"Internalizing the Oppression"

[Azaraxzealot]

"Internalized Oppression" seems like something that can easily be used to dismiss what someone says, in a way that's hard to defend against. In particular it would be a way to silence someone in your own minority group that isn't agreeing with you.

You can say that for a lot of legitimate arguments, though.

That something can be abused in no way impacts its validity.

You can, but most arguments can offer more than just that argument for their validity. "It can be hard to prove" isn't an argument to be allowed to half ass it.

Internalized oppression has been documented and proven to be a real thing many, many times over, though (look at black slaveowners in the American south pre-civil war). Therefore, the burden of proof is on those who claim "well THAT'S a convenient argument!"

It's documented and proven to be a real thing many many times over? I'd contest that level of proof, and ask you to prove it, but it's not really pertinent in any case. It's proven to be a rare thing in extreme circumstances, like Stockholm Syndrome or Ball Lightning. Sure it's real, but most claims of it are ignorant bullshit.

There are more than enough scholarly articles documenting and proving its existence. If you don't see it or think that its as prevalent as it is, then do I also need to prove racism/sexism as institutions exist? Because you really can't deny that internalized oppression has played a huge part in keeping marginalized groups down (such as gamers' internalized oppression that playing and enjoying games is a childish pastime to be made fun of).

 

[Phasmal]

3: Men are just as misrepresented in media as women; yes, even though so many of those characters are "male power fantasies". It seems no one ever stops to ask the follow-up question though; why are they male power fantasies? The answer?

Results. Marcus Fenix, Kratos, Dante, Bayman, Hayabusa, Link (who is actually specifically designed to appeal to women now, or rather A woman, since the designer of Link has been following his wife's guidance for Link's designs since OoT), even in games like Pokemon with the male Champions and Gym Leaders.

Men are designed like that because those kinds of men get results. Men who look and act like they do get the best selection of women, get the most opportunities with women and have the most, we'll call it "purchasing power", with women. As men, even nerdy, socially isolated men like myself, we're constantly told by women and media (IE: Blogs, women's health articles, dating sites etc.)
that women are really more into guys like Gordon Freeman for example...but then, and I'm going to borrow a phrase here...our "lived experience" is that the Gordon Freemans of the world get to go home alone or get to take home the leftovers, while the Dantes, Links, Marcus Fenixes of get to take home the best of the best and the worthwhile ones.

Um, you know this basically says `I know women say they're not attracted to the Marcus Fenix types but I don't believe them`, right?
Which comes off as a bit weird and patronising.
Marcus Fenix is designed to be someone men want to be. I seriously doubt women's attraction was even a factor in his design.

Also the bolded is the grossest thing I've read in some time.
Do you consider most women in the world to be `leftovers`? Because I assure you most men in the world do not look like Marcus Fenix.
I don't know what your `lived experience` is- but most of the guys I know look more like Gordon Freeman than Marcus Fenix and all of them have girlfriends. I think you'll find that most adults either have or have been in a relationship in their lives.

 

[Ariseishirou]

our "lived experience" is that the Gordon Freemans of the world get to go home alone or get to take home the leftovers, while the Dantes, Links, Marcus Fenixes of get to take home the best of the best and the worthwhile ones.

You, uh, call women who don't look like video game babes "leftovers" who are not "worthwhile" and you wonder why women won't go home with you? Really?

PS: I don't know a single woman (out of the hundreds of gamer women I know) who finds Marcus Fenix attractive. He is absolutely, 100% male power fantasy. Dante? Yes, many. Leon? Yep. But that has a lot to do with the fact that they have pretty faces, not that they're built like brick shithouses (see: Link)(see also: pop stars, actors). The fact that you seem to think Marcus Fenix is some kind of female sexual ideal and not an ideal intended for teenaged boys is absolutely bonkers and makes me wonder if you've had a female friend in your entire life.

 

[wAriot]

Modern society is incredibly superficial, and even those in the side of "social justice" (and I'm not talking about the original authors of the pictures) are guilty of it. The only thing that matters is whether you are fat or thin, whether you are black, white, yellow, purple or green, whether you have a penis or a vagina. We are only going to judge you by these things, and anything else doesn't matter!
Anyway, as others have said before, I'd like to see any definitive proof that these "role models" actually affect the eating habits (or any other habits, really) of people. I've been playing videogames for almost two decades, and I still don't want to look like any of the characters I've played. Anecdotal, I know, but again, I have never met anyone else who did.

Marcus Fenix is designed to be someone men want to be. I seriously doubt women's attraction was even a factor in his design.

I only know a couple of dudebros who want to look like Fenix, much less *be* him. The whole "murderous aliens killing everyone on the planet" usually puts them off.
I personally find Dante much more attractive, and his personality is miles better than Fenix's. Speaking for myself here, but if I had to choose someone to be, it'd probably be him.

 

[Phasmal]

Marcus Fenix is designed to be someone men want to be. I seriously doubt women's attraction was even a factor in his design.

I only know a couple of dudebros who want to look like Fenix, much less *be* him. The whole "murderous aliens killing everyone on the planet" usually puts them off.
I personally find Dante much more attractive, and his personality is miles better than Fenix's. Speaking for myself here, but if I had to choose someone to be, it'd probably be him.

I meant they're meant to want to be him in the context of the game, not generally. No one wants to be Marcus Fenix at the PTA meeting, or Marcus Fenix trapped in traffic. In the context of the game we're given, Marcus Fenix is the person we're supposed to relate with as the super-badass who is gonna sort it all out, if you get me.

Fenix is not attractive at all. Sure, there are probably people attracted to him, but only in the sense that you could anyone and someone in the world will want to bone them. Even if it's a tiny number of people.

Dante is much more attractive, I agree.

 

[Ariseishirou]

PS: I don't know a single woman (out of the hundreds of gamer women I know) who finds Marcus Fenix attractive. He is absolutely, 100% male power fantasy.

To be completely fair, there will be some women who would be attracted to the guy, in the same way that different people like different things - it's just going to be a rare woman who may or may not be more interested in the fact that he's the biggest guy in the room and makes all other men feel slightly uncomfortable. OTOH, she probably has to hide in a cupboard a few times a month until his roid rage passes.

Lol well yeah, and some guys out there are gerontophiles, but that doesn't mean that the next DoA is going to feature an 80-year-old lead character as the "female ideal" just become some small handful of men in the world might get off to that ;p Marcus Fenix is absolutely not the kind of thing the overwhelming majority of women are into, and it breaks any suspension of disbelief I might have that the OP has an iota of what he talking about when he gives Marcus Fenix as an example of a widely-held sex symbol for women.

 

[CaptainMarvelous]

to be fair, while we might complain women (and men) are all peak physical fitness in videogames, most of them are doing enormously physically intensive lifestyles so... they kinda have to be. Range of body types, sure, but you probably want more Rhonda Roussey than Rosie O'Donnell just for gameplay's sake.

Plus, can we kinda put the power fantasy thing to rest? Every game is a power fantasy. I mean, Lara Croft isn't just there to be eye-candy, she's badass, she's guns akimbo, tiger fighting- with the exception of DoA Volleyball, games with playable female characters generally use it as a power fantasy in the whole superhero smashing enemies sense. It might be fucky that the power fantasy involves being crazy hot with giant boobs, but since we also have Marcus Fenix I think it's an even split.

I mean... I can't speak for everyone, but I assumed the shirtless men are there to appeal to the women in the audience.

 

[Ariseishirou]

to be fair, while we might complain women (and men) are all peak physical fitness in videogames, most of them are doing enormously physically intensive lifestyles so... they kinda have to be. Range of body types, sure, but you probably want more Rhonda Roussey than Rosie O'Donnell just for gameplay's sake.

I think you've touched on something that annoys me more than the fat versus skinny debate; I think it's a good point that it isn't realistic for someone who is morbidly obese to be doing the kinds of things we see video game characters doing, but... it's not like female video game characters look like Rhonda Roussey, either. Even the new Lara Croft doesn't half an upper body half as developed as the female rock-climbers and gymnasts I know, and yet she can do muscle-ups and backflips with the best of them. She looks like a skinny, marginally athletic girl, yet can do things (i.e. muscle-ups) that most _men_ can't do. To be sure, I do know women that can do these things, but they look more like Rhonda than Lara. I myself can do a lot of the things female video game characters can do, like pullups from a dead hang and running a mile at a near sprint, but as a result my body has very visible muscle definition, which 99% of female video game characters do not.

So while it's more "realistic" to have skinny models than very fat ones doing the things you see in a video game, those skinny models aren't actually all that realistic, either.

 

[Something Amyss]

I clicked on this topic by mistake, and ended up reading a bit before I realised this wasn't the thread I wanted. But this:

You, uh, call women who don't look like video game babes "leftovers" who are not "worthwhile" and you wonder why women won't go home with you? Really?

Caught my eye. Actually, moreso than the post that spawned it.

I can't think of how sad it is that the text in question, the stuff that was responded to, is basically what I've come to accept as "price of admission." Not exactly internalised oppression, but certainly a kissing cousin.

 

[McElroy]

I think you've touched on something that annoys me more than the fat versus skinny debate; I think it's a good point that it isn't realistic for someone who is morbidly obese to be doing the kinds of things we see video game characters doing, but... it's not like female video game characters look like Rhonda Roussey, either. Even the new Lara Croft doesn't half an upper body half as developed as the female rock-climbers and gymnasts I know, and yet she can do muscle-ups and backflips with the best of them. She looks like a skinny, marginally athletic girl, yet can do things (i.e. muscle-ups) that most _men_ can't do. To be sure, I do know women that can do these things, but they look more like Rhonda than Lara. I myself can do a lot of the things female video game characters can do, like pullups from a dead hang and running a mile at a near sprint, but as a result my body has very visible muscle definition, which 99% of female video game characters do not.

So while it's more "realistic" to have skinny models than very fat ones doing the things you see in a video game, those skinny models aren't actually all that realistic, either.

Yeah, it's like I pointed out in the "parent thread" with Christie and Eddy being competing fighters despite Eddy being a head taller and 40 kilos heavier. A delicate dancer against a brawler titan, basically.

Anyway, I have to ask what you consider as "near sprint"? Is that a 6-minute mile? 5? 4? If we're being accurate, running 800m in 1m 46s is still near sprint.

 

[mecegirl]

to be fair, while we might complain women (and men) are all peak physical fitness in videogames, most of them are doing enormously physically intensive lifestyles so... they kinda have to be. Range of body types, sure, but you probably want more Rhonda Roussey than Rosie O'Donnell just for gameplay's sake.

I think you've touched on something that annoys me more than the fat versus skinny debate; I think it's a good point that it isn't realistic for someone who is morbidly obese to be doing the kinds of things we see video game characters doing, but... it's not like female video game characters look like Rhonda Roussey, either. Even the new Lara Croft doesn't half an upper body half as developed as the female rock-climbers and gymnasts I know, and yet she can do muscle-ups and backflips with the best of them. She looks like a skinny, marginally athletic girl, yet can do things (i.e. muscle-ups) that most _men_ can't do. To be sure, I do know women that can do these things, but they look more like Rhonda than Lara. I myself can do a lot of the things female video game characters can do, like pullups from a dead hang and running a mile at a near sprint, but as a result my body has very visible muscle definition, which 99% of female video game characters do not.

So while it's more "realistic" to have skinny models than very fat ones doing the things you see in a video game, those skinny models aren't actually all that realistic, either.

All of this! I wouldn't use the term skinny for most women who are highly athletic. Slender maybe. But when you look at Olympic level female gymnasts they are pretty ripped. And most are pretty young(you have to at least be 16) and retire early now days. Women don't get super bulky but we do gain mucle definition if we are highly athletic. All the more if we have been so for years on end.

And then you have to account for body type. Not all women have the capacity to be skinny. The same goes for men, some just have larger frames. A woman like Serena Williams will never be skinny, but no one can claim that she isn't highly active with all the championships she's won. Her level of activity has nothing to do with why she's broader than most female tennis players. So what happens if a female character is put in a role that has less to do with agility? What if she's a tank? Can she be bigger, or even overweight then and still be considered realistic/athletic? Sports like baseball and especially American football have overweight and even obese players. Heavy weightlifters tend to look a lot softer than one would expect. We don't really rag on them for not being athletic, but if some saw them out of uniform they might. So maybe if the roles female characters are given in games were expanded then it could be realistic.

 

[Ariseishirou]

Yeah, it's like I pointed out in the "parent thread" with Christie and Eddy being competing fighters despite Eddy being a head taller and 40 kilos heavier. A delicate dancer against a brawler titan, basically.

Anyway, I have to ask what you consider as "near sprint"? Is that a 6-minute mile? 5? 4? If we're being accurate, running 800m in 1m 46s is still near sprint.

At least in fighting games you've got tiny guys fighting men who would be way out of their weight class, too. With protagonists you've got someone like Nathan Drake who is slim but decidedly muscular enough to do what he does, while female protagonists seem to be able to free climb using arms only with no visible upper body muscle whatsoever. More realistic than a morbidly obese girl doing it? Sure. Realistic? No. Not at all.

A sprint is running at 80-100% of your maximum speed, so your time would depend on how fast you, personally, can run (taking into account age, sex, leg strength, form, etc.), but you still have to be in excellent physical condition to maintain that speed for a mile. I know many women who can pull that off, myself included, but not one of us manages it without visible leg muscle definition. Yet you've got female video game characters with legs as smooth as butter sprinting for hours, because... ...that's what's hot, I guess? Again, it might be more realistic than a morbidly obese girl doing the same, but it's still not actually realistic in any way.

 

[Ariseishirou]

to be fair, while we might complain women (and men) are all peak physical fitness in videogames, most of them are doing enormously physically intensive lifestyles so... they kinda have to be. Range of body types, sure, but you probably want more Rhonda Roussey than Rosie O'Donnell just for gameplay's sake.

I think you've touched on something that annoys me more than the fat versus skinny debate; I think it's a good point that it isn't realistic for someone who is morbidly obese to be doing the kinds of things we see video game characters doing, but... it's not like female video game characters look like Rhonda Roussey, either. Even the new Lara Croft doesn't half an upper body half as developed as the female rock-climbers and gymnasts I know, and yet she can do muscle-ups and backflips with the best of them. She looks like a skinny, marginally athletic girl, yet can do things (i.e. muscle-ups) that most _men_ can't do. To be sure, I do know women that can do these things, but they look more like Rhonda than Lara. I myself can do a lot of the things female video game characters can do, like pullups from a dead hang and running a mile at a near sprint, but as a result my body has very visible muscle definition, which 99% of female video game characters do not.

So while it's more "realistic" to have skinny models than very fat ones doing the things you see in a video game, those skinny models aren't actually all that realistic, either.

All of this! I wouldn't use the term skinny for most women who are highly athletic. Slender maybe. But when you look at Olympic level female gymnasts they are pretty ripped. And most are pretty young(you have to at least be 16) and retire early now days. Women don't get super bulky but we do gain mucle definition if we are highly athletic. All the more if we have been so for years on end.

And then you have to account for body type. Not all women have the capacity to be skinny. The same goes for men, some just have larger frames. A woman like Serena Williams will never be skinny, but no one can claim that she isn't highly active with all the championships she's won. Her level of activity has nothing to do with why she's broader than most female tennis players. So what happens if a female character is put in a role that has less to do with agility? What if she's a tank? Can she be bigger, or even overweight then and still be considered realistic/athletic? Sports like baseball and especially American football have overweight and even obese players. Heavy weightlifters tend to look a lot softer than one would expect. We don't really rag on them for not being athletic, but if some saw them out of uniform they might. So maybe if the roles female characters are given in games were expanded then it could be realistic.

The lack of variation of body types within the "fit" or athletic or powerful range for female characters in video games puts to the lie any assertion that this about what's "realistic." Just because it may not be realistic to have a fat Rikku doing backflips or a fat Lara free climbing a sheer cliff face doesn't mean that designers aren't all too happy to discard realism to have a petite girl wield a huge broadsword or have a woman with baby-smooth legs run a marathon (her DDD-cups bouncing all the way). If it were about realism we'd get lithe but hard runners with almost no breasts, strong-fat tanks wielding heavy weapons, etc., just like we do with male characters. But it's not and it never was.

Idk I get why they do it - they think these character designs will appeal more to their largest audience, which is heterosexual males - and that's fair enough, but trying to rationalize it away as "realism" is spinning the ol' hamster wheel so hard it could power the eastern seaboard.

 

[Paragon Fury]

our "lived experience" is that the Gordon Freemans of the world get to go home alone or get to take home the leftovers, while the Dantes, Links, Marcus Fenixes of get to take home the best of the best and the worthwhile ones.

You, uh, call women who don't look like video game babes "leftovers" who are not "worthwhile" and you wonder why women won't go home with you? Really?

PS: I don't know a single woman (out of the hundreds of gamer women I know) who finds Marcus Fenix attractive. He is absolutely, 100% male power fantasy. Dante? Yes, many. Leon? Yep. But that has a lot to do with the fact that they have pretty faces, not that they're built like brick shithouses (see: Link)(see also: pop stars, actors). The fact that you seem to think Marcus Fenix is some kind of female sexual ideal and not an ideal intended for teenaged boys is absolutely bonkers and makes me wonder if you've had a female friend in your entire life.

1: I wasn't saying women have to look like video game characters; that is a pretty big leap. What I was saying was that many video game females don't have bodies that are that unrealistic - IE: Helena, Riku, Cortana from the original article.

2: It was a harsh phrasing, but yes. Go into a bar, a club, a convention, a classroom or basically any social activity and its not terribly hard if you've had any practice to basically take all the women and men in there and figure out the ones whom everyone willing be trying to get the attention of. The "leftovers" are the men and women at the bottom who very few if anyone will be or want to be interested in until the ones closer to the top are either taken or they realize that they don't have a chance.

And yes, I know I'm one of the leftovers. I don't have the money, the looks and I have the social skills and charisma of a sack of potatoes; I know exactly what my purchasing power in the world is as far as this goes, and I know its very low - I've never said anything otherwise.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Well those bodies ARE unrealistic. Just like someone else in this thread said. Around 90% of women are physically incapable of getting those bodies, no matter how hard they try. And that's without taking into account that getting a skinny figure AND giant tits is damn near impossible.

You'd be surprised at how many people have an obvious flaw in some sense, crooked teeth, funny shaped nose, charismatic as a sack of bricks. Very and I mean VERY few people meet these high video game expectations that you have. You'd be better off having your expectations tempered to be a bit more realistic.

 

[mecegirl]

our "lived experience" is that the Gordon Freemans of the world get to go home alone or get to take home the leftovers, while the Dantes, Links, Marcus Fenixes of get to take home the best of the best and the worthwhile ones.

You, uh, call women who don't look like video game babes "leftovers" who are not "worthwhile" and you wonder why women won't go home with you? Really?

PS: I don't know a single woman (out of the hundreds of gamer women I know) who finds Marcus Fenix attractive. He is absolutely, 100% male power fantasy. Dante? Yes, many. Leon? Yep. But that has a lot to do with the fact that they have pretty faces, not that they're built like brick shithouses (see: Link)(see also: pop stars, actors). The fact that you seem to think Marcus Fenix is some kind of female sexual ideal and not an ideal intended for teenaged boys is absolutely bonkers and makes me wonder if you've had a female friend in your entire life.

1: I wasn't saying women have to look like video game characters; that is a pretty big leap. What I was saying was that many video game females don't have bodies that are that unrealistic - IE: Helena, Riku, Cortana from the original article.

2: It was a harsh phrasing, but yes. Go into a bar, a club, a convention, a classroom or basically any social activity and its not terribly hard if you've had any practice to basically take all the women and men in there and figure out the ones whom everyone willing be trying to get the attention of. The "leftovers" are the men and women at the bottom who very few if anyone will be or want to be interested in until the ones closer to the top are either taken or they realize that they don't have a chance.

And yes, I know I'm one of the leftovers. I don't have the money, the looks and I have the social skills and charisma of a sack of potatoes; I know exactly what my purchasing power in the world is as far as this goes, and I know its very low - I've never said anything otherwise.

Part of the problem people are having with your statements is that you say nothing of the people in the middle. Which is horribly melodramatic. The world isn't divided into 10 and 1's. There are a lot of people in the middle. And they do just fine in the relationship and or hook up department.

 

[mecegirl]

In fact by definition the world is mostly 4's, 5's, and 6's.

Gordan Freeman isn't even ugly. Some would consider him slightly above average. Have you ever heard the term Hollywood ugly(it mostly relates the homely girl who gets a makeover in romance movies)? I feel like that's what he could be considered. Not at all ugly when compared to "normal" people but not really average either? I don't know why Paragon singled him out in his example. A guy who looked like him would have no trouble getting a date with a woman that he had a good rapport with.

 

[Something Amyss]

Have you ever heard the term Hollywood ugly(it mostly relates the homely girl who gets a makeover in romance movies)?

You mean the one with the girl who has all the clothes I like magically transforms by getting rid of them and lowering her hair?

I feel like that's what he could be considered. I don't know why Paragon singled him out in his example. A guy who looked like him would have no trouble getting a date with a woman that he had a good rapport with.

Actually, Gordon's the third part of that trope. How did I forget the glasses? Take a knockout, put glasses on them, and BOOM! Ugly character. Or, in the case of Hollywood with men, it's usually instant nerd more than instant ugly.