if she were instead a prince in a similar scenario, would you consider his capture an absurd representation of his gender?

There were kidnaps in the first halo? I just remember running around shooting at aliens or something. Then again, that was nearly 12 years ago os

I'd probably be impressed that they decided to mix up the usual plot in any sense. (Gameboy Zelda still had you out to rescue some girl iirc, but it wasn't actually Zelda, some island woman)

Yes!

Spot on!

Same thing with the Jews and colored people.

Thank you Chipchip. At least you and Sputnik get it.

A+

Read part 2. It's the first thing he addresses. (and the second)

http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/20...es-be-trippin/

yeah you have to rescue keyes twice. the first time was right after the crash on the ring when the covenant captured him from his downed vessel, and the second one was after he was captured by the flood when he first releases them from containment. of course, you don't end up actually rescuing him that time because he's now a giant flood-beast thing.


that was only an in-between quest though, between the 1st and 2nd dungeons. she was also not a 1-dimensional "please save me" character and, in terms of an 8 bit handheld game, had a lot of depth to her. she wouldn't hold a candle to a current PC rpg character or anything, but you learned about her talents and her desires to leave the island and her song is a critical part of beating the game.

yeah i just noticed that and am currently reading!

okay so after reading the more relevant sections and skipping over some of the sections devoted to other arguments that i don't particularly agree with (reader arguments, not hulk arguments), i have two main points.

1) the comparison of ledger's joker (or all of nolan's villians for that matter) and the way he is dark and scary to the inmates in the game and how they are dark and scary is not legitimate. you cannot adequately compare methods used by a character who is portrayed as an incredibly smart and devious person to supposedly dimwitted thugs. it'd be like comparing phil ivey's hand analysis to your uncle frank who lost your inheritance last week at that 2/5 game down in tampa. one is going to be incredibly nuanced and cerebral and meticulous, the other is going to be crass and filled with a bunch of "mother****ers" and "THIS GAME IS ****ING RIGGED." it just doesn't work.

2) i get the feeling that hulk is giving too much credit to street thugs who would work for the bad guys in the "niceness" department. think ellis redding vs. the sisters. all in prison, all completely different. i wouldn't think twice about the legitimacy of the sisters sitting around calling women who had done something "to" them as inconsequential as turning down a date bitches and whores and saying how much they wanted to rape them, but if red were portrayed as doing that, i'd be shocked. that being said, plop them down in gotham and i would expect the sisters to be more than willing to get guns and start shooting, and i would expect red to hide in a corner and hope to get overlooked. maybe hulk just needs to sit down and have a chat with some douchebags on death row near where he lives?

of course, as i said earlier, i haven't played the game, so maybe it's just really that much worse than i'm imagining it is from what i've read so far, but it's really hard for me to hear someone say that dumb**** hardened criminals who are still just as evil as ever calling women bitches is so out of the ordinary that it makes the game or the developers sexist. or perhaps the argument could better be expressed as "the sexism portrayed could be believable if it weren't so damn lazy because all they do is say 'bitch' 900 times a minute"?

i did quite enjoy reading the articles though, as he's quite fun to read and it's damn good entertainment.

Yes! Can you quote me anywhere please where i hold the same opinions as Chipchip except for Modern Feminism being crap.

Low key and others that have swallowed what Sarkeesian have said please watch this and and share your thoughts about it.



Others can watch it aswell since its probably the best video answer for the damsel in distress "problem" some have.

does swallowed mean misunderstood? She does not claim that Zelda is sexist but that weak women in need of rescuing(like Zelda) are overrepresented in games. A game about saving a hot chick is not a problem, but if all women in games are just walking boobs in need of rescuing that's a problem.

next they will say porn is male centric

And then they will say that the moon is square and disable comments because they will receive hate comments and absolutely not becuase they dont wanna discuss the possibility that they may be incorrect.

I am not saying the general gamer hates women, just that they are not considerate towards women. It's not necessarily malicious but more an educational issue, hence why there is a recent movement to educate male gamers about modern feminism.

Women are more rare in the field? That's kind of the whole point.

Sex sells yes, but as above its a case of male gamers being inconsiderate of how their fellow female gamers/coworkers might feel about the issue.

To address the whole "what about when men need saving"/"what about hyper sexualized men in games" counter argument, these arguments ignore the wider socio-cultural environment that women find themselves. What guy is ever going to look at a hyper masculine character and feel less masculine because he doesn't fit that mould? Very few, for two reasons. First, there is little pressure on men in society and media to be that ridiculously fit man, whereas women are constantly barraged with this sort of imagery. Sexualized imagery is disconcerting to more women than men. Second, men already have a ton of great role models in video games to turn to. The wider problem with sexist gender roles is that they present women with a single role model for success, and that's the role of the sex symbol which furthers the pressure on women to conform to the sexualized imagery they are presented with.

And it's important to remember that this is just a general issue and one can always find anecdotal evidence to support a narrow view of the issue. Yes there are some men that are pressured by over sexualized imagery (a legitimate issue for men's rights activists, one rarely sought by MRAs though), some women are not bothered by sexualized imagery, and some women are successful regardless of there lack of role models. The fact is, is that these are broader issues within society that are well established in the study of gender issues. It is this problem in the wider culture that affects women and their views as they come into gamer culture and further perpetuates these issues as young male gamers grow up with the terrible gender roles portrayed in video games.

The whole point is that if you want your hobbies to be more inclusive you have to be considerate of the feelings of others. Would the male gamer really lose that much enjoyment if the word bitch was completely removed from Arkam city? If sexualized imagery and bad female gender roles were toned down? No, it would have almost no effect because male gamers can get a hit of sexy boob time anytime they want from more appropriate channels. Being considerate is not a law but if you want more female gamers in games and a wider acceptance of video games in general then the video game industry has to mature and become more inclusive. You lose so little and gain so much, it's hard to understand why people are so defensive when this issue comes up. The feminists are not trying to steal your ice cream.

Video Game Characters and the Socialization of Gender Roles: Young People’s Perceptions Mirror Sexist Media Depictions

+1 Absolutely fantastic post, ian

Effects of exposure to sex-stereotyped video game characters on tolerance
of sexual harassment

this is embarrassing

Okay so I've read most of that research article and a few things stand out.

The problem I have here is that they are just linking it to video games by using sexualised images from games. However the underlying relationship is much more likely to be exposure to sex-typed images and tolerance of sexual harassment. If the test was repeated again with an additional group who were exposed to sex-typed images that were not from video games I think you would get similar results.

So the only variable that was significant with Rape-Supportive Attitudes was gender. And then they do something to manipulate their findings by measuring violent video game exposure (VVGE) to tolerance of sexual harassment and Rape-Supportive attitudes. They note that males had much higher VVGE and then say that VVGE has a significant relationship with tolerance of sexual harassment and Rape-Supportive attitudes. So male = more rapey and Male = higher VGGE, so no **** that a higher VGGE = more rapey. The further analysis that they tried showed no significance as quoted below.

So the only two findings are that short term exposure to sexualized imagery increases tolerance to sexual harassment and that men have a higher level of rape supportive attitudes. No conclusions about the effects of video games on these things can be made from that study.

I haven't gone through the first article yet. But on first glance it does seem much more relevant and was cited by the other one numerous times so chances are good that it is of higher quality.

lol

Gaming on consoles and on pc is heavily male dominated and by being so its also very compettitive. That means that to be accepted you need to show results and sure sometimes thats harsh but its harsh to anyone and not just women. Show results and you will be taken in with open arms no matter the gender.

If women feel so bad about the sexualization of women in games and other male dominated venues how come they are so ok with the extreme sexualization of women in girls/ladys magazines, soap operas, reality shows? Or is the problem for some that in the male venues there are men there looking at these beautiful women(probably thinking about raping them afterwards)?

Men and women make different choices when it comes to professions but you want to magically make that disappear and have a 50/50 split in all areas?

Do you think males that work in heavily Female occupations have an easier or harder time than females working male heavy occupations do?

Haven't played the game as I mentioned so take this for what it is.

Ivy and Catwoman are femme fatale characters whose identity largely relies on their ability to use sex as a weapon. Taking away their largely sexual identity would take away from the character as well. Goofyballer says that the reason we need to deal with sexist notions in games is to make them more of an art form, however in this case taking away from their sexuality would take away from the story imo. Even if they don't try to use their sexiness vs Batman in this game it is still a large part of their identity because we can connect so many other actions to these characters.

The convicts saying sexist things reminds me of a part in "An Evening with Kevin Smith" when a girl challenges his movie "Chasing Amy"

The girl says that she disagrees with the character who says something along the lines of "Lesbians are just girls waiting to get a deep dicking." Smith reminds her who says this line: a complete idiot who is wrong about everything.

Having convicts say sexist things shows where being sexist gets you, which type of people are incredibly sexist, and also adds to their character also adding to the world immersion.

"Sexism in video games isn't a problem, provide examples. Eh all the sexism there doesn't bother me."

There's this weird undercurrent here that unless the game is like maliciously designed to demean women it doesn't count. Like "it's Japanese" and "it's based on super-sexist source material" are not things that make stuff less sexist, morons. And also no **** it doesn't bother you, you're the goddamn target market.


P.S. BONUS FACEPALMS TO airwave's nonsense about how accomplished Princess Zelda is.

1) I don't think she's getting kidnapped over substantive policy issues, like Ganon opposes her proposed budget. She's getting kidnapped because she's the Princess.

2) I don't know if you don't know what the word "accomplish" means or if you don't know how the title of "Princess" is acquired, but it's definitely at least one of those. LOL that's the whole ****ing deal, that female characters are defined by their relation to male characters.

Have you ever made an intelligent post?

You realize that the "you must be a moron because you don't think like me" argument doesn't work so much when you are in fact a ****ing moron?

If you're suggesting (it's hard to tell because you post is all over the place) that femme fatales are sexist source material, then that is another debate in itself and one I'd argue against.

Arkham City is definitely not targeted towards me.

The examples so far have been: Lara Croft, and for the reasons I posted already I think she is a positive example not a negative one...

Japanese fanservice which is definitely sexist and I'd never heard of a game like that before I don't think it's mainstream in most countries. Definitely sexist though.

And then arguing about Arkham City which I just responded to and you tried to refute by saying I'm a moron and not coming up with any actual counterargument... which sums up about 95% of your posts.