Hagane wrote:
Normal because that how society raises us to be.
If you backpedal several posts you'll find the entire arm of discussion we're about to have has already occurred in full and reached a gripping climax. Time warp!
@minzoku, let's go.
minzoku wrote:Skykid wrote:
The components are ill thought-out: Why Zelda, of all examples to choose? She's always been a female character of strength and personality, unlike your average Princess floozy, and an exception to the rule.
Actually, I was in a chat where they were discussing the opposite: Zelda is merely a princess to be rescued, until she becomes Sheik and can slip out of the castle... but only as long as she's Sheik/Tetra/whatever other aliases. After the costume's off, it's back to comparable uselessness.
That's never stopped Zelda from being a character of strength and personality, with or without the dress. That she's abandoning the stereotypical girly garb, and with it her role as a princess, is a positive. As long as we can appreciate
not being recognised about town as the princess is the fundamental reason for the disguise, then you still have a strong and a positive female character role.
But Zelda has also been active within the Princess role on many occasions in Zelda games, throwing swords, using her power to break sealed doors in crumbling castles, plotting against Ganondorf and ensuring Link gets the tools for the job (Ocarina's and other pendants.) She's always been instrumental as a secondary character whatever the guise, and when people consider the series they generally see Zelda as the lynchpin of the world, and Link a heroic but subservient entity beneath her.
minzoku wrote:
Skykid wrote:
And where's Final Fight? You can take a dig at Mario and Zelda, but when it comes to Jessica's hostage plea, stripped to her bra and paraded in-front of her father, insinuating that she's been the victim of some sexual molestation or even rape, it doesn't even register.
I find it interesting that you* complain about her poor writing and research, complain about her campaign where she asks for money to do better research, then complain that she misses something in the course of her decision to buy a thousand games AND play them all AND make a video series a year later. Why are you not acting as a consultant if you're so concerned about improving the quality of her videos?
That's how criticism works isn't it?
I haven't complained because she's 'missed something,' more because she's missed everything, including a credible balanced argument.
She bought a thousand games and produced work that appears to have browsed wikipedia for a synopsis and a couple of gameplay videos on Youtube. The Bayonetta piece case-in-point: she's gleaned all of the surface elements to build a simple and ineffective argument about the game's general aesthetic, failing to note, as one woman did in the comments section, that Bayonetta is a character in charge of her sexuality and extremely empowered for your average female videogame protagonist. The leather, crotch shots and hair are provocative - a given - but there's no depth of investigation, it's all one-sided.
I'm yet to see evidence of Sarkeesian playing anything, tbh, further invalidating the need for kickstarter funds. I wouldn't be surprised if she kept the receipts or moved the games on second hand before embarking on this academic outing.
minzoku wrote:Skykid wrote:
Finally, the theme itself - damsels in distress - really feels like a moot point in 2013, and a moot point full stop, primarily because the argument ignores its simplicity as a plot device, and the fact the chivalrous behaviours - protecting the safety, honour and wellbeing of a female victim - is a component that has helped women's rights to be liberated to the point they're at today.
Simplicity was more of a valid excuse back in the Donkey Kong era where there just wasn't space for a billion cut scenes. Why should you bother chasing this giant gorilla up a partially-constructed building? To rescue Pauline. Okay. What's the excuse for Super Mario Bros. Wii? Instead of the SMB2 formula where you have Mario, Luigi, Toad, and Peach, why two Toads? "The Mushroom Kingdom is in danger!" is enough if you want to Keep It Simple, Stupid--why the regressive relegation of Peach to needing rescue?
I don't really understand how you think it's a moot point when it's clear that this kind of dismissive sexism is still occurring, and for really no reason except laziness and/or to satisfy some [possibly subconscious, but still lazy] male supremacist instinct.
minzoku wrote:I just remembered that Mario Party/Mario Golf handles this quite well--Peach and Daisy are both playable characters [even if they wear short shorts, but that's a secondary point]. It's not about switching out as much as it is PROVIDING OPTIONS. Of course it's not a "Mario" game without Mario, but if you say Mario games will no longer ever be allowed to have Peach and/or Daisy as playable characters even though Nintendo has demonstrated there's no reason they can't, THAT'S sexist.
That's ridiculous.
By this rationale there should be no games, media etc. that solely maintain male leads.
That's sexist, and sounds like extreme feminism.
Super Mario Brothers, a series about two Italian plumbers, doesn't have the right to maintain its basic and inoffensive narrative without being labeled as dismissively sexist despite the same series having been expanded into an incredible number of highly successful spin-offs in which female characters are either protagonists or equals to the rest of the cast, and freely playable.
"Princess Peach has appeared in nearly all of the Mario spin-off titles. Since the first Mario Party, Peach has appeared in every single installment.
In the Mario Kart series (except Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64), she is in the medium category of characters with the fastest acceleration, the lowest top speed, and the best off-road ability to take the shortcuts on each course. Her special item in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! involves two hearts temporarily rotating around her kart, giving her whatever item they collide into. She shares her special with Princess Daisy, her best friend.
In the Mario Tennis and Mario Golf series, she is labeled as a "Technique" character and has one of the lightest hits. She is a captain in the games Mario Superstar Baseball, and Mario Super Sluggers and specializes in pitching. She is a playable character in Super Mario Strikers and its sequel, Mario Strikers Charged. Peach is fast, agile, and has good passing skills. Finally, she appears in the first Mario basketball game, Mario Hoops 3-on-3, for the Nintendo DS, and is a technical type (good at taking shots). She appears in the crossover sports game, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, where she is a skill type character. She also appeared in Mario Sports Mix in 2011, where she is a playable character.
In the Super Smash Bros. series, Peach first appears in Super Smash Bros. Melee, the second game of the series. She has the unique ability to float for seconds, much as she can in Super Mario Bros. 2, an advantage which is balanced by the fact that she is one of the lighter fighters and in Super Smash Bros. Brawl her killing ability has been decreased since Super Smash Bros. Melee and making kills in Brawl can prove to be quite difficult. However, Peach's Float is one of the main elements of her game, as it allows her to combo players from above and dodge horizontal attacks. It serves as an amazing horizontal recovery. Her attacks include the Peach Bomber (where she leaps forward, twirls and rams her hip into her opponent which causes an explosion); her forward grab (a massive slap that kills players at higher percentages); her parasol; using Toad as a human shield; using golf clubs, tennis rackets, and frying pans as melee weapons; and pulling turnips from the ground. Her Final Smash in Brawl is unique in that it does not kill opponents outright. Instead, it puts them to sleep and spawns peaches across the battlefield that restore Peach's health. Additionally, in the Subpace Emissary story mode, Princess Peach is a very prominent character, being present throughout most of the storyline."
There are a lot of reasons not to pick on emerging games of the early 80's for their simplistic 'plot' devices, but there are also good reasons not to pick on selected games in 2013. We've already established that as gaming expanded into a broader demographic, so too did the diversity of sexes playing games: and the industries responded, offering a greater number of male/female options or just female protagonists. But why can't Mario Bros. be Mario Bros. and Perfect Dark be Perfect Dark? If videogaming was an overwhelmingly female interest hobby, don't you think the industry would place priority on females as central protagonists?
I find it impressive how narrow this view can go: citing New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii as an example of dismissive sexism in gaming because it features a male and female toad rather than a girly girl in a girly dress. I can't see a successful hypothesis being launched using that game as a basis, ever. It would be far more productive to assess videogaming media as a whole, how women are objectified and stereotyped within it, and whether or not it's really risen above directing games at a core male audience.
In short, the discussion might not be a moot point, but Mario is perfectly fine as it is.
minzoku wrote:A good line about this comes from an unrelated article, 5 Ways You're Accidentally Making Everyone Hate You:
Doesn't really apply to me, I intentionally try to get people to hate me well into double figures.
minzoku wrote:Kickstarter is totally transparent. No one is FORCED to give her money when she's already made goal--they've CHOSEN to back her out of spite. If there hadn't been this backlash of morons trying to silence her, she might have had a handful of people disinterestedly give money, she might not have made goal, and another project fails, who cares. As it is, the silencing backlash has proven to supporters that there IS a problem, and while she might not be the best medium for getting the overarching message across, she's actively trying not to be part of the problem, so why dismiss that? Maybe she's getting $160k-whatever-minus-KS-fees-and-taxes to be a target, but a target that nonetheless promotes an active discussion on the subject vs. a continued sweeping under the rug, and it shows other women [including men and intersex people who identify as women] that they aren't alone in feeling discriminated against.
She doesn't NEED it. People gave it to her ANYWAY. That's the beauty of Kickstarter--people can give money to a project they couldn't possibly care any less whether it gets finished, just to piss off some angry misogynist Internet trolls.
I pretty much agree with this. It is foolish to cite Kickstarter earnings as some kind of basis for expecting impressive and enlightening material in return: the content can only be as good as the author writing it, no matter how much funding there is. I do disagree with her initial asking price, however, which is far exceeds the quality of content produced. The game purchases also don't appear to have been effective in any way whatsoever, since I see no evidence of a disc leaving a box.
minzoku wrote:I just wanted to note that men go to war because the population hurts less when men die than when women do
Er... A factor, perhaps, but surely you don't consider that to be the
sole factor?
minzoku wrote:Works for me! I have always HATED the white dress, and if that was a requirement for marriage, I guess I would never getting hitched. I don't even wear dresses to the office, and I absolutely DESPISE clothes that reveal any more than what my male counterparts are required to wear.
Now, I recall actually PREFERRING dresses as a child, so part of my current revulsion may be from certain undesirable behaviours [read: groping and generally being treated as someone else's property], but I also recall an unrelated love of gender-inspecific entertainment. I was a "grunge-y" tomboy in middle through high school, and where male and female characters weren't treated equally in games, I did end up preferring the males [and, of those, the more generic than the stereotypical buff power fantasy ones], so whether that colours my argument above is up to you. However, I know a number of transgendered women [m-to-f] and crossdressers, who all seem to contradict the notion of genes telling you who you are, particularly in light of a transgendered half of identical twins. You might argue that a few people do not negate the rule, but certainly you can't excuse "THIS IS THE RULE" as the reason why "Men are only allowed to X, and women are only allowed to Y, and this is why our media has to enforce that divide." Women aren't asking for complete gender-swaps, just for the opportunity to be accepted as more than just biological assets. I mean, would YOU feel comfortable if your junk was used as the measure of your workplace value?
[If yes, then I hate you]
No, of course not. I want to be valued in the workplace for my ability to perform in a role, not what I look like. In my experience, sexism in the workplace is far from being stamped out, but that's an entirely separate discussion.
Regarding your feeling about white dresses (or dresses generally) I don't consider that abnormal in any way. One of my best friends growing up was a tomboy through and through, and has never really changed. But experiences do shape how we are and how we perceive things. Although I disagree that gender socialisation is the core reason for children being attracted to masculine and feminine objects, I do agree that social conditioning is utterly pervasive, from media to religion, to social stereotyping, racism, education and goals of productivity. And then there are negative experiences, especially in youth, that will change us irrevocably in adulthood. Your feelings on wedding dresses are an exception to the rule, for reasons you probably know better than anyone.
