The Most Dangerous Woman in Videogames - Anita Sarkeesian

[Proverbial Jon]

Whereas I agree that women are poorly represented in video games and openly welcome this sort of in-depth analysis of our medium... I'm not too sure Sarkeesian is the woman for the job. Watching her videos makes it clear to me that she's overly biased to the point where she can't even make fair assessments or comparisons.

For example:

In her video Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games she condemns Krystal of Star Fox Adventures saying that she has been stripped down from her original role as protagonist and reduced to a hapless damsel in distress. This was all due to the original game Dinosaur Planet being turned into a Star Fox franchise sequel and consequently Krystal was pushed aside to make room for Fox McCloud. This is bad in Sarkeesian's mind.

Then she goes on to talk about Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic which was reskinned to become Super Mario Bros. 2. The original game had 4 playable characters so Toad and Princess Peach were added to Maria and Luigi to even out the roster. The inclusion of a playable Peach was also considered bad in Sarkeesian's mind.

So let's review... Due to a mere franchise change Krystal was reduced to a damsel in distress and that is terrible. YET in SMB2 a mere franchise change actually included a playable female character which is also apparently an awful thing to happen because it was only really an accident. Lolwut?

Sure, I would have liked to have seen Krystal have a little more agency and some more playable levels. I would have liked to see her and Fox working together instead of her becoming just another love interest. Sure, Peach probably was added just to fill a space but hell, they could have used another Toad, or some other generic character. Surely having a playable female at all was a step forward, right? So please, when you're trying to make a point like this, look at the evidence and don't twist it to suit your own agenda.

 

[Artemicion]

In light of the heavy bannings (and now the discussions about the bannings), this'll be my final post on the subject.

BDSM is an expression of sexuality, not sex. It is about a person's preference for how they are treated and treat others in an erotic situation. Sexuality.

BDSM is a series of practices of sexual intimacy, and, from my understanding, is used to describe activities rather than inclinations and expressions. Therefore it is an expression (as in, form) of sex and sexual activity; individuals into BDSM may not express this in their sexuality in any other way, but may do so. Getting down to it, it could be accepted as either, or both. And now that this has been established as opinion and preference, it is no longer worth discussing.

I didn't contradict myself.

If anything, wearing a bikini is more about sex than sexuality.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a bikini is just a bikini. Perhaps the bikini was just what her parents gave her when she went swimming as a child, so she just got used to wearing a bikini, and it says nothing about her sexuality?

Yes, this is a contradiction, but this really isn't going anywhere, so I'm moving on.

A bikini is more about sex than sexuality, because they are specifically designed for the female sex. Most women tend to have vaginas and breasts, while men don't.

A bikini is designed to cover the anatomical parts that people of the female sex have. Sex.

Except:

Sexuality: ...Our sexuality includes not only sexual behavior but also our genders, our bodies and how they work, and our values, attitudes, beliefs and feelings about life, love, and the people our lives touch...

Sex: Usually involves touching oneself or another person in ways that stimulate sexual feelings and pleasure...

(Source... again) [http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ma/definitions-sex-sexuality-20484.htm] I assumed you accepted this definition because you didn't object to it.

What she's just wearing it because her favorite colour is pink? I don't think you can infer much about the wearer's intent just from a color.

Having trouble seeing the forest for the trees? You're focusing far too much on the examples and not the big picture; It's called color psychology [http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html], the way colors have been found to affect human behavior and emotion. Here's an excerpt from the linked page:

The most emotionally intense color, red stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing. It is also the color of love. Red clothing gets noticed and makes the wearer appear heavier. Since it is an extreme color, red clothing might not help people in negotiations or confrontations. Red cars are popular targets for thieves. In decorating, red is usually used as an accent. Decorators say that red furniture should be perfect since it will attract attention.

The most romantic color, pink, is more tranquilizing. Sports teams sometimes paint the locker rooms used by opposing teams bright pink so their opponents will lose energy.

Suppose I should have given a different color instead of dark red, such as white, but I honestly didn't expect to get hung up on this.

I never said sexuality and social acceptance were mutually exclusive.

No, but you weren't going to admit it unless I brought it up, either, because you're adamant in your refusal to accept that a woman would convey their sexuality through their clothing (or that such a thing is possible). I'll offer this as a closing statement before returning this back to what the topic actually started from about 19 pages back.

I wholly accept that a woman wearing a bikini (or anyone taking any action) might not be doing so for sexuality reasons - they might be wearing their pink bikini because they like the color pink. Okay. Yes. Sure. They might also be wearing it to garner attention. Regardless of the reason, they are still, in some form or another, expressing their sexuality - not necessarily their sexual preferences or intentions, but at the very least, they are showing their gender through clothing tailored for that gender, which is an expression of sexuality. From there, the choice of the clothing, such as the color, or size, or shape, etc. can all be used to express sexuality, each in different ways, as I've previously noted.

Now, for those of you playing our home game who missed my initial post, this all relates back to Sarkeesian calling out Nintendo for making Samus wearing naught but a bikini underneath her power armor, and that this was a sexist and misogynistic ploy to objectify her, but gives no reason as to why this is misogynistic and makes no attempt to further this discussion. I point out that women can frequently been seen wearing bikinis and, in doing so, are openly expressing their sexuality, and that there's nothing wrong with that. It's not misogynistic. She's not making sexy poses for the player, she's not being objectified by some on-screen entity: she's waving at the player. That's it. It's innocent.

One more thing.

And why would I have to cite specific people? It's a general phenomenon in society - society expects certain conventions about people's appearances.

It wasn't that you were explicitly wrong, it's that responding to an argument with something as broad as "lots of people" is frankly disingenuous. Without tangible evidence and sources you'd might as well be making it up as you go. I'm fairly certain you're not, but still - just as it may be socially acceptable to wear a suit to a business meeting, you bring references and sources to serious conferences, discussions and arguments.

---

Now then, Tenmar has had some absolutely amazing looking posts, so I'm going to go and read all of those.

 

[Gindil]

Just a quick question and I will want to extend this to everyone that brings up the Star Fox franchise. Has anyone actually played PAST Star Fox Adventures? Or at least looked at a wiki of the future games such as Star Fox Assault or Star Fox Command? Where Crystal is becomes her own character and expresses her own attitude and demonstrates her own capability as a pilot and a person? Where there are multiple endings where through the actions of the player isn't just some defacto love interest of Fox or pursues a relationship with another character?

I mean honestly a game like Dinosaur Planet we will never know if it would of become a long lasting franchise but at least in the sense of Crystal she actually has become a strong independent character within the Star Fox franchise. Can nobody factor that as a positive?

This thing was never about the video games in the first place. You seriously can't make that many errors in three videos without it being intentional.

And Anita's basically decided to manipulate dissent. It's amazing what people do instead of enjoying the games for what they are. All I can say, which has been said a LOOOONG time ago on this site: "Don't feed the trolls".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSoDEA6yw24

In conclusion, the women in the gaming industry are fairly diverse and are far more than Damsels. Anita's story is one of hypocrisy and contradictions to the point that I can't believe a word that she says. Enjoy the series you want but let's stop listening to someone that formed an opinion with an agenda.

 

[Viredae]

She got threats from 4chan, and presumably because she went there and kicked up the hornets nest on launching her video..

Why do you presume this?

4chan is a hotbed of trolling - so why would you presume it was Sarkeesian herself going there, rather than one of the 4chan trolls trolling the other 4chan trolls?

Mostly because prior to her opening comments on her KS video, 4Chan was spammed with "advertisement" posts about it, here is the archived post off /v/:

http://archive.foolz.us/v/thread/139813364

 

[Moth_Monk]

This is the best picture of Anita on the Internet...

Spoiler: Buying $1000 shoes

 

[VanQ]

It's funny how drastically ones opinions can change in a meager 2 years.

I came across a quote [http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/extra-credits-does-other-m.html] that made me remember why I started watching MovieBob in the first place.

Why is "Extra Credits" the best gaming show on the web? Because when THEY make the Other M episode, they spend 99% of it on things like narrative mechanics and localization, maybe 1% or less on percieved socio/political "messages"/issues that simply aren't really there and ZERO percent of it on dime-store analysis of the alleged "cultural misogyny" of a foriegn culture they don't belong to.

I really don't want to risk posting in this thread seeing as there has been a wave of random bannings but... Lately I wonder what the hell I was thinking when I started following MovieBob's stuff, it's things like this that remind me he wasn't always the social justice warrior digging for page views that he is now.

Anita has brought out the very worst in all of us... what have we become? Remember when we used to talk about games guys? A time before we were more hung up about what utensils a character has between its legs?

 

[Proverbial Jon]

Just a quick question and I will want to extend this to everyone that brings up the Star Fox franchise. Has anyone actually played PAST Star Fox Adventures? Or at least looked at a wiki of the future games such as Star Fox Assault or Star Fox Command? Where Crystal is becomes her own character and expresses her own attitude and demonstrates her own capability as a pilot and a person? Where there are multiple endings where through the actions of the player isn't just some defacto love interest of Fox or pursues a relationship with another character?

I mean honestly a game like Dinosaur Planet we will never know if it would of become a long lasting franchise but at least in the sense of Crystal she actually has become a strong independent character within the Star Fox franchise. Can nobody factor that as a positive?

I have played Star Fox: Assault but unfortunately not Command. I want to like Command so much but the control scheme on the DS just doesn't agree with me and I'm truly awful at it. I don't think I even got as far as meeting Krystal in that game.

Assault on the other hand is a very good game which I love very much. However I still don't think Krystal is portrayed any better in that game. Yes, she's a bona fide member of the Star Fox team now but she's still just the token girl and her "special" ability is that she's now a psychic? So she senses and feels things... as a woman. That was actually one of Sarkeesian's points for Princess Peach - when she finally gets her own game she uses emotions and mood swings as a special power.

Not to mention the fact that Assault has some truly awful writing at some points. I can't find the exact quote for the life of me, but there's a point in Mission 9 where Krystal senses the enemy and seems to be pained. Fox asks her if she's alright and she responds with something about how being able to sense their love for her is keeping her going. I always cringe at that line. I can't speak for Command, for obvious reasons.

Don't get me wrong; I don't dislike Krystal. I've played plenty of games with poor portrayals of both genders and truly awful characters but it doesn't always make me like them less. Sarkeesian wasn't wrong about Krystal's portrayal in Adventures but let's be honest here, the only reason she was kept on after Rare created her was for her sex appeal, not for her meaningful contributions to Adventure's story.

 

[VanQ]

I like the part where you repeat over and over how much you wish Anita would go away and how sick of it all you are, while also stating several times that you've followed the debate closely and show no signs of actually leaving the discussion. Like a child burning their hand on a stove, but leaving it there.

Or you know, making sure I'm properly aware of the situation I'm commenting on. There are people like you, that sit in your comfort zone and do nothing but fling mud at anyone outside of it. And there are people like me, that have actively made an attempt to leave my comfort zone as a "privileged, straight white male" and tried to see both sides of the coin.

I've come to an educated opinion on the matter. All you're doing is flinging mud based off your own preconceived notions. I'm doing my best to see the matter from both perspectives. You're just throwing a temper tantrum in a puddle of mud.