Poll: Hitman Absolution hates women

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Erttheking

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nathan-dts said:
Guy from the 80 said:
"I felt so bad about killing her I quit the game and I haven?t gone back to it. It?s not worth it"

I guess she dont feel bad for killing men?
Miss the paragraph about her being a domestic abuse victim?
Pardon me, but let me just appreciate the irony that people always hate Anita for taking scenes of violence out of context, and now the person you quoted is doing the same thing.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Are there sympathetic female characters, or are we supposed to not like any of them? Does the game imply that women are less capable than men, or anything like that?

I haven't played it, but it looks to me more like Hitman is guilty of some hamfisted pandering rather than actual misogyny. I could be wrong.
 

Fox12

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jpz719 said:
A disc made of plastic can't hate shit. Nor can a bunch of code on said disc.
I think you may need to take things a little less seriously.

http://www.youtube.com/v/ysT_hI4mTx0?version=3&start=38&end=45&autoplay=0&hl=en_US&rel=0

The fact is that these games present women in a demeaning way, where their sole purpose is to act as fanservice to male viewers. It's frankly misogynistic smut.
 

Username Redacted

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someonehairy-ish said:
Are there sympathetic female characters, or are we supposed to not like any of them? Does the game imply that women are less capable than men, or anything like that?

I haven't played it, but it looks to me more like Hitman is guilty of some hamfisted pandering rather than actual misogyny. I could be wrong.
There are many sympathetic female characters. Female characters who haven't been sexualized are slightly harder to come by but they do still exist within the game. Outside of out shooting the gun store owners' daughter (which I personally found sufficiently frustrating that I just said fuck it and went ham on the gun store) no such implications are made.

You are not wrong. I am not sure why a two year old game is getting so much of attention of late. My best guess is that those who're criticizing it are simply grasping at straws in general with regards this subject. It also seems, at least in this instance, like a case of follow-the-leader. I am also going to say that if this is a case of the "Hitman: Absolution hates women" blogger having gotten the idea to play the game from the games recent mention in a Feminist Frequency video then my opinion of this person drops significantly further. If you have good reason to think that you're going to find something unappealing to your sensibilities why would you subject yourself to it just to find out exactly how much it offends you?
 

PsychicTaco115

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I mean, Hitman Absolution DOES have a huge grindhouse influence (at least in my mind)

Does it make it misogynistic? I dunno, I never saw it in the game but what do I know?
 

Skatologist

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cypher-raige said:
Maybe Hitman Absolution does hate Women.
What is your solution to this? Censorship?
Okay, I'll admit, haven't played the games yet, but I hate your statement, you seem so defensive for almost no reason. Gone with the wind has routinely been called out as a movie that almost glorifies the Civil War in the South's favor and perpetuates negative black stereotypes, yet 75 years later, nothing, no censorship, just legitimate criticism for that generation's mentality and the writers' work, that's all what any critic ever does. The Birth of A Nation is on Netflix streaming damn it, so spare me your censorship BS and consider finding another boogeyman to fear.
 

the December King

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erttheking said:
nathan-dts said:
Guy from the 80 said:
"I felt so bad about killing her I quit the game and I haven?t gone back to it. It?s not worth it"

I guess she dont feel bad for killing men?
Miss the paragraph about her being a domestic abuse victim?
Pardon me, but let me just appreciate the irony that people always hate Anita for taking scenes of violence out of context, and now the person you quoted is doing the same thing.
Weeellll... I don't want to be pedantic, but it's a game about an extremely violent hitman and a seedy, corrupt, exaggerated, 'Film Noir' style underbelly of society. The protagonist murders men and women, and almost all of the targets seem to be really horrible in some way or another. So...

I guess what I'm saying is that if I really hate kittens, I don't go to a pet store and act all shocked that they are there. It's a violent game. And although the women do seem to be sexualized in a lot of the roles, it doesn't change the fact that she was okay with murdering men up to that point.
 

Lilani

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Skatologist said:
The Birth of A Nation is on Netflix streaming damn it,
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. I heard about Birth of a Nation in my film history classes, but we never ended up watching it. I NEED to see it. The first "feature film" to really be a hit across the US, the film that has a white woman who jumps off a cliff after a black man confesses his love for her. I am watching this ASAP.
 

cypher-raige

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jpz[quote= said:
cypher-raige said:
Maybe Hitman Absolution does hate Women.
What is your solution to this? Censorship?
Okay, I'll admit, haven't played the games yet, but I hate your statement, you seem so defensive for almost no reason.
It was not a statement, but a question. One you have not answered.
 

Skatologist

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Lilani said:
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT. I heard about Birth of a Nation in my film history classes, but we never ended up watching it. I NEED to see it. The first "feature film" to really be a hit across the US, the film that has a white woman who jumps off a cliff after a black man confesses his love for her. I am watching this ASAP.
Great to hear I could help you, even if it's indirect :) . Maybe you can make an Off Topic on it if you find it interesting or whatever. I've still yet to watch it on Netflix since I know it's been on there for maybe...over a year now, at least for streaming. It's very easy to find online too for free, which separates it from many other classic films, although, whether or not that film should be considered a classic is still up for debate.
 

DrBonBon

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You could also look at it from the point that all these men who mistreat women (sex traffickers, wife beaters etc.) are horrible people and you get to stab them in the throat. Or throw a screwdriver to their head.
 

Therumancer

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Kind of a ridiculous article, and I said "no" to the poll.

The situations involved in the game aren't especially "creepy" unless you choose to present them out of context and of course decide to read into them a lot. Consider that the person writing the article does not seem to "get" the character or the game at all, and makes comments about how they didn't even try and get Agent 47's Silverballers back or something like that.

Basically what we've got here is a guy who is a conditioned killing machine hunting down members of his former (corrupt) organization and taking out a human trafficking organization. He for example does things like kill his former handler in the shower, which is actually a good place to take someone out (especially someone who you know... works for a world class organization that produces people like 47). 47 is an assassin, he's not out to be nice about it, or give her a fighting chance.... sure you can stretch that into something else and claim it's creepy, but it's pretty straightforward, the same can be said of a lot of the other stuff.

The recurring problem with the "Assasin Nuns" continues to get me. I find it sort of disturbing right now that you have people cheering for an all-girl version of "The Expendables" with old action girls like Cynthia Rothrock , and have no problem with that, but they get upset by this. Basically if a campy female team of mercenary assassin's show up and kill a bunch of dudes, that's awesome, but if a dude kills a group of female mercenary assasins trying to kill him that's suddenly wrong? Dual standards much? The same can be said of a lot of other similar things, I mean how many dudes get chopped up in the course of "Heavenly Sword" for example, but that doesn't count because it's a girl doing it, a guy on the other hand say beating up girls in an action video game OMG... that's horrible. We've even had people retroactively going back and slamming games like "Double Dragon" and "Final Fight" (where it's actually debatable if they are girls, since it varies based on the version) for this kind of thing.

Here on the escapist we've even heard people say "gee, why aren't there any good female villains, that get to wear the crazy costumes and stuff", well this is kind of why. To be honest I am *NOT* a Hitman fan, but honestly in a few years when people complain about the lack of women in the rogues gallery of video games (it will happen), I'm going to point back at this as an example of why.

Another aspect of it that I find somewhat hilarious is people knocking the whole dominatrix wardrobe, with all the girls in leather and stuff. That's funny, because male versions of that, with tons of buckles and straps and things are a staple of a lot of a lot of video game characters, especially when coming from Japan, and it's been commented on some occasions that other than showing cleavage female costumes oftentimes get a lot less attention. So basically we strut out some bad girls also looking like they stepped out of some leather-fetish magazine, and now it's a problem. The funny thing is that I'd actually imagine a dominatrix would be fairly good at hurting people (without them enjoying it) and it makes a degree of sense that a criminal organization running a human trafficking organization and at least one sex clubs might have someone in one of their sex clubs who does both things (torturing people both seriously for information, and playfully for fun elsewhere), that character is pretty much floating around those areas.

I don't know, it just seems like a dual standard. One day I hope someone decides to make a serious argument that "Gungrave" is an act of misandry because the main character wears a stylized costume and has associated religious trappings, including carrying around a coffin that doubles as a weapon. Since he can be killed (and brutally) obviously it's an act of misandry... I mean he saved a girl and is fighting for her (in the video game) instead of her fighting her own battles so you know... he's obviously oppressed, his desire for revenge being exploited, him being portrayed as a dumb man who doesn't know any better. It would be roughly as detached from the reality of the game or it's mythos as that article is about "Hitman".... and I mean crud, let's not even get started on Dante, he's an exploited boy toy justified as an action hero if I ever saw one.... and "Solid Snake" obviously women belittling men through a name reducing them to their most basic sexual component... no matter what he does he's still just a "Solid Snake" it doesn't get more demeaning than that. :)
 

Skatologist

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cypher-raige said:
It was not a statement, but a question. One you have not answered.
What do you mean by solution? What the hell do you mean by censorship? And you give me 1 comment not even addressed at me to answer your infantile and irrelevant question? You want to hear my solution if media is racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, or containing any other form of bigotry? If it already exists, let it exist. And I'm not of the minority opinion of that from those censorship police you're so damn worried about either. I've watched my fair share of anti-black racist cartoons of the 60s and prior on YouTube and never did I once think to myself that such things should be banned there. And I did this not because I didn't have a problem with them, but for the exact opposite reason, so I could explain the problems of the time and show where certain negative stereotypes originated from blacks and why most of them were garbage back then and are now. And I've been accused of that same censorship thing from those "anti-racist is code for anti white" crowd when I met them and actually thought they might have some people capable of reason rather than mindless drones when I tried to bring counterpoints to their mantra. Didn't flag their videos, didn't flag their channels, didn't report to mods, just pointlessly argued to racists and I still was called out for "censorship" and "pc" because of a differing opinion. So, you bringing your crowd bringing up censorship when nobody else is bringing it up, yeah, it rightfully pisses me off when you cry boogeyman when none is there.
 

cypher-raige

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I'm not touching the stuff about your dealings with white supremacists. It's irrelevant baggage on your part.

Skatologist said:
You want to hear my solution if media is racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, or containing any other form of bigotry? If it already exists, let it exist. And I'm not of the minority opinion of that from those censorship police you're so damn worried about either. I've watched my fair share of anti-black racist cartoons of the 60s and prior on YouTube and never did I once think to myself that such things should be banned there. And I did this not because I didn't have a problem with them, but for the exact opposite reason, so I could explain the problems of the time and show where certain negative stereotypes originated from blacks and why most of them were garbage back then and are now.
What about future Hitman or GTA games that want to use vice, sex, strip clubs etc as part of their world, story or theme (not necessarily a socio-political theme)?
Are these bigoted games that promote harmful stereotypes?
 

Ihateregistering1

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I don't really play the Hitman games, but isn't part of their whole schtick that EVERYONE is horrible and awful, and they specifically go out of their way to establish a game world where basically everyone is sick and depraved and it's sort of 24/7 debauchery? In that case, I think they did a pretty good job of setting it up.
 

Skatologist

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@cypher-raige: Still depends, I told you I didn't play Hitman games and I rarely GTA. Never did I even say that I had a problem with any of these themes in the first place, you didn't ask that, so I didn't answer. But, even if they make it, and I disagree with something they may be trying to convey(not even necessarily in that list of stuff you made), the same thing applies for them as those racist cartoons, perhaps at a more moderate level, but still there. If something leaks months or years in advance for these games I disagree with, I'd probably take no action other than warn I'm not buying under my principles and others will too and simply say that unless changes were made, I would stand by not supporting the game. That's it. Nothing more. Now stop whining about censorship in discussions where it's not even a problem.
 

Erttheking

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the December King said:
erttheking said:
nathan-dts said:
Guy from the 80 said:
"I felt so bad about killing her I quit the game and I haven?t gone back to it. It?s not worth it"

I guess she dont feel bad for killing men?
Miss the paragraph about her being a domestic abuse victim?
Pardon me, but let me just appreciate the irony that people always hate Anita for taking scenes of violence out of context, and now the person you quoted is doing the same thing.
Weeellll... I don't want to be pedantic, but it's a game about an extremely violent hitman and a seedy, corrupt, exaggerated, 'Film Noir' style underbelly of society. The protagonist murders men and women, and almost all of the targets seem to be really horrible in some way or another. So...

I guess what I'm saying is that if I really hate kittens, I don't go to a pet store and act all shocked that they are there. It's a violent game. And although the women do seem to be sexualized in a lot of the roles, it doesn't change the fact that she was okay with murdering men up to that point.
Now that's a fair point. It can be argued, but you make a stable point. I'm just trying to say that the person quoted by the person I quoted was being misleading. There's a difference, a MASSIVE one between killing a woman, and killing a domestic abuse victim who was stripping for you.

I have no problem with killing women in video games, in fact video games where the goons have a 50/50 gender divide are some of my favorite ones. It's just that the concept of murdering someone like that, murdering someone sexualized right in front of you...it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Then again I find the combination of sex and violence to be so squicky that it makes me feel physically ill. Bottom point I'm trying to make is that you can be dark without being sleazy. Kill a woman. Fine. Kill a defenseless woman. Still fine. Kill a sexualized defenseless woman. You just made things creepy and weird.
 

Fox12

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jpz719 said:
Fox12 said:
jpz719 said:
A disc made of plastic can't hate shit. Nor can a bunch of code on said disc.
I think you may need to take things a little less seriously.

[http://www.youtube.com/v/ysT_hI4mTx0?version=3&start=38&end=45&autoplay=0&hl=en_US&rel=0]

The fact is that these games present women in a demeaning way, where their sole purpose is to act as fanservice to male viewers. It's frankly misogynistic smut.
Strippers in a strip club. What a shock. Considering Agent 47 murders hundreds of male guards does that mean it hates men too?
That's faulty reasoning. The male guards are generally competent, and wear military grade uniforms with dangerous weapons. The women prance around in fetish gear that's completely inappropriate for combat. Why are they wearing it then? To appeal to the libidos of the male demographic. If you can give me a more honest reason for why women would go into battle dressed as dominatrix stripper nuns, I'd love to hear it. I can't for the life of me figure out what tactical advantage it offers. The fact of the matter is that the death of the NPC's doesn't matter. If the women were as competent as the men, and dressed in a similar fashion, then no one would bat an eye. The issue isn't that women are killed in Hitman. The issue is that they are presented in a demeaning misogynistic way. They're just there to satiate the desires of male players. Not just once, but repeatedly. The men aren't treated that way.