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[freeformschooler]

I personally find it frustrating that no matter how politely a woman expresses her opinion, she will inevitably be cited as "yelling" or "screaming" or "hysterical" if she has something unpopular to say and sticks by it.

Yeah. Claiming she thinks like "this is horrible, I hate it and you should too" (despite the fact that she enjoys many of the games she critisizes), and using emotive workds such as "yelling" and "screaming" to describe her critisizm is nothing but a strawman (strawwomen?).

Yeah I've noticed this a lot, even during the #1ReasonWhy debacle. It's really annoying.

[WealthyRadish]

I fail to see the argument that the videos aren't constructive. The videos are structured more like a research paper than any specific proposal, and it's pretty obvious from her introduction and kickstarter page that this was the intent from the beginning. Raising awareness of an issue that hasn't been well publicized is an excellent way of bringing about change, and already it has encouraged many people to start widespread discussion of it that otherwise wouldn't happen. One of my biggest complaints with the games industry is just how juvenile it frequently is with its characters and plots, and to see the currently near-omnipresent sexualization and objectification in games be shot down by consumers would be wonderful.

[i2amroy]

To start off, while I was unable to actually watch the video, I was able to read the entire transcript. If there are any differences between the two that I am making assumptions on I heavily apologize for that.

I personally find it frustrating that no matter how politely a woman expresses her opinion, she will inevitably be cited as "yelling" or "screaming" or "hysterical" if she has something unpopular to say and sticks by it.

The reason I utilized those terms was due to the fact that normally when a person conveys a strong opinion to a large number of people who disagree with them that that is the method that they usually end up resorting to. If you prefer I could go back and edit my post to include the words "soapboxing" and "preaching" instead, as they convey the same connotations that I was attempting to convey. My usage of the words would be exactly the same if a man was expressing his views in the same manner, and had nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman, rather it had to do with the way she is attempting to convey her ideals upon others. If such wording offended you I will happily edit my previous post.

A trope can most certainly be sexist - the whole point of a trope is the cultural baggage it brings with it. The history, the environment. A trope being inherently sexist is a distinct possibility BECAUSE tropes are about how things have been used. Of course, just because a piece of media uses a sexist trope, that doesn't mean the piece of media itself is sexist - but it can certainly contribute to a sexist environment.

I disagree strongly. Just because it is much easier to use something to be sexist does not automatically make something sexist. Yes it is much more difficult to utilize a trope such as the Damsel in Distress in a way that is not sexist, but it is possible. That is exactly why the character type of Badass Damsel as I linked to exists. It is the use of things like tropes that makes them sexist in that given situation, not the tropes themselves. I would be confident in saying that there are virtually no "sexist" tropes that cannot be used in a way that is not sexist.

As for what I say is the "problem" of her videos, I would have nothing against her if she presented her videos as a simple documentary. If she wanted to say "this is a history of gender sexism in the video game industry" I would be totally fine with that. The problem is that in her summing of the video at the end she states her belief that said examples are contributing to a current problem. This restructures the entire video from a "here is history and insight" statement to a "this is causing a problem" statement. If she had cut straight from the Double Dragon Neon clip to her "next time on" style clip I wouldn't have a thing to say about the "problem" with her videos. Instead she throws in her beliefs on current situations, though, which immediately changes her persona from that of a historian to that of a person on a soapbox.

And that is where I find she goes wrong. Historians are valued for their opinion and the fact that we can learn from our past mistakes. Soapboxers are no different from the crazy man on the corner telling you that the end of the world is coming and are just as likely ignored. So she needs to decide what she wants to be. Does she want to be a historian, one who categorizes the past but does not provide commentary on the present? OR does she want to become a soapboxer who tells you how things of the past are effecting the present but is just ultimately another voice for us to ignore? She can't be both, and the fact that she is trying to be is my problem with her. She either needs to cut the feminist propaganda that she uses to sum up her video (regardless of how true it may be) and be a historian or she needs to face the fact that many people will ignore/hate her as just another annoying voice. She can't have her cake and eat it too, it needs to be one or the other.

If she wants to cut the propaganda from her videos then I know that I will probably watch them, after all you should never ignore history. But if she decides to keep it in and remain a soapboxer then I will be politely excusing myself from her, as biased history is worthless to learn from, since bias intrinsically prevents us from learning from it in a method to prevent it from happening again.

[penguinofhonor]

So there's no middle ground between completely unbiased historian and "the crazy man on the corner telling you that the end of the world is coming". Yeah, not taking that argument seriously.

[Frumple]

Yeah... biased history is kinda' more or less all we actually have. Few hundred years of working at it in a formal manner and we still haven't really figured out how to get bias out of history.

We do try a lot harder nowadays, though. Which is an improvement! But unbiased history is still a bit of an oxymoron. And we get a lot of good work on the more practical screw-up prevention front from the biased stuff, so saying it's useless for that is kinda' silly.

[i2amroy]

So there's no middle ground between completely unbiased historian and "the crazy man on the corner telling you that the end of the world is coming". Yeah, not taking that argument seriously.

My point is that regardless of which way she wants to go, she is going about it very inefficiently. If she wants to tell us that we should do something then she needs to tell us what she wants us to do, and if she wants us to listen to her as a historian she has some aspects she should remove from her videos. Attempting to carry on halfway between "unbiased historian" and "crazy man on the corner" (or crazy man making millions, after all the only difference between the two is one rants about his ideas and one puts them into action) just ends up meaning you aren't very good at being either one (and the only way to go from being "crazy on the corner" to "crazy in the money" is by being very good at it).

[penguinofhonor]

Or perhaps she wants to create a history from a feminist perspective, which she's doing rather effectively.

[GlyphGryph]

History was an analogy. She isn't doing history. She is doing critique. The bit at the end actually matter in critique. It's still primarily informational, bit critique is supposed to have a point.

You may argue that critique does not have value, and that Kant was just a poseur - so be it. But you seem to have a fundamental understanding of what is actually going on here, of the fact that critique is generally understood to have value, or of the fact that there is clearly a potential audience.

This isn't preaching. Preaching is not analysis. This isn't even soapboxing, which is primarily about putting forward an opinion. It's about deconstruction.

Criques are primarily academic in nature, yes. You seem to have a problem with academic discussion of topics as meaningless, fine. But it's not really much different from any of the other critiques that are constantly being written and shared.

[alexandertnt]

I have no idea how you thought "yelling" would get what your point across, especially as it implies some form of aggression or hate.

Why cant a historian provide commentary on the present? Historians frequently do. And why is one voicing their opinion a "voice to ignore", especially when they make good points.

I... don't understand how someone making potentially valid points and observations turns into  the "crazy man on the corner".

[Ogdibus]

.

[Max White]

It is blatantly obvious that there is rampant sexism in the game industry, that much isn't even really in debate here, but I don't really 100% agree with everything that was said in the current video.
For example, the idea that the guy saving the girl is sexist just isn't true. In any narrative there are going to be some characters with a greater degree of power than others. Sometimes, if you have true gender equity, especially in a very small cast, the guy will have more power than the girl. The fact that peach doesn't get to be the hero isn't sexist, it is the narrative. If you want a story about somebody rushing off to face great peril and save their loved one from a fire breathing dragon, you need somebody to need saving.

What is sexist, and waaaay to prevalent in the games industry, is the idea that certain roles must be filled by certain genders. You can have a story about the boy saving the girl, it is fine, what isn't fine is avoiding, boycotting or devaluing a similar story where girl saves boy, and that isn't yet going into less 'traditional' relationships. Sadly, this point was totally missed in her video.

Somebody, having watched that video might think that having the boy save girl story at all is immoral, and that just isn't true.

[Neonivek]

Yes it is much more difficult to utilize a trope such as the Damsel in Distress in a way that is not sexist, but it is possible

I actually disagree with this but not strongly or offensively so. It is in my view that a Damsel in Distress is an inherantly non-sexist trope. Since all it is in heart is a character who takes no active role in their wellbeing and needs to be saved by another character.

In order to be a "sexist trope" it needs to automatically bring up sexist overtones just by being used. Which being a damsel certainly doesn't because of two aspects:
1) The idea of a passive person who cannot do anything to free themselves is not an extreme persona, nor is the desire to be saved or be in the safety of someone else.
2) The character in it of itself does not "rub off" on a gender as a whole on its own.

It is through its overuse and ironic unuse that it can become sexist.

Yet the thing is... this is becoming less and less topical by the day. I can certainly think of some female damsels being used today, but they tend to be justified in their helplessness or are such long standing damsels that it has become part of their character.

---

As for why people always take feminist possitions on videogames offensively, it is rather easy to understand. The possition most of the time is that these games are "wrong" somehow and they will bring up aspects of the story that arn't inherant to the story. So they will bring up Peach and how useless she is most of the time, which you know she is, and then they will go and say how Peach is an offense to "women" as a whole. At which case a natural response for a normal gamer, because they arn't sexist, will go "Wait a minute. I play Mario all the time and I never once associated Princess Peach with woman as a whole. What the crazy is this person talking about?"

And this is outright excluding the antagonistic possitions.

I had to tone down a lot of my feminist views over the years when I kinda started to understand that a lot of things that I considered offensively sexist (for example big breasted women in videogames) was not only something shared by other women but was something that actually existed as well as other stuff. So I had to reconcile this with what I refer to "using sex against a character" and overuse.

----

The fact that peach doesn't get to be the hero isn't sexist, it is the narrative

I agree it is the one thing she doesn't seem to understand is that narratively anyone who isn't the main character or villain in many games... is a minor character. As such there is only so much they can do.

Why does the female partner always fail when she goes off and tries to do something on her own? Because then you wouldn't be achieving that (Don't get me wrong... I hate it when competent characters are thrown aside to make the main character seem tough) and the only reason it is a female is because she would be the one with the strongest connection (romantic connection) to the male character and would resonate more strongly. Were the main character female, the same situation would occur with the male partner failing.

[penguinofhonor]

The fact that peach doesn't get to be the hero isn't sexist, it is the narrative

I agree it is the one thing she doesn't seem to understand is that narratively anyone who isn't the main character or villain in many games... is a minor character. As such there is only so much they can do.

Why does the female partner always fail when she goes off and tries to do something on her own? Because then you wouldn't be achieving that (Don't get me wrong... I hate it when competent characters are thrown aside to make the main character seem tough) and the only reason it is a female is because she would be the one with the strongest connection (romantic connection) to the male character and would resonate more strongly. Were the main character female, the same situation would occur with the male partner failing.

"The black people in pro-slavery literature aren't happy with their owners because they're racist stereotypes, they're happy because their owners treat them so well. It's in the narrative!"

We're not talking about what's going on within the narrative. That's pretty much pointless here. I'm going to state this as plainly as I can because you've pretty much made this same argument every time these videos have been brought up: This isn't a critique of whether the story is coherent.

This is a critique of the story in a social context, and why the vast majority of narratives happen to use these tropes in the exact same way, with the characters' roles falling perfectly along gender lines. Any single example she cites isn't particularly useful - the dominance of those examples over anything to the contrary is. That's why she cites a lot of them instead of spending twenty minutes analyzing Peach.

[alexandertnt]

What?

Its not the fact that big-breasts women exist, the issue that people have is the reason that video game women have big breasts.

Overuse is one thing that hints at the sexism, it is the reason it is overused.

Were the main character female, the same situation would occur with the male partner failing.

But it very rarely does. That's the point.

This isn't a critique of whether the story is coherent

Thank you! The narrative is constructed along with everything else in the game and can be sexist itself.

[Max White]

That is a pretty dishonest example Penguin.
If you are presenting pro-slavery literature, you will find that people enjoying being enslaved is generally offensive regardless of the slaves race, gender or sexuality. Slavery is just not a nice thing.
Being rescued, however, is generally a positive thing, thus only the most insane of sexist nutbags will ever et offended at a girl saving a boy. Thus, if there is nothing wrong with a girl saving a boy, and we are treating gender equally, there is nothing wrong with a boy saving the girl.
The trick here is the 'and we are treating gender equally'.
There is nothing wrong with the boy saves girl story, the problem is that the industry isn't treating gender equally.