Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Royal☭]

Bullshit, TA. It's perfectly valid to discuss the effects of roles on women without discussing men. You keep trying the bullshit "Me, too!" tactic on any feminist discussion, and it's obnoxious and tired to see you try to shout down any feminist argument by trying to shove in a "But what about the poor white males?" critique. Anita is discussing, and this video focusing, how women are often sidelined or objectified purely for the sake of mostly male protagonists and antagonists in the stories. Trying to insists that she's wrong or unfair because she doesn't talk about White Male Leads is misleading and egoistic.

[Classic]

It's like saying you're doing an analysis of racial issues in games, and then only looking at black people.

TA, the series is called "Tropes Vs. Women". So it's really like saying you're doing an analysis of racial issues in games as the relate to black people and then only looking at black people.

Which, you know brings up another class of non-complaint I'm noticing, the "THIS VIDEO DOESN'T MEET EXPECTATIONS I'VE MADE UP FROM NOTHING" (of which, TA, yours is the most palatable incarnation). Which covers basically every angle from the quality of the production to the "lack of depth" on the trope of DiD, including of course, that Sarkeesian has said nothing about positive examples or has marginalized those few to make her point (more coherent).

I don't think we need to review why the rigid gender roles and oversexualization (heteronormativity is actually one I have feelings of contention on?) heaped high on men and women is less problematic when it afflicts men though. Right? Statistics about the sex and orientation of content creators and content creation decision-makers, etc.?


...
...
Lastly, aren't three of those twenty pictures images of the default BroShep?

EDIT:
Added a few lines to the body to make a comment less vague and hopefully less assholish.

[patito]

I honestly don't see any problem with the depiction of men in videogames, since there's a lot more variety in protagonists. Women in videogames though, don't get enough variety.

[Ted Belmont]

The over-blandness of male protagonists in games IS a problem, but it's a minor one, and one that fundamentally stems from the same root as the far more troubling depictions of women: videogames are, almost exclusively, designed and produced by and for straight, white, 18-30 males.

I'm going to assume you're just being contrarian for the sake of contrarianism, and don't seriously think that "BUT ALL OF THESE PROTAGONISTS ARE MUSCULAR, RUGGEDLY HANDSOME BROWN-HAIRED GUYS" is anywhere near equivalent to the way women are portrayed in videogames. Feel free to prove me wrong, though!

[Classic]

I mean, there's still a lot of brown short-haired* white men. And I'd kind of like more diversity in protagonists. But most of the games I play either let me create my own persona, or as characters like this guy:

And no, that is not my proudest game series infatuation.

*I have revised this about six times and each time with a different unsettling interpretation popped into mind. So I decided to give up and go with the one that implies these are men for whom the carpet matches the drapes/banner molding/whatever and don't do any manscaping.

EDIT:
So how many of us are muscular ruggedly handsome white men with brown short-hairs anyway?
I'd make a poll but I feel like I'd piss on the premise with too many dick jokes and non-sequitors. Shiva Lingam means blue cock-and-balls.

[Thad]

Lastly, aren't three of those twenty pictures images of the default BroShep?

It's really a pretty terrible image for purposes of this discussion.  I think it makes a good point on the sameyness of male protagonists in (1) current-gen (2) non-Nintendo console games, but...well, that's a pretty ridiculous set of limitations to choose in the middle of a rant about how incomplete the Tropes vs. Women video is in only discussing tropes involving women.  If we're to have a discussion about pervasive images in video games as a culture that influences its audience, any list that includes Dead Rising Guy but not Mario is sorta missing the point of popularity and cultural influence.

Shepard is an interesting example to look at because it would be pretty easy to dismiss FemShep as "man with tits" -- because, with the exception of a romance option or two, FemShep is literally EXACTLY THE SAME as MaleShep.

AND YET, instead we've got a character who's interesting and fully-developed even though the sex the player chooses is almost entirely irrelevant.

Granted, part of that is that both versions of Shepard fit into the "military hardass" trope, which yes indeedy is kind of a big one in games (and particularly in shooters, though that kinda stands to reason).  The notion of a soldier who's a soldier and whose sex doesn't enter into that?  Well, I'll grant that's a hell of a lot more aspirational than realistic, but given that we're looking at a Roddenberry-style aspirational future, it makes sense to depict a society that treats military women the same as men.

[Classic]

Which apparently still needs regulations against making advances on the soldiers in your command, but whatever.

[Brentai]

Wait, I can't view images here.  Is somebody complaining that a default player model looks too much like a generic stereotype?

[Classic]

TA has an image that has 20 images of about the kind of characters you'd expect with the words

VIDEO GAME PROTAGONISTS
Kids love brown-haired 30-something white males.

emblazoned at the bottom in the style of an unspirational poster. In this post:

There's rigid gender roles, oversexualization, heteronormativity, and all that same shit on both sides of the fence.  Patriarchy hurts everybody.  An instructional series that focuses on just one aspect of that is by definition incomplete.  It's like saying you're doing an analysis of racial issues in games, and then only looking at black people.

I also uploaded an image of the main character of Rune Craft 3, a dumb blonde, in this post:

And no, that is not my proudest game series infatuation.

EDIT:
So how many of us are muscular ruggedly handsome white men with brown short-hairs anyway?

[R^2]

I think it makes a good point on the sameyness of male protagonists in (1) current-gen (2) non-Nintendo console games,

Mario is a white guy with brown hair. Game Set Match, Thad. :smug:

[Ted Belmont]

I think it makes a good point on the sameyness of male protagonists in (1) current-gen (2) non-Nintendo console games,

Mario is a white guy with brown hair. Game Set Match, Thad.

[Joxam]

TA, wow. Your example would make since if all there were only black people and white people (man v woman in this argument) but then, you would be perfectly within your right to only talk about only black people in a video about racism in video games.

[Joxam]

And I'll double post because this has nothing to do with my last post. I think the big problem that lyrai and a lot of other detractors of this video have is they expect it to take on issues and make statements that its just not designed to do. She's specifically education people about ONE specific trope per video, giving examples of it and explaining why it is negative for women. What she is NOT doing is solving all the problems about it in one 30 minute video, because that would be stupid and impossible. Nor is she diverging from her topic (this is actually good classroom practice my mom says (she's a teacher and she says that its best to only deal with one aspect of something at once for people to learn properly)) in the interest of keeping the videos succinct and on point.

No she doesn't point out all the other things you think she should about the games she's complaining about, because that's not what the video she's doing at this time is about. No she isn't giving you answers and making arguments about how the industry could be better, because that is not what the video series is about at all.

She's trying to educate you about the negative aspects of female characters in video games, and in some respects she's cutting through the layers of 'good' female characters to show you parts of them that are horrible. That is the point of the video series.

EDIT: Also, when I say YOU I don't mean anyone specifically, I mean the GRAND YOU.

[Disposable Ninja]

Since this seems like a good thread to put this: God of War: Ascension is renaming a Trophy. It's being changed to "Bros before Foes" from "Bros before Hos" due to negative press.

[Ted Belmont]

Man, if anybody needs to feel better about the level of discourse in this community, just check out that comments thread.

 

[Beat Bandit]

She's trying to educate you about the negative aspects of female characters in video games, and in some respects she's cutting through the layers of 'good' female characters to show you parts of them that are horrible. That is the point of the video series.

This is why the only specific example I've been going to is DD: Neon. A lot of references she makes are easy to take issue with, and I'm sure there are great specifics I'm not aware of, but in that exact example she highlights Neon separately from every other game of the series, and speaks of it with disdain you would expect from someone talking about how their attacker is still allowed to be out on the streets, when it's actually the only one from the series that empowers Marian in any form at all. I don't expect every bit to be analyzed, but at least giving the appearance you're aware of it would lend well to her credibility.

And it's that kind of poor research that highlights the fact that production has seen no boost from the kickstarter. Now she's just giving out misinformation with a higher profile. Do I think her misrepresenting part of a videogame is going to ruin people's lives? No, but I do still consider it Anita's responsibility to inform people to the best of her ability, and that ability is still at the low standard set by Feminist Frequency.

Long story short, her making videos with amateur level research and presentation isn't anything new, but it is disappointing now that she's literally a professional.

[Mongrel]

I think the worst part of that is if anyone tries to bring that sort of objection up, the response will generally be to dismiss the criticism "Oh well, you're just some [game] Fanboy", because it hinges on knowing whichever game series is on display well.

[Ted Belmont]

Actually, my response would be something along the lines of OH MY GOD ANITA SARKEESIAN DIDN'T PLAY EVERY GAME SHE MENTIONS IN HER VIDEO ALL THE WAY THROUGH WHAT A FRAUD AM I RIGHT FELLAS???

[patito]

She really can't make an accurate judgement on something unless she read/played all the way through. It exactly the sort of thing we object to when people like Jack Thompson start talking about videogames.

It's why the kickstarter money that she got being used for living wages is perfectly fine, because it's assumed that it's gonna be pretty much her job to play those videogames and be well informed about the stuff she's talking about.

If she got the DD neon thing wrong, then maybe she also got other things wrong that we don't know about, but the consequence is that we're gonna be misinformed about those things.

[Royal☭]

Okay so is the beginning of the game still not about a woman being punched in the gut and hauled off? Her entire point is that the series is marked by how a woman is shown being beaten and stolen as a way of motivating the male characters to enter the plot. Just because she doesn't go into a full-on review of the game doesn't mean that the point she's making - about how women being hauled off at the beginning of the game is used as a plot point - is invalid.