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

[Rblade]

She shouldn't include titels like duke nukem, it diludes her point because everyone hates that piece of garbage. Same goes to a degree for things like GTA 3 and god of war (kratos murders everyone he meets not just his mother).

That said I can agree to the general points put out, although I think it is pretty much always caused by unimagintive and safe repeating of old stories instead of any kind of malice against females.

I hope she comes up with solutions and what she actually thinks would be a good overall balance. That might make the (male)gaming community less defensive about it. might.....

 

[Brown_Coat117]

Well my impression after seeing this video is just about the same as all of her work that I've seen. Here are a few points.

-Stiff unnatural delivery.
-Using the word misogyny as a buzz word with no consideration for it's actual meaning.
-Taking information out of context to serve her own purpose.
-Disregarding any information that doesn't serve to support her social/political views.
-Presenting generalized tropes as holistic plot analysis.
-Shoehorning in real world problems so she can quote stats to make her video seem more informative, and her actual subject more weighty than it actually is.
-Lack of hard data to support the overwhelming majority of her assertions.

I could list more but don't feel like it.

 

[SickBritKid]

Whenever anyone mentions Sarkeesian and tries to prop her spew up as "valid", I like to point to this two-part series made about her and then go about my day. I highly encourage anyone who dislikes her to do the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6gLmcS3-NI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpFk5F-S_hI

 

[McMindflayer]

Yes, but when the protagonist is almost always male and the character who gets kidnapped, murdered and so on, is almost always female, that's a problem. I personally don't much care for the fact that it's poor storytelling, my main concern is that the genders of these two character archetypes are distressingly unchanging. This whole issue wouldn't be a problem if we had a more or less equal distribution of stories where a man rescues another man, a woman rescues a man, a man rescues a woman, and a woman rescues another woman. While I would agree that the overuse of the trope itself is trite storytelling, the main problem is that it continues to be used in overwhelmingly gendered ways.

That's the thing though. This isn't just poor writing. This is super poor writing. I'm saying this is writing that you don't even have someone think about poor. It's literally taken from the media from when they were kids. Kids stories and the majority of writing in the 60's and 70's (and now) are based around the idea that the hero(who is male) must save the princess. It's super simple and easy to grasp. To change the dynamic would be to THINK about the story for more than 10 minutes.

video games right now are at a first grade reading level. Very few reach 6th grade or later. To say that video games are adult entertainment(outside the fact that adults enjoy playing them) is laughable when in regard to story.

OT: I wonder if she'll mention the inversion braid does to the Damsel in Distress trope in her third video? Where you are told there is a damsel in distress and you must save her, but it turns out you are the one distressing her.

 

[Auron]

She shouldn't include titels like duke nukem, it diludes her point because everyone hates that piece of garbage. Same goes to a degree for things like GTA 3 and god of war (kratos murders everyone he meets not just his mother).

We do? I truly thought it was a beloved 80's action hero satirizing franchise. Now most people hated the new game that has nothing to do with hating good old Duke. Murdering everyone to hardcore activists is not important as long as their group of choice was among the billions of victims they usually feel justified enough to preach they've been singled out and demonized and only their group was killed and violated. It's kind of like my people did with the Nazis, they murdered people of every ethnicity as long as you opposed their views or acted against them but the Jewish got it worse somehow, it was terrible yes but my peers made a bigger case out of it for profit which is pretty obvious.

captcha - chuck norris, now there's an indiscriminate killer of humans, thank you captcha.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

All right... I'm watching it currently (as I type this) and will refute or agree with points as I see them.

These are my opinions. I'm not painting them as anything but.

1. Of course the trope isn't a product of "its time." It's been a part of literature since...hell, since literature began.

2. Yes. The trope is trite. It's a trope specifically because it's trite and uncreative on the part of the folks employing it. I'm not seeing the argument against it so much from a feminist point of view as a creative one.

3. The "damsel"s efforts to escape proving futile...makes sense from a narrative standpoint, obviously. If she could just kick her captor's ass and waltz out, sight unseen, then it sort of takes the plot out at the knees. It's also lazy and again, this sounds more like an argument for a broader depth of character traits/actions/plot with feminist stuff peppered in.

The moments in which the "damsel" aids the protagonist or, in Ico for example, outright saves him in the end are not simply "symbolic." Hell, from that angle, one could make the argument that the entire story is "symbolic." These events show a much greater deal of agency and capability on the part of the character than is being expressed in the video.

Considering that people tend to remember the beginning and ending of stories rather than the "core," I would argue that having those sorts of moments at the end, beginning, or at big points in the narrative, does not trivialize them in any way, shape, or form.

And the words, "it feels like" are not indicative of anything other than opinion on the part of the video maker.

4. Building emotional attachment to characters is not a negative thing. The females in the examples are weak. I'll give her that. However, I don't believe that to be the chief component in the romance element of the narrative. I'm not seeing this power imbalance idea either. "It feels like" she's projecting a bit here.

5. There really isn't anything wrong with the Max Payne, GoW, and etc. hook. I'd argue for a gender inversion of the trope. Again, it reeks of a lack of creativity more so than anything else.

Calling it "insidious" is alarmist. -.-

6. I agree on the lack of maturity in the medium. I disagree with the line about misogyny.

7. Surprise! They were dead the whole time! Lack of creativity, again... ex. see cop shows.

8. Again. Having the kill the damsel is just indicative of a lack of creativity. Male characters are subjected to this sort of thing too. Personally, if I were turned into a horrible monstrosity or something, I'd welcome and even ask for death too.

Side Note: The GTA example was funny. It would have been funny if it'd been your cousin in GTA4 too.

9. Duke Nukem Forever is not a good example of anything, save failure, let alone gaming.

10. ...She seriously compared this to domestic violence. How in god's name do you come to that conclusion?

11. Hey. She actually gave some recognition to the fact that it IS a trope which is perpetrated by all mediums.

12. Again, the comparisons to real life statistics. And...encouraging violence against women? In reference to #10, it's encouraging violence against the "other" which has taken said character, be it male or female, in an effort to save them. This is not a corollary for domestic violence. You only see that sort of thing if you're looking for it.

13. The developers haven't given it much thought because the ideas being presented aren't necessarily negative or "insidious."

14. She tacitly admits that media consumption does not lead to action...and then goes off the rails again.

15. The implication is not that the woman/daughter is a "possession." The implication is that they are a loved one and they've been taken from the protagonist. "Taken" meaning killed or abducted not that they've been absconded with like a loaf of bread.

16. I don't view failing to protect a loved one as being a failure or loss of masculinity. It's a loss of a loved one and guilt over failing to protect them. I'd imagine women feel the same emotion when a loved one has been taken from them. The need to protect those we care about is a decidedly human thing and is not limited to gender.



I...I got through it all. Woo! According to some of you posters, I'm open-minded by default for having done so.

Once again, these are my opinions. I don't expect others to share them. I also haven't asked for a kickstarter contribution for said opinions. >.>

 

[McMindflayer]

To be fair, she shouldn't include the original Duke Nukem and Dante's Inferno.
Duke Nukem is a spoof on every other game of the same type by turning everything up to 11. Oh this shooter has a little misogyny? Ours has super misogyny! You have to kill demons? You have to kill super demons! It's a parody and a villification of the system. It'd be like yelling at Bayonetta for being against women; It's the point.

Dante's Inferno (at least the scene's she's showing and I guess refering to) is based off a poem from the 14th century. You can't use the fact that they kill his wife as a plot point, when that's in the main text. Now, to be fair, they probably shouldn't have made Dante's Inferno into a game in the first place if they weren't going to do as much justice to the story as possible. Rather than the idea that Dante kept on fighting a ton of demon's and that gives you a good game.

 

[Angus]

This video is simply inconsistent- and you could say the problem/trope she brings up isnt really a problem/trope.

In my view, the "euthanised damsel" clearly shows more traditional "masculine" traits in the girls.:accepting your faith, doing the right thing even if it kils you.
And a more "feminine" gang of traits in the men: sensitive, forced to do something horrible, being a victim, crying in a few scenes etc.

And also the Damsel asking the guy to kill her- he doesent just get to do it, shes the agent and the authority- Im the one letting you kill me, its alright.
Its something really positive, guys need the girl to "order it" because as we all know in our hearts(no matter what feminists might say), we arent really comfortable with violence against women, especially when men are the ones doing it. Exept as very bad guys to be murdered ofc.


This "trope" breaks against the norm, and thats why its so emotional!


Thats not negative at all,

Thats really good!!

 

[Darken12]

That's the thing though. This isn't just poor writing. This is super poor writing. I'm saying this is writing that you don't even have someone think about poor. It's literally taken from the media from when they were kids. Kids stories and the majority of writing in the 60's and 70's (and now) are based around the idea that the hero(who is male) must save the princess. It's super simple and easy to grasp. To change the dynamic would be to THINK about the story for more than 10 minutes.

video games right now are at a first grade reading level. Very few reach 6th grade or later. To say that video games are adult entertainment(outside the fact that adults enjoy playing them) is laughable when in regard to story.

I don't disagree with any of that, but it's not just poor writing. There is a very strong fear of what's different in the industry, a fear of appealing to demographics that aren't white straight males, and a simultaneous belittling and underestimation of that very same demographic they cling to. The white straight male characters we get are very archetypical, and the industry fears stepping outside the entrenched tropes that it has set up over the years. It's not just that the writing of most games is terrible, it's the fact that even the well-written games still cling to these harmful tropes out of fear of alienating their audience. Jim Sterling did a whole episode on how developers are flat-out told not to make games with female protagonists.

The game industry, at its core, is deathly afraid of its consumer base, but it simultaneously clings to it for dear life. It's a very toxic, abusive relationship, where the game industry perpetuates harmful business practices because it considers its consumer base to be animals. That's why misogynistic tropes get perpetuated, because the game industry is convinced its audience will reject anything that is not the same old safe tropes that have proven to succeed in the past.

 

[SilentRonin]

Is Anita's thinking the end result of the devolution of modern feminism in America, In other country's feminism is still very much about gender equality. Not the petty bitterness and general loathing that seems to plague a good deal of main US feminist groups.

I have a feminist friend at my work who I have very civil conversations with, and she very much dislikes the way the "main stream" feminist groups are degrading the credibility of the feminist movement in the US.

 

[Angus]

"That's why misogynistic tropes get perpetuated, because the game industry is convinced its audience will reject anything that is not the same old safe tropes that have proven to succeed in the past"

I dont agree with this at all. Its probably just seen as misogynistic for the same reason the "euthanized damsel" is supposed to generate emotion- Our innate want to protect women. It makes sense evolutionary, and especially in males- the majority of gamerkin. To euthanize the damsel actually gives a twist to the whole trope. You failed to save her!

If theres something even remotely misogynistic, trust on men to find it. In fact, in the most masculine groups in sweden, and in the toughest enviroments(prison for example) thats where rape and beating women is the most looked down upon.



To even be able to reason otherwise, you have to look at guys that dont even see themselves as "a super macho guy" but as an equal to women- such as many weak nerdy dudes not really buying the "man killing bad men to save innocent girl" trope.

 

[XMark]

The big thing I'm getting from this video series so far is that game writers are falling too much into tired old cliches, and a good potential solution to get more interesting and original storylines would be to start by subverting tropes which we now recognize as misogynistic.

 

[Darken12]

"That's why misogynistic tropes get perpetuated, because the game industry is convinced its audience will reject anything that is not the same old safe tropes that have proven to succeed in the past"

I dont agree with this at all. Its probably just seen as misogynistic for the same reason the "euthanized damsel" is supposed to generate emotion- Our innate want to protect women. It makes sense evolutionary, and especially in males- the majority of gamerkin. To euthanize the damsel actually gives a twist to the whole trope. You failed to save her!

If theres something even remotely misogynistic, trust on men to find it. In fact, in the most masculine groups in sweden, and in the toughest enviroments(prison for example) thats where rape and beating women is the most looked down upon.

It is not innate. It is not evolutionary. It is a completely arbitrary social more that was agreed upon and then passed down as a tradition.

The euthanised damsel is not a twist. It is the same tired trope: an attack on the character's perceived masculinity. As you have said yourself, the message is "you failed to save her", which is a message built upon archaic and patriarchal notions of males as protectors. This is not a twist. This is not progressive in any way. Chivalry is sexism (benevolent sexism, yes, as opposed to hostile sexism, but sexism nonetheless), and it is just as much of a problem as hostile sexism. The idea that men are benevolent protectors of women is harmful, because it is built upon the notion that women need protection, and that therefore men are allowed to perform certain acts for their own good (such as euthanise them).

 

[General Twinkletoes]

snip

Uh... are you talking to me? Nothing either of us said was about the video itself, or feminism, or anything about games. It was about how in most controversial threads instead of having a calm discussion, he posts how shitty the argument is and then wishes it could be better. Neither of us even said our opinion about the video.

 

[Angus]

"That's why misogynistic tropes get perpetuated, because the game industry is convinced its audience will reject anything that is not the same old safe tropes that have proven to succeed in the past"

I dont agree with this at all. Its probably just seen as misogynistic for the same reason the "euthanized damsel" is supposed to generate emotion- Our innate want to protect women. It makes sense evolutionary, and especially in males- the majority of gamerkin. To euthanize the damsel actually gives a twist to the whole trope. You failed to save her!

If theres something even remotely misogynistic, trust on men to find it. In fact, in the most masculine groups in sweden, and in the toughest enviroments(prison for example) thats where rape and beating women is the most looked down upon.

It is not innate. It is not evolutionary. It is a completely arbitrary social more that was agreed upon and then passed down as a tradition.

Do you really think that something completely arbitrary would be present in 99% of cultures?

And how is it misogynistic?


The beloved charachter asking for a mercy killing because its "the right thing to do" is usually a strong willed beloved male carachter- the epitome of "how a man should be" in the face of death in macho-culture.
To have a woman in that role is refreshing.


And to say that this is motivating violence against women- the most macho-cultures in Sweden, and especially amongst the most violent of swedish men(in prisons etc) rape and violence against women is worse than murder. "Att slå en tös/dam" is amongst the lowest of the low.


Killing the female love-interest or companion is a shock-factor. Try replacing the female lead with a loveable male charachter. It would still work, but it wouldnt be nearly as shocking emotionally.

 

[Batou667]

She criticises that many video game damsels aren't real female characters in a meaningful sense, they're just stereotyped and two-dimensonal caricatures of femininity that serve as a plot device. I agree. But this also holds true for the male characters, often including the damn protagonist. Video games, especially FPS and action ones, aren't known for their intelligently and meaningfully-developed characters. Surely a "lifelong video game buff" like Sarkeesian realises this?

She does realize this and points it out in her video. She says that the idea that many games seem to imply that the only way males can cope with grief at the lost of a loved one is with unbridled rage and 'revenge', as if the loss somehow damaged their masculinity. She explicitly stated that the trope is also harmful to men and does so at around the twenty minute mark. She also says that a lot of games simply use them as an easy way to set up a narrative without putting a lot of thought into the plot. Games don't do this maliciously in an attempt to make everyone to woman haters. The problem is that so many do it, it almost seems 'normal' and expected of a game to use these tropes that dis-empower woman.

What I'm saying is that Sarkeesian already covered this particular issue in the video.

She covers all her bases, that's true enough. She makes a point, expounds it for five minutes and shows a dozen supporting video clips, then hastily makes a little disclaimer like "Of course there's no direct link between videogame and real-world violence" or "of course, men die too in games" or "well, that's not to say that men in games are well-written either" and then happily moves on to the next thing, as if her point is still standing strong.

It's not that she doesn't have a point, it's that she disingenuously cherry-picks to support her existing opinion and the narrative that her feminist/gender studies leanings have constructed. She brings up violence against women and mutilation and mutation of women to "up the stakes" - but makes no mention of the many, many times this happens to men. She mentions how Maria is the "euthanised damsel" in Gears of War 2 and yet completely fails to mention how Adam Fenix is "damselled" and then bumped off in Gears of War 3. Or how Dom gets "fridged" to drive the plot and Marcus' character development. What's telling is the number of exceptions to her "rules" that she chooses to omit for the sake of convenience.

 

[NoeL]

I thought that was quite good - much better than part one.

Now, time to read some of these comments and find out why I'm completely wrong!

... I hate The Escapist sometimes.

 

[maninahat]

My only real disagreement with her is about her condemnation of plots where a daughter is a damsel in distress, I would say that has little to do with sexism against adult women since a child would naturally come under the protection of the hero, regardless of gender.

You might be right, but the father rescues daughter thing is a weirdly specific trope: we have lots of fathers protecting daughters, and its rare that we have a dad trying to save their son. Rarer still is a mother trying to save a son. The only story I can think of that even features such a relationship is Belleville Rendezvous. Perhaps that is the reason why it is an issue? That we aren't expected to sympathise with a boy being kidnapped in place of a girl, and that only a father would want to rescue their kid? It fits rather nicely into her argument that games depict males are proactive, and females are submissive.

EDIT:

ON The video itself. I liked it, I thought it was good. It is a shame however that she has to add a ridiculous number of qualifying and disclaimer statements, to avoid her arguments getting misinterpreted. She has to say lots of obvious things like "not every game is like this" or "gamers don't automatically copycat everything they see in games", just because she knows that if she didn't take the time to make it clear, someone will inevitably accuse her of implying "games must never have violence against women!" or some such nonsense.

 

[Darken12]

Do you really think that something completely arbitrary would be present in 99% of cultures?

Religion. Philosophy. Mathematics. Law. Written language. Semiology.

Need I go on?

The beloved charachter asking for a mercy killing because its "the right thing to do" is usually a strong willed beloved male carachter- the epitome of "how a man should be" in the face of death in macho-culture.
To have a woman in that role is refreshing.

Watch the examples again. The woman is not stoically asking to be killed so that she can preserve her dignity and honour. She is tearful, broken and pleading, and the unstated implications (which are conveyed through aesthetic choices, instead) are that she is to be killed because her purity and innocence have been corrupted. This is not refreshing. This is not new. The woman is not given the heroic death of a soldier.

And to say that this is motivating violence against women- the most macho-cultures in Sweden, and especially amongst the most violent of swedish men(in prisons etc) rape and violence against women is worse than murder. "Att slå en tös/dam" is amongst the lowest of the low.

Anita never said that it motivates violence against women. She said that it trivialises it. That it treats it callously, disrespectfully. The abuse of the trope treats violence against women callously, uses it as a tool to stir emotion in the male character/player, it never actually shows us (beyond a token, superficial reaction) how the woman deals with the violence inflicted against her. It's never about her, who is the person most affected by the violence inflicted. No, it's always about how what happens to her makes the male protagonist feel. We're told by the game that we're supposed to empathise with him, not with her. With the overuse of the trope, women become tools in the service of the male-centred narrative.

Killing the female love-interest or companion is a shock-factor. Try replacing the female lead with a loveable male charachter. It would still work, but it wouldnt be nearly as shocking emotionally.

And that's exactly the problem. The problem, as you have accurately stated, is that changing up the genders would somehow not achieve the same effect, which is patently false. A woman would feel exactly the same if her husband was kidnapped and murdered. A gay man would feel the same way about his husband, and a lesbian would feel the same about her wife. The genders are completely irrelevant, but society (and the game industry) still clings to archaic, patriarchal notions that perpetuate gender-based differences.

 

[Drops a Sweet Katana]

The video was actually alright. While I hate the overuse of the usual buzzwords, I feel that she brought up some pretty reasonable points, in that these tropes are overused and a worrisome when looked at at a certain level. I wouldn't go so far as to link issues in bad video game narratives to real world issues like domestic abuse and murder. While there may be underlying social issues at play, considering most of the examples covered were likely a result of narrative autopilot, they are more indicators than causes. I disagree heavily with her use of crime statistics though, mainly her focus on crimes against women, when crime affects everyone equally, with the exception of rape and domestic abuse. Hell, the murder rate, if we're looking at the US, is astronomical no matter which way you cut it.