The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

[ThrobbingEgo]

Snip.

Okay, so you've never watched any of her videos. Cool.

Way to go in ignoring my entire post and actually yes, I have watched ALL of her videos. To be honestly I actually got sick watching them cause of the massive amounts of leaps of logic she takes and holds her own opinion over the core of the issue or factors that would actually cause say said men who grope women to actually grope women.

Last I checked making posts like this is quite reportable.

You're referring to the Japanese advertisement campaign for Bayonetta? Watch the video again without the rage. She didn't say the ad campaign caused people to grope women. She said this was alarming in context as an advertisement presented in a Japanese subway. That's like saying, "Thumbs up, molesters. Take a card."

The ad can't force anyone to do anything, but she has solid reasons to criticize it.

Go ahead and report me. I don't really care.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

My main problem with Sarkeesian is the same issue I have with all feminists.

Good start to a misogynistic rant, eh?

But seriously. She, like all feminists, sees a different cause.

Feminism:
Misogyny, Stereotyping, Inequality, Sexism.

Me:
Gender Stereotyping, Inequality, Universal Sexism (as in, it goes both ways)

So I am totally and utterly happy for her to make her videos. Because I feel that they need to be made. Addressing tropes is a good thing and requesting 6 thousand dollars is not too insane to do so. But, like all feminists, in my eyes she fails to address the root of the problem, just one of its symptoms.

Although I would prefer it if it was "Tropes vs Everyone: People in Video Games".

Yes, there are absolutely problematic portrayals of men in videogames. Yes, someone should make a video series examining the ways that tropes harm men, too (though really, often these are the other side of a coin that's sexist in portraying women - men are considered "disposable" protectors because women are weak and in need of protecting, for instance).

However, someone who wants to just make a series about women is under no obligations to make it about men, too. That should be our job, as men.

You misread me slightly.

I disagree with the whole notion of "Men doing men things" and "Women doing women things".

I think feminism does not go quite far enough. Gender equality in my eyes does not mean we should equalise the genders, it means we should abolish our current view on what gender is and any link it has to physical traits.

That is why I utterly support her videos and I think it is fucking brilliant what she is doing. And why I largely support feminism as a whole, because right now it is the only movement that is truly trying to equalise things.

But I would be much happier if instead of bringing women to the same level as men it was bringing men and women to the same, significantly higher, level.

In an ideal world? Yes. Yes, we should. Perhaps one day we will even reach the point as a society where we can be truly post-racial and post-gender.

That is not this day. And suggesting "well why aren't you focused on the problems we ALL face" when someone is trying to focus on the problems faced by a marginalized group is derailing. Almost certainly well-intentioned derailing, but it doesn't help.

 

[lord.jeff]

While I frequently disagree Anita and would never support here projects, I still see no reason for the back lash she's getting, she asked for money, she told people what is planned on doing with the money and gave them the option to pay. "Oh but she doesn't deserve to get money because she just sits in front of a camera" lots of people get payed to sit in front of cameras and talk out there ass, I don't see a mad hate-on for Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd.

 

[DreamingMerc]

To be honest I didn't know any of this ever happened, mostly because as the one Crummy Bastard once said, "I live in a constant vegetative state of cannot be asked."

Anyway, I for one am inclined to agree with the idea that multi-media, and by extension video games, have a notoriously bad history with female characters. Ignoring the argument that we also have trouble writing just characters, let alone female or minority ones, I tend to agree with these claims. The super sexy costumes, the over abundance of needless love interests, the over used damsel in distress etc etc.

I still however do not care, again "cannot be asked".

But then again I am bothered by some of this when I'm accused of being a misogynist or associated with this as a consumer of supposed misogynistic materials.

I voted for Blond Shep in the Bioware ME3 redraw FemShep voting thing, I must be a sexist little boy with a skewed view of women. I as a male gamer tend to play a female avatar when given the option, I must be a control dominating freak driven by a fantasy of creating and ogling my perfect woman that has no connection to reality. I'm not bothered that a majority or roles for women are in the supporting nature to lead characters, surely that's because that's the only place I feel women aught to hold.

The point I mean to bring around by this is that, no I don't feel those things. I don't hate women, I don't want to pigeon hold them into the socially media constraints or whatever other terms you used to describe this portrayal of women. And I think most gamers and furthermore their creators feel the same way.

Which is why it feels so patronizing when the misogyny argument gets lobbied around. I get it that my media consumption of choice has problems, in fact we sometimes really suck, but there's a argument to be made that because one person didn't like something that doesn't make that something sexist or racist or whatever.

One other thing in this case in particular.

There's also in my viewings the unwilling to admit that feminism, in this specific case anyway, cannot be misguided. There's never the possibility that a single or group of feminists view of the media can be skewed for lack of taste, or poor judgment, or driven be their own ego or other self serving bullshit.

These things are all very real possibilities, with actual evidence and events to point out, and not for it being a feminist argument but just simply on the grounds that these are ideas put forth by humans. You know, those pinkish squishy creatures with brains that sometimes diverge off reason and accountability regardless of their race/gender/sexual preference.

You as a feminist possibly cannot see the irony of a joke, can miss the point of a character or story arc, can be driven by your own inflated sense of self worth, can overlook contradicting data to drive whatever point you're trying to make seem bigger and more prevalent then it actually is. Again, you do these things not because you're a feminist but because you're a human being with just as many faults and stupid thoughts as I have.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

She asked for 6k, not 160k.

As if that wasn't an outrageous demand anyways.

And contrary to what you believe, making a video series--the capture, the writing, the research, the editing--is not free, especially if you are doing that instead of, say, freelance writing, which is what she's been making a living off of thus far.

It isn't? She already had a video camera, you don't need cash to write a script and she already had an editing software. If she truly needed the funds to create this video series then she should have made it clear what the money would be spent on in detail. People were not donating to pay for her living expenses you know.

And yes, someone who has actively been researching this stuff PROBABLY knows more than you do, which is obvious in your posts.

You should watch her videos sometimes. Her mastery of the feminist arts truly shine there.

Yeah, how dare people profit off of projects that make use of their academic backgrounds.

I'm sorry, I was under the impression that she needed that money to pay for the the academic research that she can do for free at her local library, the video editing software that she already has and the video camera that she, also, already has. Nowhere in her Kickstarter page did she mention making a profit.

You realize that York is among the top-rated universities in of Canada, right?

She only has a master's. That's not much.

People GAVE her 160 grand. She asked for SIX.

And because people gave her 160 grand it's somehow OK for her to keep it all? If she only needed six grand she should have either donated the money to charity or give it back to the people who donated.

Six thousand dollars is pretty inline for the creation of a video series.

On what might she spend those six grand considering she already has the equipment needed to produce said video series and, in fact, has already produced numerous videos on this subject.

Funny enough, people liked the idea, and decided they wanted to pledge more support than that.

I'm not surprised considering just how much she lied.

Fucking supply and demand, man. Demand is apparent, and consumers evendently value the project far beyond the $6000 she asked for.

Oh so she's running a business now?

1. An appeal to authority is not a fallacy when the authority being referenced is speaking in their feild of expertise and their claim is non-controversial to other authorities in the same field.

Women in video games is not her field of expertise.

2. It's not an appeal to authority to point out that someone is credentialed in a field when you call into question whether or not they're credentialed in that field.

I din't call her credentials into question, she did.

Perhaps she wants a better camera or better software. Perhaps she wants to rent an actual studio space. Perhaps she wants better lighting. Perhaps she wants to do actual interviews or pay for costly academic materials. There are a thousand things she could be spending the money on.

But more to the point, you don't actually look at many Kickstarters, do you? Very few of them detail what they will be spending the money on so specifically. In fact, it is assumed that at least PART of it is going to be spent on basic living expenses while working on the project. You are holding her to standards that exceptionally few kickstarters are held to. Why? Gee, I wonder.

 

[ad5x5]

Not saying physical appearance is the entirety of characterisation, but it does help.

Physical appearance is not characterization at all. It might tell you something about the character. But it isn't characterization. Characterization is how they feel about things. Batman's dead parents don't give him character. How he feels about that does.

And quite a lot of people agree with you, however some african tribes view having a long neck as an attractive thing so they wear rings round their neck to stretch them. Can't say I'd be moving heaven and earth for someone with a foot-long neck. /hyperbole

But suppose you set a game in such a setting where that was normal. Can we no longer empathize with a relationship between a male and female protagonist because of that aesthetic?

This is why female characters will be within the cultural norms, possibly with desirable physical characteristics emphasised. Some small and slight, others lithe and tall.
There won't be any that are too far from the accepted boundaries of attractiveness for a society.

If there characters are written well enough, it shouldn't matter. Most of my issues with gaming go back to, "We need better writing!"

Physical appearance can be characterization - being fat indicating gluttony/laziness, scars indicating a predisposition/history to violence, jutting jaw indicating masculinity, hunched shoulders indicating introversion, etc

Agreed, if the characters are well written enough they will still be relatable. Look at Heavy Rain - I don't have kids, but did identify with Ethan.
However, the game has to appeal to people and keeping it closer to the mainstream increases the likely audience - making it less of a business risk.

 

[LazyAza]

The thing most anti-feminism arguments always gloss over as far as I can tell isn't that women don't want big boobed male appealing media to exist and they don't want to take it away, all they want is more balance, more options, more diversity.

Instead of 90% of games and comics appealing -just- to adolescent doods it would be nice if that number was much closer to 50%. I don't think it ever will be that even because of how many male creators work in these industries and how much easier it seems to be for them to lazily cater to that same old audience (thus completely invalidating the anti-feminism argument more or less) but it sure would be awesome if we had I dunno ONE game that was as popular and successful as say Halo that happened to feature a more varied and respectful range of female characters that actual females can be happy with.

I mean that series is played by tonnes of women too but look at its most iconic female character, she's just a naked hologram lady whose sole purpose is to serve as a tool for the male protagonist. I was really looking forward to the new Tomb Raider but they seem to be royally fucking up with that too. I'd have figured a reboot of Lara Croft would mean a less pandering more universally acceptable version of the character but instead its "how much shit can we beat out of her" and "oh look how weak and vulnerable she is, you gotta protect her guys!" Just gross.

 

[Smeatza]

Body image problems can occur when a gender has unattainable standards repeatedly presented as attainable.
Fiction cannot represent the standards of it's characters as attainable unless it specifically sets out to do so.

While persistantly sexualising females characters is certainly trashy and sexist (and the frequency of occurence should be reduced), I see no reason to believe it is inherently harmful.

Also, you could post a kickstarter for a video series that aims to show the importance of no censorship on the internet on 4chan and it would recieve hate.
All you can get from that place is hate.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

(And I've looked into it a lot more than you have, as is evident by the fact that you don't know that she's said that she's looking into stuff to actually do with the $152k that she *didn't ask for*, whether it's charity or setting up education or just turning FeministFrequency into her full time job instead of doing it on the side while freelancing.

So let me get this straight, people donated to her thinking she needed money to create a video series and she's going to use that money to make her website a "full time job"? And that doesn't sound fishy to you at all? The right thing to do would've been to either donate that money to charity, which she has yet to do even though her project was funded a week ago or give the excess money back.

And no, you didn't pay $160k. I didn't pay Sarkeesian $160k either. I just paid $25.

I don't remember talking about that.

And what, pray tell, is the difference between a novelist getting a $6k advance on her fee so that she can live while she writes, and a videomaker getting the same thing?

I already told you, she didn't make it clear that the money would be used to cover her living expenses. She isn't working with a fucking publisher here, she asked for donations to make a video series. There's a distinct difference between the two, one which I'm not too confident you'll realize.

May I assume that you will now be raging at writer Seth Godin for asking for $40k and getting over $200k to... write his next book? I mean, that's a scam, isn't it? Plenty of people write stuff on the internet for free.

If he doesn't make it clear what he's going to use the excess money for yes, that could also be labeled a scam. He still has a month to go though.

Oh, it's because he's not a woman criticizing your little male-dominated bubble. Got it.

Cool, a strawman. I'm guessing the idea that video games are sexist towards both genders is insane to you.

1.) She's discussing it with her backers right now. I'm sure you'd love her to do something with the money that doesn't involve criticizing your pop culture or making you think about uncomfortable topics, though. But yes?

-She asks for money to fund Feminist Frequency videos.
-Many people give her money to fund Feminist Frequency videos. Ergo, they think that more Feminist Frequency videos are something worth paying for.
-She will be using the money to make more Feminist Frequency. Which was what people donated for.
-Scam???????

I paid her to make more Feminist Frequency videos. I AM OKAY WITH HER USING MY MONEY TO DO JUST THAT.

2.) Oh, so you don't remember saying that you don't pay $160k for a book? Got it.

3.) Actually, working with a publisher, THEY would be the one to front the writer money so they could live on it while they wrote. Otherwise, not as much difference as you'd like.

4.) And I'm sure he will. As will Sarkeesian. I've been getting the emails about her ideas since the project was funded.

5.) If the shoe fits, friend. And in this very thread I've agreed that there absolutely are harmful tropes and stereotypes towards men in pop culture. They're less damaging, sure, because men have the institutional power, but they absolutely exist, and *should be examined*. I would absolutely fund a Kickstarter that aimed to examine and dissect harmful male tropes like "All Men are Killers" or "Disposable Man" in games, provided it was a complement to this and not trying to argue her down.

But these tropes are also a reaction to sexist ideas of women. They can't exist in a vacuum.

 

[medv4380]

The issues you bring up, while deserving of more acknowledgement than they receive, and certainly more worth taking political action over, are not more interesting conversations to have. These are morally unambiguous conversations that would end up boiling down to moral masturbation. A nuanced conversation is always a more interesting one, and is more likely to result in participants growing as people. This is one of those situations where the conversation is the solution. It's a matter of having an open conversation about what's behind these representations, so we as a society can be more aware of the underlying issue, and ultimately end up holding the creative work we produce to higher standards of understanding what it's saying. There's no clear solution to the problem other than to understand it, and when you decide to simply ignore the conversation, you're not helping. When you actively encourage others to do the same, you're contributing to the problem.

The problem is that this "discussion" of Women shouldn't be seen sexually leads to those other more important issue. When Society is "Aware of the Underlying Issue" it starts to implement nonsense measures like Burkas, and head scarfs. Those measures weren't implemented by Society because men needed more control. They were implemented because of some notion that the temptation should be removed, and society Women Included imposed those things on itself willingly. It's the exact same argument you present the end game as "ultimately end up holding the creative work we produce to higher standards of understanding what it's saying". Self Censorship is still Censorship and will result in the exact same outcome.

Because the end game is Unacceptable the only valid option to to discard this part of the debate entirely.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

You're referring to the Japanese advertisement campaign for Bayonetta? Watch the video again without the rage. She didn't say the ad campaign caused people to grope women. She said this was alarming in context as an advertisement presented in a Japanese subway. That's like saying, "Thumbs up, molesters. Take a card."

The ad can't force anyone to do anything, but she has solid reasons to criticize it.

Go ahead and report me. I don't really care.

Allow me to quote the VERY last thing she said in that video. Just listen to THAT cause there is the logical leap that you should be worried about.

While there is action being taken to try and curb this behavior such as the woman only passenger cars and the public service annoucements, right next door is this Bayonneta ad that is encouraging this predatory behavior

Just read that and tell me you don't see that logical leap she puts in at the end of the video.

In context that's not a logical 'leap.' The advertisement is encouraging passersby to strip a representation of a woman, on a subway, where thousands of women a year get harassed or molested. She points out that there is action taken to attempt to curb this behavior, and this ad directly runs counter to it.

Note: encouragement. Not "instruction," "compulsion," or "heartfelt endorsement."