Jimquisition: The Positive Side to Punching Nuns

[Paradoxrifts]

If enough people are willing to lay down their sixty dollars for the opportunity to guide a virtual avatar through the process of murdering a group of female assassins dressed up in Halloween BDSM-Nun habits then the 'discussion' as Jim puts it is ultimately a waste of time. As long as someone is willing to publish games like this latest iteration of Hitman to a market that is willing to buy them, all it really boils down to is that there are people who won't buy the game are complaining that there are still people out there who will buy the game.

Capitcha - klatu berada nikto

What's the worst thing that could happen?

 

[BlackStar42]

My main gripe with the video is that the women seem very out of place. I mean, latex and RPGs? Did they get lost on the way to the Bayonetta universe? I have no problems with 47 fighting off female assassins, but Hitman has always been about patience and stealth, they should have made the trailer more of a cat-and-mouse type thing through some dark shadowy mansion or something.

 

[ex275w]

Well, considering that the next step from "controversy" is usually tiptoeing. or even outright censorship, I really don't think it'll add much to gaming overall.

If you dislike the Hitman trailer, simply don't watch it, and don't buy the product it advertises. But to demand that others who might like it are denied availability of it is the exact opposite of "tolerance". Funnily enough, "live and let live" includes actually letting other people watch/play stuff that offends you to no end.

Nobody is saying that the game should be banned or that the people who liked it are wife beater misogynists. You are making this argument up, enjoy the game and the trailer if you like it. People should speak about their displeasure for the trailer. I, for example, think its incredibly idiotic.

 

[EvilMaggot]

The nuns are hot and the violence is sexy.

I approve of the trailer.

i second this!

i think the trailer is awesome and cant wait for another hitman installment ^^

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

There is sexism, but its not in that trailer. One man fights a group of highly trained, heavily armed and very capable hit woman. Yeah they are dressing in a certain way but no different to woman in music videos, or even female singers. Men always see woman as the fairer sex, not as strong and need protecting when this is not the case. This is something we men are told since birth, you cant hit girls etc etc Yes there may be issues with clothing, especially with beat em ups, but i think people take issue with a man beating woman than the fact that these woman are sexualised killing machines out looking for the Hitman in the first place.

 

[mercifulwrath]

Concerning the "violence against women" side of this debate; how long have women been present in the (American) army now? I can't for the life of me remember if I've ever seen a women portrayed as a regular (not important for the plot) soldier in either MW2, BF3 (only modern titles of CoD and BF I've played) or any other FPS. If you argue against violence towards women in war, stealth, whatever games, you should re-evaluate your standpoint, and simply argue against violence in general. Seeing as how that's never going to happen, how about giving both sexes (and all the genders) a fair trial?

Disclaimer:...you know what? I'm pretty sure everyone's mature enough not to assume I'm pro domestic violence.

I know there have been regular female soldiers in most of the Halo games and the extended universe.

 

[ex275w]

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women.

Spoiler: Yes, they are. For dudes.

I'm not interested into going into a massive back-and-forth, so I'll just agree to disagree with you on that point.

I also have to disagree, women like different types of men, saying they like only cute bishies ignores that Fabio or Thor are (or were) popular with women (in part) due to their muscular physique. Other women find nerdy guys like Stephen Merchant to be very attractive.

 

[sumanoskae]

ok I totally get the crux of the video, that's not my point, but I honestly don't see the problem with the Hitman trailer?

Is it me?

I also don't see the problem, I rather enjoyed it actually.

Yeah, I don't get it either.

I mean, I understand the arguments people are making, but it seems to me that those people are connecting violence with sex on their own. The violence in question is totally neutral. (Which makes, Agent 47 is a seasoned killer, there's no reason for him to be distracted by sex appeal)

They ARE intended to be sexy, but that clearly isn't the reason he's killing them, and it seems to have no real purpose; you could replace them with priests for the exact same effect.

Sex and violence are both in this trailer but they're totally divorced from each other. The sex is there to be sexy, the violence is there to be cool (And before anyone brings up stylized violence, the game is called Hitman, that's kind of the whole point)

 

[Iron Lightning]

Bear in mind I'm on the fence with it but the problem a lot o people have is

Those ladies are wearing grossly impratical outfits, the type of clothes you would wear in a bedroom. They are then being whupped, and the way it is shot is almost lovingly. It feels to some people that it is meant to be violent erotica, women get physically dominated by the player surrogate.

Great video Jim. Diversity will make things more interestin and compelling.

So, people are angry at this trailer because it's violent erotica.

Just another example of the prudishness gamers feel they need to adopt so as to gain more mainstream acceptance.

It's not really prudishness that's the problem. It's that violent erotica against women in particular, not men, is a norm in some parts of the media and it both can breed a sense that this thing of men should be normal and all women should be sexualized and brutalized should be a norm for this and then it can make women who've had to deal with men assaulting them sexually very uncomfortable or outright trigger a PTSD attack for some depending on the context.

Wait a minute, where exactly is this the norm? I've experienced quite a lot of media and I haven't come across something that could be called violent erotica in anything mainstream and popular. Hell, even on most general-interest porn sites violent stuff comprises a minority of content. This trailer wouldn't be shocking to people if it was an everyday thing.

To put it in simpler terms erotica in video games isn't the problem, expecting the player to be the one with this particular set of erotic fantasies is though especially when the sexualized violence is only happening against women. If it were happening against men too it might be more acceptable, but it's placing one group in a very different position over the others and since that's inherently unequal people will have problems with that too.

It seems to me that erotica in videogames is very much of a problem for people. That's why Illusion refuses to sell outside Japan. That's why damn-near every artistic controversy that happens in videogames has something to do with sexuality.

Of course anything that extolls a particular set of erotic fantasies will expect the audience to share those same fantasies. If the audience didn't share them then the audience wouldn't be watching.

 

[Worgen]

That is a pretty bad trailer, I mean its just stupid, I thought hitman was a series more about planning and execution, not bad action and silly outfits.

 

[Phasmal]

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women.

Spoiler: Yes, they are. For dudes.

I'm not interested into going into a massive back-and-forth, so I'll just agree to disagree with you on that point.

I also have to disagree, women like different types of men, saying they like only cute bishies ignores that Fabio or Thor are (or were) popular with women (in part) due to their muscular physique. Other women find nerdy guys like Stephen Merchant to be very attractive.

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying some women can't find such types attractive (I for one, have a huge thing for nerds), I'm saying the macho types in games and such were not designed for their sexual appeal to the opposite gender. They are designed with dudes in mind.

 

[Eri]

If those woman didn't want to get hit they shouldn't be murderous assassins. no one seems to care they were about to kill somebody right?

Certain debates, like this one are founded in an antiquated double-standard. Violence against women regardless of context automatically means it's wrong. If this "outrage" is allowed to go unchallenged, then we're going to see an even more focused grouped, politically correct, and watered down corporate gaming experience than we have already. Jim's right this wasn't talked about years ago, because years ago, gamers knew that a woman in fighting game was just as deadly as a man in a fighting game, and just as shirtless.

Young gamers today seem to be much more conservative, over-sensitive, and dare I say "wimpy" compared to the days when we had to defend games like Doom from the soccer moms and politicians who were talking like gamers are now!

As for "objecitfication" do I really need to bring up the Twlight double-standards again where young teenage boys were sexualized and minimally dressed to tingle the vaginas of a female audience? If there was a story targeted at teens about a high schooler being fought over by sexy supernatural women for his affections, the fans would be considered immature, boyish, and accussed of objectifying women for their pathetic fantasies there as well.

Spoiler: PIC CLICK

People just love to be outraged and having others hear just how outraged they are

I like how no one bothered replying to this, Probably because they realized it destroyed any argument they would have had.

+100 to you, sir.

 

[freaper]

Wow. You must be new here.

Assuming maturity from an internet forum -- a gaming forum, no less -- is like assuming honesty from a closed session of Congress.

No, I'm not really new here. Just trying to get a point across, and if there's rotten individuals that will nitpick everything, so be it. At least I'm trying to further the discussion. (This is not directed at you, targren, btw)

I know there have been regular female soldiers in most of the Halo games and the extended universe.

I honestly haven't played the Halo series, but are those women just grunts? Like all the other male cannon fodder?

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Just throwing in my two cents on T&A in advertising.

I don't get why ANYTHING uses T&A in advertising anymore. We live in an age where high sexuality is a common, mostly-accepted thing. Honest-to-god pornography is EASILY obtainable. In fact, it's PERVASIVE. The Internet, as everyone knows, is mostly porn.

Titillation is pointless when we can get the real thing without any extra effort. If I wanted boobs, I'd go look up boobs. And the boobs I look up wouldn't even be covered. Hell, (at the risk of being yelled at for objectifying women) if I put in a bit of effort, I could get the real thing.

In an age where anyone who WANTS porn or sex can have it and anyone who DON'T is disgusted by it, when we are polarized to the point where those who would have wanted T&A are bored by it, and those who don't want it are willing to boycott games because of it, WHY WOULD ANYONE MARKET A GAME WITH T&A??

This. In the advent of the Internet, I have no clue why people still use sex appeal as an incentive in marketing. >.>

 

[ex275w]

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women.

Spoiler: Yes, they are. For dudes.

I'm not interested into going into a massive back-and-forth, so I'll just agree to disagree with you on that point.

I also have to disagree, women like different types of men, saying they like only cute bishies ignores that Fabio or Thor are (or were) popular with women (in part) due to their muscular physique. Other women find nerdy guys like Stephen Merchant to be very attractive.

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying some women can't find such types attractive (I for one, have a huge thing for nerds), I'm saying the macho types in games and such were not designed for their sexual appeal to the opposite gender. They are designed with dudes in mind.

I would agree that Kratos, the Gears of War dudes, and Chris in Resident Evil 5 were made to fulfill male power fantasies. Yet I still think that most of the time characters designers just end up saying, "Oh we want a tough man in the crew", so they end up making characters liek Sten or Oghren who are most likely to appeal to the male gender.

I still find it funny that no one complains when a character is explicitly made for a female audience, (Thane, Aladdin and My little ponies) men like them more than women.

Still designing characters for one gender I think is dumb, I prefer characters like Dante (DMC) who appeal to power fantasies instead of exclusively female or male power fantasies.

 

[Taunta]

THE FACT THAT THEY'RE WOMEN IS NOT THE POINT

The point is said women are supposedly assassins but instead of wearing practical clothing, wear fetish outfits that serve no purpose other than to titillate an imaginary male audience, who presumably gets a boner from seeing scantily-clad dis-empowered women show off their butts and then get brutally murdered. That is a bad thing.

There is no other reason for them to suddenly tear off their nun habits to reveal clothing like that. That's ludicrous.

If they were men wearing equally fetishistic clothing, then I would have a problem with that too.

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women. But as men are infact men, they lack the apparatus that women have that make them seem over sexual. I.e Tits, ass, curvy body.

No. They are not. Being physically attractive by itself is not objectification. Having a women be physically attractive by itself is not objectification.

If there was equal objectification, more male video game characters would look like this:

Spoiler

and less like this:

Spoiler

As mentioned above, some of your examples are equally for the male self-insert fantasy as they are for the female eye candy fantasy. The "gets the girl" example? That is entirely for the pleasure of the male audience.

Roid raging, macho, overly aggressive, murderous, testosterone poisoned guys like Kratos and Marcus Fenix? Those are not attractive traits to have, sorry to say.

 

[SycoMantis91]

Something tells me it's mostly the stereotypical "femenist" that hates this trailer. Now, I'm as against abusing women as one can get, but what happened to that "equal rights" thing? Women have just as much right to form a group of highly-trained assassins with some sort of distinct gimic, get hired to take out the world's most feared assassin, and while putting up a good fight, ultimately get their asses handed to them as anyone else.

He fights them just like if they were men, they don't show any bouncing tits or exposed ass, and most of all, they're portrayed in a role most often taken by men. If anything, people should be overjoyed by that fact. If you want us all to be equal, you can at least deal with women losing a battle THEY started in a video game trailer, and respect their right to do so as much as yours or mine.