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[Max White]

I think she says quite a few times that it's okay for these things to happen quite a bit, as long as they don't happen overwhelmingly.

Does she?

[Neonivek]

Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes

Ok, nevermind... I guess if those are Anita's own words then she has problems.

[Vector]

. . . What, some of these tropes DO perpetuate offensive stereotypes.  Like the "women on their period are crazy" one.

[Max White]

And was that one of the tropes mentioned?
Ok so maybe it is in the old series I have yet to watch all the way through, but just because some tropes are offensive doesn't mean you can just slap a sexist label on any trope you like.

[Neonivek]

. . . What, some of these tropes DO perpetuate offensive stereotypes.  Like the "women on their period are crazy" one.

Sure, if you look at them with crazy pills and go "Hmm that woman is possessed by a demon from hell because I failed and now I have to kill her because otherwise she will kill me. Clearly this is a commentary on how women during their period are just murderous psychos who need to be slugged over the head until they are sane"

And was that one of the tropes mentioned?

It isn't... Vector is stretching the "Woman gets possessed by evil and you have to fight her" scene that is common in videogames.

[Vector]

Righto, time to leave the topic again because THAT WAS NOT WHAT I SAID AT ALL.

No, that was not necessarily a trope mentioned, but it sure is a trope that is in and of itself offensive to women, which was under contest.

[Max White]

I'm not saying no trope has ever been offencive, but so far Anita has yet to provide one that actually is.
Once again we can apply the reversibility test. Is it offensive to imply that men become irrational because of some sexual cycle? Well yea, kind of. Therefor the same is true of women. Is it offensive for a man to be kidnapped? Not really, no.

[Rolan7]

I think she says quite a few times that it's okay for these things to happen quite a bit, as long as they don't happen overwhelmingly.

Does she?

Hm.  You're right, she is less tolerant of violence against women than other tropes in her other videos.  Still though:

Of course, if you look at any of these games in isolation, you will be able to find incidental narrative circumstances that can be used to explain away the inclusion of violence against women as a plot device. But just because a particular event might “makes sense” within the internal logic of a fictional narrative – that doesn’t, in and of itself justify its use. Games don’t exist in a vacuum and therefore can’t be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world.

Then she explains why this isn't some sort of conspiracy:

Despite these troubling implications, game creators aren’t necessarily all sitting around twirling their nefarious looking mustaches while consciously trying to figure out how to best misrepresent women as part of some grand conspiracy.

Most probably just haven’t given much thought to the underlying messages their games are sending and in many cases developers have backed themselves into a corner with their own game mechanics.  When violence is the primary gameplay mechanic and therefore the primary way that the player engages with the game-world it severely limits the options for problem solving. The player is then forced to use violence to deal with almost all situations because its the only meaningful mechanic available — even if that means beating up or killing the women they are meant to love or care about.

Following up with a condemnation of systemic & institutional violence of this sort:

One of the really insidious things about systemic & institutional sexism is that most often regressive attitudes and harmful gender stereotypes are perpetuated and maintained unintentionally.

Particularly happens when it happens over and over again:

So when developers exploit sensationalized images of brutalized, mutilated and victimized women over and over and over again it tends to reinforce the dominant gender paradigm which casts men as aggressive and commanding and frames women as subordinate and dependent.

Consequently violent revenge based narratives, repeated ad nauseum, can also be harmful to men...

The “dark and edgy” trope-cocktails we’ve discussed in this episode are not isolated incidents, or obscure anomalies; instead they represent an ongoing recurring pattern in modern gaming narratives.

So while she doesn't literally say it's alright for this to *ever* happen, her point is that it shouldn't be happening *so much*.

[Neonivek]

I'm not saying no trope has ever been offencive, but so far Anita has yet to provide one that actually is.
Once again we can apply the reversibility test. Is it offensive to imply that men become irrational because of some sexual cycle? Well yea, kind of. Therefor the same is true of women. Is it offensive for a man to be kidnapped? Not really, no.

Honestly a lot of the tropes Anita uses I've long since considered Unisex. To the extent that I am surprised she has never used the reverse.

For example she never listed any Male Damsels in Distress, she listed males who were captured but none who genuinely needed help to escape.

Anita many a time doesn't try to reach to make people understand the difference.

When I like to look at the Exemplar Male Damsel in Distress (as opposed to a female one) to get the point across as to the difference, I like to use Edgar from KQ7.

In KQ7 as soon as he was rescued he immediately confronts and nearly defeats the villain (you don't fight much in KQ7, but it is a point and click most heros don't fight. In fact only 2 KQs had main character fights). Heck in Monkey Island when Elaine Rescues Guybrush he usually has to immediately face the villain.

Now as for the reverse of the Damsel in Distress I always like to point to Elaine who is simply a parody of the Damsel in that she is so competent that she never needs to be saved by the hero. To the point where the only times she messes up is because of your direct intervention.

I know Anita is going to go to "positive female heros" but a lot of them NEEDED to appear in their sections.

The problem is that the offensiveness of a lot of these tropes are not just in their use but in their details.

---

Also interesting video made by a male

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kHOn1UsWao&feature=youtu.be

Also HOLY COW!!! All of a sudden I am finding the GOOD videos that criticize Anita and none of the crazy, insane, or stupid ones.

[Vector]

Perfect example of a male damsel: Garrus in ME2.

[Max White]

Hm.  You're right, she is less tolerant of violence against women than other tropes in her other videos.  Still though:

Of course, if you look at any of these games in isolation, you will be able to find incidental narrative circumstances that can be used to explain away the inclusion of violence against women as a plot device. But just because a particular event might “makes sense” within the internal logic of a fictional narrative – that doesn’t, in and of itself justify its use. Games don’t exist in a vacuum and therefore can’t be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world.

Then she explains why this isn't some sort of conspiracy:

Despite these troubling implications, game creators aren’t necessarily all sitting around twirling their nefarious looking mustaches while consciously trying to figure out how to best misrepresent women as part of some grand conspiracy.

Most probably just haven’t given much thought to the underlying messages their games are sending and in many cases developers have backed themselves into a corner with their own game mechanics.  When violence is the primary gameplay mechanic and therefore the primary way that the player engages with the game-world it severely limits the options for problem solving. The player is then forced to use violence to deal with almost all situations because its the only meaningful mechanic available — even if that means beating up or killing the women they are meant to love or care about.

Following up with a condemnation of systemic & institutional violence of this sort:

One of the really insidious things about systemic & institutional sexism is that most often regressive attitudes and harmful gender stereotypes are perpetuated and maintained unintentionally.

Particularly happens when it happens over and over again:

So when developers exploit sensationalized images of brutalized, mutilated and victimized women over and over and over again it tends to reinforce the dominant gender paradigm which casts men as aggressive and commanding and frames women as subordinate and dependent.

Consequently violent revenge based narratives, repeated ad nauseum, can also be harmful to men...

The “dark and edgy” trope-cocktails we’ve discussed in this episode are not isolated incidents, or obscure anomalies; instead they represent an ongoing recurring pattern in modern gaming narratives.

So while she doesn't literally say it's alright for this to *ever* happen, her point is that it shouldn't be happening *so much*.

I think there is a bit of a disconnect here. When she says "Games don’t exist in a vacuum and therefore can’t be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world.", the 'larger cultural context of the real world' isn't a reference to how common a trope is. When she then goes on to talk about domestic violence in real life, I think it is safe to say that this larger cultural context of the real world is real life violence against women.
She isn't saying "In the real world there are a lot of games with violence against women, and this has become so prevalent it is a problem", but rather she is saying "In the real world there is violence against women, therefor games that include violence done to women, even those that attempt to justify it by having this violence make sense in the context of the narrative, are a problem"

That is a lot more along the lines of "It should never happen" than "It shouldn't happen this much".


And is that really fair? In real life people of both genders are beaten, robbed, murdered, tortured, raped and so on. Why do we narrow the focus to only include women? Surly if a woman being killed unjustly is wrong in a game because of the real life parallels, then it is wrong when it happens to a man too, right? So where does that leave us?

[Vector]

No.

The problem is that men are the heroes and villains and women are the collateral.  That is why it is a problem.  It is a problem because there are not other images of us available.

[Neonivek]

No.

The problem is that men are the heroes and villains and women are the collateral.  That is why it is a problem.  It is a problem because there are not other images of us available.

So your complaint is that the majority of people who play these videogames with heroes and villains... are male then?

[Max White]

No.

The problem is that men are the heroes and villains and women are the collateral.  That is why it is a problem.  It is a problem because there are not other images of us available.

I'm talking about Anitas video series.
You are mixing up the actual problem with the problem presented in this video series. Trying to say somebody has misdiagnosed something doesn't mean there isn't a sickness.

Yes, there is a problem with cliches, no there is not a problem with the tropes. Anita knows the difference, because she actually defines them, but she still insists the problem is with the tropes.

And just to be clear, no, once again I'm not saying there are no offensive tropes. I am talking about the video series and the tropes within the series are not offensive.

[Vector]

No, my complaint is that range of portrayals is severely limited for women across media in general.

This is a problem because humans pretty much run off of something called the availability heuristic, which means that people think things for which they can think of examples are far more prevalent than those things for which they can't.  Like words that start with k rather than words that have k outside of the first position--the latter are for more prevalent, but people pretty much always say that there are more of the former.

This thought process translates into real-world problems.


Why are you so busy nit-picking the video series if you've already decided she's wrong?  What does it matter?  Do you not have anyone better to roast?  Are you seriously not getting bored?

(I am, this is why I'm asking)