JimB said:
No, but I am deeply and irrationally opposed to the idea of letting anyone know they have affected me in a way I don't want, so I don't think what I would do can or should be mapped to anyone else. Why would you not "trot it out," as you say, and why do you think Ms. Sarkeesian ought not to either?
I dunno, maybe because if I felt something was a viable threat, I wouldn't want to show it to other people who might make a similar threat-- even if they're just being jackasses and trying to be funny? Or because if I felt something was a viable threat it would mean I was actually, you know,
frightened by it? If I felt something was a viable threat, I would inform the authorities and actually be vigilant to see if that threat came to pass. But I wouldn't be showing it off at every opportunity because if the threat is still in any way viable, I don't want it known to others.
JimB said:
Has she ever claimed they're a viable threat? I've never paid attention to anything she's said outside of her videos, and I do not recall her ever saying that in one of them.
There was an interview where a statement was read by the interviewer, the statement made by the guy who made the game, where after she says 'it was not a threat' Anita laughs. You know, the same way you laugh at a KKK member who says he isn't racist after he's just spouted off about why blacks, asians, jews, etc. are all worthless subhumans for simply not being a WASP. Probably the closest I feel like looking for after work, again.
JimB said:
Are you suggesting the resources and levels of protection offered to former presidents of the United States and to Bill Gates are equivalent to what's available to Anita Sarkeesian?
Those are just prominent examples. People pretty much anyone should know if they haven't been living under a rock for the past near 30 years.
JimB said:
Dunno. I don't know whom those other people are.
So, it's OK to make beat up games about various people, the overwhelming majority being men, famous or not (remember that part, the or not)... but it is sexist, misogynistic, etc. to make one about Anita? Is that what you're implying? Because that's what she certainly implies when she brings it up as an example of misogyny online against her... again, a misuse of a word by her. Misogyny cannot be directed at one single woman, it is the hatred or general dislike of any and all women or girls, not one particular woman.
JimB said:
This is insupportable. "She started it" is no excuse for bad behavior; that's shit people should have learned in fucking grade school. It is even worse when you openly acknowledge that the justification ought to be, "She might or might not have started it, we don't really know, but either way she had it coming."
You seem to think she didn't and doesn't still want that sort of response coming to her. It's apparent she does, as she uses it all the time to keep herself in a victimization light to continue to garner sympathy. The whole idea behind the manipulator personality, of which professional victims most definitely are, is to continually get a negative reaction towards them to then use to garner sympathy to their own advantage.
JimB said:
Okay, I'm cranky, and I apologize for that, but seriously, you keep acting as if your suppositions about her mindframe are proof in and of themselves. I will grant you that it's suspicious, but that's as much as you've actually proven.
Perhaps you have another theory as to why she let that video have open comments when all her previous ones were moderated (one of her own videos she even talks about the fact she moderates comments, so straight from the horse's mouth as the saying goes)? Perhaps this theory isn't as suspicious as the facts have said, including the fact that 24 hours after the kickstarter ended she closed the comments on the video? Why not earlier if they bothered her so much? Why not leave them open if she didn't mind them at all? The timing is, again, highly suspicious. Again, however, Anita hides herself away in her ivory tower where she doesn't have to even make a cursory acknowledgement of these things.
JimB said:
Each and every one of them? Maybe that's why she hasn't put out a new video in so long, because that must be a twenty-four hour job.
Maybe every might have been stretching it. But she has screenshotted hundreds, if not thousands. Many of them make it into her collage slide collection for her speaking engagements. They also make it onto her Tumblr page frequently enough.
JimB said:
Do you object to people being taken to task for things they say?
Anita from her TEDxWomen talk and other interviews at the same time: I've been a gamer all my life. I love video games.
Anita from 2010 or so in the now infamous 'I'm not a gamer' video: I'm not a gamer. I don't like video games In fact, I had to learn a lot about video games before making this video.
The Internet: I thought you were a lifelong gamer?
Anita's only response (a tweet): I took a break from gaming.
Anita's supporters: Yeah! She's still been a gamer all her life! Leave her alone!
So, she can't be taken to task for something she said. She said in interviews and talks she had been gaming all her life. Then it was discovered she said the exact opposite while giving a presentatin to a Women's Study class at a school. When taken to task, the best she can come up with is 'I took a break' and then drops it. How long of a break? 5 years? 10? 15? She's only around 30, if it was a 15 year break then that's half her life.
So, I'll ask seriously: Why is she allowed to make contradictory statements and when taken to task for saying them, is she allowed to casually throw off the criticism and her followers (and the gaming media) decide it's perfectly fine she said both and that she is still incorruptible in their eyes? Why is it ok for her to take others to task when she feels like it, but she, herself, can't do the same? What's good for the goose is good for the gander, after all.
JimB said:
What is the stated purpose and subject of the public speaking and media engagements you refer to?
The media interviews tend to happen right around the time a new video is going to be released, so obvious publicity. Her speaking engagements, well, hard to actually say, since almost without exception there is no recording allowed in them. Even if everyone else is allowed to be recorded, once she takes the stage if any recording equipment is being used that person is forcibly ejected. But, since she seems to be just retelling the story of Anita vs. the Big Bad Internet, that it's been about her and nothing else.
JimB said:
It is possible to do, though, and honestly, her intention doesn't change whether I find the end product lifeless and tedious.
I agree it's not impossible. But it is rare to find academics who are easy to listen to when talking about a subject without being bored to tears or falling asleep. Please note I am not saying she is at anywhere near an academic level in terms of presentation or research into the subject matters she talks about.
JimB said:
Again, I'm very literal-minded, so I just don't see your argument here. "Her task" does not preclude it being "their task," and is not inaccurate in what it says. It may lead a person to an incomplete assumption, but not an inaccurate one.
Literally speaking, though, it doesn't include Sabre in the task at hand, either; does it?
JimB said:
Your summation is a more accurate synopsis of the plot, sure, but was she talking about the plot, or about what Krystal was written to do in the plot? They're not the same things.
Being as it was supposed to be a story driven game, though, the importance of Krystal, Sabre, Random and the other characters is relevant. By ignoring everyone but Krystal, she has made Krystal the most important thing about Dinosaur Planet.
JimB said:
I can't and won't tell you you're wrong that her description of the game as a whole is inaccurate, but I really don't know where this insistence comes from that she was talking about the game as a whole, or was required to talk about the game as a whole, rather than the single character she kept referencing.
Again, she describes the game with the inference that Krystal was the most important thing in it. Even her summation of the game says it:
The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure to passive victim in someone else?s game
The protagonist of her own epic adventure. Again, straight from the horse's mouth.
Even the only artwork she showed was the Krystal promo artwork. I know there ws a Sabre one done in the same vein, maybe even one with both characters.
JimB said:
The bit prior to your ellipsis is true. The bit after is your inference. Ms. Sarkeesian neither directly states nor even (at least by my standards) implies causation, only a series of events.
I'm sorry, which part of:
As development on the project neared completion, legendary game-designer Shigeru Miyamoto joked about how he thought it should be the 3rd installment in his Star Fox franchise instead. Over the next two years he and Nintendo did just that.
isn't implying direct causation?
JimB said:
She definitely didn't say or imply that, either.
Miyamoto makes joke in her telling, he and Nintendo change the entire game because of it. Nope, not implying that at all. Where exactly is the sarcasm tag again? Because she most definitely
is implying it.
JimB said:
So...no, then? That part is still there and still accurate?
You do know what context is, correct? And taking things out of context? I could take, from one single video of hers, the words 'I' 'hate' 'men' 'they' 'make' 'me' 'scream or throw up... or both' and put them all together in video editing to make it appear like a complete sentence. It doesn't mean I haven't taken them completely out of context and put them together to show an agenda, however. She's taking scenes she wants, out of context, and edited them together to make t appear that that was the entirety of the scene.
JimB said:
What exactly is your complaint, UncleThursday? Are you saying the things she says are untrue, or are you saying they're true but don't count?
That she simply doesn't know how to do research. The sign of a intellectual wannabe is to quote things verbatim without understanding what the quote means. It's also a sign that she specifically wanted to be able to use the French words to show how learned she is. I could quote Nietzsche all day long, but all it does is make me appear to be smarter than I am. I could also quote Wikipedia all day to appear knowledgeable, but it doesn't mean I am.
As to the citing, again,
she is the one trying to make this academic. Citing sources is key to academic works.
JimB said:
You did not say Andromeda had such a story. You said certain Monomyths do.
Correct. In the original Perseus/Andromeda story she isn't necessarily destined for something greater. More modern tellings, such as the movie(s I suppose, I didn;t see the new one) Clash of the Titans have her being the daughter of a king and queen.
JimB said:
Then why is it not a son getting sacrificed?
The son being sacrificed was in the Torah/Old Testament when Abraham is commanded by Yahweh to sacrifice his son as a testament of his faith. I suppose, technically, in the Christian faith, Yahweh allows his own son to be sacrificed in the crucifixion of Jesus in the bible's New Testament.
However, more importantly in terms of storytelling, is that audiences simply don't give a rat's ass about helpless males beyond the age of 15-16. They are expected to take care of themselves and get themselves out of trouble. Female characters instantly garner more sympathy in stories. Males have to work to gain audience trust and likability, while females either have to be the most vile and evil creatures on the planet to not have it to begin with (IE wicked witch/queen characters) or have to work really hard to make the audience not care if she lives or dies.
Since Anita loves TVTropes, here's a nice synopsis for you that explains it: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreTheExpendableGender . Remember, though, that this doesn't just apply to TV or movies, it applies to all storytelling. Helpless men are seen as weak and deserving of death by audiences since time immemorial.
So, reversing the roles of Perseus and Andromeda, with Andromeda being the hero passing by... Perseus gets eaten by the sea monster; because she is not expected to help him, nor does the audience actually
want him to be helped if he can't get his own male ass out of that predicament. If he can't free himself, well, he
deserved to die chained to that rock. Andromeda has no such predisposed burden placed upon her for being chained to the rock. She is not expected to be able to free herself and the audience immediately wants her to be saved from her soon to be gruesome fate.
JimB said:
I (and let me repeat I, not she; I do not know what she thinks) say that if you're discussing a character's role in a story, then there has to be an actual character in an actual story. Discussing the Princess's role in a Mario Party game feels to me like calling the thimble a character and Monopoly a story.
But neither I, nor she, is talking about the princess in terms of story as much as how often she appears to be a damsel in distress. She says all her non-core Mario games can be ignored simply because she says that is how it is. If that's the case, then all of Mario's non-Donkey Kong related games can be discounted, too, since that is where he first appeared.
JimB said:
Oh, there isn't a story in the instruction booklet? I had a vague memory that there is.
There may be, but I never read the instruction manual. I didn't need to, since I played SMB a ton in arcades before I got my NES. I didn't need to look in the instruction manual. A jumped, B threw fireballs when you had the flower power. I knew all the warp zones, all the 1UP tricks, etc. long before I ever played SMB on my NES.
Oh, and there is nothing about the story in SMB in the arcades. Not in the game, nor on the cabinet. At least later arcade games tried to put a vague telling of some form of story in it, like Mortal Kombat, Ninja Gaiden-- hell, even Primal Rage tried to have some semblance of a story. Look back at early arcade games and there is no story. SMB in the arcade was no exception.
JimB said:
I'm pretty damned sure even Yahtzee has said Gordon Freeman isn't really a character for just that reason.
As I said, try telling Half-Life fans Gordon isn't an important character in that universe, though.
JimB said:
In the first game, Impa asked him to. I know for a fact that one is explained in the instruction booklet. She was running from Moblins, bumped into him, and he had to save them both (which he did without a weapon), and when he was done, she asked him to save the princess. One can infer that being attacked by Moblins convinced him he had a good reason to oppose Ganon, but that's never actually mentioned.
Again, never read the instruction manual. Didn't need to. A shot/used the sword, B used bombs/boomerang/bow. Took all of about 3 seconds to figure out. I do remember there being about a paragraph of story if you let the title screen play, though.
JimB said:
If you choose to view character growth mechanically, as the increasing of Link's powers and abilities as represented by the number of hearts he has and the items he can use, then yeah. I'm not totally sold on that, since I'm more of a literature nerd than a game nerd, but for the medium of video games, it feels about right to me.
Character growth can come from a multitude of ways. Mechanical growth is one. Motivation is another. Events changing world view are another. Early games, though, had little room to do this sort of thing. The NES version of Ninja Gaiden was mind blowing at the time because it even had a story (and I still love that game, dammit). The same for Golgo 13. But those games were the exception, not the rule in the early 80s. Even the original Final Fantasy had about the most minimalistic story possible for a game as long as it was.
JimB said:
I never played that. I didn't become aware of the franchise until they started tacking adjectives to the front end of Street Fighter II's title. As for those games, though, I can only grudgingly say they stories and character arcs, in that some of them have a pre-set midboss and boss fight for each character, with scripted dialogue and maybe a cut scene and some shit, but the attempts to build a story feel so damned desultory I kind of grind my teeth giving them even that much credit. The characters certainly do not grow mechanically, as characters like Link or Megaman do.
Ironically, I'd say the various SF anime series have done more to create the stories of the characters in the SF universe than the character specific endings ever did.
JimB said:
Well, yes, anything in any work of fiction except maybe for the physical reality of the copy you hold in your hand is an illusion. I thought that was a given.
You'd think...
Anita Sarkeesian said:
As we discussed in our first episode, when female characters are damsel?ed, their ostensible agency is removed and they are reduced to a state of victimhood.
Even the apparent perceived agency a character has is removed, yes, but, in what way did any of the characters have any real agency?
Anita Sarkeesian said:
Let?s compare the damsel to the archetypal Hero Myth, in which the typically male character may occasionally also be harmed, incapacitated or briefly imprisoned at some point during their journey.
Clip- Montage
In these situations, the character relies on their intelligence, cunning, and skill to engineer their own escape ? or, you know, just punching a hole in the prison wall works too.
The point is they are ultimately able to gain back their own freedom. In fact, that process of overcoming the ordeal is an important step in the protagonist?s transformation into a hero figure.
A Damsel?ed woman on the other hand is shown to be incapable of escaping the predicament on her own and then must wait for a savior to come and do it for her.
She is trying to show how the male characters have the agency to get out of their own imprisonment in the story in the games. Again, false. It is the
player's involvement that allows the characters to escape by the
player's actions. After all, a lot of players would get bored if the main character getting imprisoned part of the story made them wait around for someone else to come rescue them. Player gets bored, player stops playing, player probably never buys a game from that developer again.
JimB said:
Yeah, I'm going to stop you right there. If you want to condemn her for hypocritical things she has actually said, then I'm happy to listen and engage you, but I have zero interest in listening to anyone condemn anyone else for things she hasn't said but that you're pretty sure she will eventually say.
She already has the title, so she has already said it to that extent. Unless she plans on cutting the series short. She did, after all skip the Fighting Fuck toy, The Sexy Sidekick, The Sexy Villainess, Background Decoration, Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress, and Women as Reward videos and skip right to Ms Male Character, which was originally #8. She also extended the Damsel In Distress video from one to three videos.
JimB said:
I am very uneasy with a lot of the implications in this paragraph. You're saying that wearing pants makes a woman into a man with boobs? That only men can use physical methods to defend themselves, so a woman who fights back is a man with boobs? That, quote, "confront[ing] the villainous council and [abolishing] the monarchy" can only refer to murder in cold blood rather than the overthrow of an obviously illegal and illegitimate rule whose tyranny can be inferred from how it chose to rise to power in the first place?
Like I said, watch it-- she has a separate video of just that section without having to watch the whole DiD video. The princess literally steals a man's clothes and wears them, hence wearing men's clothes. She doesn't 'defend herself' she cuts a bloody trail a mile wide in her wake-- while in previous videos she has stated her disdain of violence and views it as masculine. She confronts the council, sword out-- and the visuals end. But, yeah,
maybe she put them on trial and didn't just cut them down where they stood. And maybe the moon is made of green cheese. As for abolishing the monarchy, that is Anita's own personal belief that monarchies are bad because 'they teach girls to want to grow up to be princesses'-- when if anything teaches girls that it's things like Disney movies such as Snow White, Cinderella, etc. that show the princess (or soon to be princess) ends up with the handsome prince and they live happily ever after. Real monarchies have been known for politically arranged marriages that have had no love involved for millennia. Lets' also remember that no absolute monarch would ever willingly give up the monarchy out of the goodness of their hearts; even constitutional monarchies of today, like the UK, only did it to prevent themselves from being killed in uprisings or coups by other powerful people in the countries.
One of her favorite resources has a page about her videos, all of them, not just the video games videos. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WebVideo/FeministFrequency it's an interesting read to see just how many tropes she, herself, falls into in her videos.
Some key points mentioned in that page:
Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: Discussed in her videos for True Grit and Veronica Mars.
Actual Pacifist: Her continuous praise of non-violent resolutions in media suggests that she is this. She associates masculinity with violence, and femininity with non-violence, and so incorporates discussion of violence into feminist analysis.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: She approves of it but hasn't gone into detail why. Although she has expressed disappointment in the idea of Equestria being a monarchy, especially in light of Twilight Sparkle ascending to the throne.
Veronica Mars: Praised it for interpreting women (the main character specially) for being tech-savvy and the use of non-violent conflict resolution. Panned the third season for literally villainising feminists.
Those are not necessarily in the order they appear on the page and the My Little Pony part has a spoiler which can be seen by highlighting the text after the phrase 'in light of'.
JimB said:
What, UncleThursday, is a suitably female method for dealing with the plot of the game laid out?
It's not my game idea. And I'm not the one who associates violence with masculinity-- even in the animal kingdom, females of all species are just as prone to violence as males, not just humans. That's all Anita. So, the better question is; why can't she even come up with a suitable for her own past explanations of what is positive for female characters method of making a game design proposal?
