Anita Sarkeesian has disclosed what she has done with the Kickstarter money

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Yeah, revenge stories sure are boring. They've only been consistently entertaining audiences around the world in just about every culture imaginable since the dawn of humanity. What hack frauds those storytellers are!

Hint: almost every story ever written conforms to certain patterns, as famously outlined by Joseph Campbell.
Most storytellers aren't very good and as long as we're quoting axioms, I'll fire back with Sturgeon's Law.
 
Hey now, a guy in this thread had a friend whose friend backed her and the friend's friend was upset the videos were taking too long.

Is it really a surprise when a gaming-related kickstarter doesn't deliver that people talk about it on a gaming forum? I'm sure most of the people who were talking about this example didn't contribute to the kickstarter, does that mean they shouldn't be discussing it? Perhaps when a game comes out a broken mess only the people who pre-ordered should have a right to discuss that, too!

Most storytellers aren't very good and as long as we're quoting axioms, I'll fire back with Sturgeon's Law.

I fail to see what that has to do with your previous comment about how subverting a trope doesn't make it any better. Subverting a trope by reversing the genders can be a powerful way to challenge an audience's preconceptions.
 
You can say that about most Japanese made characters in anime, manga, and games. It all gets lumped in the "weird" category if your not in tune with the culture and medium.

Even by japanese standards Bayonetta's brand of "un-indulgent hyper-exaggerated sexuality" is pretty weird
 
I agree that I think she, at the very least, doesn't seem familiar enough with Bayonetta. I won't claim Bayonetta is empowering, but the fact that several prominent feminist critics do means that there's something interesting going on, we're on the same page there. But Bayonetta is really fucking weird. She's possibly the weirdest prominent female character in gaming today, and the fact that such a subversion can exist doesn't mean that we should give the benefit of the doubt to every seeming instance of a trope. I don't, for example, see many feminist critics saying that Anita got GTA or Hitman wrong

To be clear, I don't think Bayonetta should get a free pass because it does some things right. It still does things wrong. It's worth discussing and shouldn't get a free pass. But I do feel it's impossible for someone to truly analyze Bayonetta without knowing her personality, her role in the plot, and her characteristics. Purely criticizing it from the design perspective, I feel misses the point of the character and doesn't actually capture the trope she actually is.

Plus as I said, subverting the trope means new issues can pop up. Those need to be talked about since we want to get better. No matter how weird Bayonetta is or the things it gets wrong, it does do some things right and is a step in the right direction. Outright condemning it purely from the design point of view without having the context of her character, just seems like a disservice to the discussion.

I dunno just my opinion. I also feel nsrrative driven games (like the Last of Us), might require some context as the story is going to inform the character heavily.

That said, I can understand someone arguing that sexual design of a female character can't be justified with context. I don't 100% agree, but I get where you are coming from. I'm not trying to excuse tropes or say that they should get a free pass for doing better. I hope that's not how you guys are taking my posts. If so, I sincerely apologize.

I appreciate you guys having a civil discussion with me over this. It's enligtening and helpful, and I appreciate it immensely.
 
I dunno just my opinion. I also feel nsrrative driven games (like the Last of Us), might require some context as the story is going to inform the charvater heavily.

That said, I can understand someone arguing that sexual design of a female character can't be justified with context. I don't 100% agree, but I get where you are coming from.

Well its not that it can't be justified with context, its that literally everything can.
 
Well its not that it can't be justified with context, its that literally everything can.

I guess I'm kind of confused by your guys points then. I'm sorry. I guess I'm dense. Didn't mean to offend or miss your points. I'm trying hard to understand :(

Edit: for the record you guys have been gracious and articulate. For whatver reason I'm not understanding and im sorry for that.
 
I understand, but for the first part you only need to grab them and put them on a list. For the second part, is not just as easy as that, so context is important?
I would say it's less important, given that if you are sensitive to the issues you would be careful in your presentation, such that they would be difficult to misinterpret. If you're subverting something common that is without a deeply problematic history, I would generally say go nuts, but if you're subverting something sexist, you better be damn sure it's apparent to your audience, especially the audience involved.
 
Well its not that it can't be justified with context, its that literally everything can.

Yeah, there's more to it. Just because you came up with a context to justify a Thing doesn't mean that Thing's inclusion is thoughtful, creative, genuine, or blameless.

FATAL was a horrible tabletop RPG that created a context to justify sexism, racism, and rape. It presented all those things in an incredibly crass and blatant way without a trace of satire. The presence of context doesn't make it not garbage.

No, I am not equating Bayonetta with FATAL, just giving an example.
 
I fail to see what that has to do with your previous comment about how subverting a trope doesn't make it any better. Subverting a trope by reversing the genders can be a powerful way to challenge an audience's preconceptions.
You're not changing a preconception by presenting it in reverse. You're simply showing that it's so common that it can even be seen in reverse. To actually subvert a trope means you need to dig a little deeper.
 
Yeah, there's more to it. Just because you can up with a context to justify a thing doesn't mean that thing's inclusion is thoughtful, creative, genuine, or blameless.

Like... FATAL was a horrible tabletop RPG that created a context to justify sexism, racism, and rape. The presence of context doesn't make it not garbage.

But no one says it does. Doesn't it depend on the game itself and how the character is written? But if you don't play it and then have that context, you are missing out.

I don't see anyone saying that context auto justifies tropes/sexism and makes it creative or progressive. The actual execution of it determines that. But you can't know if the execution is done well if you are missing that context. If someone thinks Bayonetta is a garbage game and is completely sexist despite the context, that's 100% fair. I was not suggesting that context auto makes something good or progressive. Just that you need to have it in order to full know with some characters. Especially games that try to subvert the trope, therefore judging it by surface level design might not be the best way to go about it.
 
I guess I'm kind of confused by your guys points then. I'm sorry. I guess I'm dense. Didn't mean to offend or miss your points. I'm trying hard to understand :(

No, its fine. Part of the problem is that "criticism" isn't just one thing. There are many many vectors to approach critiquing a work from. Some depend heavily on context, some don't. Some care about trying to understand "intent", others don't. When you're looking at something like the prevalence of storytelling tropes a lack of context isn't particularly the problem: tropes can be contextualized well and they can be contextualized poorly. With sexist tropes in particular, and the way Anita is addressing them even more in particular, the problem is more one of perspective. Every work of art and media expresses a perspective in some form, and regardless of how various elements of that perspective are or aren't contextualized they still reflect the underlying perspective about the world.

You can have a well developed and internally coherent reason for why all of the female characters in your work are, say, weak and helpless, but that doesn't change the fact that the perspective of that work is one in which all the women are weak and helpless

That's not necessarily the creator's actual perspective, but it is the one that they are articulating
 
The only thing that I see as dumb is using the money to make merchandise. The money was donated to make videos.
Every other thing is building a brand, which I get.
 
No, its fine. Part of the problem is that "criticism" isn't just one thing. There are many many vectors to approach critiquing a work from. Some depend heavily on context, some don't. Some care about trying to understand "intent", others don't. When you're looking at something like the prevalence of storytelling tropes a lack of context isn't particularly the problem: tropes can be contextualized well and they can be contextualized poorly. With sexist tropes in particular, and the way Anita is addressing them even more in particular, the problem is more one of perspective. Every work of art and media expresses a perspective in some form, and regardless of how various elements of that perspective are or aren't contextualized they still reflect the underlying perspective about the world.

You can have a well developed and internally coherent reason for why all of the female characters in your work are, say, weak and helpless, but that doesn't change the fact that the perspective that work articulates is one in which all the women are weak and helpless

That's not necessarily the creator's actual perspective, but it is the one that they are articulating

Or you can have a well developed and internally coherent reason for why a certain female character needs to be saved once in your work, but that dosn't change the character is strong, thoughtful and intuitive and most of the time she's saving other characters.

Context is many things, not only trying to downplay a certain representation of a character.
 
They gave her more money than she needed and now people start complaining?

How about not giving her to much money?

People have been whining about the amount of money she received and how she used it the moment they realized that the harassment she was receiving was advantageous to her fundraising efforts.

Honestly, pretty much every argument against Sarkeesian is one that we've seen time and time again. "These videos don't require that much money!" "Look at this in her Master's thesis!" "She uses YouTube Let's Play footage!" I think there should be a FAQ, or FUTA (Frequently Used, Tired Argument) at the beginning of every Sarkeesian thread.
 
Honestly, pretty much every argument against Sarkeesian is one that we've seen time and time again. "These videos don't require that much money!" "Look at this in her Master's thesis!" "She uses YouTube Let's Play footage!" I think there should be a FAQ, or FUTA (Frequently Used, Tired Argument) at the beginning of every Sarkeesian thread.

For the official video threads there is
 
But no one says it does. Doesn't it depend on the game itself and how the character is written? But if you don't play it and then have that context, you are missing out.

I don't see anyone saying that context auto justifies tropes/sexism and makes it creative or progressive. The actual execution of it determines that. But you can't know if the execution is done well if you are missing that context. If someone thinks Bayonetta is a garbage game and is completely sexist despite the context, that's 100% fair. I was not suggesting that context auto makes something good or progressive. Just that you need to have it in order to full know with some characters. Especially games that try to subvert the trope, therefore judging it by surface level design might not be the best way to go about it.

The basic problem with the context argument is this. We aren't just talking about the portrayal of an isolated character. We are talking about a characterization, be it positive, negative, or something harder to pin down, that is still part of a deluge of a similar sort of portrayal. Take Bayonetta as a specific example. Let's just assume straight up that she's a subversion of the female hypersexualization trope that is epidemic in our cultural media and especially games. Even as a subversion, she is still hypersexualized. She is still the thing that is epidemic, and thus, still an example of the problem. If this sort of portrayal wasn't epidemic, we would have the luxury to appreciate her as a subversion, but we can't because of the nature of the environment of female sexual saturation Bayonetta was dropped into.

Edit: Of course, that does not mean we can't appreciate Bayonetta as a sexually empowered female. It's just that in a complex issue, the same thing can be legitimately used as both an example of what's very wrong and what's very right. It just depends on what specifically is being argued. Bayonetta in particular straddles the line of many issues.
 
People have been whining about the amount of money she received and how she used it the moment they realized that the harassment she was receiving was advantageous to her fundraising efforts.

Honestly, pretty much every argument against Sarkeesian is one that we've seen time and time again. "These videos don't require that much money!" "Look at this in her Master's thesis!" "She uses YouTube Let's Play footage!" I think there should be a FAQ, or FUTA (Frequently Used, Tired Argument) at the beginning of every Sarkeesian thread.

I didn't say she used the harassment. But people in general are stupid to give more money than asked for a kick starter.
 
there are a lot of screenshots out there that make it very likely that she took other people's footage in at least some instances...things like position/stats that are identical



it's relevant to any discussion about where donations going, because if you are taking footage from existing youtube videos and putting it in your own videos, then you aren't spending money on producing and capturing that footage yourself. that is not to say that she took ALL of her footage from everywhere else. i'm sure at least some if not most of it is her own footage.

it's not really a big deal and doesn't have anything to do with the actual merits of what she's discussing. however, it is pretty scummy and not at all respectable to fail to acknowledge where she got the footage from. instead she has a blanket fair use disclaimer at the end of her videos.

Umm fair use is what allows those videos on YouTube in the first place. None of those up loaders own the copyright on the games. Though it would be nice to credit the other uploader it most certainly isn't required and in this case perhaps distracting.
 
Or you can have a well developed and internally coherent reason for why a certain female character needs to be saved once in your work, but that dosn't change the character is strong, thoughtful and intuitive and most of the time she's saving other characters.

Context is many things, not only trying to downplay a certain representation of a character.

Can I ask why you're one counter example should be given as much weight as the hundreds identified that reinforce the trope?
 
Umm fair use is what allows those videos on YouTube in the first place. None of those up loaders own the copyright on the games. Though it would be nice to credit the other uploader it most certainly isn't required and in this case perhaps distracting.

Eh. I think she should credit them. No reason not to
 
Can I ask why you're one counter example should be given as much weight as the hundreds identified that reinforce the trope?

Because it ends undermining the subversion of the trope. I don't think that objective should be a free pass for a lack on properly contextualized opinions and arguments, which led to wrong facts.

Like, "Yeah, she might not have do a proper job and got wrong a few games becuase she didn't played, but she's right so who cares?" (not saying she did, just saying that, yeah, context is important and she obviously should play all the games she is using for her videos).

Sorry I don't buy that.
 
Eh. I think she should credit them. No reason not to

As a commercial artist, I'd pull all sorts of random stuff off the internet for use in my work with little idea where any of it originated, and this is common practice. Sometimes its just not practical to make every little thing yourself and whether this goes into copyright infringement territory depends on how much you use and if its unaltered or not. Whether or not it is strictly necessary to acknowledge ever place you grab as a source depends on the volume of what you took. Are we talking random screenshots or minutes of footage? I wouldn't bother quoting a few screen shots myself outside of naming what game they came from.
 
I didn't see this posted, but it looks like GG had a positive effect for once...
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It's doesn't change much for those affected, but it is nice to see people's response.

Edit:
I donated to her Kickstarter and now looking back, I wish I would've donated MORE. She's going good work and I hope she continues.
You can donate on her webpage.
 
Because it ends undermining the subversion of the trope. I don't think that objective should be a free pass for a lack on properly contextualized opinions and arguments, which led to wrong facts.

Like, "Yeah, she might not have do a proper job and got wrong a few games becuase she didn't played, but she's right so who cares?" (not saying she did, just saying that, yeah, context is important and she obviously should play all the games she is using for her videos).

Sorry I don't buy that.

I'm sorry, but you either know she got her facts wrong or you you know she didn't. I don't think arguing hypothetically about a series of videos which very much exist and present easily refutable facts is particularly helpful. I mean, it's great that you don't buy your own hypothetical but it doesn't move the argument forward.

I'll ask again, why does one counter example deserve as much weight as hundreds of supporting examples. If the point is to provide context she should dedicate less than 0.2 percent of her airtime to it. That's the real context of your example.

The problem I guess I have is that nothing in these videos seems even a little bit controversial so to hear anyone arguing against it, especially someone so interested in representations of good female role models is more than a little baffling.
 
I'm sorry, but you either know she got her facts wrong or you you know she didn't. I don't think arguing hypothetically about a series of videos which very much exist and present easily refutable facts is particularly helpful. I mean, it's great that you don't buy your own hypothetical but it doesn't move the argument forward.

I'll ask again, why does one counter example deserve as much weight as hundreds of supporting examples. If the point is to provide context she should dedicate less than 0.2 percent of her airtime to it. That's the real context of your example.

The problem I guess I have is that nothing in these videos seems even a little bit controversial so to hear anyone arguing against it, especially someone so interested in representations of good female role models is more than a little baffling.

As I said, someone said "She dosn't need to play the games" and I said, is that yeah, is necesary that she plays the games.

My counter argument is not about weight is that context is important, not because context is only about explaining why a character is weak and so is totally ok, is about she might lump a positive example on a negative pile, because she dosn't play the games. Listing tropes when you are giving them a negative implication, requires more than just looking for them and putting them on a big list. Even if it's for a right thing, I feel it requires a thoughtful scrutiny of every example.

That's all, I'm not against her videos or rather, the discussion wasn't going that way. You totally misunderstood the conversation.
 
Isn't it funny that the only people that are complaining about the backers' money are the ones that didn't back her kickstarter?

No? If a political party was using it funds to support voter suppression would you say you wouldn't care? Not that this is necessarily that same or whatever.
 
No? If a political party was using it funds to support voter suppression would you say you wouldn't care? Not that this is necessarily that same or whatever.
You're right, it's not the same at all.

Edit to avoid one liners: as terrible as it is, your analogy illustrates what is at play in these discussions: you're confusing means and ends. The issue with your political party is that they'd somehow con you into supporting their ends.
The concerned citizens that pop up every now and then only discuss how efficiently she uses the means at her disposal. Which is irrelevant because if you're a kickstarter donator, all that matters at the end of the day is that the project you backed delivered on its goals.

Since attacking the expressed goals has become a bit too obvious, people resort to futile shit like that.
 
I didn't see this posted, but it looks like GG had a positive effect for once...
TUJ0lwy.png


It's doesn't change much for those affected, but it is nice to see people's response.

Edit:

You can donate on her webpage.
Yeah, this GG shitstorm started about 5 months back, didn't it? You can pretty much see the flareup.
 
As I said, someone said "She dosn't need to play the games" and I said, is that yeah, is necesary that she plays the games.

My counter argument is not about weight is that context is important, not because context is only about explaining why a character is weak and so is totally ok, is about she might lump a positive example on a negative pile, because she dosn't play the games. Listing tropes when you are giving them a negative implication, requires more than just looking for them and putting them on a big list. Even if it's for a right thing, I feel it requires a thoughtful scrutiny of every example.

That's all, I'm not against her videos or rather, the discussion wasn't going that way. You totally misunderstood the conversation.

But has she done this? Say she did once or twice accidentally. Does it honestly undercut her argument? I'd be inclined to be charitable but only because the points she's making are so uncontroversial and as someone who's been gaming 25 years I can't claim anything approaching full and complete knowledge on all the games she's referencing.

Heck I have played and finished Twilight Princess (and LttP, OoT, WW and SS) but absolutely cannot remember any of what you mentioned so I could very easily make the exact mistake you're hypothesising she may have made.
 
I'm honestly curious to know the satisfaction level of those who actually backed her, and the percentage of critics who accuse her of wasting money who actually gave money.

If someone gave money and wants to criticize, that's one thing. I just fail to understand how someone who didn't give money has grounds to criticize as it's not their money.

Pretty much this.
 
As I said, someone said "She dosn't need to play the games" and I said, is that yeah, is necesary that she plays the games.

My counter argument is not about weight is that context is important, not because context is only about explaining why a character is weak and so is totally ok, is about she might lump a positive example on a negative pile, because she dosn't play the games. Listing tropes when you are giving them a negative implication, requires more than just looking for them and putting them on a big list. Even if it's for a right thing, I feel it requires a thoughtful scrutiny of every example.

That's all, I'm not against her videos or rather, the discussion wasn't going that way. You totally misunderstood the conversation.
I give her a little bit of trust because she noted that Zelda was a helpful damsel and not just a damsel in distress...

For most of her examples, the characters really are that superficial. It is incredibly rare to see a female being treated as a human being in a game. You can contextualize a stereotype in a billion different ways, but in the end, it's still a stereotype.

I might contact Anita to give her some notes on masculine stereotypes. I feel like she's really going to f*** that up. She does lack a lot of nuance in her research, but I think in general, she's good at picking out overused stereotypes.
 
I'm not saying Bayonetta is perfect. Of course it has issues worth discussing. But if you divorce Bayonetta from her personality, the characters agency and her role in the plot, you are missing out large parts of what the charcter is.

Bayonetta is like the ultimate funhouse mirror of feminist critique -- the character, and her depiction within the context of the games, is complicated and contradictory enough that women within the world of internet pop culture critique range everywhere from strongly opposed to strongly supporting, all with nuanced and supported arguments. (Insert feminist in-joke about "What's Yr Take On Bayonetta" here.) There's basically no well-supported position on this game that you can actually point at as evidence of hypocrisy or inconsistent values. It's just not actually worth using it as an example one way or the other.

It can range anywhere from like $50k-$75k+ just to do a good quality Twitch stream, when done with real production channels. Equipment and fees and salaries and travel and rentals, especially if it's all Union and legit, I mean, these things take a lot of effort and time and costs. Try and be a little reasonable.

It really puts this in perspective when you watch some of the 2+ hours of content Anita has generated (which has impeccable sound and video quality, high-quality editing, and practiced vocalization) and then watch some of the response videos that are just a poorly-lit, muffled guy being badly videoed in a garage.
 
Well its worth pointing out that originally she didn't. She asked for what...six thousand dollars on her kickstarter?

She didn't really need $6000 to make those videos in the first place.

Realistically, she already had a camera, she had editing software (since she made the KS video, it's reasonably safe to assume this.) Her hard costs were already covered. Most people on YouTube get by with less than that before they hit any kind of money.

Not that I'm saying she was unjustified for asking for $6k. Just in terms of necessity, she already had the capabilities to film herself and tack on video footage from other YouTube long play's. (Wouldn't even need to "steal it" since it's likely she could've found LP'ers that would be cool with lending her their footage."

I guess in a way, she's guilty of not playing by the rules. YouTube people operate with not much money etc willing to eat that risk while they wait for things to get big. If you defray that risk ahead of time however, I imagine some would view that as "not paying your dues" or whatever.
 
She didn't really need $6000 to make those videos in the first place.

Realistically, she already had a camera, she had editing software (since she made the KS video, it's reasonably safe to assume this.) Her hard costs were already covered. Most people on YouTube get by with less than that before they hit any kind of money.

Not that I'm saying she was unjustified for asking for $6k. Just in terms of necessity, she already had the capabilities to film herself and tack on video footage from other YouTube long play's. (Wouldn't even need to "steal it" since it's likely she could've found LP'ers that would be cool with lending her their footage."

I guess in a way, she's guilty of not playing by the rules. YouTube people operate with not much money etc willing to eat that risk while they wait for things to get big. If you defray that risk ahead of time however, I imagine some would view that as "not paying your dues" or whatever.

On the other hand, relying on YouTube monetization as a source of income to support you and your continued making of videos is incredibly risky/difficult and requires a certain amount of sheer luck in addition to talent and resources. The idea that taking that risk is necessary to "pay your dues" is a silly one, and it's wholly reasonable to seek funding up front if you think you can get it.
 
I don't think Anita wanted to get money through ads. None of her videos are monetized. They're a free resource for education. :S
 
On the other hand, relying on YouTube monetization as a source of income to support you and your continued making of videos is incredibly risky/difficult and requires a certain amount of sheer luck in addition to talent and resources. The idea that taking that risk is necessary to "pay your dues" is a silly one, and it's wholly reasonable to seek funding up front if you think you can get it.

On top of that, Youtube's monetisation currently works better for people who upload content on a regular basis, which is why Lets Play channels are so popular at the moment. Anita's slow(er than expected) upload schedule would make relying on monetisation doubly risky.
 
I think my favorite has to be the one where one of the guys doing the anti-Sarkeesian "documentary" finds out that some police department has confirmed that she talked to them, and is practically crying because he wanted her to be lying so bad.
I saw the confirmation/celebration video for that, before he deleted it. Shouted "IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!" or some such. For that one day, he was so happy. You kind of feel sorry for him. Less so his Kain buddy.
 
I think my favorite has to be the one where one of the guys doing the anti-Sarkeesian "documentary" finds out that some police department has confirmed that she talked to them, and is practically crying because he wanted her to be lying so bad.

xD

Where can I watch this?
 
Bayonetta is like the ultimate funhouse mirror of feminist critique -- the character, and her depiction within the context of the games, is complicated and contradictory enough that women within the world of internet pop culture critique range everywhere from strongly opposed to strongly supporting, all with nuanced and supported arguments. (Insert feminist in-joke about "What's Yr Take On Bayonetta" here.) There's basically no well-supported position on this game that you can actually point at as evidence of hypocrisy or inconsistent values. It's just not actually worth using it as an example one way or the other.

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Sorry, finally had my chance at one of these and had to take it. I was literally listening to that song a couple hours ago, haha
 
I think my favorite has to be the one where one of the guys doing the anti-Sarkeesian "documentary" finds out that some police department has confirmed that she talked to them, and is practically crying because he wanted her to be lying so bad.

Can I get a link to that? It sounds hilarious
 
She doesn't make enough for what she has to put up with.

Edit: exhibit A below.

I dunno how much getting harrased for her views regarding women in gaming bothers her tbh. I don't see why it would, it's just making her job that much easier.

Personally I would be having a laugh at the salt and rage my comments were inducing in people if I were in a similar position as her.
 
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