Tropes vs Women in video games

[louisg]

evil_ash_xero: Some people actually *aren't* colossal douchebags. FYI

[Edmond Dantes]

What guy above me said.

Also, some people have motivations besides "I want to get laid."

[evil_ash_xero]

Maybe I'm just cynical.

[Edmond Dantes]

The internet does that to people.

For cynicism, the doctor prescribes a daily dose of this, along with a little bit of this.

Also some oxycontin if you have any.

[BryanM]

4chan, always fulfulling the stereotypes =/...

Let's not lose sight of the ball here. It isn't 4Chan that is the worst. It's gamers. They're the worst. You'd think it'd be pedophiles, human traffickers, serial killers or NWO plutocrats. Nope. Like EA is Almost The Worst, so is gamers. (After all, how sick and disgusting a group of monsters would have to be to willingly give something so destructive to the human race as a whole so much power?)

They're so unacceptable a lot, you're not even allowed to communicate with them in Blizzard's new game. That's how friggin' bad they are.

You all know this in your hearts to be true.

In contrast, when I think of 4chan I think of internet detectives rescuing kittys from their shitbird abusers.

[blackoak]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs

Part 2 came out yesterday. It addresses certain objections that were raised after the first video and explains some things better. There's a focus on games from the last 10 years which I think makes it easier to see her points, too.

The last 10 years of regressive themes in media is a sociologist's wet dream come true. I'd love to see someone critique the never-ending parade of revenge narratives for instance. Blegh.

[Ed Oscuro]

In contrast, when I think of 4chan I think of internet detectives rescuing kittys from their shitbird abusers.

And I've followed some of those 4channers back to their home forums, so...nope.

[O. Van Bruce]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs

Part 2 came out yesterday. It addresses certain objections that were raised after the first video and explains some things better. There's a focus on games from the last 10 years which I think makes it easier to see her points, too.

The last 10 years of regressive themes in media is a sociologist's wet dream come true. I'd love to see someone critique the never-ending parade of revenge narratives for instance. Blegh.

How can she deliver such sound facts and twist then into such a way that it fits her views? I've never seem games or those troupes the way she portray then in those examples.

It's true that the forced drama and edgyness annoy me, as well as a lot of videogame players out there, but the "damsel in refrigerator" isn't something ubiquosly present in the whole videogame media. It's just another plot device...

And how she complains about the whole "begging for killing". If it were a man sacrificing himself for his family/friends/country whatever, is it right but a woman asking to be put out of her misery or sacrificing herself then that's not good? why? because she's a woman?

Now, how MANY times the troope of "fighting your own corrupted friends" have been used? I can't even count then... It's almost a staple troop in jrpgs and a lot of other genres... and she focuses just in the cases the woman/girlfriend is used for that troupe. Why did she bought all those videogames she showed on that photo? only to select what was convenient for her views? She even uses a Kingdom Heart image at the video, in which you have Rikku going all the way to the darkness, corrupted and possesed by the final boss, you have to "beat him into reason" and in the end he "sacrifices" himself as a way of redemption... quite literally what she's critizicing but, oh no, it's a male, no problems there.

19:10- 19:30 Completely unrelated facts to gaming. We consume as much videogames as the USA here in Europe... hell, even the japanese beat us completely on that aspect and we don't have those violence on women figures... the problem must be elsewhere.

22:95 - 23:30 lol... just lol... What an utter piece of shit. Implying implications

Welp, at LEAST she put some examples of how she like things at the end of the video... it was less than a minute in a 26 minutes video though.



What this women wants? mutilate a whole segment of the videogame narrative possibilities just because she doesn't like it? There are a lot of troupes out there and if someone wants to experiment it on their videogames or not they have reviews and previews about then. Also, the videogame classification boards in each country are doing mostly a good job, just use then.

sigh...

[Skykid]

troupes

troope

troupe

troupes

The word is 'Trope'.

[O. Van Bruce]

troupes

troope

troupe

troupes

The word is 'Trope'.

jajaja, sorry, it's difficult to type on a mobile phone and a pain in the ass to edit once you realize you did an error.

[Skykid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs

This is FAR superior to her original commentary. She's actually carefully thought out and investigated the subject matter and created a completely convincing argument, while being careful to address issues people obviously had with her first round thesis. There's also a reasonable amount of understanding being projected about the reason the devices exist, while noting their relative stupidity and complete lack of depth - which I entirely agree with.

Tackling this patently violent and misogynistic subject matter is leaps and bounds more interesting and thought provoking than trying to build the same argument with old Nintendo games. In-fact, had she simply placed a small section in the middle of this new video showing some of the older titles reflecting similar themes, that would be enough to write-off the first attempt entirely. For example:

"We can see that the utilisation of the Damsel theme has been around almost since gaming's inception, but in its defence, the relative crudeness of the technology during the 80's and early 90's meant that developers struggled to implement dramatic tension, and therefore found it straightforward to appeal and encourage a predominantly male audience by utilisation of this simplistic theme. Nowadays there's less of an excuse."

Or something to that effect.

In summary, I think there's some valid redeeming done here. I don't appreciate the sarcasm or Bionic Commando facepalming - I really think that stuff should stay in the classroom as it lowers the integrity of what was a much more convincing argument: one I can't help but understand and agree with. Film has found ways to create dramatic tension through a broad variety of concepts, why can't gaming come of age and do the same (as Sarkeesian rightly pointed out, because most games are centered around the protagonist performing violent acts, which is a kind of a Catch 22 when it comes to building an intelligent storyline around their activities.)

Games are pretty dumb, simply - but then this entire 'cinematic' gaming revolution has hardly moved me, personally, because it's so hackneyed in and of itself.

The feminist endgame: I still don't get it. Okay, if we're in a fight I'll let you take the first punch, and if you stumble and are hanging over a cliff, I'll let you climb back up on your own. There are genetic reasons why these tropes were created in the first place, some of which I think are still valid when you're exploring themes of romance and love - but less so in dumb videogames.

Much improved anyway. If she can write part three to be as equally engaging, I'm all ears.

[BryanM]

And I've followed some of those 4channers back to their home forums, so...nope.

So, you, too, love seeing homebrew tabletop games in /tg/?

Magical place, isn't it...

[Randorama]

I am taking your post for the sake of clarity, Tom, as you synthetize some relevant tropoi in a concise way:

Games are pretty dumb, simply - but then this entire 'cinematic' gaming revolution has hardly moved me, personally, because it's so hackneyed in and of itself.

Well, there is little gaming and intellectual enjoyment in the "cinematic" revolution, so the revival of old, bad tropoi may be correlated. I do not expect her to understand "gaming" enough to capture this fact, though, to the effect of noting that plot devices do not coincide with gaming mechanics.

The feminist endgame: I still don't get it. Okay, if we're in a fight I'll let you take the first punch, and if you stumble and are hanging over a cliff, I'll let you climb back up on your own. There are genetic reasons why these tropes were created in the first place, some of which I think are still valid when you're exploring themes of romance and love - but less so in dumb videogames.

I wouldn't invoke "genes" this lightly, unless you can claim that there is the gene of save-the-damsel-in-distress in men's genome (Please, don't). Besides, I am aware of at least five strands of feminism, which basically make mutually exclusive claims about what should count as emancipation for women. The author of the video seems not even to be aware of this, so exactly which point about women's emancipation she is trying to make is more or less a mistery. I remain of the same opinion as before: if she, or anyone else, is convinced to e.g. lower the global number of rapes by having Peach to save Mario, she needs a good shrinker. Or some eugenics.

If I didn't have a career to pursue in my own field, I'd aim to dismantle this non-sense in a proper way (read: proper research). Maybe I should do that after tenure, or during my holidays (yes, I am bragging, but I can't resist to do so, for once).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

If you're disabling comments on your channel, it's a sign you're doing it to prevent people from having a place to critique/debate your work, and that alone should speak for the quality (or rather lack thereof) of her 'work'.

[njiska]

"Just because it makes sense in the course of the narrative, doesn't mean it's ok"

Yes! Yes it fucking well does! The sheer gall of this comment baffles me.

[DJ Incompetent]

I like this series and enjoy what she has to say. I agree with a lot of her thoughts.

Here's a thing.
That bit where she complains about the protagonist chick being turned into a bad guy and you're supposedly "beating up women to save the day." Did anybody tell her that generally 60%-90% of a game's players don't complete any particular videogame? Since chick-turned-bad is always a late-game boss or the final boss, doesn't that mean that these female characters the feminist is referencing are so empowered that they're winning more than losing?

So by her logic, nobody being able to clear Inbachi is worse than a damsel in distress just because you're shooting at a girl with lasers, completely ignoring that the girl is so powerful, she is absolutely wrecking everybody's shit.

[Giest118]

"Just because it makes sense in the course of the narrative, doesn't mean it's ok"

Yes! Yes it fucking well does! The sheer gall of this comment baffles me.

I'm gonna make a narrative where it totally makes sense from every conceivable ethical and moral standpoint to rape and murder every woman in the world. It'll be totally okay because it makes sense in the course of the narrative.

[Skykid]

"Just because it makes sense in the course of the narrative, doesn't mean it's ok"

Yes! Yes it fucking well does! The sheer gall of this comment baffles me.

I'm gonna make a narrative where it totally makes sense from every conceivable ethical and moral standpoint to rape and murder every woman in the world. It'll be totally okay because it makes sense in the course of the narrative.

You're not being fair. She's a feminist approaching the subject matter from the standpoint of feminism and what she considers to be outdated and generally offensive or misogynistic themes. Purely on that basis, she did a decent investigation of the material and cliche inherent in many modern VG productions and put together a good argument.

It's much less about moral and ethical standpoints as it is her point of view on the subject matter. She's entitled to one and she addressed it much more thoroughly and sensibly than in video one, imo. First time round was a bit of an out the gate shambles, but this one was a lot better in both aspects of understanding the medium, its audience, and even certain admissions that don't make her sound like raving man-hating lunatic.

I honestly expected worse.

[Giest118]

Not sure if that response was directed at me, but my post was essentially pointing out the ridiculousness of njiska's absolutism by giving an exception to his rule.

[Mortificator]

It's not an exception, though. You can say you're going to "make a narrative where it totally makes sense from every conceivable ethical and moral standpoint to rape and murder every woman in the world," but I doubt you actually could.

[Giest118]

It's not an exception, though. You can say you're going to "make a narrative where it totally makes sense from every conceivable ethical and moral standpoint to rape and murder every woman in the world," but I doubt you actually could.

Challenge accepted.

Just so we're clear, the challenge is to "create a narrative where, within the context of the narrative, it makes sense from moral and ethical standpoints to rape and murder every woman in the world."

Warning: This will be offensive as hell.

Code: Select all

About four weeks before our story takes place, an evil wizard made his presence known, and he took over the land, committing many, many murders in his rule. Four brave warriors took him down... but with his dying breath, he cast a curse upon the world, saying that if he could not rule humanity, then humanity would come to a slow end.

His curse affected all the women of the world and charmed them into becoming man-hating evil witches. They formed armies, crushing and destroying men wherever they went. The wizard's plan was simple; make all the women in the world unwilling to participate in the reproductive process, and just to be safe, kill all men to ensure the end of the perpetuation of humanity.

The story begins soon after the discovery of how to cure the curse. It is a complex process in which a man blessed with powerful holy magic must have sex with the afflicted woman, who struggles against is because, of course, the curse causes her to hate men. And then, once she is filled with his blessed seed, she is ritually killed by way of strangulation. Once she is dead, the evil essence of the curse is expelled from her body. Then, every man present attempts to resuscitate her, with the help of magic and more practical, earthly techniques. When she awakes, she is once again normal.

The story ends once this process is performed on every woman on the planet. Some women were not able to be resuscitated, but it is understood by everyone that this was a necessary evil to root out the last of the wizard's curse.

Now, you could dismiss this as me simply writing the plot synopsis as an excuse to make rape/murder acceptable. That criticism could very easily be used against... basically any of the games Sarkeesian called out. But your dismissal is irrelevant either way; I came up with a scenario where it makes ethical sense, within the context of the narrative, to commit many, many acts of rape and murder, with the consequence of not doing those things being the eventual extinction of humanity. But it is clear that this story, from the perspective of an outside viewer, is offensive, and perhaps even morally reprehensible, is it not?

[Skykid]

But you've created a completely fictional scenario. The challenge is to create the same argument in reality, otherwise it's not on even ground with Sarkeesian.

[Giest118]

Irrelevant; he said I couldn't come up with a narrative. So I came up with a narrative.

Remember, the comment I was originally responding to is:

"Just because it makes sense in the course of the narrative, doesn't mean it's ok"

Yes! Yes it fucking well does! The sheer gall of this comment baffles me.

My responses have basically amounted to, "Sorry, but Sarkeesian is right, making sense in the course of the narrative is not a catch-all justification." My responses failed because I massively overestimated the ability of others to interpret my ridiculously dense brand of irony.

[Blackbird]

I agree with Skykid on this one. This video is significantly better researched and argued than her first video. My opinion of Sarkeesian has changed. I will apologize for insinuating that she was a fraud, and instead opine that she is absurdly slow at producing videos.

I think that Sarkeesian's opinion regarding narrative context is valid. As Giest astutely pointed out, you can provide a narrative justification for certain amoral acts and make them appear to be the ethically correct decision, but doing so usually requires that the story be very contrived. It might make sense in context, but at the end of the day, you're still writing morally repugnant schlock.

P.S.: It disturbs me that you were able to write that scenario in about an hour, particularly considering the plot could very easily be the pitch for some kind of dark, edgy exploitation seinen =/... too close, man, too close. That's just creepy.

[njiska]

Irrelevant; he said I couldn't come up with a narrative. So I came up with a narrative.

Remember, the comment I was originally responding to is:

"Just because it makes sense in the course of the narrative, doesn't mean it's ok"

Yes! Yes it fucking well does! The sheer gall of this comment baffles me.

My responses have basically amounted to, "Sorry, but Sarkeesian is right, making sense in the course of the narrative is not a catch-all justification." My responses failed because I massively overestimated the ability of others to interpret my ridiculously dense brand of irony.

Congratulations. You've achieved, at best, a loose narrative structure where there is a valid reason for raping and killing women en mass. I have no problem with the raping and killing in the context of that plot as it is fully justified. But before you say anything else, please note that I am only saying it is ok within the context of the plot. The actual plot itself is offensive (for a number of reasons, least of all its abysmal quality) or at the very least inappropriate. This is where the context of the author's intent comes in.

Telling me you can't have justified rape in a plot is just fucking stupid. Telling me you can't thinly veil hate speech in the form of art, is something I'd more or less agree with. This is the problem I have with the majority of her conclusions. Depowering a character, male or female, for the purposes is sometimes just part of telling a good story. It has been for millennia and it shall continue to be for many, many more. What matters is the intent of the author.

It's the same rhetoric used argue that books like Sophie's choice are sexist, pro-misogyny tomes.

[Giest118]

There is something to be said about just how common it is to see the "girlfriend turns evil, beat the shit out of her to win" plot device, though. In the games where this plot device is used, how common is it that it really serves a greater purpose to the narrative? I'd hazard a guess that it's usually just there to provide a boss fight. Which is fair. I guess. In moderation. But how many examples are there? Something like eleven billion? I happen to know Sarkeesian missed a few, such as when you have to fight Estelle in Tales of Vesperia. By the way, if you just started playing Tales of Vesperia and don't want spoilers, don't read the previous sentence.

Maybe there are a few games where a similar plot device is used with the genders reversed, but I would take a wild fucking shot in the dark and say that they're nowhere near as common.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

There is something to be said about just how common it is to see the "girlfriend turns evil, beat the shit out of her to win" plot device, though.

Maybe there are a few games where a similar plot device is used with the genders reversed, but I would take a wild fucking shot in the dark and say that they're nowhere near as common.

This isn't something limited to girlfriends only; having your best friend/lover/partner/mother/father/relative turn evil/bad are all common plot devices that fall under the same theme: betrayal. Betrayal is a very common story theme (good cop bad cop anyone?), why should it be considered more distasteful if the antagonist is female rather than male? There are plenty of stories where the boyfriend betrays the girl too. If someone feels there's a female vs. male disparity of this theme in games particularly, then maybe they could simply make a game telling whatever narrative they want? As others have pointed out, if certain feminists really feel gaming as a whole is rampant with misogyny, they could always make their own games to change the trend (not that Sarkeesian would, she's rolling in far too much dough milking her newfound, unwarranted publicity to waste her time doing anything productive).

Seriously, how many games are there, regardless of genders involved, do you face a former friend or lover in a boss fight? You seem to enjoy cherry picking one instance of the 'Tales of' series, while ignoring the fact that Mary Argent fights her own husband who's been brainwashed and crazy in the much earlier Tales of Destiny, and in Tales of Rebirth you fight all of your own party members in a 'they've gone evil/crazy' battle several times over the course of the game (except for Mao at the start of the game I guess, he doesn't count as he's neither evil nor crazy then, just acting as a simple tutorial fight).

Tropes shouldn't be about 'we need balance!' in terms of making sure genders are always evenly matched. That's like saying every work needs the same number of characters of each gender, there has to be a black guy, an asian guy, a hispanic guy, etc. in every story... that's what's important with regards to making a narrative work. Something like your tasteless rape fantasy is an example of forcing your narrative to fit your preconceived bias needs, so your story ends up reading like shit and making it obvious you're just making your characters do whatever to push your point, whereas a good story ought to at least try to feel more natural in terms of characters and their actions fitting the story for the sake of the story itself being good.

[Blackbird]

The way I see it, we have two options to resolve the gender disparity between victimized characters.

1 - We can choose not to victimize characters in game narratives. (We can't choose only to victimize men, because this only becomes sexist in the opposite direction)

This would mean drastically reducing the number of violent video games, as well as changing their tone. Not necessarily a bad thing, if you ask me. However, the bigger problem is that this choice would effectively concede that games cannot be an art form. This choice states that the need to have empowered, active characters from a game mechanics standpoint supercedes the narrative freedom of having full artistic license with the story. We would essentially be deluding ourselves into believing that people are not victimized in the real world if we choose to deny that such actions exist in the digital one. This is a form of censorship, and is the equivalent of putting one's head in the sand and pretending that no one is ever victimized. Counterproductive, if you ask me.

2 - We can make everyone suffer equally in game narratives.

This choice involves carefully managing instances of victimization by making men victims as often as women. This is awkward from an artistic standpoint. In the real world, victimization is not fair or evenly distributed, so it stretches narrative believability if victims always come in twos. It does more accurately reflect that victimization is indiscriminate, though.

Dunno, just brainstorming out loud here.

[Giest118]

This isn't something limited to girlfriends only; having your best friend/lover/partner/mother/father/relative turn evil/bad are all common plot devices that fall under the same theme: betrayal. Betrayal is a very common story theme (good cop bad cop anyone?), why should it be considered more distasteful if the antagonist is female rather than male? There are plenty of stories where the boyfriend betrays the girl too. If someone feels there's a female vs. male disparity of this theme in games particularly, then maybe they could simply make a game telling whatever narrative they want? As others have pointed out, if certain feminists really feel gaming as a whole is rampant with misogyny, they could always make their own games to change the trend (not that Sarkeesian would, she's rolling in far too much dough milking her newfound, unwarranted publicity to waste her time doing anything productive).

Can it really be called "betrayal" if the "betraying" character has literally no control over their actions?

What do you have to say about publishers who force game writers to fight if they want a female protagonist in their high-budget game?

And does any fucking person on the planet know how to disagree with Anita Sarkeesian without pointing out the money she got form her kickstarter, which was 95% funded by people who SAW THAT SHE WAS PAST HER TARGET AMOUNT AND THEN DONATED ANYWAY, a thing which was done as a reaction to a bunch of cockwaffle "gamers" who decided that they medically needed to prove her fucking point?

I don't take issue with the rest of your post.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

allcaps raeeege

grumpy aren't you? A bunch of stupid people threw money at a woman with a history of outright shitty video making (seriously, just look at her past videos, little to no research, terrible premises, it's all laughably bad) who made them feel guilty by crying 'misogyny', and they threw wads of cash at them to all be the first to show what nice ethical gamers they were because they didn't bother to research her adequately to realize she wasn't exactly the model of quality or unbiased writing. If anything, she's been a polarizing, detrimental force to feminism with respect to gaming, perhaps gender equality as a whole. "X Vs. Women" suggests an us vs. them mentality of antagonism as if video games are somehow directly against women, which of course is absurd, and does nothing except manufacture a non-existent crisis for her to complain about and garner attention.

Nobody would accept her writing quality in a university setting, especially not if this were being passed off as a thesis. It's especially galling to see people thinking she deserves money for this. Perhaps if you paid more attention you'd have noticed her work has been criticized for its poor quality by a number of people, regardless of how much money she'd gotten. Really, the only reason she's remotely noteworthy is the attention her sudden fame and wealth have earned, otherwise she'd be just yet another forgettable critic on Youtube with terrible videos.

What do you have to say about publishers who force game writers to fight if they want a female protagonist in their high-budget game?

This really is a badly written sentence. Are you saying there's not enough non-violent games with female protagonists? Or are you saying game writers fight amongst themselves...? I want to see a movie now about publishers forcing their game script writers to battle to the death in gladiator style duels!

Can it really be called "betrayal" if the "betraying" character has literally no control over their actions?

Perhaps you should replay Vesperia, because the person who actually brainwashed Estelle was a fairly significant person who ended up turning out to be an antagonist (i.e. betrayal). Seems you've forgotten that. Betrayal also doesn't always necessarily happen voluntarily, the person's personality can sometimes change for reasons beyond their control (you can see this in real life with psychiatric disorders).