Ahr river
Men in skimpy outfits = hilarious
is not really the best way to try and have equality in these types of things :/
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FATAL Survivor
I had hoped Captain Falcon would go the full Borat. Alas...
"That wizard came from the moon!"
Yes, Samus wears those outfits in her games, but only to relax in. Never to fight in. It's like making Captain Falcon wear some Bermuda shorts to fight because he went to the beach in the ending of one of his games.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
The Mistress
...
Though there were those boxer shorts from that one unlockable cutscene in F-Zero GX. In the name of equality, I hope they're included.
...
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
x3 It's becoming common practice to include casual outfits as alts in games.
It is, but generally it's for female characters and not for males. And in cases where they both have casual clothes, the women's clothes tend to be skimpier than the men's.
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
FATAL Survivor
Well... except for Voldo. But no one wants to see more of Voldo.
Feminist Frequency has released their newest video today:
*quietly awaits shitstorm*
edited 25th Aug '14 7:11:49 PM by Zennistrad
The big one bothering me is the use of the dragon age one, even for the opening.
That is NOT a random NPC the character refers to, it is the player character, and it is not just forgotten and tossed to the side either.
FATAL Survivor
Whenever I see one of Sarkeesian's videos I can't help but get the feeling she hasn't actually played many (if any) of the games she "reviews"—although "judges" would be a more accurate way of putting it. She often comes off as very superficial in her style and never takes much time on any one target to do any in-depth examinations. Has she said anything especially stupid regarding the 2013 Tomb Raider? I get the feeling that she probably has, but I haven't watched any of her stuff in months (if she has released anything in the past few months).
Ahr river
Usually I find that's because she's not trying to analyze the how and why, just pointing out the trend. Granted, she does mess up a few times, and if you're not already educated on feminist stuff, some of her points might be hard to grasp ( I tend to grasp them just fine, but I've already done my personal research)
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Happy New Year!
"The use of Women portrayed even in death as sex objects or the Drop Dead Gorgeous trope"
Hey she referenced us
edited 25th Aug '14 11:28:42 PM by joeyjojo
hashtagsarestupid
FATAL Survivor
Pointing problematic things is all well and good, but to try and make explanatory proofs based on those surface details is poor argumentation. It's criticizing Miley Cyrus for being overtly sexual without recognizing that it is something of a right of passage for Disney Channel girls given their high profile careers, and it's something most young adults do—exploring their sexuality—though generally in a more tempered manner. It's crititcizing sexy adverts while ignoring how Puritan they still are compared to those in Europe and all the issues wrapped up with all of that.
Regardless of gender, shows like PBS Game/Show
have done it more in-depth and better with more effort and nuance and frequency than Anita's Feminist Frequency. Which is a shame, because it could be something really interesting, but instead it just feels lazy.
edited 26th Aug '14 9:33:17 AM by Cyran
"That wizard came from the moon!"
Jupiterian Local
I just watched Sarkeesian's newest video, and it has the same problem that most of her other ones do — namely that spends all its time pointing out examples of things she believes are problematic without a) demonstrating that they're problematic, b) explaining why they're problematic, or c) suggesting alternatives that should be used instead.
The first ten minutes has a lot of examples of violence (often sexually charged) against women being used as setting flavor — to prove that the game's setting is Darker and Edgier, essentially. She presumably believes (but never actually explains) that this is a bad thing because it reduces the female characters involved to plot devices, vehicles for passing information to the player (as well as providing titillation) instead of treating them as human beings valuable in and of themselves. What she fails to acknowledge is that the underlying message in all of these examples is that violence against women is bad. Violence against women is used as shorthand for "these are bad people, and the situation is bad enough that no one is stopping them from doing such an obviously bad thing". Using violence against women only works as shorthand for "this setting is Darker and Edgier" if you acknowledge that violence against women is unacceptable behavior. If it was at all sanitized, or presented as in any way justified, then that would be sending a bad message — "violence against women isn't really that bad" or "violence against women is okay in certain situations". But it's not, it's always shown as bad.
About twelve minutes in, she finally addresses this point — and her objection seems to be that they don't count as condemning violence against women because they're short side-events rather than the focus of the story. Again, she doesn't present any alternatives to this besides, apparently, making "violence against women is bad" the core tenant of the story — which makes any depiction of violence against women in any other context unacceptable. (And based on objections she's raised in other videos, having a story about a male character crusading against violence toward women is unacceptable as well, as that reduces females to helpless damsels, so apparently the only acceptable way to portray violence against women in fiction is if it's a story about women opposing violence against women.)
At around 17 minutes, she points out that "this guy hits women" is lazy, one-note character development to prove that the villain is, in fact, villainous. I certainly don't disagree, but "lazy writing" is a problem of literary criticism, not feminism.
At 18 minutes, she argues that the depiction of violence against women normalizes it by suggesting that only obviously evil, mustachio-twirling villains are the ones to do it. I would say that this is entirely backwards. If only obviously evil people hurt women, then how could you use the fact that a character hurts women to prove that they're evil? If the only thing we know about a character is that he beats up women, no one assumes "oh, I bet he's a pretty cool guy other than that". No, if he beats up women, then that establishes him as a bad person. She's confusing cause and effect — it's not "he's bad, so he beats up women", it's "he beats up women, so that makes him bad". It does the exact opposite of normalizing violence against women — it demonizes it, making it the only thing that matters about a character. Hitting women makes a character bad, full stop. (Hell, look at the trope image for NeverLiveItdown.Comic Books.)
All in all, Sarkeesian's videos feel like they're saying that the only acceptable form of fiction is that which features strong feminist themes presented as the core narrative of the work. To do anything else is to at best actively further, and at worst ignore (and thus reinforce) existing discriminatory status quo. While I think that works that do decide to touch on the subject should treat it with an appropriate amount of respect, to say that stories about anything else are sexist because they're not about that is incredibly narrow minded.
Oh, and just for icing on the cake, she finishes up the video by misrepresenting Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Meh.
edited 26th Aug '14 8:16:06 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
I agree with some of her points. Specifically the thing about about woman getting beaten up to note that a character is evil (more games could balance that out by having female player characters, or a moderate amount of important female NPC's that aren't victimized), and the God of War example was completely tasteless and disgusting. The No More Heroes felt completely out of place though, especially in that segment. Unlike those other examples, the NMH cutscene just looked really zany, over-the-top, and even ridiculously cool and darkly humourous than revolting, a similar gag was even done in the first game where Travis swats away male gimps that the boss of that level throws at him.
I don't think it's necessary to make games into unsubtle political soapboxes for the developers the way she suggests.
I haven't had a chance to watch her video yet, but in general I have noticed that Anita has issues with violence in general.
I agree that there are more effective ways to demonstrate someone's possible moral situation with just a ham-fisted, "oh they abuse people too! And kick puppies! And cheat on their taxes."
But, violence in itself is not a bad thing, it is a tool when used effectively can be really wonderful at teaching.
Two of my favorite heroes and role models growing up, Sarah Connor and Private Vasquez, are very violent women, but do so in service to the defense of people.
Video games are in a unique position to help encourage different conversations and violence is a topic we need to discuss. The Silent Hill series, Spec Ops the Line, Hotline Miami, Clock Tower, Haunting Ground, The Metal Gear series, the Blood Omen Series, Far Cry series, Manhunt, and many more have at least tried to make some sort of comment on violence or the use of violence. Some are certainly more successful than others, but i support attempts and think that blindly saying violence, especially women involved in violence, is wrong.
edited 27th Aug '14 9:37:37 AM by Gabrael
"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur
I wanted to briefly address a couple of points Native Jovian made above.
Okay, let me say that this is a very, very tricky slope. But first, let me give a brief story.
A while ago, I was attending a workshop on law and justice at a local college and, to a mostly-white audience, the presenter said something like, "history has proven time and time again that an active social majority is the only way to effect permanent change for a social minority", something that the rest of the audience nodded in agreement to.
Being the only black male in the audience, I asked, "You mean, like White Man's Burden?" And the presenter stopped for a second, looked at me and said, "No. Not all like that", and then moved on. I rose my hand again to get him to elaborate, but he ignored me until we were so far off-topic that I would have derailed the lecture by bringing it up again.
Anyway, I'm bringing this up to demonstrate the problem with having a social majority (that is, a party without social disadvantages in this particular context) constantly lead the way in fiction on issues concerning others. Having men constantly be the figures standing up for the rights of women is no different than having white protagonists always be the ones saving non-whites.
There's a ton of overlap, to the point that sometimes, the latter is important to the former. It's kind of like how Michael Bay, Quentin Tarantino and others often get criticized for using lazy stereotypes for all their characters.
It's more complicated than that. Portraying an "obviously evil" character that beats up women is one of those types of cliches that perpetuates the assumption that only a "real bad guy" could ever do such a thing. It's a tautological logic that goes, "James is a nice guy. I know this because he doesn't beat women" (while ignoring other flaws that can disqualify him from being a "nice guy") or, even worse, "James couldn't have beat that woman, because I know him and he's a nice guy." Using "beats women" as a shorthand for "really bad guy" causes lots of problems, which is why feminists call it out when they see it.
Well, yeah. If you hit anybody, you're a pretty shitty person. But the problem with what you're saying is that Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male makes the opposite some quaint little side attraction that isn't "normal". Violence against women being "normalized" isn't the same as saying it's totally cool and that people don't see anything wrong with it; it means that behave like it's a natural consequence and that any other outcome is so alien as to be weird or flat out impossible. It's similar to attitude toward Prison Rape: "yeah rape is bad and all, but it's prison, it's supposed to suck". Part of the reason the Double Stanard Abuse tropes exist as they do is because of this normalization to the point that the alternative is amusing.
Incidentally, from what I've heard about the trope image, that was a miscommunication between artist and writer. The writer intended for Pym to accidentally hit his wife while upset, while the artist drew him deliberately striking her. So even the guy who wrote that scene recognized hitting a female spouse as a line he didn't want to cross, because once that genie was out of the bottle, there was no way to put it back.
edited 27th Aug '14 7:31:08 AM by KingZeal
Ahr river
There's also the annoying fact that women are used as Sympathy Objects, as if they are puppies to be kicked, in order for people to be informed where to place a character on the Morality O Meter.
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Queen of Good Things, Honest
It's also asinine because "how he treats women" is often its own separate morality compartment, not indicative of other elements of his morality nor indicated by those elements.
Like, there are people in the world where it's like, "He donates millions to charities, works as a surgeon saving countless lives, campaigns for awareness of children's diseases, and beats his wife." And then there are people where it's like, "He encourages child labor, has had people secretly murdered, and completely treasures his wife."
Morality isn't a switch, where you're either in the On or Off position. It's more like a bunch of individual compartments. Just because someone is an amazing philanthropist doesn't mean he's not ALSO a rapist. Just because someone's a misogynistic dipshit doesn't necessarily mean HE'S the one who killed her.
edited 27th Aug '14 11:01:08 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.
Jupiterian Local
,I generally agree, but again, that's an issue of lazy writing, not feminism. Going "look, he's beating up a girl, he must be an evil jerk" makes for flat, one-note characters. But so would having him beating up a man, or abusing a child, or being cruel to cute fluffy animals. Where Sarkeesian's criticism loses me is the idea that using violence against women to prove that a character is evil is inherently demeaning toward women. If it's part of a pattern of all women in the work being weak and helpless victims, then yeah, that's definitely problematic — but it's the pattern that's problematic, not the specific instance. Maybe that's what Sarkeesian meant in the video, but she never says that; she seems to find even an isolated instance in an otherwise pro-feminist work to be unacceptable.
I see where the "he's a nice guy, he couldn't be beating his wife" thing is problematic, but that's not a feminism issue, that's a "people are reluctant to believe bad things about people they like" issue. You could use the same logic with any variety of issues. "He's a nice guy, he couldn't be a pedophile" or "he's a nice guy, he couldn't be a murderer" or "he's a nice guy, he couldn't be embezzling money" are all the exact same thing as "he's a nice guy, he couldn't be beating his wife". What's the solution there? Never show evil people being unpleasant? All atrocities must be committed with a polite demeanor and pleasant smile in order to show that seeming like a nice guy and being an evil jerk aren't mutually exclusive?
It's worth noting that in many of the examples Sarkeesian gave, standing by and allowing women to be brutalized has a negative effect on your Karma Meter. The game is telling the players, in unambiguous, mechanical terms, that allowing others to abuse women is evil. There are some examples of violence against women in games that are undoubtedly problematic (like the infamous GTA "trick" of picking up a prostitute to boost your health, then killing her to get your money back), but Sarkeesian seems to believe that all portrayals of violence against women are automatically sexist — unless, maybe, they're part of an overarching story about women asserting themselves in feminist ways. That's the stance I take issue with — the idea that unless positive feminist themes are the point of the work, that work is sexist. Not the idea that "creators must be careful to avoid anti-feminist themes in their work", but "works are automatically anti-feminist until they prove themselves otherwise".
edited 27th Aug '14 5:28:36 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
No, this isn't an "either-or. It can be both.
Feminism (or any activism) is not exclusive, nor excluded, from other types of criticism. There's no "Oh well, it can only be either bad writing OR sexist, not both." That's a False Dichotomy. It's both.
First of all, you can't have it both ways. Either beating up a woman is considered more heinous than beating up a man, or it isn't. Which is it? Because if it's not, then the rest of this debate makes no sense, because you've flat out said that beating up women is shorthand for "evil". For men, it's only the case if it's a Non-Action Guy, but for women, Wouldn't Hit a Girl usually doesn't make exceptions for Action Girls.
If your argument is that it IS more heinous, then comparing women to children or "cute fluffy animals" is part of the problem. Women are women, not children (which, honestly, they have often been accused of being like) and they are not cute, fluffy animals (another thing they've been accused of being like).
"Tropes versus Women in games" should be your first clue that this is about a pattern, not a single instance. The entire POINT of the series is to illustrate the same point that Women Are Delicate was created to illustrate: that nothing exists in a vacuum. This isn't about a single use of a trope, it's about a SYSTEM of tropes that all come the conclusion that women are some special, delicate, helpless, or ineffectual little things.
See the second point, above. None of these tropes are taken on their own. All of them are taken within the greater context that is women in fiction in general. The problem is not that "this trope exists". The problem is "this trope, and lots of others like it create a complicated stereotype.
That's because he 'is'' a scumbag. Morality shouldn't be a numbers game, or act like currency. You can't buy back "scumbag" points if you Pet the Dog a lot. A doctor that saves a lot of lives, donates to charity, and molests children and then eats them is still a psychopathic, murdering pedophile. That other stuff they do is nice and all, but it doesn't stop them from being a really terrible person.
Again, this isn't mutually exclusive. At the rate this is going, you could make every "feminism" issue a "it's not a feminist issue, it's an XYZ issue". Wage gap isn't a feminism issue. It's a economics issue. Sexist clothing isn't a feminist issue. It's a fashion industry issue. Men that specifically target women to rape them isn't a feminist issue. It's a human aggression issue. (Before you say it, yes, I'm aware you haven't said any of these things, but I fail to see how the logic differs.)
Don't put artificial boundaries between what makes an issue feminist or not. Every problem feminism tackles is a related problem that branches somewhere else. The only thing an "-ism" does is group all of these different branches together. For example, hatred for a black-male-white-female interracial couple is both a feminist issue AND a race issue. It's about race because someone is placing arbitrary restrictions on someone because of race. It's feminist because women are, quite often, held as something men of their race are "entitled" to, and white women in particular are held up as some pure thing which can be "spoiled" by a Black penis.
This is called "intersectionality". MOST issues overlap with another issue somewhere else.
Again, is the argument that beating women is "more heinous" than beating men or isn't it?
Even if YOU don't think so, though, lots of people DO. So even if you don't feel it should make any difference what gender gets beaten, women being beaten is still what writers use to show that someone is MORE EVIL than someone who beats a man.
It's worth noting that in many of the examples Sarkeesian gave, standing by and allowing women to be brutalized has a negative effect on your Karma Meter. The game is telling the players, in unambiguous, mechanical terms, that allowing others to abuse women is evil. There are some examples of violence against women in games that are undoubtedly problematic (like the infamous GTA "trick" of picking up a prostitute to boost your health, then killing her to get your money back), but Sarkeesian seems to believe that all portrayals of violence against women are automatically sexist — unless, maybe, they're part of an overarching story about women asserting themselves in feminist ways. That's the stance I take issue with — the idea that unless positive feminist themes are the point of the work, that work is sexist. Not the idea that "creators must be careful to avoid anti-feminist themes in their work", but "works are automatically anti-feminist until they prove themselves otherwise".
Again, let me use the Prison Rape example.
If you ask most people if they think prison rape is wrong, they will say "yes". It's a bad, horrible thing and they think the perpetrators are evil and that it shouldn't exist.
But you can turn around and ask those EXACT same people if they want to stop it from happening, and they'll say, "Why? It's prison. That's the way it is."
"That's the way it is" is what "normalization" is all about. Normalization does not mean people don't see something as bad, or that they don't see it as wrong. They just see it as NORMAL. Rape, sexual abuse, domestic assault, etc., become things "That happen to women", because it's "normal for bad guys to do that". It's treated as something not worth addressing, not worth getting up set over, or not worth changing because it happens all the time. But they don't think the same is true of the opposite (a man hitting a woman) or a man hitting a man. The former becomes "hilarious" and the latter only gets scoffs of "Pfft. What a wuss." Because beating a woman is the WORST evil, so the rest of that stuff is tame in comparison. (Not completely tame, just "by comparison".)
EDIT: Further, this always inevitably leads to Moving the Goalposts and apologism. Beating a woman is bad...unless she "had it coming". Its bad...unless she was crazy and hysterical. Because again, since it's so evil, people will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to dehumanize the women so that it becomes LESS evil. She loses her "female, delicate, innocent flower" status, which makes what happened to her A-okay.
edited 27th Aug '14 6:25:21 PM by KingZeal
Happy New Year!
Sounds like he trying to acknowledge the uncomfortable truths about power and privilege. It takes the social majority to allow social changes regarding the status of the social minority.
If the white man wants to keep the coloured man down, then he is going to stay there.
edited 27th Aug '14 8:30:17 PM by joeyjojo
hashtagsarestupid
I see absolutely nothing wrong with ZSS' alternate costume.
edited 22nd Aug '14 10:00:05 PM by Rynnec