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djpretzel

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Posts posted by djpretzel

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Why then do gamers, many of them the same people who rejected violent game criticism, complain about female characters with big boobs and g-strings?

    One of your better posts, enjoyed reading. The troubling thing to me is how similar some of the tenuous causality claims sound between the two topics - it's one thing to complain about violence or objectification, but when you start drawing causal lines to real-world behaviors (usually in the absence of evidence), it gets ugly fast.

    But I still think I can field this one and provide what I imagine a best-case response would be. If there's even a half-meaningful differentiation to be made, it's that violence is more necessary, from a narrative perspective, to many types of games than is sexual objectification. Violence is inevitable in games about war, fighting games, strategy games... it's diegetic, and intrinsically linked to the subject matter. Sexual objectification, on the other hand, is usually an afterthought... window dressing, icing on the cake, something added to cater to a certain audience. It could usually be cut without significantly altering the gameplay, and while violence could certainly be toned DOWN a bit while also maintaining fidelity to game mechanics, there's a diminishing return there and a threshold at which the game quite clearly suffers a dramatic neutering. Secondly, violence in the abstract is an equal opportunity employer and seems relatively well distributed among the demographics represented in games, so there's not the same sense that one group (females) is being singled out, unfairly.

    That's how I'd differentiate the two topics, ***if*** I actually thought both were deeply problematic and I specifically wanted to justify objecting to sexualization while giving violence a free pass. How'd I do?

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Can you back up these propositions with evidence? I'd also have a hard time believing you could convincingly support #2 unless you change it to "most men openly self-identify as heterosexual."

    Now, if you take the time to read most of those, you'll notice that it's of course an oversimplification to say "Men are more easily persuaded/manipulated by sexual imagery.." - they also speak more to arousal than "persuasion" per se. Here's a bit more on that:

    You're of course right to point out what is essentially a claim and ask for evidence; of course, contradicting the claim is also a claim in and of itself, unless you're simply stating that we don't know, one way or another?? If the claims strike you as specious, I'd inquire as to whether that's because you inherently think they are unfounded, or untrue, or because you simply know that they are difficult to prove due to the squishiness of words?

    I'm loathe to rely on anecdotal evidence, but for these specific claims I do also feel like I've seen quite a bit to suggest that men's heads are more easily swayed... haven't you? I put a lot of stock in the ability of society and culture to shape attitudes, but in this case they would really have to be working overtime, if there's absolutely no biological underpinning for them to start with... for example, if there's one thing I have utmost faith in, it's for American culture (and Capitalism in general) to figure out what SELLS, and to sell it in vast quantities. Can you explain the relative dearth of visual pornography targeting heterosexual females by culture/society alone? Or the discrepancies in ads, games, etc.? Is the argument here that there's an untapped audience that, in 2014, society is still holding the mighty markets back from mining?

    And again, the links above are at least a little more scientific and this is just... well, me talking... but from an evolutionary psychology perspective, as pertains to sexual selection, it makes sense that females would inherently be "choosier," and about qualities/characteristics that go beyond the visual... a greater investment/risk requires a greater consideration, no?? The question would be whether that dynamic makes it all the way down to the level of sexual arousal as result of visual stimuli, but if it didn't, it seems like evolution would have "missed" an obvious opportunity...

    As for #2... I was operating in the realm of biology. If you agree that homosexuality is genetic, or at least primarily genetic, you'd also be agreeing that it is a mutation. Absolutely nothing wrong with that - mutations are how species evolve, after all!! But any mutation that actively selects against reproduction would by definition be mathematically constrained. You're absolutely right that it's a huge can of worms to try and go inside people's minds, and of course it's under-reported and a larger minority than is statistically captured at this point in time. And of course, in reality, I think we can agree it's a false dichotomy and that sexuality runs along a spectrum. Nevertheless, it shouldn't be hugely scandalous to suggest that genes that favor attraction to the opposite sex have better odds of dominating the gene pool of any species that reproduces sexually than those that do not. This isn't about what's natural being right, or better, but it certainly CAN be about plain old biology and statistics, can it not?

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    That's how I feel when I see women with plunging cleavage and bouncing boobs.

    (1) It's pointless to sexualise a character in a game where sexuality hardly matters to the gameplay.

    (2) It's completely uneven treatment of the characters: Men are not frequently sexualised to the same degree women are.

    Very good & thoughtful post - appreciated. I'm singling this specific quote out because I feel like I've covered it elsewhere:

    1. Men are more easily persuaded/manipulated by sexual imagery...
    2. Most men are heterosexual...
    3. Therefore, catering to aficionados of large, bouncing breasts falls into the same category as politicians professing their religious devotion - it's often a good idea because it makes a lot of people happy whether it's genuine or not, and doesn't draw enough offense to actually lose votes (or sales)
    4. Finally, look to culture at large, and see a reflection - women are more sexualized than men. Why should games vary? If anything, we should expect things to be amplified, given a long history of target marketing to adolescent males. And we see what we expect. And even if things "grow up" a bit - and I happen to think that they have, and are continuing to - 50/50 is still a completely silly and ridiculous goal that ignores human biology, common sense, and either meets an imaginary demand or ignores an actual one.

    Hm, interesting. I don't find Game of Thrones all that realistic. I find it rather seeking the salacious and only the salacious from a generalised single view point, to the point that other salacious events are either subject to caricature or otherwise downplayed. In other words, same as it ever was.

    The only thing I can give it credit for is the moral ambiguity of the characters, otherwise it is just a bloody soap opera. A very fun soap opera though.

    Realistic & refreshing compared to Tolkein or pretty much all OTHER examples of fantasy, i.e. realistic in its genre...

    Also, last I checked, sex is a pretty big characteristic of human existence - what strikes you as "salacious" is to me simply a plausible depiction of society before Victorian propriety, Freudian anxiety, and Puritan shame entered the picture. In eras where heirs and bloodlines dictated the rise and fall of kingdoms, who you boinked was a MUCH bigger deal...

    The like button is a patreon exclusive if you want the new forums you better pledge :<

    This was probably at least partially in jest/sarcastic, but I have to say, I've been using the like button on individual posts A LOT on IPB's own customer forums - it has a lot of utility and I think it'll be a great addition!

    Also, as a side note this seems like relevant reading - it's not just the games industry/culture that's having this issue:

    http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/09/16/the-offense-industry-on-the-offense/

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It's really not fresh to me. You've made your opinions on Anita's overly rigid presentation abundantly clear to the point that no one's really disagreeing anymore. Not to discourage discussion in this thread, but I seriously doubt you'll find the counterargument you're looking for in a thread full of people who mostly agree with you already.

    This point wasn't as general as simply criticizing overall rigidity. It was specifically pointing out the inherent conflict in simultaneously arguing for equal treatment of women in games while insisting on special consideration of violence against women in games as being disproportionately problematic.

    I think a counterargument can be made... I just think it would usually be a weak/crappy one. But shit, let ME try - in earnest:

    "On first glance, it might seem that advocating for more egalitarian & varied depiction of females in games would be at odds with also giving "special" consideration to depictions of violence against females, and that seeking to reduce the latter while encouraging the former involves a certain paradox. There are a couple points to be made that can reconcile these apparently competing goals:

    1. By increasing the number of strong female characters, or at the very least female characters who are not primarily victims or innocent bystanders, the nature of the violence in question changes from a misogynistic predator/prey dynamic to one of combat/struggle against competing forces - females become protagonists instead of trophies to be won or damsels to be rescued, and thus violence done upon them shifts in quality and character as well. In other words, by diversifying female characters, any violence such characters are involved in is also diversified, and while the question of whether violence in games in general is problematic is a different debate entirely, at least the issue has been decoupled from sexism.
    2. Violence against females in games is especially problematic because of the intersection with sexualization of females in games. These two qualities don't necessarily have to be intentionally coupled by game developers to be disturbing; a female character might be hyper-sexualized just as an attempt to appeal to a heterosexual male demographic, but when that same character is depicted as such in situations involving physical violence and overwhelming force, the result is a conflation of the two, resulting in sexualized violence. Acknowledging that gratuitous violence in games is common across the board for BOTH male and female characters, what's being objected to is the more specific brand of violence, predominantly leveled at female characters, that so often involves both victimization and inappropriate sexualization at the same time..."

    There you go; if this thread didn't jump the shark dozens of pages ago, this has gotta do it, because I just argued against myself...

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    There's over 100 pages about her and I don't think anyone has been adding anything fresh about her for the last dozen. I'm ok with expanding the topic.

    Yeah I'm not really interested in talking about her... just what she's saying/arguing.

    It also really, really, really bears mentioning that gratuitous violence is common in games, period. It is difficult to argue for any sort of equal treatment of women in games while at the same time flinching five hundred times harder when any of that violence is directed toward women. Offhand, this seems like the very same protective instinct that feminism often decries (correctly) as the root problem behind so many troublesome male behaviors, simply flipped on its head and used (rather hypocritically) for the very cause that condemns it!! Please show me how that's incorrect, because to me it seems like having your cake, eating it too, taking someone else's cake, eating THAT, and then proceeding to complain that there's no cake left. Because misogyny.

    I'm sorry this didn't meet your definition of "fresh," but I'd still like to see if anyone else wants to tackle what I perceive as an extraordinarily paradoxical/hypocritical argument and see if they can lay it all out in a way that holds together...

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Yeah so, that "blowing off the lid stuff"... real good journalism. It was all proven false. Zoe did donate to IFred. Anita did talk to the FBI. Even that scumbag writing for Breitbart admitted it himself. No apologies or anything - it's totally cool to make 100% fabricated accusations up and then not say "I'm sorry" when they're proven false.

    Whether or not you apologize for being incorrect about a baseless accusation has more bearing on your being a decent human being than a good journalist ;-)

    Actually, assuming he did what he said he did, he took some initiative and established that everything checked out and that the claims made were valid - from purely a journalistic point of view, that's far more than most people have been doing, and while his overall attitude seems shitty and his initial line of inquiry seemed prosecutorial, at least he uncovered something that contradicted his expectations, and reported on it. Just sayin'; I'm personally glad he did take the time to prove himself wrong. It's better that this information is out there as it eliminates doubt. "Trust but verify" is a good journalistic principle, and while he didn't do the former (at all), at least he came through on the latter. There seem to be a lot of people glomping on to this brouhaha in a very public fashion, just to ride its coattails into escalated analytics...

    Anyone wanna pick the thread on Anita back up, or is it all #GamerGate, all the time?

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    True, but I've heard the following point which I find has some truth as well. If we take a high fantasy game with dragons, wizards, magic, and lots of other totally made-up elements, it's not reasonable to say that violence/degradation of women is necessary for 'realism'. If we accept all the other made-up stuff, it's fair to say we can also accept a historical past where women are not degraded as much.

    I can certainly understand the historical angle, just saying, it's not always a compelling argument if the game is full of heavy fantasy elements (and/or a world that is entirely fictional).

    I don't think it's necessary for realism, but even with dragons, wizards, magic, and lots of other made-up elements, high fantasy is still identifiably archaic/ancient in its social structures. You still usually have kings (and queens), for example, which implies divine right to rule and lack of democracy. Unless EVERYTHING ELSE is coming along for the ride, and you're going to address all of the MYRIAD social injustices in these antiquated environments, cherry-picking just smacks of ideology run amok.

    • Who elected these kings? This game promotes dictatorship....
    • Are these knights being paid? Were they drafted and are they potentially fighting against their will?? This game promotes militant nationalism and fascism...
    • Why are dark elves always more evil? Das racist. This game promotes racism...
    • Why does this game depict religion as factually accurate? This game promotes magical thinking...

    You're dealing with a fantasy world, sure, and a lot of it is completely made up, sure, but it is still a WORLD. Plausibility in world-building needs to emanate from somewhere, and usually we look to... ourselves. I'm not saying "throw random violence against women into your fantasy game so it seems more real," I'm saying "violence against everyone, including women, was more prevalent in our own barbaric past, and many games are channeling that same past". My point isn't that game developers HAVE to do things this way, or even that game developers SHOULD do things this way, but merely that when they DO choose to do things this way, it shouldn't raise knee-jerk accusations of misogyny without additional contextual analysis of the work as a whole, which Anita rarely does. That's a form of criticism that is EVERY BIT AS LAZY as that which it attempts to lambast for... lack of creativity!

    It also really, really, really bears mentioning that gratuitous violence is common in games, period. It is difficult to argue for any sort of equal treatment of women in games while at the same time flinching five hundred times harder when any of that violence is directed toward women. Offhand, this seems like the very same protective instinct that feminism often decries (correctly) as the root problem behind so many troublesome male behaviors, simply flipped on its head and used (rather hypocritically) for the very cause that condemns it!! Please show me how that's incorrect, because to me it seems like having your cake, eating it too, taking someone else's cake, eating THAT, and then proceeding to complain that there's no cake left. Because misogyny.

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    And it's not like, by watching it, you automatically assimilate those ideas and now you're a terrible person. You watch it for entertainment, to be temporarily absorbed in fiction, and hopefully you realize that none of that is meant to be an education in modern ethics.

    I honestly and truthfully find it ethically HELPFUL and informing to see things depicted as I suspect they really were; a palpably barbarous past should make us appreciate our present, by contrast, much more. Unless, of course... we are impressionable imbeciles... I liked The Borgias for this reason; of course Game of Thrones is fictional, but I think it actually depicts a more realistically HUMAN past than most works of historical fiction manage.

    There is something to be said for the power of COUNTEREXAMPLE. Unless, of course... you're Anita...

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    How often does this kind of thing actually happen? Have public figures been advocating this?

    Probably not so much that specific example :) However, public figures HAVE been decrying "senseless violence" against women in video games, and many of these games (see my previous post) are set in the past (or a version of it), and the past was a time of... senseless violence against women. And everyone else, too, for that matter... Very much violence, very little sense. In a way, trying to inject modern understandings of gender equality into barbaric, dark ages-type environments is more or less like the exaggerated example of making Henry VIII black to promote racial diversity... the intentions are good... but I seem to recall a saying regarding the paving of roads to bad places...

    To be clear, I think it CAN be done, and even done well... I just also think that when developers choose not to or even fail to consider the option, it doesn't automagically equal misogyny, nor will it poison young minds, nor is it even lazy, unless some aspect of the game's fiction hinges on this manipulation.

    Did everyone see the Maddox on Spider-Woman's Ass??

    There's a problem a' brewin', and it seems to center around the commodification of moral outrage... at the expense of informed analysis and due diligence.

    We need fewer Social Justice Warriors and more Social Justice Scholars :)

    New tradition - September is FLOOD MONTH!!

    in Announcements

    Posted

    Already a new flood? Woah, that's quick, but good! How many did you plan for the whole month? :)

    Should be at least three more, with individual mixes in between!

    The only problem I see with this is that the attention is split between the whole set of posted ReMixes, rather than one or two, and that might decrease the number of people who comment. People might get overwhelmed.

    Concerns duly noted; we're trying something out, we'll see how it goes, and if it doesn't work out, we won't repeat it.

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I couldn't disagree with this more strongly. The analogy falls flat for me because adding a minority character doesn't mean adding a minority character where one doesn't belong, unless you're assuming that minorities don't belong in pop culture to begin with. Minorities can be regular people too, and there are plenty of Carlton Bankses in the world who identify more strongly with lifestyles not typically associated with their race. To me, diversity in media is also about showing that minorities can be "regular" people too, because that's how real life is.

    Agreed but it DOES get tricky. Since we were talking about Joss Whedon before, in addition to his strong female leads (which I do think at times come off as a little self-consciously progressive, but which generally I like), he also had the cajones to make Jubal Early (Firefly) AND The Operative (Serenity) black male villains... GASP!! I joke, but it's NOT somewhere most writers are willing to go.

    Just watch television advertisements with a critical eye... whenever there's a group of people, and some people are stupid or doing the "wrong" thing, and others are smart and doing the "right" thing, and the group includes African Americans, ad producers are extremely reluctant (read: afraid) to have the black people be on the losing side of any equation. It seems like it's going to take a good, long while before everyone can just be comfortable with diversity and not be afraid of pointed fingers...

    Herein lies the crux of my objection: Anita is quite flagrantly pointing fingers; she's doing it in the context of bad faith assumptions, she's doing it while reciting dogma that shouldn't pass the laugh test in modern classrooms, and she's doing it without any thought to persuading those who most need persuading. I don't think that'll make game developers more comfortable with the idea that "minorities can be "regular" people too, because that's how real life is," as you quite correctly put it... although statistically women are a majority that's just historically been treated like a minority.

    If women are people too, a sentiment that I wholeheartedly agree with as a human, son, brother, husband, and now a father, with every fiber of my being, then that means that their inclusion and depiction in fictional works should run a wide spectrum, and the widening of that spectrum is a goal I think almost everyone who's contributed to this thread actually supports... I don't think that goal is accomplished via finger pointing and an ideological Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of everyone making a game that in any way involves sex or gender. You CAN argue for more variety and fewer cliches without simultaneously arguing against perceived misogyny, sexual objectification, etc. The two are NOT mutually inclusive. I have to think you'll persuade more people, piss off fewer people, and not come nearly as close to advocating censorship and/or resting your entire argument on a psychological house of cards that involves completely unsubstantiated cause-and-effect chain reactions.

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    ...threats being issued over twitter, these things are public record...

    Is an anonymous threat issued over twitter really "public record," though? It's a record of something, I suppose, but I believe the author was making the point that since the identity of the tweet's author cannot be verified, much less the sincerity of his/her intentions, that's why the use of "alleged" is appropriate. It becomes speculative until someone with more information can confirm things; difficult in this day and age.

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    It's counterproductive to act like this is a zero-sum game and the gaming industry can only address one form of harm at a time. I welcome introducing feminism to developers if it leads them to create more interesting characters who may be male, female, or another gender.

    So do I; that's the tack I think Anita should have gone with - this can better games by making them more varied & interesting & by deviating from some overused tropes. But she didn't. I wish she had. But when you set the whole thing up as a "vs." to begin with, you wear your agenda on your sleeve. Her personal agenda does not seem to forward the progress of gaming, but rather to disseminate dated ideology and point out many of the same tired things second wave feminists pointed out several decades ago, as if they were something new, more in a context of demonization and extremely tenuous potential causation.

    Sociologists use different definitions.

    Sociologists use stupid definitions.

    Not really disagreeing with your point that the words are loaded and take many forms, just throwing a potshot in at the sociological definition of these terms, which defies evolutionary psychology and common sense and is embarrassingly ethnocentric & politically compromised. Shame on you, sociology.

    I'll take your word for that being your point; it didn't come across that way to me. Let me take my own advice: what do you mean when you say we don't need more feminism in gaming? How are you defining feminism and why do we not need more of it?

    I'll chime in here. We need pragmatic, results-oriented, third-wave feminism in gaming. We don't need polemical, irrational, and prosecutorial second-wave feminism in gaming, or much of anywhere else. The only reason it's even POSSIBLE is that the gaming community doesn't have enough of an academic/cultural foundation for some strong voices to emerge and point it out for what it is - a resurrection & regurgitation of sad, dead ideas.

    The real sad part is that people can't seem to critique video games from a minority's perspective without all sorts of irrational rage flying all over the place. Just gotta stick to the issues.

    I'm unclear if you mean that the irrational rage is flying out from those doing the critiquing, those reacting to the critiquing, or both. I'm hoping both.

    New tradition - September is FLOOD MONTH!!

    in Announcements

    Posted

    We're starting a new tradition this year of making September FLOOD MONTH...

    • In addition to individual and double mixposts, on SOME days we'll be posting THEMED FLOODS of FIVE MIXES...
    • These themes could be centered around a system, publisher, series, ReMixer, composer, letter of the alphabet, or any shared characteristic (I'd personally love to see a "BAD MIXTITLE PUN" flood one day...)
    • In addition to being something we think will be a lot fun, this should also help us catch up with our (infamous) queue!
    • Our first flood is up, which is actually our SECOND flood of awesome SM64 mixes from Portrait of a Plumber - if you haven't checked the album out yet, enjoy, and even if you HAVE, please consider giving these artists feedback & kudos on the comments threads!
    • We'll be posting our NEXT FLOOD very early next week... stay tuned!!!

    Thoughts & feedback on this idea welcome in this announcement thread!

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    One of my favorite #gamergate articles is from FORBES of all places:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

    "Whether or not some people are capitalizing on a culture of victimhood is a matter largely of opinion, and not something that can simply be stated as fact any more than alleged, unverified death threats against anyone ought to be reported as fact. So much of this is mired in speculation and partisanship at this point that it’s almost impossible to see the forest for the trees. Anyone selling you simple answers is likely ripping you off."
    I'm wondering how people feel about that. Andy in particular - you've pointed out (correctly, I think) the speculative nature of many of the accusations, but this writer is at least willing to treat some of the nastiest stuff as "alleged"...is that reluctance victim-blaming or harassment in and of itself, or just good journalism, displaying equal skepticism for information supporting either argument?

    On victim blaming: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/03/nude-pictures-hackers-advice-blame-freedom-and-timing/

    Makes some solid points - anyone beg to differ? This is exactly how I feel - sound advice is sound advice, the probability of becoming a victim CAN be reduced by avoiding certain behaviors, there IS often a sacrifice involved in terms of personal freedom that shouldn't be minimized, and timing is important.

    Is there more to say? What part of that don't we all actually agree with?

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I mostly stayed on-topic and had ONE line on Joss Whedon, just as a segue, and that's what gets talked about? :whatevaa:

    That's cool, that's fine... honestly, I love Firefly/Serenity enough that nothing he could ever say or do would take that away.

    I'll say this... he might have opinions I disagree with, OR that I agree with, but I DO think he's "allowed" to have them. People often get hung up on that, with the "What the HELL do YOU know about X?? You're just a celebrity/director/musician/whatever!!" - but they're still people, eh? And what are all of us - professional experts? So I'm fine with Joss Whedon weighing in, but I don't think he gave it much thought - not even enough thought to say "hey, maybe siding with Anita will get me some good press!" - but perhaps I'm just naive.

    At any rate, timaeus222 made an observation on my point about antiquity/ancient environments needing to identify themselves as such at least in part by depictions of gender inequality because that's how we ourselves think of the past, in general terms... he indicated that most people wouldn't give it that much thought, and I totally agree. Most people don't give much thought in general to the media they consume. But here's the thing - I don't think they really have to. It's a subconscious thing, and before you point out that I'm the one that's been OBJECTING to "subconscious things," let me clarify that it is not that I think they don't EXIST, but rather that I am reluctant to draw hard & fast conclusions about their effects. Generally speaking, my own anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that when people play games or consume media that is fanciful in nature, even those of below average intelligence and above average impressionability seem to grok the disconnect between how we behave nowadays, in the real world.

    And I'd like to reiterate a concern - if we whitewash environments that either closely resemble periods of human history or are even roughly going for antiquity (Middle Earth-type jams, etc.), isn't that creating revisionist problems of its own, and sending the wrong message - that the increased proximity to equality that women have achieved in modern times has somehow been ever-present, and did not need to be FOUGHT for in the first place? Ironically, it almost undersells/diminishes the achievements of the movement on whose behalf it is being advocated!!

    Actual human history is much, much darker and worse for almost everyone involved than is depicted in games... games usually try and connect with that darkness on some level, but it's often superficial... I'd argue that trying at ALL is still better than painting fanciful lands in which the issues of gender equality have magically been resolved without conflict or even discussion. What type of crap is that?

    Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I'm not sure they get to make the call of whether what they did was improper, the backlash against them is enough evidence of that. But I also think this should be in a different thread as it has nothing to do with the video series the thread was made for. :pretzel: You guys can split it off into a new Quinnspiracy thread, but I want nothing to do with it. :-)

    But no one wants to talk about Anita's videos anymore!! :-(

    Most have seen enough to dissuade them from watching the rest - and I'm not talking about the people who disagreed with her from the outset, I'm talking about people who are all about equality and progress and cultural criticism and what not, who just want to see it done, well... better.

    Perhaps more on topic:

    https://twitter.com/josswhedon/status/504508687722250240

    I watched a bunch of women get sliced up in video games and now I'm watching it on my twitter feed. @femfreq is just truth-telling. Deal.

    Now I love me some Whedon, don't get me wrong, but... Anita's latest video is on violence, and well, anyone wanna splain something to me:

    • Feminists will argue (quite correctly, in my opinion!) that human history has been full of the barbarous, vile, possessive, and otherwise unequal treatment of women.
    • This was clearly FAR worse in the past than it is in the present. Sometimes I feel like more radical feminists don't want to admit this because it somehow weakens their rhetorical position if things have gotten better, or (even worse!) are continuing to improve. This is silly; there are plenty of injustices left to resolve, and equating the present with the past both ignores the progress that has been made BY previous generations of feminists and flagrantly illustrates a prioritizing of rhetoric and marketing over reasonable analysis.
    • Most video games are about the past. What do I mean by this? I mean that even when they take place in completely fictionalized universes, those universes USUALLY resemble the past in terms of their politics, social structures, and general dynamics. Of course, not the ACTUAL, historical past of the human species - which is far more complex and nuanced than most of us ever grasp through liberal arts educations - but a generalized, ancient, antiquated version of "how things used to be" that we can more or less identify as being not at ALL "how things are." And how did things used to be? They used to be bad. Especially for women, but generally for everyone. Lots of wars, lots of conflict. Pretty shitty, but a great setting for a video game!
    • I'll agree that when things are set in a technologically advanced, clearly futuristic environment and you STILL see gratuitous violence against scantily clad women, it doesn't jive, and it would be quite odd to see it in something like Battlefield 4, which is set in something resembling the present. But when you're talking about anything less than the future or a modified present, you're usually talking about the past. Even if there's Orcs, or magic, or giant mushrooms, or WHATEVER - it's the past. And the past is good for conflict-based games, because it presents a lot of antiquated ideas about good vs. evil that don't end up seeming completely ridiculous.
    • Why does all of this matter?
      • Why can't violence against women be seen as one of many environmental indicators of antiquity?
      • As such, why isn't it a GOOD thing that we see this type of behavior as indicative of a universe that is NOT like our own, that we have outgrown, and that we need to make MORE like our own & modernize as a protagonist?
      • If we whitewash games set in the "past" (i.e. anything ancient or otherwise antiquated so as to distance itself from reality) and attempt to diminish or altogether extinguish violence against women in such universes, aren't we just running equal risk of undermining awareness about how things were, and the more RECENT progress we've made?

    In other words, if I could summarize in a single question:

    Isn't the contrast meaningful??

    Of course, you know me... I'm still not sold on the overall premise that this type of content has a lasting psychological effect that manifests itself culturally. I feel like an equally supported (i.e. not at all) hypothesis is that it serves as an outlet; I don't think you eliminate adolescent male power fantasies by cutting off the supply of fictional entertainment that caters to them, and I don't think you decrease testosterone by pretending it doesn't exist.

    What embarrasses me is that second-wave feminists fought & lost this war with regards to film, art, and pornography back in the 1970's. Gaming culture isn't mature enough to realize that its own immaturity doesn't evaporate through demonization, and shouldn't.

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