Appolgies in advance for the essay that is about to follow.
Dastardly said:
And see, we could all choose to "not trust you" about you saying that. Why? Because plenty of people claim to have it, and provide no documentation. You could be lying, right? That's the point being made -- we should not allow the fact that some people lodge disingenuous complaints to make use believe that all such complaints must therefore be disingenuous.
Feel free to not trust me, like I said, I wouldn't trust anyone who makes a claim of having Asperger's unless they actually had medical documentation and in the context of the larger part of our arguement it's largely irrelevent whether I have it or not (I merely mentioned it in passing since I do find it a tad irritating when people use it as an excuse for arseholish behaviour).
But to get back to what your Asperger's comment had to do with the conversation at large (not a very good comparison since you can go to a professional to confirm whether one has Asperger's or not while whether a complaint holds weight or not is something that can be broken down by simple logic), there are times when complaints are made and hold some egitimate grievance or weight such as Activision trying to raise the price of MW3 just to see if people would buy it or the horrific racial violence in the latest Call of Juarez game but a Batman game being lackluster with it's variety of expletives is no-where near being as serious an issue (especially in the context and setting of the game).
That's what you're doing here -- you're summarily dismissing the merits of any view that you know disagrees with your own. Rather than just disagreeing, you've got to somehow indicate the idea is ridiculous in some way.
I'm summarily dismissing the merits of any view that opposes my own by thoughtfully going through your points one by one and explaining why I disagree with you?
I do in fact believe that the ideas you've laid out here are ridiculous, that's just what I think, I don't have to treat you with kid gloves and pretend that I think you have some valid arguements when I don't think you do.
I'm being frank with you and treating you like an adult by expressing how and why I disagrre with your views, unless you'd rather I lie and just humour you by smiling and giving the blanket 'everyone's right'.
I can claim whatever I like about what I am for or against. That's the great thing about it being my view. If you're misunderstanding it, it's probably because you're not trying very hard to do so -- you've already made up your mind about it because it doesn't agree with you.
Of course I've made my mind up about it, as have you, hence we're both steadfastly defending our sides of the debate (neither one of us would be having this debate if we weren't really that sure what to think).
While you are entitled to your view and as such can claim whatever you like I am just as entitled to oppose it and to pick it apart at the logical and situational faults that plague it (whilst so far your responses have usually been a recycling of 'you're wrong, it's just lazy writing which is in turn sexism').
I understand what you're trying to say completely, I just disagree with it.
I've made it pretty clear, and will do so again: the word itself is not the concern. The broad, pervasive use of the word to apply to every female in the game, is the concern. There's nothing wrong with Twinkies, but eating a diet of nothing but Twinkies is a problem -- sometimes, the problem isn't with the subject, but rather with the excess of the subject.
And again I must explain that it is the villains that do this, traditionally, villains are what the writers often use as the representation of everything they find to be wrong and evil in the world (hence so few of them tend to be nice or redeemable characters until the fanbase gets their hands on them, then the niceness of them tends to go into overdrive).
It would be strange for them to exclusively use '*****' if there were several terms of abuse that sound natural and are applicable to women but there really aren't that many that will fit into the constraints of keeping it rated T (and as for your suggestions of 'friggin' nutjob' and 'ice queen', remember how I said they had to sound like natural dialogue for violent thugs? Those don't sound like something someone thuggish would say off the top of their head).
Unless you can come up with something better then I'd still say that you're complaining without offering a suggestion of something better.
It's both. Yes, uneducated thugs would conceivably speak that way. No, that doesn't mean the writers can't be expected to inject a little variety here. This is a game about a rich man dressed as a bat fighting criminals that use superhuman chemicals and monster plants -- you want to fixate on the realistic presentation of some thugs? Why should they get a fairer, more realistic treatment than all of the female characters -- who, gender aside, are more important to the story anyway?
It's not about giving a 'fairer, more realistic' portrayal of criminals. It's simply stating that it isn't weird or out of the ordinary for violent criminals to talk this way so it's a case of the most base and simple writing of the characters being the best (not every enemy needs to have Bond one-liners or snappy dialogue, The Joker is supposed to be the delightfully mad and funny one, remember?).
There's no reason to spark up the thugs because, as you said,
they aren't a major part of the story, they're there to get killed off by you and to try and brain you with a pipe while shouting incoherrant abuse at you when they do see you. These aren't exactly supposed to be deep or complex characters (and considering how the Joker works, they are
literally just cannon fodder).
You're reading too much into characters who don't deserve it.
If it was Batman himself who only ever referred to the women in the game as '*****' then I'd say you have a point there but when it's the
fist fodder who are there solely for combat then I'd say you're trying to make a problem where one doesn't exist.
Only if you're improperly framing my view of the problem. I also don't think the terms necessarily have to be female-abusive. It's a false choice -- it's not like the only things we could call her are "*****" or "****." There are other gender-neutral insults we could mix in, y'know, for variety.
Gender neutral ones such as? (remember that T for Teen rating as well so no 'fucker')
As I've previously stated, a lot of the supposedly gender neutral terms of abuse do tend to be gender divided anyway (asshole is supposed to be gender nuetral, it doesn't specify a sex yet I almost never hear it used to refer to women).
Most 'gender neutral' expletives tend to be aimed more against men in terms of how their commanly used (I've had to get between and break up hundreds and thousands of fights in my household so trust me when I say I'm more than familiar with the way curse words get thrown around).
Men can be assholes, bastards, fuckers, motherfuckers, shits (in fact, that one tends to be reserved for kids, again, most often boys), dicks, arses, cockmunchers, tossers, wankers and pricks yet trying to call a woman any one of those just doesn't sound right (and as such doesn't really have the full impact of the word).
As I said previously, it's part of that 'can't hit girls' double standard. Us guys don't like hurting women or their feelings, we feel like arseholes when we do (it's something most of us are brought up with).
False dichotomy. Strawman. No one said that, no one indicated it. This is just spinning wheels in the dirt to kick up a cloud and confuse the issue.
Certainly implied by more than a few people, if there were parts of your arguement that I wanted to make into laughable strawmen then trust me that I would have gone with much more relevant parts of it than your statement of the already widely held belief that swearing doesn't automaticaly make something more mature.
No True Scotsman. You're drawing artificial distinctions between "bias" and "-isms." You're also creating an imaginary definition of "bias." Sexism is a bias -- one that centers around gender. This is just trying to redefine the terminology to match your personal feelings, rather than accept that your current view is limited or flawed.
Given how poorly defined the terms bias and sexism tend to be in the general consciousness (just like other words like racism, discrimination, religion and irony, that last one being a particularly annoying example) it could very effectively be argued that everyone has their own definition for what they mean (which is true and I clearly defined mine and explained how I view matters of bias and discrimination, your rebuking of me just seemed to be a beating around the bush way of saying '
you're wrong, I'm right').
I could try arguing with you about how a bias is fundamentally different from outright sexism but odds are on that you'd just stubbornly ignore me and continue to talk down to me about my 'limited and flawed' views (you're honestly the worst and most irritating kind of person to have an arguement with, you sound like an intelligent guy and unfortuneatly intelligence often results in people adopting something of a superior and condascending attitude, something that makes reasoned debate next to impossible sometimes).
I'll harp where I like, thank you much.
I was always more of a guitar man myself.
The characters are only "saying" these things because the writers "told them" to. It's one thing to write a villain to intentionally represent views you don't believe. It's another to accidentally (through laziness) write villains that betray an underlying bias in how you view women -- or at least leave the window wide open for things to be interpreted that way.
And here is where I can elaborate on how your complaint fundamentally makes no sense.
If this was the subconscious bias of the writers seeping into the story to represent sexist undertones, wouldn't it manifest itself in the heroes? (you know, the people we're supposed to side with and cheer for?)
When we write we do tend to tell more about ourselves than we think we do but in most cases we often write our heroes (the good guys who are in the right) to hold the same views and beliefs that we do (look at any of the works by Jack Chick to see this in
hilarious action) and we often gives the villains beliefs and behaviours that we disagree with or view as wrong (it would stand to reason that this would be so the heroes can show the 'shining light of reason' and overcome the villainously misinformed and misguided bad guy).
So for the issue you're citing to actually be a case of sexism crawling in from the writer's bias (way to inadvertantly label the writer as sexist by the way) then surely it would be
Batman who's calling every woman a ***** all the time, not the thugs.
That would then be a case of the hero (the person who's in the right and we're supposed to side with) expressing this attitude, the writer wants us to think of all women as bitches so he made the hero call them all that.
As for things being open to interpritation,
all things are open to interpritation.
Pokemon, Harry Potter, Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons.
All of those things have been accused of 'making kids consort with demons, the devil and unholy powers', they were all apparantly open to that interpritation yet I'm fairly certain that Nintendo, J.K. Rowling, George Lucas and Gary Gygax weren't in a dark pack or alliegence sworn to convert children to worshipping the Prince of Darkness (and I seriously question the objectivity and mental stability of those who genuinely believe in those interpritations).
Developers and writers need to be aware of how things like this may be perceived. In this case, they were not. Is it a death sentence for the game? Of course not. But it's a flaw that is worth pointing out so we can fix it going forward.
Developers and writers can't be prepared for every possible nit-pick and grumble that will come out of the community at large.
If you wait long enough and find someone dedicated enough then I'm sure you could comb through every film, book, song and game ever made and find something offensive about it.
Of course, people will continue to improve in their writing, storytelling and characterisation as time goes on but I don't think there is any possible way to be prepared for how every single little thing will be percieved because how we percieve things is unique to each person (what one person finds to be perfectly passable another will through a rage-filled tantrum over, hence we're having this discussion).
Some people need to relax and stop trying to shoehorn issues of equality and discrimination into situations where it really isn't nessercary.
The simplest explanation is most often the correct one, which is more likely?
That the writer of Batman: Arkham City secretly hates women and wants to convey this by having the enemies spam the word ***** at every woman in the game because all women are horrible and nasty bitches?
Or.
It's just something that happened in writing, the thug's dialogue wasn't that important so not much attention was given to them, someone took this the wrong way and blew it massively out of proportion?
TL;DR version:
There probably isn't any actual sexism behind this issue and people should probably put more of their efforts into actually helping people who are the victims of real discrimination and abuse than complaining about the combat dialogue in a Batman game.
