Zaik said:
You see this claim a lot, but it pretty much reeks of "I heard it on the internet so it must be true" syndrome. It's probably the first time Fox News has ever been taken seriously on anything they've said by the internet ever.
So, having never actually seen even so much as a kitchen joke out of him, I'm genuinely curious.
Also, to go ahead and clear out some near misses, strippers, prostitutes, and women who are portrayed actually enjoying sex, don't really count as sexism, regardless of what the Vatican says.
It's rare to find feminists and the Vatican/Fox News raising the same objections to a work of art (used here rather loosely). The latter rely on outdated ideals, specifically traditional gender roles, to further their own agenda (power/money, respectively).
This is from Collins English Dictionary. I included the first 2 definitions which didn't relate to sexism (and are more archaic), lest someone accuse me of cherrypicking from the source. For more details, you can just look up
chauvinism at dictionary.com.
1. aggressive or fanatical patriotism; jingoism
2. enthusiastic devotion to a cause
3. smug irrational belief in the superiority of one's own race, party, sex, etc:
male chauvinism
I don't remember which of the FPS Dukes I played in the early 90's, but the only portrayal of women were in posters for such porn movies as
Sister Act 2 and as strippers, whom you could approach and make it rain on by pressing the "open door" button, at which point Duke would say "shake it, baby." This fits exactly the definition of male chauvinism above. Obviously, to some degree it was meant as humor.
So let's talk about comedy, shall we? Comedic elements of games like this one are always defended with the argument that "It's not sexism, it's just a joke," as though the two are somehow mutually exclusive. That's not a very thoughtful argument, and usually when the defense of something isn't thoughtful that tells me that said defense was designed to shut down the thought processes that might otherwise allow some justified criticism in. This isn't always true, of course, and I have heard some much better formed arguments in Duke's defense, but so far all of them have been free speech arguments (and I agree). I wouldn't put any of Duke's writers on the level of David Cross or Dylan Moran, so let's not pretend they are master comedians. They are game designers, and if we're talking about "the early days" then we're talking about a time when most gamers were adolescents and younger. So I find it hard to believe that "shake it baby" was meant as a joke and nothing more. The titillation was meant to excite our young minds so that they could sell a product that, gameplay wise, was
maybe as good as
Rise of the Triad and wasn't nearly as good as
Doom. This is still happening today. Remember when EA marketed (was it Dante?) with commercials stating that "Your mom will hate it!"
Actual professional comedians know how to pull off something like satire. We have a great wealth of material to use when providing a frame of reference any time someone says that screwing a hooker and then running her over with your car in
Grand Theft Auto qualifies as satire. Here's a great example. I'm watching this right now (only the first few minutes are really pertinent).
http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/mon-may-2-2011-francis-fukuyama
For those unfamiliar with Stephen it may seem as if this is nothing more than him enjoying the death of bin Ladin. And he has stated that he does agree to an extent with some of the things his character says. But if you've watched the show before you know what he's up to, particularly when he throws his "bin Ladin's dead" party, and the balloons come down, covered in nine years of dust, and he pulls out a moldy cake from 2002 with a reference to a defunct gameshow and a simulacrum of an old Martin Lawrence joke by way of a thieving beer commercial joke (Wasssssssup!). One of the layers of that bit is him mocking a 10-year-old ideology from which many of us have largely moved on. That is smart satire. Pandering to adolescent, virginal views of women is not satire.
I'm unsure how you find that women portrayed as prostitutes and strippers isn't sexist, or why you coupled it with "women actually enjoying sex." I've never met a hooker, but the strippers I've met (wait, come to think of it, I've met some strippers, so I've probably met a couple of hookers) do not lead me to believe that most of them enjoy sex all that much (they enjoy the Hell out of money and drugs, though). There are some exceptions, but if you think the average porn star really really loves sex then you and I should talk. I haven't played every Duke game ever, but I have seen commercials depicting girl-girl action in the new game. Is this what you're referring to? Because most of the women I've dated are bisexual, and I can tell you that a woman getting her lesbian on to impress her guy isn't enjoying sex, at least not nearly as much as a woman getting her lesbian on because she loves women.
