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[Max White]

Well, to be fair there is the alter...

[Neonivek]

Well, to be fair there is the alter...

Which ANYTHING you can pick up, including yeti and cave men and shopkeepers, can be sacrificed at the alter.

[Rolan7]

So she is talking about Splunky HD... the game with both male and female damsels?

That is... sad.

Almost as sad as when she spoke about Bayonetta (mostly by getting a lot of the details incorrect)

Honestly, yeah.  Her main criticism of Spelunky seemed to be that they added both a dog damsel option (in addition to the male damsel option).  A terrible criticism in my opinion.  If they had only added a dog then there'd be a point, but as it stands, there's no link between women and dogs in the game.  Just dogs and damsels (of either gender).

No I am going to say this is more sad.
A game where the only real difference in gender roles between men and women are that men are portrayed as shopkeepers and slaves, where women are not, and that still isn't good enough for her because the damsel gets thrown around and killed a lot, and sometimes, sometimes that happens to be a woman. Not even the majority of the time, only a third. Still not good enough!

Her point is that a woman damsel is perpetuating a poisonous trope, a male damsel is not.  It's not the strongest assertion, but I agree with it.

[Neonivek]

Her point is that a woman damsel is perpetuating a poisonous trope, a male damsel is not.  It's not the strongest assertion, but I agree with it

Here is kind of the thing.

In the black and white era women were primarily seen in the kitchen because their primary role was being the caretaker of the house. This was a harmful stereotype.

To fix this, they didn't remove women who liked to cook... They added more roles because the caretaker wasn't offensive.

The Damsel when equal opportunity, which it is slowly becoming, loses its harmful effect on society.

The thing is that Anita never, in fair terms, ever discredits the use of the Damsel trope.

[Max White]

So I'm looking at this guy with rock hard abs, perfect blonde hair and a jaw line that roman statues would envy...

This don't portray a stereotype for men!

Yea, sure.
The reason that there is less a problem with the male stereotype is because there are other highly visible portrays of men out there for us to reflect on. This is less so for women. Solution? Not to cut the female damsel out of out media, leaving only the capable Jades of the world, but to give women more diverse representation. A point Anita either doesn't want to mention, or more likely doesn't understand.

Ninj'd by Neonivek... Yea that.

[Neonivek]

It is sort of always what I say about Anita. If she had a mortal weakness... it would be examples.

Want to know where her arguments are weakest? It is always when she needs an example.

The thing is I bet everyone here knows better examples then the ones she uses.

Then even when she gets the example right, she never gives it the weight or argument it deserves.

[Criptfeind]

I mean there is a male character you can save in the dungeon since the first game. Not just her.

This is not true. Rolan7 had it exactly. Most of the time you are a dude and there are totally helpless female damsels (who also work as pseudo prostitutes in 'kissing parlors' where they are treated as property.) that do nothing but stand around waiting to be rescued and who go crazy and start running around in a panic if they are disturbed in anyway and if you rescue one you get a kiss, which gives you a heart. (Although really, in most cases I would sacrifice them instead, they are by far and away the easiest way to get favor points, and I would rather have the reward for sacrificing two damsels worth of things then two extra hearts.)

After doing a fairly luck based challenge you unlock the dressing room where you can go into and switch into a damsel as your playable character with the hero acting as the new damsel which is simply a skin swap. Amusingly your run cycle is still a hysterical panic run.

There is another guy, who you can meet after beating a 'world', Danial the miner or short cut dude or something I think his name was. But you certainly don't rescue him. You can pay him a huge sum of money to make shortcuts to the start of worlds. But he is perfectly fine without you. Once you unlock all the shortcuts you can play as him.

This is of course in the first game. Which as I understand does not actually have any bearing on the video. But still. It might be fair to say the first one was sexist. Although likely parody sexiest. Which I am sure everyone has there own thoughts on.

[Neonivek]

Yeah I was thinking about the Cave Man since he acts MOSTLY like the Damsel in pretty much everyway.

I don't think you can save him but you can sacrifice them.

It might be fair to say the first one was sexist

Ehh... other then the kissing booths which were innocent enough... It is innocent enough all things considered (After all her inclusion was because you were Indiana Jones).

It isn't the stellar sign of fair representation mind you... but given the games that SHOULD be spoken about.

[Rolan7]

Yeah I was thinking about the Cave Man since he acts MOSTLY like the Damsel in pretty much everyway.

I don't think you can save him but you can sacrifice them.

I can see some similarities but... cave men charge at you murderously.  They're just kinda weak, easy to avoid enemies who tend to fall unconscious and get thrown by the hero.

[Criptfeind]

Yeah I was thinking about the Cave Man since he acts MOSTLY like the Damsel in pretty much everyway.

This is literately only something that someone who has not played the game or watched a lets play or even read anything about the game would say. No offense. The Cavemen are enemies. To fight and kill, and yes sacrifice. Take what you want from them all being male, but they are nothing at all like the Damsel.

Ehh... other then the kissing booths which were innocent enough...

The shopkeepers literately refer to the damsels in them as property. And they will sell them to you. They also very strongly imply they physically abuse the damsels.

[Max White]

the only real difference in gender roles between men and women are that men are portrayed as shopkeepers and slaves, where women are not

I must correct myself here. Men are also portrayed as savages that act as enemies.

Is the game sexist without female primitives that also throw boomerangs at you? Well I wouldn't say so, but an honest case could actually be made. What a shame Anita doesn't try to make one, instead she pulls out her feminist magnifying glass to take the female protagonists out of the picture and focus on the female damsel, and even then ineffectively.

[Rolan7]

Yeah I was thinking about the Cave Man since he acts MOSTLY like the Damsel in pretty much everyway.

I don't think you can save him but you can sacrifice them.

It might be fair to say the first one was sexist

Ehh... other then the kissing booths which were innocent enough... It is innocent enough all things considered (After all her inclusion was because you were Indiana Jones).

It isn't the stellar sign of fair representation mind you... but given the games that SHOULD be spoken about.

Heh, the kissing booths...
They have a giant red light.
You pay for kisses, or can purchase the girl.
If you whip the damsel the shopkeeper says "Only I get to do that!"
It's only innocent because it's a ridiculous parody of a brothel, which is related to what I was saying earlier... parodying sexism doesn't perpetuate sexism.  As long as people realize that it's parody, I guess.

[alexandertnt]

She never one said or implied that "Its ok for the male damsel to be knocked out etc", but rather that it is unusual for a male damsel to be in this situation and knocked out etc in comparison to a female one.

6:42

I cant watch the video due to being in a public place.

This is all I could find in the transcript

Second, and perhaps more importantly, damsel’ed female characters tend to reinforce pre-existing regressive notions about women as a group being weak or in need of protection because of their gender, while stories with the occasional helpless male character do NOT perpetuate anything negative about men as a group since there is no long-standing stereotype of men being weak or incapable because of their gender.

In other words, the argument is not "its OK to beat and throw around anything", but rather "Its not OK to reinforce existing damaging stereotypes".

As Cheeetar pointed out, she doesn't do that at all, and actually gives fair examples of women being in these situations.

No, no she really doesn't. Jade is in no way a mascot for 'women don't need to be super capable'

Jade is not a mascot for this, no, she doesnt have to be. My response was to your quote:

Because Anita hates the idea that women could ever be portrayed as weak, ever, in any case. And it is stupid.

And I cannot find anything that supports this. Infact:

The human impulse to help others in need is certainly not a negative thing. It only becomes a problem when acts of altruism are repeatedly presented in heavily gendered ways that are bound up in harmful myths about women as perpetual victims and men as paternalistic saviors.

I think that her main argument she is making is that repeated use of this stereotype is bad, not that women should not or can not be portrayed negatively/weakly at all.

[Max White]

You think the damsels in Spelunky is a problem because they are 'heavily gendered'?
Wow... That is just a downright lie. The treatment of the damsel has nothing to do with her gender, as evident from the male mirror image standing next to her.

Anyway, she says, and I quote:

This¹ is still a problem² while this³ is not⁴.

¹The female damse
²Due to her treatment of being thrown about and killed like a rag doll
³The Male damsel
⁴Because it is ok when they have a penis.

She outright says it is ok to treat male characters one way, and not ok to treat females the exact same way.

[penguinofhonor]

So we're arguing here assuming that cultural context doesn't exist, right?