So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
Your average video game will spend what, an hour total developing the narrative, max? That's less then a movie. And even then it tends to focus on plot over character development.
The player's actions are also part of the narrative though, so most games completely destroy movies as far as total length of story telling.
As far as writing goes they aren't anywhere near the same league. It takes a really bad movie to have worse writing and dialogue than even the best written video games.
Well, that's one useless comment out of the way. Anyone care to contribute something constructive?
Cheaper to produce which allows more risk taking rather then design by commite and with marketing teams. Also tends towards an ensemble cast, rather then maybe a couple main characters.
Not necessarily cheaper, and I'd argue that risk taking and TV don't actually mix very well at all for the most part. Ensembles... maybe, but I don't see why adding more characters makes it easier to develop them.
There are a lot more women working in TV, I suspect, than either games or movies.
You can do something like Spaced for fairly cheap, and get one of the non-main channels to take a gamble on it (this being cheap as a relative term). Your average videogame with any kind of story that isn't a self funded endeavour is going to at least run into a couple million.
On the ensemble point it boils down to the fact that the first few characters have to meet certain criteria, we need the heroic protagonist, the funny one, the woman oh whoops all our space is used up. They’re an archetype first and a character second with more limited room for development, whereas with a wide range of people you can develop the more tertiary ones as characters first instead of ticking off boxes. Reason ensemble darkhorses are so common.
That latter point is true as well, certainly. But things are slowly changing. Also forty hours? RPGs for sure, but your average length outside that genre is closer to eight to twelve.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
I imagine any significant disparities in gender issues are mostly a result of gaming being a relatively "new" market compared to television and (obviously to a lesser extent if we're following the above quote) movies.
It took quite a while for movies and television to get where they are in terms of gender representation (among other things), videogames are a much newer market and they're still going through a growing phase. Videogames have really only had two or three significant "generations" (2D, 3D, online), and videogames have only existed as a major market force for around a decade or so.
So you're looking at a field that is still very niche, and is slowly growing. In five or ten years the dolts at in marketting might figure out that some women play videogames and they therefore buy videogames. In ten or fifteen years female interest in videogames could reach a point where female writers and programmers make up a sizable portion of the industry. In fifteen or twenty years we might see the influence of more women in the industry.
Individual games can break these stereotypes, but if you're just looking at videogames as a sort of general concept you need to keep in mind where the industry came from and how that influences what it does.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
TV gives characters a lot more screen time than feature films. Whereas you can get away with "random accented piece of ass" style characters in the latest Bond flick, it wears thin fast in a television series. Television characters in ongoing series have a lot more time for characterization, so they get it.
For gaming, it's kind of a weird, nebulous middle ground. More time than is given in a film, but no way of knowing if you players are actually going to access most of it during the game (for a lot of games, anyway). So it's sort of a diminishing returns situation in a lot of cases. How much effort should go into deep characterizations if your playerbase may not even care enough to listen to them?
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
I imagine any significant disparities in gender issues are mostly a result of gaming being a relatively "new" market compared to television and (obviously to a lesser extent if we're following the above quote) movies.
It took quite a while for movies and television to get where they are in terms of gender representation (among other things), videogames are a much newer market and they're still going through a growing phase. Videogames have really only had two or three significant "generations" (2D, 3D, online), and videogames have only existed as a major market force for around a decade or so.
So you're looking at a field that is still very niche, and is slowly growing. In five or ten years the dolts at in marketting might figure out that some women play videogames and they therefore buy videogames. In ten or fifteen years female interest in videogames could reach a point where female writers and programmers make up a sizable portion of the industry. In fifteen or twenty years we might see the influence of more women in the industry.
Individual games can break these stereotypes, but if you're just looking at videogames as a sort of general concept you need to keep in mind where the industry came from and how that influences what it does.
I'm sorry, but a lot of that is bullshit. You talk about television, but fail to note that women had to fight the entrenched Hollywood systems tooth and nail to gain any traction in the writing and casting rooms, to the point that several discrimination lawsuits were filed over the matter. Hollywood didn't just wake up one day and decide that they were going to give women a more equal footing - it got dragged there kicking and screaming every step of the way.
And the reason there aren't many women in the field isn't lack of female interest, but the fact that the programming industry tends to be VERY hostile to women, trying to hide it under the concept of "meritocracy". Which is rather important to consider in light of yesterday (10/6/09) being the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. Women don't avoid programming in all its incarnations because of "lack of female interest" in the product, but thanks to institutionalized sexism in the industry. So don't try to say that it's a matter of lack of female interest when the evidence is there of hostility to women in these fields.
You're adding some of your own peculiar opinions to my post. I'm not saying that women didn't fight tooth and nail for equality, or that women have avoided the videogame industry because "lol mens is better programmers." My point was that change takes time, and both television and movies have had far more time than videogames.
You can put down the torch Hedgie, I'm not here to kill ur wimmins or ask them to make me samwhiches.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
Movies are usually about 90 minutes long, sometimes up to 3 hours, and then there's the occassionally series. Men DO tend to make up the majority of main characters though, especially with franchises. Only female main characters I can think of who are part of a series come from the horror genre (Alien, etc).
While not the sole reason, TV series have a LOT of episodes to fill, so secondary characters can have their own episodes devoted to development, and main characters don't have to take up the majority of screen time. FRIENDS used to have entire story arcs devoted to specific boyfriends and girlfriends of the main cast, for instance.
The hours in gaming terms has been handled by others.
Incenjucar on
0
Options
Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
Okay, one, OSS is not necessarily representative of all software development. Two, with the exception of hte "hacker ethic," none of that is any more hostile towards women than it is towards newcomers or interface experts in general.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
And this is primarily because it is easier to tap into gender norms as a foundational selling point because we are so familiar with it than it is to rework and introduce a new conceptualization of masculinity or femininity.
You see this with advertising regularly. Gender norms are very easy to prey upon and several of the blockbusters do just that.
Okay, one, OSS is not necessarily representative of all software development. Two, with the exception of hte "hacker ethic," none of that is any more hostile towards women than it is towards newcomers or interface experts in general.
I would say the following is still relevant to software development:
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have difficulties to integrate into the community.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Video games don't have interesting, complex characters of any gender.
Actually, it interests me that it's easier to think of interesting female characters for TV than for movies
Really? Ripley and Sarah Conner are two of the most well known female characters, both are mothers and fighters as tough (if not tougher) then the men around them. I'd say they're both as complex as the female leads from Firefly or BSG.
Okay, one, OSS is not necessarily representative of all software development. Two, with the exception of hte "hacker ethic," none of that is any more hostile towards women than it is towards newcomers or interface experts in general.
I would say the following is still relevant to software development:
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have difficulties to integrate into the community.
So it's society-at-large's fault that women can't program rather then the software industry in particular?
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Video games don't have interesting, complex characters of any gender.
Actually, it interests me that it's easier to think of interesting female characters for TV than for movies
Really? Ripley and Sarah Conner are two of the most well known female characters, both are mothers and fighters as tough (if not tougher) then the men around them. I'd say they're both as complex as the female leads from Firefly or BSG.
Right. You got two female action-y characters for movie, and ten for TV.
And the two you thought of are from 20 years ago, wheras the ones mentioned are new.
Maybe a little off topic but I think an interesting view on gender roles can be found in that show. It's 6 seasons of strong and weak women, unimportant and important women, etc. It explores sex, family, and lots of other issues and there are very few 'open and close' female characters.
This has been an interesting thread to read so far. haha.
As a female gamer, I can honestly say that I rarely feel that I'm subjected to sexism by the games I play. I think there are a lot of things that are misappropriated as sexism (which has been pointed out several times in the thread), but actual sexism in games isn't the glaring problem that is randomly trumpeted about in things like social discussions (and Women's Studies classes apparently). I don't consider a greater number of male leads or male-centric storylines to be sexist, nor do I consider having attractive/scantily clad women to be particularly sexist (albeit sexualized). For a great part, female characters in games are just as capable an valuable as their male counterparts. There are exceptions, of course, as has been noted in a few instances. The reason, usually, that the black mark of sexism is placed on gaming as a whole has more to do with stereotypical teen boy asswipe behavior (there are times i don't turn on my headset to play halo unless absolutely necessary) and stereotypes of gamers in general than actual game characters and stories. Just my impression.
I will say, though, it is nice to play a female character that isn't parading around with beach balls on her chest. But when the girl with beach-ball-chest can kick everybody's ass, I chalk that up more to fantasy than sexism.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
There's still a shitload of room, is my actual point O_o
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
And this is primarily because it is easier to tap into gender norms as a foundational selling point because we are so familiar with it than it is to rework and introduce a new conceptualization of masculinity or femininity.
You see this with advertising regularly. Gender norms are very easy to prey upon and several of the blockbusters do just that.
Let's not forget that it's very hard to write characterization without forcing the player outr, so it's generally easier to let the emotion come from the fact that the consumer has actually worked for the loss that the writer puts in, so it makes a much deeper impact.
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Video games don't have interesting, complex characters of any gender.
Actually, it interests me that it's easier to think of interesting female characters for TV than for movies
Really? Ripley and Sarah Conner are two of the most well known female characters, both are mothers and fighters as tough (if not tougher) then the men around them. I'd say they're both as complex as the female leads from Firefly or BSG.
Right. You got two female action-y characters for movie, and ten for TV.
And the two you thought of are from 20 years ago, wheras the ones mentioned are new.
It couldn't possibly be that there aren't as many movie series as TV. Not at all.
The rest of you, I fucking hate you for the fact that I now have a blue dot on this god awful thread.
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited December 2009
Also, mothers get a pass to be tough when protecting their brood. This is one instance where it is socially expected and acceptable for women to be fucking hell on wheels.
Also, mothers get a pass to be tough when protecting their brood. This is one instance where it is socially expected and acceptable for women to be fucking hell on wheels.
So what are you looking for? Women that are just tough killers? Isn't there a regularly voiced argument that they're just men with a vagina and breasts?
Robman on
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Also, mothers get a pass to be tough when protecting their brood. This is one instance where it is socially expected and acceptable for women to be fucking hell on wheels.
So what are you looking for? Women that are just tough killers? Isn't there a regularly voiced argument that they're just men with a vagina and breasts?
All I did was point out a matter of fact.
But I suppose you can get super-defensive if you want.
Also, mothers get a pass to be tough when protecting their brood. This is one instance where it is socially expected and acceptable for women to be fucking hell on wheels.
So what are you looking for? Women that are just tough killers? Isn't there a regularly voiced argument that they're just men with a vagina and breasts?
All I did was point out a matter of fact.
But I suppose you can get super-defensive if you want.
Also, mothers get a pass to be tough when protecting their brood. This is one instance where it is socially expected and acceptable for women to be fucking hell on wheels.
So what are you looking for? Women that are just tough killers? Isn't there a regularly voiced argument that they're just men with a vagina and breasts?
All I did was point out a matter of fact.
But I suppose you can get super-defensive if you want.
A matter of fact? Interesting choice of word.
I think it's within reason to say that the "mother bear" female action lead is acceptable to action movies.
There are certainly other "action" leads, but the idea of getting between a mother and her child (in common media) being a bad idea isn't generally disputed.
EDIT: When I say action movies, I mean movies with action in general.
I really think we need to be careful of selection bias when talking about generalizations of a genre or medium. I see a lot of anecdotal examples being used to establish the "norm" which is pretty whack. If you want to establish a norm you need to actually do the statistics.
So, to try and get my own perspective on this I guess I'll look through my game binder and see how things look:
EUII: History is pretty sexist, not the games fault.
Homeworld: Considering you never even see anyone except in vague silhouettes, to the point where you can't even say if the protagonists are supposed to be humanoid, I'm going to label this as rather asexual, though the mothership voice is female and IIRC is canonically a woman-cyborg-thing. Most of the unit voice acting is male-ish I guess?
Mechcommander 1&2: Male protagonist in both cases, with I think a female Tac Op in both as well IIRC. The pilot roster is pretty egalitarian though, and runs the gambit from ugly to attractive for both sexes.
Civ 4: Not much to say here. The female leaders are not particularly sexualized, IMHO.
MoHAA and all other WWII shooters: No female characters, but again historical accuracy is a decent excuse.
Every other RTS I have: These all seem fine as well.
Lords of Magic: You have about an equal mix of genders for the unit sprites for all three classes (warrior/mage/thief). Seems fine to me.
Mechwarrior 2-4: Male protagonist in all of them, but plenty of females in the supporting cast. Battletech cannon in general is rather good about this.
Prey: Hm. There is a damsel in distress thing going on here, but I think it's overshadowed by the whole "fighting aliens with your magic Cherokee powers. Because your native american. And all native americans can do magic" thing. Except your girlfriend. She doesnt' get any magic powers. I assume this is because the Spirits are sexists pigs.
Half Life: The complete lack of female characters in this is kind of lame. But at least there's no one to objectify, I guess. Also, there are only 4 generic scientist models and one generic guard model.
Moving on to my Wii games:
Zelda TP: No real problems.
Mario Kart: Except for the fact that apparently putting a bow on something or making it pink or yellow makes it female, even when talking about mushrooms, dinosaurs, and lizards, this seems pretty ok as well.
Metroid Prime 3: I don't think anyone has a problem with Samus.
Now, as you can tell by this list it may just be the fact that I don't really play "mainstream" games. But it seems to be that even if we consider those to make up a huge chunk of the sales for games, in terms of the complete library and breadth of games that exist saying that gaming as a whole is sexist just because of those is rather silly.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
FFVI has always been an interesting case: Not only does the plot revolve around the two female leads (Terra in part one and Celes in part two) but they are also hands down the best characters gameplay wise, and in an interesting twist have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
Okay, one, OSS is not necessarily representative of all software development. Two, with the exception of hte "hacker ethic," none of that is any more hostile towards women than it is towards newcomers or interface experts in general.
I would say the following is still relevant to software development:
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have difficulties to integrate into the community.
So it's society-at-large's fault that women can't program rather then the software industry in particular?
So, I take it you can't read, can you?
This is basically one of Cat's favorite points to talk about - that thanks to society's preconceptions about domestic labor allocations, most women don't have the free time to participate like men do. Furthermore, if you actually read the study, the study actually reveals that the tech community tends to be a hostile place for women. Worse, they tend to buy into the sort of "genderblind" arguments that we mock conservatives for making.
FFVI has always been an interesting case: Not only does the plot revolve around the two female leads (Terra in part one and Celes in part two) but they are also hands down the best characters gameplay wise, and in an interesting twist have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
FFVI has always been an interesting case: Not only does the plot revolve around the two female leads (Terra in part one and Celes in part two) but they are also hands down the best characters gameplay wise, and in an interesting twist have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
Honestly, I would assume that was an accident on the part of the designers. I doubt they intended Terra to be played or conceived of as a hack-and-slasher.
Although Celes is concepted as a Rune-Knight, which is admittedly a progressive bit of gender-bending.
Her end game weapon list includes all the most powerful stuff, the best magic defense/evade armor is Celes/Terra only, the best hat for boosting magic stats is Celes/Terra only (and adds to m.evade too, the most important defensive stat) they can also use most of the store bought earlier equipment that dominates.
They were clearly designed with heavy armor and swords in mind, and both of them got upgrades in that department in the FF VI Advance port.
If you look at it from a gender neutral perspective it makes sense though. They are the two main characters and the main characters are usually the best in any FF game. It's interesting to note that Celes love interest and arguably the third main character is one of the lower end characters when all is said and done, locked away for most of the second part of the game. Cele's motivation for going out and trying to fix the world is to find this "Dude in distress" as well.
Xenogears of Bore on
3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
0
Options
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
Okay, one, OSS is not necessarily representative of all software development. Two, with the exception of hte "hacker ethic," none of that is any more hostile towards women than it is towards newcomers or interface experts in general.
I would say the following is still relevant to software development:
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have difficulties to integrate into the community.
So it's society-at-large's fault that women can't program rather then the software industry in particular?
So, I take it you can't read, can you?
This is basically one of Cat's favorite points to talk about - that thanks to society's preconceptions about domestic labor allocations, most women don't have the free time to participate like men do. Furthermore, if you actually read the study, the study actually reveals that the tech community tends to be a hostile place for women. Worse, they tend to buy into the sort of "genderblind" arguments that we mock conservatives for making.
Actually, my first thought when I saw this thread was "Jade Redmond." It was interesting that she was programmer/face of Assassin's Creed. I can't recall how many times this was brought up on these forums (and elsewhere), but it really was "check it out! Hot chick making the game!"
So, just on the topic of "female characters in movies are sexist and retarded too, so neener", can we now try and explain why that's often not the case on TV? Weeds, Nurse Jackie, the Sopranos, BSG, True Blood, Firefly, Farscape, Burn Notice, hell even stuff like SG-1 and Sanctuary - heaps of shows have interesting, complex female characters that aren't channeling Romantic Comedy Bimbo at the screen. What makes TV stand out, and why can't video games get there?
Length of narrative?
Fail. Doesn't explain why interesting male characters outnumber females in movies, a medium which has arguably less time for character development than a computer game, which generally has at least 40 hours of play time in which to work.
There's a lot more women in writing and directing for TV than movies. A lot more. Features are still, for the most part, dominated by bearers of the almighty Y chromosome.
EDIT: Same goes for videogames; still mostly male dev-side.
One thing to also consider when looking at video games and saying "why aren't the characters deeper/complex/realer" is that... they aren't real. Merely having an actress, an actual person breathing life into a scene, on set as a reoccuring character is enough to inspire the writer to take the character into a new direction. The video game making process is very much more cloistered and self-centred than other production mediums. In video games, the actors are some of the last things to be used. In film and television, they keep the whole process going.
Video games are more like pilots than TV shows in this sense.
Improvolone on
Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
FFVI has always been an interesting case: Not only does the plot revolve around the two female leads (Terra in part one and Celes in part two) but they are also hands down the best characters gameplay wise, and in an interesting twist have the best defensive equipment of them all, allowing them to completely shut down most offense against them in most versions.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
In the endgame, maybe. At the beginning, edgar and sabin do way more damage with their special moves, so terra and celes's main use is to cast cure magic.
One thing to also consider when looking at video games and saying "why aren't the characters deeper/complex/realer" is that... they aren't real. Merely having an actress, an actual person breathing life into a scene, on set as a reoccuring character is enough to inspire the writer to take the character into a new direction. The video game making process is very much more cloistered and self-centred than other production mediums. In video games, the actors are some of the last things to be used. In film and television, they keep the whole process going.
Video games are more like pilots than TV shows in this sense.
The development process is also non-linear. Your voice acting will be recorded well in advance of seeing at all how your scenes playout and it will cost the moon to redo things. With actors they're right there and you can see how it's all coming together between action, sound and the specific personality you've got right there.
Posts
40 hours of play time, sure. A tiny fraction of which is spent actually developing narrative. The rest is inventory screens and fighting monsters.
Your average video game will spend what, an hour total developing the narrative, max? That's less then a movie. And even then it tends to focus on plot over character development.
As far as writing goes they aren't anywhere near the same league. It takes a really bad movie to have worse writing and dialogue than even the best written video games.
On the ensemble point it boils down to the fact that the first few characters have to meet certain criteria, we need the heroic protagonist, the funny one, the woman oh whoops all our space is used up. They’re an archetype first and a character second with more limited room for development, whereas with a wide range of people you can develop the more tertiary ones as characters first instead of ticking off boxes. Reason ensemble darkhorses are so common.
That latter point is true as well, certainly. But things are slowly changing. Also forty hours? RPGs for sure, but your average length outside that genre is closer to eight to twelve.
I imagine any significant disparities in gender issues are mostly a result of gaming being a relatively "new" market compared to television and (obviously to a lesser extent if we're following the above quote) movies.
It took quite a while for movies and television to get where they are in terms of gender representation (among other things), videogames are a much newer market and they're still going through a growing phase. Videogames have really only had two or three significant "generations" (2D, 3D, online), and videogames have only existed as a major market force for around a decade or so.
So you're looking at a field that is still very niche, and is slowly growing. In five or ten years the dolts at in marketting might figure out that some women play videogames and they therefore buy videogames. In ten or fifteen years female interest in videogames could reach a point where female writers and programmers make up a sizable portion of the industry. In fifteen or twenty years we might see the influence of more women in the industry.
Individual games can break these stereotypes, but if you're just looking at videogames as a sort of general concept you need to keep in mind where the industry came from and how that influences what it does.
For gaming, it's kind of a weird, nebulous middle ground. More time than is given in a film, but no way of knowing if you players are actually going to access most of it during the game (for a lot of games, anyway). So it's sort of a diminishing returns situation in a lot of cases. How much effort should go into deep characterizations if your playerbase may not even care enough to listen to them?
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I'm sorry, but a lot of that is bullshit. You talk about television, but fail to note that women had to fight the entrenched Hollywood systems tooth and nail to gain any traction in the writing and casting rooms, to the point that several discrimination lawsuits were filed over the matter. Hollywood didn't just wake up one day and decide that they were going to give women a more equal footing - it got dragged there kicking and screaming every step of the way.
And the reason there aren't many women in the field isn't lack of female interest, but the fact that the programming industry tends to be VERY hostile to women, trying to hide it under the concept of "meritocracy". Which is rather important to consider in light of yesterday (10/6/09) being the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. Women don't avoid programming in all its incarnations because of "lack of female interest" in the product, but thanks to institutionalized sexism in the industry. So don't try to say that it's a matter of lack of female interest when the evidence is there of hostility to women in these fields.
You can put down the torch Hedgie, I'm not here to kill ur wimmins or ask them to make me samwhiches.
Movies are usually about 90 minutes long, sometimes up to 3 hours, and then there's the occassionally series. Men DO tend to make up the majority of main characters though, especially with franchises. Only female main characters I can think of who are part of a series come from the horror genre (Alien, etc).
While not the sole reason, TV series have a LOT of episodes to fill, so secondary characters can have their own episodes devoted to development, and main characters don't have to take up the majority of screen time. FRIENDS used to have entire story arcs devoted to specific boyfriends and girlfriends of the main cast, for instance.
The hours in gaming terms has been handled by others.
There is a ton of time to tell an actual good story with good dialogue in a video game. And yet it is almost never done.
There is a ton of time and resources and space to create characters with more depth than paper, and yet it is almost never done.
Video games' characters and stories are generally just shorthand for a story you already know. Brave princes and damsels and hard-ass mercenaries and terrorists and all of that. In terms of narrative and storytelling, the medium is still in its infancy. It is little surprise that when it cribs from every other well-travelled trope, they end up with the same ethnic and gender stereotypes in the same boring characters in the same boring story.
On the occasions where the game works a little harder on its characters and stories, the characters start to diverge a little from the gender stereotypes. Morrigan from DA:O is certainly a strong-willed female character (if something of The Shrew). Elika from Prince of Persia has her own distinct personality. Jade from BG&E, of course, is a fantastic character. Faith from Mirror's Edge is maybe not the deepest character but is certainly atypical and likable.
Basically, I think that the medium as a whole is going in a relatively good direction where story and plot are being considered at all. Where the medium is just genre twaddle and fanboy service, we should expect it to continue to be roughly as progressive as porn, romance novels and Tom Clancy books.
And this is primarily because it is easier to tap into gender norms as a foundational selling point because we are so familiar with it than it is to rework and introduce a new conceptualization of masculinity or femininity.
You see this with advertising regularly. Gender norms are very easy to prey upon and several of the blockbusters do just that.
I would say the following is still relevant to software development:
1.2.6 The reliance on long hours of intensive computing in writing successful code means that men, who in general assume that time outside of waged labour is ‘theirs’, are freer to participate than women, who normally still assume a disproportionate amount of domestic responsibilities. Female F/LOSS participants, however, seem to be able to allocate a disproportionate larger share of their leisure time for their F/LOSS activities. This gives an indication that women who are not able to spend as much time on voluntary activities have difficulties to integrate into the community.
Really? Ripley and Sarah Conner are two of the most well known female characters, both are mothers and fighters as tough (if not tougher) then the men around them. I'd say they're both as complex as the female leads from Firefly or BSG.
So it's society-at-large's fault that women can't program rather then the software industry in particular?
Right. You got two female action-y characters for movie, and ten for TV.
And the two you thought of are from 20 years ago, wheras the ones mentioned are new.
Maybe a little off topic but I think an interesting view on gender roles can be found in that show. It's 6 seasons of strong and weak women, unimportant and important women, etc. It explores sex, family, and lots of other issues and there are very few 'open and close' female characters.
As a female gamer, I can honestly say that I rarely feel that I'm subjected to sexism by the games I play. I think there are a lot of things that are misappropriated as sexism (which has been pointed out several times in the thread), but actual sexism in games isn't the glaring problem that is randomly trumpeted about in things like social discussions (and Women's Studies classes apparently). I don't consider a greater number of male leads or male-centric storylines to be sexist, nor do I consider having attractive/scantily clad women to be particularly sexist (albeit sexualized). For a great part, female characters in games are just as capable an valuable as their male counterparts. There are exceptions, of course, as has been noted in a few instances. The reason, usually, that the black mark of sexism is placed on gaming as a whole has more to do with stereotypical teen boy asswipe behavior (there are times i don't turn on my headset to play halo unless absolutely necessary) and stereotypes of gamers in general than actual game characters and stories. Just my impression.
I will say, though, it is nice to play a female character that isn't parading around with beach balls on her chest. But when the girl with beach-ball-chest can kick everybody's ass, I chalk that up more to fantasy than sexism.
wish list
Steam wishlist
Etsy wishlist
Let's not forget that it's very hard to write characterization without forcing the player outr, so it's generally easier to let the emotion come from the fact that the consumer has actually worked for the loss that the writer puts in, so it makes a much deeper impact.
It couldn't possibly be that there aren't as many movie series as TV. Not at all.
So what are you looking for? Women that are just tough killers? Isn't there a regularly voiced argument that they're just men with a vagina and breasts?
All I did was point out a matter of fact.
But I suppose you can get super-defensive if you want.
A matter of fact? Interesting choice of word.
I think it's within reason to say that the "mother bear" female action lead is acceptable to action movies.
There are certainly other "action" leads, but the idea of getting between a mother and her child (in common media) being a bad idea isn't generally disputed.
EDIT: When I say action movies, I mean movies with action in general.
So, to try and get my own perspective on this I guess I'll look through my game binder and see how things look:
EUII: History is pretty sexist, not the games fault.
Homeworld: Considering you never even see anyone except in vague silhouettes, to the point where you can't even say if the protagonists are supposed to be humanoid, I'm going to label this as rather asexual, though the mothership voice is female and IIRC is canonically a woman-cyborg-thing. Most of the unit voice acting is male-ish I guess?
Mechcommander 1&2: Male protagonist in both cases, with I think a female Tac Op in both as well IIRC. The pilot roster is pretty egalitarian though, and runs the gambit from ugly to attractive for both sexes.
Civ 4: Not much to say here. The female leaders are not particularly sexualized, IMHO.
MoHAA and all other WWII shooters: No female characters, but again historical accuracy is a decent excuse.
Every other RTS I have: These all seem fine as well.
Lords of Magic: You have about an equal mix of genders for the unit sprites for all three classes (warrior/mage/thief). Seems fine to me.
Mechwarrior 2-4: Male protagonist in all of them, but plenty of females in the supporting cast. Battletech cannon in general is rather good about this.
Prey: Hm. There is a damsel in distress thing going on here, but I think it's overshadowed by the whole "fighting aliens with your magic Cherokee powers. Because your native american. And all native americans can do magic" thing. Except your girlfriend. She doesnt' get any magic powers. I assume this is because the Spirits are sexists pigs.
Half Life: The complete lack of female characters in this is kind of lame. But at least there's no one to objectify, I guess. Also, there are only 4 generic scientist models and one generic guard model.
Moving on to my Wii games:
Zelda TP: No real problems.
Mario Kart: Except for the fact that apparently putting a bow on something or making it pink or yellow makes it female, even when talking about mushrooms, dinosaurs, and lizards, this seems pretty ok as well.
Metroid Prime 3: I don't think anyone has a problem with Samus.
Now, as you can tell by this list it may just be the fact that I don't really play "mainstream" games. But it seems to be that even if we consider those to make up a huge chunk of the sales for games, in terms of the complete library and breadth of games that exist saying that gaming as a whole is sexist just because of those is rather silly.
Now while they seem on the surface to be your typical FF frail back row magic casting bosomy magesticks they end up being two of the better sword and board classes as well with the best selection hands down of offensive equips and having most of the best defensive equips!
So, I take it you can't read, can you?
This is basically one of Cat's favorite points to talk about - that thanks to society's preconceptions about domestic labor allocations, most women don't have the free time to participate like men do. Furthermore, if you actually read the study, the study actually reveals that the tech community tends to be a hostile place for women. Worse, they tend to buy into the sort of "genderblind" arguments that we mock conservatives for making.
Relm is the greatest FFVI character...
Honestly, I would assume that was an accident on the part of the designers. I doubt they intended Terra to be played or conceived of as a hack-and-slasher.
Although Celes is concepted as a Rune-Knight, which is admittedly a progressive bit of gender-bending.
Her end game weapon list includes all the most powerful stuff, the best magic defense/evade armor is Celes/Terra only, the best hat for boosting magic stats is Celes/Terra only (and adds to m.evade too, the most important defensive stat) they can also use most of the store bought earlier equipment that dominates.
They were clearly designed with heavy armor and swords in mind, and both of them got upgrades in that department in the FF VI Advance port.
If you look at it from a gender neutral perspective it makes sense though. They are the two main characters and the main characters are usually the best in any FF game. It's interesting to note that Celes love interest and arguably the third main character is one of the lower end characters when all is said and done, locked away for most of the second part of the game. Cele's motivation for going out and trying to fix the world is to find this "Dude in distress" as well.
Actually, my first thought when I saw this thread was "Jade Redmond." It was interesting that she was programmer/face of Assassin's Creed. I can't recall how many times this was brought up on these forums (and elsewhere), but it really was "check it out! Hot chick making the game!"
EDIT: Same goes for videogames; still mostly male dev-side.
Video games are more like pilots than TV shows in this sense.
Wait, are you implying that a software bug has a social motive?
In the endgame, maybe. At the beginning, edgar and sabin do way more damage with their special moves, so terra and celes's main use is to cast cure magic.
The development process is also non-linear. Your voice acting will be recorded well in advance of seeing at all how your scenes playout and it will cost the moon to redo things. With actors they're right there and you can see how it's all coming together between action, sound and the specific personality you've got right there.