I don't know what to tell you, dude. He can't identify your racist behaviors for you, and he can't change them for you. If you aren't willing to examine yourself honestly and discover your own areas that need improvement, then I cannot imagine anything Mr. Chipman could say or do that would change anything.
I like the idea of people being more progressive and accepting the whole spectrum of humanity (women/trans/gay/etc.)
I like people becoming more open and accepting through education and exposure to differences very much.
I like people becoming more open through being bullied into it a whole lot less.
I understand that someone with backwards views might deserve it. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the "expunge x root tree and branch" though. I'm not sure I like a call to arms not a call to understanding. Are we going Martian Luther King Jr or Malcolm X on this thing?
I understand there's a lot of pain going around, but I don't think that's a blank check to cause others pain if they don't shape to your worldview. It is very important not to let the extreme members of your cause shape the narrative for everyone else... it just doesn't end well.
I'll certainly call people on bad behavior, and try to help open people to the idea that as humans we're not really all that different.
The trouble is that does go both ways. For example, brutalizing Gabe of Penny Arcade for a problem of ignorance was a serious black eye for the trans community and an excellent example. He got bullied first, and he responded as an asshole, then he got educated second, and he came out in support and even donated to a good cause. Could we have skipped the assholishness if people didn't get out the knives first? I really don't know.... but I hope we'll find out some day in the future where the first inclination of people is to educate and help rather then call someone a horrible bigot and wish they would die.
"Try not to be a jerk to other people" seems to be a good method to live by so far. I just hope we can find the rational ground of cooperation and inclusion rather then the "Fuck all those other guys every one of them is an asshole or ignorant by their nature"
I dunno, just my 2c.
(and before anyone asks, yes I'm a cisgendered white male with disposable income. Hopefully this doesn't make you think too much less of me)
I was about to say, "That's not an especially accurate representation of my position," but I ended up deleting that because, well, it is a fairly accurate representation of my position. If a person is not willing to improve himself because no one has already done the legwork of identifying his weak points and creating a list of how to do so, then yeah, that person is against self-improvement. The only correction I'd offer is that I'd say such a person is against doing the work necessary to improve himself rather than being against self-improvement as a concept.
Father Time said:
Screw that. Not my job to comb through his videos looking for examples to suit his point.
Likewise, if a person can't spend like fifteen minutes looking through a very short video library for appropriately-titled videos and then watching those five-minute segments, then I don't think any amount of information Mr. Chipman could have provided will change anything; particularly if, as in this case, you've probably spent at least that much time arguing against it.
Yes and people agree but there's people like Anita saying it causes problems in the real world beyond making bland games.
Imp Emissary said:
Also, I would argue that games do have influence, as do the types of stories they tell(even the tropes). Just like any stories from other media. And I am not anywhere near the first to say so. Neither is Anita.
"Backpedaling is simply saying X, then insisting that you didn't really mean X."
Yes, but normally you don't "backpedal" unless you said something "bad". Except sometimes when you complement someone you don't like that much, so you have to end it with something like "Well it was good for someone like you", or something. Though that has a name of it's own anyway(backhanded complement).
I digress. What I'm saying is that Anita isn't backpedaling, because she has nothing to backpedal about.
"Yes and people agree but there's people like Anita saying it causes problems in the real world beyond making bland games."
:/ So then what's the issue?
You say that you agree with Anita that tropes being overused can cause problems(bad writing/characters). So with Anita and others talking about it, it will get more attention, and hopefully become a less common issue. And if the other problems they talk about aren't real, then there's no need to worry because the ones that are will be taken care of, and the ones that aren't real will likely be show to be not real.
"They have influence sure, but not necessarily the influence Anita is saying they do."
She has said;
"So when developers exploit sensationalized images of brutalized, mutilated and victimized women over and over and over again it tends to reinforce the dominant gender paradigm which casts men as aggressive and commanding and frames women as subordinate and dependent."
In other words, if we show men and women acting the same way in the same situations(tropes) over and over again, it can help to reinforce stereotypical views of them.
Again, that's not that new of a theory, and it has a good history to back it up. It's also pretty much how propaganda works.
No, of course not. Pervasive exposure to media and culture doesn't change people. After all, that would require that human beings are influenced by what we see, hear, do and say. Way too radical.
God, let's hope you never take a career in science. What's up next - no one can prove evolution?
Anyway, I'll leave it at this. Is there any science anywhere that you believe that leaves you with any moral culpability whatsoever for the world around you?
I'm going to guess no.
(And as an aside, in case you really don't have a knowledge of European history. Antisemitism wasn't invented by the Nazis. Europe has a long, long heritage of it that the Nazis simply took advantage of. They didn't turn a population of nice people into monsters - they exaggerated existing cultural and media influences to allow them popular acquiescence of their hideous plans.)
Oh...Movie Bob, why do you continue to associate yourself with nerd culture? Why on earth would anyone want to be associated with it is today is beyond me. Nerd culture is dead and has been a reeking corpse for a decade now, once it went mainstream it was pretty much a dead man walking. Seriously, just let it go, it hasn't been the nerd culture you remembered it to be for a long time now just let it go. Walk your own path and leave nerd culture to the cesspool of hate and anger it has become.
I guess that the best thing for me about "geek culture" becoming main stream is.
Now, i (we) now don't have to hang out with all the weird nerds. you know the ones who only want super powers so they can beat up there stepdad
& write disturbingly detailed self insert batgirl erotica that they keep trying to get you to read.
I used to have to hang out with those guys cause they were the only people at my school who like Video games and comics and stuff.
Now everyone likes them we're free to leave them to die
There is a difference between someone who identifies as a man but was born a woman, versus someone who identifies as a man and was born as one. The word "cisgendered" refers to that latter state. Your resistance to the term betrays your resistance to participate in a world where people are identified by terms. It's okay, to you, for some people to be "transgendered". They have a term applied to them to classify them, because they are abnormal. You, however, are normal, and would rather not have a term applied to you because perhaps that challenges your sense of normalcy. You're not "right", you're just part of another group.
Can you not see the strange hypocrisy in resisting a classification, while at the same time applying classification to those different from you? Can you not see how these classifications can help in a world where we are learning (slowly, and kicking and screaming like infants the entire way) that the world is far more full of diversity and difference than we ever imagined? Diversity and difference that we are participants of, however much we'd like to think that we are "normal" and all others are "not quite as normal"?
Well thanks for the armchair diagnosis, but I'm fine with being defined by whatever terms are necessary and don't need to be considered normal to feel secure. Normalcy or how far I am from it plays no part in this and I harbour no disdain for transgendered individuals. The problem is I'm already quite well-defined by the typical use of the word 'man' - a cisgendered man. I'll get straight to the point - I am resisting participation in a world where the choice terms of minorities have to be taken into account in regular speech where common sense would have sufficed. Is part of your point that even having a state associated with the basic word creates a stigma for those that need extra definition? I disagree. I just think it's easier to say 'man' when you mean a cisgendered man or where specifics aren't important, and don't want to see it become socially mandatory to explain what you mean every time you say 'man' or 'woman'. Something I probably haven't made clear is that in a setting where gender is being discussed or specifics are needed, 'cisgendered' serves a purpose, but not using it shouldn't cause offence in regular communication and the more it is proliferated, the more that will be the case.
I think broadly what we have here is me saying that stereotypes are fine to leave intact if that's what your describing for the sake of ease of speech.
It is not socially mandatory to refer to any given passing man or woman as cisgendered. They very rarely are and I am aware of absolutely nobody, not even among the pinko-est, hippiest, progressive-est associations of mine, who use the term as a casual everyday classification. That's not how language works. We all fall back on shorthand because we only live about 80 years before dying so we're all rather busy and like to get to the point.
However, the entire reason we're discussing the term is because Bob dropped the word i his video and bizarrely people have negatively noted its use. As if the terms existence is somehow unacceptable.
If there is one thing I have found, it's that the people who bang the drum most about "wishing there were no classification terms" or "we should all be completely equal all the time" and so forth frequently turn out to be people for whom classifications were never necessary in their life. Folks born into the majority stock-holders of life, who rankle when those who have usually come with labels start trying to place some of their own.
In the context of the video and this conversation, the use of the word 'cisgendered' is entirely relevant and was applied in exactly the way you yourself indicated as acceptable so what, exactly, is the objection?
Maybe you and I just have different standards, then, because I consider it the work of like three minutes--and that's if my connection is lagging--to go through eight pages of video links, scanning the titles.
Father Time said:
It'd be much easier for him to link to videos that he thinks proves his points then it is for me to pore through them and guess.
I totally agree concerning the perception of the current geek culture as being unwelcoming.
One recent example that comes to my mind is all the hate I've seen thrown at professional critics simply for not giving the 'Man of Steel' movie a high score.
I believe one of the problems is the lack of understanding that it's possible to respectfully disagree and that there is an important difference between one's subjective opinion, objective fact and someone else's opinion. In this case, ignorance of what reviews and critics are is also an important factor.
Even if such 'geeks' are the minority, they certainly don't seem that way due to their comparatively high vocalness. Indeed I suspect many geeks might realize that silence very often is one of the best actions to take.
Just my 2 cents.
And I thought she said this stuff encourages sexism, was I mistaken or not?
And I really disagree with "So when developers exploit sensationalized images of brutalized, mutilated and victimized women over and over and over again it tends to reinforce the dominant gender paradigm". Especially when you have a ton of images of men being brutalized and/or murdered (for every one woman being brutalized in God of War there's at least 4 or 5 men). This is something Anita would have to prove.
Well at least I didn't make a game were people beat up your avatar's face. ;D
Anyway, I've also heard a lot of people make that observation when talking about this. It's true that you are more likely to find more male enemies in games than female enemies(though in some games that is somewhat changing). However, it's not just that females are getting killed, but how their death is portrayed in the story.
xD Nah. It's just a quote.
"Although these stories use female trauma as a catalyst to set the plot elements in motion, these are not stories about women. Nor are they concerned with the struggles of women navigating the mental, emotional and physical ramifications of violence.
Instead these are strictly male-centered stories in which, more often than not, the tragic damsels are just empty shells, whose deaths are depicted as far more meaningful than their lives. Generally they're completely defined by their purity, innocence, kindness, beauty or sensuality. In short they're just symbols meant to invoke the essence of an artificial feminine ideal."
True, there are often more male enemies(a lot of the time almost only male enemies). However, these characters(if you could call them that sometimes) are often dehumanized, and your not meant to really give a damn about them(you know because they are the enemy, and learning about every enemies friends and family probably would put a damper on the "fun" of killing them and what not).
That said Anita also brought up that it's okay for women to die and suffer in games, especially as the enemy/competition.
"Since what we are really talking about here are depictions of violence against women it might be useful to quickly define what I mean by that term. When I say Violence Against Women I'm primarily referring to images 'of women being victimized or when violence is specifically linked to a character?s gender or sexuality. Female characters who happen to be involved in violent or combat situations on relatively equal footing with their opponents are typically be exempt them from this category because they are usually not framed as victims."
"So to be clear here, the problem is not the fact that female characters die or suffer. Death touches all of our lives eventually and as such it's often an integral part of dramatic storytelling. To say that women could never die in stories would be absurd, but it's important to consider the ways that women's deaths are framed and examine how and why they're written."
So to get to the "does she say that these tropes support sexism?", the answer is no, not directly at least.
As I(Anita, and others long before us both) have said, showing people in certain lights over and over again, over a long amount of time can reinforce that the way the people are show(in tropes in this instance) is the way they are/should be in everyday life.
And as she said, most of the time it's probably because when making the game/story they just don't think to step back and take a critical look at their work in this way. And as Bob said about Anita's comment about Double Dragon(that is was regressive crap), Bob said that's why he loved it.
Because it "aspired to be regressive crap". Just dumb fun(in other words not every game needs to take a step back a look at themselves to be good). And there's nothing wrong with games like that existing. But there being SO many games like that? It's a bit much.
I'm not too sure what all the debating back and forth is about in the places where it happens, but in regards to the video I think it's a nice sentiment and one that the culture should aspire to. It's not an obligation by any means, but it'd just be nice if we could attempt[i/] to do some of the stuff Mr. Chipman is talking about. Talking to the collective won't work though - it's too large and divided to be reasonable. It'll just fall down to each person who's interested to help out where they can.
A few times people have pointed out that the whole point of geek culture was they were the people who were picked on by the mainstream of their time and then went on to say that this isn't a true 'geek' culture anymore because it's the mainstream now. Perhaps it's not the same thing, perhaps the fact that fewer geeks have that problem means that it's left behind a large part of itself, but then it comes around to the fact that these people still like mechs and comics and all the stuff that got them bullied by the mainstream in the first place. I have to agree with Mr. Chipman here and say that geek culture has definitely changed and should change again, but it's still geek culture with all its interests and hobbies.
Though I must admit the clip took a while to get to its point. I spent a large part of the first two minutes wondering where he was going with it. It perhaps could have been structured to be more of a punchy point than a drawn out speech.
Im all for getting rid of dummies on the internet, and being more accepting, BUT
I disagree on one major thing, Anita Sarkesian=A sexist moron
I'm sorry but she doesn't make ANY legitimate points in any of her videos, if she actually talked about gaming tropes in a FAIR and Balanced manner, focusing not only on the problems but also women in games that are really well portrayed, I would support her somewhat, the that she is now...
Just another feminist whining about how gamers are so evil...
Weirdest Big Picture so far. It started out as a history lesson on geek culture then turned into yet another american liberal rant against the patriarchy (that's popular to do at the moment) and then finished by preaching some kind of left liberal geek ideology.
I'm sorry, is that all you got out of it? All Bob was saying is "it's time for us to be good". Is your only response REALLY going to be "I don't see why I should have to be good"?
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