Feminism/Sexism and Gaming/Geek/Popular culture Catch All

gore wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Can we in fact attribute these ideas to McFarlane as HIS jokes and not some insensitive writer instead?

If the words come out of your mouth, you own them. I'd say it reflects on him even worse if he was simply too lazy to reject bad material.

When a scene in a movie is offensive, don't we usually blame the writer/director more than the actor?

SixteenBlue wrote:

When a scene in a movie is offensive, don't we usually blame the writer/director more than the actor?

They are all culpable to some degree.

Demyx wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

When a scene in a movie is offensive, don't we usually blame the writer/director more than the actor?

They are all culpable to some degree.

I guess we do pan actors for appearing in those awfully written movies too, the best you can hope for is "this person's talent wasn't enough to fix the script".

I'm not saying he's blameless, but it does seem like our discussion was focusing solely on McFarlane.

Demosthenes wrote:

I guess we do pan actors for appearing in those awfully written movies too, the best you can hope for is "this person's talent wasn't enough to fix the script".

It's less of a talent thing, and more of a "you agreed to work in this movie that contains this offensive content" thing.

Demyx wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

I guess we do pan actors for appearing in those awfully written movies too, the best you can hope for is "this person's talent wasn't enough to fix the script".

It's less of a talent thing, and more of a "you agreed to work in this movie that contains this offensive content" thing.

Sometimes things change after you've signed your contract, but I get your point. And I don't disagree, I've just never seen the person speaking the words held solely accountable like that before.

SixteenBlue wrote:

Sometimes things change after you've signed your contract, but I get your point. And I don't disagree, I've just never seen the person speaking the words held solely accountable like that before.

Well sure, if there was no reason to think the job might involve an offensive joke or scene before signing the contract, and that changed afterwards, then the actor has less responsibility for the situation, maybe none. I would be surprised if this situation with McFarlane was anything like that though.

Demyx wrote:
SixteenBlue wrote:

Sometimes things change after you've signed your contract, but I get your point. And I don't disagree, I've just never seen the person speaking the words held solely accountable like that before.

Well sure, if there was no reason to think the job might involve an offensive joke or scene before signing the contract, and that changed afterwards, then the actor has less responsibility for the situation, maybe none. I would be surprised if this situation with McFarlane was anything like that though.

Absolutely, I'm essentially derailing at this point.

I would conclude this with, regardless of if it was funny or not, the Academy clearly got what it wanted (bump in overall view, 20-ish percent increase in viewers under the age of 35) by their choices of host and writers; and Seth McFarlane and the writers can probably take credit for that as basically doing a bunch of jokes that were not really all that different from an episode of Family Guy based upon what I've seen of it.

SixteenBlue wrote:
gore wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Can we in fact attribute these ideas to McFarlane as HIS jokes and not some insensitive writer instead?

If the words come out of your mouth, you own them. I'd say it reflects on him even worse if he was simply too lazy to reject bad material.

When a scene in a movie is offensive, don't we usually blame the writer/director more than the actor?

Actors assume the role of other characters, and seldom write their own material. Although actors should certainly take some responsibility for accepting bad roles, nobody would assume that what an actor says in a film is in any way indicative of the actor's own beliefs.

This is very different from comedians, who play themselves. Although the stage persona of a comedian can be crafted in part by his writing team, he takes ownership of that material by opting to use it or not.

Furthermore, as far as determining, for lack of a better word "culpability," I recognize a McFarlane joke attempt when its self-proclaimed edginess face plants at my feet and farts.

To switch gears for a second, Feminist Frequency has the first video in her series up: Damsels in Distress.

And in news of the "Why am I not surprised", the trolls that had the bullsh*t Tropes vs. Men counter-kickstarter, well they took the money and ran.

Ninja edits.

Heck yeah! I've been waiting on these, glad to see the first one finally arrive. Will watch when I get home from work in half and hour or so.

I haven't watched the new Tropes vs. Women video yet, but on another Geeky Feminism-related note, I have been surprisingly pleased with Android: Netrunner.

Tabletop games are often about as bad as video games when it comes to either not including women or only including ridiculously proportioned/dressed women (looking at you, Small World). While Netrunner does include women in sexy poses, it also includes cool female hackers that you can be: Example.

I was reminded of this because the latest expansion announced not only has another female hacker, it also reveals that the head of one of the evil corporations is a tough-looking lady (and the abilities on her cards are awesome too). I love this sort of character.

Cyberpunk settings seem to usually include women just to give the geeky hacker a romance, so kudos for creating female characters that women might actually want to be.

Demyx wrote:

I haven't watched the new Tropes vs. Women video yet, but on another Geeky Feminism-related note, I have been surprisingly pleased with Android: Netrunner.

Tabletop games are often about as bad as video games when it comes to either not including women or only including ridiculously proportioned/dressed women (looking at you, Small World). While Netrunner does include women in sexy poses, it also includes cool female hackers that you can be: Example.

I still have 'Nam-like flashbacks about the lines and fighting over this game at GenCon last year.

On a mildly related note, this reminds me of something I always think about asking but forget when I'm actually on the site: Do you think the Pathfinder example character art falls into an acceptable range of "heroic, fantastic, but not overly Vlajeo-fied" fantasy art? I usually point to it when people say "well what do you think is an ok balance between 'practical' and 'fantasy' looking armor/characters?"

edit: General question, not necessarily to you specifically.

Like the previous video about Legos, I wanted to mull over this as I watched it. Thankfully, all I'm doing this morning is opening the office and printing materials for classes this weekend, so I had time.

- Yes, that sax music is horrible. The example of Starfox Adventures (which I had no idea was a reskinned game like SM2) is a pretty damning and perfect example of the problem. This game could have still been redone as something in the Star Fox line by including other SF characters and retaining Crystal as the protagonist. Making a game more marketable through branding is one thing. The lengths they went to in gutting and redo'ing this game shows a complete dismissal of the idea that a female protagonist could sell, at best. At worst, it was an active attempt to get the girl back "where she belongs".

- Super Mario 2 gets brought up (I AM A PROPHET) and I'm of two minds on this one. One, it's demeaning to see the only prominent female character used as a prop over and over again. But secondly, there's something to be said for... I dunno. Thematic consistency? I don't think that's the right word for it. I think there's no problem with A damsel in distress, but the problem is certainly in regards to the recurrence of it. Some stories/tropes are there simply for their simplicity and consistency - Turtle man kidnaps pink dress woman, overalls guy saves her. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's not an attempt at nuanced social commentary, and way too many games try to be more complex than they should. It's certainly part of the problem, and since it's seen as an ancestor of modern games, it certain has the power to change things through influence. I feel like we should yell at everyone who took their cue to repeat the formula over and over and not really point at Mario itself. Maybe that's what she's getting around to.

- The object/protagonist explanation is a very clean way to explain this. Acting and acted upon is a quick phrase to point out the inconsistency in presentation, where most people try (and fail) to talk about power plays and power fantasies, etc. "The Damsel Ball". It's funny in how sadly accurate it is.

- Should I feel cool that I recognized all the games in the damsel trope montage?

- The "helpful damsel" section is an interesting explanation of how more active damsels in distress are still just damsels in distress. I think this is important for people to understand, because I've seen way too many folks point to Zelda specifically as an example of "strong female character". Which is kind of a bad joke. But I also don't enjoy a million minor sub-tropes. This is not tvtropes.com, stahp that.

- Oh god she pronounced Karateka wrong get the torches.

- It's an interesting point that the old "unenlightened" games are being dredged up and pretty much ported to better graphics on modern platforms. People tend to say that we've "evolved" since the times games like SM1 and Prince of Persia came out, but if we're just releasing them in a new wave of subtle sexism, the damage they do is still exactly the same.

- To be fair, everything about Dragon's Lair was pretty dumb. But yeah I forgot just how bad the princess was. Wow.

- "... introduced gamers to this regressive crap yet again." Yup.

Man, video games are terrible.

It's too bad the sorts that would benefit the most from that won't be receptive.

The Starfox Adventures reveal was neat--I remember the uproar over how much it sucked.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It's too bad the sorts that would benefit the most from that won't be receptive.

The eternal struggle.

Considering there is a limited number of stories to tell and about 4 different "quests" you can send a character on, I am not sure if just flipping the script on the damsel in distress (watch Castle on ABC) is some sort of progressive leap in story telling. Whether Robin Hood rescues Marian, or Marian sword fights her way to him does not seem to be reinventing the wheel.

It is cool that in Portal you play a female character. But the game at its essence is still Mario running away from the lava. Portal's awareness was refreshing though. "Here is some dumb ass box with a heart on it." That more or less sums up escort missions in a nut shell. At least the companion cube was bulletproof.

KingGorilla wrote:

Considering there is a limited number of stories to tell and about 4 different "quests" you can send a character on, I am not sure if just flipping the script on the damsel in distress (watch Castle on ABC) is some sort of progressive leap in story telling. Whether Robin Hood rescues Marian, or Marian sword fights her way to him does not seem to be reinventing the wheel.

It is cool that in Portal you play a female character. But the game at its essence is still Mario running away from the lava. Portal's awareness was refreshing though. "Here is some dumb ass box with a heart on it." That more or less sums up escort missions in a nut shell. At least the companion cube was bulletproof.

It's true that in any given video game or action drama, you're going to have some equivalent of "hero heroically heroes through to saving X, where X is a person, nation, ideal, etc". The issue this video addresses, though, is not "if we make the hero a female, it's suddenly new and interesting storytelling!", it's "if we make the hero a female a reasonable number of times in this trope, it's not so goddamned sexist."

KingGorilla wrote:

Considering there is a limited number of stories to tell and about 4 different "quests" you can send a character on, I am not sure if just flipping the script on the damsel in distress (watch Castle on ABC) is some sort of progressive leap in story telling. Whether Robin Hood rescues Marian, or Marian sword fights her way to him does not seem to be reinventing the wheel.

The argument isn't that the stories being told are bad; the point is that the representation of gender is bad/limited/stereotyped/whatever (pick one or more). So, if we are concerned about the impact that the representation of different genders has (or may have) then it makes all the difference in the world if Marian sword fights her way to him.

I do like it when it gets comedically bad though. Like when Wonder Woman with the strength of the gods, the speed of some other god, and a lot of other godly stuff, gets caught and has to be saved by that whiny twat from Gotham with the mommy/daddy issues.

It's really the age-old problem that sexism in video games is a problem because it's a consistent trend, not because of any one specific game (although there are certainly games you could argue are sexist in a vacuum).

In a world of perfect gender equality, there would be nothing sexist about Mario's stock story: it would just be a story of a heroic person saving a weaker person who can't defend themselves. But we don't live in that world. We live in a world where ~95% of the time, video games feature a male hero saving a weak female.

Likewise, a game where a woman saves a man isn't progressive by itself, but it moves the trend towards being more progressive.

In that sense, I think Anita is losing track of her point, or at least making it more confusing, by saying that revivals of the old games are regressive crap, implying that the trope itself is the problem. The problem is that there are not enough female protagonists in this role, not that the role itself is problematic.

I observe a similar dominant female-protagonist leaning in games that are believed to be dominated by female players, notably time management and object search games.

KingGorilla wrote:

I do like it when it gets comedically bad though. Like when Wonder Woman with the strength of the gods, the speed of some other god, and a lot of other godly stuff, gets caught and has to be saved by that whiny twat from Gotham with the mommy/daddy issues.

Isn't that an insult to perfectly good twats?

LarryC wrote:

In that sense, I think Anita is losing track of her point, or at least making it more confusing, by saying that revivals of the old games are regressive crap, implying that the trope itself is the problem. The problem is that there are not enough female protagonists in this role, not that the role itself is problematic.

No, because it's producing the same low-level sexism in different forms to a new audience. So the problem is as you described, and these video games - which are parts of the problem - are getting extra mileage to contribute to said problem by being exposed to a new audience. Keep in mind it's not just 30- or 40-somethings who played this stuff in their youth that are playing/seeing these.

KingGorilla wrote:

I do like it when it gets comedically bad though. Like when Wonder Woman with the strength of the gods, the speed of some other god, and a lot of other godly stuff, gets caught and has to be saved by that whiny twat from Gotham with the mommy/daddy issues.

You should look up the history of Wonder Woman. It used to be a weakness of hers that she lost all her powers if she was (and I am not joking) restrained by a man.

That's right, tie her up when she's unconscious and she's helpless.. if you're a man doing the tying of course.

LarryC wrote:

In that sense, I think Anita is losing track of her point, or at least making it more confusing, by saying that revivals of the old games are regressive crap, implying that the trope itself is the problem. The problem is that there are not enough female protagonists in this role, not that the role itself is problematic.

Keep in mind the trope is damsel in distress, not person in distress. The trope is that it's always a woman that needs the protagonist to save them. Changing the gender of the protagonist helps a little, but you've still got a woman in the role of the victim.

KingGorilla wrote:

I do like it when it gets comedically bad though. Like when Wonder Woman with the strength of the gods, the speed of some other god, and a lot of other godly stuff, gets caught and has to be saved by that whiny twat from Gotham with the mommy/daddy issues.

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