Why exactly did you bring up Poe's law? Are you trying to say that sexist games are parodying sexism? I'm sorry, but I disagree. Women who are objectified in games aren't being part of a joke. It's kinda real.
That is the point of Poes Law, the line of parody and realism gets blurred to the point that one doesn't know if it is to be taken seriously.
As for you not liking a woman over the internet: good for you. I don't care. You found a youtuber who is wrong sometimes and is biased. That's not hard; the video you posted is a prime example. As for the "asking to be payed for it" part- she made a Kickstarter page to help fund a movie. You can't control how much people donate. Get over it. Ouya only asked for $1 million and raised $6 million. That's the way Kickstarter works.
Again, the irritant part comes from the fact that this person is getting praised and DEFENDED just because she is up against something that is WORTH researching, but she doesn't show the talent to back up the money she already has to begin with (she has her own studio and several consoles before)
Spoiler: Click to 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
I sincerely hope that you dont actually think that it is good to take advantage of the ignorants and their money, or that there SHOULDN'T be some kind of regulation or control on Kickstarter to avoid this kind of scams.
2) >implying that people who are sheltered are fragile and shy Once again, it doesn't have to be like that. One might have the need to escape the abuse and train martially to overcome her obstacles. The game could have been about escaping the castle and having her take a final stand.
Here is where the line where "realism" and "fantasy" is going to get fucked up. If she is really that useless as presented in the game instead of doing the logical approach of escaping herself and overcome her obstacles, then one must reach the logical conclusion that she already tried that before and failed so many times with the assholes around to the point that she gave up all hope by the time we meet her or she was mindraped into submission and the protagonist avoided such fate for being a Horned Kid (possibly the product of an ancient god made human from Shadow of The Colosuss)
Now, if this sounds like bullshit to you, is because it is. Its all conjecture and nothing really is confirmed by the game itself.........but there is a problem, ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus are supposed to be the posterchild of "games as art", meaning that both express what the story is about thorough the gameplay and visuals instead of just visuals like in movies.
If nothing i said hold any water then what is stopping every single praise about this game from being false? apparently, everything the game told us doesnt give enough context to PREVENT this kind of discussion about sexism. How did these 2 games became "art" again?
I'm not saying that my ideas are better or more "realistic." I'm just saying that women are people too who are just as varied and complicated as men are. I'm tired of saving the infinite number of helpless princesses; if we are to have a sex related trope used in games, I'd MUCH rather have this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassPrincess
You know that just being badass isn't going to cut it, right? Metroid Other M has Samus as a badass EXCEPT in plot relevant segments. She looses the Strong Character attribute because it fails to progress the plot by her actions.
No, a feminist writer asks for $150,000 to shit on videogames.
Except she didn't ask for $150,000.
When you open a Kickstarter, you are literally asking for money. I'm not saying she expected that amount. I'm saying that she asked for money. Sorry if I was unclear.
Edit: She asked for $6,000 if we're being technical.
Why exactly did you bring up Poe's law? Are you trying to say that sexist games are parodying sexism? I'm sorry, but I disagree. Women who are objectified in games aren't being part of a joke. It's kinda real.
That is the point of Poes Law, the line of parody and realism gets blurred to the point that one doesn't know if it is to be taken seriously.
As for you not liking a woman over the internet: good for you. I don't care. You found a youtuber who is wrong sometimes and is biased. That's not hard; the video you posted is a prime example. As for the "asking to be payed for it" part- she made a Kickstarter page to help fund a movie. You can't control how much people donate. Get over it. Ouya only asked for $1 million and raised $6 million. That's the way Kickstarter works.
Again, the irritant part comes from the fact that this person is getting praised and DEFENDED just because she is up against something that is WORTH researching, but she doesn't show the talent to back up the money she already has to begin with (she has her own studio and several consoles before)
Spoiler: Click to 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
I sincerely hope that you dont actually think that it is good to take advantage of the ignorants and their money, or that there SHOULDN'T be some kind of regulation or control on Kickstarter to avoid this kind of scams.
2) >implying that people who are sheltered are fragile and shy Once again, it doesn't have to be like that. One might have the need to escape the abuse and train martially to overcome her obstacles. The game could have been about escaping the castle and having her take a final stand.
Here is where the line where "realism" and "fantasy" is going to get fucked up. If she is really that useless as presented in the game instead of doing the logical approach of escaping herself and overcome her obstacles, then one must reach the logical conclusion that she already tried that before and failed so many times with the assholes around to the point that she gave up all hope by the time we meet her or she was mindraped into submission and the protagonist avoided such fate for being a Horned Kid (possibly the product of an ancient god made human from Shadow of The Colosuss)
Now, if this sounds like bullshit to you, is because it is. Its all conjecture and nothing really is confirmed by the game itself.........but there is a problem, ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus are supposed to be the posterchild of "games as art", meaning that both express what the story is about thorough the gameplay and visuals instead of just visuals like in movies.
If nothing i said hold any water then what is stopping every single praise about this game from being false? apparently, everything the game told us doesnt give enough context to PREVENT this kind of discussion about sexism. How did these 2 games became "art" again?
I'm not saying that my ideas are better or more "realistic." I'm just saying that women are people too who are just as varied and complicated as men are. I'm tired of saving the infinite number of helpless princesses; if we are to have a sex related trope used in games, I'd MUCH rather have this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassPrincess
You know that just being badass isn't going to cut it, right? Metroid Other M has Samus as a badass EXCEPT in plot relevant segments. She looses the Strong Character attribute because it fails to progress the plot by her actions.
Line by line breakdown. Cute. Respond like an adult if you want me to read what you have to say.
Why exactly did you bring up Poe's law? Are you trying to say that sexist games are parodying sexism? I'm sorry, but I disagree. Women who are objectified in games aren't being part of a joke. It's kinda real.
That is the point of Poes Law, the line of parody and realism gets blurred to the point that one doesn't know if it is to be taken seriously.
As for you not liking a woman over the internet: good for you. I don't care. You found a youtuber who is wrong sometimes and is biased. That's not hard; the video you posted is a prime example. As for the "asking to be payed for it" part- she made a Kickstarter page to help fund a movie. You can't control how much people donate. Get over it. Ouya only asked for $1 million and raised $6 million. That's the way Kickstarter works.
Again, the irritant part comes from the fact that this person is getting praised and DEFENDED just because she is up against something that is WORTH researching, but she doesn't show the talent to back up the money she already has to begin with (she has her own studio and several consoles before)
Spoiler: Click to 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
I sincerely hope that you dont actually think that it is good to take advantage of the ignorants and their money, or that there SHOULDN'T be some kind of regulation or control on Kickstarter to avoid this kind of scams.
2) >implying that people who are sheltered are fragile and shy Once again, it doesn't have to be like that. One might have the need to escape the abuse and train martially to overcome her obstacles. The game could have been about escaping the castle and having her take a final stand.
Here is where the line where "realism" and "fantasy" is going to get fucked up. If she is really that useless as presented in the game instead of doing the logical approach of escaping herself and overcome her obstacles, then one must reach the logical conclusion that she already tried that before and failed so many times with the assholes around to the point that she gave up all hope by the time we meet her or she was mindraped into submission and the protagonist avoided such fate for being a Horned Kid (possibly the product of an ancient god made human from Shadow of The Colosuss)
Now, if this sounds like bullshit to you, is because it is. Its all conjecture and nothing really is confirmed by the game itself.........but there is a problem, ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus are supposed to be the posterchild of "games as art", meaning that both express what the story is about thorough the gameplay and visuals instead of just visuals like in movies.
If nothing i said hold any water then what is stopping every single praise about this game from being false? apparently, everything the game told us doesnt give enough context to PREVENT this kind of discussion about sexism. How did these 2 games became "art" again?
I'm not saying that my ideas are better or more "realistic." I'm just saying that women are people too who are just as varied and complicated as men are. I'm tired of saving the infinite number of helpless princesses; if we are to have a sex related trope used in games, I'd MUCH rather have this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassPrincess
You know that just being badass isn't going to cut it, right? Metroid Other M has Samus as a badass EXCEPT in plot relevant segments. She looses the Strong Character attribute because it fails to progress the plot by her actions.
Line by line breakdown. Cute. Respond like an adult if you want me to read what you have to say.
Separating the massive wall of text and answering points individually? HOW DARE S/HE!
That is the point of Poes Law, the line of parody and realism gets blurred to the point that one doesn't know if it is to be taken seriously.
Again, the irritant part comes from the fact that this person is getting praised and DEFENDED just because she is up against something that is WORTH researching, but she doesn't show the talent to back up the money she already has to begin with (she has her own studio and several consoles before)
Spoiler: Click to 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
I sincerely hope that you dont actually think that it is good to take advantage of the ignorants and their money, or that there SHOULDN'T be some kind of regulation or control on Kickstarter to avoid this kind of scams.
Here is where the line where "realism" and "fantasy" is going to get fucked up. If she is really that useless as presented in the game instead of doing the logical approach of escaping herself and overcome her obstacles, then one must reach the logical conclusion that she already tried that before and failed so many times with the assholes around to the point that she gave up all hope by the time we meet her or she was mindraped into submission and the protagonist avoided such fate for being a Horned Kid (possibly the product of an ancient god made human from Shadow of The Colosuss)
Now, if this sounds like bullshit to you, is because it is. Its all conjecture and nothing really is confirmed by the game itself.........but there is a problem, ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus are supposed to be the posterchild of "games as art", meaning that both express what the story is about thorough the gameplay and visuals instead of just visuals like in movies.
If nothing i said hold any water then what is stopping every single praise about this game from being false? apparently, everything the game told us doesnt give enough context to PREVENT this kind of discussion about sexism. How did these 2 games became "art" again?
You know that just being badass isn't going to cut it, right? Metroid Other M has Samus as a badass EXCEPT in plot relevant segments. She looses the Strong Character attribute because it fails to progress the plot by her actions.
Line by line breakdown. Cute. Respond like an adult if you want me to read what you have to say.
Separating the massive wall of text and answering points individually? HOW DARE S/HE!
If three paragraphs is a "wall of text", then I feel bad for you.
hooksashands: The fact that she uses my hobby as a soapbox to get her narrow political and social views across to an audiences pisses me off more than the actual sexism.
That sounds horribly defensive.
Not really.
NightowlM: Someone has the gall to criticize "your hobby" and has political views that contradict yours?
No, a feminist writer asks for $150,000 to shit on videogames. That's it. Dead stop. She doesn't play them to have fun, she plays them to bolster her retarded argument that it's a male-dominated niche (it's not).
She didn't ask for 150,000. Her kickstarter goal was I think 6,000, and from what I've seen that's a pretty reasonable sum to ask for for such a project. And she's not really shitting on video games now is she? If someone asked for 150,000 dollars to basically complain about every single thing they hated about various games, that would be infuriating.
And you can't really assume her motivations. How do you know she doesn't game for fun? I don't think even the most dedicated persons would spend hours upon hours doing something they can't stand, in order to go about critiquing that something. For instance, if I were investigating sports culture in order to complete a project on the subject, I would be absolutely miserable watching hours and hours of sports. Whereas if I were investigating say, casual racism in modern sitcoms, I'd be more amenable to the project because I happen to like watching some sitcoms. So she might be doing her job by playing video games, but I don't think anyone would bother putting that much time into it if they weren't also at least interested in the medium.
runic knight: I am not saying they can not be attacked at all. I am saying they should not be frivolously attacked, or attacked in the way she has, because of how the backlash can disrupt and destroy communication. Saying Mario, Ico, Zelda or the like are sexist because of the use of old tropes is not offering an indepth discussion. To reuse your analogy, her criticism is the equivalent to saying a classic book is sexist because the hero is a male. No exploration of underlying themes or reason why that theme was chosen. No point by point breakdown (like the metroid other M one) about why the character is terrible and how their role is but one of several factors that paint it as sexist. Nope, just a scratch of the surface, call out the trope and call it a day.
Again, you talk about Mario, ICO and Zelda as if Anita has already posted her videos...
runic knight: Do you get what I was trying to say there though? That because of her growing renown, people ay mistake fame for credence and start to fall back on her posts and points in discussions. This happens all the time with creationist preachers, with political shock jocks, and I have seen it starting to happen with video game critics like Yahtzee. Not that Yahtzee is bad, merely that people will point to people in debate and discussion, often those that are well known. With Anita, I can only see that as a bad thing given her history of screwing up details and refusal to address valid concerns or complaints or even get into viable discussions.
I get what your point was but I just don't see it as a serious issue. If someone refers to Anita as an authority on the subject you can always explain them why you don't find her work on the subject valid. It's really not that big of a deal.
runic knight: I've delved into this before. Actions of a vocal minority do not represent the group as a whole. Aside from the fact not all the trolls were gamers. Aside from the fact that after 4chan, the asshole of the web, was stirred up, thereby rendering any attempt to pin this action on gamers pointless, and aside from the lot of the response very well being bandwagon trolling instead of genuine outrage, there is still the little aspect of numbers. At best you have a couple dozen thousand trolls out there in her comment section, 1st world wide. In america alone you have a male gaming populous around 128 million or so. Point 0005 some odd percent of gamers. That is not honest calling such a miniscule amount as evidence of anything. Calling it dishonest here is kinda obvious.
I still don't think there was anything dishonest about the statement. She didn't call all or most gamers sexist. She just said that the hate campaign leveled against her was just another sign that there was an issue.
runic knight: As for the rest of your examples, the online fighting game scene, the online insults, the anecdotal evidence. You are aware that the vast majority of that stems from an immature audience given a powerful tool, yes? Not games, but Anonymity. Immature asshats who are hidden online suddenly become asshats. This is not limited to games, nor to men. Insults fly everywhere, not limited to women. In fact, the trait of being a women is merely a point of attack. Same as calling black people out for being black, homosexuals out for it, ethnicity, being a rich white boy, being emo... You mistakenly present these examples as something done because they are a woman when most are done because the people doing them are assholes who want to hurt others. It doesn't matter that the target is a woman other then changing the sort of language they direct towards their target.
Racist and homophobic slurs don't cease to be racist and homophobic slurs just because the people using them are asshats. Sexist slurs are not in any way less sexist if the person says them only to get a rise out of you.
runic knight: Let me put this a different way. Over a hundred million male gamers in america today. That is a vast hobby. You WILL get assholes, misogonists and worse in there. There is no limiting requirement to being a gamer, just pick up the controller. You have the same number of Misogonists in this hobby as you do Men who go to movies once a week. Would you say that Moviegoers have a problem with sexism? Probably not. Why not though, if numbers are roughly the same and often overlap? The same asshole calling women bitches on X-box is going to the movies. How is it remotely justifiable to point at one medium and go "yep, it has problems with sexism" but ignore the other? I know why people do. They are more vocal in gaming. They don't have the social pressures to avoid it when online an anonymous. There IS a problem there, but I don't think either you nor her is delving into it the right way here.
Sexism in moviegoers isn't an issue for the same reason sexism isn't an issue with churchgoers or grocery shoppers. People don't regularly hurl out sexist or racist slurs when they sit in a movie theater. Hearing sexist and racist slurs when you play video games is however pretty common. Yes, the issue exist within online gaming community partly because of anonymity and lack of social pressure. I don't really get what exactly you object to though. The issue still exists within the online gaming community even though the reason for the issue is anonymity etc.
runic knight: Depends on the rest of the media in which they are portrayed as bad fathers. If, however they went about it, there was plot and story justification in it, or even if the story characters were merely plot points to force the game off the runway and give reason for people to play, then no, I don't think it would be that terrible. If it was just saying "they are bad fathers because" then yeah, would be a bit annoying. If it was designed to actually transmit that as a message, with gameplay elements based off of being a bad father and a plot goal of being one (for the sake of example, lets say the game is a side-scrolling platformer where you have to avoid screaming infants), then yeah, I would say that is horrible. But if this was a flip, it would not all be that sort of blatant horrible thing. You'd see a common trope with a lot of characters being bad fathers. It would be a common trait just because. Annoying but ok, it is there.
Story justification doesn't make sexist or racist tropes any less sexist or racist. Just because you seem to be against quantitative research on the subject, it doesn't mean it's not a valid way of analyzing the general trends in gender and race portrayals in films and games. Do you also think it's accurate to say that the black criminal stereotype isn't racist because there is in-story logic that explains why the criminals in stories are black? Even if said stereotype concerning black men is extremely common in popular media? Even if it feeds to harmful ideas about black people?
runic knight: True, and while part of what I say is exaggeration for point (I am long winded and try to hammer my points home through a variety of ways), there is also the aspect I am trying to get across that her points, her place in this discussion on females and gaming, is one to dismiss most of the time. Again, not for the opinions but the manner in which she goes about giving them and the whole intellectual dishonesty stuff I went over before. To me, that is worthy of the comparisons. That feels like garbage I have to shift to the side in order to get into a discussion on females and gaming the same way Glenn Beck is to political discourse. I am not quite trying to outright dismiss her, more so don't want her brought up in discussions about sexism, females and gaming so the discussion can instead stay on the topic itself, instead of being bogged down with the ensuing rift about people's opinions on her. If she wants to go into detail about her thoughts then fine, I would love that, but I don't want to see the trend of tossing people out like viable sources in a discussion result in her name coming up, or her videos being linked instead of the people themselves arguing the points.
Again, the easiest and imo the best way of dismissing her opinions is doing just that. When you go on an emotional tirade against the person it distracts from the discussion and makes you seem unreasonable. You say you want to keep the discussion on topic and the proceed saying things that disrupt the actual discussion. This does not compute.
No, a feminist writer asks for $150,000 to shit on videogames.
Except she didn't ask for $150,000.
When you open a Kickstarter, you are literally asking for money. I'm not saying she expected that amount. I'm saying that she asked for money. Sorry if I was unclear.
Edit: She asked for $6,000 if we're being technical.
Yes, I know how much she asked for. I think that's a perfectly reasonable amount for her project.
Again, you talk about Mario, ICO and Zelda as if Anita has already posted her videos...
And again, going off of her style of argument and the way she has presented things before, to say nothing of her attempts to use the character icons as rewards for support of her kickstarter based off the single trope being inverted (the, "no thanks boys, I've got this" phrase implying well how she plans to address those two games), I am drawing a conclusion. She hasn't released the videos yet, true, and if they happen to be rich and in depth discussion creating videos, I will eat crow. But as I said before, she lost the general respect of "I'll reserve opinion til I see it" by her own actions. Her past videos alone dispelled that. I am fond of analogies, so to draw one, if you heard Glenn Beck was going to release an interview about the economy, you wouldn't be wrong if you came to the conclusion it would be more of the same. I'm not saying a leopard can't change its stripes, merely that it WOULD be a change if what was released was good valid discussion.
I get what your point was but I just don't see it as a serious issue. If someone refers to Anita as an authority on the subject you can always explain them why you don't find her work on the subject valid. It's really not that big of a deal.
Except... it is. It derails a topic when you have to explain why a source or reference is worthless. It makes it worse the more well known or at least heard of the source is. This is painfully obvious on topics like creationism, climate science or politics, to the point those discussions are nearly impossible to get through without a shovel and a nose plug. I don't like the idea of her being another pile I have to shovel out of the way when trying to discuss a hobby the same way it is when discussing science or politics or philosophy. I know as the medium grows it will get to that point but I would rather delay the point that demagogues have such influence.
I still don't think there was anything dishonest about the statement. She didn't call all or most gamers sexist. She just said that the hate campaign leveled against her was just another sign that there was an issue.
She pointed to a band of asshats who are not accepted by the mainstream, were not all gamers, are renowned asshats to start with and were riled up professional trolls and said "yep, that there proves there is an issue." I used the Westburo example before and I do it again. How is using the actions of a minority of a minority, one that is disparaged by most gamers as is and is only a part of gaming culture because there is no limiting requirement to join the hobby... How is that NOT the same as pointing to the actions of a minority of a minority, one that is disparaged by most christians as is and is only part of christian culture because of lax entry requirements of being in that culture in the first place? Face it, it was a bad call on her part. Or is the actions of westburo truly a fair watermark in which to say christianity has a homosexuality problem.
You want to find out how deep an issue this is, you damn well do it right before declaring how prevalent it is. You DON'T use anecdotal evidence or loudmouths. You do studies, you take polls and find fair, unbiased statistics to get a feel for things. Do a blind study by calling up a few thousand random people and asking a few questions. Get gender, get opinion on women's roles, get if they play games, get how often they play them and on what systems they do. What games they play. Get age groups. You break it down, you understand where the problems come from, figure out if and where they persist. You do NOT point at assholes and say "there we go, these guys represent you." and expect to be taken seriously! It is exactly this sort of shitty worthless commentary and I would say utter open disdain for professional journalism itself that just pisses me off. If someone is going to ask for money for researching and investigating an issue like this, I don't care if it is kickstarter funds or even the add revenue on her youtube channels, then they damn well better know how to do it right. All I have seen though is either lack of knowledge how or willingness to ignore it for whatever reason.
Racist and homophobic slurs don't cease to be racist and homophobic slurs because the people using them are asshats. Sexist slurs are not in any way less sexist if the person say them only to get a rise out of you.
Remember what I said about tropes? How a tool is a tool, it is the use of them that determines if they are sexist? Yeah, same here. I hate to argue this, but some trolls may be the most vile assholes out there and STILL be equalists. To say otherwise... god, how to word this one. Lets say I do something bad to a person. Is that racist? Is that sexist? With no more information then that, you can't say. All you can say is I did something bad. Lets say I did something bad to a woman. Is that sexist? Can't say with that alone. Lets say it was an insult. Can you now? You seem to be arguing that at that point, yes, you possibly could. I disagree.
Words are tools. Nothing more. Some words have negative meanings, as words can. Some have negative meanings towards particular people. Again, as they can. Is use of those words a sign you are delegating that group of people as less then equal to you? If I say "bitch" to someone, is that sexist? How about a racist epitaph?
I think there is a fundamental disagreement here that we keep going over time and again. What exactly do you think sexism is? Or Racism. Or classism. Or religion-ism? What I have the largest issue with Anita, and have argued here from the start, is that a tool carries these traits. They do not, they are merely a tool. How one uses the tool, and how it affects what it is used in determines the end result.
Sexism in moviegoers isn't an issue for the same reason sexism isn't an issue with churchgoers or grocery shoppers. People don't regularly hurl out sexist or racist slurs when they sit in a movie theater. Hearing sexist and racist slurs when you play video games is however pretty common. Yes, the issue exist within online gaming community partly because of anonymity and lack of social pressure. I don't really get what exactly you object to though. The issue still exists within the online gaming community even though the reason for the issue is anonymity etc.
The point I am getting at, is if you wish to address an issue, you have to understand what it is you are trying to fix. Being being assholes online by calling women bitches or whatever is not an issue of sexism so much as it is an issue of anonymity allowing people to be assholes. Thus, you would have to tackle the issue as one of anonymity and how it allows people to be such jerks. If you call it a sexism issue, naturally people will go "ok, and how do we fix this sexism?". Then you will see solutions popping up that are based around this facet of the underlying issue.
A while back I called sexism in gaming a symptom of a deeper issue. I said that in directing attention to it as the main issue, in treating this cough like the problem, you will get solutions, but they will not be the true treatment needed. Much like taking cough suppressant when you have a flu, it doesn't actually fix the problem so much as masks it and ignores it. In people, this is fine as our immune system takes care of it on it's own most of the time. In an industry though, there is less self repair going on. I think that is the best way to explain it, as calling every trope involving a woman in gaming sexist means the issue will be looked at that way, and you will get "solutions" such as the call of duty sort (no women, therefor no problem), the skyrim model (personality-less create your own character), the Chell (personality-less female form of gun on wheels), or the grab bag (one of every type of women to cover all bases with "variety"). Underlying issues like shitty story telling, lack of character depth and everything else is ignored. Then, after addressing things like that, continued behavior is excused as "well we already fixed that".
Story justification doesn't make sexist or racist tropes any less sexist or racist. Just because you seem to be against quantitative research on the subject, it doesn't mean it's not a valid way of analyzing the general trends in gender and race portrayals in films and games. Do you also think it's accurate to say that the black criminal stereotype isn't racist because there is in-story logic that explains why the criminals in stories are black? Even if said stereotype concerning black men is extremely common in popular media? Even if it feeds to harmful ideas about black people?
You connect two ideas here but you don't explain why. A stereotype is just a stereotype, and in a story lets say you have a black man who is a thief. Made to fit stereotype. Now, is the use of this stereotype racist? You say yes, I say it depends. What is the role of the character? Is he just some ghetto punk stealing things for drug money? Is there some underlying message about the plight of black youths having to resort to theft? Is it just a character in the background designed to fill in the background of the story? How deep is the story? How important to it is the character's role as thief? Hell, does the role get subverted later on? Would you say the move Roots is a racist work for using characters who are black as slaves?
The problem is, often I hear that it isn't racist or sexist if it is used to argue against those points. Roots isn't racist when it uses blacks as slaves because it is a period piece and it is demonstrating the plight of and explaining why the plight is bad for blacks as slaves. That is all well and good, but the message that sends is often one of "you have to put these characters into a positive light or with a positive message pertaining to their gender/race/whatever". Pulling back a little and it looks as though gender/race/whatever is a protected character trait. Only certain uses allowed. You can see why that would be a problem in and of itself.
Lets go back to games and women. It is presented as sexist to use the "rescue the princess" trope. Lets invert the trope, now it is "rescue the prince". What have we done in the end? We bucked a trend, perhaps. Anything else? Is the attributes of the individual game any less sexist towards the male character then it was previously against the female? Surely, looking at the game alone, not as one of many games out there, not as a tally on some grand scoreboard about what gender is main character, but just the game itself, in a bubble so to speak, we see nothing has changed. Writing not improved, depth not added to character, story doesn't change at all. In the end, it is the same damn thing. Is it sexist? Why or why not?
Again, the easiest and imo the best way of dismissing her opinions is doing just that. When you go on an emotional tirade against the person it distracts from the discussion and makes you seem unreasonable. You say you want to keep the discussion on topic and the proceed saying things that disrupt the actual discussion. This does not compute.
If I dismiss her opinion in a discussion, the discussion shifts to "why". If I spent time already explaining why I dismiss her opinions in the discussion, doing so again becomes wasteful and time consuming. Having to do so time and again becomes frustrating. A worthless opinion to the discussion becomes a weight on the discussion in having to dismiss and explain the dismissal every time. And that is if the dismissal is just accepted after one explanation. It can take pages to get over that hill, and often it will just resort back to "ok, rather then refer to her, I will just rehash her points here." It is a slowly growing burden that siphons meaning or enjoyment of the discussion on the original topic and replaces it with bickering about an individual and arguments about why her points are or are not valid. Eventually the discussion is overwhelmed by the tangent becoming the point of the thread and the discussion dies it's wasting death, most likely as a few people try their damnedest to ignore or avoid the ever growing side discussion on why she should be dismissed. Though I know you disagree with its use, do you at least see why I chose the words I did in describing her videos, based on that decay and death of discussions?
Bocaj2000: snip If three paragraphs is a "wall of text", then I feel bad for you.
And if responding to each paragraph individually doesn't constitute responding like an adult then I feel even worse for you.
*sigh*
Breaking up a quote to respond to someone is a pet-peeve of mine. It represents nitpicking instead of the natural flow of conversation. What I mean by that is that if you were to do it in real life, you'd sound like a douche.
No, I don't constitute nitpicking as responding like an adult. That's my opinion. If you feel bad for me because of it, tough shit. I'd prefer a "wall of text" over a sentence by sentence breakdown any day.
Bocaj2000: snip If three paragraphs is a "wall of text", then I feel bad for you.
And if responding to each paragraph individually doesn't constitute responding like an adult then I feel even worse for you.
*sigh*
Breaking up a quote to respond to someone is a pet-peeve of mine. It represents nitpicking instead of the natural flow of conversation. What I mean by that is that if you were to do it in real life, you'd sound like a douche.
No, I don't constitute nitpicking as responding like an adult. That's my opinion. If you feel bad for me because of it, tough shit. I'd prefer a "wall of text" over a sentence by sentence breakdown any day.
Rarely in any conversation would you get a wall of words from one side before they could break in and put their own opinions in back in return. Otherwise most of the opinions and rebuttal they would have would have been forgotten near the end. Breaking the conversation up is a way to not miss any points and represents the natural flow of how people would pause who was talking to get a counter point in before they forgot it amid the word barrage.
It is hardly nitpicking to want to discuss all the points raised instead of seeing it pop up several times before you can get back to it. Actually, seems sort of beneficial aspect of text that one can hit all points back instead of one or two.
Again, you talk about Mario, ICO and Zelda as if Anita has already posted her videos...
I just wanna say one little thing about this line and the whole "reserve judgement until it is released". You see she already by her own actions contradicted what all her fans say because in this case by the Last Guardian the game isn't finished yet. Yet Anita has clearly already used this change of direction which is a choice of the developers for a product that isn't released. Going by that mantra shouldn't she as well reserve her own judgment until the game is released?
Also I will have to say from following the last Guardian, the appearance of the child in question was actually quite androgynous. There really wasn't any stand out features that suggested especially given the artistic style and setting that said child was either a boy or girl.
Anita is just looking for controversy to keep herself relevant and she has no problem attacking developers for games that they haven't even published yet. If her fans really believe what they say then something like the Last Guardian should be reserved from all judgement and accusations of sexism because even if they openly made a comment the game hasn't been published nor does it tell if by virtue of gender that the impact of the plot or narrative is changed.
At this point, I have literally no evidence of this, and my own personal experience to the contrary.
It sounds as baseless as the rest of the comments, like "she is teh bias" or "she's trying to ruin our industry!"
I have personal experience with her censoring out comments unless they agree with her, and I've seen other people claim the same.
I posted a link to one of destructoids articles regarding an interview they did where they criticized some of her claims. It got taken down and i can no longer post. the only posts allowed are the ones singing her praises. even respectful disagreement gets you banned.
NightowlM: She didn't ask for 150,000. Her kickstarter goal was I think 6,000, and from what I've seen that's a pretty reasonable sum to ask for for such a project.
I've already corrected myself on this. You're a little late. Also see at the bottom why asking for money simply to buy things you want is silly.
NightowlM: And she's not really shitting on video games now is she? If someone asked for 150,000 dollars to basically complain about every single thing they hated about various games, that would be infuriating.
Check out her videos when you get the chance. This is exactly what she does. And poorly, at that. To name a quick example, her comment about Kat from Gravity Rush: "Someone needs to get this woman some protective motorcycle gear and a pair of hefty boots!" This is in reference to Kat's default clothes being a skirt and high-heeled clomper shoes, which she seems to think are somehow indicative of making the character a sex symbol. Thus, an irony asserts itself: A feminist is saying women should be dressed a certain way; hers.
NightowlM: And you can't really assume her motivations. How do you know she doesn't game for fun?
Because her Kickstarter mission statement specifically says so: This video project will explore, analyze and deconstruct some of the most common tropes and stereotypes of female characters in games. The series will highlight the larger recurring patterns and conventions used within the gaming industry rather than just focusing on the worst offenders. So as you can see, fun takes a backseat to scrutiny and complaining.
NightowlM: I don't think even the most dedicated persons would spend hours upon hours doing something they can't stand, in order to go about critiquing that something. For instance, if I were investigating sports culture in order to complete a project on the subject, I would be absolutely miserable watching hours and hours of sports. Whereas if I were investigating say, casual racism in modern sitcoms, I'd be more amenable to the project because I happen to like watching some sitcoms. So she might be doing her job by playing video games, but I don't think anyone would bother putting that much time into it if they weren't also at least interested in the medium.
Then you haven't seen how far a zealous feminist will go to suck the joy out of anything as long it brings attention to their nauseating mantra: Everything exists in spite of us (women). This sentiment is echoed in her videos, tweets, blogs and everyday life.
And before you start throwing the word "anti-feminist" at me or some other variant, let me quickly point out my best friend is a girl and also (arguably) a progressive feminist. We both strongly object to the gender binary. We agree that women should not have to be hit on by every jerkoff present in a guild hall, XBL party or Steam chat. We share a mutual hatred of the term "Friend Zone". I am entirely sympathetic to women's various plights. I just don't believe Sarkeesian is a good spokesperson for feminists, or indeed, female gamers.
hooksashands: Edit: She asked for $6,000 if we're being technical.
Yes, I know how much she asked for. I think that's a perfectly reasonable amount for her project.
Whereas I don't. No matter how you cut it, she got enough dough to go on a videogame shopping spree. Am I jealous? Maybe a tad. Is she going to donate her excess to a women's charity group? I really, really, really hope so.
Ok I dont have a dog either way in this one but just for kicksies. trill didnt you just use semantics to argue down semantics? Im probably just reading it wrong lol.
Ok I dont have a dog either way in this one but just for kicksies. trill didnt you just use semantics to argue down semantics? Im probably just reading it wrong lol.
And if responding to each paragraph individually doesn't constitute responding like an adult then I feel even worse for you.
*sigh*
Breaking up a quote to respond to someone is a pet-peeve of mine. It represents nitpicking instead of the natural flow of conversation. What I mean by that is that if you were to do it in real life, you'd sound like a douche.
No, I don't constitute nitpicking as responding like an adult. That's my opinion. If you feel bad for me because of it, tough shit. I'd prefer a "wall of text" over a sentence by sentence breakdown any day.
Rarely in any conversation would you get a wall of words from one side before they could break in and put their own opinions in back in return. Otherwise most of the opinions and rebuttal they would have would have been forgotten near the end. Breaking the conversation up is a way to not miss any points and represents the natural flow of how people would pause who was talking to get a counter point in before they forgot it amid the word barrage.
It is hardly nitpicking to want to discuss all the points raised instead of seeing it pop up several times before you can get back to it. Actually, seems sort of beneficial aspect of text that one can hit all points back instead of one or two.
On a small scale, it is fine; if a sentence gets a sentence in response, that's fine; if a paragraph gets a paragraph or two, that's fine. But when small quotes get LARGE responses, it feels obnoxious.
lol that woman is so stupid. She's just as sexist as the shit she is bitching about. Woman are strong and blah blah blah yet she has a hair cut like a butch. What she can't wear the pants in a relationship or be strong like a man without trying to look like one. What a joke. I believe in equal rights for everyone but when women complain or call out something as sexist yet have sexist quailities themselves is pathetic.
Breaking up a quote to respond to someone is a pet-peeve of mine. It represents nitpicking instead of the natural flow of conversation. What I mean by that is that if you were to do it in real life, you'd sound like a douche.
No, I don't constitute nitpicking as responding like an adult. That's my opinion. If you feel bad for me because of it, tough shit. I'd prefer a "wall of text" over a sentence by sentence breakdown any day.
Rarely in any conversation would you get a wall of words from one side before they could break in and put their own opinions in back in return. Otherwise most of the opinions and rebuttal they would have would have been forgotten near the end. Breaking the conversation up is a way to not miss any points and represents the natural flow of how people would pause who was talking to get a counter point in before they forgot it amid the word barrage.
It is hardly nitpicking to want to discuss all the points raised instead of seeing it pop up several times before you can get back to it. Actually, seems sort of beneficial aspect of text that one can hit all points back instead of one or two.
On a small scale, it is fine; if a sentence gets a sentence in response, that's fine; if a paragraph gets a paragraph or two, that's fine. But when small quotes get LARGE responses, it feels obnoxious.
It's just a pet peeve :/
Fair enough. Still, hard to not take advantage of a benefit of this communication medium when it is available.
Honestly, not that I think it's that big a deal, but Team ICO is innovative at a lot of areas, and gender politics isn't one of them. I honestly would enjoy a female protagonist in one of their future games and I hope they change their minds.
Something we should remember though (and this came up with Team Ninja too) is that Japanese culture is a lot different from ours and has its own deeply ingrained history. It's one thing to criticize our own culture, but a Japanese game company isn't going to make its female characters tougher or more independent because some Canadian woman says so. True social change has to come from within society, not outside it.
Bocaj2000: But when small quotes get LARGE responses, it feels obnoxious.
Sometimes a stupid statement is small & then someone has to use a big statement to refute the samall stupid statement.
As for Sarkessian in general, i have no respect for her as either a critic, or in general as a member of the human race. She constantly misrepresents basic facts in a way that means she's either ignorant of what she's talking asbout, or just straight up lying about her chosen topic.
I think the best example of this was her video on Women in Refridgerators. Now this video was so factually innaccurate that it compelled me to make a video refuting it... Unfortunately i couldn't follow through, because to do so i had to sit through her video multiple times & just found my self screaming at the screen "STOP LYING, YOU DISHONEST LOLCOW!"
I honestly don't know what i find more distasteful: The sexist nonsense she comes out with, or the way in which any & all civil discourse that isn't singing her praises is immediately silenced (sometimes by white knighting proxies). An lets be honest here: Escapist was just as guilty as almost every other area of the gamer press.
Because civil discourse is one of those places where your gender doesn't matter (or atleast shouldn't): if i were to say 1+1 = 52, you are in your right to tell me that i am objectively wrong. So why is it that if i say "1+1 = 52 & if you disagree with me & tell me otherwise you are a misogynist who hates all women & supports rape, becuase i'm a woman" suddenly makes 1+1 magically =52, because all legitimate civil discourse to correct this objective error in mathematics is now considered a trolling hate crime.
These kinds of qualifiers through out history have always been placed on objective & subjective statements that do not stand up to even the most basic of scrutiny: Thats why they are added to them. If you can't refute genuine opposition, its just as easy to silence it.
I am so fucking sick of this disgusting anti-art attitude she propagates. She is beyond stupid, she is a massively negative influence on art as a whole. She holds this stupid fucking idea that every depiction of a women that isn't what she personally approves of, is sexist or misogynist. Which is just this fantastic new way of censoring things. See we can't legally censor things because no one would go for that, we've had that fight too many times. So instead, the pathetic people who are arrogant and narcissistic enough to believe that art should be created solely for them and should only exist if pre-approved by them, will label it as "unacceptable". They can't legally censor anyone so instead they throw negative labels on artists and art to say "This is bad and you should feel bad!" Which in turn says "if you like this then you are also bad and should feel bad!" So everyone in fear of the labels will comply and all of our culture that some idiot finds offensive will simply melt away and we will be left with boring homogeny. Fantastic.
No ico is not sexist. Is the excuse they used for not making the character in the last guardian female sexist? Eh, not really, it's just a bad excuse when really they don't need one. They don't need an excuse for not making him female. Even saying they didn't want their character to wear a skirt because of the camera is good enough. Why? Because maybe girls in the world of Last gaurdian wears skirts? It's literally that simple to invalidate any argument against them not making a girl or the girl they want. "Because that's not the world i'm making". Or even better! "Because i didn't fucking feel like it, piss off". See how easy that is? That's all he had to say! Or he could have said nothing since he doesn't owe anyone an explanation! Yay art!!
Jkudo: "Because that's not the world i'm making". Or even better! "Because i didn't fucking feel like it, piss off". See how easy that is? That's all he had to say! Or he could have said nothing since he doesn't owe anyone an explanation! Yay art!!
I had this argument recently with a pretend property we were messing around with. I had this idea for a sandbox super hero game, where you play the role of a batman-esque hero of the night character, coming back to clean up his city after 5 years away (after his mentor was murdered & a cabal of 6 villains took over the city).
The discsussion occoured at a liberal college i am currently dreading attending.
F: Can you play as a female version of the character M: No F: Are you going to put that in as an option? M: No F: Why not? M: Better question: Why would i?
F: Can you romance characters M: Yes, there would be two romancable characters F: Can you romance another male character M: Nope. I had no intention of putting that in F: But what about your gay audience? Thats hetronormative M: What about the gay audience? If they have no problem playing an elf, a ninja, a woman, or something else equally outlandish, why would they have a problem playing a straight guy? F: But thats Hetronormative M: No, its the character i built, for the game i hypothetically built. Calling it hetronormative by those standards is like me asking if you are into girls & when you say no, i call you hetronormative. F: But you won't even consider adding in a section where you can romance another guy, that makes you homophobic M: No. I also won't consider a section of the game where the character suddenly turns into a chinese guy in a wheel chair... Doesn't make me either racist, or ablist either. The character is who the character is.
so yeah, i get where you are coming from when you say there is a certain level of self entitlement on the liberal-feminist side of the hobby.
Huh, thanks for introducing me to that Instigative channel. That was a very interesting couple videos, and I'm nowhere near a fan of Sarkeesian, but I'm not so sure about this guy. I've watched a few of his videos and I've already noticed he has issues with properly researching some of his points[1] and takes far too much liberty with his assumptions. Also, I find it suspect when he calls TOR a "smashing success"[2] when even at the time the particular video was made, it was obviously spiraling. In the same video he also ended an otherwise perfectly eloquent argument with a completely non-sequitur insult that made no sense within the context of his argument other than to be petty. I'm going to be watching the rest of the videos, but I get the feeling his opinion is not as authoritative as he would like it to seem.
[1] which is interesting considering that's one of his pet peeves it seems
Again, you talk about Mario, ICO and Zelda as if Anita has already posted her videos...
I just wanna say one little thing about this line and the whole "reserve judgement until it is released". You see she already by her own actions contradicted what all her fans say because in this case by the Last Guardian the game isn't finished yet. Yet Anita has clearly already used this change of direction which is a choice of the developers for a product that isn't released. Going by that mantra shouldn't she as well reserve her own judgment until the game is released?
Also I will have to say from following the last Guardian, the appearance of the child in question was actually quite androgynous. There really wasn't any stand out features that suggested especially given the artistic style and setting that said child was either a boy or girl.
Anita is just looking for controversy to keep herself relevant and she has no problem attacking developers for games that they haven't even published yet. If her fans really believe what they say then something like the Last Guardian should be reserved from all judgement and accusations of sexism because even if they openly made a comment the game hasn't been published nor does it tell if by virtue of gender that the impact of the plot or narrative is changed.
I DARE someone to prove him wrong. Good show old-bean.
LetalisK: I've watched a few of his videos and I've already noticed he has issues with properly researching some of his points
Really? Would you care to cite your case on where he hasn't properly done his research.
I've already provided an example, but if you're going to wait for me to build a case "against" someone I generally agree with on issues I'm only tangentially interested in, you've greatly over-estimated my investment in said topics. If that was an honest request for information, I apologize. If not, your winner's crown is in the mail.
I am so sad this woman got the amount of money she had, and even sadder that she keeps garnering this much attention every time she opens her stupid mouth. Her opinion is utterly and completely worthless.
Now, with that said, what's with the Ico quote being oooooh so sexist? From what I understand, Ico was set in somewhat of a medieval setting, right? Do women in such a setting really wear pants on anything resembling high frequency? Where's the fucking controversy here? Nobody ever fucking said women/girls only wear skirts, that's pure conjecture on the part of people who either want or can't help but be offended at every bloody turn.
Glass Joe the Champ: Something we should remember though (and this came up with Team Ninja too) is that Japanese culture is a lot different from ours and has its own deeply ingrained history. It's one thing to criticize our own culture, but a Japanese game company isn't going to make its female characters tougher or more independent because some Canadian woman says so. True social change has to come from within society, not outside it.
I both agree and disagree. Just because something is culturally ingrained it doesn't mean it should be accepted practice, e.g. honour killings in Middle Eastern countries, or flagrant sexism in Japanese culture. I agree that change has to come from within, but other nations looking down their noses at you is an excellent catalyst for that change.
Getting back on topic though, assuming the translation is accurate the devs said something pretty dumb, and kinda sexist. Now, had they said "the females that exist in this fantasy world we've created are ill-suited to the role of the protagonist in our story because they are too weak and generally wear skirts" I would have absolutely no problem, and it's not that unreasonable to assume that's what the dev might have been implying. To say that the changes were made to better reflect reality is at best ignorant, and at worst derogatory. So in this situation I have to agree with her, if only due to semantics.
Regarding A.S. herself, I haven't seen enough of her work to judge whether or not what she says has any merit.
LetalisK: I've watched a few of his videos and I've already noticed he has issues with properly researching some of his points
Really? Would you care to cite your case on where he hasn't properly done his research.
I've already provided an example, but if you're going to wait for me to build a case "against" someone I generally agree with on issues I'm only tangentially interested in, you've greatly over-estimated my investment in said topics. If that was an honest request for information, I apologize. If not, your winner's crown is in the mail.
Actually it was an honest request for information & you really did not cite an example. Where did he not adequately research his statement?
As much as I am one for gender equality, I feel when you're attacking a perfectly reasonable game, you're not only making yourself look like a complete and utter fool, you're undermining the credibility of your movement. The entire 'Women in Games' thing needs someone better than Sarkeesian, maybe Lights, because, well, she's Lights.
That is the point of Poes Law, the line of parody and realism gets blurred to the point that one doesn't know if it is to be taken seriously.
Again, the irritant part comes from the fact that this person is getting praised and DEFENDED just because she is up against something that is WORTH researching, but she doesn't show the talent to back up the money she already has to begin with (she has her own studio and several consoles before)
Spoiler: Click to View
I sincerely hope that you dont actually think that it is good to take advantage of the ignorants and their money, or that there SHOULDN'T be some kind of regulation or control on Kickstarter to avoid this kind of scams.
Here is where the line where "realism" and "fantasy" is going to get fucked up. If she is really that useless as presented in the game instead of doing the logical approach of escaping herself and overcome her obstacles, then one must reach the logical conclusion that she already tried that before and failed so many times with the assholes around to the point that she gave up all hope by the time we meet her or she was mindraped into submission and the protagonist avoided such fate for being a Horned Kid (possibly the product of an ancient god made human from Shadow of The Colosuss)
Now, if this sounds like bullshit to you, is because it is. Its all conjecture and nothing really is confirmed by the game itself.........but there is a problem, ICO and Shadow Of The Colossus are supposed to be the posterchild of "games as art", meaning that both express what the story is about thorough the gameplay and visuals instead of just visuals like in movies.
If nothing i said hold any water then what is stopping every single praise about this game from being false? apparently, everything the game told us doesnt give enough context to PREVENT this kind of discussion about sexism. How did these 2 games became "art" again?
You know that just being badass isn't going to cut it, right? Metroid Other M has Samus as a badass EXCEPT in plot relevant segments. She looses the Strong Character attribute because it fails to progress the plot by her actions.