Anita Sarkeesian + Hitman Absolution = Epic Fail
- Thread starter IceForce
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While I'm glad you thought what I wrote was reasonable, I just want to point out that if Anita Sarkeesian is correct in calling Hitman Absolution slightly problematic, it's for entirely the wrong reasons (even a broken clock is right twice a day). As I mentioned back in Post #48 I think her analysis of the game's violence against women is at best naive and at worst purposefully misleading in an attempt to score a point about how severe and widespread misogyny is in games.Windknight said:
Far as I know "No Anita Sarkeesian threads!" isn't one of the forum rules. Besides, it's all been civil enough so far, hasn't it?Corran006 said:
None but I've also never heard of a heaven and hell party before but I love the idea. They are background decoration but I'm not seeing the big issue. They aren't presented as objects they're just people milling around that you don't care about because they're not your targets and they're not going to get in your way. Those women are servers, so they were hired to wear that and be part of the party. They are not victims and the game doesn't encourage you to oggle them so if you're not bothered by skimpy outfits then I'm not seeing the issue.TopazFusion said:True. And I admit that's the weaker of the two examples I presented.WhiteNachos said:Have you never heard of Hugh Heffner? That mission was clearly a take on him and his mansion.TopazFusion said:Anita should have used footage from the previous Hitman game, Blood Money, instead.
That game is rife with examples of the sort of thing she's talking about.
Scantily-clad women standing around, who serve no other purpose than for fully-clothed male NPCs to ogle at them. Objectified and sexualized women who are the very definition of "background decoration".
One of them even serves as your target.
And you can't even argue that they're "strippers" in a "strip club", so you would "expect" them to be there, ... because they're not strippers, and it's not a strip club.
So, why are they dressed like that?
There's also that other mission, that takes place at a 'porn mansion' in the freezing cold Rocky Mountains, which also has scantily-clad women standing around, with fully-clothed men ogling at them.
Though, in that particular case, it being a 'porn mansion', maybe you could argue that they're "part of the background decoration"... But whatever.
The stronger example is the one included in the screenshot above. That 'masquerade party' mission, full of scantily-clad women.
It's not a reference to anything, ... porn mansions, strip clubs, or anything else. And how many masquerade parties have you been to, that have women dressed like that?
It's not like every woman in that game looks like that.
Edit: Now that I think about it those angels do provide some commentary. Not by themselves but in contrast with the rest of the level.
You have a heaven party and a hell party, the heaven party is very fancy and formal and everyone wears white. The hell party is a huge dance party with big thumping music and it looks like a club. It even has a pyrotechnic show and a shark tank. And yet with all this lack of subtlety the people working the hell club don't show as much skin.
so, you take no issue over the fact you can literally mow down entire crowds of innocent bystanders in hitman absolution, as well as security guards that are simply doing their job, the strippers are the only lives that matter?bobleponge said:
Way to be overdramatic lol. Those "innocent lives" will surely respawn and even then, they are just data that you can bring up anytime.bobleponge said:
And how is getting negative points in a game thats about getting a good score not punishment? Do you want the game to reroute a nuclear strike to your house if you just brush past the female NPCs lol ( But the males? Nah, fuck em, break their necks like fleshy breadsticks!)
Rikku is 15....? I've not played X in a long while, but I don't ever remember her being that young. Entirely possible though, playing that game when I was like 7 or whatever doesn't exactly help the memory....Windknight said:Ok, give me a second to gather myself so I don't laugh in your face over that argument.NuclearKangaroo said:
I made no comment about the cosplayer. she is free to choose what she wears.
I made comment about Rikku, a 15 year old character who's design includes a string bikini, detached sleeves and a semi transparent skirt. that is a sexualised design, or a design with some sexualised aspects. She did not choose that outfit - it was chosen for her by her creator. You like her as a character? Thats fine. You like her design? That is totally fine too. Just have the goddamn honesty to accept you like a character who is sexualised as part of her design.
this is Litchi Faye-Ying
[http://s52.photobucket.com/user/Fuu_Phoenix/media/bb-litchi-faye-ling_zps207bba04.jpg.html]
I think she's aweseome - she's a warm, kind and highly intelligent character who shows a lot of caring and is a strong fighter. I also like her looks, and I fully accept her design is sexualised. Doesn't stop me liking her, but I am fully prepared to acknowledge that aspect, problematic as it may be.
Realistically how the fuck is that supposed to work in any practical way?bobleponge said:
In one level you will encounter dozens of guards that get between you and your target. Suppose you take the guns blazing route and kill anyone who tries to stop you. How are you gonna make the player feel guilty about all the guards they just murdered? How about any civilians that they kill in the rampage? Go through all 20+ backstories at the end in an unskippable cutscene?
"Also, losing a few points isn't "discouragement."
It is, it's just no effective discouragement for everyone. Blood Money had good discouragement systems, if you murder everyone the clean up costs eat into your profits, if you're sloppy you may leave witnesses which makes you more likely to be recognized in future levels and if you're really good, follow certain rules and become a silent assassin you get a reward. None of this makes you feel guilty about the people you kill though.
I know I already commented on this but I just noticed ... you just compared women to children. Full stop. That we should treat them with kids gloves and make an exception for their representation. Women can be cruel vicious monsters, they are not kids, they are adults and do not need some kind of special protection.bobleponge said:
In the context of "Hitman" though the whole point of the '47' character is that he's been conditioned so that he doesn't exactly feel remorse, he's pretty much an ultimate weapon. Part of the evolving story is him gradually getting some of his humanity back, though at the end of the day he can't change what he is. Creating some kind of major guilt trip over killing wouldn't really fit into the context of the game or it's narrative for the most part. That said we're talking about what is a very dark hero concept, and something that is pretty much against the tenets of society, which is why it's an "M" rated game series above and beyond the simple inclusion of violence.bobleponge said:
As far as the sexual comments you made above, that battle has already been ongoing to be honest, so it doesn't make for very good sarcasm. A lot of Japanese games and those made from parts of the world with much lower ages of consent have indeed run into problems with people getting upset about pedophilia or potential pedophilia. This is to say nothing of the "Second Life" battles over so called "ageplay" and people creating underage avatars and animation sets specifically to have sex and/or engage in virtual prostitution. The defense of which has involved things like how the person pretending to be a child isn't actually a child, so it shouldn't count... it's a giant mess, but the point is we've already seen this kind of thing as well.
Speaking entirely for myself I tend to draw a line between "children" and "teens" when it comes to such things even if a lot of society does not do so. The way I see it is that teens are developing sexually, and are going to have sex no matter what anyone does. As a result I tend to be a supporter of things like distributing condoms in schools, along with better sex education, and things like that, as opposed to trying to force abstinence programs and the like. The way I see it is teens having sex with teens, including the pitfalls involved, are part of growing up and learning about life. I do however have a big problem with ADULTS getting involved with teens. As "mature" as a lot of people like to think teenagers are, at the end of the day you wind up with some 16 year old girl going with a 30 year old dude and it's a recipe for disaster, especially if as a young idealist she thinks this guy is going to be with her forever or take care of her just because he said so at some point. Those kinds of lopsided relationships tend to end in disaster, and like it or not teens with limited resources are easy for an adult with better resources (money to spend, etc...) to exploit. Things tend to become a bit touchier when it comes to young adults within a couple of years like a 17 year old with an 18 or 19 year old in my opinion.
To put all of that into a more mainstream context, as general rule a video game that say has teenagers who aren't platonic is very similar to say the "Porky's" or "American Pie" movie series, or various horror movies or whatever, and really given that society already has some degree of acceptance for this as you can tell it really isn't that big a deal if you say have a video game dating simulator where a character in high school can say score with another character in high school.... and really while there are exceptions, this is mostly where such things tend to go.
To put things into perspective, someone mentioned say Rikku in "Final Fantasy X" being 15, and dressing provocatively (and honestly, look at how a lot of 15 year olds dress IRL, whether you approve or not, it's not exactly unheard of). Consider that most of the cast of "Final Fantasy X" are all young and around the same basic age level, pretty much within a few years of her. I think the oldest cast members are Wakka and Lulu who are pretty much committed to each other and they are like what? Early 20s? As a result something like that doesn't wind hitting my alarm buttons, since your pretty much dealing with a teenage romance when you get down to it (and it's not like this game actually goes into porno territory to begin with).
In the TV series "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" most people don't really think about it, but by the time Buffy has graduated high school she's already had an affair with an ancient vampire (Angel) who looks about 30 but is actually centuries old. I don't think the show specifies but consider this had been going on a couple of seasons before graduation, including the whole "he comes back from hell with a soul, ooops he turned evil, ooops now he's good again" ongoing arc. This means at the very beginning when she does it with Angel, which is a big plot point and catalyst for those events she's about 15 or 16. As a general rule this has been permitted because it's fantasy despite being illegal and immoral... and well, it's one of the biggest cult TV shows of all time. Approve or disapprove the ship has already sailed here and I don't see it making a big deal if a video game does something similar.
On the other hand if you want to get creepier in video games, I look at say the "Xenosaga" series where you have say the thing between Ziggy and Momo which I get the impression wasn't exactly staying entirely platonic. Then of course we've got "Kid" who is an adult in a child's body who goes around with an entourage of babes who basically worship him and I sort of got the impression that wasn't exactly platonic either. Things like that represent the exception and get to the point where I'm thinking the envelope is being pushed as your dealing with characters who are pre-teen, and should be pre-sexual, at least physically. So basically the exceptions exist, but again this series doesn't exactly show anything happening or get particularly explicit (it's at best implied).
The point here is that the analogy isn't the best one. I suppose one could say "there shouldn't be graphic violence or teenage sex in video games", but then again a number of people have been saying that about all media for decades and it's been an ongoing issue. For the most part this is why you have warning labels. It's also why going by those labels an actual teenager shouldn't be consuming material just because it involves teenage characters. Part of it is because adults can draw the line between something that's fantasy, and being presented as acceptable or being encouraged. Whether they do or not, arguably real people the age of the teenage victims at "Camp Crystal Lake" should not be watching "Friday The 13th" movies and they are labeled accordingly. If parents do not listen, and nobody heeds the advisory that's an entirely separate issue.
Understand in something like "Hitman" the lead character is not being presented as a role model, indeed the situation is presented as being messed up on all ends, starting with the conditioned demons in his head. Likewise your typical horror movie isn't selling outrageous teen behavior as being a good thing (and indeed if you analyze them, most are morality plays, where those who misbehave are "punished" by the killer of the piece, which while obvious to an adult, and a trope which today is heavily subverted after the success of things like 'Evil Dead', this might not be obvious to a kid, so you know... again the advisory).
Of course then again I am a "Piers Anthony" fan and if you've ever read his stuff, a lot of it is pretty much a huge analysis of sexual politics, and he gets even weirder because he kind of sets up to shock with the whole "okay, well, you thought that was pushing it, and I barely sold it as being acceptable, wait until you get a load of this".
Sooo... we should treat women like children? Hands off approach? With very limited meaningless interactions, inability to cause harm directly, immune to indirect harm, no meaning to the character what so ever, safely conservatively clothed so no skin below neck and above hands can be seen?bobleponge said:
There are hyperbolas that make sense and then there are hyperbolas that make no sense what so ever. Your falls in second category.
Lots of FF characters are surprisingly young.Ironshroom said:
Zidane and Garnet from IX are 16.
Basically everyone in VIII is 17 or 18.
Tidus and Yuna are 17 and Rikku is 15.
Why does that stuff need defending? It's fiction, who cares. The only possible arguments against it AFAIK are unsubstantiated claims about the real world effects of it or "I don't like it therefore it should be banned"Therumancer said:
Well, the thing is that none of us are rich enough to wind up at a party of that quality, "47" is pretty much operating at the top of the totem pole, and these kinds of backgrounds are pretty much showing how wealthy and powerful the characters he's interacting with, or targeting are.TopazFusion said:True. And I admit that's the weaker of the two examples I presented.WhiteNachos said:Have you never heard of Hugh Heffner? That mission was clearly a take on him and his mansion.TopazFusion said:Anita should have used footage from the previous Hitman game, Blood Money, instead.
That game is rife with examples of the sort of thing she's talking about.
Scantily-clad women standing around, who serve no other purpose than for fully-clothed male NPCs to ogle at them. Objectified and sexualized women who are the very definition of "background decoration".
One of them even serves as your target.
And you can't even argue that they're "strippers" in a "strip club", so you would "expect" them to be there, ... because they're not strippers, and it's not a strip club.
So, why are they dressed like that?
There's also that other mission, that takes place at a 'porn mansion' in the freezing cold Rocky Mountains, which also has scantily-clad women standing around, with fully-clothed men ogling at them.
Though, in that particular case, it being a 'porn mansion', maybe you could argue that they're "part of the background decoration"... But whatever.
The stronger example is the one included in the screenshot above. That 'masquerade party' mission, full of scantily-clad women.
It's not a reference to anything, ... porn mansions, strip clubs, or anything else. And how many masquerade parties have you been to, that have women dressed like that?
Having worked casino security, I've seen some aspects of this, nothing that has gone that far because nobody rich enough to put something like that on is going to be renting a casino ballroom, but you do see some rather impressive set ups.
The thing is that modeling agencies and the like make their money by hiring girls out to parties and the like, specifically to create scene dressing. The "Playboy Bunnies" themselves are pretty much an organization of world class "party girls" which is what we're literally talking about... girls hired to go to parties and help create a
scene, entertain clients, etc. Some of the groups I've dealt with at the casino for example DID hire models and such
to act as eye candy, dance with/dry hump tractors at say an agway show and similar things.
Let's say your a world class crime lord, and for whatever reason your holding a big party where your going to be inviting a few world class arms dealers, the biggest drug dealer on the west coast, the biggest drug dealer on the west coast, connections from the Chinese mob, a few corrupt buddies high up in the KGB, and whatever else. Chances are you can say drop $20 million and hire a couple busloads of playboy bunnies to show up in coordinated theme costumes. Heck, most modeling agencies would do almost anything to land a gig like that, and most models do almost anything to attend and be part of it.
I mean granted, in the real world it would be more along the lines of a rich CEO, entertaining other really rich people, with half the point being to show off how obnoxiously rich he is, but in the scope of a video game it works out more like the above because it's a more exciting environment.
One of the problems with a lot of these arguments about girls just being there for eye candy, is that in real life, especially in situations like this, girls literally line up to do those jobs. Playboy international, Jaegermeister (who has run "The Jaegerettes"), Elite Modeling, and other groups like that aren't exactly engaging in human trafficking or forcing these women into servitude. A lot of women, especially those with really good looks, have no compunctions about using those looks to make a living, especially seeing as they can make more money than most of us would make in a month showing up for the right events for a couple of hours.... of course we're talking about very high end stuff which is uncommon, most gigs for this kind of thing aren't anything like that.
Now, to go a little further with this, even if you want to move beyond "scene" into saying your dealing with an outright sex party, that in of itself would be really easy to do as well. A lot of big porn studios have girls who will do porn movies "on demand" for clients who pay and/or agree to even make an *ahem* art film with them (which can be a weird legal technicality). Nevada has some large, world class bordellos also. You could easily set it up by spending your $20 million to hire tons of escorts out of Nevada (it's not likely they would be caught if you were flying them somewhere else), or just outright rent the people from a porn studio for your party... then there you go, you've got your sexy party people in theme costumes for the VIPs, more than willing to take anyone into a side room.
This kind of thing is not common, and we are talking about a video game, but the very existence of or impossibility of such things isn't where I feel I need to aim my suspension of disbelief when it comes to games like this. It's all the stuff going on in combination with it.... and as I said, I think it's not just about the eye candy, but also to kind of sell the bad guys/targets, by showing they can afford to blow money like this, and presumably do it all the time. The idea being that the bad guy say promotes foreign wars with weapon sales where thousands of people die every day, so he can sit around with other similar people and throw elaborate parties where he fills the house with models and porn stars. It adds to the feeling of justice when you finally show the target the business end of a silverballer.
I'm not a huge Hitman fan, but I've played around with them in the past, and I'll say that I think your sort of missing the point. Simple progression is easy, 47 is a powerful character and can complete his missions in a large number of ways. Heck, in some cases you can walk right in the front door and just kill everyone and progress. Part of the fun of the game though is to figure out ways of doing things quietly and efficiently as opposed to just getting it done and moving on. In many cases the most obvious methods are simply very average overall, the game encourages experimentation.Knight Templar said:
Now, one of the reasons I never became a huge fan of the series, was sort of for the same reason I never really got into "Dishonored". The game presents you with a huge variety of things to play with, but ultimately punishes you for using them if you want things to turn out for the best in the end. In the end you get a lot of fun stuff and a cool sandbox of sorts to play with, but if your going to finish the game "seriously" you pretty much need to reload after you experiment with the more awesome and fun options because the game slaps you for being naughty in the long term.
A recurring joke for some people like me is that Agent 47 is pretty much an engineered badarse who acts like a wuss. It seems like all the options of what he COULD do exist to more or less sell the character, when really to do well at it, you pretty much need to be fairly sneaky and obtuse... and games that encourage that are fine, I just tend to dislike it when it comes in the form of giving you a bunch of toys to use, and a place to play with them, and then telling you not to because of some kind of arbitrary karmic retribution. 47 and Corvo have a hundred ways to kill, but ultimately always go for the same types of takedowns and non-lethal weaponry... kind of boring. In Corvo's case I find it amusing that he might say have a gun in his scary mask for example, but god forbid you actually shoot someone with it... that could contribute to dooming the entire city you see.
Well bugger my bumblebees bread-bins. I seriously had no idea. How old is Terra then??????Colour Scientist said:
Either 18 or ageless depending whether she is human or esper. But it's all pointless. So what if they FF characters are those ages. They are meant for poeple of those ages to identify with them (originally).Ironshroom said:
As fir their clothes... it's Japan. Society that wasn't as repressed as western world so they don't really give a F about it.