Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Huh? She said that about a completely different game mechanic in the previous video.
New Tropes vs Women video is out (Women as Background Decoration pt. 2)
- Thread starter Fracas
- Start date
That's the last video on her schedule (after people kept asking for it) so expect it in 2018
Though not a specific character in an existing game, she actually outlines her own example of a character that avoids those issues in one of the TvWiG videos.
It is outright delusional. I'd say there are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize the content of Anita's videos without turning it into a "someone hates women" sort of thing, but if someone believes what you said here, they're pretty much being intentionally willfully ignorant. I'm not sure there's a better way to put it. I can pull up like a hundred links showing the type of shit females have to deal with on a daily basis, and a hundred examples of how poorly women are handled in videogames. It's not some abstraction. You basically have to intentionally go around pretending it's not an issue.
Kinyou said:
lol
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
It's a two part video on the same subject.
2018 will be enlightening.
As it stands discussion about her new vids are basically copy paste's from discussions about her old ones.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
On her Twitter feed, I've heard her praise many games and TV shows for their positive portrayal of women. Including Mirrors Edge, The Last of Us, Beyond Good and Evil, Orphan Black, etc. and lately her Twitter also plugged several Kickstarters featuring female protagonists such as Jotun, The Hole Story, Jenny LeClue and Aegis Defenders.
But it highlights a different mechanic. In the first video it's about the protagonist taking out the female victims himself, in the second video it's about rescuing them from the big bad evil rapists. While I did think her point in the first video was not that good, it's blatantly not the same mechanic, and obviously a different kind of criticism will apply.
Moon_frogger
Member
Surprised how much I enjoyed this video, although she does unfairly lump some games in with the rest. I personally thought the red dead redemption example of the prostitute who dies even after Marston heroically rescues her from her captor was very smart storytelling. Sure, she gets nothing in the way of nuance or character development, but neither does any other character in any rock star game.
You are misunderstanding her point of a Mrs. Male character.
Imru al-Qays
Banned
If she had actually done that I wouldn't be complaining. If she had presented Dragon Age as an example of a game that is a lot better than anything else in her video but still falls short in this that and the other way that would be one thing. But that's not what she does. I kept expecting her to talk about it at more length, but she got to the video without doing that - presumably because it doesn't fit with her thesis, which is exactly why she should have talked about it!
PairOfFilthySocks
Member
Ah yes, poor Fish, a bastion of moral judgment, who lead the charge on twitter in shouting an indie dev into submission when he dared to accuse one of Fish's buddies of sexually harassing him. Not saying he deserved the doxxing, but I give few shits about the woes of such an attention craving hypocrite.
As for Quinn, her personal life is completely irrelevant, but her toxic attitude and subsequent misleading and flat-out false version of events surrounding her spat with TFYC don't paint as a particularly savvy industry professional.
Don't get me started on John Walker's complete reversal of attitude towards assumption of innocence when it comes to allegations of sexual harassment when it's someone he's sympathetic to who's under the crossfire.
As for Anita, she's busy hurling allegations of "cathedral of misogyny" at a big-ass community that doesn't even resemble a community in the true sense of the word, going so far as to denounce a organization aimed at motivating women to get into the industry because they're not doing things the way she wants.
For all your claims of one-sided hacking, let us not forget that TFCY's kickstarter was hacked by association. Notice how few media outlets seem terribly interested in reporting on that.
All your references to a bunch of articles written by the very people whose livelihood depends on shutting up conversation that disagrees with their narrative only serves to amplify my distrust of the media at large.
So please, when discussing the shitstorm that has exploded over the last few days, try to accept the fact that there are complete twats on both "sides" of this mess, vying for victory in a race towards the bottom.
All of the mechanics are different depending on their game, but thematically she ties them all together. This is part 2 of a single theme. She started the point on a previous video and continued it in this one. The whole opening 5 minutes or so is dedicated to scenes where the player is allegedly supposed to be aroused from watching violence on sexy women or look at prostitute corpses. And to demonstrate her point she has clips of players failing to complete their objectives, standing there watching violence play out like an audience member instead of as a player with agency who wants to stop heinous acts from being committed.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Watch Dogs doesn't seem like a good example here. Aiden calls the cops who raid that sex slave auction and free the girls right after that mission depicted in the video is over. Also there's a whole side quest dedicated to exposing the scumbags who participated in the sex slave auction and you actually take down the ring leader of the operation. If anything its one of the games that gets it right.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Already addressed here.
We both typed our replies at the same time. Why are you pointing me to a post on this page of the thread? Thanks for the index anyway, I guess.
You're not wrong, but you need to recognize that it IS important for some people to connect with the characters they play as.
HOMEBOY OVER HERE
Banned
video games hardly qualify as art
Imru’ al-Qays;127028957 said:
You're still setting different goal posts than she is. She's still not including that scene as an "example from a game that's bad", she's including it as an "example from a trope that's bad".
The criticism is squarely targeted at that scene. Whatever else goes on in that game is completely irrelevant. Dragon Age is big enough that it says multiple things about multiple subjects. She's just illuminating one of the things that it says.
She's not doing deep reads of specific games, she's doing deep reads of pernicious and pervasive trends.
Let's stay on topic, hmm?
Rap music too, amirite?
Corronchilejano
Member
No representation needed for women?
When that's all they apparently are? Yes.
When everything around them is super... except them, then yes, it is a problem. Specially when they cannot fend for themselves under any circumstance.
Why don't woman deserve a unique design wen men designs are varied?
It's quite obvious you don't actually see her points, you're looking to counter them without understanding what they mean.
This one was enlightening. The "kicked the dog" scenario was also sort of cruel, because its totally like that with sexualized female characters.
None of your examples guarantee any in depth commentary on how sex workers are brutalised or manipulated. Your first example is present in Watch Dogs yet it does nothing of what you want.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Because you were replying to a different post, and the one I linked to addresses what you said.
A public allegation of rape versus the airing of somebody's dirty laundry are two different thing.
Walker was not being a hypocrite.
Jurassic Munson
Banned
No. To me life is life. Who am I to weigh the value of one as having more meaning than another? Crimes against children are viewed as heinous because children are dependent on others for care not because of their age. I find similar emotions in violence to handicapped people.
I wasn't making an excuse and you don't even know my race, my religion, my sexuality or my gender. It is a tad strange you are making assumptions. Perhaps you've become the demon you are trying to defeat.
HOMEBOY OVER HERE
Banned
nope, actually hip hop is artistically light years ahead of video games. politically and creatively.
I did not know this, this is slightly better than what was presented, although the reason it was in her video was because the struggles of the women were not the real focus - in the end it is still men versus men with the women as the background; the women themselves have no real purpose in the resolution of the story.
Corronchilejano
Member
notsureifserious.jpg
Imru al-Qays
Banned
Taking that five second scene out of its context is inherently misleading. This episode is about "women as background decoration," to be assaulted or abused in order to spur the male player character to action but having no agency of their own and no personality. That isn't what's happening in the city elf origin. No viewer is going to watch this episode, see her treatment of Dragon Age, and immediately assume that she was referring exclusively to the fact that Vaughan is a moustache-twirler.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I'll take your word for it, I haven't played that game. I did think some of her examples in the past video were a bit unfair too, not all of her examples are perfect and on point, and there's nothing wrong with criticizing that.Imru’ al-Qays;127030409 said:
Still, one poor example does not invalidate the whole video and the general point. I hope you agree there. Also, I'll point out that she didn't really harp on Dragon Age that much, at least.
ChawlieTheFair
pip pip cheerio you slags!
this homeboy over here.
Any thing can qualify as art, the skid marks on my underwear can qualify as art, and hell, some people just might like it, ain't for you to decide.
You said "already addressed here", as if I had missed or neglected your reply which you had just typed out 4 minutes earlier as I was still posting mine. And you are incorrectthere are lots of different game mechanics being presented, not just "kill the criminal and become the hero" in this video and the one before it. There's the cut scene from the darkness, the mini-story in RDR, the "flashbacks" in BioShock. She continues the claims from her previous video.
The third one most definitely would. Which is, you know, why I included it with the others. For the record, I did not know that the character pursues the villain in a side quest, though the fact that it is just a side quest does not elevate it THAT much.
And none of this changes the fact that the women are still background objects with little to no characterisation, as in the main point.
PairOfFilthySocks
Member
Discussing accusations of rape against person he's not close to: "asserted his innocence"/"weird not to talk about it, right?"
Discussing accusations of sexual harassment against person he is close to:" *anything* about the private lives of anyone will be instantly banned"/"There was no evidence provided for these claims"
Gimme a break.
Jurassic Munson
Banned
I can empathize with others on this if they are feeling ostracized. It just doesn't matter to me at all. My favorite games have me playing as an elf, a yellow electric monster, a green dinosaur etc. I never have cared about any of self identification personally.
Yeah. There's like no sexism in hip hop culture.
Also, the term art isn't really an assessment of quality.
PairOfFilthySocks
Member
Let's stay on topic, hmm?
A rustled jimmies gif. Solid way to deal with getting called out on your wildly biased viewpoint.
She takes the easy way out by showing a game with a female protagonist, though. The majority of games she has problems with are aimed at men and by extension tend to have male protagonists.
I do see what she is going for.
lemon_fresh
Banned
I understand it quite well. It is summed up as "think of me as you with a vagina"
Imru al-Qays
Banned
It absolutely doesn't invalidate the whole video and the general point. I agree with the general point that there's a ton of problematic stuff that happens in games and that calling attention to it is warranted.
I do think that conflating good but slightly flawed portrayals like Dragon Age with awful portrayals is actively counterproductive, though: developers who do a good job need positive feedback if they're to understand that they've done a good job. I think she's doing a disservice to everyone involved when she pulls something like this, and it doesn't fill me with confidence about her degree of intellectual rigor.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Yes, she lists several sorts of different mechanics... and doesn't make the same exact point about each. Because... duh?
You're the one who said she claimed something about satisfying your inner rapist, which is a strawman. She may have hinted at something like that for a particular type of scene in the previous video (though I'd say that's still a strawman because she didn't say that exactly, she said it was meant to make the whole thing edgy which is a different argument), but you were talking about rescuing females in Watch Dogs and GTA, which are different scenarios, and in fact she does say that those scenarios are supposed to make you feel like some sort of hero, and explains why they're also problematic.
In other words, you were constructing a strawman and misrepresenting her arguments completely.
Imru al-Qays;127030409 said:
I mean, you're not even using her own definition of her own term.
As to "No viewer is going to watch this episode, see her treatment of Dragon Age, and immediately assume that she was referring exclusively to the fact that Vaughan is a moustache-twirler", why not? I would probably assume that. Because she's right that "Just because a game may include a positive female character it doesnt mean other sexist representations in that game are then magically ok." You can be frustrated by one aspect or one scene of a work without writing the whole thing off. Basically-good works include basically-bad scenes all the time.
If you only can express yourself artistically trough discriminatory content, you are most certainly doing it wrong.
That is not what your original statement (heroic character = mrs male) implied.
Who the hell is getting a titillating experience out of that scene in Dragon Age?I mean, you're not even using her own definition of her own term.
As to "No viewer is going to watch this episode, see her treatment of Dragon Age, and immediately assume that she was referring exclusively to the fact that Vaughan is a moustache-twirler", why not? I would probably assume that. Because she's right that "Just because a game may include a positive female character it doesnt mean other sexist representations in that game are then magically ok." You can be frustrated by one aspect or one scene of a work without writing the whole thing off. Basically-good works include basically-bad scenes all the time.
The Internet. Rule 34 bud....
That's good, and I'm happy that it doesn't affect you. It doesn't affect me deeply, because I can play whatever games and empathize with those characters, but I see and feel underrepresented myself.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I would have added "while often titillating presumed straight male players". Keep in mind this is a brief summary of the trope, not a 100% accurate description of every instance of that trope.