Tropes vs Women in Video Games: Background Decoration Pt. 1

You could probably use the argument that they're using women as prostitutes and strippers to establish a certain feeling in the games. In The Darkness it's there to further how shitty the mobsters are, in Hitman it's to further how shitty of an environment you are in, and in Deus Ex it's to further the shitty conditions of the slums that's been created in this broken world. HOWEVER! Fiction isn't created in a void, and developers shouldn't settle for this kind of conveyance; they should try and do something unique and clever to further what they want to tell.

In general, women are used way too much as plot-devices in media to create motivations and such. It's so "boring" when a movie creates disgust for the antagonist by having him raping a woman, and it's also doing a huge disservice to people who have experienced sexual abuse.

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This is the actual message and what more people need to be getting out of this. Some people hear "Anita" or "Tropes vs. Women" and go on the defensive, but many of them would nod in agreement with this post without realizing that you're essentially summarizing the video.
 
On the subject of violence against women, some of the points she's making, how does it differentiate from any other NPC in game? I don't understand. I know she gave some explanation, but it wasn't enough to for me to fully recognize her case.
 
I don't like how she keeps showing footage (particularly of rockstar games) where you can shoot or fight against female NPC's.

In those games, you can do that to any NPC. Male or female. And both NPC's of both genders react like defenseless targets. If Rockstar were to randomly turn off killing of women in GTA VI let's say, and only you can kill male NPC's, she would create a video showcasing that in of itself. There is no difference between violence against men and violence against women, it's all violence. And it's the point of those games. You can shoot anyone, you can lasso anyone etc.
I would like to think (well actually hate to think) that there is a difference between violence committed against men and women in gaming when you don't have a balanced representation (or in this case interactions) in the game to make it even out.

If I can go around killing a bunch of male NPCS, ultimately I'm going to have to work with an actual male character of importance at some point. If I'm not already playing as one myself. Whereas if a go around killing a bunch of female NPCs, I don't always have an important female character that would even out those interactions.

For instance in GTA V, I think it was just Molly (I'd have to look again) that you could take missions from compared to the smattering of male contractors, and even molly worked for these other males. And we all know how she ended up. But obviously this may not be the case for all the games she mentioned, but I'm sure it is for most of them.

imo
 
Out of context online videos and your impressions of reality when you're out drunk... wow, okay. You're wrong until you can demonstrate that shit like this happens in real life: a stripper will gladly let you fondle her and if you "win," she leaves with you for sex at your place like the awesome stud you are.



You're a bit mixed up. I mean your stance on this sexual game content being just like real life, therefore meriting inclusion in the game... it's nonsense. At the very least, these interactions need to be shaped up so it doesn't feel like it's the work of a horny, inexperienced teen.



My posts didn't indicate anything about you specifically. Do some soul searching if you're personally offended and and feel any of this is a personal attack about you. And thanks for pointing this is a video game forum, although you're implying I'm being too harsh... or something. Video games or not, arguments here can still be heated without assuming anyone is being a dick.

I was drunk, not brain dead. I don't know shit about strippers, never mentioned strippers either, I'm talking about prostitutes, and I've seen them do it, and I'm sure it happens a lot. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure most prostitutes are prostitutes because they have no education and no other options, but maybe they've seen an average cop drama TV show before or a movie, or hell, maybe they played GTA4 and they take influence from how prostitutes act in such media and then base how they then act from that. Is that a long shot? I have no idea, if a 16 year old girl's idea of prosistution comes from shit she has seen on TV, then maybe she'll act like that.

I wasn't offended and I'm not so easily offended, but to me you're typing like you are either trying to rile me up or patronize me. A good argument is about the discussion, not about those having the discussion.
 
Man, it's common knowledge that this is a thing but when you see all those examples back to back it really hits home once again just how puerile and misogynist the "AAA" video game industry is.

I am not completely opposed to sex worker NPCs in games if they can add a little to the main story, are fully fledged characters in their own right, provide the player with important information or quest items or these women can fight back when attacked, but when this is one of the dominant portrayals of women in "AAA" games (especially in sandbox games) and brothels or strip clubs are shoehorned into stories for titillation there is a big problem here. Giving players the possibility to murder these women, watch lap dances or sleep with them for HP recovery is trashy and adolescent and it further contributes to sex workers being dehumanised and not valued as people. It says a lot about an industry that for the most part can only think of sex workers as gameplay objects to be fucked or murdered.
 
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This is the actual message and what more people need to be getting out of this. Some people hear "Anita" or "Tropes vs. Women" and go on the defensive, but many of them would nod in agreement with this post without realizing that you're essentially summarizing the video.

I fundamentally disagree that the post you quoted is making the same points as in the video. Both are commenting on the same themes, but I think beyond that they have little in common.
 
Man, it's common knowledge that this is a thing but when you see all those examples back to back it really hits home once again just how puerile and misogynist the "AAA" video game industry is.

I am not completely opposed to sex worker NPCs in games if they can add a little to the main story, are fully fledged characters in their own right, provide the player with important information or quest items or these women can fight back when attacked, but when this is one of the dominant portrayals of women in "AAA" games (especially in sandbox games) and brothels or strip clubs are shoehorned into stories for titillation there is a big problem here. Giving players the possibility to murder these women, watch lap dances or sleep with them for HP recovery is trashy and adolescent and it further contributes to sex workers being dehumanised and not valued as people. It says a lot about an industry that for the most part can only think of sex workers as gameplay objects to be fucked or murdered.

Why should they give prostitute model #1 more attention than pedestrian model #1.
In many cases they propably get more attention than yout average pedestrian in games.
It is all about money and if it will not generate (noticeably) more money, why would devs/pubs care? I do find it in bad taste that fucking a prostitute gives health and so-on, but why would I care that it is in the game?
 
It's such a bummer to me that the joke in Sleeping Dogs about the actual massage parlor vs the prostitution ring went so far over Sarkeesian's head that she cited it as a double standard.
 
I fundamentally disagree that the post you quoted is making the same points as in the video. Both are commenting on the same themes, but I think beyond that they have little in common.

I don't think she completely denies the intentions behind the use of female characters in objectified background roles, the video is just mainly focused on her problems with the execution rather than the motivations. Two sides of the same coin, but you're right that the post wasn't exactly a summary.
 
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-sexual-assault-legal-20140608-story.html

The only person degrading women is you by saying women such as pornstars aren't QUALITY women. What's wrong with you?

First of all I said and in quotations "quality". I never said pornstars are worthless, useless, only good for nothing. In fact most women I have talk to in that industry have got a shit-ton of degrees, masters, PHDs you name it and other more scientific sources can confirm that. This is not a case about intelligence or individual value. Quality was referred to the act in that poster that you see and not the person performing the act and hence quotations. Because a job has no shame, let us take another job for instance barista; that does not mean we should be aiming for all or most males to be baristas or we should glorify because again a shit-ton of males are baristas. Being a "pornstar" is not something women can walk in and out without a scratch, that it is just "another job", it is just "another typical day", another "shitty job". You just have no idea what it takes to do that kind of job and I will stop there.

And for the record my point was never about "censorship". When I played Killer is Dead I loved the game to death. That does not mean that I want every female character to have big boobs or that every male lead character should act as a gigolo as if it is a secondary job. If the main character though was saying "Come over here you beep so I can beep you and then beep you till you beep" I would have uninstalled it within seconds. I know what I am, what are my values and my conscience is clear. I can easily go from Killer is Dead to Mass Effect and enjoy both without feeling guilt.

Everything boils down to how you present something and the context with it. You can put all the sex in the world in one game but you have presented it so well that it becomes a masterpiece. It can be about a character who is a sex maniac in a lawless society and it shows the struggles he goes through to over-come it where in the end he is transformed to something else. Games like movies can have fuck loads of quality regardless of the topic. See for example Requiem for a Dream or American History X.

That is my ultimate belief. And for that to happen more depth is needed. There are no limits.
 
The the most important thing to consider when talking about these topics, is context.

Sexualization, objectification, simplification of social constructs for conveyance etc. are not inherently bad; they're means of telling something. HOWEVER! In the context of this world, it's bad because women are generally so misrepresented that there's no counter-balance to make it entirely justifiable using these types of tropes.

Men don't take offense to being objectified in commercials, movies etc. because there's a huge wealth of other diverse representations available elsewhere. You can't sadly say the same for women.
 
The women as objects argument is flawed from the get go.

The majority of NPCs in the majority of games are objects. People go apeshit in a positive way when that isn't the case in games. The Walking Dead has terrific characters of all colors, men, women, and children. Objects, whether they are male or female, are meant to touch up the atmosphere or mood of any specific game. So when you those sorta things under a microscope, of course the object itself seems contrived and one dimensional.

Women in racing games aren't even objects to me, they're boring and botched attempts to appeal to my masculinity. I treat prostitutes in GTA and Red Dead with more respect than other NPCs, since they have a shitty job.

Quite honestly, this sorta method of world building isn't going to change that much in the AAA space. Because delivering on a creative vision in this industry is challenging enough, attempting to have that creative vision not contain cartoony or characterized aspects is even more challenging.

The biggest thing to consider when tslking about these topics is context.

Sexualization, objectification, simplification of social constructs for conveyance etc. are not inherently bad; they're means of telling something. HOWEVER! In the context of this world, it's bad because women are generally so misrepresented that there's no counter-balance to make it entirely justifiable using these types of tropes.

Men don't take offense to being objectified in commercials, movies etc. because there's a huge wealth of other diverse representations available elsewhere. You can't sadly say the same for women.

That's a pretty big generalization that's incorrect.
 
On the subject of violence against women, some of the points she's making, how does it differentiate from any other NPC in game? I don't understand. I know she gave some explanation, but it wasn't enough to for me to fully recognize her case.

Why should they give prostitute model #1 more attention than pedestrian model #1.
In many cases they propably get more attention than yout average pedestrian in games.
It is all about money and if it will not generate (noticeably) more money, why would devs/pubs care? I do find it in bad taste that fucking a prostitute gives health and so-on, but why would I care that it is in the game?

The base cases for this video are (1) sexual objectification of women and (2) violence directed at women who are sexual objects.

Note that she doesn't really talk about average men or women NPCs.

And the reason you should care is that sexual objectification leads to negative views about women and reinforces sexism. Moreover, once objectified, it makes commuting violence against that person, in this case mostly prostituted women, inconsequential and completely acceptable. And in some case completely encouraged.

While killing other NPCs may also be inconsequential, the added layer of object sexuality is problematic for the reasons she states in the videos.

If you missed them, then you may try watching it again.
 
Actually, as somebody who grew up Vegas, certain parts are really like that. Believe it or not. You're walking down the strip with some of your friends and a prostitute comes on to you to the point which mirrors a lot of stuff shown in games highlighted in her youtube video. It's pretty disgusting.
I was drunk, not brain dead. I don't know shit about strippers, never mentioned strippers either, I'm talking about prostitutes, and I've seen them do it, and I'm sure it happens a lot. I don't know for sure, but I'm sure most prostitutes are prostitutes because they have no education and no other options, but maybe they've seen an average cop drama TV show before or a movie, or hell, maybe they played GTA4 and they take influence from how prostitutes act in such media and then base how they then act from that. Is that a long shot? I have no idea, if a 16 year old girl's idea of prosistution comes from shit she has seen on TV, then maybe she'll act like that.

I don't doubt this, but interaction with a prostitute beyond her aggressive hard sell does not play out in the exaggerated power-tripping manner depicted in most of these games. It's not something you need to go find out and learn firsthand; just watch a few docus on the women who do this for a living. I'd like to see a reaction video where sex workers are shown in-game depictions of their work: they would probably bust out laughing at the silliness and utter nonsense.

I think this explains it well:
http://lisalynch.org/oldestgame/prostitution-in-computer-games-2/
Because prostitutes are non-player characters, they are awarded no agency within game play. Prostitutes are never portrayed as empowered subjects but as victims to their profession. Furthermore, interactions between a sex worker and a player are not portrayed as negotiated business transactions. Prostitutes simply succumb to the sexual “desires” of the player at the click of a console.

I wasn't offended and I'm not so easily offended, but to me you're typing like you are either trying to rile me up or patronize me. A good argument is about the discussion, not about those having the discussion.

Neither.
 
Why should they give prostitute model #1 more attention than pedestrian model #1.
In many cases they propably get more attention than yout average pedestrian in games.
It is all about money and if it will not generate (noticeably) more money, why would devs/pubs care? I do find it in bad taste that fucking a prostitute gives health and so-on, but why would I care that it is in the game?
Hear me out NTIETS13A_Superiority. It's like going in a public bathroom and taking a shit. Why would I care about flushing at truck stop #1 or Walmart #32 over my own toilet at my house. That's not why i came in here, to flush behind myself.

I don't want my poop to represent the cleanliness of all truck stop patrons. Simple as that.
 
everyone was reduced to objects unless it was a story character. The every enemy in the game was just a meatbag for your bullets for the player to watch that entertaining rage engine animations in slow motion .. but hey that's always been the max payne games pretty much

True, but the context by which most of the females in such scenarios exist is a plaything/sex object for the male NPC's in most cases. The male NPC's you can blast have more character to them even in background death.
 
In that case what's the joke?

The "script" for the prostitute characters uses the pretense of massage. You can find a real massage parlor, and the line from the staffer is that they're the only "actually licensed" massage parlor in the city. It straddles the line between making fun of how the prostitute characters were implemented and the pretense itself. The real massage parlor wasn't intended to be the male representation of the same act, which is how Sarkeesian characterized it.
 
The base cases for this video are (1) sexual objectification of women and (2) violence directed at women who are sexual objects.

Note that she never talks about average men or women NPCs.

And the reason you should care is that sexual objectification leads to negative views about women and reinforces sexism. Moreover, once a person objectified it makes commuting violence against that person, in this case mostly prostituted women, inconsequential and completely acceptable. An in some case completely encouraged.

While killing other NPCs may also be inconsequential, the added layer of object sexuality is problematic for the reasons she states in the videos.

If you missed them, then you may try watching it again.

Videogames don't do this on the same scale as ingrained societal tendencies. I've known men that are huge assholes and chauvinists, that rarely play games at all, hell, the majority of those type of people don't play games.

I'd argue videogames are a byproduct of those influences, and is not the influence. I've always argued for videogames to have more diversity for quality purposes, not to influence people more positively.
 
Hadn't really given these videos a real go yet, so this is really my first.

In short, tremendously well researched and cogent, gaming could use 100 more people like this who'll critically analyze the medium. She's to be commended for this, and yet I'm sure is completely unsurprised when she's attacked. Which make comments on boards like these all the more important, so she can see she's doing something worthwhile and that we're listening.

My only criticism is she sometimes conflates general game mechanisms (or hardware limitations) with her argument. While all imagery is important, I think it's also worth discussing what can be altered and what can't. Nonetheless, I'd agree - if it's in the game, it's probably fair game.

Anyways, really great work.
 
The "script" for the prostitute characters uses the pretense of massage. You can find a real massage parlor, and the line from the staffer is that they're the only "actually licensed" massage parlor in the city. It straddles the line between making fun of how the prostitute characters were implemented and the pretense itself. The real massage parlor wasn't intended to be the male representation of the same act, which is how Sarkeesian characterized it.

I don't see how getting the "joke" here negates the criticisms of it.
 
GTAV is seriously the worst with this. It goes way beyond that you can kill women or there are no respectable women characters. The objectification and misogyny and suggestions of justified violence toward women is so built into the world you can't go 10 minutes without a billboard, radio ad, radio station, etc... reminding you. It can be really hard not to get defensive about this topic as a male gamer and defend things you like (like Deus Ex), but GTAV is the one game that i can't even imagine playing as a women. I don't like playing it around women. It's so disappointing that a game so beautiful and huge and full of potential went that route.
 
I think the biggest issue with her argument in this particular video is that you could attribute many -if not all- of the terms she uses to any NPC that gives you something in return for its behaviour or in-game purpose.

Instrumentality: Many NPCs, male and female are used as 'tools for the players' own purposes, say in Perfect Dark when you used the psychosis gun to 'mind control' enemies to work for you.

Commodification: Red Alert 2: Yuri's revenge (when playing as Yuri's faction) used slaves as power by putting them into grinders, although not strictly a 'commodity' the principle is the same - using a character (or non-character rather, as is her point) as a resource.

Interchangeability: For years games have given you points for killing enemies, while often also giving you points for collecting objects in the game world. This equates murder with whatever items you collect.

Violability: Any and all humans/enemies on the opposing side to you are violatable, because they are inherently the enemy. The grand theft auto games are depicted often as being specifically targeting women in objectifying ways, but really, they -like many other sandbox style games- treat everything as an object for the player to use. Killing pedestrians and civilians is commonplace in video games - with no specificity towards women. In fact men are likely more often the victims of the player than women, and are often just as powerless.

Disposability: Any NPC can be considered disposable once their usefulness is gone - specifically in the context of open world sandbox games.

The larger point she should be making is that all people are dehumanised in videogames. Most military shooters are men killing other men, it isn't about a 'power-fantasy' for men specifically, it is simply about making the player feel powerful in general, and all of these games show human life as expendable.

I remember John Carmack saying that he was glad that his games were based around killing demons and Nazis, as people had no conflicting emotions about them as 'the enemy' and were ok therefore with killing them. In military shooters where the lines should be more blurred, but aren't necessarily, it puts forward a more dangerous problem, where human life (apart from your own) is devalued. The less deep the storyline, the less we care about the characters and the more this dehumanisation occurs - this is why Spec Ops: The Line was a step in the right direction.

As much as I agree that there are sexualised women in video games, you also can't remove all context. Why are strip clubs/strippers/prostitutes in the games she mentions? Well, for the most part, these games deal with criminality as a principle theme. Strip clubs and prostitutes exist, and as is common in other media (such as films etc.) criminals often seem to run these establishments (and obviously prostitution rings) so it is fitting that these places/situations would be a part of that setting.

The NPCs themselves are obviously going to be sexualised in that environment, but let's not forget that strip clubs and prostitutes do exist, and they do (obviously) sexualise themselves, and 'commodify' themselves. So if there is warranted context for these places in a game, and they exist in real life, then it becomes hard to entirely dismiss them as 'invented' or 'contrived' specifically for some deliberate objectification of women; when they are perhaps simply a depiction of objectification that happens in the real world.

I can agree with her in many of her videos, but sometimes she squeezes things through a feminist prism with no real merit to the argument - such as claiming that pink lego is somehow sexist, and a reinforcement of gender stereotypes because it is marketed for girls - that's an argument for another post, though.
 
In short, tremendously well researched and cogent, gaming could use 100 more people like this who'll critically analyze the medium.

Haven't had a chance to watch this newest video but from watching her previous videos if you actually dig in she makes a ton of factually inaccurate statements. I respect her raising awareness, but given that nobody has ever done a series like this (and definitely ever gotten coverage like she does) she needs to be less Fox News and more Al-jazeera.

She's to be commended for this, and yet I'm sure is completely unsurprised when she's attacked. Which make comments on boards like these all the more important, so she can see she's doing something worthwhile and that we're listening.

Except she was shocked when she was attacked, and in turn spent about a year touring talking about her experiences being harassed on the Internet rather than producing the videos people fronted the money for. It also seems as though she (and in turn Game Journalists all over) took it as proof the gaming world didn't want equality, when in fact it was largely the vocal minority (which essentially always happens on the Internet) being especially ruthless. As it stands now, I say that reaction hurt her message quite a bit. She needed to push ahead and get the videos out in a timely manner, because it made her seem rather opportunistic.

My only criticism is she sometimes conflates general game mechanisms (or hardware limitations) with her argument. While all imagery is important, I think it's also worth discussing what can be altered and what can't. Nonetheless, I'd agree - if it's in the game, it's probably fair game.

This is definitely an overlooked point that people who are somewhat outside of the gaming world don't realize. I'm sure developers would love to give every single NPC in the game a fleshed out backstory, but it's not exactly a reasonable thing to do unless you have nearly a billion dollars to invest into the game.
 
that was probably her best video so far. I actually hadn't given much thought to how NPC females are treated, or even how I treat them in game. I've done everything that was in the video, and some of it was fun.
 
Hmm, I do agree with her on some of her points. The way female character are just treated as objects is off-putting and the use of stereotypes related to sexual female characters and sex workers can be repulsive. Her points on the encouragement of violence against these characters doesn't really ring true with me, in most cases at least. The RDR achievement and getting money back from sex workers after you've payed them I can agree with but examples in Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored and some of the other games she listed don't make sense to me. These games don't seem to encourage killing women or sex workers more than other civilian NPCs. I can understand that the consequences of allowing that violence is not the same as it is for male characters but I don't believe it's really possible to disallow it in most games like that, unless you removed all violence against non-hostile NPCs and I certainly don't think the developers went about designing that to exploit those characters, in most circumstances at least. Discouraging the player more for acting out that violence makes sense though. I also don't think it's acceptable to totally remove sex worker related characters from games. They deserve as much respect as other people in society and while I don't think their representation in games is done right, especially in the GTA series, they should still be present in a more positive way. I hope that Anita will touch on this in the second video because I feel that feminists who exclude women who choose to work in the sex industry under their own accord are poor role models and almost as bad as feminists that exclude Trans women.
 
The the most important thing to consider when talking about these topics, is context.

Sexualization, objectification, simplification of social constructs for conveyance etc. are not inherently bad; they're means of telling something. HOWEVER! In the context of this world, it's bad because women are generally so misrepresented that there's no counter-balance to make it entirely justifiable using these types of tropes.

Men don't take offense to being objectified in commercials, movies etc. because there's a huge wealth of other diverse representations available elsewhere. You can't sadly say the same for women.

Again, this. There are plenty of action thrillers where some male executive or diplomat has to be protected in a fashion that renders him indistinguishable from a briefcase full of important papers as far as the story is concerned; that's a fairly common form of objectification. In most contexts, however, that role doesn't necessarily carry a whole lot of negative implications because the work is very likely to include a variety of other men with agency and a fairly diverse range of representations. It's far less likely that 100% of the men in that action thriller are relegated to being sidekicks, victims, lovers, or suitcases. The same cannot necessarily be said of the women in the work in question, as there are many genres where it's uncommon to find female characters outside of those roles.
 
GTAV is seriously the worst with this. It goes way beyond that you can kill women or there are no respectable women characters. The objectification and misogyny and suggestions of justified violence toward women is so built into the world you can't go 10 minutes without a billboard, radio ad, radio station, etc... reminding you. It can be really hard not to get defensive about this topic as a male gamer and defend things you like (like Deus Ex), but GTAV is the one game that i can't even imagine playing as a women. I don't like playing it around women. It's so disappointing that a game so beautiful and huge and full of potential went that route.
You mean the route of being GTA? A sardonic reflection of pop culture and American values? If you think GTAV is bad you should turn on your television set. So when women come over you're like oh no can't play that game that satirizes literally everything she's seen before...

In closing, it goes about as far as having important female characters.
 
GTAV is seriously the worst with this. It goes way beyond that you can kill women or there are no respectable women characters. The objectification and misogyny and suggestions of justified violence toward women is so built into the world you can't go 10 minutes without a billboard, radio ad, radio station, etc... reminding you. It can be really hard not to get defensive about this topic as a male gamer and defend things you like (like Deus Ex), but GTAV is the one game that i can't even imagine playing as a women. I don't like playing it around women. It's so disappointing that a game so beautiful and huge and full of potential went that route.

Funny you say this, because I keep thinking of a GTA female protagonist concept that could easily decimate the legacy of misogyny they've built up over the years.


Anyway, great video as always, and hopefully it gets devs to make more NPCs and less NPSOs.
 
I also don't think it's acceptable to totally remove sex worker related characters from games. They deserve as much respect as other people in society and while I don't think their representation in games is done right, especially in the GTA series, they should still be present in a more positive way. I hope that Anita will touch on this in the second video because I feel that feminists who exclude women who choose to work in the sex industry under their own accord are poor role models and almost as bad as feminists that exclude Trans women.

Yeah I agree. I think her point was "none of these do that", in fact none of those women were even characters, just *ahem* background decoration.

I've been stuck on one thing in the back of my mind all day. She never said "prostitutes", but always "prostituted women". I haven't really figured out how to read that, what distinction she's trying to make.
 
I liked the Damsell in Distress ones way better than this one. I have some problems with the arguments she presents (or at least the way she does it).

It's true that games objectify women but the way she goes to present this is really weak. She starts with the strippers and prostitutes, something that is common to tons of "mature" fiction. There are lots of crime dramas that have episodes on strip clubs. This has less to do with women and more with the fact that those are places associated with criminals and low-life citizens. She defends that video-games are different because you can interact with them but the artists intention is the same as those mediums.

She could've used examples like Mass Effects 2 camera that focus on Miranda's ass as actual objectification in an environment where it makes no sense. There are more examples like this I'm sure and it would paint a better, and more worrisome, picture than showing strip clubs.

The second part of the video is where I think she doesn't have a point. Most (if not all) the examples she uses of violence against women are just violence against NPC's. On GTA I can kill man and women. The problem here is the killing not the sex of the victim. Women are not targeted in these games and killing a man has the same penalties. I know that she connects this with them being prostitutes but it wouldn't make sense that the player could kill everyone but the prostitutes.

She also shows examples of some games just for, 10 minutes later, saying those games also have male prostitutes. She undermines the examples but those it later enough as to not impact her first argument. That's weak in my opinion.

The theme she chose is a good one, but I don't think she approached it in the best way possible. Video-games do objectify women and it's a real problem but the way she goes to show it is not were most of the problems are.

But, despite all of that, she does show some disgusting things like that GTA V mini-game, the railroad achievement in RDR and those video-game commercials.

yup absolutely agree with all of this
thankyou for writing out for me so i didnt have to get my thoughts out haha
 
I hope that Anita will touch on this in the second video because I feel that feminists who exclude women who choose to work in the sex industry under their own accord are poor role models and almost as bad as feminists that exclude Trans women.

I hope at the very least she stops saying "prostituted women". Sex worker is the preferred term and it's such common usage in feminist circles (the right ones anyway) that I am a bit surprised and disappointed that she didn't use it.
 
I had to stop watching the video about 10 minutes in because FPS games make me motion sick, but I can't help but wonder if she's using the right games to make her points. There's so much "morally" wrong about most of the games she's showing that it's hard to take them seriously as examples. Take all the people in this thread defending GTA V because you can do all the violent things to male characters that you can do to female characters. It's really hard to only start having objections about the content in the game when a woman is mistreated or objectified. In a game with Trevor it's really difficult to be like "I can't believe they degraded women like that." I think there would be a lot more eye opening going on if she was showcasing games where people are like "I can't believe a game like that would portray a woman like that."
 
Yeah I agree. I think her point was "none of these do that", in fact none of those women were even characters, just *ahem* background decoration.

I've been stuck on one thing in the back of my mind all day. She never said "prostitutes", but always "prostituted women". I haven't really figured out how to read that, what distinction she's trying to make.

Because they're female models forced into the role of prostitutes, I assume, not actual characters designed to be them(and thus maybe have an actual character).
 
It's a game featuring a gunslinger, a lasso, a train track, and dames. If you couldn't tie a chick up and leave her on the tracks, the designers have failed.

Not every one knows who Billy the Kid was or what corset gowns looked like. Even if they did retell the corrupt side of the west to a factional point of view you'd still offend someone and you'd go into that R rated setting period. You couldn't shoot out clowns and jump on horse back and expect the game to sell a few million. Look at Nintendo Wii games and their titles for the Wii U. I agree with some of what the video says, but a large part of me already spent the money and had a good time.
 
I hope at the very least she stops saying "prostituted women". Sex worker is the preferred term and it's such common usage in feminist circles (the right ones anyway) that I am a bit surprised and disappointed that she didn't use it.

Is "prostituted women" a term in common usage in some circles? I've never encountered it.

Because they're female models forced into the role of prostitutes, I assume, not actual characters designed to be them(and thus maybe have an actual character).

Yeah there's a definite sense in which these representations of women are being pimped / sold to male audiences non-diagetically independent of their assigned professions.
 
Is "prostituted women" a term in common usage in some circles? I've never encountered it.

Probably among the anti-SW feminists. These people suck.

Frankly I think being a sex worker is a more honourable profession than being a soldier but humanity seems to value killing people more than selling companionship. Sex work is always going to be around (oldest profession and all that) and game developers have a social responsibility to portray them as people rather than objects. The old having sex with a sex worker in-game then killing or beating her to get your money back thing gets brought up a lot as something particularly shocking because this happens a lot in real-life. It's far more problematic than random violence against passing NPCs.

Inclusion of sex workers in games isn't the problem, it's their over-representation and puerile and misogynist portrayals in video games.
 
Probably among the anti-SW feminists. These people suck.

Frankly I think being a sex worker is a more honourable profession than being a soldier but humanity seems to value killing people more than selling companionship. Sex work is always going to be around (oldest profession and all that) and game developers have a social responsibility to portray them as people rather than objects. The old having sex with a sex worker in-game then killing or beating her to get your money back thing gets brought up a lot as something particularly shocking because this happens a lot in real-life. It's far more problematic than random violence against passing NPCs.

Inclusion of sex workers in games isn't the problem, it's their over-representation and puerile and misogynist portrayals in video games.

As flawed as the game can be, Heavy Rain has a decent example of an actual character in the role.
 
Not every one knows who Billy the Kid was or what corset gowns looked like.

IIRC you could also tie up men and leave them on the tracks, and the reason the achievement/trophy pops when it's a woman is because it's an homage to one of the most well known tropes from early western films/radio dramas/plays and the silent film era.

I was a bit disappointed to see the Watch Dogs scene in there. The context of that scene is very important.

While I didn't necessarily agree with what she was saying in the first half of the video, I got the points she was trying to make. After she started talking about what you can do to them is where she lost me because she pretty much just described what you can do to any NPC in the game and tried to frame it as something that's limited to the female NPCs.

That being said, I do feel like this video was more thought out than her previous ones. Hopefully she keeps down this road and they keep getting better.
 
Probably among the anti-SW feminists. These people suck.

Seems like the kind of thing that shouldn't happen, feminism is completely at odds with policing female bodies...

Frankly I think being a sex worker is a more honourable profession than being a soldier but humanity seems to value killing people more than selling companionship. Sex work is always going to be around (oldest profession and all that) and game developers have a social responsibility to portray them as people rather than objects. The old having sex with a sex worker in-game then killing or beating her to get your money back thing gets brought up a lot as something particularly shocking because this happens a lot in real-life. It's far more problematic than random violence against passing NPCs.

How did the first sex worker get paid if nobody else had jobs :p

Inclusion of sex workers in games isn't the problem, it's their over-representation and puerile and misogynist portrayals in video games.

Absolutely.

Which Anita is. She has heavily criticized sex workers in other videos she's done.

Where?
 
IIRC you could also tie up men and leave them on the tracks, and the reason the achievement/trophy pops when it's a woman is because it's an homage to one of the most well known tropes from early western films/radio dramas/plays and the silent film era.

I was a bit disappointed to see the Watch Dogs scene in there. The context of that scene is very important.

While I didn't necessarily agree with what she was saying in the first half of the video, I got the points she was trying to make. After she started talking about what you can do to them is where she lost me because she pretty much just described what you can do to any NPC in the game and tried to frame it as something that's limited to the female NPCs.

That being said, I do feel like this video was more thought out than her previous ones. Hopefully she keeps down this road and they keep getting better.

Didn't the movie industry have this problem with censorship and they just developed a ratings board and let everything else just slide under the carpet? I don't see why games aren't going the same route. It's as if we are looking at developers like they're our big brother or we are generalizing the youth with this trend in order to mature it from being terrible graphics to fully detailed graphics. I got an idea, get rid of achievements and quit telling the player how to cause mayhem. As far as I see it the developers are fine until the player steps in. The developer has all the freedom of speech they deserve, but it's the player who calls the shots. I never get surveyed after a film if it offends me.
 
As flawed as the game can be, Heavy Rain has a decent example of an actual character in the role.

I'll have to get around to it someday!

Which Anita is. She has heavily criticized sex workers in other videos she's done.

I wasn't aware, that's disappointing.

Seems like the kind of thing that shouldn't happen, feminism is completely at odds with policing female bodies...

You'd think so but the old 1970s feminism refuses to die. Good feminists advocate for the safety and decriminalisation of sex workers and the right to self-organise, bad feminists infantalise and demonise them as "tools of the patriarchy".
 
What a load of disingenuous bollocks. A bunch of cherry-picked examples from a bunch of big-budget dumbed-down games used to paint the industry in a negative light. I particularly love the vague bullshit about being rewarded for being a pervy asshole in stuff like Dishonored and Hitman: Absolution when that's literally false.

Oh, and allowing the player to interact - and yes, abuse - female NPCs to the same degree as male NPCs is apparently sexist, because some of the female characters dress scantily. Nevermind the fact that these examples of skimpy-dressed women are from the afore-mentioned titles featuring sleazy environments. I suppose we should just remove all traces of sexuality from female character designs in violent sandbox games since players are apparently being elbowed in the ribs to target them specifically. That sounds very progressive.

I also love how all the sound-bites used are just cases of shit writing.

These videos do such a remarkably poor job of making any sort of argument. It's a laundry list of games that do X, and even then the examples used are reaching terribly.

For crying out loud, she even gives out about RDR because it has female NPCs that have no actual character and are simply agents in the world. The fact that the male NPCs are subject to the same level of absolute interaction from the player is apparently irrelevant, because reasons. The female NPCs have no character or depth or character if their own? Well duh, they're NPCs. If you want actual female characters, try looking to, y'know, the actual female characters in the game. Bonnie and John's wife are pretty damn good characters in the story, strong, charming, and fierce. However, the fact that I have to explain such a fundamental sandbox concept as the difference between story and world NPCs makes me realize that the person I'm arguing with quite clearly doesn't understand the 'language' used to depict these sandbox worlds and makes me wonder why the fuck I am even bothering.
 
I hope at the very least she stops saying "prostituted women". Sex worker is the preferred term and it's such common usage in feminist circles (the right ones anyway) that I am a bit surprised and disappointed that she didn't use it.

Anita works are about popular media like TVs, Movies and Videogames.

Those sex workers that happen to be there were not there by CHOICE, they were there because they were CREATED as prostitutes, and in this particular case, prostituted women works because it is not a choice.

She even mentions not owning their own sexuality as one of the problems with the characters
 
You mean the route of being GTA? A sardonic reflection of pop culture and American values? If you think GTAV is bad you should turn on your television set. So when women come over you're like oh no can't play that game that satirizes literally everything she's seen before...

In closing, it goes about as far as having important female characters.

Sure GTA riffs on american culture, but if you're saying their misogyny is justified because it's satire i don't think that works. It's like saying "hey let's make our game SUPER racist to show everyone how racist society is!" But if there's nothing that indicates that racism is a bad thing then it's just racism. Same idea.

Also I don't think you can deny GTAV is worse than other entries. San Andreas at least had Kendl and IV had Elizabeta and Mallorie for what that's worth. There aren't really any comparable characters in V.
 
Sure GTA riffs on american culture, but if you're saying their misogyny is justified because it's satire i don't think that works. It's like saying "hey let's make our game SUPER racist to show everyone how racist society is!" But if there's nothing that indicates that racism is a bad thing then it's just racism. Same idea.

Also I don't think you can deny GTAV is worse than other entries. San Andreas at least had Kendl and IV had Elizabeta and Mallorie for what that's worth. There aren't really any comparable characters in V.

it's like being offended at South Park .Gta pokes fun at everything. Nothing is sacred (except kids)
 
Definitely one of her better videoes. Some good points and lots of compiled examples, but still with it's fair share of problems.

She makes it seem like violence against women gains the player higher rewards and is more encouraged than violence against men in open world games, which is rarely if ever the case. Anita seeming implies that some of this encouragement comes from a link between sexual objectification and violence in the mind of the male players, a reverse example of exactly the type of stereotyping she's fighting against.

She also pins many of the problems with this trope on prostitutes in games, which I find a little dumb, since these charactars are just behaving and talking like prostitutes do in real life/popular media. Obviously they will be playing the role of the willing objectified women, since that's how they earn their money. Art imitates life, so I don't think you can really fault games for trying to portray somewhat realistic prostitutes.
 
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