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

[KR4U55]

I have mixed opinions on the subjects. It's true that women decriptions on modern media force me, the male, to be "responsable" and "caring" of the female, which sucks.

-"Why should you have special treatment for being a girl?
-Because I am, and you have to be polite and stuff and reasons"

And I am bothered by stupid damisel roles (save your own @$$). The game forces you to care for an annoying D.I.D. so I can move on with questing and adventure. As a man I don't see these roles as nothing but bad storytelling, I'm pretty sure the writers couldn't come up with somehting more intelligent than "save your girlfiend/wife/daughter/girl that you just met/hot chick/etc." Hopefully she will mention games with great and powerful women doing something that doesn't involve saving the disstresed dude.

PD: In Borderlands 2 the mentioned character can be male, she just happens to be a girl. And the game has its share of badass women.

 

[Yuuki]

it seems once again the comments have been disabled on this new video too.

So the ONE interesting part is removed?

Thats it, I officially have nothing to do with this random woman. I thougt she might had a chance. But I guess not.

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.

 

[Worgen]

She isn't wrong about things, I mean women are almost entirely used for motivation in games.

c

You might want to rethink that statement. I mean the sheer of games I and many others could mention could just BURY your opinion.

Also that's a very heavy handed statement as well because you can just expand it to be people are almost entirely used for motivation in games. And that's exactly a bad think how? I mean that is how ART works. People are motivated by other people and actually act upon it. People are motivated all the time by their loved ones for good or even for ill.

Also rhoro lazer boom? Really captcha?

I don't think I need to, it seems like if a woman is charaterized in a game she will most likely need to be saved at some point or be killed to show that 'Oh SHIT, THINGS JUST GOT REEEEAAAAAALLLLL.'

Did you actually read his post

He's pointing out that the proportion of games that have that happening only make up a small fraction of games overall, (look up the last 100 games released, tell me what you see), 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.

And before some twat brings up "well the heroin market is pretty huge and that's evil", I meant a completely harmless market based on fiction where people purely have a choice whether or not to buy the product and don't murder each other over it.

The primary drives behind Anita's stuff has finally been uncovered as:

> Storytelling in games is getting stale (yes and no, firstly games have never been good at telling stories so developers need to get over that hurdle first, secondly using tropes is only a tiny part of storytelling)

> It is linked to violence against women in real life and developers should feel somewhat responsible when they make a game that features such a thing happening (LOL nice proof you have there Anita of how gaming and domestic violence/rape against women is related...oh wait...yeah, feel free to join the tinfoil-hat wearing club that also said first person shooters are responsible for gun crime)

Well if a woman is in a game then it really seems like she is most likely going to be used as some form of motivation for a male lead. Either by being kidnapped or having been killed. I just finished Strike Suit Zero and it did a variation of the being kidnapped thing despite the fact that the game is about space ships and you only see character portraits and they aren't even really detailed.

Also, you apparently didn't watch the end of the video, she actually said the opposite of what your saying at the end and that there isn't a solid link behind this in media and it happening in real life and that there isn't some shadowy cabal trying to only portray women this way. She talks about that about 20:50 in the video.

 

[kongajinken]

Props to her new video, seems better over all. Much more calm instead of anger seething through, she targeted peoples main complaints about her original video without losing focus over all, she better stated what her goals and her problems with the medium is. One suggestion, more comedy, no for reals 25 minutes without jokes kinda sucks call me spoiled, but most science and learning videos now a days include a bit of humor, I'm an American I lose focus and stare at butterflies if I'm not constantly entertained!

 

[Shadowstar38]

Finally watched the video. Pretty much had the same problem with the last one. She lists off examples all day while ignoring context behind the actions. And by the end of the video, nothing was solved.

 

[IceForce]

I've edited her first video into the OP, for those who missed it, or want to see it again.

well said general

You might want to add some more to this post, such as your own thoughts on the video.
I really don't want to see anyone banned in this thread, if possible.

 

[QuiB25]

While the video seems to be well researched, and has some great points, I wish she would have spent more time on how these tropes limit males too. Actually, just broaden it to people in general. I do not respect women because "woman-ness" deserves respect. I respect women because they are people, and people deserve respect.

I wish the youtube comments were open, so I could ask her to focus on how these tropes are bad for EVERYONE.

 

[Yuuki]

Also, you apparently didn't watch the end of the video, she actually said the opposite of what your saying at the end and that there isn't a solid link behind this in media and it happening in real life and that there isn't some shadowy cabal trying to only portray women this way. She talks about that about 20:50 in the video.

Yes, she did say that. And then at 21:10 she says "...however, media narratives do have a powerful cultivation effect, helping to shape attitudes and opinions".

She IS drawing a link, no matter how subtle she says the link is.

So in her world it's entirely plausible for a guy to brutalize his girlfriend because subliminally he had been playing videogames where he saw that happening...and I call bullshit, because if he was that kind of guy then something like videogames wouldn't really be the tipping point between him and what he wanted to do. See above example of gun crime.

And if there really ISN'T a solid link, then the primary motivation behind Anita's goals is gone - why should tropes change? "To liven-up storytelling" is hardly a strong leg to stand on, linking it to real-life violence against women is far more attention-grabbing and gives a far more concrete motive behind these videos.

 

[Kartoffelmos]

it seems once again the comments have been disabled on this new video too.

So the ONE interesting part is removed?

Thats it, I officially have nothing to do with this random woman. I thougt she might had a chance. But I guess not.

You consider YouTube comments interesting?

 

[Erttheking]

Roger Ebert said games weren't art and gamers flipped out. Anita Sarkeesian says they're art and thus worth analyzing, gamers flip out.

You know, comments like these that are designed purely to antagonize people don't make the problem better. They do the opposite.

 

[Tony2077]

I've edited her first video into the OP, for those who missed it, or want to see it again.

well said general

You might want to add some more to this post, such as your own thoughts on the video.
I really don't want to see anyone banned in this thread, if possible.

thanks for catching that i don't want to be banned for a low content post that would be very embarrassing. i skipped some of the video since it seem spoilerish and wasn't really adding anything

 

[Mayamellissa]

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!

We got a couple of very strong female bible heroines available if they could do it correctly.

 

[GeneralFungi]

What's really weird is Shadow of the Colossus was not included even though the relationship there is the same as in many of the games. But its ending is unique in that the male corrupts himself.

I believe that Shadow of the Colossus is another example of something similar but with a completely different message. In this the male lead reacts to the loss of his love and gaining a blood lust in order to get her back. Only to demonstrate that the action only lead to more loose and that in the end he was worse off for it.

I'm actually of the opinion that it completely goes against the trope because of that one detail. It's a small but very important difference that makes the game much more meaningful and leaves a real impact.

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.

Captcha: I'm only human.

For some reason that really spoke to me, captcha. I don't know why.

 

[Erttheking]

Roger Ebert said games weren't art and gamers flipped out. Anita Sarkeesian says they're art and thus worth analyzing, gamers flip out.

You know, comments like these that are designed purely to antagonize people don't make the problem better. They do the opposite.

Still its a great observation. Games are art. Just very very very low art with equally very very very few exceptions to hold up.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. I was talking about how antagonistic comments like that weren't doing anything to help stop the flame wars that always, always comes with this topic.

 

[Zenthunder]

Good video only one i can say that was broken logic is when she says the games use violence against women and have it justified do to context in the plot but that does not make it okay in the real larger context of the real world.

If you don't take the context of the plot though there is nothing i mean if you don't take the plot into consideration almost all action games are about going a a killing spree like a nutcase that being said she is right it is not okay in the real world but like most people that came as basic logic also on another note even if she does not want games like this to be made it would be a good idea to give some feedback on what would work as well a different plot device because the reason work this so well is not because we are male but also because we human and one of are greatest fear is losing those we care about 100% with her on the no more killing you loved one to set them free shit though messed up and overused.

 

[Darken12]

Another absolutely excellent video, I rather liked it. Especially the part where she brings up that female soldiers/warriors are not included under "violence against women", because they are not portrayed as victims. A lot of people forget that little point, and it's good that she brought it up. I was also very impressed with the editing and overall quality.

 

[Kittyhawk]

I think she has made some good points for devs to think about. These days, games with bad story stuff like that are few and I can agree most were lame.

A pity the video got removed (guess we'll find out why soon) because there's a lot to take note of. There are two sides to every coin though. I feel that while Anita does her bit, I'd like to see some more positive videos from her.

Tell us what you thought of Bioshock Infinite if you love games, Anita. Or what you've been playing of late or answer some email from your fans. This kind of stuff would better serve your cause, alongside the normal focused videos and help others warm to you.