Arkham City.... Sexist?

SonOfVoorhees

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I think its sexist because they dont call Batman a *****....just because he is a male. Sexism at its worse that is. ;-)
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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Tin Man said:
But Batman doesn't need to have that big of a build, it's a bit ridiculous. I'd argue most of the designs for that game are what I'd expect for a comic book game, a bit ridiculous. I'd also argue that Catwoman has always been a giant flirt, so her design makes sense to me. Sorry, but I don't see the sexism there.

evilthecat said:
Yes, that's true, but it can also be appealing to the female fanbase.

castlewise said:
The dude is huge, and he really doesn't need to be that muscular. But this is also a comic book game, so I do expect some kind of design aspect they are going for. And for the record, yes, I would. The Dark Night Batman is skinny and not overty muscular.

I'd also like to argue Bruce Lee, he wasn't huge and he could kick some major ass.
 

Laxman9292

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1. It's a prison populated by uncouth males who likely don't refer to women in favorable terms, especially when she is kicking their assed.
2. That's Catwoman's thing. She doesn't flirt and act sexy all the time because they can't write her any better, but because that's who she is. A thief who uses her sexuality to toy with the mostly male character pool.
3. People are too sensitive.
 

Treblaine

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ACman said:
Wouldn't it be better to change it to this?

SecretNegative said:
The developers have taken this blog in cosideration and will now change the dialogues into these:

That'll teach her to screw with Two-Face."

"She deserves it. You saw what she did to him in the court. It was only a matter of time before he got a little payback."

""I'll make you meow!"

"He sent Paulie B over to blow her secret hideout sky-high."

"She'll come straight back here? And when she does, I want you guys to blow that her apart!

"He had her just where he wanted her and she broke free."

"Ha, I only took half. The rest I gave away. I win!"

"Help us decide if we should kill the *****(Can't change them all!) who tried to steal from us, or let her go to do it again."

"Two guns, Catwoman!"

Hmm, better or worse?
The use of ***** where if they were referring to Batman they would have said he, him, or Batman is jarring and gives the game a sexist tone overall.

Not an intentional one but it's there none the less.

And the Bativerse used to be such a happy place.
When you call a man a ***** you have to be careful as it can very easily be conferred as in "Prison *****" very different from "she was such a ***** for saying that to Rebecca" or "that ***** ruined my best laid plans".

The phrase: "Does HE look like a *****?"

has a completely different meaning from: "Does SHE look like a *****?"

Context matters. You wouldn't assume a black person hates black-people if he uses the N-word, but you would if a non-black character use the term. Or at least has disparaging feelings. I knew this twit in school who earnestly claimed that there was nothing wrong with him calling anyone a "******" because he heard Hip-hop rappers use the term all the time without condemnation. He was an idiot however and he'd do many other stupid stuff (like use cocaine).

Also could we just have a bit of respect for artists and their vision:

"She deserves it."

doesn't have the same impact as

"The ***** deserves it."

The former sounds justified and measured response of retribution. The latter sounds like the rationalisation of someone motivated by rage and revenge. You have to realise the PURPOSE of this dialogue is not base exposition, it is characterisation, what does the dialogue say about the characters and their stare of mind, their emotions and prejudices.
 

Spritzey

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The whole video game industry is sexist just for the way it portrays characters, all you have to do is rifle through a few dozen video game covers to notice the way in which men are always in dominant roles whereas the women, when they do appear on the cover, are usually in a supportive yet overly sexy role.
 

Utrechet

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Just because people in the game are sexist, does not mean the game is sexist.

If you go by this logic you have here, Call of Duty is a Russian Propoganda for taking odoown America. (I.E. Russia is always going for America's destruction.)
 

Captainguy42

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Anodos said:
lacktheknack said:
LilithSlave said:
GreatTeacherCAW said:
And they present it as a bunch of goons calling a woman a *****.
They show a great number of aspects that present an overall troubling tone.

A tone that generally respects the male members of it's cast more than female ones.
Not convinced. Is it sexist when the enemy calls your male character a "************"? Same thing.

The key here is that they're enemies, and were supposed to take cues that calling someone a ***** is bad, because they do it. This isn't even subtle, this is basic distinguishing between heroes and villains.

Also, Heather Mason in Silent Hill 3 says the following line to Claudia:

"SHUT your STINKING MOUTH, BIIITCH!"

Notice the general lack of respect involved here. Is it OK now because a girl said it? That opens up a can of worms with double standards.
I think everyones missing the point of the article. Its mostly because its overused and EVERYWHERE.
Imagine if they used shitface instead. "Hey shitface" "lets go get shitface!" "Stop shitface!" "shitface is coming!" "My favorite word is "shitface" "what time is it?" "its shitface 30" "give me back the jewel, shitface" "hes getting away, shitface!" "hey shitface" "shitface, we are going to fight to the death now!" "stop stealing things, shitface!" "shitface, stop stealing things all the time!" "shitface, i need your help with something"

And then when they meet batman there like "im going to fight you now"

The article said its not a huge deal, just....weird....dont they ever say anything else? lol
I agree, I don't think it's really offensive as much as it's simply the developers failing to mix up the language. Please forgive me for sitting in my Extra Creditz arm chair, but I think the problem is that the developers where lazy. If you look at some of phrases the thugs say while fighting Batman, they aren't nice, they call him a wimp, a psycho, a moron, but their insults are varied, because the developer took the time. With Catwoman, they don't seem to take the effort to write that same range of response, instead they were lazy and just went with "*****" (by the way, even Batman get's called a ***** in this game, or rather Bruce Wayne does). This laziness in writing isn't due to the writer's thinking Catwoman didn't deserve as much effort because she was a woman, but due to the fact that she's a secondary character. A character who most people may never see. So with that in mind, the developers just didn't put the work in finding a more varied way to insult Catwoman.
 

cobra_ky

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Shaoken said:
Way to miss teh point. ***** has nowhere near the amount of stigma as "slut" or "****" do. Simply put, you can not compare ***** to those racial or sexual slurs. There is no situation outside two black men together that the N word means anything but a racial slur. Likewise, unless you're on good terms with the homosexual in question that F word it's always a homophobic slur.
Alright, go find a woman you don't know too well and call her a *****. See how she reacts to that.
The vast majority of women consider "*****" to be an insult, and most of them probably think it's a gendered one at that.

The level of stigma associated with those words is irrelevant to my point. you can substitute "negro" and "queer" if you like. the point is that directing a gendered insult at a woman is sexist, in the same way that launching a racial insult at a black person is racist.

Shaoken said:
***** on the other hand, is two rating catagories down on the list, which means it doesn't have the same impact as the other two, which means that it's not inherrently sexist. If you say ***** is aways sexist then you're saying that dick or prick is equally as sexist towards men.
I never said "*****" is always sexist. I said it could be sexist, and in this particular case it seems like it is.

Incidentally, where can i see this list and its rating categories?

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
And I could cite numerous rap lyrics using the word "******" with pride or as a term of endearment, or examples where the word "fag" has been reclaimed by the gay community. The fact that an offensive term has been appropriated by the targeted group doesn't diminish the the impact that word has when used maliciously.
Or MAYBE it means it all depends on the context on which it is used. How about that?
Uh, that's exactly what I'm saying? Words like "******" and "*****" can be endearing in some contexts. In most others they're terribly offensive.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
Sexism is unfair treatment or discrimination based on gender.
And I fail to see how women were discriminated against in this game. I also fail to see how the word ***** puts women in a position of discrimination in the context of the game.

cobra_ky said:
The vast majority of sexism in the world today is driven by unconscious behavior, in this case by men who were unaware what the dialogue they were writing implied about women.
Implied what? That she was a *****? Would it have been better if they implied she was a twat?
Discrimination against fictional characters isn't the issue here. In fact, portraying discrimination against women in a thoughtful, serious way would probably be a good and interesting thing. The problem is that this game doesn't do that. This game just pounds the word "*****" into your head over and over again in a jarring and unrealistic way. There's no real rhyme or reason behind it, other than that's the only bad word they could think of while still maintaining their Teen rating. It's lazy and terrible writing, not only because they couldn't be bothered to come up with a larger vocabulary, but because nobody ever realized "hey, all this rampant pointless misogyny might turn off some of our target audience, maybe we should take it out."

It's that disregard for the consumer that i find offensive, sexism or not.


AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
Your conception of the word "*****" is also out of touch with reality. Every dictionary I can find it in mentions the female connotations.
And every dictionary on the planet fails to account that the word does not posses the same connotations it did back in the 15th century. ***** is used as an insult towards both men and women. I fail to see how this is in any way sexist.
Uh, sorry, but I'm going to trust every dictionary in the world along with my own experiences, over your strange bubble universe where words are devoid of their historical context.

This is an utterly preposterous argument. If "*****" really is gender-neutral, then in Arkham City, the game we're actually talking about here, why is it used almost exclusively to refer to women? Why doesn't anybody call Batman a *****? Isn't that awfully sexist?
 

AndyFromMonday

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cobra_ky said:
Uh, that's exactly what I'm saying? Words like "******" and "*****" can be endearing in some contexts. In most others they're terribly offensive.
So how exactly is it offensive to women in the context of Arkham City?


cobra_ky said:
his game just pounds the word "*****" into your head over and over again in a jarring and unrealistic way. There's no real rhyme or reason behind it, other than that's the only bad word they could think of while still maintaining their Teen rating.
It's unrealistic for thugs to insult their adversaries? Whoa! I didn't know that. Thanks for clearing that up.

cobra_ky said:
It's lazy and terrible writing, not only because they couldn't be bothered to come up with a larger vocabulary, but because nobody ever realized "hey, all this rampant pointless misogyny might turn off some of our target audience, maybe we should take it out."
Misogynistic? How? Because they used the word ***** instead of **** or fuck or shit or whatever swear word you can think of? It's an INSULT. The only people who might be turned off by this are those who take offense to literally everything. You seem to have no problem with other swear words but do with *****? How does that work? It's an INSULT. It's used as an INSULT. You can replace ***** with virtually any swear word and you'd get the same result.

cobra_ky said:
It's that disregard for the consumer that i find offensive, sexism or not.
Batman portrays an unrealistic image of men but I'm fairly sure the male audience ain't taking offence to that. You're not offended by the use of the word *****, you're just offended by the use of profanity. The thugs aren't implying that all women are "bitches", they're saying that Catwoman is a *****. If they'd call her a slut then I might understand. Actually, even then I wouldn't. It's just a swear word. Get over it.



cobra_ky said:
Uh, sorry, but I'm going to trust every dictionary in the world along with my own experiences, over your strange bubble universe where words are devoid of their historical context.
Well then, the next time someone calls me a ****** I'll be sure to tell them I'm not a bundle of sticks.


cobra_ky said:
This is an utterly preposterous argument. If "*****" really is gender-neutral, then in Arkham City, the game we're actually talking about here, why is it used almost exclusively to refer to women? Why doesn't anybody call Batman a *****? Isn't that awfully sexist?
Because ***** is just an insult and both Batman and Catwoman get their fair share of insults thrown at them.
 

Sentox6

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cobra_ky said:
Discrimination against fictional characters isn't the issue here. In fact, portraying discrimination against women in a thoughtful, serious way would probably be a good and interesting thing. The problem is that this game doesn't do that. This game just pounds the word "*****" into your head over and over again in a jarring and unrealistic way. There's no real rhyme or reason behind it, other than that's the only bad word they could think of while still maintaining their Teen rating. It's lazy and terrible writing, not only because they couldn't be bothered to come up with a larger vocabulary
Wait, so first you acknowledge they have a Teen rating to adhere to, then you turn around and accuse them of laziness? Within the dialogue appropriate for the context, imagine the tantrum you'd be throwing if they threw "slut", "whore", and "****" in there.

The thing that really blows my mind is that people like yourself seem to be seriously suggesting that a group of low-decile criminals within what is essentially a prison city should have an intelligent approach to gender interaction. Your mind must be a bizarre and crazy place. Have you ever actually met people like this? I've been inside a prison (not as an inmate, to clarify), and believe me, if a leather-clad female started beating them up, low-brow sexist insults would be flying left and right.

Hell, sexist behaviour would abound if she was walking past the fence. Anyone who thinks the behaviour of a prison population should be any different than what we see here is violently impaired. Unless you think it should be worse, because then you'd be exactly right.
 

SextusMaximus

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No, it's not sexist, not even a little bit - perhaps on the part of the (fictional) criminals, yes - but not on the part of the developers.
 

cobra_ky

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AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
Uh, that's exactly what I'm saying? Words like "******" and "*****" can be endearing in some contexts. In most others they're terribly offensive.
So how exactly is it offensive to women in the context of Arkham City?
It's offensive to the female characters in the game because the word is typically said with derision or direct, open hostility toward the female characters.

It's offensive to many female players because the writers didn't bother to write better dialogue about the female characters.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
his game just pounds the word "*****" into your head over and over again in a jarring and unrealistic way. There's no real rhyme or reason behind it, other than that's the only bad word they could think of while still maintaining their Teen rating.
It's unrealistic for thugs to insult their adversaries? Whoa! I didn't know that. Thanks for clearing that up.
It's unrealistic for them all to use the exact same insult to the exclusion of all others. As plenty of others have pointed out, there's a number of alternatives, both gendered and non-gendered. "Freak", "Scum", "Piece of Shit" all would have worked. Or if you really want the thugs to come off as misogynist, there are alternatives like "hussy" that you can use and still keep your teen rating. Imagine this was an "E"-rated game and instead of "*****" they all used the word "meanie". That's what's so unrealistic about it.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
It's lazy and terrible writing, not only because they couldn't be bothered to come up with a larger vocabulary, but because nobody ever realized "hey, all this rampant pointless misogyny might turn off some of our target audience, maybe we should take it out."
Misogynistic? How? Because they used the word ***** instead of **** or fuck or shit or whatever swear word you can think of? It's an INSULT. The only people who might be turned off by this are those who take offense to literally everything. You seem to have no problem with other swear words but do with *****? How does that work? It's an INSULT. It's used as an INSULT. You can replace ***** with virtually any swear word and you'd get the same result.
It's lazy writing that applies only to the female characters. When it came to the female characters they got lazy.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
It's that disregard for the consumer that i find offensive, sexism or not.
Batman portrays an unrealistic image of men but I'm fairly sure the male audience ain't taking offence to that. You're not offended by the use of the word *****, you're just offended by the use of profanity. The thugs aren't implying that all women are "bitches", they're saying that Catwoman is a *****. If they'd call her a slut then I might understand. Actually, even then I wouldn't. It's just a swear word. Get over it.
Nope, profanity is perfectly fuckin' fine with me. I know exactly what the thugs are saying, thank you and i'm perfectly OK with that, too. What offends me are the writers' insulting my intelligence and doing it in a (probably unintentionally) sexist way.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
Uh, sorry, but I'm going to trust every dictionary in the world along with my own experiences, over your strange bubble universe where words are devoid of their historical context.
Well then, the next time someone calls me a ****** I'll be sure to tell them I'm not a bundle of sticks.
It's funny you mention the word "******", because that also used to be a pejorative for women. Some dictionaries will mention this, but they list the definition as obsolete because no one uses the word "******" that way anymore. The definition of ***** as a derisive term for women is NOT obsolete, because it is still used that way all the time.

Seriously, find me one reputable source that claims the word "*****" is now gender neutral and no one thinks of it as a misogynist slur anymore.

AndyFromMonday said:
cobra_ky said:
This is an utterly preposterous argument. If "*****" really is gender-neutral, then in Arkham City, the game we're actually talking about here, why is it used almost exclusively to refer to women? Why doesn't anybody call Batman a *****? Isn't that awfully sexist?
Because ***** is just an insult and both Batman and Catwoman get their fair share of insults thrown at them.
You didn't answer the question. Why is Batman only referred to as a ***** once or twice in passing, while Catwoman and the other female characters are referred to as bitches almost constantly?
 

Lunar Templar

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I'm gonna say, no. and while I've yet to get my hands on it (no monies to T-T) for some reason I'm doubting they did to Catwoman what nintendo/team ninja did to Samus, so calling it 'this years other M' is stupid.

there thugs, she's beating them into further retardation, what is anybody expecting from them? 'mommy!!! that bad lady's hitting me, make her stop!! *crying*' or ' ouch, please desist fair maiden'
 

Dastardly

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SecretNegative said:
There, you said it yourself "Each woman in the game has a very different personality", BAM, directly countradicts your "it would demonstrate more understanding that women can be just as different as men". Just because the grunts have very limited insults doesn't mean that all the women in the game are the same. That's just...a very convoluted coclusion.
Yes, each of these characters (in the comics) has a very different personality. That is exactly why it is a shame that they're treated so similarly in this particular game. A collection of what could be extremely different female characters... all distilled down into "bitches."
 

cobra_ky

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Sentox6 said:
Wait, so first you acknowledge they have a Teen rating to adhere to, then you turn around and accuse them of laziness? Within the dialogue appropriate for the context, imagine the tantrum you'd be throwing if they threw "slut", "whore", and "****" in there.
Uh, yeah? Unless having a Teen rating limits you to only one insult, there's no reason they couldn't have come up with something besides "*****" to use.

Sentox6 said:
The thing that really blows my mind is that people like yourself seem to be seriously suggesting that a group of low-decile criminals within what is essentially a prison city should have an intelligent approach to gender interaction. Your mind must be a bizarre and crazy place. Have you ever actually met people like this? I've been inside a prison (not as an inmate, to clarify), and believe me, if a leather-clad female started beating them up, low-brow sexist insults would be flying left and right.

Hell, sexist behaviour would abound if she was walking past the fence. Anyone who thinks the behaviour of a prison population should be any different than what we see here is violently impaired. Unless you think it should be worse, because then you'd be exactly right.
I'm suggesting the writers of a video game should approach gender interaction intelligently. If you're going to write low-brow sexist insults, at least write them well.

There's a scene in Silence of the Lambs where Clarice Starling walks through an insane asylum and the male inmates say and do utterly despicable things to her. There's a video of it on youtube but i'm pretty sure i shouldn't be posting it. The thing about that scene is that it portrays misogyny in a thoroughly shocking but effective way. It's completely believable that is how depraved psychopaths would treat a woman walking through their cell block. And it serves a narrative purpose, in establishing the character of Hannibal Lecter, the conditions he lives in, and how altogether he's a far more sophisticated monster than the animals around him.

That's good writing. What happens in Arkham City is not. The criminal thugs are misogynist, but not in a believable way. They don't even display the creativity or individuality that the inmates in Silence of the Lambs did, they just call every woman a *****. It doesn't tell you anything about the characters very effectively, and it detracts from the storytelling and the sense of immersion. Hearing them same tired insult over and over doesn't make think "man these thugs really hate catwoman", it makes think "that's right, i'm playing a video game, these thugs are all simple AI scripts, and the repetitive voice acting is really boring and annoying at the same time."