Therumancer said:
Fappy said:
I think the trend really started with people like Anita Sarkeesian exploiting the left wing sentiments in the gaming community to spread chaos and troll with faux-issues. That's kind of what got a lot of the less socially liberal people going and becoming more vocal.
Argh, I don't want to fuel any negativity in this thread... but even had to register just to say my piece on this.
Sarkeesian is one of the few people who's actually serious about calling the gaming industry out on its misogynic tendencies. What she's doing is great, and it's needed. She's not "trolling" or "spreading chaos". And honestly this just seems like an attempt to "blame" feminists / women for MRA types going on a hate-trolling crusade against them on these forums.
On a lighter note...
KITTYFROG!!!
http://i644.photobucket.com/albums/uu169/punk-o-matic1/cute-kitty-frog-costume.jpg
I'm sure you believe that, but many people, including me, do not. This is why she represents such a divisive issue when she comes up. While not "nice" there was a lot revealed about her by hackers and such when this all started and showed her to be a pretty reprehensible person. Then there is the entire current issue of what she did with all of this money people sent her, as the "promised series" is pretty much the same exact quality of video that she was doing beforehand. It seems that she largely pocketed the money and just kept right on doing what she normally did anyway. You look at her first "Tropes Vs. Women" video and compare it to her old stuff and it's not like there is any real improvement. Even if she wasn't a troll, which I personally believe she is, the whole cry of "Hey Anita, where's the money" is pretty valid. Of course going by some of the reveals about her when this all started she's pretty much exactly the sort you'd expect to pocket the money.
At the end of the day though, as far as I'm concerned the games industry doesn't have any misogynistic tendencies. To claim otherwise is pretty much trolling at this point, especially with the examples given. To put things into perspective, people scream that things like the trailer for "Hitman: Absolution" are misogynistic, when they aren't even remotely so. Basically today we have girls doing all the same stuff guys are in games, and where you have action girls beating up dudes (Heavenly Sword and the like) you also have them acting as the bad guys where they are taken down by guys. Our hero in "Hitman" takes out a bunch of hardly-defenseless women in over the top costumes, and it's no differant than if a girl had done it to a bunch of dudes in outlandish attire. The only reason it's an issue is because trolls can get attention from liberals by screaming "it's Misogynistic!" and the mere suggestion of an "ism" or "ist" sends corperate entities into defensive conniptions. The point of making such complaints is specifically to get attention and watch the chaos.
To put things into perspective, if those who complain about sexism in gaming were to be belived, we should basically be going back to the "old days" where women were treated as untouchable objects on pedestels. Guys would not dare strike a girl, and thus fiction would have to contrive a way for any "bad girl" present to be confronted by the hero's love interest so you could get around the issue of a dude doing violence to a girl. We've moved beyond this due to demands about such tropes being "sexist" and now we basically see people complaining about it. It's intentionally a no-win scenario, which is why trolls flock to it, since they can call anything involving it bigoted and get attention.
Even arguements about "Damsels in Distress" fall flat, when you consider that even that is pretty equal oppertunity. Trolls will mention every time a girl needs to be rescued because it will get attention. This entirely overlooks every time a dude needs to be rescued in fiction. Face it, not everyone is a tough combatant, some people are victims that need to be rescued, it's not sexist when it happens to be a girl. To use Anita's latest video for example she goes off about a Martial Artist needing to rescue his girlfriend from a gang of thugs (like there is something impractical about a non-martial artist having a martial artist boyfriend). This overlooks how in some games like oh say "Bad Dudes" the entire game is based around the same basic thing, but your out to rescue The President Of The United States, it's elegant plot set up is "The President has been kidnapped by Ninjas, are you a bad enough dude to rescue him?" which kind of nukes the entire complaint since even that far back we were hardly seeing things being "one sided". Sure maybe we had more damsels needing to be rescued than presidents, when a person was even the objective, but it was a little more balanced than credit is being given for, and really a lot of this comes down to people claiming that there is a modern misogynist trend in video games, more than claiming that there might have been one back in the day, and really that kind of involves doing things like trying to get attention by picking on the trailer for "Hitman: Absolution" or the recently annouced "Cyberpunk 2020" game where "OMG, the berserk killer cyborg being taken down by an equivilent of the AD Police is female... obvious sexism!" is the extent of the arguement.
Even when people want to talk about "overendowed" female characters, it's a joke because heroes of both genders tend to be physical ideals. These characters aren't really all that differant than what female creators make themselves in books, artwork, etc... Some girl with breasts bigger than her head is no worse than some dude with arms bigger around than his neck, it's just that attention can be gained trolling about the former. These beefy dudes are also sexually oriented as well, after all while a lot of girls don't go for the "muscular" types, most do, which is why things like "Chippendales" make a fortune, and guys pump iron at the beach to show off (and get lucky). Someone like Marcus Fenix is probably worse than Lara Croft when you get down to it, if he took off his shirt he'd probably be built better than Arnie was when he won "Mr. Olympia" (as pretty much the most beautiful male body in the world). People argue girls get anarexic, but the flip side is arguements about boys turning to 'roids to try and look like these masculine ideals for the same reason. The problem isn't the imagery being sexist or dangerous, it's a problem more with parents not being willing to tell their kids to get a F@cking grip and seperate fantasy from reality. The fact that some people can't should not in any way ruin the fun for the rest of us, and anyone trying to make a political or social issue out of this kind of thing in either direction is a troll, fully worthy of ridicule.
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