I know this is nitpicking but isn't one of the playable characters in borderlands female?
"Research shows"
What research? If you don't provide links or at least name the survey you might as well be lying.
I also feel like she's overstating how much "patriarchal roles" have to do with the emotions attached, and she at least consistently failes to come up with an argument as to why it's not just emotions of this person attached to this other person.
Men loving their wives and children and wanting to protect them has more to do with love, attachment and empathy towards your family than some bullshit societal pressure for christs sake.
Yes there's the overarching theme of patriarchy but the motivation stems primarily from empathy.
Just about all of her examples are stripped of explanatory context which would be evident to someone who had actually played the game not just read about it on the internet.
How many other games did she mention, build up over the course of the entire franchise (albeit by retcon in the case of the first game) a statement about misogyny, the actual trope in question, female empowerment, and defying patriarchal rule, that's delivered in a singular, defining moment -- the exact moment she calls out as inherently misogynistic?
That's not a throwaway moment or plot twist -- it's the defining moment of the plot's foremost theme, which is misogyny and the overthrow of patriarchy. It marginalizes and dismisses the entire goddamn game.
Saying "getting men to acknowledge the problem at all is the trouble!" is effectively meaningless, because there are two groups of men in this regard. There are those who already do listen, and there are those who will never listen. Arguing the former category should do more to marginalize the latter is fine, but patronizing the former category -- whose agreement is not guaranteed by simply having engaged in speech -- is not helpful.
While I understand what you're getting at, you've set up a false dichotomy. There are not just two camps of men, first of all. After all, how do you think the "already listen" camp got people in the first place? There were people in the "not paying attention" or "didn't see the big deal" camp, and something or someone got their attention and showed them the big deal.
But furthermore, an awareness campaign like this also serves to help women better understand the problem. Don't make the mistake of thinking this campaign is directed at men. It's directed at a problem. That problem is the treatment of female characters in relation to male characters. And there are plenty of women that contribute to the problem, too. The "men" being targeted by these arguments are the fictional ones (and, to a certain degree, the real ones behind the writing).
And yet another group this kind of thing helps are those people who want to fight the problem, but aren't sure how to express it. It helps give shape (and information) to their own understanding, thus making them better at supporting their chosen cause.
You've taken the basic approach that everyone already believes what they're going to believe. That's problematic, because no one is born racist or Christian or agnostic or speaking French or countless other learned behaviors. And if it can be learned, it can be unlearned and corrected. Otherwise, there's no point in your reply to my post -- after all, if you really believed what you're saying, you'd think I already believe what I'm going to believe, right?
I think you've touched on one of the big issues, though -- a lot of people develop problems with campaigns like this because they assume they are the target audience... or rather, some villainized version of themselves, as perceived by the speaker. We have a tendency to seek out offense, and then take it gladly.
Men loving their wives and children and wanting to protect them has more to do with love, attachment and empathy towards your family than some bullshit societal pressure for christs sake.
Yes there's the overarching theme of patriarchy but the motivation stems primarily from empathy.
Perhaps, but it stems from only one specific type of empathy. We could empathize with a mother, too, but we rarely get one as a playable character. We could empathize with a father trying to save his son, but even that oddly doesn't show up much (it's probably assumed that a son should be capable of saving himself).
This particularly "empathetic trigger" is designed, from the ground up, with men in mind. The playable character is nearly always -- not "very often," not "most of the time, but nearly always -- male, and the object of his power fantasy almost exclusively female.
We're not talking about "empathy toward one's family." We're talking about "a FATHER'S desire to save the WOMEN in his keeping." If we were shown families from many different angles on a consistent basis, your original argument could hold water. Reality does not bear this out.
To be honest, I think most of Sarkeesian's points in this video just don't make any sense.
First of all, sorry if I am repeating what other people have said, but I haven't read through every page of comments.
She goes on and on about how these same ideas and themes are used over and over again in games, but the reason that this happens is because there simply aren't that many different basic story ideas. How many reasons can you think of to justify going on a rampage? What motivation is there or could there be for a supposedly good protagonist. Love, revenge, justice, self defense...that's all I can think of. Sure the context may change, but those are the main motives.
She showed that there are many games that involve the death of a wife, followed by the search for a daughter. What about alien invasion games:
Half Life: Earth is invaded by aliens, you have to fight them and save the planet.
Gears of War: Earth is invaded by aliens, you have to fight them and save the planet.
XCOM: Earth is invaded by aliens, you have to fight them and save the planet.
Destroy all Humans...
Anyway, the point is that plots, ideas and themes are always going to be repeated over and over, just with a slightly different context and characters, because there just aren't that many really new ideas to cover any more. Consider the motives for murder in all crime shows...it's always either greed, revenge or love/hate.
I will admit that I agree with some of the examples were given. The death of the empress and kidnapping of her daughter at the start of Dishonoured felt forced and unnecessary. There was no need to try and give an emotional attachment to them in the first two seconds of gameplay. For me, the motivation of trying to overthrow an evil dictator would have been enough. I agree that it was just a plot device. It is the same in GoW, with Dom and his wife and that team of marines in BLACK. They just introduce a character(s) only to kill off, which is stupid. The thing is, I don't really see why she is making a video on this. We can already see that these things are stupid and are the result of poor writing. We don't need her to tell us about it and we especially don't need her to then extend it from a few isolated incidents to the whole of gaming.
When done correctly, the death of a well developed character can be really powerful and is obviously a perfectly legitimate thing to do.
I mean, when Nanami gets shot with an arrow in Suikoden 2, I was ready to shove my tonfa right into Jowy's face, that little shit. The impression I get from Sarkeesian is that all games are out to show women as being weak and pathetic. Nanami is an awesome character who was really well written, probably my favourite in Suikoden 2, and her death (I didn't have 108 stars) really angered me.
Also, saying that it is more about a loss and then regaining of masculinity is just a load of crap. Honestly, how could someone even think that? It seems to me that she is just seeing sexism where there is none. Once again, I will admit that there are examples where female characters are portrayed poorly and only seem to be written in to be killed off. However, I feel that this is more of a result of the lack of depth that is apparent in most new games. As graphics and game art has improved, depth of story telling and characters has been a noticeable casualty in recent games. This includes the side characters that are used as motivation.
Now, I also agree that you will see more males rescuing females than the other way around, but I feel that this is due to the fact that many game writers are male and will probably like to include parts of themselves or their own fantasies into the game's stories and characters. I don't really think that is sexist.
Anyway, I've said enough. I could be wrong, but I feel that Sarkeesian is just jumping to some pretty negative conclusions about gaming when I think there are plenty of other reasonable explanations. Also, the ending of GTA 3 was just a joke and a pretty funny one at that.
We're not talking about "empathy toward one's family." We're talking about "a FATHER'S desire to save the WOMEN in his keeping." If we were shown families from many different angles on a consistent basis, your original argument could hold water. Reality does not bear this out.
Reality would show us many examples of people helping out troubled loved ones out of empathy. I agree that video games are heavily skewed and don't show us much variety, but reality does. I mean, take one of the latest big stories, Charles Ramsey. He didn't help out those women because he saw them as "a prize", but because it was the right thing to do, and he was in the right place at the right time to do something about it.
Sometimes I wonder if video games are given more credit than they deserve regarding their impact on the society. I'd even argue that all this "distressed damsel as a motivation for the male protagonist's actions" is an incredibly unrealistic thing.
I don't have a problem with the videos at all, but I still think she is a bit behind the curve. She suggests problems where there are none and also gives the medium too much credit in regards to its own power to serve as a mirror of society.
Also: I wrote "previously, we established" in my dissertation paper's first draft. My supervisor put a huge red mark next to it which read "IT'S JUST YOU." I wish I could do that here*.
*- Because it's idiotic to use the plural like that when talking about one person's research, not because I don't think people can agree.
Oh yay, bunch of trolls get the videos taken down and instead of some people thinking "Dem trolls" we've got some people thinking "Sexist people are trying to silence her, therefore she must be right!".
Anyways, I don't suppose someone could be kind enough to mention exactly what games she spoils? I'd hate to have something spoiled that I've yet to play.
Although you're not wrong, I did kinda misinterpret the couple of posts that inspired mine, ah well, it happens. You really should work on your delivery though. At the moment it's god awful.
I can agree with a lot of games having lazy writing, that much is obvious. I dunno how much acting on power fantasies in games affect real life because I have no evidence either way but I think its safe to agree some better writing is needed if we are going to continue using these tropes. They can be done well given enough time and when they are fleshed out hopefully other stories can start being tol in new and creative ways.
It's straight out of folklore, is evident in every narrative driven medium and has survived precisely because it's effective. I have a feeling that we're not as complicated as we'd like to believe. We can craft more convoluted stories, but we can't make ourselves care about those stories if they don't work for us on a base level.
Example: Did you play Metal Gear? What stands out in your memory as effective in that narrative? The political waffle? Or maybe when Meryl got shot?(it's a 15 year old game, if that's a spoiler... sorry?) If it's not the latter... I don't think I trust you as a person.
Folklore excells at knowing what is important to us, on that base level... I think.
I get what you mean, I was mostly directing that at the examples she used but there are plenty that do it well. Some of them are too convoluted like the whole dead girl trapped spirit thing and some seem to rely more on the shock value then actual value but things like ICO sounds fine to me. Also never played metal gear but I think I understand.
We're not talking about "empathy toward one's family." We're talking about "a FATHER'S desire to save the WOMEN in his keeping." If we were shown families from many different angles on a consistent basis, your original argument could hold water. Reality does not bear this out.
Reality would show us many examples of people helping out troubled loved ones out of empathy. I agree that video games are heavily skewed and don't show us much variety, but reality does. I mean, take one of the latest big stories, Charles Ramsey. He didn't help out those women because he saw them as "a prize", but because it was the right thing to do, and he was in the right place at the right time to do something about it.
Sometimes I wonder if video games are given more credit than they deserve regarding their impact on the society. I'd even argue that all this "distressed damsel as a motivation for the male protagonist's actions" is an incredibly unrealistic thing.
To be clearer, I was refering to the reality of the video game market. Basically, while the world is full of examples of people across all genders exhibiting empathy toward each other, and theoretically our entertainment would reflect that, in reality, we see a huge disparity within the video game (and comic book, and movie, and television) worlds.
And as for Charles Ramsey, the more telling thought is whether or not he'd have done the same thing if it was happening to a man. I think he would have, of course. But still, that's how something like that ties into this particular subject. If someone would have behaved differently had the victim been male (or if a male victim had been female) THAT is where we see gender bias at work -- and yes, it's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
But with regard to your second paragraph, I think you're framing this incorrectly. Video games aren't being given credit for causing this in society. We're being shown how the video game industry reflects and even embraces existing practices. In fact, in the video, we're pointed to examples outside of video games several times (though Sarkeesian does try not to stray too far from the scope of the series).
This problem in video games is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem, not the cause of it. But, as with anything, any instance that goes unchallenged puts another pebble in the bucket of the status quo, giving it still more weight and inertia. See, the reason the idea is so prevalent is because "That's just how it's always been." And the reason it's always been like that is because not enough folks have recognized the inherent inequality of it and said something.
Asking people to take a nuanced and complicated look at games comes across as a bit shallow when she repeatedly uses Dishonored as an example. The Empress's gender has nothing at all to do with the violence she suffers to drive the plot and any romantic entanglement between her and Corvo exist only in fan fiction.
It's straight out of folklore, is evident in every narrative driven medium and has survived precisely because it's effective. I have a feeling that we're not as complicated as we'd like to believe. We can craft more convoluted stories, but we can't make ourselves care about those stories if they don't work for us on a base level.
Example: Did you play Metal Gear? What stands out in your memory as effective in that narrative? The political waffle? Or maybe when Meryl got shot?(it's a 15 year old game, if that's a spoiler... sorry?) If it's not the latter... I don't think I trust you as a person.
Folklore excells at knowing what is important to us, on that base level... I think.
There's really no denying that there are some basic, natural tendencies at work here. And, really, I don't think anyone's denying it to begin with. Instead, we are simply being asked why the video game market is so completely saturated with stories that appeal almost exclusively to a male's basic natural tendencies.
There's also other forces at work. We can't simply say, "Well, it's nature, nothing we can do about it." Firstly, that's not true. Nature influences social interaction, and social interactions solidify (or even reinforce) those natural tendencies, which then further influence social interaction, and so on... in the end, we get an artificially distilled version of the original slight influence. Secondly, we can certainly work against nature.
There's nothing 'natural' about using a toilet. There's nothing 'natural' about wearing bras or boxers. Yet just about everyone in Western civilization does these things. We learn to work against what is purely natural, put aside those urges, and do what is socially better.
Asking people to take a nuanced and complicated look at games comes across as a bit shallow when she repeatedly uses Dishonored as an example. The Empress's gender has nothing at all to do with the violence she suffers to drive the plot and any romantic entanglement between her and Corvo exist only in fan fiction.
Not true. The implication of past romantic entanglement is present, and even important to the connection between the characters. If it had been an Emperor, things would have been very different. Don't believe me? Ask yourself why it's an Empress to begin with. Didn't have to be. Writers intentionally chose the genders of each and every character in each and every moment of that game. Empresses are far less common than Emperors throughout history, so why make such a jarring change for this story?
...oh, right. To enhance Corvo's motivation for doing what he's doing. Due to an emotional connection to a woman who was just killed.
Well she had more good points than last time. But even then she said some ridiculously stupid things in this video that just stopped me form taking it as seriously as I should have.
A good example of something that just made me facepalm was when she claimed that male protagonists have a:
"socially prescribed patriarchal duty to protect his wife and children"
That's right people, if your wife and/or children are kidnapped and you attempt to save them then you are a patriarchal, mysoginistic scumbag! How dare you care for and try to rescue your loved ones! If you don't want to be sexist and live in a equal couple then the right thing to do is to just ignore them being kidnapped, as the idea ofd rescuing them is just wrong!
Better than the first episode, but still had a lot of problems. Lets hope it gets better.
She did not make a value judgment on the duty. She simply stated that it is a duty that, socially, is prescribed to the Father in a family. She didn't say it was bad. She didn't say he shouldn't. She's simply pointing out a situation in which society routinely puts things one way and not another.
For instance, how many stories can you find about a mother who is seeking out a husband and child who were kidnapped? Or stories in which a mother and father both see a child kidnapped, and it's the MOTHER that's expected to go after the child?
Instead, you find stories of men saving other men, or of men saving themselves. But more often, stories involve women being rescued by men, because certain sections of society accept that situation as more plausible.
She is pointing out issues. Many issues. Not all of them are being pointed out as problems. Some of them are being pointed out as "things that happen," and then she shows how our treatment of those things can lead to problems.
To be clearer, I was refering to the reality of the video game market. Basically, while the world is full of examples of people across all genders exhibiting empathy toward each other, and theoretically our entertainment would reflect that, in reality, we see a huge disparity within the video game (and comic book, and movie, and television) worlds.
And as for Charles Ramsey, the more telling thought is whether or not he'd have done the same thing if it was happening to a man. I think he would have, of course. But still, that's how something like that ties into this particular subject. If someone would have behaved differently had the victim been male (or if a male victim had been female) THAT is where we see gender bias at work -- and yes, it's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason.
And another fair point. It does tie in, yeah, it also goes to show how gender bias can work any way, and without people even noticing it. About doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, I agree entirely, especially when one starts to believe they're being "owed" for it. I'd say that's the wrong reason, for sure.
But with regard to your second paragraph, I think you're framing this incorrectly. Video games aren't being given credit for causing this in society. We're being shown how the video game industry reflects and even embraces existing practices. In fact, in the video, we're pointed to examples outside of video games several times (though Sarkeesian does try not to stray too far from the scope of the series).
This problem in video games is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem, not the cause of it. But, as with anything, any instance that goes unchallenged puts another pebble in the bucket of the status quo, giving it still more weight and inertia. See, the reason the idea is so prevalent is because "That's just how it's always been." And the reason it's always been like that is because not enough folks have recognized the inherent inequality of it and said something.
Indeed, that's actually a point I made earlier in the thread (and games not having much "impact" is a logical consequence thereof, since they're a reflection), but the issue I'm referring to is that it seems there are voices who seem to think that forcing a change within the video games medium might help the society get over with, while it's more like the other way around.
Not saying Sarkeesian herself is making such a point, but around the internet I have come across people who seemed to. Still the other thing I mentioned, which I also have a problem with getting, is that this trope is unrealistically common in fiction. That, I suppose, I could concede that it is related to the entire "power fantasy" thing, not only of men, but of women too, in a different way - for example, in college, playing sports and being a fit hunk gets you laid, while being the nerd type is less likely to, and I'm not blaming women for that, just making an observation.
While I understand what you're getting at, you've set up a false dichotomy...I think you've touched on one of the big issues, though -- a lot of people develop problems with campaigns like this because they assume they are the target audience... or rather, some villainized version of themselves, as perceived by the speaker. We have a tendency to seek out offense, and then take it gladly.
Frankly, I personally do feel comfortable speaking in terms of that dichotomy.
First, the issue of feminism, particularly representation of women in media, has been strongly polarized for decades -- most definitely since the advent of third-wave feminism. There is a pro- camp, and there is an anti-camp, and then there are the apathetic who are not involved, and unlikely to become involved. This is particularly true among men.
Second, apathetic individuals are unlikely to seek out media such as Sarkeesian's, on its particular topic and in its particular venue, and be motivated to response. It's a matter of response bias, and yes it is a problem of circularity -- a given individual is not going to seek this out unless they're already are motivated to do so, and as such it's unlikely to spur action in which that individual does not already partake.
The problem you don't address is, the self-perpetuating nature of the problem itself. What Sarkeesian labels as "male power fantasies" are perpetuated in the game industry because they sell. The target audience, despite changing demographics over the last decade, is young adult men -- and because these titles sell well among the target audience, there's no motivator among players in the game industry to rock the boat. That is an indirect indictment against men, for consuming this media and perpetuating the problem.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
