The Big Picture: Tropes vs. MovieBob

[itsthesheppy]

-snip-

I would really suggest that you stop addressing me directly, as I'm not really reading your posts. If you want to re-engage me you might want to send me a PM and we can talk again on some amiable terms.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

-snip-

I would really suggest that you stop addressing me directly, as I'm not really reading your posts. If you want to re-engage me you might want to send me a PM and we can talk again on some amiable terms.

Ah, I see the resident misandrist is back to it's old tricks. I'm not even going to acknowledge your existence as a member of the human race out of fear that doing so would legitimize the fact you are using the noble cause of feminism as a front for your blatant hatred of men.

People like you aren't feminists. Feminists fight for gender equality, a world free of double standards and equal opportunity for men and women. People like you on the other hand use it as a means to attack men everywhere, knowing that any counter argument would lose credibility by sheer virtue of you being attached to the movement.

Get it? You are a coward.

 

[Fallen Askari]

I would like to cover a claim asserted in this video. Male body image not effecting job hiring. I am a large man, actually I'm just fat, anyway I graduated from college with a high level degree and it has taken me three years to find a reliable job. The reason I attribute this to my appearance is that during that time I had several interviews and none of them ever called me back. Now I know expecting calls from all of them is unrealistic when the economy is slow but all of them ignoring me is a rather clear message. So does it mean I can make a huge stink about how it isn't right that my appearance makes a difference? No I can not because the inevitable reply is that your a man so you have no real claim to being discriminated against. This world apparently can never let people live in their own way, everyone wants control over what they find offensive so they can destroy it. Am I the only person that has had enough of this cycle? I understand that women feel objectified by the images presented by games but there is no law stating that they must play the games they find offensive, so why should there be a genre wide move to force me to play games that follow their ideals. I believe the gaming universe is big enough for games of all view, just don't expect everyone to play everything. That will never happen.

 

[itsthesheppy]

-snip-

I would really suggest that you stop addressing me directly, as I'm not really reading your posts. If you want to re-engage me you might want to send me a PM and we can talk again on some amiable terms.

Ah, I see the resident misandrist is back to it's old tricks. I'm not even going to acknowledge your existence as a member of the human race out of fear that doing so would legitimize the fact you are using the noble cause of feminism as a front for your blatant hatred of men.

People like you aren't feminists. Feminists fight for gender equality, a world free of double standards and equal opportunity for men and women. People like you on the other hand use it as a means to attack men everywhere, knowing that any counter argument would lose credibility by sheer virtue of you being attached to the movement.

Get it? You are a coward.

I never claimed to be a feminist. I actually said outright that I did not count myself among their number.

I also don't hate men. I might not like you very much, but that has more to do with you being kind of a jerk, and nothing at all to do with your gender.

What I do is I take a stand against misogyny, and not just the blatant 'get back in the kitchen' fare you get in youtube comments. I am watchful, instead, for the type of casual, well-meaning sexism that is so rampant in gamer culture. This is a society I identify myself with, and I take some responsibility for its content. Unsurprisingly, standing up against male primacy hasn't won me a great many friends. I think I'll survive.

 

[TAdamson]

Anita, I now expect your videos to be TWICE AS GOOD as Eraserhead.

You know, I hear this argument a lot, but you know, the budget and money and what she does with it is not our business unless we donated. Those that donated read the Kickstarter, saw what she was doing and voluntarily contributed.

If it interests you she actually goes over what some in Kickstarter calls "Stretch Goals". If something gets overfunded, they do more. Now she only accounted for about 25k of that so far, and is trying to figure out what to do with the rest. I recommended to a graduate game designer on this very board to get in touch.

Crowdfunding sources are new, but they have this very problem. You can't control being overfunded, and you're not guaranteed to get a return on investment. In some cases the project promises some product in return (at expense to them) listed on the sidebar - usually in the form of merchandise or personal favors.

I personally can't understand why someone gives Transformers so much money (actually I do, but I don't agree with it), when there's much more deserving product out there. But they do, and it's none of my business. I just don't see the movie.

Edit: To add - in certain cases I will respond to content I don't like. I will react and produce content to counter it. That is within my power.

Bingo.

When she only asked to be funded to $6,000, which is a reasonable amount for a video series, the fact that she got funded more than that is nobody's business.

If you disagree with her opinions: Big deal. Whatever. You have to accept that people agree with her opinions to the point of giving her $24,000.

The additional $125,000 after that is probably split between those that agree with her and those that were disgusted by the internet's reaction to her. (Whether that was engineered by her or not.)

Regardless, for those that want to spin the 4chan/wikipedia/youtube reaction to her kickstarter as something that she engineered -- The internet masculine complex DID call her an entitled Jewish princess whore and threatened her with rape.

This is disgusting behaviour. It's disgusting whether you are provoked or not.

Face up to that. Denounce it. Denounce it unequivocally.

If you want to confront her opinions do it on a mature level.

Don't claim examples of society and gaming that you think represent misandry. Misandry is bullshit, it doesn't exist outside of ultra hardcore feminism. It doesn't exist in games and it doesn't exist in real life.

While Anita Sarkeesian is harder than those feminists that I agree with, this does not make her misandrist, or anti-men, or anti-games.

IT MAKES HER PRO-WOMEN.

She wants better female characters in media. OMG! How dare she?

 

[Darkmantle]

ITT

Why does she need all that money? It's not just women who are stereotyped, so like, why doesn't she do something else with her time? I mean, she's probably a slut anyway.

The joke is, she no longer gives a fuck. You know what the benefit of crowd sourcing your funding is? You're not beholden to people who don't like the things you make. I don't watch her videos. I didn't donate. But, this thread reeks of self entitlement. Instead of abstractly telling her what she should be doing, why not go fucking make something yourself?

The funny thing is, your last line, is what I like to tell people who complain about female stereotypes in games, and possibly what she should be doing with that money


just a thought eh?

 

[jmarquiso]

I would like to cover a claim asserted in this video. Male body image not effecting job hiring. I am a large man, actually I'm just fat, anyway I graduated from college with a high level degree and it has taken me three years to find a reliable job. The reason I attribute this to my appearance is that during that time I had several interviews and none of them ever called me back. Now I know expecting calls from all of them is unrealistic when the economy is slow but all of them ignoring me is a rather clear message. So does it mean I can make a huge stink about how it isn't right that my appearance makes a difference? No I can not because the inevitable reply is that your a man so you have no real claim to being discriminated against. This world apparently can never let people live in their own way, everyone wants control over what they find offensive so they can destroy it. Am I the only person that has had enough of this cycle? I understand that women feel objectified by the images presented by games but there is no law stating that they must play the games they find offensive, so why should there be a genre wide move to force me to play games that follow their ideals. I believe the gaming universe is big enough for games of all view, just don't expect everyone to play everything. That will never happen.

That's a fair point, but is a fat woman more or less likely to get a job than you are? Or passed over for promotion?

I don't know the answer my self, to be honest, and it's not that appearance doesn't matter. Just, all things being equal, fat men may have more opportunity than a fat woman.

That being said, there is a wider range of acceptable body image for men than there are of women. Male body image really only began to matter as much within these last 10 years (more female advertising execs and producers may be a part of that). For the most selective grouping in the industry - let's look at actors -

For every John Goodman, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Ricky Gervais, Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, Jack Black, Zach Galifinakis, and the like - there is ONE Kathy Bates (and possibly Queen Latifa and Gabourey Sidibe - took me awhile to think of Queen, and Gabby's sorta new).

Fat people aren't as represented in the media as much as reality sure. But to look at one of the most selective professions in the world -

The point of the video (and yes I agree it's poorly stated) is there may be a problem in opportunity if - all things being equal - one was to choose between a man and a woman.

BTW, I'm overweight, too, and have had similar problems. It has more to do with being fat than being fat and male. So is Bob.

Again, this is a changing reality, slowly but surely. Part of that issue is having more women in power, the attractiveness of the male is going to count for more. One has to be their best presentable appearance for an interview, and unfortunately fat people suffer for it. The world is superficial and attrativeness plays a role. Women have a narrower window of attractiveness than men, though.

Edit: added "fair" to "that's a point". Because it is a fair point.

 

[jmarquiso]

I gotta say you are really missing the point and going so far to make yourself in the right. First off she's been making 720P videos since 2009 and also been using picture in picture video editing software for the same time.

She also could have been renting or borrowing, which is much more expensive per video than owning. Many in the indie San Francisco film scene do this.

I have been a part of that when I lived there. It was pretty standard.

 

[deeman010]

Why is everybody making such a big fuss about this?

YES, people are worried about what she might do with the excess money. YES, people have the right to choose on what they spend on. YES, compared to every other single problem and issue that some other ass (cos im also an ass) can probably think of, this issue is relatively unimportant. YES, people heavily underestimate the costs of making a video production. YES, the primary market of the video game industry is male. YES, there are also many overly sexualized male video game characters but NO that does not mean that this issue isn?t a problem anymore.

The only way that feminists will ever get ?empowering? or ?normal? female characters in video games is to appeal to publishers and developers in a large enough number to prove that there is a market for this. Whether you agree or not with Anita, she is still raising awareness for this issue so that a large amount of women can appeal to publishers/developers.

 

[Ashley Blalock]

Realist really isn't a word I'd associate with video games. Video games just don't match up to the things you see in the real world so I'm not really upset if the characters in a game don't match up to the normal real people I encounter. Are the women in video games unrealistic? Yes, but so is ripping out someone's spine at the end of a fight or a plumber jumping down pipes to fight turtles.

I guess I'm just a bit crazy but I don't see how changing how women look in video games will change the world. Just seems like there are better places to fight for equality than in games.

 

[TAdamson]

ITT

Why does she need all that money? It's not just women who are stereotyped, so like, why doesn't she do something else with her time? I mean, she's probably a slut anyway.

The joke is, she no longer gives a fuck. You know what the benefit of crowd sourcing your funding is? You're not beholden to people who don't like the things you make. I don't watch her videos. I didn't donate. But, this thread reeks of self entitlement. Instead of abstractly telling her what she should be doing, why not go fucking make something yourself?

The funny thing is, your last line, is what I like to tell people who complain about female stereotypes in games, and possibly what she should be doing with that money


just a thought eh?

Do movie critics need to make movies to critique movies?

And $150,000 while it may be enough to fund a couple of programmers for a year is hardly enough to make a game.

What she has been given tha money to do is critique. Unless you donated under the supposition that she would do something else that is all you can really expect.

The fact that the internet has given her a volume of ammunition further to critique is something that the community should subject to serious introspection.

 

[Schadrach]

Nobody said your dick makes you opinions invalid.

...only that I'm going to disregard your opinion using a silencing tactic based on the fact that you have a dick. Your dick doesn't make your opinion invalid, it merely makes you expressing it offensive.

Mansplaining is an inherently sexist tactic, in that there are opinions that will be engaged with if provided by a known or assumed woman, but if a man expresses the same opinion, then we get to call mansplaining because someone with a dick expressed an opinion we don't like.

That is how it is actually used in most places, to declare someone's opinion invalid without having to actually engage it, because the person making the argument is presumed to have a penis.

I mean, she's probably a slut anyway.

Has anyone said that?

I'll give her media and internet savvy, I'll admit that jabbing the hornet's nest that is 4chan to make herself a target so she could play the victim card (ironically making herself a damsel in distress) to quadruple her donations at the last minute was pretty clever.

However, she's still done shitty research in the past, commented on things that would have been apparently wrong had she actually read/watched/listened to/played the thing she was talking about, jumped to conclusions like it was double-dutch, etc, etc.

Also, since she'll almost certainly trot out rape culture at some point in this series, do you want to explain what makes rape special that rape culture exists, but there isn't a "murder culture" or "carjacking culture"? If not, it's supplying ammo to the "video games cause violence" argument, as well.

The joke is, she no longer gives a fuck. You know what the benefit of crowd sourcing your funding is? You're not beholden to people who don't like the things you make.

Unless they form an organized push to destroy what you are trying to create, and Kickstarter, Amazon, PayPal, or anyone else that's between the creator and donators is willing to roll over. Oddly enough, I think this has only happened so far in cases of obvious scams or when pressed by online feminist groups, ironically enough.

I have, and I am aware there are non-arsehole feminists. That there is a very vocal minority. However, the fact that the minority is taken seriously is something that, at the very least, boggles my mind.

There certainly are, and there are also some really terrible ones, and also some who claim to be the nicer variety unless something offends them. There's also the ones that try to arrange campaigns to destroy media that they dislike. Also ones that advocate mass castration of men. These are all equally feminist, because "feminism is not a monolith", which while also meaning that you don't have to defend the positions of feminists, even very popular and/or mainstream ones because, also sets the bar for who can be counted as feminist very, very low.

By some definitions, as I have pointed out in several of these threads, *I* am feminist, as I believe that men and women should have identical rights and responsibilities where possible, and as similar as possible when not possible (reproductive rights have to be asymmetric due to biology, but "asymmetric" doesn't mean need to mean "the father has none, only obligations which remain even if the mother was dishonest about his paternity"), with no one getting special benefits because of what is between their legs. However I also believe that patriarchy theory is effectively religious dogma, being unfalsifiable and axiomatic. I don't accept the concept of rape culture either (in short: the argument that has been done to death regarding video games and violence is mutually exclusive with the theory of rape culture unless rape is "magic" in some fashion). Etc, etc, etc.

 

[itsthesheppy]

Nobody said your dick makes you opinions invalid.

...only that I'm going to disregard your opinion using a silencing tactic based on the fact that you have a dick. Your dick doesn't make your opinion invalid, it merely makes you expressing it offensive.

Mansplaining is an inherently sexist tactic, in that there are opinions that will be engaged with if provided by a known or assumed woman, but if a man expresses the same opinion, then we get to call mansplaining because someone with a dick expressed an opinion we don't like.

That is how it is actually used in most places, to declare someone's opinion invalid without having to actually engage it, because the person making the argument is presumed to have a penis.

I can only assume you have that impression of the term because you find it used against you, or other people you have been in agreement with, in the past. My only suggestion would be to consider the possibility that your approach invites it. More to the point, that you may be guilty of in fact committing wanton acts of mansplaining.

Also, since she'll almost certainly trot out rape culture at some point in this series, do you want to explain what makes rape special that rape culture exists, but there isn't a "murder culture" or "carjacking culture"?

I don't think I have the time to spend to fully define 'rape culture' to you, nor would I presume to know everything about it because, as a white man, I don't have to suffer its ill effects. I will only suggest that you do a circuit of some feminist blogs, maybe read a magazine or two; do research, is what I'm saying. And I'm not suggesting the "go to well-known feminist blog, hunt for keywords, reject everything I see" style of 'research' that is so common. I mean approaching it with the idea in mind that perhaps there is something to it; something there for you to learn. You might find your horizons expanded a bit.

There certainly are, and there are also some really terrible ones, and also some who claim to be the nicer variety unless something offends them. There's also the ones that try to arrange campaigns to destroy media that they dislike. Also ones that advocate mass castration of men. These are all equally feminist, because "feminism is not a monolith", which while also meaning that you don't have to defend the positions of feminists, even very popular and/or mainstream ones because, also sets the bar for who can be counted as feminist very, very low.

You badly, badly need to spend more time immersing yourself in feminist philosophy, because you're very far off the mark here. I consider myself an ardent student of feminism; I'm not perfect by any stretch, but I am always trying to keep an open and receptive mind. I follow a number of blogs (Shakesville and Tiger Beatdown are my favorites), and I've come across some very outspoken feminists, but I have never in my life found one suggesting with a straight face that men should be castrated.

By some definitions, as I have pointed out in several of these threads, *I* am feminist

Just going to stop you there; you're not. In the Feminism Dojo, you're not even a white belt. You're one of those guys who hasn't bought a gi yet, at the back of the class in sweat pants and a GAP t-shirt, trying to get the stances right. You're still on your 1-week free trial.

There isn't a single definition of feminism I'm aware of where you would be counted among their number. I am an outspoken vehement defender of women's rights (or I try to be), but even I will refuse to call myself one because I am all too aware that my privilege, my upbringing, and the society in which I live causes me to frequently slip up. It's unintentional, but its there, and it's something I struggle to improve myself on. You, on the other hand, are someone who I have seen work tirelessly to tear down every positive claim the movement has put forth, while at the same time having the audacity to claim that you're one of them.

Spend more time reading up on the movement. Talk to some, and not to tell them what you think, but to listen to what they think. Prepare yourself for the possibility that you're wrong. that maybe you've been wrong all this time, in little ways you never expected, because we're not trained or equipped to notice them. But do not tear down everything they are trying to build, while at the same time claiming that you're on their team.

 

[lord.jeff]

ITT

Why does she need all that money? It's not just women who are stereotyped, so like, why doesn't she do something else with her time? I mean, she's probably a slut anyway.

The joke is, she no longer gives a fuck. You know what the benefit of crowd sourcing your funding is? You're not beholden to people who don't like the things you make. I don't watch her videos. I didn't donate. But, this thread reeks of self entitlement. Instead of abstractly telling her what she should be doing, why not go fucking make something yourself?

The funny thing is, your last line, is what I like to tell people who complain about female stereotypes in games, and possibly what she should be doing with that money


just a thought eh?

The answer to that is pretty simple, most people don't have the skill or resources to make a game, though she does have enough money now that working with an indie team is a possibility.

 

[itsthesheppy]

ITT

Why does she need all that money? It's not just women who are stereotyped, so like, why doesn't she do something else with her time? I mean, she's probably a slut anyway.

The joke is, she no longer gives a fuck. You know what the benefit of crowd sourcing your funding is? You're not beholden to people who don't like the things you make. I don't watch her videos. I didn't donate. But, this thread reeks of self entitlement. Instead of abstractly telling her what she should be doing, why not go fucking make something yourself?

The funny thing is, your last line, is what I like to tell people who complain about female stereotypes in games, and possibly what she should be doing with that money


just a thought eh?

The answer to that is pretty simple, most people don't have the skill or resources to make a game, though she does have enough money now that working with an indie team is a possibility.

Or, you know, making a really badass video series, with a higher budget. Funny how nobody seems to be suggesting that...