The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

[aeroz]

Thing that irks me about the "guys are just as sexualized as women so its ok" is that, well, no that doesn't make it ok that just means women aren't the only ones objectified.

I do think it needs to be addressed because we need to get rid of this stereotype that only heterosexual men objectify and sexualize people. EVERYONE does this. All genders and all sexual orientations.

Though it is alot worse for women as we are in a male dominated society where both decision makers and marketed demographics are primarily male.

Finally, remember this is a societal issue not a business issue. Businesses typically do not sexualize characters because they personally want to, but because sex sales. Problem is how do you solve this. Sex is so pervasive in marketing it makes it hard to show support of non-sexualized media since even if you do support it overwhelmingly the old marketing teaching of "sex sales" will cause them to assume it sold better despite the lack of tits not because of it.

 

[Slayer_2]

It's funny, a game that tries to pander to me with a big-titted woman with chain mail bikini "armour" gets a pass from me. But for every so-called journalist that leaps to defend this woman from Feminist Frequency, the less I sympathize with her version of the cause. She got over $150,000 to make a few documentaries pointing out the obvious, and likely with no realistic ideas on how to slow and/or eventually stop the problem. Honestly, did she really need six grand to pay for the "expense" related to talking to her tripod-mounted camera for a few hours? If your passionate about something, you shouldn't need financial incentive, unless she needs a $6000 camera to get her point across.

She's like a really expensive check engine light for a car, that only goes off two hours after your engine has died... Essentially useless. With that being said, they standard wash of youtube hate is far from justified, and is a little ridiculous, if not somewhat inevitable. I suppose in this capitalist world, people can vote for this with their wallet's as they see fit. However, her "campaign" to raise funds falls in the same category as "truck balls" in my mind. In fact, I might rather buy the truck balls than give her money, at least I could use those as a gag gift, instead of paying someone to repeat obvious facts.

 

[Darth_Payn]

There hasn't been a good Big-Boobed Panty-Ninja since VII. And Big-Boobed Panty-Ninja X-2: More Panties was the worst idea ever. They should just quit now.

Agreed. It's like they lost track of what was fun in those games!

 

[TomLikesGuitar]

Ugly women don't miss out on jobs because Lara Croft sets a bad standard... Ugly women miss out on jobs because they are ugly.

It wouldn't matter if EVERY SINGLE video game character was an ugly loser, people (not women... people) will ALWAYS BE JUDGED by their appearance.

Get over it.

 

[Blunderman]

Oh yes, the old "Don't you have more important things to worry about?" fallacy [http://www.2012hoax.org/fallacies#toc34]. AKA a cheap way of not responding to the argument present, or more simply, a cop-out.

Had you not taken what I said out of context and acted as though it was my entire case rather than a closing suggestion, I would've said you have a point. As it stands, however, you're just ignoring my arguments.

Please read my post again and respond to it in full, rather than acting as though all I did was suggest that we focus our attention elsewhere.

But if you guys really believe this, tell me something. Did you tell the Retake Mass Effect crowd to stop whining about a stupid video game and worry about curing cancer or ending homelessness instead? Why are you bitching on a video game site's forums in the first place? Shouldn't you be too busy building houses for Habitat for Humanity or something?

You're not helping your case, mate. Since you seem to like linking to sites about logical fallacies, I suggest you read up on straw men and red herrings.

 

[Furioso]

There hasn't been a good Big-Boobed Panty-Ninja since VII. And Big-Boobed Panty-Ninja X-2: More Panties was the worst idea ever. They should just quit now.

Don't sweep BBPN IX under the rug, that one was really good. BBPN X-2 was a pretty bad idea though, and that MMO they tried to do with XIV, they must have hired slugs to do the work on that one

 

[Zayle79]

If you read the pitch, it will only amount to about 3 hours of video. And she's already put videos out, these aren't the first.

That's irrelevant. Did her other videos have $150K put into them? I doubt it; I've seen them. These ones do have that ridiculous amount of money poured into them, so I think we can deduce that they'll have higher production values. Elementary, dear Rainbow Dash.

Edit: My point is just that you can't say if something's budget was too high until it's made. That's like telling a AAA movie studio "Hey, don't you know that people make videos with cheap camcorders and Windows Movie Maker? Putting thousands of dollars into an hour and a half of video is just obscene!" If Sarkeesian really wants to put the money to good use, there's plenty she can do with it.

 

[newwiseman]

Also if she wants to use actual game characters and not just inspired look-a-likes she'll have to pay licensing fees.

As I recall, you don't have to pay licensing fees to use limited amounts of copyrighted material for the purpose of criticism or parody. It goes under Fair Use or other international equivalents.

True, unless she ever plans to sell the material she makes, on a DVD for instance. Fair Use is annoying and confusing when you apply it to your own copyrighted work and it is often easier and cheaper to obtain a general license to use what you want than argue fair use in court. Also depending on where your sued the courts are more lenient for what is parody and satire vs what is copyright infringement.

I don't know what her plans are for the characters but with the budget she's looking at she may be a target.

Personally I've used copyrighted works in the past and have found it very easy to get permissions from the owners, without having to pay a cent, so long as I made sure they received all due credit. Those that did ask for money, only wanted anything if I sold over a certain amounts (about 3,000units or 30,000dollars of material on average). I've never come close to that so I've never paid for licensing.

 

[Inkidu]

I think you tried a little hard to trivialize the male side of the issue. I mean Twilight? That Bod bodyspray commercial. Those aren't really for our sexual self-fulfillment are they? Bob, I think you're underestimating just how marketable the woman side of things has become. Still, opinion and good episode.

That's kind of why I'm interested in see where they go with the Tomb Raider reboot. Sure, it's still sexy-symbol Lara, but the wounds, blood, and dirt of it all seems to be bringing her to a more down-to-earth position.

Keeping in mind that good male or female characters conform and deny some of the rolls and expectations laid upon their gender. Complete defiance is dull, it's a tricky thing to work around.

 

[pyro42]

I don't care that she's making these videos, I care that she asked money for them. Plenty of people have done these kind of videos for free, but she needed 6,000$ to do them. And thanks to the internet she now has over150,000$ to put in her pocket. Wonderful job guys, no I'm sure she'll spend every cent of that on the tropes videos.

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.

oh i know why, it's because she is doing a full cultural research project, as someone who is about to go for there masters, i can tell you, it's not just something you though together, research like what this girl is talking about i huge, and take a good amount of money, not 150,000 money but still a lot. with the kick starter she only asked for 6,000, which is resemble. Anthropological research like this girl is doing is excessive, though the reson she got so much money is because of how these people on the internet were treating her. so yes i agree 150,000 is a little bit excessive, but to do this right she does need some money.

 

[Trekkie]

"those male chars aren't there for women to enjoy, they their for you. for male self fantasy"

and yes i am paraphrasing but you get the idea.

Frankly i find the Dad form Heavy rain or Alan wake to be men that male gamers affiliate themselves with more, y'know mr average just trying to do right by their friends and family. Rather than those hulking duke nukem-esk, steroid junkies which I don't think anyone finds them at all appealing as a self image. Plus frankly bob, would the same argument work for female gamers and sexy chars? the self fantasy that they want to be that?

don't get me wrong i think he's full of crap on this one because I don't know anyone who treats a char as a fantasised version of themselves except maybe in RPG games like fallout, which is supposed to be the point of that genre where you get to create your own char.

Bob all your argument has really don is say that male gamers are really just a load of losers who find games appealing because it lets them get away from how shit they are for five minutes because they get to imagine that they are this muscle manic and get to douche around for a while. Isn't that what gamers have been trying to disprove for a long time now? that they aren't a bunch of loosers who live in their mothers basement?

and please, only very few women findd Dante, Marcus phoenix, Jacob Taylor, Thane ETC ETC appealing? id wager not.

 

[mronoc]

The entire sexism argument should be flatly ignored.

No progress is ever made and when push comes to shiv the only people left participating are the Women who want all me to die and the Men who think of women as Objects.

The biggest problem with the entire argument is that it is too subjective. The latest Sex Symbol in Japan is Nintendos Office Lady in their ads. Cultural boundaries are so erratic on what would be sexually exploitative of women would be anything and everything.

The ultimate result of the argument isn't any good ether.

Eastern Orthodox Catholics/Russian Catholics view Hair as Sexually Seductive. Therefor, women must wear head scarves.

Islam, any skin showing on a woman is too Sexually Seductive in public. Therefor, women must be fully clothed from head to toe.

Your argument ultimately falls to pieces, because you offer no valid solution, and can be pared down to Attractive Women Shouldn't Be Seen.

So which world do you want?

Do you want a world where women are free to exist as whatever tramp, harlot, stripper, engineer, teacher, or scientist they want to be?

Or do you want a world where women are not to be seen in public?

The path you're presenting Bob is the path that leads to women not being seen even though I know your intention is not to go that far. Your logic is the very logic that has been used to Oppress women the most.

This is a world view completely lacking in any sense of nuance, there's no reason everything has to be one extreme or the other. Expecting people to be prudent and responsible in their behavior and in the creative works they produce isn't advocating censorship.

Censorship is a cold, binary thing, "Material X contains content Y, content Y is inappropriate, material X is banned." This is a call for conversation: Rather than deciding that something is objectionable based solely on content, we should be looking at the context of that content, and what the overall works says about that content, and then not ban something if we decide that what it's saying is objectionable, but simply be aware of the potentially harmful messages to which we're being exposed.

As far as a solution to objectification, that should be fairly obvious: Creators should treat female characters as they would any other, give them fully developed personalities, and have them act (and dress) logically within that personality. Objectification doesn't come from sexualization, but through sexualization lacking any other context, i.e. a female characters with no defining characteristics beyond their body and their sexuality.

 

[Eri]

If you read the pitch, it will only amount to about 3 hours of video. And she's already put videos out, these aren't the first.

That's irrelevant. Did her other videos have $150K put into them? I doubt it; I've seen them. These ones do have that ridiculous amount of money poured into them, so I think we can deduce that they'll have higher production values. Elementary, dear Rainbow Dash.

Edit: My point is just that you can't say if something's budget was too high until it's made. That's like telling a AAA movie studio "Hey, don't you know that people make videos with cheap camcorders and Windows Movie Maker? Putting thousands of dollars into an hour and a half of video is just obscene!" If Sarkeesian really wants to put the money to good use, there's plenty she can do with it.

That remains to be seen however. The original goal was only 6k$. There's nothing that says she can't just pocket the rest. Hell, she could take all of it and give no videos, that's not even a problem according to the kickstarter rules. Obviously I don't think she's going to just take it and not use it, but I doubt she will use quite a bit, especially as more and more comes in.