Why it’s important to talk about Tropes vs. Women In Video Games
business.financialpost.com
business.financialpost.com
Did she really just generalize about double-digit percentages of the whole world population?
The interesting thing is that benevolent sexism is also widely spread in women themselves.
Here's a fairly recent paper about the spread of benevolent/hostile sexism in university undergrads, where benevolent sexism was relatively evenly spread between male and females: http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/36/4/432.full
Stuff like this makes me think that we're probably not much better than the people in the middle east/south asia who have these kinds of attitudes towards women. One wonders what it is about our society that at least keeps these sorts of attitudes from boiling over into the physical violence you see over there. Maybe we can build on that.
But for me most powerful blow is him showing that she contradicts her own masters thesis. Her masters thesis was all about criticizing something that she gave as positive counterexample in the video.
That said I enjoy videos by feministfrequency (especially the one about Lego) as well as girlwriteswhat that present completely opposite point of view.
Thunderf00t has my utmost respect for confronting religions (Islam included) and for his "Why do people laugh at creationists?" series and for being actual scientist.
Anita's video covered the existence of the "Damsel in Distress" trope. It exists, it's wide spread, and it's a fact.
I don't even remotely identify myself as feminist, and in fact, I'm usually on the complete opposite side of the political room from liberal feminists, and I don't agree with a lot of what Anita has to say.
Despite all that, the barely masked misogyny around Anita's work disgusts me.
Let's unwrap that lovely 171K subscriber foil cover and get into the package!
He starts by showing feminist frequency promising to deliver thoroughly researched compendium of games that use tropes to marginalize women.
He then cites one example (@0:54) that happens to break from the fold AT THE END, that she didn't mention (she uses ~20 unique examples in her video). He then harps on it for 30 solid seconds, and then concludes that because she failed to account for this surprise ending, that all of her research is shoddy, incomplete, and halfheartedly done.
So oh well, that was a bit of a wash. Luckily we start getting into the juicy nugat of thunderf00ts reasoning, as he outright states that tropes vs women fails to acknowledge that these games were designed to make a profit. (@2:26) This is of course wrong, but he doesn't substantiate it any way, and meanders on to say that having men go after women is healthy because it shows how much men care and are committed to taking care of women.(@3:05) (I encourage everyone to watch this to see what an emotional appeal looks like. It's so textbook it's kinda funny)
Yup.
Yup.
and yup.
no.
I wonder how much more I could pick apart from thunderf00ts reasoning in the space of 3 minutes.
Am I right that you think it's wrong that he:
- shows only single example of her failing at her research
- assumes that something that happens at the end of the story is at least as important as something that happens at the beginning?
- uses this example to have a little bit of fun by ridiculing to entertain his viewers (and probably himself).
- claims (falsely?) that tropes vs women fails to acknowledge that these games and their stories were designed to make a profit.
- proposes that this trope is just using natural instinct of helping loved ones and oppressed to provide motivation for male protagonist and was not invented to diminish women.
What about the part where he shows that she contradicts her own masters thesis in this video? That was main point of this video for me. Did she change her mind and female characters doing stereotypically male things are now ok for her and she just forgot to mention and explain reasons for that change of her opinion? Or is she perfectly capable of holding and arguing in favor of two exactly opposite views at the same time?
It wasn't example of her failing at her research, and it's exactly how Glen Beck would make an argument.
> assumes that something that happens at the end of the story is at least as important as something that happens at the beginning?
those are unstated terms of his argument, yes. it was one example where it broke the mold (debatable), she cited I think 3 other examples of her 20 that did this. She goes on to state how these examples are swiftly undercut by the main point of the stories.
> uses this example to have a little bit of fun by ridiculing to entertain his viewers (and probably himself).
he was dead serious, he's also incoherent.
> claims (falsely?) that tropes vs women fails to acknowledge that these games and their stories were designed to make a profit.
yes I have an issue with that.
> proposes that this trope is just using natural instinct of helping loved ones and oppressed to provide motivation for male protagonist and was not invented to diminish women.
I'm sorry. That argument was such a blatant emotional appeal, I'm really stunned you're backing it.
>What about the part where he shows that she contradicts her own masters thesis in this video?
I stopped watching once the first 3 minutes gave me 2 paragraphs of errors.
Does damsel in distress trope include punching oppressor in the balls in the end as optional element? How does it play into all this objectification and captured woman lacking agency?
Never seen Glen Beck but I've seen South Park: Dances with Smurfs and what I get from this is style of commentary that states questions that suggest something that that would be slanderous if it was in form of a statement. Slanderous or just false and stupid, like on History Channel: "Could aliens help build pyramids?".
I don't really see parallels to Thunderf00ts style.
> he was dead serious, he's also incoherent.
As dead serious as stand-up comedian, but I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.
>> claims (falsely?) that tropes vs women fails to acknowledge
> yes I have an issue with that.
I must have missed it in original video.
>> proposes that this trope is just using natural instinct of helping loved ones ...
> I'm sorry. That argument was such a blatant emotional appeal, I'm really stunned you're backing it.
So you think that the trope was put in the story rather to provide pleasure to player by diminishing women, than to provide motivation for male protagonist by playing on basic humane instincts and by proxy providing motivation to the player who identifies with protagonist? Or do you think it was put in the story for some other reason? Or am I posing false trichotomy with those questions?
Maybe just because argument is about emotions it makes it invalid? I don't really see it anything similar to "Will somebody please think of children!" which is most obvious emotional appeal I can think of right now.
> I stopped watching once the first 3 minutes gave me 2 paragraphs of errors.
Oh. Ok, then. I recommend the rest to you. It gets better.
I'm always astonished how two intelligent people can see something in completely opposite way if they come from two different ideological backgrounds.
Satisfactory modelling flowing hair on current hardware is still difficult.
Video game companies are capitalist companies by nature, they understand the concept of offer and demand.
Women? Everyone should stop buying them.
Considering jokes about Farmville and Dr. Mario, women may be more inclined to play the same games repeatedly.
Which would mean less money spent, and thus less votes by money.
But even the trope-busters are, themselves, tropes (cf. Joss Whedon's parade of badass waifs).
I have one personal nitpick, though:
> The messages these popular characterizations send — women are weak and need men to protect them;
Taking a very narrow of definition of "weak", strength sports demonstrate that actually, men are generally physically stronger than women. (I leave emotional strength to another discussion).
Granted, a female strength athlete will generally drastically outperform Joe Q Couchmaster on something like a snatch or a bench press. But compare like with like -- powerlifters with powerlifters, weightlifters with weightlifters -- and men lift more than women in every weight class.
Don't forget http://io9.com/5959794/the-firefly-episode-were-really-glad-...
This is dangerous as it looks to add credence to the concept that it is okay to portray women as weaker because under some averaged metrics they perform less than the average man.
However, the "women are weak" quote isn't exclusively, or sometimes at all, related to physical ability. I would say that weak would be any situation or scenario where a person is not able to escape or solve (Princess Peach may not be able to defeat Bowser physically, but the writer's haven't had her try and out-smart him either.)
"Women are weak" isn't exclusively in their ability to win in combat, its their ability to outsmart, to plan and problem-solve, and ultimately to look out for their safety. Very few games show female characters doing even that...
I'm not trying to add credence to anything. It's objectively verifiable that on physical tests of strength, men outperform women on average and at the elite level.
> "Women are weak" isn't exclusively in their ability to win in combat, its their ability to outsmart, to plan and problem-solve, and ultimately to look out for their safety.
I agree with you. It sucks.
But to me, "... and need men to protect them" implies pretty clearly that the article was talking about physical strength and/or personal harm.
Even if you compare average men with female volleyball or basketball athletes men seem to have higher upper and lower body strength.
Hrm, yes.