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[JesseEwiak]

Ok I lied, here's one more argument that chaps my ass as someone in academia: "research" does not mean objective, dispassionate, both sides of the story. It just means citing your sources and making an informed argument. Research and polemics are not mutually exclusive, and besides, Anita ain't even that polemical.

But, she doesn't agree with my conclusions and says bad things about parts of my hobby, thus she must be uninformed.

 

[Corronchilejano]

We see gangsters beat up some poor dude then we run off and kill those gangsters, we don't then find out what happened to the guy who got beat up later.

Was the dude a prostitute, the gangsters' boyfriend or dressed provocatively? 99/100 times its not. In the 1 case its not it was probably a woman.

THAT'S what she's pointing at.

 

[poorlonelycomputer]

There isn't. women are equal. Hip hop as a culture and pop rap music are not one and the same.

Uh yeah I'm calling bs on that as someone who loves hip hop. There are nowhere near as many well regarded woman rappers as there are men, and they will be the first to say it's an uphill struggle for respect. There's also plenty of latent sexism even in "conscious" hip hop. Like I said, I <3 hip hop but let's not pretend it's a utopia

 

[lemon_fresh]

This is directly referenced in the part about fantasy.

• We can have huge inventories in minute backpacks.
• We can have an incredible resilience and healing abilities.
• Sometimes we can bend time, and space.
• We can make societies in the clouds, under water, in space.
• But we will always have violence against women because realism.

She argues it's a cheap shot basically. I'd say its the same reason women don't get a more varied representation: Lazy design, which in the end goes up as being sexist.

Before you say "but there's also a lot of violence in games" lemme say: There's also quite a bit of excess of violence in mainstream gaming, don't deny it. Think about the last game where you didn't have to kill something. Sure, there's a reason for it, but its still undeniable.

However, only one of those two targets a specific gender. What were the last three games were you saw sexual violence against a guy?

EDIT: Hell, think of SLAVERY in videogames. Most of the times slavery makes an appearence it is denounced as a horrible event and most of the times there's a quest to abolish it or you can see people fighting against that. On the other hand, violence against women is "shit that happens that'll always happen."

And yet in nearly every game she showcased, the violence against women is seen as a horrible event and the player is tasked with fighting against it or has the option to fight against it.

But that also is decried because reasons.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Ok I lied, here's one more argument that chaps my ass as someone in academia: "research" does not mean objective, dispassionate, both sides of the story. It just means citing your sources and making an informed argument. Research and polemics are not mutually exclusive, and besides, Anita ain't even that polemical.

I never claimed I wanted her to be dispassionate or to give both sides of the story. My problem with her is that she's willing to distort the content of one of the games she cites because to do otherwise would hurt her argument. Citing your sources doesn't mean plucking one sentence out of a paragraph and allowing your audience to extrapolate that to the rest of the source, it means attempting to accurately portray what your source is actually saying.

You pull what she did with Dragon Age with a source and your advisor is going to tell you to either expand upon your analysis of that source or get rid of it, because leaving it in your dissertation as it stands would be misleading and dishonest.

But, she doesn't agree with my conclusions and says bad things about parts of my hobby, thus she must be uninformed.

You haven't been reading my posts, have you?

 

[blankempathy]

Watched the video and basically its cherry picking. A handful of games that are meant to be "gritty" and even then a few examples were the only ones really bad. The hitman ads yea were pretty obvious in their target demographic. Some of these are just ridiculous though. Yes women in certain periods of time were treated poorly. I noticed the women used in ACII and brotherhood aka the prostitutes were shown a lot for her discussion but doesn't Ezio directly have ties to Paola who runs a brothel? Hence they're more then just eye candy for him to save. Pretty sure the courtesans were allied with the assassin's order and you could hire them to distract guards. So they're not just one note npcs for the player to save. Also when I saw red dead redemption I nearly face palmed. Yes there were whores and brothels back then. Yet what about women like Bonnie MacFarlane? You have all types of female characters who arent just one note npcs. The "posing" victims discussion was interesting. I guess posing sexually means simply standing up and having a torn skirt? Yes some women were posed sexually but these are games intended for mature audiences. If you don't have your head in the clouds then you know these things happen. To ignore these things would be an insult to the issue.
She says that video games portray these men who abuse women as completely evil but in real life people who commit domestic abuse/rape etc are your everyman. Most of the time especially during her examples you merely see whats happening at that moment. So if a woman is being beaten killed etc by a man thats what you'll only see. The problem is they're npcs. They don't have real lives. We have no idea what those men in watch dogs do in their spare time. Maybe they're nice guys who work as teachers etc and only show their dark sides behind the scenes. But you can't make that argument because its a freaking video game. We dont get to see their life stories but merely situations devs have programmed out to play. Its not comparable to real life. Also on kratos leaving that half naked girl to hold up the device so the door stays open. Its kratos, he would of done the same thing to a guy. Actually he probably would of killed the guy right away and stuffed his corpse in there to hold up the switch himself. Yes there is poor portrayal of women in video games/ads. Hitman is a good example and so is no more heroes 2 and gtaiv's kidnapping mission. No more heroes 2 is more of a parody though but whatever. Some of these are just really shoe horned in to pad out her video. Theres a few good examples but she just doesnt seem to have enough to really make a lengthy enough video so she focuses on the wrong so called examples which makes her seem like she's simply trying too hard to find actual poor portrayals of women. Why not go more into the witcher and the card collecting system for the women you sleep with? Thats pretty objectifying. Maybe it was in another video.

 

[SliceSabre]

Was the dude a prostitute, the gangsters' boyfriend or dressed provocatively? 99/100 times its not. In the 1 case its not it was probably a woman.

THAT'S what she's pointing at.

You completely ignored my point.

In the random beaten woman situation or the random beaten up dude situation we don't find out what happens to either one of those people. And I ask as a player: "Why should I care? Why should I expect devs to give every npc I save an afterstory after I save them or get revenge for them?"

I mean a lot of her stuff always seems to break down to: "Why isn't a dude the one being killed or sexualized? or Why isn't the woman standing up for herself?" If the person is standing up for themselves then they don't need me as a player being there if she's just going to escape the thugs anyway.

 

[NoirVisage]

Uh yeah I'm calling bs on that as someone who loves hip hop. There are nowhere near as many well regarded woman rappers as there are men, and they will be the first to say it's an uphill struggle for respect. There's also plenty of latent sexism even in "conscious" hip hop. Like I said, I <3 hip hop but let's not pretend it's a utopia

If your definition of Hip Hop begins and ends with the "music", we're not even on the same wavelength.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Because we're adults and when someone takes the time of day to write out their thoughts on a matter, it's considered rude and/or immature to open your reply with a dismissive rhetorical question in every instance.

If I had written, instead, "Yes, she lists several sorts of different mechanics... and doesn't make the same exact point about each. Because... duh? Because that's obvious.", would you have been happier?

I don't think you even know what you're arguing about anymore, and I'm not interested in discussing with someone who bookends every post with sarcastic swipes.

Likewise, I'm not interested in discussing with someone who's only interested in nitpicking wording and splitting hairs. Bye, then.

And here we have reached a solid basin for a pissing contest.

I'm actually trying to figure out what s/he's trying to say. I'm just honestly confused.

I doubt we'll get one. She's clearly more interested in being a polemicist than a researcher.

That's pretty damn unfair. If you don't get a Making Of video it's evidence that she doesn't "do the research"? Pleae. If you follow her twitter at all you'd see some hints about how these videos are produced, by the way. And she does play the games. There is one tweet where she says she endured 8 hours of a game to get all the necessary context of a scene, which ended up on the cutting board.

Ok I lied, here's one more argument that chaps my ass as someone in academia: "research" does not mean objective, dispassionate, both sides of the story. It just means citing your sources and making an informed argument. Research and polemics are not mutually exclusive, and besides, Anita ain't even that polemical.

This, and especially the bolded part. It amazes me that she is controversial at all. Nothing she says is particularly outrageous.

 

[Corronchilejano]

And yet in nearly every game she showcased, the violence against women is seen as a horrible event and the player is tasked with fighting against it or has the option to fight against it.

Oh hell no. I'm not sure about ALL those games, but I'm going to mark here the ones I've played and the ones were fighting against gender violence was even a subquest. If you say any of the other ones have that, you'll have to offer proof:

Bolded I've played.
Italics have violence against sexualized women with no other representations.
Underlined have quests battling this violence directly.

Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009)
Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (2010)
Bioshock (2007)
Bioshock 2 (2010)
Dead Island (2011)
Dishonored (2012)
Dragon Age: Origins (2009)
Fable 2 (2008)
Far Cry 3 (2012)
God of War 3 (2008)
Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
Hitman: Absolution (2012)
Hitman: Blood Money (2006)
Kane & Lynch (2007)
L.A. Noire (2011)
Mafia II: Joe’s Adventures (2010)
Metro: Last Light (2013)
No More Heroes (2008)
Papo & Yo (2012)
Prototype (2009)
Red Dead Redemption (2010)
Saints Row (2006)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010)
The Darkness II (2012)
The Witcher (2007)
The Witcher 2 (2011)
Thief (2014)
Watch Dogs (2014)

That's a hell of a lot if games to still claim that "nearly every game" didn't have quests that ended the violence. You can tell me a few of those have quests were you attack individuals excerting it, but the violence is part of the ambience, and it never ends.

You completely ignored my point.

In the random beaten woman situation or the random beaten up dude situation we don't find out what happens to either one of those people. And I ask as a player: "Why should I care? Why should I expect devs to give every npc I save an afterstory after I save them or get revenge for them?"

You are ignoring hers. She would have no problem if, for example, in one of the scenarios on Watch Dogs there was a woman banker being attacked by a customer because he says she stole his money, or if a woman was getting shot because she stole some cocaine from a dealer.

But the woman is pretty much always:
a. A prostitute.
b. Someone's woman (being attacked directly by her partner.)
c. A completely anonymous woman in super sexy clothing.

I get what you mean, I just think people don't actually understand what she means.

This also isn't her only point so... don't move the goalposts please.

 

[JerC]

GTAV is out of place in that video. The game doesn't force you to watch the girl being attacked. Whereas it actually forces you to torture a guy in it. That game is all kinds of messed up. Being forced to play as Trevor is a lot worse than anything involving women in that game.

I don't get the Assassins Creed 2 bit either. A game set in a time where whorehouse's were a thing involves a whorehouse storyline, I am shocked and appalled.

And the watch dogs part. The reason you fail if you kill the attacker before the attack takes place is that you are a vigilante. If you randomly attack someone anyone that see won't know why you have done it. There is plenty of other scenarios like this in the game that don't involve women. Most of them involve men that are just there as a plot point.

GTAIV is also another worthless addition to the video. She wasn't a background trope.

GOW III involves you ripping a guys head off. I don't think that female part added anything more to Kratos being a psychopath.

She made plenty of reasonably points so why pad the video with stuff like that. I agree with a lot of it actually. Just a couple of things stood out. All in all it was a good watch.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

That's pretty damn unfair. If you don't get a Making Of video it's evidence that she doesn't "do the research"? Pleae. If you follow her twitter at all you'd see some hints about how these videos are produced, by the way. And she does play the games. There is one tweet where she says she endured 8 hours of a game to get all the necessary context of a scene, which ended up on the cutting board.

No, we won't get a making of video because she doesn't do the research, or because she isn't above misrepresenting a source in pursuit of a polemical objective. I don't think it's unfair of me to view her as being intellectually dishonest when it suits her purposes.

This, and especially the bolded part. It amazes me that she is controversial at all. Nothing she says is particularly outrageous.

It's not that what she says is outrageous or controversial: it isn't. It's that there's no guarantee it's true.

If I had a student who handed me a paper that cited a bunch of works of literature, most of which I hadn't read, but that seriously misrepresented one of the few I had read I don't think I would be unreasonable in suspecting that student to have a habit of making sloppy assertions. How many more errors would I have caught if I had been intimately familiar with every book he cited?

 

[hellclerk]

The purpose of the videos is to give examples that can be understood at a middle school or high school level. It was never meant to be anything more, if her Kickstarter is to be believed.

Wait a second, wouldn't that make her academic dishonesty even worse? She's not providing a critical perspective that shows that the issues are as complicated as the narrative context, she's presenting a 2D worldview where X is wrong and you can see it here, here, and here because I said so. Kids aren't as likely to be able to make those distinctions and think about issues of gender relations critically. In fact, it encourages them not to think critically at all. Her thesis is about confirming her own biases rather than exploring the complexity of the issues at hand, which is itself a terrible disservice to those issues.

 

[Oidisco]

That's pretty damn unfair. If you don't get a Making Of video it's evidence that she doesn't "do the research"? Pleae. If you follow her twitter at all you'd see some hints about how these videos are produced, by the way. And she does play the games. There is one tweet where she says she endured 8 hours of a game to get all the necessary context of a scene, which ended up on the cutting board.

Not only has she tweeted about playing games, but she also streamed a full playthrough of Papo & Yo on Twitch. (I was the chat moderator, it was rough).

 

[Morrigan Stark]

No, we won't get a making of video because she doesn't do the research, or because she isn't above misrepresenting a source in pursuit of a polemical objective. I don't think it's unfair of me to view her as being intellectually dishonest when it suits her purposes.

That's pretty harsh to declare this over a different interpretation of one game.

Not only has she tweeted about playing games, but she also streamed a full playthrough of Papo & Yo on Twitch. (I was the chat moderator, it was rough).

Yikes, I can imagine. :/

 

[stonesak]

If your definition of Hip Hop begins and ends with the "music", we're not even on the same wavelength.

Are you saying Hip Hop culture is the only culture devoid of sexism?

 

[Corronchilejano]

Not only has she tweeted about playing games, but she also streamed a full playthrough of Papo & Yo on Twitch. (I was the chat moderator, it was rough).

That's quite interesting. I didn't know she streamed.

 

[joey_bone_bomb]

I love this series and I'm certainly glad it creates a much more serious and realistic base for discussion than the ignorant, click-baity, and (worst of all) damaging content people like Patricia Hernandez put out when discussing similar issues to those Anita is addressing in her videos.

But here's the thing. Every time I watch her videos I have to wonder what a person who hasn't really been exposed to the medium before (as in never played a videogame) must think when confronted with some of the scenes in these videos. I have played most of these games and certainly have context for all of them, and I know there's another side to the coin - a very beautiful one. But even I choke on some of the scenes depicted here. I wonder if a person who does not play video games would ever be able to approach the medium with an open mind after a video like this has been their introduction to this form of entertainment/expression/art.
So I'm definitely glad to see her talking about a game like Papo & Yo, which should help give some people a better perspective. I would like to see her devote even more time and attention to these "Here's how it also can be done"-examples, not only to paint a more refined picture of this medium, but also to help her argument against some of these very shoddy representations of women in video games.
Sometimes you can even find both of the 2 extremes in just one game (Red Dead Redemption and its beautifully written Bonnie McFarlane character come to mind).

Looking forward to her next video.

 

[lefantome]

This is directly referenced in the part about fantasy.

• We can have huge inventories in minute backpacks.
• We can have an incredible resilience and healing abilities.
• Sometimes we can bend time, and space.
• We can make societies in the clouds, under water, in space.
• But we will always have violence against women because realism.

She argues it's a cheap shot basically. I'd say its the same reason women don't get a more varied representation: Lazy design, which in the end goes up as being sexist.

Before you say "but there's also a lot of violence in games" lemme say: There's also quite a bit of excess of violence in mainstream gaming, don't deny it. Think about the last game where you didn't have to kill something. Sure, there's a reason for it, but its still undeniable.

However, only one of those two targets a specific gender. What were the last three games were you saw sexual violence against a guy?

EDIT: Hell, think of SLAVERY in videogames. Most of the times slavery makes an appearence it is denounced as a horrible event and most of the times there's a quest to abolish it or you can see people fighting against that. On the other hand, violence against women is "shit that happens that'll always happen."

So we can't have real themes just because the gameplay isn't completely realistic?


I saw sexual violence against a guy in FC3 and GTAV.
Plenty of normal violence in hundreds of games
It's normal that sexual violence against guys is underepresented because in the real world most of the time the women are the victims.

 

[Piecake]

GTAV is out of place in that video. The game doesn't force you to watch the girl being attacked. Whereas it actually forces you to torture a guy in it. That game is all kinds of messed up. Being forced to play as Trevor is a lot worse than anything involving women in that game.

I don't get the Assassins Creed 2 bit either. A game set in a time where whorehouse's were a thing involves a whorehouse storyline, I am shocked and appalled.

And the watch dogs part. The reason you fail if you kill the attacker before the attack takes place is that you are a vigilante. If you randomly attack someone anyone that see won't know why you have done it. There is plenty of other scenarios like this in the game that don't involve women. Most of them involve men that are just there as a plot point.

GTAIV is also another worthless addition to the video. She wasn't a background trope.

GOW III involves you ripping a guys head off. I don't think that female part added anything more to Kratos being a psychopath.

She made plenty of reasonably points so why pad the video with stuff like that. I agree with a lot of it actually. Just a couple of things stood out. All in all it was a good watch.

Her problem with your historical examples is that the whorehouse storylines are not discussed at all in depth. You don't fight against the societal structures that allow that to happen, you don't discover the pain of women who are exploited like that go through, etc etc etc. It is simply there for shock value and for you to seem like a hero. As for GTA4, The women there are sexualized and vulnerable for you to save. It does not matter that you have the option to save them. It is still just as bad.

The reason why she is claiming that is more egregious than the general violence depicted is that she states that it is used as a cheap trick to show how evil the guy is. You automatically know that violence, murder and torture is not very common. In this, sexual assault and violence are being equated. This can easily lead to the impression that sexual assault is uncommon as well. The problem is that sexual assault and rape is relatively common and perpetrated by someone the woman knows. It is not done by some mustahce twirling psycho.

As for watchdogs, why the fuck can't you intervene with words? Why can't you call for an ambulance or give the woman first aid? The domestic violence is used as a prop for you to feel like a heroic bad ass, not for you to actually solve any problems, stem violence, or save lives. Again, it is depicting domestic abuse as uncommon and the women as passive, sexual objects. The problem is that in the real world none of that is true.

 

[Corronchilejano]

So we can't have real themes just because the gameplay isn't completely realistic?

Compare to what I said against slavery. Hell, slavery was abolished and the crusade against it is a lot stronger than violence against women, even if it also even exists in our days.

EDIT: It's not that you can't, it's how widespread it is in every "realistic" setting. It falls into the really monotone designs female characters fall into.

EDIT2: This right here

And half her point is that there is no exploration of real themes; it's all just shock value nonsense.

 

[Tigress]

She makes good points, and I can see why she chooses the videogame medium to denounce these tropes. But the real problem goes beyond just videogames being the picture perfect conception of immature male fantasies. Movies have been doing this forever, because people have been like this forever.

It's sad but true.

This I agree with. Maybe though she picks games cause she likes games herself. You're going to pay more attention to something that you are an enthusiust of yourself so maybe it just stands out more to her.

 

[Lime]

I have to wonder what a person who hasn't really been exposed to the medium before (as in never played a videogame) must think when confronted with some of the scenes in these videos.

The same thing when they see the commercials, the conferences, the trailers, the coverage, the consumers, the conventions, the marketing, etc.

That video games are immature and made for white heterosexual male teenagers. I'm not saying that this is the actual case, but that's what this whole video game culture comes across as through the big marquee games and their associated culture.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Her problem with your historical examples is that the whorehouse storylines are not discussed at all in depth. You don't fight against the societal structures that allow that to happen, you don't discover the pain of women who are exploited like that go through, etc etc etc. It is simply there for shock value and for you to seem like a hero. The women there are sexualized and vulnerable for you to save. It does not matter that you have the option to save them. It is still just as bad.

The reason why she is claiming that is more egregious than the general violence depicted is that she states that it is used as a cheap trick to show how evil the guy is. You automatically know that violence, murder and torture is not very common. In this, sexual assault and violence are being equated. This can easily lead to the impression that sexual assault is uncommon as well. The problem is that sexual assault and rape is relatively common and perpetrated by someone the woman knows. It is not done by some mustahce twirling psycho.

As for watchdogs, why the fuck can't you intervene with words? Why can't you call for an ambulance or give the woman first aid? The domestic violence is used as a prop for you to feel like a heroic bad ass, not for you to actually solve any problems, stem violence, or save lives. Again, it is depicting domestic abuse as uncommon and the women as passive, sexual objects. The problem is that in the real world none of that is true.

Fantastic post. Bravo.

 

[poorlonelycomputer]

I never claimed I wanted her to be dispassionate or to give both sides of the story. My problem with her is that she's willing to distort the content of one of the games she cites because to do otherwise would hurt her argument. Citing your sources doesn't mean plucking one sentence out of a paragraph and allowing your audience to extrapolate that to the rest of the source, it means attempting to accurately portray what your source is actually saying.

You pull what she did with Dragon Age with a source and your advisor is going to tell you to either expand upon your analysis of that source or get rid of it, because leaving it in your dissertation as it stands would be misleading and dishonest.

Ah, that's fair. Sorry, I've seen so many boneheaded dismissals of her research that it's easy to read that attitude even into a legit objection to her methodology. I see what you mean though, and I also disagree with some of her conclusions despite being whole heartedly behind her thesis. I'd be a lot more vocal in my disagreement actually if she wasn't already being skewered for way dumber reasons. Anyway I'll pay closer attention to the Dragon Age part, this has piqued my interest.

 

[Vice]

Wait a second, wouldn't that make her academic dishonesty even worse? She's not providing a critical perspective that shows that the issues are as complicated as the narrative context, she's presenting a 2D worldview where X is wrong and you can see it here, here, and here because I said so. Kids aren't as likely to be able to make those distinctions and think about issues of gender relations critically. In fact, it encourages them not to think critically at all. Her thesis is about confirming her own biases rather than exploring the complexity of the issues at hand, which is itself a terrible disservice to those issues.

Perhaps, the purpose of her project and several other others, has just been to point out examples of tropes in media. It isn't to look at the whole work and never has been. It's about pointing out tropes.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

That's pretty harsh to declare this over a different interpretation of one game.

It's not really a differing interpretation, though. There's a difference between having a different interpretation of a work of art and completely misrepresenting it. Not a single element of her definition of "women as background decoration" applies in this case. I don't think any reasonable person could play through the city elf origin in Dragon Age and come away thinking it was a typical case of "largely insignificant non-playable female characters" having their "sexuality or victimhood exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty, or racy flavoring into game worlds" and having their "sexually objectified female bodies" be "designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players."

This is a case of her deliberately pulling the wool over her audience's eyes, or of her not thinking very hard about the game.

 

[Htown]

So we can't have real themes just because the gameplay isn't completely realistic?

No, but realism is a dumb reason to argue against not having that stuff in a game.

And half her point is that there is no exploration of real themes; it's all just shock value nonsense.

It's not really a differing interpretation, though. There's a difference between having a different interpretation of a work of art and completely misrepresenting it. Not a single element of her definition of "women as background decoration" applies in this case. I don't think any reasonable person could play through the city elf origin in Dragon Age and come away thinking it was a typical case of "largely insignificant non-playable female characters" having their "sexuality or victimhood exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty, or racy flavoring into game worlds" and having their "sexually objectified female bodies" be "designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players."

This is a case of her deliberately pulling the wool over her audience's eyes, or of her not thinking very hard about the game.

I played the City Elf origin literally this morning, and I think it totally counts.

It's a super mild version of the trope by comparison, clearly.

 

[lefantome]

No, but realism is a dumb reason to argue against not having that stuff in a game.

And half her point is that there is no exploration of real themes; it's all just shock value nonsense.

that can be said for other themes too(and I partially agree), I don't see the bias towards women.

 

[poorlonelycomputer]

If your definition of Hip Hop begins and ends with the "music", we're not even on the same wavelength.

Didn't necessarily say that but this is all tangential anyway. I guess my point is that as long as a subculture is within our fucked up broader culture it's not possible for it to be truly "equal."

 

[poorlonelycomputer]

And half her point is that there is no exploration of real themes; it's all just shock value nonsense.

This. "Tropes" are more or less inherently the opposite of a real explanation of real themes, that's her criticism.

 

[real_slime]

Another good video. I was aware of a few of the examples of incidental violence against women she used, but some of the ones I wasn't were pretty fucking grim. I've dropped a couple of games cos these little incidents just sour me on an experience I wasn't sold on already. I really wish this kind of thing would not be in every god damn game.

 

[Brakke]

I never claimed I wanted her to be dispassionate or to give both sides of the story. My problem with her is that she's willing to distort the content of one of the games she cites because to do otherwise would hurt her argument. Citing your sources doesn't mean plucking one sentence out of a paragraph and allowing your audience to extrapolate that to the rest of the source, it means attempting to accurately portray what your source is actually saying.

I don't understand why you're so fixated on this "extrapolation" thing. She never herself does nor encourages this "extrapolation". That's all you. She's very obviously not concerned with making statements like "Dragon Age is bad". Her claim is "this scene is bad in this common kind of way".

No single text only articulates one idea. Sexism is not a binary state. Dragon Age can have many "good" messages about sexual politics alongside many "bad" alongside many messages about racial and class politics. The thing is huge and sprawling often poorly constructed. You can't claim a single "moral of the story" even if you tried. It isn't the case that Dragon Age is some bastion of progressivism and she picked the one single misstep. But even if she did, it is still a misstep. Neither is it the case that she's claimed the thing is some litany of nonstop retrograde gender politics. You're the only one making the extrapolation there.

"We can like things and also be critical of certain of their aspects" is pretty much Anita's thesis statement. She says things like that all the time.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Ah, that's fair. Sorry, I've seen so many boneheaded dismissals of her research that it's easy to read that attitude even into a legit objection to her methodology. I see what you mean though, and I also disagree with some of her conclusions despite being whole heartedly behind her thesis. I'd be a lot more vocal in my disagreement actually if she wasn't already being skewered for way dumber reasons. Anyway I'll pay closer attention to the Dragon Age part, this has piqued my interest.

Me too, honestly. And I think she'd probably be a better polemicist if her critics weren't by and large so ridiculous. If I were in her position I'd be in a siege mentality pretty much all the time and valid criticisms wouldn't have much of a chance of getting through to me.

And yeah, I'd be interested to see what people who've actually played through the city elf origin as a female player character think about it. There are elements of it that are problematic, but to me it's just very clearly something totally, totally different from what she's trying to portray it as (or what she accidentally seemed to portray it as).

I played the City Elf origin literally this morning, and I think it totally counts.

It's a super mild version of the trope by comparison, clearly.

Care to elaborate?

 

[Oidisco]

That's quite interesting. I didn't know she streamed.

She streamed twice with Carolyn Michelle about a month ago, both streams were for Papo & Yo. Anita said that she'd like to do it more often since she really enjoyed chatting with people directly (assholes not included ofcourse).

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

Her problem with your historical examples is that the whorehouse storylines are not discussed at all in depth. You don't fight against the societal structures that allow that to happen, you don't discover the pain of women who are exploited like that go through, etc etc etc. It is simply there for shock value and for you to seem like a hero. As for GTA4, The women there are sexualized and vulnerable for you to save. It does not matter that you have the option to save them. It is still just as bad.

The reason why she is claiming that is more egregious than the general violence depicted is that she states that it is used as a cheap trick to show how evil the guy is. You automatically know that violence, murder and torture is not very common. In this, sexual assault and violence are being equated. This can easily lead to the impression that sexual assault is uncommon as well. The problem is that sexual assault and rape is relatively common and perpetrated by someone the woman knows. It is not done by some mustahce twirling psycho.

As for watchdogs, why the fuck can't you intervene with words? Why can't you call for an ambulance or give the woman first aid? The domestic violence is used as a prop for you to feel like a heroic bad ass, not for you to actually solve any problems, stem violence, or save lives. Again, it is depicting domestic abuse as uncommon and the women as passive, sexual objects. The problem is that in the real world none of that is true.

Yet sometimes it can be, and while they aren't mustache twirling, they are most definately violent and unstable. In fact with the WD examples, it's very clear that the women and men knew each other from the dialogue.

Yes you can't intervene with words, but nobody said you had to kill the guy, scare him off with a gun shot and then incapacitate him. There are games like Infamous in which you can revive and also scare off people rather than killing.

 

[blankempathy]

Yet sometimes it can be, and while they aren't mustache twirling, they are most definately violent and unstable. In fact with the WD examples, it's very clear that the women and men knew each other from the dialogue.

Yes you can't intervene with words, but nobody said you had to kill the guy, scare him off with a gun shot and then incapacitate him. There are games like Infamous in which you can revive and also scare off people rather than killing.

meh infamous or infamous ss is a bad example. Yes you can revive scare people but they're so lifeless they're almost like dolls.

 

[Piecake]

Yet sometimes it can be, and while they aren't mustache twirling, they are most definately violent and unstable. In fact with the WD examples, it's very clear that the women and men knew each other from the dialogue.

Yes you can't intervene with words, but nobody said you had to kill the guy, scare him off with a gun shot and then incapacitate him. There are games like Infamous in which you can revive and also scare off people rather than killing.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...r-of-the-peer-group-in-preventing-campus-rape

The people discussed in this article are abnormally violent and unstable? This is your common rapist or sexual assault perpetrator. I am not claiming that all sexual assaults are not done by sadistically evil men, but the problem with representing rapists in video games like that is people get the impression that all rapists are like that. That is not the case. This is a big problem because it can minimize the frequency or convince actual rapists that the arent rapists because they arent twirling their mustahces while doing it.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

I don't understand why you're so fixated on this "extrapolation" thing. She never herself does nor encourages this "extrapolation". That's all you.

She encourages this extrapolation by extracting five seconds of hammy dialog from the middle of a thirty-minute sequence and using it as an example of a trope the sequence as a whole arguably doesn't fit the definition of.

She's very obviously not concerned with making statements like "Dragon Age is bad". Her claim is "this scene is bad in this common kind of way".

No single text only articulates one idea. Sexism is not a binary state. Dragon Age can have many "good" messages about sexual politics alongside many "bad" alongside many messages about racial and class politics. The thing is huge and sprawling often poorly constructed. You can't claim a single "moral of the story" even if you tried. It isn't the case that Dragon Age is some bastion of progressivism and she picked the one single misstep. But even if she did, it is still a misstep. Neither is it the case that she's claimed the thing is some litany of nonstop retrograde gender politics. You're the only one making the extrapolation there.

"We can like things and also be critical of certain of their aspects" is pretty much Anita's thesis statement. She says things like that all the time.

I never claimed Dragon Age is a bastion of progressivism. By the standards of almost any other medium Dragon Age would be a deeply mediocre work of progressivism.

What I have claimed is that this particular example is misleading. Not because it gives you the wrong impression about Dragon Age, but because it gives you the wrong impression about this scene.

She has an ethical responsibility to not mislead her audience. Reserving the right to criticize works for some of their aspects doesn't absolve her of the responsibility to make sure that those criticisms are situated in a proper context.

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

What the fuck?
That God of War 3 segment is just disgusting.

Great video.

 

[JerC]

Her problem with your historical examples is that the whorehouse storylines are not discussed at all in depth. You don't fight against the societal structures that allow that to happen, you don't discover the pain of women who are exploited like that go through, etc etc etc. It is simply there for shock value and for you to seem like a hero. As for GTA4, The women there are sexualized and vulnerable for you to save. It does not matter that you have the option to save them. It is still just as bad.

The reason why she is claiming that is more egregious than the general violence depicted is that she states that it is used as a cheap trick to show how evil the guy is. You automatically know that violence, murder and torture is not very common. In this, sexual assault and violence are being equated. This can easily lead to the impression that sexual assault is uncommon as well. The problem is that sexual assault and rape is relatively common and perpetrated by someone the woman knows. It is not done by some mustahce twirling psycho.

As for watchdogs, why the fuck can't you intervene with words? Why can't you call for an ambulance or give the woman first aid? The domestic violence is used as a prop for you to feel like a heroic bad ass, not for you to actually solve any problems, stem violence, or save lives. Again, it is depicting domestic abuse as uncommon and the women as passive, sexual objects. The problem is that in the real world none of that is true.

There is plenty of things in games that aren't discussed in depth. Usually because they don't need to be and whorehouses in AC games fall under this.

The woman she mentions in GTAIV is clearly kidnapped by Niko so no idea where you are getting that they are there for you to save.

The reason you can't intervene is because you are a vigilante not a cop. The whole point of the side activities in that game is to make you good or bad in the eyes of the public. Do you think the public would give a shit if Aidan stopped an attack by talking to someone. Same thing for calling an ambulance. It's nothing to do with you feeling heroic. You can easily ignore that part of the game and just go on killing sprees so the public hates you.

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...r-of-the-peer-group-in-preventing-campus-rape

The people discussed in this article are abnormally violent and unstable? This is your common rapist or sexual assault perpetrator. I am not claiming that all sexual assaults are not done by sadistically evil men, but the problem with representing rapists in video games like that is people get the impression that all rapists are like that. That is not the case.

I didn't say abnormal. The way I see it, if you are physically or sexually hurting someone, you are violent and unstable. Vast majority of guys don't rape nor are physically abusive, therefore if you do, you are violent and unstable.

Also for arguments sake, a college environment with that much social interaction and alcohol isn't similar to regular on the beat life.
Edit: if you could link or show similar to a more standard setting, I will refute this point.

If WD for whatever reason has chosen to only show very aggressive assaults towards women instead of more hidden ones like the article you linked, then that is their decision. I don't see how it's unrealistic if it can and does happen.

 

[theshape31]

That was, by far, the best episode she's ever put together. It was top notch, and I'm so proud of her efforts. Can't wait for the next one.

 

[Piecake]

I didn't say abnormal. The way I see it, if you are physically or sexually hurting someone, you are violent and unstable. Vast majority of guys don't rape nor are physically abusive, therefore if you do, you are violent and unstable.

Also for arguments sake, a college environment with that much social interaction and alcohol isn't similar to regular on the beat life.

If WD for whatever reason has chosen to only show very aggressive assaults towards women instead of more hidden ones like the article you linked, then that is their decision. I don't see how it's unrealistic if it can and does happen.

Labeling them as violent and unstable dismisses the problem. That is a rather odd conclusion to come to considering that the article specifically mentioned that you can use peer pressure to reduce rape and sexual assault. The impact of being able to use peer pressure to reduce rape and sexual assault is that there is a cultural and society component to rape and sexual assault. If we properly demonize it to the point where the rapists in the article realize that they are actual rapists, rape will actually go down.

Again, just showing sadistic evil dudes raping women in video games builds a connection in people's brains that it is uncommon. People do not think they are evil and sadistic. So they do not think that they can commit rape if they aren't 'violent' about it. Those people in the article who just wanted to get some certainly did not think so. They are not equating their actions with rape because the society and the culture that they interact with did not tell them it was rape. Obviously that only happens to like 10% of people, but the importance of that is it can be reduced even further if we tell those morons that yes, you are committing rape too.

As for vast minority. 10% of guys commit rape. I would imagine sexual assault would be a good deal higher. I wouldn't consider that a tiny minority when we are talking about a violent act. Just think if 10-20% of guys committed murder.

 

[Easy_D]

What the fuck?
That God of War 3 segment is just disgusting.

Great video.

Yeah it struck me as brutality for brutality's sake, I thougt the worst part was straight up ripping a guys head off, but no. Let's crush a woman in gears to hold a door open because lol so edgy xd

That was, by far, the best episode she's ever put together. It was top notch, and I'm so proud of her efforts. Can't wait for the next one.

Same here, I liked the Papa & Yo segment, I hope she does more like that.

 

[SEGIII]

I don't quite understand why BioShock (the first one, anyway ) is included. It was a look into Ryan's shady history. It wasn't "sexy woman as background noise".

 

[ChawlieTheFair]

Labeling them as violent and unstable dismisses the problem. That is a rather odd conclusion to come to considering that the article specifically mentioned that you can use peer pressure to reduce rape and sexual assault. The impact of being able to use peer pressure to reduce rape and sexual assault is that there is a cultural and society component to rape and sexual assault. If we properly demonize it to the point where the rapists in the article realize that they are actual rapists, rape will actually go down.

Again, just showing sadistic evil dudes raping women in video games builds a connection in people's brains that it is uncommon. People do not think they are evil and sadistic. So they do not think that they can commit rape if they aren't 'violent' about it. Those people in the article who just wanted to get some certainly did not think so. They are not equating their actions with rape because the society and the culture that they interact with did not tell them it was rape. Obviously that only happens to like 10% of people, but the importance of that is it can be reduced even further if we tell those morons that yes, you are committing rape too.

As for vast minority. 10% of guys commit rape. I would imagine sexual assault would be a good deal higher. I wouldn't consider that a tiny minority when we are talking about a violent act. Just think if 10-20% of guys committed murder.

I don't think it does, it's just further calling out that these guys are scuzzy aresholes.

This is a different problem though, an educational one, and thus requires a different discussion, not one about how WD or VG in general represent rape (and we say rape, despite WD being about murders and not actual rape). Plenty of TV, movies, and other media represent rape via incapcitation and show it in an extremely negative light. WD is a high-speed action shooter, accordingly it's situations and in this case assualts result in a lot of high-octane, fast to react violence. Different games for different situations I suppose. In the end if WD has more options it would be both a better game and a better representation of life, but it's fictional fun for the most part.

10% is a scary number for such an act, and for the sake of this argument, I would like that to be broken down further. How much of that 10% is done via getting someone drunk etc, how much is via force and physical trauma. I don't know, the article said 6% of college guys did so, again, in a college environment with so many social events and so much alcohol, with young people in general going wild with new found freedom, I would have to imagine that number goes down after college.

Edit: sorry, mean't to bold the 10% of guys rape. However while we are here, did you mean 10-20% of guys murder or is that a hypothetical?

 

[Piecake]

I don't think it does, it's just further calling out that these guys are scuzzy aresholes.

This is a different problem though, an educational one, and thus requires a different discussion, not one about how WD or VG in general represent rape (and we say rape, despite WD being about murders and not actual rape). Plenty of TV, movies, and other media represent rape via incapcitation and show it in an extremely negative light. WD is a high-speed action shooter, accordingly it's situations and in this case assualts result in a lot of high-octane, fast to react violence. Different games for different situations I suppose. In the end if WD has more options it would be both a better game and a better representation of life, but it's fictional fun for the most part.

10% is a scary number for such an act, and for the sake of this argument, I would like that to be broken down further. How much of that 10% is done via getting someone drunk etc, how much is via force and physical trauma. I don't know, the article said 6% of college guys did so, again, in a college environment with so many social events and so much alcohol, with young people in general going wild with new found freedom, I would have to imagine that number goes down after college.

Edit: sorry, mean't to bold the 10% of guys rape. However while we are here, did you mean 10-20% of guys murder or is that a hypothetical?

hypothetical to stress how prevalent rape is compared to murder, and how crazy it would be if 10% of guys murdered someone.

As for rape statistics, you will likely never get a complete picture because rape is so vastly under-reported and the only way they got guy's to self report was to not call the rape a rape. I would imagine that some saw it for what it was and lied. That should chill you since these 5-10-20% statistics could be higher.

 

[bigmf]

hypothetical to stress how prevalent rape is compared to murder, and how crazy it would be if 10% of guys murdered someone.

As for rape statistics, you will likely never get a complete picture because rape is so vastly under-reported and the only way they got guy's to self report was to not call the rape a rape. I would imagine that some saw it for what it was and lied. That should chill you since these 5-10-20% statistics could be higher.

You've used the phrase 'I would imagine' twice now to help you move the 6% or 10% statistic in the article you quoted to 20% or higher. Why are you doing that?

 

[Piecake]

You've used the phrase 'I would imagine' twice now to help you move the 6% or 10% statistic in the article you quoted to 20% or higher. Why are you doing that?

Because that article states studies have shown that 10% of males commit rape. I think it is reasonable to assume that a higher percentage of males commit sexual assault. So that is why I put it in a range. I was trying to indicate with 'I would imagine' that it is a complete guess, but I don't think it is an outlandish one.