Yeah Zelda being the focal point has nothing to do with her powers or status and only because shes a helpless woman in need of help from a strong male.

You should really watch the last youtube video that Sputnik posted. The woman in that makes some very good points wrt Zelda and perceived sexism.

Males have an extraordinarily easy time finding employment in some female-dominated professions, like nursing.

No one is saying they want game devs to be 50/50 men and women (which makes your silly argument a strawman), just that something better than 98/2 might be nice.

We're starting, I feel, to go in circles at this point, but have you seen Chasing Amy? The outdated notions one of the main characters has is absolutely a huge part of the film.

And your flimsy excuse for the AC henchmen? "Oh, well that shows you where that attitude will get you." Yeah, unless you're one of the good guys in the game that uses the term, or, y'know, Batman himself, who takes weird pleasure from manhandling Harley.

So on the one hand, we have Chasing Amy, a film basically entirely about the perceptions of the lgbt community, and Batman AC, a game, if I'm understanding the ludicrous pretext you're presenting, that is meant to teach us... what happens if you're a prick towards women. Unless you're a good guy. Or Batman himself.

Really?

That sauce is quite weak.

You're getting to the point of being as worthy of giving actual responses to as sputnik on this topic, what with the hand-wave dismissals and hurling insults about. I hope we can at least keep an open dialogue open on this topic, if that's something you actually want.

Females have an extraordinary easy time finding a job in a male dominated field aswell.

So if you have 100 grads to a certain field and 98 are men and 2 women is that unfair to women or does that maybe say that women arent really interested in that field. If it where the opposite would you feel there is a huge need to adress that issue?

Low Key your reading comprehension itt has been abysmal. I did not compare Arkham City to Chasing Amy, please read that again.

Now that I have my proxy up and am going through the thread again some of the complaints start to make sense though. (Hulk's caps lock thing is incredibly annoying btw). I don't think anyone mentioned that a good guy referred to one of the girls as as a bitch, that is obviously far worse than having a ton of bad guys use the word.

That video on the game designers is something else... really hard to believe.

Sexism isn't always "hey your a woman get out of here!" It can simply occur because women do not have good role models in certain industries. Which, again, is the whole point of promoting feminism in video games, so that women see it as an industry that is welcoming to the views of women.

There really aren't enough lols on the Internet for this thread

Wow. That was quite a load of rubbish. And I'm only 4 minutes in aorn.

...


Ok, made it to the 5 minute mark, but this is getting so completely ludicrous that I can't go any further. This video is, to borrow a Joey Joe Joe Biden phrase, malarkey.

I have a list of things to discuss how insane this video is, but to start with, let's just have a gander at this:



The stockholm syndrome is strong with this one.

So... Peach is brave for having no ability to take care of herself? I thought at this point that surely this must be some colossal stoner moment where the author of this video lost any semblance of rationality and had one of those



types of moments.

But no, the author continues to make as little sense as is humanly possible.

Now, given that the Chrono Trigger music was playing at the start of this film, I have to assume that part of her "the hypothesis was wrong" argument includes CT. (I think I've already said before itt that rpgs tend to have better representation of women) Certainly CT has some great female characters, Ayla and Lucca are both great in their own right. Marle is pretty sweet too. But if the argument she presents at some point (again, I couldn't wade thru that river of crap any further) is that Marle's kidnapping is somehow negated by being a strong character later, well that's just kinda silly. Because it does fit every point of the hypothesis (in that portion of the game):



Yeah, that is pretty much entirely fulfilled by the Chrono/Marle kidnap thing. At that point of the game, it's Chrono's game. (Lucca joins at some point, of course, but that has no bearing on Marle's arc)

(Note: perhaps the author never makes this point about CT, like I said, I couldn't get any further.) In the largest case of irony, one of the first screens has this little gem:



which pretty much sums up the reason sputnik went looking for this film. Must have evidence to support his preexisting beliefs that nothing is wrong in the videogame world!

Now, the author of this video is quite a hypocrite. She has no problem reading further into arguments others present for the purpose of arguing against her own interpretation (strawman), but wants no interpretations made on her own arguments. Awesome! She sounds like a freaking truther in most of this video, not ever presenting an opinion, but asking vague questions to make it look like someone else said something that they didn't? Is that not the worst style of so-called arguing?

Anyway, to some of the abhorrent arguments she presents.

Rescuers (mario/link) have no worth? Ok. They tend to get huge celebrations in their honor after saving the damsel in distress, so she just laughably wrong. Perhaps she's never finished a video game in her life?

The victims have worth because they're the figureheads of a political blah blah blah? ****in' seriously? Could she be more obtuse? I guess maybe her first intro to Peach/Zelda was in the N64 era, because then she'd sorta have a point, but not really. The damsel trope was used in the NES era because it was so damn simple to convey. There was no "kingdom" of the mushroom kingdom, nor any peasants to love Zelda. All that came about later, much later, and yet the trope remained unchanged.

She makes a claim that Mario is just trying to restore order or whatever. Well, not really. He's always going after a kiss, some sort of romantic reward. But the author doesn't want to interpret it that way, so she doesn't. Which is handy for the preconceived conclusion she wants to get to. Which is what she claims others are doing. lol

She claims that, essentially, there's nothing wrong with your whole purpose in life being existing to be kidnapped and waiting to be rescued. I'm sure chipchip would agree that that's cool, but I can't imagine anyone else with a critical mind would.

She makes the claim that we, as critically thinking humans, are the problem. Dafuq?

This video was not some amazing, inspiring piece of work. It's pretty much drivel and strawmen, with a hint of stockholm syndrome thrown in for good measure. Nothing more.

So yeah, it's horribly ludicrous, and I'm not shocked someone like sputnik would see it and think respond that, "Yeah, this sure makes sense!"

Well, either you're the worst, least effective writer in the world, or you have a short enough memory to not remember what you wrote earlier itt.

omg seriously.

As far as role models: Sputnik's youtube video on the damsel in distress lists off quite a few.



Hulk's first article on Arkham City is good and explains a bit of sexism in it. Mostly that a good guy uses the word bitch. (which good guy and what context?) and that Batman apparently enjoys manhandling Harley, but his second article is pretty much just nonsense imo. I guess thats bound to happen when most the counterarguments were nonsense to begin with, but his only points I can agree with are 10, 14 and 17... and he even makes it sound like the Harley pushing scene isn't that bad as he originally made out.

If women aren't interested in that field, it's a good reason to ask why.

We are, I think, all adults here. If we notice curious trends, we would do well to examine them and question why those things are that way. That's like the absolute most basic intro to how to conduct research there is.

Well yes, it is absolutely worth examining. Again taking the nursing example, it speaks poorly of our society that anyone would down upon a male who wanted to be a nurse. "Oh, he must be gay/effeminate/whatever," yeah, that attitude is a problem.

Of course, given the centuries of negative attitudes toward women, you can forgive me, I hope, if I choose to focus more on the traditionally, and still to this day, repressed gender.

Can you really be that obtuse?

There is not a single comparison between Arkham City and Chasing Amy made there.

I just wanted to contribute this article

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...510459902.html

with this awesome quote:

bonus facepalms to flywf, who can't help but continually reduce a female character to nothing but being a helpless babymaker despite her femininity having nothing to do with why she's captured!

you are literally comparing traits of the character who is an idiot wrong about everything with characters who are sexist and in jail.

Or is it just a complete coincidence that you go from taking about one set of traits in one instance and then COMPLETELY RANDOMLY AND WITH NO COMPARISONS INTENDED AT ALL talk about a different set of traits in another instance.

So which is it? Are you just the worst, least effective, most incoherent writer in the world? Or were you making a comparison and now you're trolling by calling other people obtuse when you are being obtuse?

"oh my goooooooooooooooooooood why does the woman always have to be the one getting rescued!"

i'm assuming you get my point about using ridiculous examples instead of one of the multitude of examples that is more relevant, right?

lol that is hilarious.










Do you see why these aren't the same? Comparing one line in a movie to one word from a game is not the same as comparing Arkham City to Chasing Amy.

You are suggesting that I am making a direct comparison between Chasing Amy and Arkham City... which is just dumb. I did not do that. If anything I compared a line from Chasing Amy to a word used in Arkham City, but I actually didn't even do that. I said that his argument that an offensive word was used in Arkham City reminded me of a documentary I saw about Kevin Smith. In that documentary Kevin Smith is attacked because a character in his story says a very offensive thing. Kevin Smith then reminds the attacker that context is pretty important. There is no direct comparison between Chasing Amy and Arkham City there like you're trying to suggest... once again at most it's a comparison between a word used and a line said, but really I was just stating Kevin Smith's defense when confronted with a similar complaint.

As a side note: In Ian's original post he just said that it was the convicts saying these things, I hadn't been able to read Hulk's post as it is blocked in China and wasn't aware that a good guy says that offensive word which imo is 1000x worse.

Judging from these last few posts and your "review" of that video I think you're just raging atm. A lot of people use that term to incite rage from other people, but I am not doing that, and honestly think that you are just raging atm.

No, I don't get your point. All I saw was a random really dark picture. I don't know every character from every game, as I admitted earlier when I said I hadn't played basically any of the 2009 games.

If you have an argument to make, please make it. But don't expect that others are willing to do your own work for you.

Seriously?

Yes, I quite agree. There's no comparison. On the one hand, you have an intelligently crafted commentary on society, on the other, Hey, let's be "edgy" and have 30% of the words in our game be "b****".

Isn't that the point captain capslock was making, that there is no defense for doing so in the game because it literally serves no purpose? It's just background noise/scenery.

It is a little rage inducing when someone adamantly proclaims that there are no comparisons, and then starts comparing things, and then complains when someone points out the comparisons.

The youtube video is just sadly laughable, tbh. It makes me smh that so many people watch it (those, like sput, who set out to find material that supports their preconceived notions) and nod like she's making some actual points, when nearly everything she says in the video is either ludicrous on its face or a strawman argument.

oh okay. it's femshep being pulled up into the normandy at the end of mass effect 2. she has to rely on her male pilot for cover fire after she made a long jump and could only get her arms in the ship and is dangling over a large chasm. if you have saved any of your squadmates, one of them (usually a male) pulls her up and then they close the door and zoom off.

i'm using the example because it's patently absurd to reduce her in that moment to nothing more than a helpless baby-maker in need of help from men so that she doesn't perish by falling into the chasm below (which actually does happen if all of your squadmates die). to do so would be to completely ignore all other aspects of her character, both positive and negative, in their entirety and strip her of her humanity. if there is something more blatantly sexist than that, i'm not really sure what it is. to do so to other characters is to do the same. if a big-time female diplomat were captured tomorrow, would we all of a sudden have to say "nope. not gonna rescue her. can't reenforce that damn damsel in distress stereotype." of course not. that would be absurd.

From the video: "But what if we view the character's importance as something more than just a physical attribute? What if we see strength as not a physical capability, but rather the determination not to give up hope in times of distress?"

Stockholm syndrome: a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors or abusers, sometimes to the point of defending them, and sometimes the feeling of love for the captor shows.





Also from the video, in fact from the very same screen shot as the one you posted: "And if implying that being a victim overshadows all other positive traits of a character, what message is that truly sending? That times of turmoil will negate all positive traits you have? That you ought to be recognized as a victim above all else, despite the importance you hold in the eyes of everyone around you?"



From the video: "Halfway through Chrono Trigger, Chrono, the male protagonist, perishes and must be rescued by his party including teammates Ayla, Marle, and Lucca." She then goes on to list some more games where a female character has to save a male.

From the video: "I do not want to invalidate anything that Anita has presented. She is a well-spoken individual that is speaking on behalf of the double-x chromosome family that I belong to and I do not want my opinions to be misconstrued as attacking her views in any way. She has as much a right to hold her views and speak on behalf of what she believes as much as I have a right to represent the other side of the discussion. Whether or not Anita tends to adequately supplement her critical examples of characters with just as many positive examples, the overall intention should be to move forward rather than backward. Leave viewers feeling hopeful, rather than upset and dejected.

Don't let the shortcomings drive the bulk of of the project.

If two women, within the same age range, who both grew up playing the same games as kids can have two completely opposite views of these games today, it really makes you wonder how much of this study is solely based on personal interpretation."

She never claims this


Her point was that when these people are in power the land is peaceful. When they are kidnapped it's hell for everyone. No grovelling peasants needed.

Mario usually gets a kiss then blushes, but that's not at all the same as you are suggesting

She never claims this.

She never claims this



You should watch it then critique it. Also read the description of stockholm syndrome I posted again first.

Lets look at the top 20 selling games of 2012 and see how many great female protagonists we can find:

1. Call Of Duty: Black Ops II – Activision Blizzard
Full of dude Bros

2. FIFA 13 – Electronic Arts
Male sports game

3. Assassin’s Creed III – Ubisoft
Male protagonist. Kudos for having a Native American though.

4. Halo 4 – Microsoft
Master Chief. Power armoured dude bro

5. Hitman Absolution – Square Enix
Criminal dude bro

6. Just Dance 4 – Ubisoft
Family game, no protagonists

7. Far Cry 3 – Ubisoft
Jason Brody, doesn't get more dude bro than that

8. FIFA 12 – Electronic Arts
More male sports games

9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Bethesda Softworks
Player chosen character. Not sexist but doesn't promote a female protagonist.

10. Borderlands 2 – 2K Games
2/6 female characters. Same as elderscrolls, player sex choice does not necessarily promote female protagonist.

11. Mass Effect 3 – Electronic Arts
Same as elderscrolls and borderlands. Kudos for gay relationships though. Bioware has always been on the cutting edge of inclusiveness in video games.

12. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – WB Games
Family game, androgynous Lego characters. At least there are no Lego boobs.

13. Need For Speed: Most Wanted – Electronic Arts
Cars.

14. FIFA Street – Electronic Arts
Pretty sure this is all men. Haven't played it and couldn't find any women on google pics.

15. Mario & Sonic At The London 2012 Olympic Games – Sega
Family game. Two male leads, probably female characters. Princesses though...

16. Skylanders Giants – Activision Blizzard
Family game. Monsters and crap.

17. Battlefield 3 – Electronic Arts
Dude bros

18. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Activision Blizzard
Dude bros

19. Max Payne 3 – Rockstar Games
Male protagonist.

20. Sleeping Dogs – Square Enix
Male protagonist.

So the of the top 20 best selling games of 2012 not a single developer took a risk and put a female protagonist in their game. The closest we get are the rpg games that allow the players to choose female characters but they can still avoid playing a female protagonist.

It's not like if there are no sexist expletives and nudity there is no sexism in video games. It's obvious that developers face a market that is not interested in having fair representation of the sexes in their video games. Guys don't want to play as females, but if girls want to enjoy the video game medium they have to accept playing as males. This is sexism plain and simple. Will this ever be fixed? It might take a while but that's no excuse for adult male gamers to be apologists for this kind of inequality. It's ok to admit the industry might have a problem and work towards making the industry more inclusive.

holy incredibly dismissive argument that is full of stupidity batman. did you seriously just write that post?