil.

There are plenty of women who are comfortable with their sexuality who find the depiction of women in DoA to be deprecating and regressive, too. But very few (especially among sex-positive feminists) would argue that sexualization and sexuality is inherently problematic, so the argument that anyone is claiming sexualization is "evil" is simply a hyperbolic falsehood.

The argument is that there ought to be some assessment of prevailing cultural context, and power dynamics which underlie those acts of sexuality and sexualization in order to create games where these components are not reinforcing regressive portrayals of women.

Female gamers get male eye candy in games just as much, if not more. I've seen *way* too many "Top 5 Rugged/Handsome Men in Games To Drool Over" things. How is that magically okay?

Because there isn't a cultural undercurrent that dictates men are only valuable for their physical appearance, and, in general, psychological studies of objectification tend to show that women, presented in a sexually appealing manner, are processed by the cognitive processes that pertain to object recognition, and men presented the same way continue to trigger the cognitive processes that pertain to human beings.

-m

[AlexanderDitto]

Female gamers get male eye candy in games just as much, if not more. I've seen *way* too many "Top 5 Rugged/Handsome Men in Games To Drool Over" things. How is that magically okay?

Allow me to add to Matt's point with a slightly different perspective: as a gay dude, trust me when I say I have seen WAY more male "eye candy" than you have. Just... just trust me on this one. Go with me on this journey.

There is a clear difference between the way the mass media portrays men and women in their respective "eye candy." Think about the examples in your mind's eye: women are disempowered, infantilized, or made vulnerable. They're prone, posed supine, with exaggerated breasts or butts (which are not inherently "powerful" things). Men are empowered, made "rugged" and powerful and strong (usually with an exaggerated musculature, to emphasize how powerful and strong they are).

If you want to see examples of what would be the actual "equivalent" of sexualized women, but with men, I can provide them. That sort of shit is typically aimed toward a small segment of the gay crowd (which does not include me, I like my dudes "rugged") and does NOT even come CLOSE to entering the mainstream. If it did, straight dudes would pitch a fit. I warn you, though: you're not going to like them. Also they would probably get you fired from work.

So, no. This argument is bullshit, and the only reason you could even make a claim like the one I've quoted above without realizing how wrong it is is that you're a straight dude and the market caters to your sexual preferences. Once again, you've been blinded by privilege.

[Metcarfre]

Case in point; GQ's "Man of the Year" cover;



Channing Tatum, in a suit.

GQ's "Woman of the Year" cover;

http://joannabehar.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/rihanna_gq_dec_2012_joanna_behar.jpg?w=747&h=1024

Rihanna, naked. (Edited to link because NSFW-y)

[AlexanderDitto]

Jesus H fucking christ.

[Metcarfre]

Sry?

[Matt]

Channing Tatum is an... Attractive man. Yow.

-m

[AlexanderDitto]

Sry?

Man on GQ cover: extremely well dressed.

Woman on GQ cover: extremely undressed.

I demand either Rhianna in an Italian 2-button or Channing Tatum, wearing only a bow-tie, over a barrel.

[Matt]

Yow.

-m

[Metcarfre]

Ffff. Collar gap. What a rube.

[Matt]

Plebe, I believe.

-m

[Metcarfre]

3nxtlvl5u

[Pikachaos]

Okay, I'm just going to specifically talk on fanservice right now, because there are too many talking points started.

Women being sexy is not bad, taking away sexy women is not my goal. The problem here is think of any regular male fanservice you may think of. It will be pretty much all of the Avengers right? BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS and all. Difference here is they also have FULL fleshed out characters, with reasons that they are supremely attractive [Thor as a God makes him all buff and perfect, I mean, he's a god.], Dean and Sam from supernatural are 90% character, 10% holy-hell-I-want-your-babies, and again, buff from all the ass they kick. Along with this is the very unique facial structures they have. They are attractive, but also human, and you don't see them as objects.

Now, on women, many video games that have a hot women have... well... A Hot Woman. Their faces are pristine and without any defining features. I mean you usually know the difference from their hair color. Most of the time they have this half assed personality [sometimes even twisted to explain their clothing, in a half assed way], most of the time, they don't even have that. This is why they are OBJECTS.

Now, if there were an equal number of fully fleshed out girls with these objects, I'd be fine, but it's usually 90%. This makes it particularly hard when I cosplay, to pick a girl who I actually respect and admire. [not worrying about what appearance I'd end up cosplaying. So I usually end up cosplaying girls that I don't really even like. Kinda sucks.

Let's not even mention that when I DO cosplay one of these women who are the majority of female characters I get hounded and harassed, and then blamed for dressing asking for it by dressing as them.

Okay, I'm sorry, that was all over the place. My father is making me research assisted living homes as I do this.