The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

[itsthesheppy]

I think the worst part of the whole Tropes thing is the fact she's gotten over 150,000$ and for what? To make what is basically youtube videos? That's absurd.

Take a look at this show, extra credits, yahtzee, etc... They make on average a 5 minute video a week and constantly put them out, she is making what amounts to 3 hours tops of videos and making way more than I'm sure anyone else gets paid, and for much less work too.

She asked for $6k to produce the entire series. The $144k came as a bonus because people really wanted to back her up. She had no control over 96% of the money that was donated to her. Nobody was compelled to donate and since she was basically asking for donation to produce videos in much a similar vein as the ones she's already produced, it's pretty safe to say she's not scamming anyone.

Moviebob and Yahtzee, etc., are compensated for the work they do. They're not producing these videos free of charge. I dunno if they make the same money, more, or less, but it's not for free. And producing videos is expensive, especially if you contract out talent for effects or editing or whatever.

So, check your rage. Nobody's asking you to donate anything or even watch the videos. You're free to ignore it and move on.

 

[ivc392]

Can we have a Jabberjaw episode now? No.. ok, then how about a preview of Big Boob Panty Ninja 12?

 

[templar1138a]

Thanks for pointing this crap out.

When I saw the trailer for the kick-starter, I remained as objective as possible, neither allowing myself to say "Oh god, not this again!" or "Oh god, she's so right!"

In the end, I thought about it and thought, "Yes, there's plenty of stereotyping and objectifying of women in video games. But what's this woman's agenda? There's something about her tone that I don't like. I get the feeling she has a certain sense of superiority to people around her. In a way, she reminds me of Michael Moore..."

I later read that she makes a point about still being a virgin. I have yet to confirm it, but if she does indeed make that as a point to try to validate herself, it says a lot about her agenda and her view of men.

But my ultimate realization came about when I saw the hateful responses to her kick-starter trailer. At first I just thought, "Oh great, the internet's at it again." But then I realized, "Wait a minute, she wanted this to happen. She wanted to be pelted with abuse and hate so attention would be drawn to her kick-starter and she'd get the funds she needs. Not only that, but she could possibly use that abuse as ammunition to push the extreme not-feminist idea that men are inferior to women (if that's her agenda, I honestly don't know, it only occurred as a possibility)."

And then, in my best Australian accent, "Clever girl!"

So from there, I decided to ignore this fiasco. Because the abuse is not being caused by the video games themselves, which I think she believes. The abuse is a symptom of larger problems within the gamer and geek cultures. Her video isn't going to change that in either direction, and she herself will be forgotten until she finds another powder keg of a demographic to set off.

And if you haven't noticed, I haven't addressed her by name. Because I don't remember it, even with it being mentioned in the kick-starter promo and this Big Picture episode. Because she is so small compared to the larger issue that is root of the misogyny that exists within gamer/geek culture.

 

[teh_Canape]

I totally heard that he said "big boob ninja party 12"
to me, sounds a lot marketable than "big boob ninja panty 12"

 

[RatRace123]

I hope you realize that now many people will expect a Jabberjaw episode sometime in the future. You can't open that pandora's box and not have to deal with the contents.

As for this week's box. Well said, though the issue of the appearance of female characters is one that hits in every media, as was touched on. And it seems to be a societal problem that can't really be fixed in this or that media representation, rather it's a solution that must be overarching, across all forms of entertainment.

I think the main problem is that, even among women (it seems, I make absolutely no claims to know what an individual thinks) is that no one wants to play as someone that just looks conventionally ugly. Even Mario who's a short, fat, hairy guy is a stylized short, fat hairy guy and thus still looks appealing, a real life Mario would probably be less so. Even ugly characters are generally designed to look "badass" and thus fulfill a fantasy.

And I've mentioned it before on this site, and again I don't want to make any assumptions but isn't being beautiful a fantasy for women like being a badass is for men?
And if that is the case, couldn't that also contribute to why nearly every female character has a super model appearance, even the ones who don't dress like they run their clothes through a lawnmower?

 

[Voltano]

I can respect what Anita in her video is saying. I 100% agree with her (and you, Bob) that women have not had a lot of diversity in video games (or any media) like men do. I'll even add on to this video that men are often portrayed hypersexualized as a sign of power of desire to satisfy our primordial desire to be powerful and express power to relieve stress where we feel we don't have power (such as bullied kids playing a round of "Mortal Kombat" to relieve their stress from school at a day). However, I think this statement that there are sexist views in video games, from a Feminist perspective, is handled poorly.

Gamers have faced discrimination and insulting stereotypes directed toward them as well. You could say that its not as bad or as LONG as have women suffered. But when you consider that we had to go through a Supreme Court case just to defend the art-value of video games a few years ago; are sometimes mixed with the "D&D Nerd" stereotype Hollywood uses in their films for slasher films; and China/Korea are leading a campaign to express how dangerous "Internet addiction" is from youths playing too much video games, I think it shouldn't be surprising that gamers would get defensive. So I respect what the Feminists are saying--but being as nice (or as snobbish and jaded as Bob is here) as possible when saying this to gamers than, well, how are you surprised again that gamers would retaliate like this?

I'm not defending the sexist statements from gamers to Anita--I find it repulsive and a sad image of what represents me. However, I think this should call for a different method of "fixing this problem" than just telling us it is a problem, regardless of how nice (or comical/jerk-like) it is told to us. PETA makes a statement of how, they believe, animals are treated by making a game that is playable to prove a point; and unfortunately, Racist White Supremacists make games as well to establish how "evil" any other race that is not their own is. Sure these games are heinous, horrible, and insulting--but they also are made because this group wants to express their message in the target media they believe "has a problem."

Why are we not seeing games made from Feminists? I'm not talking about a triple-A, "Goddess of War" kind of game to rival Kratos (Kratala?), but something made in their image that they can distribute. Release it as a Flash game on Newgrounds or as an Indie game on Xbox Live Arcade. SUPPORT game designers fresh out of College or laid off by hiring them to help you make the game YOU want!

This is not me challenging or saying Feminists are lazy, but as a person looking into game design as a career, turning towards them and saying, "Okay, you want a game? Let's work together and make one."

 

[blalien]

Well said, Bob. I was personally embarrassed by the comments on this site about Feminist Frequency. So many people were desperately racing to excuse away the little shits on Youtube while taking any stabs at Anita Sarkeesian they could get.

 

[JediMB]

I think the worst part of the whole Tropes thing is the fact she's gotten over 150,000$ and for what? To make what is basically youtube videos? That's absurd.

Take a look at this show, extra credits, yahtzee, etc... They make on average a 5 minute video a week and constantly put them out, she is making what amounts to 3 hours tops of videos and making way more than I'm sure anyone else gets paid, and for much less work too.

So what? That's all she said she was gunna do. If people want to give her money for that it's fine by me, not like a 5 minute video about a videogame trope ever hurt anyone.

And if people think her videos are going to be worth the $12.5k she gets for each one (rather than the $834 per video she was aiming for originally)... so be it.

Methinks Eri should wait to judge until the videos are actually out.

 

[MatParker116]

I find it slightly depressing that the best examples of female playable characters I can think of the top of my head are:

The Dragonborn
The Warden
The Champion
Commander Shepard
Noble Six
Samus

Five Blank Slates and one who has a "Zero Suit".

Best female video game character is Alyx Vance by the way.

 

[Sourman]

I honestly can't hear the whole "but men are depicted with unrealistic bodies, just like women!" without thinking about this [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/31] Penny Arcade comic.

 

[MB202]

I got into one argument on YouTube with a guy saying feminists aren't allowed to complain about these games because it specifically doesn't appeal to them. When I tried to say it's a more general problem with games, he brushed it off bring up Angry Birds and a bunch of other games that don't really fit into my argument. I'd like to use this video to help with my argument, but I don't think it'll help any.

There's also the fact that, more often then not, the more rational people on the Internet say she's badly equipped for this kind of project, in that she barely tries with addressing female tropes, usually reading off of TV Tropes and saying what the problems are, rather than how to fix them or some Jazz. I really don't know how to argue with that, since I haven't seen all of her videos, but even stuff, resorting to what's gone down on the comments page of that YouTube video... Not classy at ALL!

 

[Lunar Templar]

Oh come ON now! I agreed with almost everything, but I just have to say...


Big-Boobed Panty Ninja 7 was by far the jewel in the crown, The series has just gone so far downhill at this point they're actively mining.

PPFF!!!! BBPN6 was better!!

but your right, they hit bottom and started digging awhile ago

OT:as i watched this i couldn't help but think 'and people wonder why i want a female character that looks like a capable warrior and not a super model', guess that's the one thing D3 did right eh?

anyway, good ep, even if the subject tends to make me sigh in disappointment due to the 'neanderthals' open their mouths

 

[Varya]

I think the worst part of the whole Tropes thing is the fact she's gotten over 150,000$ and for what? To make what is basically youtube videos? That's absurd.

Take a look at this show, extra credits, yahtzee, etc... They make on average a 5 minute video a week and constantly put them out, she is making what amounts to 3 hours tops of videos and making way more than I'm sure anyone else gets paid, and for much less work too.

It really isn't her fault. That's the way Kickstarter works. She asked for, what I will on sheer trust in decency assune was a reasonable amount to do the series she wanted (pease don't start with all that "but everyone can do a video for nothing today", production value and proper research still cost money), and then people decided to give her more money. Knowing full well she already had enough money, they wanted to give more. That's not ridiculous, that's awesome. If people want to give money let them, I know for a fact that Bob has a donate button on his blog, why is this different? She hasn't asked for this much to make the videos and hopefully she'll do somethng productive with the leftover money, but the point is people rose up and said that the way some people reacted to that video proved it was necessary, and they said it with their wallets. This is not the worst part, this is the best part.

 

[Zayle79]

I think the worst part of the whole Tropes thing is the fact she's gotten over 150,000$ and for what? To make what is basically youtube videos? That's absurd.

Take a look at this show, extra credits, yahtzee, etc... They make on average a 5 minute video a week and constantly put them out, she is making what amounts to 3 hours tops of videos and making way more than I'm sure anyone else gets paid, and for much less work too.

"Basically Youtube videos"? You've seen them?

You're assuming that these videos will be the same quality as Big Picture, Extra Credits, etc. If that were so, then $150K would be plenty excessive. But she does have $150K. She's working with a pretty big budget and considerably more time than a week per video(I assume), so why assume that the videos themselves will be the same as shows working with weekly web show budgets?

I think you're missing the point of Kickstarter. She's not being paid all that money. People are giving her that money for the videos. Perhaps she could just use the $6000 she originally asked for and pocket the rest, I dunno, but she's clearly not doing that; when the funding started to way exceed the goal, what was originally would have been a 5-episode series along the same lines as her other FF videos expanded to a 12-episode series with a classroom curriculum and professional production values.

 

[DustyDrB]

Oh and if there's something i have to say about this project that hasn't been said already
Well then i'll just leave this here and you can see for yourselves

So you're trying to say the douchebags are also making videos about the lady? K.

 

[Kargathia]

Well, I agree withe the sentiment, and I'm glad this was placed before the backlash. Now, I'll get to see this rise to absurd numbers when the teenage white male demographic comes a knocking.

You might have the wrong forum for that.

(pease don't start with all that "but everyone can do a video for nothing today", production value and proper research still cost money)

A fact all too often overlooked, and quite detrimental for professional videographers, photographers, and more than a few other professions that also exist as hobby.

If you're happy with whatever turd your cousin craps out and uploads to youtube, then good on you. If you want professional work, then don't start moaning when you're expected to pay a professional's rate.

I haven't seen her work, but what she's asking is on the lower side of what'd justify professional quality in both production values and research.

 

[UnderGlass]

Couldn't agree more with the final word of this episode. I disagree with a ton of Anita Sarkeesian's points and dislike her way of expressing them but I still contributed $10 to her project because her right to do so should be unassailable. Having people being critical of the medium and issues like these is vital to pushing society forward and finding acceptable compromise.