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Censorship? There is no censorship!
- Thread starter cronicler
- Start date
Akratus
Bleep bloop.
Can I just say that Lord of War is cool as shit?
And let's not pretend that the results of agressive harassment at the accounts of social media in messages past means that other human beings are anything but other human beings, simply living their lives. We can find plenty of examples of Gamergaters doxxed and harassed and driven from their homes in agressive harassment, too. Enumerating internet grievances is not proof of anything but the existence of internet harassment.
As many as it takes until you get it.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2tzjih/cosplaying_vivian_james_at_magfest_a_tale_of/
And let's not pretend that the results of agressive harassment at the accounts of social media in messages past means that other human beings are anything but other human beings, simply living their lives. We can find plenty of examples of Gamergaters doxxed and harassed and driven from their homes in agressive harassment, too. Enumerating internet grievances is not proof of anything but the existence of internet harassment.
As many as it takes until you get it.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2tzjih/cosplaying_vivian_james_at_magfest_a_tale_of/
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cronicler
Lurksalot
Bwahahahahahahaaa!
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
So Anita Sarkeesian is a dumb intellectually dishonest hack that gives feminism a bad name, more news at eleven.
So Hatred, how many here are on the "let's bash Hatred for being offensive" bandwagon? I recently started getting into the controversy and I can say it's just another example of the immaturity of the medium Via neo-moral guardians pretending to be progressive.
So Hatred, how many here are on the "let's bash Hatred for being offensive" bandwagon? I recently started getting into the controversy and I can say it's just another example of the immaturity of the medium Via neo-moral guardians pretending to be progressive.
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God-fucking-dammit I thought this thread had died.
She would not have to explain this if people like TotalBiscuit actually watched her videos, instead of going by the mischaracterizations of her thoughts by dishonest douchebags like Thunderf00t.
Yes, more proof that TotalBiscuit does not understand the cultural critiques made by Anita Sarkeesian. Specifically, and she explains this, that a Damsel In Distress is not a character attribute, but a plot event. Here she is explaining the full context of her critique of Dying Light's use of the trope: while Jade is powerful at the start, the use of the trope disempowers her -- and the game almost explicitly acknowledges this in its dialogue. And while we're at it, I'll once again note that she does not think these plot constructs should never be used, but that they are used far too frequently and to the exclusion of more empowering narratives.
She would not have to explain this if people like TotalBiscuit actually watched her videos, instead of going by the mischaracterizations of her thoughts by dishonest douchebags like Thunderf00t.
People think mass murder simulators are a pretty horrendous thing to make and that's somehow a sign of immaturity?Walpknut said:
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Nobody seems to mind Grand Tefth Auto(and the ones that do are usually made fun of) and the plethora of War games. Hell in Fallout you can go on a kill spree and kill kids if you damn well please and it will end until you kill everybody, they kill you (or in the case of 1 and 2 until you get to the exit grid).
Gaming can be art, but only when it doesn't cross any lines, and it adheres to a list of accepted guidlines, even if the usage of it is completely voluntary every single game has to be molded by moral guardians rules, even when the thing presented is not being glorified they still can't have "unacceptable"things.
Gaming can be art, but only when it doesn't cross any lines, and it adheres to a list of accepted guidlines, even if the usage of it is completely voluntary every single game has to be molded by moral guardians rules, even when the thing presented is not being glorified they still can't have "unacceptable"things.
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I see why people are upset about Hatred because there is no other point in game other than killing people, but it's not the first game of that sort nor the last one, probably.
However, what I don't get are thousands of people constantly arguing about it. I'll never understand that, regardless of the side taken. I mean, isn't there a better thing to do in life than convince a random internet person that they're wrong? Even if you do manage to convince somebody, what good does that do, anyway?
Eh, I guess some folks have too much free time or their definition of 'being productive' is way different than mine.
However, what I don't get are thousands of people constantly arguing about it. I'll never understand that, regardless of the side taken. I mean, isn't there a better thing to do in life than convince a random internet person that they're wrong? Even if you do manage to convince somebody, what good does that do, anyway?
Eh, I guess some folks have too much free time or their definition of 'being productive' is way different than mine.
I guess the whole thing blew up when people claimed that "Hatred" was a neonazi murder phantasy instead of just a murder phantasy.
Well, it's not a game I particularly care about. It's a twin stick shooter that brings literally nothing new to the table.
Well, it's not a game I particularly care about. It's a twin stick shooter that brings literally nothing new to the table.
People have always critiqued violence in video games on many different grounds, especially Grand Theft Auto games. There's a reason why the European versions of Fallout didn't include kids, and it's not that no one cared about violence. Not that all of those critiques were equally valid, but I don't see how you can honestly think that people didn't talk about it.
The fact that games are now receiving the same cultural scrutiny that every other medium receives is the furthest thing from a sign of an immature medium. It is what every medium faces, and it is what every cultural product faces. The point of critique isn't to act as moral guardians, stifling art. It's to dig deeper and analyse the messages these products are sending -- it is to engage critically with the product, rather than to go "it's just a game."
The answer to this is always "no."Atomkilla said:
cronicler
Lurksalot
No, Sander. She and You don't get "it". There aren't any perfect heroes in dying light. Everyone fucks up; Everyone falls down; Everyone fails. Just like in real life. It's the family (in the greater sense), friends or even buddies (in the milspeak sense) who covers your ass when you are sprawled in the mud and it's them that gives you a hand so that you can get back on your feet fast to face the next incoming disaster. That trust and connection is what separates good guys from bad guys, and that's what tips the scale just enough that the player character and his faction can pull a win from the bad predicament.
Dresden Files, for those of you that follow Jim Butcher's series.
A Hero's tale is not measured by how much he amasses wealth, power or whatever. It's measured by how far s/he falls down and climbs back up. That's the difference between Hero and "Insert literary character type archetype of your desire". That's what makes it compelling, believable, real (disregarding the quirks of the universe).
Putting a character on a sacred pedestal of perfectness only makes it (not he or she, it) just a fancy cardboard cutout, see 99 out of 100 game or (science or fantasy) fiction characters in the last 10 years.
5545Trey
Underground Deviant
Sarcasm or not, it still rewarding to successfully counter arguments on the internet.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Isn't it more sexist to imply that the moment a female character faces distress she inmediately becomes worthless as a character? Male characters can get killed, framed, kidnaped and mentally broken without people crying about misandry, in fact those events when written properly are usually the moments of most development for the character and even powerfull instances of drama.
No Man
Gore Bag > Meat Bag
Besides, there are better things to do with our lives. Most of us are aware of that. We are simply procrastinating.
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Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
"When a trope is used too much it becomes a stereotype". Man, if my Semiology teacher heard that phrase she would get chest pains.
No Man
Gore Bag > Meat Bag
And I'd say you grossly underestimate the lenghts some people will go to postpone doing something productive.
@cronicler, @Walpknut: I agree: it would be pretty awful if you couldn't put a female character in distress, or if women characters had to be perfect. Thankfully, that is not what Sarkeesian is advocating. Instead she is pointing out that the Damsel In Distress trope is used far, far too often. And that that trope is literally disempowering: the character is stripped of her power, turned into an object to be rescued by another (often male) character. It's a way in which videogame stories are often centered around the actions of male characters, with female characters reduced to the role they play in the male characters' stories -- often serving just as a MacGuffin, providing motivation for the male character. Which is, apparently, what happens in Dying Light, as Sarkeesian points out:
"The villain's dialog in Dying Light about damseling Jade: 'The last time we met you took something of mine, now I took something of yours.' That Dying Light quote is damning because regardless of her strengths she is still reduced to an object in a competition between men."
This is a plot point that happens in Dying Light. The fact that she's a capable character before being damseled does not mean she wasn't damseled -- that's exactly what happens. Meanwhile, the low point in a male character's story arc often does not feature being damseled -- they are rarely reduced to a static object to be rescued, and often retain their agency -- they may be stripped of weapons, or have their abilities reduced, locked up, knocked out, left for dead -- but very frequently the impetus to escape such a situation comes from the male character themselves, while female characters in similar situations often have to be rescued.
And, once again, her point is not that these narratives tropes should never be used. It's that they are used far too frequently in videogames. The point is that, looking at the medium as a whole, female and male characters are treated very differently. And Dying Light apparently (I have not played the game so can't comment on specifics) continues that trend by once again removing a female characters agency to have her serve as a male character's motivation. And TotalBiscuit's "rebuttal" misses that point entirely.
"The villain's dialog in Dying Light about damseling Jade: 'The last time we met you took something of mine, now I took something of yours.' That Dying Light quote is damning because regardless of her strengths she is still reduced to an object in a competition between men."
This is a plot point that happens in Dying Light. The fact that she's a capable character before being damseled does not mean she wasn't damseled -- that's exactly what happens. Meanwhile, the low point in a male character's story arc often does not feature being damseled -- they are rarely reduced to a static object to be rescued, and often retain their agency -- they may be stripped of weapons, or have their abilities reduced, locked up, knocked out, left for dead -- but very frequently the impetus to escape such a situation comes from the male character themselves, while female characters in similar situations often have to be rescued.
And, once again, her point is not that these narratives tropes should never be used. It's that they are used far too frequently in videogames. The point is that, looking at the medium as a whole, female and male characters are treated very differently. And Dying Light apparently (I have not played the game so can't comment on specifics) continues that trend by once again removing a female characters agency to have her serve as a male character's motivation. And TotalBiscuit's "rebuttal" misses that point entirely.
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Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
It's funny because male characters are usually in distress and disempowered just as often as they are. The issue is not with the "Trope" (as completely wrong she uses the term) is that we need more variety in heroes. See tropes are not evil things that attack women, they are neutral tools to be used in a story, and tropes are not just the list TvTropes has. If you actually believe that everysingle male character in fiction never becomes incapacitated or "damesseled" then you probably need to read more, watch more movies and pay more attention to games.
Let's use Mario as an example, Peach gets kidnapped often (altho she is playable and viable in a rather large number of games), but you know who gets the most "disempowered" of all the characters? her predominantly male gurads who are all cowards that fail to do their job on a constant basis. Hell many videogames have cowardly and weak men in their story in a very non chalant way. It's almost non-noticeable because that's just normal. Quick example, any civillian who is not the hero in plethora of stories. And before yo usay "But those are background characters!" she uses background female characters in her examples as well.
Or do you find some code that proves that only the male civillians being abducted by the Reapers have guns and always go down fighting? Male death is usually seen as uninteresting background most times.
She also just outright LIES about a lot of things, and even manipulates presentation and ignores context just in favor of "showing sexism" like her letting a sequence play where you have to stop a serial killer that is going on a killing spree to use it somehow as a sample of how disempowered women are, where the actual point of the mission is that the dude is a derranged killer. Or should we just never allow female npcs from suffering and giving them all backstory just because they are female, even tho their male counterparts are probably used as tools the same way in other parts of the game?
The problem with Sarkeesian is that she distorts the issue towards creating an "Us vs Them" dialogue, she ignores things that happen to male characters in favor of saying that only female characters suffer violence to advance plot of creating drama, she implies that a hero being male inmediately turns their conquest into a patriarchal mission of self agrandizing, to the point that many SWJs seem to believe that pointing out that the cast is mostly white in a story is even a clever obvservation. Focusing specifically on the negative while providing no actual commentary, research, or even an open door to discussion is the cheapest way to be an "activist". The fact that when you type on google "Anita Srkeesian counter argument" the first 4 results are about strawmanning people that disagree with her shows even further how averse to discussion her and her followers are. hell you just called a dude with a different opinion a "misinformed moron" without offering any other argument other than "I am right because I am a feminist". Which is a very grave problem that has surfaced thanks to Social media.
Let's use Mario as an example, Peach gets kidnapped often (altho she is playable and viable in a rather large number of games), but you know who gets the most "disempowered" of all the characters? her predominantly male gurads who are all cowards that fail to do their job on a constant basis. Hell many videogames have cowardly and weak men in their story in a very non chalant way. It's almost non-noticeable because that's just normal. Quick example, any civillian who is not the hero in plethora of stories. And before yo usay "But those are background characters!" she uses background female characters in her examples as well.
Or do you find some code that proves that only the male civillians being abducted by the Reapers have guns and always go down fighting? Male death is usually seen as uninteresting background most times.
She also just outright LIES about a lot of things, and even manipulates presentation and ignores context just in favor of "showing sexism" like her letting a sequence play where you have to stop a serial killer that is going on a killing spree to use it somehow as a sample of how disempowered women are, where the actual point of the mission is that the dude is a derranged killer. Or should we just never allow female npcs from suffering and giving them all backstory just because they are female, even tho their male counterparts are probably used as tools the same way in other parts of the game?
The problem with Sarkeesian is that she distorts the issue towards creating an "Us vs Them" dialogue, she ignores things that happen to male characters in favor of saying that only female characters suffer violence to advance plot of creating drama, she implies that a hero being male inmediately turns their conquest into a patriarchal mission of self agrandizing, to the point that many SWJs seem to believe that pointing out that the cast is mostly white in a story is even a clever obvservation. Focusing specifically on the negative while providing no actual commentary, research, or even an open door to discussion is the cheapest way to be an "activist". The fact that when you type on google "Anita Srkeesian counter argument" the first 4 results are about strawmanning people that disagree with her shows even further how averse to discussion her and her followers are. hell you just called a dude with a different opinion a "misinformed moron" without offering any other argument other than "I am right because I am a feminist". Which is a very grave problem that has surfaced thanks to Social media.
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Walpknut, the difference between how male characters and female characters in disempowering situations are often treated comes down to a difference in their agency in these situations. Male characters are often disempowered, but immediately given power to escape. They also usually don't serve just as motivation for other characters, but as characters with agency and an active storyline in their own right. One example is the classic "remove all his weapons" trope that used to happen a lot midway through first-person shooters. This is different from the Damsel In Distress trope as Sarkeesian defines it, because in that trope the character does not escape, but she is rescued after being held passively as an object for a prolonged period. And her being disempowered often isn't about her, but it's about providing a male character with motivation. In that way, male characters and female characters are often treated differently.
Also note that I, and Sarkeesian, talk about frequency of occurrence and not about "always." No one is arguing that there are no examples of male characters being damseled, or that every female character is damseled, just that that happens far less frequently with male characters and to a far lower percentage of male characters.
You are correct that cultural criticism of this kind focuses on the negatives of any cultural product. That's because the point is not to create holistic evaluations of every aspect of a cultural product, but to evaluate how cultural products (and often collections of cultural products) treat specific subjects. This is the point of what Sarkeesian does: she wants to show that these disempowering narratives are used far too frequently in video games, which is why she gives so many different examples in games. Her point is not about any individual game, nor that that makes those games worthless, just that those games use those specific disempowering tropes.
Your point on the use of male characters in video games is fair in that they are often used as generic-easily-beaten-opponent. This is in part counterbalanced by the fact that generally the character beating them is also male -- there's no one-sided message being sent here. However, the way male death is often treated casually in games and other cultural products is pretty messed up -- the fact that female characters are not treated equally to male characters does not imply that there are no problems with the ways in which male characters are treated, of course. Those things just weren't the topic of her videos. Which is why you should be pretty happy to learn that she'll also be producing videos to talk about the ways in which games mistreat masculinity and male characters.
Also note that I, and Sarkeesian, talk about frequency of occurrence and not about "always." No one is arguing that there are no examples of male characters being damseled, or that every female character is damseled, just that that happens far less frequently with male characters and to a far lower percentage of male characters.
You are correct that cultural criticism of this kind focuses on the negatives of any cultural product. That's because the point is not to create holistic evaluations of every aspect of a cultural product, but to evaluate how cultural products (and often collections of cultural products) treat specific subjects. This is the point of what Sarkeesian does: she wants to show that these disempowering narratives are used far too frequently in video games, which is why she gives so many different examples in games. Her point is not about any individual game, nor that that makes those games worthless, just that those games use those specific disempowering tropes.
How is this not an example of a female character being disempowered? The fact that she's disempowered by a deranged killer does not change the fact that she's disempowered. She's not arguing that the game is saying it's a good thing she's being killed. She's arguing that games display women in disempowered situations far more frequently than men, and that that imbalance contributes to the cultural idea that women are less capable than men. And this is just one of many examples.Walpknut said:
Your point on the use of male characters in video games is fair in that they are often used as generic-easily-beaten-opponent. This is in part counterbalanced by the fact that generally the character beating them is also male -- there's no one-sided message being sent here. However, the way male death is often treated casually in games and other cultural products is pretty messed up -- the fact that female characters are not treated equally to male characters does not imply that there are no problems with the ways in which male characters are treated, of course. Those things just weren't the topic of her videos. Which is why you should be pretty happy to learn that she'll also be producing videos to talk about the ways in which games mistreat masculinity and male characters.