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Are you saying that those aren't her games?
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Sep 10, 2014 02:47
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Jimbot posted:Not to take the side of those kind of people but it's a promo shot. Do you also think "Man, that politician is a man of the blue-collar everyday man!" when see a picture of the politician shaking hands of construction workers at a construction site?
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Sep 10, 2014 02:49
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Jimbot posted:Not to take the side of those kind of people but it's a promo shot. Do you also think "Man, that politician is a man of the blue-collar everyday man!" when see a picture of the politician shaking hands of construction workers at a construction site? FOLLOW THE MONEY
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Sep 10, 2014 02:52
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She looks like a console gamer, anyway, so I don't know how seriously to take her.
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Sep 10, 2014 02:57
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Jesus Christ, this will never end, will it? If those dudes really gave a poo poo about gaming journalism EGM and 1up and whatnot would still exist.
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Sep 10, 2014 03:12
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Jimbot posted:It's a really reductive way of looking at it. At the end of the day, yes, Peach is just a goal. Mario is just an puppet the player controls. Bowser is just a foil. What she is saying isn't wrong, I'm not disputing that but it takes a real detachment from a game to actually view it like that. 99% of people who played (either today or when it came out as kids) Super Mario Brothers saw Peach as a character who needed to be saved from the villainous Bowser and by the heroic Mario whom you controlled. They saw characters and connected with them. They didn't see objects. If they saw the game the way she does it wouldn't be so beloved by nearly the entire industry. She's not putting herself in the shoes of the gamers who played these games, she's taking an outsider's stance, which can be a good thing from time to time but she's also injecting politics into something that never had any politics to begin with. Several things to unpack here, and I honestly don't have time to address it all on my current break, so let's just cover this. First, I bet you're right that most of the people playing Super Mario Brothers in the 80s probably didn't see things that way. That doesn't mean it doesn't have an impact, or that it isn't worth mentioning. It just means that social stereotypes were so deeply embedded that no one took notice of how the game was using a woman as the damsel to play into the stereotype of the helpless woman, or how it exploited that stereotypical helplessness as a way to emotionally manipulate the player into enhancing Bowser's evil characteristics and buy into Mario's purpose to save the princess. Even at that, she's not saying Super Mario Brothers is a bad game, that you shouldn't play it, or that you should dislike it. She's saying it has an unfortunate vein of sexism in it. Which it does, as many examples of old media do. Go back to look at 1940s cinema and you see a lot of, among other things, racism. The audience at the time by and large didn't see racism in any of it, and probably saw it as reasonable mainstream entertainment. That doesn't mean that those of us looking at that media today should ignore what now seems like rather obvious racism just because audiences at the time had internalized a different set of values that thought portrayals like that were socially acceptable. And she's not injecting politics into things that never had any politics. Super Mario Brothers is an artwork, it's filled with politics. What she's doing is pointing out the inherent political choices in the game. Games are filled to the brim with politics, it's just that most of their politics are so often mirroring the status quo, the societal norms of the time. Those societal norms are absolutely political, but since they're norms, wide swaths of the audience can talk themselves into believing "The game's not political, it's just <describes own personal politics and prevailing social norms>." thefncrow fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 03:15
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thefncrow posted:
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Sep 10, 2014 03:24
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Jimbot posted:She's not putting herself in the shoes of the gamers who played these games, she's taking an outsider's stance, which can be a good thing from time to time but she's also injecting politics into something that never had any politics to begin with. Narrative is a hugely powerful thing, even in its crudest, most simplistic forms. As soon as a game starts telling a story--the instant you give it a character working towards a goal--it becomes imbued with certain assumptions, certain values, certain messages, and those can all--should all, must all--be questioned and examined, even if it means casting a negative like on something you like (and don't get me wrong, I do like Mario). You can put your head in the sand and try not to think about it, but that doesn't make it go away. Jimbot posted:Where she may see the "euthanasia of a woman" a gamer may see a heroic sacrifice because they know the context of that action in the story. You could make a point for why a story was written that way but then you enter an extremely slippery slope of limiting plot points in story and they all end up as these safe, forgettable stories that doesn't do any one thing a particular way. No, I'm pretty sure she understands the context. My understanding is that she has, in fact, played the games she's discussing, and even if she hasn't it's not like most games have some kind of grand nuanced narrative you can't glean from a brief cutscene compilation or one sentence summary. And no part of the argument is "you can't use these plot points ever and all stories need to be the same." The point is to that the exact same plot points keep getting used over and over (hence tropes) and they're pretty lovely, so writers should think before they go back to the 'kidnapped princess/missing wife/dead prostitute' well for the umpteenth time. Developers trying to include nuanced representations and not relying on the same tired archetypes over and over again doesn't make safe and forgettable stories, it does the exact opposite. Opposing Farce fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 03:47
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thefncrow posted:Several things to unpack here, and I honestly don't have time to address it all on my current break, so let's just cover this. I ultimately think we'll just have to agree to disagree. Exploitation, stereotypes, manipulation. Those are extreme words and while I'll give you stereotype for the roles but a story is meant to make a person feel certain ways during certain moments. It plays to a person's empathy and they get engaged in the story being told. Of course I want to save that person, of course I want to vanquish that evil. You can cast anyone in the role of the princess be it woman, man, trans or beast (like saving your puppy) and likewise anyone can inherit the role of the knight or the dragon. But to comment on your point about blackface: you can cast only one person in the role of an African American man and that is an African American man. But this was during a time of racism where African Americans weren't hired or (most likely) allowed to act in a motion picture. I think a better example would be casting an African American in the same kind of role over and over again. Opposing Farce posted:This is the fundamental flaw in your argument: politics aren't something you can just turn off. You can't say "oh, I wasn't being political" and then all of a sudden nothing means anything. When you live in a society, when you're a human being living with and raised by other human beings, everything you think and do, everything you create, is inevitably and inexorably shaped by the culture you live in. We all, on some level, in everything we do, reflect on the conditions that shaped us; and at the same time, our words and actions and belief help contribute to and change the culture we live in. Just because something doesn't explicitly invoke specific political factions or real-world issues doesn't mean it has no political message. Even the most simplistic narratives possible, like "Mario fights Bowser because Mario is good and Bowser is bad," communicate values and morals. If Mario is "the good guy," then that tells us the things Mario is and/or does are "good," and the opposite is true for Bowser. And this operates on more than just a literal level, too; the moral takeaway of Mario might be "saving princesses is good and kidnapping princesses is bad" (which is a message even though isn't not an interesting or meaningful one), but it might also be something a little more abstract, like "some people are good guys and some people are bad guys," which is a profoundly significant concept that you see at work all the time in real life (and never towards anything good). And you know what all that poo poo is? It's politics. Everything, all of it, it's loving politics. That's a fair point about politics, the both of you. I concede on that front as that was very poorly worded on my part. I'll instead say this: She injected her politics into the game and berated the game when it didn't meet her standards. It doesn't make her point of view any less valid but it also doesn't make word of the law. It also certainly doesn't mean she's saying the game is bad, which I don't think I was implying she was. We can all agree that we're tired of women being in the role of the princess, the role of the knight being a guy. But I will disagree until I am blue in the face that it's because it reinforces the status quo of real-world gender stereotypes that women are always helpless (and men are always heroic or whatever) but because the target audience are (in the case of Super Mario Brothers) boys. So in Super Mario Brothers the knight is Mario. It's less about reinforcing real-world gender stereotypes in a young mind's subconscious and more about the audience is changing and gaming isn't a "boys club" anymore so having equal representation in each role appeals to everyone playing games. I honest to goodness can see her point but I just don't agree with her wording of it. I think, like I am frankly, she is just tired of seeing that princess role to go women and them rarely getting cast in the heroic role. It's fatigue. With more and more women developers coming into the industry I don't think having the same genders fulfilling the same roles won't be an issue in the future. But that's why she lost me during that part and why I didn't care for her videos. It's not like I turned it off in disgust shouting "Whatever lady, nothing's wrong!" it's just that her political view got the better of her and undercut her point for me. There are issues and, like I said, I agree with her underlying message but I just couldn't agree with how she was saying it. Edit: Just want to add this is my last post on the discussion whatever may come after this post. It's nice and civil but it's not really relevant to the thread and at this point it's becoming walls of text which are probably annoying for anyone looking for gaming podcasts to skim past. Jimbot fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 04:32
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Jimbot posted:I ultimately think we'll just have to agree to disagree. Exploitation, stereotypes, manipulation. Those are extreme words and while I'll give you stereotype for the roles but a story is meant to make a person feel certain ways during certain moments. It plays to a person's empathy and they get engaged in the story being told. Of course I want to save that person, of course I want to vanquish that evil. You can cast anyone in the role of the princess be it woman, man, trans or beast (like saving your puppy) and likewise anyone can inherit the role of the knight or the dragon. But to comment on your point about blackface: you can cast only one person in the role of an African American man and that is an African American man. But this was during a time of racism where African Americans weren't hired or (most likely) allowed to act in a motion picture. I think a better example would be casting an African American in the same kind of role over and over again. You're misrepresenting Anita Sarkeesian's work because you don't necessarily agree with it. Her whole thing is quite simple to grasp if you've ever done any sort of in-depth criticism of a work of art or detailed history of something. 1. Present a thesis. In Anita's case, it's usually some form of "Women aren't portrayed as characters in charge of their own agency a lot in video games". 2. Provide examples and analogues. In Anita's case, it's usually a handful of gameplay footage from a dozen or so games, such as Princess Peach in Mario games or hookers in Hitman. 3. Explain the evidence as to how it supports your thesis. In Anita's case, it's how a specific trope in regards to women is not a good idea, is lazy, and reinforces negative views towards women. Anita isn't playing judge, jury, and executioner. She's providing an alternative viewpoint on things that she views as an issue. Call of Duty 15: Shoot Browns isn't going to be canceled or anything. You're missing the forest for the trees. You're doing the same poo poo that these nerds who whine about "SJWs". There's a reason why poo poo like the Bechdel Test is a thing or sites like Escher Girls exist. It's not a random coincidence that media reflects issues in the real world. Phone fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 05:17
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thefncrow posted:And she's not injecting politics into things that never had any politics. Super Mario Brothers is an artwork, it's filled with politics. What she's doing is pointing out the inherent political choices in the game. Games are filled to the brim with politics, it's just that most of their politics are so often mirroring the status quo, the societal norms of the time. Those societal norms are absolutely political, but since they're norms, wide swaths of the audience can talk themselves into believing "The game's not political, it's just <describes own personal politics and prevailing social norms>." I just want to stress that it's not politics, it's agenda. Literally everything and anything created by a human being has an agenda, it is what constitutes art. Which is why it's silly for people to hate someone because "she's pushing her agenda," when the very act of criticizing that is pushing your own. There's this really gross assumption among childish people that you are not allowed to voice your opinion if it opposes their own. "When you boycott a game for doing something you don't like you're hurting people with jobs!" So what you're arguing is that I have a moral obligation to buy into what I don't like? Well you don't like me and I live off my work so by your logic you must buy into me. I've thought at length about doing a Tropes vs. Women style video but in regards to people of color in video games where the plain representation is almost non-existent (woman have it hard so being a minority woman must be the most difficult thing on the loving planet) but I fear having an inbox that just looks like "niggerniggerniggerniggerniggerniggerniggernigger" every hour.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:31
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Jimbot posted:I ultimately think we'll just have to agree to disagree. Exploitation, stereotypes, manipulation. Those are extreme words and while I'll give you stereotype for the roles but a story is meant to make a person feel certain ways during certain moments. It plays to a person's empathy and they get engaged in the story being told. Of course I want to save that person, of course I want to vanquish that evil. You can cast anyone in the role of the princess be it woman, man, trans or beast (like saving your puppy) and likewise anyone can inherit the role of the knight or the dragon. But to comment on your point about blackface: you can cast only one person in the role of an African American man and that is an African American man. But this was during a time of racism where African Americans weren't hired or (most likely) allowed to act in a motion picture. I think a better example would be casting an African American in the same kind of role over and over again. Part of Anita's criticism is that it is primarily women who are used as plot devices because the writer assumes that the audience has a 'natural' reaction to a woman in distress; which is a problem because it normalizes the 'woman in distress' trope and tends to make writers (even if they don't realize it) assume that women are a better fit for being the damsel or someone to be avenged. Now personally I don't think that all games writers want for women to be in distress, and I imagine more writers get satisfaction out of playing with devices such as these (e.g. a game where a woman is the protagonist saving a man). However the ultimate decision of who gets to star in games in general is in the hands of the audience; all big name publishers decide that almost all games should star men because they assume that the audience wants to have simple stories without too many radical changes. The publishers assume this because audiences don't ask for games starring women, and I appreciate Anita for giving people the (admittedly rudimentary) tools to think critically about female representation after years of normalization of the tried-and-true 'woman in distress' and similar tropes. Ultimately I don't think that she's trying to give a 200-level university course to provide nuanced feminist theory in media; she's trying to reach to those on the 'middle of the fence' or wants to know more about such subjects but has minimal knowledge.
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Sep 10, 2014 05:35
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Sarkeesian isn't saying these games shouldn't exist. She isn't saying that people that make these games are consciously trying to promote a political agenda, or that people that play them consciously approve of a particular political agenda. She isn't "injecting" anything into video games. She is presenting an analysis based on a thesis and supported by the "texts" in question. If you disagree, that's cool, that's how this works - someone makes an argument, other people make counter-arguments. That's how we learn poo poo. The poo poo she's doing that infuriates so many gamers is loving run of the mill posting in Cinema Discusso, for Christ's sake.
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Sep 10, 2014 06:26
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She even says several times a video that it isn't about making certain games not exist or that you shouldn't like Mario anymore, its that you can look critically at something you still really enjoy. It's kind of funny how systematically everyone loving ignores this.
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Sep 10, 2014 08:33
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And at the end of the day, this is only one possible type of game criticism involving the subject matter. It's not an obligation to uniformly adopt the same exact perspective or methodology that is being used in those videos. Personally, I'd honestly prefer if this wasn't about discussing the tropes in a strict order and instead involved an analysis of the general treatment of women in each individual game, which can simultaneously contain both positive and negative elements that result in qualitative distinctions, but I already know that the project isn't going to be based on that approach. wielder fucked around with this message at 09:15 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 09:13
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wielder posted:And at the end of the day, this is only one possible type of game criticism involving the subject matter. It's not an obligation to uniformly adopt the same exact perspective or methodology that is being used in those videos. Personally, I'd honestly prefer if this wasn't about discussing the tropes in a strict order and instead involved an analysis of the general treatment of women in each individual game, which can simultaneously contain both positive and negative elements that result in qualitative distinctions, but I already know that the project isn't going to be based on that approach. It's better to address the method as a whole than individual examples. There's nothing to learn about why the majority of games end up one way if you analyze only a handful of examples. If I can point to Game A as a paragon of its kind or Game B as the absolute worst then what can I actually address about the medium as a whole?
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Sep 10, 2014 09:20
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al-azad posted:It's better to address the method as a whole than individual examples. There's nothing to learn about why the majority of games end up one way if you analyze only a handful of examples. That's a question of both methodological and philosophical preferences plus, one way or another, creative communication skills. You can start by examining a number of high-profile games in greater detail and highlight a set of patterns as they emerge, making comparisons. Then it would be possible to reach various conclusions and organize them by trope, genre or other kinds of categorization within the medium. Critical commentary would still be possible. In other words, if you can climb up the ladder, you should also be able to climb back down. wielder fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 09:31
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It kind of depends on the audience though. If you're going for the layman and/or those not already into critical analysis like this, game-by-game or series-by-series explorations would just be waved off each time as "oh but that's just one thing though". A more latitudinal thing, where it's not about any specific game or series by "games" more generally, is going to put more focus on the patterns than the games for a wider audience, and makes it harder to shrug them off as being "exceptions". e: For an example, in CD Supermechagodzilla did a series of "Bad Avengers Shot[s] of the Day" in the comic book movie thread (IIRC), presenting examples of lovely cinematography and visual storytelling in that film and explaining why they suck. Most people were cool with it - poo poo, it taught me a good amount about the basic stuff like framing and lighting - but hardcore Avengers fans went super defensive, like it was an attack on them or "you just hate The Avengers". sub supau fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Sep 10, 2014 |
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Sep 10, 2014 09:53
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The thing I like about the feminist frequency videos is they seem to have an actual effect, demonstrated by the designer of Saints Row 3 and 4 in an interview with Polygon I think, saying that they "got called on their poo poo" in 3 and made improvements (but not perfection) in 4 in terms of gender equality. I've played both, and while both have their problems, 4 is a remarkably subversive progressive and sex positive game, while still being a silly AAA shoot em bang bang.
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Sep 10, 2014 12:32
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It's pretty embarrassing that the SR series is one of the few games that actually has a full body figure slider. Out of all the MMOs and hardcore RPGs and games with "character customization" on the market and a game with a dildo bat lets you be as fat or skinny as you want regardless of gender.
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Sep 10, 2014 12:40
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Saints row 2 had a gender slider. Not a binary switch that looked like one, a straight up linear gender scale. It owns.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:30
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Honorable mention goes to Dark Souls for having a very similar thing with its character creator. Basically the only thing the male or female option controls is what sort of underwear you're running around in when you strip off all your armor.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:41
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EC posted:Honorable mention goes to Dark Souls for having a very similar thing with its character creator. Basically the only thing the male or female option controls is what sort of underwear you're running around in when you strip off all your armor. Giant body, tiny head. Always.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:43
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Captain Novolin posted:Saints row 2 had a gender slider. Not a binary switch that looked like one, a straight up linear gender scale. It owns. Saints Row 2 is, unfortunately, often overlooked by most of the gaming media. It's goes: Saints Row: GTA cone Saints Row 2: ?????????????? Saints Row 3: Great! Found its own thing with being wacky. Saints Row 4: Great! Founds its open world niche.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:44
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I remember THQs booth at PAX 2008 and it was a sad sack of poo poo. They were showing off the opening prison sequence and character customization but GTA4 had just come out and the place was a ghost town. Valve was showing off L4D with this massive zombie themed mound of computers and Fallout 3 practically had half with the show floor with their aluminum trailer. So SR2 is ?????? because no one was paying attention to it.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:51
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On a slightly different note. I really enjoyed the crate and crowbar discussion of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_Point:_Road_to_Hell . Did any one else play this it sounds incredibly ambitious but totally flawed with hilarious bugs some thing idle thumbs would enjoy.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:58
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I saw the Giant Bomb quicklook of it and the only thing I could think of was Deadly Premonition.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:02
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Jimbot posted:Saints Row 2 is, unfortunately, often overlooked by most of the gaming media. It's goes: Saint's Row 2: GTA 3: 3: 2
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Sep 10, 2014 16:02
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Jippa posted:On a slightly different note. I really enjoyed the crate and crowbar discussion of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_Point:_Road_to_Hell . No but I did play Precursors which is absolutely awful in a good way and basically someone's attempt at making a modern Battlecruiser 3000. I've never played such a confused game before.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:03
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al-azad posted:I remember THQs booth at PAX 2008 and it was a sad sack of poo poo. They were showing off the opening prison sequence and character customization but GTA4 had just come out and the place was a ghost town. Valve was showing off L4D with this massive zombie themed mound of computers and Fallout 3 practically had half with the show floor with their aluminum trailer. Yeah, it had an unfortunate release date but I'd argue it's probably the best Saints Row game. Mechanically the sequels are superior but everything else is a step down. Well, radio station tastes not withstanding.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:05
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Jimbot posted:Yeah, it had an unfortunate release date but I'd argue it's probably the best Saints Row game. Mechanically the sequels are superior but everything else is a step down. Well, radio station tastes not withstanding. I agree, SR2 had everything plus the kitchen sink. I was pretty upset The Third removed the theater because the story missions were actually fun.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:14
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If SR2 didn't have a garbage PC port, it'd probably have better reception or at least a cult following after its passing.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:17
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To bring this back to podcasts for a moment, I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my least favourite misogyny on the Internet. Jennifer Hale is a total boss.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:32
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al-azad posted:No but I did play Precursors which is absolutely awful in a good way and basically someone's attempt at making a modern Battlecruiser 3000. I've never played such a confused game before. Precursors is pretty bad, but it has a bit of heart to it and I can't help but kind of like it.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:41
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TetsuoTW posted:Jesus Christ, this will never end, will it? In fairness, I think most of them are young enough that they hadn't yet learned to read when those publications were extant. You know, a year or two ago.
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Sep 10, 2014 16:45
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Pasco posted:To bring this back to podcasts for a moment, I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my least favourite misogyny on the Internet. I wonder if hearing someone like her say this stuff could actually help, though. Like, there's got to be a few of them that feel some kind of connection with her voice and go "oh poo poo, am I one of those guys?"
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Sep 10, 2014 17:56
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If you're a fan of Dan being a crazy person re food listen to the Giant Bombcast this week.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:02
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Al! posted:If you're a fan of Dan being a crazy person re food listen to the Giant Bombcast this week. I've only got up to him recording and saving his own sleep farts but yeah, it's more Dan-is-a-nightmare-cast this week.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:11
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EC posted:I've only got up to him recording and saving his own sleep farts but yeah, it's more Dan-is-a-nightmare-cast this week. It involves a bathtub (one that you bath and clean yourself in) and the cooking of food in it.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:15
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Everything you cook sous vide is sealed in a waterproof bag before being immersed in water. You could use a bucket of ebola water and as long as you do a careful job unsealing you'll be fine.
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Sep 10, 2014 19:26
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