Okay, I changed my mind on Bayonetta. Apparently Gamespot fired Carolyn (their transwoman reviewer who got a lot of fire for criticizing GTA for being misogynistic, I wish her being trans wasn’t relevant, but it is :(), I was linked to her blog. Other than all of her posts being amazing, she had an extremely well-written post on Bayonetta 2 that swayed me.
She isn’t “hung up on trivial things” and “looking for sexism in just about any game”, or she sort of is, but it’s the point of the series. She’s not doing game reviews. She’s discussing tropes and looking for examples of those tropes, and examples where one could expect those tropes to appear, but where they’ve been avoided.
And even when you appear to get the point, you go “but what about?”, which is also besides the point. She’s not doing a comprehensive and complete survey, but picking examples of widespread tropes. To prove her wrong you’d need to show, through an actual comprehensive survey, that her examples are actually rare, something a counter example or two doesn’t do.
Here’s what I’m thinking right now, I await your response and will try to be as open minded as I possibly can; what does an even playing-field look like? If she can find sexism in almost every game she experiences, what are game developers suppose to do to combat that?
If I’m a game developer who’s just watched her videos and I have a blank sheet of paper for character concept drawings, how do I avoid making my characters something that Anita wouldn’t approve of if she only gives me a few examples of games that she doesn’t find sexist?
She likes ‘Beyond Good and Evil’. The main character has short hair, she’s not very “curvy”, and I THINK I read someplace that she’s mixed race. In one of her videos, she seems to approve of a female character who’s simply a square, (all the characters are shapes.) Okay, two examples of women she doesn’t find offensive in video games that she doesn’t have a problem with… and one’s a square.
Just trying to understand what a game looks like that’s not sexist. Something that Anita would look over and not find a thing wrong with the characters and the situations they are in.
First off, My FootsZZZ, I’m impressed with the level of effort you’re putting in to research your original opinions; it’s a great demonstration of this board’s purpose. If only the rest of the anti-Anita crowd were this honest and diligent. Some might still have problems with the content of her videos, but at least they would know why, as opposed to working off a third-hand account from an MRA douche with an axe to grind and/or a fraudulent Kickstarter to get funded.
To address your most recent post: an analogy I’ve seen elsewhere on the topic of sexism and gaming, which might come from Anita herself, is that of a mosaic. One game is one tile. Sexist ideas in one game don’t do much, but when the entire mosaic is made up of sexist tiles, you end up with a sexist image. Changing one tile isn’t going to do anything, but if all of the new tiles have some thought put into their portrayal of women/minorities/whatever, then the image gradually changes. There are still going to be some tiles that have women being damsels and trophies, but they don’t make up the whole picture.
What needs to happen is for game designers, for example, to not go from “we need a thing for the protagonist to save” to “make it a woman” automatically. Maybe sometimes it could be a sexy lamp, or a rock with googly eyes on it. Or maybe the woman that you were going to shove in as a sex trophy could have some back story, or agency, or something that makes her a character instead of a collectible.
You use the knowledge you aquire from the way she describes what she finds sexist. I can understand how that might feel like a lot of work, what with sexist tropes being fairly ingrained in our current culture, but I can’t grasp how you can find it to be difficult to understand in concept.
And it all depends on what kind of game you’re making, but if you want to start with a couple of character drawings and build everything from there, I suggest you avoid starting with a knight in shining armor and an amazon with oversized breasts barely covered by boob armor.
That was more directed towards game companies and the people who don’t see anything harmful about it. Its fine if they think they are doing feminism and female empowerment well by creating Bayonetta, but I think they’re wrong. I believe if they simply wanted to create a hot chick with guns game that’s titillating, they just admit that. Plenty of people will buy it, including me. But people like me don’t think there’s a lot of redeeming feminist qualities in her and even if there are some, they are way overshadowed by the sexuality
Well, everyone likes different things, but yes, I do think she titillates and purposefully so. In the game, the reason, or excuse, why she gets naked all the time is that her clothes that you see is actually made up of her hair, and she uses her hair to transform into demons to attack other demons. The concept is ridiculous like a parody, but the end effect is the same: naked hot chick fighting monsters
I would differentiate the music videos with Bayonetta because the music videos are made, at least Anaconda is, by a woman in the lead role while Bayonetta is a fictional character created by men. Nicki Minaj might think what she’s doing is empowerment, which is fine whether or not its true, because I’m sure at least in her mind it empowers her. But Bayonetta doesn’t think, she’s pixels on a screen. The only “mind” behind her is that of her male creators and I’m fairly confident in my supposition that they created her to be titilatting
Personally, I’ve always felt that because games are an interactive medium, there’s almost no reason that a large percentage of games can’t star female characters at the beginning. Like Ubisoft and their ridiculous excuse that females are harder to animate, many games can benefit from being able to choose a female character to start. It would literally make no difference in the game whatsoever.
And one problem Anita says about games is that female characters are always sexualized. You hardly ever see a prominent female character who isn’t sporting double D’s and tight, revealing clothing. As much as I enjoy that stuff, I don’t need it in every game. Why can’t more games star females without any reference to her sexuality? Metroid was a great game in that aspect; you didn’t know Samus was a woman, it made no difference, and you didn’t care. Would it really matter to a lot of these games with silent protagonists that the character they control onscreen was a woman? Just for some variety if nothing else.
There was recently a nice article on Joystiq about how Dragon Age: Inquisition does women right. Here’s a key quote:
The female characters in *Inquisition *are fully-rounded people. They have their own motives and agendas and spend most of their time dealing with the situation around them. They don’t exist solely to be objects of desire for the protagonist. But neither is their sexuality erased by turning them into bros with tits – two of the three female NPCs mentioned in the quote can actually wind up as your love interest in the game. (As can Cullen, the male captain of the guard.)
Sarkeesian’s point is not that all female characters must adhere to some perfect feminist standard. It’s that these tropes exert a normative pull, and if you’re not aware of them its easy to lapse into them. So instead of creating an interesting, original character, you wind up with a stereotype.
Four chicks? Must be an inquisition against leaving the toilet seat up, lol amirite? Up high.
FWIW, I think you are an eminently likable and open-minded person and this thread is a good example of that.
The broads have already won that war.
If I don’t put the toilet seat down for her I’m a misogynistic asshole.
If I ask her to put the toilet seat up for me I’m a misogynistic asshole.
I’m torn. It’s not as funny as it could have been, but I’m a fan of Felix Clay. So, bias.
One thing I’m thinking reading through this thread, particularly in the discussion of Dragon Age (which makes me oh so tempted to buy a console) is that we could probably go a long way praising what video games do right vs. tearing apart the ones that get it wrong. Just an idea.
FWIW, I played DA:O on both PC and 360, and preferred the former.
That makes me feel really good. Thank you, and I’m sure you’re a wonderful person as well.
I’m far from a “Dude-Bro”. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but I like my games cheerful and colorful for the most part. I may not have FULLY recognized the fact that Mario games were so insulting to women until now… Not that I’m going to give up Mario games… but I did write to Nintendo that I appreciated Princess Peach as a playable character in the last game when I registered it on Club Nintendo. Rescuing the princess is old, anyway. It really is.
With games like ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, I don’t really recall ever even noticing that I was playing a female character… well, I knew I was, but it’s SO trivial. Most guys I know who’ve played that game love it. I really don’t understand what the fuss is about with all these people who, (I guess), think their games are going to change. I’m sure there’s just going to be more types of games to choose from, (if Anita’s videos have had any impact at all), and seriously… I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve been giving this issue a lot of thought, and I honestly cannot decide how much sexist tropes in games truly affect my enjoyment of them. To expect that much out of a Mario game seems a little farfetched to me. I’m aware of the princess’ role and have never really taken it as a personal slight on my empowerment as woman (and arguably Princess Peach has some badass moments in the game series’ history… she was a critical character in Super Mario Bros. RPG which I maintain is one of the best RPGs I’ve ever played.) And in Super Mario Bros. 2, Peach was the best character because she could hover/fly! Gosh, now that I think about it, I’d say Mario historically has done a damn good job with making the princess useful.
But I digress. Usually my response to sexist tropes is to just sort of roll my eyes and move along, the way you would with any stupid thing in a video game.
There are some instances where I find it more irksome than others. The example I gave above, The Witcher, was a pretty big deal, because I felt like the game took everything else in its world seriously except the women. And it’s all going to come down to personal preference. When I play an RPG it bothers the shit out of me if my melee character can’t dress in full armor but is instead relegated to metal panties. With mages and stuff I don’t care as much but warriors need armor, damn it! And I have a strong preference for melee characters so this comes up a lot.
On the scale of ''how much do I care about this?" it ranks above ''another goddamn sewer rat sequence? Really?"but it still gets shoved into the Omnibus bin of ‘‘general things that annoy me about the games I play.’’
Like you said, the thing suffers as much from its lack of originality as it does from representing some sexist worldview.
That said, a game like Sarkeesian describes, where the female captive rescues herself, sounds pretty badass. It’s like the transition of the Princess’ role in Mario games. The original Super Mario Bros. is objectively awesome. But that moment where Peach got to do something other than be rescued was definitely super exciting. I can’t explain it. It’s like, ‘‘Finally, representation!’’
My favorite RPG is currently Diablo 3. I get to wear full armor as Barbarian or Crusader. There are some sexist tropes but the point of Diablo 3 is not the story. The succubi monsters or creepy spider women could be replaced with flying pigs and it would make fuck all of a difference in gameplay. At the end of the day, I get to wear some goddamned armor.
If you’d be interested in a stealth survival horror game you can play on a touchscreen you might take a look at Republique from Camouflaj. The protagonist is female and rescuing yourself is a big part of the game.
Oh, honey, you’ll never get a man if you dress like that! You have such a lovely figure. Wouldn’t you rather wear something that shows off your cute, little tuchus? Armor that pushes up your bosoms, like this? Men like boobs. [/Your Grandmother]
To be fair, anyone strong enough to wield whatever the hell that weapon is doesn’t *need *armor.
Fuck, even I would wear something that stupid to wield something that badass.
I dunno. It looks like it would be really difficult to get the sharp bits to hit your enemy without at the same time disembowelling yourself.
Now I want to make a game with everyone in normal armor, except for one chick in boob armor in some random town with a giant scar on her stomach.