WhiteNachos said:
Loonyyy said:
WhiteNachos said:
Loonyyy said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
Loonyyy said:
Don't you know, they're completely misrepresenting the game. THE HUMANITY.
Oh crap, you're right. I forgot that it was totally different now that it was something I cared about being misrepresented.
See, for that the punishment is severe. Misrepresentation is the worst.
Because none of us have ever heard of having sex with prostitutes in GTA and killing them to save money. Nope. Gamers have never heard of that, never done that. And because the game definitely doesn't implicitly endorse it
So allowing you to do something in a game is implicitly endorsing it?
Under this logic Rollercoaster Tycoon encourages you to build unsafe theme park rides and drown people, and SimCity encourages genocide.
GTA implicitly endorses the action, through several systems:
1. You regain health by visiting prostitutes, and, if you're a straight male and have little taste, which seems to be assumed, you get a shitty porn show. The game incentivises visiting prostitutes through an out of game reward-porn, and an in game reward-health.
And you sometimes get wanted stars for doing it.
Have you even played GTA? If you get a wanted star, you'll usually get 1. In the course of the gameplay, you'll attain far higher wanted levels. In GTA-IV, the consequences of 1 star means moving about a block away from the scene of the crime.
This is not a disincentive on the level of the incentive. There are very real disincentives they could have here, and other games do:
"Ezio did not kill innocents"
"Friendly Fire Will Not Be Tolerated"
And that still leaves the game incentivising the action.
Loonyyy said:
2. You can regain the money by killing the prostitute, which is the way you interact with just about everyone. Prostitutes also are located in areas away from fixed police concentrations (Like say, Police Stations, or the feds), and you need to take them somewhere out of the way to have sex with them, which lowers the consequences of police interference.
When you get wanted stars for killing civilians seems kinda wonky in GTA, I've seen several people complain about getting them even when there was not witnesses in sight.
I've had the same. Usually witnesses pull out their phone, and call, or a police officer is in the wanted circle (As far as GTA-IV's wanted system goes. I haven't experimented to the same extent with GTA-V's system, because I found the police much more efficient, and I'm very bad with controllers for aiming, and I couldn't wrangle the camera very well). At least the GTA-IV system for crimes like that, usually in the docks in the first quarter you start in, where the prostitutes hang out, there are a bunch of random people and prostitutes, killing them without a witness seems to often give a wanted star, but it tends to happen significantly later, usually to me once I'm well clear of the area, because the wanted radius for 1 star (The punishment for killing a prostitute), is about a block, and there often when it glitches aren't even any police officers in the circle.
But I could make a very similar argument about how the game "endorses" the murder of taxi drivers. It's way easier to find those and they provide a far more useful service in the game.
Actually, I'd agree. The game does offer an incentive to kill taxi drivers after their services are done. They won't remember you, and it will give you some of the money back. Similarly, eating a hot dog will give you your health back, and at a much lower cost ($1 IIRC). If you wanted that money back, you could kill the vendor (And there's a gas can to make that extra fire-y). That's a little riskier, since the vendors are usually on the street or by parks. Still, the game incentivises visiting these people, and outside of that interaction, there's only really one way that the game gives you to interact with them: The same way that you interact with all NPCs, murder them, screw with them, or ignore them, with killing them being rewarding in game with money, and out of game, since exploring ways to fuck with people and the police is a staple of the series.
Loonyyy said:
I criticised the people who lied about the content of the petition. Which includes you.
Which part have I lied about?
Well, let's see:
-Censorship (Even if what Target did is censorship [And it isn't in any meaningful, negative sense of the word, which is what is being invoked] the petitioners don't have any authority or power that Target is obliged to listen to)
-Calling it a bunch of lies (And I'm still not convinced of that). For me, the biggest error there is the image header, which depicts a woman that I don't recognise as one of the prostitute skins for the game, who's been killed with a hatchet(The header was almost certainly chosen because it is the most inflamatory)
-"The game never insults them or effects them" Not true. The game very clearly has effected them, and they've responded. Outside of survivors of abuse (Which the author of the petition seems to claim to be), the game insults women all the damn time. Honestly, for me it was a big step down from GTA-IV. If a game as misogynistic as GTA-V is (I'm not referring to the hooker killings, but the social commentary, starlets, slut-shaming, Franklin's Mother, Michael's daughter and Michael's wife) then felt that it had banked enough credit as a commentary about women to depict that, I can imagine being very pissed off. They don't tie the act to any commentary, and they don't do anything particularly positive. Tangentially, I'd say GTA-IV did this better, Michelle, Elizabeta Torres, were actually interesting female characters, and that banks some goodwill with the player. GTA-V doesn't. It insults women, depicts them as a stereotype of a slutty teenager, whores, strippers, stupid, vapid, unfaithful, and doesn't have a female voice. In contrast, whilst men get a terrible rap in the game, the player has input into that by controlling a male, and characters (Franklin, Michael) get to show positive masculine traits.
-"Slander". Prove it, or leave that one alone. That word's got a very specific meaning, and I really don't see where in the petition they slander Rockstar, and since at least one of their sources is shown there, I don't think that it's possible to make the case that they're lying. I can understand someone thinking the game is misogynistic (I agree), and that it "turns bashing, killing, and horrific violence against women into a game" (It does). That the game links sexual arousal and violence (It does. GTA has practically made an artform out of juxtaposing sexualised women and violence)
-"Lying about what was actually in the game" Still haven't seen that.
I see a bunch of things that people could disagree with, the interpretations of the effects, the context of the game, the consequences of the game, and their proposed course of action. I don't see lying about what's in the game, unless we're playing it Postal style where "You could finish the game without doing any of that" is some sort of argument about it, because the devs put hookers into the game and strippers, but you're not meant to notice them, or interact with them, because we both know that's not true.
Loonyyy said:
The other, disgusting part, is the people pretending that somehow the killing of men in the game, or in games is an issue.
You miss the point. Usually it's to show how hypocritical the complainers are, when there's far worse violence against men (in both quantity and "quality") and they only give a shit about the violence done to women, then call the game sexist.
No, you miss the point. I understand it's an attempt to show hypocrisy. With reference to the petition, that's a lie. The petition explicitly references the behaviour regarding prostitutes as it's chief concern. It's a complete difference in kinds. That's a misrepresentation of the petition.
The other problem is it's a bullshit example of privilige. "This thing could offend me, or you, but it doesn't, so you shouldn't be offended by that, or that you're hypocritical for complaining."
No-one is obliged to complain for you. Clearly they weren't offended by that in the same way that they were by this. Maybe they didn't see that (As their source seems to be YT videos, that's a distinct possibility). But also, women are probably going to feel very differently about male on female violence than male on male violence, and they do have very good cause to do so. (This also bites men in the ass, because it makes socialising with both genders harder, and it hurts men who are attracted to women even more, because that's a key component to their sex life).
Either case, there's a big difference, and that is privilige. There are differences between people, and if I call my white coworker the N-word, he's going to feel very differently about it than if I call my black coworker the N-word. Even further, if I call my white coworker "White ************" "Cracker ************" "I bet you burn easy in the sun" or the like, they're going to feel very differently about it than if I make racial jokes about my asian coworkers or my black coworkers. Firstly because I'm white, and secondly because as a white man in Tasmania, racism isn't a problem for me, while it is for our coworkers, who get it all the time. It's actually become a thing at my store between us that we'll insult each other for being white, in mockery of the racist dickweeds we deal with all the time. I'm also not going to give a shit if any of my asian coworkers or black coworkers call me a cracker, or make any of those stupid jokes (It's really hard to think of good racist slurs against white people), because racism has never really disadvantaged me.
Additionally, GTA V is the first game to show female police officers, so I guess it's about time. They're much rarer however (I hadn't actually noticed them until I looked it up because I was wondering if the military was mixed gender).
Loonyyy said:
Because if it were, they would have brought it up.
Some people have. There's a whole trope and argument about it called "Men are the Expendable Gender". Do some reading on it.
I have. It's horseshit. Pure unadulterated horseshit.
Personally, I do have an issue with the depiction of men in the game, several. They don't exist as a response to feminists, or as a dodge to avoid criticising it.
Three main ones: One, Michael's wife's infidelity. The cuckolded man is a lazy narrative trope, and it doesn't accurately represent why people cheat, but it does serve to hurt people who've experienced that, insult them, and then imply that it was because they were too fat and disinterested as opposed to the toned instructor.
Two: The death of Johnny, where again, we have cuckolding, we also have a murder. See, he's also a much better fighter than Johnny, and also makes fucking nasty comments about Johnny blowing him. Yeah, I don't think that's funny, and you definitely haven't banked the cred to do that with men, men who've been cheated on, gay men, or bi men, especially with the next problem I have.
Three: Floyd. He's vaguely effiminate, and weak(He even owns a teddy bear!), and then it's heavily implied that he's sexually assaulted by Trevor(One switch to Trevor involves them in bed together[of course Floyd's in pink pajamas. Because pink is girly, and because he's clearly a girl cause he got molested and that's the worst thing you could be, see, you're pink and gay and being made a ***** ***VOMIT****], after which he cries). Male survivors of sexual assault are not weak, they are not assaulted because they are effiminate, or not aggressive, and that's fucking disgusting. Fuck whoever wrote that scene. Following that, he's accused of "[not] being a man at all" by his girlfriend and is murdered with her by Trevor. Fuck that twice.
(Also, the torture, but I feel that's more a foreign policy/racism sort of angle rather than a masculine one. But that entire sequence is bad)
And none of these involve calling people who say they've survived a sexual assault hypocrites for not caring about the deaths of men in a game that the men don't even care about. If you care about it, this isn't the place, and you do it a disservice by using it to pretend that the criticism doesn't matter. Criticisms of the depiction of men in the game stand or fall on their own and not as disingenuous responses. And if they're problematic, then they're problematic irrelevant of whether the presentation of women is problematic. I'd be disgusted if someone said that I didn't care about sexually assaulted sex workers because I voiced that criticism isolated from a criticism of the games treatment of women. It's false equivalence starving children hogwash.
Loonyyy said:
The additional bullshit about prevalence is people who are either liars or not Australians pretending they know jack shit about how we live in MY country. No, we're not always being shot. No, men aren't at a massive risk from violence (Yes, there is violence against men, and I swear to god if you sea lion this shit I will block you straight away because I've experienced more than my share, and I'm not going to justify myself to you). Whereas women in sex work are at a high level of risk, and many of them have painful experiences related to this.
And this is relevant how?
Because that's the other one that comes up with the what about men being killed. "Oh men are killed, and they're killed IRL". I'm pretty sure Weeping Angel had that bullshit going a few pages ago, and that wasn't the only one. There are more than a few people who don't know anything about Australia making claims about Australia, Australian men, and violence against Australian men, who think they can speak for us, and that's bang out of order, particularly when they make the obvious mistake of thinking that gun violence is a significant issue for Australian men.
It's a game, it's fiction, so unless you believe it'll cause real world violence (which you shouldn't because there's no solid evidence that it does),
"The Suicide Club" is fiction, but it terribly misrepresents suicide, and is incredibly offensive to people who've experienced depression and suicidal impulses.
"Metalocalypse" is fiction (Also, possibly one of my favourite shows of all time) The final of the second season is still intensely homophobic, and insulting towards homosexuals.
The new "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is fiction. It's still pretty damn sexist.
"Transformers" is fiction. It doesn't make it not racist, sexist (And that goes both ways with this one especially).
Even apart from the petition etc, I'd like to have words with the writers of GTA-V. I'd also like words with Brendan Small. Because overall, I like these properties, and I'm disappointed that they'd say these things. I think the saddest part is how alienating and excluding these are. GTA is mostly driving and shooting and bizarre comedy and cultural commentary, and that can include anyone(And to my mind, would include a lot more women anyway, considering that our dominant cultural forces tend to be dictated by men. Counter-culture by the same people as the mainstream is always going to be lacking). I'd imagine that women playing the game and coming across the many sexist parts would feel pretty similarly to when characters I liked on a show I liked, by people I respected, concluded that something was bad because it's gay. I'd really like to see them made to answer, not to the women of the petition, but to female fans of the game.
Additionally, I don't have to believe it'll cause real world violence directly, and I didn't say that. I believe it'll cause real life sexism, particularly with the trend for people to not think about it, and in particular avoid thinking about it or deny any possible deeper reading or thinking. And I can definitely see how people can be concerned that a greater degree of sexism can result in a greater degree of violence against women, without it being so simplistic as people imitating a game, which is not at all what I mean.
Ideally, in my mind, the game should be more balanced. If it weren't so sexist everywhere else, this would be less concerning, because then the game is doing the thinking for the player (Which is meant to be part of the satirical cultural commentary schtick). Instead the game has more than a few issues with women it needs to work out, because you can't do all that sexist shit and play it for laughs and include the violence against women and the sexual exploitation of women for the titilation of straight men without people wondering what the fuck your problem is.
it's a moot point. All it boils down to is "woah this makes it a touchy subject for us, which totally justifies us saying other people shouldn't play the game".
If they find it touchy, and they think that people shouldn't play it, they can say that. I'm not going to, and I personally don't support the petition.
But it's definitely not a moot point, as I said above, being concerned about the proliferation of sexist material, particularly dehumanising sexist material which treats women as objects, targets, conquests, and stupid people to laugh at, and at risk women like sex workers, in that way, does not mean you think it directly causes violence. And influencing perceptions and culture isn't nearly the same as directly influencing action, so don't conflate the two with the usual "This game has sexist elements which may be unwittingly internalized" with "This game has violent elements which people will imitate because it's cool", because that's just an unfortunate and terrible talking point that should die a quick death. For a gender swapped example, giving girls barbies and making their characters in fairy tales beautiful princesses who are prizes isn't positive either, it encourages girls to internalise their appearance as being most important, and that they are objects, prizes, shouldn't pursue their goal or man, and that a man (Who is also a royal figure usually, or a knight) will come along, save them, and they'll naturally be a fit sexually and personality wise and fall in love. Similarly, more than a few people have expressed dissatisfaction with how fairy tales, and the media and culture have influenced their perception of romance and the opposite sex, and in particular the frustration that comes when one realises that culture has been misleading them.
WhiteNachos said:
Loonyyy said:
Zachary Amaranth said:
Thorn14 said:
Grisly detailed torture of a man? Eh.
Funny how when that was brought up by people, it was shouted down.
Vast majority of cops and other enemies you kill are men? Eh.
Funny how when that was brought up, it was also shouted down.
Actually, that's been one of the longest running critiques against the series.
But acknowledging these things would probably make it a lot harder to reframe things in a convenient fashion.
totheendofsin said:
They mentioned the games 'depictions of violence against women' now it's been a while since I've played it but I don't recall any violence against women in the game, unless they are talking about how you are capable of killing female NPCs IN THE SAME WAY YOU CAN KILL MALE NPCs!
You can kill men after hiring them for sex? Must have missed that part. Can you tell me how to hire male prostitutes?
Don't you know, they're completely misrepresenting the game. THE HUMANITY.
So if someone said that games you enjoy playing are all about being a misogynist and encouraging you to kill women and that those games make you more likely to kill women in real life you'd be totally OK with this?
See, now you've just misrepresented me too, and just put words in my mouth.[/quote]
I thought you were implying that misrepresenting the game was the only thing wrong with the petition and that it wasn't a big deal. If not, I apologize.[/quote]
Thanks, that's not common on here, that really means a lot.
Anyway the petition said the game would cause more real life violence. I'm not misrepresenting anything the petition said.
There's a difference in mechanism though. Sexist attitudes help perpetrate violence against women, including the failure to properly deal with rape, or domestic violence, or even antiquated sexist ideas of womens sexuality being perpetrated through genital mutilation. Uncritically presenting these attitudes reinforces and propagates them, which can lead to trouble down the line, not from people imitating the game, because obviously it's wrong, but because they think wrong things about women, or consent, or any number of things. Similarly, the game doesn't encourage you to respect police officers or authority figures. I don't think the game will make you kill cops, I think the game will make you think differently about them though.
And that goes both ways. Sexist attitudes about men also perpetrate horrible things for men. The game itself has a few (I pointed out three I feel are problematic, the third being the biggest for me), which propagates sexist ideas about men which result in harm against men. No, women aren't cheating because their lovers are stronger or more muscular, they're doing it because that woman is being an asshole. No, you don't get raped because you're not aggressive, and you shouldn't try to be aggressive to compete. No, you don't have to provide for women, particularly women who don't care about you. No, women aren't gold-diggers, and if you encounter a woman who is that, you don't have to put up with that. No, men aren't hypersexual. No, bisexual men are not dangerous to men, and they're no more or less sexual than anyone else (Fuck you Trevor). No, crying is not weak, or unmanly. No, feeling, and expressing emotions apart from anger and sexual arousal isn't a bad thing. The worst sexist attitudes towards men affect in particular gay and bisexual men, or effeminate men, or men who enjoy typically non-masculine fare(Which is more of us with each passing year). Or men who are victimised by violent crime. Or men who are seen as emasculated by failing to surpass outdated, dangerous, and unfair ideas of masculinity. With the presentation of Floyd's abuse, or the typical attitude towards say, prison rape, how do we expect male victims of sexual assault to cope, and how do we expect them to come forward? Particularly when the vast majority of sexual assaults go unpunished even if reported? I guess the best you can do if you're anything like Floyd is to finally stand up for yourself against a horrible woman, and an evil man, and be butchered as a point about how edgy, tough, violent and crazy that man is.
Personally, I think the big issues with GTA come from it trying it's hand at satire (As it always does), and failing. And the big problem with satire is, when you fuck it up, you've just made a worse example of what you were trying to criticise. I think the scope and execution of the satire in GTA is always poor, and GTA-V is particularly egregious. Rather than being sarcastic and critical, South Park as a videogame, it's just misanthropic and nasty all too frequently. People are a lot more willing to forgive satire if the message is worthwhile, or if they can see the message, or if it brings a comparable insight, however, GTA seems to wallow more and more in a disgusting exageration of the most disgusting parts of our society, with no real insight, and the few token critiques being shallow and vapid, or outright contemptible. I'd rather that instead of the game no longer being sold (Which will happen as it fades from popularity in about 18 months anyway), people thought more about it, and Rockstar tried harder next time.