Tropes vs Women SECOND VIDEO - "Damsel in Distress: Part 2"

[Colin Bagley]

The reason why female characters are hurt to motivate male characters, (give a reason for all the fun violence against usual male baddies.), Is because we as a species tend to give more of a shit about women than men.
Imagine if all of the women getting hurt in this were middle, age, cubby guys. Oh, and make them all white too, for good measure. Dress them however you want. Even if you also make them a relative of the protagonist, would you still give as much of a shit? Not likely. Not without some Bioware-level writing.

On a side note, if anybody ever abducts Anita, I wonder if she'd want some (probably male) police officers to come save her? Or if she'd rather be left to work things out for herself?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

My main experience of games of the last decade or so, basically this console generation on the way out, is just watching them being eviscerated one after the next by personalities like Jim and Yahtzee, trying to gleam what is and isn't worth giving a go. Everything I've seen reviewed is very samey and just like the many grizzly scenes depicted in this video.

Mick, you need to check out Destructoid's Memory Card feature. It's written by Chad Concelmo, and it highlights everything that is great about games as an interactive medium. If I were to make the case that video games are art, I'd rip off Memory Card wholesale.

http://www.destructoid.com/the-memory-card-20-the-message-in-the-glass-48554.phtml
http://www.destructoid.com/the-memory-card-50-a-shocking-loss-117139.phtml

Only problem is 90% of them are Big Fucking Spoilers.

 

[floppylobster]

I'm not going to watch this because of the spoilers. I believe in equality of the sexes and I've played video games all my life. Having not watched the actual video I guess I could be way off at what the problem is here - but my thinking is that if women don't like the way women are portrayed in video games then more women should make video games.

The industry is 80-90% (possibly more) male dominated. And not through any 'men's club' attitude, local schools teaching the programming skills in my area have specifically gone out of their way to target women because so few decide to pursue that career.

You want different games? Go out and make them. Show everyone how it's done. At the very least you'll create a game you're happy with.

 

[Tien Shen]

Did Anita imply in this recent video that video games are responsible for domestic violence against women as if there wasn't violence against women prior to video games?

 

[Darken12]

Did Anita imply in this recent video that video games are responsible for domestic violence against women as if there wasn't violence against women prior to video games?

No. She's saying that these constant instances of violence against women in video games for the sake of cheap drama trivialises serious issues. Instead of treating violence against women with respect and gravity, video games focus on the shock factor and how bad it is for the male hero. All this serves to trivialise and minimise a very serious issue that continues to happen to this day.

 

[Jandau]

Cool video, well argumented, better than over 90% of gaming shows out there. I agree with most of what is said, even if I do find it to be a bit one sided. However, it does what it sets out to and helps drive home how pervasive these tropes are. Also, I laughed my pants off at the look in her eyes when she points out that "The wife is his arm" in Bionic Commando...

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Did Anita imply in this recent video that video games are responsible for domestic violence against women as if there wasn't violence against women prior to video games?

No, she didn't. Thanks for asking.

(Look at it this way: If you see violence and intervene, what message does that send? If you see violence, pat the perpetrator on the back, and say, "broads, they deserve it," what message does that send? There may have been violence before, but what you say has a consequence on the discourse, even if it's a small one. It's something we should be aware of, and making people aware is part of what criticism does.)

 

[likalaruku]

I'm not opposed to the distressed hostage trope. I just think it's poorly & lazily executed. Speaking of executed, the "Mercy Killing" of the hostage...That can be done away with entirely for all I care; it just screams "we're too lazy to develop this character beyond plot point & see no further use for it."

I always prefer the hostage to remain alive. The hostage role need not always be the cut-&-paste situation of the female love interest, indeed a Dude In Distress is far more creative; the hostage could be the bumbling unlucky comic relief, the hero caught unawares, a snarky braggart getting scared straight, the best friend, a parent/child/sibling, a beloved pet, or an old enemy to befriend. Women would like the Dude in Distress & does a man feel any less manly for saving a man who couldn't save himself?

To be honest, I think a pet is the ideal replacement for a hostage that will receive no further character development, because let's be honest; cute animals tend to stir more emotions than undeveloped human characters. You can also encounter a love interest after incidently rescuing their pet. & hey, you rescued an animal, so PETA won't ***** about it as long as the animal lives.

 

[barbzilla]

Well, I will say that she is at least progressing as a ... what is she? (seriously, i'm not sure what to call her, it isn't journalist), well whatever it is, she is getting better at it. The issue being, there is still no real point to the video. What we are seeing is that video games have issues framing and progressing women in general, the problem is the same can be said of men in videogames. Guess what, video games are immature and tend towards selfishness. The only reason we have a plot at all is to let you do silly crap with a gun, sword, ball, beam, whatever in the most violent fashion available (for the most part).

We could sum the whole video series up with a hearty shout of "Grow Up!" at the developers, but I doubt we would be heard.

Edit: She does have one point though, Women do need more agency in video games.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

and also that there is nothing inherently "evil" about using females as a plot device in fantasy/fiction because it if were really such a wrong thing then there wouldn't be such a huge market existing for them.

There once existed a huge market for slaves. Surely that couldn't have been wrong, right?

 

[BeeGeenie]

Hmm... She has some points. The "wife death, daughter kidnapped" section was pretty telling of just how tired these tropes are, and how desperately the game industry needs a jolt of creativity.

I'm thinking a version of God of War that stars Boudicca getting revenge on the Romans... for the... rape of her daughters hmm...
Dang it, even history can't give me a badass female protagonist that doesn't involve other women being victimized as a motivation!

There's Joan d'Arc and Olga(queen of the rus/russians in 900-1000 AD somewhere IIRC. May be wrong on that) that I can think of. I don't think either was victimized... Well except Joan being burned on the stake, but the latter was appearantly the prime example of someone you should never get on the bad side of.

Excellent finds! Now you're thinking with Gurl Power! XD

Joan totally counts, since she wouldn't get burned until the Epilogue, and Olga is one bad mutha...although the "evil queen" thing might be venturing into Disney territory if they screw it up, so don't pitch it to EA.

 

[JLink]

Before this series she actually had comments+ratings enabled on all her videos and she pretty much got swamped by people who either disagreed with her stuff, or were violently trolled/flamed the hell out her (because they disagreed with her stuff, why else)...plus the ratings didn't paint a good picture either. Overall the reaction was negative.

Her response to that was...you guessed it, disabling both comments and ratings on all past videos and every video since then lol. A lot of people won't even give the time of day to sit through a Youtube video that has comments/ratings disabled beacuse that is typically the first telltale sign that the video is either full of bullshit or trying to waste the viewer's time.
And while Anita certainly isn't going for that (although the first video did have it's share of bullshit), she isn't gaining herself any plus points either by showing that her work can't stand against public scrutiny and she can't handle the reactions. Her loss in the end.

I guess overall it's a good thing because she no longer has a pool of troll/flame comments from randoms on the internet to show herself being "victimized", she did a pretty clever job to make that work in her favor last time.

True, she did have comments on, but they all had to be approved by her before they would go in the comments section. And all of the comments she allowed were agreeing with her. Every single one. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single comment submitted that disagreed with her without being disrespectful.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

The nicest thing I can say is that it was better than the first one.

This one at least TRIED to bring up decent points.

I mean, it failed horribly, but an attempt is still better than nothing.

Lot's of incorrect things, making casual links that don't exist, bringing up and repeating NO DUH points, dismissing important counterpoints and once again hiding behind a video without likes/dislikes or comments. She didn't bring much up the first time and she still hasn't given me a reason to take her seriously.

In less than 10 minutes, Jim Sterling offered more insight and solutions than Anita has in almost an hour of video, that apparently took hundreds of thousands of dollars to make, despite looking EXACTLY like everything else she has done.

On the plus side, I can't wait to see Thunderfoot shred this one as well.