I'm also saying that the sword many of you are wielding cuts both ways. If entertainment that mostly appeals to men's sexuality via male-oriented, idealized fantasies is immoral, that holds true for female-oriented fantasies and women's sexuality. When I brought this up, a few people engaged in special pleading to exempt women, which pretty much confirms that their problem isn't "misogyny," it's "men."
Where are the games that objectify men? Men are hardly sexualized at all in any games, let alone sexually objectified the way that women are in far too many games to even name. The sword won't cut both ways if there's nothing on the other side to cut.
Frankly, it's either irrelevant or disingenuous to try to switch the topic over to "men's fantasies" versus "women's fantasies" instead of keeping the focus on the topic at hand (sexual objectification in games marketing, specifically That Fucking Statue). Asking why women tend to play games that do X and men tend to play games that do Y might make for an interesting discussion, but it'd be a different topic entirely.
I wait with baited breath for a game that objectifies men. I will buy the hell out of that thing.
I have no problem with sexualization, I have a problem with one sided sexualization.
There are tons of games with objectified men. The difference is that in most of these cases, making the male character look "hot" also translates as guys thinking the character is awesome looking. Look at games like Street Fighter where Ryu is completely jacked, or the Devil May Cry games with their focus on making Dante as stylish as possible.
And let's be honest here. When people are talking about having games where the female characters are not objectified, they are largely talking about having them wearing more clothing and having more realistic bust lines, but I suspect these characters would still be very pleasing to look at, because people like looking at good looking people. How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
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El SkidThe frozen white northRegistered Userregular
How are you so sure that they are still shipping it? I haven't seen anything that goes one way or the other. If they are, buy it or don't. Either way, they apologized explicitly and said they will work to avoid this in the future. They won't do more because doing more would compound, instead of ameliorating, the hurt.
They rattled off an apology that did not seem genuine to many (I want to say most but I have no data to back it up) of the people who were upset, and so did not ameliorate the hurt. Putting out an honest apology that would have made these people no longer upset would have ameliorated the hurt. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. Are you talking about liability maybe? Or positing that people who weren't upset would be mad if they admitted they were wrong?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
They made the only type of apology that they could. If they said "We're sorry we were sexists" then the headline is "Company apologizes for sexism." With the more generic apology that they went with, the impression is "Company apologizes to angry fans." They can't admit to sexism in their apology, because then they take a second hit.
Fuck yes they take a second hit. They take a second hit for what they did. Do you even understand what an apology is? It's not this weird ritual you carry out where you minimize the amount of people you make mad and score as many PR points as you can. An apology is realizing that you have fucked up and admitting that you fucked up. If they do not apologize for the sexism then tjeu have not apologized for the wrong. Can they apologize for sexism without taking a hit for being sexist? Obviously not! Because they were sexist! The notion that you should be able to apologize for something awful you've done without admitting that you did that awful thing is ridiculous. At that point you're not apologizing, you're pretending to apologize. Which is what they did.
This is a business. Their goal is to make as much money as possible by selling as many copies of this game as they can. The apology that they gave is perhaps the strongest that they can do without compromising that goal. To ask them to compromise the very purpose of their business by apologizing in a manner that would satisfy you strikes me as manifestly unreasonable.
Like, I understand the realities of business, but I'm not really inclined to much sympathy here because they, as a business, put this statue out there and promoted it to get people to buy the special edition of their game. They didn't get it foisted upon them by an outside company. They didn't come to work one day and discover a warehouse full of headless torso dolls. They thought about what would be a great thing to put in the special edition and this is what they came up with.
Then they went "oh, sorry you got mad about that I guess" after the outcry.
It isn't about blameworthiness though. No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they? If they thought that a different apology would get them more sales, then they'd make it, but this way they can say there was a mistake made, people were upset, and they apologized, and then move on. The fact that they are being realistic businessmen doesn't make the apology insincere. It is still extraordinary that they apologized at all.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I'm also saying that the sword many of you are wielding cuts both ways. If entertainment that mostly appeals to men's sexuality via male-oriented, idealized fantasies is immoral, that holds true for female-oriented fantasies and women's sexuality. When I brought this up, a few people engaged in special pleading to exempt women, which pretty much confirms that their problem isn't "misogyny," it's "men."
Where are the games that objectify men? Men are hardly sexualized at all in any games, let alone sexually objectified the way that women are in far too many games to even name. The sword won't cut both ways if there's nothing on the other side to cut.
Frankly, it's either irrelevant or disingenuous to try to switch the topic over to "men's fantasies" versus "women's fantasies" instead of keeping the focus on the topic at hand (sexual objectification in games marketing, specifically That Fucking Statue). Asking why women tend to play games that do X and men tend to play games that do Y might make for an interesting discussion, but it'd be a different topic entirely.
I wait with baited breath for a game that objectifies men. I will buy the hell out of that thing.
I have no problem with sexualization, I have a problem with one sided sexualization.
There are tons of games with objectified men. The difference is that in most of these cases, making the male character look "hot" also translates as guys thinking the character is awesome looking. Look at games like Street Fighter where Ryu is completely jacked, or the Devil May Cry games with their focus on making Dante as stylish as possible.
And let's be honest here. When people are talking about having games where the female characters are not objectified, they are largely talking about having them wearing more clothing and having more realistic bust lines, but I suspect these characters would still be very pleasing to look at, because people like looking at good looking people. How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
Go back a few pages, the characters like Ryu are beefcake meant to play into male fantasies, being super macho, surprisingly, is not something that is generally marketed towards women. It is marketed for men, to live out their fantasies of punching all mans in face and looking awesome, and getting all the lady love because they're super buff. Many women I've talked to and study groups have shown that women don't see superbuff macho men as the epitome of a bedmate. Things that women find sexy are not present or over-emphasized in games that you are stating as "objectivying men", those games are objectifying men FOR men.
Edit: Page 28 of this thread kind of started that whole "well men are objectified too!" Unless you want to see everyone repost basically the same things they have back then, just read that. In a nutshell, things like Twilight are for female fantasies (although they have their own slew of problems), things like superheroes, Street Fighters, and action heroes are NOT an example of misandry due to "sexually objectifying men for womens to eye-fuck"
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I think the fact that the go to Gotcha example of strong women include Kreia (2004), Jade (2003) and Fall-From-Grace (1999) indicates that the point might not be as strong as one might hope.
And it's pretty telling that half those characters are always mentioned, without fail, every time someone wants to make a list of strong female video game characters who aren't sexualized; ideally, the list of reasonably-presented female characters would be long enough that Jade wouldn't show up on every single iteration of the list.
Jade isn't a reasonably-presented female character outside of cutscenes. In gameplay, she's a 95-pound woman who is magically able to take on and defeat multiple trained, armed men in hand-to-hand combat...men who, judging by their physiology, are around twice her weight and multiple times her strength. Despite looking like the most strenuous exercise she does is yoga, she's somehow faster in hand-to-hand combat than soldiers. Jade is a man's idea of what a "strong female character" should look like...basically, he took a strong, male character, i.e., a champion of physical combat (mechanized combat's a different story---a woman can be a hell of an aviator), and gave it a perfect midriff and boobs. The only reason it begins to work is that video game programmers can ignore bone density, muscle mass, height, and the propensity to injury all they like.
Basically every example people come up with of "strong female character" is a male fantasy where a woman has been swapped in.
What you're talking about here has nothing to do with how women in games are portrayed unrealistically, though - its about how game protagonists in general are power fantasies. It's never made sense that the PC can absorb a few dozen arrows and an axe to the head and be magically healed or resurrected to kill another few hundred baddies, but it has nothing to do with gender stereotypes.
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
I don't think it's giving them a free pass to point out the way reality is. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm just saying that it "is."
If they had come out and apologized for being stupid and misogynists, it would have been pretty amazing. Unfortunately, real world.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
Spacekungfuman has a point about the apology thing. Every other company out there is so full of shit and double-speak, why should we expect the Dead Island guys to be any less disingenuous? They are corporate shills like all the rest, and they're going to do the absolute minimum to rake in the maximum amount of profit. Whatever actions they take that pass for "apology" are completely irrelevant just due to my own personal cynicism that corporate money-making machines give zero (or less) fucks about how ethically or morally good they are, unless it threatens their dead president inflow, even then, they're only going to do the bare minimum to increase that dead president inflow.
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And that people would want something extremely sexist and in poor taste does not suddenly make it ok tasty. People purchase all kinds of things that are wrong, like Adam Sandler movies, doesn't mean we can't shake our heads and say they should know better.
Where in my post did I say that it was okay? Nowhere.
The fact of the matter is that people have preordered this item which is of questionable taste. As a result changing the preorder package that is being offered around isn't that simple, and I haven't found an official statement saying that they're going to change the product for that market. That's all.
It would be hella easy, again the game comes out in april, and the Dead Island dev had a better collectors edition for the americas. You just send a message saying "yeah this was a bad idea, do you want to be upgraded to this superior not so fucking retarded edition for free?"
I mean a real developer wouldn't have that issue, but having played Dead Island, lazy is being kind to the people behind Deep Silver.
I think your outrage is clouding your reasoning here because it really isn't not that easy to just make changes. Free of any judgement toward them, or the people that would want that product, there is the matter of money, contracts, production.//
Some of the people who are upset about the torso weren't going to buy either version, so their opinion from a business perspective is largely moot.
Some of the people who didn't care about/think it's okay/whatever also weren't going to buy either version, so again their opinion from a business perspective is largely moot.
If they were to recall or change it how many people who have already bought it expecting to—for whatever reason—get the torso in it now cancel their preorder? That's a real consideration from a business perspective. There are some people (we don't have the numbers for how many preorders have been made, or how many torsos were produced by now) who do want this for whatever reason, and have paid out money for it.
At the end of the day, they are (and have) lost money on this. And from a strictly business perspective would probably stand to lose more on changing the preorder. I mean seriously,
if they were to recall or change it how many people would now buy the collector's edition product that wouldn't have before? Not many.
A company was paid to mass produce these, and just like there's a landfill full of unsold Atari ET games, out there, there's probably going to be a large plot of mangled torsos with breasts mysteriously untouched.
Tough shit, they should have had the basic fucking decency and intelligence to not make it in the first place.
And, again, pre-ordered collector's sets like these change all the dang time, even up to the last minute.
Eh, I can only hope that you meet someone as uncompromisingly "forgiving" as you after you've done something to offend someone.
Do you seriously think that has fuck all to do with this discussion?
When it blinds you to the fact that there were likely people in that company that disagreed with the statue and couldn't do much about it, who will potentially lose their jobs because of this misstep by their superiors, yes I do think that the inability to forgive does factor in. Sure, the dicks in PR and others will suffer from this, but they're not the only ones who will be hurt.
Do I think the torso was in poor taste? Absolutely.
Do I also think that anybody that goes "fuck this company and their half-assed apology" or whatever seriously needs to take a breath or two? Absolutely.
They apologized. The reality of the situation is we don't know for certain if the product is going to be pulled. Either way the damage has likely already been done, and it's not like this was a franchise that brought in a lot of people anyway. But a company is more than its PR and other people in power who make bad decisions like this... and I personally feel sorry for the folks there that are going to suffer from said decision, who again probably thought the statue was a horrible idea but could do nothing to prevent it being done.
edit: Not saying you should go buy the game or whatever either. Just people need to chill and be a touch more understanding.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Categorizing that bullshit PR statement as an apology is ridiculous. You can practically see the eye-rolling. PR statements in general are as vanilla as possible, but they rarely seem so pointedly defensive.
Also this idea that people need to calm down? Stop saying that, please. It's insulting. Nobody is flipping their shit here, and you are not the adult in the room. Hyperbole and offense aren't tantrums that needs to be tamped down on.
I mean this isn't a people in glass houses moment, I think I'm pretty fine tossing this stone, as I'm not currently running a company that is in a position to release a vagina statue with our next Meet and Fuck Kingdom Game.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I don't know, I see lots of powerful female characters out there. But maybe because I gravitate to those kinds of games. For instance, I'd list basically every major female character in the Mass Effect series (yes, there are a few with a sexualized appearance, but they are not "objectified" by this because they are all given very strong identities that don't relate to this -- in other words, they are women who are sexy, not sex objects), Lightning, Ashe (her clothing is more of a Dalmasca problem than a woman thing -- see Vaan), Yuna, Paine, almost every woman in the Baldur's Gate games, all but one (the pirate lady) in the Dragon Age games, Hilde from SoulCaliber, pretty much any woman in Silent Hill (at least the titles I've played), pretty much any woman in Oblivion or Skyrim, Freya (FF9), Terra, Celes, Rydia, Aeris, Samus (most of the time...), Rinoa, the Heavenly Sword character (I forget her name), on and on...
I mean if that's what you're looking for (and I often am), there's plenty out there.
That doesn't excuse blatant sexism, of course. I technically haven't weighed in on it, but I'm with the near-unanimous majority that thinks this PR stunt was abhorrent and worthy of condemnation. And I feel that way even though I deliberately sex up games like Skyrim with lots of mods.
Going off on an exploratory tangent for a moment... I think that the sexing-up we see across media is a societal coming-of-age phase. Especially in the US, we're breaking out of a long grip in the hands of deeply socially-conservative, Puritan-esque roots. While that process started way back in the 50s, there was a whole lot to break out of. The anti-sex mindset was so thorough that even today we ban things based on sexual content far more freely than violent content. Although you can turn on MTV any time and see teenagers in bikinis running around, and our movies and video games are saturated with sexuality, there's still paradoxically a lot of leftover sexual restraint and guilt from the religious roots.
Once that's gone (I give it another generation or two), I expect fleshy displays to evoke more of a shrug of the shoulders than anything else. Once it's common enough, and the leftover guilt and restraint is done away with, it loses a lot of its allure, frankly. See: countries where breast displays on standard TV commercials isn't even a thing to talk about (they're far, far ahead of us here in the States).
That's not a call for anyone to shut up and wait for things to improve, mind you, just an observation.
By the way -- you'll probably never see the male body exploited for titillation to any serious degree for female use. For gay male use, maybe. But trying that sort of thing towards women tends to evoke responses of either humor or fear (feeling threatened). The reasons for that are very old (at least in terms of humanity's age). Even the glam rockers were using their style as a form of rebellion -- I doubt it made their appeal to women much stronger (being a rock star at all pretty much maxes that out for the relevant crowd already).
</ramble>
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
The issue with the sexing-up is that if we're seing women with only their nipples covered, why aren't we seeing more men in banana-hammocks? I mean the issue is more complex than just the uncorking of the sex drive.
I, for one, would love to see a game where a dude is particularly endowed and developers spent hundreds of hours perfecting the "jiggle physics"...especially when it has absolutely nothing to do with the game. Grecian Athlete Platformer anyone?
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I'm also saying that the sword many of you are wielding cuts both ways. If entertainment that mostly appeals to men's sexuality via male-oriented, idealized fantasies is immoral, that holds true for female-oriented fantasies and women's sexuality. When I brought this up, a few people engaged in special pleading to exempt women, which pretty much confirms that their problem isn't "misogyny," it's "men."
Where are the games that objectify men? Men are hardly sexualized at all in any games, let alone sexually objectified the way that women are in far too many games to even name. The sword won't cut both ways if there's nothing on the other side to cut.
Frankly, it's either irrelevant or disingenuous to try to switch the topic over to "men's fantasies" versus "women's fantasies" instead of keeping the focus on the topic at hand (sexual objectification in games marketing, specifically That Fucking Statue). Asking why women tend to play games that do X and men tend to play games that do Y might make for an interesting discussion, but it'd be a different topic entirely.
I wait with baited breath for a game that objectifies men. I will buy the hell out of that thing.
I have no problem with sexualization, I have a problem with one sided sexualization.
There are tons of games with objectified men.
There are NONE.
How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
Hundreds of games let you play an ugly, overweight even monstrous male. I can think of only three that do the same for females.
If you want to hate the Internet some more read the 2500 comments (About 25x the standard for a GB article).
My faith in humanity is already pretty wrecked, so it can't hurt to take a look...
...Oh god dammit, internet.
Yeah wow I read like the first 5-6 comments; really a horrid world filled with horrid people.
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"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
Jesus fuck, people, THEY DID NOT APOLOGIZE.
"It's too bad you got angry" is not a freaking apology!
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I think Major Payne was more heartfelt in his apology speech to the bed-wetter
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Touch more understanding about a tit statue? Come the fuck on.
I guess if you can't see beyond the fuck-up (and the fuck-ups) then there's nothing more to be said from me. The apology was sufficient in my eyes. Aside from changing the preorder which may or may not be "easy" and which may or may not occur what more do you want? Blood? /boggle.
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fearsomepirateI ate a pickle once.Registered Userregular
Why are you bringing morality into this, at all? The characterization of women as sex objects is hurtful, not immoral.
This whole entire thread has been about morality. See use of words like "wrong" and "bad" and "okay" and "shouldn't." Those are moral terms.
What we have now is everywhere you look (inside and outside the games industry), women are one-dimensional shells, skinny with huge breasts and not alot going on in their heads waiting for men to come along and save them.
Are you not the guy who was talking about how incredibly well-realized the personalities and relationships are in women's romance novels? Because someone was going on about that. And I tend to agree with him, whoever he was. I end up watching a lot of women's movies than I used to years ago. There's a lot more talking and a lot less stabbing in those as compare to the movies I like.
I don't know why we keep going back to "you people are advocating censorship",
"Censure" and "censor" are different words. They mean different things.
"this one case by itself is okay" and "you're saying that male sexuality is immoral".... . Stop, look at all the games you know and think about how females are being portrayed in these games, and by the industry at large.
When I look at sales, what I see is that the more porny video games are actually pretty marginal. So to a great extent, I don't accept the way a lot of this is framed. Internet gaming forums regard Farmville as marginal and Dead Island as mainstream. I don't. I regard the situation as entirely reversed. The video game industry as represented by what people actually play, what they actually buy, and what actually succeeds isn't dominated by this kind of stuff. It's dominated by falling blocks and cartoon animals.
If you can see there's a problem there, maybe look into how it's a problem, and start thinking about ways to fix the problem.
I have earlier said what I think the problem is. The thread moves fast, so I'll repeat. The problem isn't that idealized sexy female forms exist in media, or even that there are a lot of them. That idea's as old as civilization. The ideals themselves change, but they don't go away. Unrealistic sexual artwork is really, really old. It's never destroyed humanity before.
The problem is that for a lot of people, entertainment---everything from games to porn---has gone from an escapist diversion from real life to a substitute for real life. And I think that's merely a symptom of something deeper. Somehow, we've gotten to the point where the sexes barely know how to relate in Euro-American-Eastern culture any more, to the point where it seems to everyone* to be a good idea to not really ever mate, not have children and just let the civilization self-extinguish while actual misogynists (you know, the kind who treat their women like livestock or revenge-rape women for having the audacity to work outside the home**) outbreed us ten to one.
And since I don't think the size and sexiness of boobs in entertainment media is the cause of basement-dwelling manchildren who are destined not to reproduce, I don't see how changing it could possibly be the solution.
*Statistically speaking, anyway.
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MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
I think an understanding from them as to why the statue offended. Again, their apology was focused on the gore of the statue, not the sexual overtones. I can almost guarantee that they did not get that part of the outrage. I'm sure a good many people were offended that the zombie game shows mutilated body parts, and that is who the apology was for. People here did not get an apology at all. If you were offended by bloody body bits then you can go to sleep satisfied, if you were offended by misogyny, then you did not receive satisfaction.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
I'm also saying that the sword many of you are wielding cuts both ways. If entertainment that mostly appeals to men's sexuality via male-oriented, idealized fantasies is immoral, that holds true for female-oriented fantasies and women's sexuality. When I brought this up, a few people engaged in special pleading to exempt women, which pretty much confirms that their problem isn't "misogyny," it's "men."
Where are the games that objectify men? Men are hardly sexualized at all in any games, let alone sexually objectified the way that women are in far too many games to even name. The sword won't cut both ways if there's nothing on the other side to cut.
Frankly, it's either irrelevant or disingenuous to try to switch the topic over to "men's fantasies" versus "women's fantasies" instead of keeping the focus on the topic at hand (sexual objectification in games marketing, specifically That Fucking Statue). Asking why women tend to play games that do X and men tend to play games that do Y might make for an interesting discussion, but it'd be a different topic entirely.
I wait with baited breath for a game that objectifies men. I will buy the hell out of that thing.
I have no problem with sexualization, I have a problem with one sided sexualization.
There are tons of games with objectified men.
There are NONE.
How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
Hundreds of games let you play an ugly, overweight even monstrous male. I can think of only three that do the same for females.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
Jesus fuck, people, THEY DID NOT APOLOGIZE.
"It's too bad you got angry" is not a freaking apology!
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
Why are you bringing morality into this, at all? The characterization of women as sex objects is hurtful, not immoral.
This whole entire thread has been about morality. See use of words like "wrong" and "bad" and "okay" and "shouldn't." Those are moral terms.
What we have now is everywhere you look (inside and outside the games industry), women are one-dimensional shells, skinny with huge breasts and not alot going on in their heads waiting for men to come along and save them.
Are you not the guy who was talking about how incredibly well-realized the personalities and relationships are in women's romance novels? Because someone was going on about that. And I tend to agree with him, whoever he was. I end up watching a lot of women's movies than I used to years ago. There's a lot more talking and a lot less stabbing in those as compare to the movies I like.
I don't know why we keep going back to "you people are advocating censorship",
"Censure" and "censor" are different words. They mean different things.
"this one case by itself is okay" and "you're saying that male sexuality is immoral".... . Stop, look at all the games you know and think about how females are being portrayed in these games, and by the industry at large.
When I look at sales, what I see is that the more porny video games are actually pretty marginal. So to a great extent, I don't accept the way a lot of this is framed. Internet gaming forums regard Farmville as marginal and Dead Island as mainstream. I don't. I regard the situation as entirely reversed. The video game industry as represented by what people actually play, what they actually buy, and what actually succeeds isn't dominated by this kind of stuff. It's dominated by falling blocks and cartoon animals.
If you can see there's a problem there, maybe look into how it's a problem, and start thinking about ways to fix the problem.
I have earlier said what I think the problem is. The thread moves fast, so I'll repeat. The problem isn't that idealized sexy female forms exist in media, or even that there are a lot of them. That idea's as old as civilization. The ideals themselves change, but they don't go away. Unrealistic sexual artwork is really, really old. It's never destroyed humanity before.
The problem is that for a lot of people, entertainment---everything from games to porn---has gone from an escapist diversion from real life to a substitute for real life. And I think that's merely a symptom of something deeper. Somehow, we've gotten to the point where the sexes barely know how to relate in Euro-American-Eastern culture any more, to the point where it seems to everyone* to be a good idea to not really ever mate, not have children and just let the civilization self-extinguish while actual misogynists (you know, the kind who treat their women like livestock or revenge-rape women for having the audacity to work outside the home**) outbreed us ten to one.
And since I don't think the size and sexiness of boobs in entertainment media is the cause of basement-dwelling manchildren who are destined not to reproduce, I don't see how changing it could possibly be the solution.
*Statistically speaking, anyway.
I'm sorry, but what you're describing isn't a thing happening anywhere. And false physical ideals have been hurting women for a long, long fucking time.
Edit: I think I just had a seizure.
The problem now isn't sexism and misogyny, but the extinction of western civilization because of feminism destroying the tried and true social mechanisms of the past?
The fuck?
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+5
MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
A real apology acknowledging what they did wrong and where the decision came from.
Not actually selling the horrific Tit Statue
Them not to release a shitty pseudo expansion to a game with a lot of glaring flaws they will not address
A Horse made of gold named Butt Stallion
y-y-you forgot "working model of CL4P-TP" now you made him sad!
I, for one, demand an Obelisk, preferably a mysterious one brought back from some asteroid somewhere. I could be somewhat swayed by a Monolith that grants wishes.
Hey, didn't you know that Western Civilization was built on the proud pillars of Misogyny, Racism, and Homophobia? Those support structures are now crumbling around our heads, we are doomed. Shit, the 50's were well-documented to be the best, most prosperous time of our lives, then we ruined it all by allowing everyone to get their fair share!
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Well our society was built on those things, its not exactly something to be proud of. I mean even in the good ole USA we had to fight a war to recognize black males as people, and then it was still 60? Years before women got the right to vote, another 40 after that before we decided "Shit maybe people should have rights even if they are a minority" We're still fighting for gay rights (something else video games are awful with, especially japanese games).
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I think the fact that the go to Gotcha example of strong women include Kreia (2004), Jade (2003) and Fall-From-Grace (1999) indicates that the point might not be as strong as one might hope.
It uses the Aurora engine and was released at a time when Microsoft made consoles, so it's new in my book.
There are plenty of other examples, but I agree that the disparity is great. Safiya and Kaelan the Dove are both strong female characters. Elena from Uncharted is good too. And I'd echo Samus (in most games, at least). If I thought about it I'm sure I'd come up with more, but it does require some thought. . .
0
spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
No, I am saying that they made an apology. Its fine to not accept it, but then they lost you anyway. But I don't think its reasonable to claim they did not actually apologize.
0
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
When talking about the objectification of men, or misandry, there is something I never understood until very recently, but once you wrap your head around it makes a ton of sense:
It's hard to objectify the power class, or more specifically, objectifying the power class doesn't have real, detrimental, effects on them. They hold the power. It's like calling a white person a cracker, and how that's not nearly as powerful as using the n-word towards an African American. White people have been the power base for hundreds of years, and they weren't oppressed as slaves using the word cracker.
This goes for misogyny as well. As a male, when you yell "MISANDRY, MISANDRY", you're completely missing the point. Your gender isn't being used to keep your pay low, or to keep you out of certain jobs. You aren't being asked to live up to a false physical ideal, simply to be treated correctly in society. None of this is happening to you, because you're male, in a male dominated society. It took me a long time, and some help from people on these forums, to fully understand the perils of privilege and how it skews your vision to what is normal.
Are there some social things pointed towards males that I think are reprehensible and need to stop? Yeah, such as the portrayal of all men/fathers as bumbling idiots that would be worthless without their doting wives. That shit should be offensive to both sexes...but to claim that seeing a commercial that offends me as a father is the same as the real glass ceiling, or the real cat calls I see women get, is false equivalency at it's finest (worst).
The issue with the sexing-up is that if we're seing women with only their nipples covered, why aren't we seeing more men in banana-hammocks? I mean the issue is more complex than just the uncorking of the sex drive.
I, for one, would love to see a game where a dude is particularly endowed and developers spent hundreds of hours perfecting the "jiggle physics"...especially when it has absolutely nothing to do with the game. Grecian Athlete Platformer anyone?
Well, I remarked on this in my last post without giving a reason (because it's complicated and on a tangent). So I'll offer an answer in a spoiler here.
To answer this question, you have to go waaaay back to before civilization. Actually, you really need to go back even farther to the proto-humans, since we basically carry their DNA, too.
In this environment, people survive by hunting and gathering. As tools are either ultra-simple or don't even exist yet, physical prowess rules the day. Power comes from your strength (or alternatively, from your ability to control others who have strength).
Now, natural selection, as you might know, controls for very simple things: your ability to survive long enough to pass on your genetic material to offspring that survive. The more offspring you have, and the more that survive, the better. You get more offspring by living longer and procreating more. Given that our species & its immediate predecessors have totally dependent offspring, it also means having the resources to ensure the survival of those offspring.
During these times, men secured some of the food through hunting, and were capable of taking the rest through force (you could call this "proto-war"). We'll simplify "food" into "resources" here as a catch-all for "everything important for you & your offspring to survive." What often resulted (later human tribes do show more diversity, but we'll stick with the really early stuff) was something almost like a caste or class system for men. At the top you have the alpha / chief and his group of buddies, and at the bottom you have the unpopular outcasts and the weaklings. Those at the top of the ladder had access to the most resources, while those at the bottom had access to the fewest.
Now, female people (humans and proto-) have to deal with pregnancy. In this sort of life form, it's a lot more dangerous for a woman to be in this state (compared to, say, a spider that's going to lay some eggs). This prevented selective pressures from having women be equitable to men in terms of physical prowess -- this wouldn't really help them survive because they'd still be vulnerable once they became pregnant. In addition, this vulnerability adds some strong resistance in women toward having sex at all. Women (in most cases) need a much more specific state of mind and overall sense of well-being to have strong desires for reproductive activities. That's because the women who didn't have these kinds of restraints would often get pregnant at a really bad time and die off, failing to pass on their genetic code.
Men, on the other hand, don't bear any risk to themselves, so having as much sex as possible only increases their chance of continuing their DNA. Of course, chances with an individual woman are higher if he is ensuring that she and their children have access to resources. This is why males either form a harem or attach to one woman. But even then, the sexual desire for other women is still present. Why? Well, let's say a man has enough resources to support 3 women and their offspring. So, he has a pretty high percent chance per mating of passing on his DNA. What about if he procreates with women outside of his harem? Well, the chances are much lower there because he isn't providing resources to guarantee survival. BUT it's greater than zero -- and a man who doesn't engage in this activity does have an effective 0% chance of passing on DNA via other women. Thus, the men who had sex with every female they could manage were the ones who passed on their DNA, influencing the genetic instincts of the modern human male.
But women are pressured to avoid this kind of sex. In fact, they're pressured to avoid being chased for sex at all. Instead, the female instinct is more geared toward seducing males higher up the ladder. Attaching themselves to the chief, or one of his friends, gives her lots of benefits. She's more likely to be cared for during pregnancy, her offspring are more likely to have the resources needed to survive, and she's even more likely to be successfully protected against the other males lower on the ladder. On the other hand, women down farther are more likely to be taken by the higher-ladder males, have insufficient resources to live very long / have lots of offspring survive, and so forth.
The result? Natural selection pressed proto-humans and early humans in specific ways. Women survived & procreated better if they were more able to attach themselves to powerful men, and men survived & procreated better if they were attracted to lots of women & had sexual instincts with all of them. This is basically why men are more visually attracted to women, while women care less for appearance and more for other traits like social standing and power.
Of course, all of this is just history and instinct. While those instincts inform many of us today, they aren't anywhere close to the complete story. Not everyone follows the mold, especially in today's society where those pressures are less urgent. And as civilized, intelligent beings, we're also (usually) capable of tackling our own instincts. But it still strongly informs how people act even today. Our media is a reflection of this, even if it may be a bit of an exaggeration.
In short: you won't see a proliferation of men in banana hammocks outside of the gay community because women in general simply don't care for it. Indeed, their instinct is to actually remove sexualization entirely, both because of the threat that sex presents in their own lives and because of the innate sense of competition this fosters and exaggerates among women.
For what it's worth, if you're together with an "average"-ish woman (that is, one with relatively typical sexuality), you can make use of this information to land more sex for yourself by ceasing your efforts to openly pursue her for it, foster the more stress-free and relaxed environment necessary, and find ways to get her to try to chase after you instead. Just a tip for any clueless guys out there that may find themselves in that sort of relationship.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they?
Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
No, I am saying that they made an apology. Its fine to not accept it, but then they lost you anyway. But I don't think its reasonable to claim they did not actually apologize.
Where did I say they didn't?
Oh right nowhere. I called it empty, yes, because it's observably so. An apology is worthless if you continue your current course of action.
You came in here confused how people could talk about about this for so much. You then hide behind business when it's explained why. It's pathetic.
My argument is that a lot of these criticisms are grounded in moral censure of the male sex in general.
I think you're mistaken. The frequent refrain has been that these things are only an issue as the manifestations of a larger, entrenched issue, and that they would be of no great consequence to anyone if only say, 15% of female characters were portrayed in such a way. Some people would still roll their eyes but they wouldn't bother themselves over it because it wouldn't represent cultural force. To suggest that complaints are rooted in indictment of male sexuality is widely misunderstanding.
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
Look, I think this whole apology argument is a waste of time, but to suggest using the phrase "I apologize" constitutes a "real" apology is like saying that the politician brand of non-apology "I apologize if you had a problem with it" is legit, or if they had said "we apologize that the statue was not made up to our standards and we'll improve our construction for the next batch" that that would have addressed people's problem with it. Companies throw out apology flares to throw off criticism missiles. The only part people argue about is whether the plane changed course or not.
Personally I don't particularly care about their apology one way or the other and I think hasslin' much over it is just noise. I only care that enough heat was generated that it causes someone to reconsider the next time they would otherwise unthinkingly sign off on one of these.
+1
MordaRazgromМорда РазгромRuling the Taffer KingdomRegistered Userregular
Oh god, as a father of three, I can't tell you how seethingly offended I have been by certain commercials. The fathers are bumbling idiots who can't tell the difference between a diaper and a washcloth, or isn't it funny how a manly man gags and chokes at the odor coming from the baby and is unable to continue because this is just something that he, as a man, is capable of getting past. This is a completely different aspect of offense. Yes, I am the party being ridiculed, however I do not suffer any negative repercussions from it through my life. People don't look at me with my kids out there and ask "are you a real father?" Companies don't pay me less or refuse to hire me because "well he's going to turn into a bumbling idiot of a father one day." This shit has nothing to do with my real life, just like, as a Ukrainian, watching Hollywood films and ALWAYS seeing a slavic person as a bad guy doesn't affect me. Shit like this DOES affect the female population. They're not real gamers, they're just pretending. They're not real business people, they're just trying to crush men. They don't need a real paycheck because they're going to start giving birth at some point and lose all value to the company.
The next time you go to a job interview at a regular office-type corporation, and get turned down because your body wasn't beefy enough (at least from the feeling that you honestly got), then you can scream outrage at the beefcakes in the media. Women get this shit all the time. They are immediately judged because they don't look like what they're supposed to look like. Guys have the freedom to be as hideous as they can be and not have that impact their career opportunities.
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+6
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited January 2013
Yeah. I do remember Huggies a while ago releasing a mea culpa about that, and promising to release more commercials that show fathers as capable and loving, so that's cool...but really, did those bad commercials really effect my life? Was my job affected? Was my pay? No, not one little bit.
And it's pretty telling that half those characters are always mentioned, without fail, every time someone wants to make a list of strong female video game characters who aren't sexualized; ideally, the list of reasonably-presented female characters would be long enough that Jade wouldn't show up on every single iteration of the list.
Jade isn't a reasonably-presented female character outside of cutscenes. In gameplay, she's a 95-pound woman who is magically able to take on and defeat multiple trained, armed men in hand-to-hand combat...men who, judging by their physiology, are around twice her weight and multiple times her strength. Despite looking like the most strenuous exercise she does is yoga, she's somehow faster in hand-to-hand combat than soldiers. Jade is a man's idea of what a "strong female character" should look like...basically, he took a strong, male character, i.e., a champion of physical combat (mechanized combat's a different story---a woman can be a hell of an aviator), and gave it a perfect midriff and boobs. The only reason it begins to work is that video game programmers can ignore bone density, muscle mass, height, and the propensity to injury all they like.
Basically every example people come up with of "strong female character" is a male fantasy where a woman has been swapped in.
Because physical prowess is a man-thing that women don't want.
I'm also saying that the sword many of you are wielding cuts both ways. If entertainment that mostly appeals to men's sexuality via male-oriented, idealized fantasies is immoral, that holds true for female-oriented fantasies and women's sexuality. When I brought this up, a few people engaged in special pleading to exempt women, which pretty much confirms that their problem isn't "misogyny," it's "men."
Where are the games that objectify men? Men are hardly sexualized at all in any games, let alone sexually objectified the way that women are in far too many games to even name. The sword won't cut both ways if there's nothing on the other side to cut.
Frankly, it's either irrelevant or disingenuous to try to switch the topic over to "men's fantasies" versus "women's fantasies" instead of keeping the focus on the topic at hand (sexual objectification in games marketing, specifically That Fucking Statue). Asking why women tend to play games that do X and men tend to play games that do Y might make for an interesting discussion, but it'd be a different topic entirely.
I wait with baited breath for a game that objectifies men. I will buy the hell out of that thing.
I have no problem with sexualization, I have a problem with one sided sexualization.
There are tons of games with objectified men.
There are NONE.
How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
Hundreds of games let you play an ugly, overweight even monstrous male. I can think of only three that do the same for females.
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
I was going to look at the shelf closest to this desk, but then I realised I'm not sure exactly what kind of male I'm looking for. "Monstrous" sounds pretty simple, but, like, is a dragon-looking demon-man "attractive"? Dragons are pretty neat.
So I'll just throw out some loose suggestions, some of which you may find attractive. Not all of these are "leads", but playable. I'll just ignore character-editing; pretend it's not there.
Breath of Fire 3, Soul Calibur 2, Mario Party 4, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee?, Tekken 5, Suikoden 5, Samurai Shodown 5.
In any case, there's a lot of different-looking ones, pretty or otherwise.
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There are tons of games with objectified men. The difference is that in most of these cases, making the male character look "hot" also translates as guys thinking the character is awesome looking. Look at games like Street Fighter where Ryu is completely jacked, or the Devil May Cry games with their focus on making Dante as stylish as possible.
And let's be honest here. When people are talking about having games where the female characters are not objectified, they are largely talking about having them wearing more clothing and having more realistic bust lines, but I suspect these characters would still be very pleasing to look at, because people like looking at good looking people. How many games do you see where the male lead is overweight or has acne scars or scrawny arms?
They rattled off an apology that did not seem genuine to many (I want to say most but I have no data to back it up) of the people who were upset, and so did not ameliorate the hurt. Putting out an honest apology that would have made these people no longer upset would have ameliorated the hurt. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. Are you talking about liability maybe? Or positing that people who weren't upset would be mad if they admitted they were wrong?
It isn't about blameworthiness though. No matter how at fault they are, they are never going to choose to apologize in a manner that hurts them more than necessary, and why should they? If they thought that a different apology would get them more sales, then they'd make it, but this way they can say there was a mistake made, people were upset, and they apologized, and then move on. The fact that they are being realistic businessmen doesn't make the apology insincere. It is still extraordinary that they apologized at all.
Go back a few pages, the characters like Ryu are beefcake meant to play into male fantasies, being super macho, surprisingly, is not something that is generally marketed towards women. It is marketed for men, to live out their fantasies of punching all mans in face and looking awesome, and getting all the lady love because they're super buff. Many women I've talked to and study groups have shown that women don't see superbuff macho men as the epitome of a bedmate. Things that women find sexy are not present or over-emphasized in games that you are stating as "objectivying men", those games are objectifying men FOR men.
Edit: Page 28 of this thread kind of started that whole "well men are objectified too!" Unless you want to see everyone repost basically the same things they have back then, just read that. In a nutshell, things like Twilight are for female fantasies (although they have their own slew of problems), things like superheroes, Street Fighters, and action heroes are NOT an example of misandry due to "sexually objectifying men for womens to eye-fuck"
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Because it's the decent thing any human being would do.
Except apparently business people who you seem to think should get a free pass for filling the world with sexist garbage.
I don't think it's giving them a free pass to point out the way reality is. I'm not saying it's a good thing, I'm just saying that it "is."
If they had come out and apologized for being stupid and misogynists, it would have been pretty amazing. Unfortunately, real world.
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When it blinds you to the fact that there were likely people in that company that disagreed with the statue and couldn't do much about it, who will potentially lose their jobs because of this misstep by their superiors, yes I do think that the inability to forgive does factor in. Sure, the dicks in PR and others will suffer from this, but they're not the only ones who will be hurt.
Do I think the torso was in poor taste? Absolutely.
Do I also think that anybody that goes "fuck this company and their half-assed apology" or whatever seriously needs to take a breath or two? Absolutely.
They apologized. The reality of the situation is we don't know for certain if the product is going to be pulled. Either way the damage has likely already been done, and it's not like this was a franchise that brought in a lot of people anyway. But a company is more than its PR and other people in power who make bad decisions like this... and I personally feel sorry for the folks there that are going to suffer from said decision, who again probably thought the statue was a horrible idea but could do nothing to prevent it being done.
edit: Not saying you should go buy the game or whatever either. Just people need to chill and be a touch more understanding.
It isn't free. They bought it with their apology, and they won't get you in the deal. Presumably they are ok with that.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Also this idea that people need to calm down? Stop saying that, please. It's insulting. Nobody is flipping their shit here, and you are not the adult in the room. Hyperbole and offense aren't tantrums that needs to be tamped down on.
And therefore behaving in a way plenty consider reprehensible. Deal.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I mean if that's what you're looking for (and I often am), there's plenty out there.
That doesn't excuse blatant sexism, of course. I technically haven't weighed in on it, but I'm with the near-unanimous majority that thinks this PR stunt was abhorrent and worthy of condemnation. And I feel that way even though I deliberately sex up games like Skyrim with lots of mods.
Going off on an exploratory tangent for a moment... I think that the sexing-up we see across media is a societal coming-of-age phase. Especially in the US, we're breaking out of a long grip in the hands of deeply socially-conservative, Puritan-esque roots. While that process started way back in the 50s, there was a whole lot to break out of. The anti-sex mindset was so thorough that even today we ban things based on sexual content far more freely than violent content. Although you can turn on MTV any time and see teenagers in bikinis running around, and our movies and video games are saturated with sexuality, there's still paradoxically a lot of leftover sexual restraint and guilt from the religious roots.
Once that's gone (I give it another generation or two), I expect fleshy displays to evoke more of a shrug of the shoulders than anything else. Once it's common enough, and the leftover guilt and restraint is done away with, it loses a lot of its allure, frankly. See: countries where breast displays on standard TV commercials isn't even a thing to talk about (they're far, far ahead of us here in the States).
That's not a call for anyone to shut up and wait for things to improve, mind you, just an observation.
By the way -- you'll probably never see the male body exploited for titillation to any serious degree for female use. For gay male use, maybe. But trying that sort of thing towards women tends to evoke responses of either humor or fear (feeling threatened). The reasons for that are very old (at least in terms of humanity's age). Even the glam rockers were using their style as a form of rebellion -- I doubt it made their appeal to women much stronger (being a rock star at all pretty much maxes that out for the relevant crowd already).
</ramble>
I don't know what you mean when you say "deal." I'm not upset about the reactions people are having (or anything ever on these boards). I am just saying why I think they apologized adequately. I think the people claiming this is not a real apology are being silly, especially since it literally says they apologize, but we'll see if they made the right calculation when the game hits.
I, for one, would love to see a game where a dude is particularly endowed and developers spent hundreds of hours perfecting the "jiggle physics"...especially when it has absolutely nothing to do with the game. Grecian Athlete Platformer anyone?
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Hundreds of games let you play an ugly, overweight even monstrous male. I can think of only three that do the same for females.
Yeah wow I read like the first 5-6 comments; really a horrid world filled with horrid people.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
Jesus fuck, people, THEY DID NOT APOLOGIZE.
"It's too bad you got angry" is not a freaking apology!
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I guess if you can't see beyond the fuck-up (and the fuck-ups) then there's nothing more to be said from me. The apology was sufficient in my eyes. Aside from changing the preorder which may or may not be "easy" and which may or may not occur what more do you want? Blood? /boggle.
The problem is that for a lot of people, entertainment---everything from games to porn---has gone from an escapist diversion from real life to a substitute for real life. And I think that's merely a symptom of something deeper. Somehow, we've gotten to the point where the sexes barely know how to relate in Euro-American-Eastern culture any more, to the point where it seems to everyone* to be a good idea to not really ever mate, not have children and just let the civilization self-extinguish while actual misogynists (you know, the kind who treat their women like livestock or revenge-rape women for having the audacity to work outside the home**) outbreed us ten to one.
And since I don't think the size and sexiness of boobs in entertainment media is the cause of basement-dwelling manchildren who are destined not to reproduce, I don't see how changing it could possibly be the solution.
*Statistically speaking, anyway.
PSN ID: fearsomepirate
A real apology acknowledging what they did wrong and where the decision came from.
Not actually selling the horrific Tit Statue
Them not to release a shitty pseudo expansion to a game with a lot of glaring flaws they will not address
A Horse made of gold named Butt Stallion
pleasepaypreacher.net
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Like what? Planescape torment, I guess. But other than the greatest game ever made, what other games have male leads that aren't attractive?
You can say that all you want, but it does not change the fact that a company released a statement that literally says they apologize. You can accept it or not, but you are rejecting reality to say that was not an apology.
Right you're not upset.
You just don't understand why people would talk this long about it. They totally apologized form their disgusting action and have so far continued with that disgusting action. And this makes no sense to you because something something business people.
I'm sorry, but what you're describing isn't a thing happening anywhere. And false physical ideals have been hurting women for a long, long fucking time.
Edit: I think I just had a seizure.
The problem now isn't sexism and misogyny, but the extinction of western civilization because of feminism destroying the tried and true social mechanisms of the past?
The fuck?
y-y-you forgot "working model of CL4P-TP" now you made him sad!
I, for one, demand an Obelisk, preferably a mysterious one brought back from some asteroid somewhere. I could be somewhat swayed by a Monolith that grants wishes.
Hey, didn't you know that Western Civilization was built on the proud pillars of Misogyny, Racism, and Homophobia? Those support structures are now crumbling around our heads, we are doomed. Shit, the 50's were well-documented to be the best, most prosperous time of our lives, then we ruined it all by allowing everyone to get their fair share!
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
pleasepaypreacher.net
It uses the Aurora engine and was released at a time when Microsoft made consoles, so it's new in my book.
There are plenty of other examples, but I agree that the disparity is great. Safiya and Kaelan the Dove are both strong female characters. Elena from Uncharted is good too. And I'd echo Samus (in most games, at least). If I thought about it I'm sure I'd come up with more, but it does require some thought. . .
No, I am saying that they made an apology. Its fine to not accept it, but then they lost you anyway. But I don't think its reasonable to claim they did not actually apologize.
It's hard to objectify the power class, or more specifically, objectifying the power class doesn't have real, detrimental, effects on them. They hold the power. It's like calling a white person a cracker, and how that's not nearly as powerful as using the n-word towards an African American. White people have been the power base for hundreds of years, and they weren't oppressed as slaves using the word cracker.
This goes for misogyny as well. As a male, when you yell "MISANDRY, MISANDRY", you're completely missing the point. Your gender isn't being used to keep your pay low, or to keep you out of certain jobs. You aren't being asked to live up to a false physical ideal, simply to be treated correctly in society. None of this is happening to you, because you're male, in a male dominated society. It took me a long time, and some help from people on these forums, to fully understand the perils of privilege and how it skews your vision to what is normal.
Are there some social things pointed towards males that I think are reprehensible and need to stop? Yeah, such as the portrayal of all men/fathers as bumbling idiots that would be worthless without their doting wives. That shit should be offensive to both sexes...but to claim that seeing a commercial that offends me as a father is the same as the real glass ceiling, or the real cat calls I see women get, is false equivalency at it's finest (worst).
In this environment, people survive by hunting and gathering. As tools are either ultra-simple or don't even exist yet, physical prowess rules the day. Power comes from your strength (or alternatively, from your ability to control others who have strength).
Now, natural selection, as you might know, controls for very simple things: your ability to survive long enough to pass on your genetic material to offspring that survive. The more offspring you have, and the more that survive, the better. You get more offspring by living longer and procreating more. Given that our species & its immediate predecessors have totally dependent offspring, it also means having the resources to ensure the survival of those offspring.
During these times, men secured some of the food through hunting, and were capable of taking the rest through force (you could call this "proto-war"). We'll simplify "food" into "resources" here as a catch-all for "everything important for you & your offspring to survive." What often resulted (later human tribes do show more diversity, but we'll stick with the really early stuff) was something almost like a caste or class system for men. At the top you have the alpha / chief and his group of buddies, and at the bottom you have the unpopular outcasts and the weaklings. Those at the top of the ladder had access to the most resources, while those at the bottom had access to the fewest.
Now, female people (humans and proto-) have to deal with pregnancy. In this sort of life form, it's a lot more dangerous for a woman to be in this state (compared to, say, a spider that's going to lay some eggs). This prevented selective pressures from having women be equitable to men in terms of physical prowess -- this wouldn't really help them survive because they'd still be vulnerable once they became pregnant. In addition, this vulnerability adds some strong resistance in women toward having sex at all. Women (in most cases) need a much more specific state of mind and overall sense of well-being to have strong desires for reproductive activities. That's because the women who didn't have these kinds of restraints would often get pregnant at a really bad time and die off, failing to pass on their genetic code.
Men, on the other hand, don't bear any risk to themselves, so having as much sex as possible only increases their chance of continuing their DNA. Of course, chances with an individual woman are higher if he is ensuring that she and their children have access to resources. This is why males either form a harem or attach to one woman. But even then, the sexual desire for other women is still present. Why? Well, let's say a man has enough resources to support 3 women and their offspring. So, he has a pretty high percent chance per mating of passing on his DNA. What about if he procreates with women outside of his harem? Well, the chances are much lower there because he isn't providing resources to guarantee survival. BUT it's greater than zero -- and a man who doesn't engage in this activity does have an effective 0% chance of passing on DNA via other women. Thus, the men who had sex with every female they could manage were the ones who passed on their DNA, influencing the genetic instincts of the modern human male.
But women are pressured to avoid this kind of sex. In fact, they're pressured to avoid being chased for sex at all. Instead, the female instinct is more geared toward seducing males higher up the ladder. Attaching themselves to the chief, or one of his friends, gives her lots of benefits. She's more likely to be cared for during pregnancy, her offspring are more likely to have the resources needed to survive, and she's even more likely to be successfully protected against the other males lower on the ladder. On the other hand, women down farther are more likely to be taken by the higher-ladder males, have insufficient resources to live very long / have lots of offspring survive, and so forth.
The result? Natural selection pressed proto-humans and early humans in specific ways. Women survived & procreated better if they were more able to attach themselves to powerful men, and men survived & procreated better if they were attracted to lots of women & had sexual instincts with all of them. This is basically why men are more visually attracted to women, while women care less for appearance and more for other traits like social standing and power.
Of course, all of this is just history and instinct. While those instincts inform many of us today, they aren't anywhere close to the complete story. Not everyone follows the mold, especially in today's society where those pressures are less urgent. And as civilized, intelligent beings, we're also (usually) capable of tackling our own instincts. But it still strongly informs how people act even today. Our media is a reflection of this, even if it may be a bit of an exaggeration.
In short: you won't see a proliferation of men in banana hammocks outside of the gay community because women in general simply don't care for it. Indeed, their instinct is to actually remove sexualization entirely, both because of the threat that sex presents in their own lives and because of the innate sense of competition this fosters and exaggerates among women.
For what it's worth, if you're together with an "average"-ish woman (that is, one with relatively typical sexuality), you can make use of this information to land more sex for yourself by ceasing your efforts to openly pursue her for it, foster the more stress-free and relaxed environment necessary, and find ways to get her to try to chase after you instead. Just a tip for any clueless guys out there that may find themselves in that sort of relationship.
Where did I say they didn't?
Oh right nowhere. I called it empty, yes, because it's observably so. An apology is worthless if you continue your current course of action.
You came in here confused how people could talk about about this for so much. You then hide behind business when it's explained why. It's pathetic.
I think you're mistaken. The frequent refrain has been that these things are only an issue as the manifestations of a larger, entrenched issue, and that they would be of no great consequence to anyone if only say, 15% of female characters were portrayed in such a way. Some people would still roll their eyes but they wouldn't bother themselves over it because it wouldn't represent cultural force. To suggest that complaints are rooted in indictment of male sexuality is widely misunderstanding.
Look, I think this whole apology argument is a waste of time, but to suggest using the phrase "I apologize" constitutes a "real" apology is like saying that the politician brand of non-apology "I apologize if you had a problem with it" is legit, or if they had said "we apologize that the statue was not made up to our standards and we'll improve our construction for the next batch" that that would have addressed people's problem with it. Companies throw out apology flares to throw off criticism missiles. The only part people argue about is whether the plane changed course or not.
Personally I don't particularly care about their apology one way or the other and I think hasslin' much over it is just noise. I only care that enough heat was generated that it causes someone to reconsider the next time they would otherwise unthinkingly sign off on one of these.
The next time you go to a job interview at a regular office-type corporation, and get turned down because your body wasn't beefy enough (at least from the feeling that you honestly got), then you can scream outrage at the beefcakes in the media. Women get this shit all the time. They are immediately judged because they don't look like what they're supposed to look like. Guys have the freedom to be as hideous as they can be and not have that impact their career opportunities.
WiiU Username: MordaRazgrom
Steam Username: MordaRazgrom
WoW/Diablo 3 Battlenet Battletag: MordaRazgrom#1755
Me and my wife have a gamer YouTube page if interested www.youtube.com/TeamMarriage
Because physical prowess is a man-thing that women don't want.
I was going to look at the shelf closest to this desk, but then I realised I'm not sure exactly what kind of male I'm looking for. "Monstrous" sounds pretty simple, but, like, is a dragon-looking demon-man "attractive"? Dragons are pretty neat.
So I'll just throw out some loose suggestions, some of which you may find attractive. Not all of these are "leads", but playable. I'll just ignore character-editing; pretend it's not there.
Breath of Fire 3, Soul Calibur 2, Mario Party 4, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee?, Tekken 5, Suikoden 5, Samurai Shodown 5.
In any case, there's a lot of different-looking ones, pretty or otherwise.