Poll: What would be the backlash of a female criminal in games?

[white_wolf]

Saints Row, Sleeping Dogs, already did it devs and players are using backlash as an excuse not to do it what will get them yelled at is stupid things that are dumb like sex appeal for pandering to the male audience or having her look sleazy and mistaking that for powerful when nice form fitting clothing would be used better to convey that or doing stupid trope things like placing her in situations because woman not considering context, her character, her character's status, and would they the writers and devs want to be placed in the same situation with the same line of actions.

 

[Something Amyss]

I can already imagine the kotaku and polygon headlines.

As made up as your fanciful standings on other issues, of course. Ironic, since you're conducting yourself in the same fashion you're accusing them of.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh I remember now. It was Guerrila and his feminist boogeymen that said it was censorship.

You have to admit: feminist bogeymen are the worst kind of bogeymen.

Well, if you're a gamer.

 

[Guerilla]

Oh I remember now. It was Guerrila and his feminist boogeymen that said it was censorship.

You have to admit: feminist bogeymen are the worst kind of bogeymen.

Well, if you're a gamer.

In gaming the boogeyman is real and given that the worst kind of boogeyman is the real one I tend to agree with your post. Atheists coincidentally have faced the same boogeyman too with Atheism+ and the nutjobs trying to destroy the movement. Comics and scifi too. It seems that the boogeyman appears frequently and in plenty of ideologies and hobbies and it's always when feminists try to "harmlessly" just "comment" on the current "state" of these movements or hobbies.

Censorship coincidentally, again, tried to creep in on those movements/hobbies too and sometimes it succeeded (in case of comics and scifi it was more like self-censorship since creators were bullied and shamed to obey). So many coincidences.

 

[Something Amyss]

In gaming the boogeyman is real and given that the worst kind of boogeyman is the real one I tend to agree with your post.

Only if you can't separate fantasy from reality. Kind of strange when the next bit is about atheism, but I guess there's no requirement for atheists to reject all irrational fictional creatures.

 

[Something Amyss]

Are you doing the thing with the incredibly pedantic arguments again? In this episode ladies and gentlemen Zachary pretends that the use of boogeyman isn't a metaphor and that we're really speaking about the actual myth of the boogeyman.

Have you redefined pedantry to include not addressing your equivalent of Santa or the Easter Bunny? Because otherwise, I don't know how you got there from here.,

You keep fabricating arguments and expecting serious discourse on them. You might as well be asking me to argue over what colour Spock's ear wax is.

 

[Guerilla]

Are you doing the thing with the incredibly pedantic arguments again? In this episode ladies and gentlemen Zachary pretends that the use of boogeyman isn't a metaphor and that we're really speaking about the actual myth of the boogeyman.

Have you redefined pedantry to include not addressing your equivalent of Santa or the Easter Bunny? Because otherwise, I don't know how you got there from here.,

You keep fabricating arguments and expecting serious discourse on them. You might as well be asking me to argue over what colour Spock's ear wax is.

Pedantic is the nice way to put it, intellectually dishonest even when it comes to semantics is more accurate. Unless you really don't understand how metaphors work in a discussion or what they are.

I did not fabricate anything btw, even one of the most popular and respected atheist and intellectual of our time, Richard Dawkins, has openly sided against the joke that was atheism+ and the censor-happy feminists that tried to divide the atheist community.

What happening in gaming has happened again in other movements and hobbies, this isn't the first hobby the disaster known as modern feminism tried to ruin.

 

[Something Amyss]

Unless you really don't understand how metaphors work in a discussion or what they are.

Odd you would say that when you had to twist my use of a term to get here in the first place. And had to pile imaginary claims on top of that. Yeah, you probably shouldn't accuse others of being intellectually dishonest.

 

[Zannah]

The fact that you can play as a woman in the Saints Row games, kinda blows this question out of the water, doesn't it?

This.

Diversity and character-creations have never, ever created a backlash. (If for a moment we ignore the morons that whined about how uncomfortable it made them feel that a companion character in DA2 was gay in someone elses save).

 

[Haerthan]

Tired snip

snip

snip.

No the boogeyman isn't real dude. No feminist can take away your games. NOR do they want to. For such a massive censorship to happen, the kind you seem to fear, the GOVERNMENT needs to get involved. Once official intervention starts, that is when actual censorship happens. And comics and scifi people didn't create such a huge backlash against your perceived boogeymen, like gaming did in 2010 or so against Anita Sarkeesian. You people attack her for criticizing and say she wants to censor games, but she explicitly says that you can still enjoy it, that it is even necessary. Guess what. Your games are safe. Feminists don't have the power to change your games. Publishers do. Feminists can't take away your games. Publishers can, through always online DRM. But hey focus yourself on the boogeymen. The rest of us rational people will just look at it and act maturely. Because that is what adults do.

And to all who use Wikipedia to prove a point. Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source. Everybody can change it and put up the wrong stuff on it.

 

[Haerthan]

Is the female character a well-rounded, interesting character with a solid arc and growth over the course of the video game? Then no, there wouldn't be.

Is the female character a horrible stereotype clearly written by a man who sees women as some kind of mythical creature and not a human being, with many tired tropes played out seriously? Then yeah, mainly 'cause of the fucking atrocious writing.

Is the female character named Tittieanna, who runs around screaming 'FEMINISM DEMANDS ALL MEN MUST DIE' and strangles people to death with her boobs? Well, while that could probably be a fun parody game, that would probably generate a *little* backlash.

Granted it's hard to gauge the backlash on these things since practically anything that involves women in video games that someone has a problem with garners some fifty dozen shitheads popping out of the wood-work to scream 'GOD STOP HAVING A PROBLEM WITH WHAT I LIKE' in incredibly narrow-minded sounding voices (don't ask how that sounds, it's the internet). At this point I'm surprised there isn't an internet law on it, really - 'If there is criticism on how X portrays women and/or minorities, there must be an equal or greater response in whiney gamer complaints.'

Your post is funny. I mean really funny. I wanted to bring up Silla de Tansarville as a female villain in Witcher 2, but I realized she's a well-written character. Seriously look her up. She's pretty fucking badass.

 

[Something Amyss]

Is the female character a well-rounded, interesting character with a solid arc and growth over the course of the video game?

Sounds better than almost 100% of the characters in gaming as it is. I'm sold, but don't you think you're setting your standards too high? I think we should probably hope that we get someone who either doesn't say the bit about feminism OR doesn't strangle men with her boobs. And even then, I'm pretty sure it'll be considered pandering to "SJWs."

 

[cleric of the order]

This is the internet, I'm sure someone will find some way to ***** and moan about it.

>this

You mean someone like Carmen Sandiego? In a kids game?

No outrage whatsoever. At all.

>this too.

This is a non issue, I know that there was a resent treatise on media idea to avoid women being brutal but the simple criminal concept really doesn't drive the point home.
Criminals are really bloody banal, nothing but a collection of vaguely human shape husks living out their lives as dead in side as accountants or filled with empty anger and drugs.

 

[JohnFei]

I like how most of the "evil" female characters brought up are player-creations and player-controlled, whose gender are mostly irrelevant to begin with. And I see we dug up a figure from the 80s to prove that benevolent sexism don't exist in 2014. Nice.

I really wish that kind of sexism doesn't exist. I do. But stuff like Disney being crucified because they had some archetypal female villains makes me wonder. I guess it's only ok to have archetypal stereotypical male villains? Also it seems when I look at games with sole fem protags, they're mostly bland and safe white ladies who can do no wrong. It's boring, lazy and condescending. But writers are here to sell games, and if that's the kind of fem characters that the audience wants, that's the kind that we deserve.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

I'm sorry. Catwoman. Catwoman? Arkham Assylum. Catwoman. Catwoman. There.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I've seen plenty of games with female criminals (depending on what it is you consider one) and haven't seen any backlash from it. Female antiheroes/villains/etc... are a good thing, and I'd be hard pressed to find people who disagree. It goes in the face of traditional gender roles and generally guarantees the character a lot more impact and agency in the story. Nobody complains because a female character is mean, if anything people complain when female characters are all so unilaterally pure and good.

 

[GabeZhul]

Duh, of course there would be a backlash, but not because of "feminists" (quotation mark because I am at the point where even I don't know who I am referring to). There are always backlashes against everything, but we see a disproportionate amount of "feminist" outrages because "feminism" is hip in the media right now.

It's a self-feeding circle. Sarkeesian and all the other stuff even tangentially related to feminism in games brought the clicks, so sites started focusing on more controversial events that had something to do with feminism, which created even more friction and clicks, rinse and repeat.

So yes, of course there would be a "backlash", even if it is just one drunk eighty years old grandma tweeting incoherently somewhere in the boondocks; headlines will spin that into a "feminist outrage", then people contesting that will be spun into a "misogynist outrage" (possibly by somehow tying it to gamergate, because that also brings clicks), and then people will start digging their trenches all over again while the journalists are raking in the ad-money (possibly completely unaware their own role in this, as they are only "doing their job").

 

[Casual Shinji]

Sounds like your question mostly pertains to Grand Theft Auto, and in that case I guess it's because that game has a semblance to reality. In those games you usually play the "muscle", the guy who takes care of business. And in that world these people are generally men, because of physical strength and such. There's actually a couple of female criminals in GTA5, just not the 'go out there and beat the shit out of dudes' kind.

Not that I have anything against them putting a female protagonist in GTA, but the world of violent crimes, carjackings, and random on-street eruptions of violence is typically a man's one.

I said it before, but I wouldn't mind if Rockstar made a new Bully where you play as a girl.

 

[Unsilenced]

With the recent success of a petition to get GTAV pulled from Australian Targets and K-Marts as well as the questions a over a year ago of why all three playable characters of the main story are male I have to wonder if we are trying to blend oil and water here. One one hand we have a game wherein you are free to kill anyone but a group of consumers see it as mainly violence towards women for reasons that most would argue do not hold much merit given that you can essentially do the same thing to men. On the other hand you have people who are in essence asking why a woman could not perform the same acts by asking why one of the characters is not a women.

We are thus left with two questions. One is why is it tragic when a woman dies but expected when a man dies. Two is simply the headline of the post, what would be the consequences of a female criminal. Question one is fairly simple, media grooms us to see it like that. Is that a problem? I suppose it is a minor one but is is certainly changing. As women in real life take on more and more jobs society see as masculine this bias will an is eroding. The second question is far more interesting and I have no answer for it. The reason I have no answer for it is rather simple in that I would not care. So this criminal is a female, there are female criminals in life they put one in game. why should I care other than being intrigued it broke with the status quo?

I will leave you with a YouTube Video that says about the same thing a bit more eloquently as I find this an interesting question

Spoiler: In defense of Guybrush Threepwood

I haven't played GTAV, so I don't know if there are any female criminal characters in it, but are we just going to ignore all the female criminals in GTA4, GTA:SA, and... um... basically every other GTA game?

How about the raiders in Fallout 3?

That one who tries to murder you for star-marked bottle caps in FNV?

Members of both the Assassin's and Thief's guild in Skyrim?

Members of both the Assassin's and Thief's guild in Oblivion?

Various assassins and/or thieves in Morrowind?

Laura Croft?

The still-not-released-but-totally-a-character-now robber in Payday 2?

Aria T'Loak?

Kasumi Goto?

Agent 49's handler?

Harley Quinn? (Ok, not really a videogame character, but a character that's in a lot of videogames all the same)

That con-artist in Dark Souls II?

Literally the neigh-immortal demi-god of all murdering in The Elder Scrolls?

Protagonists in both Borderlands games?






And this is just going through my steam library.