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Dead Island PR come up with most appalling idea in history of gaming PR
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While I don't at all think you fall under the purview of rape culture, I did want to clarify that "rape culture" is typically identified psychologically in part as the physical disassociation of a woman from her sexual organs which is essentially what is happening here. The statue is wrong in many ways, and one is that those who are already prone to those sorts of behaviors will drool over this, but I don't think that is something you intended to convey as acceptable from having read the rest of your posts. It is, however, fairly valid to point out the similarities in identification and creating this statue as a performative function for the purpose of sexual gratification.
Let me try to break this down for you.
There is no context--not even a hypothetical context--in which the people in Deep Silver's marketing department would have created a male version of that torso. I guarantee it. Such an object would have been completely worthless to them. They'd be about as likely to send out statuettes of Mickey Mouse. The statue-of-a-woman's-torso exists 100% because they wanted to capitalize on sex appeal. If they had wanted to capitalize primarily on gore, or zombies, or absolutely anything else, they would have made something fundamentally different. A cleanly-severed torso does not evoke zombies very well in and of itself; zombies do not wield hacksaws. (Corollary: if they had decided to make an unsexy gory corpse from the outset, they would not have considered making it female even for the briefest of instants.)
Deep Silver's marketing department didn't get together, say "a mutilated torso would be a cool centerpiece for our gore-centric collector's edition", and then throw darts at a board to randomly decide what physical attributes it should have. They got together, said "let's figure out the most visually striking method of getting a pair of tits in this box", and, though actual discussion, decided that the mutilated torso of a murdered woman was their best option for pushing the sexy angle on their male audience.
The problem isn't a disgusting figurine, it's a disgusting mindset which produces--among many other things--figurines. This particular instance just happens to do a much worse job of obfuscating it than most. You can't divorce the statue itself from the mindset which created it and the cultural context that mindset developed in. Not if you want to really understand what it means to people.
Sigh
Yes we have. Many times. But let us continue our sisyphian task:
That thing above? That's the definition of misogyny. This has been explained to you many times. You just chose to ignore it or to handwave it away with "well that's just, like, your opinion dude". But no, it's just the definition of the word.
What baffles me is why you keep trying to steer the conversation in this semantic direction, because what really matters here is what I tried to ask you before:
Regardless of whether you want to call it misogyny, can you at least admit that the literal reduction of a woman to a pair of tits is a bad thing? Can you really not understand why some of us feel that is a bad thing and that we should express that it is a bad thing?
@Fawst
Well, I can only speak for myself, but I need a person to fulfill my sexual desires. Considering breasts are always (except in this case) attached to a person,
You know what, I don't even think I can conj
No, I'm pointing out that there are terms that are used in these conversations that have certain meanings, which you are clearly ignorant to, as evidenced by your response here. "Rape Culture" is the term used to describe the culture being alluded to. "Misogyny" is both a cause and symptom of this culture and encompasses more than hatred toward women but also marginalization and objectification of women.
Ignorance isn't a crime if you are willing learn - but you're just arguing semantics when you are totally wrong. It's a pointless argument because it's not really a debatable subject - these are just terms that people use to describe the culture and the attitudes at play in this topic.
This is a limited edition figure for the miniature wargame Malifaux. The company that makes the game (Wyrd) decided to reward their community representatives with an opportunity to receive a highly limited edition female resculpt of an originally male character.
I think it's a nicely sexy figure (no doubt they're going for some T&A here) without being terribly exploitive. Bare midriff aside she's basically dressed like many of the other figures in the lineup, and she's busy killing a zombie like it isn't a thing, because that's what she does. She hunts creatures down and puts a bullet right between their eyes.
And, well, player characters are generally the same. Barring some exceptions, if zombies exist as a hazard, the odds are good that at some point we are going to be bludgeoning and gunning them down in droves. There are exceptions (some survival horror games come to mind), but assuming DI 2 is similar to DI 1, it'd be perfectly fitting to show off one of the female protagonists doing their thing and wrecking some zombie shit.
Now, would a woman in a bikini killing a zombie remove any semblance of sexism or misogyny? Probably not, but at least in my eyes they wouldn't be actively trying to push the bar lower.
I could say "doing" instead of "Performative action" but while the former includes the latter, the latter does not include all but a tiny portion of the former. Sometimes words like agency, performativity, context and the like are needed because they make needed and specific differentiations in concept.
Sometimes. But there's a point to be made about $100 words not being associated with all the random crap that $10 words usually are -- they tend to let you be a lot more specific with what you're saying just by virtue of the fact that they get used a lot less often.
Unless it's someone saying stuff like "To reiterate, I am not unwilling to investigate your purview of established conjecture" in which case, yeah, please put down the thesaurus.
That will only happen if you take it from my cold, clammy, blood strewn, headless and limbless torso. And then only if you drape me in the appropriate Pro-UK apparel.
That's cool. I asked a question because I was confused by Enc's intent in his statement, but you can paint whatever opinions on me you want. I'm like one of those unfinished ceramics shops.
I do, however, think that you can divorce the figurine from every form of context and still think it's stupid and hideous. 'cause it's stupid and hideous. Mutilated corpses aren't sexy and it's clear that's the intent in the piece, even viewed in a vacuum.
If you take away the mutilation part then I don't think there's anything specifically wrong with the statue in and of itself. There's obviously something wrong with the art department that produced and okay'd the thing and with all the levels of marketing and management it had to go through to get to the point it did, but I wasn't trying to argue that there wasn't. I was confused by the apparent sentiment that there's something inherently wrong with a statue of breasts. That wasn't Enc's intent, so my confusion is now abated. Yay!
I just want to point out that this was a good article, relevant to the discussion.
While I really think you should just, y'know, read the whole thing, I'm going to try to quote the most relevant parts for the folks who won't:
We should not stand by and hide behind phrases like "it's just a statue", because when we do, when we shrug and say "eh, no big deal", we are complicit in fostering the sort of environment in which these views on and treatments of women are considered normal. And no, you can't see this outside of its broader context of rampant sexism and objectification in society. This is a part of that. This is something that, if nobody spoke up, would contribute to that.
Well, yeah. But what you and I need to fulfill desires isn't what someone else needs. And, its not like its the context of the rest of the woman that gives breasts all of their sex appeal, otherwise the size and shape of the breasts wouldnt matter. The breasts themselves have visual appeal.
And regardless, that isn't even the point. The argument against this is that we are reducing women to just the parts we find sexually appealing. So, the literal example of the statue aside, what is the problem with focusing on the physical attributes we find appealing when attempting to satisfy our sexual desires?
Plus there is the idea that what isn't being shown is sexy, because we can use our imagination. Yes, the manner in which the rest of the body is removed from the sculpture makes it harder to do so, but I wouldn't think it would be impossible.
If there isnt a problem with simply focusing on the breasts of a women to fulfil our sexual desires, then the question becomes, what is the problem with exploiting people's desire to satisfy their sexual desires via a marketing campaign?
The argument that it reinforces a culture that is anti-women is something I haven't been convinced of. No more than GTA reinforces a culture of violence. I believe that I can seperate my sexual desires from every day interactions with women. Just as I can seperate the joy i get from driving a police car into a crowd of pedestrians in GTA from actually driving.
And then, later on, people wonder why women aren't interested in gaming.
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Well, with as healthy as your perspective obviously is I'm sure you have a very healthy and active sex life with a fulfilling and equal partner. Maybe you should ask her what she thinks of the statue and this discussion.
Whether or not its a good marketing campaign that may push away a group of people more than it will bring in others is a different debate than if there is something morally wrong that we should be boycotting.
I will 100% agree its a bad marketing campaign. I don't think you'll find a lot of people who arent turned off by the concept of a female torso ripped apart by zombies. I do agree it sends the message to women that the game isnt for them, at all. Which is a problem when using sex to appeal to men.
But I don't agree its something to be morally offended about.
Cool. We do.
There is an entire thread of arguments saying why we feel this way.
It is not our job to repeat everything we've already said to convince you. At this point, you either agree or you don't, and if you don't, well, bully for you.
That isn't going to stop us from saying that your dismissal is part of the problem.
I thought I had responded to you but now I can't find it. Yes, I absolutely admit that the literal reduction of a woman to a pair of tits is a bad thing. I can understand why some of you feel that is a bad thing and that you should express that it is a bad thing. I AM WITH YOU. I disagree on the wording. I'm fighting a losing battle because again, definitions.
Speaking of which, regarding wikipedia's definition and my argument, it says that "Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including sexual discrimination, denigration of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification of women." It does NOT say that those things ARE misogynistic at all times in all circumstances. In fact, if you look those terms up in wikipedia you get only ONE instance of a direct relation to misogyny, and that's under "Sexism" which is redirected from "sexual discrimination." There is a subsection labeled "Relationship between rape and misogyny," which itself isn't even completely connected to sexism, so I question it being there. The point is this: in none of those cases does it state specifically that those things are in and of themselves misogynistic. That, coupled with the context is where I get my argument from.
To elaborate on this.
Violence such as what you can do in GTA is pretty clearly condemned in society. Sexism really isn't. Mostly people just tell themselves it isn't actually there.
I can't really separate the statue from literally reducing a woman to her tits, because that's the very essence of the statue. And uh, yeah, objectifying a woman to just a pair of sex organs is wrong. Your own needs and desires are not somehow more important than not reducing a person, a human being with a personality, to that.
And if you're into that, well, that's your thing. But it is absolutely wrong to foster a culture around this. It's not okay to put a statue like this on the market because it strengthens the idea that objectifying women is fine! It's not! It's not cool to reduce human beings that way and to give people within society the idea that that's okay! It's harmful. Your desires are sort of irrelevant to that, sorry.
12:06 for the statue's moment in the limelight.
I think he has pretty reasonable points.
That would just be anecdotal.
I honestly can't tell if this is sarcastic orr not. But I actually will probably discuss this with my wife when I get home though. I predict she, like me, will not find it appealing, but wont see a moral outrage with it. She will likely be turned off from the game because of it. But that's not really a moral issue. I would be turned off from marketing designed to attract women, likely, or gay men.
Honestly though, what was the point of your suggestion that I do so? Not seeing how it is relevant in the debate.
I can sum that video up thusly: "God dammit, guys, really?"
EDIT: That really was a great video, not simply because the guy agrees with me. He distills it to its essence: Deep Silver are a bunch of dumbasses for this one.
Just because all donuts don't have sugar in them doesn't mean that the vast majority don't. You can define Misogyny in the fashion you are suggesting, with extensive corollaries and warrants about why you are doing so, but that isn't how the word is actively used in practice (professionally or layman).
Perspective. It may be that she does see things exactly like you do. It may be she doesn't. From the point of view of nearly every female in this thread it isn't acceptable. It would be interesting to hear from a female who doesn't see this as degrading with reasoning.
See, I understand that "misogyny" and "rape culture" are the accepted terms, but I feel like that's an unfortunate evolution in the English language. By applying those terms to attitudes like Fawst's, it implies a flaw in his character, rather than merely a flaw in his thinking. It's an important distinction, and one that causes a lot of resistance in these discussions that wouldn't otherwise be encountered.
If I tell my friend he's thinking about a problem the wrong way, he's likely to listen to what I say next, and give it actual consideration.
If I imply that his wrong thinking is the result of a fundamental character flaw or immoral motivation (for example, because he hates women), the conversation is going to be a lot more difficult and less productive for everyone involved.
I'm not saying we shouldn't use those terms, I understand they're the accepted terminology, at least in academic contexts. I'm saying I wish we had been a bit more careful in developing our terminology, because what we stuck ourselves with is a contributing factor to lots of clusterfucks like this thread.
(That said, I'm comfortable applying the terms to this statue, if not to Fawst's perception of the statue.)
Alright. Why is this an argument you feel is worth pursuing?
I mean, is your major contribution to this thread, which is essentially about how incredibly objectifying and demeaning this statue is, really only that you disagree with the wording?
By now, you already know the definition of misogyny we wield. You can view all our posts within that context now. I'm not going to get into which is the "right" one because I agree with you that we're simply not going to agree on that, ever.
So maybe we can get past this now? We disagree and are not ever going to agree on the use of that word, but you know the definition we wield so you can comprehend what we're saying anyways.
We drop this fucking pointless semantic argument and actually start talking about the subject of this thread. You can start contributing to the discussion concerning the culture which breeds the idea that this statue is a good idea, concerning the objectification of women, since apparently you actually agree with that.
There is absolutely nothing to be gained at this point by continuing this definition battle. It's fairly irrelevant to what's being discussed, and as such I'm really done talking about it.
You have the definitions you asked for. So please don't ask for them again. You don't agree with them. Fine, we're not going to reach a consensus on that. So let's just please move on from that and get back to actual topic at hand.
I don't expect her to see things 100% like me, but from discussions we've had in the past, I would be surprised if she finds it degrading as you put it. But we will see. Though, I am not sure her opinion changes the debate much. But if she does find it degrading, maybe she can better open my eyes to why.
Okay, what if hypothetically the Borderlands 2 people put out a figure of the obese mechanic lady from that game in a bikini and provocative pose? The developers stated that they created her to be different than how women are generally portrayed in games. Would such a statue not be an example of sexism because it depicts a woman with a conventionally unattractive body type? Even if it didn't attract complaints of sexism, you can bet that some commentators would claim it was made to poke fun at large women (see the response to Fat Princess) or, alternatively, that creating a sexualized depiction of an obese women would somehow promote the glamorization of obesity (for example, I've seen people argue that pretty clothes should not come in larger sizes because it would encourage obese women to lose weight so that they could wear them).
To entertain another hypothetical, what if video game heroines stopped being slim women with ample assets and sleek curves and started being examples of peak fitness and developed musculature, such as this woman:
http://img.allvoices.com/thumbs/event/609/480/87388873-gretchen-bleiler.jpg
Or this one:
http://ccsteffen.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/muscular-woman.gif
Or maybe even this exaggerated example:
http://images.imagecomics.com/blog_images//686981968698989.jpg
Would portraying women this way be less problematic? What if it became the new ideal and the sometimes overly slender conventional ideal nearly vanished from pop culture? Would an ideal body type that arguably is more conducive to fitness and health than current ideals becoming the dominant depiction of women be a good thing, or would overrepresentation still make it negative? Should there be some sort of social responsibility to make sure that the idealized standard of beauty is one that is conducive to peak health?
Friend Safari Type: Rock
I am now made aware of this guy's channel and have thus subscribed to it.
"Twisted Titillation" is just about the perfect way to sum up this whole mess.
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The biggest reason is that not everyone has the same body type. My wife, no matter what she eats, cannot put on a lot of weight. She's very lean, and nothing will change that. OTOH, one of our friends is bigger, and she's very fit - but she just isn't physically able to drop below a certain size.
Women are people, and like all people, they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Idealizing one over another is what leads to issues with body image.
And before the strawman that always comes up is trotted out, no, this doesn't mean that people who are unhealthy shouldn't try to be healthy, but you can be healthy and still be any of a wide variety of body types.
I've been on the receiving end of being told that my beliefs and views were misogynistic. It's unpleasant. Of course, the people who told me that also provided their reasons why, and after I fucking got over myself and the belief that my viewpoint was The Most Important, I understood their views and took them as my own. They were right, and I was wrong. My intentions didnt mean shit, and being called out for sexism and stupidity is nothing compared to being surrounded wvery day by sexism and stupidity.
I also understood why they got so damned frustrated in having these discussions with me, because its the same damned conversation every time. Sometimes it's effective, sometimes it's not.
The reason I personally no longer care to walk on eggshells in conversations with people behaving misogynistically or from a sexist point of view is that I weigh their offense as significantly less important than stating what is actually meant in the terms in which it is understood by the majority of those who care. I'm all for speaking to somebody in the most effective way possible, but when somebody refuses to adjust their positions or arguments in the face of a staggering amount of evidence, they can go fuck themselves.
The thought process that led to that statue was misogynistic. It was sexist. It was people being sexist and misogynistic. I'm not saying they're horrible monsters, I'm saying they fucked up in a way that is easy to avoid by not being ignorant.
If you're first response to being told that you're behaving in an offensive way or contributing to a disgusting culture is, 'NO IM NOT HERE ARE MY EXCUSES WHY WOULD YOU EVER ATTACK ME IM TRRRYYYYYYING' then here's what you do: you shut the fuck up and think about why somebody would say that. You remove yourself from the equation. You understand you can do something wrong and not be a terrible person. If you're still offended, continue to shut up until you get over yourself and understand where those feeling are coming from. Why does that person feel the way they do?
Then try to have the conversation. Stop taking shit personally, because its not about you. These words aren't loaded insults, they're criticisms that assholes don't know how to process without flipping the fuck out.
I'm kind of glad they did this stunt, now I can skip Dead Island 2 without having to list all the horrificly annoying things they no doubt included to make it an unplayable piece of shit.
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I think it's gross, vulgar tat that has no place in any situation except outside of needing a prop for your own zombie movie. And even then I'd probably try to clothe it a bit more appropriately.
But what I really wanted to say was that reading this thread has been enlightening. For as heated as some part of it have been, the wealth of information and insight provided by both the links provided, and the comments made by many of the people here, have sent me spiralling across the internet to read up more on the issue of sexism and gender representation both in games and in the development process, across the course of the day - something I should've endeavoured to do a long time ago.
Thanks for keeping it informative and educational, PA.
Knowledge is power after all.
Like teeth. Teeth are pretty cool things. Jaw is plenty context. Mine are great.
So I guess I do objectify people a lot, in various ways. I'm not the most compassionate person, either.
I don't have a point. Feels like I'm standing here laughing nervously with something to hide.
Just... god! God dammit. We're supposed to be better than this!
The conflation of terms regarding sexism and misogyny has removed shades of meaning with regards to sexism and misogyny. To use the most obvious example: yes, chivalry is sexism. In today's terminology, that also means that it's misogyny. I will not argue that chivalry is a positive force, but it's fairly mild as negative forces go. When all forms of sexism against women are gathered under the blanket term of misogyny, it serves both as off-putting to any audience that needs to hear it (you essentially say "By holding doors open for women, you're showing that you think women are weak and you hate them"), while also diminishing the power of the word. Ideally, we'd have different terms readily available for degrees of cultural attitudes. A guy who is buying gifts for his four-year-old twin niece and nephew for Christmas and who gets a doll for his niece and a football for his nephew is sexist, but not on the same scale of misogyny as a guy who thinks that it's OK for men to sleep around before they're married but that women are sluts if they do so.
In my personal opinion, current feminist grouping of terminology, where sexism towards women is generally labeled as misogyny regardless of degree, A) serves as an unnecessary barrier to communication with people who need to hear that they're sexist, B) serves to desensitize language and make it less precise. I'm not saying not to call out sexism when it happens, but consider whether or not you'll call someone misogynistic. In my opinion, if someone does something sexist because they're stupid and don't know better, call them out as sexist. If they should know better, then call them out as misogynistic.
I've only been half-following this thread, mostly because I see that it's already being handled by Tube and others and I don't feel like I have a whole lot to contribute.
If you're interested, though, there's a video series that I strongly recommend. It's called Killing Us Softly by Jean Kilbourne, and the first one was released in the late 1970s. You can watch 3 and 4 online (though I haven't actually seen #4.) http://archive.org/details/KillingUsSoftly-AdvertisingAndTheImageOfWomen (I guess it's more accurate to say that I recommend 1-3 and I just presume that 4 is good.)
In the first one, she used images of contemporary advertising to show the objectification of women, leading up to and including sexualized advertising images of women's disembodied body parts and amputated torsos. You can draw a dotted line that goes more or less like this:
1) Advertisers sexually objectify women to sell products. (Specifically, they sexually objectify both men and women, but more often women and to greater degrees.)
2) The essence of objectification is dehumanization. Simply displaying a person in a sexual light isn't necessarily enough to establish objectification; objectification also involves stripping an person of its humanity.
3) A sexual object doesn't need to be whole to be sexualized - sexy legs, sexy breasts, sexy butts remain sexy even when depicted in isolation because they are interchangeable parts of an object. They don't need to be attached to a whole person to be sexy. (Example. Again, this is done to men, too, but less frequently and to lesser degrees.)
4) Kilbourne and others in sex and media studies call this dismemberment advertising.
Once in a blue moon, there's a literal example of sexualized dismemberment advertising, where the sexy dismembered body parts are explicitly rendered to resemble a stylized victim of violence. It doesn't happen quite so often any more, but it used to be more common: Killing Us Softly 1 had several examples of it. It's just not quite as trendy today to depict violence against women in ads as it was a few decades ago.