Kinda sexist? Would you change it? How?

Theodora

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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
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. We see sexism and other discriminatory concepts as bad, something that should be gotten rid of. When we label Assassin's Creed as sexist, or Bayonetta, or Tomb Raider, or any other game, to some people it comes across as "X is sexist, so we must get rid of it". Thing is, I don't think this is what most people mean when they say that. If a person or a law is sexist, we see that as a bad thing, but if a game has a sexist element, (the women being side characters, all the player characters being men etc,) it's not necessarily "bad", it just "is". People don't mean "we must destroy it!", it's merely an observation.

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?
Etc?

Note: When I stated certain things are sexist in some way, I was using examples, not my own observations (though my observations may or may not align with some of these examples, they aren't the point here, please don't lose focus of the actual question).

Be civil, no shitfights, ->stay (roughly) on topic<-, try to be concise.
Personally I contest the right of certain people to declare things sexist and have that be simply accepted as a sacrosanct fact.

First, these things are rarely merely observations but also come with elements of shaming. One crucial reason I defend Bayonetta is the Anti-Bayonetta crowd makes you out to be a bad person if you like the game. Aesthetically is the crotch shot bad? Is it necessarily offensive to really anyone?

Second, I'd question if anything needs to be changed at all.
 

Thorn14

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To me I just find Sexist, just like Racist, to be a very heavy word and its cheapened by everyone using these words too much.

Not having a female character, or your cast be all white is not sexist or racist.

Lacking in diversity? Maybe. But those words to me imply a conscious desire to put down those people, and I just don't see that.

Bayonetta doesn't tell women to go back to the kitchen, LOTR doesn't tell people black or non white people are evil.

So calling it those to me just seems excessive and may put people on the defensive. You'll probably get someone to go "Yeah I suppose" if you said a game was lacking in diversity. But if you go and call them "Sexist" they'll take it as an attack on the thing they like.
 

Johnny Novgorod

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thaluikhain said:
or if elvish and dwarfish is a different ethnicity in of itself (not sure about that last, though).
Going by The Silmarillion, each race was fashioned by a different god. But there's no mention of dwarves' ethnicity, whereas elves are repeatedly referred to as pale. For that matter I don't think humans are specifically said to be white.
 

omega 616

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My thing is, I don't have a problem with the odd sexist/racist/whatever-ist thing ... take the walking dead tv series, Merle Dixon (or as it's pronounced in the show "Mrl" and his brother "Drl") he was about as politically correct as a KKK meeting but I liked him, in a love to hate him kind of of way.

This is England (the movie) was about a bunch of skin heads, one of whom was a racist and in the group was a black kid called "Milky". The group was very racist, at one point they walk into a corner shop (owned, as they typically are, by an Indian family) and shouting all kinds of obscenities, "this our shop now!", robbing the place, one even drops his pants to take a dump but I'm ok with it 'cos that is "of the time" ... you have to expect that kind of behavior.

My issue is the amount of sexism in things, the odd Bayonetta or Dragons crown? Whatever but when I see so many examples of things that just don't jive, it starts to piss me off.

Ok, put yourself in this situation ... you're going to a very cold climate, snow is always on the floor and knee deep. What do you pack? Big thick coats, gloves, hats, thermal clothes, scarf, thick socks? What about a pair of shorts? "IN FREEZING WEATHER!?!?! YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?!?" No, I'm Lara Croft! Like seriously?

(now that you know where I am going with this) lets pick another example. You're going off to war with a few companions, the men are wearing typical knights gear, what do you pack? A metal bikini ... well known for protecting vital organs from arrows, swords and maces.

Ada Wong (resident evil) "It's a zombie out break that has lasted years, what shall I wear today? I know, a red cocktail dress! This will surely stop me from being bitten!".

Like I said, the odd game or occurrence, I don't mind ... actually I kind of welcome it. If everything was super PC, the world would be a dull and paranoid place but shit like "boyonetta wears her hair and is naked when she uses her hair to unleash a special attack" or "lets design a game where you play as a hot cheerleader killing zombies with a chainsaw (which is only original in the cheerleader aspect) ... oh, and lets put an achievement in their for looking up her skirt".

Not to mention all the barbie-like body proportions.

I know all the devs and artistic designers behind the games are going to trot out some well rehearsed spiel about "that's just like how I envisioned the character" or something about "artistic license" ... which is kind of the problem, if you think "I will put a woman in my game" and immediately picture a super model, you shouldn't be putting females in your game.

Another favorite example of mine is Flemeth. For those who don't know, witch of the wilds in the dragon age games. Origins takes place at the same time as the start of the second game. Now, when I hear "witch of the wilds" I imagine a scruffy, disheveled old woman, unkempt graying hair ... just short of cartoonish warts, black hat and green skin.

In Origins, they NAILED that look! I looked at her and thought "she lives in a small wooden shack, looks a little evil and doesn't take pride in her looks ... perfect witch!". Then (and remember start of two takes place at the same time as one) in 2 she has a boob window, wraps around her hair to make it look like horns (maleficant style), looks around 30 years younger, bright white hair ... in all honesty, quite sexy. That isn't a witch who lives in the WILDS! That is, at best, "witch of the manor".

Design the character to fit the personality, do not say "I need a woman to fill this PC quota" give her some half baked story and model her after your favorite swim suit model.

I am not at all against an all male cast of main characters, as long as it fits with your world. if you need another character in your game, would it be better to have a female or male and WHY? A common thought is "men are better at physical stuff but women are better thinkers" (not saying it is true) so you could play on that, say you need a tactician in a Rome total war style game, you could slightly boost the womans tactical thinking but reduce her eagerness for war 'cos women aren't known for getting into street fights.

Now, that last paragraph was filled with stereotypes but it would be a step towards what I think would be better games. At the moment it feels like half the games are made with an all male cast and then one dev realizes and just gender swaps a guy and the other halfdon't even go that far and just make the woman a goal or your little buddy.
 

Belaam

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CpT_x_Killsteal said:
Would this alone drive you away from the game?
Depends on the severity of the issue and who I was playing it with. Games aimed at kids tend to be far better at this than adult games, but if we had sexualized female characters in the next Lego franchise game or a Skylanders game wherein most of the female characters needed rescuing by the males, that would probably do it. Mainly because I play those games with my daughters. GTA V's paparazzi chasing around starlets, conversely, seems more like a commentary on real life than anything for the thrills. Similar things in future GTA games would be unlikely to dissuade me from buying GTA games, in part because I play those alone(though I do think a female GTA protagonist would be interesting). And I'd love to see an AC game where someone is in the body of an opposite gender ancestor and struggling with that.

That said, the first crime sandbox I will introduce my daughter to in a few years will probably be Saints Row 2, mainly because you can make realistically bodied women and you'll have a nice reverse Mario moment of a female protagonist working to save Gat. SR2 works quite well as both a feminist and queer game with a female protagonist. It also makes the protagonist/Gat relationship a little more interesting and adds maternal elements to building a gang.

Would you change it?
Um, sure. I'd change almost every game to fit my particular interests at any given time. I would have loved to have seen SR3 with SR2's character creator. Or even GTA V with SR2's character creator. As an overweight, middle aged guy, I find it hilarious to make a character who looks exactly like me running crime spree missions.

I'd probably be more inclined to change the stuff where I'd like to introduce my daughters to a game or genre, but have trouble finding one where they don't have to be male characters rescuing female characters, an anatomically impossible sex goddess as their only female character option, or just flat out only allowed to be male. Which is probably why we'll probably stick with kid games longer than I would like and spend a lot of time with MMOs.

What would you have preferred the dev team did differently about this sexist element?
Unless it is a key element of the game, I'd rather devs avoid sexist elements. If you're playing DoA5, the fighting game elements are probably not the sole reason you're playing it. Which is fine, mainly because its not really a surprise.

Likewise, it would be virtually impossible to make a dating sim or Dragon Age type relationship mini game that is not sexist. If you're actively quantifying what gifts or conversation tree elements get you to a sex scene fastest, you're supporting the idea that sex is a reward for performing an action and not a mutual pleasure. I see this as sexism that exists due to limited gaming mechanics though. First off, it obviously applies to bedding either male or female characters as an either male or female character yourself. Secondly, without some true AI, you're never going to actually be able to form a mutual relationship with an NPC. So I don't know that a dev team could do anything about that other than remove it entirely and the idea that there would never be sexual relationships in a group of people working, living, and fighting for a similar cause seems even more absurd than that those relationships would play out by giving a specific person every bird themed piece of art you could find (or whatever). As such, even though the mechanics for those are sexist, I don't really have a problem with them. Some throw-away fourth wall breaking dialog about the problems with the mechanics might be funny though. Old man in an inn reminiscing about how he had to give his wife a pile of goblin jewelry three feet tall before she'd agree to have kids, etc.

But if there's no real genre or mechanics related reason for the sexism, I would rather it were cut. It will certainly be more of an issue as to whether or not I buy the game as my daughters age.
 

Bruce

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Queen Michael said:
thaluikhain said:
Depends on the severity.

LotR, for example, is about a bunch of straight white guys who are generally born into money fighting black people...
I haven't read that book since 2006; who are black?
Men of Harad. They fight on the side of the enemy, as to the Easterners.
 

sageoftruth

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Res Plus said:
thaluikhain said:
I'd say you were very much correct. People are very quick to equate "This has a sexist element" with "Ban this, it hurts my feelings" and argue against the former while claiming it's the latter. This is very tiresome.
I'd say that's a reaction to some of the people (I stress some) who continually bring up "-isms" being so self-righteous, aggressive and censorious; I have found some tend to be very quick to claim anyone who doesn't see art through an "-ism" lens as "racist", "sexist", "scared" or "stupid".

Even the OP and yourself, who seem very nice, balanced people, are starting from the premise that you get to change other people's work, indeed, you seem to suggest that you could in some way improve the Lords of the Rings?

It strikes me that people become defensive because of this kind of attempt to force a quite fervent form of political thought onto long existing touchstones of culture. That and the grindingly relentless nature of the commentary but that's more an Escapist issue :)

I understand it's a personal decision but I simply cannot see how having black elves in Lord of Rings would help anyone, ever.
I was thinking about that myself. If his thoughts were anything like what I was expecting, going in here, perhaps instead of asking "How would you change it" he could have retroactively asked "How could it have been made differently to avoid this controversy in the first place, without degrading the quality of the game itself?" I have a hunch that's what the OP meant to ask. As lots of people here already mentioned, it's pretty foolish to call for an existing and functional game to be completely re-written.

That question is what I'm always left wondering when this subject comes up. Sure, there are games where the subject of controversy simply feels tacked on and can be removed without affecting the game in the slightest, but then there are issues where it's more deeply embedded and I just cannot imagine how it could have been done differently, especially when there's such a minefield of ways to offend people. Without specific examples, we may not be able to answer that question, but I don't want to change the subject too much.
 

Belaam

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Batou667 said:
Personally I don't think it's right to engage in potentially story-breaking historical revisionism just for the sake of improving diversity.
I agree. But I also think it's severely weird that AC seems to be going for the story-breaking historical revisionism to take female spies and assassins out of Unity.

Dr Doolittle gets remade with scatological "urban" humour,
That was stupid.
the Three Musketeers end up in a ridiculous steampunk reimagining
Holy crap, is this a thing?! I would love to see steampunk Musketeers.

Okay, here's my rationale for the double standard there: Dumas was all about the swashbuckling and steampunk tends to be all about the swashbuckling. The two seem like they would fit amazingly well and there are already at least have a dozen straight film versions of the novel. Though they tend to ditch the problems with the novel. Like where Dumas makes D'artagnan a musketeer about half way through the novel, then completely forgets that he did so and has him rewarded at the end by being made a musketeer.

Whereas Eddie Murphy just went through a phase where his thing was remaking old films with himself as the lead and they were all pretty much inferior to the originals with the additional problem of each one carrying the baggage of the previous.

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 more to the point, a gay relationship between a promiscuous straight man and an emotion-suppressing alien. Though you might be able to do some interesting stuff with a plot about how already repressed Vulcans deal with homosexuality.

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

No one should be taking Bayonetta seriously. Therein lies the problem. It's like hating Blazing Saddles because it breaks the fourth wall with the multi-sound stage fight.
 

Grizzly_Bear_1

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What if some of these developers are actually portraying a satire of what they believe to be the flaws in our own real lives?

A lot of movies have done this. Do you think that some video games have exaggerated some parts of our culture? It's called artistic expression. It might be a poor attempt at it, but that's what it is. A lot of these critics really need to start thinking for themselves and stop over-analyzing everything around them.
 

Thaluikhain

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Grizzly_Bear_1 said:
What if some of these developers are actually portraying a satire of what they believe to be the flaws in our own real lives?

A lot of movies have done this. Do you think that some video games have exaggerated some parts of our culture? It's called artistic expression. It might be a poor attempt at it, but that's what it is.
Yeah, that is a thing that happens. So?
 

sinterklaas

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Surely most big movies and games are still about how straight white guys save the world?
And the problem is...? I do not get this 'issue' at all. A story is a story. You are well within your rights to create a movie about black people killing all white people on earth. And that would be totally fine. That would not be racist. Or well, the black people in the story would be racist. But that isn't a problem. It's a story about racist black people.

Why does there need to be a female/ethnicity/poor/sexuality quotum in games, movies, series and books? It's insane. If you think there's too few strong females in games, make your own game. That's how stories work. Everyone can create them.

As to whether I'd change it? You mean, would I pass a law making it changing, or if I was a script editor or something I'd talk to the writers and get them to do things differently because that's my job? If I was involved at a high level at a LotR rip-off film, I'd question if the elves and dwarfs and not evil humans all need to be white, if there would be different ethnicities amongst them, or if elvish and dwarfish is a different ethnicity in of itself (not sure about that last, though).
And what exactly would this change? Don't you realise how insane you sound? You are trying to change a story because reasons. A story should be judged on its merits, not with a checklist...

[x] Enough nonwhite characters
[v] At least 50% strong females
[v] Black people who are not the enemy
[x] Asians not portrayed as kungfu masters
[x] Are the elves ethnically diverse enough