The Wizard
Member
Adventure games in general tend to be better written than other genres and thus have better realized female characters. In fact a lot of these tropes being discussed stem from bad / lazy writing.
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Tropes versus Women in Video Games
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The Anti-Monitor
Banned
Refusing to play a game just because the lead isn't attractive is a stupid reason, sorry, especially if it's just in regard to female characters.
I guess in films the division between "niche" and "blockbuster" is not as clearcut as it is in gaming? I don't watch many "blockbuster" films, but i never feel like i'm avoiding them on purpose or that 'm searching for more obscure stuff, i just watch what inspires me.
In gaming, to just play 2d indie games would feel different and there isn't a big middle field between them and Resident Evil 6.
Maybe that's just a perception i have, though.
And look, it's not like i don't want attractive people in lead roles or anything, i'm just saying having some ugly characters is totally ok, if it fits the role.
Having a fat slob to play a fat slob is alright.
there's no question that attractivness is something subjective. However a society has often pretty clear ideas on what features are desirable. That of course is dependent on culture as being skinny is not a sign of attractivness everywhere in the world.
i guess in this case : what sells best is probably going to be what will be used.
I agree and i actually prefer non-standart characters as they often mean a better thought out story. Alas a pretty face (of any gender) in an advertisment is going to mean more sales in most cases. It's not how it should be but it's how it is especially for the mainstream stuff.
tkscz
Member
Sorry, maybe that picture is a little too personal. I really should've just said I don't agree.
Question, is this talk about woman attractiveness sexist?
I actually thought that was meant to be funny. Didn't even know that it created a little scandal.
But looking at those pics... it feels kind of out of place.
I think Heavy Rain actually did this.
And Resident Evil 5.
Even the infamous 'ass' from Mass Effect was put on a character model that was based on a real life actress.
I think so far are the devlopers are just removing the imperfections, and sometimes even give the actress a virtual boobjob.
Well i draw, and i know that i'm always inclined to draw the most attractive characters/things possible, as a gut feeling, but unless you are putting your stuff together in a weekend, it's not hard to override that process and actually give your character's appereance a correlation to its inner character and place in the story.
If i were to draw a 50 years old hooker crackhead, i wouldn't draw her like a super hot female, even though it's fun to draw beautiful things.
And in the end, i think it'd be more fun to give every character some quirk and imperfection, even on the exterior side.
Which doesn't mean having only ugly characters, as when you walk down the street, there are plenty of good looking people around anyway, it just shouldn't become a taboo like it is for a lot of people.
middle tier games took a serious hit this gen. They are starting to come back but right now, niche and blockbuster are very divided budgetwise.
The only reason why I think that there are unattractive females in AAA games is because the game itself sometimes look that way with bad faces in general(Dragon age,skyrim,Gears of war). I'm sure some of the developers thought that were attractive they just aren't.
Refusing to play the game because the character isn't female is a worst reason imo. There's no reason that Alice madness shouldn't have been a big seller along with heavenly sword....Well at least alice madness anyway.
tkscz
Member
You don't have to edit it out. I should keep in mind there is a difference between a Fat woman, and a fat slob (At least I try to convince my friends this anyway).
How so?
Yeah i used "fat slob" as a (genderless, btw) desciption of a lousy character, Lebowski style, that is also obese.
I'm sorry sometimes it's hard to tell how offensive or appropriate a term is, in English, since it's not my mother language (and there are plenty of differences between England and the US alone).
tkscz
Member
To quit a large number of feminist, men discussing woman's beauty is sexist. Anita herself is apart of that demographic of feminist. I can't remember which video it was, but she went on about how men shouldn't be inspired by the beauty of women. I still think that's dumb as that is a hinder to art. People should be inspired by what ever the fuck they want to Anita, just because you don't like it, doesn't mean you get to be a bitch about it.
It's alright, I should've made my point more clear as well. I actually wouldn't mind seeing a plus size character in a video game that wasn't a Joke. Bob from Tekken 6 is a good example of this. He looks like an average over weight guy who fights on some serious shit. I loved that his ending was him getting depressed that he lost the weight.
The Wizard
Member
Wasn't there quite a bit of critical backlash within the feminist gamer community to Fat Princess? That's probably one of the few fat female leads in gaming recently and instead of being welcomed by the parts of the feminist community it was attacked and criticised.
That's stupid. I'm a girl who doesn't mind talking what her ideal woman's body would look like. Everyone has preferences.
was the character put in a positive light (i don't know the game)? I can kind of understand the critisism if the "being fat" part was only used to make fun of the character
The goal of the game was to make your own princess fat to make her heavier to kidnap. I thought it was hilarious.
http://sodisarmingdarling.tumblr.co...isagrees-with-woman-makes-game-about-punching
It seems as if discussion elsewhere on the internet is proceeding smoothly. Jesus.
It seems as if discussion elsewhere on the internet is proceeding smoothly. Jesus.
tkscz
Member
On the plus sized boards I go to, a few women found it to be quite funny as well. The main issue with feminist and fat princess is that the woman is again a princess. She is only there as an object for the other to take, and not really a character. The getting fat thing is like the icing on the cake.
As for feminist hating the talk of beauty, wish I could explain that. I have a friend who met some women who thought she was a feminist. They pissed her right the fuck off.
She brought up female characters who only exist in stories to motivate/inspire a male character as a trope that's overused in storytelling. I don't think she actually takes issue with men being inspired by women or beauty in general, and I certainly don't think that she's dictating what artists are allowed to be inspired by in real life, lol
tkscz
Member
This is another moment where someone has to explain Anita's video for her. Not saying there is anything wrong for you doing that, but the fact still remains about her ability to write. It should be right there in the video, instead it sound more like that's exactly what she meant when she said men shouldn't be inspired by a woman's beauty. This, again, is why I don't want her doing this.
I guess they'll make something shake by 2015 as all of this is just helping anita get noticed for the better...I think.
that does sound like a fun premise.
Just to be sure that we're discussing the same video, is it "#1 The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Tropes vs. Women)"?
She titles the video Tropes vs. Women, defines the word trope at the beginning of the video, and has a link in the video description to an explanation for that series.
And here is the description for "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl."
I really think that she was clear about her intentions in this case, even if I don't agree 100% with the video's content (Clementine is not a Manic Pixie Dream Girl).
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
I'm not sure I undersand how that's related, I don't think anyone said that?
The Wizard
Member
Actually he's right about her using this trope to make a larger point about men citing women as inspiration.
Near the end of the video:
tkscz
Member
That, yes that right there is what I'm talking about. Just because a man sees a woman as inspiration, doesn't mean we don't think they have abilities of their own. I've always felt that came shit out of nowhere, just like in her straw-feminist video. During the powerpuff girls section she talks about bullying of girls on the playground, which was something that didn't happen in that episode of PPG. The boy accidentally hit the girl with the ball, apologizing right afterwards for it. Then she mentions women being forced to do house work, when it was Professor Utonium who cleaned EVERY room of the house, except for the girl's room. Flipping one thing to make a point about another is not a good way of writing.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
...Did you really just say you wouldn't even be friends with a woman unless she is conventionally attractive?
Ah, I stand corrected; I forgot about that bit towards the end. It still comes across as a minor tangent that doesn't change the overall point of the video.
Actually, I think it explains her motivation for approaching the topic in the first place. She believes being cited as an inspiration is somehow degrading to women, so now she's going to show us examples of it happening and tell us that it's bad.
To sound more legitimate, she founds her perspective in the form of a trope that can be easily understood.
We have to remember that the platform she's working from is feminism. Her being disgusted by "women as an inspiration" doesn't sound like feminism at all. She truly believes the existence and depiction of this trope is hurtful to women.
So ehm.. some of you guys (Grizz, tkscz, etc) don't agree with her videos (as a general stance) or with the position of females in gaming as a whole? Because the two things CAN be considered separated.
Even if you don't agree with her analysis, you can agree with the general premise?
Even if you don't agree with her analysis, you can agree with the general premise?
I've stated this many times before: the representation of women in video games is far from ideal. There is not enough variety, there's room for many more interesting and lead females, and their depictions could afford to be much less sexual in general.
What I disagree with is the way Anita is approaching the issue - telling us who fits what trope isn't helpful or useful in any way, especially since we can do this easily on our own. We already established that tropes as a concept are neutral, but the tone of her overall presentation says she believes otherwise.
I think tkscz would say pretty much the same thing.
plagiarize
Banned
tropes as a concept are neutral from a good writing vs bad writing perspective. that isn't to say that certain tropes aren't reinforcing harmful gender roles if they're allowed to appear the 'norm' though. just a distinction i think it's fair to make. a trope can contain a potentially harmful gender stereotype. it's not bad because it's a trope, it's bad because it's a harmful stereotype.
fizzelopeguss
Banned
tkscz
Member
Like I've said before, I agree with what she is trying to do, I've been wanting some to do this on a large scale for some time. And her heart can be in the right place at times, but her ability to research and write are quite appalling.
Leaving out details to make her point better. Skipping over or leaving parts out of her sources in order to make herself sound more professional, flipping subjects of the source she's using the make the source seem more sexist than it was, writing the tropes of men as just normal behavior for men, the list of how bad she writes and researches goes on and on. Some people even find issues in her essay she used to get her masters. Finding all kinds of contradictions and misuses of her sources.
My main concern is that while making these tropes, she'll do things like, call out the developers, claim they are sexist (she's claimed a lot of writers of it). Put characters in categories they really don't belong in. Make claims about characters that don't make sense. These are things she does on a regular basis with her videos.
Right, this can be said for many many tropes though, so in the end we go back in the same old place: exposition, variety, saturation etc etc etc.
Taken to the extreme many tropes can be harmful, and that's the problem (i) have with gaming and female characters.
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^ I see.
Well i have only seen a couple of videos of her (one being the pixie one) and i think she had some good to decent points, as well as some questionable to awful ones.
In the end i haven't found them very compelling so i stopped caring (which is what most of the "haters" should simply do, imo) but i think the discussion itself is very interesting and worth having, so in that sense, it's been a positive influence, if anything for bringing attention to the issue.
If i had to give a damn about every blogger/youtuber i didn't find compelling enough, i'd have hanged myself by now.
timetokill
Banned
Wait, so if we're actually inspired by a woman to create something, are we supposed to just... lie about it, or something?
Neoriceisgood
Member
It's all about how you say it.
tkscz
Member
Well i have only seen a couple of videos of her (one being the pixie one) and i think she had some good to decent points, as well as some questionable to awful ones.
In the end i haven't found them very compelling so i stopped caring (which is what most of the "haters" should simply do, imo) but i think the discussion itself is very interesting and worth having, so in that sense, it's been a positive influence, if anything for bringing attention to the issue.
If i had to give a damn about every blogger/youtuber i didn't find compelling enough, i'd have hanged myself by now.
I know I shouldn't care. Yet, I'm compelled to see what she does. This is a subject near and dear to not just me, but all of gaf. The fact that her researching skills suck so bad is what makes me wish she wouldn't do this. Oh the mistakes she can make, the things she can get wrong. And the sheep who would just follow her every word.
Others have said it, but the problem with Fat Princess is she's not a lead, she's the 'flag' in a game of 'capture the flag'. It's a fun game, but there really isn't much more that could be done to have the character be objectified, which was the main complaint.
Haven't played the game, but to me that sounds more like a parody of/jab at the princess in distress trope.
But see you are a woman, lesbian at that, so it's cool. Men just do it to objectify women.
I wish it were that cut and dry cause. Hell you can be the biggest misandrist in the world and still be called a feminist.
note: my web browser don't even recognize the word lol.
One of my lesbian friends objectifies attractive women.
I'm pretty sure that women also talk about what the ideal man would look like.
you can be called that but that doesn't make it true.
if the first priority of a feminist is equality, a misandrist can't really be a feminist (and it's not like hatred towards men has been displayed in this thread)
tkscz
Member
But that's not sexist according to feminist. It's why I can't support the majority of feminist. While they try and stand against sexism, they themselves are sexist.
I've met a few "misandrists" in my life, but none of them called themselves feminists, on the other hand, people who defined themselves "feminists" were generally just progressive, more liberal people; i guess it's also a matter of chance and personal experiences, when it comes to anecdotal data.
That's not the case according to what "feminism" actually means, if someone misunderstood the meaning, it doesn't change that fact.
Again, "feminist" is not a singular brained entity, it's stupid to generalise like that, just like it's stupid to do it with any other group.
That's not the case according to what "feminism" actually means, if someone misunderstood the meaning, it doesn't change that fact.
Galactic Fork
A little fluff between the ears never did any harm...
What are you basing this on? And where is it said feminism is against people finding other people attractive?
Anita Sarkeesian said:
Uh...this is confusing. The first two paragraphs seem to say that it's somehow degrading to women that men find inspiration in them, which is a stupid notion. The last paragraph seems to say that women endeavour after their own ambitions, and not be there just to inspire men or be celebrated by men. There would be truth in that, and the Manic Pixie Dream trope would make sense then.
I think she had a sensible point to make, but made it really poorly.
Devolution
Member
Feminists aren't against attractiveness or even sexiness. They're against constant sexual objectification. Ugh.
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