Have you ever played ICO? If you did, you're a misogynist.

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/240232261180588032

Nothing bad can possibly come from this. Surely not a bunch of women-hating scumbags coming to defend their rape simulator.

Umm, I don't think it says that at all.

Hahahaha

man, it's interesting watching what goes in and out of fashion over the years. apparently now the popular pastime is being an arrogant inexperienced idiot on twitter.

@EXTomar said:

Umm, I don't think it says that at all.

Ugh. Stuff like that makes me really want I ignore her.

I didn't find ICO's sexism irritating at all myself. Yay!

Ugh. Stuff like that makes me really want I ignore her.

@Bocam said:

Hahahaha

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

@RockmanBionics said:

I didn't find ICO's sexism irritating at all myself. Yay!

I actually found it quite entertaining!

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@SSully said:

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

Its one of those people who gets followers because of the stupid shit they say. Not because anyone really cares what they say.

Ahhh one of those cases.

Maybe "sexist" is too powerful of a word in this case, but Ico is most definitely reenforcing the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything. I'm glad she played the game; I look forward to what she has to say in more detail.

Oh, and for the matter, if the Team Ico guy is not sexist, then he is at the very least the most ignorant motherfucker working at Sony.

Oh fuck off with that.

Seriously, the tweet is their opinion but there is an problem here: I do think the tweet is worth discussing but the title and post are both misleading where it isn't even irony or hard to see the joke angle.

yeah change post title and op, they're moronic. if this stupid argument has to take place it might as well be free from that as a matter of contention

That's not at all what the tweet is implying.

The tweet has some bite to it, but this thread is just dumb and sensational.

Well that's just silly.

I was once at bookstore looking at in the magazine section when a black woman and her child walked up. The mother looks over all the various things on display and then focuses her gaze on an issue of Vibe on the bottom shelf. She then turns to her child and says, "Uh huh, see that, they put the black magazine on the bottom. Racist. What did I tell you?" The magazines were arranged in alphabetical order.   I'm not making it up, that actually happened. That stuck with me too, because I realized that these kinds of people are bad for all of society. They spend their whole life finding things to be offended about and fill the world with anger and hate. 
 
Sometimes they are right, and point out things that do need to be addressed. But more often than not they are making mountains out of molehills and starting stupid arguments.

How dumb can she be?

@AuthenticM: No he isn't. He doesn't work at Sony anymore.

Yeah.... this is why I didn't bother supporting her kickstarter after I saw some of her other work. While she didn't deserve the more profane comments, I did find it ironic that a lot of her funding came from white knights and she's the "damsel in distress."

Is this the same person who had that sexism in videogames Kickstarter?

If so, ugh....look what all that money got her.

@IBurningStar said:

I was once at bookstore looking at in the magazine section when a black woman and her child walked up. The mother looks over all the various things on display and then focuses her gaze on an issue of Vibe on the bottom shelf. She then turns to her child and says, "Uh huh, see that, they put the black magazine on the bottom. Racist. What did I tell you?" The magazines were arranged in alphabetical order. I'm not making it up, that actually happened. That stuck with me too, because I realized that these kinds of people are bad for all of society. They spend their whole life finding things to be offended about and fill the world with anger and hate. Sometimes they are right, and point out things that do need to be addressed. But more often than not they are making mountains out of molehills and starting stupid arguments.

I agree, except that what we have here is not such a scenario. If you cannot see the patriarchy-building in Ico, supported by the sexist claims of Ueda, then I cannot help you.

@AuthenticM said:

Maybe "sexist" is too powerful of a word in this case, but Ico is most definitely reenforcing the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything. I'm glad she played the game; I look forward to what she has to say in more detail.

Oh, and for the matter, if the Team Ico guy is not sexist, then he is at the very least the most ignorant motherfucker working at Sony.

"the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything.". Wrong, she is helpless because she is a princess who has never fought a battle or had to do anything on her own in her life, her sex is redundant. As for the Last Guardian, considering the period style the game seems to be set in (obviously not actual history, but there is a heavy ancient Greek style to it), what he says is true. Having a girl in pants would clash with the aesthetics of the environment.

@AuthenticM said:

Maybe "sexist" is too powerful of a word in this case, but Ico is most definitely reenforcing the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything. I'm glad she played the game; I look forward to what she has to say in more detail.

Oh, and for the matter, if the Team Ico guy is not sexist, then he is at the very least the most ignorant motherfucker working at Sony.

"the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything.". Wrong, she is helpless because she is a princess who has never fought a battle or had to do anything on her own in her life, her sex is redundant. As for the Last Guardian, considering the period style the game seems to be set in (obviously not actual history, but there is a heavy ancient Greek style to it), what he says is true. Having a girl in pants would clash with the aesthetics of the environment.

The guy has fucking horns, did she even play the game?

@ThePaleKing: You're not seeing the full picture. Don't stop at surface details. The in-game reasons of why the girl is what she is are irrevelant.

Shadow of the Colossus is worse. I mean, she can't even be bothered to get up. Dude has to carry her to the alter.

@AuthenticM said:

@ThePaleKing: You're not seeing the full picture. Don't stop at surface details. The in-game reasons of why the girl is what she is are irrevelant.

lol what? There has to be some kind of hidden message in there? It just can't be a game about a boy escorting a princess?

@AuthenticM said:

Maybe "sexist" is too powerful of a word in this case, but Ico is most definitely reenforcing the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything. I'm glad she played the game; I look forward to what she has to say in more detail.

Oh, and for the matter, if the Team Ico guy is not sexist, then he is at the very least the most ignorant motherfucker working at Sony.

It's not reinforcing any such notion. Only depicting a very specific case in which a boy must help a girl. It's like arguing that Miyamoto is sexist because Peach has to constantly be rescued by Mario.

@Hailinel said:

It's like arguing that Miyamoto is sexist because Peach has to constantly be rescued by Mario.

Actually, given how often it happens, one could make a case for it. It doesn't exactly help that in the one game where Peach is the protagonist, her major power is emotioning over everything.

@AuthenticM said:

@ThePaleKing: You're not seeing the full picture. Don't stop at surface details. The in-game reasons of why the girl is what she is are irrevelant.

Yeah PaleKing. Stop all of that, whaddaya call it, thinking. There are two types of things in the world: things that help break down female stereotypes, and everything else which justs reinforces them.

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@SSully said:

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

Its one of those people who gets followers because of the stupid shit they say. Not because anyone really cares what they say.

I know it's cool to be dismissive of people you don't agree with, but you do realize that this isn't at all true right? Feminist Frequency is actually really popular. It never would have gotten so much money if it wasn't.

@ThePaleKing said:

@AuthenticM said:

Maybe "sexist" is too powerful of a word in this case, but Ico is most definitely reenforcing the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything. I'm glad she played the game; I look forward to what she has to say in more detail.

Oh, and for the matter, if the Team Ico guy is not sexist, then he is at the very least the most ignorant motherfucker working at Sony.

"the notion that women are helpless and dependant and must be assisted by men in order to do anything.". Wrong, she is helpless because she is a princess who has never fought a battle or had to do anything on her own in her life, her sex is redundant.

Are you really suggesting the only way this game could be sexist is if her backstory was a literal indictment against all women everywhere? Like, whoop-de-doo, there's a storyline rationalization for why she's helpless. And it's because she's a princess. You know, something only girls can be.

@Shady: Yes it can. But the problem is that the number of games with such a premise is gargantuesque. How many times have we seen games in which a male protagonist goes out of his way to save a female character who is completely helpless ? All the time. We see this shit all the time. And when a game does have a different premise, most of the time you will be able to find some kind of sexist view of women in the game. So what does this say about the video game industry's views on gender roles and capacities ? Look around you, in the real world. Are all women helpless ? Can't they take care of themselves ? Yes they can, and they can do so just as good as any man can. It's about time the industry grew up.

@Video_Game_King said:

@Hailinel said:

It's like arguing that Miyamoto is sexist because Peach has to constantly be rescued by Mario.

Actually, given how often it happens, one could make a case for it. It doesn't exactly help that in the one game where Peach is the protagonist, her major power is emotioning over everything.

In Super Princess Peach, everyone's emotions were crazy, so that argument doesn't really hold up too well.

Peach is the quintessential damsel-in-distress. The characters in the Mario series are all very simple, as though they come from a child's storybook. You have the knight (Mario), the dragon (Bowser), and the princess (Peach). Nintendo has played around with this dynamic to some degree in various games, but this is how the characters are recognized. They aren't meant to be complex characters. Peach is who she has always been, and her role in the Mario series is not indicative of Miyamoto's feelings toward women, or those of anyone else that have ever designed a game with Peach as a character.

@Meowshi said:

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@SSully said:

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

Its one of those people who gets followers because of the stupid shit they say. Not because anyone really cares what they say.

I know it's cool to be dismissive of people you don't agree with, but you do realize that this isn't at all true right? Feminist Frequency is actually really popular. It never would have gotten so much money if it wasn't.

The amount of money she got isn't really indicative of how popular it is. A lot of people backed the kickstarter because of the attacks she was receiving. I don't doubt that she would have reached the amount of funding she was looking for.

@pyromagnestir said:

Well that's just silly.

Doom comes to fix this thread

Wasn't Yorda's mom a badass motherfucking shadow queen?

#NUHUHDUDERSWEAINTDOINGTHISSHITAGAIN

Isn't the main villain in ICO a pretty dang powerful woman?

http://www.giantbomb.com/the-queen/94-21831/

Just sayin'

@The_Laughing_Man said:

@SSully said:

@The_Laughing_Man: Who is this person where they would have been worth following in the first place?

Its one of those people who gets followers because of the stupid shit they say. Not because anyone really cares what they say.

I know it's cool to be dismissive of people you don't agree with, but you do realize that this isn't at all true right? Feminist Frequency is actually really popular. It never would have gotten so much money if it wasn't.

Which is worse: the person who tweets something stupid? Or the person who interprets the tweet in an even more stupid way and the starts a flame thread about it?

@Slag said:

Isn't the main villain in ICO a pretty dang powerful woman?

http://www.giantbomb.com/the-queen/94-21831/

Just sayin'

She's the villain of exactly two people. A boy and a girl. And which one defeats her, again?

It's totally sexist. That lazy bitch just stood around while Ico had to do all the fucking work!

@AuthenticM said:

@Shady: Yes it can. But the problem is that the number of games with such a premise is gargantuesque. How many times have we seen games in which a male protagonist goes out of his way to save a female character who is completely helpless ? All the time. We see this shit all the time. And when a game does have a different premise, most of the time you will be able to find some kind of sexist view of women in the game. So what does this say about the video game industry's views on gender roles and capacities ? Look around you, in the real world. Are all women helpless ? Can't they take care of themselves ? Yes they can, and they can do so just as good as any man can. It's about time the industry grew up.

I think you're going too far with it in this case (as in this game). When the story is this simplistic, it seems more of an easy way to tailor gameplay. They can't justify a game based around escorting someone if that escortee isn't in some respect powerless. It's more lazy than blatant sexism. At worst it's subtle, which, is a byproduct of the makeup of developers (mostly [white] men). I take more offense when it is blatant. See Metroid: Other M.

@BrockNRolla said:

Which is worse: the person who tweets something stupid? Or the person who interprets the tweet in an even more stupid way and the starts a flame thread about it?

I would say they're about the same only one is lazier than the other.