@Deusoma said:
@zggurat said:
The problem isn't the trailer alone. The problem is that the trailer exists in the context of the accusations of sexism against the original game.
One post of many about this is here: http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/goddammit-video-games-the-first-few-hours-of-arkham-city-is-lots-of-fun-but-super-duper-sexist/
The same writer does a follow-up on that article later, thoroughly taking down eighteen or so arguments against his perspective.
To be fair, that's not a good accusation of sexism. The author seems to be under the impression that the word "bitch" can only exist as a deliberate means of demeaning women, as opposed to, say, just another insult that gets mindlessly flung from the lips of a group of violent, low-minded thugs. Apart from Catwoman's questionable outfit, I didn't notice anything about Arkham City that was all that sexist.
The problem goes deeper than just a few references and the questionable outfit though. The simple use of the word "bitch" doesn't damn someone or a work as sexist, it can be good or bad or character building or whatever in the right context, but the context Arkham City creates for the use goes pretty badly overboard. I played the game when it was released, so it's been a while, but I can recall lines referring to Catwoman (which were the worst, since they get repeated all the time if you play as her), Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and even a random line about Vicki Vale I encountered while swinging around. I'm sure Talia also got one. Maybe Oracle never got called a bitch. And while the lines came overwhelmingly from villainous characters, there was one line from a cop, and now we have a line straight up out of the advertising material, leading to Alex's exasperation above.
At the very least, it's mind-numbingly lazy writing.
There's no way they never read about this controversy, so this ad is either an oversight from people who didn't care sufficiently enough to avoid the problem or an intentional reference from people who disagreed that this was problematic.
The arguments surrounding this go much farther than I've mentioned above, and I'd recommend to anyone who enjoys going down admittedly silly internet argument rabbit holes (oh no, a video game has some sexism in it, let's all be surprised,) to read that article I linked and its follow-up.
