Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Willfor]

That way we can see if government intervention, as opposed to creating general awareness, is justified.

Please read this before you keep saying things, Neonivek.

[Neonivek]

That way we can see if government intervention, as opposed to creating general awareness, is justified.

Please read this before you keep saying things, Neonivek.

It has been a constant looming topic in this room about what the government should and should not do.

at no point do I honestly think anyone is REALLY going to do anything that drastic about it... The ratings boards for videogames are MUCH MUCH 100 times superior to ones for movies and frankly the popularity of videogames has finally killed the idea that it is a niche market enough that we don't have to fear another "hot coffee" incident of stupidity.

But it is still a looming topic in this room and still needs to be answered.

Also it is kind of unrelated. They are talking about backlash to criticism... not government intervention.

[i2amroy]

Realistically if anything is going to happen from the government it's probably going to happen in the next 5 years or so.

Math:
1980 (Year the Pac-man arcade game hits Northern America)
+51 (Median age of US Congress members)
-13 (Youngest age of the traditional arcade demographic [13-18])
= 2018

By that point approximately half of Congress will have "grown up" with video games, either in arcade form or not, which I'm willing to bet will severely limit the chances that they will do anything regarding the problems of videogames. By 6 years after that a majority of Congressmen won't remember a time before video game arcades existed. If anything is going to happen, it's going to happen soon.

[Rolan7]

I don't see what the government could be expected to do about the sexism.  It's not something that can really be stopped on a case by case basis.  I mean, I guess you could add a "Cheaply Exploits Teen Hormones" rating (or something more serious).  But there's already a Mature rating...  Which would suggest that young adults are falling for this crap too...  Bluh.

What could help is government sponsorship of art, in many mediums, which defies unhealthy gender stereotypes.  It wouldn't be limited to sexism, or videogames, and it wouldn't be stopping anyone from pumping out the same bland tripe-A games.

[Helgoland]

You'll run into problems with overshooting, though. Or, to put it differently: What procedure do you suggest to decide which sort of art to sponsor?

[Neonivek]

One idea I don't like but many have offered is a seal of approval.

Basically if a game is "Not sexist" it gets a seal of approval.

This has actually been done before but for movies passing the Bachdel test.

[Dutchling]

I thought the Bechdel test was for the industry as a whole and not for individual films...

[Neonivek]

I thought the Bechdel test was for the industry as a whole and not for individual films...

The Bechdel test doesn't say anything about an individual movie, but when applied to the industry as a whole it says something.

However, people take it one step further and believe that it basically is the sort of goal post of all movies.

Still the "seal of approval" for the Bechdel test exists in exactly one country. Some people argued for and against it for multiple reasons.

[Rolan7]

Sweden, if anyone was wondering... Thanks Google!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/swedish-cinemas-bechdel-test-films-gender-bias

To be clear, it's an entirely new rating scale solely for "gender bias".  Not like the PG/MA/AO rating we're used to.  The Bechdel test is one of many ways they determine the rating.  A perfect score requires passing the test, though.

It's definitely not how the test was intended to be used...  But maybe it's fine, in context.  We're talking about movies where female characters only ever discuss the male characters.  There are lots of reasons that can happen without the movie being particularly sexist (no spoken lines, very few characters, etc).  An ideal movie though, one which deserves the highest rating of gender equality, should pass the Bechdel test (or also fail the reverse Bechdel).

[scriver]

To be clear, Sweden isn't doing anything, it's private companies that chose to do this.

[Leafsnail]

The Bechdel test demonstrates a systematic lack of meaningful female presence in films, but applying it as a way to test if an individual film is sexist is completely meaningless (especially since it's trivially easy to trick).  You need to run a proper analysis.

[Neonivek]

The Bechdel test demonstrates a systematic lack of meaningful female presence in films, but applying it as a way to test if an individual film is sexist is completely meaningless (especially since it's trivially easy to trick).  You need to run a proper analysis.

Not "lack of meaningful female presence" but rather the depth of their concerns.

[penguinofhonor]

If your entire criticism of a film is that it doesn't pass the test, that's dumb.

If you're critiquing a film in-depth though and have a feminism-aware audience and want to say it fails the test as an easy way to get across the point that the female characters only ever talk to men or about men, that's fine.

[Dutchling]

I agree with that, assuming the test is relevant at all.

Which would be most of the time a film passes the reverse test.

[Neonivek]

I really hate the "Talk about men" aspect because it is made to be much worse then it actually is.

Since it makes it out to sound like the woman is going "Man, if only a man would come and take me to the prom!" when really it can be like "We have to save the president, I'll lead the charge!".