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The Legacy of Feminist Frequency's Tropes vs Women Series
- Thread starter Shaanyboi
- Start date
MRA? Like Man's Right Activism?
If so, never thought Lianna's content would go that way. It was even my girlfriend who showed me her videos (she doesn't like the way Anita talk about things too).
I thought the videos where she counterpoints Anita were good, but I never saw anything besides that.
It had a planned outline and all the episodes got made.
I swear when I saw her very first video I thought "wow, there are many things I hadn't thought about, this is very interesting even if I don't agree with all of her points". The last thing I thought was "this will massively infuriate people who will literally send death threats to her". I'm going to miss her videos!
Even if I don't agree with everything she said, to be honest if I listened to most critics talk about games for a couple of hours I probably wouldn't agree with them on everything either.
Anita's videos are both successful and important because they kickstarted a lot of discussion, both of her initial points within the industry and a chunk of response that either showed the flaws of them or took the points even further. The larger, far more vicious response to a series of opinion pieces on computer games showed why it was absolutely necessary IMO. If the most visable element of the reaction had been the more thoughtful response videos that pointed out the mistakes, that would have been great and a further discussion worth watching. However, as the general GG reaction to Anita and feminism raged, as opposed to anything specific she actually said, it became more about a flashpoint of whether the industry supported rational critique from a feminist perspective (rather than a relatively basic discussion series by an individual) or shrieking idiots issuing death threats. It's not hard to see why so many devs wanted to show whose arguments they took more seriously.
Regarding the videos themselves, I thought the topics themselves were good choices, but some examples and arguments made were better than others, and they got better towards the end. If what she said was a fairly basic explanation of the tropes, to be fair, looking at the response, no wonder she felt like she had to keep it as simple as possible. Watching them again and seeing her state clearly time and again that 'it's possible to critique aspects of something you love', I have to admire the tenacity in continuing the series in the face of the disgusting amount of abuse thrown at her.
I still can't believe that so many people would find it so controversial. I watched them all and found it interesting and entertaining, even when lampooning games the I like.
If what comes out of it is more open discussion of cliches in games, both within and outside the industry, rather than one person becoming a focus with a whole movement's worth of tedious bile, then that would be great. As it is, I think the series was pretty good as a series of opinion pieces, but hugely impactful on the industry at large mainly because the storm around it. All the rage only gave it more coverage, more exposure, so at least one good thing came out of all that disgusting nonsense.
Anita's videos are both successful and important because they kickstarted a lot of discussion, both of her initial points within the industry and a chunk of response that either showed the flaws of them or took the points even further. The larger, far more vicious response to a series of opinion pieces on computer games showed why it was absolutely necessary IMO. If the most visable element of the reaction had been the more thoughtful response videos that pointed out the mistakes, that would have been great and a further discussion worth watching. However, as the general GG reaction to Anita and feminism raged, as opposed to anything specific she actually said, it became more about a flashpoint of whether the industry supported rational critique from a feminist perspective (rather than a relatively basic discussion series by an individual) or shrieking idiots issuing death threats. It's not hard to see why so many devs wanted to show whose arguments they took more seriously.
Regarding the videos themselves, I thought the topics themselves were good choices, but some examples and arguments made were better than others, and they got better towards the end. If what she said was a fairly basic explanation of the tropes, to be fair, looking at the response, no wonder she felt like she had to keep it as simple as possible. Watching them again and seeing her state clearly time and again that 'it's possible to critique aspects of something you love', I have to admire the tenacity in continuing the series in the face of the disgusting amount of abuse thrown at her.
I still can't believe that so many people would find it so controversial. I watched them all and found it interesting and entertaining, even when lampooning games the I like.
If what comes out of it is more open discussion of cliches in games, both within and outside the industry, rather than one person becoming a focus with a whole movement's worth of tedious bile, then that would be great. As it is, I think the series was pretty good as a series of opinion pieces, but hugely impactful on the industry at large mainly because the storm around it. All the rage only gave it more coverage, more exposure, so at least one good thing came out of all that disgusting nonsense.
You're going to, and are, get a lot of shit for this but it's not far off where I am with it. I'd say that simply pointing stuff out probably does have some benefit, shining a light on it will make some people think about and realise what they're doing
I'd say my biggest issue with the show was that it quite often didn't go far enough. She's not wrong about the Mario game's use of Peach (as an example), but she didn't go in to the history of why that was, why it's still not changed for certain types of games, the rise of retro etc
I'd stress though, I think this is the difference between critically looking at this stuff as a gamer, or primarily a gamer, and looking at it primarily from a feminist point of view. The history is, I suspect, irrelevant to her, only that the sexism needs to go. Which is fair enough, she's not wrong, if only because more interesting motivations might lead to more interesting games, and games that cater to more people
All in all, while I fell off it relatively early, I think that there was a critical video series on sexism in games, one with a bit of profile, I think it was needed
It's cool, I'm reading some of her stuff now, better than her videos.
And I was talking more about the content that could get associated by YT's algorithms.
I think her videos were great. The series has enlightened me a hell of a lot. It's made me question what's right and wrong in games, that I honestly wouldn't have even noticed. Her videos were also really interesting to watch and she chose examples of issues from across the years which probably struck more chords with more people.
I absolutely adore her for forcing people to talk about things they would not have otherwise. I also think she did so in a very smart way.
Anita is kind of a hero for me. I can only hope to have a fraction of the effect she's has on my most-loved medium some day.
I hate the fact that she has to hide from the internet because of intolerant folks. That sucks. We would all be better if someone like her felt less threatened and more encouraged by the internet.
Anita is kind of a hero for me. I can only hope to have a fraction of the effect she's has on my most-loved medium some day.
I hate the fact that she has to hide from the internet because of intolerant folks. That sucks. We would all be better if someone like her felt less threatened and more encouraged by the internet.
Joelstinton14
Member
Considering the amount of shit thrown at her, i would have disabled comments too. The vocal gaming community are not worth the time and effort. She gives talks at universities amongst other places, where the discourse is public and conservation and discussions is encouraged.
Sadly the gaming community that chose to engage with her are incapable of doing that.
Comments are shit unless you've got a dedicated group of mods to filter out the crap.
Can you explain why you think youtube comments are a good forum for debate?
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Yeah, youtube comments, the height of dialog. Seriously curious as to what conversation you would expect from a place littered with low effort trash gamergaters. If you want conversation about her work you go to places like here where we actually have a team putting that filth to the corner rather than allowing it stink up the whole place.
petran79
Banned
Universities are the best option indeed, but her videos are mostly addressed to audiences outside those institutions (both literally and metaphorically speaking).
Other expertised Youtubers on even more controversial fields allow comments on their channels and post their opinions accordingly.
If Youtube comments are trash, she could at least allow comments in her blog and moderate them accordingly.
In her initial funding campaign moderated blog comments were allowed.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Do these channels have a somewhat large group of basement-dwelling mouth-foaming manchildren ready to tear them down?
Here I will emulate exactly what the comment section would look like:
Code:
Top comments
PepeLeFrog 5 hours ago
Anita is a Con-artist
reply 1652
View 213 replies
Waifu Vivian James 31 minute ago
Agreed. See SargonOfAkkad's channel for more info.
reply 17
SkullsAreCoolBecauseIm14 58 minutes ago
Cunt whore slut bitch.
reply 702
AnimuReference#165 17 hours ago
How are we sure she even played these games? And I hear she stole people's money, is this true? Just asking questions.
reply 562
View 325 replies
PepeLeFrog 6 hours ago
She's a total conjob. I heard she bought a bunch of games to pose in front of and pocketed the rest.
reply 52
..... [insert thousands of comments insulting Anita or spreading false information].......
ARarePositivePost 6 hours ago
I thought it was pretty good. Some points were lost on me but overall it really got me thinking about female representation in games.
reply -1652
PepeLeFrog 5 hours ago
Don't fall for her lies. She's not a gamer and never has been. She's just trying to make money being a professional victim.
Waifu Vivian James 47 minute ago
To add to +PepeLeFrog, watch SargonOfAkkad's channel.
reply 17
SkullsAreCoolBecauseIm14 15 minutes ago
Cunt whore slut bitch.
reply 6Needs trump commentary
I hard checked out when she made the criticism that it was sexist to depict sex workers in games, rather than criticise specific instances of these depictions. In general I found a lot of her perspectives to be pretty outdated and conservative, even if there's a gem of truth to her arguements. I guess it set out to be a beginner's guide to feminist criticism, and it kind of achieved that, but it was remarkably shallow in some areas.
Obviously there were a lot of idiots attacking her right to engage in this kind of criticism, which was awful. I just found the criticism lacking, so I stopped engaging with it.
Obviously there were a lot of idiots attacking her right to engage in this kind of criticism, which was awful. I just found the criticism lacking, so I stopped engaging with it.
airmangataosenai
Member
In my eyes, her greatest legacy will always be her unfortunate and inadvertent role in facilitating the rise of the alt-right. Often her videos act more as a source content for anti feminist Youtubbe channels thsn as an effective form of communicating the ideas she intended. It is similar to the MTV Decoded series, often the channels based around vitriolic critique of her and her channel end up becoming far more popular than her own channel.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
People will always push against change to an old order. This was no exception and are growing pains.
The truth is, maybe it's confirmation bias, but I feel like women are beginning to be better represented in gaming. Just recently we had a female driven singleplayer game with Horizon, which was very successful. In the Fall we're going to have a female driven campaign with Battlefront 2. That's all without mentioning indie games where women have a protagonic role. Perhaps they are just a few examples, but it feels different from a few year ago. I think we're in a normalization progress in gaming culture, where women can have a big role in games, and that's what matters.
Even if the alt-right seems to be doing a lot of damage (and they are, with the constant harassing of people, specially feminists), they won't be successful in the long-term, when a new generation of people grow with games that treat women with respect.
Her videos were solid. They were also super basic, so I never understood the anger.
Like, we've known video games have a problem with female characters for ages at this point. Anybody who has played a game and saw the difference between armor sets for male characters and armor sets for female characters knows this, for example. Then Anita Sarkeesian decides to make videos about it and "gamers" lose their damn minds.
Like, we've known video games have a problem with female characters for ages at this point. Anybody who has played a game and saw the difference between armor sets for male characters and armor sets for female characters knows this, for example. Then Anita Sarkeesian decides to make videos about it and "gamers" lose their damn minds.
Human Trashcan
Banned
Not a huge fan of this series. Really basic 101 shit that is far behind on current feminist theory in some subjects. Not very intersectional at all, and pretty sex-negative. Doesn't seem to consider context when calling out some outfits as being impractical, ie. calling out SoulCalibur character for wearing impractical gear when half the dudes in those games are shirtless too. Also her criticisms of Bayonetta for example totally gloss over the fact that she's an icon of empowerment to many women, basically suggesting that if you like this, you've just been indoctrinated by the male gaze.
All that is far outweighed by the ridiculous hatred and vitriol she got, so any criticism of hers is likely to be weaponized against her, which is the unfortunate fact of the internet, or the world, these days.
At the very least it brought a lot of this to the forefront. But I really think she could've done a better job, especially when it comes to intersectionality (glossing over Bioshock Infinite's more racist aspects in her most recent video comes to mind). Especially given the fact that she took MONTHS per video, her work comes off as especially shallow.
All that is far outweighed by the ridiculous hatred and vitriol she got, so any criticism of hers is likely to be weaponized against her, which is the unfortunate fact of the internet, or the world, these days.
At the very least it brought a lot of this to the forefront. But I really think she could've done a better job, especially when it comes to intersectionality (glossing over Bioshock Infinite's more racist aspects in her most recent video comes to mind). Especially given the fact that she took MONTHS per video, her work comes off as especially shallow.
Subbed for quick reference. Thanks OP!
If you think she hasn't had a significant impact on the gaming industry in a positive way you're mad.
She's helping lead the charge toward equality and proper representation, she's doing wonderful work and while I think her series has its flaws it's still essential viewing for anyone with an honest interest in the future of the industry.
If you think she hasn't had a significant impact on the gaming industry in a positive way you're mad.
She's helping lead the charge toward equality and proper representation, she's doing wonderful work and while I think her series has its flaws it's still essential viewing for anyone with an honest interest in the future of the industry.
kinoki
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
All these great women who refuse to be quiet are essential to our society. I want my daughter to look up to them and be inspired. Anita is great. I hope she keeps doing quality stuff. I'll watch it and recommend it.
Human Trashcan
Banned
you may have heard of something called gamergate? and literal death threats, doxing, and the sheer ridiculous volume of hate she received on social media and irl. Youtube comments are a cesspit at the best of times. Not worth it. You're kinda showing a lack of understanding of what she's endured the last few years.
But that's how it goes for such things, doesn't it?
Everyone knows the status quo, and those who benefit from it are obviously absolutely fine with how things are. So, when something (or someone) comes that might disrupt it, you can't not expect a reaction from them.
You can just look at GAF as a reason for why she doesn't. GAF is a heavily moderated forum with a staff of moderators, and yet look at this thread and some of the negative posts so far...
...and then think back/look at how "active" these threads used to be back when she first started doing these videos and were full of posts like this, before people knew the kinds of negative posts these videos generated:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=520365
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=569689
Anita's youtube channels/blog would be even more work since there would be more random people trying to participate, people not worried about a GAF TOS/getting banned to say what they "actually want to say", to the point of making actual physical threats against her/hacking her. Internet comments aren't the avenue for her to have dialog.
I always have to wonder why they think this will go well for them...
Men aren't in a minority in terms of representation, and they have a much greater breadth of representation beyond objectification.
So yes, while it happens to men to it has nowhere near the same impact.
When we get to the point that women have equal rep in games, we can make the argument about "men too" whenever someone complains about a skimpy female outfit. Until then, can we be real about it please?
angelic
Banned
Can't stand her stuff, using fake evidence to push agendas that arent there. Games where you can attack people are constantly misrepresented as being violence on women only (like the strippers in Hitman that were sympathetically portrayed, which was ignored). Steals footage and asks 200,000 for it? She does more damage to women in gaming than she helps.
The Greek Freak
Member
Youtube comments are fine at times, but her comment sections would be a disaster area even if her videos were magically perfect.
That stuff was so cringe worthy and played directly in people thinking she didn't really even care to play the game or accurately study video of said game.
Just lazy imo.
Evidence of this? She may have got stuff wrong but actually faking evidence?
This is utter nonsense.
Or can you back up your apparent bullshit with some actual evidence?
angelic
Banned
Like the hitman strippers being described as items in the game for the players use and abuse, when they were actually sympathetic characters with a LOT of dialogue, and you take out their malicious boss. Total misrepresentation.
this guys video at the start
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgvYJ9Ei90Y&ytbChannel=NateTalksToYou
Human Trashcan
Banned
But she made an argument about practicality, when SC is clearly a fantasy series that has no aspirations towards realism. There are definitely examples to call out, like how Ivy got bigger boobs and skimpier outfits with each installment, but sometimes she does not consider the context of the game itself that the outfits or characters appear in. She seems to think that every single female combatant in every game must wear practical clothes, regardless of context. That's what I'm getting at. There's a difference between a ridiculous design like Quiet in MGSV or a Sophitia or what have you in SoulCalibur, a game that also has Maxi and Kilik and all kinds of hot dudes in it in equally impractical clothes. This isn't a "what about MALE SEXUALIZATION HUH" point, but maybe my last post was not nuanced enough.
Basketball
Member
it's only going to end bad
All I will remember is all the gray names when it started and the later episodes ... threads got smaller of course
It's not "total" misrepresentation.
Even if the example she gave isn't the best because it might be an example of a time where the stripper has more character depth (do they in that game, really? Not played it so don't know), her overall point is perfectly reasonable and valid.
And while I share your critique that she sometimes selects points like this that harm her position a little, she's undoubtedly doing good in an overall sense.
Your statement that she's making things worse is utter bullshit, sorry.
And smh at the linked video....
Everything you wrote is utterly beside the point here.
There is more weight to the female characters designs in those games /because/ there is a huge disparity in representation, and the overall percentage of female representation falls into the problematic category.
In a vacuum, or in a perfect world, sure, but not as it stands.
angelic
Banned
The problem is that while her cause is a good one, women are definitely uses as trophies and tokens in gaming and it should be challenged. She just isnt the person with the capacity to do it correctly, and seems to be suspiciously profit motivated rather than furthering the true cause. Also she's not a gamer but pretends she is, which saps any remaining credibility from the arguments.
tldr: good cause, badly argued.
I will agree with the Hitman one actually, forgot about that.
"Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters"
Ugh.
angelic
Banned
No worries, my opinion is that poorly thought out feminism can be as damaging as chauvinism. Her misrepresentation of the subject and poor selection of targets weakens her position and credibility. Again, the cause is a good one, but listing a kickstarter at 200,000 dollars for 5 videos when your last one was for 6000 smacks to me as profiteering, which again damages the cause.
Damaging her own argument and "doing more harm than good" are at very different ends of the scale.
It's disappointing you're doubling down on your bullshit here.
The profit stuff is a separate issue, nothing to do with the value of the videos themselves, the fact you reached for it to back up your point here proves you know it's a flimsy one.
angelic
Banned
It's dissappointing you cant be respectful of someone else's opinion, I wouldnt dream of calling your words "bullshit". That isn't mature debating, it takes the conversation down a notch.
The thing is a lot of her example are good ones, I'd say more so than not, her videos were far from perfect but she is far from" damaging".
You made a supremely bullshit statement though, and you doubled down without making sense of it.
We all need to be called on our bullshit when it happens. Now you're playing the victim? Jesus, don't be so cowardly about it!
Man stop being so hostile, doesn't help anything.
Sorry Hux, but when people make shit statements like "she's done more harm than good" they deserve to be called on it.
Especially when they double down like above.
Perhaps I could have more patience, but I'm really not the one who deserves the lecture here...