Support NeoGAF

[casabolg]

Saying women kept themselves from male dominated areas sure is a simple and false way of looking at history.

Many women also tried to hold back the idea of women's suffrage.
I suppose you are correct though. It's not really men or women who did it but rather a mutual shift in culture. I'm sorry about that.

 

[pants]

Nintendo includes highly sexualized female characters in everything? When was the last time Peach put on a bikini and Mario gave her a long lusty stare?

There's something pretty obviously different about Krystal, even if you don't think it's sexism.

The implication that they changed Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox because "oh god a woman" is dumb. Nintendo do this with everything. Was the end result (Star Fox) an example of the trope, yes, but it was in no way shape or form done with the malice implied in this video

 

[akidnamededdy]

afaik she was relegated to cute side-stories in that game. while Mario contests with the grand adventure, Peach deals with creepy otaku nerds who want to fuck her.

Did you play the game? It's been a while for me but I'm pretty sure you gain full control over her and Bowser an can switch between all the characters at most any time.

Saying women kept themselves from male dominated areas sure is a simple and false way of looking at history.

Hey whatever you do, don't elaborate on this ok?

 

[Dr.Acula]

I'm guessing she's just outling tropes and discussing where they exist in games. She's not providing counter-examples because that's not what she's interested in.

It would be like discussing institutional racism as a barrier to those seeking political office. You talk about how there's a current problem, and you give examples of visible minorities and how they've been discriminated against in politics.

Yes, Obama is in the Whitehouse, but that doesn't mean we live in a post-racial world now, and that a black man running for political office isn't going to be facing an uphill battle.

 

[Trey]

It's not; what is a radical position is using moral condemnation and judgment to hector people into doing it.

The responsibility cannot always be this one-way street.

The point of this particular series is to not condemn or hector. It is to be critical of the industry, which is not inherently a malicious act. Pointing out the harm these tropes do, and discussing the failings of the industry when it comes to accommodating women, is a fair proposition. No one worth a second thought will proclaim that developers and publishers should be forced into making certain games by any lawful means. But persuading the industry to change its ways through consumer feedback, both literally and by the power of the wallet, is what consumerism is all about.

Very few will argue that contemporary shooters and AAA game design are not played out and that developers shouldn't look to make other kinds of games alongside those that exist within that saturated genre. Why is there such objection to that very same consumer imperative when it comes to wanting better representation of women in games?

 

[Devolution]

Many women also tried to hold back the idea of women's suffrage.
I suppose you are correct though. It's not really men or women who did it but rather a mutual shift in culture.

What is your point?

Mine is that history has shunted women off into secretarial positions and told them in school that they shouldn't bother with STEM because it requires math.

If you want to whitewash the fuck out of history though I guess you could simply say women "avoided" things.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Saying women kept themselves from male dominated areas sure is a simple and false way of looking at history.

Most professions were male dominated. People are talking about the differential uptake of women into fields like law, vs fields like computer science or videogames. It's not something which should be immediately dismissed by falling back on a standard catechism, because that would be lazy.

Of course, the explanation you're quoting IS simple and false, but it is a partial truth.

 

[Doctor Decimate]

I'm guessing she's just outling tropes and discussing where they exist in games. She's not providing counter-examples because that's not what she's interested in.

and either way, i'm pretty sure the number of examples would pretty vastly outweigh the counter-examples

i don't understand what counter-examples are supposed to prove. that the trope isn't completely prevalent? i don't think anyone's saying that. and it ultimately is going to come down to "oh, you've got one game with a completely positive portrayal of women? that's cute, i've got five that say otherwise."

 

[Devolution]

Most professions were male dominated. People are talking about the differential uptake of women into fields like law, vs fields like computer science or videogames. It's not something which should be immediately dismissed by falling back on a standard catechism, because that would be lazy.

Of course, the explanation you're quoting IS simple and false, but it is a partial truth.

Nope. Women were given menial jobs with menial pay and discriminated against when they didn't buckle into whatever pre-determined job they should have or stayed home to take care of the kids. There is a whole history of job discrimination against women so to act like "they simply avoided math and engineering" is bullshit of the highest caliber.

 

[Kodiak]

Your posts are awesome. Why don't more women study computer science and engineering?

It is a major issue in the field. At my last job, there were about 40 programmers and only one of them was female. My friends work at Bungie and they have just informed me that there are "like two or three" female programmers there. And that they are both "gamer gurls" who like Call of Duty and Halo.

The problem is that right now, the only women coming in are exceptions to the rule, who become interested in a predominantly male hobby. We need a broader range of games that will genuinely interest a broader range of people. We need more of what That Game Company is doing. A lot more.

 

[Oersted]

I never understood the whole uber focus that stereotypes in general gets in the American media and the whole politically correct discourse. A stereotype is not necessarily a bad thing, nor every single of them something born out of spite / hate towards a certain minority or social group.

There was a very interesting article (can't find it right now) about why videogames widely used stereotypes, even more than other forms of media such as movies or music, and it really made quite a lot of sense.

The need for easily recognizable enemies / characters (specially at the early stages of videogaming) coupled with a medium not so much prone for elaborate discourse (because you aren't going to talk to Counterstrike terrorists, are you?) makes it for a really stereotype - prone type of medium, and it does affect almost every single human potrayed in a game, starting with "bald muscled yet not too much bright hero", and of course followed by "fragile damisel in distress".

This and the evolutionary psychology is pretty much the biggest crap. With this kind of logic we would never evolved. We are talking here about end of the 20st century, beginning of the 21st century. About a medium which wishes to be seen as art. But as soon as criticism comes:
It always has been that way. It works that way.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Nope. Women were given

Do you see the issue?

menial jobs with menial pay and discriminated against when they didn't buckle into whatever pre-determined job they should have or stayed home to take care of the kids. There is a whole history of job discrimination against women so to act like "they simply avoided math and engineering" is bullshit of the highest caliber.

 

[Sblargh]

I liked Peach

Loved in her 2
Kirby was my main is SSB due to cousin-sister hogging her =/

I just take games for games

I just want to play them and enjoy them

I use them as an outlet to escape the real world, not the real world try to force itself into it

Me too, that's why I hate when real world sexism gets into my game. Can't I just jump over the spiked dragon who spits fire and then cut the bridge to dump him in the lava? Isn't that cool enough?

 

[Devolution]

Do you see the issue?

I don't see your semantic point here. Women were discriminated against. To say they "avoided" various jobs is revisionist history. But go ahead keep trying to pull the wool over other's eyes.

 

[casabolg]

What is your point?

Mine is that history has shunted women off into secretarial positions and told them in school that they shouldn't bother with STEM because it requires math.

If you want to whitewash the fuck out of history though I guess you could simply say women "avoided" things.

Mine is the answer to why there aren't many women in STEM degrees is that both men and women have trouble getting fully adjusted to the gender of the other and take time to fully adjust naturally into those roles. No more cooties. It's a very mutual thing. You're right that I shouldn't have said that of the target group.

My evidence is that STEM degree gender disparity is only a first world issue. If you give a collective of people choice they change more gradually.

 

[NZNova]

Well I thought it was a pretty good video. Looking forward to the rest of 'em to see what she has to say.

 

[FieryBalrog]

I don't see your semantic point here. Women were discriminated against. To say they "avoided" various jobs is revisionist history. But go ahead keep trying to pull the wool over other's eyes.

The issue is that you think jobs and industry and professions are a matter of 'being given'.

 

[Sblargh]

Mine is the answer to why there aren't many women in STEM degrees is that both men and women have trouble getting fully adjusted to the gender of the other and take time to fully adjust naturally into those roles. No more cooties. It's a very mutual thing. You're right that I shouldn't have said that of the target group.

My evidence is that STEM degree gender disparity is only a first world issue. If you give a collective of people choice they change more gradually.

My sister and one other girl were the only females in her classroom when she took engineering, but I guess that just makes Brazil a first world country.

 

[Devolution]

The issue is that you think jobs and industry and professions are a matter of 'being given'.

If you want to play semantic games by all means do it without me.

 

[FieryBalrog]

If you want to play semantic games by all means do it without me.

OK, I don't think you know what 'semantic games' are because this isn't it.

 

[zoukka]

Video was straightforward and didn't leave much to debate on.

 

[GraveRobberX]

Me too, that's why I hate when real world sexism gets into my game. Can't I just jump over the spiked dragon who spits fire and then cut the bridge to dump him in the lava? Isn't that cool enough?

Yes but I was fucking 10 when I played these titles, I never thought of them like that

Even now I never approached this medium like that

I just saw it as entertainment and to keep me busy

 

[casabolg]

My sister and one other girl were the only females in her classroom when she took engineering, but I guess that just makes Brazil a first world country.

Not sure what to tell you. I'm sure there are a lot of women who don't experience sexism when entering the tech industry either. That doesn't change anything for the collective though.

 

[PolarBearsClub]

I may be talking to myself here since this post was made a while ago. But a bunch of people have quoted it, so I decided to respond to it.

Academic nerd / methodology fight incoming, but...

"Tropes" constitute a terribly inept way of approaching research and critique.

It's the same formula I see in graduate student papers on a daily basis. One simply plows through texts in search of simplified patterns or references to familiar archetypes and then adds them up, implicitly making the leap that--by definition--any widespread pattern or recurrent element is a binding or a restriction of the freedom of some party, a barrier to self-creation and autonomy. That, and a second implicit leap to revive a kind of classic top-down causality (ie., patriarchy etc) presumed to be driving these instances in its own self-interest, which is a simplified conception largely at odds with the tenets of "discourse critique" one claims to be methodologically adopting (typically citing Foucault or other familiar names, but only as a shorthand justification for the kind of haphazard pop research you find on TVtropes or elsewhere; rarely is it a coherent read of Foucault beyond adopting the mantra that everything is power, meaning every pattern can now be called a danger, a "disciplining" practice).

So, the inductive conclusion that there is literature that perpetuates stereotypes (or as Sarkeesian puts it: recycles popular "tropes") that men have power and women are powerless is a notion that bothers you? And it bothers you not because you believe that in the real world there are an equal number of men and women in power, but because this woman has used tropes (in other words, popular stories in videogames) as evidence to create her inductive argument?

It's simplistic at best, but at worst displays a bizarrely retrograde notion of autonomy that still baffles me for being wedded to movements (poststructuralism, etc) that were meant to be prominent refusals to accept anything like a transcendent freedom of human choice or real individual autonomy in the first place. There's no un-patterned or trope-free self there to be rescued, nor is there such thing as a neutral concept of humanity that isn't already deeply gendered; that doesn't mean we're stuck, it just means that we continuously use and adapt these patterns and elements to play and create new meanings. But if you slip even for a moment into a language of restoring each person's choice to become what they truly are--what they truly were before being "coerced" by these roles and patterns--you're lapsing into an uncritical nostalgia for a kind of ahistorical autonomy that is incompatible with these theories. The problem is much more pronounced with all the talk of "strong" characters and role models, as if this very notion of individual strength and independence weren't a product of a particular (relatively recent) era of history and the ideals that are most compatible with the needs of the modern market.

Sarkeesian's argument isn't that there exists a neutral humanity, asexual and attainable. It's that the damsel in distress stereotype is pervasive in videogames and is a shitty way to paint every major female character. The lamentation for the absence of a "strong" (a word you've put in quotations for reasons unclear to me) Nintendo female character isn't "nostalgia for ahistorical autonomy." Women with power exist. And when I use the word power I am not referring to theoretical power. I am referring to women with motives, ambition, and a career -- characteristics found in Tetra for the first 2/3 of Wind Waker. And whether or not these notions of strength are contingent on the "needs of the modern market" is irrelevant. Again, the argument is not that there is such a thing as neutral gender roles. The argument is that there should be more women in video games that aren't reduced to damsels in distress -- an argument, by the way, in which it is perfectly appropriate to make your point by "plowing through texts in search of simplified patterns," as you put it. Your struggle with the definition of power in the context of things such as knights and princesses and dragons is, I suspect, unique to you. There is a pattern in the way video game stories are told that disturbs Sarkeesian. She has made a video about it.

What you'll begin to notice over time is that real change and flexibility of human expression or action is never brought about by the earnest social theorist who envisions herself a savior with notepad in hand. Quite the opposite; it's the comedians, creative writers, and anyone else who knows the truth of patterns and tropes--that they are never quite what they appear.

Whether or not Sarkeesian will be remembered in the Internet literature of tomorrow is not for you to decide -- obviously. Also, you've left out another group of people who dictate change in the "human expression" (are we still talking about gender roles in popular culture?): law makers. Because, you know, gender inequality is something that actually exists.

To contrive a simple example: the young feminist researcher will watch something like two high school boys joking with one another, one punching the other's arm hard, and will read it as a straightforward repetition of various patterns of masculinity as a club of violence (this kind of analysis is actually a genre, "masculinity studies" conducted almost exclusively by women from a feminist orientation). But put down the lazy reading of tropes, look a bit closer, and you might see that the same strike in the arm is actually operating somewhat contrary to expectation in that context, as a breaking of the usual masculine barriers to close bodily contact with friends, creatively employing a mimicry of aggression only as a kind of playful ruse to touch a friend. You will often find that these actions are, if anything, ways that members of that group subvert the norms of their roles by toying with them and adapting to contexts. Any time you think you understand another subgroup or culture on the basis of their outward expressions and patterns--quickly tying these to roles and power--you're likely going to make truly embarrassing misreads and mistakes. Humans are much more clever in everyday speech and action than one might recognize; not fashioning themselves in a vacuum or from pure choices, but playing with the bounds of who they are, what gendered and raced bodies they inhabit. Everything you read as a re-inscription of norms ends up playing out more like a comic inside joke when you move to the inside of a group and understand the way these patterns are traded and mimicked with countless forms of play and irony.

Yes, this is a contrived example (read: straw man) of a feminist interpretation of something that never really happened. Again, the video in question is not about analyzing how men have asserted their power in the real world.

And that brings me to Mario. To read these games as part of a classic concept of male heroism is rather absurd, but typical of the tropes style of reasoning. In fact, Mario has grown increasingly to be more like a child rather than any kind of male archetype; this was already in evidence in the 2D games as they became more detailed (look at the art of Super Mario World, and the whole concept of being a tiny hero that must use mushrooms to equal his enemies or even his princess' stature), but with the 3D games, they took it even further by giving his walk and gait a kind of toddler-like quality, in addition to his comic body proportions. His high voice and childlike movement are at the heart of the franchise, and far from a power fantasy, the 3D levels often have evoked a kind of playground feel of trying to make it to the top of a structure but squealing with delight rather than terror each time he falls.

There's a reason that Mario has always been one of the rare franchises to appeal to women players as much as men: we don't play it as a rescue fantasy, but instead as a retreading of childhood wonder and novelty. The princess, in this context, is hardly to be read as a misrepresented female character; that's truly stretching the way the series functions, embarrassingly so. There is in fact nothing to be unmasked by the researcher here: everyone who plays the game recognizes the conscious use of an old damsel / hero motif. But far from somehow reinforcing that model, this re-imagining of that quest in the form of a childlike, high-pitched protagonist serves if anything to deflect simplistic conceptions of manhood as power. But the earnest researcher armed with tropes... just misses the mark every damn time.

Not sure how I can argue as to whether or not Mario has been made to look more like a child in recent years. I will say, however, I do not know any children with a mustache. And although I don't view Mario as heinous, misogynist literature, I do think Sarkeesian has a point about it's role in laying the ground work for how storytelling works in video games: save the girl.

And saying that Peach, "in this context, is hardly to be read as a misrepresented female character; that's truly stretching the way the series functions, embarrassingly so" is a non-argument. It may be stretching the importance of her role in the series (the Mario series always puts gameplay first), but it is exactly the role she plays in the story of Mario, however simple it may be. Miyamoto could have made the Mario series about anything -- eating a pizza, recovering a golden plunger -- but he made it about saving a princess. She is the damsel in distress in videogames. And a "damsel in distress" is not a problematic way to paint every female character in a videogame because it's a trope, and thus more ammunition for Sarkeesia's trope-based argument in her video. It's problematic because it perpetuates a stereotype that girls are weak and incapable of solving problems.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Academic nerd / methodology fight incoming, but...

"Tropes" constitute a terribly inept way of approaching research and critique.

It's the same formula I see in graduate student papers on a daily basis. One simply plows through texts in search of simplified patterns or references to familiar archetypes and then adds them up, implicitly making the leap that--by definition--any widespread pattern or recurrent element is a binding or a restriction of the freedom of some party, a barrier to self-creation and autonomy. That, and a second implicit leap to revive a kind of classic top-down causality (ie., patriarchy etc) presumed to be driving these instances in its own self-interest, which is a simplified conception largely at odds with the tenets of "discourse critique" one claims to be methodologically adopting (typically citing Foucault or other familiar names, but only as a shorthand justification for the kind of haphazard pop research you find on TVtropes or elsewhere; rarely is it a coherent read of Foucault beyond adopting the mantra that everything is power, meaning every pattern can now be called a danger, a "disciplining" practice).

It's simplistic at best, but at worst displays a bizarrely retrograde notion of autonomy that still baffles me for being wedded to movements (poststructuralism, etc) that were meant to be prominent refusals to accept anything like a transcendent freedom of human choice or real individual autonomy in the first place. There's no un-patterned or trope-free self there to be rescued, nor is there such thing as a neutral concept of humanity that isn't already deeply gendered; that doesn't mean we're stuck, it just means that we continuously use and adapt these patterns and elements to play and create new meanings. But if you slip even for a moment into a language of restoring each person's choice to become what they truly are--what they truly were before being "coerced" by these roles and patterns--you're lapsing into an uncritical nostalgia for a kind of ahistorical autonomy that is incompatible with these theories. The problem is much more pronounced with all the talk of "strong" characters and role models, as if this very notion of individual strength and independence weren't a product of a particular (relatively recent) era of history and the ideals that are most compatible with the needs of the modern market.

Damn, I missed this post. Fucking brilliant. I love the bit about top-down causality because it's something I've often noticed when reading over this type of analysis. It applies to things like foreign relations, too- who is the actor, and who is the acted upon; and there is an implicit set of assumptions about the righteousness of being acted upon, which is why people fight over who gets to fill this role.

There's no un-patterned or trope-free self there to be rescued

This is also a fantastic line.

 

[michaelius]

she takes 0 issue with 'wanting to play the hero.' you can play the hero without having a disempowered female as the goal of the game.

There's only so much themes that can be used to reasonably motivate someone saving the world despite insane difficulties and minimal chances for success.

- saving loved ones
- revenge
- sense of duty

 

[Sblargh]

Yes but I was fucking 10 when I played these titles, I never thought of them like that

Even now I never approached this medium like that

I just saw it as entertainment and to keep me busy

I'm not telling you to feel guilty or to start hating these games, it's just an awareness issue. Now you are aware, for better or for worse, the next time you turn on a videogame and there's a pretty girl in a bikini stuck inside a bubble waiting to be rescued you will go "aw, fuck, was this really needed?" then you'll come on neogaf and bitch about how this is unecessary and people will tell you to chill the fucking out and you won't, because this is bullshit, they could have made it so that you could play this fucking game without feeling that something is off, that someone is getting their kicks on the expense of someone else.

You are one of us, now. Welcome.
It sucks.

 

[redcrayon]

Not if she is capable or intelligent in any way. The problem of the trope is that it reduces women to the status of a sexy lamp basically. She is just pretty to look at, but other than that, she sits and wait.

I thought this point was clear when she showed how Zelda escapes not only ganondorf, but also the trope, for most of OoT only to be paralyzed helpless inside a crystal literally 3 minutes after wearing the pink dress.

While Anita mentions it in passing, it would have been interesting to talk about how, a decade later in Spirit Tracks, the idea of Zelda waiting for Link to explore and save her and Hyrule is referenced directly by Zelda herself, deconstructed and played with.

While Zelda is always a princess in the lore of the permanently endangered Hyrule, (and thus a damsel in some level of distress by definition) Link is just a cypher for the player- the 'hero in green' could be a 'heroine in green' and it absolutely wouldn't change a thing, a female descendant of Link could be really interesting, if very risky. It is good that in more recent games Zelda gets to do more- she has been a tough pirate, a possessed knight etc, but she isn't the protagonist, and to be fair everyone in Hyrule is permanently in need of Link's help.

I actually think that Zelda is a stronger character for not running around stabbing things and hurling fireballs at moblins- it gives her character some dignity and makes her seem more like distant royalty. If she was more active, her epic magic abilities, which are usually shown at some point, would pretty much overshadow Link, whose main ability is being able to carry a dozen tools and 20 bombs in a belt pouch and having endless reserves of courage. Besides, she's in Brawl.

But anyway, yeah, she's a damsel in distress alright, and doesn't need to be in peril every game, but they are sort of trapped in that she is the titular character but not the protagonist, so she needs an important plot role that explains why she isn't running around being the heroine, seeing as she is the next most capable adventurer in the kingdom after the player. In OOT, for example, I often wondered why Sheik didn't just solve the dungeons herself, seeing as she clearly knew more than me, was more acrobatic, was a wizard and could teleport!

 

[Trent Strong]

Sarkeesian's argument isn't that there exists a neutral humanity, asexual and attainable. It's that the damsel in distress stereotype is pervasive in videogames and is a shitty way to paint every major female character. The lamentation for the absence of a "strong" (a word you've put in quotations for reasons unclear to me) Nintendo female character isn't "nostalgia for ahistorical autonomy." Women with power exist. And when I use the word power I am not referring to theoretical power. I am referring to women with motives, ambition, and a career -- characteristics found in Tetra for the first 2/3 of Wind Waker. And whether or not these notions of strength are contingent on the "needs of the modern market" is irrelevant. Again, the argument is not that there is such a thing as neutral gender roles. The argument is that there should be more women in video games that aren't reduced to damsels in distress -- an argument, by the way, in which it is perfectly appropriate to make your point by "plowing through texts in search of simplified patterns," as you put it. Your struggle with the definition of power in the context of things such as knights and princesses and dragons is, I suspect, unique to you. There is a pattern in the way video game stories are told that disturbs Sarkeesian. She has made a video about it.

I can't think of many damsels in distress in games made in the past console generation.

 

[boinx]

Well that wasn't so bad. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[ReiGun]

You can ask all you want, but what matters is who purchases it.

And the civil rights movement is an example of breaking down legal barriers and institutional racism. There really is no comparable level of hostility towards women in gaming that even requires this kind of a movement. They can just enroll in classes and go find a job and no one is stopping them. I've heard in several threads like these, anecdotal evidence from game developers posting on GAF that these places are dying to hire more women but none are applying and few are interested in going through the schooling for it right now.

This isn't even getting into the generally poor work environment that many game developers have to deal with. Job insecurity, crunch time, not exactly conducive to juggling career and family when comparable levels of software engineering outside of gaming pay more and have better working conditions.

And if the bulk of the industry is still men, is it sexist for them to try and assume that they know what women want? If they make games for little girls with pink and ponies but they're actually trying, is that better or worse? Both get criticized in my experience. As I said in my last post, even many of the games that come from prominent female game developers get criticized.

It makes me wonder if there really is feminist friendly gaming. What would it actually look like? What are people demanding when they ask for "better" women in gaming?

I honestly thought that's what they were trying with the new Tomb Raider, but everyone seemed to literally put it at the top of their sexism offender list. Luckily, it looks like the game is selling well, so I expect they'll try again for the sequel. Gotta have those sales or it's all meaningless. How many people here tried to encourage people to buy Tomb Raider? How many encouraged people to not buy it? Just rhetorical questions, but I have to wonder.

Anyway, the video series is out. And people are definitely talking about it more, so we'll see if your hopes come to fruition. I honestly think they were already well underway a while ago. Zelda, FFX-2, FFXIII, Mirror's Edge, Uncharted, Prince of Persia (2008), Portal, Just Dance, Guitar Hero, Wii Fit, Remember Me, social and mobile gaming, and on and on.

How many people here are trying to convince people to buy Remember Me?


Totally agree.

The civil rights movement was about many things. Just because the barriers in this topic are more social than legal doesn't mean the analogy isn't a good one.

The bolded reminded me of one of my favorite comic writers: Greg Rucka. Rucka has received a ton of praise for his "strong female characters" during the course of his career. When asked what his secret was, he stated (paraphrasing) "I talk to women. I interview women. I ask their opinions on my characters. I treat it like research, which is what writers are supposed to do anyway."

If game designers want to appeal to women without assuming they know what women like, they should just talk to them. Specifically, if they want a "feminist friendly" game, talk to some feminists and get their input.

 

[Suairyu]

I can't think of many damsels in distress in games made in the past console generation.

And they likely fall under one of the other sexist tropes the series will explore.

 

[Oersted]

I may be talking to myself here since this post was made a while ago. But a bunch of people have quoted it, so I decided to respond to it.



So, the inductive conclusion that there is literature that perpetuates stereotypes (or as Sarkeesian puts it: recycles popular "tropes") that men have power and women are powerless is a notion that bothers you? And it bothers you not because you believe that in the real world there are an equal number of men and women in power, but because this woman has used tropes (in other words, popular stories in videogames) as evidence to create her inductive argument?




Sarkeesian's argument isn't that there exists a neutral humanity, asexual and attainable. It's that the damsel in distress stereotype is pervasive in videogames and is a shitty way to paint every major female character. The lamentation for the absence of a "strong" (a word you've put in quotations for reasons unclear to me) Nintendo female character isn't "nostalgia for ahistorical autonomy." Women with power exist. And when I use the word power I am not referring to theoretical power. I am referring to women with motives, ambition, and a career -- characteristics found in Tetra for the first 2/3 of Wind Waker. And whether or not these notions of strength are contingent on the "needs of the modern market" is irrelevant. Again, the argument is not that there is such a thing as neutral gender roles. The argument is that there should be more women in video games that aren't reduced to damsels in distress -- an argument, by the way, in which it is perfectly appropriate to make your point by "plowing through texts in search of simplified patterns," as you put it. Your struggle with the definition of power in the context of things such as knights and princesses and dragons is, I suspect, unique to you. There is a pattern in the way video game stories are told that disturbs Sarkeesian. She has made a video about it.




Whether or not Sarkeesian will be remembered in the Internet literature of tomorrow is not for you to decide -- obviously. Also, you've left out another group of people who dictate change in the "human expression" (are we still talking about gender roles in popular culture?): law makers. Because, you know, gender inequality is something that actually exists.



Yes, this is a contrived example (read: straw man) of a feminist interpretation of something that never really happened. Again, the video in question is not about analyzing how men have asserted their power in the real world.



Not sure how I can argue as to whether or not Mario has been made to look more like a child in recent years. I will say, however, I do not know any children with a mustache. And although I don't view Mario as heinous, misogynist literature, I do think Sarkeesian has a point about it's role in laying the ground work for how storytelling works in video games: save the girl.

And saying that Peach, "in this context, is hardly to be read as a misrepresented female character; that's truly stretching the way the series functions, embarrassingly so" is a non-argument. It may be stretching the importance of her role in the series (the Mario series always puts gameplay first), but it is exactly the role she plays in the story of Mario, however simple it may be. Miyamoto could have made the Mario series about anything -- eating a pizza, recovering a golden plunger -- but he made it about saving a princess. She is the damsel in distress in videogames. And a "damsel in distress" is not a problematic way to paint every female character in a videogame because it's a trope, and thus more ammunition for Sarkeesia's trope-based argument in her video. It's problematic because it perpetuates a stereotype that girls are weak and incapable of solving problems.

Finally someone. Thank you.

 

[Amon37]

Watched 3/4 of it and it's pretty much what I expected. I just don't understand what it introduces we don't already know and why some people payed for this to get made.

 

[Devolution]

The civil rights movement was about many things. Just because the barriers in this topic are more social than legal doesn't mean the analogy isn't a good one.

The bolded reminded me of one of my favorite comic writers: Greg Rucka. Rucka has received a ton of praise for his "strong female characters" during the course of his career. When asked what his secret was, he stated (paraphrasing) "I talk to women. I interview women. I ask their opinions on my characters. I treat it like research, which is what writers are supposed to do anyway."

If game designers want to appeal to women without assuming they know what women like, they should just talk to them. Specifically, if they want a "feminist friendly" game, talk to some feminists and get their input.

There's been legal stuff too unless people want to ignore the advances in sexual harassment and equal pay legislation.

 

[casabolg]

Watched 3/4 of it and it's pretty much what I expected. I just don't understand what it introduces we don't already know and why some people payed for this to get made.

Gotta fight patriarchy somehow.

 

[ReiGun]

There's been legal stuff too unless people want to ignore the advances in sexual harassment and equal pay legislation.

Good point.

 

[Trey]

To add to PolarBearsClub's rebuttal, Anita addressed the argument hachi laid out in her very video. Simply: the trope itself is not sexist, it is the repetition and acceptance of the trope that perpetuates stereotypes which are harmful to the image of women. The particular story of Mario is not particularly sexist just because it is a man saving a woman. Those stories are valid in a vacuum and are but one single characterization from which to draw a conclusion.

The stagnant and willful exploitation of the trope is the issue at hand, especially considering a relative dearth of counter entities that portray women in a positive light.

 

[FieryBalrog]

I will point out that there may not be an equal number of men and women in power, but there aren't an equal number of men and women at the margins of society either. There are a lot more men at the margins- prison, death by violence, suicide, social ostracism, what have you. These tropes are also perpetuated in games, as in other media; based, as is the other set of tropes, on some underlying facts. It seems to me a little perverse to be always pouring boundless energy into rectifying one, and critiquing one, while completely ignoring and glossing over the other, to the point that it is nearly invisible- out of sight, out of mind. Not a fault of this particular author, but feminism as a whole.

Sarkeesian's argument isn't that there exists a neutral humanity, asexual and attainable.

I don't think Sarkeesian has an interesting argument in this particular set of videos, period. I don't even know if she's operating on this level, because her videos are trite and simplistic. I guess I'd have to try to go and read her academic literature, but I can think of 5000 other things I'd rather do first, so I'll leave it unanswered.

It's that the damsel in distress stereotype is pervasive in videogames and is a shitty way to paint every major female character.

For this analysis she basically coralled together a bunch of mostly Japanese games- many of them made by a single company- which strikes me as a singularly poor way to make the argument. It's also a little dishonest when you try to perform this analysis without even going into the cross-cultural differences at play and just gloss it over. That gloss is really pretty lazy, it speaks of a lack of effort more than anything else.

 

[Trent Strong]

To add to PolarBearClubs' rebuttal, Anita addressed the argument hachi laid out in her very video. Simply: the trope itself is not sexist, it is the repetition and acceptance of the trope which perpetuates stereotypes which are harmful to the image of women. The particular story of Mario is not particular sexist just because it is a man saving a woman. Those stories are valid in a vacuum and are but one single characterization from which to draw a conclusion.

The stagnant and willful exploitation of the trope is the issue at hand.

Except this trope pretty much doesn't exist anymore in video games. Which is way all her damsel in distress examples are from really old games.

 

[Devolution]

To add to PolarBearClubs' rebuttal, Anita addressed the argument hachi laid out in her very video. Simply: the trope itself is not sexist, it is the repetition and acceptance of the trope which perpetuates stereotypes which are harmful to the image of women. The particular story of Mario is not particular sexist just because it is a man saving a woman. Those stories are valid in a vacuum and are but one single characterization from which to draw a conclusion.

The stagnant and willful exploitation of the trope is the issue at hand.

It's going to be the single issue with all these tropes, how rampant they are, not that they exist in the first place.

It's been said again and again but it's a problem of a lack of variety. Otherwise these would just be just another type of character/story trope rather than harmful.

 

[Gregorn]

I just looked at my games from this gen and can't see any with this trope. The little sisters from Bioshock could count I guess...

A lot have playable female characters.

 

[border]

There's only so much themes that can be used to reasonably motivate someone saving the world despite insane difficulties and minimal chances for success.

Plenty of game characters save the world just for the sake of saving the world. Mere self-preservation is enough of a motivation.

It's also possible to have someone save a woman without that woman being a Damsel In Distress. As I was watching the video and thinking it'd be cool to make a game where the hero is trying to fight his way into the villain's castle, but the other playable character is his girlfriend, who is trying to fight her way out of the castle. They both have different moves and abilities.....then somewhere in the game the two of them meet up and have to fight their way out together. You can swap between the two of them depending on the enemy or puzzle you're facing.

That's just one way to do it though. A Damsel In Distress is defined by her inability to do anything other than wait to be rescued. But if the kidnapped woman is capable of doing something to further her escape, she is no longer a Damsel In Distress.

 

[demidar]

To add to PolarBearClubs' rebuttal, Anita addressed the argument hachi laid out in her very video. Simply: the trope itself is not sexist, it is the repetition and acceptance of the trope which perpetuates stereotypes which are harmful to the image of women. The particular story of Mario is not particularly sexist just because it is a man saving a woman. Those stories are valid in a vacuum and are but one single characterization from which to draw a conclusion.

The stagnant and willful exploitation of the trope is the issue at hand, especially considering a relative dearth of counter entities that portray women in a positive light.

It's okay, we have the new Lara now who can mutilate her enemies under her own power.

 

[GraveRobberX]

I just looked at my games from this gen and can't see any with this trope. The little sisters from Bioshock could count I guess...

A lot have playable female characters.

Yes but you are a given a choice in BS

"Save Them"

or

"Harvest Them"

The ending video of the game showed the outcome of your choices

 

[casabolg]

I just looked at my games from this gen and can't see any with this trope. The little sisters from Bioshock could count I guess...

A lot have playable female characters.

I wonder what Anita could say about the issues in this gen alone.

 

[Brak]

I can't think of many damsels in distress in games made in the past console generation.

Yeah, going through my Steam library, I can only come up with 4 or 5 games out of 200 that would qualify as containing a Damsel in Distress, and even those are either reversals of the trope or self-aware to some degree.

It's certainly not a big problem in modern video game narrative.

 

[LuCkymoON]

Nope. Women were given menial jobs with menial pay and discriminated against when they didn't buckle into whatever pre-determined job they should have or stayed home to take care of the kids. There is a whole history of job discrimination against women so to act like "they simply avoided math and engineering" is bullshit of the highest caliber.

But how did that stop women from enjoying video games in the 70s and 80s?

 

[royalan]

Except this trope pretty much doesn't exist anymore in video games. Which is way all her damsel in distress examples are from really old games.

That's exactly what she said she's addressing in part two.

 

[casabolg]

That's exactly what she said she's addressing in part two.

And I'm behind - when is that?