catbarf on 17/6/2012 at 18:37

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I think we can all agree that sexist portrayals of women in games are due to the target audience of teenage males, but I don't think that's really a good 'excuse' for the industry. We're in an era where gaming is just starting to be recognized as something of an art form, and having the majority of games be full of shallow fantasies (burly macho men and sex object women) doesn't really help make the case that games can be art and not just entertainment.

'If they're annoyed they should make their own game' seems a non sequitur to me. What, I guess instead of making a movie like Super Size Me (for example), the team involved should have opened a healthy fast food restaurant? That's not getting the message out there.

I'm interested in seeing what this documentary ends up being. If it's just a long description of various games in which women are marginalized, then it'll be pretty pointless as it's not like people are denying sexism exists in games, but if it goes a little deeper than that it could be a decent documentary.

Edit: Just want to say I agree with every one of Dethtoll's posts in this thread, spot-on.

demagogue on 17/6/2012 at 18:53

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I think we must be one of rarer gaming forums that's leaning on the feminist side on this, and not just settling short with an anti-anti-feminist line.

I'm on board with more crit indie games. Indie gaming is like the biggest untapped potential for a lot of cultural stuff IMO. I scripted a semi-feminist crit game of Red Riding Hood with my pomo feminist girlfriend, but there's only so much I can work on. I'd actually hope it'd become a lightning rod -- get people's reaction on front stage so they can pay attention to it -- so opening itself up to ridicule shouldn't be a hurdle.

I sort of have a love-hate relationship with post modernism & pomo feminism. I think they usually have the right point, and the kind of stuff I'd argue myself, but packaging it with arguments they don't have to use, like bad philosophy of language or epistemology.

As I understood it, the idea with the tropes and use of language isn't so much that they'll literally oppress someone confronted with them, but that they're symptoms of the real problem, which is that the language & thinking itself is infected with a whole worldview that already has women knocked down a notch whatever they say (like the old way people would say "he" for 3rd person singular generic without thinking about it). It's a good point, but to make it they don't need to argue that language & knowledge itself is entirely socially constructed, & "power" & "hegemony" (whatever those are supposed to be) are what's really at the root of all truth IMO... Just make the case straghtforward... You say X but it's assuming this contingent worldview that doesn't apply like you think if you pay attention.

In my own thinking though, it comes down to people needing to come to terms that the human brain & consciousness is a messy machine with countless cogs that construct people's gender & sexual orientation & identity, etc, not always very airtight... So the line between masculinity & femininity to begin with is messy & punctured with holes between the two that people go out of their way to paper over. But if people came to terms that that's how "being human" works, then I think it'd transform how people treat all other groups right there... But for the grace of some totally arbitrary & careless cog in your brain, you'd be in that other group too, and imagining yourself as one of them could be easier than you think; your consciousness itself literally doesn't care. Think about that before you say something.

Anyway, so I see a lot of these things falling out of people clinging to what they think the -should- be, that's the bigger war, and feminism is just one battle in it. But it's still part of it, so I'm fine with projects like this for what they're worth.

I also worry that her scope may be too narrow & out of touch with what's actually going on in gaming though, like whoever criticized her for knocking Ms. Pacman, or if she doesn't focus on how games really play and just jumps on some cherry-picked examples that only raise an eyebrow on the surface. I think it'd be great if she made it much more ambitious; get into the complexes people have that drive them into game worlds to begin with, and the way those game worlds are constructed... What's the player's core MO and why are the objectives like this. What's really driving this whole thing? For that matter, what's the economics going on here behind the scenes driving people to buy the game & prop it to their friends to begin with. This goes beyond just woman NPCs, but what's her role w.r.t. the whole driving MO... Game worlds are special IMO because the creators can really create their own ideal world from the ground up, into the very laws of the universe, and then make a pitch to pull players into that world... Those are some places to go to really get to the heart of the matter.

...................................

Edit: Yeah, another point, games that have a problem with the portrayal of women already have another problem with appealing to some pretty shallow motivations in players, exactly the kinds of things that usually kill much chance for a very deep gaming experience on top of whatever message it's making about women. The usual suspects are already games I didn't like very much because they weren't taking me anywhere I wanted to go, at least the parts that make shallow appeals like that.

june gloom on 17/6/2012 at 20:05

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It's already happened. That's the whole point of the entire debate. When did you get this fucking stupid? You didn't used to be this fucking stupid, even when discussing gun cont-

oh, nevermind.

Shadow on 17/6/2012 at 20:30

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http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/9566/thepyramidofdebate.jpg

demagogue on 17/6/2012 at 20:40

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Maybe in terms of sales volume. There are a lot of games out there to be sure, but the ones with the most share are the most unscrupulous in pushing the twitch-buy buttons. Most games don't get much share (cf how brutal it is for small studios to survive) but least of all those that take alienating moral stands, I think. Anyway most of this thread is either pomo 101 or media studies 101 stuff. I don't think it should be closed though. There's still more signal than noise IMO.