GRRR FEMINISM and stuff - New Video Released. Fade mad.

Rubix wrote:Anyway what about Metroid, Tomb Raider ummm Bayonetta

This is one episode of likely many, and the first two episodes at least seem specifically focused on the role and presentation of women as a Damsel in Distress. I'm sure she'll get to Women as Lead Character eventually. She did allude to covering Super Princess Peach much later.

Then we'll have to remember The Baby but yeah, that's the stuff I'll be interested in hearing.

As people have said the facts are well researched to a point (no mention of Peach's attempts to escape in Paper Mario?) and I enjoyed listening to it at least and seeing some of the archive footage she pulled up. She doesn't say anything revelatory, and the writing flits between straight essay style, attempts at humour, and her personal HATE meaning it's a bit odd, but it was alright.

Or, OR they could just Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and actually build a bigger plot around this old Mario story and actually make the princess more than a mcguffin.

Skarjo wrote:The damsel in distress trope is fundamentally anti-woman.

Can you expand a bit on that one? Interesting point of view. It's tired and dull, but I don't really see how it's anti-women.

strawberry float women

Falsey wrote:strawberry float women

Some fair points.

I don't consider myself sexist at all but it did feel a bit "Wah, wah, wah! It's rubbish being a girl. Why are games designed in the 80s and 90s so predominantly aimed at boys. Wah wah wah."

I'm fed up of feminists portraying me and my sex as some kind of knuckle-dragging cavemen who can't tell the difference between a make believe woman and a real one.

So i'll be interested to see if she presents some kind of balance to it, but I'm not holding out any hope. She has an agenda and she's gonna push it. Not entirely sure why she needed $150k to do this though.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Some fair points.

I don't consider myself sexist at all but it did feel a bit "Wah, wah, wah! It's rubbish being a girl. Why are games designed in the 80s and 90s so predominantly aimed at boys. Wah wah wah."

I'm fed up of feminists portraying me and my sex as some kind of knuckle-dragging cavemen who can't tell the difference between a make believe woman and a real one.

So i'll be interested to see if she presents some kind of balance to it, but I'm not holding out any hope. She has an agenda and she's gonna push it. Not entirely sure why she needed $150k to do this though.

Does seem a bit biased really especially considering that she keeps targeting 80's and 90's games, I don't remember her stating that she was just talking about these old games it seemed more like she was talking about games in general and kept using 80's stuff for reference.

Don't know what point she was trying to make using Dragons Lair, it can hardly be called a game at all, the workforce for the game probably considered mostly of artists and animators rather than game designers.

She does have an agenda though and I think that is why people have been so aggressive about this from the start, sure people people are genuinely strawberry floating idiots but a lot of people can smell potential bullshit from a mile off. People don't take kindly to personal agenda's, just look at Michael Moore and the criticisms of his films and how he is considered a manipulative lair.

Lotus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:The damsel in distress trope is fundamentally anti-woman.

Can you expand a bit on that one? Interesting point of view. It's tired and dull, but I don't really see how it's anti-women.

Women are powerless and there to be rescued. They are a plot device, with no function nor life of their own, their only purpose is to serve as an obstacle for men.

The video makes a really good point about it; if you're playing a game and the character is male, if you get captured or imprisoned then you usually escape under your own steam with your own wit and ingenuity. Female characters, in the same scenario, must be rescued.

The women in this scenario are not people, they're McGuffins, no different to sacred stones or priceless whatevers to be rescued from certain locations. The woman is entirely irrelevant in the scenario, she's just a thing to be rescued.

I am surprised that Princess Toadstool is still being kidnapped in all Mario games even now.

First I thought it was just lazy writing but its probably just all about the gameplay and no one really cares anymore about the story!

It's because no one gives a strawberry float what the story is in a Mario game.

I think by now, rescuing Peach is a trope all of its own.

Skarjo wrote:

Lotus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:The damsel in distress trope is fundamentally anti-woman.

Can you expand a bit on that one? Interesting point of view. It's tired and dull, but I don't really see how it's anti-women.

Women are powerless and there to be rescued. They are a plot device, with no function nor life of their own, their only purpose is to serve as an obstacle for men.

The video makes a really good point about it; if you're playing a game and the character is male, if you get captured or imprisoned then you usually escape under your own steam with your own wit and ingenuity. Female characters, in the same scenario, must be rescued.

The women in this scenario are not people, they're McGuffins, no different to sacred stones or priceless whatevers to be rescued from certain locations. The woman is entirely irrelevant in the scenario, she's just a thing to be rescued.

Mmm.

Personally I don't see that as anti-women. Yeah, it's not original or particularly exciting, but not anti-women. I guess most Disney films and classic fairytales are anti-women as well then?

I haven't watched the video, but will do shortly. But if I'm playing a game with a female lead, I can't imagine that I'd have to wait around for a male character to rescue me. There have been games will female leads for at least a couple of decades now, and I can't think of one where I've had to wait for a male to come and save me. If you're the protaganist, male or female, you generally find the way out yourself, no?

Out of interest, if I was playing Tomb Raider and my main objective was to rescue a male archaeologist friend or something, would you view that as anti-men? Or is it only if that scenario was repeated multiple times that it would become that?

Rubix wrote:I am surprised that Princess Toadstool is still being kidnapped in all Mario games even now.

First I thought it was just lazy writing but its probably just all about the gameplay and no one really cares anymore about the story!

I think it's because no-one would give a strawberry float if it was Toad getting kidnapped.

Let's be frank here: it's a dramatic reading of TVTropes (or it would be if the presenter had any tone of voice other than "robot"). Subsequently, I'm failing to see the point in asking for $6k, never mind wondering where $150k went.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Some fair points.

I don't consider myself sexist at all but it did feel a bit "Wah, wah, wah! It's rubbish being a girl. Why are games designed in the 80s and 90s so predominantly aimed at boys. Wah wah wah."

With respect, that does sound a little bit sexist.

I'm fed up of feminists portraying me and my sex as some kind of knuckle-dragging cavemen who can't tell the difference between a make believe woman and a real one.

I don't think the video does that at all. She's merely presenting examples of certain tropes in video games that she believes are harmful in terms of their representation of women.

So i'll be interested to see if she presents some kind of balance to it, but I'm not holding out any hope. She has an agenda and she's gonna push it.

No gooseberry fool. That's the point of the thing. Her 'agenda' is to examine tropes involving women in video games. She's not going to talk about the representation of men because that's not what the series is about.

Interesting point from another forum: here is the punchline of the video.

Anita wrote: But the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed as frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures. [Not all games like this are bad] But it's undeniable that popular culture is a powerful influence in our lives and the damsel in distress trope, as a recurring trend, does help to normalise extremely toxic, patronising, and paternalistic attitudes about women.

It's the "people can't distinguish media from reality" fallacy again.

But if you're exposed to that kind of trope from an impressionable age, who's to say there's no normalising effect? I think people have to acknowledge there's at least a risk of that.

Lotus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:

Lotus wrote:

Skarjo wrote:The damsel in distress trope is fundamentally anti-woman.

Can you expand a bit on that one? Interesting point of view. It's tired and dull, but I don't really see how it's anti-women.

Women are powerless and there to be rescued. They are a plot device, with no function nor life of their own, their only purpose is to serve as an obstacle for men.

The video makes a really good point about it; if you're playing a game and the character is male, if you get captured or imprisoned then you usually escape under your own steam with your own wit and ingenuity. Female characters, in the same scenario, must be rescued.

The women in this scenario are not people, they're McGuffins, no different to sacred stones or priceless whatevers to be rescued from certain locations. The woman is entirely irrelevant in the scenario, she's just a thing to be rescued.

Mmm.

Personally I don't see that as anti-women. Yeah, it's not original or particularly exciting, but not anti-women. I guess most Disney films and classic fairytales are anti-women as well then?

I haven't watched the video, but will do shortly. But if I'm playing a game with a female lead, I can't imagine that I'd have to wait around for a male character to rescue me. There have been games will female leads for at least a couple of decades now, and I can't think of one where I've had to wait for a male to come and save me. If you're the protaganist, male or female, you generally find the way out yourself, no?

Out of interest, if I was playing Tomb Raider and my main objective was to rescue a male archaeologist friend or something, would you view that as anti-men? Or is it only if that scenario was repeated multiple times that it would become that?

Disney is a whole other kettle, but few would argue that the majority of classic Disney female leads are particularly healthy or progressive.

The issue isn't games with female leads, that wasn't discussed. The issue is the Damsel in Distress as a plot trope. As I've said, the crux of how worthwhile this series is rests on whether it explores games with female leads as thoroughly.

As for a female lead rescuing a male, is that necessarily anti men? No. The second that said male being rescued becomes an extremely common plot device, and the men in question serve literally no other purpose than to sit there and wait for rescue, and it's a different discussion.

And it's not a case of being necessarily anti-woman. It's the Girlfriend-in-a-fridge debate. It's not that it's against the woman, it's arguably worse. The women are utterly pointless and disposable in the whole affair. They are plot McGuffins to be collected, in the same way you'd collect a piece of loot. They're not people, they're things. They're not even valuable enough to be 'against', they're just this thing you can put in a room and tell the man to go collect.

Lotus wrote:I guess most Disney films and classic fairytales are anti-women as well then?

You say that as if it's a point of contention; the sexism of Disney is something which has been recorded an immense number of times.
If we look at some classic tales you'll actually see a lot more agency given to women in their original forms than in the Disney adaptations, however negative gender stereotypes persist because these tales were written by men a long time ago in a time when women had little to no practical power outside of the household setting.

Delusibeta wrote:Interesting point from another forum: here is the punchline of the video.

Anita wrote: But the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed as frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures. [Not all games like this are bad] But it's undeniable that popular culture is a powerful influence in our lives and the damsel in distress trope, as a recurring trend, does help to normalise extremely toxic, patronising, and paternalistic attitudes about women.

It's the "people can't distinguish media from reality" fallacy again.

Yep, and coupled with the Blank Slate fallacy as well.