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Tropes versus Women in Video Games
- Thread starter Kodiak
- Start date
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Holy Order Sol
Member
Repeating "Own up or change" through the whole thing make me want to punch the author in the face until my fist goes through their skull regardless of the validity of the points made.
It makes me want to say "Fine, I choose 'own up'."
Thought women were/are the stars of porn. Don't they get paid more than men in that industry?
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
How? There are multiple genres. In the "caucasian" arena is where you find the usual skinny, plastic boobed airhead with a few exceptions. In the "African american" side mostly natural beauty and massive asses with a few exceptions of skinny girls.
Then there is a whole arena for Latina, Japanese, bizarre and extreme, the Chubby Chasers, Midgets, missing limbs. Hell; I don't think Porn puts out an unrealistic depiction, because someones porn collection will mostly feature what "gets them going" and for varying people, that can be varying things.
When I first saw that, I just laughed at it's shamelessness. You never see Terry Bogard losing his shirt when he gets his ass kicked, lol
It's a call back to Art of Fighting. In the original Street Fighter 2-era game, it wasn't at all clear that King was a woman due to the character's androgynous appearance. You would beat the character and the shirt would pop open, and the general player's reaction was to go "wait that was a woman?"
Of course, they've since altered King's appearance and increased her breast size, so now it's basically become shameless fan service.
Exaggerated in some respects (especially how they frame the outrage as misguided but proper response to her original goals, rather than just the internet being its usual hate everyone self), but I agree with a lot of fundamental elements (especially the use of copyrighted video game characters, when people here were saying she needed that $150,000 to help fund licenses to use snippets of game footage.)
Also, using her defender's cartoon as an example of one of the negative tropes was a stroke of genius.
Love this. Internet whiteknighting is the best, especially when money is involved.
cutmeamango
Banned
This article present horrid arguments. And the writing style only makes it worse.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
Yes, but a noticeable chunk of them have abuse stories on it. Rarely the biggest stars, but the thousands of women who aren't at the top tend to have really shitty experiences. A lot of it focuses on just the guy having pleasure. You've probably seen a couple where the girl really wasn't into it at all, which is where the most exaggerated feminists get the idea that it's inherently bad.
I personally dig it, and think that if more women were open about their usage of it the girls in the industry would get treated better.
...Isn't this kind of off-topic?
It probably is off-topic, but I just want to say I strongly agree with the bolded sentence.
Holy Order Sol
Member
It's the writing equivalent of the Kinder kid's face.
Just tell me you don't want to bash this fucker's head in.
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
Hey, I have no problem with her hustle. Get that money, even if it is off the back of White Knights....CA-CHING!! Lets get it Anita...swag, swag, swag, swag....
I went for a gender neutral wrestling outfit .... WWE Raw have praticaly the same problem than videogames =P
And even then, you can only see the tight of 2, while 6 use pants
and those pants, none have cuts in then for easy grappling.
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disclamer : I love Kuja ... 2 years ago I even did a fanart ... twice.
Yeah, guys are so much more covered up, WWE is sexist as hell.
EDIT:
Yeah, this pretty much sums this up for me, she never needed $6000 donating for this, pretty sure she coulda done it without.
True.... back on topic we go.
.la1n
Member
The problem is she is in clear violation of the program's terms of service. They need to shut it down and kindly ask how she wants to approach using the K-S service to be re-evaluated before requesting money. I have no idea why this has not been done yet but perhaps someone with more knowledge of how K-S in relation to causes / copyright material works can fill in the blanks.
PdotMichael
Banned
She is surely a smart women. Sure, she misused a real problem but she is still a genius.
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
Kickstarter is in that position now that if they attempt to reproach her and this type of "movement" that would seem like an attack on women. Now that I'm seeing the bigger picture, this was an artful manipulation and grand hustle, and she has been protected by the bubble she created around herself. Not even Jig-Saw could plan something this good.
Riposte
Member
4chan knows how to make a good case when they take out the naughty words.
Bboy_Izilla
Banned
As someone who use to work at a mid-western porn vendor/distribution 'palace.' I can honestly cosign all of this. This is indeed off-topic, but as I've made friends in the porn and adult entertainment industry ... there are some damn scholarly men and women [who game] and notable feminist who do panels and write often about the culture of porn.
The biggest disturbance is seeing how the internet has changed amateur and non-straight porn. Those were the last bastions of porn being shot for small niche groups, but nope, now a large majority [barring PlayGirl] is shot for men to look at [even the stuff shot by women].
.la1n
Member
Wow. Just wow. There is no way, shape, or form this should be seen as an attack on women. The same should happen to ANY Kick-Starter that attempts the same thing. It's a manipulation of the system in place, if they let one thing slide then they might as well re-write their terms of service.
I think she was manipulative in using her detractors as a fundraising guilt scheme, but that the entire Kickstarter was planned like that? Good gravy. She's a person making Internet videos, not Keyser Soze.
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
As I said, I don't care. I'm just here for her breakdown of video-games, that is all I am interested in, because video games are my passion and I want to see what she says. I am not even in the slightest bit angry at how she played this and raked it in....its all swag to me.
Comeon son. This isn't one thing. This is the "oppression of women" and "a wall of defense against misogyny and bigotry" no one is going to touch this with a ten foot pole.
Please be a joke post. Please be a joke post. Please be a joke post.
.la1n
Member
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
I know right? When you think how untouchable it has become now. It was well played.
Steve Youngblood
Member
First of all, in spite of /v/'s astute observations, I don't really follow how she is in violation of any terms. And secondly, if she was, she's not bulletproof despite PrinceOfApathy poorly attempting to point out a hole in the argument against misogyny.
If only they had done this from the beginning... they're the ones that gave her free money in the first place!
.la1n
Member
It's really more of funny banter we've had going for entertainment this morning (in relation to SoA, sorry not to clarify.) Also, it's pretty clear how she is in violation of terms if you take the time to read.
edit: at the end of the day it isn't my money, just wish there was more clarification on KickStarter's part in what is considered a "cause" and what isn't.
They start interesting .... but it gets worse and worse with each paragraph.
The "deal with it" with trolls is not a simple thing to do, and specialy with such a problem like how people treat "minorities", so feel bad as a reminder of how society sees then.
Ignoring trolls is just ignoring the entire problem wich is the basis for the reason she is making those videos
If people treated each other minority equal, we would not have problem with those kinds of cursing and stuffs like that so focused on gays, women, people of color and other things that goes against the white hetero male.
She was saying that it was bad how women are treated ... and suddenly she receives THOUSANDS of "go to the kitchen" and you say that focusing on then treating women bad is a offtopic ????
Donators knew exactly were they were doing.
The stickers includes enoght changes to the design of the characters be incluced in the parody category
If kickstarter had a problem with overfunding, it would not allow to be overfunded. Simple as that.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Well, the copyrighted images could be problematic. The rest is interpreting the criteria differently than some would. I personally don't think that she's in violation of the "no charity" clause, for instance.
.la1n
Member
I think it's the "funding an awareness campaign" that most are taking issue with.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Again, I can see it being interpreted as such, but I don't think this is a clear violation.
Also, people are complaining of how you can do videos for free...
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-portable-scann
these dudes will get US$130,000 to make cardboard boxes ....
People KNOW were they are giving their money ... I would LOVE to receive that money too, but let them do what they want =P
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/limemouse/scanbox-turn-your-smartphone-into-a-portable-scann
these dudes will get US$130,000 to make cardboard boxes ....
People KNOW were they are giving their money ... I would LOVE to receive that money too, but let them do what they want =P
.la1n
Member
I wonder how something is determined to be in violation or not? Say someone wanted to raise money to create awareness videos on starving children, is that a violation?
Alright I have seen it all.
Steve Youngblood
Member
I don't know. What I do know is that, personally, I wouldn't be leading the charge to get such an endeavor pulled from Kickstarter if it did show up.
This doesn't work because the Kickstarter was created to fund a specific project that she outlined. She did not say anywhere in her project description that giving her money was the same as funding feminism as a whole. An example of a Kickstarter that would be in violation of that rule would be "Give me money if you think Political Party X is totally stupid!"
That would also be fine because the Kickstarter would be for an actual project (the videos). What would be a violation is "Give me money because it's bad that children are starving and giving me money will show that everyone cares about this," as there's no project being funded there.
The original funding was for videos and it still is for videos.
NOBODY is funding an awareness campaign =P
If people want to give money for her because of the awareness ... it is problem of the people, not her problem.
.la1n
Member
This is where rules, regulations, terms of service, become very sticky. I agree with you by the way.
This makes sense to me.
That's not what she's doing, though. She's very specifically seeking funding for a series of criticism videos.
Ignoring critical worth and quality, there's not real difference between this and a collection of essays in a book.
It's not even that. Were her series of videos simply meant go "look, women have it bad in video games" then that'd be against the rules. However, these videos have an analytical approach. You can debate exactly how well she does what she says she sets out to do, but this is very much a product based around analysis and deconstruction. It doesn't fit the category of "awareness campaign", though certainly one could appropriate them for that purpose.
tkscz
Member
Alright then, can I say I dislike the idea because of who is doing it? I've seen just about all of her videos. Most of them she doesn't really point the blame at anyone but men, regardless of if a woman was involved and did nothing. She tends to be contradictory and sexiest herself.
The Lego one for example. Now, maybe I wasn't paying 100% attention (she kept losing me from time to time), but not once did I hear her point out, blame, or asked SOCIETY to change their ways. You can't blame the company for what society as a whole does. When a woman shops for their daughter, the woman gets the more girly thing, like a doll, even if her daughter asked for an action figure. I've seen this, I've experienced this, my god daughter loves batman, but her aunt always gets her the girliest toy she can find. but she doesn't seem to talk about this.
Or how about that Christmas video? Don't you love how the song that J-lo wrote is so sexist? All she wants for Christmas is her boyfriend, to her, equals I need a man to be happy. It simply can't mean that all she wants to see is her boyfriend for Christmas, because being surrounded by loved ones isn't what we want for Christmas, even though she says that. Let's not forget how she just so happened to skip the part in it's cold outside where the woman ACTUALLY LEAVES AND COMES BACK BECAUSE IT WAS COLD OUTSIDE. While the song is still creepy, leaving something like this out shows just how she picks and chooses the worst, to make it prove her point more, regardless of the fact that she is supposed to seem professional.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again, she takes things that aren't necessarily sexiest, and DON'T have the effect she says it does, and makes them seem much bigger than they are. Now, I'm not saying she does this all the time, but enough to make me doubt her ability to do this. I would rather someone more professional (sex doesn't matter) to do this.
I'm not so sure I buy your argument.
One thing I've found in administrating Wikipedia and dealing with the trolls, jingoistic nationalists, the "gay agenda" people, et al is that the maxim "don't feed the trolls" is the best possible advice.
Are a lot of these guys who joined in the melee sexists? I'd say that's a reasonable assumption to make. But I'm willing to bet a lot aren't. They're simply the attention seekers who fill XBL--of the mindset that "if I say racist or profane things, I provoke a reaction" and that's their goal.
Ignoring attention-seekers is a sure-fire way to shut up most of them. The trolls aren't the problem; they're at best a symptom of a cause.
It's called the "bechdel test", so of course it's a test. The test has rules, that's the whole point of a test. And if you change/extend the rules at will, you actually make the test even more worthless than it already is.
That was my whole point.
The actual "test" is just there for complaining, that there are more male protagonists in movies (and now games) than females. But complaining about that directly would be too straightforward, I guess. Just say "we want more female protagonists in movies".
And that's just a generalisation.
The whole artificial test just makes the situation seem worse than it is.
Just look at the movie Alien for example. 2 female characters, the rest is male. I don't even know, if it would pass that test, but actually the movie stars primarily a female protagonist (Ripley), that is even the hero of the movie. And why 2 females only? Because of sexism? No, because that's the way in actual real life. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=6756 (35 females to 158 males, "The inability to draw statistical comparisons based on gender differences is linked to the small number of female astronauts, resulting in an insufficient study sample.")
So in such cases, it would be unrealistic to have a huge amount of female astronauts. Which means this entire genre has a higher probability to have a male protagonist, just because that's the way in real life.
Or well, I just look in my own field - software development. Are there capable females around? of course. But it's just a tiny percentage. So if you had a movie or series about that (or IT in general), it would also be more probable to have a male protagonist. Just look at IT crowd. 2 (or even more males), just one female. But that's what's happening in real life. Most females are just not that interested in that type of work. Is that sexism? No, it's the way it is. Females aren't interested in that job, so they don't do it. If they want that to change, they should apply for that type of job.
You didn't understand my point.
Complaining about a certain artificial scene missing is already quite dependant on the gender of the protagonist. So just complaining about that missing scene only works out, if you also check the gender of the protagonist and use that in the comparison too.
And then you would have to compare the numbers in relation to male protagonists and male scenes (without women involved at all).
I mean just think about a typical example: a love story about a male and a female. The protagonist is a male. So of course, we will see him and her. And maybe him talking to a friend (typically male) ABOUT the female.
Now turn the situation around. love story about a male and a female. The protagonist is a female. So of course, we will see her and him. And maybe her talking to a friend (typically female) ABOUT the male.
See? Complaing about the latter doesn't make sense, BECAUSE exchanging the gender of the protagonist would result in the same scene. And strangely the first one wouldn't matter at all, but the second would, although both of them make sense plot-wise.
Otherwise you should just complain about too few female protagonists in movies/games.
See, you assume a specific movie genre and/or a specific type of movie AND you even dictate, how the movie should behave (having people talk about all sorts of stuff).
You are asking things. Favorite movie, that's really difficult to answer. I love so many movies. One of my favorite movies is Saibogujiman kwenchana ("I'm a cyborg but that's okay") from Korea. It's about a female (ha) that thinks she is a robot. It's about her and a man, that thinks he is a masterthief and can steal other people's character trades and that he could make himself invisible. FUNNILY - if I remember correctly - this movie should pass the test, but that's just because that female talks to her mother + grandmother in the beginning. But the main plotline is about those 2 in a mental institute.
Another of my favorite movies is Bin-Jip ("3-Iron" in US). Another korean movie. Wouldn't pass the test (if I remember correctly). Movie is about a man that breaks into houses to live there for a few days. But he doesn't steal anything. He actually fixes things, cleans up etc. On his journey, he comes across a wife that got abused. She flees with him and both break into houses etc. like before.
What's funny about that, is that in the WHOLE movie the protagonist (the male) talks a few sentences in TOTAL (don't remember exactly, but it's just a few words). If I remember correctly he doesn't talk to any other man at all. The whole movie is about pictures and its ability to tell a story without using words (something a movie should always be about, "show don't tell"). WHICH of course goes totally against this test, because it requires that people talk (see, it assumes that a movie has to be done in a certain way, which is also totally laughable).
The story is about a MALE baseball team. This automatically means that lots of MALES are in this movie. Seems logical, no? This also means that a male or many males are protagonists of the movie. Why would you expect females in this movie? Do you want females (and such a scene) in movies just for the sake of it? Why? Because there are female baseball teams and this fucking movie just has the audacity to be about a male team? That 2 females weren't inserted into the plot at all?
I mean that's like complaining about a movie that is about the love story about 2 gay men, that it doesn't feature a scene with 2 female talking about something not related to the gay couple. Seriously, why? The story is about a gay couple. This actually means people complain about the story itself. Worse yet, it's about complaining about a story, just for the fact that it doesn't feature female characters.
So the actual complain about that movie is IN FACT that it's about a MALE baseball team. If it was about a FEMALE baseball team, it would be totally a-okay. Am I understanding this right? That's actually sexism the other way round.
Yes, but in some sort of jobs, there are not many females if not even no females at all.
Stories about such jobs would automatically feature males, BECAUSE that's being realistic.
I give you one example of that situation in reverse. Think about nursery school. Men are REALLY rare in that type of profession. Why? Because fucked up parents think that men in that profession (or interacting with children at all) are automatically pedophiles. It's not even that this specific gender isn't interested most of the time in that profession. It's that trying to do that profession as male just doesn't work out.
So if a movie was about a nursery school, they would - of course - feature a female lead most of the time. Because that makes sense and is (sadly) realistic.
Or what about nurses in a hospital. Most of the time they are female. That's just the way it is. So most of the time nurses in a hospital will be female.
It depends on the type of movie like I said. And it depends especially on the protagonist being a female or not. And that pattern may exist in some (or even most) dumb-ass hollywood movies, I don't care then, because most of the time, I don't watch dumb-ass hollywood movies.
PrinceOfApathy
Banned
Your mistake was assuming she was professional ( she isn't ) and didn't have a clear agenda ( she does ), but it does not bother me in the least. If it wasn't for the video-games being tied into this I would laugh her out of mind as suffering from dementia, but because video games are involved I want to see what she says, and what ramifications it might or might not bring.
John Rabbit
Banned
checked the page, still don't see an update on what she plans to do with the extra money. has she made any statements elsewhere?
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