Of "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games" - and the internet - by Firefreak
Muzman on 18/6/2012 at 20:27
It's a hatchet job. When Rebecca Watson copped a torrent of shit about a year ago for asking guys nicely not to corner her in elevators at atheist conventions, every time she mentioned the things she was getting sent or discussed the issue subsequently someone would say she was doing it for the attention. Basking in victimhood for the pageviews, for the paypal donations, the youtube subscribers yadda yadda.
It's the usual shtick.
Saying Kickstarter won't do anything about his supposed objections is the biggest cop out. They'd rather make $15000 than get sued by Nintendo? Uh huh. (It's maybe worth a look. I wager it falls under parody provisions) By his(?) logic I'd say any project that exceeds its targets is therefore a charity. I doubt you could find anywhere in kickstarter's terms of use that contributors' apparent motivations in donating are material in defining the project.
demagogue on 18/6/2012 at 20:27
That's one way to look at it, but my gut feeling is "so what? Let them have it." Probably most projects people propose and want to fund are riddles with holes that are papered over in self-interested ways. You could make that line of critique about almost any funded project out there. It's what entrepreneurship is all about. And I'm not one to pry into people's gratification unless I care about them.
At a deeper level, I never cared what either she or the trolls were doing. I'd gladly read some academic articles in a respectable journal on this, but everything going on at the cultural level of YouTube videos & comments... pfft, fodder for people to over-simplify everything & amuse / gratify themselves. It's like it almost doesn't matter which side you take on it, you already lost just by playing, unless a close friend were curious in going deeper then it'd be good to have a conversation about it.
But to be more constructive: if you really wanted to change gamers' minds, you'd have to go individual by individual, be a mentor, and get them literate (so like... a few close friends); maybe a YT video gets some conversations started for a few people but I'm not sure. To change a studio's mind you have to either change the economic playing field by the former method or the law, but that's overkill; and to explore the actual sociology of it, get a PhD and publish it.
Koki on 19/6/2012 at 05:44
Quote Posted by faetal
Gaming != designing formula 1 engines. Gaming is a MEDIUM.
You said "game devs". That's one.
Two, maybe gaming is not just a women thing. When a bunch of ladies gets together for a woman's night out, do they spend their free time playing poker/snooker/monopoly?
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I'm a biochemist, I don't think men and women are equal by any stretch of the imagination, but they should be treated with equal respect.
And they aren't? Obviously they're going to be objectified or whatever in games for men, just like they are objectified or whatever in books for men, movies for men and hell, music for men.
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Gaming is a medium, it is as open to content as books and films are. There are lots of women now playing games hence this issue is arising because the medium is moving past its infancy where only guys would play and the women are starting to notice that it is littered with content which objectifies or alienates them.
No, there are "a lot of women playing games now" because of prevalence of gaming devices everywhere, like cellphones, prevalence of retardo throwaway casual games everywhere, like Angry Birds or Facebook Farm Simulator, and retarded studies about gaming which mostly consist of giving people a sheet of paper with nothing but DO YOU PLAY VIDEOGAMES Y/N on it.
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I've got £20 which says that in 20 years time, gaming content will be a lot more gender-sensitive and many of the games of today will seem like crass throwbacks in retrospect.
You're on.
I think I've seen it somewhere before
Eldron on 19/6/2012 at 06:47
The Skullgirls developers have already been attacked are being attacked now without the ability to defend themselves, and they just want to make games.
She's going to have a field-day on vanillawares products, so much trope'age.
I'll end this with: How should women feel about this, especially those that did like a ton of those characters that will eventually be criticized by Anita.
I've know women who feel very strongly about equal rights yet still love a ton of those characters you'd think of as tropes, peach, the whole guilty gear ensamble, kerrigan, the women of odin sphere..
Game of thrones wouldn't last a few minutes in the deathgrasp of Anita, and true blood already got the axe:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NPjvv3qeMlo)
Koki on 19/6/2012 at 08:19
Quote Posted by Eldron
The Skullgirls developers have already been attacked are being attacked now without the ability to defend themselves
wowzers, something good came out of the whole thing!
Eldron on 19/6/2012 at 09:00
Quote Posted by Koki
wowzers, something good came out of the whole thing!
"I hate that game, I hope some feminist tears it apart"
*WISH CAME TRUE!*
faetal on 19/6/2012 at 09:24
Quote Posted by Koki
You said "game devs". That's one.
Two, maybe gaming is not just a women thing. When a bunch of ladies gets together for a woman's night out, do they spend their free time playing poker/snooker/monopoly?
I know scores of women who own consoles, play shooters, RPGs, strategy etc... Maybe it's a UK thing or something.
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And they aren't? Obviously they're going to be objectified or whatever in games for men, just like they are objectified or whatever in books for men, movies for men and hell, music for men.
The average game is a great deal more male-centric than the average film / book / etc... It's a very new medium, so this is to be expected to some extent, but now it is diffusing out of its niche, the extra demographics now paying attention are wondering why the area has outgrown the boundaries.
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No, there are "a lot of women playing games now" because of prevalence of gaming devices everywhere, like cellphones, prevalence of retardo throwaway casual games everywhere, like Angry Birds or Facebook Farm Simulator, and retarded studies about gaming which mostly consist of giving people a sheet of paper with nothing but DO YOU PLAY VIDEOGAMES Y/N on it.
Your comment right there is a perfect example of the myopia towards women gamers. This is an assumption. This assumption is becoming gradually more wrong and I think it is best to address these things BEFORE it becomes much closer to a 50/50 split, else it will get embarrassing.
Ok, but no wheelbarrows of your weird hyper-inflated foreign drachmas or whatever it is you Poles use.
Muzman on 19/6/2012 at 09:26
Feminists like Game of Thrones because the female characters are usually pretty complex and well developed. Not to mention they are in large numbers and significant to the plot.
Does anyone think True Blood isn't sensationalist trash any more? I could probably name five female critics who love it and wouldn't disagree it's actually garbage.
Muzman on 19/6/2012 at 10:38
I was going to write something vaguely useful rather than whacking the mole of guys saying the same thing about feminism over and over
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
RE this Kickstarter - I think it's worth pointing out that it made its goal in 24 hours and was at well over $20,000 when she posted the youtube video and the shit storm began, so it was already a roaring success on its own merits. Personally, I chucked in $5 because it's an issue that concerns me and I've liked her previous stuff. I'm not always in 100% agreement with her but she articulates her ideas clearly and gets me thinking. Will the videos make any difference? In a small way, I think so. They're not going to cause a massive shift in female representations in games but I can see the odd game designer, who wasn't necessarily sexist but just naturally fell into the tropes, going "hmm, maybe I'll avoid that in the future".
It's good to hear that actually. I'm impressed. If anything was going to put kickstarter to the test I figured this would be it. I guess she has a bit of a following so that would help (I've heard of her and I don't go looking for this stuff). So it's not all backlash money.
I suppose I could understand why people have such a limited idea of what this is supposed to achieve. It's either change the world or nothing, and since it won't (or they don't think it needs it)- don't bother.
They would have no idea the endless amount of articles and lit reviews that go on for education purposes. Small analyses, applications and updates to theory are pretty much constant. Then as new media emerge they get adapted and moved over. This is in that region. I get this, so I don't see what the big deal is. Just have to tell them I guess (many of course won't be able to get past the Big F and everything Uncle Rush told them about it when they were five. But that's life I suppose)
Quote Posted by demagogue
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.
Yeah, when you get real heavy with the post modernist language it gets a bit much. Academic feminism doesn't communicate well a lot of the time, and to some extent if you subscribe to deep po-mo ideas then the oppressive matrices of culture that show in the use of a word
are as real as a slap in the face and should be reacted to accordingly. It's difficult to get behind.
It's like the use of the word misogyny; it gets thrown around a little too lightly for the lay reader/ viewer in most cases a far as I'm concerned. If you ask seriously what they mean by this, it's usually shorthand for 'misogynist culture', which is an extremely subtle thing that has degrees of its own (and its a whole other argument if that point of view is valid or not in the first place). No one's really saying that in most cases the people who made or enjoy things that might attract that title, in their heart of hearts, consciously hate women and wish to see them harmed or oppressed (although that depends sometimes too).
But people didn't go to that school and do the Women's Studies units. Mostly all a lay reader is going to hear is if you draw sexy girls you hate women, if you like looking at the sexy girls you hate women. It's way more complicated than that and that's a bit of a problem.
The other thing is post modernism is pretty much entirely a critical position. It doesn't have much to say on what should be done once these things are known. But it's mostly the only sort of method and language in the area of media, lit and cultural theory. Sometimes that can get a little counter productive if you ask me, and that's without even getting into just how valid it is (to some, not at all).
Really this project is pretty simple. Archetypes and tropes are common things to study in any writing or art class, so you can avoid or subvert them as to your wont, just don't be unaware of them.
Kuuso on 19/6/2012 at 10:40
Quote Posted by Muzman
Does anyone think True Blood
isn't sensationalist trash any more? I could probably name five female critics who love it and wouldn't disagree it's actually garbage.
Anyone criticising the series for sexism of any kind of is missing the point. It's supposed to be ultra-sexist, because the vampires can pretty much do anything so they do. Of course, at this point it's not about making some deep remark on anything, but more about showing body parts HBO-style, which happens for both sexes (I'd even wager that male sexuality is the focus here).
What I find funny is that finally, with Game of Thrones, they've got the guts to show naked people from waist down. As far as I know, no americans have yet died of seeing penises in the show.
