Kinda sexist? Would you change it? How?

[Dizchu]

I am not a fan of unnecessary sex appeal. If it appears in games that don't have characters with sexual personalities or if the game isn't erotic in nature then I think it REALLY does not belong there. It makes me feel uncomfortable more than anything.

I find most things sexist to some degree. Because that's how people are. Everyone is a little bit sexist. We all have deep-rooted prejudice of people of one sex or another. If we are attracted to women for example, then the way we approach and communicate with attractive women will be affected as a result, even if that's not what we intend to happen.

There comes a threshold where the sexism crosses the line into pure bad taste. According to the likes of Feminist Frequency, this happens all the time. According to myself, it's not something that happens often and when it DOES happen, there's usually a widespread backlash against it. For example Metroid: Other M. People absolutely despised Samus' portrayal in that game because it relied on sexist stereotypes.

The problem with Feminist Frequency in particular is that they take an example of something they see as problematic and try to make people feel bad for playing them. In Hitman the ability to drag practically-naked dead strippers across the floor is "for the (male) player's sexual gratification". Obviously this is scrutinising the area between the lines so much that they miss the point.

When it comes to portrayals of gender here's what I think:

Stereotypes and objectification: Bad
Sexualisation and contextualised eroticism: Good

 

[Itdoesthatsometimes]

I am just going to base my points from games that I currently have (not including the overtly sexist ones)and have played.

Dragons Dogma-There are a few extra women character only clothing, they mostly are skimpy attire from what I have seen. The male characters have some kind of bandage under garment shorts that go above their navel, Being bi I want to see some sexy from male characters too. Why can't I see navel and lower? Not genitalia by the way, it's not that type of game for male or female characters. Men can be sexy too. Either men are sexy too, or sexiness is out of place altogether in the game.

Fallout 3-You could argue the clothing thing again, in this game. I however do not feel, the same fix fits this game. It is the prostitution that this game becomes a little sexist. I think Fallout New Vegas fixes the problem. The tone of these games is one where isms are not out of place. As long as done well and intelligently this is fine to me. Games might fail and misstep this aspect at sometimes. Social critique and attempts to try harder will improve this as a whole in games.

Mass Effect 2-There are a few odds and ends with this one. Nothing too damaging in my opinion. The one I want to bring up most is the main Shepard animations. There is only one that both genders share, totally understandable this is a nitpick nothing more. I found the male was too effeminate for me to want to spend so much time with. I found the female was a little manly, but more bearable to spend a whole game as. I acknowledge that practicality of the reasons why there was only one animation, and that this is a matter of taste. Still kind of sexist?

Gran Turismo 5-No female racer character model. No real reason for this. Character models only show on one menu screen while not even racing. Female, male model both or no model. I was not even interested until I saw a character model and then said, what women can't race cars?

I need to buy some more recent games.

 

[grassgremlin]

Would this alone drive you away from the game?

I have a strong threshold compared to some when dealing with sexist tropes. I'm far less to buy a game based on violence then sex. However, I can also find such tropes if portrayed various ways uncomfortable and that can factor.

I will most certainly not buy any game with portrayal of rap if I am the female protagonist. I find rape as backstory to be a unsettling bad trope.

However, in all honestly, my opinions have changed between the times this issue was present and when it wasn't. In all truth, when I was misinformed on sexist tropes, I never noticed them. However with the advent of Feminine Frequency and current issues, the fact I've now been studying them, this has painted my perception.

In essence, I am now even less likely to purchase a game if it has sexist tropes then when I use to be. The only trope that I can honestly still stomach is the sexy characters trope. I play skullgirls after all. It's strange, but it's the only trope I can forgive. My usual complaint for it would be to have more sexy males sense I have a certain preference for that. Bugs me I can't design some fembois in some character creators. That's my own opinion on that.

Would you change it?

I want to make video games in the future so this kind of thing is important for me to stress. If the product has already been released or I am not the creative force behind it, I have no power over that. But if you refer to change as my own works, I will say, yes, very much so.

I'm male, but I been studying intensely how to write female characters. In fact, ironically, I spent a good chunk of my creativity on ideas with female leads in highschool. That was before I could simply make gay or queer heroes. I thought it was taboo so women were my scapegoat. I could mask it. I was waaaaay in the closet then.

Still, I've revisited the idea for my first game concept, simply to see if I can write a well developed female lead. I honestly just feel tropes are too lazy and I'd like if creators would not use them so much.

Honestly, if I had the power of god in gaming, I'd outlaw games that primarily used the colors brown, darker brown, black and grey and make every protagonist non-human again like the old days.

What would you have preferred the dev team did differently about this sexist element?
Etc?

Simple. Not use it at all. Is it really that important to the success of your game. People are already tired of the tropes for non-feminist reasons. Make a story about something then that, really.

Oh, and it you're going to put a female character in some lurid clothing, you're gonna have to give the men service too. I want them boths as under-dressed as there female counterparts. You wanna do sexy, its fine to me, just know you gotta include the boys. That'll impress me.


I'll add.

I'm almost 30 years old. My first video game system was a sega genesis which I deeply loved. I've experience games with a likelihood no one has ever heard before in my life time that has shaped me as a player of video games. I loved the colors so much. I was way late to next gen. Heck, we had very little money to go for it. I didn't even own a ps3 until 2012 and I had to sale it.

My gaming experiences? It was emulation, playing the games I missed. I dug deep into the super nintendo library and my greatest experiences were had on the GBA.

This idea where everything is so brown and dull. No fun anymore. No one wants to have fun. They want to be serious and grumpy. Don't get the wrong idea. I've experienced emotional experiences too, but they had a certain refuge in audacity. I didn't play games to be some clunky soldier.

I played games to be, a purple flying jester, a super sentai/kamen rider fanboy, a hedgehog, an extremely athletic plumber, a gunstar hero, a robot that loved to shake things, a lightsabre wielding robot with blond hair, anime's first robot, dudes raging in the street, a battletoad, japanese cowboys, time traveling dbz rejects, dance battling a giant robot, etc. Bonus points if any of you know what I'm talking about.

Thing is, games were just. Different when I grew up. The only trope I bothered to worry about was the damsel in distress. I never had to experience the women are objects until I finally made the jump to games as they are now.

Sigh, honestly, I use to catch flack because I bought a Ps3 to play games that weren't "graphically intensive." People complaining all I ever got and played were 2D-ish or cartoonish games. Hell some of the stuff were ps2-ps1 classics. My aunt was extra confused I didn't get call of duty at the time it was hyped.

I'm just a relic of a different time, honestly. That's what shapes my interests now. I want to make games that are a evolution of the stuff I was into. I don't want to do progressive call of duty or progressive skyrim. I wanna do progressive Gunstar Heroes and progressive Sonic. Hell, I'm not even interested in the last of us.

In short, my disenfranchisement goes beyond the simple sexism tropes.

 

[sanquin]

I wish both sides of this debate would leave the outrage, threats and calling for destruction. (removal or changing or a game and such) I'm all for a review of a character's good and bad points as long as it remains positive criticism, rather than hell being brought upon anything that can be perceived as sexist, and the devs that made it. Sadly, the loudest voices come from the people wanting to do the latter. (On both sides I might add.)

 

[Akjosch]

So, partly inspired by the recent Jimquisition, if you observe a sexist element in a game, whether it's the only showing of women being background characters, the female lead constantly needing the male's help, gratuitous crotch shots in Bayonetta:

Would this alone drive you away from the game?
Would you change it?
What would you have preferred the dev team did differently about this sexist element?

Let's see ...

No, depiction of sexism nor sexism isn't alone enough a ground to drive me away from any game (nor is it alone a strong point). I view games as whole works; a single point is never a reason to not play, unless it's a purely technical one (like "It won't run on my machine"). That said, if the game is blatantly sexist, that would likely lower my opinion of it.

Would I change such depictions? Depends on the game, its setting, its story. For example: I very much like grand strategy games from Paradox - Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron series in particular. If someone would, in the name of "inclusivity" or whatever, ask for an equal number of female to male generals and commanders in those games, I'd simply question their sanity. Those games are meant to depict events based on the real historical context, after all.

In general: I'd prefer if the games themselves aren't sexist, but I have exactly zero problems with the settings featuring a large amount of it, as long as it fits the setting.

As for the presentation: Hey, it's art. I sure as hell don't mind some sexiness and naked skin in the art I consume.

Spoiler

 

[Jenvas1306]

Ill give a little example with League of Legends. Most feamle characters in it have sexy as one of their main attributes, they are there to appeal to men, not matter if it makes sense.
head of police ina steampunk city, who is also a sniper runs around in a miniskirt and a corset that pushes her boobs right up tp her chin.
one of the 3 women who fight for dominance in a country thats basically a frozen tundra rides a bear, but also shows lots of skin ( but got reworked, shes still skinny as hell)
ninja assassin with clothing that can only keep covering her body if its held by tape or something.
and thats just three examples. that also have no female monstrous characters, just girls in costumes.
But now comes a design problem with that kinda broad sexualization, they got a few champions that should be especially sexy, like ahri, but she cant really stand out as every female character already has sexy as one of their main design aspects-

that also all look a lot alike and thats just lazy.

 

[mecegirl]

Argh, I'd like to stick to games as I'm not much of a movie buff, but I'll try. LotR was a product of it's time, I think we've progressed a lot since then. It's doubtful that a novel or movie produced today with the same flaws as LotR would be received happily.

You don't have to be a movies buff to understand the point. I was just using them as an example since they were brought up. Yes, LotR is a product of its time, but nothing says that they had to use LotR as a base for a movie(Not that I begrudge the books a good film, I felt that they were very entertaining) There are millions of books that exist that aren't "a product of their times", but unfortunately such movies without diversity get made all the time.

As for AC, I agree it was a bit of a mis-step to remove female characters from co-op. Or do you mean a proper, voiced character as a female?

Either would be great. It was just that while people would have loved to see a fully fledged AC game with a female character, they were also used to at lest getting female player characters in the co-op mode because of previous games. I'm rally surprised that the AC team didn't expect some push back. Not only was there no female co-op options, they have decided to pull the old school co-op technique of using the same character but with a different colored hat. If they at least had some variety within the male co-op characters I don't think the push back would have been as harsh.

Reading over it again, is using an over-used trope really sexist/bad morally? A female character without agency doesn't strike me as any different than a male character left without agency.

It does when the trope reflects sexist attitudes. There is no social expectation for men to be weak, and unable to defend themselves. There is one for women. Each new piece of media that relegates the female characters only to that role reinforces that idea.

I wouldn't mind seeing a bit of variety in ethnicites etc, but I don't think it's wrong that they're used. And would race-bending from a less diverse source material solve anything? Going in with the objective to race-bend a source material into something more diverse, is just the other side of the same coin as whitewashing.

I never said that race bending solved anything, but that it is the go to solution to a lack of diversity in a movie based of another form of media. Just take my word on this, you have at least heard of Percy Jackson and the Olympians? If not just go along with it.

It is a movie based on a book. One of the main characters is a satyr named Grover Underwood. In the books he is described as White but in the movie a Black actor plays him. While once again, I don't begrudge the book a movie, instead of race bending they could have just chosen a book that already had diverse characters. And who knows, maybe the actor impressed them enough to go against the description in the book. Its not like the character's race matters much since he is a mythological creature. But still, they could have avoided all of that if movie makers were more open to using diverse source material. When movies have a wide range of protagonists then it won't be as glaring when yet another movie has an all White cast.

Anyway, back on topic, what would you do, if anything, about thing like gratuitous shots of Bayonetta (like the one shown in the latest Jimquisition) or the implied attempted rape in Tomb Raider? (I haven't played the Reboot since it was released, so it's hard to recall exactly what that was, but I've heard it mentioned multiple times).

With Bayonetta there are two issues.

One, that the male equivalent doesn't happen that often, which is out of the Bayonetta teams control.

Two, she's all show. While I get that she's busy saving the world, she has no sex life to speak of. Or at least I don't remember her even mentioning any sexual conquests. The closest thing she has to a love interest is Luka, but that seems more fan created than anything else. He checks her out but that's about it. And of course the player is given the opportunity to check her out throughout the entire game. So it creates a situation where she flaunts her sexuality but never uses it to satisfy herself. It makes the fact that she strips down all too convenient. I'm not saying that we need to see anything explicit, but, you'd think with how she behaves, and with how lauded she is as a sexually liberated chracter, that we'd see some evidence that a lucky lad or lass was tied to her bed and rode deep into the night. But there's not even a mention of such things happening in her private life.

Even with the new Devil May Cry remake we get the sense that Dante has an actual sex life. The first scene shows us his room. Among the things littered on the floor is a bra, he also has scratches on his back. Its pretty safe to say that he had a wild night and it is one of the first things we learn about the new version of the chracter. It's unnecessary, because I think it was put in just to make him seem "cool", but it rounds him out. It makes it so that his sexuality services his needs.

There is a piece of advice that writers are given called "show don't tell". Basically you can say that your chracter is sexy and sex positive all you like but it will ring hollow if you don't show it. In the same way as if you wrote a chracter described them as brave, on top of that and all the side characters talked about how brave they were. If at no point they are given a scene where they perform a brave act, or worse the act like cowards in the face of danger, then its gonna make all that bravery talk earlier a load of hot air.

With Tomb Raider the implied rape is actually just a creepy guy that murders you. I don't think that they needed to up the creep factor before you fail the QT event. They should have portrayed it in the same way that they would if Lara were male.

 

[Autumnflame]

Sexuality isn't sexist if its not being exploited.

http://erinfitzvo.com/are-bosoms-in-video-games-offending-you/

Explains from a female voice actor better than i could.

but essentially if baytonetta having a prominent sexuality bothers you simply don't play it.

 

[Batou667]

LotR, for example, is about a bunch of straight white guys who are generally born into money fighting black people and working class monsters. Yeah, there's a bit of a problem there.

That's an odd complaint. Do you also consider it bad that none of the cast of LotR are in a wheelchair? None of them have bipolar disorder? Would a couple of transgender orcs have made it a better book/film?

Diversity is good, sure, but does an individual work of fiction need to tick every box before it's acceptable? Whatever happened to appreciating something as a work of fiction that reflects the time it was made in and the attitudes and experiences of its author?

Let's see:
- The characters are white because The Shire is a fairly obvious analogue of rural 1930s England.
- They're straight because that was the overwhelming literary convention at the time and remains the statistical majority orientation (and hell, the whole story is virtually devoid of any romance, let alone sexuality.)
- They're vaguely aristocratic because it's a pseudo-mediaeval setting and the most important figures - nobility and royalty - are linked to wealth. (Bilbo is wealthy because he's a retired adventurer, I never got the impression that the rest of the Hobbits - or Gandalf for that matter - were particularly flush).
- The black antagonists - yeah, that's an awkward remnant of the racial attitudes of the time.
- Working class monsters!? I think that's a bit of a projection. If you mean "savage", then yeah, that's how the orcs are portrayed.

(but skip the bloody endless singing).

Amen to that. I actually think the LotR books are remarkably flabby, self-indulgent and overblown, and the flamin' singing is possibly Tolkien at his most obnoxiously masturbatory. It completely ruins what little flow the narrative had to begin with.

So the racist elements don't drive you away from it, but if it were to be remade today, what exactly would you change if you had control over it? Would you say there must be a greater mix of skin colour throughout the movie, would you leave selection of actors/extras to a selection committee to choose actors/extras on their own and tell them to disregard skin colour (random (for the US)), or would you keep what the original trilogy had, and keep the same sort of, uh, medieval geographical based racial segregation (similar to certain medieval periods).

Personally I don't think it's right to engage in potentially story-breaking historical revisionism just for the sake of improving diversity. Diversity is great, but the historical fidelity of works of fiction is important too. I'm a bit of a purist and maybe that makes me a stuffy old fart, I dunno, but I see it as a minor act of cultural vandalism when Dr Doolittle gets remade with scatological "urban" humour, or the Three Musketeers end up in a ridiculous steampunk reimagining, or whatever. It simultaneously tarnishes the original, and insults the intelligence of the audience in implying they couldn't possibly enjoy a straight-up retelling without the ubiquitous fart gags, kung-fu fight sequence, and baysplosions.

Oh, the one thing people cannot really do, is to say that their made up world must be populated/dominated by straight white guys because of "realism", and then fill it with dragons and wizards and talking trees.

I've heard this kind of criticism of elements of fiction many, many times, and I think it misses the point. It's not a sober, completely believable simulation that people are defending, it's internal consistency, as defined by whatever the norms are in the context of that work of fiction.

So, in Star Trek, very few people watching are jarred out of their viewing enjoyment by scientifically implausible things like in-ship gravity, inertial dampers or universal translators. But if Kirk walked up to Spock and French kissed him apropos of nothing, it would strike fans as "unrealistic". Of course we know that two men kissing is orders of magnitude more normal than intergalactic travel. But within the established context of the fictional world and its characters, traveling through a wormhole is mundane but a gay relationship would be a major change in tone.

And anyway...

Also...don't wear high heels in a fight, and don't stick guns on them. Do that, and I cannot take you seriously.

So, you're happy to accept a game in which a witch backflips around killing angels, but you object to her wearing high heels because they're "not believable"?

 

[Dizchu]

No. This is really not what happens there. People project the criticism upon themselfs because they don't know how to deal with criticism of something they like. If they'd spend even a fracture of the time they use to rail against this really irrelevant series just to listen to her they would bloody realise that.

Of course they don't do it as much as many claim they do, but did you ignore the point I made about their commentary on Hitman? It's not the only example. There's constant references to how objectification encourages "voyeurism" and "the satisfaction of men's desires". These are serious claims to make.

What are "men's desires"? You mean straight men? What are "straight men's" desires? It's a lot more complicated than they make it out to be, and how they make it out is "X is for the morbid titillation of group Y" and "group Y" is "straight men".

The claim that Hitman encourages the player to desecrate female corpses or whatever is absolutely insane. It's like saying Skyrim encourages animal slaughter because your horse can be killed.

 

[Rellik San]

LotR, for example, is about a bunch of straight white guys who are generally born into money fighting black people and working class monsters. Yeah, there's a bit of a problem there.

That's an odd complaint. Do you also consider it bad that none of the cast of LotR are in a wheelchair? None of them have bipolar disorder? Would a couple of transgender orcs have made it a better book/film?

Diversity is good, sure, but does an individual work of fiction need to tick every box before it's acceptable? Whatever happened to appreciating something as a work of fiction that reflects the time it was made in and the attitudes and experiences of its author?

Let's see:
- The characters are white because The Shire is a fairly obvious analogue of rural 1930s England.
- They're straight because that was the overwhelming literary convention at the time and remains the statistical majority orientation (and hell, the whole story is virtually devoid of any romance, let alone sexuality.)
- They're vaguely aristocratic because it's a pseudo-mediaeval setting and the most important figures - nobility and royalty - are linked to wealth. (Bilbo is wealthy because he's a retired adventurer, I never got the impression that the rest of the Hobbits - or Gandalf for that matter - were particularly flush).
- The black antagonists - yeah, that's an awkward remnant of the racial attitudes of the time.
- Working class monsters!? I think that's a bit of a projection. If you mean "savage", then yeah, that's how the orcs are portrayed.

(but skip the bloody endless singing).

Amen to that. I actually think the LotR books are remarkably flabby, self-indulgent and overblown, and the flamin' singing is possibly Tolkien at his most obnoxiously masturbatory. It completely ruins what little flow the narrative had to begin with.

I believe that the Dwarves are meant to represent the working class, hard working, head strong, a little too in to their vices, but generally good people, the upper classes, haughty, self important above the squabbles of the lower classes... sounds a lot like the elves non? Also consider that most of the main characters, like Aragorn only come into their wealth and affluence after becomming great heroes, the Hobbits (the middle classes) are content to have saved their home and return to peace. The story is actually about how the middle classes will save us all. As for the Uruks, they are actually meant to represent the German war machine. So there ya go, an interpretation that actually makes sense.

The problem is with this view, is many interpretations like the one offered above, come at this from an american class system and not a British class system which is more likely to have informed Tolkien's writing (for obvious reasons).

On topic:

My only answer really is, that it depends entirely on the context of the situation, does the character behaving that inform an important or empowering part of them, is it a send up of it's absurdism or is it played straight? how does this action or actions affect the character? Why couldn't I play that female, she's cool lookin'?

I don't think this is a simple question to answer and anyone who tries too is fooling themselves as there will always be that one exception, that one situation.

That said, it's an excellent discussion platform, so let's discuss.

 

[Dagda Mor]

I'm firmly against the GG crowd, but sexism never turns me away from games--when I see it, I groan, make a mental note of it, and keep playing. Of course, I'm more likely to buy a game that seems inclusive vs a game that doesn't--a sexist game does have an opportunity cost, the same way a game with poor writing has an opportunity cost. And sexism is poor writing, so I try to change it in the same way that I try to change bad design--calling it out when I see it and offering ways that it could have been better.

 

[Thaluikhain]

LotR, for example, is about a bunch of straight white guys who are generally born into money fighting black people and working class monsters. Yeah, there's a bit of a problem there.

That's an odd complaint. Do you also consider it bad that none of the cast of LotR are in a wheelchair? None of them have bipolar disorder? Would a couple of transgender orcs have made it a better book/film?

Not what I meant.

It's not that the books/films lack diversity, it's who is the heroes and who is the villain.

Every single person that can possibly be described as good is white. Every single person who is not white is evil (as an aside, Tolkien enviasged the orcs as "having those features of the Asian most disagreeable to Caucasians" and describes them as "slant-eyed" once or twice. They dropped this for the film). There are some white people who are evil (Bill Ferny, for example, though Tolkien described him as "swarthy"), but there's very much a race issue there.

Likewise, there heroes are (excepting initially Sam), wealthy. Bilbo came from a rich family, he lived in an exceptionally fine house, Merry and Pippin were rich people that didn't have to work. Gandalf is in an odd position as a wizard, but I'd hardly say he was working class.

Tolkien writes dialogue for two types of characters using a stereotypical working class accent. For the evil trolls in the Hobbit, and for evil orcs in LotR. Not for Sam, IIRC.

Now, if you are going to have no working class or black people in your story, ok. If you are, but they are all going to be evil...not so much.

(I'll admit that straight wasn't so relevant to this, though he does go into everyone's genealogy in tedious detail)

Diversity is good, sure, but does an individual work of fiction need to tick every box before it's acceptable? Whatever happened to appreciating something as a work of fiction that reflects the time it was made in and the attitudes and experiences of its author?

Er, the part of my original post that you neglected to quote in between the parts you did sorta dealt with that. I can still like the story while acknowledging there are problems with it, and how it fits into a larger trend.

Though, reflecting the time it was written isn't such an excuse. There were more progressive stuff at the time, and even if there wasn't, just because it wasn't bad for it's time doesn't mean it wasn't bad.

In Tolkien's case, I wouldn't say his stuff was particularly bad, but there are a few things that stand out. The problem is that legions of lesser authors have tried to copy him, and they've repeated these issues. Fantasy is, in large part, Tolkien rip offs, so his issues with sexism, racism, and so on are still being repeated to this day. Not his fault, but being so influential means he needs to be looked at closer, in the same way that Harry Potter need more attention than, say, Vampire Academy.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Personally I don't think it's right to engage in potentially story-breaking historical revisionism just for the sake of improving diversity. Diversity is great, but the historical fidelity of works of fiction is important too. I'm a bit of a purist and maybe that makes me a stuffy old fart, I dunno, but I see it as a minor act of cultural vandalism when Dr Doolittle gets remade with scatological "urban" humour, or the Three Musketeers end up in a ridiculous steampunk reimagining, or whatever. It simultaneously tarnishes the original, and insults the intelligence of the audience in implying they couldn't possibly enjoy a straight-up retelling without the ubiquitous fart gags, kung-fu fight sequence, and baysplosions.

I'd agree with that.

OTOH, nothing wrong with shamelessly ripping something off, and changing it if you aren't calling it the original.

I've heard this kind of criticism of elements of fiction many, many times, and I think it misses the point. It's not a sober, completely believable simulation that people are defending, it's internal consistency, as defined by whatever the norms are in the context of that work of fiction.

So, in Star Trek, very few people watching are jarred out of their viewing enjoyment by scientifically implausible things like in-ship gravity, inertial dampers or universal translators. But if Kirk walked up to Spock and French kissed him apropos of nothing, it would strike fans as "unrealistic". Of course we know that two men kissing is orders of magnitude more normal than intergalactic travel. But within the established context of the fictional world and its characters, traveling through a wormhole is mundane but a gay relationship would be a major change in tone.

To an extent, yes. Many times, though, there's an automatic assumption that something is just unrealistic under any circumstances, that (for example) straight guys just have to be in charge regardless of whatever made up world is being talked about. I've seen that more than once.

In regards to what you are describing, though, that's certainly true. A story should be internally consistent. However, it is being consistent in a totally made up context. Someone had to decide to come up with this Star Trek thing, in which there is this progressive utopia in the future which has no gay people in it. They didn't have to set things up like that in the first place (well, ok, US TV in the 60s and all, but you know what I mean).

Also...don't wear high heels in a fight, and don't stick guns on them. Do that, and I cannot take you seriously.

So, you're happy to accept a game in which a witch backflips around killing angels, but you object to her wearing high heels because they're "not believable"?

They can't (or rather won't) be made believable, though.

Now, there are plenty of ways you could make them work. Have the heels be flexible, so you can use them as a claw, or spurs or something. A radically different anatomy, perhaps. In fairness, Bayonetta might have some good, well-thought out reason for them, but I'm going to guess that is not the case.

Similarly, you could possibly come up with a good reason why ignoring gun safety is a good idea, why trained soldiers should keep their fingers on the triggers and sweep the muzzles around their friends all the time...but it's not going to happen. Fight angels or whatever if you want, but basic firearm safety doesn't stop being a thing.

 

[implodinggoat]

Not a GG thread, bring that up and I'll shank you.
The purpose of this thread was to get two vehemently disagreeing sides to come to a bit of an understanding. The two sides that disagree the most are GG and "anti" GG, so excluding them from the discussion with threats of knife-death was a shortsighted decision.

Critiquing games from a feminist perspective and/or pointing out things that are targeted at men, or, sexist etc, is fine, debate over it is a good thing, freedom of speech, yada yada.

I don't think this is where the divide lies however.

Where the divide lies is that its just the same complaint over and over and over again.

The vast majority of core gamers are male so it makes sense that the games tend to target them and yet you have this small whiney minority in the gaming press incessantly complaining about how every depiction of women in games doesn't meet their asinine standards.

Its like feminists complaining about the cheerleaders at an NFL game or the waitresses at Hooters. Not everything in existence is targeted at you and not everything should have to conform to your standards. Being a heterosexual male is not a crime, we are not your oppressors and we have just as much a right to media tailored to our tastes as you do.

The SJW movement is nothing more than cultural fascism, no different from the censorship based on decency and family values that stifled American cultural expression in the early 20th century.

Would this alone drive you away from the game?
Would you change it?
What would you have preferred the dev team did differently about this sexist element?
Etc?

No.
No.
I don't really care.

Sometimes I just want to play a game that indulges my male ego with gratuitous explosions and women with enormous breasts. What's wrong with that? Feminists don't like it? Fine don't buy it, hell you weren't going to anyway.

I don't try to impose my standards on them all I want is for them to stop trying to force me to conform to theirs.

 

[ObserverStatus]

The sexism in Metroid: Other M kinda ruined the game for me, but I'm not really sure what would fix it, short of removing almost every cutscene from the game and allowing Samus to upgrade her suit without the approval of a father figure.