Is a fanfiction depicting the murder of Randy Pitchford ok?

[Jadak]

Sure, it's fine. It's fan fiction, so what?

If anyone has a problem with it, I suggest you treat it the same way I treat all fan fiction, by not giving a fuck.

 

[Legion]

Guy makes a shitty flash game where you beat up Anita: "Rabble rabble rabble rabble!!!!!!!!!!"

Person makes a fanfic where Anita murders a guy begging for his life, and RL Anita gives it a thumbs up: Oh, it's just a joke guys! Quit taking everything seriously.

It's like hypocrisy grew hands and joined the forums.

That is essentially my issue.

I don't care for the fan fiction or that Anita Sarkeesian may like it. It's not real, and she has every right to like it. I am not one of those people who gets bothered about things like this.

What bothers me is that if the fan fiction had been the other way around. About Randy Pitchford killing Anita and he said that he liked it then she'd be the first to tweet about it, no doubt claiming that it was misogynistic. There'd also be a flood of threads on here with people agreeing with her.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

By free speech it's ok.

That being said, I read the fanfiction and it's pretty silly and kinda poorly written. It's about the standard of quality I'd expect from anonymous nobodies on Tumblr. I know it's trying to be "ironic" and all with it making Randy an over-the-top evil magical villain and the long monologue by the villain about sexism in Duke Nukem being a parody of saturday morning cartoon "this is why this is wrong" speeches, but it's been done before and it doesn't really have any humour value besides "ha ha we're taking feminism as if it were a childrens cartoon".

As for the whole "baaaahhh sexism" I don't really see how this has seriously anything to do with Anita Sarkeesian's arguments at all. Really. Even assuming that condoning this is a serious threat on Randy Pitchfork's life and she's in the wrong for it, it doesn't invalidate her arguments on sexism (no matter your personal views on it) and doesn't make the whiny, aggressive death threats the internet decided to lob at her justified.

Also OP seems really unnecessarily aggressive. Seriously bro, nobodies going to ban you for disagreeing with people.

 

[wulf3n]

Tell me why the fuck does no one analyze Yahtzee Croshaw? Or Jim Sterling? Or any number of these so-called video game personalities. And yes some probably do, but the number of times that Anita is scrutinized compared to the average video game personality is probably about 20:1.

Don't you just love unverifiable opinions paraded as "facts"

20:1 do you have any evidence of this? What constitutes scrutiny?

No one analysed Jim Sterling? Plenty of people "analysed" Jim Sterling, even ignoring the vitriol he received at the start of his series, he still receives plenty of "analysis" every week on his videos.

The key difference between Anita and other personalities is that they don't censor discussion. Perhaps the analysis appears so widespread, because they don't have a voice where it matters.

How many people have threatened to rape Jim or Yahtzee?

How many people have threatened to rape Anita?

 

[Daniel Ferguson]

I think if aliens or monsters or whatever kill a public figure like the CEO of a game company, that's okay. Like, Diablo himself offs the creator of Diablo 3, for instance. If the person being killed is okay with it, then it's *maybe* okay. But blatant revenge fantasy? Not okay. Not really. It's slander and/or defaming or something legal like that.

I enjoyed seeing Michael Cera get impaled by a light post in This Is The End. Because a fissure opened up and moved the earth and said post. That's okay, probably. If someone in the movie went *gunning* for him, out on a revenge murder, that would be crossing the line.

By not okay, I mean from a legal standpoint, morals/ethical alignment aside. Hating someone enough to write out a murder fantasy is akin to actually making a death threat. If you are an author and you depict such a death, then that real person actually dies, the law is going to be instantly suspicious and pay you a "little visit" to have "a nice chat".

 

[wolf thing]

I'm... I'm not seeing it, I'm afraid. It's not exactly hypocrisy; Anita Sarkeesian hasn't said anything about not depicting any deaths. It's not condoning murder, when it's done in such a clearly tongue-in-cheek fashion. I mean, "For Aliens: Colonial Marines"?


People get killed in video games, films, books, etc, all the time-- granted, it's not often just "for a joke" (though that happens in GTA and others frequently), but it's still hardly giving death the dignity and gravitas it has in real life. Why should Anita be subject to any other standards?

Here is why I find it hypocritical, the fact she is against killing of fictional female characters in a game, and yet is alright with a story about a real life person being murdered, and for a pretty insulting reason.

She is against kill off underdeveloped female character to give to a quest or an objective to a male character which totally different to what you think she said, may be you misunderstood it.

Of course this a fake story and may be written as a piece of humor for a shitty gmae which may people lost money on. Sarkeesian might just be trying to get in on the joke. but i havent read it so it might be made strate faced and call for Sarkeesian to murder a man, but is that likely.

Of course to many it wont matter what the actual meaning behind the fanfic is, people will use this as another reason to hate a women who only want to raise her opinion on the internet. it is okay to dislike her but the amount of attention she gets for those who hate just seems a bit weird to me.

 

[Bradmaster Flash]

I have no problems with this, aside from the fact that if the role in the fanfiction was reversed, with Anita being killed, it'd be outright targeted as misogynistic and the whole social justice internet mob would raise their pitchforks and torches to it.

 

[wolf thing]

Having now read the fanfic, i can say it was clearly a joke, come on when pitchford dies he returns to the demoncic warp, spider-man is this, spider-man.

I think when Sarkeesian say she like this she thought it was funny, i doubt she thinks gunning pitchford down while he is begging for his life, making him to vanish then taking over his studio is a god thing to do. she clearly thinks it is a joke.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Oh really, you clearly never watched her second Video of her Tropes VS Women in video games, where she spoke out against women being killed by a man in order to further the story.

In this story, she kills a man in order to further the story.

I believe (I haven't watched any of her videos, because while it seems like she has good points, as yet I haven't been bothered) that the trope you're referencing is Stuffed Into The Fridge [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge]. What the trope actually means is not "a woman being killed by a man to further the story" or vice versa, it's the graphic death of a character to further the character arc of another. Generally by pointlessly and violently killing off, raping or mutilating a loved one just to give the hero motivation. The fact that this is much, much more likely to be done to a female character is something that a great many observsers, not just Anita, have picked up on. The argument is that it implies that female characters have worth only in how they effect a male character, not that a male character should never kill a female.

Killing someone you don't like shouldn't be condoned, and by ackowledging the fanfiction, she is condoning it, no ifs, ands or buts. Understand?

This is wrong. Utterly and completely wrong. There is an enormous, enormous difference between reality and fiction. In Star Wars, Tarkin blows up Alderaan. That does not mean George Lucas condones blowing up planets. Even if he had specifically said that, fuck knows, Frank Sinatra lived on Alderaan that does not mean he endorses blowing up planets or killing Frank Sinatra. Reality. Fiction. Different things.

Its called a double standard. Feminists love to ignore it and so do their followers as you can see in previous posts

Seriously, stop with the broad-strokes generalisations. It doesn't support your accusations in the slightest, and it makes you look like a baby who can't take disagreement. If you present a flawed argument (as you did), people are allowed to disagree, and trying to marginalise them by claiming "ah, feminists and white knights always ignore this because their beliefs are flawed" or that this bloody Sarkeesian woman is a "sacred cow" (we've all read TVTropes, dude, nobody is impressed by the references) just makes it look like you can't offer an actual argument in response.

There was a reason why you believe that what you were going to write was wrong. First and obvious reason, these movies were horrible and people were celebrating their hatred about real people. It was disgusting and wrong. Second reason why this argument is a fail, it was fictional characters killing and injuring real people. I guess this what separates decent people from other people without critical thinking and a conscience. If someone wrote a story that I would walk up and kill someone over a videogame, I would tell them to please take it down. I would not post on my site and endorse it.

Celebrity Deathmatch would like a word with you. As would all those guest stars on The Simpsons who've wound up dead or injured. All the cutaway gags in Family Guy about real celebrities. All the guest stars on Robot Chicken who've been mauled or killed. Bill Murray's appearance in Zombieland, as himself? The fact that he made the appearance means he obviously endorses people murdering him with a shotgun.

The average human is capable of both drawing a distinction between fiction and reality, and between that which is genuinely mean-spirited and that which is not. From the way OP has described it, the Anita story is a bizarre parody along Family Guy lines (her and fucking Spider-Man on a violent rampage? Seriously?) intended for comedy rather than to cause emotional harm to anyone. That's why the comparisons to that punch-Anita-in-the-face game are wildly innappropriate; whether or not you think the creator had a point to make, you can't deny that he made that point by depicting graphic violence towards another person for the sake of graphic violence and amidst a culture of violent threats toward that person.

Please tell me you can see the difference there?

Someone earlier in this thread complained that Anita is overanalyzed. She put herself out there by overanalyzing videogames. Did anyone think that the Mario games were sexist before she complained about Princess Peach?

Given how many people were making jokes about it, for many years now, yes. Quite obviously they did.

 

[nuttshell]

Anita again? Really?

Have any of you who defended the panic about the flash game in which you beat up anita actually play it? The link is even on the first page here. The wall of text, explaining itself in the intro took me longer to read then the damned game. And even if I don't think it's particularly funny, it's still really not a big deal.

A fanfic fictionally kills a real guy in an impossible situation? That's a big deal? Really?

Have we allready forgotten Theo van Gogh or the Muhammad Cartoons? Obsession is one of the most dangerous attributes of human beings. Stop taking unimportant things like these too seriously or you won't have any freedom to express your thoughts at the end at all.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Really? Killing Randy Pitchford over 'Aliens: Colonial Marines'?
Don't get me wrong, I love Randy, but if I'd kill him over anything it'd be because of Duke Nukem Forever. And I wouldn't have Spider-Man involved, I'd pick someone who's known for killing people like Deadpool or The Punisher.

 

[Duncan Belfast]

Let's discuss tone and snowballs.

Tone is the feeling or attitude towards something. Two fundamentally identical actions can be very different because of the tone, or attitude behind them.

Let's look at the act of throwing a snowball.
If your friend throws a snowball at you, they're probably being playful and friendly.
If that kid who's been giving you a hard time throws a snowball at you, they're probably not.

Also, compare the phrases:
"He questioned my fabric choices. I had him put to death."
"He questioned my authority. I had him put to death."

The first is funny because it takes refuge in audacity.
The second isn't, because it doesn't.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Is it a creative work made in someone's own time with no support from the government? Yes, it's ok.

People are allowed to hate people, people are allowed to fantasise about killing people, people are allowed to write whatever they want, and people are allowed to be seen as hypocrites.

 

[Alleged Despair]

Just look at Randy's Twitter feed. https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/ He doesn't seem to mind it.

 

[Bluestorm83]

I am positively BAFFLED that so many people here can say, basically, that you're not allowed to write or even accept a FICTITIOUS story because in it someone is killed. This is insane. It is absolutely off the wall bonkers. She's not planning to join this guy who wrote it AND SPIDERMAN (Who 1: Does not Exist, 2: Does not just go and kill people, and 3: Is a biological impossibility in the real world) to murder Randy Pitchford or Rusty Shackleford or anyone else in the world. Hell, they're not even burning him in effigy (Which is much more menacing, more real, and STILL not actually harming anyone so get out of the effigy burners' faces.)

I do not agree with the majority of what Anita Sarkeesian says (Sorry if I misspelled, it's early and I don't have the will to reach for the mouse to scroll up.) But I do 100% defend her right to free speech. She can post a fan fiction, verbally fight for womens' equality, call me a fat worthless shithead, or post a youtube video of her flying through the skies scourging the Earth of all life. I don't care, it's all within her rights.

Which brings up another point: What does Randy say about this? Does he even CARE? Is this just another case of reactionary people trying to be the World's Lawyer? From what I understand, he's the head of some Game Thing (again, not scrolling, too groggy,) and he currently possesses The Money, so I seriously doubt that he's rending his clothes and wailing in the ashes because SOMEONE wrote a fan fiction where he's murdered by a Quipping Homo-Arachnid (That's Homo meaning MAN, not homosexual, and it's a goddamn shame that I feel I have to explain that to avoid an overzealous moderator giving me a warning.)

By Abdullahay, I've used multiples of parentheses this morning. Eh, I'm not gonna revise this. Again, groggy and not scrolling. Ah hell, now I have to click "Post..."

 

[sweetylnumb]

why is everyone so determined to jump on Anita? No'one with half a brain thinks shes perfect, no'one with at least 3/4 of a brain take her seriously, so why the "OMG WE WON LOOK" attitude. Who cares. Move on with your life. Its not a serious death threat of course not. Its the kind of funny "haha they made a fan fiction" joke that you wouldn't give two shits about if it was about anyone else. Jim sterling makes murder jokes sometimes, does anyone leap onto that? of cource not becuase everyone loves Jim Sterling.
Just, move on guys. Your just being petty now.

Thank God for Jim.

 

[Nihilm]

completely disregarding the people involved.

Ofcourse it is completely alright, It's fanfiction, it's a story, why must it be "wrong" just because it is controversial.´Seriously sometimes I think people really do want more censorship, for no good reason, since the truly twisted things never gain enough popularity to do any serious harm.

Seriously your on the internet, become more tolerant of twisted things guys, otherwise you'll never survive it and eventually the internet will become some bland place controlled by governements and corporations in the interest to protect everyone.

Also if your opposed to this for the simple reason that there is a person that dies in the story that exists in real life, then you need to start making threads about oh so many other works of fiction as well.