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

[dragon_tail]

I really liked this video. You can see that she did her homework, showing a load of specific scenes for every trope she talked about. She also addressed some issues people had with her last video. I mostly agree with everything she said. I played some of the games shown here. Dishonored is my favorite game of the year, but it doesn't make me protective of it if there is a potential problem, and I agree it does perpetuate that "wife killed, save the girl" trope.

I don't see why people get upset about her, it looks like she is doing a good job. Yeah, it takes her time in getting the episodes out but they are almost half and hour and from that picture that she posted, there is a ton of games she went trough to get the information she needed.

While her research has been greatly improved for this video, and given the length of time between each video, I would've been annoyed if it was as weak as the last one.

Having watched the vast majority of the video, I can see she does raise some valid points, but only if you view the women as an object. In the 'revenge' scenarios, I imagine myself in the protagonists shoes and the actions I would commit in response. If someone I care about has been kidnapped/killed and I have the skills I would do EVERYTHING I could to get the person back. It is not as evil as Anita intends, because I saw an interesting subtext here...

Imagine you are walking down the street, you are all alone. As you walk past an alleyway, you hear a cry for help. A woman is getting attacked. In your hands is a weapons you are trained and very confident with. Should you intervene and save her, or should you walk on by so as not to 'damselize' her?

Now, same scenario, but the woman crying out for help is a family member, friend or loved one...

If Anita wants to be taken more seriously, she should make a game which proves her points, not taking apart video games. If you look at ANY MEDIA with a storyline, there will always be a victim, and there will always be a hero... Why she focuses on videogames, I cannot understand. It is the youngest medium, and in my eyes, there are far worse culprits.

Yes, I agree with you on the part where you say you would do anything to help a person you care about. I see a lot of people having a problem with that part of her video but as far as I see it, the point is being missed here. Making a game is a creative process and creators have liberty to choose what to put in them and how. She doesn't have a problem with people helping their loved ones, that is a human thing to do and if anyone said otherwise that would be just silly. The problem is, why are these things in games so much? There is no rule saying that the game HAS to have a kidnapping victim and that the victim HAS to be a girl. When they made those game, they chose to have that trope, chose it to be female, and chose it as the trigger to get the guy hero (yes, I agree again, there will always be a hero, and again, they choose it to be a guy and not a girl). Many games are like that, it can't be denied. You can't really compare it with real life and say "but wouldn't you help some girl on the street". That is a random situation, but in the game, they make content they want and if they want, too bad they choose to have these situations where the woman is weak and needs help of a man. Of course, not every game has that scenario, but she did point out a lot of them.

Also, yeah, the situation is prevalent in other media too. And she has a lot of videos about that on her channel, but this series she decided to focus on video games. I don't think it is a bad thing to dissect them and see what lurks inside. It doesn't diminish the fun you have in games, or shows that the whole game is bad, it just points out specific things that could be improved. That is the only way the medium can grow and improve. She is not a game maker, she is a journalist, it is not her job to make better games if she has an issue about current one, that is kind of a childish thing to say. Every public medium is and should be open for discussion and analysis, and pointing out the potential flows doesn't mean the person doing it hates the medium. In most cases that person is passionate about it and only wants to see it improve.

 

[LAGG]

men are the competitive ones, not women.

I worked in a few book editorial companies where almost all graphics designers where man and almost all reviewers where women. Design and review were on separate, open rooms.

Whenever there were insanely urgent deadlines and lots of overtime to deal with them, our department would all help each other and define our splits and get everything finished in record time. Whenever something was wrong we'd quickly fix it and, problem solved.

The review department would spend more time discussing who's to blame for this, who's to blame for that, that review was mine and you ran to get it first, she didn't work as late as everybody else last night, she only chooses the easy ones, it's her fault.

It was hell to work in that environment. In short, we (designers/text formatters) united and solved the problems quickly, they (reviewers) chased scape-goats and pointed fingers all day and night long.

I can't find a link now, but I saw an experiment with groups of males and females would join in group dating. One person in each group was an actor intended to start discussions in the group. When each group saw the other group but unable to hear each other, the actors would start talking something like "the one in blue shirt is mine".

The men group would agree with the actor and then each one would choose a different one and not have any fight going on. The women would all fight over the choice of the actor and ignore the others, whoever it was.

Regardless, one's professional success is all about competing with oneself and not with others.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

well. After i watch a youtube-video which is about DAYZ with roleplay elements, i might have to contribute loosely.
so-its about dayz. by user jackfrags who makes really good videos and i like that video a lot-its nice too see actual roleplay in dayz but there was something which got my stomach flipped in little anger.

there was one female character.
story established that one of the baddies captured almost all of females to experiment but she got away before i think. she had a husband who searched for meds in one of the bigger cities which was swarmed by bandits.

her husband died while trying to retrieve the meds. my first thought: why do i never see women in such an situation? why it is never the woman who takes the gun (and as we can see in fallout, in a few armies here in RL and in history although ofdten forgotten-women can shoot and run too. so a mission where somebody has to sneak in, get something, sneak out and if necessary, pop some heads is entirely possible for women. but-it never happens.

so. her husband dies, the 2 main characters gt to the camp of the survivors where some npc gets the news to the one and only women (until now in the game..) and-yeahs, shes fucked up, shes sad, she has a big big loss. undestandable. and there are zombies and badits and the bad army. mayor fuckup.

she takes a gun and leaves. the player and one npcs follow. and come to a little settlement. the npcs says:" thats where they lived" and in that situation i KNEW she would die in a sad and pathetic way-suicide. why? becaue that almost always the case. (And one npc said something like "fuck she is dead-and we dont have that many women. i had to laugh becaus-well, it broke a bit the forth wall but it swas somewhat sad because of "we need her because of ver ovaries, she cant die because we need children..*)
the man would take the weapon and act revenge. (and i as a woman would have done the same.if i knew I was ill and would die without meds, i´d take the biggest gun and try to take as much fuckers as possible with me into hell.
and i know a lot of women who would kill themself in that situation. yeah, a loved one died. but even in real life ist usually not women who kill themself after losing the loved one-often kill men themself after split up in fear of losing children or loved one-or kill their family.. in germany its called "familiendrama". sad thing. but i want to say that-yeah, even losing a loved one is a hell of a hard thing and sad and sooo hard, thats no realistic reason to kill oneself(okay, if you have depression-maybe. but in this game, the women had not-or it wasnt established)
. it just isnt.(and well, more men kill themself then women. but thats another problem-but in media i often see rather women kill themself in that kind of situation)


i find that annoying because everytime i see such things i imagine ways in which that could be handled better.
if she has to die-give her an heroic dead. she was angy-i would went into a city with hospital, try to get meds and shoot every bandit in sight-if i die, well, thats how it goes in that story.

the men grieve but overcome the losses, the women crack, go hysterical and fuck up. (look at the walking dead, where one female chara comes guns blazing and rescues some characters but later cracks out of the blue and isnt "allowed" to have a gun-but the 11 year old son is because a child is more responsible than a woman. but the tv-show was.eh a bit sexist indeed.)

and, well i think this kind of media has so much potential, not only to tell those story's but storys like papo &yo where its about alcoholism. there could be storys about the ife of female charas which arent about clothing or modeling or singing-but storys about how it can be living as a women in situations where you could be victim of rape and like in streubenvile the media mourns about the potential of the rapist and the attorneys say that you should not have drunken so much because its cleary an normal thing that some men cant resist to rape somebody clearly heavy intoxicated. or that the clothes are wrong or whatever.. there could be storys about broken families and how to cope with that-you could play as a little boy or girl in a family where one member-or all of the family abuses you and you have to flee into your fantasy at night and solve riddles and try to cope with the situation and go to school at day like an rpg and get friend and help in that kind of situation. There could be things like-well bully but really about bullying and the effects it has on people and how they cope-like heavy rain where you could play both as perpetrator and as victim and as some body which has to choose whether to participate or to stand up against it. You could make this game about social expectations and how to be oneself it "one self" is not that what society wants?

*another idea-if its about a post-apocalyptic world it could tackle the question whether its right to get children in this world or not and if yes, how important is the autonomy of one member of the group over the need of reproduction (because getting a child is not easy without a clean environment and a lot of mothers died because the gave birth and had not proper care..)

there are so much more stories in books who talk about this stuff or in movies-why not in games?
and why so often these tropes in games, why so many women in a role which would "realistic" why so much women who crack and ned help or kill themself and have to be rescued by a hero who can rescue himself put of similar situations?
why are the mirrosr edges, the remember me s, tomb raider, the good RPGs(eg persona 4-where sexuality and growing up is doiscovered in a very good way) so uncommon?

 

[JellySlimerMan]

So you are suggesting that the fact that only 4.2% of CEOs in the largest 1000 companies in the USA are women is not an indication of inequality but rather an indication that men are, in fact, superior to women? Because that's really the only other way to interpret those numbers. Either the fact that 1 in 20 of CEOs is a woman is a sign of inequality (of opportunity) or you must somehow reach the conclusion that far fewer women than men has what it takes to be a CEO.

By the way, nice attempt at a strawman.

Hahaha. Strawman. Hahaha. I didn't suggest anything. And your understanding of what I said is kinda narrow. All of your argument boils down to, "a man is on top because he stopped a woman from being on top". Kinda narrow minded are we?

Why would a man EVER want to stop a woman from being on top, when its other MEN that he should be more careful? men are the competitive ones, not women. And if he wants NO ONE to be on top, then why it wont limit itself to just men and women, he will most likely waste tons of resourses destroying the competition and designing a system where everyone fights each other for power but never actually achieve ANY progress.

Sort of like how Hitler did on his own government. He put its generals against each other so they waste time killing each other instead of him.

Doublewat

Firstly, re-read your post until you notice the accidental sexism in your opening lines.

Secondly, citation DESPERATELY NEEDED for the latter.

Thirdly, I am getting the hell out of this debate. I have nothing to add and from what I have read, it has already fallen into infighting and factionalism with incredibly basic facts being discussed and different conclusions being drawn.

I am surrounded by kids apparently.

If you were born in a world where you don't know WHY the males are being on top of the food chain instead of women, shouldn't you be more careful around them? logic dictates that you SHOULD be, after all its a matter of statdistics, isnt it? if 90% of my "enemies" that are stronger, manipulative, and backstaby are male, then LOGICALLY i should watch my ass if i am next to one than when i am next to a woman. Simply because the empirical data (and personal experiences of yours) say that it is always the case.

There is nothing sexist about that. Its simply how the world works and how you adapt to it. If women were the 90% trying to kill me, then i will be more safe next to a man. In fact, i will treat the person that doesn't want to kill me with more respect, under the pragmatic choice of avoiding making more enemies.

Since my original comment that you failed to grasp considered men as more dangerous for being more competitive, and being part of a large mayority of the top food chain, women would be less of a treat since they apparently they dont have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (because if it were true, then the number of women in power would be waaaaaaaaay up)

What so fucking hard to get?

But nope. I guess i have to dust off ANOTHER GirlWritesWhat video, because CLEARLY the system is against women at all cost:

And here is your citation on the Hitler stuff:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RealLife/WeAREStrugglingTogether

"The various resistance groups in Nazi Germany could only really agree on the fact that Hitler had to go, not on what sort of state should come in his place - and especially who should run it. The lack of consensus helped doom the resistance, as the various groups were often working at cross-purposes (with Gestapo infiltrators encouraging the disunity). This despite the fact that the Reich itself was engaged in constant infighting (from the Night of the Long Knives through the duration of the war), often pitting political or ideological interests against military ones (for example, the expense of maintaining soldiers on guard at the concentration camps who could have otherwise been sent to the front). Many of the professional military officers were holdovers from the old Prussian aristocracy and resented being shunted out of power by the rise of the National Socialists. They were the ones who launched Operation Valkyrie, the failed plot to assassinate Hitler, blame it on the SS, and take control. Hitler himself actually sometimes encouraged infighting and confusion between regional governors and the like (occasionally going so far as to give two people overlapping areas of responsibility without telling either of them) in order to prevent them from consolidating power and challenging him."

Same concept. Since everyone is trying to usurp is "power", he better set one against another to ensure that no side manages to win and take HIM out after that.

 

[JellySlimerMan]

men are the competitive ones, not women.

I worked in a few book editorial companies where almost all graphics designers where man and almost all reviewers where women. Design and review were on separate, open rooms.

Whenever there were insanely urgent deadlines and lots of overtime to deal with them, our department would all help each other and define our splits and get everything finished in record time. Whenever something was wrong we'd quickly fix it and, problem solved.

The review department would spend more time discussing who's to blame for this, who's to blame for that, that review was mine and you ran to get it first, she didn't work as late as everybody else last night, she only chooses the easy ones, it's her fault.

It was hell to work in that environment. In short, we (designers/text formatters) united and solved the problems quickly, they (reviewers) chased scape-goats and pointed fingers all day and night long.

I can't find a link now, but I saw an experiment with groups of males and females would join in group dating. One person in each group was an actor intended to start discussions in the group. When each group saw the other group but unable to hear each other, the actors would start talking something like "the one in blue shirt is mine".

The men group would agree with the actor and then each one would choose a different one and not have any fight going on. The women would all fight over the choice of the actor and ignore the others, whoever it was.

Regardless, one's professional success is all about competing with oneself and not with others.

Here is a little story you will enjoy. A story of a woman disguising herself as a dude and experience for the first time in her life, the "privilege" of being a man:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Entertainment/story?id=1526982#.UaC7HEopl-l

Trust me, its going to be fun

 

[generals3]

I can't find a link now, but I saw an experiment with groups of males and females would join in group dating. One person in each group was an actor intended to start discussions in the group. When each group saw the other group but unable to hear each other, the actors would start talking something like "the one in blue shirt is mine".

The men group would agree with the actor and then each one would choose a different one and not have any fight going on. The women would all fight over the choice of the actor and ignore the others, whoever it was.

Regardless, one's professional success is all about competing with oneself and not with others.

Actually that dating experiment doesn't surprise me in the least bit. Experiments have shown that women tend to find men more attractive if other women show interest in him. As such when the actress said "he's mine" she instantly made that man more valuable.

 

[maninahat]

snip

It isn't a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many companies try to accommodate new segments due to competition in the existing ones. However you can't accommodate a segment which simply doesn't or won't exist (or simply be too small to make big money). The way it works is: people want something, company notices that and sees an opportunity to make money and thus provides. However no one has yet to provide any tangible evidence there is a potential female target base close to the male one. I'm still waiting for the market researches from the people who make that claim. Have yet to see any.

You could always type "gamer demographics" into google. The first link will tell you that "47% of gamers are female", and that they are "one of the fastest growing demographics". It is predicated that this year, there will actually be more female gamers than male.

The thing about market research is that there is no way of knowing the size of a potential demographic if you have never attempted to appeal to them before. 50 years ago, it didn't occurred to toy makers to market plastic dress-up dolls at boys; after all, what guy would want a Barbie Doll? Then some bright spark invented GI Joe, and kids ate that shit up. The Jimquisition explained this exact same thing with flavours of pickle: basically, if you don't look, you won't find. Entertainment businesses have only just started to seriously look at the female audiences, after having previously neglected (or even actively discouraged) pro-female content.

 

[generals3]

You could always type "gamer demographics" into google. The first link will tell you that "47% of gamers are female", and that they are "one of the fastest growing demographics". It is predicated that this year, there will actually be more female gamers than male.

Which says very little about the violent AAA game segment and its demographics.

The thing about market research is that there is no way of knowing the size of a potential demographic if you have never attempted to appeal to them before. 50 years ago, it didn't occurred to toy makers to market plastic dress-up dolls at boys; after all, what guy would want a Barbie Doll? Then some bright spark invented GI Joe, and kids ate that shit up. The Jimquisition explained this exact same thing with flavours of pickle: basically, if you don't look, you won't find. Entertainment businesses have only just started to seriously look at the female audiences, after having previously neglected (or even actively discouraged) pro-female content.

If you start up a new business which will produce/provide an innovative product/service you better be able to show your investors a market study suggesting it will sell. It is actually not that hard to guesstimate the size of a potential demographic through market researches. All it requires is some qualitative analyses followed by quantitative studies.

 

[Mr F.]

So you are suggesting that the fact that only 4.2% of CEOs in the largest 1000 companies in the USA are women is not an indication of inequality but rather an indication that men are, in fact, superior to women? Because that's really the only other way to interpret those numbers. Either the fact that 1 in 20 of CEOs is a woman is a sign of inequality (of opportunity) or you must somehow reach the conclusion that far fewer women than men has what it takes to be a CEO.

By the way, nice attempt at a strawman.

Hahaha. Strawman. Hahaha. I didn't suggest anything. And your understanding of what I said is kinda narrow. All of your argument boils down to, "a man is on top because he stopped a woman from being on top". Kinda narrow minded are we?

Why would a man EVER want to stop a woman from being on top, when its other MEN that he should be more careful? men are the competitive ones, not women. And if he wants NO ONE to be on top, then why it wont limit itself to just men and women, he will most likely waste tons of resourses destroying the competition and designing a system where everyone fights each other for power but never actually achieve ANY progress.

Sort of like how Hitler did on his own government. He put its generals against each other so they waste time killing each other instead of him.

Doublewat

Firstly, re-read your post until you notice the accidental sexism in your opening lines.

Secondly, citation DESPERATELY NEEDED for the latter.

Thirdly, I am getting the hell out of this debate. I have nothing to add and from what I have read, it has already fallen into infighting and factionalism with incredibly basic facts being discussed and different conclusions being drawn.

I am surrounded by kids apparently.

If you were born in a world where you don't know WHY the males are being on top of the food chain instead of women, shouldn't you be more careful around them? logic dictates that you SHOULD be, after all its a matter of statdistics, isnt it? if 90% of my "enemies" that are stronger, manipulative, and backstaby are male, then LOGICALLY i should watch my ass if i am next to one than when i am next to a woman. Simply because the empirical data (and personal experiences of yours) say that it is always the case.

There is nothing sexist about that. Its simply how the world works and how you adapt to it. If women were the 90% trying to kill me, then i will be more safe next to a man. In fact, i will treat the person that doesn't want to kill me with more respect, under the pragmatic choice of avoiding making more enemies.

Since my original comment that you failed to grasp considered men as more dangerous for being more competitive, and being part of a large mayority of the top food chain, women would be less of a treat since they apparently they dont have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder (because if it were true, then the number of women in power would be waaaaaaaaay up)

What so fucking hard to get?

But nope. I guess i have to dust off ANOTHER GirlWritesWhat video, because CLEARLY the system is against women at all cost:

And here is your citation on the Hitler stuff:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/RealLife/WeAREStrugglingTogether

"The various resistance groups in Nazi Germany could only really agree on the fact that Hitler had to go, not on what sort of state should come in his place - and especially who should run it. The lack of consensus helped doom the resistance, as the various groups were often working at cross-purposes (with Gestapo infiltrators encouraging the disunity). This despite the fact that the Reich itself was engaged in constant infighting (from the Night of the Long Knives through the duration of the war), often pitting political or ideological interests against military ones (for example, the expense of maintaining soldiers on guard at the concentration camps who could have otherwise been sent to the front). Many of the professional military officers were holdovers from the old Prussian aristocracy and resented being shunted out of power by the rise of the National Socialists. They were the ones who launched Operation Valkyrie, the failed plot to assassinate Hitler, blame it on the SS, and take control. Hitler himself actually sometimes encouraged infighting and confusion between regional governors and the like (occasionally going so far as to give two people overlapping areas of responsibility without telling either of them) in order to prevent them from consolidating power and challenging him."

Same concept. Since everyone is trying to usurp is "power", he better set one against another to ensure that no side manages to win and take HIM out after that.

"Men are the competetive ones" incorrect. That is all. As for operation Valkyrie and the Night of the Long Knives, I already knew about both. So I will just gloss over that.

Finding a woman who agrees with your views does not make them correct. I will keep going from what I know and what I discuss with others. I have met a black neo-nazi who hated himself and believed Aryans to be racially superior (He was af fucked up dude). His existence does not make Fascism valid, nor does her existence make your ideology valid. Since I believe that Gender is a sociological construct and not a biological one (Sex is biological, gender is not) and I consider that to be the root of the issue here, which is where I identify with the feminist movement, I take issue with the sweeping statement that men are naturally more ambitious because it is horseshit.

No weasel words, no "But but animals" it is absolute horseshit. Evolutionary biology being used to try and keep the current social order alive. Same people who have managed to resurrect race as a discourse after years of proving the science of race wrong. It is, quite simply, bullshit.

Any generalisations, regardless of what they are, that are based upon the sex of an individual are sexist. Your statement was sexist. If I generalise that it is safer to be working around blacks, because they are less likely to be ambitious, I am making a racist statement.

Unless you can find me a study, which has not been disproved by, say, any reputable anthropologist or sociologist, which indicates that males are more ambitious then females, not using the statistic that fewer women are at the top (If anything due to it being harder for a women to climb a career ladder the ones who get to the top are the ones you should be worried about) then I will consider what you say to be worthless.

We are all children because we do not agree with you?

I am childish because I do not agree with your statement because my grounding in sociology indicates that your statement is bullshit? It is childish for me to apply what I know about gender, the conclusions I have made from my readings, the discussions I have had with my lecturers and peers, to what you have said?

Men and Women are equals. Equals in being evil backstabbing assholes.

EDIT: Finished watching the video. Seen it before. A few very key issues that are utterly ignored.

One: There is no correlation between female genital mutilation. Seriously. Doubleedit: I don't mean correlation, been awake about 40 hours now. I mean, there is nothing similar to it. Circumscision can leave a man unable to enjoy sex as much. Female genital mutilation will make it impossible. The two are not one and the same, the two cannot be stated to be similar in anything but the broadest of strokes.
Two: The muggings and random assaults. The victims might be majority male, but as are the perps.
Three: Citations needed. Everywhere. Whilst it is probable that more males get raped by females (Or sexually assaulted, as the case would be in the United Kingdom), I simply disbelieve the 50/50 statistic quoted. A citation would have been incredible helpful there. Now, I agree that that is a problem, that men do not feel like they can report crimes and that is an issue that I believe feminism is best equipped to address. Break down more gender-barriers you break down the barriers that are fucking up humanity.

 

[Cheesepower5]

This is a question to Anita Sarkeesian supporters and detractors alike:

Who the hell cares!? No, really... We're talking about whether or not the overuse of damsels in distress are sexist... Do we need to take every little opportunity to look down on people?

Enough about filthy misogynists that, dumb scam this. I'm fucking sick of it. All people do is talk shit about each other. Like it's our fucking nourishment.

 

[Kill100577]

Mostly fair. The only issue i have is with the use of Dante's Inferno as a "Modern" version of the trope. However, if she got kidnapped i reckon she would want someone to rescue her.

 

[Insanely Asinine]

This is a question to Anita Sarkeesian supporters and detractors alike:

Who the hell cares!? No, really... We're talking about whether or not the overuse of damsels in distress are sexist... Do we need to take every little opportunity to look down on people?

Enough about filthy misogynists that, dumb scam this. I'm fucking sick of it. All people do is talk shit about each other. Like it's our fucking nourishment.

I may not seem to care but I care enough to read the comments. Mostly for my own amusement. This shit throwing contest is like watching people ruining their own lives. My ego just keeps getting fed by both sides making me feel superior to them. I know it isn't true but it just gives me this huge ass grin as they fight among themselves. Am I a dreadful excuse for a human being? Most likely.

 

[Wyvern65]

This is a question to Anita Sarkeesian supporters and detractors alike:

Who the hell cares!? No, really... We're talking about whether or not the overuse of damsels in distress are sexist... Do we need to take every little opportunity to look down on people?

Enough about filthy misogynists that, dumb scam this. I'm fucking sick of it. All people do is talk shit about each other. Like it's our fucking nourishment.

I missed the memo that said I could only discuss subjects you cared about and weren't sick of.

You could just not read a topic if it doesn't interest you or it upsets you. Or did you think your post added some positivity to an already contentious debate?

The reasons people argue online range from egotism to anger issues to viewing it as a "game to win" [look where we're posting] to actually, genuinely, caring about the issue.

Painting this entire thread as if it's been nothing but people bashing each other tells me you really haven't read it; because while sure there have been a lot of people in it flaming each other (which is true of just about every internet thread ever,) there's also been some pretty respectful and thoughtful posts that lay out good arguments on both sides.

What you're doing is as bad as what you claim to be against. Instead of contributing another angry rant to the mix, either add something positive to the discussion or just ignore it.

tldr; No one is forcing you to read any of this. If it bugs you, find or start the kinds of threads you want to read.

 

[Cheesepower5]

This is a question to Anita Sarkeesian supporters and detractors alike:

Who the hell cares!? No, really... We're talking about whether or not the overuse of damsels in distress are sexist... Do we need to take every little opportunity to look down on people?

Enough about filthy misogynists that, dumb scam this. I'm fucking sick of it. All people do is talk shit about each other. Like it's our fucking nourishment.

I missed the memo that said I could only discuss subjects you cared about and weren't sick of.

You could just not read a topic if it doesn't interest you or it upsets you. Or did you think your post added some positivity to an already contentious debate?

The reasons people argue online range from egotism to anger issues to viewing it as a "game to win" [look where we're posting] to actually, genuinely, caring about the issue.

Painting this entire thread as if it's been nothing but people bashing each other tells me you really haven't read it; because while sure there have been a lot of people in it flaming each other (which is true of just about every internet thread ever,) there's also been some pretty respectful and thoughtful posts that lay out good arguments on both sides.

What you're doing is as bad as what you claim to be against. Instead of contributing another angry rant to the mix, either add something positive to the discussion or just ignore it.

tldr; No one is forcing you to read any of this. If it bugs you, find or start the kinds of threads you want to read.

I know I'm not contributing anything to the discussion, but I also know that it's not in my power to just stop it just by whining about it. It's well within my right to say that I have a distaste for the way the discussion has played out. You seem to act like this is a discussion that will actually go beyond angry rants and contribute something, and if that's what you think, I disagree. But still, it has a right to exist. It doesn't change that I'm appalled by talk of people "not being allowed to sit at the dinner table with the rest of us" and other such high-end snobbery.

 

[Wyvern65]

I know I'm not contributing anything to the discussion, but I also know that it's not in my power to just stop it just by whining about it. It's well within my right to say that I have a distaste for the way the discussion has played out. You seem to act like this is a discussion that will actually go beyond angry rants and contribute something, and if that's what you think, I disagree. But still, it has a right to exist. It doesn't change that I'm appalled by talk of people "not being allowed to sit at the dinner table with the rest of us" and other such high-end snobbery.

I re-read my response to you and I apologize if it came off condescending. I tend to write quickly and clinically and it can come off sounding like I'm being an arrogant asshole sometimes, so apologies for that if it did.

Anyhow, I tried to point out it isn't simply just angry rants, insofar as there's some good posts in this thread. If it was as bad as it's being cast as, the mods would have shut it down.

As for what it accomplishes? Well, I'm not sure it needs to accomplish anything more than to entertain or divert the people who participate in it. I don't think anyone who has been on the internet more than a few months actually believes thread wars change much.

I do enjoy reading other people's perspectives on issues and there have been a lot of times someone has posted something in a thread that's made me go "hmm. never thought about it that way before. that's interesting."

I don't think anyone's going to fundamentally change their views, but our views on things tend to change slowly over time and these kinds of discussions can contribute. If nothing else sometimes defending your position makes you examine it, if only so you can do the defending.

But I'm not sure why these kinds of discussions are held to some different standard either. I don't think talking about how Dark Souls is the worst game ever, or what the hardest game I ever played was is going to change anyone's mind or the world. Sometimes it's just fun.

 

[Cheesepower5]

I re-read my response to you and I apologize if it came off condescending. I tend to write quickly and clinically and it can come off sounding like I'm being an arrogant asshole sometimes, so apologies for that if it did.

Anyhow, I tried to point out it isn't simply just angry rants, insofar as there's some good posts in this thread. If it was as bad as it's being cast as, the mods would have shut it down.

As for what it accomplishes? Well, I'm not sure it needs to accomplish anything more than to entertain or divert the people who participate in it. I don't think anyone who has been on the internet more than a few months actually believes thread wars change much.

I do enjoy reading other people's perspectives on issues and there have been a lot of times someone has posted something in a thread that's made me go "hmm. never thought about it that way before. that's interesting."

I don't think anyone's going to fundamentally change their views, but our views on things tend to change slowly over time and these kinds of discussions can contribute. If nothing else sometimes defending your position makes you examine it, if only so you can do the defending.

But I'm not sure why these kinds of discussions are held to some different standard either. I don't think talking about how Dark Souls is the worst game ever or what the hardest game I ever played was is going to change anyone's mind or the world either. Sometimes it's just fun.

No need to apologize, I understand. We were just saying what we felt, so there's no harm done. I agree that sometimes a shit storm can be fun, I was just particularly sick of argument at the time. I certainly won't deny that there were interesting/thought-provoking posts in this thread.

 

[Insanely Asinine]

That comment frankly hacked me off to no end, since her the entire crux of her argument is based upon framing.

Framing IS contextualization. She already is reliant upon each game's internal context and logic to make her point, and promptly discounting any context whatsoever which does not further her argument. It's arbitrary, predisposed, and borderline intellectually dishonest.

Hell, using her standards for what defines "context" for the purpose of her own argument, I can argue the Witch in L4D is one of the most misogynist things ever to have been introduced in the history of gaming.

I don't want to get called out for being part of the problem myself, but from the way her project has been presented to me (in the two videos I've watched), it seems as though she's already come to the conclusion that games ARE sexist, and distorting examples into appearing sexist rather than an in depth examination as to whether the content could be sexist.

Sure, plenty of those examples used DO strike me as sexist, at least superficially, but I can't help but scratch my head at the apparently sexism in euthanasia. I don't believe that I felt any different if it was a male character asking to be killed (like Cornelius Slate in Bioshock Infinite).

Too add on

Spoiler

Andrew Ryan physically forcing the player to kill him to prove a point.

 

[Schadrach]

WHen she compared violence to videogames to violence against women IRL, it just made me sick.
Like, that's a low blow.

Violence in video games creates or encourages violence IRL. Didn't Jack Thompson teach you anything?

Or, to be more along the lines of what she probably believes, violence in which victims are female is special and influenced by media in a way that simply doesn't apply to other forms of violence because reasons. Ultimately the same logic as to why we have a "rape culture" but not a "murder culture" or "assault culture", which usually ends up resting on the idea that the chosen form of violence is "special" in some way -- I've heard the argument referred to as the "rape is magic" argument -- the idea that rape is a crime whose portrayal, discussion, or humor regarding has some magical effect that doesn't apply to any other crime.

To me its just another part of the age old "Friend gets corrupted so you must defeat/kill them" trope. This happens to both male and female characters and therefore I don't think it's misogynistic. Unless of course this happens with more female characters than male ones, but the video doesn't bring any numbers regarding that.

Of course it doesn't bring any numbers into it -- if numbers were brought in, there'd be something to argue against, and there'd be the counter argument that she can claim to be talking about "gaming" in general while heavily restricting what games we're allowed to use as counter-arguments. There are some posters in this very thread who've claimed we're not allowed to consider huge swaths of gaming when talking about the frequency of this particular trope.

I also disagree with the loss of masculinity or possession part. Unless a relationship between a guy and a girl is defined as "Girl belongs to guy", which I don't really think it is. And while I get how she frames it as "weakness to perform his patriarchal duty", I see it more as "Weakness to protect those that the character cared about". It's a perspective issue.

There's a particular flavor of feminism (one to which I suspect Anita subscribes) that paints literally every relationship between men and women that isn't explicitly demonstrated to be otherwise to be "girl belongs to guy."

Also, I will never understand the people who want to censor what she has to say... Just, what the hell?

Who is censoring what she has to say? Are you referring to the whole 4chan trolling thing, or to this video getting falsely flagged?

The former is 4chan being 4chan and being provoked, and actually going pretty light compared to what they've done to some people (look up Alex Wuori [sp?] or Chris-chan for examples that literally went on for years and weren't limited to the internet), the latter is a bit more interesting. Apparently some YouTube feminist channel went around reporting some MRA channel for video responses in which he played clips of them and then commented on each clip, and actually got some kind of temporary account suspension against him or some such (ThosePeskyDames and Snake-something, I think? I'd never heard of either before). Given that Anita engages in the same kind of video structure, this could be a response to that, or even a demonstration of bias from YouTube (rather like how Kickstarter loves projects that appear to be pushing feminist points even if they break TOS and will cancel projects without notice if an online feminist attack campaign goes after it even if they don't break TOS -- Kickstarter is really pretty bad about uneven TOS enforcement [for example, Penny Arcade and 9-year old RPG both obviously break TOS, Tentacle Bento obviously didn't]).

Joan totally counts, since she wouldn't get burned until the Epilogue,

If we were to be historically realistic it'd piss off a bunch of the same people who would really *want* a Jeanne d'Arc game. Mostly because she wasn't punished for being a female soldier, she was charged with heresy for political reasons (French succession, what the Hundred Years' War was over), and the courts were bribed to find her guilty (though she did brilliantly defend herself against questions designed specifically to trip people into admitting heresy -- for example " Do you know whether or not you are in God's grace?" which under the theology of the time was impossible to know so answering either yes or no was heresy [she answered "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace."]).

So far my main issue with her is still a lack of context in the examples. I realize that she admitted that she did not accurately represent the context for many of the games, but that still does not really excuse misrepresenting them to that degree. And Im not sure if it's my own hang ups about her and the series, but I actually felt like the discussion of male portrayals was a little accusatory.

I don't understand how she can, as someone with a degree in media studies who is a self-proclaimed pop culture critic, continue to present her arguments while blithely ignoring the entire historical context of the genre of entertainment she's professing to criticize.

But, context is irrelevant in a creative work, right? At least Anita seems to think so when it comes to trying to demonstrate her point.

And yes, problems do need to be fixed, and the fix to this particular problem is education. That's what Anita is doing (and what I try my best to do as well), to educate others on why she thinks this or that is a problem, and how it can be solved.

No, she's flashed a bunch of examples of a given trope, devoid of context, and the rest of her monologue could essentially be Mr Mackey from South Park talking about drugs or memes FWIW. She very *certainly* doesn't talk about solving it, outside of "Tropes are bad, don't do tropes, 'mkay."

The point I'm making is that this "general expectation" shouldn't factor into the a story to the extent it does - as long as a women is capable of being physically strong, there is no reason for a writer to disclude her as a protagonist or character in an action based game. We should be seeing plenty more of these women coming up in games - but if anything, the opposite is true. Women make up only a tiny fraction of video game characters, more than outnumbered by male characters in practically every major title. As for females as protagonists, they make up a tiny minority.

Just please don't post that demotivator image of video game protagonists. It's ridiculous, especially because one could make one with all female protagonists, or female protagonists with unnatural hair colors, or of non-humanoid protagonists.

I don't really disagree with what you say in this quote about female characters being *able* to be protagonists, but really that comes down to the writers. Personally, I'm looking forward to Remember Me coming out tomorrow and plan to remote into my home machine from work to make sure Steam has it installed before I get home. Though I hope I can find time to tear through it, since The Last of Us isn't far off.

So the problem lies in the fact that the "segment" (which is wide enough to accommodate most major titles released in this day and age) is dominated by men, or rather, that game designers expect it to be and make no effort to accommodate anyone who isn't a man.

I always find this interesting -- in more or less anything one has to make special effort to "accommodate" women or women are "excluded", yet men can only be "excluded" if they are explicitly not allowed to participate, and even then it's often seen as a good and/or necessary thing. If someone runs a publicly accessible but men only LAN party they are misogynist assholes who want to keep women out of gaming, if someone runs a women's only brunch at the same time as a con and advertise it as being for female con-goers on the con's board; that's just awesome -- go girl power! and all that.

As for why some people want tropes to be gender-equal, well, because it maximises diversity and avoids any unfortunate implications. If the portrayal of people being rescued and people doing the rescuing is gender equal, there are no implications that one gender is the protector and one gender is to be protected. It allows people to play the one they like (so if you like the traditional idea, it's still an option) while allowing everyone else to have fun as well. They point is not "stop using this trope", but "it would be nice if it was applied equally", so that everyone is free to be portrayed in every role. Everyone gets a turn being rescued and doing the rescuing, everyone gets to experience the full spectrum of human emotion and, well, experience, regardless of their gender.

Here's a distinction -- are you saying the market is there and it would be a smart move to tap it, or are you demanding diversity in every example, market be damned? Because there's a big difference there, and in one case, a few games tapping that marketshare will make it very evident -- in the other, you get things like the D&D handbooks. Some people complained about the exclsuive use of "he" as a pronoun in the early D&D handbooks. The 2nd edition AD&D handbooks had a "Note on gender" at the beginning detailing which style and grammar guides they were using and that said guides specified the use of "he" when the gender of the person described is unknown, and that this was not, in fact an attempt to exclude women from role playing games -- this got an even worse reaction, mostly from people *who weren't players in the first place*. When 3rd edition rolled around, they had an editing pass to ensure pronoun gender balance -- each single character example must alternate gender from the previous one, all multiple player examples must be split 50/50, with any odd-persons-out alternating, and non-examples alternate gender each paragraph. That last one makes certain parts of the rules slightly more confusing than necessary. In 4E, they tried to temper the confusion by simply using "you" when not in a specific example.

Here's my question for you: How many women do you expect picked up 3E D&D because of the elaborate pronoun balancing done? Did those people avoid 2E D&D for not doing said pronoun balancing? Was that number worth the time and money spent on doing it? The answer to that last question is the answer to whether or not it was a wise choice from a business perspective.

Choice of pronouns in rules text has very little to do with gender in the game the rules represent, though. I'm running a Pathfinder game right now (and honestly couldn't answer how they handled pronouns offhand), converted from 3.5 in which the main antagonists are a cabal of spellcasters of varying stripes, with a 6/4 gender split [rolled their gender 50/50 odds] one of whom is a lesbian [rolled sexuality, 87% chance straight, 10% chance homosexual, 2% chance bisexual, 1% chance other, ended up with 9 straight and one of the women as homosexual -- this had little game effect so far other than changing what sort of clothes were in a wardrobe in one of her old homes -- two different sizes of women's clothing rather than women's clothing and men's and noting that one player who tries to seduce every female he encounters was doomed to failure outright].

Oh boy. She disabled comments on this one too. Now, yet again, the douche bags will be spreading to every video on youtube that has anything to do with feminism to rage about how not being able to throw rape and death threats at her infringes on their freedom speech.... or, in this case, freedom to terrorize people into silence.

It's the internet -- anyone who presents a contentious opinion gets death threats. Anyone who angers 4chan gets death threats. She's both of those. Anyone who expresses certain positions regarding WoW class balance gets death threats. I've been that guy. Death threats are how the internet says hello, once you step away from the cuddly and heavily moderated parts of it. The beauty of online death threats and trolls is that you can make them go away by pressing "ignore" (I had to for all the Shaman making alts on my server to threaten me back in LK).

Video games are largely by, for and about male concerns today in large part because for the entire history of the medium it has been a mostly male market. It was a gendered form of entertainment. As gendered as something like romance novels or soap operas. I agree completely that this needs to change, but to examine current games without that context is bizarre.

Clearly this means we need a campaign to demand that soap operas and romance novels change to "accommodate" men because men are excluded from those types of media. Amusingly, you could argue that soap operas did, we just call them pro wrestling.

Also she seems to be unaware that every character male OR female who is not the protagonist in a video game is /explicitly/ created as an object to serve the protagonist in some way. To flatter their ego, to provide some quest or motivation, to get the gamer to move from point A to point B. Unlike novels or movies, video games simply don't have the resources or ability to provide rich deep characterization to every minor character along the way because these things cost money. You have to write/animate/voice/localize them. It's not just the cost of a few extra pages of typeface.

You make it sound like everyone outside of the player character in a video generally lacks agency to some degree while the player character(s) have a significant degree of hyperagency.

I have several questions about the "What about the male victims?" thing. It keeps coming up in discussions like this and it boggles my mind.

Why aren't men speaking out about this?

They do, but when they do it is either simply ignored, or gets turned around with the argument from primal misogyny ("Your men's problem is really about misogyny, and is therefore really a women's problem. So why are you talking about men's problems when we're discussing women's problems here?").

Or rather, why do men wait until a woman speaks up about what she feels is distasteful before voicing their own complaints?

Because those discussions on related (or sometimes even ultimately the same) issues don't get ignored because reasons?

Why should it be a feminists job to speak about it? As a feminist her main concern will be women, anyway. Yes she may dabble in how the situations that "harm" women can negatively effect men but...she's a feminist. To be female centric is in the name.

But but but, I thought "feminism" was about gender equality in all forms, and not merely about women? That's what they usually claim anyways.

There are enough examples to warrant an entire page on TV Tropes [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/DamselInDistress/VideoGames]:

There's a TVTropes page for literally every trope ever used, and the pages tend to be extremely thorough in documenting uses, often without reference to context. Ignoring the subversions, lampshades, and inversions how many are listed in comparison to how many video games that exist?

Duke Nukem is a pop culture parody. You are not supposed to take him or his world seriously. The game's purpose is to take every trope and push it to its limit. This involves the "aliens taking our women" trope. Duke is a walking joke. How this fact completely eludes Sarkeesian is beyond me.

I don't think it does, I think this is just part of her whole "ignoring context when context is inconvenient" thing.

I still think the solution to this is easier than people give it credit for. Don't write female characters. Write Human beings. Come up with a person's personality, character traits, backstory etc before you put things like gender in, unless their gender directly ties into their character arc. Gender IS a part of who we are, but it doesn't define us. Heck, it's pretty easy to make a balanced cast of genders in my opinion.

http://s3.photobucket.com/user/neko-hime-cfi/media/FROMASHES2-1.png.html?filters[user]=3916024&filters[recent]=1&filters[publicOnly]=1&sort=1&o=41

She has a video planned about exactly that later on in her series -- the "Man With Boobs" trope. I'd actually love to have Anita write a game at some point, if only so we could see what she considers a *good* female character.

Bastion is one of the best experiences I've had in media in a long time. Annita really dropped the ball on that one when she insulted it. I cried in that game, and it was just full of amazing moments.

You mean this one?

On the indie side of things, I really enjoyed Bastion, but the only female character in the game doesn?t have any depth (to put it mildly); basically, her whole characterization was "The Female."

Which suggests an almost necessarily willful ignorance of the game she is talking about? It's not like "The Female" was named (Zia, I think?) and frankly had as much if not more characterization as anyone else, but the protagonist is literally only ever referred to as "the Kid" and gets the least characterization of them all.

I did roll my eyes a bit when she mentioned Borderlands 2, since to mention her as such and point out what happens to her ignores the entire context of her character and her role in the plot, especially as a thematic contrast to both Lilith and Maya, particularly the former as an NPC in the second.

You make it sound like she literally had to completely disregard major overarching themes throughout the game to focus in on the single plot element that suits her argument or something? Or that Angel's death was literally an act of defiance against a patriarchal villain who had been using her as a literal tool, and turns around to do the same thing to Lilith when Angel dies (shortly after killing a major male character to provide additional motive and pathos for the protagonists -- would he be a soldier-in-the-refrigerator?).

So basically only men can be brutalized in games because when women die or get hurt it's a way for would-be wife beaters to realize they want to violate all women? That sounds like the default retarded politician who wants to ban games M.O. I think even Jack Thompson wouldn't be that stupid, not to mention that's not promoting equality at all just rambling about violent games influencing real world actions which no research can even suggest is a possibility to begin with.

Jack Thompson -- another person that it's too damned easy to makes comparisons between her and.

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Reading through this thread I think we can in part conclude that we're going to learn more about who Anita Sarkeesian is and how she views video-games (and popular culture)than how video-games represent women.

She has an undeniable bias and isn't interested in criticism or an open discussion of ideas, her own or anyone else's.
She just cites examples that suit her views but doesn't provide any analysis on them or the characters they contain.
In the end all we get from her is her opinion, in which she complains a lot and doesn't explain how she arrived at her conclusions.

Yes, some video-games have problems representing women but those aren't the only video-games on offer.
Video-games like many other forms of media contain a wide spectrum of stories, some good, some bad, some mediocre.
Selectively presenting video-games to cast them in a certain light is intellectually dishonest and invites censorship through of misrepresentation.

But don't just listen to me, make up your own mind and consider how honest that opinion is.

 

[Tien Shen]

EDIT: Oh nevermind someone went and made a whole thread on it.