mystakin

@Brodehouse said:

@mystakin

@Brodehouse said:

@Salarn You're playing at a false causation though. You build products that speak to markets, you don't build markets with products. Because you can't own a market, you can only sell to it. I'm not saying that the potential isn't there, or that someone shouldn't try marketing a game directly to women. But it works that the women appear and then the games come, not the other way around. Like I said, consider older mediums, books. They began by men, for men. Women began reading anyways, and later began writing. Eventually, there was about women, for women. But that was after the market had women readers, not before. You can't make a product that lures people into a medium they don't give a shit about. You can make a nitrous injector marketed to women and it won't matter, unless women are already anmajor demographic in street racing. It'll happen eventually anyways. More women are playing games, more women are making them. You'll see alternatives crop up as soon as the market can support them. That's why The Devil Wears Prada opened the same day as Superman Returns (and did gangbusters).

You don't build markets with products? That's exactly what the Wii and DS set out to do, and did. Women WANT to be gamers, but they're pushed away by the type of content most games contain. Here's the thing, though, I don't think most feminists want products marketed directly to women, either (I know I don't). When that happens, you get stuff like Imagine Babies or Lego Friends that play into stereotypes to sell products. Great games that feminists tout as prime examples of female roles aren't aimed at women only. Beyond Good and Evil, Portal 1 and 2, Half Life 2, these aren't products aimed at anyone except gamers. An article on the Starfire sexualization recently said it best about comic books, and it applies to games as well: "superhero comics don't even need to specifically target women as much as they need to not actively offend them."

I didn't mean "you can't" build a market, I mean that "you shouldn't". Because you can't own a market. There's nothing proprietary about a consumer, you can only have something they want or not. Nintendo is actually a great example, as they built a market and then had Zynga completely take the rug (and the consumers) from under them. Zynga didn't build a market, they simply sold to it. Zynga is rich as fuck and Nintendo is hemhorraging money. Even then, it's not that Nintendo CREATED a market, it's that they IDENTIFIED one. I'm not going to argue about this game or that game, I'm just saying; markets create products, not the other way around.

Welcome to business. Nintendo identifies a market (I'll use your termonolgy, although arguing they identified it and didn't create it is semantics) and Zynga did it better than them and stole their consumers. That's just capitalism. The problem is, you seem to think women don't want to be gamers. "The women appear and then the games come." -- "After the market had women readers, not before" -- "You can't make a product that lures people into a medium they don't give a shit about." As I said, women WANT to game, they WANT to be a part of gaming culture. Unfortunately, most hardcore games are constant reminders to women that gaming isn't for them. No matter how much they wish it was.

@Ace829 Looking at your last link, there's some great points, though I wish they were cited. Still, unsubstantiated claimed like "The current face of feminism that’s less about gender equality than it is about bashing men," "The treatment of all men as potential or actual rapists, pedophiles et cetera," and "Acceptance of negative media portrayals of men, where such a portrayal would not be acceptable of a woman." really hurt his argument. As do flat out wrong statements like "Prejudices in (particularly early) education against boys and educational programs that consistently cater to stereotypically female styles of learning." (Most schools focus more on stereotypically male subjects like Math and Science instead of stereotypically female subjects like art) and "Lack of good media role models for young men." (This has more to do with how we know too much about everyone now to have real role models anymore. That said, if males don't have good role models, women don't have a chance.) There are strong points in there, but you have to pick through a lot of falsehoods and assumptions to find them.

There's problems on both sides of the coin. But saying that men are just as disadvantaged as women is so false it's laughable, especially in terms of the media (which is what we're primarily discussing).

@Brodehouse said:

@Salarn You're playing at a false causation though. You build products that speak to markets, you don't build markets with products. Because you can't own a market, you can only sell to it. I'm not saying that the potential isn't there, or that someone shouldn't try marketing a game directly to women. But it works that the women appear and then the games come, not the other way around. Like I said, consider older mediums, books. They began by men, for men. Women began reading anyways, and later began writing. Eventually, there was about women, for women. But that was after the market had women readers, not before. You can't make a product that lures people into a medium they don't give a shit about. You can make a nitrous injector marketed to women and it won't matter, unless women are already anmajor demographic in street racing. It'll happen eventually anyways. More women are playing games, more women are making them. You'll see alternatives crop up as soon as the market can support them. That's why The Devil Wears Prada opened the same day as Superman Returns (and did gangbusters).

You don't build markets with products? That's exactly what the Wii and DS set out to do, and did. Women WANT to be gamers, but they're pushed away by the type of content most games contain. Here's the thing, though, I don't think most feminists want products marketed directly to women, either (I know I don't). When that happens, you get stuff like Imagine Babies or Lego Friends that play into stereotypes to sell products(same thing when targeting men, look at the Dr. Pepper 10 commercials). Great games that feminists tout as prime examples of female roles aren't aimed at women only. Beyond Good and Evil, Portal 1 and 2, Half Life 2, these aren't products aimed at anyone except gamers. An article on the Starfire sexualization recently said it best about comic books, and it applies to games as well: "superhero comics don't even need to specifically target women as much as they need to not actively offend them."

I will begin this post by saying this is the last response you will get from me, sir. You are very disrespectful and did not appear to take any time going over my arguments, so I won't bother any further.

@notlupus said:

@mystakin:

actually your god and savior Anita used an image of her in the Kickstarter video. If there isn't an issue with her why didn't Anita use an earlier more controversial version of Lara Croft? If she was using the image as a generalization, you are aware generalization is frowned upon if you want your work to be taken seriously?

- Unless I'm incorrect, the image in the trailer is from Underworld and not the new, grittier reboot. I don't see any reboot-Lara in the Kickstarter trailer. EDIT: Ahh, I did find her near the end but it isn't in reference to any negative connotations. I'm very interested to see what Anita's take on the reboot is, as I have my own and we might disagree.

you keep using the term social scientist I am not sure that title means what you think it means. Social Scientist and Media majors are looked upon as joke degrees. I hate to tell you that but Philosophy majors get more respects than these new made up degrees and titles. Personally I feel its a sad state of academia where one can major in Facebook and Jersey Shore. Also before you even start I've double majored in Education and History and I am finishing my masters in History in the Fall. Historians have more study of social sciences and the impact on societies than social scientist majors.

- My last professor found evidence that the "This is your brain/This is your brain on drugs" campaign was not only ineffective at preventing drug use, it actually promoted it. My professor before that found evidence that slasher films that use sex scenes before a murder cause higher levels of fear and can associate sex with violence. These "made-up degrees" have had real impact on laws, advertising, and media content in a very short period of time. I'm glad you've accomplished so much, but it appears you care very little about people outside your academic bubble.

I never used the term Disney works. You assumed I did, and if you actually where studying social media then I am sure you covered books and stories of the Knights of the Round table , Camelot , King Arthur etc etc. Your assumption that I automatically was describing Disney films and stories just shows how narrow sighted you truly are on the matter.

- I didn't assume anything, I mentioned Disney because that was what I watched a lot of as a kid (mostly Aladdin, which I used to be able to recite by heart).

again your argument is "I'm a media studies specialist so I can identify if something fits into nice little niche" Most people don't need another person jumping up and down behind them telling them "see! see! see!" While the majority of societies go with the herd mentality, individuals are more than capable to determine if something fills their definition of of sexism. You say that social media professors want to promote media literacy but then go on to say media shouldn't be censored within reason. This reads as " If the media helps spread my point of view or reinforce my argument then its okay. However, if it pokes holes in my argument or disagrees then we should censor it. "

- I'm not sure how "no one wants to censor or remove works" turns into that final quote of yours. I thought I was pretty clear on that. People could certainly come up with all of these tropes on their own, but it would be much faster to watch Anita's series and judge whether or not you agree with her catalog of stereotypes. It's all in the effort of promoting discussion and understanding. Sexism can be much more subtle than you give credit, and it's nice to have a language to use when describing why something may be offensive to women.

its not her place to teach other peoples children about this. Because she obviously is approaching this subject with a bias. That's like me telling you, yeah your son is going to be taught race relations by a KKK member. Don't worry he's sure to offer a fair assessment of other races. It's not her place to teach other peoples children about this. Its the parents place to raise their child.

- Why isn't it? She has the credentials, the research, and the ability. You have offered no evidence to her bias, certainly not to the extremity of a KKK member.

look I know there are always the cool professors that let things slide but that doesn't mean its the right way to do things. I don't need someone to tell me how academia is considering I was teaching freshmen level history classes in college this Spring. Had my own office with office hours and everything. I hung out in an office with Science / Math and History professors of all types from the uptight types to the laid back I have one semester and three classes until retirement types. They all required a level of maturity. Using terms likes tropes or "schmushing" in a term paper / journal article or essay is not acceptable. I've been published three times in historian journals my first one was garbage (focusing on Sherman's March to the Sea), my second was excellent (Japanese Pirates ) and I received acknowledgment for and the third was okay(Grant's Presidency). There is a baseline level of acceptance for certain levels of students. My freshman 10am course yeah I might cross a term like that out and tell them to use another word there, but if by the end of the semester if they have continued to use that term. You get graded down for it. Now my 1pm advanced freshmen history students should know better and it would have been an issue. We had a girl in tears and yelling because our Asian studies professor assigned a 12 page paper for his final about the greatest influence on Japanese culture and she wanted to do it on manga but couldn't find more than 3 pages worth of material. So he suggested that since she couldn't meet the page minimum perhaps manga didn't have such a large influence as she thought and he would help her pick out a new topic. "but I want to do manga! its really important to the japanese people!" This course was for junior / senior or masters students.

He wasn't "letting things slide," he was explicitly defining a term he knew was a joke. That's cute that you had your own office, he founded his own labratory. I'm sorry your experience with academics was so stringent, but your experience doesn't define the world as it turns out. For what it's worth, Anita's work isn't being published as a term paper or journal article anyway, so your entire argument is a bit of a waste.

Anyway, have fun hating everything, I guess. I'll be over here trying to support people's projects instead of drawing hate-speech analogies.

@Harkat said:

Feminist gamers, I have a question I'd like answered:

So there's a push to have female game characters be more than "men with boobs". But on the other hand, videogames are criticized for stereotyping women. So basically, female characters should be distinctly female, but not too female or what? Or Is it an issue of not portraying females accurately? Who is to decide what traits are acceptably, realistically female and which aren't? Can't a character just be an individual instead of a "female character"? I don't look to male characters and think, "Yup, those are some manly men I can relate and look up to".

I'm honestly confused, so if I said anything offensive, it's not out of malice or anger.

Take a character like Jade from BG&E. Based on what most people think of feminism, she probably doesn't sound like a paragon for gender equality. She's thin, attractive, shows stomach, and wears lipstick. But these traits aren't what define her. What defines her is her relationship to the other characters in BG&E, especially Pey'j, and her journey of self-discovery. She shows a wide range of emotion and understanding over the course of her adventure. Alyx from Half-Life is the same way. Thin, attractive, but not sexualized. She is defined by her interactions with you, and a lot of gamers are strongly connected to Alyx because of that. She cracks jokes, talks about old times, and genuinely seems to care about Gordon (see also: you the player).

Compare these two to Sonya Blade from MK or Cammy from SF. They aren't submissive but are very powerful. Even with that, though, who do they care about? What do they like/hate? What's their defining characteristic? What's changed for them over the course of a game? Nothing, typically. I'm sure there's a story someplace to both characters, but it's either never told in-game or is overshadowed by "oh, Cammy's the girl with the revealing cammo unitard" and "Oh, Sonya's the chick with the shirt that rips off."

We want more Alyx and Jade characters, and less Sonya/Cammy characters. There's plenty of Sonya/Cammy characters that are male as well, but the variety in male representation is high enough that it doesn't matter (at least among white males).

@PixelPrinny said:

@mystakin said:

Wow, this post is so misguided I'm compelled to respond to it... I'm really posting too much in this thread, though.

Naw, you're not posting too much. I like the cut of your jib. Consider yourself followed.

I blame the fact that it's 4am and I'm still awake. Stupid E3 Bombcasts that I'm trying to catch up on keeping me up all night x.x (thanks for the follow :D )

Wow, this post is so misguided I'm compelled to respond to it... I'm really posting too much in this thread, though.

@notlupus said:

I really think that some women and men are really too quick to shout "sexism" whenever they see a woman in some type of media that does not define some PC image they had in their minds..

Some women and men, sure. That is not the case with Anita's web series nor is the case with myself, I assure you. Media students who give a damn would only 'shout' sexism when portrayals fall into clear sexist categories such as "Women in Refrigerators"

How about we compare Nathan Drake to the new Lara Croft both are strong leads and both are not over sexualized. OMG Lara wears a tank top and is almost raped in a trailer that would never happen to a man.

I've honestly not seen people say the new Tomb Raider is sexist... hell, I think it has the potential to be a groundbreaking game in women equality. I have my concerns, primarily with how the trailers promote the male gaze, but I'm still optimistic.

The sad fact is that many people that speak out about the outrage of sexism in media often have an agenda and they often don't care that some people my disagree with them.

Any social scientist wants people to disagree with them, it promotes discussion and thought. What we don't want is people to cover their eyes and ears to the world around them.

You know what, if you disagree with the way a game portrays a particular character, don't fucking buy it.

The very same argument could be said about Anita's web series.

If you want to complain about the sexism in video games and media then I think you should take a hard good look at the media you where presented with as a child.

A major reason I studied media was because I wanted to understand the media I grew up with. You come to a lot of tough conclusions, especially about many Disney works, but just because we grew up with them doesn't mean they're perfect.

The thing that people who shout Sexism! fail to acknowledge or admit to themselves is that the only thing that would make them happy is outright censorship of works.

This is just flat out wrong. The goal of media studies professors and practitioners is to promote media literacy and ask people to be more critical of the media we consume. No one, within reason, wants to censor or remove works that are sexist or have sexist themes. We just want to give people the tools with which to understand why the work can be considered sexist, and choose whether or not it bothers them from there.

The truth is that there is always going to be sexism and racism and other ism's in the world. The question is are you going to bitch and bitch about it in hopes that the problem will go away or are you going to act like an adult realize that all you can do is not support it and think for yourself and teach your children to think for themselves.

The end of your post is exactly what Anita's project is trying to do. It's teaching people, and -- through her classroom curriculum -- children, how to critically assess the media they consume.

PS. It should also be known I hate anyone that uses the term tropes in anything they claim is academic. You use the term tropes in any graduate level course work and see if your work is ever published or you are ever taken seriously.

I had a media studies professor that liked to use a made up word "schmushing" to describe combining data. Academia isn't nearly as uptight as you believe it is.

@crithon said:

I have found her videos a bit trivial and she seems to have the same school of presentation to conservative commentators. I think her biggest problem is she focuses on trival issues and never grasps the reality. If it's enough to get us talking about how about "equal rights for women"? then I'm all for that, but trolling how mia is a "fighting fuck toy" that's just silly

Providing concrete examples of common sexist tropes in video games is... silly and trivial?

@Akyho said:

@mystakin said:

@Akyho said:

I am all for feminism. However can we just stop having people point out "This is not a true representative of women. It is sexist." Instead tell us WHAT the actual representation that should be used and go from there.

Right now all that happens is like a rat in a box. You hit it when it goes for food, you hit when it tries to drink, you hit it when it moves. It gets to a point to decides that the best action to not be hut is to just sit in the corner and die. Or just ignore you, bite you and do its own thing.

One of Sarkeesian's planned videos is "Positive Female Characters!" Prayers answered!

I first said to myself "Well thats all right." Then researched PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!! SPIT TAKE AND A HALF!!! It only took $15,000 to get to it!

Stretch Goals

• $7,500 - Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress (Tropes Video #6)
• $9,000 - Women as Reward (Tropes Video #7)
• $10.500 - Mrs. Male Character (Tropes Video #8)
• $12,000 - "Ugly" = Evil (Tropes Video #9)
• $13,500 - Man with Boobs (Tropes Video #10)
• $15,000 - "Positive Female Characters!" (Tropes Video #11)

And! it was originally stated as "$15,000 - Special Video To Be Announced If Goal Magically Reached!" in the subset of extra videos to validate earning more than the initial $6,000. It comes as Number 11?

Nope nope nope nope. Her business model is disgusting. This is just shameless profiteering on a decent cause done in a bad way. I condemn it .

I say profiteering. Even if she methodically makes sure that every single penny is spent in a direct way to fund the documentaries with out taking some cream off the top. She will profit with this added to her profile and some to maybe alot of media attention.

I do not see any point to the video series except for Positive Female characters. That is 11th on the list!? I only see more harm than good. Its horrible.

The #1 thing you are taught in Media Studies classes is the concept of media literacy. Media literacy is, basically, educating people about how the media works, what tools they use to influence you, and what shortcuts(see: stereotypes) they use in storytelling. The point of making people media literate is to give them the tools to judge a piece of media critically and make a decision about the quality of that entertainment on their own. For that to work, you need to teach people the common tropes to look out for. Saying "Jade from BG&E is a strong female character" doesn't mean anything unless you know WHY she is and why others aren't.

Also, I'm not sure how "The video I want was #11 on her list, she must be profiteering!" makes any sense, by the way. You gave no reason why her Kickstarter is suddenly "disgusting" and "shameless" beyond the video you want to watch the most being one of the videos not in her original pitch. All popular Kickstarters have spill over goals, even Double Fine did.

@Aetheldod No one is asking you to change what you like. It's not about removing Rambo; it's about adding Saving Private Ryan (to run with my original analogy). As for making products they want to see, some do. The issue is, not every feminist is a game designer or film maker. I don't think I'm qualified to make a game or a film, but I'm certainly capable of spotting a "woman in a refrigerator" or a "manic pixie dream girl," two common female tropes in movies and comics. Giving people the tools to be media literate is the foundation of media studies as a social science.

@Aetheldod said:

@mystakin: You know these comics are aimed for men , we like that so they make it so. If women did the same we wouldnt care , if they like that go ahead its only the women who always try to change us to what they want. And no im not saying that we have the right to tell women in real life how to dress act etc. but comics , video games and a lot of enterteinment is made to be male power fantasies , we like it like that , is not our fault that female programers/artist dont make stuff that females would like. Blame them not us.

The problem is the ratio of comics aimed at men vs. comics aimed at everyone (not just women, everyone). There's nothing wrong with a movie like Rambo by itself. But when the entire film industry is just Rambo films and you never get Saving Private Ryan, what value does film really have as a medium? It's all one perspective, one story. I would like to see comics and games that promote an alternative perspective, enough that the balance is more in line with the actual gender balance in the population. Treating female characters like human beings and not objects of desire or reward would be a plus, too. You don't need to have 1-dimensional female character to have a game or movie aimed at men (See: Avengers).

That's not to say there are NO comics/movies/games that meet that description, just that most don't. I, personally, am incredibly excited to see how Tomb Raider turns out. It has the potential to be something truly groundbreaking and incredible.

@Akyho said:

I am all for feminism. However can we just stop having people point out "This is not a true representative of women. It is sexist." Instead tell us WHAT the actual representation that should be used and go from there.

Right now all that happens is like a rat in a box. You hit it when it goes for food, you hit when it tries to drink, you hit it when it moves. It gets to a point to decides that the best action to not be hut is to just sit in the corner and die. Or just ignore you, bite you and do its own thing.

One of Sarkeesian's planned videos is "Positive Female Characters!" Prayers answered!

@ultimatepunchrod I suggest you read this. Particularly the part where the Catwoman comic shows readers her breasts, ass, and curves for two pages before you ever get to see her face. This is objectification, but keep in mind that this is not the ONLY problem feminists fight against. Also, your description of bulging muscles is a description of the male power fantasy I talked about earlier, not objectification of men (which does exist, the article has a good example of it).