So, I agree with pretty much everything in Anita Sarkeesian's Damsels in Distress video.

II2

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EstrogenicMuscle said:
So, I'm sorry I'm not sorry. Because she's right and I completely agree with her. Also, one common criticism of her video is that she's "playing captain obvious". And I agree that, yes, most of the stuff in her video should not be mindblowingly new to most people. Her points should be obvious. However, given how many people defensively and viciously disagree with her, I would say that stating the obvious is still quite important, because many people clearly do not see that her points are true.
I think the nitpicky backlack is just the inevitable hands of the enraged troll pit, and a couple of legitimate critics of her work, trying to find something substantiate to pull off it. Their efforts seem especially forced because her video is very succinct, but formal, with almost no easily objectionable exaggerations. It's almost like a fine detail anatomy drawing of a creature (or trope); not particularly expressive, but accurate and comprehensively defined.

That said, I do not particularly like or respect her, or her body of work. Her work as a social-politically minded media critic (with an express system of belief informing her conclusions) contributes very little of value to the discussion of an entertainment medium predominantly experienced via interactive systems. As her Bayonetta video illustrated, she draws conclusions about games and characters from their pose and depiction on the box art and marketing and gives that higher priority in discussion to the systems of gameplay and ludic interactions between the elements of dynamic environment.

The application of content analysis to any medium tends to typically produces a mixed bag of inductively reasoned conclusions, but that's especially true of videogames. When you pair that with an existing socio political agenda, it's not hard to use the diversity of imagery to support hardline political stances such as "videogames are murder practice simulators", or alternately, "videogames teach women to devalue themselves". That is not what she said, explicitly, but her concern and tone belies a belief that they do harm.

I absolutely agree the damsel trope exists abundantly in videogames. I don't believe it is harmful to the minds of 'impressionable young women' beyond being a tired plot beat that might frustrate them and possibly motive a payoff for games that offer variety. I don't think women, of any age, to be so foolish to just sponge up negative stereotypes without being able to assess them for themselves.

I don't like Anita. I don't agree with her, but not for the reasons that internet goblins nitpick over. I dislike them even more, in the end.
 

Ryan Minns

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Gormers1 said:
In other words they are protagonists because they are men. The capable ones. While the woman is the reward. It very often is sexist. Above all though, it is a very overdone trope that generally constitues a boring story.
I wouldn't usually be caught dead in a thread like this but could you actually link me to a game where a woman is a reward. I keep hearing this claim but never actually seeing such a thing.
 

Regless

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Well... back to the video. I liked it. The high point was definitely the bit about dinosaur planet. The low point was generally regarding Princess Peach I think. Some of the information was inaccurate and the way it was presented made her seem like she was attacking the character and her portrayal over the years rather than set up the basis for sexism in today's games, which was, given what her second video is going to be about, her original intention I think.
 

Sonic Doctor

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Sonic Doctor said:
As you said, and I have pointed out before, she said she wants developers to stop using the trope altogether. Then it boggles my mind that then people defending her try and calm others down by saying that she isn't out to take your games away.
Because those two are in no way equivalent.

Well, unless you think that "damsel in distress" means ALL TEH GAEMZ.

In which case, I don't even know what to say.
No, I don't think that it means all the games.

Just a section of a style of games that some people like.

It's like I had some people comment in that past, "well such people have a huge backlog of such games to play, so they should stop complaining."

The problem is, that isn't the point. The "taking away" that I was talking about and what most outraged people are talking about is that it would mean that no new content would be made for the style of game they like. The backlog doesn't matter, they wouldn't get new games that had the latest everything. Which I would say would be tragic that a group of gamers would be neglected in the ever moving forward world of gaming. The movement should be for all to get what they want.

Okay, so you and other people think that such damsel in distress games are sexist and whatnot. You shouldn't be campaigning for developers to stop making such games. What you should be doing is only campaigning to make more games that you consider to be not sexist, games you consider to show equality.
 

runic knight

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Zachary Amaranth said:
runic knight said:
Simple, she presents every example as sexism and refuses to acknowledge that behind every decision in video games has a plethora of reasons why a decision was made.
Hmm, she seems to have done just what you said she doesn't do, but I'm interested as to why you think she doesn't. And I don't think "storytelling convenience" counts. Billy and Jimmy, Mario and Bowser, etc., they all had paper thin characterisation, but they still had a chunk more than Peach, Daisy, Marion. They used to splash this info in instruction manuals and on the arcade cabinets. It was not equivalent or even close. The fact that they, according to the folk wisdom here, did not need such characterisation is even more baffling.
I have seen a few of her older videos and the latest tropes one and I don't recall her going into reasons why a player character is a male in the first place, how that would affect the equation-like formula of cheap dramatic convenience (hero - love interest = easy dramatic weight for story/game justification), why companies would do so at all, the trap of reoccuring storylines in series games and the like. There is a lot of depth to this topic to discuss and yet passed over quickly or ignored all together.

The trope is picked for a lot of reasons and yet none seem touched on except in how it relates negatively to female portrayal and implied motivation for the trope as sexist. When she talks about how dinosaur planet was going to have a female protagonist alongside a male one, but that the company couldn't handle that so had to give it to an already established, popular male character, it really seems to paint the impression that she sees it as sexistly motivated. The amount of business meddling involved in the decision though was quite high, and motivation for a more certain profit is what resulted in the decisions made in the end, regardless how much the game itself flopped. By discussing the game's history without going into business motivations, it is presented a skewed perspective that reminds me of anything Bill o'rilely has pulled out of his ass.

As for their characterizations, they don't have any, none of those examples do. They have the faintest hint of personality shaped by appearance and presumed motivation. Mario, well, he is a hero... and a plumber... and Italian. Bowser, he is a king or something? Mean, cause he kidnaps people and turns them into bricks, and.... umm....? Peach being a friendly monarch seems pretty much on par.

As for why they don't, it isn't that female characters don't need characterization, it is that in games like Mario NONE of them really need it. The plot is paper thin. None of the characters are anything more then their role. Hero, villian, living example of villian's villany. So when people say they don't need characterization, it is the same reason that toad's aren't given it in the original game. Characterization in a game made out of stereotype characters seems pretty out of place and unnecessary when the purpose of the story in such a game is merely an excuse to play the game in the first place. Toads are virtually clones for the most part (or the same one was in every castle, not sure), yet no one cares about their character. If they were female (pretty sure they are male? meant to be male?) would they also be picked at and expected to be more then what they need to be or have people would ask why they aren't?

EstrogenicMuscle said:
Except that she does. So you're wrong.
Have anything else to add? Several paragraphs ignored to merely go "nu uh" seems, well, sort of sad a rebuttal. Surely you have something more you can add. Examples, perhaps to show where and how I am wrong, or even comments about the whole rest of the post? Given how you can reply to most people with several paragraphs of your own, I would think more then a sentence would be there, unless you don't actually have a counterpoint, of course.
So, where has she gone over target demographics and business practices with selective audiences? Where has she gone over the generic story equation? Did I miss where she went into detail about how games can be "locked" into a story design because of being competitors' copycat or because of past games in the same series has it and the companies don't want to risk changing too much? If I missed this stuff, please, do let me know. A sentence isn't really doing it, and a sentence passing over the topic doesn't actually acknowledge it so much as attempts to handwave it.
 

Gormers1

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Ryan Minns said:
Gormers1 said:
In other words they are protagonists because they are men. The capable ones. While the woman is the reward. It very often is sexist. Above all though, it is a very overdone trope that generally constitues a boring story.
I wouldn't usually be caught dead in a thread like this but could you actually link me to a game where a woman is a reward. I keep hearing this claim but never actually seeing such a thing.
the Super Mario games
Dead Space
Shadow Complex
are examples of games where the story is based around a damsel-in-distress being the reward for the main character when you finish the game.

Metroid: Other M
is an example of a game where you actually play as a female protagonist but somehow still manages to be the damsel in distress in the story, and the object of men in the story.

Dead or Alive Extreme Beach 2
is an example of a game where women is the reward to the player.

I dont always see the damsel in distress trope as a bad element in a story (I really like the story in Prince of Persia:tsof for instance), but I do see it as overused, and sometimes sexist.
 

Something Amyss

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Sonic Doctor said:
The problem is, that isn't the point. The "taking away" that I was talking about and what most outraged people are talking about is that it would mean that no new content would be made for the style of game they like.
I'm curious as to what games actually need the damsel in distress to be relevant. Otherwise, again, this in no way works.

Though I don't think it ever did.
 

Something Amyss

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runic knight said:
I have seen a few of her older videos and the latest tropes one and I don't recall her going into reasons why a player character is a male in the first place, how that would affect the equation-like formula of cheap dramatic convenience (hero - love interest = easy dramatic weight for story/game justification), why companies would do so at all, the trap of reoccuring storylines in series games and the like.
Okay, first? That's not a refusal to acknowledge. That's called addressing the issue at hand. There's a large difference.

Second? It takes her like two minutes in the damsel in distress video to bring up the issue of convenience.

That right there belies your premise, good day.
 

Ryan Minns

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Out of all that I've only played Mario games and I have no memory of Mario being rewarded with a woman :S Assume this happens in the later games?
 

Something Amyss

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Ryan Minns said:
Out of all that I've only played Mario games and I have no memory of Mario being rewarded with a woman :S Assume this happens in the later games?
I assume you meant to quote someone else, but the Princess really is the reward for winning the game. This is actually more noticeable in classic games, unless something's radically changed in the newest titles (I don't have any past the DS phase).
 

REZNoR_greed

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Ryan Minns said:
Out of all that I've only played Mario games and I have no memory of Mario being rewarded with a woman :S Assume this happens in the later games?
I assume you meant to quote someone else, but the Princess really is the reward for winning the game. This is actually more noticeable in classic games, unless something's radically changed in the newest titles (I don't have any past the DS phase).
the direct reward, maybe. the overall reward, however, is the restoration of order to the Mushroom Kingdom. you know, that thing she's the princess of.
 

Gormers1

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Bashfluff said:
They're protagonists because they're men because the perception is that most gamers are or were men and most people like to play as their own gender. That's not inherently sexist. It's true! If most gamers aren't men, then sure, that's an unjustified assumption, but it's not sexist. Not even a little bit.

That's my point! It has nothing to do with sexism.
This is true, but I thought your argument earlier was that the protagonists are men, because they are percieved to be more competent. Sorry then. However, it is still often a bit sexist. That the market dictates the sex of the protagonist is fair (but sad), but also often a bit sexist as female characters are often not more than objects for straight males because of this.

edited. Probably already posted but see this video of jimquisition
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7044-The-Creepy-Cull-of-Female-Protagonists
 

Gormers1

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Tenmar said:
Ya do know for the Dead of Alive Volleyball games you PLAY as one of the women right? I don't see how exactly from the mechanics of the japanese dating sim games spending two weeks on Zack Island you are suddenly rewarded with the woman when the end results in end of the vacation and going home.
The reward with buying the game and playing it, is for most straight men to see girls play around in bikinis. You earn money to buy clothes for them, and you can watch them play around in the sand with what you put on them.
This commercial agrees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sUYZhnnDn4
 

EstrogenicMuscle

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Since I don't have much time to make a lot of detailed replies to some of the folks here at the moment.

A bit more on the "it happens because biology!" argument.
21. Sexual dimorphism is only really valid if your biggest selection pressure is punching other men. We stopped doing that. Modern society and the technology we possess mean that women are effectively almost as strong as men. Most women are capable of what passes for hard physical labour in the west. I know they can do it because Indian women who are routinely half starved and often living on diets of poor protein and poor iron still do hard physical labour that most western men would struggle to do. If these women can do it then rich tubby westerners can too. The only reason that they do not do so is the societal belief that women cannot be construction workers or do physical labour.
From the Hags of Lag [http://freethoughtblogs.com/amilliongods/2013/03/20/regressive-crap/] article linked earlier. I'd also like credible evidence that Free Thought Blogs is seen as not credible outside of defensively privileged white male atheist circles.

But I think this says a lot. Women are strong. Having a bit more difficult time gaining muscle mass as men or having breast fat impeding them does not excuse or justify being damseled rewards and objectified. Less strong does not mean weak and helpless.

On the further subject of thunderf00ts extremely piss poor rebuttal of a video towards Anita's Damsels in Distress video. On the subject, like "Hags of Lag" says, Olympians are outliers, not a case of men and women's abilities in general. It should also be noted that many women today are shattering Olympic records of the men of previous years. Records that people thought were the human limitation then are being broken by women now. If we're going to use Olympians as an example in an attempt to justify the treating of females like helpless objects as biological. Women are shattering the records that men used to struggle against. As women have started feeling more comfortable in society going into supposedly "masculine" careers as sports, women's abilities in the field have improved dramatically. And in many cases women's athletic ability is behind men only slightly.

Olympic swimmer Ye Shiwen [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Shiwen] is famous of being falsely accused of doping. In part, because she swam faster than some people thought a woman was capable of swimming. Having a slight disadvantage in terms of average hormone levels does not stop women from being incredibly strong. Both the average woman and the female athlete. And multiple female athletic records push up against those of male ones.

The dichotomy and disparity in things like media industries featuring the damsel in distress trope are much greater than the so called "biological reality". What is in the damsel in distress trope is an extreme stereotype with a historical precedence of women being prizes. Women may not be prizes in every instance that it is employed, but in far too many, and in the historical context there is a lot of trouble with it.
 

Lord T Hawkeye

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Okay, a few points I wish to touch on.

The claim frequently made that discrimination is inherrantly immoral needs to go. Why? Allow me to demonstrate.

If I date someone, they must be female. If you're a male, I will not date you. Doesn't matter if we have everything in the world in common, I will not date you if you are a man.
Guess what? I AM discriminating here. Am I morally wrong for this? No, it's just a personal preference and has no moral implications whatsoever.

Does that make things perfectly clear?


Second, this is only a theory so take it as you will but I would argue that feminists may very well be hurting their own cause with their endless finger wagging and negativity. You haven't really well defined what IS a good female character, just whined and complained about pretty much every single one out there. Do you know what the natural human reaction is to someone who does nothing but complain about everything?
"Well, obviously there's no point in trying to please these people so let's just save ourselves some headaches and ignore them."
Heck, when Anita was asked about characters such as Mulan or Samus, she responded that they don't count because they're acting in a male manner, essentially implying that heroism, leadership and courage are male traits. Just let that sink in for a minute.
Contrary to what Yahtzee tells himself, endlessly whining and complaining is not how you improve the industry, that's how you scare developers back into their "gun toting beefcake" comfort zone. Knock it off!


Third, even if you did prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the video game industry is involved in some grand conspiracy to take down women (if they are, they're not very good at it), here's a question:
Why isn't Anita sending these vids to the game developers? What exactly does she want me as a gamer to do about it?
If you find certain aspects of games distasteful, that's not my fault nor is it my problem.
I don't like the gun wanking muscleheads that dominate games these days but if I made videos trying to morally shame gamers about it, everyone would think I was raving mad.


Anita herself is provably a con artist who doesn't really care about her cause. She just makes money by complaining and thus will always move goal posts to ensure she has something to complain about. People like her do not make the world a better place and those who support her should really reconsider. Feminists especially should be a little more particular who they latch onto if they want to be taken seriously.

There's plenty of legit cases to be made, Metroid Other M being a great example but that's not because of something entirely superficial like skimpy costumes or unfounded assumptions of a hidden meaning just because a woman is in danger, it's because it glorifies what is, by any standard, a destructive and abusive relationship.
So really, stop harping on inconsequential stuff like costumes. That is an aesthetic point, not a moral one.


I think that should cover it.