The Most Dangerous Woman in Videogames - Anita Sarkeesian

Karadalis

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Apr 26, 2011
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I think she should work for the PR department of EA.

The way she promoted her own kickstarter by calling out the internet trolls, let them spill their hate over her and THEN using that to her advantage is simply brilliant.

Her message thought? Garbage and poorly researched.

Shes suposed to be "gamings most dangerous woman?" hardly. Shes a US local small time phenomenom with hardly any presence outside the US and even there her influence is very very limited.

I dont see her getting invited to prime hour talkshows or news casts and by god it aparantly isnt hard to accomplish that with some of the lunatics that are invited to those.

Furthermore her entire premise about "the patriarchy" does a disservice to those places in the world where such systems really exists and women are treated like dirt.

How about you rally against mysoginy and sexism in india where women are gang raped every other week or so? Naw.. thats not a 1st world problem right? Instead its much better to rally against perceived "sexism" in videogames for 10 year olds.

Besides... fighting the good fight in india has much less money and much much much more work included right? And you wont get invited to hipster events where you and your following of self rightous fantards who have never ever done anything substantial to better the position of women in society besides applauding frauds like you pat each other on the shoulder.

Shes a hack and a swindler but shes very smart in pulling in the "wont anybody think of the children" crowd for herself. Meanwhile women do get supressed and seen as nothing but "things" in other parts of the world.. but oh no.. there isnt any internet fame to gain from that because its not a new and fresh thing and has absolutely no impact on your comfy 1st world live.

But hey.. videogames exist in every household... right now they could be teaching YOUR children to be sexist! Wont anybody think of the children?
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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sinsfire said:
"an archetype she calls "The Fighting F*ck-Toy" that encapsulates characters that offer an illusion of "empowerment" but in fact merely combine the mostly-male audiences desire to gawk at women with that same audience's desire to be the hero"

How is this not ok in Perfect Dark, but completely ok in her own hypothetical game concept "The Legend of the Last Princess" I find it maddening that she will at the same time decry a trope as harmful while offering up her own version of said trope. In this case she even commissioned the animation and what she got was yet another "Fighting F*ck-toy".
She was referring to the specific ad linked in the article, which is essentially 45 seconds of male gaze on a woman getting out of bed, taking a shower and applying make up and 15 seconds of gameplay. The first 45 seconds is essentially an attempt to get male viewers aroused and to make viewers think that that woman is sexy and then 15 seconds show us in-game footage of that same woman fighting. Her own video is inherently different in that it doesn't start with an attempt to make the viewer lust for the Princess.
 

sinsfire

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DaViller said:
Whats wrong with wonder pink?
The promo trailer is a bit hyper sexualized. Not owning a Wii-U I couldn't comment on the game play but the trailer was a bit over the top. I don't know if that is an out of context critique but I think that might have been what was being referred to. The link to the trailer is in Bob's original article.
 

Bocaj2000

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I feel like I'm walking into a shitstorm, but I feel like it has to be said: why is it that that every time Anita articles come up it gets hijacked by hatred? Bob's article obviously shows that Anita is well loved out of the digital realm. idk, maybe it's just the escapist, because smaller, more mature communities treat her with respect.
 

VanQ

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Oct 23, 2009
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Since no one has posted it yet even though it got a mention, here are Thunderf00t's video responses to her videos.

 

kurupt87

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Mar 17, 2010
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yeah_so_no said:
kurupt87 said:
As long as games don't end up like TV I don't mind, if they do then books are the last bastion.
Last bastion of what, exactly?
Entertainment aimed at specific groups, rather than mass appeal sanitised bullshit that nobody likes.
 

sinsfire

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Gethsemani said:
sinsfire said:
"an archetype she calls "The Fighting F*ck-Toy" that encapsulates characters that offer an illusion of "empowerment" but in fact merely combine the mostly-male audiences desire to gawk at women with that same audience's desire to be the hero"

How is this not ok in Perfect Dark, but completely ok in her own hypothetical game concept "The Legend of the Last Princess" I find it maddening that she will at the same time decry a trope as harmful while offering up her own version of said trope. In this case she even commissioned the animation and what she got was yet another "Fighting F*ck-toy".
She was referring to the specific ad linked in the article, which is essentially 45 seconds of male gaze on a woman getting out of bed, taking a shower and applying make up and 15 seconds of gameplay. The first 45 seconds is essentially an attempt to get male viewers aroused and to make viewers think that that woman is sexy and then 15 seconds show us in-game footage of that same woman fighting. Her own video is inherently different in that it doesn't start with an attempt to make the viewer lust for the Princess.
The first 45 seconds are a live model. So what she really has a problem with is male centered marketing. I can accept that, but in that case she isn't complaining about the fighting f*ck-toy. She is complaining about how the fighting f*ck-toy gets sold. Just because her FFT is sold with animation and less skin doesn't change or affect the trope itself. I maintain that she cannot decry a trope and then attempt to use it in making a female centered game when really all she did was gender swap the prince of Persia.
 

MrMan999

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Oct 25, 2011
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I suppose the fact that Ms. Sarkeesian's videos have been picked apart by a lot of people, she refuses to debate the subject and instead speak into an echo chamber, the fact that her game footage was stolen from lets plays, the fact that she admitted herself in 2010 that she does not play videogames, the fact that she lies and takes things way out of context and finally the fact that she knows next to nothing about the games she mentions mean nothing?

Don't get me wrong, the whole debate about women in videogames is a debate worth having, but thats the thing, it needs to be a debate, not an echo chamber. And Sarkeesian is not the person who should bring this debate into the limelight.
 

SlightlyEvil

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I was intrigued by the mention of a future episode on the exotification of women of color. My biggest criticism of Ms. Sarkeesian is that while the portrayal of women in gaming is, on average, far from acceptable, she didn't seem to be saying anything we hadn't already heard a thousand times. This actually is a topic definitely worth discussing, that hasn't already been talked to death. Also, I've heard a lot of criticism of her presentation style as bland, so hearing that she's much better live makes a lot of sense. She does come from the world of academia, after all, so she's used to an audience. I've never felt much genuine dislike for Ms Sarkeesian's work, just a general reaction of "so what else is new?" For once, I feel like she's actually saying something that not only needs to be said, but hasn't been said already.
 

Artemicion

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Dec 7, 2009
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Hazy said:
Houseman said:
I've yet to see any well-written article against what she's doing. As far as I know, the only hate comes from the "little people" of the internet.

If there is one, I'd be interested in reading it.
I hope videos will suffice, because I've got two of them right here:

Also "little people" is cute.
I'm disappointed you were able to post Instigative Journalism's work before I had a chance to.

A previous quote from another topic that I wrote:
I encourage everyone who still thinks Sarkeesian's arguments have merit to review Thunderf00t's Feminism versus FACTS [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJeX6F-Q63I&list=PLQJW3WMsx1q3BAZh3XsK1cSwCiaqjSulc] series, Inuitlnua's three [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj29-hepBiA] part [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07keXDCPXtw] review [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OLdWrVjILg] of the Tropes versus Women series, Instig8iveJournalism's two part evaluation of Sarkeesian's work (here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gLmcS3-NI] and here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI]), MrRepzion's breakdown of her videos (here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la9i2np0WTU] and here [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCsfXkbzRI4]), and lastly, but most importantly, the recent video revealing that Sarkeesian is, by her own admission and contrary to her statements for the last two years, not a gamer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPIu3sDkEw].

Sarkeesian goes out of her way to find the touch of the patriarchy in absolutely any game that has a women under any form of duress. She calls out Mario for chrissake. If there's a woman in a videogame, there's some reason why she's being oppressed, objectified and generally mistreated by men.

It's frequently said that Sarkeesian just hates men, but after watching all of her videos to date, as well as the responses I've linked above, I think it's more accurate to say that Sarkeesian actually hates women.
Supplement: Moviebob managed to identify and add to one of the most prevalent problems in the Sarkeesian debates, though I'm sure he doesn't realize it: Her supporters use the wide amounts of verbal hatred and abuse she's received on the internet as a way to somehow validate her arguments, and completely fail to mention (or severely downplay) actual arguments and criticisms leveled against her and her feminism. This entire article was one big feelgood piece for her. "Oh, she's received so much hatred that she should be wearing a bulletproof vest! And she's still pointing out how many problems with the gaming industry there are!" And yet, there's no further information to substantiate her feminist views or even justify her arguments (such as taking pot shots at Samus, again, but failing to mention how a woman expressing her sexuality by wearing a bikini is, without fail, objectifying and sexist), and there's sure as hell no appearance of any counterarguments to her claims or her actions. Her supporters refuse to focus on the actual talking points she brings up, the tons of educated, paced and perfectly acceptable responses to her arguments available on YouTube and the internet at large, and instead rally behind her under the flag of the mistreatment by the internet she's received.
 

kenu12345

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Aug 3, 2011
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josemlopes said:
Thats something that comes up a lot, for example in the GTAV review in Gamespot, its like they just ignored all the exaggeration to everyone else and only focused on the women, in that game everyone is a fucking stereotype and yet the women stereotype is the only one that matters, isnt that what being sexist is? Like, you can make fun of one gender and not the other? The game treats both genders with the same amount of disrespect but somehow it should only be applied to men to make it not sexist according to them.

Thats what being sexist is, to treat one gender better then the purely based on their gender.
Oh don't you start the gamespot review stuff. Its only slightly related and the reviewer gave it a 9 for bloody sake. Sorry it just annoys me when I see people complain about that cause you know "Other opinions arent allowed!"
 

Farther than stars

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yeah_so_no said:
kurupt87 said:
As long as games don't end up like TV I don't mind, if they do then books are the last bastion.
Last bastion of what, exactly?
I was wondering that as well, but if this is a quality debate, then games already have gone to way of TV or, rather, always were that way. The same thing goes for books, come to think of it. Just go into a bookshop - do it, I dare you - it's not all Hemingway and Lawrence.
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

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sinsfire said:
The first 45 seconds are a live model. So what she really has a problem with is male centered marketing. I can accept that, but in that case she isn't complaining about the fighting f*ck-toy. She is complaining about how the fighting f*ck-toy gets sold. Just because her FFT is sold with animation and less skin doesn't change or affect the trope itself. I maintain that she cannot decry a trope and then attempt to use it in making a female centered game when really all she did was gender swap the prince of Persia.
And what did you ever think the FFT was other than a way to market a female protagonist to a male audience? You are missing the essential point of the FFT: That it has to be a female character (generally a protagonist) that's characterized as good at fighting but looks more like she desperately want sexual attention (with or without in-game justification). You'd have to squint very hard or have very loose standards of what constitutes sexually enticing outfits to fit that definition onto Sarkeesian's Princess of Persia.
 

Sofus

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I don't care what this Anita does or says. There might be a worthy debate about protagonists or npc's, but I have yet to see it. Perhaps if some of the well respected people in the gaming industry entered the discussion it might get slightly interestng.