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[Loud Whispers]

Sexism is bad, full stop. But this thread is about "Tropes vs Women in Video Games", so it is not unfair to expect most of the discussion to be about women.

This thread is about Anita's video titled "Tropes vs Women in Video Games," focusing a lot on resonating tropes about women from popular games in the 80s-90s. The OP didn't actually start with any guidelines or specifications, it gave a topic and discussion led to here. Seeing as how we've apparently moved on from
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I don't see why a discussion about sexism can do just that, without narrowing itself down to sexism of one sex. This thread seems to have turned out to be more about criticizing inequality of the sexes than simply ignoring one half. Not that I wouldn't mind a return to the OP's discussion, it just appears to have concluded and moved on to a broader scope. Discussed to fruition.

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.

"The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice."
-Marcus Tulius Cicero
-106 B.C.

[alexandertnt]

I did not say that it couldnt or even shouldnt go in that direction, only that "not unfair to expect" it not to go in that direction, in reference to earlier posts that were asking why there were no significant representation of males, and to possibly explain why some people were not expecting it to go in the direction it did.

[King DZA]

Great ferocious fucknuggets I can't believe I actually took the time to read through this entire thread. Not really sure why, as I could have practically guaranteed myself from the start that it would only end up pissing me off...

Spoiler: Mentally exhausted, somewhat off-topic ranting/ramblings within. Pay no mind. (click to show/hide)

It's just...why can't everyone simply come to realize and agree that life sucks for everybody to some extent, and put forth a collective effort to make existence generally less sucky for each individual, instead of segregating people into groups and arguing over which group's life sucks the most?
I mean, I get the idea of trying to combat the overall shitheadedness of the human race in smaller, more manageable chunks (such as racism, sexism, ect.), but more often than not it seems to me like the end result (both on the internet and in real life) is everyone splitting off into teams that try to convince everyone else that their suffering has top priority, and only ever really focusing on the plight experienced by those in their own circle, thus attempting to fight one flavor of fuckery while simultaneously stirring another into the mix. I just don't understand what's so hard about having one big "Let's all not be such assholes to each other" team.

Fuckin' humanity, man. Get your shit together already...

[Neonivek]

It's just...why can't everyone simply come to realize and agree that life sucks for everybody to some extent, and put forth a collective effort to make existence generally less sucky for each individual, instead of segregating people into groups and arguing over which group's life sucks the most?

Because for some reason people are treating it like there is only one equality prize to be won and if you don't win the "I suck more" contest then you don't get any.

Which gets especially odd.

So you get people who are basically like: "What? Give men equality? But women need it so much more?" which is responded to with "What? Trying to argue that men don't have issues with sexism? For the sake of my country I must save the world from this great injustice" which is responded to with "What? That super villain is trying to say men's issues are supperior to women's? I cannot stand for this!" which is responded to with "What? Someone belittling men?"

Which basically the entire arguement (not the conversation... this was weird in that we had people having a genuin and very interesting conversation on sexism as a whole as it pertains to men and women and how both forms of sexism affects both sexes... while also having a heated arguement) is based around both sides believing the other was trying to reduce the other and sometimes that was true.

Heck the original Ambulence scenario someone posted (however insulting) PERFECTLY encapsulates this sort of mentality. Remember a female and a male are injured and the ambulence can ONLY cure one.

Mind you I don't think it is something the board believes but rather that whenever someone talked about men issues the knee jerk reaction was that someone was trying to belittle women issues (which honestly I think is a taught reaction, I think we are taught to react that way because we are trying so hard to be progressive society)

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Actually as an aside do you want to know what I think is the most offensive depiction of women? Women in sitcoms

They are often the most terrible people who have no sense of being responsible for their actions in a world that genuinly believes that relationships are about men being slaves to their girlfriend. Men are supposed to cater to their whims but not do so disingenuously. In attempting to be progressive they managed to create an even worse archtype then the "Perfect little housewife"... I mean at least the Housewife could be considered a virtuous archtype that spreads a possitive (albiet regressive... well back then, now adays it would be interesting) message about women and the importance of patience and hard work... These women are all terrible people and why anyone dates them is beyond me but worse then that the show actually depicts this as "acceptible".

[Frumple]

"The first law for the historian is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he shall suppress nothing that is true. Moreover, there shall be no suspicion of partiality in his writing, or of malice."
-Marcus Tulius Cicero
-106 B.C.

Pretty words. Unfortunately distanced from the reality of historical record (you can stuff a lot of bias into a text and still pass Cicero's heuristic ), but that's a topic a bit better suited for a different discussion. Poor thread's derailed enough, really.

Historians do tend to try a lot harder than a lot of folks, though, which is certainly admirable in its own right.

[Solifuge]

Neonivek, stop casting this as a contest. The only way to fix a problem is to recognize its existence and its extent, whereupon you can brainstorm solutions. If you truly view this discussion as them damned feminists trying to make the struggle for gender equality more important or worthy than all the other issues out there... then you're just being asinine.

There is no Triage for issues of social justice; they all deserve our attention, and our efforts to address them. This is an exploration of part of the larger issue of equality. A part which, for reasons I can't understand, certain people are trying as hard as they can to dismiss as unimportant.

-snip-

So yeah, you missed my point entirely. Or you're mentally rejecting it and replacing it with your own version. Or you're arguing for the sake of argument. I'm not really sure anymore.

1) Let's start with Arkham Asylum. Completely ignoring the sexualization, each of the female characters in those scenes have something in common. They are trapped in the plots and machinations of a man, helpless to free themselves from their situation. And those that can be freed require another man to do it for them:

• Catwoman, normally a cunning criminal and fighter, is helpless and about to be killed by Two-Face. Her response to the situation? Flirtation. She is then rescued by Batman once when Two-Face prepares to shoot her, and again shortly thereafter when about to be sniped by the Joker. Her response to the situation? Flirtation. Such independence, and depth of character!
• Harley Quinn, a naive and pretty messed-up girl, is utterly dependent on the deranged Joker. Her world revolves around him, and she has no independent agency, or will of her own. The moment she shows any (she wants a peek under Batman's mask) the Joker barks at her and she shrinks away and back to his side. Yeah, girl power!
• Talia al Ghul is trapped under the will of her father. Only Batman can free her by killing her father, and making Talia his bride. Seriously? Even though it doesn't happen, this is Talia's introduction to the story. "Man deposes Evil Overlord and rescues Princess" is the exact trope you are trying to pretend doesn't exist anymore.

2) Portal was a great example of a good female protagonist, which I never contested. It may be part of why so many of my ladyfriends loved Portal so much; a story where you play as a capable and interesting female character, in a conflict with other characters; among whom is a deranged and essentially female computer overlord. Portal 1 and 2 had the same protagonist, so I don't understand your point in attacking my words. Are you're just playing Devil's Advocate here?

3) Yes, Dead or Alive spinoffs are minimal games acting more as glorified porn, via skimpy clothes and a boob-physics simulator. And yet they are interactive media, and they represent women purely as sexual objects. Same goes for Bayonetta, though they tack on some ass-kicking and a veneer of a personality to disguise the rampant objectification. My point stands for both.

4) It doesn't even matter if Duke Nukem was the worst-grossing game of all time, and everyone hated it. It was a mainstream game, and the women it represented were either helpless and fawning over the main character, reduced to sexual objects, or brutalized horrifically. It's part of our culture now. We cannot make Duke Nukem Forever unhappen.

So yeah, my point continues to be that the problems of minimization of the role of empowered women, the rampant objectification of women (sexually and otherwise), and the prevalence of distressed damselhood are not things of the past, which you are asserting they are. Do you agree with me, or is the world of gender equality in video games all sunshine and roses?

[Putnam]

Catwoman was more... mocking there.

[Solifuge]

IMHO this thread needs more irrelevant nitpicking.

Whether she was literally grinding herself against Batman or not, the point is that she was disempowered and robbed of agency by one man, and had to be rescued by another man. It's literally the same old trope.

[Neonivek]

Yeah but in Catwoman's case she and Batman have a mutual relationship and have saved eachother time and time again. In which case she falls outside what Anita was talking about since both Batman and Catwoman have had their agency taken away by one man and had to be rescued by the other.

It isn't the same trope when the characters are in equal footing and save eachother without making them less competent.

Neonivek, stop casting this as a contest

No, I am saying it isn't a contest and that quite a few posters are treating it as if it was one, which is rediculous.

A part which, for reasons I can't understand, certain people are trying as hard as they can to dismiss as unimportant

Well there are two major reasons for it and they are
1) People do genuinly believe that sexism for men IS unimportant that men are in such an advantageous possition that their issues are not really issues, that they are "just a paper cut".
and
2) People don't believe sexism against men is unimportant but find discussions on it to be a dirrect attack on the importance of sexism against women and thus rush to its aid (the defensive overreaction basically and one based off of a misunderstanding)

I'd like to think that it is the second and that this is mostly a misunderstanding, except that... some posts are harder to dismiss as not part of the first.

[Vector]

I think part of it is that we so seldom talk about women and actually focus on them.  Maybe not on this forum, but in most places men are pretty much always the focus of the conversation, so people do feel like they have to fight to actually keep the focus on women's issues for once.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not really sure your criticism of Harley Quinn is a valid one. Her whole status as a villain is resultant of her having been brainwashed by the Joker. It is actively portrayed as a bad thing that she's obsessed with him, and in more than one portrayal has this been taken to the extent of being a legitimate abusive relationship. She loves the Joker, but for the most part he just sees her as another tool to kill the Batman (who is, in a fucked up way, Joker's real love).

Sure, that's not an empowering role, but it is a recognized thing.

[Neonivek]

I think part of it is that we so seldom talk about women and actually focus on them.  Maybe not on this forum, but in most places men are pretty much always the focus of the conversation, so people do feel like they have to fight to actually keep the focus on women's issues for once.

Well, it has a lot to do with "Straw feminist" (how people view feminism in otherwords) and how a lot of conversations of women's issues tend to be very antagonistic towards male participants.

Though I seldom can think of the times I actually seen "Men's issues" brought up in conversation. Mostly because bringing those up lables you as sexist.

In otherwords you can't talk about sexism in normal conversation... because you are either a raving crazy feminist or an outright sexist pig.

Honestly I guess I have to give Anita some credit... For a video about tropes versus women in videogames. She really stayed away from outright bashing the games most of the time. Which makes it accessible as a videogamer because she isn't criticising you for liking those games.

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Sure, that's not an empowering role, but it is a recognized thing.

Honestly Harley Quinn to me isn't meant to be an empowering role it is meant to be a disempowering role.

It is about someone who loves another but who is abused (probably not show in the videogame) and who can't seem to stay away (mind you in the comics I believe she eventually stayed away and in the cartoon she eventually got away).

It doesn't mean her role is bad for women because her role is treated with respect and how the abuse affects her is actually given focus (In fact in the cartoon they had entire episodes about Harley). She becomes a person and not just an object being thrown around by the Joker or just a barrier for Batman.

[Vector]

Okay, I think we're thinking about this in the wrong way.

There's something called the Bechdel test, which measures female presence in some medium.  Do two named female characters have a conversation about something other than a man?  Surprisingly, most media doesn't pass this test.  It doesn't mean that it's bad.  It just means that women don't have much space in our media (I just watched Gladiator, for example, and not only is there only one named female character--out of two female characters in the movie, and seven named male characters, two unnamed minor characters with nontrivial contributions--but every conversation she has is always about the person she's talking with or another man).  Similarly--are there any female characters whose stories are not built by male behavior?

You certainly can't argue that Batman's character arc is built by Catwoman, but you can argue that Catwoman's arc is built by Batman.  Similarly, Harley Quinn and the Joker, Talia and Raz Al'Ghul.  In all of these cases there's a pretty clear disparity of power and importance, where the powerful man is highly influential in the woman's story, but the woman's story is not very influential on the man's.

Honestly I guess I have to give Anita some credit... For a video about tropes versus women in videogames. She really stayed away from outright bashing the games most of the time. Which makes it accessible as a videogamer because she isn't criticising you for liking those games.

To be honest, I suspect that she also started with an obvious trope like "damsel in distress" just to help folks ease into the idea of what she's doing.  It's a lot easier on folks if you don't start off by hitting them directly where it hurts (modern gaming, in tropes they never would have noticed if she hadn't pointed it out).

[penguinofhonor]

The reverse bechdel test is also important in that almost all media passes it. Even things that are very often targeted solely at women pass the reverse test more often than gender neutral things pass the normal test.

[Reelya]

It doesn't invalidate my claim that based on current evidence women are more likely to attempt suicide.

I'm just wondering why you present this as significant, when it is only a result of women also being more likely to survive suicide attempts.

It's significant when, from what I've surmised, Reelya was arguing that gender disparities in income don't amount to much when more men are committing suicide. This would imply that men are suffering more under the system. His information wasn't correct and even contrary to the best supported truth we have available. I could be wrong but given how he's apparently tried to defend that claim instead of clarifying that he meant something else I don't think I read his meaning incorrectly.

WTF is this shit? When did i reference the gender income gap at all?

What I said was that lots of men commit suicide, so you can't claim those particular people had some "special privilege" because some other, unrelated people who just happen to share the same gender are CEO's. Those particular suicide victims certainly didn't feel like they were specially privileged, i think it's clear to say.

i.e. just because one person is well-off doesn't mean you can arbitrarily claim an entire class of people who share some arbitrary characteristic that you've chosen as the dividing line are also well-off

For the record, you chose to dismiss any significance of male suicide by contrasting it with failed female suicide attempts. like that actually means the male suicide victims were actually privileged or something?