Tropes vs Women SECOND VIDEO - "Damsel in Distress: Part 2"

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Ignoring all the Sarkeesian hate, I think what I took away from this video is that video game writers need some new material.

 

[generals3]

You're not getting the point. The games are stating, implicitly or explicitly, that the loss of the female loved one is an attack on the male protagonist's masculinity. She cites the examples in the video. There's even one case where the bad guy actually states, as he holds the woman, "now we take from you", as if she was actually his possession; and another case where the bad guy taunts the male protagonist about his inability to protect the kidnapped/dead woman. This is something that the games are stating, not me or Anita.

First "taking from you" doesn't imply possession. That's just a really twisted way of looking at this. It's a typical phrase used in this context, the typical cry over the loss of a loved one is a plea to God "Why did you take him/her from me". I doubt everyone who'd ever make such a plea regards the lost person as a possession.

Again, everyone wishes they could protect their loved ones. Think of all those female characters in movies or whatever desperately trying to convince their husband not to go to war (it's a non-physical way to protect someone, convincing them to avoid danger). You could tell anyone "you failed to protect X" to add some extra pain. If the game said "See, you're not a man, you can't even protect anyone", that would be an attack on masculinity.

 

[maninahat]

It is not innate. It is not evolutionary. It is a completely arbitrary social more that was agreed upon and then passed down as a tradition.

The euthanised damsel is not a twist. It is the same tired trope: an attack on the character's perceived masculinity. As you have said yourself, the message is "you failed to save her", which is a message built upon archaic and patriarchal notions of males as protectors. This is not a twist. This is not progressive in any way. Chivalry is sexism (benevolent sexism, yes, as opposed to hostile sexism, but sexism nonetheless), and it is just as much of a problem as hostile sexism. The idea that men are benevolent protectors of women is harmful, because it is built upon the notion that women need protection, and that therefore men are allowed to perform certain acts for their own good (such as euthanise them).

But no, due to the smaller physical stature of women men are expected to take up the role of the protector. It makes sense, in a couple with a highly educated person and poorly educated one the highly educated one would be expected to earn the bread. The latter example is defined socially (your level of education is not determined by biology) however the former has been pretty much defined by biology. It's also why adults are expected to protect children.

Secondly, while the role of protector is naturally bestowed on men the desire to protect your loved ones is universal. As such having a closed one euthanised isn't an attack on masculinity (Unless you assume women don't give a shit about the loss of their closed ones), it's an attempt to create emotional response to the loss of a loved one.

There's a lot of generalisations in your argument:

1) Games don't actually have to be about warriors, fighters, protectors, or roles in which physical strength (and thus "being male") is a priority. They just choose to be about shooting guns and disembowelling monsters. Arguably, a large part of the problem with games is that they are so narrowly focussed on violence and action in the first place. By doing this, they implicitly favour male characters, who are stereotyped as being strong and heroic. Realistically, most men's physical strength and heroism doesn't play a role in day to day life. It is only in the narrow context of these games were such qualities are put to the forefront.

2) Perhaps in ancient times, wherein you needed to be strong to weld a club, your argument that men being taller and stronger might have had some weight. But we live in a modern society in which women are soldiers, police officers, criminals, and in all kinds of roles which employ physically pro activeness or violent behaviour. Even in a historical context, there are still plenty of strong females, female warriors, and women who are more than capable of wearing the pants.

3) These are fictional games we are talking about. There is very little pretense towards realism when you have a pill-chugging, Brooklyn cop killing hundreds upon hundreds of criminals in the space of a single evening. So why is it any more of a stretch to put a female in these exact same roles?

4) When writers don't put women in these dominant roles, you also avoid putting men in the submissive ones. That's why these plot devices have issues - in and of themselves, they shouldn't be a problem, but the dynamic of strong man protects weak woman is so prevalent, it becomes a stereotype - one that is negative for both, but definitely more so for the one being portrayed as the weakling.

 

[NoeL]

That said, I am utterly disappointed in part 2 having watched it thrice over now. Examples are from games that are obviously exploitative in nature for the sake of cheap entertainment and draws(attracting audience). I think she honestly needs to dig deeper for how long her videos take to make, rather than taking convenient examples. I have not seen any convincing example to see that women are truly marginalized in each video game they are portrayed in, rather it is more of a nitpick rather than actual concern.

Wait, what? She provides numerous examples of the trope in video games and your response is "Nice try Anita, but how about you give us some examples that AREN'T those games that are perfectly fair examples of the trope being employed in video games? What's that? You got nothing? How disappointment..." What do you want from her? To pick a game where the trope DOESN'T exist to show people where it does? Huh?

I would like some help on this, because I'm confused and in pain.

This is the third time I've started to type a response to this thread and each time I've stopped and deleted it on the personal grounds of 'I do not engage with people who I perceive as idiots'. A kind of personal 'we do not negotiate with terrorists'. But of course this is untrue. That is simply the first step in negotiation.

Why do her videos make me so unhappy?
Why do I feel a physical need to enlighten her?

Why are there people who say this is a good video? Do they simply enjoy it for hearing an exploration of games from a viewpoint they agree with? Does she speak to the hearts of people who, like me, are dissatisfied at times with some games that seem to be made by engineers, some of which seem to lack artistic or worse social sense?
But how come it doesn't speak to me? Why does it make me angry to hear her ideas?

I have trouble comprehending this and would like to request your thoughts on this.

It's because you're a misogynist, duh.

 

[maninahat]

I would like some help on this, because I'm confused and in pain.

This is the third time I've started to type a response to this thread and each time I've stopped and deleted it on the personal grounds of 'I do not engage with people who I perceive as idiots'. A kind of personal 'we do not negotiate with terrorists'. But of course this is untrue. That is simply the first step in negotiation.

Why do her videos make me so unhappy?
Why do I feel a physical need to enlighten her?

Why are there people who say this is a good video? Do they simply enjoy it for hearing an exploration of games from a viewpoint they agree with? Does she speak to the hearts of people who, like me, are dissatisfied at times with some games that seem to be made by engineers, some of which seem to lack artistic or worse social sense?
But how come it doesn't speak to me? Why does it make me angry to hear her ideas?

I have trouble comprehending this and would like to request your thoughts on this.

You can find people's thoughts and and opinions, and the answers to those questions, by reading the comments. What's your personal opinion?

 

[Darken12]

First "taking from you" doesn't imply possession. That's just a really twisted way of looking at this. It's a typical phrase used in this context, the typical cry over the loss of a loved one is a plea to God "Why did you take him/her from me". I doubt everyone who'd ever make such a plea regards the lost person as a possession.

Again, everyone wishes they could protect their loved ones. Think of all those female characters in movies or whatever desperately trying to convince their husband not to go to war (it's a non-physical way to protect someone, convincing them to avoid danger). You could tell anyone "you failed to protect X" to add some extra pain. If the game said "See, you're not a man, you can't even protect anyone", that would be an attack on masculinity.

Nobody's saying that the characters believe women to be possessions. What is being said is that the use of the phrase, in the context of the trope (a woman being disempowered and victimised for the sake of driving a male character's narrative) is very problematic.

The example you cite is nowhere near comparable. Nobody implies, for a second, that the woman failed because she couldn't protect her husband. And also, please note how it very rarely happens with the genders reversed. We rarely see a man pleading his wife not to go to war. The closest we get to that is with female police officers or female paramedics, but even then it's quite a rarity.

And again, we also almost never see an inversion on the damsel in distress trope. We rarely see a woman as the protagonist and a man being held hostage, unless that man is her son or someone she has a mother-child relationship with. And even then, it's still quite rare.

The tropes are not gender-equal, and that's very much a problem.

 

[FreakofNatur]

I would like some help on this, because I'm confused and in pain.

This is the third time I've started to type a response to this thread and each time I've stopped and deleted it on the personal grounds of 'I do not engage with people who I perceive as idiots'. A kind of personal 'we do not negotiate with terrorists'. But of course this is untrue. That is simply the first step in negotiation.

Why do her videos make me so unhappy?
Why do I feel a physical need to enlighten her?

Why are there people who say this is a good video? Do they simply enjoy it for hearing an exploration of games from a viewpoint they agree with? Does she speak to the hearts of people who, like me, are dissatisfied at times with some games that seem to be made by engineers, some of which seem to lack artistic or worse social sense?
But how come it doesn't speak to me? Why does it make me angry to hear her ideas?

I have trouble comprehending this and would like to request your thoughts on this.

Because as humans we all have different opinions. A poorly substantiated point might appear idiotic to you, but perhaps simply ignore them and discuss the better points others have instead?

If her videos make you unhappy, then perhaps it's a symptom of what I call "dominant viewpoint broken by a poor argument" in which you feel a truth that you hold has been challenged by what you feel is an inept attempt at discussion. Granted some of Anita's(read: most) of her evidence lack context and situational awareness and perhaps all you can see is a feminist screaming at you:EQUALITY! EQUALITY! EQUALITY!

Put that all behind you and argue the validity of her evidence. After all, that is what her video is based upon:video evidence of video games portraying women as helpless, subordinate, sometimes willing, "damsels"

 

[verdant monkai]

The Turgid woman gives a load of shameless spoilers with no warning. But remember guys she's a huge gamer! I say she's turgid because I haven't played dishonoured yet and now one of its twists is ruined.

The Green Lantern bit made me cringe. If a woman gets killed to develop a character Sarkeesian is there getting offended. When say Jason Todd Robin is murdered by the joker making Batman a darker character Sarkeesian is fine with it.

Think about how many fathers/father figures die to develop characters. Off the top of my head: Obi Wan, King Vegeta, Marth's father from fire Emblem, your dad in hand of the heavenly bride and Dan Hibiki's dad from street fighter.

Its an acceptable way to develop a character and it is in no way exclusive to women, Sarkeesian just needs to get over herself.

 

[generals3]

1) Games don't actually have to be about warriors, fighters, protectors, or roles in which physical strength (and thus "being male") is a priority. They just choose to be about shooting guns and disembowelling monsters. Arguably, a large part of the problem with games is that they are so narrowly focussed on violence and action in the first place.

No, but what is the point? If it sells, it sells. And let's not forget there are lots of non-violent games out there. But the specific category of games discussed happens to be filled with violent videogames. That's actually the worst part about this discussion. people make generalizations on games based on a specific segment. Tetris isn't violent, Wii Fit isn't violent, Guitar hero isn't violent, Fifa isn't violent, etc. It's like looking at action movies and complain about the prevalent cheap violence in the movie industry. If you primarily buy/play violent videogames with a cheap story you shouldn't be surprised that that is what you get...

2) Perhaps in ancient times, wherein you needed to be strong to weld a club, your argument that men being taller and stronger might have had some weight. But we live in a modern society in which women are soldiers, police officers, criminals, and in all kinds of roles which employ physically pro activeness or violent behaviour. Even in a historical context, there are still plenty of strong females, female warriors, and women who are more than capable of fighting.

I never said there were no strong females. However in general men are stronger. That's why they have lower physical standards in the army for women. That's why they have separate Olympics, and so on. The general expectation is still that a man is stronger, until proven otherwise. Our society has opened itself to the idea that stereotypes aren't universal, but that doesn't mean they aren't generally true.

3) These are fictional games we are talking about. There is very little pretense towards realism when you have a pill-chugging, Brooklyn cop killing hundreds upon hundreds of criminals in the space of a single evening. So why is it any more of a stretch to put a female in these exact same roles?

No but when you're trying to appeal to emotions you want to make scenarios which the player can identify himself with. Having a husband lose his wife is a great way to appeal to emotion in a segment dominated by men.

4) When writers don't put women in these dominant roles, you also avoid putting men in the submissive ones. That's why these plot devices have issues - in and of themselves, they shouldn't be a problem, but the dynamic of strong man protects weak woman is so prevalent, it becomes a stereotype - one that is negative for both, but definitely more so for the one being portrayed as the weakling.

It is actually done for marketing purposes. The target being primarily male you want to make the story more appreciable to them. And on top of that up to this day it is expected among both men and women that a man should be the protector (when violence is the only defence)(which makes the story even easier to relate to). There is a reason why women tend to like having a male at their side when walking down shady alleys at night.

 

[FreakofNatur]

That said, I am utterly disappointed in part 2 having watched it thrice over now. Examples are from games that are obviously exploitative in nature for the sake of cheap entertainment and draws(attracting audience). I think she honestly needs to dig deeper for how long her videos take to make, rather than taking convenient examples. I have not seen any convincing example to see that women are truly marginalized in each video game they are portrayed in, rather it is more of a nitpick rather than actual concern.

Wait, what? She provides numerous examples of the trope in video games and your response is "Nice try Anita, but how about you give us some examples that AREN'T those games that are perfectly fair examples of the trope being employed in video games? What's that? You got nothing? How disappointment..." What do you want from her? To pick a game where the trope DOESN'T exist to show people where it does? Huh?

You've misinterpreted my comment. It's not what your paraphrase is. That said, quantity of examples is not equal to quality of examples, which is what she lacks and thus covers up for with numbers. 3 or 4 would have been fine if there were very, very strong examples, but choices to portray women in certain sense was not purposeful, rather abusive of convention and ease of access. You can't blame gaming for what is already common.

 

[generals3]

Nobody's saying that the characters believe women to be possessions. What is being said is that the use of the phrase, in the context of the trope (a woman being disempowered and victimised for the sake of driving a male character's narrative) is very problematic.

Why? In a game about a hero you usually have a victim, which de-facto is disempowered. The wife or daughter just happens to be the best victim because of the emotions attached to it. And the phrase is actually often used in the context of losing a loved in RL. Why would it be problematic in a game in such a scenario? Because some people look way too hard into things and see things that aren't there?

The example you cite is nowhere near comparable. Nobody implies, for a second, that the woman failed because she couldn't protect her husband. And also, please note how it very rarely happens with the genders reversed. We rarely see a man pleading his wife not to go to war. The closest we get to that is with female police officers or female paramedics, but even then it's quite a rarity.

Actually it does sometimes happen. I distinctively remember bits in movies where bad guys would blame the woman for not putting enough efforts in trying to keep the male protagonist out of harms way.

Well off course you'll see less males pleading his wife not to go to war. Ever been in the army? It's dominated by men despite positive discrimination. The scenario of a woman going to war is not only less likely but the idea the man disapproves of the idea of going to war is also much less likely. This is why such a scenario won't be used, it would make the viewer/gamer think it's supposed to be ironic. (It wouldn't get the desired emotional response out of the viewer/gamer)

And again, we also almost never see an inversion on the damsel in distress trope. We rarely see a woman as the protagonist and a man being held hostage, unless that man is her son or someone she has a mother-child relationship with. And even then, it's still quite rare.

The tropes are not gender-equal, and that's very much a problem.

Marketing and the idea that usually a man is de-facto set in the protector role by nature. And no, tropes don't need to be gender-equal. Nothing actually needs to be gender equal except rights.

 

[NoeL]

You can't blame gaming for what is already common.

Why the hell not? In fact, if you're going to criticise anything, why wouldn't you use common examples?

I guess I'm a little confused as to why you don't think the examples she gave a good examples. Are they or are they not examples of the DiD trope (and its variations) in modern video games?

 

[freaper]

I have a mixed feeling about these videos.

First of all I don't agree with her on the part of games having problem portraying women, because some of my favourite games (Baldur's Gate, Guild Wars, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge, Final Fantasy X, Skyrim, World of Warcraft, Bioshock, Silent Hill series etc.) include so many well written female characters. Also games that defines the industry in terms of story (many of these titles), don't have the stereotypical depiction of women as Anita depicts (I admit some characters of her analysis IS present though).


All the games she exemplify are medicore or even bad in terms of writing - and most of them haven't struck as "classics" - those who have are done so more by graphics and gameplay rather than story.

Secondly; simply because I as a male gamer, while maybe not as directly as Anita, simply find the "damsel in distress" plot device rather overused, bland, repetitive and uninteresting. It's predictable and boring.

Because I feel this way, I have a hard time agreeing with her, simply because she spends more time examplifying the bad games, while leaving only a few screenshots of games she considers "good" for a short while.

The industry have more aspects too it, and I get her point. Now I just want to see that she actually have a love for video games, and can actually respect the games that goes beyond poor writing (or development).

It is a bit grim and depressing to see half of modern gaming in this video, and I agree that more recent, "mature" treatments of the damsel in distress have been worse in many ways than they were in the 80s and 90s.

What I'm really looking forward to is the third video. Up until now, this project has mostly been "gaming, exposed", and hasn't provided positive examples or offered a solution.

We think alike

She actually says right at the end that she'll be covering the good examples in the next instalments.

OT: I liked, I liked the previous one, I also liked the commentary people submitted to her. She's doing a great job as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Xyebane]

I thought it was pretty good. It would be useful to have more constructive feedback and solutions I think. Personally, I think that the focus on male stories is due to a disproportionate number of game developers being men. But that's just my opinion.

 

[80sboy]

The problem I see with Anita Sarkissian's arguments is she doesn't really - in my opinion - focus on what's really wrong with women's portrayal in gaming. Speaking against what is shown in gaming, and not speaking for what should be.

You know, this all sorta reminds me of an old stand-up comedy film I saw from Eddie Murphy. Back in the 80s, he had two of the biggest stand up comedy acts in America, one of it was called Raw. In the early portion of his stand up, he talks about a real story of how he had received a call from Bill Cosby, and how he was berated by him. Supposedly, Bill Cosby had call Eddie Murphy to tell him he shouldn't be cussing in his acts, for it was making the image of black people in America - as a whole - seem like uneducated degenerates. Painting a negative image. Of course Eddie Murphy wasn't pleased with this call, and he spoke about it in his act and how he was going to continue cussing in his stand up as much as he wants.

The whole Damsel in Distress thing is suppose to paint an ugly imagine of women in gaming - right?

Well, personally I don't see that. This isn't the problem, the problem is there isn't more character diversity in female roles. Asking for women not ever be displayed in games as damsels in distress is like asking developers or even film makers to never make black people gang members in games/film also. That would be racist and painting the wrong imagine. Plus, why stop there. There should never again be Asians in games/movies shown as knowing martial arts because that would be stereotypical and also racist. Homosexuals shouldn't be painted as being flamboyant or effeminate because not all of them are.

What you're doing here is setting up limitations and trying to enforce control of what we see when you should be asking for is growth.

There was a time in movies where such control was placed on the media to "protect" the viewers opinions. Movies could never show police officers being in the wrong or corrupt, and criminals had to also be punished for the wrong they had committed. Plus, criminals could never be sympathized with. Police officers, on the other hand, were made out to be super humanly good and righteous. Obviously the fear was, to do otherwise, might install suspicion in viewers of the American system.

Going against the archetypal damsel in distress is going in the wrong direction of what needs to be done in the portrayal of women in the media. We don't need limitations and control here, we need diversity.

 

[Darken12]

Why? In a game about a hero you usually have a victim, which de-facto is disempowered. The wife or daughter just happens to be the best victim because of the emotions attached to it.

We could actually argue whether it's necessary to victimise and disempower another human being in order to empower a hero, but that's off-topic.

Even in the cases where that happens, the problem is precisely what you're saying here, that it's "best" if the victim is female. That is exactly what Anita is trying to highlight with her "damsel in distress" videos, the way that women are seen as ideal victims and "prizes" for the male hero. She's shedding light on a very unequal situation.

Well off course you'll see less males pleading his wife not to go to war. Ever been in the army? It's dominated by men despite positive discrimination. The scenario of a woman going to war is not only less likely but the idea the man disapproves of the idea of going to war is also much less likely. This is why such a scenario won't be used, it would make the viewer/gamer think it's supposed to be ironic. (It wouldn't get the right feelings out of the viewer/gamer)

That's pretty much my point, that despite having games about alien creatures from outer space, or elves, or any other premise that cannot exist in our world, gender equality is just too far. That is precisely the problem, the idea that we can open our minds to any sort of fantastic or unrealistic stories and worlds, but a female soldier with a stay at home husband is just too much.

Marketing and the idea that usually a man is de-facto set in the protector role by nature. And no, tropes don't need to be gender-equal. Nothing actually needs to be gender equal except rights.

Yes, that's the problem. The game industry is perpetuating a vicious cycle where it only caters to the (usually white) straight male audience, and does so to such an aggressive extent that other demographics are actively turned off, which perpetuates the idea that the (white) straight males are the only demographic to cater to.

And no, nobody said "needs". Nobody wants to censor or content-control. But people have every right to explain to others why they see unequal gender ratios in tropes as a bad thing and try to encourage them to be more gender-equal in their creations/purchases. If they agree, awesome, if they don't, oh well. It's trying to sell an idea, not trying to enforce any sort of control.

 

[teebeeohh]

ok video but i as with the first one some of her examples are terrible(Dishonored doesn't really fit in with the other murdered wife scenarios because her being murdered had nothing to with the connection to corvo, it was because she was the fucking empress) and it bugs me that she always frames everything as deliberate anti-female moves by developers instead them just using the the tropes and cliches they are familiar and comfortable with which is still bad but not as much.

 

[FreakofNatur]

You can't blame gaming for what is already common.

Why the hell not? In fact, if you're going to criticise anything, why wouldn't you use common examples?

I guess I'm a little confused as to why you don't think the examples she gave a good examples. Are they or are they not examples of the DiD trope (and its variations) in modern video games?

What is already common in human society in general. You cannot blame gaming for it. It's poor choice by the part of the writers and maybe the creative directors(hey, guys, we need a really helpless sexy female), but not the purposeful portrayal of women as possessions, trophies and asking for death. In the first place, the euthanasia female is no less valid than the euthanasia male. There's no difference. It just happens, for the longest time in humanity, that the sexualized female is now accurately reflected and depicted by people who, perhaps insensitive of the efforts towards equality, chose to go ahead with accepting this convention.

They are not good examples because, context-sensitive towards the games, they are hyperbolic in nature, meaning they exaggerate everything. The male protagonist is extremely masculine and sensitive at the same time, hereby contributing to the fantastical nature of the game and invalidating any "reality" of said depictions within the game. I would not, for example, in a context-sensitive game like Hitman, say that killing is fine as long as you're bald.

The above is what Anita is doing. She is taking, at face value, the portrayals and simply labeling them as "misogynist" and anti-female. This is obviously not the case. Why is it not the case? Because no female will be taken hostage and mutated anytime soon. She is injecting reality into otherwise fantastical situations so long as it suits her purpose and when I say it out loud, I sound like I am criminalizing her. Look at acid victims. They are the media's closest reality equal of said women who ask for death and when your media portrays them as such, can you blame GAMING as the big evil? No. It is not a purposeful depiction in gaming, unlike what Anita would like everyone to believe and thus validating her position where women is treated horribly by men SPECIFICALLY in video games in general.

Do you realize that I have come full circle and explained my previous point? Can you read further into what I've said in my otherwise summarized comment before trying to antagonize me? By your remarks it's more offensive than constructive, so please consider what you're typing.