She can state that as much as she wants, but she doesn't really believe it. If she really thought there was nothing wrong with liking those games, she wouldn't be trying to have them changed in the first place.
Tropes vs Women author Sarkeesian vacates home following online threats
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She can state that as much as she wants, but she doesn't really believe it. If she really thought there was nothing wrong with liking those games, she wouldn't be trying to have them changed in the first place.
That doesn't make any sense, you can still like something even if you want it to improve.
Not censoring it's a opinion. Yes yours may be different then mine but each is equal as long as it is kept at a debate. Imo I would never read a book or watch a film that had rape in it, but that is just me.
HolyBaikal
Banned
Not really. Anita doesn't seem very judgmental at all about what games people have fun and enjoy. She even says in all of her Tropes vs. Women videos that it's okay to enjoy something, and a good thing, but it's also good to be critical of some of the problems.
While a lot of people here on NeoGAF actually often seem a lot more judgmental. And sometimes the support of feminism here seems... I guess maybe the word is halfhearted or shallow? A lot of people seem to be more interested in what is "normal" rather than what is helpful for lessening patriarchy and male supremacy in society.
And feminism isn't "normal". Women are oppressed and especially women who identify as feminist. Being a feminist is being someone who brave enough to see the problems of gender in society and do something to be against them, even if it means not being normal, even if means, very sadly, being mistreated and misunderstood.
Riposte
Member
I would theorize deleting pseudo-realistic human-shaped objects requires much less investment than what it takes to imagine something as a person that can be raped and then committing rape. I mean, what is rape as a game mechanic compared to the interactivity and feedback of a sword or gun fight? By the way, this is why the claim of "they're murder simulators" by various ideologues falls flat on its face if you think beyond the superficial.
hmm, I may have to check this one out. I also felt like her analysis wasn't going quite far enough on the videos I'd watched, especially considering how long they were. It seemed to stop (for the partsvideos I'd watched) at "here's this, it's bad, list of reasons" but not quite as much context as I'd have liked. I'll give it another shot.
(also: if you're reading and feel like there's room for a "she asked for it" "she's a terrible person so this is deserved" "(anything including the term social justice warrior)" -- you're wrong. stop. think. consider other people for a moment. try acting online the way you do around real people who you don't want to be punched by)
It's not appropriate but it's reality. And not just in gaming culture.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
This perspective baffles me but it explains so much of the hate she gets
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Are reviewers giving games less than a perfect score also trying to shame you for liking these games too, then? Didn't know being critical of something was so terrible.
This is so off base I don't know where to begin.
I can promise you that each and every feminist engages with products that they know are problematic, particularly in gaming, because otherwise we wouldn't have a lot of things left to play at all. That doesn't mean we should gloss over, ignore, or excuse their problems. The point is that you do enjoy games enough to want to see them improve.
I just genuinely don't know why you would suggest she's disingenuous when it is very, very common for people to like something they know is problematic given how many things in the world are unfortunately very racist/homophobic/sexist. The fact that they like it is why they want to see it become better. Otherwise they'd just throw their hands up and walk away.
Unless you truly believe she isn't trying to make a difference and is doing everything for attention, since that's a common refrain.
So if you had a friend who liked a movie you didn't like, would you think less of him. Personally, I wouldn't. Maybe Anita's the same way. I believe she says she liked the games in the zelda series, but she has criticized them as well. Also her videos are more about changing the medium/industry instead of changing specific games.
It shouldn't be tasteful. Some issues aren't. If someone makes a tasteful game about the Holocaust, they've messed up. It's an ugly issue, and that side of it shouldn't be glossed over, but it's very ugliness is the reason that it shouldn't be excluded from any media. It's not something we should ever pretend doesn't exist. Turning a blind eye to rape doesn't help the issue. If someone does make a game glorifying rape, it's going to be bring the issue into the forefront, and give it a little more serious discussion. That's worthwhile, even if the source comes from a bad place.
Game reviewers don't review games based on morals like she does.
All she is doing is pointing out elements of these games that are problematic. The games themselves are not wholly problematic, but have enough problematic elements to make them uninviting to roughly half the population. If you believe that the removal of said elements would irreparably destroy the essence of the game, then we have a problem.
Someone can complain and wish for better graphics or more maps (changes!), and still be very much interested in the continued creation of those kinds of games. But to want to remove senseless violence against sexualized female bodies is to want to destroy the games themselves?
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
What are you trying to say here?
But it's still kind of misleading as it makes a direct association between the community withi a trait that is a significant minority with it.
If I went to a football game and saw a dozen or so people driving an SUV it would be a pretty dumb statement to say something like "I don't know why people in the football community have feel the need to drive SUVs." It's a slight of hand, implicit guilt by association move.
I understand the power dynamics are different when you are talking about issues effecting minorities and women (I'm gay afterall). But it really irritates me when someone wants to imply attributes to an entire group as a means of discrediting the group's legitimacy (even in a minor way) or vice versa. When critics like Danielle Riendeau roll their eyes and dismiss perspectives or characters relevance because they just entail "white dude bros" for example I think it's really shitty. Maybe not quite as shitty as shitting on minorities, but still a shitty thing to do to another human being, to dismiss their perspective or opinion because of their identity or to reduce their perspective to what you've decided to pigeon hole as their identity. People who reduce other people to their attributes as a means of dismissing them are acting shitty. Taking the bad behavior of a small group and then associating it with the larger group by a slight of hand is one step towards that kind of dehumanization.
if someone is a creep they are being a creep. They don't necessarily represent or speak to the cultural space in which they are existing as a creep.
Her whole intent is to point out things she finds morally wrong in games. Therefore liking those things, or even just being okay with those things, is implied as being immoral.
She often mentions games that get it right at the end of her clips, like in the Ms. Male Character episode, and will have an entire episode(s?) dedicated to it at the end of the series.
Freeman
Banned
I like that, I find it much more effective to praise the ones that do it right than to shame the ones that get it wrong.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
What is it with people and this obsession with "shame"? I see the word pop up more in these discussions than anywhere else.
A lot of the things she criticizes, is only a problem because of how frequently they appear in games. Often times she's not saying including this specific thing in a game is immoral. Also dude I don't how to make you understand this when she herself likes games she criticizes, but liking a game doesn't mean you like a certain aspect of a game, and she's made this very clear on several occasions.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Well, if what you enjoy in these games is specifically killing women, watching 3D models of poledancers, beating prostitutes, etc., then... yeah I guess this is shameful? Do you really only play GTA to run over prostitutes? I'm still not sure I understand what you (and many, many other "gamers") find sooo offensive in these videos.
Freeman
Banned
Maybe that is why I used it. I have a limited vocabulary in English, forgive me.
That doesn't mean that the entire game and the people who enjoy them are sexist. Nothing is perfect. Pointing out those imperfections is not an indictment on the entire game.
But it's not that she just doesn't like a certain aspect of the game, or think it could be improved. She thinks it's MORALLY WRONG. There is a big fucking difference.
I just want to take a moment to say that I hope some of you look back at this moment in time and feel the heat creep into your cheeks, ashamed and embarrassed by the way you either intentionally or unintentionally defended rape, minimized its impact, or attempted to sweep ridiculously obvious systemic discrimination under the rug, lest it interrupt your happy thoughts of your hobby.
For now though, if you put your hands over your ears and say "LALALALALALALA" really loudly, you can tune out words and sentences that don't properly compartmentalize into your blissful bubble of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
I truly feel sympathy for you and hope you wake up some day.
For now though, if you put your hands over your ears and say "LALALALALALALA" really loudly, you can tune out words and sentences that don't properly compartmentalize into your blissful bubble of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.
I truly feel sympathy for you and hope you wake up some day.
It sort of does. What if I think the game shouldn't change at all? Apparently that makes me a misogynist.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
...to you maybe? I don't feel that way and I don't get the impression, from anything she's said, that she does either. Do you really feel the need to purge the earth with fire of everything that contains even something a tiny bit morally wrong?
She's not a game reviewer. These videos are not game reviews. Her videos serve an entirely different and totally valid function. If you are not interested in seeing videos that critique video games by holding them to the same standards all other forms are art are held to for cultural criticism, then simply do not watch these videos.
You seem to be arguing against the slightest hint of censorship while also suggesting that her videos have no right to exist because you don't really see their purpose or agree with the idea of cultural criticism. Can you see the contradiction here?
I already said that a lot of the things she criticizes, there's a problem not because for example a dude saves a princess, but how much games have a dude saving a princess and never the other way around.
I wasn't the one originally comparing her to video game reviewers.
And I never said her videos have no right to exist. Just pointing out that she has to know at this point, that the backlash is coming with every new video, but yet everytime it's like some unexpected, shocking, appauling thing that we could never have imagined! It's a circus. A pissing match. Her videos are going to keep coming. The threats are going to keep coming. She uses the threats to further her cause, and maniac gamer nerds get angrier. The cycle repeats.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
If you think woman representation in games is perfectly fine as it is, and you get angry when a woman says things could be better? If you minimize the fact she received death threats because it was "expected" as saying women representation in games could improve is "insulting" to your hobby?
It kind of makes you one, in my opinion.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
It baffles me to see so much denial. I mean shit... I'm a woman who hasn't experienced much harassment for my gender in gaming but that doesn't mean I'll come and say that must be true for everyone, or denigrate other people's experience, especially when the evidence is so goddamn overwhelming in face of my one anecdote. It's really not that hard to grasp. Saying "this never happened to my wife, therefore, it's blown out of proportion" is so fundamentally dumb and blind, it pisses me off.
That's absolutely preposterous. She wants these trends to change because she likes games. If she didn't care at all about games and their quality she wouldn't be making these videos in the first place!
Then again, I'm talking to someone engaging in textbook victim blaming so... *shrugs* why do I bother.
Edit: wow, this is... wow:
No she fucking doesn't. She gets threats for making innocuous videos and then exposes them for the world to see. You make it sound like she's being all cunning and shit. Just... what the fuck? If someone is a victim of a crime and then denounces his aggressor, and as a result, gets support, does that make him "using" the crime? WTF
The Librarian
Banned
No it's not. In the video of hers I just watched, she says you can like games in spite of these criticisms.
She's just pointing out what's wrong with the industry's representation of women. And she's entirely right in doing so.
One of her first things on video is her calling video games "gross" and made the "too many dicks on the dance floor" video...she wasn't a gamer from the get go, but that's a discussion I'm not going to get into as all talking points have been talked to death.
And no, people shouldn't be laying down death threats...
The Librarian
Banned
If we're talking about video games' representation of women, calling them gross is pretty accurate.
I don't want a game like GTAV to change at all. I don't want an ounce of violence taken out. I don't want a single inappropriate joke or vulgar line of dialogue removed. So sue me.
Reality can be improved.
The Librarian
Banned
Adding stronger female characters doesn't take away any of the things you like.
Implying that is kind of odd...and sad.
TheRedSnifit
Member
And it's her responsibility to end this vicious cycle by not making any more videos, right?
The Librarian
Banned
I still stand by what I said.
What game are you talking about?
Again, you can like a piece of entertainment while acknowledging that some elements might be problematic. For example: I enjoy Sean Connery's James Bond films, but I recognize that some elements can be extremely sexist.
plagiarize
Banned
Releasing new videos is excusable. The sexist hateful backlash is not. That the sexist hateful backlash is predictable does not make Anita even partly culpable for it.
Nope. Just stop acting like we didn't all see it coming and like this is something new.
Well looks like there's no changing your mind. I will say though that like ash, I think your mistaking a Articuno for an HO-HO.
What are you suggesting then? That she should have anticipated people would threaten her parents' lives? She should have seen that one coming?
I'm just genuinely unclear on what point you're making, and you seem very unfamiliar with how media critique generally works. It is not at all uncommon to be critical of a product that you still use or enjoy. In fact, using the product is most often the only way you become aware of its problematic aspects.
And as far as I know, no one is really saying outright that liking games with gross content inherently makes you a misogynist but wanting to perpetuate stereotypes, tropes, and imagery that many women find upsetting and hurtful shows a distinctive lack of empathy.
No. Sorry. Did you read the tweets? I didn't expect them to threaten her parents and a third loved one. I do hope making direct threats to other loved ones isn't old hat by now.
The fact that you think a woman who dares to express her opinion should expect to receive threats to not only her, but people who happen to be associated with her as well, is kind of mind boggling.
Just because the hatred is expected doesn't mean it shouldn't be called out.
Aquamarine
Member
I hope you're not victim blaming here.
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