The Big Picture: Everything Means Something

[No_Rush]

Your concern is heavily partisan and I'd argue not particularly popular among the "gamergate" thing. It's also very, very US-centric. If you're going to look at it in an American "liberal-conservative-libertarian" political scale you're going to be ignoring that EU and Japan politics do not work like that at all.

Wait--you're saying that in discussing something political, there might be partisanship? I'm shocked. We have mostly been discussing the U.S. market, so that's how I've framed it.

(As for Japan and the EU, I'm puzzled as to why you think it's much different elsewhere. Have you ever spent time at a Japanese university? It's literally one of the few places that you can find unrepentant Marxists, and while much of Japanese culture is particularly conservative (the old joke about the Liberal Democratic Party being that it was neither liberal, democratic, nor much fun as a party), Todai and Keio are about as one-sided and lacking in intellectual diversity as you'll get.)

So given that, you'll excuse me if I just don't discuss based on your premise. I was simply using your point to exemplify why the fear I sense isn't about bad criticism, it's about preservation of an art form that has mostly been escapist being used for other artistic endeavours and criticised based on other perspectives.

I think you're right that it's a reaction to criticism of a medium that has mostly been escapist, but there's nothing new about video game criticism as criticism. (You can go search academic libraries, there are dissertations about video games going back before even the late '80s, although that was when things started to get interesting. You'll find critical legal theorists pondering Infocom. And here I'm showing my age.) What has changed--in the U.S., but also in Europe--is the impact that criticism has upon aspects of the culture. There's a lot of big stuff going on here, and it intersects with the influence of critical theory over law and culture, but I'll try to keep focused on gaming specifically.

I don't think the problem is that the medium is being criticized from "other perspectives," per se. If Anita Sarkeesian were doing, say, a naturalist critique of Bioshock: Infinite, it might well be interesting and informative, but we wouldn't be where we are. The "fear you sense" arises from a response of the particular form of criticism--particularly, critical theory and feminist theory--that are not only explicitly political, but aspire to change the mediums that they critique, more often than not by eliminating cultural examples that are outside of the "correct." One doesn't have to go very far into feminist theory (there's a reason I mentioned Robin West in my original post, although Catherine McKinnon is usually the go-to example for this trend) to see this tendency. Much as I don't think the Gamergate and similar "gamer culture" anger is particularly well-expressed or well-focused, I do think it stems from a well-founded concern.

That said, I'll point this out again: "I don't want people in the gaming industry to agree on things I disagree with" is not the way the movement has presented its concerns and is not corrupt or lacking in integrity. Hollywood leaning one way politically is not illegitimate, even if it has problematic aspects (note the recent shunning of mostly EU actors leaning pro-Palestine). You just can't muscle your way into making an art form politically neutral. At most, you can present a different angle in criticism or get creatively involved in presenting a different angle yourself.

Hollywood leaning one way isn't illegitimate--nor did I say it was. But it does serve as a condign example of an industry that will go so far as to leave money on the table in order to exclude groups that it considers "undesirable." There is a market for films aimed at conservative Christians--The Passion of the Christ was the #3 film of 2004--but those stories are told rarely because, despite their profitability, they don't flatter the politics of the likes of MovieBob. Meanwhile, we can have umpteen versions of Lions for Lambs, because Hollywood loves those stories. Dollars from conservative Christians are unwanted by Hollywood, and that section of the country pretty much provides for its own entertainment. To the extent that those who like Call of Duty (to say nothing of much more problematic games like Witcher or Duke Nukem) are content to find themselves a decade or so hence in the same state, exiled from the AAA market, you are correct that they have nothing to worry about from the current "criticism."

I don't think that one can make an art form politically neutral, just as scholarship isn't neutral. But academia--and in particularly, critical and feminist theorists--have shown that they can make art forms and other cultural institutions almost entirely exclusionary. That "fear you sense," to my mind, arises out of the realization, usually badly expressed, that the presence of Anita Sarkeesian doesn't portend a future in which we have really cool Call of Duty games, but also fantastic games exploring more complex topics. Instead, it heralds a future in which we may have games, even good games, but not the games we enjoy today, because those games represent wrongthink.

 

[hentropy]

When China, Japan, etc... make games and movies they really don't give a crap about the whites, blacks, Spanish, etc... that live there, they don't go out of their way to be inclusive.

That's a pretty glaring false equivalency. East Asian countries tend to be extremely racially homogeneous, many people have not even seen or worked with a racial minority outside of news media and television. If the US had 98% racial dominance, then no one would have to go out of their way to pander to anyone. Really there aren't a whole lot of countries which are so homogeneous.

However, around 35-40% of the US can be considered some sort of ethnic minority. When the media likes to pretend that only the majority exists in such a situation, it could be considered problematic. Not that western media is quite THAT bad.

The answer here is to encourage and empower these various underrepresented groups to make their own material.

 

[KasraF]

Wow.
I think we'd all agree agree that regardless of our opinions on the subject matter of this episode, this has been one of the most... useful episodes in the series.
Thank you MovieBob!

 

[Groverfield]

Here's a tough one to examine in the lights of politics: Pokemon (the game, TV show not included.) Sure you have Fascist Giovanni and his Team Rocket, radical environmentalists in Team Magma/Team, unethical scientific corporations in Team Galactic representing a totalitarian philosophy (with scientists being portrayed in a generally positive light with all of the pokemon professors and such over several games,) Team Plasma with overwhelming religious undertones and morality based strong-arming, and Team Flare as a critique of capitalistic Objectivism, but the question isn't what does it oppose.

The question is, what does pokemon support? The closest thing to government shown are the gym leaders and occasional police officers, ineffective at best. The social structure promotes friendship, but friendship with your pokemon above other humans. They're always with you, but you kinda force them to be, out of hundreds that you catch... but that's if you see pokemon as having human-level awareness. It says to treat your pokemon with kindness, but that could be as simple as "Don't kick that dog." The lack of anything solid on what is good at a large scale, as opposed to what is bad has several possible implications. Is there nothing good beyond a general pattern of small communities with shops and hospitals? Is there nothing that can be good but the individual? Do the pokemon secretly run the world and the humans within mere pawns of their hyper-intelligent overlords? Can a political body other than a senatorial representation of gym leaders be right in the world?

 

[Therumancer]

When China, Japan, etc... make games and movies they really don't give a crap about the whites, blacks, Spanish, etc... that live there, they don't go out of their way to be inclusive.

That's a pretty glaring false equivalency. East Asian countries tend to be extremely racially homogeneous, many people have not even seen or worked with a racial minority outside of news media and television. If the US had 98% racial dominance, then no one would have to go out of their way to pander to anyone. Really there aren't a whole lot of countries which are so homogeneous.

However, around 35-40% of the US can be considered some sort of ethnic minority. When the media likes to pretend that only the majority exists in such a situation, it could be considered problematic. Not that western media is quite THAT bad.

The answer here is to encourage and empower these various underrepresented groups to make their own material.

Not really, a minority group is a minority group when you get down to it. Especially when you consider that large pool of minorities is made up smaller, very distinct, groups, and it's unlikely you could ever represent them all, not that many of them exactly want to be represented to begin with.

The thing is people have been encouraging and empowering minorities to do things for a very long time, but as a general rule most of them don't care. Indeed blacks in particular are especially bad because the culture they have built is vehemently anti societal, and anti education. Basically it teaches that it's okay to be part of the top 1% or on the bottom living like a thug trying to take that 1% by force on your own terms, anything else is selling out. Guys like Bill Cosby (PHD in Children's Education) have analyzed it heavily. In cases like that you need to deal with the cultural issues first before you can even bother to consider serious representation in certain areas. It's not a case where your going to encourage tons of blacks, Hispanics, etc... to all flock to drama classes and start learning game design because there are black characters in movies or seen in video games to be representative. That's been tried for a long time and at the end of the day it doesn't work, because they as a group just don't care. As I've pointed out before, you see less blacks leading in movies and stuff because at the end of the day when people make movies like that, it doesn't put black butts in seats, the only time when they show up is when it's very counter-cultural in terms of gang
experience movies and things like Tyler Perry films. Purely with video games you've seen people try this kind of thing by say making the lead character in "Crackdown" default to black, a black hero in "San Andreas", and the careful selection of the cast of many ensemble video games to ensure there was a decent amount of color available rather than just white and Japanese (fighting games, super hero games, etc...). None of which has exactly had blacks, latinos, and others beating down the doors of game design studios, or has catapulted these games into some kind of unprecedented sales territory by tapping that market. This isn't to say that "minorities" don't game at all, just that they don't care enough about gaming to make game, and don't seem to particularly care about representation... that's mostly for loudmouths and those afflicted by white guilt.

Of course then again a big part of it is again, cultural, most people seriously into video games tend to be in the "middle" classes as opposed to at the very top or the very bottom. The exact place where a lot of minorities do not want to wind up. A big part of it is also that you can't just take some minority with basic skills and put them down as a designer and expect a great product. To do it right you pretty much need enough minorities to all enter into the business with the same dreams, 99%+ of which will fail, and then over time you'll see a few drag themselves through the rat race with the talent and vision to start producing stuff. It's always an upwards battle and something everyone goes through, and really the only ones who roll those dice in any real numbers seem to be whites and asians. With minorities the big exception culturally seems to be music, it's pretty much okay to try and work hard and risk failure with music and sports, but anything intellectual and winding up in the middle of society as another cog, living paycheck to paycheck? That's looked down on.

Not a popular point, but the bottom line is that being inclusive isn't a big part of the problem. The white western world, because of feelings of guilt, seems to be the only country that cares much about things like this. In fact of major civilizations "white" countries are pretty much the only ones that aren't racist and don't strive to keep their country 98% or more ethnically pure. Indeed it's been argued that there aren't really any white countries out there, hence the quotes.

If you think back over the years you'll notice across the media there have been tons of attempts to reach out to minorities, encourage them, and get them involved. Minority heroes in comics, leads in movies, etc... at the end of the day nobody showed up, a lot of money was lost, and except for a few people afflicted with misplaced guilt and ivory tower ethics nobody much cares, though that doesn't really stop the incessant whining. Indeed as odd as it might sound I actually see far more white people screaming about things like a lack of diversity, needing more minority characters in comics, games, etc... than I do actual minorities. The only "minority" so championed that seems to be on that bandwagon in any major way is the gays. Sure there might be blacks, Hispanics, etc... out there making the same points somewhere, but not in any numbers. Mostly I see white, social justice warriors like Bob Chipman taking up issues like this, I guess convinced that somehow he's speaking for people that can't speak for themselves... something which is kind of funny since when the bigger minorities in the US (Blacks, Hispanics, etc...) actually want to represent on an issue they can make plenty of noise without needing the SJWs to fight for them.

 

[daxterx2005]

Wait....Did I just see Angry Birds Transformers...?
What the heck?

 

[No_Rush]

I don't think Hollywood is leftist because it has been made leftist, I think artistic elites tend to lean left where industrial elites tend to lean right, so critics of art lean left for the same reason it's kinda hard to find leftist coverage about Wall Street minutia.

I think we can part ways here because you are clearly living in your own little world. It's hard to find leftist coverage of Wall Street? Paul Krugman. Gretchen Morgensen. Matt Taibbi. That's in five seconds off the top of my head, and includes absolutely no academics. Add in academic commentators, and I could probably get to two dozen without hitting Google. If you're having a hard time finding leftist coverage of minutia (and Taibbi has written about, for instance, the use of swap options as potentially speculative investments in the equities markets), you simply aren't looking very hard.

As for worrying that CoD would go away, again: go back twenty years, and you will find commentators from the left saying that, even were same-sex marriage permitted, it would be unthinkable that anti-discrimination laws would be applied so that a baker would have to choose between shutting down or violating their conscience by baking a cake for a same-sex wedding. Somehow, the unthinkable occurs with remarkable regularity.

 

[No_Rush]

We all live in our worlds, but I resent the implication that mine is "litte". There's certainly plenty of right wing movie coverage, too. We're talking about trends and majorities here. You're also focusing on the example rather than the point.

You are literally the only person I have ever heard state that it's difficult to find left-wing coverage of Wall Street. So, yes, I mean it when I said your own little world on that point.

And I would also point out that, while I haven't heard the baker story that you allude to repeatedly, the comparison you're making (same sex marriage being normalized versus conservative media being shunned into nonexistence) is deeply flawed. Refusing service is not speech, let alone protected speech. Media arguing against gay marriage is plentiful and unimpeded, even if I (and most nice people) think it's wholly reprehensible and unfounded.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/01/21/3184691/oregon-bakery-guilty-discriminating-sex-couple/

Again, I haven't been speaking about censorship, but about whether someone who is concerned about their lifestyle being changed should be worried about the presence of Anita Sarkeesian and her ilk. I agree that it's unlikely that we will ever find that CoD is censored. It's far more likely that EA will be strongly encouraged to start having the "right" people on its Board; and that those people will then hire the "right" CEOs; and that the cheeky, irreverent games like Duke Nukem or the sexual-politics-of-a-viking-raid games like the Witcher then don't get made.

Sometimes society as a whole moves past some customs and taboos so thoroughly that there is not much left of them to represent. The underlying conservative ideology persists, though, and it is not in danger of going away either in real life or in media as long as free speech is upheld, even if it becomes unpopular.

Which is why, of course, Proposition 8 passed by a solid margin, and same-sex marriage is allowed in California only because the political elites refused to defend it and the judicial elites struck it down. Yes, clearly you speak for "society as a whole."

That's one reason I became a conservative after a youthful dalliance with liberalism. I can deal with the crazies on my side. The vast, oppressive undeserved smugness of yours leaves me needing a bath.

 

[hentropy]

When China, Japan, etc... make games and movies they really don't give a crap about the whites, blacks, Spanish, etc... that live there, they don't go out of their way to be inclusive.

That's a pretty glaring false equivalency. East Asian countries tend to be extremely racially homogeneous, many people have not even seen or worked with a racial minority outside of news media and television. If the US had 98% racial dominance, then no one would have to go out of their way to pander to anyone. Really there aren't a whole lot of countries which are so homogeneous.

However, around 35-40% of the US can be considered some sort of ethnic minority. When the media likes to pretend that only the majority exists in such a situation, it could be considered problematic. Not that western media is quite THAT bad.

The answer here is to encourage and empower these various underrepresented groups to make their own material.

Not really, a minority group is a minority group when you get down to it.

I'm not really arguing with you about all the other stuff. But comparing minorities in Japan to minorities in the US is a false equivalency and a fallacy due to the sheer disparity. A minority which takes up less than 1% of the population should not expect to be treated the same as a minority which takes up 20% of the population.

You shouldn't try to build arguments based on logical fallacies.

 

[HanFyren]

Over 200 episodes and this still hasn't gotten old. - Well done whoever decided to give moviebob this show.

 

[Spyre2k]

You mentioned the old Batman debate. Those who try to say Batman just does it as an excuse to vent his anger or intentionally lets the criminals run lose don't really know the character.

One of the common themes with Batman is he does what's right but not always what's popular. He fights a battle to stop criminals in his city and after apprehending them returns them to the proper authorities. This includes Arkham Asylum which many have pointed out is like a revolving door for criminals and since Batman knows this he does nothing to enable his fantasy life to continue. But Batman does not see himself as judge and jury which is why he simply apprehends criminals.

The old build a factory and give everyone a job would eliminate crime is a fallacy. First is assumes that crime and poverty are directly linking, which studies have shown they are not. Poverty doesn't cause crime, but crime can cause poverty when people lose their lively hoods due to criminal acts, like riots burning down a shop and most insurance policies don't cover riots.

Plus if it was so easy to eliminate poverty then why does it still exist? The governments of most first world countries are richer than Bruce Wayne so why don't they just build a factory and give everyone who wants a job one? Oh probably because the world is not as simple as that and trying to so say it is, even in a fictional comic book world, would break the readers suspension of disbelief.

But even though it's not possible to eliminate it you can do things to help. Bruce Wayne is very popular and well liked by the citizens of Gotham because he is major Philanthropist. He is often attending charity and human rights events when something goes wrong and he has to slip into the Batman suit. He does it because he cares about people but also knows there is only so much he can do as Bruce Wayne.

The thing I think a lot of people who try to psycho analysis Batman as being a violent thug don't understand, or choose to ignore is something I think that was best stated in the Dark Knight movie, "Alfred Pennyworth: Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. " Some criminals just like the idea of rebelling, of causing chaos, of revenge, or any other number of issues not related to having a steady job.

Just look at Batman's history with some of his villains and you can see he's not in it for thrills. He constantly tries to get Harley to therapy and get her out of the dysfunctional relationship with the joker. He tries to talk Catwoman out of her life of crime but she steals for the thrills and not for the money. He helps fund research to cure Mr. Freeze's wife and even tries to get help for Mr. Freeze himself. He is frequently appealing to the man Two Face use to be in the hope he'll return to normal. And so on.

If Batman was a sadistic as some try to say he is then he would basically be the Punisher, which he clearly is not. And you can see him wrestle with crossing that line a lot of times when he knows it would be so easy to just kill his foes and make the world a better place. But like I said before Batman does what's right not what's popular, as I imagine it would be popular if he offed one of the big names like the Joker.


When it comes down to it the more I think about it, the more I'd say the story of Batman is one man's desperate attempt to try to make the world a safer place through shear force of will. Because ultimately he's little more than an extremely well funded one man SWAT team. He goes in when the police are out matched and apprehends the suspect. Though unlike SWAT he refuses to use deadly force.

 

[schwegburt]

You just implied I am not a rational human being if I disagree with you. You are part of the problem because you think you are above the problem. It is truly disheartening that you do not see your own hypocrisy.

Again I want to state.

"I keep seeing people who have been helpful and kind to me constantly demonized by you and those "professional guys".
If you see anger in what I said that is the reason."

What's funny is I haven't demonized anyone. I'm pointing out that every corner of society has people that stigmatizes "low income schizophrenics" and those elements are not exclusive to feminism. Sorry bud but when you tie "whiny bitches" "upper middle class" and "low income" in the same paragraph the way you did it's a dead give away you're burning about something.

But hey throw "rational" and "bias" around more. You're almost able to convince a fresh college kid with those buzzwords before they get a few years in and realize people are actually biased and emotional people. You've also revealed yours to me in the process. It's pretty hypocritical to use "rational" and "bias" when you yourself go off on a tangent. But I can see how you'd cling to those details.

Funnily enough if you want to talk about dichotomy we can just look at the Anita Sarkeesian furor and see how the geeks react to feminism and gender issues in general. It's not separated in the least.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I actually read Spencer's "Performing Transgender Identity in The Little Mermaid: From Andersen to Disney". If that is the one you are referring to Movie Bob. I sorta agree, but ideas about conformity, rebellion, and acceptance of diversity (set against the dysmorphic attitudes of presentation and the necessity of physical or emotional change in a Nietzsche/Sartrean-esque tribal discordance scenario) is not exactly uncommon in storytelling. Equally you could apply transgender identity issues in, say, Catch-22.

Whereby Yossarian finds himself in an existential (and/or humanist) crisis about neither being the man he needs to be to simply 'go with the flow', nor having the strength (until the end) to place himself in a situation whereby he can escape the mindlessness of war. Being stuck in the precarious position of knowing war is madness, but not having Orr's strength of conviction (initially) to escape it via whatever means necessary.

So I sorta agree that a lot of times (especially in the language used by the recent Routledge published essay of SPencer) that people simply see things that cause introspection. Not because of creative intent, but because of an existential rationalism of self-perception in a cruel and unexplainable universe. We find motes of emotional support, even when they do not exist to offer this function.

 

[No_Rush]

You crossed a few lines that would normally make me disengage, because you're tumbling down a path to straigh-up insults. But I do want to make one more point about this bit above.

You haven't exactly been a bundle of roses either. You just seem to be oblivious as to when you're being insulting.

This bit is exactly what I've been talking about all along. The implication here being that you're worried about your own views becoming unpopular or less dominant.

That... well, you get to worry about that, but it's not a good or a bad thing. Nothing is keeping you from making the opposite point or creating art with the opposite subtext. If it turns out to not be popular, then the market has spoken and holding an outdated or unpopular opinion doesn't mean that you're owed equal coverage in art or representation, it just means you're not prevented from presenting it. That's exactly what Sarkeesian is doing, too.

As I have already stated, I'm not concerned about someone's views. The problem with the crits is that they go far beyond "views." You rather proved my point: I analogized what gamers should validly be concerned about with the progress of same-sex marriage, and the fact that while the baker is still free to express whatever "views" he wants, he's not actually free to choose to whom he dedicates his craft.

Now, your response was essentially to consign the baker to the dustheap of history, archly asserting that "Sometimes society as a whole moves past some customs and taboos so thoroughly...." But nothing of the sort happened: same-sex marriage in Oregon had nothing to do with "democracy, free exchange of ideas and culture." In Oregon (where the baker is), and even in ultra-liberal California, society as a whole--through a democratic process of free elections--declined to make same-sex marriage a legal option. It is only because a legal elite overturned a democratic mandate that the baker is now in the situation he faces.

The legal elites--the judges and lawyers who push these issues forward--have long been influenced by the very forms of criticism that Sarkeesian offers now in the gaming industry. And that has long been the point of critical theory, critical legal theory, and feminist theory. Indeed, it was one of the core principles of critical theory that what matters is not so much democratic legitimacy--because crits largely downplay democracy, which can marginalize minorities, as a source of legitimacy in the first place--as the exercise of power to reshape social norms. Convincing fellow voters isn't so necessary when you can just convince a bunch of folks in long robes.

Basically, I think Sarkeesian is worrying for gamers precisely because I understand her ideological background, the sources that she cites, her intellectual pedigree, and thus I take her seriously. You, on the other hand, toss around the term "democracy" like a cheap slogan.

If people still disagree with that, then they can still go out there and make different things. This concept that there's a gatekeeper in place despite prominent demand preventing the industry from catering to this audience is just not true. Especially not in the age of crowdfunding.

Again, if the only power Sarkeesian sought to invoke was moral suasion, you and I would be on the same page. No one who quotes the sources she does, however, has accepted the normative boundary that if the market demands it, and it causes no direct harm to anyone else, it's OK. Gamers would be fools to believe otherwise.

 

[O maestre]

I don't praise moveibob often, but this is an exception. Good show, very topical. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that games sometimes are just toys, meant for simple enjoyment. The angry birds bit really hit the point home, well done Bob, I had not expected you to deliver something that is so self-aware.

 

[Haru17]

Yeah, it's overly simpleminded to say political critical lenses can't be applied to video games.

And that angry birds metaphor was surprisingly applicable in a weird, paranoid sort of way.

 

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

Great episode! I sort or wish you had saved this for an ultra-meta TGO episode. That would have been hella freaky.

 

[F.Dubois]

An interesting episode. I have some thoughts about it that I hopefully can formulate into proper english in the forums.
It certainly acknowledges a problem that games criticism and coverage seem to have and that, I know from experience, is deeply shared in art and literature as well.

 

[Gali]

Hey Bob,
I don't agree with most of what you recently said/retweeted on Twitter concerning... well, you probably know what I mean. But fuck it, your actual content is awesome. Looking forward to the next Big Picture.

 

[Dolf Volkoff]

Well, if people didn't analyze what they're watching/reading/playing, all the world would be one big America - the country, in which Jen Psaki, Jorge W. Bush and Barack Obama are reality. That's where thinking that people just over-analyzing things leads you.

This thinking gets you to the point, where the whole country believes that, if in your comic book a so-called "American Icon" as Superman or Captain America defeated Hitler, then it's America who won World War II and not the country that actually did it.

The movies/books/games based on historic events that don't follow those events are dangerous and, in my opinion, shouldn't be taken lightly. Like the movie Pearl Harbor, where Japanese are monsters that even blew up hospitals (that, in reality, they didn't). And americans are always the good guys. The country that destroyed Hiroshima & Nagasaki with atom bombs, destroyed Livia, Iraq (and said "sorry we told you that we had solid proof that Iraq had biological weapons - it was just fake to overthrow their government") and now openly supports new nazy government in Ukraine and does their best to prevent any peaceful resolution in the east-ukrainian conflict.

That's not "over-analyzing". It's the reality your government pays a lot of money to hide from you. And it uses all the possibilities. Games, movies, books, news - there are always good Americans, and big, bad, but stupid "everyone else".

The fact that many of you, when thinking "russky" still think "commie", says a lot.

Think about it. Maybe it's not you, who are misunderstood. Maybe everyone else understands "the american way" much better than you assumed they were.