Anita Sarkeesian + Hitman Absolution = Epic Fail

[IceForce]

I understand this has been touched on in other threads, but I am still interested in holding a discussion about this one specific aspect of Anita's "Women as Background Decoration" video. (And I apologize for being a slowpoke with this, but I've only just finished playing Hitman Absolution, and I can see now how off-base Anita really is with this video.)

Specifically, Anita suggests that misogynistic behavior in video games is "always implicitly encouraged".

I should note that this kind of misogynistic behavior isn't always mandatory; often it's player-directed, but it is always implicitly encouraged.

Anita then shows a clip of Hitman Absolution, depicting the player character knocking out and dragging the bodies of female strippers around the floor.

While this is happening, the player score counter in the top corner of the screen is actually GOING DOWN.
Hitman Absolution doesn't "implicitly encourage" killing or knocking out civilians, female or otherwise. It actually discourages that kind of behavior, by actively penalizing the player for it.

So we end up with a case of Anita using video footage that proves wrong the very point she's making at the time.

Furthermore, only an idiot player is going to interfere with the strippers anyway, as they're incredibly easy to sneak past, and they only hurt your score if you try interacting with them in any way.

Not only this, but she suggests that the player "cannot help" but perform obscene acts on female NPCs.

The player cannot help but treat these female bodies as things to be acted upon,because they were designed, constructed and placed in the environment for that singular purpose. Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters.

Once again using footage from Hitman Absolution.

What she DOESN'T show is that you can kill / knock out male characters, strip them of all their clothes, and leave them lying around in their underwear and/or dumped in a dumpster. Which is something you CANNOT do to female characters (take all their clothes, I mean), and is arguably worse than what you CAN do to female characters (kill them / knock them out, drag them around, -- and not much else).

***

I also feel that Anita doesn't really understand what a background character is.

Indeed nothing about the design, behaviors or mechanics associated with female characters that serve as background decoration encourages or engenders any sort of human empathy. In fact, quite the opposite, the rudimentary algorithms governing interactions lead the player to interface with these characters in ways that can only be dehumanizing and exploitative. As sexual automata, they don't have any individuality, they don't have their own stories, players are never supposed to identify with them or care about them, outside of what they can offer either sexually or materially.

It's simply not possible to give everyone in the game their own unique stories and individuality. Some characters are literally only there as background decoration, because that's the entire purpose of "background decoration".

You could argue that they should just remove the background decoration characters altogether. But to that I say; what good would a strip club level in a game be if it was completely devoid of all strippers? It would feel empty and unrealistic.

***

Anyway, in the past, I've defended many of the things that Anita has said. But I can't defend this.
I feel this Hitman Absolution blunder is completely indefensible, and I'm interested to hear if most everyone else feels the same way.

(Anita Sarkeesian transcript taken from here.)

Quick edit: I realize Thunderfoot made a video about exactly this, but I deliberately haven't mentioned him in this post, so this thread doesn't immediately get bogged down with yet another Youtube personality.

Anyway, any other Anita followers or Hitman Absolution players want to offer input on this?

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at. You are kind of right in a factual way. The game dose punish you killing people, but I can't bring myself to defend the game on this ground. Taken as a whole, the game is very squick. Like I am thinking back to playing it and am feeling kind of sick about some of the content.


It is kind of possible to give every character a little bit of back story/personality. Games do it all the time with idle chat. It's not a lot, but when spent well it can lead to some neat characterizations. Oh and then watchdogs did that clever thing with the profiler. The kind of problem is that the idle chat for a stripper, or prostitute is all about them inviting you to be perverse. You know the stripper in GTA 5 even a fair amount of dialog. It's just all their dialog is about sex, so there is opportunity to give them character or a back story. They just don't.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i think everyone with the slightest knowledge of video games knows shes full of shit by this point, that last episode simply made it all even more obvious

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at. You are kind of right in a factual way. The game dose punish you killing people, but I can't bring myself to defend the game on this ground. Taken as a whole, the game is very squick. Like I am thinking back to playing it and am feeling kind of sick about some of the content.


It is kind of possible to give every character a little bit of back story/personality. Games do it all the time with idle chat. It's not a lot, but when spent well it can lead to some neat characterizations. Oh and then watchdogs did that clever thing with the profiler. The kind of problem is that the idle chat for a stripper, or prostitute is all about them inviting you to be perverse. You know the stripper in GTA 5 even a fair amount of dialog. It's just all their dialog is about sex, so there is opportunity to give them character or a back story. They just don't.

"you are right, but still dont like the game"

well thats your problem isnt it? the game isnt sexist, atleast regarding sex workers, which is what anita was arguing, plus im pretty sure, just like in pretty much every stealth game in existence, you can use male bodies to distract guards as well

you are making an exception now, simply because its the corpse of a woman, and actually thats kind of sexist

 

[Username Redacted]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

As far as OPs points go I can't really find fault with that. In fact, looking at the transcript, I see a lot of games on her discussion where what she's saying applies equally to NPCa of both genders. For example:
[quote = "Feminist Frequency"]Some games explicitly incentivise and reward this kind of behavior by having murdered women drop bundles of cash for the player to collect and add to their own stash.[/quote]
Of the games that I've played that she listed there isn't a single one where loot drops don't apply to both male and female NPCs regardless of the NPCs alleged occupation. I would actually argue that most games actually give more of an incentive to kill male NPCs as they're likely to be carrying money AND ammunition as opposed to just money. This isn't even considering that most games pay at least lip service to discouraging random acts of violence (reputation, morality systems, wanted level, etc.). Show me a 'Prostitute Garroting Simulator 2014' (coming soon to Steam Greenlight -_- )and I might give you this but I don't see how the above quote is actually anything resembling a valid point.

This is another point on which I would generally disagree:
[quote = "Feminist Frequency"]Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of,[/quote]
This is said in relation to open world sandbox games. Here's something that's pretty common about such games: pretty much any non-named NPC, sexualized or otherwise, has roughly the individual personality of the random number generator that spawned them. So complaining specifically about nameless prostitutes lacking personality without mentioning that no NPC in the game is exactly what you'd call bursting with character seems misleading.

I would also add that I'd like to go 'source plz' for about 1/2 of her "conclusion" as I see a lot of dubious (to me) statements that mention research (IMO an appeal to authority) without listing any specifics or listing references. I'm sorry, but when you're going to make overarching blanket statements about anything you had best provide some citations to back your statement up.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

Did you beat the level after the strip club? That is where this segment is. I kind of think if you found the area you would know it. It's not the only place the game has sexualized violence on women. I mean it opens the game with you killing a woman in the shower. Heck that shower is the title screen.

 

[lacktheknack]

Why, IceForce?

I know you're not a fan of the mods, but WHY do you torture them (and us) with Yet Another Fucking Anita Sarkeesian Thread?

OT: I don't care whether or not she got her facts wrong when talking about Hitman: Absolution, and quite frankly, neither should anyone else (unless they backed her, I guess). And until we get down to less than one Anita thread per month (compared to the current semi-weekly thread), I will continue to be entirely unable to care.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

Did you beat the level after the strip club? That is where this segment is. I kind of think if you found the area you would know it. It's not the only place the game has sexualized violence on women. I mean it opens the game with you killing a woman in the shower. Heck that shower is the title screen.

what about the men you kill constantly, all the time, throughout the game?

plus doesnt it bother you in the slightest that she fabricated proof?

if what you are saying its true and hitman is a women beating simulator, why show false proof?

 

[OneCatch]

Bit weird to target that particular aspect of the game because the behaviour discussed is punished (score goes down). Hitman has been built around interfering with as few people as possible from the start, and has explicitly codified it since the second with the 'Silent Assassin' rating.
Going to cover the Absolution NPC system in a bit of detail for those who haven't played, because it's a little different to the others:

1. Targets/Unique NPCs. These have enhanced AI and often enhanced perception. Will follow scripted sequences when not alert, and may uniquely interact with the environment or other NPCs.
2. NPCs - these have their own individual AI which means they will notice distractions, things being amiss, and will react tactically in combat. Generally you can disguise as them.
3. Crowd NPCs. These appear in certain missions to simulate a busy area. They're fairly stupid, either stand still or mill-around, and don't have unique reactions to Hitman. Instead, if you're spotted doing something bad they'll yell out and true NPCs will be alerted. If combat breaks out they'll fall to the floor, or run away and despawn at the edge of the map.

Now, in terms of female representation, it's a pretty even split in all three categories. The Crowd NPCs are randomly generated and split by gender roughly 50/50. There are female NPCs - cleaners, receptionists, scientists, the usual Hitman non-combatants. The strippers from the vid are also individual NPCs.
Then there are a few female Target NPCs. Not going to go into detail because spoilers, but you do have to kill them. Though I don't reckon that's controversial given you also kill plenty of male targets without fanfare.

There's no gameplay differentiation between male and female NPCs except in one regard - there are never any female guards/mercs/soldiers. All the aggressive NPCs are male (with the exception of the female Targets), which seems a bit odd.

That said, imo the latest Hitman did have some... issues with it's treatment of women. Pics and spoilers:

Spoiler

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Skip to 16:10:
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I know it's always gone for the kind of grotty, perverse, underworld as a setting (the Meat King in Contracts for example), and I don't have anything against that when it serves the setting.
But they really seemed to turn it up to eleven in this one, with almost every named female character getting naked, or semi naked, and mostly getting killed - usually by 47, usually when revealingly dressed. It's like they were running with the "the slut dies because of her amorous ways" trope so beloved of slasher films (or worse treating the whole thing as a sexual power fantasy) - almost drawing some correlation between sexualised women and extreme violence, which did leave a bit of a sour taste.
Which makes it all the more mystifying that Sarkeesian chose it to illustrate the example she did - imo the actual gameplay is fairly 'equal opportunities' - it was the general artistic style and tone that was problematic if anything

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

Did you beat the level after the strip club? That is where this segment is. I kind of think if you found the area you would know it. It's not the only place the game has sexualized violence on women. I mean it opens the game with you killing a woman in the shower. Heck that shower is the title screen.

what about the men you kill constantly, all the time, throughout the game?

plus doesnt it bother you in the slightest that she fabricated proof?

if what you are saying its true and hitman is a women beating simulator, why show false proof?

Have you played Hitman Absolution? If there was a segment with a dead male stripper in a shiny gold spedo that you had to dump over a ledge to distract a set of guards, that would be equally as disturbing. (The game has a lot of weird issues overall so it dose have some creepy stuff with men, but not exact.)

I did kind of feel that the video was off mark in some respects. It's kind of a weird tangled ball to sift through talking about objectification when in a game every NPC is an object. If they aren't a player, or an enemy, then they really have no agency. I don't really live or die based on the type of language she uses in her videos though.

I think maybe the more note worthy thing that the video brought up is that outside of context, these scenes look really bad. That was the impression I had after watching it, but the kicker comes in that looking back, I couldn't really think of anything about the context that made them less squicky.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

This is another point on which I would generally disagree:
[quote = "Feminist Frequency"]Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of,

This is said in relation to open world sandbox games. Here's something that's pretty common about such games: pretty much any non-named NPC, sexualized or otherwise, has roughly the individual personality of the random number generator that spawned them. So complaining specifically about nameless prostitutes lacking personality without mentioning that no NPC in the game is exactly what you'd call bursting with character seems misleading.
[/quote]

Didn't mention a little about this in my post? NPCs do get characterization through through small things like dialog. The GTA strippers have more dialog then some of the side characters it's just that all their characterization is spent saying I am sexy over and over again.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

Did you beat the level after the strip club? That is where this segment is. I kind of think if you found the area you would know it. It's not the only place the game has sexualized violence on women. I mean it opens the game with you killing a woman in the shower. Heck that shower is the title screen.

what about the men you kill constantly, all the time, throughout the game?

plus doesnt it bother you in the slightest that she fabricated proof?

if what you are saying its true and hitman is a women beating simulator, why show false proof?

Have you played Hitman Absolution? If there was a segment with a dead male stripper in a shiny gold spedo that you had to dump over a ledge to distract a set of guards, that would be equally as disturbing. (The game has a lot of weird issues overall so it dose have some creepy stuff with men, but not exact.)

I did kind of feel that the video was off mark in some respects. It's kind of a weird tangled ball to sift through talking about objectification when in a game every NPC is an object. If they aren't a player, or an enemy, then they really have no agency. I don't really live or die based on the type of language she uses in her videos though.

I think maybe the more note worthy thing that the video brought up is that outside of context, these scenes look really bad. That was the impression I had after watching it, but the kicker comes in that looking back, I couldn't really think of anything about the context that made them less squicky.

no i havent played the game, but ive seen quite a bit about it, and according to the OP, you can undress male characters in the game, can you do that with females?

one could arguably say male characters in the game have it worse, since you kill them in greater numbers, as someone else pointed out there are no female guards, plus you get to humilliate them by undressing them

you are not doing with that female character anything you cant do with a male character, am i right? are you actually disturbed by the game simply because the corpse-shaped bag of 1s and 0s you used to distract those guards was both a woman and a sex worker? shouldnt be women treated equally to men? shouldnt sex workers not be held on a different standard? then why are you not doing this?

imagine it was the corpse of a black man, would the game be racist then? if it was a rich man corpse, would it be classist? a disabled person corpse, would it be ableist?

even if it was the corpse of a male stripper in a shiny gold spedo, it makes no difference, you are the one making a big deal out of it, its the oldest job on earth, maybe you should accept that fact

 

[SUPA FRANKY]

Look at all the white men that were murdered brutally. This must mean that the game is not only racist, but sexist, and if you play this game, you are a rape apologist and a husband beater.

Check your privilege.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

This is another point on which I would generally disagree:
[quote = "Feminist Frequency"]Unlike other NPCs that exist for purposes outside of their sexuality, Non-Playable Sex Objects have little to no individual personality or identity to speak of,

This is said in relation to open world sandbox games. Here's something that's pretty common about such games: pretty much any non-named NPC, sexualized or otherwise, has roughly the individual personality of the random number generator that spawned them. So complaining specifically about nameless prostitutes lacking personality without mentioning that no NPC in the game is exactly what you'd call bursting with character seems misleading.

Didn't mention a little about this in my post? NPCs do get characterization through through small things like dialog. The GTA strippers have more dialog then some of the side characters it's just that all their characterization is spent saying I am sexy over and over again.[/quote]

strippers, saying arousing things, please listen to yourself

thats like complaining soldiers in a game only talk about weapons, war and shit like that

if a character whose job wasnt to provoke sexual arousal was saying stuff like that, youd have a good point, thats not the case

 

[DirgeNovak]

I definitely am not a Sarkeesian hater, I do think she has some decent points sometimes, but most of that video made me facepalm very hard. Not only does Hitman actively penalize you for hurting innocents in any way, she's literally complaining about a game in which you take down criminal organizations having strip joints. Strip joints are one of the most important staples of the interlope world. They're kind of hard to avoid.
Ditto for her complaining about there being Chinese prostitutes in the bits of Deus Ex: Human Revolution that are set in a Chinese tourist trap and Vietnamese women offering you to "love you long time" in Shellshock. Having prostitutes in your game doesn't mean it's misogynistic.

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

Didn't mention a little about this in my post? NPCs do get characterization through through small things like dialog. The GTA strippers have more dialog then some of the side characters it's just that all their characterization is spent saying I am sexy over and over again.

Don't be thick, they're referring to Hitman: Absolution and not any of those examples that you are using. In this specific game, regardless of gender, the NPC's had stock actions more than anything else. This is everyone outside of the actual targets.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

There is that spot in absolution where you have to use the body of a dead stripper to distract some guards. Well I guess you don't have to have to, but it is about the only way you can do that segment without getting shot at.

Really? I do not remember that. In all fairness that may have occurred after I stopped giving a fuck about being stealthy so there's that...

Did you beat the level after the strip club? That is where this segment is. I kind of think if you found the area you would know it. It's not the only place the game has sexualized violence on women. I mean it opens the game with you killing a woman in the shower. Heck that shower is the title screen.

I actually completely missed it my first playthrough. My second playthrough, when I found it, I'd argue it was a good thing that I dropped the corpse. The cops were utterly stupid and missed what evidence they could find of the strip club owner murdering his own strippers for, essentially, not letting his buddies rape 'em. While you do get to murder the fat bastard earlier in the game, by dropping that corpse you can tie the murders specifically to the strip club. An investigation could be launched and those monsters responsible for such acts could end up going away for a long, long time.

And hell, while it may be "disrespectful" towards the corpse, you've done arguably worse to a few male NPCs down the line. You could've immediately killed a guy who just found out he's cancer free AND as others have said, male NPCs have the unfortunate "joy" of basically being stripped down and throne into dumpsters.

I'd argue that all things considered the Hitman series is actually against misogyny. Despite featuring prostitutes and of course some "fetishized" female assassins, the main protagonist is by all accounts Asexual. Most of your targets are frequently "perverts" of the most sick variety and celibate clergy are treating with an extraordinary degree of respect.

Just to give you an idea (and spoiling a few things, admittedly, you've been warned) down the line you're dealing with a target that's by all accounts a stupid punk. He is an incredibly misogynistic character, gloating about a woman supposedly "liking it" when he hit her and acting like he's tough shit. Your response? Well you murder his thuggish friends one by one, kidnap him, then force him to dig his own grave out in the burning hot arizona desert. When you get what you need, you have the option to gun him down like a dog.

And boy is it satisfying seeing that bastard go.

That is a fair point to make. Hitman Absolution uses misogyny as a way to make the villains evil. Though the fact they want to show it so much made me uncomfortable.

Didn't mention a little about this in my post? NPCs do get characterization through through small things like dialog. The GTA strippers have more dialog then some of the side characters it's just that all their characterization is spent saying I am sexy over and over again.

Oh now that is bull! I actually was listening to the dialog of the strippers in Absolution, and I can guarantee that they have at least TWICE as much characterization as the ones in GTA 5, the most I remember from those strippers is seeing the occasional NPC going "You liiiiike that?" in an aggravating "sensual" voice.

Absolution, though?

You learn the Strippers live in fear of their boss "sending them to Hawaii" and, if you listened earlier, you find that a few dead strippers have been found in the gutters with postcards "from hawaii" on them. You see them nervous before a show, you see experienced strippers trying to offer newbies some encouragement and care. Heck, you see one of them actually keeping up a well voice-acted conversation with a guard asking for help. I immediately sympathized with the plight of those girls there! Hell! In the VERY SCENE Anita was using for her example, those strippers were, in a rather tragic twist, trying to teach one of the newbies to not be afraid and have some freaking self-esteem.

That's right. Strippers. Trying to tell a new girl that she's better than a bunch of middle aged guys groping her. That she should keep her chin up and not let a bunch of idiots get to her.

I don't know about you, but that seems a thousand times more well-written and sympathy inducing than "Does yo' momma know ya' here~?"

Maybe I didn't say it right. What I was talking about is how the strippers in GTA5 have dozens of lines of dialog with no characterization other then I'm sexy. I was talking about how they could have had characterization, but they just didn't. It was in responce to an argument that NPCs can't have characterization because they are NPCs.

Ya I am going to have to give Hitman Absolution credit there again. I did listen to the hawaii bit. You don't really see a conversation like that to often.

Edit:

EDIT: Just realized you weren't saying that the GTA 5 strippers had good characterization. I jumped the gun a bit and I apologize.

But the point still stands that the strippers in Absolution had a -lot- of character. They weren't just "decorations" like in most games.

It's OK. Some times people misunderstand each other. You are right about them having some good character. I just kind of forgot that part among the other parts of the game. I don't always recall every game I play with 100% perfection.