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[APF]

I can't say you are wrong in saying this is mostly a matter of how people talk about games, but I would say creation is very much affected by "talk" (such as by means of attributing lower or higher status)

Well, creation is still going to be guided by money, not talk. Talk can maybe make producers try and anticipate where the market will shift, but overall few developers are in it for charity. They're responding to calls from gamers for more inclusion / etc because they feel this will either improve their craft or broaden their appeal (or the flip side--prevent a lessening of appeal), both of which will come back to their bottom-line.

and it doesn't really change why people are defensive against a cause that can sometimes be made to sound as impossible to oppose in any reasonable way (e.g., "the worst case scenario is equality" and bringing up gender select in Call of Duty). My ideals on criticism are probably not very interesting, but I would think my claims of dishonesty or inconsistency are.

This might not be a response you care for, but maybe it actually is impossible to oppose in a reasonable way. That of course doesn't remove the defensiveness from people who somehow identify with the status-quo, but we also have to bear in mind that the "status-quo" is something that has literally always been evolving in terms of content and representation etc; it's hard for me to consider adherence to something so insubstantial with the level of importance or reverence some folks appear to want me to, much less personally identify with it.


EDIT: JMargaris: I don't know if you've noticed it, but there are still big tits in films.

 

[Riposte]

Well, creation is still going to be guided by money, not talk. Talk can maybe make producers try and anticipate where the market will shift, but overall few developers are in it for charity. They're responding to calls from gamers for more inclusion / etc because they feel this will either improve their craft or broaden their appeal (or the flip side--prevent a lessening of appeal), both of which will come back to their bottom-line.

This might not be a response you care for, but maybe it actually is impossible to oppose in a reasonable way. That of course doesn't remove the defensiveness from people who somehow identify with the status-quo, but we also have to bear in mind that the "status-quo" is something that has literally always been evolving in terms of content and representation etc; it's hard for me to consider adherence to something so insubstantial with the level of importance or reverence some folks appear to want me to, much less personally identify with it.

I agree with your description of the status-quo as constantly evolving. That's why I don't hold the concept in such a cynical regard, a concrete otherness to oppose (nor am I pessimistic about racial or gender or sexual orientation character representation). Remember, we are speaking of Dragon's Crown in this instance. I don't think the truly enthusiastic fans of that game could be conflated into fans of the more generalized status quo; They are fans of something the status quo has allowed to exist, and not to any great extent. In the end, "status quo" is just another way of saying "the present" (which is, unsurprisingly, constantly evolving). I think it is a little unfair to boil anyone's point of view into not wanting to change the present in the midst of an argument about what the future should look like.

 

[Gestault]

What moderator told you that? Or did you misinterpret the post earlier in this thread telling you that this wasn't the place to go on a tirade about how "manchildren" is offensive?

A post pointing out the way a gender stereotype was being used as a petty insult to criticize sexism isn't a tirade.

 

[Mumei]

Whereas "manchild" is one of a series of derogatory terms to dismiss men who express any sort of disagreement with feminists or feminism at all. They are equivalent dismissals on opposite sides.

Perhaps it has been used to dismiss men who have made legitimate criticisms about her commentary; I wouldn't know for reasons I've already explained. I would suspect that its usage is primarily directed towards men who have acted like, er, children when it comes to their hobby being criticized. If there are men who respond to a person attempting to capture, in some small sense, the scale of negative or shallow representation of women in video games by attempting to prevent it from happening in the first place, they are acting like children.

But if you see someone accusing someone of acting like a manchild, particularly a member of this site, please do PM me.

A white knight is just someone who blindly defends someone or takes their side simply because the target has a vagina. And it is pathetic when it's done, regardless of whether it's done opportunistically and cynically, out of some bizarre sense of chivalry, or just plain misguided behaviour.

If it's someone who genuinely needs defending and they happen to be a woman, it's not white knighting. If it's a debate and they're being criticised unfairly and happen to be a woman, it's not white knighting. All you need to ask is if the person would take the same action if in the same circumstance the target happened to be a man, and you'll get your answer*.

* There are some situations that are more likely to affect women, but this does not make it white knighting by itself.

You're presenting a distinction that does not matter from the perspective of moderation, and I'd argue that these positions overlap in their actual use. In either case, it's not about what they are saying or doing or their motivations for doing so. Frankly, even if someone is only defending someone else because they are a woman (whether for sex or some misguided sense that women's honor needs defending), you still need to address their arguments. Don't use it.

 

[Weltall Zero]

In the first post we see a reply to a sane post stating that these threats are just as bad no matter the gender of the person they are aimed at. A sane claim. but the replay states they arent the same? how is it not the same?

The post stating that "it's the same" was done in a transparent attempt to, once again, derail the discussion. See my point 2), which you obviously decided to ignore. Whether or not violence threats are the same or not for men and women is irrelevant to my original point, namely, that the people in this thread pretending to know better than the victims (male or female) have received zero death threats with their home addresses attached. Unfortunately that derail attempt was at least partially successful judging from your post.

Whether or not violence and rape threats are more threatening for women than men is possibly subjective and, again, entirely pointless for the discussion at hand, so I won't waste any more time elaborating my position.

 

[Toxi]

Threats from basement dwellers that don't materialise into anything? So scary.

Of course it might be a concern but nothing has ever happened to internet figures that posted their addreses online, even to someone like Phil Fish who deserves much more ire than her. Nothing at all.

Why would I show empathy? Nothing has actually happened to her, threats of violence, espsicaly when you are semi-noteworthy are commonplace. What do those basement dwelling neckbeards plan to do with her address, send her an angry letter?

Please read this and then stop posting about how she has nothing to fear.

 

[GeordieMark]

Oh, those 'man-children'. When will they learn, eh?!

These 'I'm going to be totally obnoxious to show you how correct I am' articles really aren't helping anything to my mind. I'm just looking at a battlefield full of arseholes and I don't wish to be associated with either side.

I'm with you on that.

I don't see how more hostility could possibly be the right way to go about making a case. There is enough already and it isn't particularly constructive.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Why would I show empathy? Nothing has actually happened to her, threats of violence, espsicaly when you are semi-noteworthy are commonplace. What do those basement dwelling neckbeards plan to do with her address, send her an angry letter?

People who go into such a fit of rage over in-depth criticism of their hobby that they are willing to find her address and send her vile threats obviously aren't the most mentally stable people. I'd be cautious as hell.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

You have compared representations of human beings to trees and cars as though they are completely equal. I'd like for you to pause and consider the gravity of such a suggestion. You've compared a representation of a human being to a THING. As equal.

I am not going to say I even disagree with the notion that men as bullet fodder isn't problematic. It is very problematic. Regardless of them being good games or not, it's why I make the choice not to play them. The choice for how some of them choose to depict women only solidifies why I refuse to play them, but my core disagreement is in the depiction in totality.

The difference is that such discussion on men as bullet fodder is already well and present in every discussion regarding the shooter genre. That's not a matter of debate: any and all discussion regarding the problems with the genre gravitates towards its depiction of violence against hordes of people.

And the difference between depictions of men and women in such games is clear. Both are problematic, but for very different reasons. And you highlighting how a dead stripper is somehow equal to a broken-down car only highlights the problem further.



I'd think that this "stupid caricature" would be exactly relevant to these issues, as the "caricature" is likely the type of real living person who's sending death threats on Twitter and the kinds of people who have openly rallied against and openly harassed Anita Sarkeesian for having the audacity to present the topic itself, before a single video had ever been posted. You're free to disagree, but I'm not sure how exactly you could. A caricature involves embellishing a real world idea, but the real world examples often exceed any possible embellishment.

In a fictional world for full of fictional things, yes they very much are, or at the very least can be. Context of the game clarifies everything in these situations, but because in real life we are supposed to care or consider humans more important than trees doesn't mean in games we have to. Because it all goes towards world building, and whose to say what equates to better world building between one "thing" and another "thing".

 

[Photolysis]

You're presenting a distinction that does not matter from the perspective of moderation, and I'd argue that these positions overlap in their actual use.

"White knighting" is usually conspicuous by the lack of an actual argument, or hypocrisy on the part of the poster, which is how people can actually tell. Regardless of their reasons, if they can actually make a valid argument then that stands on its own merits. A debate is a debate.

I'm not using it nor here to argue about moderation policy, just clarifying what the term tends to mean.

 

[Toxi]

"White knighting" is usually conspicuous by the lack of an actual argument, or hypocrisy on the part of the poster, which is how people can actually tell. Regardless of their reasons, if they can actually make a valid argument then that stands on its own merits. A debate is a debate.

I'm not using it nor here to argue about moderation policy, just clarifying what the term tends to mean.

That's not a sign of white knighting, otherwise the people mindlessly attacking Sarkeesian on boards like r/gaming would be white knights.

You cannot tell if someone is a "white knight" in most cases, no matter how shitty their arguments are. End of story.

 

[Aylinato]

People need to stop being assholes.

I will never understand people's urges to threaten someone who they disagree with with actual violent words/threats of death.

 

[emko]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength. She is just like Jack Thompson trying to force us into his view that playing violent game makes you violent or how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist. Kinda of the same crap like Glenn Beck thinks Watch Dogs teaches you how to hack. I can see why some people would get upset she wont even let people comment on her videos and the fact she is not even a gamer as she admits she never plays games. Just watch some of her videos she cherry picks moments that appear sexist while ignoring the rest of the game.

Devs should make what ever they want with what ever gender main character they want. I will enjoy a good game whether its a female or male character.

 

[pakkit]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength. She is just like Jack Thompson trying to force us into his view that playing violent game makes you violent or how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist. Kinda of the same crap like Glenn Beck thinks Watch Dogs teaches you how to hack. I can see why some people would get upset she wont even let people comment on her videos and the fact she is not even a gamer as she admits she never plays games. Just watch some of her videos she cherry picks moments that appear sexist while ignoring the rest of the game.

Just be honest if you didn't watch the video.

"how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist."

Said Anita, never.

 

[APF]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength. She is just like Jack Thompson trying to force us into his view that playing violent game makes you violent or how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist. Kinda of the same crap like Glenn Beck thinks Watch Dogs teaches you how to hack. I can see why some people would get upset she wont even let people comment on her videos and the fact she is not even a gamer as she admits she never plays games. Just watch some of her videos she cherry picks moments that appear sexist while ignoring the rest of the game.

Devs should make what ever they want with what ever gender main character they want. I will enjoy a good game whether its a female or male character.

I've been trying to do the best I can to detach myself emotionally from these discussions and not react in an overbearing or hyperbolic manner because that's what I'd want to see from folks on the other side of the divide, but honestly seeing posts like this really makes me want to tear my hair out.

 

[zero shift]

I mean...can you possibly think of a better event that proves that what she is saying has some truth to it? That it bothers people so much what she is saying that it results to this?

 

[Toxi]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength.

While the average strength for men and women is different, comparing averages is usually stupid because there is far more variation of strength within a gender than between them.

For example, I'm pretty sure neither of us is able to do this despite being manly men.

 

[faceless007]

"White knighting" is usually conspicuous by the lack of an actual argument, or hypocrisy on the part of the poster, which is how people can actually tell.

You don't realize it, but you're actually describing those who use the term "white knight," not those who are called it.

 

[EdibleKnife]

I've been trying to do the best I can to detach myself emotionally from these discussions and not react in an overbearing or hyperbolic manner because that's what I'd want to see from folks on the other side of the divide, but honestly seeing posts like this really makes me want to tear my hair out.

Haha understandably. Anita is Glen Beck or Jack Thompson in the same way a ham sandwich is an airplane. She's not trying to force anyone to do anything or brainwash anyone. All she does is make videos about trends. She doesn't encourage people to burn their copies of GTA, she doesn't call for creators to be verbally skewered over their writing, she just points out problematic trends. That's all.

 

[Mononoke]

All publications (and developers and publishers and every institution in video games culture and industry) should do like Games.on: http://games.on.net/2014/08/readers-threatened-by-equality-not-welcome/

While I agree there are certain things we should stand up for, I don't think it helps to have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to discussion. You can be for equality, and still have criticisms of people that are representing it or certain topics worth debating. But it feels like people are saying there is no room for debate.

If that's how this is going to be played, then is it all that surprising we are going to continue to have two sides waging war on each other? And to be quite frank, I think those in the middle are going to be turned off by the side saying you either stand with us, or are against us. I can agree with the cause you are representing, but still disagree with you on certain aspects. But if you are going to say that there is no room for debate, and that you are against us if you don't agree, then I'm sorry, I'm just going to stop listening to you.

 

[aeolist]

While I agree there are certain things we should stand up for, I don't think it helps to have an all or nothing mentality when it comes to discussion. You can be for equality, and still have criticisms of people that are representing it or certain topics worth debating. But it feels like people are saying there is no room for debate.

If that's how this is going to be played, then is it all that surprising we are going to continue to have two sides waging war on each other? And to be quite frank, I think those in the middle are going to be turned off by the side saying you either stand with us, or are against us. I can agree with the cause you are representing, but still disagree with you on certain aspects. But if you are going to say that there is no room for debate, and that you are against us if you don't agree, then I'm sorry, I'm just going to stop listening to you.

if you really think feminism, or women, are destroying games, or that LGBT people and LGBT relationships have no place in games, or that games in any way belong to you or are “under attack” from political correctness or “social justice warriors”: please leave this website.

he's not demonizing everyone who disagrees with him and he's not saying there's no room whatsoever for discussion and criticism

he's laying down a fairly clear set of criteria for his audience that i find extremely hard to disagree with

 

[emko]

Just be honest if you didn't watch the video.

Said Anita, never.

Yes i did watch the video she says

Compounding the problem is the widespread belief that, despite all the evidence, exposure to media has no real world impact. While it may be comforting to think we all have a personal force field protecting us from outside influences, this is simply not the case. Scholars sometimes refer to this type of denial as the “third person effect”, which is the tendency for people to believe that they are personally immune to media’s effects even if others may be influenced or manipulated. Paradoxically and somewhat ironically, those who most strongly believe that media is just harmless entertainment are also the ones most likely to uncritically internalize harmful media messages.

In short, the more you think you cannot be affected, the more likely you are to be affected.

How does you trying to shut down a sex trafficing ring in watch dogs make it sexist?
Wanting to save your loved one from kidnapping is sexist as well? just because the person kidnapped is a women?

 

[aeolist]

just because she pointed out some sexist content in a game does not mean the game itself is sexist or is comprised entirely of sexist material

being unable to comprehend shades of grey and come to terms with any level of criticism at all (like this) is why sarkeesian's detractors have a reputation for immaturity, by the way

 

[Toxi]

Yes i did watch the video she says

How does you trying to shut down a sex trafficing ring in watch dogs make it sexist?
Wanting to save your loved one from kidnapping is sexist as well? just because the person kidnapped is a women?

You copy+pasted the transcript. Come on and actually watch the video.

 

[SigSig]

How does you trying to shut down a sex trafficing ring in watch dogs make it sexist?
Wanting to save your loved one from kidnapping is sexist as well? just because the person kidnapped is a women?

You don't understand at all what her videos are about, do you?

 

[unbias]

Haha understandably. Anita is Glen Beck or Jack Thompson in the same way a ham sandwich is an airplane. She's not trying to force anyone to do anything or brainwash anyone. All she does is make videos about trends. She doesn't encourage people to burn their copies of GTA, she doesn't call for creators to be verbally skewered over their writing, she just points out problematic trends. That's all.

I dont think people realize, that even if you dont agree with what she says, she still isnt really attacking people who play the games, she is going after the people who make the games. People think that this will, for some reason(I'm assuming because some of the press agree with her?) that certain things in games will be taken away. Some people actually believe Leigh, that there really is an army and they have the power to take away games that you like. People need to stop thinking Anita has the power to take away games. Just beucase there are tweets from people saying her video's helped with perspective, in no way infers you wont be getting GTA or Saints Row type games anymore. I'm actually not sure why someone would believe this.

 

[emko]

You copy+pasted the transcript. Come on and actually watch the video.

I did watch it and i wont type all the crap she said i rather not waste my time so i googled it.
So what now? her comment is correct? though i haven't done anything in real life that i do in games.

 

[Oersted]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength. She is just like Jack Thompson trying to force us into his view that playing violent game makes you violent or how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist. Kinda of the same crap like Glenn Beck thinks Watch Dogs teaches you how to hack. I can see why some people would get upset she wont even let people comment on her videos and the fact she is not even a gamer as she admits she never plays games. Just watch some of her videos she cherry picks moments that appear sexist while ignoring the rest of the game.

Devs should make what ever they want with what ever gender main character they want. I will enjoy a good game whether its a female or male character.

You got all the classics covered. Even "she is not a real gamer" and the closed comment section on Youtube. Impressive work.

 

[Toxi]

I did watch it and i wont type all the crap she said i rather not waste my time so i googled it.
So what now? her comment is correct? though i haven't done anything in real life that i do in games.

It is correct. People are influenced by the media they consume. This is the entire purpose of advertising.

 

[Tellaerin]

I dont think people realize, that even if you dont agree with what she says, she still isnt really attacking people who play the games, she is going after the people who make the games. People think that this will, for some reason(I'm assuming because some of the press agree with her?) that certain things in games will be taken away. Some people actually believe Leigh, that there really is an army and they have the power to take away games that you like. People need to stop thinking Anita has the power to take away games. Just beucase there are tweets from people saying her video's helped with perspective, in no way infers you wont be getting GTA or Saints Row type games anymore. I'm actually not sure why someone would believe this.

Perhaps it's because some of her more vocal supporters seem to be expressing the sentiment that this is what they want. They make it clear that they'd prefer to see content they dislike expunged from games, and to that end, they marginalize and vilify anyone who enjoys that content. These are the people who treat any agreement with Anita, particularly when it's from developers, as proof positive that the change they're "fighting for" is really happening, and that games as we know them now will soon be a thing of the past.

When you have people aggressively promoting this view, it's not surprising that some folks would take these "threats" to "their games" seriously, regardless of how valid that actually is. The fact that it's basically being treated as "the war for the soul of videogames" doesn't really encourage rational discourse.

 

[staticneuron]

Please read this and then stop posting about how she has nothing to fear.

So you reposted the same link someone posted 50 posts earlier. Out of millions of people on the web is this the only example people can come with? There are many more examples of people screaming death threats over the internet and nothing coming from it.

You don't understand at all what her videos are about, do you?

I watched more than a few of her videos and the controversy surrounding it. The last time she received threats like these is because she antagonized 4chan and then had interview playing the victim. I am sorry, but 4chan is known for obnoxious behavior so riling them up and then those interviews afterwards all seemed like something that was done on purpose.

Not only does most of her videos have situations and things out of context, alot of points she argues is because "females" are objects that are acted upon in. Some of her arguments are pointing out how some females (random NPC or strippers) are devalued because there are no meaningful interaction with them. This is broken logic as it ignores that since all games are about player agency that most NPC or background characters whether they are male or not are also objects. I could site here and make a list of all the things that her videos point out which makes no sense at all unless you have blinders on or some strong sense of confirmation bias.

Either way, I don't think anyone deserves to be harassed or sent death threats for their opinions but I am wary of believing such a thing given her history with this type of situation.

It is correct. People are influenced by the media they consume. This is the entire purpose of advertising.

Games aren't advertising. Games are entertainment and a form of escapism.

Asking why COD doesn't have female leads or female models in MP, that is logical question. There are women in the military, why not in a video game. Pointing out that you can murder a women in a game to show how bad and misogynistic that game is, is misleading and pointless if the game in question allows you to murder anyone regardless of gender. And that is why I do not take some of her video's seriously because they are filled with alot of things that simply are horribly skewed or narrow sighted just to prove a point that really isn't there.

 

[emko]

It is correct. People are influenced by the media they consume. This is the entire purpose of advertising.

so because i played first person shooter for over 15 years, I should like guns, I should like to kill people right? Yet i hate guns, have never touched one and don't like violence in real life. Her idea that you become sexist because YOU CAN kill a stripper but if you watch the only video where someone does kill the stripper is from her own video every other play through of Hitman shows people sneek by the strippers. She just finds ways to show her point of view this very easy to do and the fact she doesnt play games i can see how she makes so many mistakes in her videos. She makes shutting down a sex trafficing ring look like a bad thing in Watchdogs.

watch "Feminist Frequency: Bayonetta And Advertising Original" you can clearly see she has no idea what she is talking about for anyone who played the game would know.

 

[Mumei]

Games aren't advertising. Games are entertainment and a form of escapism.

That's not a relevant distinction to the point that Toxi made. Advertising takes advantage of the fact that people are influenced by the media they consume, but something needn't be advertising in order to influence people. We're influenced by all the media we consume - whether this is the nightly news, newspaper editorials, movies, television shows, novels, history books, and video games. I'm not suggesting that there's some sort of mindless and acritical absorption of what you're seeing, of course, but the effects do exist even if they are more complex than A causes B style cause-and-effect. Just this week in The Atlantic, there was a short article about how portrayals of doctors in medical television shows can affect the way patients perceive doctors in the real world.

Though you might think that people are perfectly capable of separating television from reality, cultivation theory suggests they cannot, entirely. The theory goes that the social reality people are exposed to on TV shapes their attitudes toward real social reality, and it does so, of course, in subtle and complicated ways that are hard to nail down. Prevailing societal attitudes obviously influence what goes on TV, too, further complicating the relationship.

“Television, movies, books, all of these things, a lot of people like to believe they’re just fun and games, that they really don’t affect us, it’s just entertainment,” says Dr. Rebecca M. Chory, a professor in Frostburg State University’s business school who has studied TV’s influence on attitudes toward healthcare. “But the research consistently shows that’s not true.”

And there's nothing special about gamers that makes them less susceptible to these effects.

For example, I'm pretty sure neither of us is able to do this despite being manly men.

That's terrifying. @_@

I've been trying to do the best I can to detach myself emotionally from these discussions and not react in an overbearing or hyperbolic manner because that's what I'd want to see from folks on the other side of the divide, but honestly seeing posts like this really makes me want to tear my hair out.

Truth be told, I actually found it rather amusing.

Around half an hour before he posted it, I had been talking to Cyan about how I wished that she had taken out more time to explain how literary criticism works, because I think that gamers (and when I say "gamers," I mean the narrower set of people that self-identifies with that term and makes some sort of emotional identification with the hobby, as opposed to the broader "people who play video games") have a sort of siege mentality due to decades of being blamed for school violence or general corruption of innocence, featuring people like Jack Thompson. And I pointed out that a lot of the arguments presented against her center around this premise: That she is attempting to prove that video games cause gamers to be misogynists, in the same way that Jack Thompson tried to prove that video games cause kids to be violent. There's a fundamental misunderstanding about how literary criticism works since, as this article points out, the work she's doing on how video games as a medium present women looks perfectly ordinary when contrasted with the same sort of criticism of, say, a movie.

The other major issue I've seen a lot of is a misunderstanding about what she is trying to do in presenting instances of the particular trope she's talking about, which is either centered around, "She's being unfair; there are lots of times when that doesn't happen in this game or in that game. Why is she ignoring all the games where it doesn't happen?" or, "Why is she ignoring the context? If you look at what was happening in the story, it makes perfect sense that [insert trope] was present in that story." These both miss the mark: They aren't meant to be exhaustive, to claim that the tropes should never be present, or even to argue that their presence in the specific games she presented is illegitimate. She's using them for illustrative purposes, to give examples of what she is talking about. And as the point of her series is about the state of the representation of women in gaming, nitpicking about individual examples is missing the forest for the trees. It's about the collective prevalence of all the negative (or simply shallow and uninteresting) tropes throughout the medium. Over the course of the video series, she's ultimately not making much deeper of a point than, "Consider all of these tropes and how prevalent they are. This is how women are presented in video games, and as a medium it should aspire to a higher standard than that."

At any rate, it is probably the case that it wouldn't have helped much if she had said this more explicitly ... but I would have liked something convenient to copy and paste.

 

[Orayn]

Asking why COD doesn't have female leads or female models in MP, that is logical question. There are women in the military, why not in a video game.

1. What happens in CoD has very little to do with the real world military, as nearly all of the non-WW2 games have put players in the role of a super secret international taskforce or somesuch, fighting fictional wars against superterrorists and made up bad guy organizations. It's pretty much GI Joe with real guns instead of lasers.

2. CoD has female models in multiplayer now. Infinity Ward said they were implemented because they wanted to serve the female audience that was already there.

 

[Oersted]

^ It is funny how "realism" and "non-realism" seemingly work both as excuses for not including women.

 

[staticneuron]

That's not a relevant distinction to the point that Toxi made. Advertising takes advantage of the fact that people are influenced by the media they consume, but something needn't be advertising in order to influence people. We're influenced by all the media we consume - whether this is the nightly news, newspaper editorials, movies, television shows, novels, history books, and video games. I'm not suggesting that there's some sort of mindless and acritical absorption of what you're seeing, of course, but the effects do exist even if they are more complex than A causes B style cause-and-effect. Just this week in The Atlantic, there was a short article about how portrayals of doctors in medical television shows can affect the way patients perceive doctors in the real world.



And there's nothing special about gamers that makes them less susceptible to these effects.

I am always wary about results like these. Since people aren't blank slates how is it proven exactly that the media is changing their perception versus the viewers gravitating towards something that reinforces their beliefs. They talk about these concepts in Reinforcement and Selective exposure theory and the idea is, you get 10 people and you track their held beliefs or opinion on something. Show them all the same media and then they will have different take always that align with their originally held belief.

My question is why would you think gamers are less susceptible to this type of confirmation bias?

1. What happens in CoD has very little to do with the real world military, as nearly all of the non-WW2 games have put players in the role of a super secret international taskforce or somesuch, fighting fictional wars against superterrorists and made up bad guy organizations. It's pretty much GI Joe with real guns instead of lasers.

2. CoD has female models in multiplayer now. Infinity Ward said they were implemented because they wanted to serve the female audience that was already there.

1. That is awesome but even GI Joe has female members. And it isn't about how close to real life it is, it is about being inclusive without being a detriment to the story/time period. It would break immersion of a WW2 game to have female combatants in the field but most games based off of modern warfare shouldn't have that issue.

2. That is good to know.

 

[Terrell]

In a fictional world for full of fictional things, yes they very much are, or at the very least can be. Context of the game clarifies everything in these situations, but because in real life we are supposed to care or consider humans more important than trees doesn't mean in games we have to. Because it all goes towards world building, and whose to say what equates to better world building between one "thing" and another "thing".

So representations of dead sexualized women are equal to things and should be considered a normal thing, no big deal... OK, let's run with that. In fact, any representation of people is equal to things, by this definition.

So let's just replace these dead and/or women with any unspeakable horror known to man, since it doesn't matter. Like... oh, I dunno, graphic depictions of child sexual abuse. I mean, we can't find that troubling, right? They're not actual people, after all, right? Hell, let's include it in every game! What does it matter, since they're just THINGS? They have no context, there's no emotional investment can be made about them, what's so troubling about that idea? I'm sure that no one would ever possibly have a problem with that.

Hell, why limit it to games? Movies feature fictional worlds full of fictional people who aren't real, so truthfully, they're things too! Let's just make every instance of every media a display of the worst and most graphic shit a human being can possibly imagine, since it apparently doesn't matter.

I'm sure you'd see nothing wrong with that, would you? How can you, when representations of people are just... things?


EDIT: As a side note regarding this made-up scenario, I doubt there'd be anyone being called an "SJW" over repeated depictions of child abuse.... at least I'd hope not. Then again, as GAF keeps saying, "there's a defense force for everything"... eww, I just made myself shudder.
So it strikes me as odd that there's such a big backlash over a simple thing as pointing out that repeated depictions of sexualized violence against women are not necessarily a good thing for anyone.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

So representations of dead sexualized women are equal to things and should be considered a normal thing, no big deal... OK, let's run with that. In fact, any representation of people is equal to things, by this definition.

So let's just replace these dead and/or women with any unspeakable horror known to man, since it doesn't matter. Like... oh, I dunno, graphic depictions of child sexual abuse. I mean, we can't find that troubling, right? They're not actual people, after all, right? Hell, let's include it in every game! What does it matter, since they're just THINGS? They have no context, there's no emotional investment can be made about them, what's so troubling about that idea? I'm sure that no one would ever possibly have a problem with that.

Hell, why limit it to games? Movies feature fictional worlds full of fictional people who aren't real, so truthfully, they're things too! Let's just make every instance of every media a display of the worst and most graphic shit a human being can possibly imagine, since it apparently doesn't matter.

I'm sure you'd see nothing wrong with that, would you? How can you, when representations of people are just... things?


EDIT: As a side note regarding this made-up scenario, I doubt there'd be anyone being called an "SJW" over repeated depictions of child abuse.... at least I'd hope not. Then again, as GAF keeps saying, "there's a defense force for everything"... eww, I just made myself shudder.
So it strikes me as odd that there's such a big backlash over a simple thing as pointing out that repeated depictions of sexualized violence against women are not necessarily a good thing for anyone.

Context clarifies everything.

 

[staticneuron]

So representations of dead sexualized women are equal to things and should be considered a normal thing, no big deal... OK, let's run with that. In fact, any representation of people is equal to things, by this definition.

So let's just replace these dead and/or women with any unspeakable horror known to man, since it doesn't matter. Like... oh, I dunno, graphic depictions of child sexual abuse. I mean, we can't find that troubling, right? They're not actual people, after all, right? Hell, let's include it in every game! What does it matter, since they're just THINGS? They have no context, there's no emotional investment can be made about them, what's so troubling about that idea? I'm sure that no one would ever possibly have a problem with that.

Hell, why limit it to games? Movies feature fictional worlds full of fictional people who aren't real, so truthfully, they're things too! Let's just make every instance of every media a display of the worst and most graphic shit a human being can possibly imagine, since it apparently doesn't matter.

I'm sure you'd see nothing wrong with that, would you? How can you, when representations of people are just... things?


EDIT: As a side note regarding this made-up scenario, I doubt there'd be anyone being called an "SJW" over repeated depictions of child abuse.... at least I'd hope not. Then again, as GAF keeps saying, "there's a defense force for everything"... eww, I just made myself shudder.
So it strikes me as odd that there's such a big backlash over a simple thing as pointing out that repeated depictions of sexualized violence against women are not necessarily a good thing for anyone.

You have come up with such a convoluted argument in response to that statement, one can't help but wonder if you are being serious. So after going back to get some information and seeing that this is about Hitman, really boggles the mind how far you are stretching the discussion to prove a faulty point.

Did Hitman "need" to have female assasin's or the level in the strip club? Probably not, but you can still argue that point about the innocent chefs, gardeners, or cops in the game. The point is that everyone is sort of equal in the game and there is no sacred job or gender. That is the point though, the hitman cannot be seen as a shining beacon of humanity. You really would have a skewed perspective if you call him a hero. He is the protagonist that you are playing and the interactions with people regardless of gender define the character and what you can readily assume his moral compass is.

Then again.... it comes down to the players at that point. I am pretty sure that I didn't kill any strippers at all so what you are really contesting is the choice to do this. And again, where is the line drawn exactly?

 

[Toparaman]

I really don't like her she says the stupidest things in her videos like how men and women have equal strength. She is just like Jack Thompson trying to force us into his view that playing violent game makes you violent or how Anita is telling us playing a game like Hitman or even a mario game will make you a sexist. Kinda of the same crap like Glenn Beck thinks Watch Dogs teaches you how to hack. I can see why some people would get upset she wont even let people comment on her videos and the fact she is not even a gamer as she admits she never plays games. Just watch some of her videos she cherry picks moments that appear sexist while ignoring the rest of the game.

Devs should make what ever they want with what ever gender main character they want. I will enjoy a good game whether its a female or male character.

Ah, you've been hanging out on /v/ too, eh? Always a good time there.

 

[MetaCircular]

While the average strength for men and women is different, comparing averages is usually stupid because there is far more variation of strength within a gender than between them.

For example, I'm pretty sure neither of us is able to do this despite being manly men.

It doesn't matter much overall, but I'm not sure if this is actually true.

The study mentioned here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...ences-minimal-mars-venus-study_n_2618199.html, for example, found that the male an female populations hardly overlapped at all in terms of strength.

If we were to choose one man and one woman at random from the general population, it would VERY likely that the man is larger/stronger. Of course, certain women, like the one in the video posted, are likely to be stronger than any man, but they are not a random sample.

Unlike physical differences, however, the same study found that psychological differences between the sexes were hardly significant at all.

 

[MetaCircular]

Around half an hour before he posted it, I had been talking to Cyan about how I wished that she had taken out more time to explain how literary criticism works, because I think that gamers (and when I say "gamers," I mean the narrower set of people that self-identifies with that term and makes some sort of emotional identification with the hobby, as opposed to the broader "people who play video games") have a sort of siege mentality due to decades of being blamed for school violence or general corruption of innocence, featuring people like Jack Thompson. And I pointed out that a lot of the arguments presented against her center around this premise: That she is attempting to prove that video games cause gamers to be misogynists, in the same way that Jack Thompson tried to prove that video games cause kids to be violent. There's a fundamental misunderstanding about how literary criticism works since, as this article points out, the work she's doing on how video games as a medium present women looks perfectly ordinary when contrasted with the same sort of criticism of, say, a movie.

I apologize if this is off-topic, but can you recommend a good resource that explains/justifies "literary criticism" in general? Personally, I tend to have a hard time separating valid content from nonsense, since standard scientific rules of thumb like falsifiability don't seem to apply.

(As you can imagine, I never did well in English class...)

 

[dream]

I apologize if this is off-topic, but can you recommend a good resource that explains/justifies "literary criticism" in general? Personally, I tend to have a hard time separating valid content from nonsense, since standard scientific rules of thumb like falsifiability don't seem to apply.

(As you can imagine, I never did well in English class...)

As someone who spends hours a day dealing with the stuff, I think "literary criticism" is a terrible name. "Analysis" is far more accurate, and probably less contentious.

I think what Mumei is saying is Sarkeesian's work could be better received if it were clear that her enterprise is (somewhat disinterested) analysis of video games rather than an outright attack on the medium.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

I apologize if this is off-topic, but can you recommend a good resource that explains/justifies "literary criticism" in general? Personally, I tend to have a hard time separating valid content from nonsense, since standard scientific rules of thumb like falsifiability don't seem to apply.

(As you can imagine, I never did well in English class...)

If there were a way to separate valid literary criticism from nonsense English departments wouldn't exist.

As someone who spends hours a day dealing with the stuff, I think "literary criticism" is a terrible name. "Analysis" is far more accurate, and probably less contentious.

I think what Mumei is saying is Sarkeesian's work could be better received if it were clear that her enterprise is (somewhat disinterested) analysis of video games rather than an outright attack on the medium.

I'm not quite sure that is her enterprise, though. She has an angle, and it's to prove that video games as a medium have a problem with negative depictions of women - the implication being that they have a problem not just in an absolute sense, but also in relation to other media. And she seems to believe that negative portrayals of women in games can have a direct effect on gamers' perceptions of women in the real world (I've seen her say something to that effect, anyway, don't have the citation on me at the moment).

That is an attack on the state of the medium. Or it seems so to me, anyway.

 

[truestatic]

The other major issue I've seen a lot of is a misunderstanding about what she is trying to do in presenting instances of the particular trope she's talking about, which is either centered around, "She's being unfair; there are lots of times when that doesn't happen in this game or in that game. Why is she ignoring all the games where it doesn't happen?" or, "Why is she ignoring the context? If you look at what was happening in the story, it makes perfect sense that [insert trope] was present in that story." These both miss the mark: They aren't meant to be exhaustive, to claim that the tropes should never be present, or even to argue that their presence in the specific games she presented is illegitimate. She's using them for illustrative purposes, to give examples of what she is talking about. And as the point of her series is about the state of the representation of women in gaming, nitpicking about individual examples is missing the forest for the trees. It's about the collective prevalence of all the negative (or simply shallow and uninteresting) tropes throughout the medium. Over the course of the video series, she's ultimately not making much deeper of a point than, "Consider all of these tropes and how prevalent they are. This is how women are presented in video games, and as a medium it should aspire to a higher standard than that."

At any rate, it is probably the case that it wouldn't have helped much if she had said this more explicitly ... but I would have liked something convenient to copy and paste.

I appreciate this distinction, but one thing I think that would be helpful in this case then is the broader context. She's listing incidences of these well-worn tropes that have plagued female representation in game after game, and she finds a lot of each of the things she's trying to demonstrate. But she's documenting an ocean of games. I'm not saying that these tropes aren't crutches that see terrible overuse, but I'm curious exactly how often they are used. How often do we think they're appropriate? And no, I don't think a simple ratio of "so many games damseled so many women out of so many games released this year" is helpful either because it's still just an observation devoid of analysis. I know that in-depth analysis is not in the scope of her project, and I have to commend her for the scope of her project as is. Still, this is one question I consider as I watch her videos. The simple truth is, short of someone telling me it's okay or it isn't, I don't think I can identify when a trope falls into such overuse that it becomes problematic. This isn't meant as an attack on her or her work, just sharing my own curiousities.

EDIT: But this really wasn't the place for that. Sorry, I briefly forgot what thread I was reading.

 

[emko]

You have come up with such a convoluted argument in response to that statement, one can't help but wonder if you are being serious. So after going back to get some information and seeing that this is about Hitman, really boggles the mind how far you are stretching the discussion to prove a faulty point.

Did Hitman "need" to have female assasin's or the level in the strip club? Probably not, but you can still argue that point about the innocent chefs, gardeners, or cops in the game. The point is that everyone is sort of equal in the game and there is no sacred job or gender. That is the point though, the hitman cannot be seen as a shining beacon of humanity. You really would have a skewed perspective if you call him a hero. He is the protagonist that you are playing and the interactions with people regardless of gender define the character and what you can readily assume his moral compass is.

Then again.... it comes down to the players at that point. I am pretty sure that I didn't kill any strippers at all so what you are really contesting is the choice to do this. And again, where is the line drawn exactly?

The point of the game is not to kill innocent people and when you do you get penalized for it, your correct every NPC is treated equal you can kill males or females the game does not force you to kill the strippers it actually encourage you not to harm innocent people. Go watch this play through on youtube i cant find one where the person goes and kills the strippers and drags the bodies around to prove a point like in her video. Isn't it weird that you will find many criminals at strip clubs in real life?

 

[emko]

Ah, you've been hanging out on /v/ too, eh? Always a good time there.

whats on a /v/ ? some game?

 

[staticneuron]

The point of the game is not to kill innocent people and when you do you get penalized for it, your correct every NPC is treated equal you can kill males or females the game does not force you to kill the strippers it actually encourage you not to harm innocent people. Go watch this play through on youtube i cant find one where the person goes and kills the strippers and drags the bodies around to prove a point like in her video. Isn't it weird that you will find many criminals at strip clubs in real life?

I know this, hence the last sentence. It means that he is arguing about the choice to harm someone.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

All publications (and developers and publishers and every institution in video games culture and industry) should do like Games.on: http://games.on.net/2014/08/readers-threatened-by-equality-not-welcome/

What would that accomplish? Nothing. Whom would that convince? No one. Humans react much better to being reasoned with than to being belittled.

Your posts are bizarre.

 

[Terrell]

Context clarifies everything.

You stated yourself that context was irrelevant when it's applied as though these were actual people. But if we're not seeing human representations as anything other that a simulacrum of humanity, or as things, then context really doesn't mean anything. It's just things doing things to other things. It has no value. Narrative as a system only works when there's a component of humanity that the viewer or reader applies to the proceedings. You've argued that shouldn't exist or doesn't matter. And if it doesn't matter, then what you're seeing doesn't matter, so it's all interchangeable with pretty much anything.

You have come up with such a convoluted argument in response to that statement, one can't help but wonder if you are being serious. So after going back to get some information and seeing that this is about Hitman,

No, it's not. It's about the fundamental difference of sexualized women used as killable or already dead set-dressing being the equivalent of enemies you kill. One is intrinsic to gameplay of that genre, one is not, so they are unequal. And then we got into how set-dressing is all equal regardless of its representation of people or object. Which it's not, or such representations of people in that manner wouldn't be used at all.

The game itself and/or the scene in question was just a jumping off point, not the focus of the discussion itself.

Did Hitman "need" to have female assasin's or the level in the strip club? Probably not, but you can still argue that point about the innocent chefs, gardeners, or cops in the game.

Yes, you could argue that. And I actually made that point in an earlier post. 2 similar but different wrongs don't make a right.

The point is that everyone is sort of equal in the game and there is no sacred job or gender.

In Absolution, the only non-sexualized women I recall are Jade Nguyen and the little girl Victoria. So until this cook and gardener are running around in revealing thongs or skimpy PVC catsuits, I don't think "equal" is the word you wanna go for in a discussion regarding the needless sexualization of NPCs that don't drive plot being equal to a functional non-sexualized gameplay element, even if it's just perpetuating another troubling game trend that has been talked up by PLENTY of people.

Then again.... it comes down to the players at that point. I am pretty sure that I didn't kill any strippers at all so what you are really contesting is the choice to do this. And again, where is the line drawn exactly?

It's sometimes not a conscious choice. I'm shit at these games (mostly from lack of playing them) and would probably shoot one of them totally by accident. And if I did, that scene compels me to treat it as though nothing happened and move on out of necessity, sometimes with her body in my direct field of vision. At best, I feel bad about a hit to my score, not the actual impact of what happened. When that's not going to be my reaction whatsoever.

Again, one of many reasons I don't play these games as a general rule.

What would that accomplish? Nothing. Whom would that convince? No one. Humans react much better to being reasoned with than to being belittled.

Your posts are bizarre.

If you're not against equal representation in video games, I don't see how you could feel belittled by that. And I don't see how people who threaten others with rape or tell a game developer to kill themselves for sharing a video on a particular subject matter CAN be reasoned with at that point, and that is the people this was aimed at. If you feel it aimed at you, dunno what to tell you, man.