So why is it sexist? Is it sexist because according to Anita the main protagonist in ICQ is a boy and not a girl and Ueda is sexist? Is it sexist because you play as Mario instead of Peach? No its not sexist. DAmsel in distress is not sexist. It is "story" told by people for a certain market. Just like Twillight was made for woman and not for men. Just like Ally MC Beal was made mostly for woman even I loved to watch it as well. These game serve a certain target group who are going to mostly buy these games and these were boys back than.. Same with COD.. COD is made for a mostly male audience. If Woman think we need more character they should try and make games. Like on Kickstarter which in fact offer a lot of great games with actual female characters. Publishers go for the biggest potential market. They dont look at the gender or color and say. "Oh this could hurt some woman or black people so we better should not do it". The question is will it sell or not.

You can be offended as much as you like but you have not really a right to change if these games would not sell and that is what matters.

I would've really liked to see both racism and misogyny as themes explored in this game since they were very much a product of the times back then but I guess Irrational games just had to settle for one of those things. Surprisingly, tackling racism is a much safer bet these days.

@mrsignerman44:

yeah sadly look how some woman went crazy about Levine joking that Jeff put something in his drink. And 2 minutes later some woman screamed RAPE JOKE" OMG "HOPE YOU DIE" It fucking stupid at the moment.

IMO, the problem with sexism in games is one of physical portrayal. Its great that games are getting better at letting you play a male or female protagonist, but why is it the case that so often in games you'll get this decked out to the gills male soldier character while the female version of the same character class is wearing what boils down to a slave Leia outfit? A great example of this for anyone who was just at PAX east was that ridiculous firefall display they had in the main lobby. two soldiers, one male one female. The male looks like hes straight out of gears of war while the female is essentially wearing a one-piece bathing suit, complete with her ass hanging out. This is not equality and also makes zero sense from a storytelling perspective outside of sex appeal.

Nice.
Seriously though, just like three posts down: "Gay people are totally racist, am I right?"

What the fuck.

Heavy racism is okay but misogyny is too far because women (which is to say, white women) were always treated unfathomably better than blacks. What women suffer under 1890s gender roles is infantilization; they are vulnerable, angelic and require your help. But what they also receive is safety and protection, both in the social and legal sense. What blacks suffer under 1890s race relations is complete disposability; they are merely there for your convenience, for your use, in whatever way you desire. The safety and protections placed upon white women is wholly absent when it comes to black men and women. Furthermore, remember that there was a vital threat narrative; despite being without any freedom or political power, blacks (which is to say, black men) were depicted as fearsome and powerful, ready to kill your son and rape your daughter.

It's kind of pointless to have a conversation about what issues the game is tackling when it hasn't dropped yet and that the OP has admitted that he has only played a few hours of. We don't know what kind of explanation there is for the universe, and with a Bioshock game I assume that the details are there for a reason, whether you find that out in the main storyline or through finding audiologs or their equivalent in the universe. Funny, this is why I didn't jump on Tomb Raider when people were talking about a scene in it because, oh my stars and garters, I hadn't either played the game or seen enough of the game to comment on the issue. Was that even the issue? I thought it was the poor comments that were made in an interview or presentation that were about you protecting Lara, which is stupid in a game since you should BE Lara, not some disembodied spirit protecting her. I'm not a disembodied spirit protecting Marcus Fenix through Gears of War, I am that dude. But whatever the case, it will probably be better to talk about the issues, IF there even are interesting ones, when we get our hands on the game and play it through for ourselves.

I also just had a thought. We all know that this game isn't a real portrayal of the time period (city in the sky and all that, duh) and a lot of things may be slightly different, completely different, whatever. I think from what I have read and seen of the time period's film, literature, advertising, etc, it would be easier for me to believe that some people would give women guns and tell them to get out there and fight, than to have no racism. The racism during that time period was pretty brutal, and it wasn't just against one race or culture. Look at the picture from Infinite with all of the stereotypes surrounding Washington. You can find a lot of real advertising, political cartoons, etc from the time period that is like that, or worse. So I can see why they chose that as the main focus and why they could conceivably make other choices that may seem anachronistic, but also much more realistic in the long run. I use the term realistic loosely, of course.

This makes me sad, another game with another controversy brewing. I agree that we need to have discussions about this stuff but it seems to me that its not the women who have the problem, rather its men who want to seem intellectual, who are starting all of these controversy's. It feels insincere, I just want to play a game or make it through a week without another headline saying "Is Bioshock sexist". I know it makes money, but god damn cant we just enjoy a game. :

Edit: I mean read the next post and my point is proven there!

It is equality if you know anything about sexual dimorphism. Both are extreme characterizations of our species' already relatively extreme sexual dimorphism. If you want it to be actual equality based on ... physical ability to kill things(?) then you'd probably just see two men. Or nineteen men with a tough looking woman. Because that's how evolution shaped our species. The male did the killing for thousands of generations, turns out the ones that had the bodies best suited to killing survived long enough to procreate. The female did the reproduction, turns out the ones that had the largest breasts and widest hips were most successful at giving birth and raising children who would then do the killing and the giving birth. Evolutionary biology; the blind watchmaker.

Traditional gender roles; men are tough, women are hot. I'm not saying I agree with them, I'm just saying that's how they are. Would you prefer men are hot and women are tough? Maybe they're both tough and hot? In which case, how would you draw a lady to be both physically imposing and still have mass market sex appeal? Hell, how would you draw the guy? Make him look like Drake?

Even though it's kind of off topic, I can answer that. If you want inspiration for a tough and hot female look no further than someone like Gina Carano or Ronda Rousey. Both are (or were in Carano's case) MMA fighters, both have muscles, but both are still attractive and feminine. I always thought my Shepard in Mass Effect would have a body type like Gina Carano, but instead she looked kind of like a waif by the third game. Not a deal breaker, because it's a series I love, but disappointing in that a female Vanguard should look like she can mess some sh*t up, not like an underwear model.

Most guys in games are either buff or attractive, or in the case of Nathan Drake or male Shepard or Axton in Bordlands 2, both. Guys are definitely shown as more crazy built (like in Gears for instance) but they also have more realistic body types, like the three I just mentioned, and actually I could list out more, I just was going for brevity here.

Still I don't see why this thread should turn into this type of discussion. We don't even know what the game is going to "say" at this point and whether the first few hours that the OP played are indicative of the entire game. It's really jumping the gun here. And why? It looks like another excuse to complain about feminists when there isn't anything there. I mean, feel free to complain when something actually comes up, but this just seems like it is fishing for a controversy when we know next to nothing about the actual universe that the game is creating for the player.

Is there any homophobia in the game? I'm actually curious. If they committed to the ignorance of the time wholly (while leaving out sexism), then I think we might have a bit more of a problem here. However, if they selectively chose to focus on racism for narrative/thematic's sake, I think it could work. This is a fictional reality, after all.

The game isn't a 1910s historical simulator. Irrational didn't want or need to use sexism to tell their story so they didn't use it. That's really the bottom line. I'm not sure what else there is to discuss.

Play God of War, punch all the broads you want.

You hit the nail on the head there, but sadly it's going to be buried by people wanting to show off their dissertation on "Sexism in Video Games" as these kind of threads are typically filled with.

I would have thought so. Glad you agree.

I love both of these posts.

It is hinted at subtly through the game. When you're chasing down Elizabeth, she tries to hide on an airship from you. A bunch of goons say something along the lines of this whilst chucking her off:

Do you know what we do with pretty little stowaways like you?

I think the idea is that the game isn't actually racist (the racists, nationalists, and xenophobes ARE the bad guys, after all), but is using those themes and concepts to tell a story and convey a message, whereas the problem with sexism in games is that very few games (at least that I know of) use sexism as a way to tell a story, but are instead just kinda sexist.

Baby steps.

A thing a lot of people are missing about the context is that WW1 really was a massive deal. Sure a lot of people died but that happened in other wars but this time was a bit different. This period of history in The West is the twilight of the romantic period (noble minded aristocrats going off to fight a righteous battle worthy of being put in a novel) and the dawn of modernism where one of the effects of this shift was the rise of feminism.

Is it a problem that this game "jumps the gun" on modernism and feminism? Not really because it appears to address it either way.

This thread is hella dumb.

Okay looking at this fast-growing thread I must say there probably will be another batshit insane amounts of controversy targeted at this wonderful game by far-from-bona-fide retarded video game journalists. That's so sad.

A woman feeling uncomfortable is the same as institutionalized slavery.

Everyone knows that.

I realize you're being sarcastic, but on an international scale, women are next to slaves in some countries.

the plight!

I am pretty sure the game has racist themes to show how bad racism is. It is an anti racism game. While games that contain sexist things are not doing it to make a point they are just sexist. There is a difference.

Luckily we're not talking about an international scale.

We're talking about a "this makes me angry from my basement" scale.

Clearly Irrational had something important to say about class and racism during the early 20th century america. From what I have heard, these themes are reflected, exposed and used as a compelling story telling element. In other words, that theme is entwined with the narrative and the characters. That aspect is what makes bioshock infinite so compelling. However, if you just added in a bunch of random thematic elements it would become too saturated and would become less salient and meaningful. Irrational didn't have anything meaningful to say about women's rights in the context of this game so they (allegedly) didn't address it. It seems like the writers took the time to actually write the game in such a way as to not seem totally contrived for the sake of drumming up controversy.

Said another way, would adding in examples of misogyny endemic to the time period enhance the game in a meaningful way or would it be superfluous? Would adding abuse against women just seem callous and pretentious or is there a reason that it would enhance the narrative, characterization or larger themes of the game? Dunno, I haven't played the game yet!

Well, OP really seems misinformed about "treatment of women as slaves" in the turn of century America. What's sad is that, the same group of internet warriors like him ruin everything for everyone, acting like a politically correct cunt and agreeing to nuke Iran at the same time all because of the ill-fitted tabloid culture of America.

What in the fuck are you talking about?

lmao @ equating women's suffrage to "feeling uncomfortable"

boys rule, girls drool!

I'll kiss you on the goddamn lips. Try to stop me.

The game isn't being racist, it's making a point about it.

Yeah. I think there's going to be some people who...for some fucking reason...don't know the difference. I mean, would the upcoming Jackie Robinson movie be considered racist because it's about Jackie Robinson?? See, at it's face the idea that something that's saying something about racism is, inherently, racist...is absurd.

And even though I'm not very far in the game, yet (I just saw the first actual act of violence after the "77 ball" scene)...this fucking game is taking chances. The fact that there's a strong thematic element of use of religion (one thing that for the most part is avoided in videogame storytelling), and then the entire fucking "77 ball" scene...when I saw what they brought out, that was goddamn shocking to me. Even seeing the cages with cartoon signs featuring black monkeys...I mean, this game is fucking ballsy from what I've seen so far.

Racism and religion are much more difficult subjects to cover. I find hard to believe that they were "too afraid" to cover sexism, and tackle the actually much more scarier subjects of religion and racism.