@Brodehouse said:
@Lightningproof said:
@Brodehouse said:
The entire gender in games argument becomes more infantilizing every day. I feel completely left out, on one side you have mouth breathing bigoted troglodytes and on the other you have sycophantic, simpering toadies. One side is completely fucked, and the other has good intentions but makes awful, self-serving (and aggrandizing) arguments. I can't agree with someone for having the right idea when half of everything they say insults the intelligence of even the average.
The worst of all is the "hey guys we need to do better..." posts, like we've been getting every week in this feature. You are the roadside gawkers of fireball wrecks. You feel like you're in the right because you said "oh well someone should do something" but that someone sure as hell isn't you, and even if it was you wouldn't know the first Goddamn thing to do. This is the argument I put forth whenever I hear "we need more X in games", whether it's women, or isometric RPGs, or 4X strategy or whatever; go make some games, or support the development of some, or do something to actually get what you want. You will never get what you want out of video games by making posts on the internet. But complaining on the internet is so much easier than actually working to get what you want. If you want more isometric RPGs, don't rail and moan because BioWare aren't doing it anymore, go support someone who is making those games. If you want fuller developed female characters, don't stamp your feet because Namco is in the cheesecake business, go support games that have well written female characters (and I mean well-written, not feminist approved Mary Sues).
Or you could make a noise about the games industry being (for the most part) a big ol' patriarchal circlejerk WHILE supporting and buying games from more progressive developers. I don't know if it was your intention, but your whole post comes across as 'Well fine rail against misogyny if you like but don't bother me about it!'
Also feminism is not 'Women are flawless godbeings who should never be portrayed in any kind of negative light', it's 'Women are people'. A lot of folks seem to be under the bizarre impression that feminism strives for women's superiority, rather than equality.
My point (regarding the 'oh someone should do something') comes across as ridiculous because you've decided to reduce it into something ridiculous. It's a pretty simple thing to do. My point is clear; all the platitudes and hand-wringing solve nothing, it exists only for people who do nothing to feel like they're a part of the solution that other people have to actually accomplish. Bastardizing my view into pure selfish nonsense is gross and offensive.
Regarding Feminist Mary Sues... bad writing is bad writing. But social critics don't call you a bigot for writing characters who are 'too smart' or 'too funny and well socialized'. It's actually what stops female characters from being 'real women' is that they have to be a character and represent all of womanhood at the same time. It actually makes me really sad, Master Chief is a space marine, Samus Aran is a lady space marine. What Master Chief does reflects on nothing but himself, what Samus does reflects on women everywhere. That's tough for everyone involved.
The thing about 'maybe you should actually support or get involved yourself'... maybe this explains it better.
I don’t understand what it is about the idea of a “medium” that people find so confusing; it’s a conceptual space where works that share certain characteristics may occur. Nobody is going to approve of the entire continuum. There’s no shortage of games for the broadest possible audience - there isn’t, and grotesque sums are being made seeking the wide part of the curve. There are also niches, as in any ecology. You can certainly find things you don’t like, but those things aren’t anti-matter; when they come into contact with things you do like, there is no hot flash which obliterates both. This totalizing dialogue, where “everything” and “everyone” is this or that, and here are the teams, and morality is a linear abstraction as opposed to its three dimensional reality is a crock of fucking shit.
The swooning and fainting and so forth about this stuff, the fever, is comical in its preening intensity. There is clearly some kind of competition to determine who is the most scandalized. It reminds me of church, frankly; I don’t do church, either. I have no common cause with perpetually shocked viziers of moral pageantry. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that I am their enemy.
The answer is always more art; the corollary to that is the answer is never less art. If you start to think that less art is the answer, start over. That’s not the side you want to be on. The problem isn’t that people create or enjoy offensive work. The problem is that so many people believe that culture is something other people create, the sole domain of some anonymized other, so they never put their hat in the ring. That even with a computer in your pocket connected to an instantaneous global network, no-one can hear you. When you believe that, really believe it, the devil dances in hell.
Like I said, the 'oh this is awful, someone else should fix it' gawking really accomplishes little besides that person's emotional center. I said this before; I really wish Anita Sarkeesian would take all that overfunding she got for her kickstarter and donate it to games with equal (or even female-first) representation. Because at least in that case we'll end up with new games, ones with well written ladies (and gentlemen, hopefully). Instead it exists only to scold someone else into doing it. I can't get behind it, even if I agree with the long term goal.
Brodehouse, let me preface this by saying that I don't necessarily disagree entirely, or at all, with your post. I'd also like to say that it's refreshingly well written. However, allow me to play Devil's Advocate for a moment (because your post rather bothered me, and because this is the Internet and a forum).
There's a certain delicious irony to be had that you sat down and wrote out a long, belabored comment that will ultimately accomplish nothing saying that we should do something about people who write comments that will accomplish nothing saying that we should do something. It's like Inception, but with uselessness instead of dreams.
Since I'm guessing that you're a human being behind that keyboard and not a robot (and if I'm wrong, I'll sell out John Connor if you let me live), allow me to attempt to impart something that I've learned in my life experience (and not in an anonymous-internet-asshole kind of sarcastic way, either, but earnestly). I'm not going to say that you're a smart person, but you at least seem to think you're a smart person judging by your excessive use of big words on a videogame site and forum where the most common word has to be "fuck" and people argue over stupider shit than they argue over in real life.
Given this condition, let me earnestly share some wisdom with you, on a human to human level. Giantbomb.com is NOT the place to make your point. In fact, the internet in its whole, massive, porn filled entirety is not the place to make your point. And while using your big words may impress in real life whoever you have to impress with them, your jumble of judgmental juxtapositions of amazingly articulate alliterations accomplish exactly jack fucking shit for making your point. Because I don't even think you know what your point is. If you knew what your point is, then you would probably fucking do something about it, not post a fucking comment about it on the internet. I mean, fuck, wasn't that the whole "point" of your comment to begin with?
I realize that there's a certain sense of irony that in a sense and to a certain degree I'm doing the same thing as you...I'm making an excessively long comment on a forum where I have myself admitted trying to make a point is pointless. So what is my point, then? My point is not a broad generalization or something intended for masses. I direct this specifically at you, whatever human you are behind whatever keyboard you type on in wherever the fuck no doubt wonderful place you live in. Next time, save your time (and mine) and don't type out a fucking comment, because it is constructive in exactly 0 fucking ways.
Call me a hypocrite, but I have the time to waste at this particular moment to type this out, and if I can convince a fellow human being to save some of their time from doing some pointless, mindless cacophonous yelling just like every other motherfucker on the internet, even just one time, then maybe I made the world a little bit better by making one person a little bit less of an asshole, even if to do that I have to be an asshole myself.
Anyway I'm going to sleep now, just do me the service of thinking about what I said for a minute, please. Call it a favor.
Good luck, have Batman.
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