According to its own wikipedia page:
In my personal experience, it is indeed employed as a very nebulous type of umbrella concept when it pops into debates, which is why I am not too much fond of it (debates then tends to get mired into semantics).
New Tropes vs Women video is out (Women as Background Decoration pt. 2)
- Thread starter Fracas
- Start date
According to its own wikipedia page:
In my personal experience, it is indeed employed as a very nebulous type of umbrella concept when it pops into debates, which is why I am not too much fond of it (debates then tends to get mired into semantics).
Which developers specifically state this in interviews in regard to the subject of how women are treated within their titles?
Polioliolio
Member
Oh.. it's simply a 'damsel in distress' argument.
Hm. Yep.. So, should Mario stop trying to rescue the princess in his games, because that might be seen as offensive to women, as if they can't stand up for themselves?
I don't get it.
Does she know there's a game where you play as Peach, and rescue Mario?
Does she know there's a game where you play as Yoshi, and rescue Mario?
Does she know there's a game where you play as Luigi, and rescue Mario?
... where you play as DK Jr and rescue his father?
How about the latest big Mario game, where you can indiscriminately play as Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Peach and Rosalina?
That's true.
But the most common way for a pregnant woman to die in America is from the father of her unborn child murdering her. When I told that to a friend, he didn't believe me, but it happens all the time, even to people I knew in high school. :\
I think that particular situation could use some help. There's a lot of averted eyes from people who play games where they are suppose to be "helping" women. It really gives off the vibe that those depictions have nothing to do with helping women. They only cause more harm because it makes them think only "bad" people do it.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
The two exist as continual reflections of each other. Art holds a mirror up to life, but then life looks at that art and is changed by it. So then new art reflects the new life, which examines itself through that art and develops further and so on
securitypigeon
Banned
If that's the case and she and others don't think that way, they certainly don't give off that impression. And that's why the word 'oppression' is far too loaded to use here. It strikes me as incredibly dramatic within the broad spectrum of genuine women's issues.
Miyamoto was asked about the damsel thing and said he never thought about it. Which makes sense, he's a gameplay only kind of guy.
However Koizumi seems to be quite the feminist over there in Tokyo. Love that dude. He made Sheik and Rosalina. <3 When Koizumi writes a woman, he makes an actual character. I like that. (Anju, Romani, Cremia and Pamela as well. All very fleshed out and multi-faceted.)
Oh, and Anita already tweeted two E3s ago about Peach being playable again after 20+ years.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that developers aren't deliberately (or subconsciously) expressing these views, I'm saying that they don't do it because they get off on being evil. Again, sexist behavior often isn't recognized as being sexist by the people who are doing it.
I mean, that's your fault, right? That you choose to feel defensive? If someone says something you've done is oppressive, the healthy response isn't "nuh unh", it's listening and asking questions and clarification.
That's what these videos are, they aren't attacks on or indictments of people, they're educational tools that expound a criticism of a culture. There's no shortage of people willing to engage you earnestly if you approach the subject from a place of sincere willingness to listen. You probably can't engage Anita directly though, she's can get defensive sometimes since, you know, she has been literally under attack by malicious people trying to harm her and destroy the things she's built.
It's almost entirely in the subconscious.
Like...all of it. I'm affected by both racism and sexism in many ways...though I don't feel underprivileged or oppressed at all. However, I am hyper aware of those who are...And that is tied to my relation and empathy for them.
I noticed that racism was something I could easily spot in people, but sexism was invisible to me. In terms of our "collective conscious" what Anita claims as "sexism" is simply something we can't exactly see in ourselves quite readily. With this and the Ferguson case going on at the same time...I feel an incredible heightened awareness.
An awareness I wish I was blind to. :|
My point was is it social shaping or calling for these things in games or the media, and if you want to correct that where do you really start. If you call for a censorship (or to avoid that derailment self-censorship) of things like strip bars or prostitutes in games will that really honestly change anything? I'm asking in earnest because I don't think so but i'm open to opinions. These tropes being discussed are not the selling point on these games, in fact some of the biggest sellers in games don't even contain these tropes.
While I agree I feel what you are seeing with these particular tropes being discussed is a mirror of society. Should we then depend and put the onus of changing society on the "artists" then? And even if we do that in order for it to flourish or take hold it has to sell, which how many times have we seen games painting that better picture drop into the abyss while GTA sells millions.
I feel the reason these discussions take such an immediate down turn is because the majority of gamers that read these things are immediately only going to see CENSORSHIP no matter how you want to cut it. People can say no-no thats not what they mean but then they fail to follow up with a valid reason why thats not so beyond imploring self-censorship on the parts of devs. It's a slippery slope that generally, especially in U.S., people are going to be against on principle alone.
SliceSabre
Banned
That's one of the other problems I have with her argument: using violence against women, hell people or animalsis just simply how you show that a person is evil. Sure you can have a villian talk a lot of evil and such. But for a lot of people actually seeing that villian do evil things goes pretty far in showing how evil that person is. If you want to equate it to real life people we think of evil people do some well...pretty run of the mill evil things. i.e. Beatings, rape, fatal violence.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
When it comes to this kind of stuff my main concern is reinforcement. I don't think that popular art ever (okay maybe very rarely) creates this kind of thing, but it can certainly reinforce it, and given art's influential power shouldn't we be striving to produce art that doesn't reinforce negative patterns? Shouldn't even cheap entertainment strive not to perpetuate these sorts of perspectives?
Pennywise83
Banned
Imru al-Qays;127131272 said:
Gay clubs are more common than brothels, but never appear in video games, even when they should realistically be present.
Somehow, I feel as though Japanese games are much better at depicting women when they aren't in the anime trope category. I feel like the Japanese spend more time fleshing out both men and women, boys and girls. I feel as though AAA games couldn't give a s*** which is why I don't really give much a crap back. The hyper masculinity turns me in the other direction. (Unless it's a really fun game.)
If anything it makes America's culture look god awful, and I'd like to distance myself away from those big budget titles. However The Last of Us did show me a spark of genuine understanding amongst many titles swimming in a pool of...exaggerated stereotypes.
Cutting away at bad writing and terrible stereotyping would help by about 500% percent.
I don't care about playing as a minority or playing as a woman. I simply would like more games that a smarter with the say they depict the world we live in. And you can be very smart while still being extremely fantastical or realistic.
Just my opinion though. I still like really violent games, but there is a lot of "bleugh" there too.
But the people who rape are often people who don't do run of the mill "evil things." They are normal people. Making the villain into someone who is hardly moral completely dissociates normal people from the problem.
The truth is. Women rape, men rape. Everyone has the capacity to do that. It's not something saved for the super evil villain. It's what happens with normal people by normal people.
Men are so expendable in media that the only way to actually portray a man as evil, is not to attack and injure other men(who cares, they're expendable/worthless anyway), but to attack and injure more valuable entities; re: Women and Pets.
I laugh every time someone like Anita tries to turn this into Sexism Against Women. I'm so tragically sorry that your gender is held in such esteem, that violence against this is considered so vile as to establish villainy.
Villains Harming Women in games as a source of character depiction is not "marginalizing" and "desensitizing" the public to the abuse of women. It is in fact creating the opposite; it's putting forth a clear message, that if you abuse women, you are evil, you are a scumbag, you are analogous to these heinous figures in the media you're digesting, such as this lowlife pimp in Farcry or this loser in RDR that you, as a main character, have to kill/destroy because they're so vile.
Video Games' largest buying demographic is straight young males.
So, no. They shouldn't realistically be present more than brothels, in media designed for said largest buying demographic.
I laugh every time someone like Anita tries to turn this into Sexism Against Women. I'm so tragically sorry that your gender is held in such esteem, that violence against this is considered so vile as to establish villainy.
Villains Harming Women in games as a source of character depiction is not "marginalizing" and "desensitizing" the public to the abuse of women. It is in fact creating the opposite; it's putting forth a clear message, that if you abuse women, you are evil, you are a scumbag, you are analogous to these heinous figures in the media you're digesting, such as this lowlife pimp in Farcry or this loser in RDR that you, as a main character, have to kill/destroy because they're so vile.
Video Games' largest buying demographic is straight young males.
So, no. They shouldn't realistically be present more than brothels, in media designed for said largest buying demographic.
Yep. She's creating an imaginary villain(men) where one doesn't exist.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
You don't see why some women get annoyed at being lumped in with children as "those vulnerable people you have to protect"?
"Self censorship" is not problematic. It's not the bad kind of censorship it's worth overthrowing a government for. "Self censorship" is just making a choice not to be a dick.
I could go around calling people "fag" all the time. When I was fourteen, that's exactly what I did. Then I learned that it made my gay friends feel less comfortable around me, and less safe generally. So I stopped. It was a hard habit to break, but I was hurting people and I didn't realize it. I wouldn't make the choice to hurt people like that, casually and pointlessly, but without the education I didn't even know I was making that choice.
The same here. These videos and the outpouring of support around them are largely women saying "this stuff makes me feel unwelcome" which is hopefully not what anybody was trying to do. But now that they know, I should hope they consider those choices with a more appropriate gravity in the future.
I could go around calling people "fag" all the time. When I was fourteen, that's exactly what I did. Then I learned that it made my gay friends feel less comfortable around me, and less safe generally. So I stopped. It was a hard habit to break, but I was hurting people and I didn't realize it. I wouldn't make the choice to hurt people like that, casually and pointlessly, but without the education I didn't even know I was making that choice.
The same here. These videos and the outpouring of support around them are largely women saying "this stuff makes me feel unwelcome" which is hopefully not what anybody was trying to do. But now that they know, I should hope they consider those choices with a more appropriate gravity in the future.
Pennywise83
Banned
Uhm, so a game realistically depicting urban environment shouldn't have real places, e.g. gay clubs, but it should have places that are less common than the former? Basically, you're confirming that the presence of brothels and night clubs is a way to attract straight male gamers, and exclude all the other gamers (or make them feel less immersed in the game). And you're also confirming that dev teams are made of 6 year old people that cannot depict realistically a urban environment, because also when portraying night clubs and brothels, they're not doing it in a fair and realistic way.
Men are portrayed as everything in video games. They're big and small, good and evil, brave and cowardly, aggressive and subtle. They're the unkillable plot-armored main characters, the completely ineffective cannon fodder, and the VIP-in-distress who might as well be a briefcase full of documents as far as the plot is concerned.
Women tend to be limited to a much narrower range of roles, many of which are passive, lacking in agency, or implemented just to give male players something to look at. When you consider the state of things, yeah, maybe violence against women in video games has different implications.
Pennywise83
Banned
Wow, a grand total of *one* gay club! In my town there are 5 or 6 gay clubs, and it's not even half of Liberty City.
I never made another rape joke for the same reason...on top of the gay bashing. Knowing how it hurts them made those words very different.
There definitely should be gay clubs in GTA and Saints Row games.
I don't think they have to be in games like AC, RDR and Dishonored, though, or that the appearance of brothels in those games is bad.
Zomba13
Member
I think brothels showing up in games are usually used to insinuate a sort of "seediness", that it's part of the underground or at least has ties there or is frequented by those underworld types. Gay bars aren't really seedy or illicit. They are pretty normal and it's not seen as some sort of taboo or something controlled or frequented by a criminal organisation. With brothels (and prostitution) in games it's usually as a short cut to paint a character (or characters) a certain way.
You know this man is a bad guy because he owns a brothel and the women don't want to be there and he forces them to work, you know he's bad because he goes to a brothel and is very rough/rapes the workers, you know he's bad because he deals in sex trafficking etc. With a gay bar the most you'd get out of it is the character is perhaps gay and that's not a bad trait, it does nothing to display the "evilness" of a character compared to the examples with brothels and NPC characters there (talking about enemy characters/the villain here and not the workers).
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Said it better than I could
Depends where you live, I suppose.
I'm near a city in Germany which just happens to have the largest number of brothels in the country (though I live on the French side of the border).
Coming from the US I found it kind of shocking, to be honest.
Heh, while I'm sure this has nothing to do with the choices made by developers, I've often preferred male characters in games simply because hair rendering is so poor. I mean, you could do bald women I guess, but that's a lot less common in real-life. I preferred the female Shepard character in Mass Effect but couldn't stand the way the character model was rendered (mainly thanks to the awful hair).
It does seem that we're finally seeing games with impressive hair tech, though.
Corronchilejano
Member
First of all, the fact that Sarkesian talks about Tropes Vs Women does not necesarily mean these are all negative in the context they are presented, rather they are incredibly widespread and thus limit women representation in the videogame industry to certain specific roles. That doesn't mean indivual cases are all negative, they're there to provide a trend.
With that said:
That's one argument, Peach being most of the time the damsel in distress. Also the fact that she doesn't seem to exist outside the influence of Mario, but the same can be said of Luigi, Toad, Daisy, etc.
Up until Super Mario RPG you couldn't even play as Peach in any game, and what role does she have in the game? Well, you have to rescue her from a guy that loves kidnapping her and from a guy that wants to marry her. She's a womanly woman representation, pink dress and all, in a game where there's four male heroes, each with a distinct style and goals.
This of course is not what this video is about, which is women as background decoration, which doesn't actually happen in Mario, where women usually have different roles other than the industries preferred three.
With that said:
That's one argument, Peach being most of the time the damsel in distress. Also the fact that she doesn't seem to exist outside the influence of Mario, but the same can be said of Luigi, Toad, Daisy, etc.
Up until Super Mario RPG you couldn't even play as Peach in any game, and what role does she have in the game? Well, you have to rescue her from a guy that loves kidnapping her and from a guy that wants to marry her. She's a womanly woman representation, pink dress and all, in a game where there's four male heroes, each with a distinct style and goals.
This of course is not what this video is about, which is women as background decoration, which doesn't actually happen in Mario, where women usually have different roles other than the industries preferred three.
You have to protect both genders in video games. See, Watchdog Interferences quoted in Anita's video. Both Men and Women are victims.
Female victims just illicit a stronger response, and as such, are the victims used when true villainy needs to be depicted, instead of everyday thuggery. Men brutalizing men would be too mundane and expected.
The smaller depiction of female roles in video games comes down to two simple things:
1.) The largest buying demographic is young males. Characters that are made to make the player feel involved, or made to be an extension of the player's anticipated will, will inevitably be male more often than female. Tldr, protagonists are generally going to be male because women don't buy enough games.
2.) Violence against women is publicly perceived as vile. This means women also can't be enemies, because doing so would deny the player the climactic resolution of defeating the enemy; to do so if the enemy was a woman would be vile and disrespectful to years of female-favoritism social engineering regarding conflict and violence, that starts the first time an eight year old boy is told by his mother that it's not okay to hit a woman, as if it's okay to hit a man.
Considering that the combination of the two removes women from being the ideal protagonist or antagonist role, of course there's going to be a disproportionate number of female background characters. Or as Anita so tackily puts it, Females As Background Decoration.
As long as those two points are disproportionately true, women will not have equal depiction in video game media, simple as that. If you don't like it, go spend your purchasing power on games that promote strong female roles. See if you can outnumber the amount of young men interested in young-men-things, and enact some change in media.
(which is still one of the most ridiculously useless endeavors, but if you want to get up there on a soapbox with MAVAV under the idea that media shapes society and needs to be controlled/changed, knock yourself out)
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
...I don't even know where to start with this one. I'll need to take a minute to try and figure out a response
If you see the fact that young males are the largest demographic that buys videogames as a problem, you don't know how capitalism and open markets work.
Markets producing catering content for the people that are primarily interested in it's products is not "a problem". It's common sense.
Markets producing catering content for the people that are primarily interested in it's products is not "a problem". It's common sense.
You do realize, nintendo doesn't need to create a story where the goal is to save peach. Also lets count the number of times Mario saves peach and she saves him.
Everyone knows that ESA survey is broadly generalized and laughable.
Of course it's broad, but why would you consider it laughable?
Women, by default, existing as a thing to be acted upon in media is a big part of the concern. The rationale you described is totally accurate, but the problem a lot of feminists try to highlight is that the frequency it's used reinforces false (incomplete?) assumptions about female agency.
Regularly encountering the cultural assumption that you are tantamount to a child in your vulnerability is condescending.
Because it categorizes things as "video games" that your average gamer would not, and it specifically avoids values such as time invested, money spent, and genres.
Doing so disproportionately represents female playership in it's "47%" number, when you can take a jaunt over to ye olde twitch.tv and start counting heads of gamers to see how ridiculously inaccurate that representation is.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
To elaborate: when a woman's sole or primary role is that she can be abused to make the antagonist look evil that is literally objectifying. As in, she is an object, simply a signifier for a trait of the real, actual characters
The idea of the "average gamer" is shifting.
Corronchilejano
Member
That's your prejudice talking. The market is pretty clear statistics wise, and if you're going to say that young males are the ones that buy most games you're going to have to back that up with a citation, otherwise we'll have to take the ESAs' word. If you'd wish to discredit the use of said statistic due to a technical flaw in the study, its also welcome.
Otherwise, your point does not stand and young males aren't as representantive as young adult female gamers.
We're not talking about the economics of the situation. Of course, you cater to your market by creating content they will buy, but that's why, and this is a totally unrelated example but an extreme, people like Rush Limbaugh exist.
I'm not saying the gaming industry is then a den of sexism and such, but this "cater to the market" leaves women underepresented and underdesigned, and that's a fact. Common sense be damned.
They are the largest demographic and they are spending money, which makes the games they play as real as any others.
Wouldn't making content that doesn't alienate or patronize half the market be a good thing, in those terms? Not all content needs to be for everyone, I recognize that, but we're talking about this in terms of market viability. Men don't inherently buy more of anything than women do. People buy what appeals to them. Unless you think women don't like the something as broad as "interactive entertainment," then it should be clear this is a matter of the content in a marketplace being tailored to one segment rather than another. I'd like to think creative work can appeal to both.
Not as far as Anita's videos is concerned.
When an ESA study includes zinga games in it's findings, it's statistics no longer remain relevant to discussion centered entirely around AAA and similar titles.
And this is hugely and categorically false.
Man you're just running down the list of bog-standard arguments: Censorship! What about the men? Capitalism!
Do you really think having less of the content shown in the video will negatively impact sales from the 18-35 male demographic.
Corronchilejano
Member
Then please provide sources for the AAA industry, otherwise, it's just "a hunch."
The problem is too much games lean on bad guy in brothel trope and this recurring theme in almost every game trying to create a dark seedy atmosphere is lazy and may send a harmful message. Also I don't understand where you get the idea where male strip clubs can't be used to create a seedy atmosphere. Male strip clubs are associated with homosexuality which is taboo in many cultures.
Harlock
Member
The example is fine. Its portraying a male in an unrealistic manner which is very very common in video games.