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Tropes vs. Women 2: Here We Go Again

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05.30.2013 7:45pm

Onyx
Butts
Administrator

Kellios has made the best post in the thread so far.

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05.30.2013 8:10pm

Fincher
Deep Water Horizon

Kal said:
I'm just a little shocked that anyone would think sexism isn't an issue, is all.

I wouldn't say that sexism isn't a problem. I would say that a woman being killed in a game isn't sexism, just like a man being killed in a game isn't sexism. I would say that, in Dishonored, a queen being unable to fend off magical assassins barehanded isn't sexism. I don't like the entertainment industry being blamed for the problems of the world, and I don't like it being expected to conform to positive messages instead of storytelling for the sake of storytelling. For example, alcoholism is a problem, but it isn't Boardwalk Empire's fault. Just because the world sucks doesn't mean Boardwalk Empire should have to change.

Currently playing: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, Picross DS
Last played: Time Hollow (good)
Last watched: Agent Carter (very good)
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05.30.2013 8:21pm

Lexx
Terran Angel

Kal said:

I'm just a little shocked that anyone would think sexism isn't an issue, is all.

I do think sexism is an issue, as I noted before. I just don't think the bombastic societal implications some are talking about can be traced back to boobies in vidya. This may just be a personal peeve of mine in the sense that as I've gotten older I've become less p.c. On the one hand there are people saying painting a baby boy's room blue is sexist and simply serves to reinforce the patriarchal power structure, and on the other people saying Mario saving Peach is an affront to women. I feel like the serious issue of sexism is being degraded down to the level of farce by the lengths people go to trying to identify new instances of it.

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05.30.2013 8:53pm

reido
(\/)(o,,,o)(\/)

I personally don't blame the gaming community's rampant sexism on sexism in games. I blame it on a masculine-centered culture that hammers in traditional gender roles and forces people into boxes (see: COD bros), as well as the anonymity of the Internet allowing people to be total assholes about it (see: tits or GTFO, rampant use of homophobic slurs, rape threats).

Sexism in games is a symptom, not the cause. Western society itself is the problem here. Games and game culture--or any other entertainment media--can be utilizsed to help alter society in a positive way. Right now they're having the opposite effect.

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05.30.2013 11:30pm

Cameron
Registered Member

Kal said:

Discussing whether she succeeds in trying to demonstrate that would be more interesting.

I thought she made her point pretty well - though I haven't seen part 1.

It's not about Mario rescuing Peach being an inherently sexist plot device that needs to be wiped out. Debasing the argument to its simplest example isn't really fair to what she's saying. The part that really drives it home for me is where she talks about how things are framed. You can have these plot devices if you bother to use a more sophisticated frame that doesn't merely have females existing as some minor detail that effectst he emotion of a male character, who incidentally is fighting to uphold patriarchal values. And of course I understand that it can sound like nothing more than PC nonsense when you actually type it out like that, but to her point, it's not like it's a few niche games that focus on framing things this way. It seems like it's the vast majority, over a period of many decades. How many times in a row did she say "your wife dies, you must rescue your daughter"?

When you see how games have consistently framed women, it's pretty clear that they are living in the past, even compared to other media sources.

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05.30.2013 11:36pm

Onyx
Butts
Administrator

One thing I've always wondered is why Peach is just a princess instead of a queen. As far as we know, she's the sole ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom and there's no mother or father that rules as king/queen.

At least with the Legend of Zelda, Zelda being a princess makes sense as she's usually the daughter of a sitting King of Hyrule.

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05.31.2013 12:05am

Fincher
Deep Water Horizon

Onyx said:

One thing I've always wondered is why Peach is just a princess instead of a queen. As far as we know, she's the sole ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom and there's no mother or father that rules as king/queen.

What I want to know is why this human is the leader of the Mushroom Kingdom in the first place. I think there's some bloody history there that's been swept under the rug. Bowser was probably some revolutionary who threw off the shackles of the human overclass, and a teen Peach rebelled against the cruelty of her family and was drawn to his idealism and push for reform. Soon, though, he was corrupted by power and no longer the turtle she fell in love with. Once you have a castle filled with lava moats, you know that you've strayed from the cause. She worked to build a representative democracy that would treat all species as equals, changing her last name to Toadstool to reflect her kinship with those who had been oppressed for so long, and it was only out of love for her and memory of her royal past that the peoples of this great nation continued to know her as "Princess".

Well, that, or the developers were smoking the good stuff.

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05.31.2013 1:19am

SuperSquall
Shortening His Posts

I agreed with her more in this one than I did in the last one, although I still feel like the issues of sexism that came up are a symptom of a greater disease: lazy, shitty writing. I don't want to be the guy who's siding with the typical gamer crowd that's shouting her down though, but if she's looking to God of War and Dante's Inferno for any shred of storytelling that isn't insulting to the intelligence of it's audience she's staring into the abyss.

Kellios said:
Pretty sure I said this in the other thread, but the problem too is that the industry is full of mostly straight, white males making games for straight, white males. I'm sure the majority of the sexism present isn't on purpose.

Don't forget that most of them are under-30 due to consistent job turnover and the fact that most of them don't have children. I don't recall the stats on how many of them were engaged, married, or had long-term partners, but the fact that children are extremely rare to me suggets most of our straight, white, male developers haven't figured out a few key details about women, and that all of that is creeping into the games. There is either sexism, or deliberate counter-sexism ("Okay, the chick has a machine gun and no character flaws, now she's empowered.") but there is virtually nothing for a *real*, normal, female character out there. Not that the stats are great for decent male characters either, but there's a lot more there.

On a related note, do you all remember when Tifa helped Cloud in the lifestream? Or how Celes needed to be rescued by Locke at the start, but then later she rescued him in return in Vector? Or how Terra found out what love is by protecting a group of children? Or how Rydia was only defenseless when she was a child, but then came back as an adult and totally rescued everyone and then stuck it out with the party to the very end? WE WERE SO SPOILED.

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05.31.2013 2:19am

Zubis
Registered Member

While your points regarding Final Fantasy did get me thinking of fond memories, I wouldn't use the games as a shining beacon of equality.

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05.31.2013 5:55pm

Kal
yes

reido said:
Sexism in games is a symptom, not the cause. Western society itself is the problem here. Games and game culture--or any other entertainment media--can be utilizsed to help alter society in a positive way. Right now they're having the opposite effect.

Isn't it kind of a vicious circle though?
The gaming community is sexist > therefore game developers make game that cater to that demographic > games are sexist > sexist gamers are never challenged in their views or worse, they are told that their ideas are valid > nothing changes > sexist games are made... etc etc.

Video games may not cause sexism but they do nothing to prevent it either. In the end, it's enabling.

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05.31.2013 6:12pm

Jiro
Registered Member

Whenever there's a comment that is incorrect, or she says something that is almost grasping at straws, I wanna get all "rah rah" before I realise it is pointless. Inaccuracies happen, I know that, so I'm not going to hold it against her. Hell, I don't even mind that parts of it seem like she's grasped at straws or twisted the context a little. You really deconstruct things, sometimes you have to do that - hell, it's certainly getting the discussions surrounding her videos to grow, even if she can't see them.

I like her work. For something from a channel called Feminist Frequency, it delivers what I expect and I am entertained and informed. I ain't even mad, bros.

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05.31.2013 6:29pm

Kellios
Yikes and away!

SuperSquall said:

Don't forget that most of them are under-30 due to consistent job turnover and the fact that most of them don't have children. I don't recall the stats on how many of them were engaged, married, or had long-term partners, but the fact that children are extremely rare to me suggets most of our straight, white, male developers haven't figured out a few key details about women, and that all of that is creeping into the games. There is either sexism, or deliberate counter-sexism ("Okay, the chick has a machine gun and no character flaws, now she's empowered.") but there is virtually nothing for a *real*, normal, female character out there. Not that the stats are great for decent male characters either, but there's a lot more there.

Oh, I know. My studio is odd in the case most of the men are married/have girlfriends/children too, but it's not at all par for the course. In terms of women? My studio is about 150ish people. There are 12 girls. And only half of those girls (myself included), are actual developers. SIX. And this is normal for most studios too.

I also would not be surprised either if for the women who do actually work in the industry, keep their thoughts and feelings on the DL to save face. Being in such a male dominated field, you can feel awkward speaking up being like, "Uh, yeah, this is sexist/stupid/silly/offensive..." That could be very awkward for all involved, you don't want to be "THAT person/girl" and rather fit in with the team, or just a general sense of being uncomfortable when these sorts of things come up. I personally have no problem speaking up (and I have), but there still have been times I haven't, and I'm sure other women in the industry struggle with this in one form or another too.

Maybe some of you have experienced this - but imagine working in an office full of (100+) women and you, a man. Now they start bringing something up, and you feel uncomfortable about what's being said/done/etc. How easy do you think you'd speak up? This isn't the greatest example, but still the same idea.

As an industry, there's still so much growing up to do. Ideally the shift will come - especially if the industry can hang onto older developers who aren't burnt out by the work, but come now with much more life experience. But that's still a bit of time off. And I'm not holding my breath for the gamer community to improve anytime soon, especially given their appallnig behavior just in regards to these videos.

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05.31.2013 6:53pm

Onyx
Butts
Administrator

What do the other women in your studio do? Are they involved on the creative/artistic side of things or do they just do things like receptionist or accounting work or whatever. Not sure if the context of "development" is just programming stuff into the game or just general involvement into the studio without touching any part of the process.

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05.31.2013 7:07pm

Kellios
Yikes and away!

By "developers" I mean someone who influences the actual game in one way or another. There are: 1 designer, 1 FX artist, 1 animator, 1 character modeler, and 2 lighting artists (me included). We put actual content into the game.

So the other women I'm talking about are receptionists, HR, recruiting, operations, etc. Though I did kinda lump producers into this category too - but there's such a range of prodcuers, some who are part of the actual game, others who do other things within the studio, but are not apart of the game itself.

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05.31.2013 8:36pm

Onyx
Butts
Administrator

OK. Thanks for clarifying.

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