Poll: Hitman Absolution hates women

[Terminal Blue]

I didn't play Hitman Absolution, and you know what.. the marketing guy who decided to promote it with fetish nun combat sequences is totally to blame for that.

I really fucking love the Hitman series and particularly how it evolved in the games leading up to Blood Money (the pinacle, in my opinion). It has this wonderful grindhouse feel, much more so than games which self-consciously adopt wierd camera filters and such in order to look like grindhouse movies, and yeah, it has a lot of fetish fuel, but it is actually kind of inventive in its fetishes. It's a game where you can go on a rampage in a really shitty Santa outfit, there's a whole mission set in a BDSM club inside a functioning abattoir. I'm sorry.. that is fucking epic.

That said, the games do kind of hate women, and they hate men. Men in the Hitman games are almost universally portrayed as cruel, cowardly, psychopathic, weak or a combination of the above, while women are almost universally portrayed as idiots, sex objects or erotic predators. This is exactly what a good exploitation movie does, it creates a caricature of the world we live in in which all the ugly bits are magnified. It's a sleazy, nasty, violent little game series which doesn't take itself too seriously..

..and then that fucking trailer happened.

You could not miss the point harder if the point was on the fucking moon, it's like it maybe heard of exploitation but has no idea how to do it. Kung fu kicking fetishwear stripper nuns is not the setup for an exploitation film, it's the setup for a B-porno. It is lazy, cliched, unimaginative and just shows none of the dry cleverness and nihilistic detachment we'd come to expect. Weirdly, I didn't have nearly such a problem with the "perfectly executed" campaign, it did seem a little more Hitman to me, but even then the sex is so. fucking. vanilla. There's nothing really twisted about it beyond the fact that the sexy women are dead.. and sexy (edgy). Come on people.

Heck, it's saying something if you can stick half the characters in fetishwear and still come off like "tease and denial" means "my wife has a headache".

Basically, what I'm saying is I can deal with sexism when it's presented in a way which is imaginative and explicit enough to kind of be a thing. It's when it just becomes a symptom of lazy, unconscious writing tropes that it starts to bother me, and that's definitely the vibe I got from Absolution.

 

[runic knight]

So why do people keep saying it's ok for the examples given to have happened because plenty of guys die as well?

Are you trying to tell me it's an awful game all around in it's themes and presentation and I shouldn't play it?

Honestly, if that is the message you take then yeah, I suppose they are. I know I would say not to play it if you disliked the grind-house tone and violent nature. That just seems like good sense.

As for why bringing up guys dying, it is a counterpoint to the claim that women being killed is somehow intrinsically "bad", when killing guys is dismissed so often as less so.

Well the article is displaying why it seems to be weird compared to the male victims.

Male characters seem to be in charge, wearing tuxedos, and basically being cool. Women characters seem to be always sexually vusual and don't amount to much. The stripper nuns are apparently both needlessly sexy and underwhelming.

And this grind house thing is bull crap. I watched Del Toro and Tarantino's homage to those movies and it wasn't a long parade of weird unpleasant cheesecake and kicking down women.

You can do violent and sexy and gritty without sexism that seems to have no reason to be there.

but there is lies part of the problem, males characters aren't all like the protagonist (who as the role of protagonist is suppose to have that aspect about him as being someone the player wants to play as, or in the case of the chicken suit and stuff, someone the player wants to do goofy stuff with because it juxtaposes their character. And while needlessly sexy, need was never a factor to debate over in a game in the first place and even then not all are just sexy for the sake of sexy. A lot of the older style grind-house films ARE very filled with violence and sexuality but that is another matter since how one person tries to reference or homage something will probably differ from how others do.

 

[visiblenoise]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can deal with sexism when it's presented in a way which is imaginative and explicit enough to kind of be a thing. It's when it just becomes a symptom of lazy, unconscious writing tropes that it starts to bother me, and that's definitely the vibe I got from Absolution.

I'm absolutely fine with your post despite not sharing the same opinion because you qualify it from your perspective only, and it's all within the bounds of the game and whether you enjoyed it or not. When somebody just up and claims that "This is sexist!" how can we not think that they're making some kind of moral judgment on everyone who enjoyed it with no such complaints?

 

[80sboy]

Well, it doesn't have a positive outlook of women... let's just say that.

Personally, I think I have a theory of where this is all coming from.

I call it, 'The Post-Xena Warrior Princess' matter. (Yeah, I know how stupid the name actually sounds but bare with me). Lol. Whenever women are painted with the image of being the strong, heroic, confrontational types that are usually reserved for male protagonist, there's always this sense that there's some level of misandry involved. That sense that since 'Jane' was never allowed to play with the big boys because she was born a she, that she now has a level of hatred for all men and really just wants to get even. If you ever watched that show, Xena, after some time the whole murdering of droves and droves of what appear to be misogynistic dudes, you'd get the sense that the overall message had something more to do with the war of the sexes. That Xena wasn't murdering all those dudes with great prejudice and serious anger because they were bad, but simply because of their Y chromosome. You could be a fan of Xena, run up to her and thank her for saving your village. But the second she turns her head and sees you, even with a smile on your face, all she'll think is 'MAN' and take your head off for it.

And in the end... bitterness is still bitterness, and portrayal of the man-hating feme fatale ends up leaving a sour taste in most people's mouth.

Funny thing about these type of characters which Lara Croft also subscribes to, is that they're always created by men. So... there's this messy snowballing going on where these characters are created by men on how they believe women would feel about being the lead protagonist in a world dominated by men, which leads to bitterness, which leads to characters like Agent 47 trying to put a cork on the whole 'I am woman hear me roar' crap.

Or to put it simply:

Male developers hating female character's because they felt like those female character's were always going to hate them back.

Misogyny through fear of misandry being present.

Stupid as all that sounds. I believe it to be present.

 

[runic knight]

Well, it doesn't have a positive outlook of women... let's just say that.

Personally, I think I have a theory of where this is all coming from.

I call it, 'The Post-Xena Warrior Princess' matter. (Yeah, I know how stupid the name actually sounds but bare with me). Lol. Whenever women are painted with the image of being the strong, heroic, confrontational types that are usually reserved for male protagonist, there's always this sense that there's some level of misandry involved. That sense that since 'Jane' was never allowed to play with the big boys because she was born a she, that she now has a level of hatred for all men and really just wants to get even. If you ever watched that show, Xena, after some time the whole murdering of droves and droves of what appear to be misogynistic dudes, you'd get the sense that the overall message had something more to do with the war of the sexes. That Xena wasn't murdering all those dudes with great prejudice and serious anger because they were bad, but simply because of their Y chromosome. You could be a fan of Xena, run up to her and thank her for saving your village. But the second she turns her head and sees you, even with a smile on your face, all she'll think is 'MAN' and take your head off for it.

And in the end... bitterness is still bitterness, and portrayal of the man-hating feme fatale ends up leaving a sour taste in most people's mouth.

Funny thing about these type of characters which Lara Croft also subscribes to, is that they're always created by men. So... there's this messy snowballing going on where these characters are created by men on how they believe women would feel about being the lead protagonist in a world dominated by men, which leads to bitterness, which leads to characters like Agent 47 trying to put a cork on the whole 'I am woman hear me roar' crap.

Or to put it simply:

Male developers hating female character's because they felt like those female character's were always going to hate them back.

Misogyny through fear of misandry being present.

Stupid as all that sounds. I believe it to be present.

An interesting idea, though the portrayal of the character doesn't seem to support that. 47, for all intent and purpose, kills coldly and emotionlessly. He isn't killing them because they are strong or weak females, there seems no actual care for or against gender based on gender alone, and he kills either gender rather unbiasedly (though kills far more males then females because more males populate the world he exists in and more males are targets to begin with).
Still, it seems a bit of a stretch to say the male developers hate women because they have a male character killing a female character in a game where he also kills a lot of male characters and does both killings dispassionately rather then in a fit of rage.

(now if say kratos was killing female gods in that way, your case would be stronger. Still flawed I think, but at least more consistent as the emotional rage bursts that fuel the final kills of the various gods could be presented as a developer cathartic venting personal feelings. Again, something still very disagreeable and debatable, but at least consistent with the line of reasoning you bring up.)

Furthermore, though they are very outnumbered, there are female developers, project handlers and artists involved and with the size of games being as big as they are, it really seems harder to justify female characters being made they way they are as a misogynist reply to a perceived misandry in the characters they are making themselves.

 

[Erttheking]

Basically, what I'm saying is I can deal with sexism when it's presented in a way which is imaginative and explicit enough to kind of be a thing. It's when it just becomes a symptom of lazy, unconscious writing tropes that it starts to bother me, and that's definitely the vibe I got from Absolution.

I'm absolutely fine with your post despite not sharing the same opinion because you qualify it from your perspective only, and it's all within the bounds of the game and whether you enjoyed it or not. When somebody just up and claims that "This is sexist!" how can we not think that they're making some kind of moral judgment on everyone who enjoyed it with no such complaints?

To be honest I used to (And sometimes do) think that people were insulting my taste when they said that a game was shit. I'm pretty sure most people (Unless they say otherwise in which case feel free to tell them to fuck off) feel anger towards the game and not the people who play it. More often than not I don't even think the people who play it cross their mind.

 

[Zhukov]

I came across this blog post by Elizabeth Edwards (Creative Assembly artist) linked at Rock Paper Shotgun. Warning, there are spoilers.

http://lizedwardsart.tumblr.com/post/43226499697/hitman-absolution

What do you think? Is Elizabeth correct that Hitman Absolution hates women?

Really what I'm interested in here is the poll result but please leave a comment explaining your vote.

sigh hitman absolution doesn't hate women or men the game actively discourages you from killing innocents the only people you kill for a benefit is the target. I am sick of hearing this line of thinking that just because women npcs are there that must mean they are just put there to oppress women, this is however not the case and if feminists stopped shouting this bullshit, and actually took a course in game design and marketing they'd learn that your supposed to realistically populate the world and that is what they do with the npcs (which means neutral player character) whatever they choose to let you do to said npcs doesn't mean anything it's just a game it's not real get over it feminists.

That's not the argument being made here. By anyone. You're tilting at windmills.

Also, NPC actually stands for "non player character". Looks like you need to take a course in game design.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Any time I see someone complain that a game is misogynist because you have to kill female NPCs or female NPCs die in cut-scenes, I use certain...

That's a really bad formula, because it doesn't take into account any plot. If there are a bunch of men shooting at you and you shoot back, it is different than killing a woman in the shower. It is certainly different than killing a woman for no other reason than to advance the plot.

Imagine if that happened to you in a video game. Imagine you are playing a video game about someone who can kick ass and take names, but dies in a shower. You would be pissed off at that plot twist.

And killing women just to advance the plot is very problematic, especially when the protagonist is male. It gives the message than women's lives only matter in how they affect the lives of men. They don't have agency of their own.

 

[Batou667]

*Sigh* I don't hate Hitman. Feel free to look through my posts and find the part where I said that, you'll get nothing. I have it on my Xbox, got it with free games with gold. Haven't played it yet but I am genuinely looking forward to it.

In that case - and with the greatest of respect - exactly what are you basing your opinion on? Second-hand reports of selected bits of the game, a few YouTube videos, and the Attack of the Saints trailer? Please, I really do recommend you play the game as soon as possible, because it would be very easy indeed to get completely the wrong measure of the game if all you were exposed to were cherry-picked segments highlighting the kookiest and most un-PC scenes in the game.

You seem like an intelligent guy with decent enough reasoning, but you're sorely lacking in context at the moment and that mortally wounds any hope of holding an informed opinion on this subject. Play the game. On Normal difficulty you could get through it at an unhurried pace in, say, four evenings of play.

snip

Sad that you let one silly and sensationalised trailer colour your opinion in that way. I think that trailer - like much of the game, actually - suffered from good and possibly even objectively "correct" intentions but tripped over its own feet when it came to execution. Technically the Saints trailer is very effective at establishing:

- The protagonist
- The protagonist's shift of allegiance
- Some of the antagonists
- The setting and theme (outrageous gritty violence superimposed on kitschy Americana)
- The variety of gameplay elements: stealth, hostage-taking, hand-to-hand combat, firearms

Unfortunately the take-home message many people may have got was "Look, this is a game where you can beat up sexy nuns, isn't that an exciting prospect!" - which is too bad, because at least 90% of the game is really nothing like that, in terms of content or theme. If we wanted to give Hitman Absolution a subtitle reflecting what you spend most of your time doing, it wouldn't be "nun-killing extravaganza" - it'd be something closer to "standing in the rain simulator".

 

[Terminal Blue]

- The protagonist

I think after 4 games we probably kind of knew the protagonist, what little there is to know. I mean, he's a bald dude who murders people. I don't think I need to see him engage in epic kung fu and rocket launcher battles with nuns to confirm that.

- The protagonist's shift of allegiance

Again, kind of a natural follow on from the previous game (when the organization he worked for was destroyed). After all, if you hadn't played the previous games why would you care? That's the point at which "I'm a bald dude who murders people" takes over.

- Some of the antagonists

Okay, I'll give you this. They're just really stupid antagonists who don't seem to have any place in a hitman game.

Blood money had sexy lady assassins. I distinctly remember tossing one down an elevator shaft. The thing is, they felt like they might actually assassinate someone, you know, by doing things like blending in and trying to get close to their targets innocuously. Actually, I felt they bought really well into the game's whole conceit, because generally they would get you to follow or come close to them by promisihg some kind of sexy thing and then kill you in a unavoidable cutscene. Agent 47, the character is generally implied to be asexual, or at best to have an extremely perverse sexuality. Punishing the player for going against that actually really worked for me.

- The setting and theme (outrageous gritty violence superimposed on kitschy Americana)

This is kind of where it falls down for me again, because to me "gritty violence" is not "epic kung fu battles and action movie gunplay with rocket launchers". Violence in the games is far more gritty, it's often quick, one-sided and plays more like a gangster movie than a hollywood action blockbuster. As for kitschy Americana, Blood Money did that and it worked so I can't blame Absolution for trying to steal it's shtick, but before that the series actually had more of a James Bond tone, complete with a full range of "exotic" locations.

Okay. I have to go to dinner, but there's an incomplete list of responses. Also, I did mention another piece of advertising (weirdly, the more controversial one - which I was actually fine with) and maybe I would have bought it if the prevailing opinion given to me hadn't been a scream of "BETRAYAL!" That said, the trailer was a massive hype killer and put me in completely the wrong mindset.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I'm basing my opinion on nothing because I don't have an opinion of the game. I have an opinion on PARTS of the game, specifically the tone and portrayal in those parts. Just because I dislike one aspect of a game doesn't mean I hate the entire thing. How can I hate it? I know nothing about it, for all I know it's great. I LOVE Metro Last Light despite how awfully sexist it can be.

Though I will take a look at it and get back to you.

 

[Timpossible]

Hate Women? Nope.

Is it lazy and unfunny by using stupid stereotypes, clichés and sexist jokes (not because they hate women, but because it's easy)? Yes. The whole game is lazy in that way. The entire atmosphere of the game feels like "We want to be as gritty and exploitation as possible!" and they wanted to achieve that by beeing as inironicly cliché as possible.

 

[runic knight]

You're not in the strip club to derive some fucking pleasure from it. You're supposed to HATE the place. Hate what it is, and who runs it. So you can justify throwing them off a windowsill. If anything you're there to assist the strippers in the club. To get them out from under the thumb of their pyscho boss.

Let's not be disingenuous here.

47 is never given the objective or directive to save or help the strippers in the strip club. That was never his goal at all.
47 isn't a white knight riding in on a big white horse, coming to save the damsels in distress.

In fact, it's highly likely that once the strip club owner is killed, his underboss or second-in-command will take over, and nothing changes for the strippers.

All this is pretty true, carry on.
The game never paints 47 as anything more then a murderer for hire til he goes rogue and part of his "appeal" as a character is he doesn't care about anyone, any gender and only cares about completing the mission.

why do people keep saying it's ok for the examples given to have happened because plenty of guys die as well?

Because of this:

You are aware that the use of that counterpoint has never been a "so what, it doesn't matter" so much as it has been "it affects everyone so you can't claim it affecting one gender is somehow more special."
The argument is that claiming sexism for it is demonstrably false.
Never liked that strip in particular, simplifies things far too much. Maybe if it showed the game company unable to give out food without setting people on fire first to represent how everyone sacrifices on the ideal game they want when they participate in the free market provided games made by others instead of making the games themselves the way they want...
For a quick gag it works, but as an actual commentary about what people use the rebuttal, it simplifies things to the point of making anyone who uses the strip as a rebuttal look like they don't actually understand the issue in the least.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

...And now you're the one ignoring context of the matter.

No I'm not. I have a funny feeling trying to explain it to you will be a waste of time, but here it goes.

The context of the shower kill is your target is a high-ranking member of an organization, one that is supposedly highly skilled. Yet the plot reduces her to a sex object in a shower before you kill her. She is stripped of her agency and abilities before you kill her, just so you can advance the plot. When women are rarely shown having agency in media, taking away a woman's agency and killing her to advance the plot for a male character is very problematic.

This isn't the only instance of this either. There are a group of sexy nuns that are there to be ogled and killed and who advance the plot. You are never encouraged to ogle the male agents before shooting them.

There is a highly competent woman who, when she leaves the room, is called a ***** but is described as doable.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

You are aware that the use of that counterpoint has never been a "so what, it doesn't matter" so much as it has been "it affects everyone so you can't claim it affecting one gender is somehow more special."

Then how come I never see that "counterpoint" used as a "point"? If you were correct, then men would bring it up when it happens and not wait till a woman points out sexism.

It's like MRAs who never bringing up gender discrimination problems males suffer from, unless they are using it to attack women who bring up misogyny.

Furthermore, when was the last time a video game or movie sexualized a male guard before you were supposed to kill them?

 

[cypher-raige]

You are aware that the use of that counterpoint has never been a "so what, it doesn't matter" so much as it has been "it affects everyone so you can't claim it affecting one gender is somehow more special."

Then how come I never see that "counterpoint" used as a "point"? If you were correct, then men would bring it up when it happens and not wait till a woman points out sexism.

It's like MRAs who never bringing up gender discrimination problems males suffer from, unless they are using it to attack women who bring up misogyny.

Furthermore, when was the last time a video game or movie sexualized a male guard before you were supposed to kill them?

Because men usually suck it up and don't complain.

Bringing up male problems is supposed to put things in perspective for middle-class feminists who complain they are second class citizens.

 

[runic knight]

You are aware that the use of that counterpoint has never been a "so what, it doesn't matter" so much as it has been "it affects everyone so you can't claim it affecting one gender is somehow more special."

Then how come I never see that "counterpoint" used as a "point"? If you were correct, then men would bring it up when it happens and not wait till a woman points out sexism.

It's like MRAs who never bringing up gender discrimination problems males suffer from, unless they are using it to attack women who bring up misogyny.

Furthermore, when was the last time a video game or movie sexualized a male guard before you were supposed to kill them?

Maybe because the gag of that joke being that the males don't care and don't think it is important does have some basis and is why you don't hear too much about as a topic, since in this case the males already accept the being set on fire bit as something they just have to put up with to play games they themselves don't make? You know, the idea you have to compromise on what you want that I mentioned in my last post.

I was saying why it is brought up as a counterpoint, which is to demonstrate that claims of such treatment of characters being motivated by sexism is demonstrably false. Why it isn't brought up as an issue in general is, well, A. sort of another topic as the conversation wasn't about why they are or are not talking about it, rather just that claims of sexism are greatly exaggerated, and B. has been brought up before as part of the overall concerns on poor characterization in general and is regularly mentioned in reviews and criticism of games where NPC are useless, or teammates are bullet sponge braindead.

As for examples of sexualization, what is your point to be made, exactly? I assume it is that because female characters are sexualized they are somehow worse off then males who are not as often sexualized, though that is being a bit shallow in your view of things when the counterpoint of how poorly games represent all people is not just who is sexualized more but rather then all characters, especially NPC, are very poorly characterized and grossly use story-telling short hand to do so in as little time and effort as possible. a female assassin is sexy, dangerous, and lacks motivation beyond the programmed challenge to the player for the same overall reason as a male grunt is white, dumb, pseudo-military personality, blind as a bat and lacks motivation beyond the programmed challenge to the player. Both are lazy storytelling trough quickly understood and culturally identified tropes.

Though if you'd like I could go into how it is a bit disingenuous to ask about sexualization with the assumption female characters are sexualized for males, when the point of such sexualization would be appealing to what a male would react best to (visual stimuli) and thus a side by side comparison to a male sexualized in the same way would not be the apples to apples comparison it is pretended to be when as a general understanding, visual stimuli does not affect the average women the same way it affects the average male and thus a fairer assessment of comparison to a sexualized character with less personality for a male would be an attractive male with a desired personality for a female (a fair comparison based on what actually would stimulate the particular gender, as well as fair because both are based on overall trends to make as broad appealing character as possible, be it an ideal female figure that doesn't necessarily appeal to all males or an idealized male personality that doesn't appeal to all females.)

Yet that may be going too broad from the topic about if the inanimate game hates an entire gender.

 

[runic knight]

You are aware that the use of that counterpoint has never been a "so what, it doesn't matter" so much as it has been "it affects everyone so you can't claim it affecting one gender is somehow more special."

Then how come I never see that "counterpoint" used as a "point"? If you were correct, then men would bring it up when it happens and not wait till a woman points out sexism.

It's like MRAs who never bringing up gender discrimination problems males suffer from, unless they are using it to attack women who bring up misogyny.

Furthermore, when was the last time a video game or movie sexualized a male guard before you were supposed to kill them?

Because men usually suck it up and don't complain.

Bringing up male problems is supposed to put things in perspective for middle-class feminists who complain they are second class citizens.

True, but at that point you get posts like that web strip, where not complaining (or in case of this issue in particular, not complaining about how it affects a gender isolated from the rest of the underlying issue) is mistaken for apathy for the problem as a whole.

I am sure many many people, male and female, publicly protest the lack of creativity in characterization, or the overuse of tropes in games after all.

 

[Vigormortis]

It's incredibly humorous to me how many people are passing judgement on this game; one way or another; while they openly admit to having not even played the game.

Opinion, critique, and judgement via second-hand account, especially of a piece of widely-available media, is as idiotic as it is pointless. And in some ways, disingenuous.

Perhaps people should play the game before they draw any conclusions.

 

[Fox12]

A disc made of plastic can't hate shit. Nor can a bunch of code on said disc.

I think you may need to take things a little less seriously.

[http://www.youtube.com/v/ysT_hI4mTx0?version=3&start=38&end=45&autoplay=0&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The fact is that these games present women in a demeaning way, where their sole purpose is to act as fanservice to male viewers. It's frankly misogynistic smut.

Your really bad at posting links you know that? Links to Youtubes home page. Regardless, basing off someone else who apparently got it working, its the strip club scene? You were killing one of the patrons, and there was even a speech all about how demeaning the strippers find the work and how shit the conditions are in the backroom section, as well as multiple times guards would state how few shits they have for the safety of the girls. If that was turning women into fan service, your an idiot, or are completely abandoned from reality, or much much more likely, didn't play the game. The funniest part is people use the strip club scene and not the Saints, who actually were fan service, and are my biggest complaint of the whole game (in a game that while still fantastic at what it was, betrayed the Hitman series).

Uh. No. It was the scene from Guardians of the Galaxy where Drax takes things far too literally : P

Weird, the link worked perfectly for everyone before, but you're welcome to take another look I suppose.