A response to some arguments in anita sarkeesians interview.

[Darkmantle]

Yeah I agree, it's kind of more sexist to look at a female character that looks sexy, yet is amazingly developed and maybe even better than male characters in the game and write them off as sexist. Lara Croft is sexy, but she's also a badass who gets stuff done on her own. EVA from MGS3 was very sexy, yet it was her way of seducing Snake so she can get stuff done on her own. Yet I bet Anita Sarkeesian would say these two are sexist because they're sexy, which in my eyes is even more sexist. It's like saying "It's OK for a man to be sexy and a good character, but it's bad for a woman to be sexy and be a good character! Because that's sexist!"

The assumption here is that we're assessing characters as a whole, vs. how specific plot and characterization elements contribute to the larger picture of a character. For most characters, you've got a variety of elements, some of which are problematic and others which are not. We can talk about the problematic elements without pretending the non-problematic elements don't exist, and vice-versa.

So what you are saying is that we're going to cherry pick the fuck out of some video games and then proceed to nitpick the shit right out of them to justify feminist arguments. You either look at the character as a whole or you are not looking at their character.

"Oh we'll just overlook how the character presents herself, how she came to make the decisions she did, her personality and all those well written things, and just focus on the fact the she is indeed wearing, brace yourselves, high heels.... PATRIARCHY!"

cherry-picking nonsense. That's what I expect anyway, and I hope I am disappointed in that regard.

 

[Evilpigeon]

"but these other characters aren't fleshed-out either."

Sorry but yes this is a good argument, when a character is just as fleshed out as all the other characters, you cannot single that character out for being underdeveloped due to gender, which is what Sarkeesian did.

As to the other point, I sort of agree with you, however it's the writer trying to demonstrate how her actions in the game set her apart. There is very little to go on in Bastion, the entire game is very minimalist and you don't get reams of conversation nor do any characters join your during the action sequences so there is very little to demonstrate the personality of any of the characters. The game tells it's story very well but it is very sparse on the details.

More on the topic of the Op: That Anita doesn't acknowledge things like this that leads me to suspect that she is going to do an awful job of this kickstarter. Just watched the straw feminism video (Cheers RT-Medic) and I have no more idea now than I did at the start of the video whether she actually has a point, the analyses of the various programmes were shallow to the point that half of them had no examples beyond her narration.

It's ridiculous, you're making an opinion video to try to explain something and prove a point to the viewer and you don't bother to show any clips of half of the programmes mentioned, she didn't make an argument, just told people her conclusions. Not a single counterpoint was allowed within half a mile of the video. Unless she suddenly starts doing a much better job, it looks to me like she's about to blow $150,000 on a circle jerk for people who agree with all her points before she tries to justify them.

 

[Kahunaburger]

cherry picking

The title of the documentary series is Tropes vs. Women, not "Examples of Female Characterization that are Entirely Sexist." An otherwise good character can still demonstrate problematic tropes.

The fact that she got a really basic fact about Zia wrong (The fact that she's never called the female, before you know her names she's the singer) makes her look like some person who thinks they know what they're doing, but actually don't.

Maybe you need to re-read the article.

 

[Kahunaburger]

"Oh we'll just overlook how the character presents herself, how she came to make the decisions she did, her personality and all those well written things, and just focus on the fact the she is indeed wearing, brace yourselves, high heels.... PATRIARCHY!"

If a review of a game includes good movement controls as a positive and terrible camera controls as a negative, is the review "cherry-picking nonsense," or is it a review that acknowledges both the positive and negative elements of that game's control scheme?

If she got a massive pile of kickstarter money to analyze bad camera controls in video games, would you still be complaining about how she's "cherry picking" specific elements of otherwise good control schemes?

 

[Scrustle]

I saw that myself earlier today. I have to say he makes some really good points.

Out of curiosity a while back I decided to watch a random one of that woman's videos, and I have to say it didn't really leave a great impression on me. I don't want to say anything bad about her work in general (because that's all I've seen, not because I'm trying to avoid being sexist), but it seemed like the work of an average student who was just pointing out tropes she had been taught about in class and parroting what a textbook said. It wasn't really that deep or insightful. It wasn't exactly bad, it's just she only seemed to only look at the surface of the topic. All she seemed to do was point out a trope and explain what it was, and not much else. What she said could have been said about a hundred other examples and been no different. There wasn't any real in-depth analysis. It was like "here is a sexist trope and it's bad because it's sexist, mmkay?"

I know she only asked for 6K with this Kickstarter thing, but the money she has got is pretty ridiculous. What exactly could she possibly do with it? What did the people who donated it think she would possibly do with it? I was among the people supporting this idea and denouncing the disgusting reaction it got initially, but I think people have overreacted in the opposite direction too. I don't know why. Maybe they're trying hard to prove to themselves and other people that they're not sexist by doing it or something, but it's kind of silly how much attention this has gotten.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

But the fact is that Zia is one of the most fleshed out characters in the game. The Kid's character is basically "Determined Kid who's good with weapons, didn't have a good past". Ruck's character is basically "The Narrator, old man". Zia's actually one that shows the most independence in the game. When the Ura attack the Bastion, everyone thinks she got kidnapped because well she's a woman. But when you find her later in the game, it turns out she willfully walked away from the powerful men to actually see what the truth was about her race (the Ura). She's also shown to be extremely talented with her music, and she has the best song in the game in my opinion.

Do any of these things illuminate aspects of her personality, or are they just plot events and/or things she does?

(But this is a side issue - the core question I was asking was not whether Zia was a good character or not, but whether this article made a good defense of her as a good character.)

But about Gravity Rush: You're missing the point. If she's already a strong (as in well-written) character, then it doesn't matter what she's wearing. To be fair, I have no idea if the girl in Gravity Rush really IS a strong character, but the point is that a female character dressing sexily is not INHERENTLY sexist, as both you and this Sarkesian woman seem to believe.

I dunno. Ghost in the Shell is one of the handful of anime shows I think are actually good, and I will be both the first to talk about how the Major is an excellent character and how her wearing what is basically a battle leotard (or, in the movie, thermoptic body paint) makes no sense. It's okay to look at a thing and say "this element is problematic, but this element is awesome."

Perhaps it's by the things people do in games that define their character? By the fact that she willingly walked away from people who would protect her to find the truth on something about her own race's past shows a lot of things: she's independent enough to go out in the middle of a bloody war. She believes that knowledge is better than fighting. She wants to find out more about her own race, which is a damn good quality if you ask me.

It's easy to make the argument "Well they're just plot points" because it's taking stuff at face value instead of looking deeper. It's hard to explain a game character's personality without actually saying some stuff they do. Also, I bet that if Zia wasn't a woman we wouldn't even be having this argument in a first place. Rucks has an equally developed character, yet nobody jumps on him. Why? Because he's a man. That's the thing that's wrong with this whole thing. It's basically saying that because she's a woman it's automatically sexist if she doesn't really have the most amazing, developed of characters. Whereas if a man hasn't got a good character it's fine because they're a man!

 

[Kahunaburger]

"but these other characters aren't fleshed-out either."

Sorry but yes this is a good argument, when a character is just as fleshed out as all the other characters, you cannot single that character out for being underdeveloped due to gender, which is what Sarkeesian did.

Wait, so we're now saying that Bastion has no characters to speak of? Because I seem to recall that back when people were gushing over it they had great things to say about some of the characters. Incidentally, I don't recall Zia being one of those characters they were gushing over.

 

[ToastiestZombie]

cherry picking

The title of the documentary series is Tropes vs. Women, not "Examples of Female Characterization that are Entirely Sexist." An otherwise good character can still demonstrate problematic tropes.

The fact that she got a really basic fact about Zia wrong (The fact that she's never called the female, before you know her names she's the singer) makes her look like some person who thinks they know what they're doing, but actually don't.

Maybe you need to re-read the article.

I'm pretty sure this is what it said:

Sarkeesian: On the indie side of things, I really enjoyed Bastion, but the only female character in the game doesn?t have any depth (to put it mildly); basically, her whole characterization was "The Female."

That's all she said. Zia is NEVER called "the female" and her character is far from that. It's a fucking FACT that she didn't actually look into Bastion at all. Because if she did, she would know that through the Narrator's words we know a lot about the characters.

 

[Kahunaburger]

It's a fucking FACT that she didn't actually look into Bastion at all.

Other than playing it, you mean?

(Not to continue this derail, it sounds to me like you have a different opinion from her on this character. Maybe instead of speculating, you should wait until you have more than one sentence to respond to.)

 

[Evilpigeon]

"but these other characters aren't fleshed-out either."

Sorry but yes this is a good argument, when a character is just as fleshed out as all the other characters, you cannot single that character out for being underdeveloped due to gender, which is what Sarkeesian did.

Wait, so we're now saying that Bastion has no characters to speak of? Because I seem to recall that back when people were gushing over it they had great things to say about some of the characters. Incidentally, I don't recall Zia being one of those characters they were gushing over.

As I said, th game is dealt is minimalist fashion, there is not much to go on for any of the characters. This does not make the characters bad, that's an incorrect leap of logic. As I said, Zia is developed just as well as any of the other characters. The Old Man is probably a fan favourite due to his role as narrator and his awesome voice. When I played the game I rather liked Zia, though that might have something to do with her song, which I linked earlier and is awesome. At any rate, what does that have to do with anything?

I gave you the assertion that Zia is a good character and just as well developed as any of the other characters in the game. Sarkeesian singled her out for not recieving much development and blamed that on her gender when no other character is more developed... Is it not obvious to you why this counterpoint was made?

Other than playing it, you mean?

(Not to continue this derail, it sounds to me like you have a different opinion from her on this character. Maybe instead of speculating, you should wait until you have more than one sentence to respond to.)

Like what? I'm sure I'm not the only person to have checked out her videos, there is no indication anywhere that she's going to do a good job or even that she can produce a good argument. I feel there's sufficient evidence around that I can express doubts in her ability to make good use of the money given to her.

 

[Vrex360]

Well I respect the author of this article for expressing up front that he has no bias against Sarkeesian personally and is even trying to assist with constructive criticism. After the shit heap of a mess of obnoxious slurs she received, that counts for a lot.

That said, while I can't comment on the specific games listed I still feel the need to address that one argument about how the woman wearing high heels because she likes to wear them, is just dumb. A fictional character has no agency or free will of their own, only what the author creates. When Ashley in Mass Effect was given a sexy officer's uniform she did not 'choose' to wear it, the developers chose to make her wear it.

Same with arguments about how the nymphs sexualized design 'fit the universe' or 'fit the themes of the mythology', there was still a conscious decision behind why they chose to represent that aspect of mythology with these nymphs.

The problem seems to be that the author of the article thinks Sarkeesian is attacking the games and the games setting, in reality she is, as always, criticizing the mindset behind why the game's setting is like that in the first place.

I could create a game where a female character totally likes wearing only nipple tassels and confidently makes out with other women everywhere she goes while smothering her skin in oil, sure it might make sense given a story justification but what reasoning do you think I the writer might have wanted the story to be like that?

Regardless if it's anything like the original 'tropes' series I'm looking forward to it. Sarkeesian's work is something of a hit and miss but I always appreciate her work one way or another (except in two specific cases). I admit I was actually quite looking forward to this series and still am.

P.S PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE ME AS I WILL BE ON THE ROAD FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS AND UNABLE TO COMMENT

 

[Rednog]

"Oh we'll just overlook how the character presents herself, how she came to make the decisions she did, her personality and all those well written things, and just focus on the fact the she is indeed wearing, brace yourselves, high heels.... PATRIARCHY!"

If a review of a game includes good movement controls as a positive and terrible camera controls as a negative, is the review "cherry-picking nonsense," or is it a review that acknowledges both the positive and negative elements of that game's control scheme?

If she got a massive pile of kickstarter money to analyze bad camera controls in video games, would you still be complaining about how she's "cherry picking" specific elements of otherwise good control schemes?

Your analogy doesn't work.
The problem with cherry picking is specifically taking a small part of something and criticizing the whole. She is taking a very small aspect of a whole and using it as an argument against the whole character. Just because a character is wearing high heels the character is bad and we throw everything else about her out the window? That's an incredibly shallow view of a character.
In your analogy/example it would be a reviewer taking a game with an amazing story line, tight controls, incredibly artwork, and interesting mechanics and saying well the camera controls suck, thus the game is terrible so I give it a score of 1 out of 10.

It just isn't a fair assessment of a character to cherry pick negative elements about them without looking at the characters as a whole. And this really is exemplified in the article with the guy's responses. And it just makes Sarkeesian look like she has absolutely no clue what she's talking about. I've had the suspicion that she is taking a very cursory look at these games and picking out what she thinks is a problem without fully looking into it, and the Bastion example really shows that this is probably the case. To say that Zia doesn't have any depth (to put it mildly) would make anyone say wtf? did you not play this game at all?

 

[ToastiestZombie]

It's a fucking FACT that she didn't actually look into Bastion at all.

Other than playing it, you mean?

(Not to continue this derail, it sounds to me like you have a different opinion from her on this character. Maybe instead of speculating, you should wait until you have more than one sentence to respond to.)

Yes, she played it. But we're talking about games here, and to actually analyse a game just playing it once won't work. In the case of Bastion a lot of what the narrator says gives subtle characterization to the characters, you can't just glaze over it in the search for sexist characters. It's kind of like playing through Skyrim's or New Vegas' main quest then calling them short games. Sure you played it, but that doesn't mean you experienced it. To experience Bastion in a way, playing it once won't do. Just admit that she got something wrong, which is a simple fact. And the fact that she doesn't mention any of Zia's good attributes, and only mentions bad attributes that aren't even there just shows me that she's not researching the games she's playing, just skimming them in search for sexism that might not even be there.

 

[Darkmantle]

"Oh we'll just overlook how the character presents herself, how she came to make the decisions she did, her personality and all those well written things, and just focus on the fact the she is indeed wearing, brace yourselves, high heels.... PATRIARCHY!"

If a review of a game includes good movement controls as a positive and terrible camera controls as a negative, is the review "cherry-picking nonsense," or is it a review that acknowledges both the positive and negative elements of that game's control scheme?

If she got a massive pile of kickstarter money to analyze bad camera controls in video games, would you still be complaining about how she's "cherry picking" specific elements of otherwise good control schemes?

There is a difference between the mechanical and the artistic. You can't just up and say "this character trait is bad!" without looking at the rest of the character. The character trait might be there on purpose, as part of a well rounded character, or could be that it's there for intentional subversive effect, maybe it's to look deeper into the issues surrounding the trait.

Just saying "putting women in skimpy clothing is bad characterization" is not a valid point, as it ignores any context of the work in question. There are plenty of movies/books/games that have elements like this, for both men and women, and to dismiss the context, as both you and Anita have clearly done for bastion, invalidates any point you may be trying to make.

It comes off as either A, demanding that only a specific "type" of woman be portrayed (which is just as sexist as those she rails against), or B demanding that women get preferential treatment in a game because they are a woman (as in the bastion case, why should zia get waaaaaayyyy more characterization than all the other characters in this minimalist game?)

If you want to have a serious discussion about how women are portrayed and characterized in games, you best be prepared to talk about the whole character.

 

[Evilpigeon]

snippy

mind pointing to me towards some of the videos you think are well done? The ones I've seen so far were rubbish. Since you feel she's hit and miss I might have just seen the misses.

 

[Nimzabaat]

To me, sexism is like racism, it goes away if you stop talking about it. Some people just try way too hard to skew things to match their particular lense. I don't actually believe there's such a thing as a modern feminist because the issues they fought for are all in the past.

 

[Kahunaburger]

The problem with cherry picking is specifically taking a small part of something and criticizing the whole. She is taking a very small aspect of a whole and using it as an argument against the whole character. Just because a character is wearing high heels the character is bad and we throw everything else about her out the window? That's an incredibly shallow view of a character.

Please point me to the part in this passage:

This week I've started playing Gravity Rush and I'm really loving it, though I have to say it?s a little ridiculous that our hero Kat flies and tumbles through the city at tremendous speeds, lands upsidedownways on various building or structures and fights Nevi monsters all while wearing high heels and without any armor (or even pants). Can you imagine what her knees are going to look like? Someone needs to get this woman some protective motorcycle gear and a pair of hefty boots!

where she says that Kat's impractical outfit is "an argument against the whole character."

 

[Kahunaburger]

To me, sexism is like racism, it goes away if you stop talking about it.

And I'm sure ostriches everywhere agree with you that this is a good response to every problem.

 

[Phasmal]

To me, sexism is like racism, it goes away if you stop talking about it. Some people just try way too hard to skew things to match their particular lense. I don't actually believe there's such a thing as a modern feminist because the issues they fought for are all in the past.

Sorry that is just drivel.
Sexism doesn't magically go away if you ignore it. It persists if you ignore it because you don't challege. We didn't `ignore` racism away, so I'm not sure why you felt the need to put that there.
People count on saying `oh just ignore it!` so that they can keep getting away it. I've never `fed the trolls` on Xbox live, and thats pretty darn sexist.

Also, there are some countries where women can't drive legally. Issues in the past?

 

[RafaelNegrus]

"but these other characters aren't fleshed-out either."

Sorry but yes this is a good argument, when a character is just as fleshed out as all the other characters, you cannot single that character out for being underdeveloped due to gender, which is what Sarkeesian did.

Wait, so we're now saying that Bastion has no characters to speak of? Because I seem to recall that back when people were gushing over it they had great things to say about some of the characters. Incidentally, I don't recall Zia being one of those characters they were gushing over.

The thing that's great about Bastion isn't the story that it tells or the characters that it has, but the way that it tells the story and the way it reveals the characters. Namely, it's done through gameplay and is very well interwoven, meaning that it is very difficult to give specific personality traits for specific reasons because they don't do anything, the player does. It's hard to know without seeing it, but it's well done, and seeing as it's mostly a story of a catastrophe, the survival of it, and discovering what society was like before, it is very hard to get much on the characters from that specific story-telling style when I think their focus was more on plot. You should play it and see, it's very interesting.

More on the other things she has said, yeah I think it does look a little like cherry-picking. I think it's an issue not just with her work, but with tropes in general. They are far too focused on what is done versus how it is done, and without that context they are basically useless. I can see where she is coming from with Rayman, if there are no real interactions with them, but attacking the Galaxy Rush girl for wearing high heels and having unbruised knees is a little silly. This should be a critique based on feminism, not realism.

We'll see what happens though, but my hopes are not high.