Jimquisition: The Positive Side to Punching Nuns

[zvate]

The video made an interesting point and helped me see the debate in a new a light... Like Jim I'm not going to touch that debate with a ten-foot pole... and I laughed at the 'bye' at the end

That's all I wanted to say

 

[ritchards]

Question: if this was monks taking off their robes to reveal straps and thongs... would that be considered 'edgy' or 'ironic'?

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

BYE JIM!

That ending made me giggle like a schoolgirl for a good few seconds.

 

[Darkmantle]

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women.

Spoiler: Yes, they are. For dudes.

I'm not interested into going into a massive back-and-forth, so I'll just agree to disagree with you on that point.

I also have to disagree, women like different types of men, saying they like only cute bishies ignores that Fabio or Thor are (or were) popular with women (in part) due to their muscular physique. Other women find nerdy guys like Stephen Merchant to be very attractive.

Um..... So?
Women like different kinds of men, just as men like different types of women. Designing for a specific gender is hard, since not everyone of that genders shares the same tastes. At the same time you end up attracting a portion of the opposite gender. Look at what happened with My Little Pony, designed for a female audience, attracted a huge male audience.

I find girls with smaller breasts to be attractive, does that mean that those battle nuns with the huge tits and cleavage weren't sexualized for men because I prefer something different?
The characters were sexualized, due to them having prominent female sexual characteristics. It is independent of the fact that you weren't attracted to them. I mean, Disney Aladdin was redesigned to be more ****able for women. Does that mean that because he wasn't sexualized for women because I don't want to have sex with him? You can answer that question.

Um, what? Perhaps if you went ahead and explained yourself instead of trying to mock me by editing my post I would be able to understand what the hell you are talking about. As you seem to be contradicting your earlier point, although it is hard to tell as the quote edit you did there jumbles your message.

you say it's hard to sexualize things for a gender because people have different tastes, but at the same time think the battle nuns were sexualized? I don't get it. But that's what happens when you spend more time trying to mock someone than actually forming coherent ideas.

 

[Vrach]

ok I totally get the crux of the video, that's not my point, but I honestly don't see the problem with the Hitman trailer?

Is it me?

Ever played a Hitman game?

Spoiler: Have you?

That video is pretty much the same shit as the trailer, but there are a ton more examples of sexualisation in Hitman. Meat factory rave level? The whole level from the above video (heaven and hell rave)? Anyone saying this trailer doesn't have anything to do with the Hitman franchise is talking out of their arse, there's more gimps and scantily clad women in the series than there are assassination targets.

Well I never said there wasn't sexuality in Hitman, but this about context. As you said, that scene takes place at a RAVE: she's wearing a costume to a party. It can at least be justified as a disguise. These "nuns" wear fetish clothing simply to go out and kill someone. What part of shooting RPGs and assault rifles in a parking-lot require fishnet stockings? I've certainly got nothing against scantily clad women in video games (as much as I'd like to but this just tasteless exploitation.

Yeah, it's a fair point, I'll give you that. But it still doesn't strike me as somehow outside the scope of what the series has done so far. I mean really think about the groups behind those rave parties. If one of those groups sent an assassin after you and it was a leather/fishnet clad woman, would you really be surprised? Personally, I wouldn't. From the feeling I've got of the series, those groups dress like that, it's what they're into, whether they're at a rave or going out for a kill.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

If a single woman took on a cadre of Chippendales dancers when they came to kill her, no one would bat an eye.

I have never seen this happen in any form of media entertainment, ever, so it's impossible to say what would happen if it did.

Please show me an example of a woman in completely covering, formal business attire brutally murdering a group of very attractive, highly sexualized men dressed in scanty latex underwear.

Then we can talk.

I did that in Saint's Row the Third, when I attacked the gimp house. Not the prime example you were thinking, I'm sure, but hey, you wanted an example. Though, there's quite a lot of anime that covers the topic.

 

[kurupt87]

snip

The problems with the trailer are twofold;

1. If it's indicative of gameplay they've destroyed what was a good series.

2. They're wearing BDSM outfits.

If you think violence against women who have fired a rocket at you, followed by trying to stab and shoot you, is bad then I don't understand you.

 

[GeneralFungi]

I honestly haven't played the Halo series, but are those women just grunts? Like all the other male cannon fodder?

Are you trying to imply some sort of inequality simply because females also occupy the lower ranks of the army? There are female commanders, female ship pilots and there were also female Spartans. It's just that you know.. the whole point of Halo is that Chief is the last Spartan, meaning they're dead.

The halo series is a really good example of treating females equally in games without making a big point about it. There are no stereotypes here, just characters.

 

[Creatural]

Bear in mind I'm on the fence with it but the problem a lot o people have is

Those ladies are wearing grossly impratical outfits, the type of clothes you would wear in a bedroom. They are then being whupped, and the way it is shot is almost lovingly. It feels to some people that it is meant to be violent erotica, women get physically dominated by the player surrogate.

Great video Jim. Diversity will make things more interestin and compelling.

So, people are angry at this trailer because it's violent erotica.

Just another example of the prudishness gamers feel they need to adopt so as to gain more mainstream acceptance.

It's not really prudishness that's the problem. It's that violent erotica against women in particular, not men, is a norm in some parts of the media and it both can breed a sense that this thing of men should be normal and all women should be sexualized and brutalized should be a norm for this and then it can make women who've had to deal with men assaulting them sexually very uncomfortable or outright trigger a PTSD attack for some depending on the context.

Wait a minute, where exactly is this the norm? I've experienced quite a lot of media and I haven't come across something that could be called violent erotica in anything mainstream and popular. Hell, even on most general-interest porn sites violent stuff comprises a minority of content. This trailer wouldn't be shocking to people if it was an everyday thing.

To put it in simpler terms erotica in video games isn't the problem, expecting the player to be the one with this particular set of erotic fantasies is though especially when the sexualized violence is only happening against women. If it were happening against men too it might be more acceptable, but it's placing one group in a very different position over the others and since that's inherently unequal people will have problems with that too.

It seems to me that erotica in videogames is very much of a problem for people. That's why Illusion refuses to sell outside Japan. That's why damn-near every artistic controversy that happens in videogames has something to do with sexuality.

Of course anything that extolls a particular set of erotic fantasies will expect the audience to share those same fantasies. If the audience didn't share them then the audience wouldn't be watching.

I shouldn't say it's an actual norm, but it's a perceived norm in some circles and that's what some people are complaining about. This part of what I was talking about is more about the views and discussions I've heard from others than my own views on this. Sorry for not making that clear in the first place.

I believe that the cited media things for this come from a lot of thriller, horror, and I think some action movies and games. I'm not actually an expert in this though, so the people claiming that they see this a lot may actually be involved more heavily in some other kind of genre that may have this going on a lot more than the media that is actually dominating most of popular culture.

Now the following is more of my personal view than the discussions I've heard from others.

I'm not sure that it's erotica that is a problem because while you're using Illusion as an example of something that hasn't sold there are specifically erotic games that have sold very well in the U.S. The Leisure Suit Larry series did very well here and is still widely remembered by gamers, so well remembered that the creator started up a kickstarter project and got a huge backing for it. Even minorly erotic games like Catherine have done well in the U.S. I'm not sure why you're presenting some erotic material as showing that all erotic material does poorly in the U.S. when that's clearly not the case. I think you may be confusing certain kinds of erotica not doing well in the U.S. market with all kinds of erotica. Japanese erotica, in games, would tend to not do as well in the U.S. on the whole I think because a lot of the culture surrounding erotica is treated very differently. Here people consider some things sexy that very few people in Japan would find sexy and vice versa.

There is always controversy surrounding games that have sex in them, that's true, but it's not usually from gamers themselves (as you suggested in an earlier point) it's often from people who don't even play the games. Think of the groups that screamed about Mass Effect having a lesbian relationship as an option in the first game (and then everything else in the later games), a big chunk of the protestors for that were people who wouldn't even pick up the game in the first place.

But still, think of it this way too, going back to my earlier stuff that does involve the gamers who have actually played Hitman before and who are now boycotting it. They're probably not too prudish if they've played past Hitman games, I remember more than a few levels having scantily clad people, but they probably have a specific objection to this trailer in particular because things have been presented a bit differently than they were before. Though I do think there was another instance very similar to this in the games before it wasn't used a selling point that I remember and was not therefore, intentionally or unintentionally as it may be, putting in a point of oh you must want all these women sexed up for you before you attack them. That's the difference here in why I believe in why gamers are objecting and are not necessarily being prudish so much as they're having a specific view (that is sexist) pushed on them as something they're assumed to like instead of something they can deal with as liking or not liking on their own terms as a selling point.

The sexism in particular is making it very bad to people, of course.

 

[Ariseishirou]

If a single woman took on a cadre of Chippendales dancers when they came to kill her, no one would bat an eye.

I have never seen this happen in any form of media entertainment, ever, so it's impossible to say what would happen if it did.

Please show me an example of a woman in completely covering, formal business attire brutally murdering a group of very attractive, highly sexualized men dressed in scanty latex underwear.

Then we can talk.

I did that in Saint's Row the Third, when I attacked the gimp house. Not the prime example you were thinking, I'm sure, but hey, you wanted an example. Though, there's quite a lot of anime that covers the topic.

Yeah, but you chose to set up the scenario that way in Saint's Row, you weren't trying to sell it to someone.

And which anime features a fully-clothed, non-sexualized woman beating up scantily-clad, heavily sexualized men? And isn't played for laughs, but is rather supposed to be gritty and serious? I'd be very curious to watch it.

 

[Mikodite]

What's that you say? Hyper-sexualized female assassins in a game all about assassinating people is a step too far?! Shit! Somebody let James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and what is essentially EVERY PIECE OF MEDIA EVER TO DEPICT ASSASSINS and tell them they're going to have to do a LOT of RetConning. The sexy female assassin has existed for just as long as the sexy female ANYTHING has existed, and the fact that people are getting up in arms now has nothing to do with a higher degree of social awareness.

It has to do with people having bigger and better means to *****. Honestly. There's -nothing- good about having this conversation. While I agree that it would be GREAT if this was indicative of people becoming more aware of the media they're consuming... it's not. It's being used as an excuse by people with a perceived sense of higher moral authority to condemn others for loving things which they have always loved.

It's not even a new discussion. It's always been happening. The problem is just that, now, more and more people have a bigger and better forum upon which to *****. And I don't really believe that that's a GOOD thing.

I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed watching the trailer. And I don't care if you didn't. I don't care if you hated it because you somehow think it doesn't adequately represent the game (which, last I checked, very few of the promotional advertisements/trailers for Hitman have ever done). I don't care if you hated it because your religious beliefs tell you that some sacred costume was being defiled by leather-clad women armed with military grade firepower. I don't care if you hated it because you think that a bunch of heavily armed women attempting to straight-up murder a man should be treated with the respect and dignity of a proper lady.

In that last case, not only does it not affect my enjoyment of the trailer, but it also makes me believe you're just perpetuating a completely DIFFERENT sexist stereotype which is harmful to the treatment of women as equals. Which makes your opinion on the matter mean EVEN less to me.

So go right ahead and have that discussion. But I, for one, won't assist in perpetuating the insanity that is the 'My opinion somehow entitles me to have people listen to me, no matter how stupid it is' mentality which has been going around lately.

So have fun. Cheers.

If you missed the point any harder you would be bombing another planet.

THE FACT THAT THEY'RE WOMEN IS NOT THE POINT

The point is said women are supposedly assassins but instead of wearing practical clothing, wear fetish outfits that serve no purpose other than to titillate an imaginary male audience, who presumably gets a boner from seeing scantily-clad dis-empowered women show off their butts and then get brutally murdered. That is a bad thing.

There is no other reason for them to suddenly tear off their nun habits to reveal clothing like that. That's ludicrous.

If they were men wearing equally fetishistic clothing, then I would have a problem with that too.

This has nothing to do with feminazi bullshit at all.

Its a blatant, transparent, marketing gimmick that serves no purpose other than to titillate teenage boys, and that is its only purpose. If you think cries of 'objectification' are just feminist bullshit, than consider this: why did the assassin-nuns removes their habits to reveal fish-net and spandex in the first place? Why, as sex appeal to the supposed male audience of course! There is no other reason around it: there is no tactical advantage to the outfits themselves, nor is removing the habits in the first place.

If you ever want a definition of what objectification is, well, its that (so feel free to dismiss true feminnazi bullshit that claims objectification but does not fit this model). You see, the women were there as window dressing. Sure, you can argue that they were competent assassins and therefore can't possibly be a valid case of objectification, except they weren't put there to merely be fodder to Agent 47's awesome fighting skillz. The posing shot proves that they weren't intended to be generic enemies, but intended to be ogled as they became fodder. Some have pointed out that by sexualizing them (through removing the habits) they were make less powerful, and therefore a more acceptable target. Think, would the scene had the same punch if the women kept the habits on?

Maybe it wouldn't be as big a deal as it has been, except that we don't often see men being emasculated like this as often, and the Hitman Trailer is being picked on for being blatant in an age where gaming has become more assessable, and more people, with the advent of the web, can find and share more. The ultimate problem that this trailer highlights is the industry's regard of women as window dressing, and how these moments will serve to scare off future women from gaming.

Course, you liked the trailer? Good for you. Maybe you are in that teenage-boy demographic, or maybe you just thought the music was bitchen and the action was sooh sweet. I can't take that away from you, nor will I try. The point is that this conversation is an important one, like many before it, and we need these conversations if the medium of making computer programs for art's sake mature and be taken seriously. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but at least understand it before you dismiss it as entitled whining, considering I don't think I'm asking for that much, if at all.

 

[ex275w]

Oh please, men are as overly sexualized as women.

Spoiler: Yes, they are. For dudes.

I'm not interested into going into a massive back-and-forth, so I'll just agree to disagree with you on that point.

I also have to disagree, women like different types of men, saying they like only cute bishies ignores that Fabio or Thor are (or were) popular with women (in part) due to their muscular physique. Other women find nerdy guys like Stephen Merchant to be very attractive.

Um..... So?
Women like different kinds of men, just as men like different types of women. Designing for a specific gender is hard, since not everyone of that genders shares the same tastes. At the same time you end up attracting a portion of the opposite gender. Look at what happened with My Little Pony, designed for a female audience, attracted a huge male audience.

I find girls with smaller breasts to be attractive, does that mean that those battle nuns with the huge tits and cleavage weren't sexualized for men because I prefer something different?
The characters were sexualized, due to them having prominent female sexual characteristics. It is independent of the fact that you weren't attracted to them. I mean, Disney Aladdin was redesigned to be more ****able for women. Does that mean that because he wasn't sexualized for women because I don't want to have sex with him? You can answer that question.

Um, what? Perhaps if you went ahead and explained yourself instead of trying to mock me by editing my post I would be able to understand what the hell you are talking about. As you seem to be contradicting your earlier point, although it is hard to tell as the quote edit you did there jumbles your message.

you say it's hard to sexualize things for a gender because people have different tastes, but at the same time think the battle nuns were sexualized? I don't get it. But that's what happens when you spend more time trying to mock someone than actually forming coherent ideas.

Sorry, I kind of effed up the formatting, my point is that when you sexualize (or oversexualize) a character (endow with sexual characteristics) with the intention of appealing to a certain gender, for instance giving the character huge breasts the following happens:
a) The design will end up appealing more to a part of the gender you are targeting, attracting more customers. (The game with the nuns looks hot!)
b) Some of that gender you are targeting will shun your product because they don't like the sexualized designs and either want more variety in the sexualization or want more androgynous characters. (I am a male and don't like huge breasts, so the nuns don't appeal to me, maybe they should have different cup sizes)
c) Your sexualized design will occasionally be appealing to other genders so they will enjoy your product. (I am a female and I like the designs of the nuns, so I will buy the game)

This seems character design 101, but what can happen after trying to appeal to only one gender is the following:
a) Your audience wont be the gender you are necessarily targeting.(Like My Little Pony having a mostly male audience)
b) Your product won't appeal to anyone. (BMX XXX as a prime example of oversexualization gone wrong)
c) Your product will be deemed as sexist. (Dead or alive or Soul Calibur for example)

Disclaimer: (These are my new conclusions, ignore my past comments)
In the end while sexualization can be beneficial, its effects are unpredictable on the audience. This is why you can't say all men like huge breasts or only appeal to that market. My problem was that the Shortpacked comic said that females find pretty boys attractive and muscular men uncomfortable and males the opposite, or that muscular men are a purely male fantasy. In reality it depends on the individual what they find tasteful, some women like nerds or bodybuilders and some men like chubby girls or female bodybuilders.

Note: (I wasn't mocking you, I tried to reframe your question with an example that failed miserably)

 

[LongMuckDong]

ok I totally get the crux of the video, that's not my point, but I honestly don't see the problem with the Hitman trailer?

Is it me?

I liked it.

Saying that,

I'm a sick fuck.

 

[PhantomEcho]

*snippit*

While I appreciate your attempts to use my words to accentuate your point, the fact of the matter remains that I fundamentally DISAPPROVE of the course of 'conversation' which is going on. Not because of the content of the video, whether it amused your or not, but on the basis of it's continuing the popularization of individuals climbing up onto their soapboxes and condemning other people for having the 'nerve' to enjoy the things they do.

Why do trailers and movies and books depict things like this? Because people ENJOY it. If people didn't... marketing moves like this wouldn't sell copies of games. And, lo! Sex and gimmicky action is STILL selling movie tickets and video games.


You and your soapbox have the right to exist. I'm certainly not going to take /that/ away from you. I'm just here to remind you that you and your opinion don't have the right to dictate what I enjoy, or what anyone else enjoys, and you sure as hell don't have any kind of a moral high ground to stand upon. If I happen to enjoy something you don't, by all means... don't enjoy it.

That's what this discussion is about. It's not about speaking against the objectification of women. It's not about people expecting a more mature tone from the medium of gaming. What this entire discussion is /actually/ about is individuals reinforcing themselves in the belief that if they throw enough stones at people who disagree with them, they might earn some extra kudos on the internet. This argument doesn't have a damn thing to do with people actually caring about the content of the trailer. INDIVIDUALS might be having that discussion, but it's certainly not all the people who make their livings by REPORTING on this stuff. They just want people to keep reading and writing what they have to say, so they take a position in any polarizing argument that comes along.


Maybe you don't like it! That's fine! It's good to know what you like and don't!

But don't fool yourself into thinking that this argument is about anything more than the gaming media trying to stir up some controversy by acting shocked and affronted by something that it knows isn't SHOCKING or AFFRONTING.

It's just media doing what media does best... stirring the pot.

 

[gyroscopeboy]

Jim's half-assed is still more assed than mine!
I don't mind scantily clad women in games, but you don't buy a Hitman game to play Street Fighter/Mortal Kombat with guns.

ok I totally get the crux of the video, that's not my point, but I honestly don't see the problem with the Hitman trailer?

Is it me?

Ever played a Hitman game?

I think if the Hitman: Absolution trailer wasn't preceded by 4 solid games, and was a new IP, the trailer(and game) would be lauded as a Tarantino-esque potential barrel-o-kitschy fun...however, seeing as there is already a VERY SOLID play style from the Hitman series, it comes across as more of an unwanted deviation from a unique and polished play style.

Case in point: I could see Saints Row or Shadows of the Damned getting away with this

 

[viranimus]

First off. Thank God for Jim. But only for the last little bit of the episode where he points out how many people are stuck in this insane dick waving tolerance fest. The problem isnt people being tolerant, its that people who are tolerant for the sake of being tolerant are typically not tolerant in the slightest. Just siding with what ever is politically correct.

Beyond that, Two things Jim. I get there is an accent difference from across the pond but if your going to use a word that is going to grate so much on American ears, try to limit the usage of it to once or twice, and break out the thesaurus if you must. I wanted to take your purple dildo on a stick and jam the thing in my ear till it exits through the other one if I had to hear Con Trov Oh Sees one more time so I would never have to hear it again..

Content wise... Actually I think these types of controversies are actually highly detrimental. Your not really raising awareness and improving the industry. All your really doing is creating politically correct censorship. Your taking the voice developers have in expressing their creative vision and forcing them to dumb it down so it has more mass appeal in a kinder gentler way. I dont know of any form of media where you hinder the artist at the justification of wanting to be sensitive to all, that ends in a good way. Censorship is Censorship, regardless of if it was forced, or socially demanded.

Thing is, I bet the whole punching nuns generating controversy was an intended effect to rile up this generation of PC Zealots. Because really the Hitman franchise has always been pretty run of the mill and average, so generating a shit storm actually benefits because much like what GTA pulled at the early part of the century, You can gain popularity and profitability based on people buying your product for no other reason than to see whats got everyone so pissed off.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

If a single woman took on a cadre of Chippendales dancers when they came to kill her, no one would bat an eye.

I have never seen this happen in any form of media entertainment, ever, so it's impossible to say what would happen if it did.

Please show me an example of a woman in completely covering, formal business attire brutally murdering a group of very attractive, highly sexualized men dressed in scanty latex underwear.

Then we can talk.

I did that in Saint's Row the Third, when I attacked the gimp house. Not the prime example you were thinking, I'm sure, but hey, you wanted an example. Though, there's quite a lot of anime that covers the topic.

Yeah, but you chose to set up the scenario that way in Saint's Row, you weren't trying to sell it to someone.

And which anime features a fully-clothed, non-sexualized woman beating up scantily-clad, heavily sexualized men? And isn't played for laughs, but is rather supposed to be gritty and serious? I'd be very curious to watch it.

You're not seriously going to try and sell me on the idea that the absolution trailer is to be taken serious, are you? And I'll give you that I don't have an example offhand, but Excel Saga comes to mind, though that's about as far from serious as can be. That's kind of the point, though--the scenario in question is nothing but ridiculous. They can do as many dramatic, tension building cuts as they like, and set it to a perfectly functional, atmospheric soundtrack, but the idea of "assassin fighting Latex-clad assassins dressed as nuns" is just laughable. It's something out of Looney Tunes, or Saints Row (but only 2 or 3).

 

[Metalrocks]

i dont have a problem that these women get killed in a violent way because they wanted to kill him, so i still classify it a self defense. dont get me wrong, im against violence to women but you get my point.
but my problem is, that women are always shown with less clothing or in tide leather suits. like under dressed women are the most dangerous once. these nuns could have stayed in their clothing but no, they have to reveal their tide suits which no assassin women would do in real life.