dude! i legitimately dont think you understand what male gaze refers to - dont fight, research! something can show a bias or narrow-mindedness without being sexist!
You know it's funny, when I watched this I watched it 90% without any sound because I was at work. So I didn't actually hear almost any of what was said, but I was able to infer pretty much what was going on at a very basic level. I was just really impressed with the motions as a whole, the eyes, expressions and overall idea.
Now I'm reading what you folks are going on about and it's really weird, haha.
While watching this I enjoyed the visuals and the premise. Not once did I think that this was special because it was a woman being talked to by a man, it wouldn't have been different if the roles were switched or anything. To me it was just a nice visual demo with an interesting premise that could become a nice story.
It would not have been better or worse if it were a man being talked to by a woman or another man (probably not as well received by the straight majority, unfortunately).
I guess I don't see the problem, I support LGBT but am myself straight so.. Maybe I'm just at some yet unseen level of Doesn'tGiveAFuckAboutBeingPC.
I want to elaborate, because i wrote the last post from my phone; I'm posting this to try and communicate why you guys should shut up and take notice of what Ben and Tully are saying. They may be wrong about whether this is a good clip or not, but it's ignorant to tell them that sexism or gender assymetry is not very present here -- and if you say [men and women are different, get over it] you are missing the point.
This is not an issue of sexism, it is an issue of awareness. It's not about political correctness, it's about understanding what's going on around you. If you 'don't see the difference' then you are demonstrating exactly what Tully and Ben are trying to discuss. There is a very fundamental, very strong difference between a story that treats women as its subject and a story that treats a woman as a meaningful agent. In this clip, intentionally or not, the woman is a powerless object which you are to sympathize with, NOT a powerful woman whom you are to empathize with.
Male gaze is described as the following on wikipedia. I myself am not very well read on the subject and cannot explain it better:
"In feminist theory, the male gaze expresses an asymmetric (unequal) power relationship, between viewer and viewed, gazer and gazed, i.e. man imposes his unwanted (objectifying) gaze upon woman. Second Wave feminists argue that whether or not women welcome the gaze, they might merely be conforming to the hegemonic norms established to benefit the interests of men thus underscoring the power of the male gaze to reduce a person (man or woman) to an object (see also exhibitionism)."
Is that an inherently bad thing? I certainly don't think so, not inherently -- I believe that in a truly equal society, many stories would still be driven by a male gaze, there would simply be a greater diversity of perspectives in popular fiction.
But what's significant here is not whether the story is good or bad, not whether the story would be better without the male gaze, and not whether the male gaze here is offensive or not -- it's how deeply it colors this scene, and how unaware the audience is of this. And in my, and, I believe ben/tully's perspective, how unaware the writer/director are of this.
Male gaze is not necessarily harmful -- but ignorance of its presence certainly is, your skills as a creative if not your benefit to society. We're artists, and many of us make characters and write stories and may have some creative impact on pieces like this in the future. If you choose to portary a woman who is centrally weak, powerless, submissive, or objectified, whether she has strong traits or not, be sure you do it on purpose, and be sure you understand the implications.
As a disclaimer, i'm a straight white male and I cannot identify with how this EFFECTS a female audience at all -- and I know it was a pretty moving clip to me. I've known women just like the character portrayed here -- girlish, confident, strong, and centrally insecure about their own place in the world. I think it's a powerful kind of a character to include in a story. But watching this clip, I didn't empathize with her, I pitied her. It's wise to appreciate the difference.
And shit, I have no idea what are you talking about.
Not sure sure how the things are in the USA, but here in Poland actual problems with sexual equality are differences in wages, deeply rooted patriarchal life model, catholic way of treating woman (baby factories). These are things to debate here. Maybe that's why this disscusion seems so abstract to me.
I'm going to post here YET AGAIN, because there's something I would actually like to discuss with Ben or Tully instead of just defending them
Do either of you think that this scene is fundamentally offensive in any way aside from its exclusion of alternate perspectives? Certainly if this were a scene in a part of a larger story, and not a self contained short, there could be a multitude of stories in which this single, pitiful woman is a very meaningful and constructive part of the plot.
You could go wild with your gender substitutions -- maybe she is later murdered by a gay man who owns her, and the female investigator who works in sex-robot property crime investigates on a hunch that he killed her for personal reasons, leading her to discover that this company was secretly producing robots who had true feelings, and developing into a very cliche but very effective story about women's rights! A pitiful woman in a scene with a strong man doesn't in itself make a sexist story, does it?
I get the feeling that in baring sexist elements, this story sort of makes an argument against sexism. It's a dark look at the shittiness of humanity, right? And the controller is obnoxious, so I definitely didn't identify with him. The android is clearly very smart - I'm sure it behaved nicely towards the end simply to stay on the guy's good side. Its reluctant expression near the end of the scene sort of shows what's going through its mind as it discovers how dismal humanity can really be.
The android has to be female in order to demonstrate how shitty a male-driven society can be.
Edit: I've been told by a female activist that this is mansplaining and that the production actively makes her feel like shit. I guess if it makes women feel like shit and stupid men feel lustful and powerful, it's bound to create some sort of controversy.
While watching this I enjoyed the visuals and the premise. Not once did I think that this was special because it was a woman being talked to by a man, it wouldn't have been different if the roles were switched or anything. To me it was just a nice visual demo with an interesting premise that could become a nice story.
It would not have been better or worse if it were a man being talked to by a woman or another man (probably not as well received by the straight majority, unfortunately).
I guess I don't see the problem, I support LGBT but am myself straight so.. Maybe I'm just at some yet unseen level of Doesn'tGiveAFuckAboutBeingPC.
Pretty much sums up my position on it to a T, well said.
I liked the graphics of the demo. Very impressive stuff, and I look forward to seeing what Quantic Dream comes up with next.
That said:
I have to disagree almost with the suggestion that the line "I am entirely at your disposal as a sexual companion" implies sexism on the part of the developers or that it should have been excised from the script.
For me, including that line should fill the audience with a bit of revulsion, and get the mind rolling in the direction of the story. Its included, IMO not to titillate, but to help our audience feel sympathy for this being as this is our first, not so subtle clue, she is a born slave (or worse).
It seems to me that the point of the story was to show, at least in part, the mistreatment of this AI at the hands of a callous humanity. Be they males or otherwise.
I really think I would have felt a similar level of disgust had the android been male or androgynous. It FEELS, and so I have empathy.
I agree it might have been more satisfying for her to break free of her captors/creators...but I wonder if that's just a masculine impulse as well? That the solution to the problem must be physical confrontation or strength and not one based on empathy or intelligence?
Do either of you think that this scene is fundamentally offensive in any way aside from its exclusion of alternate perspectives?
Not really. I don't actually find this scene unusually offensive in the broader sense. The average beer commercial is worse. It's merely the *obvious* unawareness of what cultural forces the clip is dealing with that makes it worth mentioning. It seems to be criticizing the objectification of (android) women at the same time that it seems to be uncritically using the male gaze to sell the story ... and it doesn't realize the fundamental hypocrisy in that. It's not that it's bad.. it's just been done a billion times and it'd be so nice if if wasn't such a stale perspective.
Actually, I think the video is quite good. The actress does a wonderful job and hints at a more interesting story that I'd actually like to see. The fact that most of it is very good makes the clumsy parts easier to identify. I could easily imagine ways for the story to go where these issues were resolved in interesting, not-at-all sexist ways.
I'm not saying any guy who likes this video is sexist. I myself like it. Things are allowed to be more complex than that.
A pitiful woman in a scene with a strong man doesn't in itself make a sexist story, does it?
I would say no, not by itself. It depends on the overall portrayal and how we're meant to feel about the characters and what's going on.
I was thinking about the sexist and gender issues like this for a while and came to the conclusion that there must be a deep seeded instinctive process that drives males to consider themselves superior to women. After all, why is this still a debate or even why do some men still continue to perpetuate sexist activity when we should all rationally now be in a frame of mind where equality is a norm?
I'm going to go back further than the hundreds of years that as a society we treated women as the lesser. Back when man was primitive and had not culture/society and effectively no language skills, the imperative natural instinct to survive and pass ones genes was paramount. The man is capable of siring many children consecutively and women are required to carry for nine months. The only requirement the male has is to get his sperm in the woman, but she is likely to be reluctant to just accept any male for what she will go through. With no language structure the man would clearly need to force the woman into the act if he is to spread his genes.
I'm not stating that as right or as an excuse for current behaviour. We eventually graduated to society structures with alpha males and mating rituals, yet still men would have been driven to 'keep' the women in a possessive manner in order to control the gene pool. We have gotten to the point where women are equals and the act of reproducing is a different ball game. But evolution is slower than that, many of the negative (and positive) but inexplicable human actions could be traced back to natural basics.
Really in relation to this video people are talking about its male-oriented perspective and the subservient nature of the woman android. However, context is key: Much like a the debate of women in media/games the android IS being made by men, where its consumer majority WILL be men, and its primary use WILL be as a sex slave. The point I'm trying to make with all this is that no matter how advanced we will be for human relations when we can finally make sentient robots, I totally beleive that the events and frame of mind in this video could be realistic.
Hell as most here have stated already: That's the whole point behind its emotional appeal.
Not to forget, her reactions are not to being female, it's to being a child in the sense of what makes one human, she has no concept of the world other than the programming, she reacts like any confused and scared child would do.
As far as the male engineneers reaction, he does not sport a typical male saviour role, he's been pushing thousands of thousands computerized dildos and fleshlights for a long time, gone through the procedure, dissassembled any flawed products.
He didn't save anyone, he opened a big juicy can of worms, full of trouble.
In the future we will be dealing with android rights activists, even at the point where we have realistic androids doing work for us but that has no real feelings of intelligence, in a sense they're just computers with skin on them.
Or sex-products, and we don't feel guilt towards real-dolls, we just think the people that buy them are perverts.
The irony in it all is that we will have come past the issues of equality amongst people with different sexual orientations or the sexes themselves, we'll have an almost fully perfectly equal society,
I'm not sure to quite follow the gender controversy here.
Yes the android portrayed in the clip can function as a sex doll. That doesn't mean in any way that the author of the clip (or the target audience it is aiming at) is for woman being objectified. It simply is a grim statement on today's society (the exact same observation that feminists support : women are often portrayed as dolls, either through men's eyes or their own) and projects this starting point in the future to expand it further, just like any good hard sci-fi story does...
Similarly, a movie about a serial killer is not necessarily made by someone with repressed killing impulses... Ironically, that's exactly what Screm2 was about hehe, but I digress
Now back to the clip itself. The female actress performance is really great ; QD still cannot achieve good mouth corners, just like 4 years ago (maybe they'll blame it on the physique of the actress again, like they did for the Audition clip hehe); and the script was partly great, partly poor. I like how it could be interpreted in two different ways : either the (human) male operator really freaks out and let her live for some unknown reason (but that doesn't really makes sense since he puts her on the delivery conveyor belt anyways), or, the emotional stimulation is all part of a test run by a computer male voice acting like a jerk on purpose, to check if a fully sentient AI has been properly attained in all units (but that doesn't work either because the operator stills says "oh my god" in the end).
Anyways! Cool stuff, great voice acting from the female lead, bad douchebag voice for the male (chhhhhhhhhhheck!) pissing me off, poor story wrap up, and a cool promo coup from QD again
Now back to watching some more Ghost in the Shell : Standalone Complex episodes - a much, much more refined scifi commentary on the flaws of modern human society than this short tech demo
I think everyone's over-reacting and blabbing on about the whole notion of sexism in the Kara short.
Then again, I can't find any evidence of sentience in the mechanical/electrical sexual contraptions currently aimed at females, real or otherwise, so maybe there's some merit in the opposite argument?
At the very least, 'does washing' is somewhat more practical than 'dishwasher cleanable' when it comes to appliances.
Beyond that, I'm legitimately confused as to why this thread is anything more than talking about the graphics and implications should the story continue.
I'm going to post here YET AGAIN, because there's something I would actually like to discuss with Ben or Tully instead of just defending them
Do either of you think that this scene is fundamentally offensive in any way aside from its exclusion of alternate perspectives? Certainly if this were a scene in a part of a larger story, and not a self contained short, there could be a multitude of stories in which this single, pitiful woman is a very meaningful and constructive part of the plot.
I agree with Tully, but then again, as a man, I can never fully understand the perspective of a woman who has to live in this shitty misogynist culture of ours. So no, I didn't find it offensive, I quite liked it. I just was commenting that they used the safest, most cliched setting in gender makeup, positions of power, and race that they could, rather than anything fresh or less often chosen, which would have made it even better as a story, in my opinion.
Beyond that, I'm legitimately confused as to why this thread is anything more than talking about the graphics and implications should the story continue.
Really? That's kind of... slow of you then. Games are far more than just the graphics. We talk about choices all the time in narrative, whether we liked an ending to a game, why a certain character is made old or young, or gruff or bubbly, etc. This is merely an extension of these topics, and as artists we should be aware of them.
Those of you posting in confusion on why we are talking about gender portrayal in games that are near cinematic in the stories they can tell are showing your ignorance, because narrative is *pivotal* in most of today's games. We need to be aware and in control of our choices or we're just throwing darts in the dark.
But again - starting from the most widespread sexual representation issue (women as objects) is, indeed, the best way to make a point against it! It makes the short film even more accurate and striking that way.
I am not saying that it couldn't have been made using different genders or sexual orientations ; but, the current angle of the short makes total sense from a feminist point of view : it simply is pointing at the issue.
BTW, even if it is wrong to treat women (and anyone else!) as objects, I don't see what is fundamentally wrong with the idea of a female-shaped, non self aware and not "feeling alive" android designed to be a tool of pleasure. Such a robot is just a fancy shaped sex toy! If anything, if the male operator is human and indeed does freak out when realizing that she is self-aware, it shoes that he has a strong feminist attitude - for the emotional operator, women are not objects, and sex toys are not supposed to have emotions.
(btw - one does not need to be a woman in order to be a feminist. If I am in favor of sex equality and women rights, I am a feminist, even tho I don't have boobs )
I covered that part with 'implications should the story continue'. And by that I mean, should the story continue, where would the shown personality of the operator and other characters, and the behaviour of the robot, lead the story.
I see a lot of blabbing on about males and females and what not, but the only person in this short is a man (from the sound, at least). The other character is a robot - it's not alive by current definitions, nor does it have any rights as a human, much less any credibility as a female. Sure it sounds like a female, sometimes it eve looks like a female, but it's a machine.
Gender issues in games can be a fantastic conversation, but perhaps best saved for games with more than one living character? Should a machine start to 'think' when it's evident that it's defective (in that it's not designed by humans to do that), then in all reality it's going to be treated like a lab rat at worst, and at best it'll be peacefully studied.
It does NOT matter to the extent that people are hyping that the man was on the computer and the robot looked like a female - the operator made the worst possible decision. Basic compassion/comradeship/sympathy/intrigue/curiosity are gender-neutral concepts.
Though in fairness, a male saving a male looking robot would inevitably strike up discussion on brotherhood, just as a female saving either a male or female looking robot would strike up similar discussions.
For all the talk about thinking women are objects and how that relates to the game, is everyone forgetting it's actually just an object that looks like a woman? It's just a freaking robot!
How can you be sexist - against a robot?
When human augmentations come into daily use and people are actively seeking mechanical (but realistic looking in that uncanny valley kind of way) dongs that have a conscience, then (and only then) will robot-sexism become a topic worth debating.
Easy, I could make a table that looks like a woman kneeling under my domination. Objectively it's just a table, but somebody will probably find it offensive and go and get offended, because of what it represents to them.
Basically, anthropomorphising 'things' is a big part of how we interpret the world. We do it with animals, objects, celestial bodies, psychological constructs etc. A robot specifically designed to look, sound, act (and in this case think) like a real woman would no doubt force this part of our psyche to sympathise with it. Now that we've done that she is effectively a real woman and thus anybody here who cares about gender issues will find merit in the discussion.
Easy, I could make a table that looks like a woman kneeling under my domination. Objectively it's just a table, but somebody will probably find it offensive and go and get offended, because of what it represents to them.
Basically, anthropomorphising 'things' is a big part of how we interpret the world. We do it with animals, objects, celestial bodies, psychological constructs etc. A robot specifically designed to look, sound, act (and in this case think) like a real woman would no doubt force this part of our psyche to sympathise with it. Now that we've done that she is effectively a real woman and thus anybody here who cares about gender issues will find merit in the discussion.
We as humans currently have no problem treating living things as merchandise or goods, so why would we treat robots that we created by our own hand any different.
Was she *really* sentient?, was it just not a construct or flaw of its programming?
After we've sorted up gender equality we have speciesism next on our list, and after the most likely future artificial lifeforms.
...but then again, as a man, I can never fully understand the perspective of a woman who has to live in this shitty misogynist culture of ours.
Seriously? If a lot of people think that way, we're in trouble. To think that just because you've got different parts down south, that it makes you incapable of understanding another viewpoint...it's no wonder people don't try harder to understand and respect eachother.
so why would we treat robots that we created by our own hand any different
Because she is indistinguishable from a human. As per my example, I could insult somebody by creating the image of a woman subjugated; when the object in and of itself cannot insult anybody. In the video the man clearly feels no problem with disassembling her as a defective unit, until she starts to express clear emotion and screams horrifyingly at her predicament. The character is shocked by this (and by proxy the viewer) and (if not consciously) subconsciously recognises the robot as a real woman.
We as humans currently have no problem treating living things as merchandise or goods
I quoted this bit separately because although we understand that people can do horrible things, we only recognise them as horrible because the society we live in has cultivated the principles of treating each other with compassion. You are postulating that since this robot is man made it will never be able to perturb our vision of humanity in it, but this video it clearly demonstrates otherwise. After all, a baby is man made so why would we feel bad about harming it?
Of course I might be arguing with you about this wrong. I do agree that we will definitely approach robots in a cold objectified manner. Really I should clarify that when I was talking about sexism I wasn't talking about sexism at the robot, but sexism around the robot.
Because she is indistinguishable from a human. As per my example, I could insult somebody by creating the image of a woman subjugated; when the object in and of itself cannot insult anybody. In the video the man clearly feels no problem with disassembling her as a defective unit, until she starts to express clear emotion and screams horrifyingly at her predicament. The character is shocked by this (and by proxy the viewer) and (if not consciously) subconsciously recognises the robot as a real woman.
That is true, but then again, that will be the point when there's some hard questions going on, when we can make machines that look exactly like humans, yet are not.
But that was the point of the whole short movie and many 'a sci-fi stories surrounding AI.
It might even be good that this was in the likeness of a woman, as it will remind us of the days when there is unequality against women.
I quoted this bit separately because although we understand that people can do horrible things, we only recognise them as horrible because the society we live in has cultivated the principles of treating each other with compassion. You are postulating that since this robot is man made it will never be able to perturb our vision of humanity in it, but this video it clearly demonstrates otherwise. After all, a baby is man made so why would we feel bad about harming it?
Difference between made and birthed though :P, we have biological functions to protect our own, but we have no comittment to protect something that isn't human, even though it might look human, androids become more and more realistic and will end up doing the hard labour and degrading work that humans have been doing up to that point, and no one will feel bad about it, until the day non-sentient AI becomes sentient.
Androids will end up being our modern day cattle, very life-like but decidedly without rights per design and function.
Of course I might be arguing with you about this wrong. I do agree that we will definitely approach robots in a cold objectified manner. Really I should clarify that when I was talking about sexism I wasn't talking about sexism at the robot, but sexism around the robot.
It's our ability to see something that isn't us as something less than us, which I guess sexism is inheritly about, but also being a smaller part of a big picture.
Then again, I wouldn't want to miss out on any good arguing! (or awesome derail)
Seriously? If a lot of people think that way, we're in trouble. To think that just because you've got different parts down south, that it makes you incapable of understanding another viewpoint...it's no wonder people don't try harder to understand and respect eachother.
I promise you, if you are a man, you will never fully understand the perspective of a woman. Thinking that you do, or that women experience the world exactly how you do, is called "male privilege" and this thread is full of it.
I promise you, if you are a man, you will never fully understand the perspective of a woman. Thinking that you do, or that women experience the world exactly how you do, is called "male privilege" and this thread is full of it.
That's kindof an ironic statement, seeing as how since he's not a woman, and has no way to see things from a woman's perspective, it may in fact turn out to be exactly the same as our perspective. Or completely different... the point is we have no way of knowing.
At any case, it's simply impossible to see things from someone else's perspective all the way. Hence the various "Walk a mile in a man's shoes..." lines. And that's regardless of gender.
That's kindof an ironic statement, seeing as how since he's not a woman, and has no way to see things from a woman's perspective, it may in fact turn out to be exactly the same as our perspective. Or completely different... the point is we have no way of knowing.
I promise you, if you are a man, you will never fully understand the perspective of a woman. Thinking that you do, or that women experience the world exactly how you do, is called "male privilege" and this thread is full of it.
Your tone suggests that stating somebody has "male privilege" is a derogatory statement. Since as you so put it it that we could never literally understand a woman's perspective, we are inseparable from the notion of "male privilege" just as a woman would be inseparable from "female privilege."
Oh if only my life was only that interesting. What Googling DOESN'T bring up random "hot girls", seriously. Also, this computer is less than a week old so it's not like I've yet had that cold and stormy night to explore my less hetero side lately :P
Actually I think the ad system we have set up should only display polycount-relevent stuff, but I've noticed some of those types of ads sneaking in too. At least thats how I think its supposed to work.
All the ads change in the main forum. I had links like Rigging from Mixamo, "Perfect Portraits in 3 Easy Steps", "Get Into Hollywood", and some CAD software dealy, whereas here it's mostly single stuff.
And thank you EQ, for being a gent, unlike SOME PEOPLE xD
Nice interview with David Cage of Quantic regarding Kara, Heavy Rain and gameplay in general. Not much specific to the demo but it's a nice discussion.
I cannot help but feel a little sorry for the interview at hand, not because it was bad, but because the number of hardcore gamers who rent and return a game within the same weekend must be in fury mode on their keyboards.
I feel that way about most devs these days, it really seems to be an unfortunate evolution in the business of games where publishers no longer care about long-term support but just to get the next one out and paid for as quickly as possible.
It just leaves me longing for the days when games were designed with replayability in mind (by the game just being plain fun not stupid dlc/unlocks).
No, seriously, it's great to see at least a new direction a developer is taking while still understanding what a game entails at it's core. I don't own any consoles, but I wouldn't mind, say 5-10 years down the line seeing a port of any of their games comes to PC.
Replies
Now I'm reading what you folks are going on about and it's really weird, haha.
It would not have been better or worse if it were a man being talked to by a woman or another man (probably not as well received by the straight majority, unfortunately).
I guess I don't see the problem, I support LGBT but am myself straight so.. Maybe I'm just at some yet unseen level of Doesn'tGiveAFuckAboutBeingPC.
This is not an issue of sexism, it is an issue of awareness. It's not about political correctness, it's about understanding what's going on around you. If you 'don't see the difference' then you are demonstrating exactly what Tully and Ben are trying to discuss. There is a very fundamental, very strong difference between a story that treats women as its subject and a story that treats a woman as a meaningful agent. In this clip, intentionally or not, the woman is a powerless object which you are to sympathize with, NOT a powerful woman whom you are to empathize with.
Male gaze is described as the following on wikipedia. I myself am not very well read on the subject and cannot explain it better:
"In feminist theory, the male gaze expresses an asymmetric (unequal) power relationship, between viewer and viewed, gazer and gazed, i.e. man imposes his unwanted (objectifying) gaze upon woman. Second Wave feminists argue that whether or not women welcome the gaze, they might merely be conforming to the hegemonic norms established to benefit the interests of men thus underscoring the power of the male gaze to reduce a person (man or woman) to an object (see also exhibitionism)."
Is that an inherently bad thing? I certainly don't think so, not inherently -- I believe that in a truly equal society, many stories would still be driven by a male gaze, there would simply be a greater diversity of perspectives in popular fiction.
But what's significant here is not whether the story is good or bad, not whether the story would be better without the male gaze, and not whether the male gaze here is offensive or not -- it's how deeply it colors this scene, and how unaware the audience is of this. And in my, and, I believe ben/tully's perspective, how unaware the writer/director are of this.
Male gaze is not necessarily harmful -- but ignorance of its presence certainly is, your skills as a creative if not your benefit to society. We're artists, and many of us make characters and write stories and may have some creative impact on pieces like this in the future. If you choose to portary a woman who is centrally weak, powerless, submissive, or objectified, whether she has strong traits or not, be sure you do it on purpose, and be sure you understand the implications.
As a disclaimer, i'm a straight white male and I cannot identify with how this EFFECTS a female audience at all -- and I know it was a pretty moving clip to me. I've known women just like the character portrayed here -- girlish, confident, strong, and centrally insecure about their own place in the world. I think it's a powerful kind of a character to include in a story. But watching this clip, I didn't empathize with her, I pitied her. It's wise to appreciate the difference.
And shit, I have no idea what are you talking about.
Not sure sure how the things are in the USA, but here in Poland actual problems with sexual equality are differences in wages, deeply rooted patriarchal life model, catholic way of treating woman (baby factories). These are things to debate here. Maybe that's why this disscusion seems so abstract to me.
Do either of you think that this scene is fundamentally offensive in any way aside from its exclusion of alternate perspectives? Certainly if this were a scene in a part of a larger story, and not a self contained short, there could be a multitude of stories in which this single, pitiful woman is a very meaningful and constructive part of the plot.
You could go wild with your gender substitutions -- maybe she is later murdered by a gay man who owns her, and the female investigator who works in sex-robot property crime investigates on a hunch that he killed her for personal reasons, leading her to discover that this company was secretly producing robots who had true feelings, and developing into a very cliche but very effective story about women's rights! A pitiful woman in a scene with a strong man doesn't in itself make a sexist story, does it?
The android has to be female in order to demonstrate how shitty a male-driven society can be.
Edit: I've been told by a female activist that this is mansplaining and that the production actively makes her feel like shit. I guess if it makes women feel like shit and stupid men feel lustful and powerful, it's bound to create some sort of controversy.
Pretty much sums up my position on it to a T, well said.
That said:
I have to disagree almost with the suggestion that the line "I am entirely at your disposal as a sexual companion" implies sexism on the part of the developers or that it should have been excised from the script.
For me, including that line should fill the audience with a bit of revulsion, and get the mind rolling in the direction of the story. Its included, IMO not to titillate, but to help our audience feel sympathy for this being as this is our first, not so subtle clue, she is a born slave (or worse).
It seems to me that the point of the story was to show, at least in part, the mistreatment of this AI at the hands of a callous humanity. Be they males or otherwise.
I really think I would have felt a similar level of disgust had the android been male or androgynous. It FEELS, and so I have empathy.
I agree it might have been more satisfying for her to break free of her captors/creators...but I wonder if that's just a masculine impulse as well? That the solution to the problem must be physical confrontation or strength and not one based on empathy or intelligence?
Not really. I don't actually find this scene unusually offensive in the broader sense. The average beer commercial is worse. It's merely the *obvious* unawareness of what cultural forces the clip is dealing with that makes it worth mentioning. It seems to be criticizing the objectification of (android) women at the same time that it seems to be uncritically using the male gaze to sell the story ... and it doesn't realize the fundamental hypocrisy in that. It's not that it's bad.. it's just been done a billion times and it'd be so nice if if wasn't such a stale perspective.
Actually, I think the video is quite good. The actress does a wonderful job and hints at a more interesting story that I'd actually like to see. The fact that most of it is very good makes the clumsy parts easier to identify. I could easily imagine ways for the story to go where these issues were resolved in interesting, not-at-all sexist ways.
I'm not saying any guy who likes this video is sexist. I myself like it. Things are allowed to be more complex than that.
I would say no, not by itself. It depends on the overall portrayal and how we're meant to feel about the characters and what's going on.
I'm going to go back further than the hundreds of years that as a society we treated women as the lesser. Back when man was primitive and had not culture/society and effectively no language skills, the imperative natural instinct to survive and pass ones genes was paramount. The man is capable of siring many children consecutively and women are required to carry for nine months. The only requirement the male has is to get his sperm in the woman, but she is likely to be reluctant to just accept any male for what she will go through. With no language structure the man would clearly need to force the woman into the act if he is to spread his genes.
I'm not stating that as right or as an excuse for current behaviour. We eventually graduated to society structures with alpha males and mating rituals, yet still men would have been driven to 'keep' the women in a possessive manner in order to control the gene pool. We have gotten to the point where women are equals and the act of reproducing is a different ball game. But evolution is slower than that, many of the negative (and positive) but inexplicable human actions could be traced back to natural basics.
Really in relation to this video people are talking about its male-oriented perspective and the subservient nature of the woman android. However, context is key: Much like a the debate of women in media/games the android IS being made by men, where its consumer majority WILL be men, and its primary use WILL be as a sex slave. The point I'm trying to make with all this is that no matter how advanced we will be for human relations when we can finally make sentient robots, I totally beleive that the events and frame of mind in this video could be realistic.
Hell as most here have stated already: That's the whole point behind its emotional appeal.
As far as the male engineneers reaction, he does not sport a typical male saviour role, he's been pushing thousands of thousands computerized dildos and fleshlights for a long time, gone through the procedure, dissassembled any flawed products.
He didn't save anyone, he opened a big juicy can of worms, full of trouble.
In the future we will be dealing with android rights activists, even at the point where we have realistic androids doing work for us but that has no real feelings of intelligence, in a sense they're just computers with skin on them.
Or sex-products, and we don't feel guilt towards real-dolls, we just think the people that buy them are perverts.
The irony in it all is that we will have come past the issues of equality amongst people with different sexual orientations or the sexes themselves, we'll have an almost fully perfectly equal society,
but then we'll get androids.
Yes the android portrayed in the clip can function as a sex doll. That doesn't mean in any way that the author of the clip (or the target audience it is aiming at) is for woman being objectified. It simply is a grim statement on today's society (the exact same observation that feminists support : women are often portrayed as dolls, either through men's eyes or their own) and projects this starting point in the future to expand it further, just like any good hard sci-fi story does...
Similarly, a movie about a serial killer is not necessarily made by someone with repressed killing impulses... Ironically, that's exactly what Screm2 was about hehe, but I digress
Now back to the clip itself. The female actress performance is really great ; QD still cannot achieve good mouth corners, just like 4 years ago (maybe they'll blame it on the physique of the actress again, like they did for the Audition clip hehe); and the script was partly great, partly poor. I like how it could be interpreted in two different ways : either the (human) male operator really freaks out and let her live for some unknown reason (but that doesn't really makes sense since he puts her on the delivery conveyor belt anyways), or, the emotional stimulation is all part of a test run by a computer male voice acting like a jerk on purpose, to check if a fully sentient AI has been properly attained in all units (but that doesn't work either because the operator stills says "oh my god" in the end).
Anyways! Cool stuff, great voice acting from the female lead, bad douchebag voice for the male (chhhhhhhhhhheck!) pissing me off, poor story wrap up, and a cool promo coup from QD again
Now back to watching some more Ghost in the Shell : Standalone Complex episodes - a much, much more refined scifi commentary on the flaws of modern human society than this short tech demo
My thoughts exactly.
At the very least, 'does washing' is somewhat more practical than 'dishwasher cleanable' when it comes to appliances.
I agree with Tully, but then again, as a man, I can never fully understand the perspective of a woman who has to live in this shitty misogynist culture of ours. So no, I didn't find it offensive, I quite liked it. I just was commenting that they used the safest, most cliched setting in gender makeup, positions of power, and race that they could, rather than anything fresh or less often chosen, which would have made it even better as a story, in my opinion.
Really? That's kind of... slow of you then. Games are far more than just the graphics. We talk about choices all the time in narrative, whether we liked an ending to a game, why a certain character is made old or young, or gruff or bubbly, etc. This is merely an extension of these topics, and as artists we should be aware of them.
Those of you posting in confusion on why we are talking about gender portrayal in games that are near cinematic in the stories they can tell are showing your ignorance, because narrative is *pivotal* in most of today's games. We need to be aware and in control of our choices or we're just throwing darts in the dark.
I am not saying that it couldn't have been made using different genders or sexual orientations ; but, the current angle of the short makes total sense from a feminist point of view : it simply is pointing at the issue.
BTW, even if it is wrong to treat women (and anyone else!) as objects, I don't see what is fundamentally wrong with the idea of a female-shaped, non self aware and not "feeling alive" android designed to be a tool of pleasure. Such a robot is just a fancy shaped sex toy! If anything, if the male operator is human and indeed does freak out when realizing that she is self-aware, it shoes that he has a strong feminist attitude - for the emotional operator, women are not objects, and sex toys are not supposed to have emotions.
(btw - one does not need to be a woman in order to be a feminist. If I am in favor of sex equality and women rights, I am a feminist, even tho I don't have boobs
I see a lot of blabbing on about males and females and what not, but the only person in this short is a man (from the sound, at least). The other character is a robot - it's not alive by current definitions, nor does it have any rights as a human, much less any credibility as a female. Sure it sounds like a female, sometimes it eve looks like a female, but it's a machine.
Gender issues in games can be a fantastic conversation, but perhaps best saved for games with more than one living character? Should a machine start to 'think' when it's evident that it's defective (in that it's not designed by humans to do that), then in all reality it's going to be treated like a lab rat at worst, and at best it'll be peacefully studied.
It does NOT matter to the extent that people are hyping that the man was on the computer and the robot looked like a female - the operator made the worst possible decision. Basic compassion/comradeship/sympathy/intrigue/curiosity are gender-neutral concepts.
Though in fairness, a male saving a male looking robot would inevitably strike up discussion on brotherhood, just as a female saving either a male or female looking robot would strike up similar discussions.
For all the talk about thinking women are objects and how that relates to the game, is everyone forgetting it's actually just an object that looks like a woman? It's just a freaking robot!
How can you be sexist - against a robot?
When human augmentations come into daily use and people are actively seeking mechanical (but realistic looking in that uncanny valley kind of way) dongs that have a conscience, then (and only then) will robot-sexism become a topic worth debating.
Easy, I could make a table that looks like a woman kneeling under my domination. Objectively it's just a table, but somebody will probably find it offensive and go and get offended, because of what it represents to them.
Basically, anthropomorphising 'things' is a big part of how we interpret the world. We do it with animals, objects, celestial bodies, psychological constructs etc. A robot specifically designed to look, sound, act (and in this case think) like a real woman would no doubt force this part of our psyche to sympathise with it. Now that we've done that she is effectively a real woman and thus anybody here who cares about gender issues will find merit in the discussion.
We as humans currently have no problem treating living things as merchandise or goods, so why would we treat robots that we created by our own hand any different.
Was she *really* sentient?, was it just not a construct or flaw of its programming?
After we've sorted up gender equality we have speciesism next on our list, and after the most likely future artificial lifeforms.
But again, a whole other can of worms.
Seriously? If a lot of people think that way, we're in trouble. To think that just because you've got different parts down south, that it makes you incapable of understanding another viewpoint...it's no wonder people don't try harder to understand and respect eachother.
Because she is indistinguishable from a human. As per my example, I could insult somebody by creating the image of a woman subjugated; when the object in and of itself cannot insult anybody. In the video the man clearly feels no problem with disassembling her as a defective unit, until she starts to express clear emotion and screams horrifyingly at her predicament. The character is shocked by this (and by proxy the viewer) and (if not consciously) subconsciously recognises the robot as a real woman.
I quoted this bit separately because although we understand that people can do horrible things, we only recognise them as horrible because the society we live in has cultivated the principles of treating each other with compassion. You are postulating that since this robot is man made it will never be able to perturb our vision of humanity in it, but this video it clearly demonstrates otherwise. After all, a baby is man made so why would we feel bad about harming it?
Of course I might be arguing with you about this wrong. I do agree that we will definitely approach robots in a cold objectified manner. Really I should clarify that when I was talking about sexism I wasn't talking about sexism at the robot, but sexism around the robot.
That is true, but then again, that will be the point when there's some hard questions going on, when we can make machines that look exactly like humans, yet are not.
But that was the point of the whole short movie and many 'a sci-fi stories surrounding AI.
It might even be good that this was in the likeness of a woman, as it will remind us of the days when there is unequality against women.
Difference between made and birthed though :P, we have biological functions to protect our own, but we have no comittment to protect something that isn't human, even though it might look human, androids become more and more realistic and will end up doing the hard labour and degrading work that humans have been doing up to that point, and no one will feel bad about it, until the day non-sentient AI becomes sentient.
Androids will end up being our modern day cattle, very life-like but decidedly without rights per design and function.
It's our ability to see something that isn't us as something less than us, which I guess sexism is inheritly about, but also being a smaller part of a big picture.
Then again, I wouldn't want to miss out on any good arguing! (or awesome derail)
I promise you, if you are a man, you will never fully understand the perspective of a woman. Thinking that you do, or that women experience the world exactly how you do, is called "male privilege" and this thread is full of it.
That's kindof an ironic statement, seeing as how since he's not a woman, and has no way to see things from a woman's perspective, it may in fact turn out to be exactly the same as our perspective. Or completely different... the point is we have no way of knowing.
At any case, it's simply impossible to see things from someone else's perspective all the way. Hence the various "Walk a mile in a man's shoes..." lines. And that's regardless of gender.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Can we establish that the experiences of men and women are IDENTICAL? No.
Can we establish that there are ways in which men and women's experiences in society are VERY DIFFERENT? Yes
Knowing these two things, could we reasonably conclude that a man cannot personally know what it is like to be a woman? Of course!
Your tone suggests that stating somebody has "male privilege" is a derogatory statement. Since as you so put it it that we could never literally understand a woman's perspective, we are inseparable from the notion of "male privilege" just as a woman would be inseparable from "female privilege."
Such a remark almost sounds as bad white guilt.
Anything else will be moved here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96022&page=3
Am done now
And thank you EQ, for being a gent, unlike SOME PEOPLE xD
ayyup. I'm getting those ads:
this....
Find A Foreign Husband Serious Men Seek Chinese Ladies For Dating and Marriage. Join Free. AsianDating.com/Chinese
... leads to ....
Women Cheating On Men Find out the pattern women follow when they're cheating WomensInfidelity.com
hehehehe
and then there's some unrelated Unity3D asset store ad.
Nice interview with David Cage of Quantic regarding Kara, Heavy Rain and gameplay in general. Not much specific to the demo but it's a nice discussion.
http://www.gametrailers.com/episode/bonusround/603?ch=1
It just leaves me longing for the days when games were designed with replayability in mind (by the game just being plain fun not stupid dlc/unlocks).
No, seriously, it's great to see at least a new direction a developer is taking while still understanding what a game entails at it's core. I don't own any consoles, but I wouldn't mind, say 5-10 years down the line seeing a port of any of their games comes to PC.
making of