...you'll note (s)he has skipped commenting on the video I linked to in order to safely continue with the same rhetoric unabated.
After responding that I would watch that video, I went back to work, came home late, had a couple of sandwiches instead of a cooked meal for dinner, noticed that there were a string of insults and a straw man waiting for me on the forum, responded to two that weren't, at which point I wasn't really in a mood to then watch another video on a topic that I've watched far more than I would normally choose to, watched the ending to a film instead and went to bed.
It is now approximately 7AM here.
Since participating in this thread I've probably watched about an hour of videos, either more of AS's or critics of AS, in order to respond to points on the thread. I doubt that anyone on this thread can claim anything similar. Are you guys interested in a reasoned discussion on this topic, or do you want to just erect a straw Anita and bash it for a while? If it's the latter then please let me know and I'll clear out and let you guys get on with agreeing with each other.
I've asked you for evidence for the claims you've made (eg. "here is AS saying xyz, here is my evidence/logic to counter that"), and instead of doing the obvious/logical thing and respond with evidence, you keep coming back, partly to spend your time responding positively to a straw man, and you have the gall to try and call me out because I didn't watch the video you mentioned quickly enough for your taste.
I've seen ten minutes of the video already and I intend to watch the rest. I'll probably edit this post when I've watched it, as most people on this forum aren't online at this time.
- edit -
I assume that the main reason I'm watching this video is to listen to any criticisms directed at AS.
06:06 - the author feels that some gamers felt
legitimately threatened by her, and says that is partly because she presents herself as a "pop culture critic" and therefore she looks like an "outsider" to them (the only way that I can put what the author says together here into a coherent picture is if I believe the author is suggesting that gamers are typically living in cave communities and shun "outsiders"). He then says that she puts herself "above gamers" and "someone who is educated and can tell them what to do and what they're doing wrong", yet supplies absolutely no context for these statements and in the clip of hers that he plays, she criticised academia for its lack of critical focus on pop culture, not gamers.
"and that kind of an attitude obviously alienates some people" - the only group that I think she could have alienated there was academia, as that was the only group she directed any criticism at. She said nothing negative about gamers there, and the only thing I think he can possibly ride his point on is that she didn't identify as a gamer but as a pop culture critic, but even then his point makes no sense except within the cave-dweller hypothesis I came up with. If that all it takes to alienate people is that one doesn't claim they're "one of them", I submit that said group of people are extremely easily alienated, and this isn't the fault of AS.
07:56 - "it sounds to me like she's interested in a change of culture than having any real impact on gaming itself" - logical fallacy here, if she's looking to change our culture a bit, that would have an effect on the kind of games produced in/for our culture, no?
08:00 - "she gives off an attitude that suggests she might not care about video games" - I'd personally look at actions rather than words here and also at history - usually when video games are criticised in the media, someone is claiming that video games (rather than rock music or any number of scapegoats before then, that said person doesn't approve of) cause people to become anti-social in some way. Such a person makes their comment and starts campaigning against the little straw devil they've erected, despite their exposure to video games probably being about 5 minutes when visiting their grandchildren. They probably couldn't answer a single question put to them about evidence they've collected, how many games they've looked in to or even played, etc. Blue_Max of course claims that Anita doesn't have any research/evidence of her claims, which I find curious because that must surely mean that she's filled hours of video with absolutely no evidence at all. IMO, debunking the work of someone who hasn't done any research would be incredibly easy, as their points would basically have been pulled out of their ass on a regular basis as they've got nothing factual to go on when making their criticisms.
09:23 - the video's author compared murder statistics from the US to murder statistics worldwide (which was valid in one respect because AS referred to an issue that she believes to be worldwide), but then he starts comparing US homocide figures to worldwide ones. Is he unaware of how many wars are going on? Is it fair to compare the murder rate of a developed country at peace with countries that aren't at peace? Are the ones at war doing much gaming or consuming significant amounts of media? It's a bit disingenuous IMO to try and respond to her point in this way.
However, I think AS has gone out on a limb when referring to anything worldwide as I very much doubt that she's done research to ensure that her points are valid in a global context (considering the multitude of cultures involved), let alone witnessed for herself whether other countries' societies are affected in similar ways to the US in her opinion.
09:56 - "I notice that a lot in her videos, she'll highlight one thing and seemingly contradict herself in another" - that's because the effects of ANYTHING in society is too complicated to be summed up with "x causes y". IMO she consistently explicitly states the reasons why, but the author of this video doesn't actually try to take the point on and counter it. Instead the author appears to prefer to indicate "why can't her point be simpler; it would be easier for me to call her out on it".
10:23 - he starts talking about tropes, but then he says "studying something like a movie or a TV show as a series of tropes kind of glosses over the good and unique parts of it. You're studying all the tiny parts of something rather than looking at the big picture"... said the guy who has made a video called "let's talk about feminism and sexism in video games"... how does he plan to do that then, or will he ever get around to doing that?
11:03 - With regard to "euthanizing the damsel", he dismisses her point with one example and then moves on. One example? If it's as common to have the damsel in this context as male, then he should be able to come up with at least as many as she had done (I'd have to watch her video on this direct point, but she usually comes up with several examples for each small point she makes). He makes a fair point (AFAIK IMO) that the zombie genre tends to be an exception what she said.
11:46 - "perhaps for shock value, she's tied this back to domestic violence". I agree that's what she did there (tying it back to domestic violence), and I was surprised until I looked up the definition of domestic violence (as I had a quick mental picture of it occurring in the home of a couple):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence
Her use of the term was valid, IMO, as long as the context is between two people in an emotional relationship (there isn't a specific game given for context here, then the author ends that point and moves to another).
A quote is then given with her supplying her definition of "violence against women" in gaming, being that if the woman is depicted as a helpless victim, and not if the two are on an equal standing (visual context being a Street Fighter 2-esque beat-em-up).
The author then supplies his opinion that when women have been transformed into end-level-boss-monsters that need to be euthanised that they are of equal standing. My opinion on that point is he's talking a load of bullshit. A character that has been made captive somehow, transformed against their will and then somehow compelled to fight their former ally does not involve any level of consent/choice on the character's part, so no, they're not on an equal standing just because their arm has been transformed into a BFG. In a real world context, if a person is proven not to have control over their own actions, they're not considered to be responsible (or less responsible) for them and therefore are not judged as the same as those who have control over their own actions.
12:40 - The author then goes on to suggest that AS claimed that end-of-level bosses are mostly female, which he doesn't show any evidence for. Straw man.
13:11 - "she baffles me a bit here, she says that if the violence against women fits into the story, it's still wrong" - IMO she's talking about common video game tropes, specifically ones that perpetuate negative perceptions of women. To give an example of my own, let's say that Game of Thrones (the TV series) has 100 depictions of women in states of undress, and most of the time while there's a plausible context for it in each case, it's mostly perpetuating negative perceptions of women (prostitutes, evil witch types, etc), and so the "plausible context" doesn't really make up for perpetuating the negative perception.
13:36 - The author says that AS mostly uses negative reinforcement of her point rather than proposing enhancements. I don't know about the author, but considering how controversial AS's viewpoint appears to be (look at this thread for starters, follow on with the death threats that have been sent to her), it makes sense for someone with such a viewpoint to heavily back it up with evidence. She does that, then gets criticised for doing it. Would people prefer that someone with her viewpoint wouldn't back up her points with examples?
One of the AS videos I watched recently, she actually did suggest a simple plot for a game that wouldn't fall into the usual lazy writing traps.
It's taken me nearly two hours to get this far in critiquing this video, I'll edit this post and come back to it later.
14:20 - IMO the author has a valid point that video games have not been around as long as say movies have (implication being that they should be given more time to mature), but then he contradicts his point by saying that the video game industry is evolving so much faster into a mature medium... so, when does he think it's far to expect them to live up to similar expectations as say movies?
However, I agree with his point that video games haven't been around as long, and I would add to it that the early days of gaming only allowed very limited artistic levels of artistic expression, so there wasn't a great deal of room to flesh out realistic character portrayals and so it's understandable that very simplistic plots based on stereotypes were to be expected in that era. Therefore IMO, AS should have picked a 'cut-off date' and ignore all games older than that date (I'd probably pin that date in the late nineties, 3D had hit the mainstream and many games had more of a semblance of plot than say Donkey Kong).
14:48 - Author acknowledges that AS has a fair point.
15:22 - Author complains that AS is being unfair in her use of the word "taken", even though her evidence for it is in the video directly preceding her statement, then provides a different contextual example as to why she's being unfair in his view. IMO this comes down to perceptions; his is that women aren't portrayed as such in video games, hers is that they are. His rebuttal is little more than "I disagree". If two people agree to disagree at that point in a face-to-face discussion, that's one thing, but I don't see the point of including this in the video, and it weakens his point in that he doesn't directly counter hers - for example, if he had looked at the game in question and pointed out several bits in it that portray the woman as a person who makes her own choices (because she thought they were the best things to do, not because of something totally weak, let's say "she's soooo in love with the main character") and some of those choices led to this conclusion, that would be taking AS's point here to the cleaners and hanging it out to dry. That's the sort of thing I'm interested in when forming a view as to whether AS's research is generally thorough and accurate, and if he had done that, it would call in to question whether her personal bias is affecting her judgement.
16:10 - 22 ish - The author agrees with AS's conclusion but goes on to negatively mention that he thinks she would also take issue with the tonne of other blatant stereotypical bullshit elements in that female's character.
18:37 - based on the evidence I agree with the author's conclusion here.
19:22 ish - regarding a game called "The Horde" I think - the author reaches a very odd and flawed conclusion here. The author says that the game involves controlling a dragon to capture princesses and receive ransoms in exchange, but that's OK because it's a common stereotype in the fantasy genre... I'm sorry, what? It sounds like he's agreeing with her analysis of what the game is but excusing it because it conforms to common stereotypes in that genre. Is the author wanting to talk about feminism and sexism in video games, or would he prefer to talk about "video games should remain true to their roots regardless"?
20:37 ish - Regarding "Ms. Male Character", ie. stereotypical aesthetic elements to mark women as such (eg. lipstick, a bow, wearing the colour pink). Her point here is that while male characters sometimes have some stereotypical "fashion choices" (e.g. a tie), these elements have been extremely common for female characters.
This brings me back to my previous point that I think it would be better to focus studies such as these to games produced beyond a certain date, because it's understandable that in the 8-bit era, a designer only had so many pixels and a very limited colour palette, whereas now we've got >1080p, ~16.7 million colours to play with, hi-def audio, oodles of storage, etc.
The author doesn't point this out and instead attempts to counter her point by saying things like that's how children would identify one's gender so that makes it OK then. However, it's fair to say that most video games cater for people over the age of 5, so a simplistic viewpoint of "mummy, is that a boy or a girl, I think she's a girl because she's wearing a bow" is something that can be fairly dismissed.
22:00 ish - I largely agree with her opinion that while the Mass Effect series appears to do a better job than older games of representing women, its marketing didn't, only making more of an effort (but not much IMO) for ME3 with reversible covers. The author believes that this is "substantial". I'd disagree, but this is a perception issue again - I'd say Anita believes that progressiveness of video games is slower than it ought to be, the author probably believes that it is improving at an acceptable rate. If the two of them were discussing this in person, assuming that they didn't bring further evidence to the table after starting their cases on this point, I think they'd agree to disagree.
He agrees that the marketing was problematic, but he classes this as being distinct from the games themselves. I would agree to some extent, but I think he's being naive if he really believes that game development and marketing haven't gone hand-in-hand since video games development became an industry that earns probably billions of dollars.
The author appears to agree with David Floyd's comments regarding the marketing of Lara Croft's character, I would too.
23 minutes in ish - regarding AS's view of certain female characters that aren't based on the tropes she often talks about, the author comments that he doesn't really care what gender is character is. Ok, great, but your point is apropos of nothing in particular.
24 minutes is - the author goes for a bit of reducio ad absurdum. She's talking about starring female characters in plots (that don't conform to the usual female design tropes) that subvert typical plot styles (damsels in distress for example), he then ignores half of what she said, instead responding with to "just offering both male and female characters is enough?", then attacking that point and claiming that she's contradicting herself.
26 - my response regarding 10:23 fits here as well as he's pretty much saying the same thing.
27 - author attempts to claim that her criticism of Mario isn't valid because "it's satire", then goes on to say that stereotypical portrayals are OK because they're in movies all the time. I'd respond to that with my comments regarding 19:22.
28 - he claims that say the Princess in Mario is just a maguffin and that she could be replaced with any inanimate object. Author, she's done a load of videos regarding female objectification. Considering that you've spent some time critiquing her work (kudos for that, it's a heck of a lot more than what most of the people on this thread are willing to do), you can't have missed those, could you?
28:30 ish - he agrees that Mario's plot line is really weak and a path well trodden by Nintendo, to say the least.
29 - "Female in the refrigerator" - author agrees that the premise for the quoted games are as she said, "but that's got nothing to do with the game". Surely if it's the main character's driving motivation for this plot, then it has everything to do with it? Remove the character's motivation and you don't have a plot. The purpose of a plot, certainly in a video game, is largely to get the player to empathise with the character they're playing (or at least to understand their motivations). Her point is that this trope is really common. His is that it's unimportant to the game. If it was unimportant to the game, why would they use the same plot elements repeatedly? One response would be that because it's unimportant therefore they don't bother spending time coming up with something better, another is that if it was so unimportant then any plot will do, any gender in any role, who the fuck cares. IMO, game makers think that this element of plot is important, and since they're aiming the games at men, it's important to keep male characters as the ones with power and choice because they think more men will agree (or be OK) with that notion than any other.
The author says that it's a huge misrepresentation regarding violence against women and the two tropes she mentioned, except she didn't draw a link between those two, at least, not in what he quoted. He did, then dismissed it.
30 ish - damsels with more power, they appear to be agreeing but again it's a perception issue. Hers is "not enough power", his appears to be "see, she has some power!". This difference in perceptions goes on through the next point (31 ish).
32 - I don't think AS has hypothesized or asserted about the underlying reasons for the tropes she describes (I could be wrong, lacking information here), the author doesn't quote her doing so yet starts to counter an apparently non-existent point and presents his opinion that she is going about changing society in completely the wrong way. His opinion and he's welcome to it.
Before 30 and 32 - the author makes a distinction into how player characters and NPCs ought to be treated, which I think is important. I've since read Fallen Kell's post beneath this one there's a related point here.
I'd say there are three levels of characters (off the top of my head):
1 - The protagonist and antagonist (it's common for both to have as much character detail)
2 - NPCs (less character than category 1, but still, they're there for a reason, usually to propel the plot in some way)
3 - henchmen (no character at all)
Her point is that category 2 female characters commonly are representations of a number of tropes she's previously talked about. I think the author has some interesting things to say here, but he concludes with a personal opinion as opposed to a rebuttal of some sort. Possibly again because it's matter of opinion, her conclusion was that she felt that showing a female NPC in a moment of empowerment right at the end of a game seems like more of an afterthought on the part of the game developers. It's a cynical opinion, but I don't think it's a point that can be proven or dis-proven.
So, all in all it was an interesting video, like IMO the one by 'dangerousanalysis' was (IIRC), both had interesting and valid points, and it's the sort of thing that I'd like to be present if these people participated in a debate together.
I'm personally surprised that Blue_Max quoted this video because it backs up absolutely none of his opinions of AS. Furthermore, his view appears to be that she has absolutely nothing valid or of value to say, the author of this video does not appear to share that opinion.
However, I find it strange that the author entitled the video "let's talk about feminism and sexism in video games", yet brought absolutely none of his own material to the table. It would have been more accurately titled "my response to other peoples' opinions on feminism and sexism in video games". Furthermore, the author doesn't seem to voice his opinion in conclusion of the subject in question.
At no point did the author suggest that she was engaging in "feminist ranting", or make bad comparisons between her and people like thunderf00t, or accuse her of doing no research, and with regard to her referencing games when making her points, the only time where the author pointed out an error in her analysis was what I described for 18:37.
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