Maybe when you're the butt of the joke time and time again and without rhyme or reason, jokes don't seem so funny. But what do I know? Video games should be devoid of criticism, since they are just meant to be fun.
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Feministborgia: Grand Theft Auto V - A Feminist's Review
- Thread starter Solid SOAP
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Maybe when you're the butt of the joke time and time again and without rhyme or reason, jokes don't seem so funny. But what do I know? Video games should be devoid of criticism, since they are just meant to be fun.
TheSpoiler
Member
That's not really a valid complaint. Satire and parody generally seek to inform the plight of the focus, not demean it.
GTA does it about half-right, half-wrong.
Edit: To further this point, from the view of a black male, there's nothing wrong with displaying just how shitty the stereotypical, harmful culture society imposes on us. Humor is sometimes the best way to grab attention. That's why so many comedians that have a direct focus are some of my favorite - they aren't just laying out mindless jokes, but using them as commentary on a whole. It spreads faster and hits home for many people. In regards to GTAV, women are far more the butt of the joke than men due to terrible writing in places, but that doesn't eliminate the necessary comments on society's hard-on for male masculinity and how the impact is so obviously deep but yet so overlooked.
The Smoking Bun
Banned
GTA is supposed to be Gross & Offensive, South Park Minus intelligence & social commentary
GTA was never supposed to be a progressive game that made us into better people
GTA is horrible people doing horrible things in a horrible world, the protagonists are evil men and we are not supposed to admire any of them.
When the game is racist or transphobic, you are are supposed to be appalled by it such that you don't stand for it in real life
The men are cowards or murders while all the women are shrill harpy's
GTA was never supposed to be a progressive game that made us into better people
GTA is horrible people doing horrible things in a horrible world, the protagonists are evil men and we are not supposed to admire any of them.
When the game is racist or transphobic, you are are supposed to be appalled by it such that you don't stand for it in real life
The men are cowards or murders while all the women are shrill harpy's
MrCookiepants
Member
Because GTA V personally insulted you? Many jokes have been told about my race and sexuality. You know why they're funny to me? Because a lot of the time there's truth in them.
Of course there is a difference between a joke told in malice and a joke that's not intended to offend. You need to be able to distinguish the two and learn to laugh at yourself sometimes.
I agree that R* understands what the majority of AAA gaming fans want, and everything in GTAV is only there only to please the target demo. It is a commercial product designed solely for maximum profit. But it is not some deep de-construction of America any more than Furious 7.
The only part of humanity it illuminates is AAA gaming, and yeah, looking for humanity and hope there is, well, hopeless.
GTA is literally dudebro LAD bible the game. Yes it's juvenile, and it doesn't paint women very well. That's kind of the point. (or it is if the Housers don't try to serious it up and fall completely flat). I read most of the blog post, but she just points it out. It's kind of like saying Schwarzenegger kills a lot of people pretty unprovoked. Yes..?
SolidChamp
Banned
The game is fucking juvenile, no two ways about it. There are more poop jokes and fecal references in GTAV than any other game I've ever played.
Someone on GAF once wrote that GTAV is a satirical examination of the male id. That includes the misplaced aggression and male insecurities; homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc. all come part and parcel with that, it would seem.
Someone on GAF once wrote that GTAV is a satirical examination of the male id. That includes the misplaced aggression and male insecurities; homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, etc. all come part and parcel with that, it would seem.
Yet the men supposedly get some character depth while the women don't.¹
Yet you're not supposed to be appalled by men touching strippers or using prostitutes.
The problem isn't about a sexist story, but sexist storytelling.
¹Actually, does the game feature male NPCs with some flesh, or are they all just as hollow?
SolidSnakex
Member
They tried that with GTA4, and it just doesn't work for the series. The series shouldn't be serious. It's supposed to be over the top and insane. That's when its at its best. GTA4 was then scaling back on the insanity in GTASA. GTA5 was them embracing. SA and 5 are now the two best selling games in the series. They have Red Dead for when they want to be more serious.
None of the NPC's are fleshed out. They're just there for the main characters to feed off of.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Basically what I wanted to say put more elegantly, i.e. shorter
.You need to play Conker's Bad Fur Day.
The Smoking Bun
Banned
What character depth? Everyone is a ridiculous caricature. Not one male or female is anything more than a single character type stretched thin.
A few of the women actually come off as better people though, like that athletic lady Trevor is into
Micheal: Oh woe is me! I have everything but I hate my family and wish I was gangsta!
Franklin: Oh woe is me! I'm a loser gang-banger who wants to hit it big but my GF bullies me. Franklin gets bullied by his girl... how is that male empowerment?
Trevor: I'M A FUCKING CRAZY PSYCHOPATH!!! BLAGHRABLES!! Also, I was abused
Where is the depth? I don't see it
The greatest trick the Houser's ever played was convincing the world GTA was anything more than shallow, explosive dreck.
Jack Thompson is probably the biggest contributor to the series success, Think about it, they want people to be angry at the game.
SolidChamp
Banned
When added all up, the references and jokes (both direct and indirect) are more than that one level in Conker's, for sure.
I wish I had time to go through the game and document every spoken line with a shit reference in it. It's a very large preventage of the jokes in the script (radio and TV dialogue, as well).
Is the reviewer mixing depiction of sexism and satire of sexism with sexism?
I often see in regards of GTA and that's very sad because GTA is not subtle at all.
Almost all the characters in GTA V are awful people wheter their gender is. There is no discrimination.
To review a media people should understand it first, injecting an unfounded bias in it it's not good
I often see in regards of GTA and that's very sad because GTA is not subtle at all.
Almost all the characters in GTA V are awful people wheter their gender is. There is no discrimination.
To review a media people should understand it first, injecting an unfounded bias in it it's not good
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Don't forget pissing as a weapon, killing shitting cows who you first need to urge to shit. At the very least Conker is more creative with it's excrement-based humour.
The Smoking Bun
Banned
I don't understand the argument against the strip club. Don't those exist in real life?
At least all the girls aren't shown as victims which is not always the case
At least all the girls aren't shown as victims which is not always the case
SolidChamp
Banned
The creativity goes to Conker, for sure. But GTAV wins the prolific award in that department.
GoldenCrow
Member
Well written, doesn't jump to any conclusions and highlights the differences between the gender roles clearly by stating the basic facts of the game. It would have been nice if she explored the cliché world of GTA and that all characters are a pastiche of popular media.
That's why I ask about the NPCs. Guess there's my answer.
Also, missed SolidSnakex' answer, thanks mate. It does easen the impression, though not necessarily.
Strippers liking it being touched at work, even so far as to take the offender home.
Thinking about that, their tale of masculinity really must have taken over the directing.
Risk Breaker
Member
Things like that cutscene when one of the protagonists screams "Shut the fuck up" to a group of women protesting for their rights, portrayed in a misogynistic way, sure isn't uncalled for!
No matter how evil characters are supposed to be, the repetition of certain patterns throughout the game, especially for people 15-20 (yeah yeah, some of them shouldn't be playing the game, yadda yadda, but they do, or GTA wouldn't sell so much) does have an impact.
I'm pretty sure when the average US 16-19 years old guy watches that scene with their friends they just laugh and say "lol crazy femcunts" or something like that. That sure doesn't reinforce real life sexism that affects real life people!
GTAV is sexist as fuck, guys.
pinkurocket
Member
I could get offended at the exaggerated imagery of gay men, really obvious 'men in dresses' drag etc. It's so typical. But it's not offensive, it's satire and it's totally readable. Everything is so extreme in GTA, from the violence to catering to that straight male demographic with various topics derived from that, most importantly with how lots of stuff is inspired by the insecurities and close-mindedness of the stereotypical straight male.
TheSpoiler
Member
What you are commenting on is a societal problem. If satire or parody is taken as truth, then the problem lies with the viewer, especially when this shit is kiddy-pool level commentary.
GTA has many moments where it's ambiguous, but the whole game isn't like that.
I mean, if that be the case, The Onion is too impressionable and is racist, sexist, and homophobic.
The Smoking Bun
Banned
I'll be perfectly honest, that scene with the three women stomping out of Franklin's house did not seem to be any form of protest or in any way empowering.
They just looked like they were being loud and obnoxious and that's all Franklin's Aunt is. Trevor yelling shut up is both funny and rude. Neither side should be emulated.
However, I do agree with your point that the primary audience takes the wrong message.
It's a very dangerous message that leaves a sub-conscious impact, that impact is why sexism is so prevalent in the games industry.
We should laugh at them instead the message the audience gets is, "Trevor is cool, be like Trevor"
Yep. The gender roles are handled differently in GTA, but i adds to the feeling that this is a disgusting world. I don't get why people look at GTA to get something it isn't rather look at other and future project to fill the void.
Dr. Buni
Member
Yeah, jokes are jokes when you are on the receiving end. Try being a woman, black, gay or any kind of people who are the butt of the joke all the time and you will change your mind about "jokes are jokes".
As for GTA, it is an incredibly disgusting video game series. It might be great in terms of gameplay, but in everything else...
SolidSnakex
Member
I really don't think that the audience gets a "Be like Trevor" message anywhere in GTA. Where would that even come from? Liking or laughing at what a character does or says doesn't meant hat you want to emulate them. Trevor fits the world of GTA more than any other character in the series. He's a pure asshole with next to no redeeming qualities. He gets off on killing and maiming others. So it's easy why to see why people would like him within that world. But people like Tony Soprano as well, it doesn't mean anyone wants to be like him.
I think it's incredibly naive to think some people who laugh at Trevor telling feminists to shut up (putting it kindly) aren't going to try and emulate that behaviour when they're confronted with a similar situation.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
Never really read GTA as a satire of anything. Can't remember the earlier games but played about 1/3 of GTAV. If it's satire it certainly isn't doing a very good job and most certainly doesn't seem to have a message or point to why it is a satire.
LoveCake
Member
Interesting read, however i do wonder how it would be received if in GTAV Episodes the character is a women?
The thing with GTA games is that they centre around violence & criminal acts, & these are usually associated with men, that is not to say that women cannot also be violent or commit criminal acts, violence is usually for different reasons & the crimes are usually different to, you do not get many women bank robbers, ok in GTA you can have a women IT/Tech expert to take out the alarm or have a woman getaway driver, these are realistic instances.
I think the interesting aspect is to find out what women players of GTAV think & feel about the game, do they feel more comfortable carrying out the acts on the game as a male character/avatar?
Slightly off topic, but there have been more female playable characters/avatars in FPS games recently, everyone knows there are women soldiers in the armed forces & no-doubt in tactical squads & SWAT teams, women can do these jobs & are more than capable, i just think that it is still more socially acceptable for a man to be portrayed as a violent, criminal sociopath.
The thing with GTA games is that they centre around violence & criminal acts, & these are usually associated with men, that is not to say that women cannot also be violent or commit criminal acts, violence is usually for different reasons & the crimes are usually different to, you do not get many women bank robbers, ok in GTA you can have a women IT/Tech expert to take out the alarm or have a woman getaway driver, these are realistic instances.
I think the interesting aspect is to find out what women players of GTAV think & feel about the game, do they feel more comfortable carrying out the acts on the game as a male character/avatar?
Slightly off topic, but there have been more female playable characters/avatars in FPS games recently, everyone knows there are women soldiers in the armed forces & no-doubt in tactical squads & SWAT teams, women can do these jobs & are more than capable, i just think that it is still more socially acceptable for a man to be portrayed as a violent, criminal sociopath.
family_guy
Member
GTAV characters and story overall was shallow and mostly garbage. I don't think there's any need to try and dig deeper into it. Just drive around and shoot things.
SolidSnakex
Member
I just don't think one line in a game is going to be enough to shape someones view on feminism. That's something that's more likely to come from the environment that they grow in. Just like racism or homophobia. There was a topic in the OT recently that showed the millennials are just as racist as their parents. They aren't getting that racism from gaming, they're getting it from their parents.
Risk Breaker
Member
Just because things happen in real life doesn't mean we should continue the cycle and make the same things happen in fictional media. It doesn't add anything to the game, there is no discussion, no perspective offered, no depth, nothing.
Yes, exactly. Them being loud and obnoxious follows the sterotype held by sexists about "feminazis". See it enough times without really knowing anything about feminism and you might start thinking they are all obnoxious, loud and stupid like that! And a post on 9gag laughing at Anita Sarkeesian with some stupid sexist fallacy will start to look funny!
Messofanego
Banned
We can't deny media plays a big role in shaping people's views on certain things that then become stereotypes. Take your view on something you don't interact with on a close basis, probably was shaped by media portrayal of it. That's how myths come about.
It'll at least confirm some real-life anxieties to be validated in a big enough piece of media where they can feel good about sharing it with their friends and go "see, that's what I was talking about, they are all like this!" (only have to read the comments to the video) with that strawman. One line might not shape a person's views but it also can just embolden them to continue in their beliefs and never get shaken up.
Jokes that repeat stereotypes (rather than examine and criticise them) just get a bit boring, that's my feeling on this in a more general sense.
cavemancolton
Unconfirmed Member
The game is satire. We can debate whether it is good satire or not, but I think it's hard to justify thinking that the game itself actually promotes the behavior exhibited by its characters.
TheSpoiler
Member
Satirical and parody elements add nothing to GTA? There's no discussion despite the long winded posts on this very thread? I don't think you know what satirical and parody mean if you think they are continuing a cycle.
GTAV basically has a repeat of that character with Tanisha, too.
GTAV has pretty shitty writing and humor in my opinion, and i agree with the notion that some of the jokes are just crass trash, more than satire, however it seems like some of the comments on here come from people who don't remember the game.
I also refute the notion that a game (or any other piece of entertainment) should be held as a straight forward educational tool for young people, even when it's not directed at them, that's just nonsense.
Sure everything you create has an impact on society, and you have to own up to that, which is why critique exists in the first place, but it doesn't have to be taken at face value at all.
A film like Scarface, which can be easily interpreted as a story of self destruction driven by mindless, aimless ambition and violence, is taken as an inspirational tale by a lot of kids born in the wrong place at the wrong time (see Gomorrah for an example of that, that shit is all too real).
I don't think that's DePalma's fault though, unless you're willing to render down any piece of entertainment/art to a pathetic level of hand holding, removing any sort of subtlety.
Tony Montana dying alone in a pool of his own blood still wasn't enough for some people to see it as a story of failure, and would rather extrapolate a martyr element from it.
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With all that said, and i think it does apply to GTA, it's still worth analyzing and critiquing our media, just not with the expectations of them babysitting every one of us to the logical conclusion.
Again, not a direct defense of GTA's shit writing or poor satire.
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Personally i disagree with the notion that GTA is one-sided in its pot shots (except maybe for its transphobia) as they make fun of pretty much anything in they wake, from the macho military mentality, to the empowering feminist buzzwords and mantras, to spiritualism, etcetera.
The problem is that at this point it's just lazy writing, they shoot in all direction afraid of leaving someone out, but they don't seem to apply any sort of thought into the satire, the result is a messy, crass, collection of cheap jokes at the expense of every target in sight, with usually the lowest possible hanging fruit approach.
If you match this, with the inequalities that exist in the real world, the final picture won't look as even and it would have.
To use a metaphor, if you apply the same amount of water to glasses that aren't as evenly full, only some of them will overflow.
The way to remedy this would be for them to take a step back and see what GTA has become.
It's not the cartoon GTA3 was anymore, and with deeper characters and a deeper world, they need to start implementing some deeper writing and deeper satire, put some thought into it.
Having listened to some of Lazlow's interviews though, i don't think that'll be happening, i have little faith in that guy to bring anything deeper than what we currently get.
Look at something like RDR, and (although not the perfect progressive manifesto) you can see what they can potentially do, without the shackles of the GTA franchise, and its expectations of "outrageous comedy that takes no prisoners", but that really, it's become just a tired dude yelling dick jokes in the street.
Risk Breaker
Member
The only "satire/parody" I've seen mentioned in here that is related to the topic is against women, with the three ladies in the video being a parody of feminists that get ridiculed and laughed at. Wow, such satire.
SolidSnakex
Member
I still put the blame on parenting rather than entertainment. I'm not saying that entertainment can't have an influence, but I think parenting plays a big role on what lets that influence in and just how much gets in. With that said, I understand and don't have a problem with comedians removing jokes from their routine when they see people are taking it the wrong way. I know Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle have done that in the past. I'm sure Rockstar has removed content because they felt they went too far in some area.
As much as I love GTAV there is an unfortunate strain of misogyny in it. The straw-man arguments about "what about murder blah blah blah" are totally irrelevant since the anti-feminine attitudes are so much deeper than just being able to kill / fuck hookers. It's just undeniably the case that women in general are presented as a two dimensional joke, in all respects from Michael's daughter who can only be famous from doing porn to the kidnapping of Miguel's wife (and her indifference towards it), to Trevor's aunt and friends doing the "we are women" exercises. The only remotely credible female characters are heist helpers you can hire which I give them credit for, but that's not much.
I know the game makes fun of everyone, but it certainly doesn't do so equally. Women are just always thrown in as some kind of total joke, which is just kind of embarrassing for the game.
I know the game makes fun of everyone, but it certainly doesn't do so equally. Women are just always thrown in as some kind of total joke, which is just kind of embarrassing for the game.
The women in that case are not the average feminists and they aren't going to emulate anything if they don't agree with something.
By the way there is a dialogue early in the game where Trevor explains that women should be respected and so on...
visiblemode
Member
Firstly, I like female playable characters and thought they missed the boat on adding some.
That said, most of the rest of this is ridiculous.
Depicting women as beautiful and desirable is misogyny? This has jumped the shark.
The most absurd part of criticizing GTA for sexism in the first place is that R* have long used GTA as a social criticism of American attitudes.
So even if the advertising in GTA is sexist, isn't that in line with the essential philosophies of this reviewer?
Was Mississipi Burning a racist movie? No, it was a movie depicting racism.
GTA depicts sexism but I don't consider the philosophies of it's creation to be sexist. In fact, if anything GTA is very anti-American, to a point that it's shocking at times.
However, what passes for sexism these days is beyond my comprehension. Sexism is meant to describe when one sex is represented to be superior to another one. All of the main characters in GTA are filth and criminal scum, as well as mass murderers...only in today's society could we view the exclusion of women in that group as an assertion that women are of less value.
That said, most of the rest of this is ridiculous.
Depicting women as beautiful and desirable is misogyny? This has jumped the shark.
The most absurd part of criticizing GTA for sexism in the first place is that R* have long used GTA as a social criticism of American attitudes.
So even if the advertising in GTA is sexist, isn't that in line with the essential philosophies of this reviewer?
Was Mississipi Burning a racist movie? No, it was a movie depicting racism.
GTA depicts sexism but I don't consider the philosophies of it's creation to be sexist. In fact, if anything GTA is very anti-American, to a point that it's shocking at times.
However, what passes for sexism these days is beyond my comprehension. Sexism is meant to describe when one sex is represented to be superior to another one. All of the main characters in GTA are filth and criminal scum, as well as mass murderers...only in today's society could we view the exclusion of women in that group as an assertion that women are of less value.
Ivan Amiibo
Banned
yep, the main characters and most of the characters in GTA period are assholes. That's kind of the point--playing as dumb criminals. But just like a lot of characters, this is interpreted by people as being "cool." See also: Walter White. That's not the creators' faults.
TheSpoiler
Member
Edit: I'm being trolled. Not worth it!
There is a satire/parody of facebook/zuckerberg in the game, when you make his phone explode during the show. So no, not only against women