A "for research" shopping spree.
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Tropes versus Women in Video Games
- Thread starter Kodiak
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A "for research" shopping spree.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
I think I missed this part.
Probably a bit longer in between her trip to Maui.
I read it as using the outrage as a way to get more money. Not saying that the guys trolling were in some way right.
Ok ... you don't like her videos.
...what does it have anything to do with /v/ saying she is abusing kickstarter ?
Never saw that episode on christmas... but a song a women wrote can be sexist against women EASILY ... specialy someone that became famous because of her butt
I think they are a mix of a symptom and a sub-problem.
It is a sympton in the meaning that they exist because the society (cough cough bad parenting cough cough) makes then think they can act like that and it is a problem because they are people who have prejudice and don't measure their words and can seriously hurt people.
"We hope to have the first video out in the late summer or early fall, and the rest of the episodes will follow at regular intervals."
charlequin
Banned
No, she isn't. There are 939 "Film and Video" projects on Kickstarter, with over half of those (as best I can tell) being Webseries. A huge portion of these are documentary or non-fiction series, often with an explicit agenda behind them. That's not just allowed by Kickstarter's terms of service, it's one of the core purposes which the site serves. What's not allowed is raising money to fund an advertising campaign to "raise awareness" about something.
Literally five minutes -- 300 precious seconds of your time -- could have educated you on what is and is not acceptable under Kickstarter's terms of service and saved you from making a bad post like this.
plagiarize
Banned
the test has nothing to do with the gender of the protagonist or having any more than two women in any particular story.
the point of the test it to expose underlying biases. it doesn't judge quality, or why they are there, it just says 'if all was equal, this should be true of female characters as much as male characters' and it should be, but it isn't, because there are definate gender biases in gaming (and cinema, and what have you... TV less than cinema it seems, where you have many shows with women on the writing staff).
it isn't about the individual projects. it's exposing a bias that exists. note, i keep saying bias, not sexism.
1. Aliens passes the bechdel test. 2. a film failing or passing the bechdel test does not mean that said film is or isn't sexist. 3. there are more than 2 female characters in Aliens.
again, the bechdel test only requires two female characters. Aliens passes the bechdel test despite not having lots of female characters.
but, again, the bechdel test is only meant to show an underlying bias across the broad spectrum of a given media. clearly science fiction films will pass it more than romantic comedies, even if the romantic comedies are much less sexist, because of the subject nature of those films.
it isn't about which game or book or film fails the test, it is about which medium has only a very small percentage of things which pass the test compared to the number of things where the male equivalent of the test would be passed.
that is all. it is very simple. it is not about whether or not the main lead in the film is female. it is not about having any more than two female characters. it is drawing attention to the fact that female characters are much more often defined by their relationships with men than male characters are defined by their relationships to women.
this is because more men write stories than women in the mediums that regularly fail the tests (film and gaming). men can write well developed female characters and women can write well developed male characters... its by bringing certain issues to head with examples like the bechdel test that we can HELP those writers to ensure they are making their female characters better developed. having better developed characters hurts NO-ONE.
charlequin
Banned
No, it's there for demonstrating something -- the fact that there are very, very few works that feature women as real characters.
And it's not about protagonists at all. Game of Thrones (a show/novel-series without a single protagonist, but a balance that skews male) nonetheless frequently passes simply because the women are written with agency and interact with one another; The Little Mermaid pretty obviously has a female protagonist yet doesn't pass. People have talked about this pretty extensively in the thread.
It's actually the canonical example referred to in the original Dykes to Watch Out For strip that defines the test.
The realism excuse is seriously bunk, for two reasons: one, that many films are innately unrealistic anyway (I mean, we are talking about a sci-fi film set in an imagined future here) and two, that films taking place in settings that would be female-oriented often move away from realism to have them be male-dominated anyway.
This is really not even remotely the primary reason that women aren't well represented in software development, and I'd recommend reading some of the excellent recent writing about sexism in software to see more about the other factors that are at play here.
Devolution
Member
Sorry what. If I had a dollar for every time something like this was said without a shred of irony or acknowledgment of the cultural impact on our choices I could buy a software company.
plagiarize
Banned
just noticed he was talking about Alien and not Aliens. either way, point still stands as charlequin has made it. Alien passes the test, same as Aliens. i guess i thought he was talking about Aliens as Ripley isn't clearly the protagonist in Alien until quite a ways into the film, and is a minor character for the first half.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
The Shadow
Member
Wow dude....wow....
way more
Member
What? Do you think Ridley Scott pulled out an almanac, looked up the correct male to female ratio for space miners, then used that in his movie? No, it was an artistic choice.
First off I doubt Ridley Scott had as much creative exertion as he likes being known for
I'd also argue the male to female ratio had to be heavily male. First off, the guy who gets infected ("it's like rape") has to be male, the captain has to be male (he offers himself up as bait in a noble sacrifice, and he'd also be the traditional person to actually survive the film if it were following more conventional rules), the android Ash has to be male (he's gagging Ripley with a rolled-up porn magazine at one point), and the black dude has to be male (white knight who, rather than torch the girl and the alien, is killed in a futile defense of the stupid screaming woman.)
In the first half of the movie, meanwhile, gender is pretty much a non-issue. Ripley gets some shit from two guys, but that's because she's an officer and they're the grunts (it's cast in much more of a "gotta' hate our bosses" sort of way.) Ash disregarding her orders is due to his programming, as opposed to "stupid woman won't let me treat this injured crewmember."
Steve Youngblood
Member
Let me get this straight. My boss pays me a salary to do work I could very well do for free because I like the work?
Totally perfect analogy man. Makes perfect sense.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
They weren't free. They were paid for with her YouTube advertising money. Which she will also be receiving from the videos this kickstarter funded.
She should at least have the decency to remove ads from the kickstarted videos.
Steve Youngblood
Member
1.) I don't know why it's automatically assumed that producing video content is free.
2.) I don't know why it's automatically assumed that, assuming she receives no compensation, this isn't a significant time investment that could perhaps be better invested in something that would be financially compensated.
As such, I don't understand your original argument.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Also, this is stupid because the movie takes place in the future. The ratio of male to female astronauts decreases over time, and as we progress into the future, and as social pressures against women in certain occupations (hopefully) lessen, the ratio will drop even more.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
Anybody could shoot any movie for free. They could have made big budget movies for free. They would have sucked and had no production value, but hey, they'd be free. But as production values go up, so do costs. Plus, there is preparation for the videos which includes purchasing video games and the time playing the games specifically for the purpose of the videos. Not to mention analyzing the information she's gathered from playing. And this money will most likely offset living expenses assuming she'll be devoting time on this that she would use on a day job.
And as more money was donated, so did the number of videos. She started with only 5 planned, but now it's up to 12.
This isn't all that different than popular web comic artists asking for donations to offset living expenses so they can spend more time drawing their comics.
tkscz
Member
Ok, I was wrong about which singer, it was Mariah Carey (but I don't listen to pop, so I wouldn't know). Problem is, she kept saying a man wrote it, when Mariah Carey wrote it. Yes, still can be sexist, but it obviously wasn't meant to be. And I still can't get over how sexist Anita Sarkeesian is. The Christmas songs one is her worst video. Why is it a troup when it's a negative woman trait, but it's just how men are when it comes to getting women into having sex with us? The guy from the song did sound like a creep, that i agree with, but to say that's just how men are, trying to convince women to sleep with us, is just down right sexist. This lady is a failure to feminist and is a prime example of why females who want to help, don't want to be considered feminist.
I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining at you by the way.
I just can't see her doing a very good job with that.
what's the issue here
Even if she only uses, like, 50k toward the videos, what's the issue?
Devolution
Member
People using a faulty premise because of her video's topics or really ignorant to how kickstarter works, or both.
Messofanego
Banned
Awesome video ... the "being kratos job" part gave me a big laugh xD
Excellent overview of the issue and a solid rebuttal to some of these incredibly tiring "counter-arguments."
That'd be why it's going to be almost universally ignored.
Neoriceisgood
Member
Couldn't have said it better myself, really.
/edit
Though I do want him to make a full video on jabberjaw now...
I wish to quote this because it's true.
Love it. Needs to be drilled to quite a few people over here.
Jabberjaw looks pretty cool...
But yes, this video is definitely worth the watch, a very concise summation and rebuttal of some of the poor arguments used against this kickstarter.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
But what about the menss??
Or it's yet another hyperbolized pastiche of an argument we've already had.
This guy isn't saying anything new, or saying it in an interesting manner. Another sarcastic commentator, reusing the same five black-and-white faces. We have had more meaningful discussion on this thread than that guy contributes.
(Although I think it's funny how here he says that people who like "that sort of stuff" don't need to worry about their games going away to please women and other demos, while the "own up" piece linked earlier declares that they *must* go away.)
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
Tropes versus Women in Anime
Finaika
Member
She would have a field day with that.
plagiarize
Banned
false dichotomy. paying to fund the videos or watching the videos doesn't prevent anyone from 'doing something real' about the issue.
Steve Youngblood
Member
Go on. What should they be doing? Personally, I think it's beneficial to focus people's attention on more precise examples of the problem, but apparently you think that "there's sexism in video games" tells us all we need to know.
OK. Let's run with that. We know there's sexism in video games. What is this "something real" they should be doing instead of seeking further elucidation on the topic?
Double Fine's previous games were paid for by people purchasing copies and their kickstarted game isn't going to be free.
The fact that the project has been kickstarted does not mean it needs to be free from other forms of monetization.
DragonGirl
Banned
I know I've read somewhere that she does not advertise on her channel so there would be no money coming from that at all. I'll try and find the source of my info.
Edit: Bah! It must have been stated in an interview, not on her main site. I remember her saying she didn't run ads on her channel, that previous projects had been funded by private donations, and that this was her first time trying kickstarter. I can't find the interview though.
well not buying the games that have characters which you find offensive and complaining about it, make a petition, I don't really know.
In my lonely and humble opinion the issue runs a lot deeper, almost all games have stories as shallow as it can be, with characters men and women one dimensional and plain dumb, the problem is that without a good story the only way the devs nowadays find to make a character interesting is visually...
how can we start complaining about this or that when the most fundamental aspect is so flawed.
First we should start having some standard in the story department to then begin asking for deep characters with more diversity and meaning.
The way things are now complaining about sexism or bad representation of any social group is like complaining that a porn is not providing enough drama and suspense.(kinda bad example lol) This is why I said that she'll be stating the obvious.
Creating criticism is doing something "real". Criticism, critical theory, education and soap-boxing are the key drivers of change in the modern world.
You can't just magic bullet "better stories!" and then expect better female representation. You change attitudes and improve situations by laying it down brick by brick. Some girl creating a series of videos analysing sexist tropes within gaming is one such brick.
Why do so many people in threads like this seem to have a pathological fear of things they like being criticized? It's like they think if someone says a negative word, the subject of criticism will spontaneously disintegrate or something.
Many people already do exactly that. That's what the project this thread is about is doing. People are already trying to have games be held to higher standards, but nothing will improve if every time such a person speaks out they're met with "Oh, that's just the way it is." or "It doesn't bother me, why are you bothering to talk about this?".
Many people already do exactly that. That's what the project this thread is about is doing. People are already trying to have games be held to higher standards, but nothing will improve if every time such a person speaks out they're met with "Oh, that's just the way it is." or "It doesn't bother me, why are you bothering to talk about this?".
It's called the first amendment, sir. :smug
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
Well, I know one game that deserves to right on that list:
Red Faction Armageddon.
Not a bad game or anything, but dear god is the CUTSCENE character 'Kara' a walking example of tropes on women...
They literally make every effort to have either her cleavage or ass in every shot she's in. I wouldn't normally single a character out or anything, but this one deserves to be on the list.
Aside from Duke Nukem Forever, of course. Must be fun being a feminist (or feminazi, as I saw on author put it) and playing that game, hahaha.
Red Faction Armageddon.
Not a bad game or anything, but dear god is the CUTSCENE character 'Kara' a walking example of tropes on women...
They literally make every effort to have either her cleavage or ass in every shot she's in. I wouldn't normally single a character out or anything, but this one deserves to be on the list.
Aside from Duke Nukem Forever, of course. Must be fun being a feminist (or feminazi, as I saw on author put it) and playing that game, hahaha.
and of course, they always die at some point so you, the totally not giving a fuck player, can pretend to feel justified 'rage' over the death of "TITS" or "ASS" (why bother with their name anyway?). "Oh no, theykilled TITS!" "you bastards!" *sip drink*
unless of course, her name is Miranda and it's actually me trying to kill her and failing. You just don't go from 'earth nazi loyalist' to 'my friend'. ... fucking boy scout(=Shep) had to save everyone.
unless of course, her name is Miranda and it's actually me trying to kill her and failing. You just don't go from 'earth nazi loyalist' to 'my friend'. ... fucking boy scout(=Shep) had to save everyone.
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