The Big Picture: In Defense of "Booth Babes" (sort of)

[Phasmal]

In Defense of "Booth Babes" (sort of)

MovieBob gives us several good reasons to re-think our idea of the "Booth Babe".

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I've never really had a problem with Booth Babes, really, I've not ever been sure what to think of them.
They're just doing a job.
My issue is more with the people who seem to take away from `Booth Babes` that: `these people know nothing about games therefore they're trying to deceive me! Must quiz everyone now to make sure they aren't deceiving me too!`. And honestly I have no idea how to deal with those people. Being more vocal and more visible doesn't seem to dispel the myth that I either don't exist or am just doing it to score alpha nerd hunks.

Still, it's nice to see someone else who recognises the bloody impossible position a lot of female gamers are put into. It's why I don't use mic.

Dunno if you read the comments really, but I thought it'd be nice to quote because it's already getting depressing in here with the `whiteknighting` and `omgpanderingtofeminists` stuff, so I thought I'd comment and run.
Great episode.

 

[piclemaniscool]

It feels like you're blaming the gamer community just because of a perceived connotation to a phrase. I don't doubt that somewhere, maybe even quite often, people will use it in a derogatory manner. But I don't associate it with the words themselves. I call them "booth babes" because its a fun phrase and just heard it at some point and had to infer the meaning. That's just language. There are words with established positive and negative connotations but newly founded vernacular is the wild west. Like how people will now associate the word "special" with mentally handicapped. Should we ban the word? No. that's as silly as it is impossible. Can you change the way people view the word? maybe. yolo, swag, griefing, and booth babes, and pretty much every word or phrase that exists, will change its meaning depending on the context, era, and peers. If you don't like the IDEA of objectifying, or otherwise separating certain people from the rest of the culture, that's fine. But pinning it on the word does nothing for the source of the issue.

tl;dr: it doesn't matter what language, just teach people to stop being assholes.

 

[maninahat]

Sorry I know this is tangential, but did anyone else disagree with Bob's remark about the game industry wanting to be viewed as mature but not doing any "growing up"? With many games presenting mature storylines & themes dealing with a plethora of themes from the horrors, the many worlds theory, or even the Iranian revolution. Is it fair to say this? I feel like the industry and those who cover it are in general taking steps and moving towards providing mature and thought-provoking content. So I feel it is unfair to judge the whole of the industry on some of its products. It should be like judging all of film on the output of the pornographic film studios. Sorry If I rambled just off night shift.

I still agree with Bob. Games are getting more mature in general, but for the most part, the medium is still very restricted, closed minded, and unsophisticated. Take your Bioshock INfinite reference (I assume it was one of the games you were alluding to): people cite it as some hallmark of mature story telling, and in its way, it is a step forward for games. But it is also a dumb shooter in which you spend 95% of the time ramming a bloody claw hand into the faces of cartoonified racists.

 

[xaszatm]

Sorry I know this is tangential, but did anyone else disagree with Bob's remark about the game industry wanting to be viewed as mature but not doing any "growing up"? With many games presenting mature storylines & themes dealing with a plethora of themes from the horrors, the many worlds theory, or even the Iranian revolution. Is it fair to say this? I feel like the industry and those who cover it are in general taking steps and moving towards providing mature and thought-provoking content. So I feel it is unfair to judge the whole of the industry on some of its products. It should be like judging all of film on the output of the pornographic film studios. Sorry If I rambled just off night shift.

I think the problem mainly arises from what people think "mature" truly means. Ignoring the more childish versions of mature, I would say that most opinions of "mature" would fall under to different camps. The first camp would be the idea that maturity is the exploration of ideas and concepts that younger audiences simply cannot grasp. The people of this camp usually likes for the usage of blood or sex to accent the point. Keep in mind that I don't mean an overuse, but rather using these concepts to explore ideas. Watchmen is a great example of this. The other camp would be the idea of bringing such complex ideas so it is easily understandable to younger audiences. This tends to use metaphors over actual mature-rated content to convey mature storytelling. Wall-E is another example.Keep in mind that both ideas of faults. Go to far with the first and you get pandering fetishes. Go to far with the latter and you dumb down ideas.

Now, with all that exploratory context out of the way, I do think that Bob's remark is both right and wrong. It is true that games have made excellent strides in the art of storytelling and more mature themes are being explored in more varied manners. But at the same time, we both simultaneously seem to be rejecting anything that looks kiddie regardless of context and yet long for the titillating "mature" titles without context as well. Of course, that's just my really hard to understand opinion and he could mean something completely different.

 

[Belated]

I cannot believe what I am reading, guys. Come on, Moviebob made some pretty compelling points here. Some of you are actually arguing with the notion that we should treat these women as people. Yes, we should treat them as people. Why? Because they are. And for all the reasons you might dehumanize somebody, "She looks pretty!" is nowhere near a good enough one.

Good work Moviebob. Ignore the haters, you're in the right here.

 

[xaszatm]

My issue is more with the people who seem to take away from `Booth Babes` that: `these people know nothing about games therefore they're trying to deceive me! Must quiz everyone now to make sure they aren't deceiving me too!`. And honestly I have no idea how to deal with those people. Being more vocal and more visible doesn't seem to dispel the myth that I either don't exist or am just doing it to score alpha nerd hunks.

Still, it's nice to see someone else who recognises the bloody impossible position a lot of female gamers are put into. It's why I don't use mic.

Dunno if you read the comments really, but I thought it'd be nice to quote because it's already getting depressing in here with the `whiteknighting` and `omgpanderingtofeminists` stuff, so I thought I'd comment and run.
Great episode.

I think its telling on how gamers are view themselves if we seriously believe that girls are joining these conventions because they want to sleep with the people there*. We are slowly transforming into the alpha male bullies stereotypes that were once feared by geeks everywhere**

However, on what to do, I would say that being vocal IS improving the position. There is a lot of backlash but by forcing this problem into the spotlight, the problem is now being discussed. The fact that there are now tons of articles, videos talking about the subject is the first step towards such problems being fixed. Once ideas are out there, they can exist so other people can access and come up with solutions on their own. It's an incredibly slow process but it is still, in my opinion, very powerful.

*Sadly I must make a note here saying that despite me saying gamers, I do not mean every gamer and know that there are many people who don't have this mindset. That should go without saying, but someone would probably say I'm painting a too broad picture.
** See above for similar sentiment

 

[Jenny Jones]

I dunno but I don't see what you're talking about with this one Bob. I haven't run into booth babe being a slur and certainly in the UK being called any form of babe is usually quite the ego boost. Hell you'd think people would be happy with very attractive women (and sometimes men!) being paid to talk to you, be nice and at least feign an interest in what you have to say while giving you their full attention and making you feel good.

Besides I wonder what would happen if One Direction/Our Lord and Saviour Justin Bieber entered a game of Counter Strike or Halo. I dare say they would face the same torrent (maybe worse) that a lot of attractive and successful female models face. It doesn't make it OK, it just says what we all already know, a lot of gamers need to mature.

 

[carnex]

Booth Babes "problem". That's a nasty pile of shit. Not because of them, they are doing a honest job. Nor for most of the audience, since they are normal human beings.

But then there are feminist protesters against "objectification" of women, persons that have neither social skills nor self restraint and, of course, "white knights" who rush to the help of girls that have it all under control in the first place stinking up the situation to outhouse level.

Yea, booth babes or attention magnets (just popped in my mind but describes their jobs perfectly and removes gender from term since some males end with same job) are normal thing at any gathering where punch line is further up on emotional then on intellectual scale. That's why you see them at car show and races but now on book shows and chess tournaments. They are pretty jewelry meant to get your attention and pass you up to the product or product manager. Why would anyone expect any info from them, other then what you can read from the stand's banner. They are to smile and look pretty, pose for pictures, pass up potential customers to sale representatives and, occasionally, at their own leisure, allow physical contact (seriously, I would like to see rule that proclaims that any unwanted physical contact with personnel can result in sudden sharp bursts of pain which will not be sanctioned).

To be honest, I never go to gaming conventions. Not my cup of tea. Not because I have something against gamers, even the ones least deserving of the title "decent human being", but I just don't see a point unless you are member of the press. It all comes to me anyway. But I can hardly imagine that there is huge numbers of people, or gamers, who really use "booth babe" as degradory term or think that they should be gamers. Sure there are some who really feel that way, and a lot more of those who think it's macho or funny to use that terminology, but on a whole, I don't see those as force enough to cause serious stir. Unless someone wants to cause a stir for his own goals. Seriously, flip them "the bird" and move on. They have no power.

And for the "objectification" crowd. Urgh... You know, i like seeing pretty human of sex I'm attracted to. You know, that what we evolved to see as pinnacle of beauty. And since I'm not psychic I don't know how old she is, where she went to school, what her hobbies are, how her last boyfriend hurt her and any of those. All I know is how she looks and even that is actually skewed by how she presented herself. So, guess what, that is all I can base my judgment on. You may call it objectification, but I call it judgment based on available information. So, if attractive girl, dressed in provocative clothes is near me I might think "It would be rather nice to spend afternoon in bed with her" but unless we have long enough conversation to establish her impressionable deductive capabilities I will not think "I would like to spend evening deconstructing social evolution of urban environments".

In other words, stop making problem where there isn't one. Let models do honest job and flip the bird to people who make their life harder.

THE END

 

[xaszatm]

I also like how this episode is a nice follow-up to Jim Sterling's Jimquisition episode about a woman who DARED to write for video games and who DARED to have an opinion about video game get death threats about her kids. I.E., it's another episode that shouldn't have to exist but because gaming culture is in a major rut at the moment, some things need to be spelled out.

Actually she got death threats because her writing was so bad that she ruined several games and made it clear that she hated video games that were interactive in any way. You can't keep screwing games up while having an anti-game attitude without expecting repercussions from gamers.

1st off, she was involved in two games and you are taking her interview horribly out of context. I know that others have called you up on these points but you don't seem to grasp the point so I won't bother.

2nd, someone named her children, what school they went to, talk about specific private events she attended, and then threatened to kill her children. This isn't a "meaningless death threat" that happens normally on the internet. That is a very scary and personal attack and from the context, it seemed likely that this person was in a position to seriously hurt this woman's family and life.

3rd, WHY IS SUCH ATTITUDES CONSIDERED ACCEPTABLE? There is a fine line between "I don't think your idea has any merit and here are a list of reasons why" and "I will kill your children!" The first is fine, the second isn't. How hard is it to understand?

 

[Phasmal]

I think its telling on how gamers are view themselves if we seriously believe that girls are joining these conventions because they want to sleep with the people there*. We are slowly transforming into the alpha male bullies stereotypes that were once feared by geeks everywhere**

However, on what to do, I would say that being vocal IS improving the position. There is a lot of backlash but by forcing this problem into the spotlight, the problem is now being discussed. The fact that there are now tons of articles, videos talking about the subject is the first step towards such problems being fixed. Once ideas are out there, they can exist so other people can access and come up with solutions on their own. It's an incredibly slow process but it is still, in my opinion, very powerful.

*Sadly I must make a note here saying that despite me saying gamers, I do not mean every gamer and know that there are many people who don't have this mindset. That should go without saying, but someone would probably say I'm painting a too broad picture.
** See above for similar sentiment

I don't understand much of the resistance to inclusiveness, especially the times that people pretend that women have only shown up to gaming about ten minutes ago or that somehow we need to impress guys.

I'd consider myself pretty darn vocal on this site (due to the frequency these issues come up), but I'm not much of an out gamer otherwise. Just easier not to be. I don't like having to memorise every single bit of trivia about things that I like just so I can survive the Nerdish Inquisition, while my male friends are allowed to make schoolboy errors.

I do think we'll get there, we just have to get past this weird phase of people simultaneously going `Yeah no but WHITE KNIGHTING-FEMINAZI` and other people going `Nobody needs to be TOLD this stuff!`, when obviously the problem still exists, so people kinda do.

 

[Deep Thought]

Eh, I don't know, while I've never had any personal objections towards the supermodels at conventions as people (Moviebob is right here; they are just doing their jobs), I think their overly prevalent appearances aren't indicative of positive trends in the game industry. I mainly say this because the presence of these models perpetuates the mentality of games being a "boys club"; true, there are predominately female models at other conventions or events, but think about what those events are as well. The events or conventions that I can think of where female supermodels/presenters are present are also targeted towards a male audience, like car shows, NASCAR, motocross, etc (although that's not to say that these events have no female fan-base, just that the male fan-base dwarfs them). I'm having a hard time thinking of a gender neutral event ("gender neutral" meaning equally populated by male and female fans) where the presenters feel obligated to use attractive female models, besides fashion shows, which is more by necessity than perversion. I problem with the "boy's club" mentality prevalent in gaming is that I'd like for video games to be gender neutral medium like books, music and film. Right now I'm still on the defensive whenever I explain to someone why I think video games are art, because they see pandering shit like this being extremely prevalent in the industry and laugh at the thought of the medium being perceived as art, and that's not right. Unfortunately, the majority of video games are still too juvenile.

Don't get me started on people who call prominent journalists who happen to be women "glorified booth babes." The fact that some of these people tend to be prominent journalists themselves makes it all the more disgusting.