The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

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PotatoeMan

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MightyLB said:
* Men in automobile ads are depicted in regular clothing or business attire. Women also appear in regular dress or business attire, but it is also not considered odd for them to be in skimpy clothes or bathing suits.
* TV ads for women's underwear either make the main selling point comfort or sexiness. Men's underwear ads only sell based on comfort.
It?s down to marketing and what you are trying to sell to the customer. Look at cleaning products they are usually aimed at housewives and portray the husband as helpless. Ask yourself what are they trying to sell to their demographic?
 

Blade_125

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PotatoeMan said:
Blade_125 said:
Abandon4093 said:
Blade_125 said:
Fusioncode9 said:
You need to look at the reason WHY are there more men than women in management. The big reason that is continually over looked is down to what the individual wants. There was a study in the UK that asked both men and women what they wanted from their future. Most men wanted advancement in their career whereas one third of women wanted a career, one third wanted a family and one third wanted both. This means that careers that require the most effort will not be suitable for two thirds of female applicants. For whatever reason (cough biology) men and women have different priorities.
People need to ask more questions rather than stamp their feet at situations they are unhappy with.
I completely agree with asking why things are different. Is it biology, or is it that they are let to believe from birth that things should be a certain way.

Thousands of years ago women were treated little better than cattle, and most would have told you they were fine with it. Is that biological? Or is it that from an early age they had any questioning removed from their mind (one way or the other I am sure).

This is why I think it is a great idea to see videos examining things like the tropes vs women. Do yourself a favour and watch a few commercials for girls. See what they are told.

One of the best movies I saw on this was called Miss Representation. I would definetly suggest it.

Lastly, this is what made me really start to examine the issue. I hope to have children relatively soon. I realized that if I haev a daughter I don't want her to grow up in the world as it is right now. How will you feel if you have a daughter who grows up in this world?
 

Matt_LRR

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IceStar100 said:
Sexual Harassment Panda said:
5ilver said:
Darn, Moviebob, here I was thinking my opinion of you couldn't drop any lower.
Probably the most painful part of the clip was "women won't get a job because they look mediocre but men will because who cares about what men look like". Idk how it's like in the good ol us of a, but here in the EU, it's pretty much identical.
You don't look as fit as an underwear model(either male or female)? Gratz, you just lost out on a TON of job opportunities.

The entire thing just stank of double standards and white knight nonsense to me and I'm not even anti-feminist :(
Don't know about the example, but I agree with the sentiment.

Male distaste for feminists isn't a videogame based phenomenon, men aren't annoyed because women are lobbying for Lara to have smaller breasts. Believe it or not...it goes deeper.

I haven't watched much Feminist frequency, because...she seems like a bit of a prat, by my reckoning. I will plug girlwriteswhat as someone who speaks about gender issues that is worth listening to.

I love the link she is intresting. I think I found something else to follow.
http://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

She is awesome.
GWW is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-feminist and MRA blogger, who has regularly written columns at A Voice for Men - a site which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of "hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general." [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/misogyny-the-sites]

Under no circumstances should she be taken as a credible or impartial spearker on gender issues.

-m
 

Blunderman

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3quency said:
1 - I have to disagree here. I feel that this argument does need debunking because I see it used as a defence all too often. The whole "men are objectified too" thing is extremely problematic to me and I could really do with seeing it less. Plus, Bob only has five minutes for these. He had to concentrate on one issue or he'd barely have time to make a coherent argument.
You are not wrong in that the argument is used too often. Strangely enough, some do think that because men also fall victim to idealisation it's not a problem that women do. This is obviously ridiculous to anyone with half a brain. My discord with Bob on this one is that the argument is tertiary and debunking it doesn't effectively address anything else.

It's also easy to debunk, it shouldn't have taken more than a minute at the outset. Had someone like Yahtzee done it, they would've merely stated some humorous version of "two wrongs don't make a right" and that would have been enough. The rest of the time, I think Bob should've spent on some of the real arguments, rather than a single weak one.

3quency said:
2 - No, the videogame industry is not to blame for sexism. Nobody ever said it was. It does however, feature a great deal of it in the content it produces, and that is a problem that should be addressed. Something "as utterly trivial as a videogame" is the keystone for a huge amount of youth culture, and the kids and teenagers raised playing these games will draw information about the world from them, as well as how to react to the world. This is why kid's shows have anvilicious aesops - to make sure the kids don't get taught how to be dicks.
This relies heavily on what we define as sexism. The only solid conclusion we can draw from the frequent depiction of female characters as large-chested super-hot etc etc is that there is a significant portion of the market out there that enjoys seeing it. It doesn't imply any discrimination towards females, just that there is an ideal of attractiveness, just as there is of skill, talent, intelligence and so on, this applying to both male and female characters.

There's a case to be made that the reason behind the more pervasive and arguably exaggerated ideal of the female appearance is male biology, more specifically male sexuality. In the interest of being brief, I'll sum it up as: men are more visually sexual, females have a stronger sexual display, hence there's a lot more call for female characters in media to be attractive. Take this for the generalisation that it is.

At any rate, a large portion of entertainment media is based around ideals, and these extend further than the shallow ones that the feminists focus a lot of their attention on. A more serious one is celebrity-culture that teaches children that some people are just naturally more interesting and others because they're idealised as special.

My point is that stereotypical big-boob Betties do not qualify as sexism. It's cheap, rather tacky and pandering to an audience in a very unimaginative way, but it's little other than a furtherance of the fact that in media, everything is crafted, if you will, to be as attractive as possible. Whilst I personally prefer characters with depth, I wouldn't disabuse those who just like to watch a pair of boobs bounce around, and I wouldn't say that their simple desire makes them sexist, as I consider sexism to be made up of actions and not banal cultural reflections found in entertainment media.

There has to be a wall of separation between fiction and reality. If we were to agree that idealised women in video games are sexist, then by the same logic any man (or woman) who watches some of the most common forms of pornography is deeply sexist, given how it features women that are sex-hungry slaves that love nothing more than to perform fellatio all day long. We all understand this to be a male fantasy, one that they arguably can't help having given the biological nature of their sexuality, and we also understand that there is absolutely no implication that this is representative of reality. It's fictional media intended to service a particular need.

This is becoming a lot longer than I intended so I hope I've made my point clearly enough. I had further elaborations planned but I'm rather pressed for time at the moment.

I think this bit covers your third point, as well.
 

yeti585

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DrVornoff said:
yeti585 said:
Yes, women have it worse, but for F***s sake can we please at least acknowledge the other side?
It's not really an other side. It's a separate issue. The two are not in conflict with one another and people need to stop pretending that they are.
A bad choice of words on my part. I didn't mean that the issues were in conflict. It is not really a separate issue either. It's still sexism but its sexism against males. So it's a different area of a problem. That's what I was trying to get across. We try to tackle a problem but don't look at the whole problem. It's like wanting to outlaw drugs except you do nothing about tobacco and alcohol.
 

ad5x5

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Tropes exist in media for a reason - basically to allow the director of a media piece to manipulate your emotions and responses.

Women are not the only "victims" of poor representation in tropes. Watch advertising on tv (at least here in UK, prob similar in US).

*Generalisation Incoming*
Adverts generally portray men as slow, bumbling, incompetent, useless, weak (minded), unable to make decisions, annoying.
Of course these adverts are aimed at women, showing that this product will make it easier to deal with him - adverts aimed at men show women throwing themselves at the consumer, strongly hinting that buying the product will turn the consumer into a woman-magnet.

It happens. It will continue to happen. The only people who care are those who see it as a threat - possibly due to self-confidence issues? Is is because they think they have to match this representation?

I see pictures of men in adverts (aimed at men) looking ripped and don't feel the need to look like that - my self-worth is not tied up in my physical appearance and in my opinion the reward from looking like that is not worth the cost in time and effort needed. To clarify, I'm not saying that if you are ripped then you have confidence issues.

This is just not an issue - characters which need saving or need to be related to have to be attractive or at least non-descript, otherwise it breaks the immersion. Would you fight your way through hordes/crawl through dungeons/other difficult trials to rescue/free/avenge someone who looked like they'd gone ten rounds against someone armed with an ugly stick?

That last comment may come across as shallow, but the reality is we're hardwired to go for the attractive people (whatever the local convention of attractive is). Businesses know this and exploit it because businesses want (shock, horror) to make money.
 

corrosiveblood

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Schadrach said:
JediMB said:
newwiseman said:
Also if she wants to use actual game characters and not just inspired look-a-likes she'll have to pay licensing fees.
As I recall, you don't have to pay licensing fees to use limited amounts of copyrighted material for the purpose of criticism or parody. It goes under Fair Use or other international equivalents.
True, I wonder about the stickers she was offering though -- one of her donation rewards was stickers of Zelda in Link's costume and Peach in Mario's saying something to the effect of "Don't worry guys; I've got this." I can't really see how they fall under criticism or parody, especially given that both of them have played a more active role occasionally, including Peach getting her own game about saving Mario from Bowser.
Pro-tip: she is not a gamer. She doesn't know this. She uses nerd-baiting as a ad-campaingn, and femenism as a money-generator. Her documentary won't solve anything. There will be no interesting points, or things to discuss.
 

Vkmies

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I really hoped you were going to talk about the actual Kickstarter campaign. What you think of it, the fact she is asking money for it, the things she said, etc. Instead the episodes seemed to be about people that disagree with her.
 

Blade_125

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Abandon4093 said:
Blade_125 said:
Abandon4093 said:
Blade_125 said:
Fusioncode9 said:
I don't care that she's making these videos, I care that she asked money for them. Plenty of people have done these kind of videos for free, but she needed 6,000$ to do them. And thanks to the internet she now has over150,000$ to put in her pocket. Wonderful job guys, no I'm sure she'll spend every cent of that on the tropes videos.
It really irks me that you earn as much money as you do. I don't think you deserve that much, and even though that doesn't impact me in the slightest I am still going to complain about it.

LOL

.... Earn....... Priceless.

OT: You're incredibly naive if you don't think men aren't judged on their appearance in the workplace. We may not be expected to look like Kratos but the ideal body image for a male is just as unhealthy as it is for a female.

Man I should not be reading this at work. It's hard to to laugh at some of these arguments.

Taking one word out to try and ruin my satire. How horrible of you :)

And I must be incredibly naive then. I've looked at the men in my job and either managment has a thing for for the portly gentlemen, or management didn't care about their looks so long as the job is done. TO be fair there are some women here who I wouldn't say will win a beauty pagent, but there are also far fewer women then men who work here.

Strangely that description fits every business I have worked at.

Simple fact is that far more men than women hold upper management positions. These are the people who hire and fire. I even have an example of a woman keeping her job because of her looks (which is sad because she was quite capable of keeping her job based on her skill), but that doesn't matter because it is one example. Stats I keep seeing in the news show women earn on average around 75% of men (the exact figure fluctuates but they are all in that range). I have never seen anything to suggest that men are prevented from advancing because of their looks. I'm at best average looking and it hasn't stopped me from advancing in my career. Maybe you have some stats that prove me wrong.

And no I haven't pulled stats on my own. I am sure everyone on ehre is skillful enough with google to look stuff up if they want any verification.
It's a pretty valid criticism to say that this woman just got $150,000 for promising to do something that has already been done before and is something that doesn't cost anything to do.

And it really depends what kind of job you're in. But generally, looks are a massive part of socialising and how quickly people warm to you. If you're attractive people are much more likely to take a shine to you. That's just how it is, this obviously has an effect in interviews.

If you've got two equally matched candidates in terms of qualifications and experience. Who do think is more likely to get hired? The one who looks like an Abercrombie & Fitch model, or the one who looks like his medicine ball?

Also I love how people are quick to point out that there are 'moah menz heah than womanz' but neglect to ask why.

Perhaps because there are a damn-site less women applying? The fields that are considered male dominated are usually male dominated because more men are interested in perusing careers in that area.

You're also neglecting the fact that companies have a checklist they need to tick off to avoid accusations of sexism, racism yadda yadda.

If an equally talented male and female are going for the same job. Most of the time the female will get it because the company then gets to tick off that diversity box.

The issue really isn't as cut and dry as, 'more men here, also this one's fat therefore sexism.'
You have some good points there that I won't completely disagree, but it is pretty rare that someone performs equally as well on interview and experience, however I will concede that in some instances looks could influence a decision at some point. I can tell you though that if you use a phrase like 'moah menz heah than womanz' in an interview then it won't matter how good looking you are. It also doesn't matter how good your argument is on an internet post, it really lowers your credibility. I don't say this to taunt you, I simply mean that it is hard to take anyone seriously when they have to use a juvenile phrase like this, even f it is to make fun of others.

I didn't avoid the checklist, I was only focusing on the sexism issue since that is the topic here and didn't want to derail the thread. You are right though, there is a checklist and it is frustrating that it is even needed. Anyone with any kind of intelligence would know it's better for their business to hire the best candidate.

The reason that I don't like your critism about the cash is because she didn't ask for $150k. She asked for $6k, which for what she is doing sounds like a valid estimate for what is needed. People chose to give more. And you have no idea what she will do with it. I would hope that the left over gets donated to help with education and womens shelters. It would help her I think to let people know that.

Also I do appreciate your response. It was civil which is great to see. Even if we don't agree with each other we can discuss things like adults. I am disappointed with a lot of the responses to this story, but I will at least give the posters on the escapist that they are well mannered and don't threaten people they disagree with, unlike the people on youtube.
 

PotatoeMan

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Blade_125 said:
PotatoeMan said:
Blade_125 said:
Abandon4093 said:
Blade_125 said:
Fusioncode9 said:
You need to look at the reason WHY are there more men than women in management. The big reason that is continually over looked is down to what the individual wants. There was a study in the UK that asked both men and women what they wanted from their future. Most men wanted advancement in their career whereas one third of women wanted a career, one third wanted a family and one third wanted both. This means that careers that require the most effort will not be suitable for two thirds of female applicants. For whatever reason (cough biology) men and women have different priorities.
People need to ask more questions rather than stamp their feet at situations they are unhappy with.
I completely agree with asking why things are different. Is it biology, or is it that they are let to believe from birth that things should be a certain way.

Thousands of years ago women were treated little better than cattle, and most would have told you they were fine with it. Is that biological? Or is it that from an early age they had any questioning removed from their mind (one way or the other I am sure).

This is why I think it is a great idea to see videos examining things like the tropes vs women. Do yourself a favour and watch a few commercials for girls. See what they are told.

One of the best movies I saw on this was called Miss Representation. I would definetly suggest it.

Lastly, this is what made me really start to examine the issue. I hope to have children relatively soon. I realized that if I haev a daughter I don't want her to grow up in the world as it is right now. How will you feel if you have a daughter who grows up in this world?
Well you are picking one aspect of history, you need would need to look at what was expected of men. As providers they would have been expected to support their family unit and different cultures had different value i.e. the celts were quite progressive but this is way off topic.

This also goes back to marketing and what idea is being sold. Ideally people should not buy products that portray ideals they don?t agree with. Ask someone who has kids and they will probably say they give into what the kid wants rather than sticking to their principles. Think of the Simpsons episode where Lisa designs the doll.
 

Skrableren

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Monxeroth said:
"Society judges women based on their appearence rather than their ability"
[...]
If you really want to get to the root of the problem, ie, why women have their general value based on the exterior, is to ask the right question.

Is it ONLY because society and heterosexual white males judge them by their appearence
OR
could it be the fact that some women really don't help that problem at all by simply, oh i dunno
PRESENTING THEMSELVES AS IF THAT IS ALL THEY HAVE TO OFFER

[...]

Too often do women expect to get handed everything and not be judged by their ability, because they think their appearence is enough.
So both parts imo have to do their parts in the sense that

Some women need to stop focusing on their appearence and using that as an excuse to
get what they want, and also stop presenting themselves as if the appearence was the most important thing to them.
This may be because I am in the middle of my stressy exams right now. But this is probably the most hurtful and misogynistic thing I have heard all day. So.. what you are saying here, is that because women tries to adhere to societies ideals, and standards for what they should look like, that they are essentially, asking for it?

I hope that is not what you are saying.

So, because I chose to get a wax? My opinion is suddenly invalidated? Because I wear makeup every day, I can't comment on the issue of the sexualisation, and dehumanization of my gender? I understand that you see a woman trying to follow the standards that society have put up for her, and at the same time protesting them, as a hypocritical act.

But ugly women are not treated kindly, not by their peers, not by their male colleagues. Males always, as in the example with the female politician mocked by males for her looks, in some way assign women value through their sexual appeal. And that is no matter what intellectual feat they have preformed.

And as a woman? you can be damn sure that it is a factor I take into account when i get my job interviews, start at a new school or workplace, or even when I leave my damn house.

It is a part of me that is constantly judged every where I go, where ever I turn I will get judged for my sexual appeal, and I will be assigned a value because of it.

A woman can preform an intellectual feat, but if she don't look good doing it, men don't give a damn.
 

IceStar100

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Matt_LRR said:
IceStar100 said:
Sexual Harassment Panda said:
5ilver said:
Darn, Moviebob, here I was thinking my opinion of you couldn't drop any lower.
Probably the most painful part of the clip was "women won't get a job because they look mediocre but men will because who cares about what men look like". Idk how it's like in the good ol us of a, but here in the EU, it's pretty much identical.
You don't look as fit as an underwear model(either male or female)? Gratz, you just lost out on a TON of job opportunities.

The entire thing just stank of double standards and white knight nonsense to me and I'm not even anti-feminist :(
Don't know about the example, but I agree with the sentiment.

Male distaste for feminists isn't a videogame based phenomenon, men aren't annoyed because women are lobbying for Lara to have smaller breasts. Believe it or not...it goes deeper.

I haven't watched much Feminist frequency, because...she seems like a bit of a prat, by my reckoning. I will plug girlwriteswhat as someone who speaks about gender issues that is worth listening to.

I love the link she is intresting. I think I found something else to follow.
http://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

She is awesome.
GWW is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-feminist and MRA blogger, who has regularly written columns at A Voice for Men - a site which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of "hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general." [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/misogyny-the-sites]

Under no circumstances should she be taken as a credible or impartial spearker on gender issues.

-m
Still like her
 

Schadrach

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Matt_LRR said:
GWW is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-feminist and MRA blogger, who has regularly written columns at A Voice for Men - a site which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of "hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general." [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/misogyny-the-sites]

Under no circumstances should she be taken as a credible or impartial spearker on gender issues.

-m
Also fair to note who else they consider hate groups (like Fathers and Families), while accepting money from RadicalHub, home of "let's kill or castrate most of the men!"

AVfM isn't exactly a nice site, but SPLC went overboard with their declarations of "anyone who cares about equality from the men's side is a hate group."
 

corrosiveblood

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Matt_LRR said:
IceStar100 said:
Sexual Harassment Panda said:
5ilver said:
Darn, Moviebob, here I was thinking my opinion of you couldn't drop any lower.
Probably the most painful part of the clip was "women won't get a job because they look mediocre but men will because who cares about what men look like". Idk how it's like in the good ol us of a, but here in the EU, it's pretty much identical.
You don't look as fit as an underwear model(either male or female)? Gratz, you just lost out on a TON of job opportunities.

The entire thing just stank of double standards and white knight nonsense to me and I'm not even anti-feminist :(
Don't know about the example, but I agree with the sentiment.

Male distaste for feminists isn't a videogame based phenomenon, men aren't annoyed because women are lobbying for Lara to have smaller breasts. Believe it or not...it goes deeper.

I haven't watched much Feminist frequency, because...she seems like a bit of a prat, by my reckoning. I will plug girlwriteswhat as someone who speaks about gender issues that is worth listening to.

I love the link she is intresting. I think I found something else to follow.
http://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

She is awesome.
GWW is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-feminist and MRA blogger, who has regularly written columns at A Voice for Men - a site which has been identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of "hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general." [http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/misogyny-the-sites]

Under no circumstances should she be taken as a credible or impartial spearker on gender issues.

-m
"She is not female-bias so you should not listen to her! Only female-bias speakers are worth listen to!"
Do i got you right?
 

Wintermoot

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I think most of the outrage is about how she will approach the subject (IE criticizing and giving tips in the last video) and the fact she got 150K for something most people do for free.
Although I don,t defend the sexistical way the gaming community reacted to her.
PS
Big-Boobed Panty Ninja went to hell after Big-Boobed Panty Ninja 6
 

Imp_Emissary

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PunkRex said:
Once again I find myself kind of torn, both sides seem to be JUST as loud and obnoxious as each other. Its like the way both sides of the Mass Effect ending just completely ignored or looked down on the other side while the few actually making a good bloody argument were overshadowed.

Some people are dicks, im not surprised some reacted like they did, their dicks, but why so many have a problem with a women who does this sort of media study just looking at tropes in games, WHICH ARE THERE, seems so pathetic. However, why she needs SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much bloody money dispite the resources she already has seems greedy, people do this sort of thing every day for free afterall...
PunkRex, meet Blade 125. He has what I believe is a good conversation on if (I don't remember her name, but none of us are using our real names.....I hope. So lets call her...) Mrs.Tropes should or shouldn't get the donated money. So it's not just you guys talking, I'll say that I think that we should wait and see what she does with what's left after the videos are done. Then we can judge her by her actions. Ex. Well she A.Use all the money for the videos making them way to high quality to just be a Youtube video(no offence Youtube) B. Donate the money to a worthy&related issue. Or C. Buy a new CAR!
I am guessing B, but we will see.

Blade_125 said:
Fusioncode9 said:
Blade_125 said:
Fusioncode9 said:
I don't care that she's making these videos, I care that she asked money for them. Plenty of people have done these kind of videos for free, but she needed 6,000$ to do them. And thanks to the internet she now has over150,000$ to put in her pocket. Wonderful job guys, no I'm sure she'll spend every cent of that on the tropes videos.
It really irks me that you earn as much money as you do. I don't think you deserve that much, and even though that doesn't impact me in the slightest I am still going to complain about it.
Thanks but at least I EARNED it. I didn't go begging on the internet to make a few internet videos which I could have easily done for free like so many others have.
Yes I am sure you did earn it, or maybe you didn't. Either way what do I care. That is my point. Why does the fact that people gave her money to make this video mean a damn thing to you? If I want to burn my money and then inhale the fumes that's my business. If I want to donate to something else then that is fine too. I don't see your indignation over political contributions, or donations to churches, or to whatever other causes out there you may or may not agree with.

I am sure she could have shot the videos for free, but it is hard to do an accurate documentary without any research, and if it is how women are portrayed in games then she is going to need to play all those games. You don't think Yahtzee buys all the games he reviews with his own cash do you? That would not be possible. So she is trying to do something and asking if people want to donate, adn look enough people did to give $150k, so maybe this is a bigger issue than most of the people on this site think.
 

MrFalconfly

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Well I generally agree with this.

Only thing I have an issue with is that she call it Women vs Tropes (or something like that). I mean yeah sure there might be misogynistic but with each trope there's aversions, inversions, subvertions, played straight and played for laughs.