Gena Davis institute on Gender in media tries to link violent games to mass shootings and police violence

Silvanus

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Neil chased out a female character artist and the lead female writer for the uncharted series because neither woman was "woke" enough for lack of a better term. He wanted them to write the characters and design the characters a certain way, and both women told him that those ideas were bad. So he had them removed from the company. Amy Henning commented about it either on twitter or in some interviews but I don't remember exactly where it was.
We know fuck all about why Amy Hennig left, owing to a non-disclosure agreement. We certainly have no reliable reason to think it's because of insufficient "woke".


No I think it is for two primary reasons.

1. Men are usually the bigger stars in the movies/TV show. Therefore they are the driving force of the films and thus play the heroes. Money is big driver for this as hollywood is determined to cling to the most successful tropes.
Uhrm, "men are the bigger stars" is.... just restating the issue.

2. As i mentioned before. Women actually like this trope. You might not believe it, but you only need to glance through the romance section of your local bookstore to see that this is true. Not only do romance novels in particular and see that the plots are always about girls getting saved, but also that the vast majority of these books are AUTHORED and READ by women. So if women are writing this trope AND buying into this trope, what other conclusion could there be that it is simply a good and desirable trope that women enjoy?
I would maybe say it's not a good idea to base your conclusions about the kind of art that 51% of the global population enjoy on the romance section of a bookstore.

Much like if I based what men enjoy on the sci fi section of a bookstore, I'd conclude men only enjoy shitty video-game tie in novels.

Reductionist in what way? Take any story, any plot, no matter how complicated you make all the surrounding elements the CORE of the stories will ALWAYS fall into those 7 archtypes. This is a well known thing. Of course you have to reduce a plot to the core premise, but that is merely a tool to see where the story fits.
You can force them to fit those archetypes. You could also make them fit 2 or 3 "basic stories" if you pushed hard enough, and stripped away enough of the details, complexities, and differentiating factors.

The point is that these basic story archetypes haven't stopped countless writers producing fiction that doesn't involve men and women in super-traditional archetypal roles.
 

Casual Shinji

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We know fuck all about why Amy Hennig left, owing to a non-disclosure agreement. We certainly have no reliable reason to think it's because of insufficient "woke".
Yeah, but Druckmann drew so much ridiculous hatred during the pre-release of TLoU2 that people just started to make shit up so they could get even more angry. The generally accepted story before the hate was that Henning and Richmond weren't making Uncharted 4 work the way the studio heads wanted it to, removed them from the project, put Druckmann and Straley on it after the massive succes of TLoU, and then Henning and Richmond left Naughty Dog probably due to feeling slighted after having the project that by that point they certainly invested years in taken away from them. From Henning especially I can understand, since she was the one who made Uncharted what it is.

But because he made TLoU2 bad, and even worse, "woke", Druckmann apparently did all the bad stuff; He drove Henning away, he stole TLoU from her, he made girls ugly on purpose, he modeled himself in the game to spit on Joel, he personally mo-capped the sex scene with Abby because he has a crush on the actor Laura Bailey. Meanwhile none of these people said anything about the bad stuff that actually happened, like him being complicit in Naughty Dog's immense crunch culture.
 

CriticalGaming

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Which characters then do you define as having been uglified?
That goes in part to the despite the original character artist i previously mentioned. Ellie originally was going to be a very different character cosmetically. And Neil pushed to make her much younger. They also altered the bodies of the original model for adult Ellie, Dina, and Abby. Namely lowered breast size and smashed the faces a bit.

I dont know that i would call it "uglified" exactly. But it is an alter of the real person used for the model in order to supposedly reduce their appeal visually.
 

CriticalGaming

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Uhrm, "men are the bigger stars" is.... just restating the issue.
How is that an issue? It's not an issue. Celebrities make money based off the box office draw that they have, just like professional athletes.

Crub your sexism at the door and think rationally and realistically. What female movie star draws the biggest crowd? Do any of them pull a bigger audience than someone like...I dunno The Rock? The answer is no. It's not sexism, it's the reality of business, end of story.

What you expect is equality of outcome, which isn't how the world works. So no, men being the bigger stars, is not the issue. There are plenty of female led franchises and films that still don't hold a candle to what other movie stars bring in. It's not sexism either because these female driven franchises are still very successful.

Why do you think nobody watches the WNBA? Do you think it's because the entire sports loving public is sexist? Or is it because they are bad at the game, and are not nearly as entertaining to watch at the NBA players are?

I would maybe say it's not a good idea to base your conclusions about the kind of art that 51% of the global population enjoy on the romance section of a bookstore.

Much like if I based what men enjoy on the sci fi section of a bookstore, I'd conclude men only enjoy shitty video-game tie in novels.
I don't know what your argument here is. I presented evidence that proves that women enjoy a trope you say is a problem because that trope is mostly applied to female characters. And then I showcased that despite that trope, most women don't have a problem with it, and even enjoy it.

I don't know how comparing that to men in a sci-fi section has any relevance.

You can force them to fit those archetypes. You could also make them fit 2 or 3 "basic stories" if you pushed hard enough, and stripped away enough of the details, complexities, and differentiating factors.
That's the point yes. It's like the nucleus of a cell. These basic principals are the core of a story that make everything else around it work. Without a core the story doesn't work, it becomes disjointed and doesn't make sense.

The point is that these basic story archetypes haven't stopped countless writers producing fiction that doesn't involve men and women in super-traditional archetypal roles.
In what way. Do you have examples of these and archetypal roles? Because the gender of the Archetype doesn't really matter. If a character fits into an archetype then they are an archetype regardless of sexual characteristics. There is nothing about archetypes that require a specific gender. They are merely templates that characters are based around.
 

CriticalGaming

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Yeah, but Druckmann drew so much ridiculous hatred during the pre-release of TLoU2 that people just started to make shit up so they could get even more angry. The generally accepted story before the hate was that Henning and Richmond weren't making Uncharted 4 work the way the studio heads wanted it to, removed them from the project, put Druckmann and Straley on it after the massive succes of TLoU, and then Henning and Richmond left Naughty Dog probably due to feeling slighted after having the project that by that point they certainly invested years in taken away from them. From Henning especially I can understand, since she was the one who made Uncharted what it is.
Henning also did a lot of the writing on TLOU1's original script as well IIRC. Because both Uncharted 4 and TLOU were being put together conceptually around the same time. Though I think Henning was ultimately pulled off TLOU because of Druckmann's vision for the game and she went to work on Uncharted 4 exclusively only to also be removed from that. Regardless of the ultimate reasoning, I think creative differences was a clear factor for Henning's departure. She didn't want to write what they told her for whatever reason, likely because she didn't think it would be any good and not necessarily because "wokeness".

But because he made TLoU2 bad, and even worse, "woke", Druckmann apparently did all the bad stuff; He drove Henning away, he stole TLoU from her, he made girls ugly on purpose, he modeled himself in the game to spit on Joel, he personally mo-capped the sex scene with Abby because he has a crush on the actor Laura Bailey. Meanwhile none of these people said anything about the bad stuff that actually happened, like him being complicit in Naughty Dog's immense crunch culture.
Don't forget that Naughty Dog also had bad pipes that nearly fell on people during some sort of construction or repairs or some shit going down.

Yes it's funny how a lot of times the focus is on the superficial shit that doesn't really matter. Let's not address Crunch periods, or Blizzard's countless reports of sexual assault. No! You know what the real problem is!? This dragon girl in a bikini!
 
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tstorm823

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The answer is no. It's not sexism, it's the reality of business, end of story.
I mean, being the reality of business doesn't make something not sexism. The reality of business in entertainment is that people do discriminate between male and female performers, both in the industries and the audience.
 
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Casual Shinji

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Henning also did a lot of the writing on TLOU1's original script as well IIRC. Because both Uncharted 4 and TLOU were being put together conceptually around the same time. Though I think Henning was ultimately pulled off TLOU because of Druckmann's vision for the game and she went to work on Uncharted 4 exclusively only to also be removed from that. Regardless of the ultimate reasoning, I think creative differences was a clear factor for Henning's departure. She didn't want to write what they told her for whatever reason, likely because she didn't think it would be any good and not necessarily because "wokeness".
That doesn't make any sense time wise, since TLoU, or the project that would eventually become TLoU, began developement right after Uncharted 2. Henning was busy writing Uncharted 3, so why would she be writing TLoU? After Uncharted 2 Naughty Dog split up its developers; one team would go for the surefire financial success that was the next Uncharted (3), and the other team would be allowed to try something else, which sorta started out with a new Jak game but quickly became TLoU.

There's clear evidence that Henning (and Richmond) were leading Uncharted 4 until they were removed, there's zero evidence that Henning wrote anything for TLoU any more than there is for Druckmann writing for Uncharted 3. It's also easy to tell by their writing style; Henning doesn't do much character depth, but is more sharp and witty in her dialoge (Uncharted 1, 2, and 3). Druckmann does focus a lot on character/relationship building and depth, but has zero talent for wit (TLoU1 and 2, and Uncharted 4). And yes, while Henning was the writer for Uncharted 4 nearly all of that was scrapped once she left the project.

I think there was at one point an idea to make a section in Uncharted 2 that saw Drake escorting a young girl who was either mute or blind, which was dropped, and that served as the initial spark for TLoU, but that's about as much influence Henning had on the writing of that game.
 

CriticalGaming

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I think there was at one point an idea to make a section in Uncharted 2 that saw Drake escorting a young girl who was either mute or blind, which was dropped, and that served as the initial spark for TLoU, but that's about as much influence Henning had on the writing of that game.
Scenarios are written for games long before development begins. But yeah maybe they just took work she work for Uncharted and adapted it into TLOU, that's certainly possible. Either way I think we can agree that the work environment at Naughty Dog wasn't great at the best of times.
 
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Casual Shinji

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Either way I think we can agree that the work environment at Naughty Dog wasn't great at the best of times.
There were already stories about ND bleeding talent right after the first Last of Us was released. It's why Bruce Straley, responsible for some of Naughty Dog's best games, left the company. Because right after Uncharted 2 he was put on The Last of Us (apparently already a crunch nightmare), and right after that he was tasked with saving Uncharted 4, which seemingly was a giant trash fire under Henning and Richmond.

I don't think Straley is even working in the industry anymore due to the workhorse treatment he received while at Naughty Dog. But that's just me speculating.
 
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MrCalavera

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Oh for fuck... Will the GamersTM be over Sarkeesian by the 2030's maybe?
With Taliban back in power i expect Sarkesiaan gaining new relevancy in 2030s, kickstarting Gamergate 2, because time is a flat circle
 

Agema

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With Taliban back in power i expect Sarkesiaan gaining new relevancy in 2030s, kickstarting Gamergate 2, because time is a flat circle
Well, she is to a considerable extent just a typical Web 2.0 dilettante looking for something to get some views, in our democratised media environment where the art is spouting opinions for attention rather than insight.

After all, profundity is so 20th century elitism. Andy Warhol's "15 minutes of fame" needed the internet to properly take off.
 
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Buyetyen

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How is that an issue? It's not an issue. Celebrities make money based off the box office draw that they have, just like professional athletes.

Crub your sexism at the door and think rationally and realistically. What female movie star draws the biggest crowd? Do any of them pull a bigger audience than someone like...I dunno The Rock? The answer is no. It's not sexism, it's the reality of business, end of story.
Translation: "I have no desire to understand what informs these phenomena because the implications make me uncomfortable."
 
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Silvanus

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How is that an issue? It's not an issue. Celebrities make money based off the box office draw that they have, just like professional athletes.

Crub your sexism at the door and think rationally and realistically. What female movie star draws the biggest crowd? Do any of them pull a bigger audience than someone like...I dunno The Rock? The answer is no. It's not sexism, it's the reality of business, end of story.
OK, OK OK OK stop a second.

Firstly: I'm enjoying the irony that you're arguing that things shouldn't be considered sexist, yet the only one of the two of us who has actually directly accused someone ot sexism... is you.

Secondly: several actresses gross more than The Rock. Scarlet Johanssen for one. But that's not really relevant. Male actors who don't gross well at all get heroic saviour roles, while women who gross far better get to be saved.

Writers have not looked at who grosses best and written their scripts around that. They've written their scripts around old, tired tropes about what genders fit what roles.

What you expect is equality of outcome, which isn't how the world works. So no, men being the bigger stars, is not the issue. There are plenty of female led franchises and films that still don't hold a candle to what other movie stars bring in. It's not sexism either because these female driven franchises are still very successful.
I'm not expecting equality of outcome. I'm requesting that writing not be so tremendously lazy as to endlessly lean on age-old tropes about what men and women can do.

"The world works" the way people make it work. It isn't some immutable law of the universe than men save women and women just sit passively and wait to be saved. Bollocks.


I don't know what your argument here is. I presented evidence that proves that women enjoy a trope you say is a problem because that trope is mostly applied to female characters. And then I showcased that despite that trope, most women don't have a problem with it, and even enjoy it.
My argument is that you didn't prove that. You proved that there's an audience for trashy romance, and you seem to have extrapolated from that that all women like these tired old tropes, so we shouldn't bother to make anything else or challenge them.

I don't know how comparing that to men in a sci-fi section has any relevance.
It's literally the same logic. An audience exists for some kind of trashy fiction. So it's just as valid to say "men like trashy video game tie-in novels" as it is to say "women like stereotypical trope-filled romance".

That's the point yes. It's like the nucleus of a cell. These basic principals are the core of a story that make everything else around it work. Without a core the story doesn't work, it becomes disjointed and doesn't make sense.
Yes. And there could be 3, or there could be 50, depending on how hard you push.

In what way. Do you have examples of these and archetypal roles? Because the gender of the Archetype doesn't really matter. If a character fits into an archetype then they are an archetype regardless of sexual characteristics. There is nothing about archetypes that require a specific gender. They are merely templates that characters are based around.
The gender doesn't matter, eh? Then why is it always women?

Like when you go into a kids toy shop, and find all the boys toys involve soldiers, monsters, fire trucks, cops and robbers. And all the girls toys involve princesses, housewife barbies, hair accessories.

Tell me that's nothing to do with stereotypical ideas of what genders like/ do.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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It isn't. Thus your whole argument is based on a false premise. Do the homework next time instead of relying on hearsay from trolls.
Yeh because her position of "Games contain "sexist" stuff and are the reason for actually far more serious stuff that happens in real life" is so much of a better position right? It's just Jack Thompson esc rhetoric with an extra step in the middle the equivalent of going "Games cause increased aggression response and increased aggression response leads to mass shootings".
 

tstorm823

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And your proof of this is.....?
I don't think I need to prove that to you. You said it yourself, that it's the reality of business.

I'll give my favorite example though: Annie Oakley. Oakley is famously portrayed in the musical Annie Get Your Gun. In the musical, she's a great sharpshooter who falls for another sharpshooter, Frank Butler, who isn't immediately interested. Over time, he falls for her but repeatedly runs from her because she's more talented than he is and his ego can't bear it. Ultimately, they end up together only when she deliberately loses a shootoff with him so that he can have his girl and be the star of the show.

In reality, Frank Butler was a sharpshooter who lost to a younger and more talented Oakley the first time they met, he fell for her, got her to join the travelling show he was in, they got married, he gladly acted as her sidekick, and after she died he didn't know what to do without her so he just stopped eating and died himself.

The musical centers around the line "you can't get a man with a gun", because the theme is that guys want dainty and untalented women. In reality, Annie Oakley got not just a man with a gun, but her entire life and career too, with people to this day questioning how she could be so accurate with the technology of the time.

So like, there are a few reasons I love the example. 1) There's zero question of whether the message of the musical is sexist. "Women can be more talented than men, but they shouldn't" is not a theme any reasonable person can say isn't sexist. You can't get lost in questions about the real differences between men and women in there, Annie Oakley in the musical is more talented than Frank Butler, and for the sake of their love has to pretend not to be. 2) The contrast with reality is so blatant, entertainment really is worse to women than reality. In real life, Oakley was famous and celebrated, and then they made a musical about her and did her dirty. 3) That musical was conceived of by a woman, written about a woman, and presumably targeted at an audience of women. There's no argument that Annie Get Your Gun was made to fulfill male fantasies. Put it all together, the fiction is full of sexism, far more than reality, because for some reason that's the fantasy both sexes want to watch.
 
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CriticalGaming

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Like when you go into a kids toy shop, and find all the boys toys involve soldiers, monsters, fire trucks, cops and robbers. And all the girls toys involve princesses, housewife barbies, hair accessories.
Who says the military toys, trucks, nerf guns, and all that crap is for boys? Is there something that says girls can't play with them? Is there something that says boys can't have barbies?

Or is it that kid just gravitate towards that shit naturally? Marketing can only explain so much, because marketing picks up on the trends and highlights the market in which their sales are already gravitating towards. If a company sees boys buying the toys more often than not, than naturally the marketing is going t focus on that to keep encouraging the sales.

That's why car commerials don't really play during Soap Operas and daytime talk shows. Because the house-wife market isn't likely to go out an buy a Big fucking truck.

Stereotypes exist for a reason, they aren't made up out of thin fucking air otherwise they would be too rare to be called stereotypes.

You keep wanting to fight against reality of preference as if those things only exist due to some non-existant law or social pressure. As opposed to just the fact that people genuinely gravitate towards certain things and sometimes sex/gender has a big part in desiding a person's interests.

It's inventing a problem for no reason because you feel like it should be classified as a problem.