Oh, we're back to the "you haven't proven that any of this is a problem" thing. You've had so many responses to this tired argument in the last thread that I'm just going to direct you there, or to the first post in this thread.
Also note that any time you use "social justice crusade" as an expression of dismissal rather than a description of something awesome then you make yourself look like a terrible person.
+3
CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
A little girl eating watermelon isn't the same thing as blackface. It's the reason I choose that specific image: it's racist because of social context, not because there's anything particularly wrong with a little girl eating watermelon in isolation. It's only social context that makes it an issue.
Also, Squidget, I really wish you'd stop pulling out old strawmen like "you people are scared of sexuality blargle blargle." Sometimes your discourse makes it seem like you are better then that, but then you just comfortably go back to the strawmen again.
Whether soft censorship or self-censorship (hat tip to Paladin) count as censorship is mostly a semantic matter. Frankly, I don't much care one way or the other.
It's not the people with whom I disagree, it's the people producing sexist media that leads to the issues that are noted in #1reasonwhy tweets and that are prevalent in society at general. And yes, I think the best way to deal with that is to tell them to stop being sexist. If you think asking people not to be sexist is the wrong approach because it will lead to "self-censorship" and when you hear that word it makes you flip out or something, then fine, but I think you're sort of out in left field if you think criticism of art is such a terrible that people like me need to shut up right now because criticism is evil or something. Like honestly, what is it about what we are saying that is wrong? Aside from the magical word "censorship," why is it bad to tell artists "draw a variety of women or don't bother?" How is criticism of art a bad thing?
There is a crucial distinction between criticizing art and demanding people stop making art that you are failing to see. It is bad to tell artists what they can and cannot draw because you are telling artists what they can and cannot draw. That is not criticism.
I don't think we should be saying to artists, "Hey, don't make this." We should be saying that "Hey, make whatever art you want. But if you try to shove sexist crap in your game in a morbid attempt to cash in on male pandering, we will do everything we can to make sure your game is not a commercial success."
We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress. We should just be telling him that you shouldn't put it in your game if you want us to buy it.
You straight up do not understand what censorship is (nor, as @ Cambiata points out, does Jerry/Tycho). Telling people they should keep something to themselves is not censorship. Censorship is when it's illegal for them not to keep it to themselves. I have no advocated censorship.
Whether soft censorship or self-censorship (hat tip to Paladin) count as censorship is mostly a semantic matter. Frankly, I don't much care one way or the other.
To me, the question is whether the best solution to this problem is to shut down the people with whom you disagree.
If your definition of censorship is as loose as that, you do realize that you've been practicing censorship your whole life? Every time you tell a friend that a movie you watched wasn't very good and that they shouldn't see it, or that a game wasn't very good and they shouldn't buy it, then you were practicing censorship, ie the discouraging of artists from making certain kinds of art.
Luckily that is not what censorship means.
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough. I really don't care whether or not what Tycho (Celchuuu) is proposing is censorship. I realize there are negative associations with the word (for good reason!) but it seems irrelevant to me. What I want to discuss is not "is this censorship?" but "is this a good solution?"
I'd like to respectfully suggest that it isn't. Here's why (as concisely as I can manage):
I think we'd all agree that the people making video games qualify as artists. I believe that an art form can only thrive when artists feel free to create whatever they want. I've encountered many moments in games that have offended me, disturbed me, and even made me very uncomfortable. These did not feel good! But I'm sure that many moments I DID enjoy would have probably offended someone else.
When art starts to shift from "what the artist wants to create" to "what won't offend people," it hurts the medium. Sure, being free of that stuff you (and many others) find upsetting is great, but that's still a value judgment. I'd prefer to let everyone talk, and let people decide for themselves.
I'd honestly prefer to be offended, rather than have an artist told "you can't do that."
Also, @Paladin, if you don't think "shooting people" is a traditionally "male" activity I would suggest you take a look at what gender tends to murder people with guns, what gender has tended to serve in the armed forces throughout history, and stuff like this. Or look at all the pictures people post online of women looking "ridiculous" when shooting a gun, as if to prove that women should leave the guns to the men. Or take a look at who games like Call of Duty are marketed to. Or watch the "this is my rifle, this is my gun" scene in Full Metal Jacket. Or ask yourself how many women likely hang out here.
Male power fantasy is an essential tenet in the argument of false equivalence. If a female character can be a male power fantasy, then consider the following:
A sexualized female president of the united states of america
Who is this concept really for? Are both aspects really for males, as we get sexual objectification AND a male power fantasy?
Is sex really the only thing that makes depictions of females objectionable?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Who cares who is offended? Fuck being offended. "Offended" is irrelevant.
The question is whether something is harmful to society and specifically harmful to an oppressed group. Harmful meaning it causes harm. I have no problem at all telling an artist to stop harming people. And if you don't think implicit social messages harm people, then click on any of the many sociological studies that are posted in the op.
There is a crucial distinction between criticizing art and demanding people stop making art that you are failing to see. It is bad to tell artists what they can and cannot draw because you are telling artists what they can and cannot draw. That is not criticism.
As awesome as it would be if I could speak something and make it true, I don't have magical powers. Thus I am not telling artists what the "can and cannot draw." Artists can literally draw whatever they want. All it takes is a piece of paper and a pencil. I am, however, telling artists what they should and should not draw. I am saying they shouldn't draw things that are sexist because sexism is bad. They are free to ignore me, just like if I say "you should not change lanes without signaling" people are free to continue to change lanes without signaling. That's a bad idea, though (it leads to car crashes!) and drawing every woman in a video game as super sexy for no reason is a bad idea (it leads to fucked up societal norms and to the stuff we saw in the #1reasonwhy tweets!). What I and others are doing is the very definition of criticism. We are looking what artists make and telling them why we think it is bad and why they ought not to make it. We are not stopping anyone from doing anything.
I don't think we should be saying to artists, "Hey, don't make this." We should be saying that "Hey, make whatever art you want. But if you try to shove sexist crap in your game in a morbid attempt to cash in on male pandering, we will do everything we can to make sure your game is not a commercial success."
That's the punitive way of putting it, sure. I prefer the "look, you're a good artist, maybe don't draw sexist stuff please" route. Whichever you like is fine though. I think the second is going to be more effective because it's pretty clear sexist stuff is often a commercial success.
We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress. We should just be telling him that you shouldn't put it in your game if you want us to buy it.
Well, yes, I'll say that, but unlike some people I like to believe that human beings can actually act for reasons other than "this will make me the most money." For instance, if you can make a shitton of money drawing Lara Croft lookalikes for all your protagonists, but the evil feminists make your life annoying by calling you infantile every time you do it, then maybe you'll stop. Or, even better, if you're a budding artist who isn't already corrupted and you read the #1reasonwhy thread, you can introspect and realize that when you sketch, you should sketch from life rather than "learn to draw comic books!" tutorials, and you'll be a better artist for it.
This is what we want. We want better art. Better in this case means "not sexist" - it means "morally better." It does not necessarily mean "monetarily more advantageous."
Also, @Paladin, if you don't think "shooting people" is a traditionally "male" activity I would suggest you take a look at what gender tends to murder people with guns, what gender has tended to serve in the armed forces throughout history, and stuff like this. Or look at all the pictures people post online of women looking "ridiculous" when shooting a gun, as if to prove that women should leave the guns to the men. Or take a look at who games like Call of Duty are marketed to. Or watch the "this is my rifle, this is my gun" scene in Full Metal Jacket. Or ask yourself how many women likely hang out here.
Male power fantasy is an essential tenet in the argument of false equivalence. If a female character can be a male power fantasy, then consider the following:
A sexualized female president of the united states of america
Who is this concept really for? Are both aspects really for males, as we get sexual objectification AND a male power fantasy?
Is sex really the only thing that makes depictions of females objectionable?
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
You straight up do not understand what censorship is (nor, as @ Cambiata points out, does Jerry/Tycho). Telling people they should keep something to themselves is not censorship. Censorship is when it's illegal for them not to keep it to themselves. I have no advocated censorship.
Whether soft censorship or self-censorship (hat tip to Paladin) count as censorship is mostly a semantic matter. Frankly, I don't much care one way or the other.
To me, the question is whether the best solution to this problem is to shut down the people with whom you disagree.
If your definition of censorship is as loose as that, you do realize that you've been practicing censorship your whole life? Every time you tell a friend that a movie you watched wasn't very good and that they shouldn't see it, or that a game wasn't very good and they shouldn't buy it, then you were practicing censorship, ie the discouraging of artists from making certain kinds of art.
Luckily that is not what censorship means.
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough. I really don't care whether or not what Tycho (Celchuuu) is proposing is censorship. I realize there are negative associations with the word (for good reason!) but it seems irrelevant to me. What I want to discuss is not "is this censorship?" but "is this a good solution?"
I'd like to respectfully suggest that it isn't. Here's why (as concisely as I can manage):
I think we'd all agree that the people making video games qualify as artists. I believe that an art form can only thrive when artists feel free to create whatever they want. I've encountered many moments in games that have offended me, disturbed me, and even made me very uncomfortable. These did not feel good! But I'm sure that many moments I DID enjoy would have probably offended someone else.
When art starts to shift from "what the artist wants to create" to "what won't offend people," it hurts the medium. Sure, being free of that stuff you (and many others) find upsetting is great, but that's still a value judgment. I'd prefer to let everyone talk, and let people decide for themselves.
I'd honestly prefer to be offended, rather than have an artist told "you can't do that."
As @Cambiata has pointed out, offense has nothing to do with this. Please find one of my posts where I said "this is wrong because it offends me" or something similar. To save you some time: you won't find any of those posts. In fact if you dig back far enough in the previous thread you'll find me saying the exact opposite, and I've also said the opposite in the Dead Island torso thread. Offense doesn't mean fuck all. People get offended at all sorts of dumb shit.
The problem with this art is not that it is offensive. The problem with this art is that, combined with other stuff, it makes society (and specifically the game industry) more sexist. And that's the last thing society or the game industry needs: the #1reasonwhy tweets are evidence enough of that.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
It seems there is an incredibly fundamental disconnect between understanding that criticizing something and saying "This has sexist or negative connotations, so should be something we minimize or work to have more non-sexist or negative images to compensate" vs. "We should be throwing people who make these things in jail and getting them fired!", which is how others have interpreted the argument. This is pretty absurd. People have been making sexy/ridiculous looking women for a long time now and that these are certainly harmful image wise. We can see this in the rampant misogyny, sexist comments and just vile things that happen to women who dare accidentally let on they are women on XBL. Gaming has created a hostile culture to women and I think this is pretty much unarguable at this point. So it is hardly "censorship" to ask people to be like "Hey, could we have women depicted in ways other than being ridiculously proportioned sex objects for men?". It seems more like a reasonable request to grow gaming as a hobby beyond men as a demographic and thus a wider array of games (and by default, art styles).
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
Are you sure about that? Males commit violent crime at a rate of 10 to 1 over females. Can we really make the call that the violent male fantasy is less harmful than the sexualized female fantasy, which, by the way, is an idea totally removed from that shortpacked comic I thought was the rationale behind the use of male power fantasy:
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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MortiousThe Nightmare BeginsMove to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
...there's nothing wrong with them asking you to stop putting out there.
Disagree.
<snip>
We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress. We should just be telling him that you shouldn't put it in your game if you want us to buy it.
Sorry to be dense here, but could explain to me what you mean with these two statements?
(I removed most of your comment since it didn't really explain your position, and this is pretty much where I'm getting stuck with your position)
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
Are you sure about that? Males commit violent crime at a rate of 10 to 1 over females. Can we really make the call that the violent male fantasy is less harmful than the sexualized female fantasy, which, by the way, is an idea totally removed from that shortpacked comic I thought was the rationale behind the use of male power fantasy:
Okay, two issues.
1) Are violent video games actually harmless? Men are pretty violent! And, violent video games are male power fantasies and somehow there is a connection here. That's a very interesting question! It's really a discussion for an entirely different thread, though. I've already (above) said everything I can say in a sentence or two, which is as far as I'm willing to drag this thread off topic.
2) What about that Shortpacked comic you love? The point of that comic is to note that the idealized men in video games, comics, and so on are idealized male power fantasies. This is not a bad thing. It just shows that they're targeted towards men rather than women. A common argument against people like me who say "women should not be sexual fantasies for men in every video game" is to come back and say "ah, but the men in video games are sexual fantasies for the women!" That comic is showing that no, they aren't. The men in video games are male power fantasies for men. Is this problematic on its own? See question #1. The point is that the response to people like me fails: there aren't a ton of sexual fantasies for women in video games, and the few that come close (Kaiden, Dante) usually get called "gay" or "whiny" by men, which is an interesting phenomenon on its own.
Again you are completely misunderstanding male power fantasies. That women can enjoy shooting people with guns is irrelevant: women can enjoy male power fantasies. Women could potentially enjoy them more because they could fantasize about being powerful in ways that aren't often open to them in society. A "male power fantasy" is a fantasy about being powerful in stereotypically "male" ways, and shooting motherfuckers with a gun has been a stereotypically male activity for most of history.
Shooting people with a gun is a male power fantasy?
I used those examples because I wanted to show that no matter how bad your drawing is, it's fine if you just keep it in your notebook.
"I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, just as long as people with terrible ideas don't talk to anyone but themselves."
Your argument also calls to mind the closing line of Tycho (Brahe)'s news post on the topic: "They’re not censors, though - oh, no no. You’ll understand it eventually; what you need to do is censor yourself."
Yes. "Censor yourself" is an odd phrase because it's not censorship if you do it voluntarily. It's just shutting up. If someone says "stop saying that black people are at their heart terrible, you are a fucking idiot" they are I suppose asking you to shut up, but there's nothing wrong with them getting angry at you for spewing racist shit and there's nothing wrong with them asking you to stop putting out there. If someone says "please draw a variety of body types for women, you're contributing to sexism within the industry and in society at large" they are asking you to shut up (artistically speaking) or more accurately they are asking you to branch out, but there's nothing wrong with them getting angry at you for contributing to sexism.
You straight up do not understand what censorship is (nor, as @Cambiata points out, does Jerry/Tycho). Telling people they should keep something to themselves is not censorship. Censorship is when it's illegal for them not to keep it to themselves. I have no advocated censorship.
Absolutely there's nothing wrong with someone criticizing a piece of art for being "sexist". Just like there's nothing wrong with creating sexy ladies and muscle-bound men in the first place. Artists crave criticism. It's a great way for us to improve... but when the criticism is essentially "The way you draw is bad because women don't look like that." it's not helpful. First, the Kamitani is well aware of how females actually look... if he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to so skillfully exaggerate their features. Second, telling someone to change their style is exceedingly difficult.
Styles, especially in cartoons, take years to develop. Learning anatomy, then learning how to exaggerate it properly is quite a bit more difficult than just straight learning anatomy. That's not to say the artist won't change given time, but it's not going to happen overnight. Look at how much PA Gabe's style has changed over the years and keep in mind just how many years it took for him to go from the drawing style in the first comic to his current style.
Everyone is allowed to have a choice of what they revel and revile. Call me a masculist, but men (and women!) should be able to have the creative freedom to create whatever characters they want for their game. Afterall, it's your vision. Is it not okay to produce a product for men anymore? Art, games, movies, books, comics etc. do not have to appeal to everyone.
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
Are you sure about that? Males commit violent crime at a rate of 10 to 1 over females. Can we really make the call that the violent male fantasy is less harmful than the sexualized female fantasy, which, by the way, is an idea totally removed from that shortpacked comic I thought was the rationale behind the use of male power fantasy:
Okay, two issues.
1) Are violent video games actually harmless? Men are pretty violent! And, violent video games are male power fantasies and somehow there is a connection here. That's a very interesting question! It's really a discussion for an entirely different thread, though. I've already (above) said everything I can say in a sentence or two, which is as far as I'm willing to drag this thread off topic.
2) What about that Shortpacked comic you love? The point of that comic is to note that the idealized men in video games, comics, and so on are idealized male power fantasies. This is not a bad thing. It just shows that they're targeted towards men rather than women. A common argument against people like me who say "women should not be sexual fantasies for men in every video game" is to come back and say "ah, but the men in video games are sexual fantasies for the women!" That comic is showing that no, they aren't. The men in video games are male power fantasies for men. Is this problematic on its own? See question #1. The point is that the response to people like me fails: there aren't a ton of sexual fantasies for women in video games, and the few that come close (Kaiden, Dante) usually get called "gay" or "whiny" by men, which is an interesting phenomenon on its own.
But male power fantasies aren't all targeted towards men as you've just said - some are targeted towards women, taking the definition of male power fantasy to be a character of any gender engaging in a stereotypically male activity like shooting guns or math.
And when it's broken down like that, we have to ask ourselves a question: why not just make a bunch of sexual fantasies for women? I've seen the people who object to that; 9 out of 10 of them probably aren't even old enough to own credit cards. It's note like Mass Effect and Devil May Cry bombed because they had those guys. Is there any video game you can think of with female sexual fantasies that suffered because of it? Because you know what? We still bought the heck out of Metal Gear Solid 2.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
Are you sure about that? Males commit violent crime at a rate of 10 to 1 over females. Can we really make the call that the violent male fantasy is less harmful than the sexualized female fantasy, which, by the way, is an idea totally removed from that shortpacked comic I thought was the rationale behind the use of male power fantasy:
Violent crime you say? I posit that if your cited statistic is as far as you are going to go in exploring violent crime as a function of male power fantasy versus the damage caused by sexual objectification of females then you haven't bothered to google the statistics of domestic violence. Here's a good starting point.
Also, in regards to criticism and censure versus censorship I'll repost a comment I made in the previous thread and expound upon it a little.
IF you are going to present anything within the purview of society, it's going to be open to criticism. If people wish to criticize, they will state their reasons. At which point, if you decide to either accept or reject those criticisms it falls on you to have reasons why. In the case of acceptance, their own reasons have persuaded you. In the case of denial, you have reasons that counter their criticisms. The larger thing here is that nothing is really gained from this cross-talk unless the debate actually occurs and is carried out in good faith. To the idea of a painter painting decapitated bodies on his house in view of the public, while his reasons would be heavily scrutinized due to the controversial nature, there are entirely possible (if a bit unsettling) scenarios where there would be valid reasons for such an action. Taken to an extreme, the historic image of a buddhist priest burning himself alive in protest, while wholly disturbing, has merit.
The first bit should be obvious if there is an understanding in the differences between censure and censorship; which it seems like for the most part there is an understanding in the current discussion. What I will touch upon is the two examples that I give for having merit as a means of expression. These examples are social commentaries. They are meant to raise awareness on a given issue. Often times, such commentaries are in part shocking and effective because they show something that is in stark contrast with the norm to illuminate a particular issue. This is not the case with images of sexual objectivity in the current social climate. Any attempt at showing a stark contrast will be lost in the myriad of other instances where said imagery is merely pandering to the norm. Hence why people like Tycho, Cambiata, and multiple others have stated the stance that maybe it's a good idea to criticize artists for merely pandering instead of adding to the diversity of imagery that is more reflective of real life. Such additions would play in stark contrast to what currently exists and illuminate the issue, thus hopefully if not bringing about real change at least raising awareness of the issue.
Yes, sex is the only thing objectionable. Male power fantasies are not objectionable. A sexualized woman president would be both things, assuming she was a powerful president and not a sissy president (not all presidents are seen as strong). A lot of people find male power fantasies infantile but it's not like they're morally wrong in the way that sexualized depictions of women in every aspect of society are morally wrong. The only potential issue with male power fantasies is that often stereotypically "male" ways of resolving issues are violent, and you might think that this makes people more violent if they grow up learning to idealize soldiers and others who win by killing, but that's an entirely separate topic and I think it's pretty safe to say that there are lots of counter-messages to the idea that killing people is okay but there aren't a lot of counter-messages to the idea that women should be pretty.
Are you sure about that? Males commit violent crime at a rate of 10 to 1 over females. Can we really make the call that the violent male fantasy is less harmful than the sexualized female fantasy, which, by the way, is an idea totally removed from that shortpacked comic I thought was the rationale behind the use of male power fantasy:
Okay, two issues.
1) Are violent video games actually harmless? Men are pretty violent! And, violent video games are male power fantasies and somehow there is a connection here. That's a very interesting question! It's really a discussion for an entirely different thread, though. I've already (above) said everything I can say in a sentence or two, which is as far as I'm willing to drag this thread off topic.
2) What about that Shortpacked comic you love? The point of that comic is to note that the idealized men in video games, comics, and so on are idealized male power fantasies. This is not a bad thing. It just shows that they're targeted towards men rather than women. A common argument against people like me who say "women should not be sexual fantasies for men in every video game" is to come back and say "ah, but the men in video games are sexual fantasies for the women!" That comic is showing that no, they aren't. The men in video games are male power fantasies for men. Is this problematic on its own? See question #1. The point is that the response to people like me fails: there aren't a ton of sexual fantasies for women in video games, and the few that come close (Kaiden, Dante) usually get called "gay" or "whiny" by men, which is an interesting phenomenon on its own.
But male power fantasies aren't all targeted towards men as you've just said - some are targeted towards women, taking the definition of male power fantasy to be a character of any gender engaging in a stereotypically male activity like shooting guns or math.
And when it's broken down like that, we have to ask ourselves a question: why not just make a bunch of sexual fantasies for women? I've seen the people who object to that; 9 out of 10 of them probably aren't even old enough to own credit cards. It's note like Mass Effect and Devil May Cry bombed because they had those guys. Is there any video game you can think of with female sexual fantasies that suffered because of it? Because you know what? We still bought the heck out of Metal Gear Solid 2.
Because making sexual fantasies for women still wouldn't fix sexism in society.
Because making sexual fantasies for women still wouldn't fix sexism in society.
You've then got to sell that removing sexual fantasies for men would fix sexism in society more than giving sexual fantasies to women. Can you prove this?
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Again you are completely misunderstanding male power fantasies. That women can enjoy shooting people with guns is irrelevant: women can enjoy male power fantasies. Women could potentially enjoy them more because they could fantasize about being powerful in ways that aren't often open to them in society. A "male power fantasy" is a fantasy about being powerful in stereotypically "male" ways, and shooting motherfuckers with a gun has been a stereotypically male activity for most of history.
Shooting people with a gun is a male power fantasy?
I used those examples because I wanted to show that no matter how bad your drawing is, it's fine if you just keep it in your notebook.
"I'm a big believer in freedom of speech, just as long as people with terrible ideas don't talk to anyone but themselves."
Your argument also calls to mind the closing line of Tycho (Brahe)'s news post on the topic: "They’re not censors, though - oh, no no. You’ll understand it eventually; what you need to do is censor yourself."
Yes. "Censor yourself" is an odd phrase because it's not censorship if you do it voluntarily. It's just shutting up. If someone says "stop saying that black people are at their heart terrible, you are a fucking idiot" they are I suppose asking you to shut up, but there's nothing wrong with them getting angry at you for spewing racist shit and there's nothing wrong with them asking you to stop putting out there. If someone says "please draw a variety of body types for women, you're contributing to sexism within the industry and in society at large" they are asking you to shut up (artistically speaking) or more accurately they are asking you to branch out, but there's nothing wrong with them getting angry at you for contributing to sexism.
You straight up do not understand what censorship is (nor, as @Cambiata points out, does Jerry/Tycho). Telling people they should keep something to themselves is not censorship. Censorship is when it's illegal for them not to keep it to themselves. I have no advocated censorship.
Absolutely there's nothing wrong with someone criticizing a piece of art for being "sexist". Just like there's nothing wrong with creating sexy ladies and muscle-bound men in the first place. Artists crave criticism. It's a great way for us to improve... but when the criticism is essentially "The way you draw is bad because women don't look like that." it's not helpful. First, the Kamitani is well aware of how females actually look... if he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to so skillfully exaggerate their features. Second, telling someone to change their style is exceedingly difficult.
Styles, especially in cartoons, take years to develop. Learning anatomy, then learning how to exaggerate it properly is quite a bit more difficult than just straight learning anatomy. That's not to say the artist won't change given time, but it's not going to happen overnight. Look at how much PA Gabe's style has changed over the years and keep in mind just how many years it took for him to go from the drawing style in the first comic to his current style.
Everyone is allowed to have a choice of what they revel and revile. Call me a masculist, but men (and women!) should be able to have the creative freedom to create whatever characters they want for their game. Afterall, it's your vision. Is it not okay to produce a product for men anymore? Art, games, movies, books, comics etc. do not have to appeal to everyone.
Have I said women don't look like that? Has that been my criticism? No. I've been saying that women look like all sorts of things, and that games should reflect reality because to depict women as always sexual is to suggest that no matter who a woman is or what she does, she must also look pretty for men, because that's a woman's role. It also gives off the impression that games are for dudes because all the women in games are male sexual fantasies, and when people think games are for dudes, we get #1reasonwhy tweets.
If style takes years to develop, this seems like a great argument for not wasting years of your life crippling yourself so that your only real talent is drawing sexist stuff.
If you think people should have creative freedom then you are not disagreeing with me. If you think they should use that creative freedom to be sexist, you are disagreeing with me, just like if you think they should use that creative freedom to be racist.
Is it not okay to produce a product for men anymore? Not when it's sexist it isn't.
Violent crime you say? I posit that if your cited statistic is as far as you are going to go in exploring violent crime as a function of male power fantasy versus the damage caused by sexual objectification of females then you haven't bothered to google the statistics of domestic violence. Here's a good starting point.
I didn't really expect to go into it as I was just using it as an example comparative to sex crimes topically, but Wikipedia has something disturbing to say about domestic violence:
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that for each year between 2000 and 2005, "female parents acting alone" were most likely to be perpetrators of child abuse. Even after accounting for the greater number of females as primary caretakers of children, women still tend to commit more child abuse, neglect and homicide.
If you think I'm correlating/causating too rashly based on no studies connecting the trends, it's because I am.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Have I said women don't look like that? Has that been my criticism? No. I've been saying that women look like all sorts of things, and that games should reflect reality because to depict women as always sexual is to suggest that no matter who a woman is or what she does, she must also look pretty for men, because that's a woman's role.
If style takes years to develop, this seems like a great argument for not wasting years of your life crippling yourself so that your only real talent is drawing sexist stuff.
Can feminine features be exaggerated in a way that is not sexist, similar to how Kamitani makes the shoulders of some of his male characters much broader than is realistically possible? Is it only acceptable if the exagerration is not intended to look more attractive?
Also, you implied earlier that Frank Frazetta's work depicting women is not objectionable. If I'm understanding you correctly, why is that?
A little girl eating watermelon isn't the same thing as blackface. It's the reason I choose that specific image: it's racist because of social context, not because there's anything particularly wrong with a little girl eating watermelon in isolation. It's only social context that makes it an issue.
Also, Squidget, I really wish you'd stop pulling out old strawmen like "you people are scared of sexuality blargle blargle." Sometimes your discourse makes it seem like you are better then that, but then you just comfortably go back to the strawmen again.
I don't mean to imply that Tycho hates all sex. I think that everyone has depictions of sex that they're uncomfortable with, and it's a very personal question. Some people's very favorite thing is something that others will find gross, and that's fine. But that's why using how personally uncomfortable you are with something is a terrible metric when determining how "damaging" it is.
I say that we're talking about sexuality in art because traditional gender roles and honest artistic expressions of sexuality are very often going to be one and the same. Our sexual preferences are shaped by the gendered society that we live in. If you target artists that express traditional gender roles in media, you are telling a huge number of people that their sexual preferences are unacceptable. Bear in mind that this is different from the "more art, more diversity" - TychoCelchuu is specifically saying that artist who want to create the things that make him uncomfortable should get out of the industry, that they don't belong and that they should make something he approves of, or stop creating.
Who is to say what doesn't belong? Twilight is basically a stalker-fantasy in novel form, and apparently a lot of people share that fantasy. In an ideal society that fantasy might not exist, but we don't have an ideal society, and sexual preference doesn't always work off of ideals. Should Stephenie Meyer have written something more progressive? Could she have written something more progressive? I don't know her, but I'm guessing she probably couldn't have done so and still resonated with people. Good art is personal expression, and personal expression isn't always going to be to your tastes. That's the way it goes.
I am a feminist, but I'm also pro-sex, pro-artist, and pro-free expression. I believe that moral panics about the effects of art on society have done more damage than art and creative expression ever did.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
edited May 2013
Well it's nice to know what you think other people are uncomfortable with. I think you're wrong about Tycho. I know you're wrong about me.
The dragon crown sorceress doesn't make me "uncomfortable." It makes me sad. It probably would make me laugh if it wasn't such a prevalent image of the only thing that women are allowed to be in media.
Well it's nice to know what you think other people are uncomfortable with. I think you're wrong about Tycho. I know you're wrong about me.
The dragon crown sorceress doesn't make me "uncomfortable." It makes me sad. It probably would make me laugh if it wasn't such a prevalent image of the only thing that women are allowed to be.
So the games you're playing only allow women to be sexy titty sorceresses drawn with exaggerated proportions in a distinctive and personalized style? That does sound lame. You should hit up Steam and find some new games to play.
Because making sexual fantasies for women still wouldn't fix sexism in society.
You've then got to sell that removing sexual fantasies for men would fix sexism in society more than giving sexual fantasies to women. Can you prove this?
You're approaching this all wrong if you think we need to prove this stuff before we can work on it, because it's impossible to prove effects of society on people because you can't vary the independent variable by looking at someone who is otherwise identical to a normal person but who was raised outside of society.
Have I said women don't look like that? Has that been my criticism? No. I've been saying that women look like all sorts of things, and that games should reflect reality because to depict women as always sexual is to suggest that no matter who a woman is or what she does, she must also look pretty for men, because that's a woman's role.
If style takes years to develop, this seems like a great argument for not wasting years of your life crippling yourself so that your only real talent is drawing sexist stuff.
Can feminine features be exaggerated in a way that is not sexist, similar to how Kamitani makes the shoulders of some of his male characters much broader than is realistically possible? Is it only acceptable if the exagerration is not intended to look more attractive?
Also, you implied earlier that Frank Frazetta's work depicting women is not objectionable. If I'm understanding you correctly, why is that?
It's kind of a fine line - standards of beauty shift, and they are to some degree subjective, and they are hard to nail down in ways like "bigger boobs = prettier" or anything obvious like that. Dragon's Crown is maybe a bad example because although I think the response of the artist shows that they are obviously sexual in character in the sense that at least he gets off on them (why else would "u gay bro" be a response to a critic?), they are grotesque and exaggerated anatomically in ways that most people probably don't find sexy. What is problematic, though, is how they are dressed. There aren't really any excuses for that wizard to wear that low cut top except for sex appeal (ineffective as it may be, given how grossly huge the boobs are).
Frank Frazetta's work is objectionable. If you can quote where I said otherwise I'll take it back.
A little girl eating watermelon isn't the same thing as blackface. It's the reason I choose that specific image: it's racist because of social context, not because there's anything particularly wrong with a little girl eating watermelon in isolation. It's only social context that makes it an issue.
Also, Squidget, I really wish you'd stop pulling out old strawmen like "you people are scared of sexuality blargle blargle." Sometimes your discourse makes it seem like you are better then that, but then you just comfortably go back to the strawmen again.
I don't mean to imply that Tycho hates all sex. I think that everyone has depictions of sex that they're uncomfortable with, and it's a very personal question. Some people's very favorite thing is something that others will find gross, and that's fine. But that's why using how personally uncomfortable you are with something is a terrible metric when determining how "damaging" it is.
I say that we're talking about sexuality in art because traditional gender roles and honest artistic expressions of sexuality are very often going to be one and the same. Our sexual preferences are shaped by the gendered society that we live in. If you target artists that express traditional gender roles in media, you are telling a huge number of people that their sexual preferences are unacceptable. Bear in mind that this is different from the "more art, more diversity" - TychoCelchuu is specifically saying that artist who want to create the things that make him uncomfortable should get out of the industry, that they don't belong and that they should make something he approves of, or stop creating.
Who is to say what doesn't belong? Twilight is basically a stalker-fantasy in novel form, and apparently a lot of people share that fantasy. In an ideal society that fantasy might not exist, but we don't have an ideal society, and sexual preference doesn't always work off of ideals. Should Stephenie Meyer have written something more progressive? Could she have written something more progressive? I don't know her, but I'm guessing she probably couldn't have done so and still resonated with people. Good art is personal expression, and personal expression isn't always going to be to your tastes. That's the way it goes.
I am a feminist, but I'm also pro-sex, pro-artist, and pro-free expression. I believe that moral panics about the effects of art on society have done more damage than art and creative expression ever did.
I find none of this uncomfortable. If you can quote anything where I said any art makes me uncomfortable I will take it back. I don't think I've said anything at all like that. I'm certainly not uncomfortable with any depictions of sex aside perhaps from rape/child porn stuff, which I imagine would gross me out, and also I find some coprophagy stuff to be sort of gross. But to give you an idea of how un-grossed out I am at stuff, I saw some Mass Effect fan art which was literally porn (Garrus and Shepard fucking), and I don't mean "it was a picture of them fucking," I mean it was like a 12 page comic or something. If that doesn't make me uncomfortable I'm not sure a woman with big tits in a chainmail bikini is going to make me uncomfortable, but that sort of this is exactly what I am railing against.
Stephanie Meyer definitely should have written something more progressive than Twilight. I didn't think this was controversial! It was all the rage in nerd circles for a while to talk about how the lessons in Twilight are stuff like "hurt yourself if your boyfriend leaves you." Twilight is regressive shit!
Well it's nice to know what you think other people are uncomfortable with. I think you're wrong about Tycho. I know you're wrong about me.
The dragon crown sorceress doesn't make me "uncomfortable." It makes me sad. It probably would make me laugh if it wasn't such a prevalent image of the only thing that women are allowed to be.
So the games you're playing only allow women to be sexy titty sorceresses drawn with exaggerated proportions in a distinctive and personalized style? That does sound lame. You should hit up Steam and find some new games to play.
Ugh, this is so not seeing the point. I hit up Steam Greenlight earlier today and the very first thing I was greeted with was this:
Guess what that's a promotional image for? A chess game. It's when gaming is pervasively overrun with images of women who are sexy for no good reason that people get messages like "games are for men" or "the people who make games are men" which lead directly to #1reasonwhy tweets like "when I raise concerns about whether this thing in the game will turn women off, people don't give a shit" or "people assume that I'm not a developer because I'm a woman." If your response to this sort of stuff is "go find a non-sexist game to play" you're completely and utterly missing the point, perhaps because you're not being empathetic enough when it comes to the people being hurt by this stuff. This is to say nothing of the young women in society who are bombarded by images day in day out of the idealized pretty women that they have to aspire to be because they will get shit if they aren't like that.
We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress. We should just be telling him that you shouldn't put it in your game if you want us to buy it.
What exactly do you suppose is the difference between these two things? Either way you're telling the artist they shouldn't do something, you're just swapping the reason, and the reason for the financial punishment is because you think it's noxious or shouldn't be supported, which coincidentally is the same reason people would say they shouldn't make it in the first place. They have the right to make whatever they want. No one here is arguing against that—that would be censorship. You're obviously already okay with telling artists what they should and shouldn't do (you just differ on the explanation offered them on why they shouldn't), and even telling people what they should and shouldn't say on the basis of the thing itself and not just the repercussion or you wouldn't have written the sentence "We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress."
Everyone has the right to go be a racist and march in a KKK rally and get into a fistfight with Geraldo. Lots of people will tell you you shouldn't do that, either because you'll get punched in the face by Geraldo (deter by consequence) or because it's wretched behavior (deter by ethic). Neither is censorship.
What people want is to convince the creators that they're reinforcing a noxious problem. Failing that, swaying public opinion (on the basis of ethic) enough that the former thing isn't so successful and therefore prevalent. Either is okay. Telling people they shouldn't buy something because it's awful and telling people they shouldn't make something because it's awful is no distinction at all.
The idea that it's okay to vote with your money but not with your mouth is a pretty curious one, if you think about it. Be a good little consumer and only use your paycheck to effect change!
+4
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
I think that witch picture you just posted is awesome though. I love the style, and I'd totally want to play her in a game. Different tastes, I guess.
Different tastes, indeed. I find that image to be embarrassingly awful. Like something one of my 12 year old nephews might draw that I'd have to pretend to like so as not to make them feel bad.
Why do characters of either gender need a 'reason' to be sexy beyond "The artist wanted them to be that way?"
Well when one gender is constantly sexualized and the other is not, it sends a message. We've been discussing this for over 200 pages now, are you really asking this question again?
but for a chess game? why does a chess game need a sexy witch?
I would be cautious with this line of thought—it leads back to the question of justification. It doesn't make a difference if it's a chess game or a space opera RPG because the problem is big picture.
I think that witch picture you just posted is awesome though. I love the style, and I'd totally want to play her in a game. Different tastes, I guess.
Why do characters of either gender need a 'reason' to be sexy beyond "The artist wanted them to be that way?"
Four or five times, I think, in the past page or so, I have answered the question explicitly, typing it out each time instead of stopping when I got to the "it is bad to make women sexy for no reason" part, in the hopes that it would sink in. This has failed. One final attempt:
Making women sexy for no reason in games, including a chess game that includes all sorts of body types/ages/levels of attractiveness for men but only young sexy women dressed provocatively, leads to bad stuff in two broad categories.
The first category is game industry specific stuff, which was the catalyst for this thread. Read some of the #1reasonwhy tweets. They are linked in this thread in the first page. Kim Swift gets mistaken for a receptionist or day-hire marketing at trade shows. Caryn Vaino got blank stars when she asked why a female soldier had to look like a porn star. Tracy Hurley is told that making games for women is "niche" or politically correct, while making games for men is "normal." And so on. There are lots of things that cause this sort of behavior, but among the causes are people thinking that games are only made for men, and people thinking that games are only made by men. When for no reason the women in your game are sexualized, these are precisely the messages that are sent. Why is your chess wizard a sexy chess wizard? The game is made for men, by men (because women don't play games). Why is your asari Justicar wearing high heels and a suit unzipped down to her navel? Because men designed her to be something they wanted to fuck, and they felt pretty safe doing it because the players playing the game want to look at sexy women too (because the players are men). When it's just accepted that games are designed to be looked at by men, who want to see sexy women, and just accepted that this is the norm and that women aren't really playing these games, you get the problems that crop up in the #1reasonwhy tweets.
The second category is more general society wide stuff. Video games are media like movies and TV are media, and it is folly to suggest that media doesn't influence people (although I believe you've claimed as much a number of times, or at least made the negative claim that you're not yet convinced). When entertainment constantly depicts women in every role, from "chess wizard" to "nuclear physicist" as gorgeous, perfectly-bodied supermodels who are dressed so as to show off their looks first and foremost (and only secondarily, if at all, in a manner that is sensible: think chainmail bikinis, as if making it out of chainmail turns it into armor fit for a warrior), this sends a lot of messages.
It sends a message to men that no matter what a woman accomplishes, it's still part of her job to dress up for you, to look pretty for you. Women who don't look pretty are doing something wrong! They're denying you prettiness, basically.
It sends a message to everyone that it's not enough just to succeed at something like science or chess wizarding or tomb raiding to be a hero: you also have to be pretty. So when Hilary Clinton shows up looking tired or with a weird hairdo or dressed frumpily, everyone jumps on her, because it's an acceptable criticism of a woman, even the fucking Secretary of State, that she isn't looking nice today. Meanwhile George Bush runs around in jeans and people like that he's a down to earth dude.
It sends a message to women and particularly girls that they've always got to remember to keep looks in mind. When Steve Buscmeni gets to play interesting men but all the interesting women are played by beautiful women, when there's just one way for a hero to look, people (children especially) get the message that your looks are a very important component when it comes to being a great person. Nobody daydreams about being a fat Disney princess because there aren't any. They daydream about being a skinny Disney princess, and if they're fat, they start to hate their body.
These aren't the only messages it sends, of course, but they're bad ones, and they have bad results. Men think women are there to look at, theirs to hit on, theirs to date and fuck and marry. Pretty much everyone is owed a pretty woman: even the slobs in soap operas end up with hot wives. Fred Flinstone (who we can generously describe as "a caveman") gets Wilma, who I would describe if she weren't like pretty much every woman in any entertainment medium: not too tall or too short, very skinny, perfect figure, perfect hair, and so on. Pretty women get hit on constantly, especially when they dress up, and if they don't dress up they get shit from everyone. Ugly (or I should say "ugly" because of course these are just societal standards, not universal truths) women hate that they're ugly, they have to put in just as much effor to look pretty and still get looked down on for not being prettier, and so on. You don't even have to be ugly: just outside the norm. If you're a man and you're too tall, you're like 7' 2" or something because it's really hard to be too tall as a man. If you're a woman and you're too tall (which basically means "slightly taller than wherever men are at your age or above") then your self esteem is fucked. If you're too skinny or fat, same deal, and everyone is too skinny or too fat because the ideal body type is pretty fucking rare if you've looked out the window lately. If you're a dude outside the ideal body type, you don't get any shit. If you're fat enough you'll get shit for being fat (although fat women will get exactly the same shit, because the stigma against fat people isn't gendered, or more accurately it's even harsher on women), and if you're too skinny... nothing happens! I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh 125 lbs and my entire life nobody has ever given me shit for being too skinny.
I could keep going, but here's the summed up version: when women are always pretty for no reason other than that men want to look at pretty women, it sends a lot of messages with a lot of tangible bad results. We'll never fix this just by changing video games, but it would be a good start.
Who cares who is offended? Fuck being offended. "Offended" is irrelevant.
The question is whether something is harmful to society and specifically harmful to an oppressed group. Harmful meaning it causes harm. I have no problem at all telling an artist to stop harming people. And if you don't think implicit social messages harm people, then click on any of the many sociological studies that are posted in the op.
Sorry, but people have been using the righteousness of their crusades to justify banning any number of products. No, I have no doubt that art can affect people in both negative and positive ways, but that's not why it needs to be limited. In fact, that's exactly why it shouldn't be limited.
To give another example, I have no trouble believing that some violent video games might have a profoundly negative influence on children. For all I know, a game might, at some point, have pushed someone closer to committing actual murder. Movies, books and paintings may have all done the same! But I believe in a society where adults can create and consume whatever kind of entertainment they wish to.
Who cares who is offended? Fuck being offended. "Offended" is irrelevant.
The question is whether something is harmful to society and specifically harmful to an oppressed group. Harmful meaning it causes harm. I have no problem at all telling an artist to stop harming people. And if you don't think implicit social messages harm people, then click on any of the many sociological studies that are posted in the op.
Sorry, but people have been using the righteousness of their crusades to justify banning any number of products. No, I have no doubt that art can affect people in both negative and positive ways, but that's not why it needs to be limited. In fact, that's exactly why it shouldn't be limited.
To give another example, I have no trouble believing that some violent video games might have a profoundly negative influence on children. For all I know, a game might, at some point, have pushed someone closer to committing actual murder. Movies, books and paintings may have all done the same! But I believe in a society where adults can create and consume whatever kind of entertainment they wish to.
It's a good thing none of us are talking about banning anything.
A really good thing for our arguments, especially. Because it invalidates everything you are saying.
Nobody is calling for censorship, censorship has to come from the law. We just want to put pressure on creators to express our views, that's not censorship! We're just voting with our mouths and our dollars!
Well...yes and no.
Why do you think the first interracial kiss on television was a milestone? Why do you think that was considered a 'brave' move on the part of the Star Trek producers? There wasn't any law against interracial kissing at the time, so it wasn't a censorship issue, right? Yet it was a huge risk all the same.
What invisible force kept artists in the 80s and 90s from depicting many homosexual relationships, if there was no law against doing so? Obviously there were gay people in the 80s and 90s who would have enjoyed it, so what prevented there from being media to fill taht niche? The answer is that a large majority of people were opposed to it and so it wasn't "allowed" to happen, not even allowed as a niche form of entertainment. It offended a majority of people and that was enough. You couldn't take the risk.
The mindset of our culture has a huge impact on what kind of content artists are allowed to produce. Could Game of Thrones or The Dark Knight Rises have been made in the 80s, when admitting interest in fantasy or superheroes was enough to make you a target of social ridicule? You have entire genres of media that can be made or not made based on what we as a society find offensive enough to shout down, and we're often very wrong and very shortsighted about what we shout down in retrospect. We put a lot of pressure on creators to self-censor, and when that fails we often censor them directly through their distribution channels - Trey Parker and Matt Stone got into a fight with their studio over whether they were allowed to put a picture of Mohammed on TV. PA had to take a comic down because some company somewhere thought it misrepresented their brand. None of that is government censorship, but it all has a huge effect on what kinds of content artists feel comfortable creating.
And maybe you think that's okay, maybe you think that certain things are worthy of outrage, and that's fine. Just understand that when you say "That shouldn't have been made" over "I wouldn't buy that", you're contributing to an environment in which artists are afraid of being judged by standards that aren't their own, afraid of expressing their identity because the majority doesn't agree. And you're probably creating one more artist who, instead of expressing themselves, will either produce nothing or make the same bland shlock that every artist makes when they try to create something to appeal to everyone.
You know, whenever I hear about people claiming that asking artists not to make sexist depictions of women is censorship, I can't help but think of this.
Nobody is calling for censorship, censorship has to come from the law. We just want to put pressure on creators to express our views, that's not censorship! We're just voting with our mouths and our dollars!
Well...yes and no.
Why do you think the first interracial kiss on television was a milestone? Why do you think that was considered a 'brave' move on the part of the Star Trek producers? There wasn't any law against interracial kissing at the time, so it wasn't a censorship issue, right? Yet it was a huge risk all the same.
What invisible force kept artists in the 80s and 90s from depicting many homosexual relationships, if there was no law against doing so? Obviously there were gay people in the 80s and 90s who would have enjoyed it, so what prevented there from being media to fill taht niche? The answer is that a large majority of people were opposed to it and so it wasn't "allowed" to happen, not even allowed as a niche form of entertainment. It offended a majority of people and that was enough. You couldn't take the risk.
The mindset of our culture has a huge impact on what kind of content artists are allowed to produce. Could Game of Thrones or The Dark Knight Rises have been made in the 80s, when admitting interest in fantasy or superheroes was enough to make you a target of social ridicule? You have entire genres of media that can be made or not made based on what we as a society find offensive enough to shout down, and we're often very wrong and very shortsighted about what we shout down in retrospect. We put a lot of pressure on creators to self-censor, and when that fails we often censor them directly through their distribution channels - Trey Parker and Matt Stone got into a fight with their studio over whether they were allowed to put a picture of Mohammed on TV. PA had to take a comic down because some company somewhere thought it misrepresented their brand. None of that is government censorship, but it all has a huge effect on what kinds of content artists feel comfortable creating.
And maybe you think that's okay, maybe you think that certain things are worthy of outrage, and that's fine. Just understand that when you say "That shouldn't have been made" over "I wouldn't buy that", you're contributing to an environment in which artists are afraid of being judged by standards that aren't their own, afraid of expressing their identity because the majority doesn't agree. And you're probably creating one more artist who, instead of expressing themselves, will either produce nothing or make the same bland shlock that every artist makes when they try to create something to appeal to everyone.
You're right! There is no difference between blocking interracial kisses or gay kisses and blocking racism and sexism when it comes to societal pressure.
So the real question is, is it ever okay to use social pressure on people to get them to do things? Is there a way to draw a distinction?
Let me give you other examples of societal pressure that cause people to act different: boycotts of segregated bus systems. Boycotts of companies that supported apartheid South Africa. People who refuse to purchase simulated child pornography (this is a hypothetical because that stuff's illegal already). People who don't buy their 8 year olds "sexy" Halloween costumes. People who say that nobody should draw racist caricatures of Jews. People who don't watch FOX News because they think it's evil. Are any of these people doing anything wrong?
I submit that it is sometimes okay and sometimes not okay to use societal pressure to influence what art people make (or what people do in general). And by "pressure" I literally just mean criticism of art which has been going on for thousands of years, not bomb threats and literal murders that (circuitously) get depictions of Mohammed taken down or cross burnings that get interracial kisses censored or legal threats that get PA comics taken down.
Because that is what all your examples come down to. They are ultimately a response to coercion, violence, or legal threats. That's not what I am advocating and it's not what people who agree with me are advocating. We are talking about dialog and voting with our dollars, nothing more. If you can come up with examples where those things aren't okay, then we can talk. But right now your examples are disingenuous. The best you've got are Game of Thrones and The Dark Knight Rises, which are bad examples. Plenty of mature fantasy was made in the 80s, and Watchmen came out in 1986-7, and more importantly, Game of Thrones + Dark Knight Rises are as much a response to stuff in the 80s as they are things that couldn't have existed then.
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Also note that any time you use "social justice crusade" as an expression of dismissal rather than a description of something awesome then you make yourself look like a terrible person.
Also, Squidget, I really wish you'd stop pulling out old strawmen like "you people are scared of sexuality blargle blargle." Sometimes your discourse makes it seem like you are better then that, but then you just comfortably go back to the strawmen again.
There is a crucial distinction between criticizing art and demanding people stop making art that you are failing to see. It is bad to tell artists what they can and cannot draw because you are telling artists what they can and cannot draw. That is not criticism.
I don't think we should be saying to artists, "Hey, don't make this." We should be saying that "Hey, make whatever art you want. But if you try to shove sexist crap in your game in a morbid attempt to cash in on male pandering, we will do everything we can to make sure your game is not a commercial success."
We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress. We should just be telling him that you shouldn't put it in your game if you want us to buy it.
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough. I really don't care whether or not what Tycho (Celchuuu) is proposing is censorship. I realize there are negative associations with the word (for good reason!) but it seems irrelevant to me. What I want to discuss is not "is this censorship?" but "is this a good solution?"
I'd like to respectfully suggest that it isn't. Here's why (as concisely as I can manage):
I think we'd all agree that the people making video games qualify as artists. I believe that an art form can only thrive when artists feel free to create whatever they want. I've encountered many moments in games that have offended me, disturbed me, and even made me very uncomfortable. These did not feel good! But I'm sure that many moments I DID enjoy would have probably offended someone else.
When art starts to shift from "what the artist wants to create" to "what won't offend people," it hurts the medium. Sure, being free of that stuff you (and many others) find upsetting is great, but that's still a value judgment. I'd prefer to let everyone talk, and let people decide for themselves.
I'd honestly prefer to be offended, rather than have an artist told "you can't do that."
Male power fantasy is an essential tenet in the argument of false equivalence. If a female character can be a male power fantasy, then consider the following:
A sexualized female president of the united states of america
Who is this concept really for? Are both aspects really for males, as we get sexual objectification AND a male power fantasy?
Is sex really the only thing that makes depictions of females objectionable?
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The question is whether something is harmful to society and specifically harmful to an oppressed group. Harmful meaning it causes harm. I have no problem at all telling an artist to stop harming people. And if you don't think implicit social messages harm people, then click on any of the many sociological studies that are posted in the op.
That's the punitive way of putting it, sure. I prefer the "look, you're a good artist, maybe don't draw sexist stuff please" route. Whichever you like is fine though. I think the second is going to be more effective because it's pretty clear sexist stuff is often a commercial success.
Well, yes, I'll say that, but unlike some people I like to believe that human beings can actually act for reasons other than "this will make me the most money." For instance, if you can make a shitton of money drawing Lara Croft lookalikes for all your protagonists, but the evil feminists make your life annoying by calling you infantile every time you do it, then maybe you'll stop. Or, even better, if you're a budding artist who isn't already corrupted and you read the #1reasonwhy thread, you can introspect and realize that when you sketch, you should sketch from life rather than "learn to draw comic books!" tutorials, and you'll be a better artist for it.
This is what we want. We want better art. Better in this case means "not sexist" - it means "morally better." It does not necessarily mean "monetarily more advantageous."
The problem with this art is not that it is offensive. The problem with this art is that, combined with other stuff, it makes society (and specifically the game industry) more sexist. And that's the last thing society or the game industry needs: the #1reasonwhy tweets are evidence enough of that.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Sorry to be dense here, but could explain to me what you mean with these two statements?
(I removed most of your comment since it didn't really explain your position, and this is pretty much where I'm getting stuck with your position)
It’s not a very important country most of the time
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
1) Are violent video games actually harmless? Men are pretty violent! And, violent video games are male power fantasies and somehow there is a connection here. That's a very interesting question! It's really a discussion for an entirely different thread, though. I've already (above) said everything I can say in a sentence or two, which is as far as I'm willing to drag this thread off topic.
2) What about that Shortpacked comic you love? The point of that comic is to note that the idealized men in video games, comics, and so on are idealized male power fantasies. This is not a bad thing. It just shows that they're targeted towards men rather than women. A common argument against people like me who say "women should not be sexual fantasies for men in every video game" is to come back and say "ah, but the men in video games are sexual fantasies for the women!" That comic is showing that no, they aren't. The men in video games are male power fantasies for men. Is this problematic on its own? See question #1. The point is that the response to people like me fails: there aren't a ton of sexual fantasies for women in video games, and the few that come close (Kaiden, Dante) usually get called "gay" or "whiny" by men, which is an interesting phenomenon on its own.
Absolutely there's nothing wrong with someone criticizing a piece of art for being "sexist". Just like there's nothing wrong with creating sexy ladies and muscle-bound men in the first place. Artists crave criticism. It's a great way for us to improve... but when the criticism is essentially "The way you draw is bad because women don't look like that." it's not helpful. First, the Kamitani is well aware of how females actually look... if he wasn't, he wouldn't have been able to so skillfully exaggerate their features. Second, telling someone to change their style is exceedingly difficult.
Styles, especially in cartoons, take years to develop. Learning anatomy, then learning how to exaggerate it properly is quite a bit more difficult than just straight learning anatomy. That's not to say the artist won't change given time, but it's not going to happen overnight. Look at how much PA Gabe's style has changed over the years and keep in mind just how many years it took for him to go from the drawing style in the first comic to his current style.
Everyone is allowed to have a choice of what they revel and revile. Call me a masculist, but men (and women!) should be able to have the creative freedom to create whatever characters they want for their game. Afterall, it's your vision. Is it not okay to produce a product for men anymore? Art, games, movies, books, comics etc. do not have to appeal to everyone.
But male power fantasies aren't all targeted towards men as you've just said - some are targeted towards women, taking the definition of male power fantasy to be a character of any gender engaging in a stereotypically male activity like shooting guns or math.
And when it's broken down like that, we have to ask ourselves a question: why not just make a bunch of sexual fantasies for women? I've seen the people who object to that; 9 out of 10 of them probably aren't even old enough to own credit cards. It's note like Mass Effect and Devil May Cry bombed because they had those guys. Is there any video game you can think of with female sexual fantasies that suffered because of it? Because you know what? We still bought the heck out of Metal Gear Solid 2.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Violent crime you say? I posit that if your cited statistic is as far as you are going to go in exploring violent crime as a function of male power fantasy versus the damage caused by sexual objectification of females then you haven't bothered to google the statistics of domestic violence. Here's a good starting point.
Also, in regards to criticism and censure versus censorship I'll repost a comment I made in the previous thread and expound upon it a little.
The first bit should be obvious if there is an understanding in the differences between censure and censorship; which it seems like for the most part there is an understanding in the current discussion. What I will touch upon is the two examples that I give for having merit as a means of expression. These examples are social commentaries. They are meant to raise awareness on a given issue. Often times, such commentaries are in part shocking and effective because they show something that is in stark contrast with the norm to illuminate a particular issue. This is not the case with images of sexual objectivity in the current social climate. Any attempt at showing a stark contrast will be lost in the myriad of other instances where said imagery is merely pandering to the norm. Hence why people like Tycho, Cambiata, and multiple others have stated the stance that maybe it's a good idea to criticize artists for merely pandering instead of adding to the diversity of imagery that is more reflective of real life. Such additions would play in stark contrast to what currently exists and illuminate the issue, thus hopefully if not bringing about real change at least raising awareness of the issue.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
If style takes years to develop, this seems like a great argument for not wasting years of your life crippling yourself so that your only real talent is drawing sexist stuff.
If you think people should have creative freedom then you are not disagreeing with me. If you think they should use that creative freedom to be sexist, you are disagreeing with me, just like if you think they should use that creative freedom to be racist.
Is it not okay to produce a product for men anymore? Not when it's sexist it isn't.
I didn't really expect to go into it as I was just using it as an example comparative to sex crimes topically, but Wikipedia has something disturbing to say about domestic violence:
If you think I'm correlating/causating too rashly based on no studies connecting the trends, it's because I am.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Can feminine features be exaggerated in a way that is not sexist, similar to how Kamitani makes the shoulders of some of his male characters much broader than is realistically possible? Is it only acceptable if the exagerration is not intended to look more attractive?
Also, you implied earlier that Frank Frazetta's work depicting women is not objectionable. If I'm understanding you correctly, why is that?
I don't mean to imply that Tycho hates all sex. I think that everyone has depictions of sex that they're uncomfortable with, and it's a very personal question. Some people's very favorite thing is something that others will find gross, and that's fine. But that's why using how personally uncomfortable you are with something is a terrible metric when determining how "damaging" it is.
I say that we're talking about sexuality in art because traditional gender roles and honest artistic expressions of sexuality are very often going to be one and the same. Our sexual preferences are shaped by the gendered society that we live in. If you target artists that express traditional gender roles in media, you are telling a huge number of people that their sexual preferences are unacceptable. Bear in mind that this is different from the "more art, more diversity" - TychoCelchuu is specifically saying that artist who want to create the things that make him uncomfortable should get out of the industry, that they don't belong and that they should make something he approves of, or stop creating.
Who is to say what doesn't belong? Twilight is basically a stalker-fantasy in novel form, and apparently a lot of people share that fantasy. In an ideal society that fantasy might not exist, but we don't have an ideal society, and sexual preference doesn't always work off of ideals. Should Stephenie Meyer have written something more progressive? Could she have written something more progressive? I don't know her, but I'm guessing she probably couldn't have done so and still resonated with people. Good art is personal expression, and personal expression isn't always going to be to your tastes. That's the way it goes.
I am a feminist, but I'm also pro-sex, pro-artist, and pro-free expression. I believe that moral panics about the effects of art on society have done more damage than art and creative expression ever did.
The dragon crown sorceress doesn't make me "uncomfortable." It makes me sad. It probably would make me laugh if it wasn't such a prevalent image of the only thing that women are allowed to be in media.
So the games you're playing only allow women to be sexy titty sorceresses drawn with exaggerated proportions in a distinctive and personalized style? That does sound lame. You should hit up Steam and find some new games to play.
It's kind of a fine line - standards of beauty shift, and they are to some degree subjective, and they are hard to nail down in ways like "bigger boobs = prettier" or anything obvious like that. Dragon's Crown is maybe a bad example because although I think the response of the artist shows that they are obviously sexual in character in the sense that at least he gets off on them (why else would "u gay bro" be a response to a critic?), they are grotesque and exaggerated anatomically in ways that most people probably don't find sexy. What is problematic, though, is how they are dressed. There aren't really any excuses for that wizard to wear that low cut top except for sex appeal (ineffective as it may be, given how grossly huge the boobs are).
Frank Frazetta's work is objectionable. If you can quote where I said otherwise I'll take it back.
I find none of this uncomfortable. If you can quote anything where I said any art makes me uncomfortable I will take it back. I don't think I've said anything at all like that. I'm certainly not uncomfortable with any depictions of sex aside perhaps from rape/child porn stuff, which I imagine would gross me out, and also I find some coprophagy stuff to be sort of gross. But to give you an idea of how un-grossed out I am at stuff, I saw some Mass Effect fan art which was literally porn (Garrus and Shepard fucking), and I don't mean "it was a picture of them fucking," I mean it was like a 12 page comic or something. If that doesn't make me uncomfortable I'm not sure a woman with big tits in a chainmail bikini is going to make me uncomfortable, but that sort of this is exactly what I am railing against.
Stephanie Meyer definitely should have written something more progressive than Twilight. I didn't think this was controversial! It was all the rage in nerd circles for a while to talk about how the lessons in Twilight are stuff like "hurt yourself if your boyfriend leaves you." Twilight is regressive shit!
Guess what that's a promotional image for? A chess game. It's when gaming is pervasively overrun with images of women who are sexy for no good reason that people get messages like "games are for men" or "the people who make games are men" which lead directly to #1reasonwhy tweets like "when I raise concerns about whether this thing in the game will turn women off, people don't give a shit" or "people assume that I'm not a developer because I'm a woman." If your response to this sort of stuff is "go find a non-sexist game to play" you're completely and utterly missing the point, perhaps because you're not being empathetic enough when it comes to the people being hurt by this stuff. This is to say nothing of the young women in society who are bombarded by images day in day out of the idealized pretty women that they have to aspire to be because they will get shit if they aren't like that.
What exactly do you suppose is the difference between these two things? Either way you're telling the artist they shouldn't do something, you're just swapping the reason, and the reason for the financial punishment is because you think it's noxious or shouldn't be supported, which coincidentally is the same reason people would say they shouldn't make it in the first place. They have the right to make whatever they want. No one here is arguing against that—that would be censorship. You're obviously already okay with telling artists what they should and shouldn't do (you just differ on the explanation offered them on why they shouldn't), and even telling people what they should and shouldn't say on the basis of the thing itself and not just the repercussion or you wouldn't have written the sentence "We shouldn't tell the Dragon's Crown guy not to draw the Sorceress."
Everyone has the right to go be a racist and march in a KKK rally and get into a fistfight with Geraldo. Lots of people will tell you you shouldn't do that, either because you'll get punched in the face by Geraldo (deter by consequence) or because it's wretched behavior (deter by ethic). Neither is censorship.
What people want is to convince the creators that they're reinforcing a noxious problem. Failing that, swaying public opinion (on the basis of ethic) enough that the former thing isn't so successful and therefore prevalent. Either is okay. Telling people they shouldn't buy something because it's awful and telling people they shouldn't make something because it's awful is no distinction at all.
Why do characters of either gender need a 'reason' to be sexy beyond "The artist wanted them to be that way?"
but for a chess game? why does a chess game need a sexy witch?
Different tastes, indeed. I find that image to be embarrassingly awful. Like something one of my 12 year old nephews might draw that I'd have to pretend to like so as not to make them feel bad.
Well when one gender is constantly sexualized and the other is not, it sends a message. We've been discussing this for over 200 pages now, are you really asking this question again?
Because when I think about the Queen piece in chess (or Bishop, or any piece for that matter), the first thing that comes to mind is sexy witch.
FFXIV - Milliardo Beoulve/Sargatanas
I would be cautious with this line of thought—it leads back to the question of justification. It doesn't make a difference if it's a chess game or a space opera RPG because the problem is big picture.
Making women sexy for no reason in games, including a chess game that includes all sorts of body types/ages/levels of attractiveness for men but only young sexy women dressed provocatively, leads to bad stuff in two broad categories.
The first category is game industry specific stuff, which was the catalyst for this thread. Read some of the #1reasonwhy tweets. They are linked in this thread in the first page. Kim Swift gets mistaken for a receptionist or day-hire marketing at trade shows. Caryn Vaino got blank stars when she asked why a female soldier had to look like a porn star. Tracy Hurley is told that making games for women is "niche" or politically correct, while making games for men is "normal." And so on. There are lots of things that cause this sort of behavior, but among the causes are people thinking that games are only made for men, and people thinking that games are only made by men. When for no reason the women in your game are sexualized, these are precisely the messages that are sent. Why is your chess wizard a sexy chess wizard? The game is made for men, by men (because women don't play games). Why is your asari Justicar wearing high heels and a suit unzipped down to her navel? Because men designed her to be something they wanted to fuck, and they felt pretty safe doing it because the players playing the game want to look at sexy women too (because the players are men). When it's just accepted that games are designed to be looked at by men, who want to see sexy women, and just accepted that this is the norm and that women aren't really playing these games, you get the problems that crop up in the #1reasonwhy tweets.
The second category is more general society wide stuff. Video games are media like movies and TV are media, and it is folly to suggest that media doesn't influence people (although I believe you've claimed as much a number of times, or at least made the negative claim that you're not yet convinced). When entertainment constantly depicts women in every role, from "chess wizard" to "nuclear physicist" as gorgeous, perfectly-bodied supermodels who are dressed so as to show off their looks first and foremost (and only secondarily, if at all, in a manner that is sensible: think chainmail bikinis, as if making it out of chainmail turns it into armor fit for a warrior), this sends a lot of messages.
It sends a message to men that no matter what a woman accomplishes, it's still part of her job to dress up for you, to look pretty for you. Women who don't look pretty are doing something wrong! They're denying you prettiness, basically.
It sends a message to everyone that it's not enough just to succeed at something like science or chess wizarding or tomb raiding to be a hero: you also have to be pretty. So when Hilary Clinton shows up looking tired or with a weird hairdo or dressed frumpily, everyone jumps on her, because it's an acceptable criticism of a woman, even the fucking Secretary of State, that she isn't looking nice today. Meanwhile George Bush runs around in jeans and people like that he's a down to earth dude.
It sends a message to women and particularly girls that they've always got to remember to keep looks in mind. When Steve Buscmeni gets to play interesting men but all the interesting women are played by beautiful women, when there's just one way for a hero to look, people (children especially) get the message that your looks are a very important component when it comes to being a great person. Nobody daydreams about being a fat Disney princess because there aren't any. They daydream about being a skinny Disney princess, and if they're fat, they start to hate their body.
These aren't the only messages it sends, of course, but they're bad ones, and they have bad results. Men think women are there to look at, theirs to hit on, theirs to date and fuck and marry. Pretty much everyone is owed a pretty woman: even the slobs in soap operas end up with hot wives. Fred Flinstone (who we can generously describe as "a caveman") gets Wilma, who I would describe if she weren't like pretty much every woman in any entertainment medium: not too tall or too short, very skinny, perfect figure, perfect hair, and so on. Pretty women get hit on constantly, especially when they dress up, and if they don't dress up they get shit from everyone. Ugly (or I should say "ugly" because of course these are just societal standards, not universal truths) women hate that they're ugly, they have to put in just as much effor to look pretty and still get looked down on for not being prettier, and so on. You don't even have to be ugly: just outside the norm. If you're a man and you're too tall, you're like 7' 2" or something because it's really hard to be too tall as a man. If you're a woman and you're too tall (which basically means "slightly taller than wherever men are at your age or above") then your self esteem is fucked. If you're too skinny or fat, same deal, and everyone is too skinny or too fat because the ideal body type is pretty fucking rare if you've looked out the window lately. If you're a dude outside the ideal body type, you don't get any shit. If you're fat enough you'll get shit for being fat (although fat women will get exactly the same shit, because the stigma against fat people isn't gendered, or more accurately it's even harsher on women), and if you're too skinny... nothing happens! I'm 6 feet tall and I weigh 125 lbs and my entire life nobody has ever given me shit for being too skinny.
I could keep going, but here's the summed up version: when women are always pretty for no reason other than that men want to look at pretty women, it sends a lot of messages with a lot of tangible bad results. We'll never fix this just by changing video games, but it would be a good start.
Sorry, but people have been using the righteousness of their crusades to justify banning any number of products. No, I have no doubt that art can affect people in both negative and positive ways, but that's not why it needs to be limited. In fact, that's exactly why it shouldn't be limited.
To give another example, I have no trouble believing that some violent video games might have a profoundly negative influence on children. For all I know, a game might, at some point, have pushed someone closer to committing actual murder. Movies, books and paintings may have all done the same! But I believe in a society where adults can create and consume whatever kind of entertainment they wish to.
A really good thing for our arguments, especially. Because it invalidates everything you are saying.
Nobody is calling for censorship, censorship has to come from the law. We just want to put pressure on creators to express our views, that's not censorship! We're just voting with our mouths and our dollars!
Well...yes and no.
Why do you think the first interracial kiss on television was a milestone? Why do you think that was considered a 'brave' move on the part of the Star Trek producers? There wasn't any law against interracial kissing at the time, so it wasn't a censorship issue, right? Yet it was a huge risk all the same.
What invisible force kept artists in the 80s and 90s from depicting many homosexual relationships, if there was no law against doing so? Obviously there were gay people in the 80s and 90s who would have enjoyed it, so what prevented there from being media to fill taht niche? The answer is that a large majority of people were opposed to it and so it wasn't "allowed" to happen, not even allowed as a niche form of entertainment. It offended a majority of people and that was enough. You couldn't take the risk.
The mindset of our culture has a huge impact on what kind of content artists are allowed to produce. Could Game of Thrones or The Dark Knight Rises have been made in the 80s, when admitting interest in fantasy or superheroes was enough to make you a target of social ridicule? You have entire genres of media that can be made or not made based on what we as a society find offensive enough to shout down, and we're often very wrong and very shortsighted about what we shout down in retrospect. We put a lot of pressure on creators to self-censor, and when that fails we often censor them directly through their distribution channels - Trey Parker and Matt Stone got into a fight with their studio over whether they were allowed to put a picture of Mohammed on TV. PA had to take a comic down because some company somewhere thought it misrepresented their brand. None of that is government censorship, but it all has a huge effect on what kinds of content artists feel comfortable creating.
And maybe you think that's okay, maybe you think that certain things are worthy of outrage, and that's fine. Just understand that when you say "That shouldn't have been made" over "I wouldn't buy that", you're contributing to an environment in which artists are afraid of being judged by standards that aren't their own, afraid of expressing their identity because the majority doesn't agree. And you're probably creating one more artist who, instead of expressing themselves, will either produce nothing or make the same bland shlock that every artist makes when they try to create something to appeal to everyone.
Steam: pazython
So the real question is, is it ever okay to use social pressure on people to get them to do things? Is there a way to draw a distinction?
Let me give you other examples of societal pressure that cause people to act different: boycotts of segregated bus systems. Boycotts of companies that supported apartheid South Africa. People who refuse to purchase simulated child pornography (this is a hypothetical because that stuff's illegal already). People who don't buy their 8 year olds "sexy" Halloween costumes. People who say that nobody should draw racist caricatures of Jews. People who don't watch FOX News because they think it's evil. Are any of these people doing anything wrong?
I submit that it is sometimes okay and sometimes not okay to use societal pressure to influence what art people make (or what people do in general). And by "pressure" I literally just mean criticism of art which has been going on for thousands of years, not bomb threats and literal murders that (circuitously) get depictions of Mohammed taken down or cross burnings that get interracial kisses censored or legal threats that get PA comics taken down.
Because that is what all your examples come down to. They are ultimately a response to coercion, violence, or legal threats. That's not what I am advocating and it's not what people who agree with me are advocating. We are talking about dialog and voting with our dollars, nothing more. If you can come up with examples where those things aren't okay, then we can talk. But right now your examples are disingenuous. The best you've got are Game of Thrones and The Dark Knight Rises, which are bad examples. Plenty of mature fantasy was made in the 80s, and Watchmen came out in 1986-7, and more importantly, Game of Thrones + Dark Knight Rises are as much a response to stuff in the 80s as they are things that couldn't have existed then.