A response to some arguments in anita sarkeesians interview.

[Kahunaburger]

Bayonetta's a case where I think reasonable people can and do disagree. IIRC Susan Arendt discussed Bayonetta as a positive example on the Other M panel, and I would be very interested to see her response to this video, for instance. There's definitely an interesting discussion to be had about this game, I just don't think that this video is part of that discussion.

If we're being brutally honest, I would say that 99% of this forum's membership is not qualified academically to have that discussion in any real depth. And before anyone hits the Reply button, I count myself among that number. I know more than a lot of people have demonstrated (for example, I actually know what feminism is as opposed to the stereotypes propagated by talk radio) but I don't think I'm qualified to go much deeper than debunking a handful of stupid or fallacious arguments.

Yeah, same. I definitely have my own opinion on the subject, but TBH Bayonetta's a hairy [small](no pun intended)[/small] subject. There are many positions that can be taken on it, depending on where we stand in feminism's big tent, and my line for what I'm qualified to discuss is definitely drawn somewhere waaaaay before "an actual, thoughtful, serious discussion about which sort of feminism provides the best lens through which to view X." But I would be very interested in seeing that discussion between people who are much better-versed in the literature than I am.

 

[Ryotknife]

Of course it was.

But sexualisation =/= sexism.

Sex is a massive part of what drives us as humans. I'll never get on board with someone who insinuates that sexualisation of the human form is a bad thing.

I wasn't asking you, but since you volunteered an answer, let me first say that you're getting ahead of me.

Second question. Could the advertising campaign for the game have eased up on the sexiness and still been effective? Again, a simple yes or no if you please.

probably not. Look at Axe products (and imagine them trying to sell their products without resorting to sexually charged commercials). Advertising is about making a product appear much more colorful and vivid than it actually is. For example, movie trailers that looked awesome but the movie itself sucked. And quite honestly, if your product was strong enough to stand on its own without using sex...you wouldnt use sex to sell the product. Sex is just the easiest, laziest, and quite honestly the most effective way to generate buzz.

Yes, it would be nice if games were advertised using gameplay footage or giving us an accurate image of what the game will be like, but i wont hold my breath.

If we're being brutally honest, I would say that 99% of this forum's membership is not qualified academically to have that discussion in any real depth. And before anyone hits the Reply button, I count myself among that number. I know more than a lot of people have demonstrated (for example, I actually know what feminism is as opposed to the stereotypes propagated by talk radio) but I don't think I'm qualified to go much deeper than debunking a handful of stupid or fallacious arguments.

I can respect this stance, although this also means that there is no point to us caring about the topic if 99.9% of the readership isnt qualified to have an opinion.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Snip.

Thank you for putting to words the biggest complaint I have had with her and the videos she makes and claims she puts forth. It isn't that she is trying to talk about females in games, it is how she is missing the point of things 90% of the time. A lot of the issues she points to are problems of stories told in the games themselves. It isn't that females in some games are not fleshed out as well as males, it is more often because of their roles in the story. You don't find out as much about the comic relief or the supportive family or even the love interest as you do the protagonist for a reason, it is the protagonist's story. Yet she suggests it can be sexist for that if they are women. In reality it is a problem with the core of games themselves and how they tell stories. Sometimes, people tell lazy stories and use cliches and paint by number plots, tropes and characters. But as discussed, this is not so much a sexist attribute to women as often just a laziness in storytelling.
Also, she seems to have a hard time understanding how to judge representatives of a group apart from the group as a whole. But that is a complaint of a different matter I guess.

Well. Sometimes it is sexist, the portrayal of women, I mean, it is a problem that we should be discussing and addressing. However, understanding to what degree sexism is happening - if it is happening at all - has to be determined by taking the media, the story-telling mode, the placement of the character in relation to the player character, the function of the character to the story, the development processes and budgets of games, and a myriad of other complex issues into account first. It's a very complicated equation, and I am just worried that with her (apparently) limited understanding of the video game industry / video game player expectations / generally accepted rules of game story-telling mechanics that equation is going to get simplified to: chick somewhere, something not "equal" to a dude somewhere = sexism and it's just not even close to that simple.

Maybe she'll use all the extra monies she's raised to get some industry heavies into a research team to support her and be able to tackle this question the way it should be... but if that doesn't happen (or something similarly like that) then I am thinking it will be too much a surface scan that isn't going to tell anybody anything that we don't already know. In fact, with all the publicity she's gotten from the negativity people have thrown her way (from the reasonable to the completely over-the-top to the obscene) her findings will be given much more weight than they deserve by a larger media schema and then our entire industry and community is going to be made to look bad in ways we don't necessarily deserve and from extrapolations that aren't based in the full facts.

 

[Ryotknife]

Before I develop on that, let's get to the most relevant question in this whole idea of the annotations to this video. Are you, a hypothetical gamer who has not yet purchased Bayonetta, expected to know anything about the lore of the game's writing prior to seeing the advertisements for it? Yes or no.

one does not expect anything from a customer prior to getting a copy of the game.

so no.

 

[runic knight]

Well. Sometimes it is sexist, the portrayal of women, I mean, it is a problem that we should be discussing and addressing. However, understanding to what degree sexism is happening - if it is happening at all - has to be determined by taking the media, the story-telling mode, the placement of the character in relation to the player character, the function of the character to the story, the development processes and budgets of games, and a myriad of other complex issues into account first. It's a very complicated equation, and I am just worried that with her (apparently) limited understanding of the video game industry / video game player expectations / generally accepted rules of game story-telling mechanics that equation is going to get simplified to: chick somewhere, something not "equal" to a dude somewhere = sexism and it's just not even close to that simple.

I agree. And a bad side effect of her over-simplification is it will create a false boogieman (well, perpetuate it really) of the issue, and developers will try to combat it as a surface issue rather then address the underlying causes, such as poor storytelling and a reliance on treating the games medium as an interactive canvas for simple stories rather then something deeper. The result will be characters that are interchangeable (elder scroll games), forced "pro" feminism caricatures (flawless mary sues)or merely attempts to subvert the tropes solely for the sake of subverting the trope to not be labeled (princess rescues plumber). While all have their place and point, there is a certain resistance to creativity if games are doing the same mistakes in story telling, only with an eye to not look as gender biased while doing so. Success?

Maybe she'll use all the extra monies she's raised to get some industry heavies into a research team to support her and be able to tackle this question the way it should be... but if that doesn't happen (or something similarly like that) then I am thinking it will be too much a surface scan that isn't going to tell anybody anything that we don't already know. In fact, with all the publicity she's gotten from the negativity people have thrown her way (from the reasonable to the completely over-the-top to the obscene) her findings will be given much more weight than they deserve by a larger media schema and then our entire industry and community is going to be made to look bad in ways we don't necessarily deserve and from extrapolations that aren't based in the full facts.

Again, that does sort of ties back into my previous statement above. It masks a problem with a simpler shadow of the issue. And as such, people will try to deal with that, by hiding, subverting or removing it. This wont actually change things, merely reduce the obvious examples and also create a backlash ideal of "well, we already fixed the stuff she talked about". And, as you said, it stereotypes the gamers and industry as a whole into easy to identify camps. The problem with shallow representations of broader, more complicated problems is that it ignores reality for something simpler and mistakes that simpler means more truthful. And in the end doesn't address the issues until much later. A patch over the problem to ignore it as long as possible. I think I used an analogy of a disease before when describing this. All story telling media have a bit of a problem like this. If this problem was a disease, then the garbage female characters tend to get would be like a cough, a symptom of the disease. A cough suppressant doesn't cure the cold, it merely makes it less troubling for the present. I think her handling of the tropes and women is merely trying to get a suppressant to be taken rather then address the actual causes.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Well. Sometimes it is sexist, the portrayal of women, I mean, it is a problem that we should be discussing and addressing. However, understanding to what degree sexism is happening - if it is happening at all - has to be determined by taking the media, the story-telling mode, the placement of the character in relation to the player character, the function of the character to the story, the development processes and budgets of games, and a myriad of other complex issues into account first. It's a very complicated equation, and I am just worried that with her (apparently) limited understanding of the video game industry / video game player expectations / generally accepted rules of game story-telling mechanics that equation is going to get simplified to: chick somewhere, something not "equal" to a dude somewhere = sexism and it's just not even close to that simple.

I agree. And a bad side effect of her over-simplification is it will create a false boogieman (well, perpetuate it really) of the issue, and developers will try to combat it as a surface issue rather then address the underlying causes, such as poor storytelling and a reliance on treating the games medium as an interactive canvas for simple stories rather then something deeper. The result will be characters that are interchangeable (elder scroll games), forced "pro" feminism caricatures or merely attempts to subvert the tropes solely for the sake of subverting the trope to not be labeled.

Maybe she'll use all the extra monies she's raised to get some industry heavies into a research team to support her and be able to tackle this question the way it should be... but if that doesn't happen (or something similarly like that) then I am thinking it will be too much a surface scan that isn't going to tell anybody anything that we don't already know. In fact, with all the publicity she's gotten from the negativity people have thrown her way (from the reasonable to the completely over-the-top to the obscene) her findings will be given much more weight than they deserve by a larger media schema and then our entire industry and community is going to be made to look bad in ways we don't necessarily deserve and from extrapolations that aren't based in the full facts.

Again, that does sort of ties back into my previous statement above. It masks a problem with a simpler shadow of the issue. And as such, people will try to deal with that, by hiding, subverting or removing it. This wont actually change things, merely reduce the obvious examples and also create a backlash ideal of "well, we already fixed the stuff she talked about". And, as you said, it stereotypes the gamers and industry as a whole into easy to identify camps. The problem with shallow representations of broader, more complicated problems is that it ignores reality for something simpler and mistakes that simpler means more truthful. And in the end doesn't address the issues until much later. A patch over the problem to ignore it as long as possible. I think I used an analogy of a disease before when describing this. All story telling media have a bit of a problem like this. If this problem was a disease, then the garbage female characters tend to get would be like a cough, a symptom of the disease. A cough suppressant doesn't cure the cold, it merely makes it less troubling for the present. I think her handling of the tropes and women is merely trying to get a suppressant to be taken rather then address the actual causes.

I would (really) like to believe that poor story mechanics in general are the root cause of "garbage female characters" but... I don't think that's the whole problem. There is an issue of a bias being played out that comes from the people telling the stories and the fact that they are catering to people who want to hear those stories in a particular way. She, and other people who point such bias out, has a point that in some cases there is no reason for women to be underrepresented other than the fact that they are women. That's just not the whole issue either. As you say, a shadow problem shouldn't be permitted to take the place of the real problem - thing is that here, there are two problems that have intertwined, become hard to disentangle, and are surrounded by their brood of bastard problem babies.

 

[runic knight]

I would (really) like to believe that poor story mechanics in general are the root cause of "garbage female characters" but... I don't think that's the whole problem. There is an issue of a bias being played out that comes from the people telling the stories and the fact that they are catering to people who want to hear those stories in a particular way. She, and other people who point such bias out, has a point that in some cases there is no reason for women to be underrepresented other than the fact that they are women. That's just not the whole issue either. As you say, a shadow problem shouldn't be permitted to take the place of the real problem - thing is that here, there are two problems that have intertwined, become hard to disentangle, and are surrounded by their brood of bastard problem babies.

True, very true. I do think that encouraging people to use better stories for their games will help things a lot more then merely labeling what tropes they use though. It encourages more depth and more variety in characters and character types, and by nature of that, more fleshed out female characters will be generated as a result. Also, it would help elevate the medium as an art and story telling form and with that growth as well as better understanding of games as story telling mediums, you wont get a dozen variants of "guy rescues princess", or "manly brown chest-high wall shooter military game". Then, it would become a lot easier to identify negative portrayals of women apart from solely poor character design and bad story telling.

I do agree there is an issue with women portrayal in games, and in gamer culture, but when looking at an industry that is still young and immature, that still doesn't grasp it's story telling potential nearly as often as it should, you will find that there. Trying to tell the kids at the playground to stop picking on the girls will not work well, will create resentment and wont actually fix why they do. Teaching maturity, empathy and growth though, well, I think that would have better results.

Gamers as a community and games as a medium seem to want to grow like that. That is why these debates flare up far more often and far more hotly then previously. But like the kids on the playground trying to grow up, there is a lot of stumbling in the process.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

True, very true. I do think that encouraging people to use better stories for their games will help things a lot more then merely labeling what tropes they use though. It encourages more depth and more variety in characters and character types, and by nature of that, more fleshed out female characters will be generated as a result. Also, it would help elevate the medium as an art and story telling form and with that growth as well as better understanding of games as story telling mediums, you wont get a dozen variants of "guy rescues princess", or "manly brown chest-high wall shooter military game". Then, it would become a lot easier to identify negative portrayals of women apart from solely poor character design and bad story telling.

Fair enough. It isn't the problem she's trying to address, though it is one that maybe the industry and player base should be looking into independently.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about as far as complexity. The Beasts in Metal Gear Solid 4. They're all female, they're all bosses, they're all built like super-models turned into tanks, they're all victims of some horrific trauma, they all do a seduction slow walk "attack" phase when you best their tank form (in skin tight latex), you get a special reward for tranquilizing them repeatedly instead of killing them outright, and they are all controlled by a former boss who is a man, they all have their story told after their defeat by a man. Which parts of that are poor story telling and which parts are sexist? That's the hard part to disentangle.

Point by point: they're all bosses. That means they are important, they aren't comic relief or some side character. Game story telling conventions allow for not telling much about level-bosses other than "they want you dead and are on the other team" so their lack of being fleshed out, lack of lines, and lack of "backstory" isn't because they're women, it's because that's how games do things.

They all look hot. Not really a game mechanic of story-telling there, that's a bias. Making them attractive under the tank-suits is a choice that's made probably more because they are females than because of any other reason. This can be supported by the fact that the male bosses of previous games all look ridiculous (including the back-from-the-dead guy controlling these chicks) or just have a 'soldier' appearance (because it's military themed).

They're all victims of horrific trauma. Well that's a half-and-half. The game's theme is about the hell of war and what it does to people, so that's part of the story and so the story-telling generates a lot of damaged people who have trauma relating back to war. Of course, the fact that some of the male bosses elsewhere in the series are less severely traumatized than these girls is something to consider. I mean, they don't just have PTSD or something, they were imprisoned, tortured, starved, killed babies, etc. It's taken to an extreme. Why? Could be because they are women - could be because of something else. Couldn't one of them just been a stone-cold *****? Maybe the one in charge? See below.

The seduction walk sequence. No reason for that other than that they are hot chicks come out of a tank shell that I can think of really. There's our nugget of sexism without linkage to story-telling mechanics.

Tranquilizing over killing - no other enemy in the game has a reward for tranks. What's the deal there? I don't know. Could be story-telling break issue, could be sexist. I'm going to go with sexist, because there's never real hesitation (or the option not to kill generally) male characters and bosses.

Controlled by a man. It doesn't just not make sense, it's sexist. That these super-bad-ass bosses couldn't be working under their own steam because they are women raises some question marks. On the other hand, it could be that bad story building again, what with the man controlling them being a former boss that the story wanted to use as a link back to previous games and stories. Another half-and half, but with a strong skew towards sexism because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense and they have to hand-wave it in explaining it ridiculously.

A guy tells their stories. Well yeah, they're knocked out or dead so that makes some sense and is primarily a story-telling element that could be seriously improved upon. Not sexist in the slightest.

So just in this example - without going into any serious depth and making lay-person observations - we have 2 points story-telling based issues, 2 points that are sexist, 2 half-and-halves, and 1 either-or.

I'm not bringing this up to debate the example - I'm sure a healthy debate could be had on any one of those points - but to show that its a complex issue that requires a lot of parsing of "why" before determining that the "why" is the one you're looking to ferret out. It would be VERY easy to just look at what they are wearing and look at what amount of screen time they have and say its totally sexist. It would VERY easy to say that, since they are bosses and powerful enough to challenge the player-character there can't possibly be any sexist element about them. It's hard to actually get into the machinery and find out what is motivating which parts to function.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I should mention that you guys are forgetting one simple fact.

Maybe the designer actually wanted them to be that way cause that's was his intention and original concept? I mean are you really going to say that what Kojima and other game developers create are sexist is cause you think it is sexist?

That's the real crime here. This whole issue strips the creative freedom of the developers into the hands of people who shouldn't be part of the creative process. Usually the person who is developing the product has a good idea on who exactly they want to reach and it is often better to simply ignore or most likely just not acknowledge the possibility of other demographics that would utilize said product.

Imagine that if developers actually had to take the time and actually invest the time creating a game that offers both female and male avatars in every game. Okay sure we can think a good deal of games that can do that without affecting the story.

But what about games and development houses and designers that don't have the time or resources to make such a product to please every demographic? Nevermind that doing this alone might in itself could be a perversion of the original concept by the designer. You can't realistically make a game that can always be for him/for her. Nevermind the actual utilization of literary tools that can be used directly or be used as a tool of satire or parody.

It hurts the developers and creates the monster in their heads to try and please everyone, and when you try to please everyone, you please no one.

Are you suggesting Kojima didn't have the time and resources to do that? No. Of course you're not, and your interpretation of my post wasn't what I was getting at either.

Again - the example is debatable, every single point of it is open to interpretation, that's the complexity of the issue and why I am not fully confident in this person's ability to address it, by herself, to the full extent of thought and sensitivity it requires to be of any use to any of us when all is said and done.

 

[runic knight]

Fair enough. It isn't the problem she's trying to address, though it is one that maybe the industry and player base should be looking into independently.

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about as far as complexity. The Beasts in Metal Gear Solid 4. They're all female, they're all bosses, they're all built like super-models turned into tanks, they're all victims of some horrific trauma, they all do a seduction slow walk "attack" phase when you best their tank form (in skin tight latex), you get a special reward for tranquilizing them repeatedly instead of killing them outright, and they are all controlled by a former boss who is a man, they all have their story told after their defeat by a man. Which parts of that are poor story telling and which parts are sexist? That's the hard part to disentangle.

Actually, that seems very similar to most metal gear games. Messed up power house bosses, controlled by the big bad, sympathetic and reveals details upon defeat, bonuses for showing skill in not killing outright. This almost seems like a replacement of the same things as previous games that have been males in those rules for the most part.

Point by point: they're all bosses. That means they are important, they aren't comic relief or some side character. Game story telling conventions allow for not telling much about level-bosses other than "they want you dead and are on the other team" so their lack of being fleshed out, lack of lines, and lack of "backstory" isn't because they're women, it's because that's how games do things.

I'll agree. Being sub-bosses (not the main villain), this makes some scene, though as said, franchise trope there.

They all look hot. Not really a game mechanic of story-telling there, that's a bias. Making them attractive under the tank-suits is a choice that's made probably more because they are females than because of any other reason. This can be supported by the fact that the male bosses of previous games all look ridiculous (including the back-from-the-dead guy controlling these chicks) or just have a 'soldier' appearance (because it's military themed).

I'll say that is probably because they are females and the quickest way to acknowledge that is highlighting female psychosocial traits. Bit dumb, but I'll admit it might have some sexist undertones there.

They're all victims of horrific trauma. Well that's a half-and-half. The game's theme is about the hell of war and what it does to people, so that's part of the story and so the story-telling generates a lot of damaged people who have trauma relating back to war. Of course, the fact that some of the male bosses elsewhere in the series are less severely traumatized than these girls is something to consider. I mean, they don't just have PTSD or something, they were imprisoned, tortured, starved, killed babies, etc. It's taken to an extreme. Why? Could be because they are women - could be because of something else. Couldn't one of them just been a stone-cold *****? Maybe the one in charge? See below.

This may be also about trying to one-up the previous installments. Snake needs stronger opponents, and the previous ones where messed up in the head, often deriving power from that (I recall psycho mantis for example, though it has been years since I played any metal gear game) Therefore, more messed up means greater power. Add in new boss fodder, turn the crank. It may have used the fact they are women to make what they had done seem more horrible (done to show the big boss at the end "kicking a puppy", so to speak. That relying on them being women, could have an aspect there.

The seduction walk sequence. No reason for that other than that they are hot chicks come out of a tank shell that I can think of really. There's our nugget of sexism without linkage to story-telling mechanics.

yeah, gonna get some pandering when you have a sexy character most of the time, so I'll agree here.

Tranquilizing over killing - no other enemy in the game has a reward for tranks. What's the deal there? I don't know. Could be story-telling break issue, could be sexist. I'm going to go with sexist, because there's never real hesitation (or the option not to kill generally) male characters and bosses.

I recall some bosses do have unique rewards for killing certain ways. Being they are more victims then other bosses (do to what was done to them), it might be a reward thing for showing humanity rather then sexual preference. Again, hard to untwist this one.

Controlled by a man. It doesn't just not make sense, it's sexist. That these super-bad-ass bosses couldn't be working under their own steam because they are women raises some question marks. On the other hand, it could be that bad story building again, what with the man controlling them being a former boss that the story wanted to use as a link back to previous games and stories. Another half-and half, but with a strong skew towards sexism because it doesn't make a damn bit of sense and they have to hand-wave it in explaining it ridiculously.

I am unfamiliar with the story on that point to know who it is. If it is a reoccurring or previous villain though, then it seems less sexist and more legacy. Metal gear is known for it's melodramatic stories I hear and that seems right out of a soap opera, so well matched in that regard. just missing the long lost evil twin bro...oh, that's right.

A guy tells their stories. Well yeah, they're knocked out or dead so that makes some sense and is primarily a story-telling element that could be seriously improved upon. Not sexist in the slightest.

I... well, actually, narrators tend to be male. An odd thing ,though might have roots in collective consciousness of western society. Might have sexism in a sort of "the old ways" sort of unintentionality

So just in this example - without going into any serious depth and making lay-person observations - we have 2 points story-telling based issues, 2 points that are sexist, 2 half-and-halves, and 1 either-or.

I'm not bringing this up to debate the example - I'm sure a healthy debate could be had on any one of those points - but to show that its a complex issue that requires a lot of parsing of "why" before determining that the "why" is the one you're looking to ferret out. It would be VERY easy to just look at what they are wearing and look at what amount of screen time they have and say its totally sexist. It would VERY easy to say that, since they are bosses and powerful enough to challenge the player-character there can't possibly be any sexist element about them. It's hard to actually get into the machinery and find out what is motivating which parts to function.

True, it is a deep and very interesting topic. I only wish that the vid series the kickstarter got the 160k for would go into it like this. I know there is sexism used in gaming, and sexuality based on gender used in marketing and game design. I just think that problems with the story tend to encourage reliance on those things and exacerbate the issue.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I am not sure I found his rebuttals all that great to be honest. Sarkeesian argues that Zia is a non-developed character and the response is basically "but she's capable and not dressed like a slut!". Then his rebuttal to her Kat argument is "Maybe she likes to dress up... And she's still a strong female character!", which is the weakest argument ever since it can be used to justify any form of horrible character design ("In Uncharted 4 Drake will run around in only a thong since he likes to dress down when on the beach") by virtue of "this fictional character wants it".

As I think many have pointed out before me, there's more to empowering women and getting rid of th sexism in gaming and the games industry then just making women do stuff. Anyone remember the atrocious Heavy Metal FAKK 2? You played a "strong" female character in that game, one who had no problem murdering her way through problems and saving worlds. She was also dressed like a stripper. For the entire game. And her character model was based on an adult model. The whole "But she's a strong and capable woman"-argument is not acceptable as a substitute for good artistic design.