Damsel in Distress... Women in games

[Jagos]

link (http://www.destiny.gg/n/a-critique-of-damsel-in-distress-part-1-tropes-vs-women-in-video-games/)

In almost every single game you can think of where there is a one-dimensional, “Damsel in Distress” character with zero purpose other than to be saved by the protagonist, you will find that the protagonist himself is a one-dimensional, unchanging and undeveloped character as well.The two most pervasive examples she harps on are The Legend of Zelda and the Super Mario games. In both of these, the main “Damsel in Distress” (Zelda/Peach) is a pretty faceless, boring character that doesn’t change or grow at all, and has only incredibly minimal influence over the actual plot of the game. However, to be fair, the protagonist of both games (Link/Mario) is equally boring. Can you honestly think of Link or Mario as anymore than one-dimensional characters whose sole purpose for existing is to save the aforementioned damsels? One could argue that their*raison d’être*is equally dehumanizing: they exist only to fulfill their role in freeing the captured woman. While it’s true that the Damsels themselves have no agency or influence over their own actions, the agency that the protagonist has over himself is still incredibly limited as*every single action*he partakes must ultimately lead to the salvation of said Damsel.

For reference: Anita's video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q)

Personally, I read the article first and haven't seen the video yet. But I think the critique is pretty spot on. I can't shake the feeling that there are indeed some characters that defy the DID trope but it isn't being down to argue that a number of females aren't being represented in games accurately.

How about Samus in the same era?

Blaze in Streets of Rage?

How about Dixie Kong being given a game? Sure, she was a damsel but Diddy and Dixie were great in DKC 3. Further, the argument about character development in a game makes this critique fairly strong in showing where Anita needs to strengthen her argument if true. After I see the video, I'll share my thoughts.

[Locke cole]

Actually, Dixie was never a damsel in distress.

DKC1 was Donkey and Diddy, DKC2 was Didy and Dixie, with Donkey kidnapped, and DKC3 was Dixie and Kiddy, with Donkey and Diddy kidnapped.

[Jagos]

Wasn't she gone in 4? Or maybe it was Donkey Kong Land on the Game boy...

Still, that game really makes the argument against DID since DK was the strongest alter of his tribe and got kidnapped twice and even Diddy got nabbed once.

[Krylo]

While it’s true that the Damsels themselves have no agency or influence over their own actions, the agency that the protagonist has over himself is still incredibly limited as*every single action*he partakes must ultimately lead to the salvation of said Damsel.This is incredibly ridiculous, and I don't feel I should need to explain why, as it is pretty self-evident.

It's also basically this person's entire argument for that whole section.

Further:

The problem, according to Anita, is that “this is a form of objectification because as objects Damsel women are being acted upon, most often becoming or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found or a goal to be achieved. The brief intro sequence accompanying many classic arcade games tend to reinforce the framing of women as a possession that’s being stolen from the protagonist.” Well, “reduced” is a very strong word. I would argue that women are used in place of objects or trophies in order to avoid said “reduction” into an object: people inherently care more about rescuing people than objects, it’s just human nature.Let me just pull out the relevant bit here: "I would argue that women are used in place of objects or trophies"

Like this entire section of the argument is just "I don't actually understand what objectification is." Again it should be self evident why this argument falls apart here.

Let's add another quote: Anita claims that “the hero’s fight to retrieve his stolen property then provides lazy justification for the actual game play.” This is true,Where he's missing the point, while simultaneously admitting that the one she is making is right. Again, lets just take out the important bit, "his stolen property."

The fact that it's lazy story telling is entirely secondary to the fact that it makes the female character a possession of the hero that he wishes to retrieve. It's a male power fantasy: Beat up the bad guy, get the girl. If you don't understand why 'do a, get woman' is sexist and objectifying then I don't know where to start with this.

Why inject so much subtext into such a mind-numbingly simple narrative?Because constantly presenting a person as an object reinforces societal and cultural norms of objectifying that type of person.

This is like. . . isms 101.

“I’ve heard it said that, in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, they are the ball.” How is Peach at all relevant in any of the Mario games, ever? A ball is a highly active an integral part to every athletic event involving a ball.I don't. . . I don't even understand how he could miss the point of this metaphor. The ball is integral, but it's not highly active. It moves from player to player as it is acted upon. It does nothing on its own.

In the same way Peach goes from Mario to Bowser to Mario to Bowser between each game. They each attempt to keep the other from having her. She's a Basketball. Bowser has stolen her from Mario, and now Mario must steal her back. This. . . isn't difficult.

Either this writer is doing this on purpose or he has no business writing anything.

“The popularity of their save the princess formula” did not “set the standard for the industry,” as Anita says. The GAME PLAY is what set the standard for the industry. If the game play had faltered in any of these games, they would quickly be forgotten. The trope of “Damsel in Distress” was never a driving force behind the popularity of any of these games, instead it was merely a crutch used since the developers didn’t deem it necessary to pen a complicated back-story for their action/adventure games.Again, he's missing the point. The fact that this story worked so well with these games to provide plot justification for game play has caused it to cascade outward.

I mean just look at how many there are (http://tropesversuswomen.tumblr.com/). This tumblr goes forever. It includes both new and old games.

Another aspect that Anita addresses is that “distilled down to its essence, the [Damsel in Distress] plot device works by trading the disempowerment of female characters for the empowerment of male characters.” How are any characters being empowered or disempowered when there are hardly any characters any way? What is the character development or plot growth that occurs in Zelda where Link becomes empowered as a developed character? Sure, he gets more items, and you can control him and move through dungeons with new toys and gadgets, but as a living, breathing character, Link remains undeveloped and stagnant in terms of personality for the entire duration of the game. How is that empowering at all?Link saves the world, saves the girl, defeats the bad guy, and gets the girl at the end. How is that empowering at all? Compared to losing all your sweet ninja powers within three minutes of dressing like a princess instead of a man, and being locked away? Compared to doing the same as soon as you take off your pirate pants and put on a dress?

Like I'm just gonna stop quoting here.

I think I've made my point

[Locke cole]

Wasn't she gone in 4? Or maybe it was Donkey Kong Land on the Game boy...

Still, that game really makes the argument against DID since DK was the strongest alter of his tribe and got kidnapped twice and even Diddy got nabbed once.

Pretty sure there wasn't a 4.

If I recall, there was Donkey Kong Countries 1, 2, and 3, then three Donkey Kong Lands, which were basically Game Boy remakes, then DK64 (in which Tiny did get kidnapped, but so did literally every playable Kong other than Donkey), then a buncha bongo games, King of Swing, and then Donkey Kong Country Returns.

[POS Industries]

I can't shake the feeling that there are indeed some characters that defy the DID trope but it isn't being down to argue that a number of females aren't being represented in games accurately.

How about Samus in the same era?

Blaze in Streets of Rage?

How about Dixie Kong being given a game? Sure, she was a damsel but Diddy and Dixie were great in DKC 3. Further, the argument about character development in a game makes this critique fairly strong in showing where Anita needs to strengthen her argument if true. After I see the video, I'll share my thoughts.
Defying the trope doesn't mean the trope doesn't exist or isn't a concern. It just means that those characters defy the trope.

[Grimpond]

Personally, I read the article first and haven't seen the video yet. But I think the critique is pretty spot on.



hahahaha what. Seriously?

[Jagos]

I think that Anita needs more points to discuss because she's missing games where women are inherently the power players whereas the men are the ones that are in distress. I know that there are a few games, which I've already pointed out, where the women are indeed in charge.

I mean for crying out loud, Sheikh is Zelda and we should just look at her as a damsel? How about the game Rhapsody where the gender rules were reversed?

Honestly, it looks to me that the article is trying to give context which Anita may be intentionally ignoring to go into specific issues she wants to point out. And right now, it's hard to argue that my own experiences are vastly different.

I remember games where I played as a heavy weapons girl. I recall Heavenly Sword, the greatest movie I ever played. I remember Samus as a strong female character and Lara Croft who gritted with creating a strong female idol.

Maybe I'm jaded or maybe those older games could terrace done more in the storytelling department but to just call out so few examples and try to discredit the trope when we have plenty of female rules that already do so (Chell, Poison, Chunli, Dixie, that lady in Perfect Dark...) leaves me to wonder how this series may progress.

[Grimpond]

I think that Anita needs more points to discuss because she's missing games where women are inherently the power players whereas the men are the ones that are in distress. I know that there are a few games, which I've already pointed out, where the women are indeed in charge.

I mean for crying out loud, Sheikh is Zelda and we should just look at her as a damsel? How about the game Rhapsody where the gender rules were reversed?

Honestly, it looks to me that the article is trying to give context which Anita may be intentionally ignoring to go into specific issues she wants to point out. And right now, it's hard to argue that my own experiences are vastly different.

I remember games where I played as a heavy weapons girl. I recall Heavenly Sword, the greatest movie I ever played. I remember Samus as a strong female character and Lara Croft who gritted with creating a strong female idol.

Maybe I'm jaded or maybe those older games could terrace done more in the storytelling department but to just call out so few examples and try to discredit the trope when we have plenty of female rules that already do so (Chell, Poison, Chunli, Dixie, that lady in Perfect Dark...) leaves me to wonder how this series may progress.

you're talking about the very few exceptions it seems. They aren't the rule! they are usually in fact not portrayed in a manner that could be described as anything other than distress.

[POS Industries]

I mean for crying out loud, Sheikh is Zelda and we should just look at her as a damsel?
See, this is one of those statements where you obviously haven't watched the video and have no idea what you're talking about.

Yes, there are exceptions. These exceptions are far, far rarer than the examples that follow the trope. That's why the exceptions don't invalidate the trope or the problematic nature of it. That's the entire point in the video and the analysis of the trope involved.

[Jagos]

hahahaha what. Seriously?

I don't always agree with Anita's work. She tends to try to object from a scholarly POV which makes me skeptical of some of her claims. Call it my bias factor. She may have a point but sometimes, I don't come to the same conclusion.

[Krylo]

I mean for crying out loud, Sheikh is Zelda and we should just look at her as a damsel?

I'm just going to laugh for five minutes straight here.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Okay, that out of the way, what happens to Sheikh as soon as 'he' reveals that 'he' is actually Princess Zelda in disguise?

Or more succinctly, what happens as soon as Sheikh's masculine aspects are replaced with feminine ones?

I ask the same of Tetra in Wind Waker.

[Kim]

You are being willfully ignorant.

Exceptions to a rule do not disprove a rule. They are exceptions. Often, there are major problems with those exceptions as well. Look at Other M and what it did to Samus, your Strong Female Character, who was ultimately reduced to the only overt uses of her gender in every game previous Other M to make her a swimsuit model and reward for the player to oggle if they did well.

You fucking bring up POISON and that's just fucking insulting.

What about the new Lara Croft game where the violence against Lara was sexualized in promotional videos.

Your exceptions are exceptions, BUT THEY DON'T DISPROVE THE RULE and they're still wildly fucked up. When discussing a trend, you don't need to bring up every counterexample, because counterexamples don't disprove a trend. At best, you're distracting from your main point to make a concession.

BUT HERE'S WHAT REALLY UPSETS ME. You said an article about a video was valid without even watching the video to check. You decided you were against her from the very beginning without even trying to see if she made her point well. You decided that a woman calling out the most basic, obvious sexism in games could never be right, and it's because you're a fucking sexist.

[POS Industries]

She tends to try to object from a scholarly POV which makes me skeptical of some of her claims.
Hahaha what?

"She tends to sound intelligent and educated and I don't trust that shit for a second."

[Grimpond]

I don't always agree with Anita's work. She tends to try to object from a scholarly POV which makes me skeptical of some of her claims. Call it my bias factor. She may have a point but sometimes, I don't come to the same conclusion.

The problem is that you are biasing your view of her based on some poor argument on a video you haven't watched by your own words. That is unbelivably unfair and really ass backwards

edit: grammarz

EDIT EDIT: Hahaha what?

"She tends to sound intelligent and educated and I don't trust that shit for a second."

jesus, I didn't even catch that. How the hell does....I mean, how?

How is that even a thing you can say

[Fifthfiend]

I don't always agree with Anita's work. She tends to try to object from a scholarly POV which makes me skeptical of some of her claims.

I love how nerds are all about videogames being art until someone goes and treats them like art.

[Krylo]

What about the new Lara Croft game where the violence against Lara was sexualized in promotional videos.

It was yeah, but in the game it's not really, and Lara is just a fantastic character and it's a fantastic game. Decided to give it a chance after it got pretty much 100% positive reviews.

Not saying this to detract from your point or argue or whatever, I'm just saying you should give the game a try. Like rent it from somewhere or something if you don't trust me--which maybe you shouldn't because I have more trouble seeing/more tolerance for things that might bother you.

Also maybe because it's super short. Like, I played a bit after beating the game collecting stuff and still only have 15 hours logged.

[Jagos]

The problem is that you are biasing your view of her based on some poor argument on a video you haven't watched by your own words. That is unbelivably unfair and really ass backwards

edit: grammarz

It's me acknowledging that sometimes I don't agree with her. Ex. I liked her work on the Hunger Games, where she explains how Katniss digressed as a character but some of her earlier works seemed open to criticism.

And I do plan to watch this video and possibly see what exactly she is saying. I just can't do it this late at night.

@Fifth I was never a big fan of that argument personally. I just play the games and discuss them but I doubt if I come to the exact same conclusions as others.

[Kim]

It was yeah, but in the game it's not really, and Lara is just a fantastic character and it's a fantastic game. Decided to give it a chance after it got pretty much 100% positive reviews.

Not saying this to detract from your point or argue or whatever, I'm just saying you should give the game a try. Like rent it from somewhere or something if you don't trust me--which maybe you shouldn't because I have more trouble seeing/more tolerance for things that might bother you.

Also maybe because it's super short. Like, I played a bit after beating the game collecting stuff and still only have 15 hours logged.

I'll take it under advisement, but I got higher priority stuff in my gaming list.

[CABAL49]

Video games are shit when it comes to portrayal of women. I mean, we can go down the list and cherry pick a few good female characters, but we can do that to Asians, blacks, Hispanics and other groups that are not WASP, but in the end we still end up with the same result. That the overall depiction of minorities and women are shitty in video games. Especially if you are a woman and a minority.

But gamers seem to think that they are being targeted unfairly when it comes to the depiction of women. No there are many ways of pointing out the flaws in this delusion. Miss Sarkeesian does that well, and while I have not watched all of her videos, from what I have seen she does a good job at Feminism 101 so I recommend her videos. But I will say that gaming culture's delusions of persecution is certainly unique. Not that other sub-culture doesn't have the same delusions. But problem isn't so much gaming as it is culture in general.

But that is partly one of the few things the article writer doesn't seem to get.

Edit: And lazy writing is no excuse for being sexist.

[Marc v4.0]

Maybe you shouldn't, like, post about a topic when you've done basically nothing to educate yourself about the topic. You presume to tell us all about your opinion of a biased article about the topic from someone else while also telling us you're really biased against it already AND you didn't even bother to fucking WATCH IT.

I mean, I know this isn't News but, shit, let's exercise some basic quality control if we're going to be making threads that ain't shit.

[Krylo]

Honestly, my favorite part of the article is still:

Another aspect that Anita addresses is that “distilled down to its essence, the [Damsel in Distress] plot device works by trading the disempowerment of female characters for the empowerment of male characters.” How are any characters being empowered or disempowered when there are hardly any characters any way? What is the character development or plot growth that occurs in Zelda where Link becomes empowered as a developed character? Sure, he gets more items, and you can control him and move through dungeons with new toys and gadgets, but as a living, breathing character, Link remains undeveloped and stagnant in terms of personality for the entire duration of the game. How is that empowering at all?Like, I just love how beautifully terrible this is.

It's like poetry in motion.

[stefan]

It's like that one dude who wrote a 108-page rebuttal to plinkett's videos on the star wars prequels, but with a complete ignorance of gender dynamics in literature instead of just having terrible taste in movies.

[Ramary]

It is a bad, cherry-picking critique of a bad, cherry-picking critique of bad practices in a medium that overall has terrible throw away writing in most of it's games. What a thrill to behold.

[Amake]

Yeah, there's probably a reason we like to think the plot in Super Mario bros is not a thing.

Maybe Anita needs to explain why it's okay to like things even though they have problems so people don't get upset when told that things they like have problems. . .

[Kim]

Maybe Anita needs to explain why it's okay to like things even though they have problems so people don't get upset when told that things they like have problems. . .

THIS IS LITERALLY ALMOST THE FIRST THING SHE DOES IN THE FIRST VIDEO IN THIS SERIES OF WHICH THERE IS ONLY ONE VIDEO OUT SO FAR

[synkr0nized]

I don't understand why some of you like to post without actually reading/watching the thing being discussed.


edit: I mean I am just sitting here like ?????? over Jagos making a thread about an article that critiques a video he's admitted to never watching and then claiming the article makes good points and a solid argument. Holy shit.


Hahaha what?

"She tends to sound intelligent and educated and I don't trust that shit for a second."

laffo

[Grandmaster_Skweeb]

Maybe it's because I'm slightly drunk, but what the hell, I'm goin for it anyway.

Why is this thread even existing? It isn't exactly rocket science. This Destiny character is a class five fuckin idiot of the highest order.

Christ. This woman is awesome, I approve of her works, Sarkeesian is awesome enough to mention being awesome twice, the shitfinglin morons who bash her are also fuckin idiots who simply have no business reproducing, Jagos you should feel bad for posting this thread and pissing people off out of sheer willfull laziness and ignorance, and clearly I am not drunk enough to convince myself to say fuck it not posting but y'know what fuck it doin it anyways because this shit is gettin tired.

it's like HAY! HOTBUTTON! SLAP MY DICK AGAINST IT A FEW DOZEN TIMES AND SEE WHAT CHUCKLES COME UP! except no chuckles. just this sad tired dance. again and again and again.

[Fifthfiend]

It is a bad, cherry-picking critique of a bad, cherry-picking critique



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_Entertainment_System_games#A

total games: 36 (Not included: the games listed on the above page as "advanced dungeons and dragons: whatever of whatever")

single male protagonist: 23

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abadox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family:_Pugsley%27s_Scavenger_Hunt#The_ Addams_Family:_Pugsley.27s_Scavenger_Hunt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_in_the_Magic_Kingdom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Bayou_Billy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Dino_Riki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Gilligan%27s_Island
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Rad_Gravity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Fortress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Aladdin_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Chicken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gladiators_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_(1993_video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astyanax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_of_the_Killer_Tomatoes_(1991_video_game)

multipe male protagonists: 4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Rocky_and_Bullwinkle_and_Friends _(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Pro_Basketball
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Rivals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aussie_Rules_Footy

protagonist of unidentified gender:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwolf_(NES_video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Unser_Jr.%27s_Turbo_Racing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Mission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkanoid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticipation_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark

single male protagonist rescuing a damsel in distress: 11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abadox
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Addams_Family_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Island_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Bayou_Billy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Lolo_3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tom_Sawyer_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney%27s_Aladdin_(video_game)

single female protagonist: 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkista%27s_Ring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athena_(video_game)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien3_(video_game)

male or female protagonist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Pad#Athletic_World

[Amake]

THIS IS LITERALLY ALMOST THE FIRST THING SHE DOES IN THE FIRST VIDEO IN THIS SERIES OF WHICH THERE IS ONLY ONE VIDEO OUT SO FAR Haha I wonder why I got the opposite impression by watching reactions to the video. Fine I'll watch it now.

[Nique]

Haha I wonder why I got the opposite impression by watching reactions to the video.

Because this is who is responding to the video

Personally, I read the article first and haven't seen the video yet. But I think the critique is pretty spot on.


I read the article first and haven't seen the video yet.


haven't seen the video yet.

As to the article - It's a poorly written, poorly researched, poorly constructed and inherently contradictory rebuttal to the most basic and obvious 101 observation about video games someone could make. An observation we apparently need for something I was under the impression was a no-brainer for literally everyone.

This is just the worst...

I feel like Anita misses the point, once again, with statements like: “I’ve heard it said that, in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, they are the ball.” How is Peach at all relevant in any of the Mario games, ever? A ball is a highly active an integral part to every athletic event involving a ball. Peach does absolutely nothing in all of the Mario games, she’s more of a trophy, if anything.

she’s more of a trophy, if anything

[Osterbaum]

Trophies are obviously better than balls.

[Bells]

Trophies are obviously better than balls.

WHAT?!

Oh.. Balls... sorry, my bad.

The more i read of this thread the more it seems like there is a good topic to talk about in this issue, but it`s not anywhere here...

[Nique]

The more i read of this thread the more it seems like there is a good topic to talk about in this issue, but it`s not anywhere here...

Seems to be going pretty well so far so IDK what you're talking about.

edit: Like, I don't see why just because people are a little angry but still making good points means the thread is shit. The OP is ridic but like at least there is a discussion happening.

[Bells]

i dunno, pointing out that minorities and females in general are much more commonly portrait in "weak" roles or even evil roles seems to me like shouting the obvious, the more back in the past you look, the more obvious that gets...

so, yeah... it's a discussion, i see shade under that tree... but no fruit.

here is a thought experiment i would suggest, just to change the prism a bit... lets cut out 100% of all games made in japan or by japanese teams (specially directed and written by). Now count in only games from 2000 and onward.

All of this is just to examine a slice of the conversation... what you take from the last decade in western gaming development about these issues? Not much has change, really... at least i don't think it has in any bigger sense.

I mean, not long ago people were questioning if having a Female lead in a GTA game would be "too controversial"... i mean... take a moment to absorb what THAT says about people...

[Nique]

It would not make sense to eliminate japanese produced games from the analysis. Japanese games are the single largest part of the cultural landscape of video games across the world.

It would also not make sense to eliminate older games because those are constantly being brought to the fore to cash in on 'retro' trends through re-releases, secondhand sales, re-makes, etc, and are, again, a current element of the cultural landscape of video games.

Now, if what you mean is to segregate those categories to do a comparison to show how much or how little change there has been in the portrayal of women and minorities in games across different eras, I think that makes sense. I believe the Feminist Frequency series will be addressing this in some form as it progresses.

[Kim]

Games with women protagonists get significantly less money to spend on advertising than comparable games with male protagonists do. This is NOW. Games really haven't gotten any better.

Here's some more context for the Damsels in Distress trope and why it happens. (http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/future-sex-princess-peach)

I like that this article calls out a major problem, which is that games are developed by the people with the most privilege. In the US, this means white, cis, het men. Look at any picture of a major development team and you'll see a sea of white dudes.

And before anyone tries to blame minority groups for not getting more involved in development, the reason for that is the toxic culture in game development and that video game communities themselves are pretty horrible. The culture needs to improve to make it more accessible to minority voices so that we get more games that portray a wider variety of ideas, attitudes, and perspectives.

[POS Industries]

i dunno, pointing out that minorities and females in general are much more commonly portrait in "weak" roles or even evil roles seems to me like shouting the obvious
I don't see how that's a bad thing or any sort of point against having the discussion. It apparently isn't that obvious since it continues to be a thing that dominates the industry, so continuing to have an open, educational dialogue on the subject is important since it keeps the issue in the spotlight, which raises awareness and helps to further the goal of getting more games that don't have completely awful female representation.

[Kim]

It's also a little silly to say we're just talking about something obvious when the thread was started by someone arguing with the video explaining said obvious thing in the most basic, accessible way possible.

[Bells]

that's my point... here we are discussing the obvious over the obvious, so far there is very little insight aside from "that's terrible" "yes it is uhum uhum uhum" for 4 pages now. It's not bad... it's not good... it's nothing really... i mean, everybody agrees that the article was poorly done and written, and everybody agrees this is a real issue.... a bad cultural thing... and as far as i can tell, we pretty much all agree that once you actually watches the video the entire argument of the article and nature of the thread goes kaput... so... yeah......

would not make sense to eliminate japanese produced games from the analysis. Japanese games are the single largest part of the cultural landscape of video games across the world.

At the same time wouldn't make sense to take games in japan and think of them in the exact same terms we do with western games... largest cultural landscape sure, also very different and unique in many, many ways...

It would also not make sense to eliminate older games because those are constantly being brought to the fore to cash in on 'retro' trends through re-releases, secondhand sales, re-makes, etc, and are, again, a current element of the cultural landscape of video games.

I wouldn't say eliminate... but these sorts of conversations usually focus too much on older games. I think it would be more interesting to change the angle and focus a bit more on current gaming today... that's all really.

Now, if what you mean is to segregate those categories to do a comparison to show how much or how little change there has been in the portrayal of women and minorities in games across different eras, I think that makes sense. I believe the Feminist Frequency series will be addressing this in some form as it progresses.

Well, that does really sound like a much more interesting topic to get insight from, at least for me.

Games really haven't gotten any better.

I think you are going on argumentation by qualifiers... yeah, it's real easy to find really bad examples of a lot of bad culture in games, but i would prefer to think we have evolved quite a bit ahead from "Custers Revenge" era by now...

[Kim]

I think you are going on argumentation by qualifiers... yeah, it's real easy to find really bad examples of a lot of bad culture in games, but i would prefer to think we have evolved quite a bit ahead from "Custers Revenge" era by now...

No. We haven't.

There are still porn games. There are still rape games. They haven't been unmade from the fabric of reality. People still make these things.

In fact, I'd wager more of them are made nowadays than were back when Custer's Revenge was made.

[Bells]

rape games i understand, but... can you tell me what's wrong with a game with or based on sexual content?

Cause... you just said "Porn Games"... yeah, they exist... more like Wanking Simulators really... but there are a few games (really bad ones though), but you object to their existence entirely!?

[POS Industries]

that's my point... here we are discussing the obvious over the obvious, so far there is very little insight aside from "that's terrible" "yes it is uhum uhum uhum" for 4 pages now. It's not bad... it's not good... it's nothing really... i mean, everybody agrees that the article was poorly done and written, and everybody agrees this is a real issue.... a bad cultural thing... and as far as i can tell, we pretty much all agree that once you actually watches the video the entire argument of the article and nature of the thread goes kaput... so... yeah......

...And? Discussing an issue isn't just two opposing sides arguing with each other like we're the fucking debate team.

Of all the dumbass threads we have around here, many of which are about literally nothing at all, you're seriously going to come into this one and be like, "Man, what is even the point of talking about this?"

[Kim]

I object to a culture wherein the bulk of all pornographic content is made by heterosexual men for heterosexual men, because it objectifies women and promotes actively harmful ideas of sexuality of all forms.

[phil_]

I wouldn't say eliminate... but these sorts of conversations usually focus too much on older games. I think it would be more interesting to change the angle and focus a bit more on current gaming today... that's all really.Ok, so we've established that the Damsel in Distress trope is one of the most widely used gendered cliches in the history of video games and has been core to the popularization and development of gaming as a medium. But what about modern games? Has anything changed in the past 10 years? Well stay tuned for Part Two, where I'll be looking at more contemporary examples of the Damsel in Distress trope. We'll look at all the dark and edgy twists and turns and see how the convention has been used and abused right up until today.Bells, did you watch the video we're discussing? You wouldn't jump into a thread to say "You're all talking in circles" without watching what's being discussed, would you? 'Cause that's really the only way to make a meaningful contribution to a conversation: knowing what's being spoken about. Or jokes, I guess, but you're not doing that.

[Premmy]

1hy do people still respond to Bells' posts? I get that he's still around because Barrel got banned and NPF needs at least one useless troublemaker around to prove some stupid-ass point I'm unaware of, but do we really need to treat him like he matters?

[Bells]

Bells, did you watch the video we're discussing? You wouldn't jump into a thread to say "You're all talking in circles" without watching what's being discussed, would you? 'Cause that's really the only way to make a meaningful contribution to a conversation: knowing what's being spoken about. Or jokes, I guess, but you're not doing that.

Yeah, i saw part 1, but, Kinda hard for me to comment on a Part 2 that isn't out yet, don't you think?

However, i CAN do what i was doing... which is try to steer the conversation to that topic, which i still think it's interesting, without having to wait for the video to come out...

1hy do people still respond to Bells' posts? I get that he's still around because Barrel got banned and NPF needs at least one useless troublemaker around to prove some stupid-ass point I'm unaware of, but do we really need to treat him like he matters?

Of course, however, if this is the type of mentality that is ok on this Thread, i'll just excuse myself for now... enjoy agreeing with one another...

[synkr0nized]

1hy do people still respond to Bells' posts? I get that he's still around because Barrel got banned and NPF needs at least one useless troublemaker around to prove some stupid-ass point I'm unaware of, but do we really need to treat him like he matters?

Enjoy your break from NPF, Premmy!

[Aerozord]

I object to a culture wherein the bulk of all pornographic content is made by heterosexual men for heterosexual men, because it objectifies women and promotes actively harmful ideas of sexuality of all forms.

I object to a culture where sex and nudity is treated as any form of taboo. Bulk of it is made by men for men because our society still believes that sexual promiscuity is only appropriate for males. Heck not even appropriate, but that there is something wrong with a male that doesn't seek it with the opposite is true for females. To get equality in our erotica first the culture must accept varying degrees of a persons sex drive and acknowledge that gender has nothing to do with where they fall on that scale.

[Kim]

I'll let you know when I want a dude to tell me how to get true equality.

It will probably be a while.

[Aerozord]

I'll let you know when I want a dude to tell me how to get true equality.

It will probably be a while.

if you really believed in equality you wouldn't dismiss someones opinion simple because of their gender.

[Kim]

lol

[POS Industries]

Oh noooooooooooo

Not the misandryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Marc v4.0]

It only took 6 pages

[POS Industries]

Like okay lemme break it down for y'all, see Kim's objection is not that pornography or erotica or whatevs is inherently wrong, but rather that the state of the porn industry throughout basically forever has been engineered in such a way that it is designed almost exclusively for the benefit of men at the degradation of women, which is shitty because women (being half the population with just the same amount of sexual impulse as men) should also have the privilege of being able to enjoy getting off to watching other people have sex without having to basically sit through the message that they are lesser beings in the sexual servitude of men (unless the woman happens to be into that).

As it stands now, you really have to dig to find woman-friendly porn and then you also have to take in the added complaint that porn in its current state upholds the idea that men are expected to by society to "conquer" as many women in the sack as possible, which doesn't feel great to us guys but still hurts women more because it breeds the sorts of situations that lead to rape and sexual abuse.

And while it might help to a degree to have women "reclaiming" their rightful place as people of agency in the field of erotica, it's not really the root of the problem. Women aren't being excluded from porn, they're being exploited by it, and the sooner we figure out how to shift our cultural shift from porn being sexual exploitation to honest expression, the better.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Didn't I make a thread about this years ago?

Anyway I agree, DiD needs to either,

A) Disappear completely which admittingly is easier said then done. But do able none the less.

or

B) Atleast handled in a way that's not completely terrible. Like providing a good reason why it happened, and making the princess not seem useless. Make her a well written character with depth. Which is again easier said then done seeing the current state of the gaming industry, but do able non the less. After all we do have a good number a games with strong female protagonist already.


Well that's my 2 cents on the matter. Pass down what you've learned and teach the coming generation what's truely right and teach them about equality, fairness, and kindness. If done enough times it will eventually spark a change for the better.

[Ramary]

p6gLmcS3-NI
LpFk5F-S_hI

[Red Mage Black]

Admittedly, the only thing that bothers me about her was the fact that she needed almost $150k+ for this and she didn't even change the platform she was using to send the message. Can someone tell me the difference between this video and those before the kickstarter? I'm not trying to sound like an asshole, I genuinely want to know.

Edit: For clarity's sake, I'll say this much. I have no objections to the content of Sarkeesian's videos nor do I have an opinion about her in general.

Another thing I failed to remember up till this point: Granted, the 6k was her original intended goal and so the $150k+ she got was due to all the backers. Yet I fail to see how she needed anything at all. Seeing as, at least as far as I remember, YouTube is a free medium from which to voice your opinions.

I state my original intention once again, I genuinely want to know the reasoning behind it and how the videos even changed. All that seemed to change, at least to me, was the theme.

[Ramary]

Admittedly, the only thing that bothers me about her was the fact that she needed almost $150k+ for this and she didn't even change the platform she was using to send the message.

Common misconception, she asked for $6,000 and got a lot more people to donate after seeing the usual internet fuckery on the video page.

To answer your actual question...no idea what she is doing with the 150k, if I don't get interviews with people from the industry or something (money is on no, but it would be a pleasant surprise) it seems like it is just gonna go into her pocket. Even the 6 grand she asked for at first is kinda questionable.

[Ryanderman]

Common misconception, she asked for $6,000 and got a lot more people to donate after seeing the usual internet fuckery on the video page.

To answer your actual question...no idea what she is doing with the 150k, if I don't get interviews with people from the industry or something (money is on no, but it would be a pleasant surprise) it seems like it is just gonna go into her pocket. Even the 6 grand she asked for at first is kinda questionable.
I could be wrong about how Kickstarter works, but it's not a charity. It's a business facilitation platform. For whatever reason, be it logistical need or not, she decided she wanted $6,000 to create this video. People, for whatever reason, be it that they wanted the video or wanted to support her, pledged their money to her to create this video. Upon accepting the money she became obligated to create the video, but at no point is she obligated to use the money for anything other than what she wants to. People paid her money in return for content; she is providing content; their interest ends there.

Again, I could be wrong, but that's how it appears to me.

[Kim]

Decent cameras cost money. Purchasing relevant video games for research costs money. Audio equipment costs money. Graphic designers cost money. Decent editing programs cost money.

I'd wager, if you actually put in even an iota of effort to check, it would be pretty easy to find somewhere where she explains exactly what she needed the money for.

I guess it's easy to just assume any woman asking for money is a lying whore, though.

Creating these videos take a lot of time and money to produce. I will be researching and playing hundreds of titles from across the gaming industry (including some truly awful games that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone!). Your support will go towards production costs, equipment, games and downloadable content.

Oh hey it was incredibly easy to find this.

Oh hey the second stretch goal when she made more money with the project than she expect was to bump the production quality of the videos.

Oh hey this was fucking obvious shit.

[Red Mage Black]

I guess it's easy to just assume any woman asking for money is a lying whore, though.

The rest of your post was okay up until this point. I didn't imply any such thing and stated in my post that I just wanted the info. That being said, I thank you for the information, but the last sentence was uncalled for.


Oh hey it was incredibly easy to find this.

Oh hey the first stretch goal when she made more money with the project than she expect was to bump the production quality of the videos.

Oh hey this was fucking obvious shit.
This was uncalled for just as well. A simple link or simply just pasting up that quote was all that was needed.

[Kim]

The rest of your post was okay up until this point. I didn't imply any such thing and stated in my post that I just wanted the info. That being said, I thank you for the information, but the last sentence was uncalled for.

No, it was completely called for.

You couldn't even put in a fucking fraction of the effort to find the info you needed, or even do the basic brainwork to /consider/ what might be needed. Instead, you jumped right to distrusting her, when she actually didn't ask for all that much money compared to a lot of Kickstarter projects. It was easier for you to just mistrust her than to realize that things cost money to make, especially when you want to make them look professional.

When I see this flavor of skepticism and distrust leveled at men as consistently as I see it leveled against women, of which Anita Sarkeesian is just one, then there won't be sexist undertones to your lazy, thoughtless implications. Until that day, there are sexist fucking undertones to those sort of lazy, thoughtless implications.

[Red Mage Black]

No, it was completely called for.
(And the rest of your post)


I'd like to hear your explanation about that. Something that doesn't just sound like you're ranting angrily at me while making assumptions. I never said I mistrusted her. I have nothing against her. Why would I? I don't know her personally and her videos aren't 'putting me down' like some men would claim it of themselves. She asked for money for her project and got it. I just wanted to know where it went.

I asked inquisitively about it and I found my answer. There was a better way to handle this than answer my question and then berate me. 'Google it', 'Just Google it', and 'Just fucking Google it'. 2-5 words was all it would have taken. I just don't understand your attitude half the time.

---------- Post added at 11:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:34 AM ----------

Because I have to play spectator to a lot of fucking sexism inflicted on my friends, I get a lot of fucking sexism in my day to day (FUCKING HATE MAIL AND THREATS AND SLURS ON BAD DAYS), and when I come to NPF my patience for it is at nil.

So why bring it here? I don't know you. I don't know your friends. I realize the shit they have to put up with is horrible, but yelling at some stranger on the internet because of it is not a valid excuse. You're certainly allowed to be angry about it, but taking it out on some stranger on the internet isn't going to help matters.


You starting by complaining she didn't change the platform after raising all that money and implying she asked for a lot more money than she did, all while wondering what she needed the money for. Then, when someone corrected you, wondering aloud why she needed any money at all rather than put in two seconds of thought or Google searching to find out.

You totally did know I addressed the money issue in my opening inquiry, right? Right here:

Another thing I failed to remember up till this point: Granted, the 6k was her original intended goal and so the $150k+ she got was due to all the backers. Yet I fail to see how she needed anything at all. Seeing as, at least as far as I remember, YouTube is a free medium from which to voice your opinions.



Then you claim you weren't mistrusting her? I highly doubt that, but okay, if you'd rather I mark you down as, "Person who knows literally nothing at all because I am literally incapable of two seconds of thought or Google searching," rather than, "Sexist jackass," I can totally do that for you.
Because ad hominem is totally a legitimate way to argue. If you wish to continue making accusations and assumptions outside of what it truly is, 'willful ignorance', then so be it. Ignorant in this case =/= sexist. I understand the message she's trying to get across, but I think her videos are more geared towards people who haven't already noticed the trend in video games. You weren't obligated to answer my inquiry and the only one getting angry here is you.

[Nique]

p6gLmcS3-NI
LpFk5F-S_hI

Oh look it's more ridiculous nitpicking wherein a women's qualifications to examine a typically male dominated field are being scrutinized (poorly, I might add) to a degree that a male's (or at least male perspective) never would be.

This shit is framed as some kind of expose' on Anita rather than a substantive argument against anything she has presented in her videos so idefk

EDIT: Like, men sure are eager to use sex-positive feminist arguments when a women seems to be "threatening" their right to masturbate to objectified women. This of course makes the overarching criticism of patriarchy totally wrong!

RMB - you should really try and understand your comments within the context of all of the statements being made about Feminist Frequency and this issue as a whole. Like...

When I see this flavor of skepticism and distrust leveled at men as consistently as I see it leveled against women, of which Anita Sarkeesian is just one, then there won't be sexist undertones to your lazy, thoughtless implications. Until that day, there are sexist fucking undertones to those sort of lazy, thoughtless implications.

Yeah.

[Sifright]

Oh look it's more ridiculous nitpicking wherein a women's qualifications to examine a typically male dominated field are being scrutinized (poorly, I might add) to a degree that a male's (or at least male perspective) never would be.

This shit is framed as some kind of expose' on Anita rather than a substantive argument against anything she has presented in her videos so idefk


RMB - you should really try and understand your comments within the context of all of the statements being made about Feminist Frequency and this issue as a whole. Like...



Yeah.

and that excuses hostility yes.

This is aside from the fact that I very much hate how games portray minorities and women.

or worse minority women, black woman in a video game? Almost certainly the character is a hooker thanks gaming industry! (after all only white women are pure!)

if my hostility in the previous thread wasn't fair dibs because yall were being massive jerks and framing the whole thing as crazy loon kills random people and I wanted it to be put in perspective your hostility here certainly is warranted.... right?

[Nique]

Sif I literally do not understand what you're saying.

[Sifright]

Sif I literally do not understand what you're saying.

I agree broadly with what you are saying about the problem of gaming culture.

Drawing attention to it and trying to help solve the issue a great thing all around better culture for every one.

I don't agree with calling RMB a sexist fuck just because he was being hugely ignorant which would more logically be attributable to being lazy any way.

attributing context and motivation to his posts that aren't present isn't exactly the fairest thing that you can do.

and being hostile to other posters is clearly not an allowed thing no matter how wrong or ignorant they are.

so yea double standards are pretty clearly present not that your post specifically was being hostile more that you were excusing Kim being hostile in the first place.

People attribute malice when ignorance or lazyness is the far more likely cause.

bleh fuck it doesn't matter any way, I saw the post Kim took down I can understand why she is so pissed off some times I just fucking hate how full of malicious fucks the world is gets to the point where you just expect every one to be that way.

Rambling out.

[Loyal]

and being hostile to other posters is clearly not an allowed thing no matter how wrong or ignorant they are.This has been, de facto, not the case for several months now.

[Arcanum]

@RMB

Kickstarter also takes 5% cut, and Amazon payments takes another cut (apparently ~2%). It's not much, but it's also something people starting a kickstarter need to budget for. Not to mention any backer rewards that will cost money (I'm not familiar with the Kickstarter so I don't know what her backer rewards were). And as far as I know there's nothing on Kickstarter about if your project is too successful, so she could just be using the surplus money as a salary and working on the videos full time (purely speculative).

And Sif took the words out of my mouth RE: hostility.

This has been, de facto, not the case for several months now.

Mine, and Kim's, recent 3-day ban and synk's statement about how the mods plan on cracking down on hostile and trollish behavior more often says otherwise.

edit- okay maybe not completely otherwise, but they're trying to improve shit

[Nique]

Thanks for clarifying Sif.

Now, can we make this less meta? We don't need to have discussions about tone arguments AGAIN.

[shiney]

The tone argument in this instance was actually quite germane, inasmuch as there was a completely overt hostile reaction to what amounted, ultimately, to a failure to google something.

That said, maybe it is a good idea sometimes to take a second to breathe instead of fighting so hard against everything all the time that you find yourself feeling physically weak or sickened. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[Bells]

The tone argument in this instance was actually quite germane

Godwins Law!!

...no, wait...

well, it least his tone wasn`t Jermaine (https://www.google.dk/search?hl=da&safe=off&q=michael+jackson+brother+jermaine&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.Yms&biw=1920&bih=989&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=cG4_UcO2JcKbtAbE3ICoBw)...

Ahwww puns...


That being said, it's not like this topic is out of good merits worth talking about, but it's certainly more worth to talk about the merits and points of the video series than it's creator...

[Marc v4.0]

But, Bells, if someone doesn't attack the person making the points directly, then how will they ever cause the thread to get so derailed that it will be forced close so they can return to pretending they aren't being sexist and the ones driving members away?

[shiney]

Maybe it's the shitty attitude of everyone that drove members away. It's hilariously self-important to think that one side is beyond reproach in the circumstances that have led to this place emptying.

Posts like yours, Marc, are what are driving people away. Posts that do exactly nothing. That post was a waste of time and only brings animosity, and snide criticism. Sexism isn't what broke this forum apart, it was the endless polarizing arguments about sexism. Ironically, it only served to embolden both sides, and no understanding can likely ever be reached between parties now because you're just too invested in the fight.

[Marc v4.0]

Nah, I'm fairly certain it's the fact that you let obvious sexism run rampant and alienate other forums members to the point where they either no long feel safe posting here because they and their points are constantly harassed or deemed trivial, or they have to fight against a nigh constant and unchallenged wave of bullshit to even get a basic point across. Your seemingly uncaring attitude, coupled with what amounts to lip service, when it comes to the hateful and marginalizing viewpoints expressed are driving people to other places, while NPF slowly becomes a little haven for the sort of opinions and views that lead to the marginalization of others. You have a CRIPPLING FEAR of driving people off so you sit upon your hands and do nothing about it, and that drives people away further!

Just LOOK at this thread! How many threads have to rise and fall to the EXACT SAME dismissive and suspicious attitudes, to the exact same derailments and pointless nitpicking and dancing around the topic in efforts to exhaust the subject so they don't have to take it seriously? How many times is someone(you know who) going to have to be openly racist before you do something about it beyond just going "Hey now, that's not cool sonny." How many, Shiney, before you realize that you can't have it ~both sidez~?, before you stop washing your hands of it and shoving it off onto someone else? For fuck's sake, Jagos didn't even watch the goddamn video, yet posts and publicly agrees with a pretty terrible and ignorant review on what is clearly going to be volatile topic? How many times did Smarty have to be a complete shithead before action had to be taken, why was it so ignored for so long until it literally became to bad to ignore? WHY WAS IT BEING IGNORED IN THE FIRST PLACE?

But, I guess you're right, no understanding can be reached between either side, because one side wants to marginalize the other at every opportunity, and that's complete bunk.

No, I'm the problem, though. I'm the one running people off by not being willing to put up with the bullshit. I'm not comfortable calling a forums home that allows people to just be racist and sexist over and over and over again, where all can see, with little more than slaps on the wrist to counter it, if even that. If that's really the sort of place you WANT to run, then yeah, I guess I am messing things up.

[stefan]

There is literally not an ironicat big enough

[Sifright]

Maybe it's the shitty attitude of everyone that drove members away. It's hilariously self-important to think that one side is beyond reproach in the circumstances that have led to this place emptying.

Posts like yours, Marc, are what are driving people away. Posts that do exactly nothing. That post was a waste of time and only brings animosity, and snide criticism. Sexism isn't what broke this forum apart, it was the endless polarizing arguments about sexism. Ironically, it only served to embolden both sides, and no understanding can likely ever be reached between parties now because you're just too invested in the fight.

In defense of marc here, I think to some degree when you argue against sexism, racism insert prejudice you aren't arguing to convince the person doing those things that what they are doing is wrong, that is by its nature utterly futile. It revolves more around trying to convince those who are more neutral perhaps ignorant of how said actions or behaviour can effect others that it does.

primarily because people almost never admit to wrong doing unless some one has a position of authority over them.

That said, there sure does seem to be no small amount of tribalism going on between certain groups on this forum to the point where people are preprimed to engage the enemy target so to speak.

I also think you are being a little unfair to Jagos as he is the kind of person who will change his mind based on sound and rational argument, unless I'm much mistaken Jagos used to be a pretty staunch libertarian some one who isn't willing to actually pursue evidence based reasoning wouldn't move away from such a position.

Maybe just maybe give some people the benefit of the doubt before tearing their intestines out and throttling them with it (Obvious hyperbole)

[Loyal]

you let obvious sexism run rampant and alienate other forums members to the point where they either no long feel safe posting here because they and their points are constantly harassed or deemed trivial,
But, I guess you're right, no understanding can be reached between either side, because one side wants to marginalize the other at every opportunity, and that's complete bunk. NPF, promoting self-indulgent hypocrites since 2007.

I'm not comfortable calling a forums home that allows people to just be racist and sexist over and over and over again, where all can see, with little more than slaps on the wrist to counter it, if even that.And yet you return, time and time again.

[Nique]

I hate that this is now another 'state of the forum' thread, but if things are going to boil over anyway I guess it's not a fruitless avenue of discussion. I'm like, real fuckin' hesitant to post this but I don't want to say nothing either. For the record, I'm not trying to solidify my position with a 'faction' of users or whatever, you guys are all cool in different ways. But we got PROBLEMZ.

Adding to Marc's point, I would say that many of the "SJ" crowd Shiney is identifying are not driving people away, because they aren't clamoring for people they disagree with to be banned - they just don't want to be lectured when that call out things that are shitty as being shitty! On the other hand, many people are actively reporting and wanting people to get banned for calling out said shit which is like, ok we've got to be tolerant of intolerance I guess? And I mean, yeah acting in a manner to not just retain but make comfortable members who are showing ignorance and bigotry and lecturing or otherwise punishing the member calling out the problem isn't balanced.

For what it's worth, I personally still like NPF, I personally think that the last few years of drama is something we can recover from, and I have no big personal issue with most members and staff, but I don't blame other people for being frustrated with how things are, and I hope there is a continuing discussion of how to handle things better.

And stefan, I wish you would actually contribute something instead of just popping in to give people bullshit for no fucking reason at all.

[POS Industries]

NPF, promoting self-indulgent hypocrites since 2007.

And yet you return, time and time again.
Thank you, Loyal, for proving Marc's point entirely.

To clarify, "feeling safe" doesn't mean people are protected from having their dumb, toxic opinions result in other people being rude to them about it, it means that they are safe from being attacked or demeaned simply for who they are, be that female, trans, non-white, etc.

As a white dude, I am 100% safe here all the time. This is a safe place for me to post, because nothing anyone posts will be harmful to me in any way as a white dude. Other people here don't have that privilege, and are attacked personally when they try to object to things that are actually harmful to them, and so NPF is not a safe place for them to post.

[stefan]

And stefan, I wish you would actually contribute something instead of just popping in to give people bullshit for no fucking reason at all.

maybe I don't contribute because, in general, half of what I would say is already covered, and the other half makes people lose their goddamn motherfucking mind when their beliefs are challenged.

It's especially fun because those two groups of people are in fact the same fucking group of people, and its become so fucking tiresome to get attacked by people I largely agree with for daring to not be 100% in lockstep (while simultaneously being patted on the back by people I want to punch in the fucking face) that the only thing I find productive to post at all is mockery in the vain hope all of you someday realize that NPF is not The Last Great Battlefield Over The Corruption Of Western Society (no matter which side of the battle line you want to stand on) and take those sticks out of your asses.

[Amake]

NPF is not The Last Great Battlefield Over The Corruption Of Western Society
No, but maybe it can be the first.

[synkr0nized]

Mine, and Kim's, recent 3-day ban and synk's statement about how the mods plan on cracking down on hostile and trollish behavior more often says otherwise.

edit- okay maybe not completely otherwise, but they're trying to improve shit

Yes.


Kim, I'd love it if you would cool out sometimes before posting. I feel like we've been here before.

That said, RMB there's a lot of worth in being aware of the context of the discussion before tossing out things like that. You may in fact be quite honest and upfront, but it's still valid to critique your post given the nature of this thread. Perhaps not as vehemently, but it's worth noting. Were I more involved in the "discussion" [i.e. reading about it in other places, following up on the news it's generated] prior to this thread -- as I have begun to make myself now --, I may have been inclined to similarly view the question as an attack on her validity or the like.

Loyal, that kind of post doesn't help matters at all. Let's not make more of them.

stefan, since you're outright posting "lol I like to troll NPF it's fun" or whatever, maybe you'll find other uses of your time when you're bored in the next couple of days. Since you won't be posting.

[Sifright]

stefan, since you're outright posting "lol I like to troll NPF it's fun" or whatever, maybe you'll find other uses of your time when you're bored in the next couple of days. Since you won't be posting.

Thats pretty much not what he said at all. Interesting take on it though.

edit: actually that seems to be the opposite of what he said in fact. like you've put the causal arrow on backwards.

[Red Mage Black]

Yes.




That said, RMB there's a lot of worth in being aware of the context of the discussion before tossing out things like that. You may in fact be quite honest and upfront, but it's still valid to critique your post given the nature of this thread. Perhaps not as vehemently, but it's worth noting. Were I more involved in the "discussion" [i.e. reading about it in other places, following up on the news it's generated] prior to this thread -- as I have begun to make myself now --, I may have been inclined to similarly view the question as an attack on her validity or the like.



I never meant to question her validity, as it was a genuine curiosity and as such, I'm apathetic to the whole thing. I can see how it was misconstrued as it was. So, quite possibly bad word choice? As I said, I have nothing against Anita Sarkeesian or what she talks about and I know the goal was surpassed due to the generosity of her backers. Good for her, I say. That she could earn the support she needed to make her views on the subject be heard.

People I think giving her a bad name are her more 'fanatical' fans. Blowing things out of proportion to say that she's against all men. Rad-Fems truly do give the movement a bad name. When their goal isn't equality, but total female dominance. Switching control doesn't solve the issue, but creates just as many problems as the previous one did. There's no need for either misogyny or misandry(I find it strange that Firefox thought this was a typo). I don't think Sarkeesian holds this viewpoint at all. She's just pointing out the misogyny in video games, a medium that is grossly overlooked. I can respect people who stand up for something, but also don't get overzealous about it. That takes a measure of courage and self-control that I think I can safely say most radical feminists lack.

They're not the only ones to blame however. Detractors and misogynists(it's usually a combination) use the former as ammunition to fuel their arguments and their hatred. So when a logical and reasonable feminist comes around, people tend to disbelieve their arguments and reasoning based on both the former and the latter.

I have reasons for my own views and I'm slowly trying to change them, though I grew up in a situation the complete opposite of what I hear and see going on in the world. Where I was the one oppressed simply because I was the gender minority in my house and I had to 'watch my step'. Couple my growing up experiences and my first run-in with feminism being Rad-Fems and it's bad feels and bitterness all around. Being told by advocators of female dominance that I'm the cause for everything bad going on in the world and should simply feel bad for being born a male tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth. Yet, I also know this isn't the true face of actual Feminism and it's a relief to know it, but it's also not easy for me shake off the bad feelings.

I just had one last thought and a question before I ended the post. Because they seem to be striving towards the same goal(s), are Feminism and Egalitarianism related in any way?

[Kim]

Actually rad fems give the movement a bad name because the term rad fem is almost exclusively claimed and worn by second wave transphobic fucks.

[Nique]

Obviously, feminism is not an excuse for abuse, discrimination, or repression, especially towards a child.

[POS Industries]

Also, neither Anita, her supporters, nor even the completely unrelated radfems are the ones responsible for her being attacked and harassed over the internet.

[Nique]

I see radical feminism (or at least the rad fem that we seem to be talking about) as this kind of boogey man that is not really a threat to anything, sadly, on account of patriarchy but also just by virtue of being sort of ridiculous with transphobia, sexism, etc.

[Red Mage Black]

Actually rad fems give the movement a bad name because the term rad fem is almost exclusively claimed and worn by second wave transphobic fucks.
I feel I'm being misconstrued again and I apologize if I'm misconstruing your post. I only use the 'title' because it's the only other thing I have to call them by, sorry for the ignorance. Simply denying fact that there are more extreme members taking your ideology too far does not mean they don't exist. For clarity's sake I'm far from being transphobic.

Obviously, feminism is not an excuse for abuse, discrimination, or repression, especially towards a child.
Never said it was. Though I may have missed what context you meant this to be in. So... clarify?

Also, neither Anita, her supporters, nor even the completely unrelated radfems are the ones responsible for her being attacked and harassed over the internet.
I never said it was her fault. Though you cannot possibly tell me that people cannot develop skewed views of the feminist ideology because some of the more extreme feminists are taking it too far. As much as we'd like to say that even if they had no idea at first and could do the actual research about it, not everybody will. Either because of personal experience or indoctrination during childhood. Rape culture plays a major part and I agree wholeheartedly on that.

I simply can't comprehend that even if they are unrelated, how something unrelated can't affect it. I'm not saying they're totally to blame, as I stated in my last post, but once people perceive something in a negative light, it's hard to change that perception. Even if someone with the true ideology steps forward to correct them. So as I asked Nique, clarify?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to justify the harassment and attacks on her, far from it. No one deserves to be attacked and harassed on the net and it's one of the reasons she disabled the comments on her video.

(Considering this updated while I was writing this...)

I see radical feminism (or at least the rad fem that we seem to be talking about) as this kind of boogey man that is not really a threat to anything, sadly, on account of patriarchy but also just by virtue of being sort of ridiculous with transphobia, sexism, etc.
So you deny that there are women who take the feminist ideology a little too far? I can provide proof they exist if you really want it. Just give me the word and I'll start hosting what I got. Not trying to be facetious or a jackass, but just because you've never seen em doesn't mean they don't exist.

[phil_]

So you deny that there are women who take the feminist ideology a little too far? I can provide proof they exist if you really want it. Just give me the word and I'll start hosting what I got. Not trying to be facetious or a jackass, but just because you've never seen em doesn't mean they don't exist.See, RMB, this is where you're showing you're not aware of the context this conversation is taking place in again. I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with the material you would be posting about divorce rates and custody stuff. That stuff has and is currently being used as not just as a justification but a call to arms to harass anything with a vagina Anita and plenty of other decent, non-controversial-except-for-the-having-two-X-chromosomes-and-an-internet-connection people (also people with different chromosome arrangements who hang out with the aforementioned).

When you offer to post those things, it makes you look like you're part of that braying mass of ignorance, even though you aren't. I get that it's hard to see that coming if you're not familiar with that ugly part of the internet/world, but it's totally a landmine sitting there waiting for someone to step in it. Much like a landmine, it doesn't care who steps on it or if they knew it was there, they still get blown up. Or associated with bigots, in this case.

[Ramary]

I actually thought he would refer to the tons of tumblr users I have seen that want the matriarchy to rise up and replace the current patriarchy.

On the subject of the abusers, death threat senders etc, well it is the internet hate machine, and they are pretty much making people trying to argue both sides to turn everything into a shit storm cause they are.....

A. Actually think like that, so terrible people
B. Trolls. So fighting back against this is what they want.
C. Edgy idiots

Their presence combined with both sides starting shit over complete non-sense (Let us not talk the recent God of War thing) makes me just completely numb to this stuff and just ignoring it even when we have a legitimate issue with women in gaming, and we totally do. I rather get mad at more pressing issues in gaming like the Sim City fiasco and consumer rights for the industry being utter hogwash.

[CABAL49]

tnJxqRLg9x0

Anita Sarkeesian made a video about "extremist feminism." Actually one of the first I've watched.

Edit: Kinda off topic, until one of you tyrants actually ban me I will probably be around.

[Nique]

Sheesh, where to begin? RMB, for whatever reason you're being super defensive to posts that are, if anything, in agreement with your basic sentiments -

I feel I'm being misconstrued again and I apologize if I'm misconstruing your post. I only use the 'title' because it's the only other thing I have to call them by, sorry for the ignorance. Simply denying fact that there are more extreme members taking your ideology too far does not mean they don't exist. For clarity's sake I'm far from being transphobic.

Kim was contributing a perspective to the point that YOU brought up. You are both basically agreeing that radical feminism is problematic.


Never said it was. Though I may have missed what context you meant this to be in. So... clarify?

Again, I was just more or less agreeing with the sentiments you expressed about your personal experience. Like, no one thinks your family gets a pass for treating you poorly because FEMINISM.

I never said it was her fault. Though you cannot possibly tell me that people cannot develop skewed views of the feminist ideology because some of the more extreme feminists are taking it too far.

But people also develop skewed views because they make assumptions by thinking the feminists represent a homogenous group, which I would quantify as being their problem.


So you deny that there are women who take the feminist ideology a little too far? I can provide proof they exist if you really want it. Just give me the word and I'll start hosting what I got. Not trying to be facetious or a jackass, but just because you've never seen em doesn't mean they don't exist.

Radical Feminists are a boogeyman in that while they exist and their viewpoints are problematic, their ability to execute their agenda is extremely limited and really has little meaningful way of affecting the people who like to use radical feminism to criticize all feminists.

Regular flavor feminism pretty much advocates actual gender equality and identifies the institution of patriarchy (rather than individual men) as causing problems for both genders. EDIT: I am not an expert on like, feminist theory, so uh, please take this as a very general observation

[Red Mage Black]

See, RMB, this is where you're showing you're not aware of the context this conversation is taking place in again. I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with the material you would be posting about divorce rates and custody stuff. That stuff has and is currently being used as not just as a justification but a call to arms to harass anything with a vagina Anita and plenty of other decent, non-controversial-except-for-the-having-two-X-chromosomes-and-an-internet-connection people (also people with different chromosome arrangements who hang out with the aforementioned).

When you offer to post those things, it makes you look like you're part of that braying mass of ignorance, even though you aren't. I get that it's hard to see that coming if you're not familiar with that ugly part of the internet/world, but it's totally a landmine sitting there waiting for someone to step in it. Much like a landmine, it doesn't care who steps on it or if they knew it was there, they still get blown up. Or associated with bigots, in this case.

No, I don't really care about the statistics. I only saved those for completion sake and any statistics, real or fake, are my 'shiny objects'. Because I like numbers.


I actually thought he would refer to the tons of tumblr users I have seen that want the matriarchy to rise up and replace the current patriarchy.

On the subject of the abusers, death threat senders etc, well it is the internet hate machine, and they are pretty much making people trying to argue both sides to turn everything into a shit storm cause they are.....

A. Actually think like that, so terrible people
B. Trolls. So fighting back against this is what they want.
C. Edgy idiots

Their presence combined with both sides starting shit over complete non-sense (Let us not talk the recent God of War thing) makes me just completely numb to this stuff and just ignoring it even when we have a legitimate issue with women in gaming, and we totally do. I rather get mad at more pressing issues in gaming like the Sim City fiasco and consumer rights for the industry being utter hogwash.
Well, not exactly all the tumblr stuff. I have other such things from their forums. Yes, 4chan is not a great place for information, but that's where I got it from. I think the main point of posting that stuff was to indoctrinate other people and just cause a general rage. I just find it strange to see these people even call themselves 'radical feminists'.


Sheesh, where to begin? RMB, for whatever reason you're being super defensive to posts that are, if anything, in agreement with your basic sentiments -

Kim was contributing a perspective to the point that YOU brought up. You are both basically agreeing that radical feminism is problematic.

Again, I was just more or less agreeing with the sentiments you expressed about your personal experience. Like, no one thinks your family gets a pass for treating you poorly because FEMINISM.

But people also develop skewed views because they make assumptions by thinking the feminists represent a homogenous group, which I would quantify as being their problem.

Radical Feminists are a boogeyman in that while they exist and their viewpoints are problematic, their ability to execute their agenda is extremely limited and really has little meaningful way of affecting the people who like to use radical feminism to criticize all feminists.

Regular flavor feminism pretty much advocates gender equality and identifies the institution of patriarchy (rather than individual men) as causing problems for both genders.

1: I probably need to improve my reading comprehension because I didn't understand the context. So, apologies to you and Kim.

2: I don't even think any of us knew feminism existed at the time. It had more to do with the fact there was more of them and only me. That and the whole thing of 'boys are stronger than girls', so they used it to their advantage.

3: Agreed... not sure what to add here.

4&5: Which brings me back to a question I asked previously. Because the ideas are similar, are Feminism and Egalitarianism related in any way?

[Nique]

Like Feminism, Egalitarianism is just a label with a basic philosophy that everyone pretty much agrees with i.e. everyone should be treated equally. I don't really know what types of groups use the label of Egalitarianism or what 'equality' means to them, so I couldn't say.

[Kim]

In my experience, people who bring up egalitarianism /in response to/ feminism are usually men who are bothered by a movement about equality not being focused on the few areas in which oppression affects them.

They pull the sort of "If you cared about /real/ equality" stuff seen earlier in this thread. Egalitarianism can be a good movement and I'm speaking purely from my experiences of those who choose to bring it up. I feel the main thing that egalitarianists seem to miss is that even tho economic oppression affects across social groups, meaning it affects both men and women and trans folx and queers etc, they neglect that it affects people in otherwise marginalized groups more than it affects people outside them /and/ there are oppressions that exist largely/completely separate from that economic oppression.

That said, yes there are plenty of shitheels who identify as feminist, leading to the creation of the term "white feminism" which seeks to draw attention to how many white feminists neglect intersectionality. However, as white feminists are not in a position of authority to inflict wide-scale oppression or harm against those already in power, those arguing "Kill All Men" are harmless to those men.

In fact, I have a habit of throwing out kill all men when I see particularly awful examples of oppression by men. It's a means of calling out the group in power which is to blame and of venting my anger and frustration via hyperbole. Seeing as I'm currently in friends with benefits relationships with multiple men, it should be readily clear that I don't actually want all men to be killed, and even if I did I'm not part of a social structure that threatens those men in any meaningful way, at least on the basis of gender.

[Red Mage Black]

Aha, so there is a difference between them. For clarity's sake I know you weren't referring to me, I only asked about it out of curiosity. I'm not really bothered about it. What you're saying makes sense to me, at least.

"White feminism", huh. I'm glad they're nowhere near a position of authority. It's just kind of perturbing to see that there are really people who think that way. Same goes for chauvinists/misogynists on mindset.

Yeah, I also have my moments of hating women, but it's mostly just my sisters because they act entitled. Then it boils down to, "Is this really a wise train of thought?" A question I find myself asking all too often with them.

I can safely say I've learned a few things today, at least.

[Krylo]

p6gLmcS3-NI

I like how he doesn't understand the concept of feminine and masculine traits in media at all and then somehow tries to blame his ignorance on Sarkeesian.

Like, no man, shy is not a 'negative masculine trait' in media. It's generally seen as a feminine trait, which, because of how culture works, is seen as negative when expressed by a man. Just like every other feminine trait.

And no, calling a trait masculine does not mean women are incapable of it.

[Azisien]

I love the arguments some companies make for not including female avatars in their games for players to customize with. That always seemed like a really small addition to games that opened them up to a much larger audience. Wacky, I know, a lot of players like to make their characters like themselves. Women playing BF3 or COD (for example) must have a hard time with that. Hell, many of my male gamer friends like playing female avatars too. What gives?

Usually something along the lines of "The amount of work required to make a different set of sprites, skins, meshes, animations, etc to include female soldiers in BF3 is not worth the benefit." What? Plenty of games include both. You guys sure you couldn't just like...delay one of your 5 massive DLC packs and just like...fucking add in female avatars if it's so much work? (Which it probably isn't all that much for a large studio).

Also, I just started playing Heart of the Swarm and the story just tears me apart inside. What Blizzard has done to Sarah Kerrigan is just plain sad. Now that they've sexed her up 1000% and created the most unbelievable romance I've ever seen across any media form (okay...excepting possibly Twilight), the game's almost unplayable for me. At least, I'm starting to want to skip cutscenes. It pains me more so because, although it's been a while, I thought Kerrigan was totally bad ass in Brood War. She wrecked everybody's shit and she did it for herself.

[Ryong]

There was a recent discussion about ARMA 3 not including female models which resulted in a gigantic flame war over people not wanting to shoot women and men faking being girls to have fun and fuck with people.

Hell, many of my male gamer friends like playing female avatars too. What gives?

<Insert random comment about waifus and/or staring at virtual asses here>

[Aldurin]

There was a recent discussion about ARMA 3 not including female models which resulted in a gigantic flame war over people not wanting to shoot women and men faking being girls to have fun and fuck with people.

To be fair, ARMA 3 is in Alpha stage (which makes a list of things it lacks rather moot) and even if they don't include female models in the final product, they're more than happy to allow the mods for them, which could go either way depending on if the default mesh is set to "realistic" or "supermodel".

ARMA 2 had civilian female models, though there were a lot of restrictions compared to male civilians rendering them noncombatants by default, which wasn't good. Hopefully BIS doesn't go the same route with 3.

[synkr0nized]

Also, I just started playing Heart of the Swarm and the story just tears me apart inside. What Blizzard has done to Sarah Kerrigan is just plain sad. Now that they've sexed her up 1000% and created the most unbelievable romance I've ever seen across any media form (okay...excepting possibly Twilight), the game's almost unplayable for me. At least, I'm starting to want to skip cutscenes. It pains me more so because, although it's been a while, I thought Kerrigan was totally bad ass in Brood War. She wrecked everybody's shit and she did it for herself.

I grew increasingly unhappy with the campaign as I played through it in SC2. That ending. :/

I currently have no plans to purchase Heart of the Swarm. And that sucks; SC2 is a pretty well-designed RTS. But I am too afraid it will continue going further and further away from the Kerrigan of SC + Broodwar and more to the Kerrigan of Raynor's obsession that he must save.

[Krylo]

I love the arguments some companies make for not including female avatars
Speaking of. . . (http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/games-with-female-heroes-dont-sell-because-publishers-dont-support-them)

[Arcanum]

So I finally got around to watching Anita’s Damsel in Distress video. And then I watched this video (http://youtu.be/iUxcLxClQ08) that brought up some interesting points. The biggest thing is that for the most part the video game industry isn’t actively sexist. There’s no greater sexist agenda, and they’re just a victim (probably a better word I can use here but it’s early and my vocabulary aint up to snuff) to the social norms established in the past by other media. Of course this does not in any way excuse sexist behavior, but it’s much better than the game industry being all “lol fuck women” to purposefully degrade them. And as said in the rebuttal video, the biggest problem is laziness from both developers and publishers. Nobody wants to pioneer change because it would take too much work and cost too much money. But if Anita’s videos, despite being very one-sided, help rile up consumers and get developers and publishers to notice so they’re more inclined to change the status quo, then I’m all for it.

[Osterbaum]

The only victims here are women. No industry or section of society or individual is a victim just because someone else did it first or because they picked up the habbit somewhere else. It is pervasive and institutionalized in society to such a degree though, that not participating at all might be practically impossible, but resisting it and pointing it out where it exists is something everyone can do.

But if Anita’s videos, despite being very one-sided...
I don't really think they're one-sided. Just educational. Like most, if not all, of the stuff in the videos is fact backed up by evidence ie. not speculation.

[Kim]

Plus, saying they're not "actively sexist" ignores how bigotry and such continues. Bigots generally don't see themselves as bigots. People who contribute to bigotry and oppression don't see themselves as doing so. It's generally not a conscious "fuck women" choice. That doesn't excuse or diminish it. The video game industry is sexist in the exact same way that all cultures are sexist.

[Arcanum]

Victim was just the best word I could come up with at the time (I'm not a morning person). A better term would have been "unwitting accomplice" or something similar to that. As a new form of media you do what you have to in order to stay alive, so video games appealed to the largest demographic they could when starting up. And they did so using methods established by previous media to appeal to that same demographic. Nowadays they're just floating along on what has been established to work in the past, but as I've said I believe that's more out of laziness than deliberate sexism. Very important to note I'm not saying it isn't sexist, because it is, it's just that it's derived from laziness instead of hatred towards women or whatever other ulterior motives one can think of.

resisting it and pointing it out where it exists is something everyone can do.

I agree with this, but Anita's first video was focused on the game industry's past so I was directing my comments towards that past as well. In hindsight every from of media should be pointing at sexism and going "this is bad" but that's not what happened. The best we can do is understand why sexism was so pervasive in the industry at the time and why nothing really changed. And personally I believe it was more out of laziness than anything else.

I don't really think they're one-sided. Just educational. Like most, if not all, of the stuff in the videos is fact backed up by evidence ie. not speculation.

The video is one-sided because it's selective facts. She only shows what will back up her point instead of bringing up counter-points and refuting them.


Gotta love that new ninja post warning.

Plus, saying they're not "actively sexist" ignores how bigotry and such continues. Bigots generally don't see themselves as bigots. People who contribute to bigotry and oppression don't see themselves as doing so. It's generally not a conscious "fuck women" choice. That doesn't excuse or diminish it. The video game industry is sexist in the exact same way that all cultures are sexist.

I agree. But Anita's first video still failed to address the laziness of game developpers and didn't draw a distinction between sexism out of ignorance/apathy and deliberate sexism. Which is a very prevalent thing when it comes to the sexism present in the video games of the 80s and 90s. What I mean is, Anita implies Nintendo went crazy with the damsel in distress thing because they are sexist. But I would argue they went with the damsel in distress because they are lazy. They are still sexist in that second scenario, but it was not the driving force for their design choices.

Of course this in no way absolves them from any sort of blame. They are just as guilty either way. It's just a distinction I wanted to bring up and see what kind of discussion it would create.

[Kim]

Both the distinction you're asking her to make and the counter-arguments you want her to bring up are beside the point and would only be needless distractions from her main point. They'd be nothing more than concessions to sexists seeking to undermine her point.

[Arcanum]

Except sexism derived from ignorance/laziness/apathy can be corrected with education and an open mind. Meanwhile someone who is actively sexist has already made up his or her mind on the subject, and it would take a significantly greater effort to try and rectify the behavior of such an individual/organization.

Her main point, as far as I can tell (please correct me if I'm wrong and misconstrued the video), in part 1 is that developers in the 80s and 90s constantly resorted to the damsel in distress trope [because they are sexist]/[ergo they are sexist] (I need to rewatch the video to confirm which choice in [] brackets exactly was her point). But the only why she delves into is "because other media did it." But why did developers copy other media? Was it because the devs were inherently sexist, or was it because that was the easiest way to get their feet off the ground? And those same questions apply to why these practices continued, deliberate sexism or simplicity? Are these questions just nitpicking? Yeah, a bit, but I believe knowing precisely why something happened is an integral part to creating change.

And bringing up counter-arguments is not a concession. It's debate 101. If you can acknowledge and then refute any points the oposition might bring up, then your position becomes stronger before they have a chance to offer a rebuttal. But I guess the problem here is that Anita is not trying to debate or argue anything, she's just trying to give a lecture and the lecture is not even close to being done (which is a problem with covering such a big issue in multiple parts released over a sizeable chunk of time).

[POS Industries]

I like how the people talking about "creating a dialogue" are also usually the ones who complain about not being able to call her a cunt in the video comments.

[Kim]

There's no need for a debate with sexists.

[POS Industries]

Like, the whole thing with tropes is that they are, by their vary nature, a tool of convenience. It's the easy way, which is what lazy game developers would obviously lean toward. That's not in dispute.

The issue is that the easy way, in this case, is sexist as fuck, and that's the problem that's being covered. There's not actually a debate to be had, both sides of the issue do not have equal merit, and there is no compromise to be reached. There is a thing that is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.

[Nique]

Anita didn't make statements about anyone's motives or attack persons in the video game industry anyway so I'm not sure I understand this point of contention.

[Marc v4.0]

Anita didn't make statements about anyone's motives or attack persons in the video game industry anyway so I'm not sure I understand this point of contention.

Derailment

[Arcanum]

I like how the people talking about "creating a dialogue" are also usually the ones who complain about not being able to call her a cunt in the video comments.

Are you referring specifically to the guy in the video I linked? Because while he stated he had a bias against Anita when he gets to the "creating a dialogue" bit he says "yeah maybe disabling comments was a good idea."

There's no need for a debate with sexists.

That's one of the most ridiculous things I've heard. Any time you tell someone "hey that's sexist" and they go "what no?" and then you proceed to tell them why, that's a debate. It can last five seconds where you go "hey this is sexist" "what why" "blahblahexplanation" "yeah okay you're right" or it can be a lengthy affair with a stubborn asshole.

Refusing to argue doesn't change squat. The sexist person will still be sexist.

Like, the whole thing with tropes is that they are, by their vary nature, a tool of convenience. It's the easy way, which is what lazy game developers would obviously lean toward. That's not in dispute.

The issue is that the easy way, in this case, is sexist as fuck, and that's the problem that's being covered. There's not actually a debate to be had, both sides of the issue do not have equal merit, and there is no compromise to be reached. There is a thing that is wrong, and it needs to be fixed.

Yay finally a resonable response. I actually never really thought about it, but your post made me realise I had a skewed idea of what tropes actually were. So yeah, a lot of the stuff I typed seems a bit silly now in hindsight.

Anita didn't make statements about anyone's motives or attack persons in the video game industry anyway so I'm not sure I understand this point of contention.

I must have imagined that whole part where she talks about Miyamoto then.

[POS Industries]

I must have imagined that whole part where she talks about Miyamoto then.
All she did was state things Miyamoto, in fact, did. She did not state any opinions about his character or motivation. She even said she likes his games.

[tacticslion]

I've got it. The thing that will solve this whole thread*:

Link saves the world, saves the girl, defeats the bad guy, and gets the girl at the end.

I just wanted to point out that I don't think Link usually "gets the girl". "Saved", yes, but rarely "acquired", to the best of my memory (which does have holes in it).

It doesn't impact your point at all, which still stands perfectly fine, but, you know, nit-picky fan-stuff. :)

The Instances:
1) Legend of Zelda - they were both seen with Triforces (though Link could have had the Triforce of power, presumably, which could be subtextual in its own way, although it's a bit ambiguous - he'd been collecting the Triforce of Wisdom, and thus may have ended up with the thing he'd been holding onto for so long, and Zelda picked up the "new" one that once belonged to Ganon so,... I'unno...?); and in the comic that came out later Link ended up a guard in service to Zelda (and thus could never be with her due to stations); in the cartoon (which was pretty bad) she was totally objectified but was a successful action girl trope (even saving Link on occasion), even though she occasionally fell into the DiD trope, too (though her father fell into the Man in Distress trope substantially more often than even she did).

2) Adventure of Link: he could have ended up with a Zelda in this one (the one he kissed, after waking her up with the triforce). It could be argued that it's implied, and the whole Sleeping Beauty = lacking agency argument, but I don't know if it's clarified he ended up with her.

3) Link to the Past: it's never said that he ended up with her or anything like it - it's mostly just implied that he used the power of the Triforce to kind of retcon things to be the way they were before Ganon broke loose sans the Ganon breaking loose. Which didn't include any sort of relationship with Zelda.

4) those game boy games: I think the Oracle games had women fighting over him (which he mostly ran away from), and there was that one with the fish, buuuuuuuuut... I've never played them. From wikipedia, it notes that he sails away after the gameboy games to Links Awakening, which ends with him on a piece of driftwood, so, not exactly getting a girl, there.

5) Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask/etc: It's extremely ambiguous, dependent entirely on the state Link's in and, given that the timeline splits into three points anyway here, it's even harder to say. The best that can be claimed is that they're childhood friends (or, extremely creepily, that Zelda hooked up with a 21-year-old with the mind of a seven-year-old).

6) Wind Waker/Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks: it could be they end up together, but it's unclear (even though it's definitively noted that Tetra did, at some point, have children with someone), and it's notable that another crew-member is known to have a strong crush on her. It's also notable that the guy that looks exactly like hero-link in Spirit Tracks is not mentioned as ever being related to the royal family in any context despite a mere two-generation gap and the existence of a guy who was literally around during Tetra's time and knew her. And the ending of Spirit Tracks (at least the one I know, I've heard there are multiple endings, but I don't own it or a DS sooooooooo...) simply indicates that she knows of him as he continues his path toward being an engineer.

7) Four Swords: the villain definitely objectifies her, but the only relationship between Link and and Zelda indicated is that of rescuer and rescued.

8) Minish Cap: Link is chosen to go on the adventure because he's a child. But he already has "the girl", so I don't think it counts as "getting her" due to rescue. I suppose it's debatable... but they're kids (and thus capable of seeing the Minish).

9) Twilight Princess: he doesn't care about Zelda except as his princess, from what I can tell. He's got a much stronger relationship with both Ilia and Midna - Midna gets sealed away forever and Ilia goes home as Link rides off into the sunset (without Zelda nearby).

10) Skyward Sword: while they start off "together" (Zelda seems to like him pretty strongly), and one other girl ends up mooning over him... he's never shown ending up with either of them, as it ends up on a question of his future. It could be presumed, however.

Otherwise I'm just reading this thread and am interested in being educated. Preferably kindly and without drama.

So, you know, carry on.

* Haha: no, of course not.

[Krylo]

I just wanted to point out that I don't think Link usually "gets the girl". "Saved", yes, but rarely "acquired", to the best of my memory (which does have holes in it).

Indeed. I was actually referring to the... I belive OoT commercials that explicitly say at the end 'Will you get the girl'.

[tacticslion]

Indeed. I was actually referring to the... I belive OoT commercials that explicitly say at the end 'Will you get the girl'.

Oh, hey, I don't remember those! Weren't those the commercials with the dancing girl Link and the whole cast, though?

Really, really funny, actually, when you consider that not once anywhere within the OoT or related canon materials can Link ever be actually implied to have "gotten" her... huh.

Still, your point stands! I wasn't debating it. :)

[Arcanum]

Indeed. I was actually referring to the... I belive OoT commercials that explicitly say at the end 'Will you get the girl'.

I laughed hysterically at "Will you get the girl, OR PLAY LIKE ONE?"

Oh 90s marketing.

She even said she likes his games.

But she pointed out the flaws. If the internet has taught me anything it's impossible for someone to like something wile critiquing it. /sarcasm

---------- Post added 03-16-2013 at 03:06 AM ---------- Previous post was 03-15-2013 at 09:53 PM ----------

I watched another response video and I'm not sure how I feel about the issues raised, so I was wondering if I could get some of your (the NPF collective) thoughts or opinions on it.

QJeX6F-Q63I

e- also that double-post auto-merger thing is fantastic.

[Krylo]

I watched another response video and I'm not sure how I feel about the issues raised, so I was wondering if I could get some of your (the NPF collective) thoughts or opinions on it.

QJeX6F-Q63I

e- also that double-post auto-merger thing is fantastic.

Arc, he's suggesting that having a problem with telling the same story over and over again wherein a woman has no agency, relates in some way, to the real world and suggesting the kidnapped people shouldn't be saved.

Do you REALLY need our opinions to know this guy's full of shit?

---------- Post added at 02:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:15 AM ----------

Also gonna abuse auto-merging now:

ALSO, a single empowering act at the very end of one game out of four is supposed to make up for being punched in the stomach and hauled away and locked up with no way to fight back and no self agency for four games.

---------- Post added at 02:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:18 AM ----------

ALSO x 3: Tries to debate the title of her video series.

Like he basically destroys all credibility as soon as he can and just keeps going off the tracks.

---------- Post added at 02:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:19 AM ----------

Oh god, he's actually claiming that games that are about women doing things don't have a market.

I can't even.

Jesus.

---------- Post added at 02:28 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:26 AM ----------

I'm pretty sure there's a reason all these video responses are by defensive and arrogant sounding dudes.

Like, I'm just gonna leave that hanging there:

As a totally privileged as fuck dude, I'm pretty sure these guys are just defensive of their own social privilege and are trying really hard to keep ignoring anything that points it out so they don't have to feel bad about it.

---------- Post added at 02:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:28 AM ----------

Hahaha, he's now quoting that other one I was making fun of earlier.



Arc.

Arc.

Do you REALLY need me to do this?

---------- Post added at 02:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:31 AM ----------

Okay, I'm done.

I'm not gonna point out that there's more kinds of strength than upper body strength, or that women tend to have much better range of motion, tend to be better at focusing on multiple tasks at the same time, or have a much much higher pain tolerance on average than men in response to his five minute talk about how 'but no really guys, men ARE the stronger gender'.

Except I just did.

But really, done now.

---------- Post added at 10:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:40 AM ----------

One last thing, because it's been bothering me that I didn't mention it last night, but 'It's not sexist because men REALLY ARE better!' is just. . . okay, for anyone else watching or reading anything and thinking, 'Hmmm, is this article/video/whatever a misogynistic pile of terrible?' the moment someone makes that argument, the answer is a resounding yes.

Firstly, the average difference between genders is lower than the difference between individuals. That means that these numbers are only good at all for wide generalizations.

Secondly, and I'm on my phone or I'd provide links, but gender, even biological, isn't always a binary. See woman athletes with abnormally high testosterone being forced to take hormones if they want to compete as women, because otherwise their testosterone is too high to be 'female'.

Thirdly, it's even more of a resounding yes if they dismiss a study that suggests these differences might have significant roots in social differences between genders as well as physical because the title of the study has 'feminist' in the title.

Like, just, holy shit. This guy.

[Red Mage Black]

So yeah, I had no idea what the actual video was until one of my MSN contacts sent me the link for it. I looked at the video link Arc posted and the one my contact gave me, same link.

Well, I pointed him to Krylo's post in response to the link. Lets just say I'm sad to know this person:

Xero says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I
you watch it?
Alan-MK2 says:
And... someone I knows response on it. Kinda confused here.
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1225737&postcount=123
I thought he made a few fine points, but maybe I'm just stupid?
Xero says:
how about the one that isn't made by a giant fag


Suppose I shouldn't expect any better from someone whose only info comes from 4chan.

Edit: I'd like to find out why all people I associate with outside of NPF turn out to be assholes.

[Krylo]

I'm not giant =[

[Ramary]

I don't think you are a cigarette ether.

[POS Industries]

Xero says:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I
you watch it?
Alan-MK2 says:
And... someone I knows response on it. Kinda confused here.
http://www.nuklearforums.com/showpost.php?p=1225737&postcount=123
I thought he made a few fine points, but maybe I'm just stupid?
Xero says:
how about the one that isn't made by a giant fag

Alpha as fuck, bro.

TOLD STATUS:
The Told Man and the Sea

[Sifright]

I don't think you are a cigarette ether.

He might be a pile of wood though..

Krylo you a pile of wood?

[Krylo]

Well I'm all the wood you'll ever need.

WINK WINK

---------- Post added at 06:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:29 PM ----------

Also:I don't think you are a cigarette ether.

Maybe not but you can smoke me like one.

WINK WINK

[Ramary]

Get your eyes checked out, you seem to have uncontrollable rapid blinking.

[McTahr]

It's only one eye. Consult a neurologist posthaste. Let them medulla your oblongata.

[Jagos]

So I lost my first post on this and really haven’t had the chance to come back to it for a while. Given that I’ve just transcribed the entire video and wrote it out to make sure to interpret Anita’s arguments correctly, I’m left underwhelmed by the arguments presented and have very little hope for the rest of the series if this is the direction.

My argument looks at this “critical analysis” in the perspectives of a storyteller (Jungian), economic, and historical view while also being a Snake post. So feel free to leave now if you don’t want to read it. The TL;DR is right at the top and it’s my only one I’m really interested in writing at the moment.

So let’s get this out of the way. I was wrong on going to someone else and hoping that the point I thought was important (context) would be viewed in the same light as others. After watching the video, it’s clear that he missed the point on what Anita clearly stated about women being the ball:
The heroes fight to retrieve his stolen property, then provides the lazy justification for the actual gameplay. At its heart, the Damsel trope is not really about women at all. She simply becomes the central object in a competition between men, at least in its traditional incarnations. I’ve heard it said that “In a game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team, they are the ball.”
What I wanted was more context from the video. Even on the night in question, I couldn’t get through the entire video and had to cringe in re-reading his paragraphs and how far off the mark they truly were. While I don’t agree with all of Anita’s assessment, that was a fault of my own.

So let’s get to the parts that I do agree with. First, this was a pretty clear view of seeing how women are tropiefied in games and it’s… Decent. I’m still trying to figure out the exact point of using tropes to discuss equality in gaming because to me, it doesn’t compute as I’ll explain later. But it does do an accurate job of raising awareness of how tropes can be used to railroad any minority or gender into behaviors or actions that were used before. She also does a fair job of narrating her issues with the childhood characters she grew up with and their individual circumstances that required them to be damseled.

So what do I disagree with…

Well… From a storytelling perspective, her arguments don’t make sense.

Let’s look first at Princess Peach:
Sadly, Peach has never been a playable character in the main franchise. Even with newer games that feature four player options, like the new Super Mario Bros Wii and Wii U, the princess is still excluded from the action. She’s been replaced with another Toad instead, as to allow Nintendo to force her back into the Damsel role, again and again.
Peach does, of course, appear in many spinoffs, such as the Mario Party, Mario Sports, and Mario Karts series as well as the Super Smash Bros Nintendo Universe Fighting game, however all of these spinoffs fall well outside the core Super Mario series of platformers. She is the star of only one adventure, and we’ll get to that a little later. The problem here is that Anita creates a disingenuous argument that has a very large hole to anyone that has actually considered some of these “spinoffs” to be expansion games. There’s one genre there that could fit and explain Princess Peach as a female heroine in her own right: RPGs. She was a playable character after being kidnapped again by Bowser along with Paper Mario, which I can’t talk much about since I haven’t played it. Further, her argument seems absolutely to ignore JRPGs or the influence of PC gaming save for the end where it is lightly touched upon with the look at the difference of carefully selected male heroes versus the female heroines who she selected for depowerment.

Further, Princess Peach in the FIRST game actually had the power to change her entire kingdom back to mushrooms so it was a decent reason for Bowser to take her. Granted, now, it’s just dumb and really doesn’t do much for her role In Mario games.

Sadly, this entire trope could be used for Nintendo storytellers in general. While she gets into Shigeru Miyamoto, I’ll expand on this to call out Shigesato Itoi (Mother 2) for the fact that he used it THREE FRIGGIN TIMES for Paula. First she got kidnapped to Happy Happy Village, Second time in Threed, then third time in the mall. I mean… Seriously? Let’s think about this for a second and the characters involved. Ness goes to sleep and reawakens a badass, Jeff traverses Winters by himself with a crapton of rockets, and Poo disappears and reappears with stronger spells. Yet Paula gets kidnapped and needs to be depowered, then found in order to be effective. And when you find her, she doesn’t even have the decency to have called. )(^%*&$^&#

I don’t think I really have to touch how bad Yoshio Sakamoto is with Other M or the other games he had a “hand” in creating. From a storytelling perspective, the game didn’t know if it wanted to be a movie or a game, the decisions of Sakaku in implementation were pretty bad and it made Samus a harder character to follow as one of the few Badass action heroes that Nintendo truly had. Suffice to say, it did a lot of damage to what people expected out of the Metroid series and shows that Nintendo has little grasp of how to handle female characters.

Which gets me into Zelda… For a few reasons, the Zelda analysis misses the mark for a number of reasons. Firstly, since day 1 Zelda has been a very strong character. To which, both Anita and I agree:

Once in a while, she might be given the opportunity to have a slightly more active role in facilitating the hero’s quest, typically by opening doors, giving hints, power ups, and other helpful items. I call this variant of the theme: The Helpful Damsel. Indeed, Zelda is at her best when she takes the form of Sheik in OoT and Tetra in the Wind Waker. In OoT, Zelda avoids capture for the first three-quarters of the game. Disguised as Sheik, she is a helpful and active participant in the adventure, and she’s shown to be more than capable. Since I’ve played only two or three Zelda games, I really had to look this up. First, Zelda has ALWAYS looked to thwart Ganon far more than her father or any other regal figure. Just a small list:


Zelda 1 – She refuses to give up the Triforce of Wisdom and decides to split it up for the hero to attain. Instead of having it simply taken from her by force she breaks it, hides the pieces, and end up as Ganon's captive because he wants to force her to open up the eight dungeon’s inner chambers while Impa is searching for Link on Zelda's order. What people tend to forget is that when Link goes into the first eight dungeons, he is not venturing into Ganon's domain, but exploring Zelda's safehouses: safehouses which proved to be beyond the villain's ability to crack open. Now let’s look at this even further. Let’s remember that from a storytelling perspective, Zelda is a goddess, she has her own skills and capabilities and remains a massive nuklear deterrent for the kingdom. In the most recent game, she fights the villain to a standstill, keeps it prisoner, biding her time because she knows that sooner or later a mortal with the potential to conquer the Triforce will appear, and when said mortal is finally born, she grooms him, trains him, and blatantly manipulates him into finishing the job. Sure, she's not the one who plunge the sword in Demise's chest, but she's the one who engineered the events which turned Link into someone capable of plunging said sword, a sword which She forged herself.

I’m not even going to get into the cartoon series where Zelda saves Link and fights with a bow and arrow while her dad twiddles his thumbs and Link is a Loser guy that I never liked as a character.
What Anita wants is to control Zelda and seemingly unintentionally create a Martha Stu character. Or else, what she seems to want is to have a female call to action:

The good news is that there is nothing stopping developers from evolving their gender representations and making more women heroes in their future games. It’d be great to finally see Zelda, Sheik, and Tetra as the protagonists of their own games. And here’s my problem with this argument. She’s just explained that Shigeru Miyamoto along with Keiichi Tanaka and other writers have written this story dozens of times with a male hero in mind and it’s made them money. We’ve just had it explained that Zelda is more powerful than Link will ever be since he’s merely the guardian of the realm while Zelda will be there to ensure its safety in a number of ways. Yet we should play as a fully developed badass that is always the largest threat to evil?

The problem breaks down when you ask a simple question: “Who’s doing the storytelling?”
What she paints in her argument is effectively a discussion about who is telling the Hero’s journey successfully. As it stands, this feels like a plea for people that have created games for two decades to create female characters, or use older characters in newer contexts, that defies what their archetypical roles are. It’s not that there’s a problem with that, it just seems odd when you’re asking a patriarchical society such as Japan (and America) to recognize women’s rights in games when they have a hard time respecting women’s rights (http://www.californiaemploymentlawyerblog.com/2013/02/sex_harassment_rampant_in_ca_v.html) outside of the gaming sphere. (http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/01/27/women-remain-outsiders-video-game-industry/275JKqy3rFylT7TxgPmO3K/story.html)

Now some of the other issues I have come down to her insistence on calling out particular damsels that really aren’t damsels when you look at what they do.

TMNT – If you actually know the story, April O’Neal wasn’t the true damsel in distress after the first level. The one they were rescuing was Master Splinter.
Final Fight – Mad City’s gang problem works like this… They have a mayor that was a former wrestler. They kidnap his daughter to force him to cooperate. As it stood, Cody isn’t even the hero of this outfit, he’s just looking to get his girlfriend back while Guy is there to back up his friend. Jennifer is right there as the daughter of the mayor which would make an exceptional black mail target for anyone other than a beat em up game where the mayor wants to take those gangs to the cleaners. As it stands, Jennifer eventually leaves Cody and we don’t hear from Mike Haggar until MvC 3.
In all honesty, the “homage” of beating up on Marion shouldn’t really fly at all. The classic opening isn’t needed and Marion really got the worst of it in being kidnapped three or four times before being killed off or powered up into a female character (depending on region). And to make it worse, the only real enemies for the DD games was Lydia who carried a whip. So either the game has weak women or they’re dominatrixes in training.
Yeah…

Anyway, something else the trope doesn’t really discuss is how some of these tropes were later defied by Shigeru Miyamoto…
For Donkey Kong, there was distinctly more games made where Donkey Kong was captured by Jumpman and his son DK Jr was the one running around to get him back. Granted, Pauline’s still MIA on her own game and her own storyline other than Mario’s CEO of toys or some other nonsense, but still…
Which is why I still wonder why a view on tropes is necessarily the right way to go about not only raising awareness of her views but also to try to change the industry…
Historically speaking, women were indeed large parts of arcade culture until it became a den of males. The games that were marketed towards females tended to be family games such as Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man (who was much more popular anyway). Now there are actually two reasons that games of the 70s – 90s became dens of nerddom:

1) Women weren’t encouraged to go into the mathematical fields that would later be the skills needed for gaming
2) The counter cultural revolution of the 70s prevented women from going into such fields that they were probably needed most.

With the first, you didn’t see a lot of women influencing the protocols that became the internet. You don’t see a lot of female engineers that can influence women in arcades or gaming.
Secondly, as I recount history, there was a massive expansion of counter culture to the women’s rights movement that sprung up in the 70s while women were entering the labor force. Arguably, as women and immigrants joined the workforce in the 70s, they became a part of the massive labor surplus to which people are now being exploited. As productivity goes up (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/sunday-review/americas-productivity-climbs-but-wages-stagnate.html?_r=0), the exploitation of workers goes up.

Which means less people are interested in creativity and gets to my next topic: creativity in gaming. I want people to think real hard about the last few game developers that have gotten a leg up on storytelling or creation. Off the top of my head I know of Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigesato Itoi, Erik Wolpaw, and Will Wright. Very few LGBT writers, black writers, or female writers get a lot of press or discussion in the media or have prevalent personas of some of these last generation creators.

And that’s a problem on a number of levels. While we want Japanese developers to create better stories that we appreciate, again, that’s a hard pill to swallow when it ignores how we treat our next generation of story tellers by not giving them the tools or the ability to grow and learn as these older writers and developers have.

It’s kind of why I think of Poison (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lj-9npanOI) as a very interesting character even if it’s just a fighting game. S/he is a potential main character from a mainstream developer and shows that there’s a lot of support for alternative stories that may deviate from the tried and true formulas that Nintendo has. What Anita seems to react negatively to the most is a passive girl instead of one who engineers in her own escapes. Now in this idea, you have a lot of women in games that just blow this idea out of the water. First, my personal favorite, is Ayla. She’s a strong Amazonian woman that fights reptiles, picks up enemies, and can still make sure that she fights off all comers to her throne. Not only that, but she’s the only person in Crono Trigger that uses fists, which means that she’s a godsend in the Dalton capture storyline, when she’s the only one that has to fight.

Then we also have Marle. She’s a princess who is more of a tomboy who is disappeared in the first ¼ of the game. Sure, she’s a disappeared damsel. But she more than makes up for it from that point onwards in the story.

Finally, there’s Yuna. While everyone is focused on Tidus the entire game, Yuna is the one that has the Hero's Journey as a spelled out, defined character in every way, shape and form. Even more, ALL of the women know what's going on and make Wakku and Tidus look like the idiot jocks they are.

I could go on, but the point here is that games have become far better at telling stories without the Damsel trope and there’s plenty of counterexamples running from Ms. Pac-Man to Lara Croft (an action hero similar to what Anita is envisioning) to Jade or Alyx Vance (strong women that fall into the trope but aren’t defined by it).

All in all, I hoped that there was far more to this than merely tropes. My expectations were high on this being a far more researched and enabling experience whereby others could launch off of this. Instead, it is nothing more than a severely limited piece that raises awareness of women, ignores types of minorities, and while decent, gives no context to what is needed to discuss how we could be making better games for everyone.

Personally, my suggestions would be to look to change the fundamental roots of the problem: Have women have more input in games outside of the marketing role. Investment into women as historians, engineers, and owners of game companies (which is still male oriented) would help to mitigate this somewhat.

What would actually work to improve the number of women action heroes is a complete reexamination of who owns IP (the public or corporate entities), a reorganization of businesses (making them similar to Valve: without titles and focused on what customers and developers want over shareholders), and eliminating the profit motive of games that seems to have become the inherent repackaging of older archetypes in a new game.

That’s just my views on the subject.

[Kim]

It’s kind of why I think of Poison as a very interesting character even if it’s just a fighting game. S/he is a potential main character from a mainstream developer and shows that there’s a lot of support for alternative stories that may deviate from the tried and true formulas that Nintendo has.

1. Don't ungender trans women you bigoted fuck.

2. DON'T UNGENDER TRANS WOMEN YOU BIGOTED FUCK

3. No, it doesn't show that, you ignorant fuck. It shows that heterosexual men like treating trans women as masturbation fodder even while having zero respect for them whatsoever. Trans women are fetishized the fuck out of by het male society.

4. The game you're referencing was originally going to have characters calling Poison not a real woman, with the point of such lines being humor, so DON'T YOU FUCKING PRETEND FOR A SECOND THIS GAME IS PROGRESSIVE. The only reason those lines didn't make it in are because people noticed and called Capcom out on their fucking bigotry.

5. Poison's origins have gross, transphobic roots, SO DON'T PRETEND FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT CAPCOM IS PROGRESSIVE.


NEW RULE: IF YOU ARE CIS SHUT YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING MOUTH ABOUT POISON FOREVER

[Jagos]

Nope. Want me to get into others too?

[Kim]

die cis scum

[Jagos]

Love you too.

[Sifright]

1. Don't ungender trans women you bigoted fuck.

2. DON'T UNGENDER TRANS WOMEN YOU BIGOTED FUCK

3. No, it doesn't show that, you ignorant fuck. It shows that heterosexual men like treating trans women as masturbation fodder even while having zero respect for them whatsoever. Trans women are fetishized the fuck out of by het male society.

4. The game you're referencing was originally going to have characters calling Poison not a real woman, with the point of such lines being humor, so DON'T YOU FUCKING PRETEND FOR A SECOND THIS GAME IS PROGRESSIVE. The only reason those lines didn't make it in are because people noticed and called Capcom out on their fucking bigotry.

5. Poison's origins have gross, transphobic roots, SO DON'T PRETEND FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT CAPCOM IS PROGRESSIVE.


NEW RULE: IF YOU ARE CIS SHUT YOUR GODDAMN FUCKING MOUTH ABOUT POISON FOREVER

Just a quick question, wasn't poison a woman in the Japanese release of final fight and stated to be male in the US release because "lol you can't fight against women"?

Thats about the extent of my knowledge on poison.

I mean when I played final fight on my atari back when I was 6 or 7 I never even thought about any of that stuff so if there is something i'm missing I guess i can look for my old disks and try and fire it up.

[Jagos]

I have a documentary up on the history of Poison's name now. That and the follow-up here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmhhx9LzeJA) flesh out the history of Poison.

[Kim]

Here's a really really fucking gross summary of the bullshit involving the character. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_(Final_Fight)#Conception_and_history)

In short: She's trans because her creators decided it would be more acceptable to beat up a trans woman than a cis woman. Since then, it's been a big huge mess of misgendering and transphobia.

[Jagos]

Ever notice you seriously need to switch to decaf Kim?

First, I didn't "ungender" anyone. Second, the point was to explain that s/he was a point of intrigue from a storytelling perspective.

Third, it's as if you can't pass onto ANY POINT raised to just argue past people and it's really annoying. I never said Capcom was progressive in anyway so kindly stop putting words in an argument that no one is making.

Fourth, this is a DEBATE. Why not grow up and act like it?

[Sifright]

Ever notice you seriously need to switch to decaf Kim?

First, I didn't "ungender" anyone. Second, the point was to explain that s/he was a point of intrigue from a storytelling perspective.

Third, it's as if you can't pass onto ANY POINT raised to just argue past people and it's really annoying. I never said Capcom was progressive in anyway so kindly stop putting words in an argument that no one is making.

Fourth, this is a DEBATE. Why not grow up and act like it?

S/he used in relation to a trans-gender person is de-gendering in this instance I'm pretty sure you are doing this out ignorance and not being aware that this is what you are doing or out of any malicious intent.

Correct me if I'm wrong Kim but male to female trans should be referred to as she yes/no?

[Jagos]

That wasn't what was there. And wasn't what Kim put down nor what I was responding to.

All Kim put was "Stop talking about Poison before I punch you" which is why I responded in my "Nope" argument.

Honestly, Kim could do a lot better by explaining arguments instead of editing with high amounts of hysteria.

[Kim]

You ungendered a trans woman and repeated the offense when called out on it. Your complete insulting ignorance regarding trans identities was why I wanted you to shut your goddamn fucking mouth regarding Poison.

I've had to listen to too many ignorant, bigoted fucks talk about Poison by this point, you get no patience. You started off on the wrong foot. You're still on the wrong foot. Shut the fuck up, because you are the last person in the world to be talking about a trans woman in a video game.

EDIT: I'm not going to debate whether or not cis people should be talking about Poison. They shouldn't. They've proven this consistently. It's not a debate. There is a fact. You're ignoring it.

[shiney]

Thread closed while the mod staff sort out yet another mess.

Edit: overly insensitive and I am sorry. I didn't want to be woken up to somethin' like this but seriously you guys come on.

[synkr0nized]

Honestly, Kim could do a lot better by explaining arguments instead of editing with high amounts of hysteria.

Probably true.

But there's still the matter of you bumbling through a topic you probably shouldn't be addressing and then after being told a word choice/pronoun use was offense continuing to do an offensive thing you were asked not to do. I mean, if you're not homosexual or trans-gendered and a member of one of those groups tells you you're doing something offensive or incorrect, it's not a path to success to refute that and keep doing it.

So yeah, not cool. See you in a few weeks, maybe!

[POS Industries]

I mean, if you're not homosexual or trans-gendered and a member of one of those groups tells you you're doing something offensive or incorrect, it's not a path to success to refute that and keep doing it.
Especially not if you keep doing it in the exact same sentence in which you denied even doing it at all.

Like, goddamn son. Get it together.

[shiney]

Given as nobody else re-opened the thread, I will do so, under a few provisions:

- liberal use of the report post function to report actual abuses and problems

- conservative use of outrage directed toward an individual, instead deferring to the above-referenced point

- absolutely no justifications of bigotry or discrimination or bias, and no excuses as to why it's okay, and no tongue in cheek BS crap about hypotheticals, instead let's play a game called "actually care about the person you're talking to instead of viewing them as an avatar and a name on the screen because they are a real person you sanctimonious prick"

- mature and responsible discussion, or punishment up to and including bans may be laid toward all offending parties regardless of which side of the discussion they are on, though we intend to come down more heavily on bigotry et al so if you have a cool plan to troll Kim or someone and then she causes a scene oh man it seriously won't end up how you think it will you fool

- really need to stress, report post so we have a chance to do our jobs before things go so sideways and haywire that it becomes a huge mess

[POS Industries]

Also an addendum on reporting: It still needs to be for a violation of some sort of rule or something that might be a violation of a rule, and you need to know what that rule that you think might be violated is when you report so that we have the clearest possible idea of what's going on.

So nothing like "I think Oster is a fucker and disagree with his opinions, make him stop or you're fuckers too, you fuckers" because that really doesn't give us much to go on.

[Kim]

Treat reporting posts like a mystery game.

Give you clues, but you must solve the mystery on your own.

"Oster was a fuck in the Video Games subforum for liking Chrono Cross"

[Ramary]

Oster likes Chrono Cross? That is a war crime ya know.

[CABAL49]

Why does everyone hate Oster. He's adorable yo.

[Aldurin]

Sexualizing in video games is pretty awful and out of hand, especially in MMOs.

Especially in MMOs.

SpwBG2Dtpmk
He doesn't conduct himself perfectly in this video, but he's well aware of how horrifically awful this is. This is the future of video games.

I'm losing faith in the art form of video games more and more rapidly with each of these developments. There are a rare few cases of women portrayed well, with more character to them than being flirty, weak and/or a pair of boobs wielding a weapon, but not much and it's sad.

[Nique]

Why am I surprised that game exists?

[Red Mage Black]

Ah yes, AeriaGames. No, it doesn't surprise me whatsoever. Actually, I was kind of wondering when someone here would address this game. I'm ashamed to admit I signed up for beta before I realized the backstory of the game. You know, that whole 'all men are dead or missing' thing. For MMOs like stuff from Aeria, I don't really pay attention to the backstories. Considering with Aeria, they're pretty much all generic ones anyway. I don't play MMOs anymore without at least a couple people I know. I haven't played any games on Aeria for a while now, I still have the program on my computer and one of their other games, Last Chaos.

Guess I know a good time to uninstall it all now.

Edit: After a couple minutes of consideration, I don't see how this fits into the DiD trope this thread is about. However, that doesn't make it any less horrible.

[Amake]

"All men are gone except one" is a common enough story element to be disturbing in itself I guess. And as the review points out, the plot in this case is obviously an excuse to sexualize and objectify every character in the game. (Except one.) As far as I can tell it is, amazingly, an entire persistent world full of DiDs where some of the women some of the time may be empowered to save each other. I guess we should be grateful the one man in existence isn't the player character, but otherwise it may be the ultimate DiD experience.

[Ramary]

This thread is pretty much the de facto women in games thread now anyway. (http://www.destructoid.com/the-game-industry-doesn-t-want-female-heroes-249067.phtml)

So obviously it is easy just to say the games industry is sexist from this article, and while that is likely to be true, it put an even worst idea in my head.

The game industry thinks we are all sexist pricks who can't handle playing as a woman that isn't some super sex object, and since games like Beyond Good and Evil and Mirror's Edge were commercial bombs they have "proof" of it.

[Bells]

Do we have good examples of women in gaming?

not for nothing, but one thing i would like to see more often in conversations like these that i hardly ever see much of is people actually standing by a game going "this is a good game with a good character that i support" or even "this is a stupid game but i really like how they did this character".

[Kim]

If we're going to make this a general women in games thread, how about the fact that publishers refused Remember Me because the woman protagonist kisses a man at some point and publishers didn't want to make male players uncomfortable by having their character kiss a man.

SOURCE (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-19-why-publishers-refuse-games-such-as-remember-me-because-of-their-female-protagonists)

"We had some [companies] that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that,'" creative director Jean-Maxime Moris told Penny Arcade.

"We wanted to be able to tease on Nilin's private life, and that means for instance, at one point, we wanted a scene where she was kissing a guy. We had people tell us, 'You can't make a dude like the player kiss another dude in the game, that's going to feel awkward.'"

[Ramary]

Article I linked talked about that very thing.

[Kim]

Article I linked talked about that very thing.

ah, sorry for missing that.

[Krylo]

The game industry thinks we are all sexist pricks who can't handle playing as a woman that isn't some super sex object, and since games like Beyond Good and Evil and Mirror's Edge were commercial bombs they have "proof" of it.

And, hilarisadly, the industry sets games up with female protagonists to fail by spending roughly 40%, or less, on marketing, compared to games with male protagonists.

[Bells]

And, hilarisadly, the industry sets games up with female protagonists to fail by spending roughly 40%, or less, on marketing, compared to games with male protagonists.

That also applies to games where you can choose between female or male protagonist.

Mass Effect and Dragon Age for example.

Edit: Also Skyrim.

[POS Industries]

I think an interesting and ultimately depressing example of this trope is Sonya Blade. In the original Mortal Kombat, she was introduced as this tough as nails, takes no shit, don't mess with Texas spec ops soldier who, despite being dressed like an aerobics instructor (which the actress playing her in-game literally was (http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Elizabeth_Malecki)) wasn't really sexualized all that heavily, especially not in the manner for which fighting games have become notorious. She had no romantic subplot for the benefit of one of the other male characters and, in fact, the only male character involved in her story was Kano, and he was merely the criminal she was trying to capture and bring to justice. It is noted that she, along with her unit, was captured in the first game by Shang Tsung's forces. However, she's the one rescuing herself and the other soldiers by entering the tournament, which is the key difference maker.

Then, one game later, she's no longer playable and only appears chained up next to Shao Kahn's throne and is there simply to be rescued as part of Jax's backstory. Between this and the introduction of the more sexualized "twin" femme fatale princesses Kitana and Mileena, MK2 was the first visible step in the MK franchise's downward spiral of absolutely abysmal treatment of women.

---------- Post added at 03:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------

Also, I wanted to come back to this since that dumbass video Arc posted had a link to it on the same page as the rather informative article Ramary posted, so I watched a few seconds more of it just to see what was actually going on here:

Are you referring specifically to the guy in the video I linked? Because while he stated he had a bias against Anita when he gets to the "creating a dialogue" bit he says "yeah maybe disabling comments was a good idea."
He said it was a good idea because all the angry neckbeards calling her a man-hating feminazi bitch would have merely made her more sympathetic and given her the ability to, in his own words, "use those comments as 'proof' for her quote/unquote 'lectures'" so yes, I am specifically referring to the asshole in the video you linked, as well as countless others I've seen make the same complaint, usually in the very same sentence that they're using gross, misogynist slurs against her.

[Japan]

I recently bought Diablo 3 and found myself unaccountably enraged by the fact that the female demon hunter has 6 inch stilettos permanently glued to her feet. I had been somewhat encouraged by the female barbarian model who wore just as much clothes as the male and was about the same ridiculously massive size, but anyone who can justify wearing high heels into battle with the legions of the damned doesn't have their head in the right place.

(Also the black player characters have inexplicably poor posture. Disregarding the fact that they run around draped in feathers and bones while everyone else gets, you know, armor... THAT'S RACIST.)

[stefan]

And, hilarisadly, the industry sets games up with female protagonists to fail by spending roughly 40%, or less, on marketing, compared to games with male protagonists.

Gotta love self fulfilling predictions. Hollywood does more or less the exact same thing, refusing to fund movies with minority leads and then pointing to their failure as an example of how minority led movies aren't "profitable."

Incidentally, this is why Tyler Perry manages to be so profitable even though his movies are terrible, he's the only show in town for a significant portion of the population.

[Kim]

I hate Capcom.

I hate video games. (http://sickr.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rachel_resident_evil_revelations_wii_u.jpg)

[Aldurin]

I hate Capcom.

I hate video games. (http://sickr.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rachel_resident_evil_revelations_wii_u.jpg)

I see Konami is giving fanservice lessons to the other companies. On the why-do-we-even-have-this scale of unzipped/unbuttoned, that's going for a new record of awful.

[Red Mage Black]

Actually, I have to point out RE4&5. Ashley in 4 for the obvious (college girl) skirt and 5 for Sheva's alt-costume which was both horribly racist and fanservice-y. 6 gets a horrible bonus for the female leads with their own alt costumes in the mercenary mode. Have to point out the Street Fighter games just as well. It's more like they're in competition rather than one giving lessons to the other.

Japan is just horribly sexist like that.

[POS Industries]

Japan is just horribly sexist like that.
The whole industry is just horribly sexist like that. It's kind of problematic to just lay it at the feet of the Japanese.

[Krylo]

I hate Capcom.

I hate video games. (http://sickr.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rachel_resident_evil_revelations_wii_u.jpg)

That's not how zippers work, Rachel.

[Red Mage Black]

The whole industry is just horribly sexist like that. It's kind of problematic to just lay it at the feet of the Japanese.

Very true, my mistake. Don't have anything left here to add, so I'll just continue spectating.

[Arcanum]

In "slighty more positive for the future" news, GTik6sYT_BE

[Bells]

and for a limited time, anybody can buy Bastion for $1 on Humble Bundle Weekly.

[Amake]

For the cost of Scarlet Blade's nude patch you can get nineteen Bastions.

[Roland]

I hate Capcom.

I hate video games. (http://sickr.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/rachel_resident_evil_revelations_wii_u.jpg)

The belts are what really make that image. You just know that some artist working on her design thought "y'know, she really needs someway to keep her jacket from flying open". And instead of zipping the jacket up, they opted for a pair of cleavage-highlighting belts instead.

[Bells]

Also the monster coming after her on that picture is actually herself after she gets infected. Please take notice that she now has a giant worm in the place of her brain that pops out the top of her head like a god damn pez dispenser... but that's not all! Notice how although she died from being bitten in the neck and chest, her Clevage area is still perfectly clean (aside from some blood) and intact with just a ton of monstrosity around her.

Also remember when Jill had the mind controlling thing shoved between her breasts?

Indeed capcom is not good in the whole Woman thing.