I'm not sure I get what the NYT guy is even trying to argue

swing and a miss! beware you will become a little dumber by reading this BS...

I read that article from the NYT. Bunch of BS as i figured, guy is just trying to sound smart by jumping on a popular gripe. basically just stirring the shit. If he wanted to play a 'strong female lead' so bad why didnt he just play one. Hell couple of new great games with female leads just came out this year. Tomb Raider which is a classic female lead, and a whole new take with Remember Me which also has a very strong female lead... people just love to rile gamers up with BS as we feel so violated when our fav. hobby is blamed for all kinds of dumb shit.

couple points about the article that i found extremely stupid where saying that since some of the main chars that die near the start are female, meaning its just used as a sexist way to make you feel for the char... WOW so um your child dies and your lover/partner dies so what are you supposed to feel? just because it was a daughter and a 'girlfriend' doesnt make it sexist. Something is wrong with you if you dont feel sad about this. Plus the most powerful deaths IMO was during the sam and henry segment. that was just, wow... anyways at least i can chalk it up to more reality on how fucking stupid and low some people will go just to act like they are on to some profound point...

here is some nice artwork that shows how hunter are seeing women in this grim world.

also someone managed to get a list on in which women are represented in this game.

Spoiler of course: So DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU FINISHED THE GAME!!!!

They just do not fit in to the hunter society and maybe these hunters are also sexist and see women as second class people which again would be a real possibility here.

The guy from NYT not finished the game when write the article. The white knight syndrome make him write what he thinks no matter the game content.

That NYT article is just... fuck.

Dumb

You should read the NYT article because you are off point on this. The author is not complaining about Joel having to save Ellie, but that the game doesn't have the guts to have the player inhabit Ellie but for brief moments. tLOU then becomes just another "male power fantasy" starring a gruff father-figure type, and that was disappointing to the author.

How come any time a video game breaks through the medium and is considered an achievement in art, millions of sexism discussions occur afterwards?

Does this happen in other mediums?

And that is just stupid. It was the story for mature gamers and that should awaken these fatherly feelings. After finishing the game people actually went to their daughters just to hug them. It was a very emotional story for an mature audience. And Joel was the character that that was close to this audience. It is in no way a male power fantatsy no matter how you look at it.

In general this male Power fantasy is just an excuse to criticize a game that has no female lead character and this is just stupid. It is not a Male Power fantasy it is just bad writing. And TLOU has no bad writing or any form of sexism or inequality towards gender. If you really want to criticize a Gears of War of sexism or gender inequality but ´do not try to see something in games like the Last of us because that will make you look like you are just following a blind agenda.

The whole "video games are sexist" debate is ridiculous by this point, or at the very least it is in this case. But the threads that are inspired by articles that see sexism everywhere in video games are always amazing.

Hack writers jumping in on the gender bandwagon? Oh boy, that's a first. Seems like the arguments they trumpet grow more irrational by the day to justify their ever increasing irrelevance. Think about it, there have been more female protagonists and supporting characters than any other time in the history of videogames. No more Soul Calibur balloons, no more DoA: Volleyball bouncing tits. None of that shit happens any more, but to these hacks progress just isn't enough. Don't get me wrong, political correctness has its place in society, but this we can do without. Hopefully, the more desperate they grow the more people stop listening to their banal bickering.

Oh my fucking goodness....

Did the NYT article mention the "Black Guy Dies" trope? Has PETA raised a stink about the deer hunting section? Did no one spot the missed opportunity of suggesting that hybrid car would be the best form of transport in a petrol-starved post-apocalypse?

Issues guys.

This is preeeettttyyyy silly