Tropes Vs Women in Video Games

[Hamishmash]

To be fair she only ASKED for $6,000. The rest of the money was from supporters who WANTED her to have that money. Are you saying that you would have stopped excepting donations if people were genuinely willing to give it?

 

I say go her! I would have taken the money that I'd earned!

[Rummy]

Here's the list of episodes:

 

Damsel in Distress - Video #1

The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2

The Sexy Sidekick - Video #3

The Sexy Villainess - Video #4

Background Decoration - Video #5

Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress - Video #6

Women as Reward - Video #7

Mrs. Male Character - Video #8

Unattractive Equals Evil - Video #9

Man with Boobs - Video #10

Positive Female Characters! - Video #11

Video #12 - Top 10 Most Common Defenses of Sexism in Games

 

She does plan on doing a positive one.

 

Although "Mrs. Male Character" and "Man with Boobs" sound the game, "Women as Reward" sounds like what she was going on a bout in "Damsels in Distress" and "The Sexy Villainess" and "Unattractive Equals Evil" seems like a contradiction.

 

Hmm. Title wise I'm not sure how I'll feel about some of the later videos; I can already see the kind of points she might be making. Really, I'm more looking forward to the part II of this first video.

[Hamishmash]

It should always be noted that feminist analysis is a lot of the time not a genuine criticism but a intentionally nitpick-y comprehension of a text from a female perspective. A lot of what she says might be contradicted by future videos but that's the reason why they're put into different videos because each one begins with her analysing a game from a different angle. Games are largely designed for white, straight, young men (whether or not they are the people who play them) so I don't see the harm in having fun dissecting them from a different point of view. This isn't an attack on gaming, she's not asking anyone to boycott them (she goes out of her way to express how fun games are and how they hold a special place in her heart) she's just having fun. And the videos are very interesting and watchable. I don't understand why so many people are resistent to learning or being questioned or challenged.

 

This means that yes, there will be contradictions such as "The Sexy Villainess" and "Unattractive Equals Evil".

 

Also the idea of a "trope" isn't inherently negative. They can be used as short hand in story telling, which is often needed in gaming as plot is usually of secondary importance. However, many of the tropes in gaming are anti-women because of the long held belief that games are played only by men. This just isn't true and hopefully the publicity of these videos will make game developers rethink their female characters (or lack thereof).

[Guy]

While games like Mario and early Zelda are hardly about plot, it would be nice to see the same old "save the princess" conventions shifted around once in a while. Females do end up getting relegated to eye candy, damsel in distress or sexy badass in most games - it's almost so common that it's completely ignored. Well, maybe not ignored... but it's probably something anyone with a shred of intelligence has acknowledged at least once or twice before. It's impossible not to.

 

Hamish actually made an excellent point that she only initially asked for $6,000 dollars and the rest was nothing more than donations of support. Looking at the Kickstarter page, a large amount of the minimum funding amount was likely due to be spent on production of the DVDs. Naturally more backers mean more DVDs, so a large chunk of the thousands of dollars she receives will likely be spent on fulfilling a lot more DVD orders than first anticipated.

 

That being said, this particular topic has been approached so many times before it'll really take something special to actually tread any new ground. The first video is disappointing because it's highly indicative the entire work will be nothing more than a fairly well made rinse and repeat for the YouTube generation.

 

I hadn't realised how much people hate Sarkeesian before this video came out, wow. What a divisive online personality.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Guy

[Hamishmash]

She challenges geek stuff, geeks get passionately vocal, she's a woman... she's bound to get hate.

 

I can imagine if Charlie Brooker had made the same points he'd be getting universal praise.

[MoogleViper]

To be fair she only ASKED for $6,000. The rest of the money was from supporters who WANTED her to have that money. Are you saying that you would have stopped excepting donations if people were genuinely willing to give it?

 

Stop taking donations, use it to fund charity or some such.

 

She challenges geek stuff, geeks get passionately vocal, she's a woman... she's bound to get hate.

 

Bullshit, that's just a pointless, defensive statement that nobody can argue with.

 

"Are you disagree? Well that just proves my point."

 

You're just trying to reduce people's arguments and turn it into mindless hate. The fact is, whether you agree with them or not, people have made valid points about this video. We should just accept her points because she calls herself a feminist? Disagreeing with her automatically makes us sexist?

 

As for the geek stuff, don't be idiotic. She's talking about video games. Who else but "geeks" are going to be watching/commenting?

 

Funny, for a guy who's supposedly about equality for all and not stereotyping, you're awfully quick to reduce people to labels and mindless actions.

[Hamishmash]

Woah. Someone is defensive. I largely was just saying "she's having fun by analysing well loved things" and you stoop to personal insults.

 

Also Kickstarter does not allow you to use it for charity purposes. As has been stated, she'll probably use the money to make more DVDs because of the higher demand. I contributed to zine which only intened to make around $1000 so that they could make (among other things) about 200 copies of the zine. They ended up making $15,000 and so made a lot more zines because of their higher demand.

 

I find it funny that a person making a video about Princess Peach can get this much anger.

 

EDIT: I just find it funny that I almost posted this video here yesterday being all "Awesome video about women in video games!" but didn't because I knew something like this would happen. I literally cannot work out what's so controversial about saying "Nintendo should make more games where Peach isn't kidnapped". I mean she comes close to praising Princess Zelda as a character!

Edited March 10, 2013 by Hamishmash

[MoogleViper]

Woah. Someone is defensive. I largely was just saying "she's having fun by analysing well loved things" and you stoop to personal insults.

 

Also Kickstarter does not allow you to use it for charity purposes. As has been stated, she'll probably use the money to make more DVDs because of the higher demand. I contributed to zine which only intened to make around $1000 so that they could make (among other things) about 200 copies of the zine. They ended up making $15,000 and so made a lot more zines because of their higher demand.

 

I find it funny that a person making a video about Princess Peach can get this much anger.

 

I didn't make any personal insults.

 

Again, you're making pointless arguments that are trying to belittle my arguments, without actually making a point.

 

"I think women should be slaves."

"What? That's a disgusting attitude."

"Woah, somebody's a little defensive. Wrong time of the month?"

 

I didn't know about the kickstarter charity thing. Seems a bit stupid to me, but I'm sure she has her reasons.

 

There's still plenty of other things she could use the money for. She could start another project/campaign. Maybe she will, I don't know. My inital comment was aimed at you saying that she could use that as a wage for doing the videos.

 

I find it funny that a person making a video about Princess Peach can get this much anger.

 

Again, this just reeks of somebody giggling and saying "somebody's got a bee in their bonnet". If this was an issue that you cared about, such as feminism (from the other side) or LGBT, then I'm sure you'd be getting passionate. But when you don't agree, you resort to childish ad hominem.

[Hamishmash]

I thought I made my points incredibly clear but I'm not going to bother anymore. This video has clearly got under your skin and you won't listen to my points.

 

This is clearly a hate thread. And yes, you called me idiotic and made assumptions about my personal life and beliefs which were uncalled for. I'm not insulted, but talking like that does nothing for your arguments. Try to argue your points without such a god awful tone and maybe people might take you more seriously in the future.

 

(And yes, I am giggling and saying someone's got a bee in their bonnet because seriously, look at your reaction to an online video someone made about princess peach and tell me that it's a justified response.)

Edited March 10, 2013 by Hamishmash

[MoogleViper]

I thought I made my points incredibly clear but I'm not going to bother anymore. This video has clearly got under your skin and you won't listen to my points.

 

This is clearly a hate thread. And yes, you called me idiotic and made assumptions about my personal life and beliefs which were uncalled for. I'm not insulted, but talking like that does nothing for your arguments. Try to argue your points without such a god awful tone and maybe people might take you more seriously in the future.

 

(And yes, I am giggling and saying someone's got a bee in their bonnet because seriously, look at your reaction to an online video someone made about princess peach and tell me that it's a justified response.)

 

I didn't call you idiotic, I said a comment you made was idiotic. There's a distinct difference.

 

I'm not sure what you mean about by assumptions about your personal life and beliefs. If you mean "for a guy who's supposedly about equality for all and not stereotyping", then that's not insulting in any way, and not much of an insult, considering you've made posts about how you do LGBT talks. Nor was it meant to be insulting in anyway, more to point out the hypocrisy of using the "geek" label in a derogatory way.

 

Again, you're using reductionism. "look at your reaction to an online video someone made about princess peach" That's not what it is at all. Are you seriously saying that the video is about princess Peach? No, it's about feminism. I'm arguing about feminism. The fact that her medium of choice is youtube, or mine is vbulletin, is completely irrelevant. Besides, I agreed with her about Princess Peach.

 

You can try and take the high road as much as you want. But you're still just posting defensive statements, using hypocritical arguments, and trying to belittle me rather than responding to my points.

 

And as for not listening, I've responded to every point you've made.

[Hamishmash]

You didn't respond to any of this.

 

It should always be noted that feminist analysis is a lot of the time not a genuine criticism but a intentionally nitpick-y comprehension of a text from a female perspective. A lot of what she says might be contradicted by future videos but that's the reason why they're put into different videos because each one begins with her analysing a game from a different angle. Games are largely designed for white, straight, young men (whether or not they are the people who play them) so I don't see the harm in having fun dissecting them from a different point of view. This isn't an attack on gaming, she's not asking anyone to boycott them (she goes out of her way to express how fun games are and how they hold a special place in her heart) she's just having fun. And the videos are very interesting and watchable. I don't understand why so many people are resistent to learning or being questioned or challenged.

 

This means that yes, there will be contradictions such as "The Sexy Villainess" and "Unattractive Equals Evil".

 

Also the idea of a "trope" isn't inherently negative. They can be used as short hand in story telling, which is often needed in gaming as plot is usually of secondary importance. However, many of the tropes in gaming are anti-women because of the long held belief that games are played only by men. This just isn't true and hopefully the publicity of these videos will make game developers rethink their female characters (or lack thereof).

 

And I was not using geek in a derogative way. I am a geek. We're all geeks. Every single member of this forum is a humongous, giant, flaming, beautiful, fabulous geek. And part of the definition of geek is that you're highly enthusiastic about things like this. So she knew that by analysing geek subjects, she knows she's going to get backlash from people who don't want to see any negativ aspects in the thing they loves and yet she makes it clear she loves them.

 

People can still like things and understand what’s wrong with them like I don’t understand why some people can’t see that.

 

I can't see anything in that video that is even slightly controversial and don't understand why she's been receiving so much animosity from simply pointing out problematic stuff.

[MoogleViper]

It should always be noted that feminist analysis is a lot of the time not a genuine criticism but a intentionally nitpick-y comprehension of a text from a female perspective. A lot of what she says might be contradicted by future videos but that's the reason why they're put into different videos because each one begins with her analysing a game from a different angle. Games are largely designed for white, straight, young men (whether or not they are the people who play them) so I don't see the harm in having fun dissecting them from a different point of view. This isn't an attack on gaming, she's not asking anyone to boycott them (she goes out of her way to express how fun games are and how they hold a special place in her heart) she's just having fun. And the videos are very interesting and watchable. I don't understand why so many people are resistent to learning or being questioned or challenged.

 

This means that yes, there will be contradictions such as "The Sexy Villainess" and "Unattractive Equals Evil".

 

Also the idea of a "trope" isn't inherently negative. They can be used as short hand in story telling, which is often needed in gaming as plot is usually of secondary importance. However, many of the tropes in gaming are anti-women because of the long held belief that games are played only by men. This just isn't true and hopefully the publicity of these videos will make game developers rethink their female characters (or lack thereof).

 

I don't think people on this forum have been resistant to being challenged, or that they've shown animosity towards her. We've merely challenged the points that she made.

 

Also you say, "I don't understand why so many people are resistent to learning or being questioned or challenged", but to me she's done exactly that by disabling comments. I think that's what people have taken offence with (that and the money (and her chave hoops)). I agree with most points that the atheist bloke made. By disabling comments, she's limiting people's ability to debate. And on a forum such as youtube, where the whole point is to share videos and ideas, it seems a bit like, "this is how it is, listen to what I have to say, I'm not interested in your opinion".

 

Also, as I said, I agreed with many things she said, but she made a lot of leaps. Such as the starfox thing. She said that because the main character was changed from a female to a male, that must mean that it's sexist. When it's far more likely that it was changed because Fox is recognised character/brand, so will sell more. The bit about Crystal wearing skimpy clothes has a point, but it's not necessarily sexist. The fact is the game is aimed at males, and she's supposed to be an object of affection, so of course they're going to make her look attractive. That's not sexist, take any media aimed at women, and men will be portrayed in a similar vein. It's just targeting your audience.

 

I don't disagree with her intention, just some of the points she makes. I also disagree with her delivery.

 

You say that it's just an exercise of fun for her, but I don't see it that way. Gaining funding, and calling your channel feministfrequency, seems much more like a campaign to me, so that was how I responded.

[Magnus]

Surely the fact that sexism occurs both ways doesn't make it okay? The Dead or Alive girls aren't less sexist just because the guys on Days of Our Lives are always walking around shirtless. :p

 

The problem is that most games are aimed at straight, white men, so every other group ends up feeling marginalized to some extent. Imagine how you feel every time John Black takes off his shirt for no reason - that's how women feel whenever they play a video game with an oversexualized woman.

[MoogleViper]

Surely the fact that sexism occurs both ways doesn't make it okay? The Dead or Alive girls aren't less sexist just because the guys on Days of Our Lives are always walking around shirtless. :p

 

The problem is that most games are aimed at straight, white men, so every other group ends up feeling marginalized to some extent. Imagine how you feel every time John Black takes off his shirt for no reason - that's how women feel whenever they play a video game with an oversexualized woman.

 

But those products are aimed at women, whereas these products are aimed at men. I don't think targeting is sexist. If there really is a market for women gamers, then why aren't more people making those products? (Personally I think there are plenty of gender neutral games.)

 

If we go back to the money issue, she's raised $158,000 just for a series of youtube videos. Think how much she (or somebody else) could make if they launched a kickstarter for a game company/publisher. She could use the extra $152,000 to fund such a game/company.

 

Also, I don't see it as a problem. Whenever I watch something aimed at women, and there's a guy (don't know who John Black is) with his shirt off, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable or repressed in any way. Of course, it's not going to entertain/excite/add benefits in the way that it would for a woman, so it's a bit of a "meh" issue, but if the rest of the show isn't about that then I can still enjoy it. And as we've said (and as she said), the damsel in distress point in Mario/Zelda is only a minor part of the game. So the rest of it is still enjoyable for women.

[Magnus]

Also, I don't see it as a problem. Whenever I watch something aimed at women, and there's a guy (don't know who John Black is) with his shirt off, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable or repressed in any way.

You're right, that was a terrible example in retrospect. That's not how privilege works.

 

But surely you can see a problem with saying that it's okay that Krystal dresses like a stripper because she's supposed to be attractive? That makes it sound like that's the only way a woman can be considered attractive. How about a girl who knows just what she wants and always speaks her mind? Would she be less attractive if she wore a shirt and had a great sense of humor? (I have never played Star Fox Adventures, so I have no idea what Krystal is like.)

 

The problem with video games is that when you're a straight, white male, you have the luxury of choice because you're in the majority and most games are aimed at your demographic. It's a much bigger risk to release a game starring a female character because a lot of male gamers won't play a game like that (because they can't relate to female main characters, apparently, which makes them sound like sociopaths). If you're a female gamer, it's a lot harder to vote with your wallet.

[MoogleViper]

But surely you can see a problem with saying that it's okay that Krystal dresses like a stripper because she's supposed to be attractive? That makes it sound like that's the only way a woman can be considered attractive. How about a girl who knows just what she wants and always speaks her mind? Would she be less attractive if she wore a shirt and had a great sense of humor? (I have never played Star Fox Adventures, so I have no idea what Krystal is like.)

 

The problem with video games is that when you're a straight, white male, you have the luxury of choice because you're in the majority and most games are aimed at your demographic. It's a much bigger risk to release a game starring a female character because a lot of male gamers won't play a game like that (because they can't relate to female main characters, apparently, which makes them sound like sociopaths). If you're a female gamer, it's a lot harder to vote with your wallet.

 

Well Krystal doesn't really feature much. She's just a pin up that plays very little part in the game.

 

I agree that it can be annoying, but as I said, that's more the female armour aspect than anything. And like I said, it would be much easier showing games that don't follow this convention (Beyond Good & Evil, FFXIII etc.) as a way of saying "look, it doesn't have to be like this", rather than "look at this, it's shit, it's all shit". Positivity trumps negativity.

 

Also, if I see a game (or TV show, film) that focuses too much on sexualised women (or we're all of the cast, male or female, are attractive), then I won't buy it. Not because of any feminist issues, more because it's clearly lacking in any real value or integrity, so they have to use tits and abs to sell it to morons who are easily distracted by those things.

 

P.S. Krystal's not just a helpless Peach character. She is a warrior, and the staff that Fox is using is hers, which she reclaims as soon as she's freed.

[Magnus]

Well Krystal doesn't really feature much. She's just a pin up that plays very little part in the game.

Well, now you're just making her sound worse. :p

 

It sounds like she's going to bring up positive examples as well, so that's something for you to look forward to, then! Though generally I think it's more fun to point out the bad examples, so I can see why she started where she did.

 

The issue isn't just with Dead or Alive-style breasts-everywhere-oh-my-God-how-come-they-don't-pop-out games. It's being a female gamer when there are almost no female main characters. Or how women in games are often reduced to just being 'the love interest'. Or when you're playing Mass Effect 2 and you're ready to kick some butt and the game zooms in on Miranda's butt and you become painfully aware of who the game is aimed at.

 

You've got to love straight, white male gamers who think women should just get over it because it's not a big deal, then refuse to play games that star female characters and kick up a fuss when there's optional homosexuality. And then you realize that those are the people video games are aimed at, and it's not so funny anymore.

[MoogleViper]

But there are plenty of games like that though. Which is why I think they should focus one the ones that are doing it well. Even ignoring the positivity/negativity aspect, she's just bringing more attention to the bad games, rather than brining positive attention to the good ones. Show examples of the good ones, more people become aware, more people buy, more games are made in that vein.

[Magnus]

I think that would be a pretty boring video series, though.

 

Also, I think it's worth bringing up bad examples because I honestly don't think the average straight, white male gamer realizes how casually sexist a lot of games are. I saw someone tell a story that explained how privilege works about a long-haired dog and a lizard or something who lived together. The thermostat was high up so that only the dog could reach it and he set it to a temperature that was comfortable to him, not realizing that that was way too cold for the lizard. From the dog's perspective, the temperature was just right, so why wouldn't it be right for everyone else?

 

It's the same with gaming. We're all painfully aware of how sexist Dead or Alive is, but sexism is so much more than that, and a lot of it isn't immediately obvious if you're not part of the group that's being marginalized.

[MoogleViper]

I'm not saying they shouldn't mention the bad, but I think equal/more focus should be on the good.

 

Also, a lot of it isn't about sexism, it's about targetting. Most erotic novels are aimed at women, and can't really be enjoyed by a man. That doesn't make it sexist, just means that the market is largely female.

 

Companies are always going to target the largest consumers, that's how business works. If we don't like it, then we can't really live in a free market, capitalist economy.

[Hamishmash]

I think the examples she used were good for a 20 minute video. It needs to be short and concise, and she mentions a lot that these are just a few examples of a wider problem. She also intends to counter balance the points in her next video (as she does in most of her videos, she shows good examples to illustrate how bad the bad is).

 

The fact that the gaming market is largely aimed at men IS sexist. You can target games at specific genders but the industry forces women out. It seems like a really stupid marketing decision to not include half the human race and yet they press on.

 

Think about Sony's PS4 conference? How many games did they show? And not one of them featured a female playable character and barely any of them even featured a non-playable female character.

 

I think the point of the videos isn't so much to complain for complaining sake. Hopefully the industry will realise they're missing out on a huge market. And no, that doesn't mean making games like "Imagine! Babies" or something. It means making small changes to characters, plots and representation.

[Ramar]

Must say the constant use of clips after every sentence got a bit annoying after a while.

[Diageo]

I think the target audience argument makes sense to an extent but then it falls short on certain circumstances. Such as, if the majority of the population of a country was homophobic, and so many homophobic media was created, while it is the optimum profit strategy it's not exactly morally right. It then perpetuates negative stereotypes that the affected party is not happy with.

 

So in that vein, while a large audience may enjoy women being objectified for their pleasure, it's not exactly right and the affected parties shouldn't just get over it.

[MoogleViper]

I think the target audience argument makes sense to an extent but then it falls short on certain circumstances. Such as, if the majority of the population of a country was homophobic, and so many homophobic media was created, while it is the optimum profit strategy it's not exactly morally right. It then perpetuates negative stereotypes that the affected party is not happy with.

 

So in that vein, while a large audience may enjoy women being objectified for their pleasure, it's not exactly right and the affected parties shouldn't just get over it.

 

But it works both ways, so surely if everyone is doing it, then it's not wrong?

 

 

Or everyone is wrong.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I'm just going to drop a potential bomb here and ask what exactly is wrong with objectification.