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Tropes Vs. Women Episode 2 - Damsels In Distress Part [spoiler warning]

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M

Mesoian

Member
Video is back up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs

And a vimeo mirror just in case

https://vimeo.com/67167995

Spoiler warning

Spoilers from:

· Bionic Commando (2009)
· Borderlands 2 (2012)
· Breath of Fire IV (2000)
· Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (2007)
· Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (2003)
· Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010)
· Dante's Inferno (2010)
· Dishonored (2012)
· The Darkness II (2012)
· Dead Space (2008)
· Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army (2006)
· Double Dragon Neon (2012)
· Gears of War 2 (2008)
· God of War: Ghost of Sparta (2010)
· The Godfather: The Game (2006)
· Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
· Hotline Miami (2012)
· Ico (2001)
· Infamous (2009)
· Inversion (2012)
· Kane & Lunch: Dead Men (2007)
· The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
· MediEvil 2 (2000)
· Ninja Gaiden 3 (2010)
· Pandora's Tower (2011)
· Prey (2006)
· Resident Evil 5 (2009)
· Shadows of the Damned (2011)
· Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (2009)
Click to expand...

Overall a lot more even than the first episode. She does a good job reinforcing that enjoying games that follow these examples doesn't suddenly make you a bad person, which is important to downplay the kneejerk reactions people have, and she did an interesting job addressing criticisms made in the episode before. She doesn't get bogged down by one example or the other, and didn't really dig into games that are particularly egregious about the subject at hand (I thought she would spend a full 10 minutes on Shadows of the Damned). It's a lot of examples made with a level headed argument made at the end. It's not bad.

I wish she would stop wearing those hoop earrings though, they're distracting.

And I laughed at the Bionic Commando part, because yeah, that ending is dumb as all hell.
 
G

GreatMightySymp

Member
Won't be able to watch this till I get home from work, but I hope she didn't do what she did in the first one where she went in with a "I think this falls into X and I'll pick apart pieces to validate said theory" instead of objectively looking at it.

Not saying all of the points were off-base in the first one, but some parts were stretching it a bit.
 
A

Alienous

Member
What was the Kickstarter goal to have an actual discussion about tropes vs women in video games? $160,000?

I feel like I've watched this exact episode before, and it was part one. Except here she harps on about male characters attacking possessed females. But ... why should the gender matter?

(Also, 12:23 for my reaction to this episode).
 
A

Aeana

Member
A

Ahasverus

Member
How can she be so slow making these mediocre videos with all the money she got? the last time a girl with better arguments and argueably better production values made a video repsonse in 2 days
 
S

Shinta

Banned
Ico = "extremely troubling."

I wish I was making this up.

300px-Paris_Tuileries_Garden_Facepalm_statue.jpg
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
I honestly don't give a shit about Anita any more. As far as I'm concerned, her 15 minutes of fame are up.

I see that there's at least one positive example, so teh bet will roll on to the next episode, by which time we'll probably have forgotten about it since it'll be August.

I'll await the day when her backers realise that what they funded are fairly rubbish and better examples of Serious Videos About Videogames exist elsewhere on the internet, regardless of budget.
 
T

TheBaronOfNA

Banned
Spoilers from:

· Bionic Commando (2009)
· Borderlands 2 (2012)
· Breath of Fire IV (2000)
· Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles (2007)
· Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (2003)
· Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2010)
· Dante's Inferno (2010)
· The Darkness II (2012)
· Dead Space (2008)
· Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army (2006)
· Double Dragon Neon (2012)
· Gears of War 2 (2008)
· God of War: Ghost of Sparta (2010)
· The Godfather: The Game (2006)
· Grand Theft Auto III (2001)
· Hotline Miami (2012)
· Ico (2001)
· Infamous (2009)
· Inversion (2012)
· Kane & Lunch: Dead Men (2007)
· The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006)
· MediEvil 2 (2000)
· Ninja Gaiden 3 (2010)
· Pandora's Tower (2011)
· Prey (2006)
· Resident Evil 5 (2009)
· Shadows of the Damned (2011)
· Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (2009)
Click to expand...

Welp, I can't see the Video because I want to play Devil Summoner and Pandora's Tower. Nice from her to do a list.
 
B

Brawndo Addict

Banned
Try not to embarrass yourself again GAF, this isn't anywhere close to the kind of content that would ever merit the incredibly vitriolic response it got last time around. Last time it got up to like 80 pages or something ridiculous right? And all because of basic feminist critiques as applied to video games. If you can't handle something as simple and unoffensive as that without going nuts, I'd ask you do everyone a favor and just ignore stuff like this rather than post.
 
V

Vexxan

Member
So will there be an episode where she talks about what can be done to improve women's "position" in video games or will all of them be half an hour of her whining about the same stuff over and over again?
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
Vexxan said:
So will there be an episode where she talks about what can be done to improve women's "position" in video games or will all of them be half an hour of her whining about the same stuff over and over again?
Click to expand...

I believe subject 12 will be "good examples", which judging by the rate of videos so far, will happen over two parts some time in 2015.
 
R

RMI

Banned
Vexxan said:
So will there be an episode where she talks about what can be done to improve women's "position" in video games or will all of them be half an hour of her whining about the same stuff over and over again?
Click to expand...

oh, well it's not her job to present solutions!

*eyeroll*
 
D

Delusibeta

Banned
Ah, Ico. If there's one game so far that she's going to get her backers annoyed, it'll probably be that one.

Brawndo Addict said:
Try not to embarrass yourself again GAF, this isn't anywhere close to the kind of content that would ever merit the incredibly vitriolic response it got last time around. Last time it got up to like 80 pages or something ridiculous right? And all because of basic feminist critiques as applied to video games. If you can't handle something as simple and unoffensive as that without going nuts, I'd ask you do everyone a favor and just ignore stuff like this rather than post.
Click to expand...

Judging from the first episode, "basic feminist critiques" would be grossly overselling it.
 
P

Parallacs

Member
I have a funny feeling she is spoiling ICO pretty bad in the video, based on her twitter war about it.

I haven't played the second half of the game so I will pass on this video. I doubt I'm missing much, as her first video was womp-womp.
 
R

Rebochan

Member
Oh wow. She really had the balls to use Borderlands even after it was pointed out to her, BY ME, on her updates page, that she's stepping in it if she seriously tries to break the entire game down JUST Angel in light of the context of the rest of the game.

She did it.

And she blew off the Distressed Dude scenario that takes up significantly more of the narrative.

...no words. She's cherry-picking. And as I feared, she's simply breaking it down to "Any time in a game a woman is hurt." Completely out of context with whether or not women are receiving a disproportionate amount of the violence or distress.

...the Bionic Commando plot twist had me laughing my butt off though.
 
A

Adam Blue

Member
Brawndo Addict said:
Try not to embarrass yourself again GAF, this isn't anywhere close to the kind of content that would ever merit the incredibly vitriolic response it got last time around. Last time it got up to like 80 pages or something ridiculous right? And all because of basic feminist critiques as applied to video games. If you can't handle something as simple and unoffensive as that without going nuts, I'd ask you do everyone a favor and just ignore stuff like this rather than post.
Click to expand...

I think people get riled up because she's accusing a broad group of people of being hateful or primitive. For in this video she already mentioned that there's something wrong if a male player has a desire to save a powerless woman. What's wrong with that?

Also, calling out 'writers' for having nothing better to write.

The problem with these broad accusations is that anyone can fall under that. By listing specific examples (companies, individuals) then the majority of viewers won't feel like they are being pointed at.

These videos have the right idea, but are done horribly wrong. In a video that's meant to expose some sort of 'hatred', it rides the coat-tails of hatred itself to prove a point.
 
S

Sophia

Member
Some of the games in that montage aren't even playing the Damsel in Distress trope. Alan Wake? Max Payne 3? Seriously?
 
Barrage

Barrage

Member
This one was a big improvement form the painfully vague Part 1 I thought. By the end, she's making some clear points about narrative motivation that are worth looking at.
 
R

Relaxed Muscle

Member
Rebochan said:
Oh wow. She really had the balls to use Borderlands even after it was pointed out to her, BY ME, on her updates page, that she's stepping in it if she seriously tries to break the entire game down JUST Angel in light of the context of the rest of the game.

She did it.

And she blew off the Distressed Dude scenario that takes up significantly more of the narrative.

...no words. She's cherry-picking.
Click to expand...

That's the whole point of her videos.
 
K

KTallguy

Banned
Excellent video. It's not that these games don't have a right to exist, they do! But it's important to examine and realize what we're taking in. It looks like she's taking her job seriously.
 
D

Darklord

Banned
So a girl taking the ultimate sacrifice to help save the day is actually some sort of violence against women hard on? Domestic violence? What?

Thinking someone is "theirs" is sexist? That goes both ways! Has she never heard a girl say "He's my man"?
 
C

CaptainSchwann

Member
Never usually comment in these threads, but just wanted to chime in with how annoyed I was by how much she took out of context this time around. The Darkness is one of my favorite game series, and the implication that Jenny was Jacky's "possession" was total shit. Jenny was the only friend Jackie had growing up, which is the emotional implication behind his uncle killing her.
 
K

KTallguy

Banned
Vexxan said:
So will there be an episode where she talks about what can be done to improve women's "position" in video games or will all of them be half an hour of her whining about the same stuff over and over again?
Click to expand...

Looks like that's what the third video will be.
 
G

georly

Member
Aeana said:
She said that scene was humorous, and provided one reason why.
Click to expand...

The scene is funny because of how outrageous it is to whip out a giant machine gun at a wedding, not because a woman is the one doing it. If the groom was doing it, it'd still be funny, but then the wife becomes the damsel in distress.

What could be done to make it not sexist? Have them both have guns? I just don't understand what she wants.
 
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