[ SECRET POST #2872 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2872 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 019 secrets from Secret Submission Post #410.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[croik]

Showing the clip by itself on Colbert didn't really showcase the whole of the argument. The point of that particular video, as with most of her videos, wasn't that every specific instance of rape/violence towards women is by itself sexist. It's that there are so many examples across so many games that it becomes kind of normalized. Like, if your game is at all adult or edgy, there absolutely has to be a strip club/brother, or there's usually women being abused at some point, and every villain can be easily identified by the fact that they're sexist assholes. Some gamers will argue that any setting won't feel "mature" or "realistic" if those things aren't included, even in settings where the culture has been created from scratch.

Or an example Anita didn't actually use but I've seen elsewhere, Mortal Kombat (I love MK). Why are all the women dressed in string bikinis? Because Shao Khan is a sexist asshole. And that's a worthy explanation, because he's the villain. But when every other villain has the same reasoning, it feels less like justification and more like an excuse to have women in bikinis.

It's not about individual games, it's about the pattern across all games.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

A comparable example from different media: it's like the dead queers trope that used to be overwhelmingly present in books, films, etc. and that still lingers today. Is it inherently bad to kill your protagonist(s), regardless of their sexual orientation? Of course not. But if the vast majority of straight protagonists survive to the end of their storylines, and the majority of queer protagonists die miserably, then that sends a really negative message.

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the fact that the examples provided are disproportionately male on female rape, even though male on male rape is just as common and just as damaging. Not to mention that, frequently, it's tossed into a female character's backstory to make her "tough," even though male characters of similar grittiness rarely have any sort of sexual abuse in their backstory. Rape threats are also often used to show that female characters are in a nasty predicament, even if just plain ol' threatening her life like a male character in a similar situation would work just as well. Lazy writers use it as the "tragic past" du jour of female characters without giving her alternative venues of proper development that could suffice. Writers who throw this trope around often don't do any research into it, and sometimes make the PTSD magically go away when the heroine has consensual sex for the first time.

Some women like to look to fantasy as a source of escape. When it feels like almost every single female character is being threatened with rape or dealing with the consequences of being raped, you can get pretty sick of it, especially if it's something you had to deal with in your own life.

[croik]

Yeah, exactly this. If there were plenty of games (or movies or shows for that matter) that showed women being strong and interesting and complex without resorting every other time to some kind of sexualized violence, the ones that employ it could simply stand on their own merits. But because these tropes are used so often, it gets tiresome and starts to feel like more than just artistic choice.

And defending every individual game on the grounds of, "It's not sexist because the villain did it," "It's not sexist because it's not a major plot point," etc doesn't help change that pattern.

[ketita]

I think that a lot of people ignore the point she's making because of individual game context, and don't register that the point is showing a pattern.
I mean it's like having tragic dead gay characters. There's nothing wrong from a story perspective with killing off a gay character more than any other. But when all gay characters tend to end up tragically dead, you have a trend there worth considering.

[(Anonymous)]

The problem about Anita: She often doesn't really take an example of the thing and says "this is an example of the thing", but instead takes a terribly researched, reaching, not-clear-at-all and open to interpretation thing and says "this is an example of the thing".
It's like criticising a movie for the dead gay character trope when it either doesn't have any gay characters or you complain about that one gay guy dying when the character who died wasn't the gay character in the first place.

That's why a lot of people are so frustrated with her videos: There are actual issues, and they should be talked about. But taking bad examples and not knowing what she is talking about is not the way to do it.

[ketita]

I accept what you're saying. However, I really wish that more often when there is conversations about her videos people would actually point out mistakes and correct them, rather than go of spewing vitriol and calling her a lying skank. Because I'm not really invested; all I know is that she presents her arguments without a lot of drama, for you to agree or disagree with, but the furor around her has exploded into disgusting name-calling.
I do take what she says about games with a grain of salt, but I have to say, seeing some of the footage she's posted it's made me not want a whole lot of games to ever enter my house.

[(Anonymous)]

That, I agree with. It probably doesn't help that she never permits any ground/opportunity for actual, level headed discussion, also hiding behind the "I can't because everyone will hate on me again" problem.

I would really like to see her in a discussion with someone who can counter her points in a civilised manner (like this person: http://dpadblog.com/2014/06/17/critique-of-sarkeesians-women-as-background-decoration-video/).

[ketita]

Hmm. That post is a lot more nuanced and civil, thank you for linking it.
tbh I don't agree with a lot of his points, too, because I think he's misunderstanding some basic things about how to address specific studies, but I have to leave my computer now for the next day, so I don't expect I'll have the opportunity to discuss this with you again (people don't usually check back to posts)
either way, thanks for the link!

[(Anonymous)]

That's alright!

I have actually not found a post where I agree with absolutely every point the writer makes, but that's what discussion is for - it's perfectly alright to not have the same opinion, as long as a discussion is conducted in a civil manner and is possible in the first place.