This is a good summation of the problems with the video and largely mirrors my own feeligs. The problem wasnt with the videos central message per se, just that the presentation of said message felt shallow and lazy
Tropes vs Women in Video Games: Background Decoration Pt. 1
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This is a good summation of the problems with the video and largely mirrors my own feeligs. The problem wasnt with the videos central message per se, just that the presentation of said message felt shallow and lazy
There were positives and negatives to the video, most of which have been mentioned here already so I wont just parrot them all off.
I will say that I certainly felt discouraged from watching her other videos after this though. Her intentional ignoring of context for things like the Red Dead scene, acting as though GTA provides more incentive to kill women over any other NPC in the world and so on, reminded me of when mainstream conservative media types get a bee in their bonnet about violence in games, and start exaggerating and cherry picking information to suit their own narratives.
In what is supposed to be a fair and informed documentary series, I shouldn't be able to draw parallels with ill-informed Fox News anchors who try and act like the entire point of GTA is to go on a prostitute slaughtering rampage. But those parallels are there.
I will say that I certainly felt discouraged from watching her other videos after this though. Her intentional ignoring of context for things like the Red Dead scene, acting as though GTA provides more incentive to kill women over any other NPC in the world and so on, reminded me of when mainstream conservative media types get a bee in their bonnet about violence in games, and start exaggerating and cherry picking information to suit their own narratives.
In what is supposed to be a fair and informed documentary series, I shouldn't be able to draw parallels with ill-informed Fox News anchors who try and act like the entire point of GTA is to go on a prostitute slaughtering rampage. But those parallels are there.
The implications of Sarkeesian's examples are troubling for me, as they suggest she either isn't able to identify the semiotics of criticism within the games themselves (example: The clip from Red Dead Redemption wasn't one of encouraging female objectification, but she noted it as one), or she's frequently (and I fear, knowingly) falling into a fallacy of incomplete evidence.
For a point of reference: If I read a paper by a student where even one-fifth of their evidence fell into that category (incomplete evidence), it would undermine the merit of that argument. It would be wisest to remove it all-together. If their thesis relied on any of those examples, I would consider that a failing paper. Sarkeesian seems to fall short of that standard, from a quick overview. When any critic cites works as indicative of a pattern, when that work is actually critical of that pattern, that should be a a black mark on their understanding of the subject. Since the alternative would reflect even more poorly on the author (deliberate academic dishonesty), I'll simply assume it's unfamiliarity with the work. This isn't me objecting to the premise: I already agree with the premise; I'd like to see more social commentary along these lines, but this is a troubling use of "evidence" to that end.
For a point of reference: If I read a paper by a student where even one-fifth of their evidence fell into that category (incomplete evidence), it would undermine the merit of that argument. It would be wisest to remove it all-together. If their thesis relied on any of those examples, I would consider that a failing paper. Sarkeesian seems to fall short of that standard, from a quick overview. When any critic cites works as indicative of a pattern, when that work is actually critical of that pattern, that should be a a black mark on their understanding of the subject. Since the alternative would reflect even more poorly on the author (deliberate academic dishonesty), I'll simply assume it's unfamiliarity with the work. This isn't me objecting to the premise: I already agree with the premise; I'd like to see more social commentary along these lines, but this is a troubling use of "evidence" to that end.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/joy-goh-mah/objectification-women-sexy-pictures_b_3403251.html
Here is but one article on how it goes beyond "sexy ladies pictures".
I'm sure many people here can give you more examples and research on why repeated images of women as objects can socialise society into thinking that in certain ways. We are made up of what we receive in many subconscious ways, whether we like it or not. Often these influences manifest in many subtle ways that we don't even recognise. The media has the power to inform people about the world with its content, content that will inevitably help form images of how and what groups of people are. If women are repeated portrayed to objects without their agency, don't you think that the general population might just form false impressions of what women actually are and what they can and should be?
I have to agree with this. Some of her examples reminds me of myself, scrambling for evidence from a text to quickly form a paper that is due tomorrow, either out of laziness or lack of time. She needs to consider the context of the games that she's using and maybe even choose certain key texts to study closely, rather than attempt to give many examples that turn out to be dishonest or murky ones.
I don't think she did a good job conveying what she was getting at cause she kind of lost me there too.
I do have to commend her on a well informed and thoroughly well laid out argument. It's not often I will sit through a 30 min online video. My only slight point of contention would be the discussion on violence since a lot of what she showed is not exclusive to women but applies to both genders. You can brutalise anyone in most open world games and the rewards and achievements are not just for doing it to women. So presenting it as something that applies to sexualised women only isn't exactly true. Other than that I can't argue with any of it.
I really hope that she can get the intellectual and thoughtful discussion her position deserves.
I really hope that she can get the intellectual and thoughtful discussion her position deserves.
kunonabi
Member
first, she's a bounty hunter barging in on a military option she wasn't contracted for. Adam could have told her to go home if he wanted to. Second, everyone had to have their weaponry authorized not just including all the other male soldiers. Samus has a ridiculous amount of destructive weaponry that makes collateral damage a distinct possibility. Third, she activates some of her gear without his permission anyway. Their was no sexist reasoning for it. Sakamoto was merely trying to avoid randomly losing her gear for the hundredth time. Aside from the varia/gravity upgrades it wasn't that terrible idea and still a step up from Fusion's approach.
Night Hunter
Banned
As always a pretty good video, although again I can't agree with all her points. But it was a pretty interesting half an hour regardless.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Quality video, I agree with many of her points.
Red Liquorice
Member
You can kill all NPCs, but only the women are objectified sexually - that was the point.
She's pointing out the link of sexual objectification as justification for violence. Basically boiling down to "she was asking for it."
These videos make me sick. I haven't played most of the games in this video (only Fallout and GTA I think) but stacked up all together you can see this is a wide spread problem - they even use the same corny bullshit, more than a few of those games had women saying "you're so hot, I'd give it to you for free" before you were allowed to stab them in the gut and stomp on their face. I feel ashamed to be a gamer when I see this.
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Color me surprised, this is a much better video than her previous ones. There's still some cherrypicking here and there, but altogether the video raised important concerns.
I still cannot shake off the feeling she's working off someone else's script and just finding footage to go with it, but from tvtropes before to a philosopher's work now, can't complain.
I still cannot shake off the feeling she's working off someone else's script and just finding footage to go with it, but from tvtropes before to a philosopher's work now, can't complain.
chickdigger802
Banned
i get that you can kill 'sexualized women', but im not seeing the correlation with killing prostitute like how you can use the same mechanics to kill any other character model in the game means anything.
If it was like how you can only kill whores in open world games, or your character makes jokes about killing ho's while doing it, i get it... but that doesn't seem like her argument?
prostitutes don't fight back, but neither does most npcs (it is a bit weird that prostitutes tend not to be packing in games).
Metroid-Squadron
Banned
The shaming of the act so they stop doing it is censorship.
They're not 50%. The audience of those games is mostly men. If you want to portray woman differently, you can. Make more games that cater to your tastes. Shaming developers so they change their ways to what you like IS censorship.
You're telling them that what they're doing is wrong and they should stop purely because you don't like it. Censorship.
See? Some people want censorship. Nothing shown in the video has been proven AT ALL to be harmful to the players. Until you provide such data comparing it with racism and rape is disingenuous at best.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
So why is the killing and sexuality linked then? "She was asking for it"? What? No NPC in any open world game is safe from player cruelty, it's more like "that NPC is crossing the road while i'm speeding? How far can I make him fly?"
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It's that the prostitutes exist at all is the problem, to be fair. They are a vestigial part of GTA design that has no real place any more.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
Was From Hell a bad movie? Didn't Jack the Ripper kill prostitutes? Are we all Jack the Ripper? Kojima you've done it! MGS2 is a good game!
Actually, if you look back at the history of nurses and so forth. They were considered prostitutes at one time. But our society took it to a whole other level. Look at crime shows on TV or even that craigslist killer. People commit these crimes in entertainment if it's scripted or not. Look at Heavy Rain. David Cage got an award for telling that story? Wow.
Watch how females die and how males die. Dying women are often moaning and screaming, while males kind of just fall down most of the time.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
Examples?
In that case, I want to censor this post so hard.
Basketball
Member
Im pretty sure the male npcs moan/scream and beg for their lives in gta
So remove them from the game ?
I really have never fully understood the thought process that leads people to say this, but I'm going to try to work it out.
Starting point: Our opinions on a creative work differ
-> You dislike some element of that work
-> Your overall opinion of that work would be more positive if that element were changed
-> You would like that element to be changed
-> You want that element to be changed
-> You demand that element be removed
-> This constitutes a "call for censorship"
Conclusion: If our opinions on a creative work differ, you are trying to censor the work in question.
Q.E.D. Checkmate. King me. Bingo. Yahtzee.
I wish these weren't broken into parts because I think such a broad discussion needs a lengthy diverse discussion and focusing 25 minutes talking about how strippers and hookers in video games are objectifying women is kind of silly.
These aren't respectable positions in real life so it's not like they are being misrepresented in video games. These aren't the bulk of female NPCs either. Yes many games (especially sandbox games) have a strip club or hooker area, but I don't necessarily believe it's to make women look bad or to objectify women. People have to remember the settings of most of these games. Most of the time these games with these kind of NPCs are violent games that take place in seedy settings because the villians and sometimes the main character are seedy characters. Same reason many of these type games have alcohol, violence and drug references.
If a game is centered around committing crimes, gunning down drug lords or fighting a war is it REALLY surprising that refrences to prostitution would exist? And as many have already mentioned, violence towards hookers and stippers is treated the same way as violence towards ANY other NPC. Usually cops take you in and you lose some money, time or items but obviously doesn't truly represent the true consequences of killing a human being.
This is why I didn't want the topic to be broken up. I felt that this topic could use some balance by her comments on other female NPCs that aren't specifically there to represent sexualization.
These aren't respectable positions in real life so it's not like they are being misrepresented in video games. These aren't the bulk of female NPCs either. Yes many games (especially sandbox games) have a strip club or hooker area, but I don't necessarily believe it's to make women look bad or to objectify women. People have to remember the settings of most of these games. Most of the time these games with these kind of NPCs are violent games that take place in seedy settings because the villians and sometimes the main character are seedy characters. Same reason many of these type games have alcohol, violence and drug references.
If a game is centered around committing crimes, gunning down drug lords or fighting a war is it REALLY surprising that refrences to prostitution would exist? And as many have already mentioned, violence towards hookers and stippers is treated the same way as violence towards ANY other NPC. Usually cops take you in and you lose some money, time or items but obviously doesn't truly represent the true consequences of killing a human being.
This is why I didn't want the topic to be broken up. I felt that this topic could use some balance by her comments on other female NPCs that aren't specifically there to represent sexualization.
-COOLIO-
The Everyman
in which game? in all the games i can think of, both sexes die similarly.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Hearing and reading some of the dialogue on some of this games, you have to wonder if the devs have ever talked to a real woman before, maybe they dont have sisters , or mothers .
Metroid-Squadron
Banned
Trying to get others to silence theirs is. Not everybody is offended by the same things and it's ridiculous to shame the devs to stop what they're doing without providing any actual proof of wrongdoing. It basically amount to "I don't like it, change it" which would be fine as a request, not as a demand.
She shows at least one in the video. Please don't make me search for videos of dying women.
GTA IV is maybe a coup out, but the only thing I can find quickly.
Oh and unrelated to the question. I just stumpled over this video. Oh my god. 162k vies with 2k likes against 0,1k dislikes.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
In the first 1:20 seconds there is a dude screaming and moaning as he is getting shot. So i'm not sure what your point is.
Why would their mothers and sisters be talking like prostitutes lol, to them even.
As I said in my first post, prostitutes are a real part of life, and games like GTA seek to create believeable/realistic open worlds, so prostitutes being in a video game does have a place in terms of immersion.
chickdigger802
Banned
speaking of which, when was the last GTA game that even promote 'sex with prostitutes' as a feature?
I don't even recall there being a tutorial or anything in GTA5. Didn't even know there were any prostitutes until near the end game.
I don't even recall there being a tutorial or anything in GTA5. Didn't even know there were any prostitutes until near the end game.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
There's a certain amount of code switching that you run into in HK, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, where people will go back and forth between the local language (in HK, Cantonese) and English fairly freely within the same conversation and even sentence. Sleeping Dogs is primarily serving an English audience, so you hear mostly English, but the creole is accurate, and it's not just done as a quirk like in Assassin's Creed 2.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The biggest problem I consistently have with her videos is that, either ignorantly or willfully, she mistakes depiction for endorsement, without examining the framing that surrounds her examples. And a good chunk of the time the depictions actually are indulgent or endorsement. But yeah, enough of them aren't that it makes me uncomfortable.
partyphone
Banned
I still don't understand how it's censorship. These videos aren't even calling for any of this content to be blocked.
Basketball
Member
that last video says more about the broadcaster then about the game
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I never see these parts because I'm too busy doing quests ingame. Modern media could cut and paste that just like that YouTube person and make any scene inside a game seem like a massacre. You could slow down knife kills in Battlefield and scare people, but when you just load up a match this stuff never seems to bother people (your GTA clip). I think that was pure timing. Men and women NPCs in large games like that probably don't have gender spawn clocks. They're probably equal in margin except prostitutes. Rockstar should just get a female lead for their next GTA.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
GTAV already ignores them for the most part. They just need to go the next step, really.
They don't seek to create believable or realistic open worlds though. They map out certain geographies, but that's about as much verisimilitude that the games aim for.
D
Deleted member 20920
Unconfirmed Member
The video and people who are agreeing to it are not demanding devs to remove all such content entirely. The video aims to highlight the existence of these tropes and how often they're used. I think the dialogue here is how devs should be more aware of what they're doing (because some of them probably didn't notice that they're perpetuating certain harmful tropes anyway) and suggesting that devs should try to do things differently, not because we demand them to but because devs should take a look at what they're doing and reflect on whether their content might be harmful in certain ways.
We're not shaming anyone when we say that devs should try to do things differently. It's not a personal attack on anyone.
Anyway, aren't people sick of "whoa I see prostitutes in my open world game" by now? The question that we should ask is whether is it necessary to have certain locations (that contain questionable portrayal of women) in games and whether we lose anything if we don't have these locations and the negative portrayal of women that comes with that territory. I personally want to see more open world games that do not feel compelled to have locations that revolve around sex and perhaps be more innovative with possible new locations and the activities that the player can engage in in these new locations.
Telling someone to stop doing something is censorship just as much as telling someone to die is homicide.
obviously not everything needs to omit sexualizing women, but it's time the industry branched out and stopped using it as a crutch for all female characters. Most women don't want in your pants and don't put up with taking violent abuse and brush it off as funny.
If people want more realistic and possibly deeper story arcs to possibly rival movies and books, this sort of shift needs to occur. Exceptions will always exist, but the game industry problem is that it's been purposely avoiding deeper, more realistic stories in favor of hot chicks swooning over your awesomeness.
Basketball
Member
There is a lot of things gta v ignores. The game doesn't tell the player to go on rampages and kill npcs but mostly everyone has done it. You could spend the whole game riding a bike up and down the park being a normal person but the game doesn't tell you to do that either.
Palette Swap
Member
TBH, this line of thought gets pretty ridiculous once I try picturing the poor designer who gets home late at night and drinks himself to sleep because the internet apparently censored 2 hookers in the background.
Would you consider censorship the fact that we shame (or used to shame) every other day the following points about games :
- multiplayer achievements
- bald space marines
- microtransactions and their hooks
- brown environments
- dumbed down gameplay and interfaces
- forced tutorials
- escort missions
- QTEs
I very voluntarily chose non-social issues but these are all parts that were designed by people, and very voluntarily so. Yet, we've repeated some points about these ad nauseam. Were we trying to censor them? Why was no one complaining about our totalitarian stances then ?
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
You're telling me with all the attention to detail GTA 4 and 5 have in terms of body physics, vehicle physics, the replication of land marks and certain areas, and then filling those areas with types of NPCs that would be accustomed to those areas, that GTA in any small way does not strive for any sort of realism or believeablility?
Yes. As I said, it had nothing to do with Chawlies question. It was just something I stumpled upon and I thought that it had a least something to do with the topic. Its not only the guy who plays, but the thousands of people whol liked this.
My point is not, the brutality itself, but that females die different than males. But yeah, GTA is maybe not the best example, since its so overused as negative example for so many things. But I actually played not many games in the last weeks. Well, except league of legends. Ahris death sound is most likely interesting, but probably not so important for the topic since a lot of people exlude mobas from games.
I am sure, there are plenty of examples of women who die differently than men. I am actually a bit stumpled, that women moan while dying. Weither its Open World Games, RTS or mobas.
A demand backed by what? The ideal scenario behind these videos would be them reaching some developers who would be convinced by Anita's reasoning, come to agree with her opinion, and make changes of their own volition.
What do you think the fallback case is? Mass boycotts? Threatening/harassing developers? Burning down studios? Assassinations?
'Cause I'll tell you what it actually is: Nothing. The people in a position to change things remain stubborn, Anita continues to argue her point, and the world keeps on spinning. Are you so fucking terrified of people agreeing with her, perhaps expressing similar opinions and maybe choosing not to buy certain games that you'll conflate those things with a horrific silencing campaign of censorship? Get a grip, dude.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Tell me if anything is lost if they took out the fact that you could have sex with prostitutes entirely?
The point of the game is satire though, or at least it tries to be. There's a reason why the call it the "Federal Investigation Bureau" after all.
Oh absolutely. That's why I'm so conflicted on these videos, because I know I'm already aware of a wide range of examples to support the underlying points. I do think videogames suffer from a simplistic and sometimes malignant set of norms about gender and sexuality that aren't the result of limited technology. Whether they're the indications of the wider society or contributions to it almost doesn't matter at that level of criticism.
I am starting a new kick starter project soon.
Over9000s reasons why Women can't play video games
Back cover,
Women are
Since you are not getting it lets try this. What is the typical image of a man character? What is the typical image of a female character? If games had the respect and approach of i.e The Last of Us and the quantity was exceeding that of the typical stick-your-stick-into-me this would not be an issue.
OK, still not getting it? Imagine you are in UK. You visit all the cities. For every "quality" woman in a poster 7 more women pornstar posters exist.
Do you understand why quality within quantity is important to achieve and why it is important in that respect for social perception to be as positive as possible for women? Do you understand why it is important from the youngest person to the oldest to share the same consensus that women are represented well in video games?
Do you understand what is love baby don't hurt me?
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
ROFL. No it's not. Not even close.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Do you think The Last of Us was censored?
Metroid-Squadron
Banned
They're telling us how it's wrong and it should be changed. Censorship isn't necessarily throwing books in a fire.
Hence why I asked, where's the proof of harm?
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=116837918&postcount=189
If there's actual harm then yes, it should be changed. If there isn't then there's no basis other than "I don't like it".
Telling an industry to get rid of ideas that have not proven to be harmful is censorship.
Some people would very much like to get rid of that stuff so yeah, it's a form of censorship. But then again there are a lot of people simply dislike those mechanics and would like to see more games that are different. That's expansion, not forced change.
Ah but that's not what's happening. If you suggest to many here "just support the games you don't like and not the games you don't" that is apparently trivializing a major issue. They're destroying the reputation of developers simply because the content of their games is something they don't like.
So basically you think women who flaunt their sexuality degrade themselves and there should not be game characters that represent them. Isn't that called "slut shaming"?
But why would they have wanted to? What would lead someone to show only the parts of the slums where there just happen to be no prostitutes? I mean if the idea of the place is that there are prostitutes in the general area, why hide them? If the idea is that these prostitutes dress provocatively because it's good business, why then choose to dress them conservatively? What kind of sense would those decisions make?
Personally I don't think those decisions would make any sense and I think they would likely be wrong decisions, all things considered.
I just don't see why someone would conceive it as a place with prostitutes who are dressed to attract the appropriate attention and then decide to take out the prostitutes or dress them more "respectably". What leads someone to one of these "well yeah obviously there are prostitutes in this world I'm building - but we better not show 'em" kind of moments?
Seems ridiculous to me.