carnex said:
MysticSlayer said:
Well, considering we have to look at one of the most extreme fringes of one subset of a social movement to see that viewpoint, I think it is safe to say that it isn't some pervasive cultural viewpoint.
I can give you much more relevant example. In many campuses in Canada and some in US male students are forced to take mandatory course (although a short one) with name "She Fears You" where they present how their maleness makes women afraid of them, "teaches" them not to rape etc. Sounds like blaming one side for something that's at the very least collaborative effort.
I just want to say that I wasn't forced to take that class, so I can't really say much on it itself. As far as I know, though, it was simply a lecture, similar to a mandatory lecture on honesty, that was based largely on this paper [http://www.keithedwards.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Edwards.Headrick.pdf], which I would
highly advise reading at least up until the section "Rape Culture". A short version, though, is this: Placing the responsibility to prevent rape on a woman's need to avoid dangerous situations is not only unfair but unreasonable given the current rape culture and statistics. In response, we should also be focusing on educating men about rape and getting them to put in some effort as well. And no, the author is not malicious towards men.
But anyways, the lecture, as far as I know, is itself a response to ridiculous cultural norms surrounding rape which often leaves men ignorant of the real issues surrounding rape. This sort of highlights how the lecture is itself a response to a problematic culture that negatively affects the worldview of many men, who, as we know, also dominate the game industry as writers, designers, and players. As a result, I still don't think we really have a good basis to claim that the stories are ultimately designed and (initially) interpreted to paint men as some incredibly corruptible monster while women are pure innocents.
Correct me if I'm doing this wrong
-Feminists advocate domestic and intimate partner abuse is gender segregated (men do it, women suffer it)
-Anita self-identifies as feminist
-Her videos are leaning towards that side
-There is no proof or action that would suggest she leans other way, or at least not to my knowledge.
Based on that, I would say that it's actually pretty safe to assume that Anita holds the belief that Feminism as a movement advocates.
Feminism itself doesn't really say that domestic abuse is completely segregated, though I'm honestly not sure how often well-respected feminists actually address female-on-male domestic violence either, and it wouldn't surprise me if certain subsets of feminism do completely segregate domestic violence. However, I'm not sure Anita's exact stance on it all, as it could have just been an unintended implication made because of a sloppy presentation of the issue.
If you are just meant to put the bullet between that NPC's eyes and move on characterization would be rather excessive.
Like I've already stated, we don't need to characterize every NPC. There are times to do it and times to not do it, but I'd say when games spend their time sexualizing female NPCs and letting us commit violence against them without giving much, if any, effort to characterizing them or other female NPCs, then the game is starting to deliver some (likely unintentional) disturbing messages about women's place in society.
And some characters do fail quite a bit (Tali for example is a great character but as a romantic interest made me feel dirty, like being sexual with 12 years old child).
I'm not sure about Tali's romance path (never took it), but even if a character fails and ends up delivering its own negative message, at least the developers were trying, and we at least have a way to discuss ways in which they could have better written that same character. Doing nothing is just lazy and gives us little to go on that, "Are you please able to actually, you know, try?"
The_Kodu said:
Videos do have their place however they need to be from someone willing to simply to present the facts and really try not to influence the audience.
Actually, part of academic discussion in certain subjects is arguing a point. Even when a chemist just dryly presents fact, he is essentially making his own argument for how something works, just like how a sociologist trying to make sense of numerous statistics would be interpreting them in such a way to form her own argument for what they mean. Yes, there are papers that are just facts, but many of them still ultimately end up as sources for another person's argument.
Now, there is some aspect of integrity when making those arguments. For instance, the sociologist should honestly present everything she has to work with, and if something seems to contradict her opinion, she should address it without unfairly representing those who disagree with her. But within that integrity, there is plenty of room to argue for a position in an effort to sway people to your side while still leaving room open for a discussion that may leave people against your own opinion.
Maybe Anita isn't the best at presenting her opinions, and she might, intentionally or unintentionally, fall into certain problems like cherry picking and selective bias. However, she isn't wrong for presenting an argument. At worst, she's just wrong in how she does it.
Except that is still a culture, different cultures do have different standards so there isn't really a universal culture as such.
But radical feminism is a relatively minor "culture" shoe adherents seem to have next to no real presence among game writers and designers, so it seems unreasonable to state that a good number of games are being made from that cultural standpoint.
And I understand that there are different cultures that can present and interpret things differently. However, that doesn't mean we can't at least discuss the issues within reasonable bounds and with some cultural sensitivity. After all, trying to force something on another culture [http://feministcupcake.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/tumblr_lb2zvjufte1qeo8kqo1_500-1.jpg][footnote]No, there's no deep meaning behind choosing that comic. I just think it is a humorous way to present the idea.[/footnote] doesn't make someone look like a beacon of progress, just oppression. At the same time, though, having a discussion can certainly help us further develop our own world views and, in the long run, possibly have an influence on our own culture if it gets enough support.
But, at the same time, it is sort of hard to not interpret something through the lens of our own culture, especially if we've had minimal interaction with ones that see the same thing in a drastically different way. As a result, I don't think anyone has to apologize for interpreting something with the baggage that their culture has given them.
Except it's pretty hard to think of a very successful game which was just about treasure. I mean short of Wario world 3 on the GBA and even that's considered pretty much the black sheep of Mario games. It may not seem it but on some level it does work because its something that looks human that were trying to help. I'm not saying it's not nice to have a fully fleshed out character to help but there's still a reason the trope is used over treasure.
Well, there was Battlefield: Bad Company to an extent. Come to think of it, how many games actually have tried to use gold as the treasure at the end?
But I can sort of see at least why it's used more than treasure. Still, I don't think it fully means we have to remove the, albeit unintentional and subtle, message that these are women to be won, not actual characters who just happen to be in trouble because story. It's hard enough not to convey that when they are characterized, but when stripped of everything that makes a character feel more like a person, it really just comes across as lazy writing conveying a disturbing message.
And I'm not trying to say that Mario has to start having the deep stories of standard RPGs or completely throw away it's current
overused story structure. However, at least within their paper-thin stories, they can avoid just making Peach an object to be won at the end of the game. After all, I thought Galaxy did a decent job at giving subtle hints that Peach was more than just a win state to Mario, all without removing the gameplay-driven focus of the game. Sure, a more story-driven game would look horrible if it only did what Galaxy did, but Galaxy at least gave us a glimpse of what less story-driven games can do.
You haven't played it............. go do that............. serious go do it now. Compared to Two Thrones they really developed her as a character and for all but the last part of the game she's there helping you or at least alongside you.
I think we're having a miscommunication here. I'm saying I haven't played the 1989 game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Persia_(1989_video_game)], which is the only one outside of The Two Thrones that Anita has brought up in her videos. I've played through The Sands of Time multiple times, and as I said a couple posts ago, it is possibly my favorite game of all time. Even with social views aside, I uphold it as one of the greatest example of how to develop a story, characters, and relationships in a game. Yeah, The Two Thrones was still good, but even it couldn't really touch how great The Sands of Time was.
Now I should probably stop now before I end up gushing all over The Sands of Time for the next few hours.
Except unless you're doing it in all situations it would come off as forced.
And I agree. I'm not trying to say that this should only be used when the player visits the "mandatory" brothel level. I'm just saying that that is one good way to build the world with the added benefit of not presenting the female NPCs as just sex objects devoid of any individual backstory or deeper characterization that the game just simply can't go into due to constraints. However, I think better world building in general is just a good idea, even if it is mostly just presented as optional material for those who really want it. After all, most of the world building in Dishonored is from entirely optional content, but for people like me who care about that stuff, it did its job.
Yes and that's the point however it all depends on portrayal. Are they showing slave culture as a positive or negative thing. You example was putting forward the idea of it being something that should happen rather than simply addressing it.
A few years back there was a huge outrage at someone who posted about something he described as "A bad thing I did on Sims 2". What had he done ?
He'd made a old timey plantation complete with implied slave workers and fleshed it out complete with some interracial children and a white plantation owner family.
People went nuts and called for public apologies, called for him to be banned from Origin, called for him to face prison. Except the question is what had he done wrong ?
Slavery did exist and this was a commentary on it, yes it's a very sore wound of the past but it's important to remember the past to stop it repeating in the future. He knew that slavery was a bad thing but decided to create something to display it to remind people it is a bad thing. Yet for even showing it people were calling for all sorts of action when he never said it was a good thing he just did it because it was something different and showcased the past.
Unfortunately, I didn't see the video, so I really don't know what context it is in and whether it was a serious commentary or a just a joke. I will say that I'm not a huge fan of making light of certain situations, such as slavery, given that there is that whole horrible culture surrounding it and America still hasn't fully broken from its racist history despite our progress over the years. For instance, I was able to laugh at some parts of the Watch_Dogs "Making the world a better place" video, but I couldn't laugh so much when it was a black, Muslim, or homosexual simply because I felt it was making light of discriminatory profiling and violence that still goes on. I understand that it's probably different in places like the UK, but at least my American mind saw it as a tasteless and offensive attempt at a joke.
With that said, though, I'm not necessarily for banning people because they did something offensive, but I also don't think people should be surprised if they do receive a lot of public backlash. I think part of it does come down to whether or not the person actually wants to have a serious discussion about race relations (e.g. BioShock Infinite's attempts to have a serious discussion about race relations, which included the potential for everyone to be racist regardless of their race) versus just doing something to be offensive (e.g. any number of minor games made by openly racist groups). In the former case, I think it is good for opening discussion and helping present a reality through shocking viewpoints. In the latter, I personally won't be disappointed if the company goes under. Sure, I still don't think that calling for a ban from Origin because someone has a bad sense of humor is justified, but I also think people should be allowed to criticize and vote with their wallets.
Except many games do show women as people it doesn't show every woman in them as a character in their own right but nor does it show every male character as one either.
And I know that a lot, probably most, games have made a lot of progress compared to our early years. However, I do think there is still room for improvement and that some games, for however much they focus on their worlds and/or stories, still don't do what they can to avoid presenting women as little more than objects in the world. Yes, we've made progress, but that still doesn't mean there isn't progress to still be made.
I don't know, would it make sense in GTA to find notes in a strip club when the establishment is selling this fantasy idea entirely disconnected with reality, the same as real life counterparts.
I'm only giving examples that could work for games that use a structure like Dishonored. GTA would certainly be different, but it could still use its own systems (primarily cutscenes) to develop those characters. However, I'm not a huge GTA player, and even when I play it I'm normally just finding ways to mess around, so I don't know how good it already is at presenting women, but given what I have seen, it wouldn't be hard for it to do better just through cutscenes and conversations.
Except that's the inherent problem here in all media background character are often not fleshed out and developed further games are expensive and you have to draw a line somewhere as to who you characterise. So to only focus one one group is treating people differently as such.
Of course, games are a little different in that they often give us interactive worlds, not just a story that we passively watch/read.
And again, I don't think every NPC has to have some minute detail. We just can't do that. But having a more diverse array of NPCs that can give a look into the different facets of the world would go a long way of helping to build it. And maybe not every game has to have Well-Characterized Yet Sexualized Female [insert number here], but I think gaming as a whole would benefit if more games at least tried to do more. As of right now, though, that does mean basically putting every game under a microscope and pulling out the few good ones as examples, but like I said, gaming culture may eventually evolve so that we don't need to just pull out games as the few lone examples of how it can be done right, as we can get it whenever we want. However, given that maybe one or two mainstream games a year actually really are worth holding up as really good examples, I don't think we're quite to that point yet.
MysticSlayer said:
Again if it fits the narrative characterise them otherwise though it would seem very forced to do it.
Often I don't see it as eye candy but as much part of the scene and theme as a waiter present in a restaurant level or a chef while going through the kitchens in a game. They're there to try and represent and add life to these locations rather than it being an entirely empty area.
I agree that they do add to the world to an extent, but I find it hard to see that as all they are there for at times, especially when so many games seem to need a brothel level and/or don't really show
good female NPCs. To some extent, it's really the culture presented through so many games bleeding into itself and making so many games' sexualized NPCs as being both there for the world and there for the eye candy. And there's certainly nothing wrong with having them there, but until games as a whole contain better representation of female characters, whether sexualized or not, it will be very hard to break away from the eye candy aspect certain NPCs's inclusion, even if they do add to the world while they are there.
