Jimquisition: Accepting the Isms
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
What M19 said:JudgeGame said:
Exactly! This isn't Mario... Horror is supposed to be horrible. Do you know how many 'offensive' things I've seen on the Walking Dead TV show? But they were supposed to be offensive. Horror isn't there to elicit feelings of goodwill and comfort, if it does then it's failed the genre. Considering how campy, over-the-top and silly the zombie side of the horror genre can get. A mutilated torso in a bikini is exactly on par with what I would expect from it; whether it be a product from a game, movie or just a novelty in Spenser's Gifts at the mall.m19 said:
Saying that someone does not see an issue in something does not necessary translate into stating that there is no issue at all, as Jim painfully points out.
It is a matter of that person's opinion that they are not offended by the "ism" on hand, however, they might have not spent breath or ink in acknowledging that said "ism" may be offensive to others.
If we go that path, then everything we say must be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer: "hey, I love avocadoes, but I recognise that their cold slimyness may be insulting to someone else's tastebuds"; that is a ridiculous situation and one that oversimplifies that person's intent and strips it off the other elements. On the internet we may need to take things at face value, if someone does not see a problem with a female zombie torso he must have a problem acknowledging social "isms", but that is plain wrong in real life.
For the record, I do not see a problem with said zombie torso, large tits or no, I have never played Dead Island and I don't think I ever will, but that does not preclude my ability to recognise that the torso may offend people (for whatever reason they might find offensive) and that does not make me a douchebag.
It is a matter of that person's opinion that they are not offended by the "ism" on hand, however, they might have not spent breath or ink in acknowledging that said "ism" may be offensive to others.
If we go that path, then everything we say must be accompanied by some sort of disclaimer: "hey, I love avocadoes, but I recognise that their cold slimyness may be insulting to someone else's tastebuds"; that is a ridiculous situation and one that oversimplifies that person's intent and strips it off the other elements. On the internet we may need to take things at face value, if someone does not see a problem with a female zombie torso he must have a problem acknowledging social "isms", but that is plain wrong in real life.
For the record, I do not see a problem with said zombie torso, large tits or no, I have never played Dead Island and I don't think I ever will, but that does not preclude my ability to recognise that the torso may offend people (for whatever reason they might find offensive) and that does not make me a douchebag.
I think there's another cravat to this discussion which people forget: Developers are people too.
Developers, like everybody else, make mistakes. They screw up.
They put a slut-shaming side-quest in their game.
They use the titillation of beating up kinky nuns for promotion.
They allow their strong, independent female heroine to be threatened with rape.
They package their special edition with a lump of plastic with breasts attached.
...
And you know what? That's perfectly okay, so long as they acknowledge the mistake, apologize and, most importantly, don't do it again. Just because a developer includes questionable content, doesn't mean that they support it's contextualization, nor does it mean the rest of the game is rife with the -ism.
We've bred this all-or-nothing-culture: If we're not defending a developer with our very last breath, were sending them death threats and bombing all of their efforts on Metacritic. Why? To what end is this exactly?
Like Jim said in the video, no middle ground. No ability to recognize where a game has merits, no realization of where it has flaws. It's either the patron saint of video games, or it's the digital holocaust.
Herd mentality. That's all I have to say.
Developers, like everybody else, make mistakes. They screw up.
They put a slut-shaming side-quest in their game.
They use the titillation of beating up kinky nuns for promotion.
They allow their strong, independent female heroine to be threatened with rape.
They package their special edition with a lump of plastic with breasts attached.
...
And you know what? That's perfectly okay, so long as they acknowledge the mistake, apologize and, most importantly, don't do it again. Just because a developer includes questionable content, doesn't mean that they support it's contextualization, nor does it mean the rest of the game is rife with the -ism.
We've bred this all-or-nothing-culture: If we're not defending a developer with our very last breath, were sending them death threats and bombing all of their efforts on Metacritic. Why? To what end is this exactly?
Like Jim said in the video, no middle ground. No ability to recognize where a game has merits, no realization of where it has flaws. It's either the patron saint of video games, or it's the digital holocaust.
Herd mentality. That's all I have to say.
It seems I've been successfully avoiding bad sites, because no matter where I look, these ism's are always pointed out and discussed to their fullest. The gaming industry does seem to address these issues properly, with only a vocal minority screaming murder and denying everything.
Not a mistake when looked at while keeping in mind the right context and not really sexist either. Emphasizing that the event shaped an already existing (although already extremely sexist) female heroine and spouting nonsense like "You're going to want to protect her" is where the sexism popped up and this influenced the view of that scene. The rest of the list you mentioned is just full-blown sexist though.SecsNoises said:
It's not challenging to offend someone. It doesn't take any skill or cunning, pretty much anyone could do it if they wanted to. Just because it's someone's intention to offend doesn't make it a worthy goal. You can't defend something merely on the grounds that "that's what they intended to do". A racist certainly intends to offend people when he shouts slurs.xPixelatedx said:
It's not Mario, but then again, it ain't exactly the MoMA either. Some of the issues being raised with these debates are very touchy, but they are being tackled with very little tact, insight or thought. You can't defend the torso on grounds such as "it's challenging our sensibilities" like it's something by Damien Hirst. It's not like Triumph of the Will or Birth of a Nation, where you can distance yourself from the message and admire the skill that went into producing them.
Compare and contrast it with Silent Hill 2, which featured the sexy nurses. Noone is complaining about them. Why? Because they are important if you consider their role within the context of the game. They have a good reason to be there, the game would be lesser without them. I don't think anyone was offended by them, because they weren't there for titillation or meaningless shock tactics.
Horror is meant to unsettle us, but there is no reason that we need to alienate a particular group of people while doing so.
That's funny, because I made this game about a planet called Msicar with two races. One is dark-skinned, really likes KFC and is made to work in the cott- space fluff fields by the other.wizzy555 said:
The other race all have really big noses, are obsessed with money and say 'Oy' a lot.
If anybody complains, I'll just tell them it's part of the culture of Msicar and therefore must be alright. Honestly, I don't see why that would be offensive.
It is quite a logical one, and here is an argument!GAunderrated said:
Skyrim sells itself as an RPG, which is to say, it sells itself on giving the player choices for their character. Unfortunately, for a lot of the quests, there aren't actual choices. You just get railroaded from beginning to end, and often the only choice is to either keep following the quest or stop and get no reward. Not doing the quests might as well be the same as not playing the game.
I can't help but think that these are the same guys who made a Fallout game, who managed to cater to a whole range of play styles, opinions and character choices. If this were Fallout, or indeed a well written RPG, we'd get a choice to condemn the slut shaming and cannibalism (and get rewarded for it). Whether it was simply too much effort to provide branching dialogue, or just a refusal to be too much like Fallout, the result is a role playing game which lets you choose how you dress and fight, but forces you to be one kind of person; a hero of the people, but also kind of a prejudiced dick.
So we've established it has sex appeal.m19 said:
Is it that much of a logical stretch to see the relation between sex appeal and violence against a female body and notice the symbolic association with sexual violence against women. You know, that thing that is talked about on the news and is a serious problem in practically every country on the planet.
Like Jim said, I just refuse to believe anybody with human intelligence and not completely ignorant of society could fail to understand why, to people who care about violence against women, this is pretty offensive, in bad taste and morally horrifying.
And really, you don't even have to look at it from the female perspective. If instead of a woman's tits, it were an erect cock, bloodied at the base, a lot of people would find that really offensive and they would feel scared of anybody who bought that, and in that list of people who would be offended would be me.
I don't have a link, but the skinny is that Doug TenNapel has a career as a far right wing media pundit and radio personality. As such, he makes no secret of his views on many of the familiar, controversial issues de jour. It doesn't stop him making good games though. In fact, in some ways, it has helped his games; The Neverhood, for instance, is a brilliant, unique title that is largely inspired by bible stories and his religious upbringing.Devin Barker said:
Last time I checked, those are traits associated with youth and innocence in cartoons.JudgeGame said:
See: Most Disney movies.
I hate to break it to you, but I've yet to meet a Brony who has ever thought "corrrr, I'm going to clop myself sore to those quaint feminine gestures".
The problem isn't within the intention of the animators and writers, but rather your own perception of a children's cartoon.
Honestly a major part of why I simply don't give a shit about the "isms" is due to what I've heard called the "colonialism syndrome" or sometimes the "Holocaust syndrome". Growing up I was exposed to a good decade and a bit of "education" by teachers who wouldn't understand history if it kicked them in the genitals, and after a while pretty much everyone got so utterly sick of hearing about how "evil" their ancestors were for what they did to the Indigenous Australians that they simply stopped caring about the issue completely and embraced apathy, and in some extreme cases actually did a complete 180 and started being actively racist.
You can only bang on about something, no matter how important the topic is, so long before people get utterly sick to death of hearing about it and just want people to STFU. Yes there are problems in the gaming industry, yes colonialism was bad, yes the Holocaust was evil, but if you keep banging that drum without break for long enough otherwise reasonable people will simply tune you out... or worse start opposing you out of sheer spite.
You need to be careful when it comes to "preaching" or you'll do more harm then good... just look at PETA, the organisation that has done more harm to Animal Welfare then Cruella De Vil!
Separately to that, there is also the siege mentality infecting the gaming sub-culture, we've been under attack for so long by so many different groups that any perceived attack is reacted too with extreme negativity. And you know what? That's okay. We've got the freaking NRA attacking us at the moment! We've got Fox News, CNN, and the loony right banging on about how we destroy morality, we need to be watchful, we need to police ourselves, lest we give those turds more ammunition. Unfortunately this leads to the "traitor" mentality, where if a member of the gaming subculture starts looking at things, no matter how reasonable, they are seen as aiding the enemy, giving them a crack in the wall to exploit.
Those people actually do want to take away our games.
You can bring up what you think are real issues all you want, but you should consider if it really matters, and if it does, how you can you make the point without attacking the entire subculture, without appearing like a smug self satisfied git.
You can only bang on about something, no matter how important the topic is, so long before people get utterly sick to death of hearing about it and just want people to STFU. Yes there are problems in the gaming industry, yes colonialism was bad, yes the Holocaust was evil, but if you keep banging that drum without break for long enough otherwise reasonable people will simply tune you out... or worse start opposing you out of sheer spite.
You need to be careful when it comes to "preaching" or you'll do more harm then good... just look at PETA, the organisation that has done more harm to Animal Welfare then Cruella De Vil!
Separately to that, there is also the siege mentality infecting the gaming sub-culture, we've been under attack for so long by so many different groups that any perceived attack is reacted too with extreme negativity. And you know what? That's okay. We've got the freaking NRA attacking us at the moment! We've got Fox News, CNN, and the loony right banging on about how we destroy morality, we need to be watchful, we need to police ourselves, lest we give those turds more ammunition. Unfortunately this leads to the "traitor" mentality, where if a member of the gaming subculture starts looking at things, no matter how reasonable, they are seen as aiding the enemy, giving them a crack in the wall to exploit.
Those people actually do want to take away our games.
You can bring up what you think are real issues all you want, but you should consider if it really matters, and if it does, how you can you make the point without attacking the entire subculture, without appearing like a smug self satisfied git.
That's only a partial reply, even if the game is railroaded you don't have to interpret it as a moral message. Further more the slut shaming is part of the thieves guild quest which asks you do to a number of morally questionable things. Your choice is not to be in the thieves guild.maninahat said:
How about you explain starting from predicates why it is sexist to begin with, instead of picking at minor points.
PS: "It offends me isn't an answer"
I'm pretty oblivious when it comes to sexism, classism, or anything except the overt like racism or homophobia
I don't mean to be, but it never comes up on my radar.
That said, on the other side of this obliviousness, I rarely know when someone is flirting with me unless it's overt.
I don't mean to be, but it never comes up on my radar.
That said, on the other side of this obliviousness, I rarely know when someone is flirting with me unless it's overt.
Yes, they did. http://kotaku.com/5922228/tomb-raider-creators-say-rape-is-not-a-word-in-their-vocabulary And then everyone accused them of backpedaling...you know, I find it nothing short of astounding that we haven't had a game developer kill themselves yet, I'm not sure I'd be able to handle the stress.franksands said:
It's ugly, I admit that, but it's reality. There's a reason this game is the video game image for Cerberus Syndrome on tv tropes, they're trying to go for something dark and brutal, and in the cold harsh reality of this world, odds are a gruff thug that's lived on an island in isolation for who knows how long, odds are he wouldn't be hospital. And that isn't the only way that we're supposed to care about her, Lara is going to go through a whole lot of other shit too, including getting attacked by a wolf and being forced to kill a dear for food (something that she was clearly upset about) being forced to fend for herself and forced to kill people. That assault is just one of many things. They writers are forcing Lara to adapt to a harsh environment, while simultaneously turning her into a woobie. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie I've made characters woobies, some of them guys, and they tend to be very popular characters because the reader wants to see them overcome the hardships in front of them and improve their lives.
Because, to be perfectly honest, getting captured happens a lot in video games, even when we're dealing with super badasses. The Lone Wanderer got captured, Jason Brody got captured (speaking of Far Cry 3, there was some male on male ACTUAL rape in there, and I don't think anyone cared. Kinda depressing) Master Chief got captured, Link got captured, Gordon Freeman got captured, and even Solid Snake got captured. It's really just a thing that happens for reasons I don't quite understand.
Well, glad I was able to clear some things up for you.