Kickstarter Video Project Attracts Misogynist Horde

[Booze Zombie]

I would argue it's wrong to focus on one particular set of sterotypes. Women? Nah, men, blacks, whites, old and young all get stereotyped. To focus on just gender is narrow-minded. And there is the danger of reading too much into things, not to discourage careful observation and investigation.

The example of over-analysing shown in my psychology class, for instance, was researchers deeply looking into the meanings of song lyrics and then realising upon polling the students listening to them, they didn't even make out the lyrics or really care about them half of the time, they just liked the beat.

If you're taught to see sexism, racism as particular things... you might see them everywhere, even in some cases, when they're not there.

 

[Danial]

What the hell is "rape culture" anyway?

The idea that our culture encourages or causes rape or is cruel to rape victims or whatever.

In practice when they some piece of fiction supports rape culture it's the "violent video games desensitize people to violence" argument, only now it's about rape and they're using different terminology.

It's more about normalizing Rape, the constant reference to rape for not that bad things ("oh man i got raped in Sunwell last night" etc) or the idea that rape victims probably deserved it by dressing slutty etc. Making the Victims have a much MUCH harder time dealing or even admitting that they were raped. I have personally experienced something like this happening to a friend of mine, It did NOT end well.

TBH "Rape Culture" is an issue but because every time someone mentions anything close to it shit like this happens its one that will continue on. Also I on a lesser problem, Off topic for this thread.

 

[maninahat]

Eh I dont like this kickstart idea. What we need is to fund THIS kickstart video project that is going research how men are portrayed in video games.

Seriously I am tired of us guys being portrayed as bloodthirsty fucking machines.

http://www.indiegogo.com/misandryinvideogames?c=home

Why not simply donate to both? They're essentially doing the same thing.

What the hell is "rape culture" anyway?

The idea that our culture encourages or causes rape or is cruel to rape victims or whatever.

In practice when they some piece of fiction supports rape culture it's the "violent video games desensitize people to violence" argument, only now it's about rape and they're using different terminology.

I generally buy into the argument that society trivializes rape a little too often, but one thing I've never understood is how feminists consider popular fiction to be pro-rape. In almost every depiction of rape I've seen in a game or a film, it is portrayed as detestable, horrific crime. I don't see how that contributes to the claim that society encourages rape. Rape is certainly overused in fiction as a cheap, hackneyed way to motivate a "strong woman" and establish villains, but I don't see that as quite the same thing.


Goodness me, this must be one of the longest threads I've ever participated in.

 

[Moromillas]

Ok, just finished watching all of feministfrequency's videos. I must say the creep factor on the creep-o-metre has gone WAY up. Why this person is garnering $100,000 plus from donations, it just doesn't seem right.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Since someone mentioned it:

Good female characters in movies:

Ripley

Nurse Ratchett

Ursula (The little Mermaid)

Arielle

Maleficia (also Disney)

Natural Born Killers, the female protagonist

The Bride, Kill Bill

The asian mob leader, Kill Bill

The girl that escapes Landa and later on torches the Führer - Inglorious Basterds

The female spy that leads Brad Pitt to the movie theater with the Führer - Inglorious Basterds

Sein oder Nichtsein - female lead

Hermione Granger

The mother from "The Shining"


(I am really bad with names, it's got nothing to do with them being women, I simply can not remember names...)

 

[Hollyday]

I would argue it's wrong to focus on one particular set of sterotypes. Women? Nah, men, blacks, whites, old and young all get stereotyped. To focus on just gender is narrow-minded. And there is the danger of reading too much into things, not to discourage careful observation and investigation.

The example of over-analysing shown in my psychology class, for instance, was researchers deeply looking into the meanings of song lyrics and then realising upon polling the students listening to them, they didn't even make out the lyrics or really care about them half of the time, they just liked the beat.

If you're taught to see sexism, racism as particular things... you might see them everywhere, even in some cases, when they're not there.

Isn't that like saying that you shouldn't study the second world war in a history lesson because it's only one small part of history and that's narrow-minded. You should study ALL HISTORY in this lesson! Hey, the lesson is only an hour, but I'm sure we can squeeze everything in.

It would be a narrow-minded view if only stereotypes of women were acknowledged. They're not. At no point does the video-maker say that the only problem in video games is sexism against women. But in a short series of videos it isn't possible to cover all the stereotypes which are present in the industry, or the media as a whole, and it would be extremely daft to try. I'm interested to see these videos, just as I'd be interested to see a video series on homophobia, racism, elitism, ageism or any other -ism you care to mention.

Your over-analysing point is spot-on and it happens a lot. However, ignoring things does nothing. What's worse: bringing legitimate issues to people's attention and risk a couple of people over-analysing, or never saying anything and letting things go on as they always have. As long as we have intelligent people critiquing the media and the critics themselves I don't feel that 'over-analysing' is as big of a problem as many others do.

 

[hentropy]

instead of an older woman who might be just as capable, or even a small group of people. Why not a story about a mom trying to lead her kid(s) through the end times? It feels wrong to most people because guys can be the only ones who are strong and resilient enough to provide leadership in such a situation, where women always have to be under their wing.

I hate the implication that fiction needs quotas in their characters.

Having the protagonist be a women (and especially her mother) would change their relationship and how they interact with each other. It would be a different story.

It would probably make the story something fresh, interesting, and more enjoyable to sit through than another game about a male leading a girl through a dangerous world. It's not about quotas and doing things for the sake of it, it's about going over uncovered territory and progressing the medium.

Just because it's using a new formula doesn't mean it'll be good and likewise if something is using an old formula that doesn't mean the story will be bad.

Look at GTA, they've had the same formula for most of their recent games. A financially poor man reluctantly joins/is pushed into the world of crime and must climb the ladder of the criminal underworld to get into a better spot in life.

And yet the writing in some of them is awesome! The GTA IV mission "that special someone" is by far my favorite moment in the game and that mission had no challenge and was just pure story (and if you haven't played the game it has nothing to do with romance).

Hell I've seen game stories about people with plot convenient amnesia that were done really well.

All that said I'd be more likely to consider a game if it did have a new idea, but you can still have great writing while relying on a formula (like Tarantino).

It's true that it could have a good story, but the story really isn't the issue in this case. I don't really know the story outside of "Extraordinarily Capable Grizzled Nathan Drake Clone Leads Cute Young Girl Through the Collapse of Civilization." Is it possible it could be a good game with good mechanics and an insightful story, I'm just not holding my breath or waiting for more trailers or a release date, to me it's just another hackneyed game about armageddon.

I wouldn't label GTAIV as a bastion of good storytelling (can you say forced melodrama?), but the thing about a game like that is that it can have its moments because it's a bit more open-ended. In this case I don't know what else they would talk about other than Nathan Drake teaching younger Zoey how to survive with subtext about younger Zoey grounding Nathan Drake in reality and making him realize there's still innocence in the world and things worth protecting. If it's radically different than that, I will be surprised.

My issue here isn't just one game, however. This whole argument has been about how games really aren't that bad on gender issues and people need to stop complaining about it and how the vast majority of gamers and developers have no lingering problems with women, over-sexualization, and reinforcement of negative stereotypes.

But yet we get the Hitman controversy, Lolipop Chainsaw, that dude who went on a sexist rant during that fighting game competition, and The Last of Us, which doesn't oversexualize anyone but pushes the other point: that females have to be led through hardship by Nathan Drake. And now we have a huge organized sexist outcry against someone who is simply trying to discuss the issue by privately raising money.

 

[Grahav]

I don't follow the point you're trying to make, based on what I said.

The point is that it seemed to me that you think that what the "misogynistic" game producers thoughts about the issue are either irrelevant or non-existent. If you don't know why they make such games, how do you want to convince them to stop making them or making "gender positive" games?

More, it weakens your position if the target of your discourse discovers that you consider them as just non-thinking idiots.

Whoa, where the hell did all this come from? "Non-thinking idiots" and misogynists? These people are talented and amazing, and I talk with them all the time. That doesn't mean they don't sometimes fall into habits and forget to think outside of the box when it comes to variety in characters. It's a pretty narrow demographic among game developers, and it's easy to fall back to the default of what they personally think is "sweet" or "sexy", but it's not some evil conspiracy or even always done on purpose.

Well, it seems I misinterpreted your phrase. So you are saying that the portrayals used among developers are something born more out of habit?

I've seen numerous complaints about bad female characters, but ZERO tips on making good ones.

Excellent point. It is easy to be destructive, but difficult to be creative.

An effort shold be made in this direction.

I explored this idea when I was still in school with a project I did. I looked at the design process for the TF2 cast and applied the same kind of decision making to model a couple playable female versions. I made the models downloadable to the general public, and the response I got on them has been overwhelmingly positive (even with my crappy first two ones, when I was still new to modeling.) I just finished up with the fourth one, and from the feedback I've gotten from the community, there's definitely an interest in having variety along with having straight up fan-service.

But making good female characters shouldn't be any different than making good characters of any kind. They deserve the same exploration, research and variety as any other thought-out character. Relying too hard tropes and derivative material makes for boring characters, male or female, and I think that's an area of game development that needs more creativity and broader backgrounds.

That's progressive. Keep up the good work.

One thing I noticed about design in fighting games. There is almost always a freak or ugly character, but they are always male. I remember one arcade fighting game with a (very) old woman and nobody used her. People said that they were bad with her, although the AI was hellish with her. I don't know if this is relevant.

About the project. I hope she discuss the tropes reasons of use instead of just rambling about the damages. Going to the roots of the problem are the most pratical to solve it, and, hey, it can delve into the society's psyche which is always interesting.

 

[Trekkie]

first off, how do you record something that isn't reported? because don't you need to report something in order for someone to know its happened? or can you read minds now.

Mostly because rapists are known to be repeat offenders, and while it only takes one woman to come forward to put him into jail, he can get away with numerous rapes before that one woman comes forward. And while many women will tell SOMEONE else about what occurred, a good number of them can't find the courage to come to court with evidence, or when they do, the hesitation on their part reflects not a deep inner turmoil (to do with religious perceptions of purity, and American perceptions of self-sufficiency, and a questioning of whether there was anything more she could have done to stop it) to the judge and jury, but dishonesty. Your statement, that women can lie, reflects this blame-the-victim bias so common in rape cases.

It is odd to me, that someone can accuse someone of measurable physical abuse, and when the measurements are taken and it proves that no physical abuse has occurred, that person is labled a liar or a madperson, but when that physical abuse happens to be rape, and the supposed victim happens to be a woman, it is not just that person who is the liar or the madperson, but everyone of that gender as well. Why not everyone of that complexion, or haircolor, or eyecolor, or stature?

I said women can lie not that every woman is a liar if one of them dose. my problem with it is that everyone seems to assume that just because the person is female then they cant be capable of anything bad and whatever she says must be the truth. like how if a male teacher sleeps with one of his purples he, as he should, goes to prison. However if a female teacher (Sarah Jones in this case) sleeps with one of her purples then dose she go to prison... nope.... she gets set free and gets a playboy shoot instead. same crime vastly different consequences.

And another thing, the whole less than 10% of rapists never see prison thing..... wouldn't that be because the court didn't find enough evidence to be able to convict the suspect. Maybe some of those rape cases where false accusations? (and it happens quite a lot, http://falserapesociety.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/orlando-false-rape-epidemic.html) maybe they got the wrong man ETC, what I find troubling is this assumption that if a man is accused then he must be guilty. why would someone lie?

also when someone step forward, for any crime, and says they did that to me.... 3 years ago, then we should take that with some salt because there will be minuscule to no evidence of that actually happening and frankly, if someone doesn't have evidence, why should i believe them? unless you have proof then you should not say that that crime was committed i don't care if its in court or stats it is not right to say something happened when you have little to no proof that it did. Frankly the whole 95% of rape isn't reported thing, doesn't hold water, because even a year or so down the line, you have no proof that it happened apart from what the alleged victim says and that isn't proof, that's an accusation.

and im sorry but asking for proof is NOT blaming the victim its trying to dercern the truth.

Asking for proof is not blaming the victim. Trying to undermine her credibility at every turn is. (She shouldn't have had a drink / she had agreed to sex with him before / she was kissing him, etc)

Also, it's estimated that the number of false rape accusations is around 6% or so. About the same amount as false accusations for any other crime.

Frankly if i slept with a women when i was drunk and i regretted it the morning after no-one would be saying "oh you poor thing" they would be saying "well maybe next time you'll take more responsibility for you r action next time and you'll think twice next" as it should be.

if a women gets drunk and she tells a man she wants to have sex with and they do then in his mind she has given her consent to have sex with her. if she had said no however then they wouldn't have had sex. if you give someone the ability to tell someone they want to have sex with them and then take that away after the deed is done, then what is to stop someone abusing that system? you are basically giving people the ability to put whoever they want in jail by pointing a finger and saying three words.

if I agree to have sex with someone when i am drunk then whether I like it or not I am telling that person that I am consenting to have sex with them. If I regret it the next morning then i should learn from that experience and never go home with someone when i am drunk. for me to then take away that persons freedom because i agreed to something stupid is incredibly unfair and shows that i am nothing more than a child because i cannot take accountability for my own actions and saying that is not undermining anyone's credibility, it is simply pointing out the fact that once you give someone your consent then male or female taking that away after the deed is done is wrong and you should not be able to convict someone for the felony of rape because you regret having sex with them.

Also regarding a women who is drunk as not accountable for herself is sexist in itself as it treats them as children who cant think or act for themselves.

furthermore what if that man is drunk? is he still a rapist? because under your logic people cant be held accountable for what they do when their drunk. and what if someone mugs someone? or shoots someone when their drunk? should they be held accountable for their actions then? or is it only if they have a penis?

Also the false rape statistic is a farce because they don't count it as false rape unless the accuser admits it was and the accusation was obviously false, like if the person they said who raped them doesn't exist. instead they count it as "unfound charge" because proving that it didn't happen is next to impossible thanks to legislation like VAWA and the title 9 dear colleague letter that put into place legislation that shifts the burden of proof onto the accused, lowers the amount of evidence need for conviction by a university board to zero stain a mans name in the academia circles forever, the removal of the mans right to face and question his accuser in court (something in the bill of rights by the way) and that's not counting the dear colleague letters suggestion to remove the police from the equation all together when regarding an accusation on collage grounds.

http://www.theforensicexaminer.com/archive/spring09/15/

Plus if rape culture exists then why is a rape a crime and held up above murder as on of the worst things someone can do and why dose it carry life sentence?

on a separate note, the threads gone past 1000 posts don't you think its time we leave it to rest? gota be some kind of record.

 

[Kahunaburger]

snip

"Rape culture doesn't exist! Also, it's your own fault of you get raped when you're in a state of mind where you're legally unable to give consent!"

Really?

 

[Hollyday]

You wanna know the reason this is an issue?

Men look at, for example Batman, and see a rolemodel of some sort.
Women look at, for example Catwoman, and see something that they find better than themselves.

Ofcourse this doesn't apply to all women, and the scenario I sketched is quite bland, but this is exactly why men don't give a damn about men being portrayed cliché-like (muscled, using fighting as their main way of problemsolving, etc.) and women do.

Example:
- Men watch a movie about 300 Spartans with ripped bodies fighting valiantly against their enemies and they'll enjoy the movie.

- Women watch a movie about 300 of the hottest bikini models (for a fair comparisson) playing beachvolleyball and they'll go home with a minoritycomplex.

Again, a stereotypical example, but you'll find this to be true most of the time. This is why women being portrayed as perfect (by stereotypical standards) in a videogame is an issue, and men being portrayed in a videogame as perfect (by stereotypical standards) isn't.

So your point is that the pinnacle of male achievement would be someone like Batman/Gerard Butler (heroic, strong, a good leader, moral, conflicted and also sexy) and the pinnacle of female achievement is being... a bikini model.....

Jesus effing Christ

 

[Trekkie]

snip

"Rape culture doesn't exist! Also, it's your own fault of you get raped when you're in a state of mind where you're legally unable to give consent!"

Really?

read this carefully, If you GIVE YOUR CONSENT to have sex and have CONSENSUAL sex with someone then drunk or not and no matter what gender you are you HAVE Given your CONSENT to have sex with them. To take that away AFTER you have sex is unfair and a perversion of justice.

THEY GAVE THEIR CONSENT THIS MEANS THAT ITS NOT RAPE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

also notice how the definition of rape is written so that only men can be rapists so if it happens to a man then its not rape. couple that with the ability to change your mind afterwards and take away consent then we have a world where every man has a metaphorical gun to their head.

and here's my rebutle to the rape culture argument:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmHETvyk6eA&feature=plcp