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[Kinyou]

2. The Hitman Example - The video argues that the players are discouraged from killing random individuals because they are penalized, thus there is no offense.

I can see how people think that this is a perversion of the game-maker's intent, but I disagree with that. The women are clearly placed in an interactive game world as background decoration. It fits entirely within Anita's structure. Beyond their presence in the game as objects, what is their other purpose in the game? Do you know? Because obviously they are mere objects that, yes, can be ignored, and yes, you are penalized for killing them, but they are there, represented as helpless objects, and the player has the ability to act upon them in any way they choose. There is no lie in what Anita presents.

This is about tropes in video games, and the representation of women throughout the industry. Choosing examples and portraying them is going to occur and at no point does she lie about it.

-----
I'm open to disagreement, but this video does not impress.

At one point she says "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters" That's the part I find dishonest since the game actually penalizes you for it. The player isn't meant to do that. The game doesn't encourage that perverse behavior.

She could have even left that part out without hurting her original argument, because as you say, the strippers are very much background decoration.

 

[mugwhump]

Sure, if you like nothing changing. No progress.

I do think supporting the things you like instead of giving free advertising to things you hate is a generally more effective approach.

Spoiler

Partially thinking of the haters that helped Anita get famous here, lol. Also Dragon's Crown

There's certainly a place for criticism but I feel the balance skews heavily towards the negative.

 

[zeldablue]

I do think supporting the things you like instead of giving free advertising to things you hate is a generally more effective approach.

Spoiler

Partially thinking of the haters that helped Anita get famous here, lol. Also Dragon's Crown

There's certainly a place for criticism but I feel the balance skews heavily towards the negative.

Criticism is often critical. I don't ask for a critique so that people to pat me on the back and give me a prize. I ask for critiques so that I can be torn apart and eventually get better at my trade.

Also...stereotypes don't have to be seen as negative. They're usually just caused from bad/uninspired writing. :S

 

[Gummb]

At one point she says "players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting female characters" That's the part I find dishonest since the game actually penalizes you for it. The player isn't meant to do that. The game doesn't encourage that perverse behavior.

She could have even left that part out without hurting her original argument, because as you say, the strippers are very much background decoration.

Yeah, and I get that. I still think I disagree, though.

Those women characters in Hitman are actually more than background decoration. They are characters that you can interact with... but your only interaction is seemingly to kill (or not to kill) them. In this sense, the game does have a clearly defined role for them, especially once they are dead and their only role, then, is to act as an object that can be manipulated.

In this sense, I guess it comes down to what does "encourage" mean. We can get into specifics, but I'll just say that I can see your point for sure, and I won't argue against it. I just think that the game presents specific intent on what the player can actually "do" with the women, and that provides the possibility (and perhaps even the incentive) to carry out those (perverse) functions.

 

[fade_]

Yeah, and I get that. I still think I disagree, though.

Those women characters in Hitman are actually more than background decoration. They are characters that you can interact with... but your only interaction is seemingly to kill (or not to kill) them. In this sense, the game does have a clearly defined role for them, especially once they are dead and their only role, then, is to act as an object that can be manipulated.

In this sense, I guess it comes down to what does "encourage" mean. We can get into specifics, but I'll just say that I can see your point for sure, and I won't argue against it. I just think that the game presents specific intent on what the player can actually "do" with the women, and that provides the possibility (and perhaps even the incentive) to carry out those functions.

But that particular level has probably (I'm estimating) a 90% man to 10% woman ratio where the men serve the same function.

 

[Gummb]

But that particular level has probably (I'm estimating) a 90% man to 10% woman ratio where the men serve the same function.

How are the men represented? What are they doing? What are they wearing? How are they situated to the player? Are they more of a threat to the player?

 

[Bleepey]

Is posting a thunderfoot video a bankable offence?

 

[foltzie1]

Is posting a thunderfoot video a bankable offence?

It seems the standard of discourse is expected to be higher on GAF.

If you think Mr. f00t is making a point, you should perhaps revaluate what point you think it makes.

 

[mugwhump]

Criticism is often critical. I don't ask for a critique so that people to pat me on the back and give me a prize. I ask for critiques so that I can be torn apart and eventually get better at my trade.

Also...stereotypes don't have to be seen as negative. They're usually just caused from bad/uninspired writing. :S

But the games that do it right don't get as much attention as the ones that do it wrong, and that seems off to me, especially since the former seem to be rarer than the latter.

 

[Bleepey]

It seems the standard of discourse is expected to be higher on GAF.

If you think Mr. f00t is making a point, you should perhaps revaluate what point you think it makes.

It just seems so random, I am someone who has listened to Thunderfoot videos but also someone who has listened to an hour long rebuttle of Thunderfoot by a guy called Sequester zone, I am curious as to what purpose banning serves on GAF. Is it to ensure discussion remains civil and somewhat on point or to silence someone who disagrees with a moderator.

 

[zeldablue]

But that particular level has probably (I'm estimating) a 90% man to 10% woman ratio where the men serve the same function.

Yeah but...

How many of the men are vulnerable strippers and how many of the women are hostile bodyguards?

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Is posting a thunderfoot video a bankable offence?

God I hope so. The other explanation relies on context; specifically, that the "Hitman example" and that video specifically are constantly trotted out as excuses to disregard the entirety of Feminist Frequency's body of critical discourse.

It just seems so random, I am someone who has listened to Thunderfoot videos but also someone who has listened to an hour long rebuttle of Thunderfoot by a guy called Sequester zone, I am curious as to what purpose banning serves on GAF. Is it to ensure discussion remains civil and somewhat on point or to silence someone who disagrees with a moderator.

Or option three: it's about ethics in games journalism.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

It just seems so random, I am someone who has listened to Thunderfoot videos but also someone who has listened to an hour long rebuttle of Thunderfoot by a guy called Sequester zone, I am curious as to what purpose banning serves on GAF. Is it to ensure discussion remains civil and somewhat on point or to silence someone who disagrees with a moderator.

It's not the posting of the video, it's using that video as the core of an argument, which also included thinking thunderfoot videos are worth a damn. It fairly easy to see that not much useful discourse will come from someone like that, so sometimes people get nipped in the bud.

 

[stump sock]

It just seems so random, I am someone who has listened to Thunderfoot videos but also someone who has listened to an hour long rebuttle of Thunderfoot by a guy called Sequester zone, I am curious as to what purpose banning serves on GAF. Is it to ensure discussion remains civil and somewhat on point or to silence someone who disagrees with a moderator.

you're talking about a guy who has spent a frankly disturbing amount of time trying to construct some sort of conspiratorial narrative about her to the point where he's saying that she's making up death threats against herself. Nevermind that there is actual proof out there that these threats both exist and have been reported to authorities.

anything that he might have to say that might even be sort of valid is forever muddied by his pathetic obsession with her imagined misdeeds. nothing good can ever come from bringing that tool into a discussion about Sarkeesian.

 

[Strange Young Man]

By the by, I recently played GTA V to see if the "Kill the hooker, get your money back" thing was still true.

You don't get ALL of your money back but you get most of it back. Average NPC in the game has 10-20 dollars on them. And yes, I killed sex workers before paying them to make sure they didn't have substantially higher on-body cash.

It was a fucking uncomfortable experiment

Comments like the last one perplex me. The majority of games require you to perform violent actions with little or paper-thin justification. Do you feel uncomfortable playing such games? GTA is a perfect example of this. With the satirical portrayal of the cities, the distinction between antagonist characters and neutral is arbitrary.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Comments like the last one perplex me. The majority of games require you to perform violent actions with little or paper-thin justification. Do you feel uncomfortable playing such games? GTA is a perfect example of this. With the satirical portrayal of the cities, the distinction between antagonist characters and neutral is arbitrary.

Because context is important? It's pretty easy to see that the mental process of roleplaying a soldier fighting terrorism differs from the one used when engaging sex workers and murdering them for a refund.

 

[Bleepey]

It's not the posting of the video, it's using that video as the core of an argument, which also included thinking thunderfoot videos are worth a damn. It fairly easy to see that not much useful discourse will come from someone like that, so sometimes people get nipped in the bud.

I am not gonna lie the dude cares way too much about what she says, it kinda reminds me of the guy/girl who was mean to their primary school crush. I am just worried these sort of banning a will lead to an echo chamber of the same opinions rather than decent debate and discussion.

 

[Moon_frogger]

Wait....any of you worms arguing the threats aren't that bad/part of the Job/shouldn't be taken seriously....any of you clowns ever actually had experience dealing with this shit? Or are you just talking out of your asses?

 

[zeldablue]

Wait....any of you worms arguing the threats aren't that bad/part of the Job/shouldn't be taken seriously....any of you clowns ever actually had experience dealing with this shit? Or are you just talking out of your asses?

Well...

Thunderf00t has. :S

 

[jim-jam bongs]

I am not gonna lie the dude cares way too much about what she says, it kinda reminds me of the guy/girl who was mean to their primary school crush. I am just worried these sort of banning a will lead to an echo chamber of the same opinions rather than decent debate and discussion.

Do you think that thunderfoot contributes positively to the quality of discussion? Not all opinions are equally valuable, and the perspective of a creepy woman hating YouTube talking head are as worthless as they get.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

I am not gonna lie the dude cares way too much about what she says, it kinda reminds me of the guy/girl who was mean to their primary school crush. I am just worried these sort of banning a will lead to an echo chamber of the same opinions rather than decent debate and discussion.

Decent debate and discussion ought not to rely on posting someone else's video as a reply or as a debate tatic. There is no discussion occurring in that case. Also, asking someone to debate an opinion that is not even your own articulation is kind of rude.

If you can't articulate or substantiate the point yourself, you shouldn't be actively engaging in the debate to begin with.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I am not gonna lie the dude cares way too much about what she says, it kinda reminds me of the guy/girl who was mean to their primary school crush. I am just worried these sort of banning a will lead to an echo chamber of the same opinions rather than decent debate and discussion.

When somebody comes with decent debate and discussion, they won't get banned.

 

[stump sock]

I am not gonna lie the dude cares way too much about what she says, it kinda reminds me of the guy/girl who was mean to their primary school crush. I am just worried these sort of banning a will lead to an echo chamber of the same opinions rather than decent debate and discussion.

the point is that there is literally nothing "decent" about a conversation involving thunderf00t's viewpoints on Sarkeesian and feminism.

I won't go as far as to say that I support RationalWiki as a reference in most situations, but I think they do a pretty good job here of breaking down why his arguments are dog shit and should be ignored at every opportunity.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thunderf00t/Criticism_of_Tropes_vs._Women

 

[Neue Regel]

Do you think that thunderfoot contributes positively to the quality of discussion? Not all opinions are equally valuable, and the perspective of a creepy woman hating YouTube talking head are as worthless as they get.

He can fuck off, but I've seen some legit discussions about GG on here which resulted in banning of the "GGer". Hell I didn't understand why Boogie got banned either, he said some odd things but nothing offensive to my eye.

 

[SocksForWoks]

I've looked up this thunderfoot... He seems to be the type that goes after extremist views, including mainstream feminism and conservative values.

He's ok in my book. However you dislike him because he discredits Anite S?

 

[jim-jam bongs]

He can fuck off, but I've seen some legit discussions about GG on here which resulted in banning of the "GGer". Hell I didn't understand why Boogie got banned either, he said some odd things but nothing offensive to my eye.

There's a fine line between legitimate discussion and JAQing off when it comes to the GoofyGerbil topic, simply because there is almost no substance upon which to create the foundations for a good argument.

As for Boogie, we don't discuss his banning because it was ultimately for his own sanity and there's no malice there. I'd suggest pming a mod if you would like an explanation.

 

[Agremont]

I've looked up this thunderfoot... He seems to be the type that goes after extremist views, including mainstream feminism and conservative values.

He's ok in my book. However you dislike him because he discredits Anite S?

Mainstream feminism is an extremist view?

 

[stump sock]

I've looked up this thunderfoot... He seems to be the type that goes after extremist views, including mainstream feminism and conservative values.

He's ok in my book. However you dislike him because he discredits Anite S?

thank you for your well researched and valuable contribution to this thread.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I've looked up this thunderfoot... He seems to be the type that goes after extremist views, including mainstream feminism and conservative values.

He's ok in my book. However you dislike him because he discredits Anite S?

Why am I not surprised that a gamergate supporter would like thunderfoot

and there's a difference between "discredits" and "attempts to discredit"

 

[hotnheavyload]

I do wonder how people would react to absolute equality in gaming as a medium, as more games would feature more violence against women as they are killed and tortured at the same frequency as their male counterparts, though I'm sure this has already been discussed ad nauseam.

Equality should be what we strive towards, with more women playing the role as both protagonists and antagonists.

 

[EmpressInYellow]

Ugh, god, the Hitman example again. If thunderf00t were right about literally everything else he'd ever said, he'd still have a ton to answer for as a result of that disingenuous, misleading argument alone.

It's a textbook case of misrepresenting/oversimplifying an argument to have a convenient straw man to rail against, which is pretty much his M.O. from start to finish.

I also find it kind of funny when people bring up the "but you're punished for it!" counterpoint, since she addresses that exact point in literally the next sentence. The point is that the "punishment", such as it is, is trivial, and besides, the core "critical path", mechanically optimized playthrough is not the be-all, end-all in terms of what's worthy of analysis.

EDIT: Tfoot seems to be one of those "If it's not a STEM field, it's not sufficiently rigorous or worthy of consideration as a legitimate discipline" people. He also seems to think that being educated in a STEM field automatically means you get to act like an expert on any other non-STEM field (such as media criticism) while dismissing people who actually are experts on the subject.

 

[The Technomancer]

I've looked up this thunderfoot... He seems to be the type that goes after extremist views, including mainstream feminism and conservative values.

He's ok in my book. However you dislike him because he discredits Anite S?

Mainstream feminism is not extremist, and the viewpoints Anita articulates definitely aren't extremist. He's the one who comes off as a loon

 

[zeldablue]

I do wonder how people would react to absolute equality in gaming as a medium, as more games would feature more violence against women as they are killed and tortured at the same frequency as their male counterparts, though I'm sure this has already been discussed ad nauseam.

Equality should be what we strive towards, with more women playing the role as both protagonists and antagonists.

It would really depend on how much agency the female characters have and how sexualized the women are. :\

I'm pretty sure having the women being treated like the dudes is kind of what the point is. Though I don't think Anita likes violence in general.

 

[MrBadger]

What gets me is that a lot of Anita's detractors say she cherry picks her points, yet it's always that one Hitman example that's brought up. Funny, that.

 

[SocksForWoks]

Mainstream feminism is an extremist view?

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

 

[stump sock]

.

Equality should be what we strive towards, with more women playing the role as both protagonists and antagonists.

I think about Lena Heady in Dredd a lot lately. Most games would kill to have a baddie that awesome.

 

[EmpressInYellow]

It would really depend on how much agency the female characters have and how sexualized the women are. :\

I'm pretty sure having the women being treated like the dudes is kind of what the point is. Though I don't think Anita likes violence in general.

Yeah, I personally wouldn't have an issue with a game that has you fighting a group of professional soldiers that includes women as well as men, so long as they were dressed like actual, y'know, soldiers, and the game didn't do anything weird or exploitative when it came to violence against them. I don't see too many people complaining about the Yelena boss fight in Deus Ex: HR, for instance (aside from the fact that it's an unnecessary boss fight).

You still run into the issue that, in society in general, the context surrounding violence against women is much different than that surrounding violence against men, but that's pretty much inescapable.

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

Serious question: Do you know what "toxic masculinity" means?

 

[Agremont]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

And what's so extreme about that?

Edit: You realize toxic masculinity refers to something specific right? It doesn't mean all masculinity is toxic.

 

[zeldablue]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

I would consider it toxic humanity. But she's right, we need better ways of helping people deal with feelings of loss or "thwarted belongingness."

...Especially for boys, because I guess we mostly teach them a certain idealism that doesn't match up to reality.

 

[Ayt]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

What do you think she meant by that?

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

That's not an extremist viewpoint, it's looking at the reality of the situation

What exactly about that seems extreme to you

 

[The Technomancer]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

Toxix masculinity doesn't mean masculinity is toxic. It refers to toxic aspects of masculinity. Funnily enough those aspects are things like "bottling up your emotions" and "being forced to act 'like a man'" that so many MRA's claim to care about

 

[SocksForWoks]

And what's so extreme about that?

Wow.

Anyway I'm definitely not feeling safe with all this hostility towards me right now.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

She blames mass shootings on 'toxic masculinity'

Yes.

Well aren't you precious.

 

[Agremont]

Wow.

Anyway I'm definitely not feeling safe with all this hostility towards me right now.

See my edit.

 

[Nairume]

Wow.

Anyway I'm definitely not feeling safe with all this hostility towards me right now.

Asking you what you think it means isn't hostility.

 

[The Technomancer]

Wow.

Anyway I'm definitely not feeling safe with all this hostility towards me right now.

Read my post right above you. That doesn't mean masculinity is toxic. It means there are some aspects of masculinity that are toxic, that are being referred to.

 

[Toxi]

I do wonder how people would react to absolute equality in gaming as a medium, as more games would feature more violence against women as they are killed and tortured at the same frequency as their male counterparts, though I'm sure this has already been discussed ad nauseam.

Equality should be what we strive towards, with more women playing the role as both protagonists and antagonists.

I want to see this. It's one of the reasons why I feel Naughty Dog made the wrong decision by not including female human enemies in The Last of Us.

In fiction, "men do, women are." The generic male enemies the player kills in scores are all action and no identity, while the females killed for cheap shock effect are all identity and no action. Letting both sexes fill those roles helps to get rid of that problem.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Wow.

Anyway I'm definitely not feeling safe with all this hostility towards me right now.

For my part I'm more amused than angry

 

[jim-jam bongs]

I want to see this. It's one of the reasons why I feel Naughty Dog made the wrong decision by not including female human enemies in The Last of Us.

That was because of mammary limitations.