Feminism in gaming intelligent (please) discussion

[DaRkOwNs]

[video=youtube;toa_vH6xGqs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=toa_vH6xGqs[/video]

To sum up, she basically says that every game centered around teenage boys and young men center around having a damsel-in-distress female character that needs saving or dies. She continues to point out the illogical dimensions of said damsels bust size. Not exactly new viewpoints but, meh.

I only personally watched the first half and didn't even bother with the first part, as I find her very mind-numbing and fundamentally mistaken. But the forum has been lacking in intelligent discussion so I wanted to post this in here, regardless of whether or not we had a similar thread.

Personally, again, I have a problem with women like this that looks in the wrong places for anti-feminine behaviors and generally just twists stories so that it agrees with her point of view. When it comes down to it, she only picked games that were targeted at young, male audiences so of course it's gonna be hot women that the man needs to save. That's just a game company catering to the target demographic. I guarantee you it'd be the exact opposite if they were targeted at females of the same age, and the developers actually had women in the teams. But, of course, there would be no cries of male dehumanization or inequal attitudes.

I'm hoping for some good debate so I'm saving the rest of my argument and viewpoints. Discuss away, if you please. If you don't, that's cool. The Xbone thread should be above or below this and we all know making fun of Microsoft never loses it's joy.

 

[Z Power]

targeted at young, male audiences so of course it's gonna be hot women that the man needs to save. That's just a game company catering to the target demographic.

Welcome to feminism.

 

[Deathshot]

Feminism...

We demand equal rights.
Unless it means it could hurt us.
Then it's not fair, we should be excused from that.

 

[Barney]

Did she talk about the Tomb Raider reboot at all? I didn't play it, but from what I understand it was all about girl power.

 

[Tenzo]

Apparently she mainly picks shitty games. Or very old games.
The latest Tomb Rider? Definitely a girl power thing(I haven't played it but i saw a couple of gameplay vids).

 

[Zeonix]

First, what feminism has become is ridiculous and borders, if not crosses into, supremacism.

With that said, why do we always focus on female characters having big tits as being an unrealistic portrayal of women while also ignoring that all the men are super jacked, super athletic, hyper intelligent warriors regardless of occupation? Ever open up a comic book? Or play any game ever? We create idealized versions of people in our media. That's part of the fantasy.

 

[Tenzo]

Exactly.
And there are tons of video games out there. Not all of them are good.

 

[Slofreak]

at 19:00 basicly what she is trying to say is that these games promote violence against women. Which is completly bs, the guy that beats woman is scum, but it's not the game that is responsible for it. Mostly it's due to their upbrining and how wer they raised by parents and what kinda value did there parents or person that was responsable for that child learn them.

Also if she is talking about girls being treated bad in the games, how about men? most of the games the main evil guy is a monster or a boss is mostly represented by a male. I could talk hours about how that is discrimination.

And her problem about games where a guy is saving a girl, it's just bs. You could nitpick into any story and what would that leave us with? No story at all, an empty game.
We all like a good story, even girls i asked say they like romantic stuff, where guy saves a girl. But not all stories are always the same.

She is complaining even tough 99% of game developers are male and yet they are still trying to make games so some females out there could play.
I played RE3 nemesis as a kid and main character there was a female who dosen't remembers Jill Valentine? or Dino Crisis Regina?

 

[Zeonix]

Or the fact that I'm murdering hundreds of thousands of men, but as soon as someone slaps a woman holy shit, the world is ending.

 

[Deathshot]

Or the fact that I'm murdering hundreds of thousands of men, but as soon as someone slaps a woman holy shit, the world is ending.

We could always go back to the problem with "Final Fight" and why Poison went from being a Female to a Tranny to Not in the game at all due to violence against woman.

 

[DaRkOwNs]

Glad to see this thread is agreeing with me, kinda expected it to blow up in my face overnight.

The superiority crap is the exact reason I hate "feminists". Tbh though, I've never even bothered to think about how idealized our male protagonists are. That was a good point. Yet, didn't hear a damn thing about that of course.

There was a pretty big uproar about an alleged rape scene (that got edited into her murder, I believe) in the new Tomb Raider, but in Far Cry 3 just a half a year earlier I didn't hear anyone at all complain about one of the male protagonists being repeatedly raped (granted, it wasn't outright said) by a perverted australian dude.

What about all those Barbie games and My Little Pony games? Those aren't geared for a very specific age group and gender? Is it also a form of female disempowerment if us men don't play those games? No, those aren't detrimental towards women, but stories and games that are aimed very -specifically- at 13 - 18 year old young men are offensive to women. Have any of you considered any less of a woman in this world because you always save them in a video game?

 

[Zeonix]

Don't forget that the protagonist in FC3 was raped by a woman, as he had been both drugged during intercourse and it was against his will. If that isn't rape, then why is the reverse rape? Oh yeah, and in one of the endings, she murders you.

 

[Horatio]

Okay, I really don't agree with the whole "Women are the same as cows" worldview, but this sexualisation of them in video games is nothing like that.

When was the last time you saw a really good looking guy in a game? You see them all the time! Likewise, you see really good looking women in games. Just because of the past few centuries of misogyny, etc, it doesn't mean you can be a giant d**che about it now to the extent of supremacy. Come on guys, EQUALITY. Not SUPREMACY.

 

[DaRkOwNs]

There are certain inequalities in the world that -are- true. I just dislike the entire elitist/superiority view. Women don't want to be treated equal, they want to be treated like women. I couldn't count on all my digits (all 21 of them *nudge*) how many times a woman complained about having to move mildly heavy boxes in a retail environment to the point where I had to do it myself. 'Cause god forbid someone with breasts do actual labor.

But when it comes down to it, there are ridiculous stereotypes in gaming. for instance, I ******* hate Peach. Like ******* hate her. But I love Zelda because, while she's always being abducted and playing the damsel in distress, she always has an air of being in some kind of control or she already put events into motion to enable her rescue and the saving of the planet. Peach just screams and jiggles her chest. Like, cmon.

But I also dislike characters like Lara Croft who, despite the ridiculous proportions, are made solely to combat "feminism" and never get fully understood as a character. Liara in ME, despite being a character who was made for sex appeal, became a good character because of the change you can see in her through the trilogy. She's at first an awkward, naive intellectual who turns into a ruthless, calculating bad-ass because of the events in the game. You SEE this transformation, which is a huge difference in the debate of feminism versus attraction. She's not attractive simply because she's extremely feminine and geared towards 13 - 21 year old males, it's because you see this evolution in her.

Now an example of a female that's not really supposed to be a sex appeal option but ended up having a huge fanboy base. Alyx from HL2. She's built to be the tomboyish rogue, but it's simply because people adored her personality, wit, and resourcefulness that she became popular. Of course, you don't see that in the video. Granted HL is geared towards a grown up audience, since Valve is smart enough to realize their fanbase ages in real time.

And just fyi, I chose Tali. Suck it.

 

[Eon]

There are certain inequalities in the world that -are- true. I just dislike the entire elitist/superiority view. Women don't want to be treated equal, they want to be treated like women. I couldn't count on all my digits (all 21 of them *nudge*) how many times a woman complained about having to move mildly heavy boxes in a retail environment to the point where I had to do it myself. 'Cause god forbid someone with breasts do actual labor.

.

Even though that's something from personal experience, that's a pretty harsh generalization. I've worked in retail/warehouse environments with plenty of capable women.

 

[DaRkOwNs]

Even though that's something from personal experience, that's a pretty harsh generalization. I've worked in retail/warehouse environments with plenty of capable women.

Yeah, I don't mean to say that women can't do labor. All of them that I worked with are just very apt to use stereo-typing to manipulate the management into making the men take over. Luckily, I work for myself nowadays.

 

[Grega]

@topic title: Metroid. Nuff said ^^

 

[Eon]

@topic title: Metroid. Nuff said ^^

You mean the game series where if you do well you get to see the protagonist in a bikini? Not so much.

 

[Zeonix]

No one seems to have a problem with Goku or Jason Statham losing their shirts for no reason.

 

[Eon]

True but you never get some endgame screenshots of Goku in a speedo for doing well in a DBZ game.



At least I hope not

--- edit ---

Also that's pretty much all the ammo I have left on the subject. Other than a few things, I do agree there are aspects of feminism that aren't that great at all. That doesn't mean there aren't valid reasons for [a few] core feminist values. It's too bad people use it as a crutch to demand treatment that goes beyond equality.