On beat 3, I'll just note that things like publishers asking developers to switch female protagonists to male happens a lot. It just usually happens soon enough in the development cycle that it doesn't make the news unless the devs talk about it. Life is Strange and Remember Me being two recent examples where the devs did talk about it.
Kind of amusing, in a sad way, that she was Damseled in development AND the game.
Seems it's also a solid case to study, since as I recall that Star Fox game was received very poorly.
Happy to see the thread and participate as we go forward!
Agreed that this is still 'defining terms' territory, and nothing strikes as controversial or questionable so far.
Seems it's also a solid case to study, since as I recall that Star Fox game was received very poorly.
It's not so much that the game itself was bad, but that the Star Fox elements were clearly shoehorned into what was intended to be a different game.
Had they released Dinosaur Planet as its own IP and with Krystal as the heroine, I have no doubt that it would have been better reviewed, though likely it would have achieved lower sales numbers with the loss of a recognizable IP. We'll never know if it would have been successful enough to build a bigger audience with a sequel.
SpacePPoliceman wrote:Seems it's also a solid case to study, since as I recall that Star Fox game was received very poorly.
It's not so much that the game itself was bad, but that the Star Fox elements were clearly shoehorned into what was intended to be a different game.
Had they released Dinosaur Planet as its own IP and with Krystal as the heroine, I have no doubt that it would have been better reviewed, though likely it would have achieved lower sales numbers with the loss of a recognizable IP. We'll never know if it would have been successful enough to build a bigger audience with a sequel.
My recollection of playing it is that it was a very mediocre 3D platformer, with a Starfox coat of paint. I wasn't upset about the Star Foxiness of it as much as I was that it sucked compared to Jet Force Gemini, Rare's previous 3D platformer.
I do appreciate the spoiler tags for the side bar discussion, but let's try and keep focused! Does anyone have anything else to add to beat 3? I'll give people some time, then we'll move on to beat 4.
In the meantime, would like to flag two of the main complaints about Sarkeesian that we can track as we go through this:
1) She advocates for censorship of games
2) She actively disrespects "nerd/gamer culture"So far I think we all agree that neither of these things have come up yet (and the disclaimer in beat one even suggests that she likes / enjoys games.) Going forward, after every beat I'll update where we are on these fronts.
Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there. Surely the material could speak for itself. I think this is there so she can complain the entire episode without ever having to provide positive counterexamples of a trope done right.
So the other thing I'd like tracked is that. Does she ever provide examples of the trope being done right? And or does she ever say this trope would be fine if it were not used so often.
If you're committed to assuming the worst with no evidence to prove that intention about Anita, this is never going to go anywhere.
Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there. Surely the material could speak for itself. I think this is there so she can complain the entire episode without ever having to provide positive counterexamples of a trope done right.
So the other thing I'd like tracked is that. Does she ever provide examples of the trope being done right? And or does she ever say this trope would be fine if it were not used so often.
Hold on to that thought! She does address that question down the road, and since you brought it up we should definitely talk about it then.
Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there.
This feels like a wonderful example of a bad faith interpretation.
What could she possibly have done differently, given how far we are into discussing the first video? If the disclaimer was not there, I feel reasonably confident based on our interactions thus far that you would already be pointing to its absence as evidence that Anita Sarkeesian wanted to ban games for having problematic content.
Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there. Surely the material could speak for itself. I think this is there so she can complain the entire episode without ever having to provide positive counterexamples of a trope done right.
Why is it unusual for the disclaimer to be there? The typical format for a research paper is to open with an introduction centered around a hypothesis. This falls pretty squarely into introduction territory. These may be videos, but they're academic in nature.
What could she possibly have done differently, given how far we are into discussing the first video? If the disclaimer was not there, I feel reasonably confident based on our interactions thus far that you would already be pointing to its absence as evidence that Anita Sarkeesian wanted to ban games for having problematic content.
Part of the reason she put the disclaimer there was that people attacked her during the Kickstarter with that exact argument about her other videos and so on. I don't think speculating about what other people might argue helps much, though: it really isn't required.
EDIT:
Why is it unusual for the disclaimer to be there? The typical format for a research paper is to open with an introduction centered around a hypothesis. This falls pretty squarely into introduction territory. These may be videos, but they're academic in nature.
Well, from an academic standpoint they're unusual because it's usually taken as a given that research was done in good faith. You don't need to spell it out. Plus, most academics who talk about games love them deeply, so they don't really go around accusing each other of hating their research topic. But yeah, we're still in the introductions phase and are segueing into the definitions-and-prior-history part.
WideAndNerdy wrote:Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there.
This feels like a wonderful example of a bad faith interpretation.
What could she possibly have done differently, given how far we are into discussing the first video? If the disclaimer was not there, I feel reasonably confident based on our interactions thus far that you would already be pointing to its absence as evidence that Anita Sarkeesian wanted to ban games for having problematic content.
I'm only saying it could be that. It happens. Still depends on the content.
If you're committed to assuming the worst with no evidence to prove that intention about Anita, this is never going to go anywhere.
This is not my first debate about this. Some, myself included, have argued that the sheer preponderance of complaining points to her never wanting to see a trope.
One of the defenses I've seen is that she lists so many examples to show that it's a widespread problem and/or that she's only objecting to it being used so often. However, even looking at the example we already have, she clearly has problems with damseling beyond its overuse.
So it's best to track this up front.
Dimmerswitch wrote:WideAndNerdy wrote:Or the disclaimer could easily mean she's been doing this long enough to know to put that in to deflect criticism. It's interesting in fact that it's there.
This feels like a wonderful example of a bad faith interpretation.
What could she possibly have done differently, given how far we are into discussing the first video? If the disclaimer was not there, I feel reasonably confident based on our interactions thus far that you would already be pointing to its absence as evidence that Anita Sarkeesian wanted to ban games for having problematic content.
I'm only saying it could be that. It happens. Still depends on the content.
Demosthenes wrote:If you're committed to assuming the worst with no evidence to prove that intention about Anita, this is never going to go anywhere.
This is not my first debate about this. Some, myself included, have argued that the sheer preponderance of complaining points to her never wanting to see a trope.
One of the defenses I've seen is that she lists so many examples to show that it's a widespread problem and/or that she's only objecting to it being used so often. However, even looking at the example we already have, she clearly has problems with damseling beyond its overuse.
So it's best to track this up front.
Saying that tropes are bad and we should stop using them so much for a multitude of reasons is not saying that they should be banned. It's not. It really is just that simple.
Personally, given that she was getting accusations of wanting to ban games and limit devs before this first video even released, I suspect she was speaking to you and folks like you. Reminding you from the start that that isn't her intention.
That it was then taken to be a smokescreen by folks already making those complaints just strikes me as confirmation bias in action.
So far I don't think I've seen an explicit statement from Sarkeesian that the damsel trope is overused, much less banned. She seems to just be stating its existence with one example as an introduction the concept. Only thing I'd say about the latest beat is that I think she could have left the Damsel in Distress origin story out, since the original french is essentially identical to the English, adding little to my understanding of it. Small potatoes.
Harpo think you could number the beats from here on out? I think it might helpful to have that as a short hand when we start having a larger number of older beats to refer back to.
Onwards to Beat 5, and my apologies for contributing to the derail.
(What constitutes a 'beat'? I ask only because they seem to be of variable length, and don't necessarily include much content.)
(I love that this thread exists, and Harpo, I really appreciate your efforts to keep it clean, so to speak. *respek knuckles*)
EDIT: Not the thread for this.
TheHarpoMarxist wrote:In the meantime, would like to flag two of the main complaints about Sarkeesian that we can track as we go through this:
1) She advocates for censorship of games
2) She actively disrespects "nerd/gamer culture"So far I think we all agree that neither of these things have come up yet (and the disclaimer in beat one even suggests that she likes / enjoys games.) Going forward, after every beat I'll update where we are on these fronts.
This is what I don't get about her critics. She's never advocated censoring or banning any games. Her main points seem to be:
1) Holy sh*t, storytelling in games is lazy and falls back on the same old patterns.
2) These tropes may turn off women, who have money and want to be your customers. Here's how to avoid losing that potential income.Gamergate and /pol/ treat it like women having opinions and purchasing power is the first step to white genocide.
Not the thread for this, TBH.
Beat 5 wrote:In video games this is most often accomplished via kidnapping but it can also take the form of petrification or demon possession for example.
Traditionally the woman in distress is a family member or a love interest of the hero; princesses, wives, girlfriends and sisters are all commonly used to fill the role.
Of course the Damsel in Distress predates the invention of video games by several thousand years. The trope can be traced back to ancient greek mythology with the tale of Perseus.
According to the myth, Andromeda is about to be devoured by a sea monster after being chained naked to a rock as a human sacrifice. Perseus slays the beast, rescues the princess and then claims her as his wife.
I think her assertion that kidnapping is the most often method is reasonable, as is who she states are the most common types of women to be in distress. Her context setting with the Perseus myth is also an important insight because it shows she is aware of the trope's ubiquity across time and mediums, and is not just in singling it out in video games.
GTG.
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