Ultimate Videogame Topic 3: The Next Generation

[Iecerint]

What examples do you think are not effective examples?

Your tone suggested to me that you were dismissive of the interests of the article, since it is weird to basically 100% agree with someone in substance, but then focus your discussion on ridiculing them because they chose sub-optimal examples. Though I guess most political discussions on this site do kind of work that way due to everyone having roughly similar ideas, so maybe similar to that.

I do not understand your resistance to the idea that there is a difference between a real human female making a choice and a female character (typically/historically, a female character made by a man) making a "choice." I think appreciating the difference is required for understanding most feminist criticism. My guess is that you think I am alluding to something different?

[Untrod Tripod]

Your tone suggested to me that you were dismissive of the interests of the article, since it is weird to basically 100% agree with someone in substance, but then focus your discussion on ridiculing them because they chose sub-optimal examples. Though I guess most political discussions on this site do kind of work that way due to everyone having roughly similar ideas, so maybe similar to that.

and for the record:

I do think there is a lot of sexist shit in video games and I always watch their videos because I think that feminist critique of the genre is a fertile topic for discussion. and it bothers me that this group, with all their publicity, is completely fucking up a good opportunity to have that discussion. while there is inevitably going to be some backlash if you point out that people behave in bigoted ways, the bigger problem is that their videos present flawed arguments.

I'm starting to think you're not reading my posts before you respond to them

[Untrod Tripod]

I do not understand your resistance to the idea that there is a difference between a real human female making a choice and a female character (typically/historically, a female character made by a man) making a "choice." I think appreciating the difference is required for understanding most feminist criticism. My guess is that you think I am alluding to something different?

I guess the issue is that I think saying "forced" implies that within the narrative the character is being forced to do something, whether it be through physical or non-physical means. I didn't really think they provided ANY examples that showed coercive behavior?

I do think wording is important here because you're going to lose people when you say "these female characters are being forced into sexual activity!" when what you really mean are "these are one-dimension characters and the one dimension is being aggressively horny"

[Iecerint]

No, it's referring to what the creator is doing to the creation.

Non-video game example: June Cleaver loves being a housewife.
Great example from the video: Judith from Tales of Vesperia
Another example from the video: Fanservice DLC

Counter-arguments I could imagine might be focused around suggesting that video games are just for fun, so the scrutiny is not warranted.

[Untrod Tripod]

I think that's a really misleading way to say that. But I guess that makes sense in the context of that definition.

[Iecerint]

Yeah, I could follow it because I read some viral facebook feminism cartoon a few months ago that used similar lingo.

[Untrod Tripod]

well that's identity politics for you. it can really lead people to some bizarre and ridiculous arguments

[Iecerint]

What is bizarre or ridiculous about it?

It's more of a concept than an "argument." It's an implicit given in any kind of criticism where the author and audience are what's being written about.

[xRECKONERx]

Go for the humble bundle and get the top one and get rainbow 6 and a t shirt

Reck, did you get the dog in MGSV ?

I hear he only shows once, he's so cute

Yeah, people are at like 50 hours and only on like mission 20

Yeah, I got the dog. I ignored him at first because I thought it was just "another open world random wildlife event" but then when I went to extract I passed by him and was like "oh I can fulton him" and I'm SO GLAD I DID

[Iecerint]

Yeah, I could follow it because I read some viral facebook feminism cartoon a few months ago that used similar lingo.

Here's the comic.

[Untrod Tripod]

so... that doesn't at all prove the idea that fictional characters who are willing and enthusiastic participants in sexual activity within a narrative are being exploited

like, the vital question here is how they are portrayed within the context of the game (while it may be an example of a male power fantasy, that doesn't make it FORCED SEX), not whether or not it would be questionable for actual flesh and blood humans in the real world to be acting that way.

are you concerned that the villain in a story is being "forced" to be evil?

[Untrod Tripod]

and again, my issue was that the video took examples that served an argument of "video games portray women who are reduced to just being fuckholes and are totally okay with that. kind of an Uncle Tom thing, but with prostitutes" and used them as an example of "women in games are forced to have sex" which they just weren't.

it was like the examples went with a completely different argument and no one noticed or cared

[Brandi]

Yeah. And it doesn't make much sense to have it one way or not the other. A fictional character is always going to be an object, no matter what they "decide" to do. Whether they are sexy or not. The question should be whether the object is written in a harmful or oppressive manner, not whether or not it is an object.

Many of the example in Anita's video are cherry picked also, because she points out women being treated a certain way in a game where the men are treated the exact same way- or doesn't show the whole picture. Like in Fallout NV, there are male sex workers who are presented in the exact same way as the female ones but she never even acknowledges them. The main issue with FF is that it comes off as being written by someone looking for problems within a medium they don't participate in or understand.

[Iecerint]

If the villain is an angry black man or a crazy transgendered person or a woman who's crazy due to menopause, then yes, that's a concern.

An explanation like "Well, this black person is angry in this story" would be the corollary counterpoint.

It's not like violations of this sort inherently produce bad art. But if violations of this sort are pervasive, it makes it harder for certain types of people to participate in the art form, which I think is a harm worth worrying about.

[Brandi]

I agree with the above completely but I think that if you're going to point out something that is contributing to harmful pervasive stereotypes then it's probably good to make sure that your examples are actually accurate.
Which is why I think the goal of FF is noble and good but the execution is often poor. Not that it needs to be perfect, it just seems like cherry-picking and lack of game knowledge within the videos are very ...frequent.
That said, the FF in question certainly had more hits than misses this time around.

[Untrod Tripod]

If the villain is an angry black man or a crazy transgendered person or a woman who's crazy due to menopause, then yes, that's a concern.

An explanation like "Well, this black person is angry in this story" would be the corollary counterpoint.

It's not like violations of this sort inherently produce bad art. But if violations of this sort are pervasive, it makes it harder for certain types of people to participate in the art form, which I think is a harm worth worrying about.

the issue is that the author created a character that is a stereotype, not that the character was forced to do something by the creator. Characters literally cannot be forced to do something because they only exist within preconstructed artistic media and can literally only take the course of action that they're written to take. you're not inhibiting a character's free will because they're not actual people don't have free will or consent or whatever.

I understand that it's a popular identity politics type of thing to do to put artistic creations in human terms so that an otherwise unconcerned audience will be manipulated into empathising as if the characters are real people, but it's really a deceitful way of framing that discussion.

[Iecerint]

It blows my mind that you think that critical thinking is "deceitful" in this context.

[Untrod Tripod]

how is it critical thinking to pretend that video game characters are real?

if they had presented it as a thought experiment to get you to understand that "just because it's fiction that doesn't make harmful stereotypes okay" that would have been one thing, but they presented it as their central argument.

[Iecerint]

The problem is not that we need to help Judith file a restraining order. I have a hard time believing that you think that that is anyone's literal or imagined goal.

[Untrod Tripod]

I think I missed something. What are you referring to?

[Knight of Cydonia]

Feminist Frequency is quite frankly a pile of shite created by someone who knows next to nothing about her subject matter (there's a fucking video of her from a year before TvW saying she doesn't play videogames and doesn't see the point ffs) often trying to force her Western morality on Eastern developers, while acting as a sockpuppet for Jonathan McIntosh

not that I blame her, if I could get $200k to make a WHOLE 6 VIDEOS (by stealing content from Let's Play YT channels and outright lying in significant chunks) by being a professional wasp's nest-prodder with some friends in indie games journalism willing to

totally not synchronise

a dozen "Gamers Are Dead" articles I would

[hasdgfas]

(there's a fucking video of her from a year before TvW saying she doesn't play videogames and doesn't see the point ffs)

[citation needed]

[Brandi]

Honestly thought that was a fairly well known video but yeah Anita said before she didn't like video games and doesn't want to play them.

[hasdgfas]

Yeah, I was expecting it to be this video. The one where she says "yeah, I had to learn a lot about video games because I hate games where you shoot off people's heads" and the one where she doesn't say "I've never played a video game and have no interest in video games at all".

Which is the last I'm saying on this subject, because I don't want to argue about it.

[hasdgfas]

Anyway, I'm playing Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It's lots of fun, although I'm really bad at the new Matrix