Such rich satire! So subversive, punching down with vulnerable, badly represented, shallow representations of people and totally not just perpetuating stereotypes to maintain the status quo. Definitely will make people rethink traditions.
Fascinating, but what does this have to do with this thread or a feminist critique of the game?
You can't discuss how a game portraits women without having a discussion on how it portraits men.
Believe it or not, it is possible. Although you wouldn't guess it from this thread.
Well, I'd actually argue that the way men are portrayed is worse.
GTA has never tried to be critical with its satire though. It's hardly even satire, if we define it by intent. It's not a critique of the US as much as just a collection of parodies of US stereotypes meant to be humorous but not particularly critical. I mean, Fernando compares the US debt ceiling to a virgin's hymen, and losing the debt ceiling is as freeing as becoming sexually active. Rockstar isn't trying to politically critique foreign fiscal policy -- it's just an opportunity to make a childish joke. It's satire in so far as to highly and make fun of stereotypes, but little else. It's fine with 'going nowhere with it.'I can't tell if GTA's satire has degraded over time or if my sensibilities have become less juvenile. The radio comedy and the character of Lazlow I feel kind of embody this - Lazlow used to be an 'only sane man' kind of character who would constantly point out the hypocrisy and parallels of the world only to be haplessly caught up in some of its issues taken to a hilarious exaggerated conclusion. Now he's a pathetic lech who is still pointing out the hypocrisies of the world but actually, in some sense, is shown to 'deserve' his fate because he's a bad (if still pathetic) person.
I suppose in some sense you could say the satire is "Hey this is some hypocritical shit America pulls and isn't that weirrrrdddddd?" but if so, it's astoundingly weak and goes nowhere with it. The FIB/IAA war as a critique of public institutions or the use of Merryweather on American soil to critique PMCs, to take a random example, is a good starting point but none of it never goes anywhere except to drive what little plot there is. A good example is the torture mission - even though it literally has a motive rant in there where Trevor admits his feelings that torturing for information is completely worthless and he's just doing it for his own personal enjoyment, it somehow manages to not really convey any effective sense of satire of anything really.
No. You are missing the point of feminism in general. Feminism is about the inequalites between men and women. You can't highlight an inequality without comparing. And you can't compare without investigating both sides.
And you can't tell a marginalized group of people..."hold on a sec...before you voice your concerns, why don't you sit down so we can talk about how this actually hurts the people with more power".
And I'm missing the point of feminism?
I absolutely agree with this, on my second play through and recently completed that mission again, that monologue after the mission feels ridiculously tacked on.GTA has never tried to be critical with its satire though. It's hardly even satire, if we define it by intent. It's not a critique of the US as much as just a collection of parodies of US stereotypes meant to be humorous but not particularly critical.
Which is why the rant by Trevor after the torture scene felt so hamfisted and misplaced. It's one of the worst scenes in the series, and is maybe the only time I've ever seen GTA actually be apologetic, as if they felt they had finally gone too far and had to include that rant just to make it clear that that scene in particular actually was satire. But it was so minor and irrelevant to the story that the rant ends up being just embarrassingly apologetic for trying to joke about religion and torture.
GTA has never tried to be critical with its satire though. It's hardly even satire, if we define it by intent. It's not a critique of the US as much as just a collection of parodies of US stereotypes meant to be humorous but not particularly critical. I mean, Fernando compares the US debt ceiling to a virgin's hymen, and losing the debt ceiling is as freeing as becoming sexually active. Rockstar isn't trying to politically critique foreign fiscal policy -- it's just an opportunity to make a childish joke. It's satire in so far as to highly and make fun of stereotypes, but little else. It's fine with 'going nowhere with it.'
I'd argue this is still more on the narrative side of things than on the mechanical. The things you do in GTA are fun to many people because they are depicted as taboo things to do, not because they are mechanically interesting.Bingo. It's a lot of fun doing the stuff many would never dare to do and live a life steeped in reality but still far from it.
Still, there's room for improvement, and I think it's high time after so many runs at it.
You can't discuss how a game portraits women without having a discussion on how it portraits men..
GTA V is disrespectful to women and this is not some side effect or oversight, but a concrete goal of the developers to attract adolescent boys.
And you can't tell a marginalized group of people..."hold on a sec...before you voice your concerns, why don't you sit down so we can talk about how this actually hurts the people with more power".
And I'm missing the point of feminism?
I question whether this is really a good idea for Rockstar. Would it make GTA less insulting and less annoying to play? From my perspective, yes. But being less insulting, being more "fair" would delude the brand and I am sure it would hurt sales of the game series in the mdeium term. If Rockstar wants to maximize their revenue, they should probably continue to be offensive as fuck in almost all regards possible - as long as they don't offend their target audience to directly.I disagree with this.GTA V is a game that is targeted exclusively at a young male audience and portrays women in a derogatory fashion. It is important to consider why the game producers have chosen to do this and what message it conveys to the audience. (Not saying we can't look at the way male characters are treated seperately, but one does not require the other. )
Personally, I felt that female representation was solely used as means for derogatory humour and to satisfy an audience's desire to have power over females (a recurring feature in media targeting young males).
I think Rockstar should be taking a more socially conscious view in future installments, or at least providing context or a message for why those groups are treated the way they are by the game. Something more thought provoking than "Women are crazy/sluts LOL" would be nice.
A piece of media that portraits all genders, races, ages and people equally bad, can't be called out for being sexist. It can be called out for being terrible in general, but it's not sexist because according to the very definition of sexism, which is about the differences.
I question whether this is really a good idea for Rockstar. Would it make GTA less insulting and less annoying to play? From my perspective, yes. But being less insulting, being more "fair" would delude the brand and I am sure it would hurt sales of the game series in the mdeium term. If Rockstar wants to maximize their revenue, they should probably continue to be offensive as fuck in almost all regards possible - as long as they don't offend their target audience to directly.
Can you also cat call them or use them for sex?
\I didn't say there had been. I was referring to this feminist critique of GTAV that called for its removal from sale - and had some success in achieving this - due to its sexist content alone.
Mmmm... can't you just taste the equality?
The game takes aim at womanhood and female power directly. It does no such thing with men. It portrays many horrible men and many horrible women, but nowhere does it take aim directly at manhood the way it does at womanhood.
Also, by your logic, discussion of racism against black people is impossible without first outlining the many ways in which it's just so darn tough to be white.
I question whether this is really a good idea for Rockstar. Would it make GTA less insulting and less annoying to play? From my perspective, yes. But being less insulting, being more "fair" would delude the brand and I am sure it would hurt sales of the game series in the mdeium term. If Rockstar wants to maximize their revenue, they should probably continue to be offensive as fuck in almost all regards possible - as long as they don't offend their target audience to directly.
Nice, let's look at 15 seconds of the game and judge the whole game by that.
I think the game does JUST that, it takes on the theme of manhood and boils it down to the two terrible stereotypes of "mass murdering I-dont-give-a-fuck-about-anyone" or "piss-your-pants-non-man-like-coward".
No that's not my logic. But you dicuss racism by looking at the situation for black people and comparing it to the situation for white people. Then you can see that black people are discriminated in very many aspects in most situations of life.
Women are also discriminated against, of course. Lower salary for example. But GTA V does not discriminate against women; it just portraits every type of person as really, really awful.
Nice, let's look at 15 seconds of the game and judge the whole game by that.
Women are also discriminated against, of course. Lower salary for example. But GTA V does not discriminate against women; it just portraits every type of person as really, really awful.
So... Is the scene sexist? Honest question.
I don't think viewing scenes outside of context is wise. We wouldn't expect any other reaction from Trevor. What is upsetting about the scene, though, is how it could be viewed as pandering by Rockstar. In light of #GG, this specific cutscene seems like a brofist.
But if you're unwilling to view Trevor's actions as consistently villainous (as many in the YT comments are doing...), you're going to end up advocating a lot of terrible shit by the games end. In context, this scene, like the others, is just another pop culture reference.
I don't agree with Horp that the men are portrayed worse, but I do think limiting this thread to strictly a female character analysis strips GTA of its hyper-masculine context.
So... Is the scene sexist? Honest question.
How long does part of a game have to be for it to count? Maybe I should boot it up and take footage myself lol.
And what do you think is the thing that is supposed to be "awful" about the women in that scene? Hint: It's not that they're being loud in public. There's a similar scene that takes place inside the house.
Forced respectful treatment towards women would not work well with the intended core audience (teenage boys who want to experience this very virtual lifestyle of scumbags).
So I'd say, as someone who neither likes GTA nor the common extreme stance on political correctness, that GTA V is disrespectful to women and this is not some side effect or oversight, but a concrete goal of the developers to attract adolescent boys.
Rockstar would be smart to expand their audience by tapping into what women like, and since it isn't all that different to men, then all they gotta do is have interesting characters that are worth investing into/rooting for. It's what Bioware, other RPG, and adventure game makers, have been able to tap into where females form a much higher percentage.
I don't buy this argument that the franchise has to portray all women as negative. They're not all meant to be villains. Why do they all have to be so shallow? Why not have messed up and flawed female characters but who are also interesting in different ways and can be described with various adjectives much like many of the male characters? It's not about having good morals, just characters being less predictable. Worth caring about.
Spoilers for the game!
Tracey acts that way becauseher father is shit. The game goes to great lengths to push that on you. In fact, she was huddled into a private school, and eventually admits that she acts out because she's frustrated that Michael doesn't give a shit. All of this stems from Michael's midlife crisis and selfishness, preferring to act macho instead of actually being a father figure to her.
The reactions he gets when she tells him to piss off after saving her are because it's purely jolting to Tracey - her father didn't give a shit BEFORE and only cares at random intervals. This all ties into how Dad's influence the family dynamic and speaks more about Michael than Tracey.
Amanda, the wife, used to be a stripper until she met Michael. Things were good until the last decade or so, where their relationship deteriorated into bickering and fights from his drinking and slumming around town. Once again, this lack of attention and love leads her to look elsewhere, and if we are doing the counting game, Michael has probably cheated on her far more than she has.
What makes this all worse is that he treats her like property, only giving a shit when he notices a man trying to get some from her. It's incredibly poisonous to let jealously be the only time you care about your wife. That shit takes a toll, and this all stems from - you guessed it - Michael.
The smaller details are picked up in side missions and conversations, but the majority of this is right in front of your face as you progress through the story.
Damn that's a lot for GTA lore. Who gives a shit about that lol.
Anyway, GTA has a lot of issues that demean the point of the satirical elements found in the game, but it's still there. I take umbrage with no dicks or male prostitutes. That's bullshit and you know it, Rockstar.
What about Michael having a complete lack of respect as the patriarch of his family and his need to see a therapist? He's in the middle of a midlife crisis. Thats not a direct shot to his manhood?
Franklin is easy: he is a young man more than capable of taking control of his life, but he still lives with his aunt, is unemployed and riddled with angst. Thats a direct shot at his man-hood (his aunt mentions occasionally, Lamar frequently, as well as his ex-girlfriend, Trevor at one point as well) and maybe to the male individual playing GTAV as well.
I
Maybe I'm way off, but I feel like both genders get served if you look for it hard enough.
You're still not getting it.
Discimination means that one part has to be discriminated against compared to another part.
Lets take a really exaggerated example to illustrate my point. Say a movie paints a really, really bad picture of black people. Then there are some scenes that kind of mocks white people a bit. Does the movie disciminate white people? No, it does not.
In the GTA V case it's not a case of men being portayed way worse than women, like in the example above (but slightly worse, I'd argue). But the same principle applies, it doesn't discriminate against women because it doesnt treat women worse than men; which once again is the very definition of gender discrimination.
That scene, yes, but not the game as a whole. Just like my movie example above, a few scenes of white people being mocked does not make the movie racist against white people.
What about Michael having a complete lack of respect as the patriarch of his family and his need to see a therapist? He's in the middle of a midlife crisis. Thats not a direct shot to his manhood?
Franklin is easy: he is a young man more than capable of taking control of his life, but he still lives with his aunt, is unemployed and riddled with angst. Thats a direct shot at his man-hood (his aunt mentions occasionally, Lamar frequently, as well as his ex-girlfriend, Trevor at one point as well) and maybe to the male individual playing GTAV as well.
I
Maybe I'm way off, but I feel like both genders get served if you look for it hard enough.
Micheal's lack of respect is shown as being a deficency of the other characters. The other people are all extremely shrill and selfish and the butt of a dozen jokes and are made out to be ungrateful in the context of the story.
Franklin is as unemployed as his aunt is. She is, from what backstory we have, more of a freeloader than he is, only living there because she was willed half of the house. She is pretty much solely the butt of jokes and gets her comeuppance in multiple scenes.
You can say that, but only to an extent, about Michael's family. As I wrote above, his actions made them ungrateful and shrill. The game isn't perfect about showing this, but it's definitely there, and outright exposed at the end of the game.
While playing the game, I tried to justify the story by suggesting that the game is misanthropic on a whole (which seems to be the recurring counterargument regarding GTA)--but I think that the "good endings" kind of throw that reading away. The game believes that Trevor, Michael, and Franklin are redeemable. To see the game extend pathos to these violent monsters kind of spoils the misanthropic reading of the game.
you can beat or kill women, cat-call women, or use them for sex.
Read again, the sexism is also in the game design.sexism is a problem in video games in general.
but in GTA it should be expected, as should stuff like racism and homophobia, it's a series about bad people doing bad things for bad reasons in a bad world.
A lot of people are saying that there's little critique for the main characters in regards to "taking swings at men as well", but that's exactly what the story is about.
Here's a previous post I wrote up on how Michael affects his family.
It's really a total thing. These elements are all weaved together, and in return, work together. Michael is the reason Amanda is distant. Calling Amanda loose or slutty when the game constantly re-enforces how shitty Michael is to the whole family misses the point completely.
Misanthropic is less accurate than solipsistic I would say. Ultimately the world of GTA is built to be a male power fantasy playground.
Well you used to be able to take them on dates and form an ongoing relationship but people fucking hated that, it seems.
Yes, I think you're exactly right; I ended up liking Michael's family more as his failings were exposed and they became more 'real'; but at the beginning of the game especially they are empty shells of characters and, given how terrible the game is at exposing any of their past, the point where they up and leave was more of a relief than anything else.
While your analysis of the backstory is dead on, I think it's significant that we never see Michael behave in this way, as it all happens before the game begins, but we are constantly shown Amanda being a "slut" or a "shitty wife" to Michael. Plenty of hints are dropped that Michael has been way worse to her than she has to him, but the player only directly experiences Amanda being shitty to Michael. The player experience is intentionally tilted to make the player sympathize with Michael, when in reality he's the catalyst for almost everything bad that happens to him.
In short, I don't think the game treats the two nearly as equally as you are trying to claim it does. Michael, despite being a far worse person, is presented to the player as a victim from the beginning, even though his victim complex is mostly a wall he has built to protect himself from acknowledging how terrible he really is. However, the game has to do a lot of telling rather than showing in this area, which is bad storytelling, and it's very likely that many players never pick up on the notion that Amanda was simply reacting rather understandably to years of neglect and shitty behavior on the part of her husband.
There may have originally been plans for a relationship or at least conversation system of some sorts....Well you used to be able to take them on dates and form an ongoing relationship but people fucking hated that, it seems.
You would have to be literally blind and deaf to play GTA and think that the game treats men and women equally.