Of "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" - and the internet - by Firefreak
Vivian on 17/7/2012 at 06:58
Quote Posted by heywood
So cosplay is not sexist even though it's all about the look, not the character's personality or story. But when you appreciate cosplay girls for their looks and not their personality, etc. that's sexist.
:weird:
If sexy female game characters which objectify the female form are a problem, how can you say that mimicry by real girls who try to replicate the sex appeal of these characters is not a problem?
I guess it matters what you consider cool, and who's doing it. I personally think Cosplay is a bad example, because it is generally retarded, and pretty well all of the female anime/games characters used suffer from the same boob-armour issues. If people want to dress up like boob-monsters or pre-pube implant fairies, they can, I guess. However, assuming they have some kind of personality defect because of how they're dressing, or assuming that this is an open invitation to treat them as nothing more than a chunk of boob-meat, makes you a bad person.
'Sexy' video game characters are always a problem because of context. Their sex-appeal is typically used to pretty much define them. You get the ME2 effect where hard-bitten, 100% professional warriors and 1000-year-old holy crusaders have to wear impractical, titillating outfits because you know, they're girls. If they were supposed to be strippers or whatever I wouldn't have a problem with it. Strippers can be cool people. But if the guy soliders in my fiction have to be heavily armoured brutes to survive, so do the girl soldiers, or it's stupid.
Eldron on 17/7/2012 at 06:58
Quote Posted by heywood
So cosplay is not sexist even though it's all about the look, not the character's personality or story. But when you appreciate cosplay girls for their looks and not their personality, etc. that's sexist.
:weird:
If sexy female game characters which objectify the female form are a problem, how can you say that mimicry by real girls who try to replicate the sex appeal of these characters is not a problem?
The idea is that those game characters help enforce the idea of females being only a sum of their body and sex.
I believe that every person is responsible for his own actions, which is why I don't think these characters will turn anyone sexist, people are at fault.
Not all feminists are the sarkeesian-feminist, but all of them works toward being treated like an equal being.
again:
Quote:
Objectifying someone sexually is when you remove the part where they are a person.
It's okay to look at a female who has some exposed skin and get turned on by that, it's bad when you forget that they're human and bypass any kind of common sense on how you should treat people.
Now we can debate all day of how those neckbearding cosplayers have no life in a forum full of neckbeards discussing games about wizards, hackers and guys in trenchoats made by neckbeards, but bottomline is: we cannot judge what people like from just one person or feminist.
Al_B on 17/7/2012 at 18:34
Quote Posted by Koki
I posted that TERA Online picture not because of how she is dressed, but because she looks fucking
ten years old.
So your response to finding a picture representing a ten year old that you find worrying is to post it here?
Yakoob on 17/7/2012 at 19:17
Quote Posted by Koki
Are you seriously comparing dressing up in an AERIS DIES t-shirt to wearing something that can only be described as skimpy lingerie?
I'm not talking about AERIS DIES t-shirt, I'm talking about full-fledged gay as fuck emo cosplay nerd suits, up to and including the dark eye mascara and white powdered face.
Yes, guys doing this is the same as girls dressing in skimpy lingerie.
june gloom on 11/3/2013 at 01:39
(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q) First of Sarkeesian's videos has been released.
It's pretty obvious why comments have been disabled on that video. I mean, you could argue, as Destructoid did, that while understandable it has the side effect of stifling meaningful discussion, but looking for meaningful discussion on Youtube is an exercise in pointlessness and pain.
Jason Moyer on 11/3/2013 at 07:05
23 minutes and not a single goddamn thing of educational or entertainment value.
Thirith on 11/3/2013 at 07:26
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
I found the video to be pretty bad (dry, underdeveloped and lacking in much insight) but then again it is only Part 1 and is probably more targeted at people who are unfamiliar with gaming. That montage was pretty cool and telling though.
I didn't think it was bad so much as what you've said - the target audience isn't people who know games inside out and who have thought about these issues. If anything, it felt like a primer, and as such (and considering it is only part 1) I thought it did a good job.
The question is, though, who the audience is and whether they're in any way receptive to the message - most of the comments I've seen on the video suggest that those who don't already agree at least in principle resist what she's saying to begin with. It seems that with respect to this topic there are few people who don't either agree with Sarkeesian and her argument or who believe that this is a non-issue, she's a con artist and should bloody well shut up.
What I found most aggravating about much of the criticism I've seen is that it's all a bunch of strawmen and ad hominem bullshit. Sarkeesian observes and comments, but she doesn't say the games she's talking about are reprehensible crap. She doesn't say that the people who enjoy them are a bunch of misogynist troglodites. Yes, she does call for developers to think critically about the lazy gender-related tropes they tend to fall back on, but that's a pretty mild message - yet many people react as if she were calling for censorship and the liberal cutting off of dicks everywhere.
catbarf on 11/3/2013 at 13:40
My reaction upon seeing the video was 'Okay, now what?'. What's the message being conveyed here? It's not bad as an introduction to the historical usage of gender tropes in games, but it's not really providing much of an argument and there's nothing there that you couldn't pull from ten minutes on Wikipedia.
I get that it's not meant for people who already know this stuff, but considering the project got well over $100k in funding it's a little surprising how simplistic it is. Maybe it's just that it's the introduction, maybe this is just to 'set the stage' and future ones will be going in-depth.
retractingblinds on 11/3/2013 at 14:01
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
23 minutes and not a single goddamn thing of educational or entertainment value.
She looks very well groomed and the quality of the production is quite nice. Definite improvement over the previous videos, and I'm glad she took the extra time for it.
