Tropes vs. Women in Video Games Controversy

[Roam]

I'm about to get some food, so no time for a lengthy post, but in short: Yes, by indicating that there are 10 games out of the several million games that have come out over the past 30 years with female lead characters you have successfully established that an exploration of sexism in videogames is pointless. Well done. Just as saying that Will Smith is a famous, popular actor and therefore racism in movies can't be real is an awesome and intelligently constructed argument that no one could ever question.

[Lallante]

Not a defence of my views since I believe that I am not going to change my point of view on that, but an accurate assessment of why we're talking in circles anyway.

My general attitude is resting on a simple basis - eye for an eye. I choose to apply that to feminists as well. If someone tells me I have been sleeping at work while I have been slaving away for hours, I will go into ego mode and go off somewhere and do fuck all. If a feminist tries to tell me that I should go to hell because I happen to be born with a penis, I go misogenic.

On the other opposite side of the coin, as long as the whole discussion is sensible, I have absolutely no problems with that. But thats just my subjective standpoint.

Too bad your strategy will just further convince the people who are wrong that they are right instead of improving their critical thinking skills.

Maybe if she really wants to be all activist about perhaps something that involes real life?

Why? Are we not able to attack a problem from multiple angles at the same time? "Why are we worrying about equal pay for women when there is oppression in country X?"

Granted that I am not going to defuse anything at all, but I do believe that those who really tick me off are far beyond proper reasoning anyway. I do admire some of the older generation feminists, some of which also commented on the modern feminist generation as being a "huge step backwards for feminism".

But this again is far beyond the scope of misoginy in videogames. As for me, I never enjoyed videogames with a massive reality check. I prefer my games to be as detached from real life as possible, because games. This will inevitably include female avatars at some point and so far I have never seen a designer who just went "Ah fuck it, lets make the protagonist ugly as sin and then hit the face with a smudge tool repeatedly", no matter the industry. Most game creators have to make a profit out of the product (how would you like to work for free? how do you feed your family or yourself?) and this influences the whole thing from the bottom level upward. Your average modern game attempts to cater to as wide a spectrum of humanity as possible. Bigger target audience equals higher theoretical profits. An exemption would be niche games or specifically targeted games for distinct groups/markets. Also I am getting tired of writing this, as it is currently fucking hot in here and I cannot open my windows today, so screw documentaries, I'ma go and have a cold shower and a beer.

"I know nothing about feminism except that I'm against it"
"The only alternative to women being represented as a massive-titted victim to be granted as a reward to the male protagonist is boring realism and ugly disinterested female characters"
"Sex sells and therefore is morally ok"

How many shit arguments can you fit in one post?

[Blutreiter]

Not a defence of my views since I believe that I am not going to change my point of view on that, but an accurate assessment of why we're talking in circles anyway.

My general attitude is resting on a simple basis - eye for an eye. I choose to apply that to feminists as well. If someone tells me I have been sleeping at work while I have been slaving away for hours, I will go into ego mode and go off somewhere and do fuck all. If a feminist tries to tell me that I should go to hell because I happen to be born with a penis, I go misogenic.

On the other opposite side of the coin, as long as the whole discussion is sensible, I have absolutely no problems with that. But thats just my subjective standpoint.

Too bad your strategy will just further convince the people who are wrong that they are right instead of improving their critical thinking skills.

Maybe if she really wants to be all activist about perhaps something that involes real life?

Why? Are we not able to attack a problem from multiple angles at the same time? "Why are we worrying about equal pay for women when there is oppression in country X?"

Granted that I am not going to defuse anything at all, but I do believe that those who really tick me off are far beyond proper reasoning anyway. I do admire some of the older generation feminists, some of which also commented on the modern feminist generation as being a "huge step backwards for feminism".

But this again is far beyond the scope of misoginy in videogames. As for me, I never enjoyed videogames with a massive reality check. I prefer my games to be as detached from real life as possible, because games. This will inevitably include female avatars at some point and so far I have never seen a designer who just went "Ah fuck it, lets make the protagonist ugly as sin and then hit the face with a smudge tool repeatedly", no matter the industry. Most game creators have to make a profit out of the product (how would you like to work for free? how do you feed your family or yourself?) and this influences the whole thing from the bottom level upward. Your average modern game attempts to cater to as wide a spectrum of humanity as possible. Bigger target audience equals higher theoretical profits. An exemption would be niche games or specifically targeted games for distinct groups/markets. Also I am getting tired of writing this, as it is currently fucking hot in here and I cannot open my windows today, so screw documentaries, I'ma go and have a cold shower and a beer.

"I know nothing about feminism except that I'm against it"
"The only alternative to women being represented as a massive-titted victim to be granted as a reward to the male protagonist is boring realism and ugly disinterested female characters"
"Sex sells and therefore is morally ok"

How many shit arguments can you fit in one post?

*groan*

Are you serious? I know you're trying to fuel a debate and all, but dude...

[Lallante]

Parasite Eve
Resident Evil
Perfect Dark
Final Fantasy (VI, X come to mind)
Tomb Raider (for as outsized as Lara's breasts may be she's still the main character and has agency)
The entire fighting game genre (everybody is a stereotype and has equal agency)
Alpha Centauri
Prototype (several of the power players are women)

.... off the top of my head

Are we going to get in to some theory debate about affirmative action?at least 50% of all games must feature female main characters with significant agency?

What about games like Modern Warfare which accurately reflect that combat units of that sort are 100% or near 100% male?

And if you're going to complain BOTH about the "helpless princess" AND "Badass heroine" tropes what exactly is this fabled.middleground that's acceptable?

Men get the wussy bard, mysterious assassin, and uncouth barbarian stereotypes.

Earlier it was claimed that male characters are routinely better developed (more "3 dimensional") than female.characters who are flat stereotypes... I submit for argument that the claim is false and insofar as character development is concerned, particularly with more recent games, males and female personality, and agency, are roughly equivalent, granted that there are more male lead characters.

(Submit as false as in I'd like to see evidence to back this claim)

In effect my response is that ALL video game characters have equally troped development and to convince me this is a genuine issue you'd need to demonstrate that females are _more_ so than males.

The fact that its getting better is a reflection of the success of pushes for equality and backlash against sexualisation. It shows that constantly pushing against 1 dimensional female characters can and will work in the long run.

[Lallante]

Not a defence of my views since I believe that I am not going to change my point of view on that, but an accurate assessment of why we're talking in circles anyway.

My general attitude is resting on a simple basis - eye for an eye. I choose to apply that to feminists as well. If someone tells me I have been sleeping at work while I have been slaving away for hours, I will go into ego mode and go off somewhere and do fuck all. If a feminist tries to tell me that I should go to hell because I happen to be born with a penis, I go misogenic.

On the other opposite side of the coin, as long as the whole discussion is sensible, I have absolutely no problems with that. But thats just my subjective standpoint.

Too bad your strategy will just further convince the people who are wrong that they are right instead of improving their critical thinking skills.

Maybe if she really wants to be all activist about perhaps something that involes real life?

Why? Are we not able to attack a problem from multiple angles at the same time? "Why are we worrying about equal pay for women when there is oppression in country X?"

Granted that I am not going to defuse anything at all, but I do believe that those who really tick me off are far beyond proper reasoning anyway. I do admire some of the older generation feminists, some of which also commented on the modern feminist generation as being a "huge step backwards for feminism".

But this again is far beyond the scope of misoginy in videogames. As for me, I never enjoyed videogames with a massive reality check. I prefer my games to be as detached from real life as possible, because games. This will inevitably include female avatars at some point and so far I have never seen a designer who just went "Ah fuck it, lets make the protagonist ugly as sin and then hit the face with a smudge tool repeatedly", no matter the industry. Most game creators have to make a profit out of the product (how would you like to work for free? how do you feed your family or yourself?) and this influences the whole thing from the bottom level upward. Your average modern game attempts to cater to as wide a spectrum of humanity as possible. Bigger target audience equals higher theoretical profits. An exemption would be niche games or specifically targeted games for distinct groups/markets. Also I am getting tired of writing this, as it is currently fucking hot in here and I cannot open my windows today, so screw documentaries, I'ma go and have a cold shower and a beer.

"I know nothing about feminism except that I'm against it"
"The only alternative to women being represented as a massive-titted victim to be granted as a reward to the male protagonist is boring realism and ugly disinterested female characters"
"Sex sells and therefore is morally ok"

How many shit arguments can you fit in one post?

*groan*

Are you serious? I know you're trying to fuel a debate and all, but dude...

no u

[Selb]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh7tgX_Uaqs

[Tarminic]

They are pretty poor arguments, though. Your post essentially boils down to:

1. A strawman that female protagonists must either be stereotyped or unrealistically unattractive.
2. An argument that the free market, and no other considerations, should govern the content we put into interactive media
3. Videogames are escapist by nature, so they are not beholden to portray realistic relationships or suffer from doing so

[Chrien]

Firstly the opening post in this thread is a disgrace. There’s a reason the first 5 pages of this thread are totally utter rubbish. If you want to have a reasonable informed debate where you convince those who disagree with you that your argument is the correct and well-reasoned one then perhaps arbitrarily labelling those who might potentially disagree with you as "misogynists" and stereotypically describing them as "social-phobic neckbeards" who have had no exposure to women other than their mothers is not the way to start out a discussion. You immediately put them on the back foot. However, if Lallente's intention was to polarise the debate into two camps in which he could have a nice circle-jerk with those who agree with him, hey presto mission accomplished. It is exactly why quite a few people called him out on it being a troll, because it is exactly what a troll would do. Only his persistence in the thread encourages me to believe he isn't actually trolling in this case.

As for the actual subject of the way women are portrayed in video gaming I agree that a significant amount of the content in video games does not portray women in a particularly flattering light, as mentioned by others they're often overly sexualised, or the typical damsel in distress amongst quite a few others. This doesn't mean all video games fall into this trap, there have been a number of games over the years which have portrayed women in a far greater depth than mere shallow cardboard cut outs, but these games are the exceptions that don't disprove the rule. That said it should hardly be surprising. The target demographic for most video games is males somewhere between the ages of 12-25. The free market basically dictates that games are made that play into the aforementioned stereotypes because video game developers are out to make money. The real question is why do these stereotypes appeal to males in this age group and how can it be addressed. I'm reluctant to blame video games for causing some sort of cause and effect loop solely on their own. I suspect social interactions in the real world are a far greater cause, but given I'm no way near being an expert on this whole area I won't speculate. So this project has a lot of merit if it succeeds in casting some light on the issue without falling into the trap of generalisations and labels.

[Tyrus Tenebros]

I'm about to get some food, so no time for a lengthy post, but in short: Yes, by indicating that there are 10 games out of the several million games that have come out over the past 30 years with female lead characters you have successfully established that an exploration of sexism in videogames is pointless. Well done. Just as saying that Will Smith is a famous, popular actor and therefore racism in movies can't be real is an awesome and intelligently constructed argument that no one could ever question.

Except we gave 16 more examples than you.

How about examples of sexism that go beyond the similar tropes seen in male characters

I'll help out. The princess in Mario is helpless for no apparent reason. (Granted Mario is also a one-dimensional "italian plumber"). (Even granted that royalty is a natural kidnapping target)

[Tarminic]

I don't think that anyone is blaming videogames as being the cause of female stereotypes, but I also think it's reasonable to say that they reinforce and contribute to them. It's a problem that has to be attacked from multiple angles.

[Chrien]

Could name a few characters from the GTA series, but then you'd just point out how the whole game is one giant sterotype.

[Blutreiter]

They are pretty poor arguments, though. Your post essentially boils down to:

1. A strawman that female protagonists must either be stereotyped or unrealistically unattractive.
2. An argument that the free market, and no other considerations, should govern the content we put into interactive media
3. Videogames are escapist by nature, so they are not beholden to portray realistic relationships or suffer from doing so

Ah, now this I can get behind.

1. I haven't said that there is a "must" condition anywhere. I said that I generally enjoy games with unrealistic approaches, not limited to attractiveness of characters as well as setting, story and presentation.
2. Continuing with my above point, the free market already governs the availability of content of all kinds of products, not limited to games. This is actually the most interesting point to debate IMHO, as it can be reduced to demand versus supply. Now, if the demand is high enough, wouldn't the problem be much more fundamental than a simple "all videogames stereotype women"? This just tells you that the whole consumerbase is okay with that generalization. If you would do a survey of 10000 gamers about this, I believe that the majority will tell you that they have no problems with gender equality. Actually, since the portraying of, let's say, shallow females in videogames is such a common occurrence as OP claims, does the average consumer realize in the first place that this is happening? And if no, does that make them misogenics as well?
3. Absolutely subjective. Do you enjoy vintage horror movies?

[Tyrus Tenebros]

Could name a few characters from the GTA series, but then you'd just point out how the whole game is one giant sterotype.

No that's a fair example since I can't think of any female characters with significant agency in the series. That's a decent example of a series where females are minimized in favor of all roles being male dominated.

To clarify the examples I'm looking for are not simply tropes, but significant minimization or ignorance of any role for a female that you might otherwise expect them to be.

[Roam]

Firstly the opening post in this thread is a disgrace. There’s a reason the first 5 pages of this thread are totally utter rubbish. If you want to have a reasonable informed debate where you convince those who disagree with you that your argument is the correct and well-reasoned one then perhaps arbitrarily labelling those who might potentially disagree with you as "misogynists" and stereotypically describing them as "social-phobic neckbeards" who have had no exposure to women other than their mothers is not the way to start out a discussion. You immediately put them on the back foot. However, if Lallente's intention was to polarise the debate into two camps in which he could have a nice circle-jerk with those who agree with him, hey presto mission accomplished. It is exactly why quite a few people called him out on it being a troll, because it is exactly what a troll would do. Only his persistence in the thread encourages me to believe he isn't actually trolling in this case.

As for the actual subject of the way women are portrayed in video gaming I agree that a significant amount of the content in video games does not portray women in a particularly flattering light, as mentioned by others they're often overly sexualised, or the typical damsel in distress amongst quite a few others. This doesn't mean all video games fall into this trap, there have been a number of games over the years which have portrayed women in a far greater depth than mere shallow cardboard cut outs, but these games are the exceptions that don't disprove the rule. That said it should hardly be surprising. The target demographic for most video games is males somewhere between the ages of 12-25. The free market basically dictates that games are made that play into the aforementioned stereotypes because video game developers are out to make money. The real question is why do these stereotypes appeal to males in this age group and how can it be addressed. I'm reluctant to blame video games for causing some sort of cause and effect loop solely on their own. I suspect social interactions in the real world are a far greater cause, but given I'm no way near being an expert on this whole area I won't speculate. So this project has a lot of merit if it succeeds in casting some light on the issue without falling into the trap of generalisations and labels.

Why couldn't your first post be like this? You came across as much more reasonable here than in your previous posts, in which I almost subconsciously placed you in the subcategory "intent on living without ever engaging the brain".

You are correct in saying that videogames aren't the cause for this, although I must point out that there hasn't been a single feminist academic (of which a large portion are males, by the by) who would ever make that argument. Nor do I think it was the intent of the girl mentioned in the OP to ever imply she was doing this as a way to prove how videogames are the cause of subconscious misogynist behaviour. It's a symptom of a much larger and more pervasive issue in society, which stretches much further than a simple "women are sexualized" and goes as far as the development of our language, philosophy, politics and history.

Feminism is a HUGE academic field, and I can assure you that there are no examples of the Feminazi types so popularly misconstrued as feminists that Blut described. Mostly because academia is pretty strict in enforcing some level of thinking when you establish a new theory, and the feminazi perspective is just as idiotic as the misogynist perspective. Mostly it's populated by both men and women who are intent on seeking out what has caused the large disparity between the sexes in our culture, and how it got to a point where certain "symptoms of misogyny" aren't even recognized as such anymore because they've been ingrained in our collective cultural consciousness.

To give a light hearted example (and if you use this as a "HERPDERP FEMINISTS RESEARCH THAT SHIT? TEHY SO DUMBZ" I will hurt you): Research was done on the inherent disposition of sexes towards the colours pink and blue, stereotypical gender markers. Funnily enough, it turned out to be a complete social construct, where reality actually diverged in direct opposition to what we were culturally led to believe. Little boys gravitate towards pink, whereas little girls seem to gravitate towards light blue, but once they reach maturity the exact opposite happens due to social pressure and how genders/sexes identify themselves.

That's a more ig-nobel prize example though, the real interesting stuff is done on the level of politics, philosophy, psychology and even linguistics. There's an absolutely intriguing hypothesis by a professor which argues that misogyny is impossible to fight against because it's an unfortunate side effect of the way we learned to speak. Almost all languages use binary oppositions (light/dark, good/bad, male/female) as a core tenet of speech/communication, and that a number of linguistic aspects of speech perpetuate an accidental disparity between man and woman. Whether you agree or disagree is irrelevant, it's a fascinating paper to read.

Again, I can only recommend again that people read up on their theory. It's one of the most mindblowing academic fields of this decade, together with studies into capitalism in post-modernity. Enrich yourself, read a bit before forming an opinion.

[Blutreiter]

That's a more ig-nobel prize example though, the real interesting stuff is done on the level of politics, philosophy, psychology and even linguistics. There's an absolutely intriguing hypothesis by a professor which argues that misogyny is impossible to fight against because it's an unfortunate side effect of the way we learned to speak. Almost all languages use binary oppositions (light/dark, good/bad, male/female) as a core tenet of speech/communication, and that a number of linguistic aspects of speech perpetuate an accidental disparity between man and woman. Whether you agree or disagree is irrelevant, it's a fascinating paper to read.

Link plox for +rep?

[Tyrus Tenebros]

Lallente you need to update your OP with "if you learned to speak you're a misogynist"

[F*** My Aunt Rita]

[Roam]

That's a more ig-nobel prize example though, the real interesting stuff is done on the level of politics, philosophy, psychology and even linguistics. There's an absolutely intriguing hypothesis by a professor which argues that misogyny is impossible to fight against because it's an unfortunate side effect of the way we learned to speak. Almost all languages use binary oppositions (light/dark, good/bad, male/female) as a core tenet of speech/communication, and that a number of linguistic aspects of speech perpetuate an accidental disparity between man and woman. Whether you agree or disagree is irrelevant, it's a fascinating paper to read.

Link plox for +rep?

It was for a course, trying to find it but having shitty luck on google scholar. It was essentially a composition of concepts present in the field of Critical Theory, mostly Derrida and Saussure, both of which are really great starting places to find more about this. Saussure coined the binary opposition thing, Derrida got more involved in how it applies to our culture and affects it.

[KathDougans]

To give a light hearted example (and if you use this as a "HERPDERP FEMINISTS RESEARCH THAT SHIT? TEHY SO DUMBZ" I will hurt you): Research was done on the inherent disposition of sexes towards the colours pink and blue, stereotypical gender markers. Funnily enough, it turned out to be a complete social construct, where reality actually diverged in direct opposition to what we were culturally led to believe. Little boys gravitate towards pink, whereas little girls seem to gravitate towards light blue, but once they reach maturity the exact opposite happens due to social pressure and how genders/sexes identify themselves.

Used to be, around 100 years ago now, that pink was considered the masculine colour, and blue the feminine one.

Changed around middle of last century. Maybe the term "pinko" about international communism and all that malarkey contributed, who knows.

[Frug]

You know what's sad?

The one time I agree with Lallante because he's arguing against some seriously ignorant morons... is the one time everyone seems to realize he's a giant troll.

Of all Lall's miserable trolling this is one time he's right.