The Deadpool said:
Lightknight said:
I think the thing most people have issues with is her damsel argument. Her women as non-important background or sex toys is generally seen more favorably.
Yes and no. She certainly has stronger ground here, but her lack of experience in gaming shows.
She continually compares NPCs to PCs and finds them wanting. A large portion of her background video "problems" with how these women are treated are a function of them being NPCs and not WOMEN.
Remember, the problem shouldn't be women being treated poorly, it should be women being treated DIFFERENTLY.
Oh, sure, not much disagreement from me. But what I said is that her other points are seen more favorably. Not that they're agreed with, just that they're more legitimate points for her to make.
They also delve into an area of moral subjectivity. That depicting scantily clad women is a bad thing and that depicting appropriately dressed women is a good thing. So it successfully gets away from needing facts to prove its relevance. That makes people be able to say, "Ok, you believe that and that's your prerogative, but that's not what I believe" or to criticize specific elements like you are doing here without outright dismissing her.
daibakuha said:
The problem comes from the fact that not only does it reinforce that women are objects to be used as goals for male players
Objects to be used as goals? Yeah, it reinforced the idea that people who are in distress are worth saving. Games have goals. If there's no conflict then there's no story. So why would saving a woman's life not be a legitimate form of conflict?
but that they lack any form of agency themselves.
If they could save themselves, then there would be no conflict in the story. The entire point of a damsel in distress is that someone, the villain, has kidnapped a person and has taken away their agency in doing so. I would even say that the villain is actively objectifying the kidnapped individual. So your goal as the hero is to go and give the victim back their dignity and agency.
I would argue that damsel tropes do the opposite of what Anita claims. They teach us that people who would objectify and remove agency from individuals are the villains and should be stopped if we have the means to do so. The central component being that innocent people have a right to liberty and being treated as people with those liberties.
That's a very positive lesson to be taught.
Another comment-er pointed this out, but we live in an age where physical power matters very little in day to day life, so the differences should be moot.
Games aren't about day to day lives. Games are about the days where something extraordinary happens and we have to respond. Now, sometimes you might be fortunate enough to have a gun on you if the situation calls for it, but from what I understand that's a real rarity. So most times these things require physical force. Rape and domestic abuse is absolutely a problem and it disproportionately impacts females because of the power disparity. We live in a world where physical power isn't necessary for a lot of our jobs or regular work, but the disparity of power is always there, lurking in the shadows.
So yes there are differences between men and women, but they shouldn't matter, especially in games where they exaggerate physical prowess to sometimes extreme levels. Lara Croft in the new tomb raider didn't beat all those dudes on that island with sheer physical force, she outsmarted, out maneuvered and out-skilled them all. Come to think of it, it's the exact same way Nathan Drake manages to beat people who are way stronger than himself too.
Ok, so you just listed two protagonists. One male, one female. Protagonists ARE the ones that are supposed to have agency. You'll notice that all the people Lara Croft saved had no agency and needed her just as much as anyone Nathan saved.
It's like people forget that for it to matter for the hero to save people, they actually have to be needed. The 'no one but you can or will do it' is core to story telling. If anyone could do it, if your actions don't matter, then who cares?
Silvanus said:
Lightknight said:
The way media influences people is usually to play on existing behaviors. People are usually talking about ads, for example. So if you want to try a new soda, Coca-cola will inform you about a product that caters to your need (or that they claim caters to it).
What people do not mean is that media necessarily makes you sexist or violent. We can tell the difference between reality or fantasy as long as we're not schizophrenic. So I would never once have considered it legitimate to take the lessons on femininity that Princess Peach taught me (which is nothing, FYI, she did not teach me anything at all) and apply them to real life because even as a kid I understood that she was a character.
So, you've got some steep evidence to amass here that Jack Thompson tried and failed to get.
I'd agree with you that media is (far) more likely to reinforce existing behaviour than to create entirely new behaviour, by the way. That's a fairly significant influence. If somebody is already a fairly anti-establishment individual, for example-- suspicious of surveillance, or tyranny-- then reading
Nineteen Eighty-Four may well reinforce that outlook. If somebody is already slightly misogynistic, then reading about heroic, suave
James Bond treating women as conquests may well reinforce that outlook, too.
Reinforce means to strengthen. It is not different from saying it makes people more X. I disagree, what I was saying is that they use and manipulate existing desires. Not that they make those desires stronger or lesser. If a person is thirsty and likes sugar water then a coke commercial will remind them that they're thirsty and will provide a solution for the problem of them not having sugar water. It doesn't make them more thirsty. It simply points out the existing desire and manipulates it.
I refer to literature, because the idea that literature influences peoples' outlook is pretty widely recognised, I would have thought.
Literature can broaden horizons, give you more perspectives. People do think about what they consume but on a more philosophical level. They aren't tricked into being more sexist or being less sexist by something they hear. They evaluate the information they're given and decide whether it is accurate or not and whether or not they want to accept it.
So, yeah, media can provide the means to influence but it isn't subversive. It presents concepts you may have never thought of before and that creates a change or not change moment in your ideologies once presented. But once decided, seeing the same concept done again shouldn't create that moment again. New information or new perspectives may.
What's more is that fiction is received differently than philosophical literature. We understand that it's fiction and can tell the difference between that and reality. Peter Pan didn't change my ideology. Mario didn't change my ideology. An actual point has to be made. But just that a princess is in trouble? That's not a lesson. That's not making me think that all girls are princesses and are incapable of helping themselves. At most, it's a commentary on how villains kidnap and if you can free someone from wrongful captivity then you should. But generally we read far less into fantasy or fictional writings unless we're made aware of a secret of the works. I mean, would you have been keenly aware of the political implications of Moby Dick had someone not explained them to you or brought them up? A lot of people also make connections that aren't there and end up teaching that an author was making a point that he or she had never intended. Humans like to see patterns, are evolved to see patterns, even if they aren't there because it is more important for us to see patterns that are there than it is for us not to see patterns when they are absent.
