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Post by Andrew is Good on Jul 19, 2014 21:41:39 GMT -5
I'm sure Anita Sarkeesian's videos and subsequent backlash have been brought up here before, but I just watched the most recent one from last month and was wondering what you lot think of it and the series. Well, since you asked..... At best, Anita is someone who uses her own previously stated hypothesis and just molds everything that supports it to her benefit and ignores anything that goes against that evidence. At worst, she's a con artist, and actually a much worse version of Jack Thompson when it comes to fear-mongering and blaming video games for the evils of the world with the same level of proof Jack had. Going even beyond the obvious troubles in her method, like the fact she doesn't play the games she is critiquing (I beleive she admitted in an interview, her boyfriend plays it, and gives her the rundown of the game), that she doesn't get her own footage for the videos ( using other people let's play videos without credit) and that whole shutting down discussion over videos (on something that is suppose to be a teaching tool, according to her, and kind of the point of college courses.), and of course what she planned for the money (which has yet to be detailed), her entire premise on itself is just full of logical and context-removed errors. She gets details about games all wrong (anything related to the point of some games "rewarding" the player for killing woman, like Hitman or Duke Nukem, when that is heavily penalized in the game, similar to the old "GTA is about killing hookers" quote from the Thompson era) or missing entire story or factual elements (Shiek and Zelda being the same character, Spelunky had different models for the hero and the rescuer, that Dinsaur Adventures was not starring Krystal before it got changed to Fox, Borderlands 2 "damsel" could be saved by female characters, getting the death of Kiya from Medievil 2 wrong, etc) and even the whole vendetta against princesses and just summing them up as damsels and ignoring their actual events. Zelda is the most egregious, since she was seen as the brains behind the resistance as far back as Link to the Past. Like how Link is the foot-solder who works his way from the groud up, Zelda is shown as the tactician who commands from above. And that's not even going into her constant complain of lack of female representation in games that really holds no meritShe's not even helping the community, just diving it up more than it was, this time by making everything an issue of gender politics. The recent stuff with Unity comes to mind, as well as the "controversial" stuff from the last few E3's, Mighty Number 9, Catwoman in Arkham City, and others that comes up since her debut that were nothing and lead to nothing. Not even when people take her advice does it help, with Naughty Dog saying they were influenced by her to create female characters, and were still called out as sexist by the gaming media who were also influenced by her. And gaming media's reaction to her as a whole is another issue for another time. Overall, she's more of a detriment to gaming as a whole, and is not at all helpful in either helping gaming be more diverse and populous and not at all helpful for women as she proceeds to toss them under the bus, like with sex worker in this video that she got a lot of flack for. She doesn't deserve a fraction of the praise or even acknowledgement she has gotten, instead better served to be left behind in order to move forward as a whole and actually evolve the craft, as it were. ... Thanks for asking, by the way. Hey, I decided to watch more of her videos and like, she did say that Shiek was Zelda, which is true, and her issue that she was captured so quickly after she revealed herself. She also said Krystal was one of the two main characters, which was true as well. Did I catch you in a lie, or were you misinformed? Now I have to go through all her dry videos one by one because I'm not sure if I can believe a lot of what you say here. She also talked about Zelda being a lot more helpful in certain games and gave her credit for that. I thought this was some Zelda burial and she was Triple H. I'm going to go on the end and say you maybe misinformed, but I'm interested to see what else is in there. What's bad is, it's almost like she wishes Zelda was better and seems to like the Zelda character, but just wishes she wasn't always a kidnap victim. I'm on the third video now, and Spelunky was brought up. She brought up what you did, that there were different models for the rescuer and the rescued, including potentially saving a dog, which is hilarious considering the damsel can really be replaced by anything which kinda drives home the point of how interchangeable and useless the woman in many cases are to the plots. Her issue with the damsel being a woman is one enforces pre existing stereotypes, and the other doesn't.
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Post by Andrew is Good on Jul 19, 2014 23:10:10 GMT -5
To bring up a separate point in the second video, she even says that game developers aren't really intending to make women look bad. She is also completely different from Jack Thompson in that she doesn't really believe that all video game violence against women leads to violence against women in real life, it's just helping shape cultural attitudes and opinions. And I don't want to completely just bag on Michael here for his post, but it seems to be more of a vendetta against her more then another. So, that's the third piece of misinformation. She's a lot different from Jack Thompson, some of the examples stated were outright false (she briefly mentioned Borderlands 2 in the second Damsel video, but whether a woman is rescuing her or not, it's still the same trope regardless).
In both videos, she always seems to have problems with the cultural norms it creates, and that seems to be her main issue, and probably with more of her other videos too on different topics. That's her problem. Another reason I'm not a fan of all this stuff is because I legit took it all as at least right, I never saw the videos before, only heard about them.
Also, on a different topic, one series that seems to be very positive towards their female characters has been Pokemon. As of Crystal, you can play as a girl, the stereotype of blue for boys and pink for girls was the exact opposite with the Nidoran family (though that changed with the Frillish family), but still, the female Meowstic in Gen 6 is more of the attackers then the male counter part, Gardevoir has a 50% chance of being male or female, etc. In my Emerald play through, I had a male Gardevoir and a female Hariyama on my team, both who have stereotypically opposite traits of their genders.
Also, the death of a female character being so thrown around as a plot device really makes you appreciate Final Fantasy 7, where the death of Areis was one of the most dramatic deaths to ever happen in video gaming, and something that was very meaningful. One problem with Areis is she's the typical white mage in the Final Fantasy series, which is generally the role the women folk are, but her death plays a pretty important part in that game and making it the game that it is today. She also does mention other games where the death of a female character is very meaningful, surprisingly without mentioning Final Fantasy 7. I remember when I was younger, a friend of mine LOVED Areis, one of his favourite characters and build her up pretty strong and was horrified when she died.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2014 23:21:20 GMT -5
For my own part, I can't help but wonder if Sarkeesian is making money by criticizing something she doesn't actually care about. Just a hunch. I've actually gotten that vibe from a few of her videos. Not that there aren't issues in the video game industry... Ubisoft's Women are too hard to render comes to mind. Ubisoft comment about that is kind of funny given that Nintendo(of all company) prove that wrong with the recent Smash Bros game.
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Post by Andrew is Good on Jul 20, 2014 1:00:59 GMT -5
I did it. I watched them all. But yeah, the critique of them being dry is definitely true, but they're still informative.
The biggest misconception I feel is that she was fear mongering, and at the end of her videos, she actually used examples of positively presented women in video games. She did feel they were the exception to the rule, but she at least presented them and was relatively fair.
I feel that, people who hate her and her videos hate feminism in general, and that's what I've taken away from watching the videos and the response to her. Because she's looking at it from a feminist perspective, she always is going to have problems with the anti-feminist crowd. The people who hate feminism won't listen to her anyway, so that's not really the intended audience. The use of "Let's Play" footage from other people is almost meaningless as the game clips aren't that long, and I'm not even sure if it would have been a good idea to give credit to Let's Players, considering the backlash she gets herself. If I was a Let's Player, as much as I thought the videos were informative, I don't know if I'd want my inbox filled with people telling me to go f*** myself for supporting her. Plus, if they said no, she still has the right to use it anyway, so the point is almost irrelevant.
Anyway, the videos were fine. As much as I'm into feminist videos, podcasts, etc, I don't think I'll be watching the other videos.
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Post by Dub H on Jul 20, 2014 3:12:17 GMT -5
I did it. I watched them all. But yeah, the critique of them being dry is definitely true, but they're still informative. The biggest misconception I feel is that she was fear mongering, and at the end of her videos, she actually used examples of positively presented women in video games. She did feel they were the exception to the rule, but she at least presented them and was relatively fair. I feel that, people who hate her and her videos hate feminism in general, and that's what I've taken away from watching the videos and the response to her. Because she's looking at it from a feminist perspective, she always is going to have problems with the anti-feminist crowd. The people who hate feminism won't listen to her anyway, so that's not really the intended audience. The use of "Let's Play" footage from other people is almost meaningless as the game clips aren't that long, and I'm not even sure if it would have been a good idea to give credit to Let's Players, considering the backlash she gets herself. If I was a Let's Player, as much as I thought the videos were informative, I don't know if I'd want my inbox filled with people telling me to go f*** myself for supporting her. Plus, if they said no, she still has the right to use it anyway, so the point is almost irrelevant. Anyway, the videos were fine. As much as I'm into feminist videos, podcasts, etc, I don't think I'll be watching the other videos. There is many people that support feminism and hate her for cherrypicking and overall not strong argument and many other reasons already said. Not sure who was in the thread that posted a few videos(The "Is video game anti LBGT" and a feminist podcast) that shows some really good points about that kind of issue that was presented in much better manner,more professional and more sounding. I also think people have issue wit her getting a town of money for only a green screen.(And maybe photoshop).As someone else said,she does feel like a con-artist.
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Post by Hurbster on Jul 20, 2014 3:45:57 GMT -5
Not read the thread, not getting involved in any arguments (but calling it Feminist Frequency - really ?).
All I'm gonna say is that the latest Wolfenstein game has some excellent, strong, well fleshed out female characters. In fact the game as a whole surprised me with how well-written it is.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 20, 2014 5:50:44 GMT -5
I did it. I watched them all. But yeah, the critique of them being dry is definitely true, but they're still informative. The biggest misconception I feel is that she was fear mongering, and at the end of her videos, she actually used examples of positively presented women in video games. She did feel they were the exception to the rule, but she at least presented them and was relatively fair. I feel that, people who hate her and her videos hate feminism in general, and that's what I've taken away from watching the videos and the response to her. Because she's looking at it from a feminist perspective, she always is going to have problems with the anti-feminist crowd. The people who hate feminism won't listen to her anyway, so that's not really the intended audience. The use of "Let's Play" footage from other people is almost meaningless as the game clips aren't that long, and I'm not even sure if it would have been a good idea to give credit to Let's Players, considering the backlash she gets herself. If I was a Let's Player, as much as I thought the videos were informative, I don't know if I'd want my inbox filled with people telling me to go f*** myself for supporting her. Plus, if they said no, she still has the right to use it anyway, so the point is almost irrelevant. Anyway, the videos were fine. As much as I'm into feminist videos, podcasts, etc, I don't think I'll be watching the other videos. There is many people that support feminism and hate her for cherrypicking and overall not strong argument and many other reasons already said. Not sure who was in the thread that posted a few videos(The "Is video game anti LBGT" and a feminist podcast) that shows some really good points about that kind of issue that was presented in much better manner,more professional and more sounding. I also think people have issue wit her getting a town of money for only a green screen.(And maybe photoshop).As someone else said,she does feel like a con-artist. Again, though; in what way? I'm not seeing many critiques of her overall points that don't do a lot of stretching and contorting themselves, reading into something that apparently isn't there. I see people throw the words "con artist" and "cherrypicker" around with her, ask for evidence, and typically get articles and responses that don't really address either issue. Either way, again, I think the overall feeling of a lot of folks is "Why are some people so angry about these?". There's really nothing to get worked up about.
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Post by Mozenrath on Jul 20, 2014 5:57:53 GMT -5
Off topic, I suppose, but I am glad Smash Brothers and Hyrule Warriors are shaping up to have a ton of playable female characters. I love variety in a roster, and it feels like a good step beyond tokenism with female options. Helps that a lot of them are characters I actually give a f*** about playing as, too.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2014 9:34:24 GMT -5
There is many people that support feminism and hate her for cherrypicking and overall not strong argument and many other reasons already said. Not sure who was in the thread that posted a few videos(The "Is video game anti LBGT" and a feminist podcast) that shows some really good points about that kind of issue that was presented in much better manner,more professional and more sounding. I also think people have issue wit her getting a town of money for only a green screen.(And maybe photoshop).As someone else said,she does feel like a con-artist. Again, though; in what way? I'm not seeing many critiques of her overall points that don't do a lot of stretching and contorting themselves, reading into something that apparently isn't there. I see people throw the words "con artist" and "cherrypicker" around with her, ask for evidence, and typically get articles and responses that don't really address either issue. Either way, again, I think the overall feeling of a lot of folks is "Why are some people so angry about these?". There's really nothing to get worked up about. It's easy to get worked up about something you know nothing about. Twitter and slacktivism are amazing illustrators of this. In video games, I'll just use an example that I'm guilty of: the Core Design Tomb Raider games. A year ago, I had never played them. I liked the 2013 Crystal Dynamics reboot but had heard people constantly say "The old games were sexist!" I thought the same thing. I mean, I remember the lame adverts they ran and the pretty obvious emphasis on T&A. Then I saw a Steam sale for all of them for 10 bucks and thought "why not?" and played them. Now that I've finished the first three, I have no clue what people were complaining about. Lara's appearance aside, that's really about it. She doesn't use sex to achieve any of her goals. Her brains, her athleticism, her guns? Sure. No sex though. Actually, there's a scene in the second game where it seems like they're going to go for something like that, and she says "no" and shoots the camera. Compare to the version in the reboot who is basically running like a terrified rabbit for three quarters of the game. The advertisements are one thing, but the games are another altogether. As far as her looks go, here's a corollary: should a female protagonist not be allowed to be capable just because she's got "prominent" features? Does a female need's appearance need to factor in any further than the realm of plausibility (e.g. no skinny porcelain princesses magically wielding zweihanders)? IIRC, Lara was originally supposed to not have giant cans, but either a programming error or a prank caused it, and the Core Design people found it amusing and ran with it. If not for boobs, what would be different? And how? On the whole, I'm of the mind that sexual objectification in video games is an issue, and a pretty big one. But as others have noted, there's still unwarranted reaction and a portion of the angry people don't have reasonable reference points, instead basing their opinions off of hearsay and prejudice.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 20, 2014 9:49:32 GMT -5
My question is more about people who get worked up about the videos; the points they make tend to be pretty basic and often self evident, and like I said earlier are kid of "feminist theory 101" in nature, but you'd think they were killing peoples pets the way some folks react.
Oddly enough, though, I find a lot of women I speak to, and yes, this includes avowed feminists, don't mind the earlier Tomb Raider games very much. Lara, despite her overt fan service nature, is still a strong, capable protagonist. Instead, more of them were annoyed with the reboot, especially when one of the developers gave that quote about wanting the player to feel like they wanted to "protect" Lara. It's one of those things where all you have to do is ask "would they do this with somebody like Master Chief?", and you instantly understand the annoyance a lot felt over it.
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Post by Michael Coello on Jul 20, 2014 10:34:42 GMT -5
I've actually gotten that vibe from a few of her videos. Not that there aren't issues in the video game industry... Ubisoft's Women are too hard to render comes to mind. Ubisoft comment about that is kind of funny given that Nintendo(of all company) prove that wrong with the recent Smash Bros game. Even though the roster for Smash was set up since it was first announced, over 2 years ago, and people demanded female characters only 5 months before the thing was released. Plus, the fact that so many people think adding a character to a narritive game like this and it being easy should make every writer, animator, and programmer on earth seeth in rage.
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Post by Hakumental on Jul 20, 2014 10:40:24 GMT -5
Oddly enough, though, I find a lot of women I speak to, and yes, this includes avowed feminists, don't mind the earlier Tomb Raider games very much. Lara, despite her overt fan service nature, is still a strong, capable protagonist. Instead, more of them were annoyed with the reboot, especially when one of the developers gave that quote about wanting the player to feel like they wanted to "protect" Lara. It's one of those things where all you have to do is ask "would they do this with somebody like Master Chief?", and you instantly understand the annoyance a lot felt over it. I do remember that, the dude was making all these comments about Lara's "baby fat" and how the tears in her clothing "are kind of sexy in their own way." Hilarious stuff. Putting aside Lara's resume after three games, just imagine some dev saying that about a rookie Indiana Jones, James Bond, or even that guy Brendan Fraser played in The Mummy.
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Post by EyeofTyr on Jul 20, 2014 11:20:02 GMT -5
I don't get why people get so worked up over her videos, personally. I don't find them particularly good mind you, dry, full of errors, and alot of tinting of evidence to fit her glasses' shade that makes her lose some of her argument along the way, but nothing I'd get upset over.
And, much like pretty much everyone I know that is an activist for equality and knows of her, I'd be hard pressed to call her a feminist. Partially out of the want to not associate myself with her and her skewed ideas.
To me, she is a thing that exists.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 20, 2014 12:43:31 GMT -5
And how is she not a feminist? Again, most of her material is basic feminist theory and cultural criticism.
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Post by Sephiroth on Jul 20, 2014 13:11:52 GMT -5
I don't get why people get so worked up over her videos, personally. I don't find them particularly good mind you, dry, full of errors, and alot of tinting of evidence to fit her glasses' shade that makes her lose some of her argument along the way, but nothing I'd get upset over. And, much like pretty much everyone I know that is an activist for equality and knows of her, I'd be hard pressed to call her a feminist. Partially out of the want to not associate myself with her and her skewed ideas. To me, she is a thing that exists. I am bit unconvinced thst part of why she chose to focus in in the video game community is vmvecayse she knew it wound generate that kind of heat-even if she maybe didn't expect just how crazy it would get.
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Post by The Ichi on Jul 20, 2014 14:13:05 GMT -5
Anita can be very dry in her videos. She's rather monotone for most of the length and she doesn't express much emotion, either. So when I do watch her videos it is always in chunks because eventually I get bored. Not because of the subject matter, mind you, just because of Anita's style of delivery. I actually like that about her. She cuts right to the point instead of trying to get herself over as a gimmicky internet "celebrity" like oh-so-many people like to do.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 20, 2014 15:13:37 GMT -5
I don't get why people get so worked up over her videos, personally. I don't find them particularly good mind you, dry, full of errors, and alot of tinting of evidence to fit her glasses' shade that makes her lose some of her argument along the way, but nothing I'd get upset over. And, much like pretty much everyone I know that is an activist for equality and knows of her, I'd be hard pressed to call her a feminist. Partially out of the want to not associate myself with her and her skewed ideas. To me, she is a thing that exists. I am bit unconvinced thst part of why she chose to focus in in the video game community is vmvecayse she knew it wound generate that kind of heat-even if she maybe didn't expect just how crazy it would get. She was already known for doing feminist critiques of pop culture (books, films, etc.); gaming is another part of the pop culture landscape.
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Post by Sephiroth on Jul 20, 2014 15:24:31 GMT -5
I am bit unconvinced thst part of why she chose to focus in in the video game community is vmvecayse she knew it wound generate that kind of heat-even if she maybe didn't expect just how crazy it would get. She was already known for doing feminist critiques of pop culture (books, films, etc.); gaming is another part of the pop culture landscape. Kind of what I meant. Not to denigrate, but when it comes to the debate about gender equality and the ever changing role of women in society, I think there are more genuinely pressing areas where it can be applied than pop culture at large. But for some reason, those more pressing areas do not quite generate the same amount of press that a critique of pop culture does. Heck, just ask the psychiatrist who nearly killed the comic book industry by claiming it brainwashed children.
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Post by Red Impact on Jul 20, 2014 16:33:53 GMT -5
She was already known for doing feminist critiques of pop culture (books, films, etc.); gaming is another part of the pop culture landscape. Kind of what I meant. Not to denigrate, but when it comes to the debate about gender equality and the ever changing role of women in society, I think there are more genuinely pressing areas where it can be applied than pop culture at large. But for some reason, those more pressing areas do not quite generate the same amount of press that a critique of pop culture does. Heck, just ask the psychiatrist who nearly killed the comic book industry by claiming it brainwashed children. You act as though the debate is only in pop culture, it's not. But if you ignore how entertainment treats gender, then you're going to miss an important part of how you influence societal views.
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Post by HMARK Center on Jul 20, 2014 16:35:59 GMT -5
She was already known for doing feminist critiques of pop culture (books, films, etc.); gaming is another part of the pop culture landscape. Kind of what I meant. Not to denigrate, but when it comes to the debate about gender equality and the ever changing role of women in society, I think there are more genuinely pressing areas where it can be applied than pop culture at large. But for some reason, those more pressing areas do not quite generate the same amount of press that a critique of pop culture does. Heck, just ask the psychiatrist who nearly killed the comic book industry by claiming it brainwashed children. I have to admit dude, I have no idea what you're saying here. Pop culture is an incredibly important thing to apply academic theory to, and the heaps of doctorate dissertations that study things like the cultural impact of cinema, comic books, and popular music will attest to that. Pop culture doesn't shape societal biases or necessarily create new ones; however, pop culture is a reflection of the values of the culture that creates it, and thus can reinforce preexisting biases or give them a larger platform upon which they may be reaffirmed. Thus, challenging the inherent biases that inform popular culture offers a chance to create awareness of the larger structures that create things like gender inequality, ethnic tension, economic injustice, etc. Every form of entertainment is open to such criticism, and it's very, very healthy for it to be. Video games are no different, especially as they try harder to be taken seriously as a storytelling medium. A person can say "there are more important issues", but tackling those issues involves herculean efforts and often enormous sums of money and resources. Critiquing pop culture does not preclude somebody from being involved in, say, a political campaign or charity that deals with the issues they're concerned about, and, again, it opens up more avenues to raise awareness of those very issues.
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