BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Women are weak and need to be rescued, except when they're strong and don't need to be rescued, in which case they're "just a man with T&A".
I love these lines of argument. The wonderful result of a mix of feminists and others advancing arguments by definition has led to the most amazing cognitive dissonance.
how do you write lara to be "more feminine" without being sexist
Having Rhianna Pratchett do it was a nice start.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Personally, I don't really understand why being an action hero is considered to be an inherently masculine thing and female action heroes need to be written differently so that they're not "just men with tits". In my mind, being an action hero is an inherently action hero-y thing, the same way being a chef is a chef-y thing or being a doctor is a doctor-y thing. I can't recall a single instance of someone criticizing a female doctor on a doctor show for being "just a male doctor with tits", but female action heroes in action movies get criticized for that all the time.
I think we're not supporting the line of reasoning that strong women are "men with t&a". Like I said earlier, it was a poor wording to express the idea that t&a is irrelevant of the capabilities of your typical action hero (who, in media, is predominately male).
@NickTheNewbie: If you make Lara more conventionally feminine, you're making her less Lara - and to my mind, a lot of the feminist discussion is about criticising this: defining all women as women first and foremost, not as individuals. Never mind that "masculine" and "feminine" are at least a big mix of nature and nurture, biological tendencies (with a huge amount of deviation within the sexes) with a gigantic pile of cultural norms and expectations heaped on top.
As a tendency, if a game's characters are determined primarily by stereotypes of what is deemed masculine or feminine, then those characters are sexist, unless the game is working to make a critical statement about these stereotypes. If the characters are first and foremost individuals, which may or may not correspond more or less to notions of masculinity and femininity, it's much less likely that they're sexist.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm trying to think of a legitimate way to make lara more feminine without being considered sexist, but I'm constantly tripping over my own cognitive dissonance. Like one part of me thinks that it's fine for a woman to act "feminine", but another part of me is saying that portraying women as "feminine" is part of the problem. I suppose, if you ultimately don't want it to be considered sexist, you need to have an equal distribution of male and female characters that either act "masculine" or "feminine" before it's considered ok? I typed that sentence, and logically it makes sense, but it just sounds ridiculous.
If you "want to not be considered sexist", you're probably the sort of person who is less concerned with crafting effective stories, mechanics, or characters and more concerned with feeling very upset when people criticize your work.
People should create the best thing they are able, and then take the criticism they get and use that to improve. They shouldn't be trying to figure out the formula that will let them stop listening to those damn critics because they have three women and two minority characters so they're clear!
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
Most cases where the gender would matter, like with romance, are absent when there is a female character. The only case where there is a romance with a female main character that I can think of is the Longest Journey series.
Up till the most recent game Lara's character has been barely more than an accent and a silhouette. I haven't played the latest game but if, as I heard, they made her a developed character with an arc, a personality and enabled empathy to build up between her and the player, then that's a damn sight more than games usually give female characters and plenty for a game protagonist.
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
Something to consider is that it is becoming more financially viable to have female leads. The ESA's report from last year says almost half of gamers are women. I think it would be much more useful to plot the frequency of these tropes in the upper tiers of games coming out in each of the past few years. Anecdotally, I 'm noticing fewer of them than I remember as a child or teen.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
Now, what you say about the ability to play as "unattractive" people. I think I can agree with you there, that it stymies the selection of interesting characters to play as, whether it be male or female.
Up till the most recent game Lara's character has been barely more than an accent and a silhouette. I haven't played the latest game but if, as I heard, they made her a developed character with an arc, a personality and enabled empathy to build up between her and the player, then that's a damn sight more than games usually give female characters and plenty for a game protagonist.
This isn't exactly true; before the reboot, Lara's character was pretty clearly psychopathic. It certainly didn't have the depth of the new game's writing to it, but it was definitely there.
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
You may get allegations of sexism if you have an attractive female lead, but not every accusation needs to be heeded.
However, if your female lead is characterised almost entirely by her attractiveness; if she's presented in-game first and foremost as eye candy; if she's mostly characterised by stereotypically female traits; if she's disempowered at key points just to have a guy come in during a cut scene to save her; then you may want to think about whether those alarms are justified.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Also starting from a straight male protagonist as the dominant role for players in an interactive medium is, itself, sexist regardless of whether or not it makes the most money.
No its not. Or should they make the game with an african American lesbian, and then replace the character when it bombs in focus groups?
You still seem to be focused on what is most profitable, but that is beside the point for the question about right and wrong that we are asking. If, for instance, it turns out that the most profitable option is for me to steal your stuff while you aren't looking, we would probably still criticize my actions, not because they are profitable but because they are morally blameworthy. The basic idea behind Sarkeesian's videos is that, as a society, it is possible for us to do things that are morally blameworthy (namely, depicting women in the way they are depicted in video games, which includes, among other things, always making straight male protagonists the dominant role) even if these things turn out to be economically the most profitable.
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
Now, what you say about the ability to play as "unattractive" people. I think I can agree with you there, that it stymies the selection of interesting characters to play as, whether it be male or female.
Not only would I agree with you that an attractive female lead is not inherently sexist, I'd go so far as to say an attractive female lead with ridiculous proportions is not inherently sexist either!
I feel like there's a perception that when it's pointed out that, say, almost all women in comics/games hove really close to male fantasies, the implication is "having women with that body type is sexist, and having any person you want to fuck in a piece of media is sexist". The actual point is to discuss hey, why exactly is it that the primary role of a female character is to have that body, and be on display?
That's also why when the argument inevitably becomes about how well men are hot in media as well, it's entirely missing the point. Which is that, yes, all players involved are considered conventionally attractive, but the female characters are generally considered sufficient as eye candy rather than significant characters or protagonists.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is attractive, Lara Croft is attractive, Female Shepard can be attractive and at the minimum has the body of a hardened space-hero. The difference is that they have any sort of legitimate narrative arc and they seem to exist for more than simply looking good to the male player-base that is assumed to be the only audience that matters.
The reason this gets brought up isn't to shame you into no longer enjoying the act of looking at attractive people, it's to point out the fact that frequently this media assumes that the only important voice and the only important viewer is male and caters directly to that demographic.
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
Now, what you say about the ability to play as "unattractive" people. I think I can agree with you there, that it stymies the selection of interesting characters to play as, whether it be male or female.
Not only would I agree with you that an attractive female lead is not inherently sexist, I'd go so far as to say an attractive female lead with ridiculous proportions is not inherently sexist either!
I feel like there's a perception that when it's pointed out that, say, almost all women in comics/games hove really close to male fantasies, the implication is "having women with that body type is sexist, and having any person you want to fuck in a piece of media is sexist". The actual point is to discuss hey, why exactly is it that the primary role of a female character is to have that body, and be on display?
That's also why when the argument inevitably becomes about how well men are hot in media as well, it's entirely missing the point. Which is that, yes, all players involved are considered conventionally attractive, but the female characters are generally considered sufficient as eye candy rather than significant characters or protagonists.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is attractive, Lara Croft is attractive, Female Shepard can be attractive and at the minimum has the body of a hardened space-hero. The difference is that they have any sort of legitimate narrative arc and they seem to exist for more than simply looking good to the male player-base that is assumed to be the only audience that matters.
The reason this gets brought up isn't to shame you into no longer enjoying the act of looking at attractive people, it's to point out the fact that frequently this media assumes that the only important voice and the only important viewer is male and caters directly to that demographic.
The ridiculous proportion thing I think may be considered inherently sexist. Maybe sexist isn't the right word? The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate. Conversely the ridiculously huge "marcus fenix" proportions for men in video games, while similarly impossible to obtain, are arguably NOT attractive to most women, and men are not expected to have 500 pounds of lean muscle.
The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate.
This isn't exactly true; before the reboot, Lara's character was pretty clearly psychopathic. It certainly didn't have the depth of the new game's writing to it, but it was definitely there.
She was psychopathic in the sense that she had no personality beyond 'posh' and killed things, the second trait being something she had in common with 95% of game protagonists. You're pinning the word psychopathic on to a blank space.
The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate.
This seems exceedingly unlikely.
So you're coming from the angle that huge breasts/thin waist is not the prevalent preferred body type? I wonder if there's any legitimate and comprehensive studies done on this we can consult.
Also starting from a straight male protagonist as the dominant role for players in an interactive medium is, itself, sexist regardless of whether or not it makes the most money.
No its not. Or should they make the game with an african American lesbian, and then replace the character when it bombs in focus groups?
You still seem to be focused on what is most profitable, but that is beside the point for the question about right and wrong that we are asking. If, for instance, it turns out that the most profitable option is for me to steal your stuff while you aren't looking, we would probably still criticize my actions, not because they are profitable but because they are morally blameworthy. The basic idea behind Sarkeesian's videos is that, as a society, it is possible for us to do things that are morally blameworthy (namely, depicting women in the way they are depicted in video games, which includes, among other things, always making straight male protagonists the dominant role) even if these things turn out to be economically the most profitable.
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
It is the trend that is sexist, not necessarily the game or the developer itself. So intent doesn't matter at all.
I don't think Super Mario Bros is a sexist game. It has the sexist damsel-in-distress trope in it, but overall I don't think game is anti-women. I think very few games, in and of themselves, are just totally sexist. I don't think Nintendo is a sexist company staffed with sexist people, and I don't think fans of Nintendo or Mario are necessarily sexist either. But the game is part of a sexist trend.
So it's not really about assigning blame or saying "Fuck Mario, it's sexist!" It's about pointing out a pattern and saying "Hey, maybe try something different next time because we're sick of seeing this shit"
The ridiculous proportion thing I think may be considered inherently sexist. Maybe sexist isn't the right word? The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate. Conversely the ridiculously huge "marcus fenix" proportions for men in video games, while similarly impossible to obtain, are arguably NOT attractive to most women, and men are not expected to have 500 pounds of lean muscle.
I think that's also because the ridiculous proportions tend to come with characters that are 99.9% eye candy with no personality other than what is necessary to be a misogynist joke or a wank fantasy. It's correlation, not necessarily causation - but then imagine a well-rounded (no pun intended) female character who looks like Starburst (is that her name?) and most people are likely to think there's a mismatch there.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
She was psychopathic in the sense that she had no personality beyond 'posh' and killed things, the second trait being something she had in common with 95% of game protagonists. You're pinning the word psychopathic on to a blank space.
If you look at how she deals with things like Alister's death, not to mention her interactions with Amanda (she only lets Amanda live because Amanda tells her that Amelia is still alive), I'd say there's a pretty clear argument for psychopathy.
The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate.
This seems exceedingly unlikely.
So you're coming from the angle that huge breasts/thin waist is not the prevalent preferred body type?
No, I'm coming from the angle that a) video games had almost no effect on men's ideals, which pre-dated video games by a long time, b) lots of men don't only look for women of the builds we see in video games, and c) the proportions are generally not 'impossible to attain' so much as they are based on young, athletic women of medium build.
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
Now, what you say about the ability to play as "unattractive" people. I think I can agree with you there, that it stymies the selection of interesting characters to play as, whether it be male or female.
Not only would I agree with you that an attractive female lead is not inherently sexist, I'd go so far as to say an attractive female lead with ridiculous proportions is not inherently sexist either!
I feel like there's a perception that when it's pointed out that, say, almost all women in comics/games hove really close to male fantasies, the implication is "having women with that body type is sexist, and having any person you want to fuck in a piece of media is sexist". The actual point is to discuss hey, why exactly is it that the primary role of a female character is to have that body, and be on display?
That's also why when the argument inevitably becomes about how well men are hot in media as well, it's entirely missing the point. Which is that, yes, all players involved are considered conventionally attractive, but the female characters are generally considered sufficient as eye candy rather than significant characters or protagonists.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is attractive, Lara Croft is attractive, Female Shepard can be attractive and at the minimum has the body of a hardened space-hero. The difference is that they have any sort of legitimate narrative arc and they seem to exist for more than simply looking good to the male player-base that is assumed to be the only audience that matters.
The reason this gets brought up isn't to shame you into no longer enjoying the act of looking at attractive people, it's to point out the fact that frequently this media assumes that the only important voice and the only important viewer is male and caters directly to that demographic.
The ridiculous proportion thing I think may be considered inherently sexist. Maybe sexist isn't the right word? The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate. Conversely the ridiculously huge "marcus fenix" proportions for men in video games, while similarly impossible to obtain, are arguably NOT attractive to most women, and men are not expected to have 500 pounds of lean muscle.
We don't really have a Bechdel test for videogames, do we?
I think we might still be getting entirely too hung up on physical appearance. We're never going to get to a point where we can have a meaningfully stable standard for what counts as sexist or not-sexist physical features. It depends heavily on context. Buffy the vampire slayer was a pretty, often well-coiffed blond girl, and most of her female friends were, by most standards, pretty good-looking too. The reason we don't remember this gallery of attractive women (which included some girl-on-girl...) as incredibly sexist is because they were fully-realized characters with agency and meaningful motivations. More important, the show got a lot of mileage out of playing with the space between appearance and reality: Buffy looks like a cheerleader, but she's nothing as shallow or simplistic as that archetype would suggest. It needs her to be classically pretty to sell that point - at least in part. I mean, if we're telling stories here, physical appearance is a storytelling tool, which isn't inherently sexist or not.
So, whatever the character looks like, and whomever he or she was designed for, I'd rather ask this: in the context of what story we're given, does the character have meaningful agency? Does the character have reasonable, believable motivations? Does the character exist to do more than serve / talk about opposite sex characters? Better still, does the physical appearance do any meaningful work in selling something about the character?
The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate.
This seems exceedingly unlikely.
So you're coming from the angle that huge breasts/thin waist is not the prevalent preferred body type?
No, I'm coming from the angle that a) video games had almost no effect on men's ideals, which pre-dated video games by a long time, b) lots of men don't only look for women of the builds we see in video games, and c) the proportions are generally not 'impossible to attain' so much as they are based on young, athletic women of medium build.
I'm not necessarily saying video games are the root cause, it's clearly a systemic thing, much like the damsel in distress trope. Pornography has been around a lot longer than games, and I'm sure that has played a part. I need to think about it for a second, but my knee jerk reaction is to say "most" proportions are unreasonable, or at least the most famous ones. Lightning from FF13 isn't nearly as iconic as lara croft is.
Also starting from a straight male protagonist as the dominant role for players in an interactive medium is, itself, sexist regardless of whether or not it makes the most money.
No its not. Or should they make the game with an african American lesbian, and then replace the character when it bombs in focus groups?
You still seem to be focused on what is most profitable, but that is beside the point for the question about right and wrong that we are asking. If, for instance, it turns out that the most profitable option is for me to steal your stuff while you aren't looking, we would probably still criticize my actions, not because they are profitable but because they are morally blameworthy. The basic idea behind Sarkeesian's videos is that, as a society, it is possible for us to do things that are morally blameworthy (namely, depicting women in the way they are depicted in video games, which includes, among other things, always making straight male protagonists the dominant role) even if these things turn out to be economically the most profitable.
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
It is the trend that is sexist, not necessarily the game or the developer itself. So intent doesn't matter at all.
I don't think Super Mario Bros is a sexist game. It has the sexist damsel-in-distress trope in it, but overall I don't think game is anti-women. I think very few games, in and of themselves, are just totally sexist. I don't think Nintendo is a sexist company staffed with sexist people, and I don't think fans of Nintendo or Mario are necessarily sexist either. But the game is part of a sexist trend.
So it's not really about assigning blame or saying "Fuck Mario, it's sexist!" It's about pointing out a pattern and saying "Hey, maybe try something different next time because we're sick of seeing this shit"
Also starting from a straight male protagonist as the dominant role for players in an interactive medium is, itself, sexist regardless of whether or not it makes the most money.
No its not. Or should they make the game with an african American lesbian, and then replace the character when it bombs in focus groups?
You still seem to be focused on what is most profitable, but that is beside the point for the question about right and wrong that we are asking. If, for instance, it turns out that the most profitable option is for me to steal your stuff while you aren't looking, we would probably still criticize my actions, not because they are profitable but because they are morally blameworthy. The basic idea behind Sarkeesian's videos is that, as a society, it is possible for us to do things that are morally blameworthy (namely, depicting women in the way they are depicted in video games, which includes, among other things, always making straight male protagonists the dominant role) even if these things turn out to be economically the most profitable.
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
A tree that looks like a pair of boobs can't be sexist unless you can tell some sort of story about how pairs of boobs are sexist. A dog that barks at black people only could be racist if we live in a society where most dogs only bark at black people and this has tangible deleterious effects on black people because this occurs as part of a larger pattern of discrimination against black people and if there's something we could do about the dogs barking at only black people. If people are making games a certain way for profit and they happen to add to a sexist trend, then it is sexist.
The moral blame question basically comes down to "can you blame someone for adding to a problem they did not intend to add to." The answer isn't always yes: surely some ignorant wrongdoing is excused because it's ignorant. But some ignorant wrongdoing isn't excused, and this is a case of that, because of a lot of reasons. Game companies don't have to make games - it's not like they are providing a vital service. The world would go on without sexist video games. Game companies are culpably ignorant - Sarkeesian isn't making new points. Feminism has existed for a long time and there is no excuse for developers to keep churning out games that contribute to sexism. Game companies likely don't even have to make sexist games - I've played many non-sexist games and nothing stops companies from making those.
This isn't exactly true; before the reboot, Lara's character was pretty clearly psychopathic. It certainly didn't have the depth of the new game's writing to it, but it was definitely there.
She was psychopathic in the sense that she had no personality beyond 'posh' and killed things, the second trait being something she had in common with 95% of game protagonists. You're pinning the word psychopathic on to a blank space.
And really, if you want to get worked up over the original Lara Croft, there are better things to focus on than her personality...like her boobs:
Complete realism wasn't possible, of course, and Gard intended Lara to have somewhat exaggerated dimensions from the start. While making test adjustments to her girlish figure, a slip of his mouse turned an intended 50% increase to her breast size into a 150% gain. It met with instant approval from the team before he could correct it.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
Are we saying we should never have a damsel in distress classic fairy tale setting for a game ever again, because it is sexist? I feel like that is what I am hearing from the (admittedly brief look at) posts I am reading.
T&A is only relevant with gender in that it implies that if it is a female, that they are physically fit. Much like a physically fit male will have broad shoulders, a slim waist, and a chiseled jaw. T&A is a very difficult topic to discuss, because the world of female heroes is filled with bayonettas, pre-2013 lara crofts, and a whole host of rob liefeld abominations. T&A that's completely unrealistic, un-natural, and unhealthy to strive for.
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
If the character, male or female, spends all their time climbing cliffs, doing hand to hand combat, jumping over chasms, etc... one would expect them to be very fit. If they spend their time doing sedentary things then they most likely would not, though amount of body fat would vary along some distribution curve.
This would be realistic. Games are not very realistic.
SKFM is more or less right on the economics here (except for boycotts being worthless, it's going to depend on the company and some companies do have a bad rap for not giving a fuck about constructive criticism). It really isn't a corporation's job to establish societal norms and I'd rather they didn't. I'm also one of the first people that will bag on big business for being population by greedy, short-sighted assholes, but I'm not going to waste my time holding my breath, while I await them to pursue game development that isn't easy money. As long as our country has too many people that glorify the bottom line, people will develop games for the lowest common denominator. Best approach is don't buy games that really offend you and do some fucking research to find the more progressive game titles and try supporting them when they aren't crap.
I always find this debate frustrating. On one side, there are the people who think rape culture is A-OK and I fucking despise that lot. On the other side, you get the people who take things way too far, they aren't happy unless they aren't offended at all and that route leads to bland characters like Jesus Christ. Stories are always more interesting when all the characters have flaws and redeeming characteristics, thus forcing them to contend with both inner and outer demons. Visuals can also be used in the same way, sadly this is an area where game developers need to improve. The trick is finding that fine lines between reasonable world constructions, playing it too safe and being offensive.
To add to Knuckle Dragger's question. Not only should we look for a breakdown frequency of offensive tropes in upper tier games, but also break things down by game genre and look at gender demographic spreads between genres. I'm not promoting gender stereotypes, I think those tend to get overstated, but I'm not going to fully discount that the genders having some subtle differences could influence genre choices and some of the misogynism inherent in the video game industry could result in those gulfs between the genders being much larger than they should be. I also bring up genre because I've noticed some genre's result in games that take longer to finish and in some cases result in games that get increased longevity via patches and expansion. Then you get other genres where people grow tired of the games rather quickly.
All of this is going to influence how things seem, but I think the approach of making games more progressive and killing rape culture should be tailored to how things actually are, rather than based on how they seem. The 1st amendment, the internet, kickstarters and idiots are going to ensure that lots of god awful shit gets made, but more often than not, it just isn't worth spending time on most of the shit. A vast majority of the population avoids the shit like the plague to begin with, the people that don't avoid it, were probably doomed to begin with.
Also starting from a straight male protagonist as the dominant role for players in an interactive medium is, itself, sexist regardless of whether or not it makes the most money.
No its not. Or should they make the game with an african American lesbian, and then replace the character when it bombs in focus groups?
You still seem to be focused on what is most profitable, but that is beside the point for the question about right and wrong that we are asking. If, for instance, it turns out that the most profitable option is for me to steal your stuff while you aren't looking, we would probably still criticize my actions, not because they are profitable but because they are morally blameworthy. The basic idea behind Sarkeesian's videos is that, as a society, it is possible for us to do things that are morally blameworthy (namely, depicting women in the way they are depicted in video games, which includes, among other things, always making straight male protagonists the dominant role) even if these things turn out to be economically the most profitable.
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
A tree that looks like a pair of boobs can't be sexist unless you can tell some sort of story about how pairs of boobs are sexist. A dog that barks at black people only could be racist if we live in a society where most dogs only bark at black people and this has tangible deleterious effects on black people because this occurs as part of a larger pattern of discrimination against black people and if there's something we could do about the dogs barking at only black people. If people are making games a certain way for profit and they happen to add to a sexist trend, then it is sexist.
The moral blame question basically comes down to "can you blame someone for adding to a problem they did not intend to add to." The answer isn't always yes: surely some ignorant wrongdoing is excused because it's ignorant. But some ignorant wrongdoing isn't excused, and this is a case of that, because of a lot of reasons. Game companies don't have to make games - it's not like they are providing a vital service. The world would go on without sexist video games. Game companies are culpably ignorant - Sarkeesian isn't making new points. Feminism has existed for a long time and there is no excuse for developers to keep churning out games that contribute to sexism. Game companies likely don't even have to make sexist games - I've played many non-sexist games and nothing stops companies from making those.
Game companies exist to make profits and so must make the games they determine are profitable. Maybe they are wrong in their assessment of what is profitable, and if so, we can work on that. But you are literally asking the company to impose a morality that you like on shareholders that invested in the company because they wanted to make money. The shareholders don't care what kind of games are made or even if games are made at all. They are probably indifferent between a successful game and profits from subleasing part of the office. But if you say the publisher should make a game that they don't think will be the most successful because they are fighting sexism, then you are in the wrong. What right do you have to direct how the shareholders' invest should be treated? You aren't the government, and even if you were, I don't think this is a problem that is ripe for government intervention.
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I love these lines of argument. The wonderful result of a mix of feminists and others advancing arguments by definition has led to the most amazing cognitive dissonance.
Having Rhianna Pratchett do it was a nice start.
As a tendency, if a game's characters are determined primarily by stereotypes of what is deemed masculine or feminine, then those characters are sexist, unless the game is working to make a critical statement about these stereotypes. If the characters are first and foremost individuals, which may or may not correspond more or less to notions of masculinity and femininity, it's much less likely that they're sexist.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
If you "want to not be considered sexist", you're probably the sort of person who is less concerned with crafting effective stories, mechanics, or characters and more concerned with feeling very upset when people criticize your work.
People should create the best thing they are able, and then take the criticism they get and use that to improve. They shouldn't be trying to figure out the formula that will let them stop listening to those damn critics because they have three women and two minority characters so they're clear!
Now I need to toe very carefully here, because this may be somewhat of a controversial point of view that I'm putting forward here, so I want to try to keep this civil. We're treading in dangerous waters because it's starting to ask "what is attractive" and "what is a reasonable body type"
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We really aren't, though.
I can't understand what you believe is controversial about your point of view. You seem to have the difficult, controversial, dangerous point of view that sometimes people are attractive sometimes maybe sexism but not you! State your concept, let's talk about it, and let's not meta-talk about how talking about it might make some people mad.
Honestly, the thing that annoys me about attractive protagonists in games is that it has severely limited my available experiences. It's why I like playing as a monstrous whatever whenever I can. I've observed crew-cut muscular men and slender but shockingly strong women do so many fucking things. Just once I want to play an aging detective with a bit of paunch and a bad set of lungs, or something. Maybe someone with a physical disability.
Think of a man, then remove reason and accountability
- John Stuart Mill
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I'm sorry for dancing around it. I'm just trying to say that (I feel) an attractive female lead is not sexist as long as it's not ridiculous porn star proportions. It doesn't seem unreasonable for both male and female protags to be attractive without raising alarm.
Now, what you say about the ability to play as "unattractive" people. I think I can agree with you there, that it stymies the selection of interesting characters to play as, whether it be male or female.
However, if your female lead is characterised almost entirely by her attractiveness; if she's presented in-game first and foremost as eye candy; if she's mostly characterised by stereotypically female traits; if she's disempowered at key points just to have a guy come in during a cut scene to save her; then you may want to think about whether those alarms are justified.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
This is incredibly frustrating. Can a tree that kind of looks like a pair of boobs be sexist? Can a dog that barks at black people only be racist? If people are making games a certain way for reasons of profit and they happen to be games that you could interpret as sexist, surely intent matters in assigning moral blame?
Not only would I agree with you that an attractive female lead is not inherently sexist, I'd go so far as to say an attractive female lead with ridiculous proportions is not inherently sexist either!
I feel like there's a perception that when it's pointed out that, say, almost all women in comics/games hove really close to male fantasies, the implication is "having women with that body type is sexist, and having any person you want to fuck in a piece of media is sexist". The actual point is to discuss hey, why exactly is it that the primary role of a female character is to have that body, and be on display?
That's also why when the argument inevitably becomes about how well men are hot in media as well, it's entirely missing the point. Which is that, yes, all players involved are considered conventionally attractive, but the female characters are generally considered sufficient as eye candy rather than significant characters or protagonists.
Jade from Beyond Good and Evil is attractive, Lara Croft is attractive, Female Shepard can be attractive and at the minimum has the body of a hardened space-hero. The difference is that they have any sort of legitimate narrative arc and they seem to exist for more than simply looking good to the male player-base that is assumed to be the only audience that matters.
The reason this gets brought up isn't to shame you into no longer enjoying the act of looking at attractive people, it's to point out the fact that frequently this media assumes that the only important voice and the only important viewer is male and caters directly to that demographic.
The ridiculous proportion thing I think may be considered inherently sexist. Maybe sexist isn't the right word? The ridiculous proportions of some female video game characters are meant to be sexual and attractive, but such proportions are almost impossible to obtain realistically without surgery. These kinds of proportions have become what men typically are looking for in a real life mate. Conversely the ridiculously huge "marcus fenix" proportions for men in video games, while similarly impossible to obtain, are arguably NOT attractive to most women, and men are not expected to have 500 pounds of lean muscle.
She was psychopathic in the sense that she had no personality beyond 'posh' and killed things, the second trait being something she had in common with 95% of game protagonists. You're pinning the word psychopathic on to a blank space.
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So you're coming from the angle that huge breasts/thin waist is not the prevalent preferred body type? I wonder if there's any legitimate and comprehensive studies done on this we can consult.
It is the trend that is sexist, not necessarily the game or the developer itself. So intent doesn't matter at all.
I don't think Super Mario Bros is a sexist game. It has the sexist damsel-in-distress trope in it, but overall I don't think game is anti-women. I think very few games, in and of themselves, are just totally sexist. I don't think Nintendo is a sexist company staffed with sexist people, and I don't think fans of Nintendo or Mario are necessarily sexist either. But the game is part of a sexist trend.
So it's not really about assigning blame or saying "Fuck Mario, it's sexist!" It's about pointing out a pattern and saying "Hey, maybe try something different next time because we're sick of seeing this shit"
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
No, I'm coming from the angle that a) video games had almost no effect on men's ideals, which pre-dated video games by a long time, b) lots of men don't only look for women of the builds we see in video games, and c) the proportions are generally not 'impossible to attain' so much as they are based on young, athletic women of medium build.
We don't really have a Bechdel test for videogames, do we?
I think we might still be getting entirely too hung up on physical appearance. We're never going to get to a point where we can have a meaningfully stable standard for what counts as sexist or not-sexist physical features. It depends heavily on context. Buffy the vampire slayer was a pretty, often well-coiffed blond girl, and most of her female friends were, by most standards, pretty good-looking too. The reason we don't remember this gallery of attractive women (which included some girl-on-girl...) as incredibly sexist is because they were fully-realized characters with agency and meaningful motivations. More important, the show got a lot of mileage out of playing with the space between appearance and reality: Buffy looks like a cheerleader, but she's nothing as shallow or simplistic as that archetype would suggest. It needs her to be classically pretty to sell that point - at least in part. I mean, if we're telling stories here, physical appearance is a storytelling tool, which isn't inherently sexist or not.
So, whatever the character looks like, and whomever he or she was designed for, I'd rather ask this: in the context of what story we're given, does the character have meaningful agency? Does the character have reasonable, believable motivations? Does the character exist to do more than serve / talk about opposite sex characters? Better still, does the physical appearance do any meaningful work in selling something about the character?
I'm not necessarily saying video games are the root cause, it's clearly a systemic thing, much like the damsel in distress trope. Pornography has been around a lot longer than games, and I'm sure that has played a part. I need to think about it for a second, but my knee jerk reaction is to say "most" proportions are unreasonable, or at least the most famous ones. Lightning from FF13 isn't nearly as iconic as lara croft is.
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So a forest of boob trees is sexist?
Seriously, guys, this is *incredibly* frustrating! I've got a boob dog here and don't know if it's sexist!
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
The moral blame question basically comes down to "can you blame someone for adding to a problem they did not intend to add to." The answer isn't always yes: surely some ignorant wrongdoing is excused because it's ignorant. But some ignorant wrongdoing isn't excused, and this is a case of that, because of a lot of reasons. Game companies don't have to make games - it's not like they are providing a vital service. The world would go on without sexist video games. Game companies are culpably ignorant - Sarkeesian isn't making new points. Feminism has existed for a long time and there is no excuse for developers to keep churning out games that contribute to sexism. Game companies likely don't even have to make sexist games - I've played many non-sexist games and nothing stops companies from making those.
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And really, if you want to get worked up over the original Lara Croft, there are better things to focus on than her personality...like her boobs:
- John Stuart Mill
If SKFM was the CEO of tree analogies, his shareholders would demand that he resign for failing to generate a profitable amount of Agrees.
If the character, male or female, spends all their time climbing cliffs, doing hand to hand combat, jumping over chasms, etc... one would expect them to be very fit. If they spend their time doing sedentary things then they most likely would not, though amount of body fat would vary along some distribution curve.
This would be realistic. Games are not very realistic.
I always find this debate frustrating. On one side, there are the people who think rape culture is A-OK and I fucking despise that lot. On the other side, you get the people who take things way too far, they aren't happy unless they aren't offended at all and that route leads to bland characters like Jesus Christ. Stories are always more interesting when all the characters have flaws and redeeming characteristics, thus forcing them to contend with both inner and outer demons. Visuals can also be used in the same way, sadly this is an area where game developers need to improve. The trick is finding that fine lines between reasonable world constructions, playing it too safe and being offensive.
To add to Knuckle Dragger's question. Not only should we look for a breakdown frequency of offensive tropes in upper tier games, but also break things down by game genre and look at gender demographic spreads between genres. I'm not promoting gender stereotypes, I think those tend to get overstated, but I'm not going to fully discount that the genders having some subtle differences could influence genre choices and some of the misogynism inherent in the video game industry could result in those gulfs between the genders being much larger than they should be. I also bring up genre because I've noticed some genre's result in games that take longer to finish and in some cases result in games that get increased longevity via patches and expansion. Then you get other genres where people grow tired of the games rather quickly.
All of this is going to influence how things seem, but I think the approach of making games more progressive and killing rape culture should be tailored to how things actually are, rather than based on how they seem. The 1st amendment, the internet, kickstarters and idiots are going to ensure that lots of god awful shit gets made, but more often than not, it just isn't worth spending time on most of the shit. A vast majority of the population avoids the shit like the plague to begin with, the people that don't avoid it, were probably doomed to begin with.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
Game companies exist to make profits and so must make the games they determine are profitable. Maybe they are wrong in their assessment of what is profitable, and if so, we can work on that. But you are literally asking the company to impose a morality that you like on shareholders that invested in the company because they wanted to make money. The shareholders don't care what kind of games are made or even if games are made at all. They are probably indifferent between a successful game and profits from subleasing part of the office. But if you say the publisher should make a game that they don't think will be the most successful because they are fighting sexism, then you are in the wrong. What right do you have to direct how the shareholders' invest should be treated? You aren't the government, and even if you were, I don't think this is a problem that is ripe for government intervention.