It seems like nobody has mentioned the point that men actually like videogames more than women because they are biologically more inclined to enjoy them.
There's a pretty fantastic study by Stanford Universitys School of Medicine, which hooked up 11 men and 11 women to FMRI machines and scanned their brains while they played video games. The researchers found was that the mesocorticolimibic center, which is the region of the brain that is typically associated with reward and addiction, which is key to this, was more activated when the men were playing the video game than the women. So you LITERALLY enjoy games more, and have a more addictive attitude to games if you are guy.
I'm not advocating the fact that all games should be for guys, but its hard to ignore that nature dictates that you really want to focus on males if you want to be business minded about your product.
Del I'm no neuroscientist and i havent read the paper that article was based on, but I dont see any reason to believe men and women were born that way. It could just as easily be symptomatic of society as it could be causative. The brain changes radically as a person grows and thinks and experiences -- studies like this can just as easily show a symptom of someones experiences as they can show a cause for them.
Del - You're jumping from one 22 person study about territoriality (which happened to use a rudimentary game) to FACT = Men ARE biologically more inclined to enjoy video games.
I just find it relevant. Based on the study showing the reward center of a male brain working in a more responsive way to a woman (ergo; being more enjoyable) I think do in fact think it holds weight as an argument.
Del I'm no neuroscientist and i havent read the paper that article was based on, but I dont see any reason to believe men and women were born that way. It could just as easily be symptomatic of society as it could be causative. The brain changes radically as a person grows and thinks and experiences -- studies like this can just as easily show a symptom of someones experiences as they can show a cause for them.
I didn't say it wasn't causative of society changing their biological nature. I just find it interesting nobody has brought that there is in fact a biological nature being studied.
That article doesn't agree with what you're saying Del. You're talking about 'video games' while the article speaks of 'territorial aspects in videogames'. Huge difference.
It's been repeatedly shown that male brains are more geared towards spatial awareness (probably from hunting etc.) which means that they would also like spatial games more. Shooters, for instance. Racegames, for instance. Most of the 'AAA Hardcore real-actual-true-gamer games' for instance. But not every game, or 'games' in general.
For instance, most of the games that are casual/feminine have reduced spatiality. Farm/City/Facebook-ville is based on 2D grids, as is the Sims. All bejeweled-esque games are two dimensional. Tetris and Pacman, too.
you'd be hard pressed to find the female tailored games that were of equal quality and budget.
I don't think you should look for female tailored games, but for ones that appeal to both genders. I think a game like Alien Swarm (bonus: free game!) might do well, because it is cooperative in nature but you compete against AI, and you can consider the scores etc to also be competitive.
Yes, L4D is the game I convinced my girlfriend with, too.
But then I remembered Alien Swarm makes it even simpler to start in, in terms of space anyway. The big BIG thing about L4D is that when you die - you don't die. You get crippled, and you can get picked up again. It doesn't feel like punishment/failure as much.
It was good, I thought. Well produced, pretty accurate to what I've felt playing games growing up. Looking forward to part two's take on more modern games.
I went in thinking it was gonna be bad having not seen her videos before but actually really enjoyed it. I was thinking the whole way through that she needs to make it relevant to games today so I really look forward to the next one.
i would like to hear from her and others on what games they feel got it right when it comes to positive female representation though
Agreed with most of it, although she dismissed it as 'almost by accident' when peach is a playable character via a licensing decision, but also cites the starfox example- which in my mind is the exact same territory. They didn't switch to a male because of sexism but because starfox is a better known brand to sell the game (although I agree the portrayal of crystal in the end wasn't great).
Pleasantly surprised with this. Judging by her other videos I was expecting a very shallow, forced outrageousness touching only on perceived negative aspects of everything loaded with copious amounts of bias. But she's done a lot of research and I'm actually looking forward to see what she brings next.
I would also like to hear ideas from her as to what could be done instead of relying on tropes and whether a trope is intentional or the result of generalization.
Judging by the amount of money and time spent on this I'm sure she has some ideas, if not, I kind of don't see the point of this. Time will tell.
And I honestly had no idea the infamous Double Dragon intro was kept that way throughout it's iterations, I know it's blasphemous to change something classic like that or change art in general but that intro just seems kind of crude.
She raises some valid points but I'm not sure what the ultimate goal is here - "raise awareness", I guess? To my knowledge most developers aren't too enthusiastic about skimpy female armor or any other immersion-breaking objectification of female characters, but there's not much artists can do about it in AAA development where you just make what they tell you to make, or else. As long as the main audience for AAA games is teenage boys, change seems like it's still gonna be tough to come by.
And, there's another side of making female characters more realistic that I don't often hear people mention, too. While having exclusively emotionally weak female characters is insulting to the player, I think it's just as insulting to have physically strong female characters that look like runway models, and those are rampant. If a female character can go toe-to-toe with a beefy male character in a fight, or swing around a 60-pound sword, she should at the very least look pretty muscular, and I've never seen that in a game (though a few books I've read, like Hyperion and the Song of Ice and Fire series, have done it correctly). Personally it's an immersion-breaking reminder that "this isn't a real setting" whenever I see a stick-thin female character running around with hundreds of pounds of armor, or whatever, in an RPG.
As an aside, I also don't think the "damsel in distress" plot is really that bad or damaging in and of itself. Of course it made the female characters shallow in the 80s/90s games she discussed, but that's because ALL the characters were shallow - Mario is just as 1-dimensional (or 2D, I guess, heh) as Peach. I think it can be done well - for instance, The Darkness had a damsel in distress sequence that culminated in the "helpless" female character being the strongest/most courageous/most admirable character in the game, in my opinion. Of course the device isn't used nearly this well most of the time, but it can be done!
Don't know why but I have never analyzed video games in this manner, and I don't think I ever will. I've just never taken them that seriously. It's really surprising to see someone do this tbh, but there are all kinds of people in this crazy world.
Wouldnt matter to me which gender you placed where and who was in distress and who wasnt but I can say for sure that getting the girl at the end of double dragon is not what kept me replaying those game over and over again, the pwning of bad guys doing cool moves did - I couldnt care less what a developer uses as a prize because it just doesnt matter, I dont see things in that way and I dont play games to make myself feel like a better person, I have real life and real people to help me with that.
I'm looking forward to when she tackles the visual component of how females are represented in games - thats far more interesting to me.
While I applaud her efforts, particularly in the face of the collective internet arsehole, I think she needs to work on her presentation a bit. While the video made some good points it's very heavy on examples without really drawing many conclusions from them. I think she could probably have improved the episode and gotten her point across better by halving the length and choosing a few examples to go into greater depth than "this is a game that uses this trope. Also this one. And this one".
Don't know why but I have never analyzed video games in this manner, and I don't think I ever will. I've just never taken them that seriously. It's really surprising to see someone do this tbh, but there are all kinds of people in this crazy world.
Wouldnt matter to me which gender you placed where and who was in distress and who wasnt but I can say for sure that getting the girl at the end of double dragon is not what kept me replaying those game over and over again, the pwning of bad guys doing cool moves did - I couldnt care less what a developer uses as a prize because it just doesnt matter, I dont see things in that way and I dont play games to make myself feel like a better person, I have real life and real people to help me with that.
I'm looking forward to when she tackles the visual component of how females are represented in games - thats far more interesting to me.
This^
I spent most of the video thinking about I've never once cared about "rescuing the damsel" or feeling heroic. I just wanna smash stuff.
I do agree the the whole Starfox thing is pretty shitty and her altered appearance is awful, but I didn't like her original design either (stylistically) so maybe my reasons are different than most.
I think the issue isn't the games themselves it's the social impacts and statements they make.
Thanks TeriyakiStyle those words unlocked something, and I think you just helped me figure out why I've had beef with this stuff all along I wonder if anyone else is thinking along these lines also.
I have never looked to video games for statements.
I'm being selfish, and looking at this from my perspective, which is that very little of what Anita talked about with regards to females being used as prizes, damsels in distress, panties showing, etc. is anything I ever care about in the slightest when I played any of those games she was talking about, and Ive played nearly all of them (made me feel so old to recognize them all) I just dont ever reach that level of thought, and I dont think I ever will.
Donkey Kong was never about reaching the princess at the top, it was about jumping the barrels getting the hammer to break them and climbing ladders - to reach the top and advance to the next level.
The same goes for sonic the hedgehog and double dragon. Collecting rings at hyper speed / avoiding spikes and doing power slams on massive goons is all that registers for me theres nothing else there. No matter what developers put there, the meat and potatoes gameplay is what matters. I'll likely skip all that garbage anyway to get to the action.
Its pretty clear now that for others its quite different, in that they are probably looking for things on a much deeper level and would like things to be sensitive to society and so on etc. So from that standpoint, if thats really all this is about - and somehow changing that will make Anita and her supporters happier then wohoo go forth and do that - bring it on!
But you wont see me jumping to join that crusade because well.... those things just dont matter to me in a game, the gameplay does. Real life is a whole different matter entirely and again for me, the two are completely different things.
Definitely dont expect me to pay attention to the new character / gender roles, and shout from the rooftops how good they are because Ill be too busy actually playing the game part of the game, or commenting on how they look.
Dudes, it's like -- if videogames are making openly progblematic statements we should be aware. If a game was outright hate-speech, and promoting lynchings and racism, you'd want to be a little offended, right? You wouldnt just say 'that's okay, it's just a game', would you?
It's not a matter of a big evil message that needs you to boycott it, it's just people saying "dude, not cool" when a game is needlessly sexist.
A game can present messages that are kinda problematic and should be discussed without being the most important, evil thing ever. It's not that you're a bad person for enjoying a sexist game, it's not even like hardline feminists can't enjoy sexist games, it's just that maybe you want to be aware that sometimes what games promote isnt cool.
Yeah, I thought this video was actually really good. And its not about if you notice these tropes or not, they do have a larger subconscious impact, you have to remember most consumers barely have coherent thought about anything ^^ Anyway, I think this is a great initiative, and I dont honestly understand how someone can argue against this, that strikes me as very wierd.
Dudes, it's like -- if videogames are making openly progblematic statements we should be aware. If a game was outright hate-speech, and promoting lynchings and racism, you'd want to be a little offended, right? You wouldnt just say 'that's okay, it's just a game', would you?
It's not a matter of a big evil message that needs you to boycott it, it's just people saying "dude, not cool" when a game is needlessly sexist.
A game can present messages that are kinda problematic and should be discussed without being the most important, evil thing ever. It's not that you're a bad person for enjoying a sexist game, it's not even like hardline feminists can't enjoy sexist games, it's just that maybe you want to be aware that sometimes what games promote isn't cool.
Games have dealt with hate-speech, lynchings and racism. The Witcher 2 did a good job of this, at least when the main character wasn't too busy having sex.
For the record, my trail of destruction in TW2 discriminated equally amongst all life forms from all locations at all times.
This was a very interesting video and opened my eyes to many new things. The whole heroine turning into a damsel in distress was particularly interesting. Does anyone remember the first TMNT game for NES? The game starts with April getting captured and after you've saved her, Shredder kidnaps Splinter instead. The game is based on the cartoon series and from what I can remember, Splinter was the most badass of them all. I think it's an interesting scenario because the heroine-turned-damsel-in-distress-scenario doesn't only apply to female characters in games but male rats too.
Edit: I am comparing Zelda in ocarina of time where she goes from a cunning warrior to a damsel in distress with Splinter who is a master warrior and then later a damsel in distress..
I think it's silly of her to mention Sonic CD though. It was the only game where they had a damsel in distress IIRC and Amy(along with more female characters) are pretty able and strong characters in the later games/series/comics.
I don't think that the scenario is necessarily sexist on purpose but rather a result of not putting too much work thinking about it most of the times. The stories in the 80s/90s games were either about saving someone or saving some city from the grasps of some evil man... Some times both!(Final fight) and sometimes you just had to defeat the bad guys for no particular reason
i didn't see any talk on games that do it right. Like The Boss.
Or jade.
Also... almost being done with Conan the Barbarian original stories represent women as more than just a reward. They are strong and equal to Conan. The only thing that separates them is their character goals and ego in their stories.
The video is informative, sure. But recognizing the problem goes in hand with solutions and examples of other games that do a good job at this. Examples like cartoons, like Dora are becoming more of an icon.
At the end of the day, i think awareness is important... just also be aware that there's people that don't define the industry for its portrayal of women... but of gameplay. With that said... i agree with the whole i never looked at video games with the mindset of social impact.
and... i dunn see us making a fuzz about our portrayal of men in things like Twilight, Justin beiber, or that other twilight movie clone Host. Anyways...
More characters i can think of that are great female characters.
On uncharted Sully is the damsel in distress sometimes... it just goes with the character personality, and they are not there as a reward, but as a story plot.
@ glottis, yea, I'm looking forward to the next video, when she highlights "games that turn the trope on it's head" (what she says part two will have), and hopefully highlights games that do it right. To raise awareness on this without any kind of solution or acknowledgment of examples done well will be a great disservice to her cause.
i believe lot of the blame falls on the lazyness of artists and art directors who take the easy way out to make a "sexy CG chick" instead of a woman/girl with more natural looking anatomy and believable clothing.
sexy cg chicks are one of the most commonly approached things in most cg community next to elves and orcs.
dont be lazy people. learn some anatomy and do it right.
i would like to see is more of Chell(Portal) and Faith(Mirror's Edge) where the girls still look very appealing and sexy without having big TnA and in skimpy clothes. plus they are also portrayed as powerful protagonists.
I enjoyed the video. I thought it offered a decent degree of insight. It definitely highlighted some of the more egregious offenders of treating the female gender as a goal or an objective. The montage of videos from games that adhere to this trope was actually kind of hilarious. You don't realize just how prevalent it is until they lay it right out in front of you like that.
While the video was playing, I actually thought of The Secret of Monkey Island, and how it inverted that trope during the course of its story. I was pleased to see here make a quick mention of it near the end of the video. Of course, by the third Monkey Island game they succumbed to the same temptations and "damsaled" the primary female protagonist. (but that was not a Ron Gilbert game, so it's not all that surprising that the writing wouldn't be as solid)
The 'good examples' mentioned above and in Sarkeesian's suggestion that women can and ought to be heroes too reminds me of a notion by Johan Huizinga whom you may know for having written Homo ludens on 'historical greatness' in which he considers why we speak of Great Men but not of Great Women (this was 1940, mind). His conclusion was that the very concept of greatness (and that of genius) was too small to span both genders. Greatness is a value rooted in machismo, it is a thoroughly masculine kind of vanity; it is insufficient to express the highest and deepest that women can achieve. Instead, he opts for saintliness as a unisex virtue that does both genders justice.
While that's obviously a bit of an outdated view in 2013, I can't help but wonder, with him, whether our expectations of good female characters are actually fair. Mass Effect is often regarded as a step forwards, but with a female Shepard who murders her way through all her problems and ends up with alien hotties, I think it might be legitimate to ask whether you're breaking new grounds or whether you can only appreciate women as long as they act like men. Sarkeesian's MA thesis is actually on the same subject, though where Huizinga saw saintliness and the transcendence of gender as the ideal, Sarkeesian instead saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer, combining murder (manly) and drama (womanly) as something to strive for.
Edit: I do very much agree with her criticism of the damsel trope in the video, however, and it's a good thing that it's being brought to attention. Although I often wonder if it's even possible to have a reasonable conversation about this with the Japanese.
I too wish they had taken a second to mention some of the games that did things right (or at least, more right). Metroid and Zombies Ate my Neighbours come to mind instantly in terms of retro games, but there are more.
By not giving some credit to those who tried to make a difference, I felt like they were saying the solution is for every game to feature a strong female lead. That would get just as old as every game featuring a space marine or military soldier...
@ScudzAlmighty: True - but I get the feeling she's going chronologically, and that the next episode will be more current games. For me, this video comes across like every game in the past was a sexist piece of trash - but maybe I'm just defensive of the games I grew up on
@ScudzAlmighty: True - but I get the feeling she's going chronologically, and that the next episode will be more current games. For me, this video comes across like every game in the past was a sexist piece of trash - but maybe I'm just defensive of the games I grew up on
This is not directed at your post, per se, more to anyone mentioning how this focuses on such older games. One point she touches on is that a lot of these retro 80s and 90s games are being relaunched on mobile devices, and a whole new generation is consuming them. So it really is not enough to just say "oh yeah well attitudes were more sexist then, and we have evolved (true or not)".
The 'good examples' mentioned above and in Sarkeesian's suggestion that women can and ought to be heroes too reminds me of a notion by Johan Huizinga whom you may know for having written Homo ludens on 'historical greatness' in which he considers why we speak of Great Men but not of Great Women (this was 1940, mind). His conclusion was that the very concept of greatness (and that of genius) was too small to span both genders. Greatness is a value rooted in machismo, it is a thoroughly masculine kind of vanity; it is insufficient to express the highest and deepest that women can achieve. Instead, he opts for saintliness as a unisex virtue that does both genders justice.
Two things about your post. First, could you please lead us down a little bit further your conclusion with this criticism? I am not sure I follow. Fairly obviously saintliness is not going to become the role of most male characters in games, so where would that leave gender equality in representation if the industry remains fixated on heroics? This is of course ignoring the wealth of heroines even in the 1940s like the Night Witches of 1942.
Second, I am fairly sure that you are mischaracterizing Buffy´s appeal as a strong female character by saying her strength comes solely from murder (is it even murder when it is a vampire?). I am not a huge fan of the series, but I always saw her as strong because she was the main character, had the most screen time, other characters looked to her for direction and decision making, in addition to her not being helpless when it came to physical altercations.
This is not directed at your post, per se, more to anyone mentioning how this focuses on such older games. One point she touches on is that a lot of these retro 80s and 90s games are being relaunched on mobile devices, and a whole new generation is consuming them. So it really is not enough to just say "oh yeah well attitudes were more sexist then, and we have evolved (true or not)".
I know you weren't directing that at me specifically, but my disappointment wasn't that this episode was focused on older games, but that it failed to mention any older games that actually went against the norm back then and featured strong female characters. I just think it's important to look at both sides - problems are clearer when you can look at the solution at the same time...
I know you weren't directing that at me specifically, but my disappointment wasn't that this episode was focused on older games, but that it failed to mention any older games that actually went against the norm back then and featured strong female characters. I just think it's important to look at both sides - problems are clearer when you can look at the solution at the same time...
Let's wait to see if she does that in Part 2. There's no reason she can't go back and show the first games to go against the Trope.
Definitely dont expect me to pay attention to the new character / gender roles, and shout from the rooftops how good they are because Ill be too busy actually playing the game part of the game, or commenting on how they look.
Hey Hazardous, I thought I might add something, you touched on a very interesting point here!
I can see your point and that's a quite common way of looking at things, and there's no problem with this at all. Each person looks for something different while playing their games, watching movies... What we can't really ignore is that games are cultural products, just like any kind of entertainment or art form out there, right?
The way I see it, being a cultural product means that you draw from a source, our general culture, our past games, movies, stories, myths, fears, interests, prejudices, everything. And after your product is out there, seen and experienced by people, it feeds back to this cultural pool to influence the future and so on. And I believe is within our reach as communicators to stop perpetuating such old and obsolete concepts and step up, do something different, go beyond the basics, add something back to people. Making the world a better place bit by bit while still creating entertainment, you know? And by doing this we also help our whole industry to be more inclusive, bigger and more mature.
Let's wait to see if she does that in Part 2. There's no reason she can't go back and show the first games to go against the Trope.
Yeah, good point - a history of the games that went against it would be a good lead-up to how games could better handle things in the future. I'll shut-up until the next part
Yeah, good point - a history of the games that went against it would be a good lead-up to how games could better handle things in the future. I'll shut-up until the next part
Another very hopeful sign is that when she mentioned that she would show counter-examples in the next episode, she flashed up a picture of Elaine Marley from the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island. This character from this game in particular is a prime example of subverting the Damsel trope. It is also an older game, contemporary with most 8 and 16 bit titles. Here are a few points on why it is such a fine counter-example.
1. The character of Elaine Marley starts the game in a position of power and authority, and is established from the beginning as being highly competent and capable at her job as governor.
2. Elaine is "kidnapped" halfway through the game, but she is never shown being kidnapped, tied up, or otherwise captured. While they set her up as a potential "Damsel", they never actually show her being subjugated or otherwise dis-empowered. It is even implied in some of the dialogue that the ghost pirate crew has considerable trouble dealing with her.
3. At the game's climax, it is revealed that Elaine has actually been several steps ahead of both the primary protagonist and antagonist. (both male characters) While those characters attempted to do things in the standard hero's quest fashion, she quietly and capably went behind the scenes and managed to secure the necessary materials to solve the problem on her own. She never really needed saving.
Elaine is a perfect example not because she behaved like a man would, but because she behaved like a rational, reasonable human being would. (regardless of gender) The whole story of the Secret of Monkey Island points out how silly and contrived the Damsel trope is.
To be completely honest, typically I would just roll my eyes at a video like this and then forget about it. But I actually watched the entire video, and I'm happy to say I'm looking forward to the rest.
I don't think this first video was really "pointing the finger" at our industry, but rather our culture. Was the "damsel" plot device absolutely necessary/important? Maybe, maybe not, but I think the point is that we rarely tried presenting our female characters in a different way.
You know, I really do like some of the ideas in this video, but really, would half life 2 be better if Alex was a crazy powerful chick with mini guns for arms? no not really, the stereotype of damsel in distress works for her, because before they pull it they make you actually WANT to go save her. In fact someone should really do a video about valves ability to actually make you invested in Alex, it's the only game I have ever actually felt something for the love interest, which oddly enough there is never sex in that game, you never even kiss er, the closest thing you ever get to her is a hug now and then... I'm so going to get my orange box out again, man I miss that.
Replies
There's a pretty fantastic study by Stanford Universitys School of Medicine, which hooked up 11 men and 11 women to FMRI machines and scanned their brains while they played video games. The researchers found was that the mesocorticolimibic center, which is the region of the brain that is typically associated with reward and addiction, which is key to this, was more activated when the men were playing the video game than the women. So you LITERALLY enjoy games more, and have a more addictive attitude to games if you are guy.
I'm not advocating the fact that all games should be for guys, but its hard to ignore that nature dictates that you really want to focus on males if you want to be business minded about your product.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080204140115.htm
I just find it relevant. Based on the study showing the reward center of a male brain working in a more responsive way to a woman (ergo; being more enjoyable) I think do in fact think it holds weight as an argument.
I didn't say it wasn't causative of society changing their biological nature. I just find it interesting nobody has brought that there is in fact a biological nature being studied.
It's been repeatedly shown that male brains are more geared towards spatial awareness (probably from hunting etc.) which means that they would also like spatial games more. Shooters, for instance. Racegames, for instance. Most of the 'AAA Hardcore real-actual-true-gamer games' for instance. But not every game, or 'games' in general.
For instance, most of the games that are casual/feminine have reduced spatiality. Farm/City/Facebook-ville is based on 2D grids, as is the Sims. All bejeweled-esque games are two dimensional. Tetris and Pacman, too.
I don't think you should look for female tailored games, but for ones that appeal to both genders. I think a game like Alien Swarm (bonus: free game!) might do well, because it is cooperative in nature but you compete against AI, and you can consider the scores etc to also be competitive.
But then I remembered Alien Swarm makes it even simpler to start in, in terms of space anyway. The big BIG thing about L4D is that when you die - you don't die. You get crippled, and you can get picked up again. It doesn't feel like punishment/failure as much.
brb back to my hitman game. killing evil female fake saints,
which is most of people who dont play the game would thought it gives bad name for nuns. I wish they play rosewood orphanage level.
spoiler warning :
[ame="
I hope this doesn't become a habit
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Really enjoyed it, and also looking forward to the next installments.
i would like to hear from her and others on what games they feel got it right when it comes to positive female representation though
I would also like to hear ideas from her as to what could be done instead of relying on tropes and whether a trope is intentional or the result of generalization.
Judging by the amount of money and time spent on this I'm sure she has some ideas, if not, I kind of don't see the point of this. Time will tell.
And I honestly had no idea the infamous Double Dragon intro was kept that way throughout it's iterations, I know it's blasphemous to change something classic like that or change art in general but that intro just seems kind of crude.
And, there's another side of making female characters more realistic that I don't often hear people mention, too. While having exclusively emotionally weak female characters is insulting to the player, I think it's just as insulting to have physically strong female characters that look like runway models, and those are rampant. If a female character can go toe-to-toe with a beefy male character in a fight, or swing around a 60-pound sword, she should at the very least look pretty muscular, and I've never seen that in a game (though a few books I've read, like Hyperion and the Song of Ice and Fire series, have done it correctly). Personally it's an immersion-breaking reminder that "this isn't a real setting" whenever I see a stick-thin female character running around with hundreds of pounds of armor, or whatever, in an RPG.
As an aside, I also don't think the "damsel in distress" plot is really that bad or damaging in and of itself. Of course it made the female characters shallow in the 80s/90s games she discussed, but that's because ALL the characters were shallow - Mario is just as 1-dimensional (or 2D, I guess, heh) as Peach. I think it can be done well - for instance, The Darkness had a damsel in distress sequence that culminated in the "helpless" female character being the strongest/most courageous/most admirable character in the game, in my opinion. Of course the device isn't used nearly this well most of the time, but it can be done!
Don't know why but I have never analyzed video games in this manner, and I don't think I ever will. I've just never taken them that seriously. It's really surprising to see someone do this tbh, but there are all kinds of people in this crazy world.
Wouldnt matter to me which gender you placed where and who was in distress and who wasnt but I can say for sure that getting the girl at the end of double dragon is not what kept me replaying those game over and over again, the pwning of bad guys doing cool moves did - I couldnt care less what a developer uses as a prize because it just doesnt matter, I dont see things in that way and I dont play games to make myself feel like a better person, I have real life and real people to help me with that.
I'm looking forward to when she tackles the visual component of how females are represented in games - thats far more interesting to me.
This^
I spent most of the video thinking about I've never once cared about "rescuing the damsel" or feeling heroic. I just wanna smash stuff.
I do agree the the whole Starfox thing is pretty shitty and her altered appearance is awful, but I didn't like her original design either (stylistically) so maybe my reasons are different than most.
Thanks TeriyakiStyle those words unlocked something, and I think you just helped me figure out why I've had beef with this stuff all along
I have never looked to video games for statements.
I'm being selfish, and looking at this from my perspective, which is that very little of what Anita talked about with regards to females being used as prizes, damsels in distress, panties showing, etc. is anything I ever care about in the slightest when I played any of those games she was talking about, and Ive played nearly all of them (made me feel so old to recognize them all) I just dont ever reach that level of thought, and I dont think I ever will.
Donkey Kong was never about reaching the princess at the top, it was about jumping the barrels getting the hammer to break them and climbing ladders - to reach the top and advance to the next level.
The same goes for sonic the hedgehog and double dragon. Collecting rings at hyper speed / avoiding spikes and doing power slams on massive goons is all that registers for me theres nothing else there. No matter what developers put there, the meat and potatoes gameplay is what matters. I'll likely skip all that garbage anyway to get to the action.
Its pretty clear now that for others its quite different, in that they are probably looking for things on a much deeper level and would like things to be sensitive to society and so on etc. So from that standpoint, if thats really all this is about - and somehow changing that will make Anita and her supporters happier then wohoo go forth and do that - bring it on!
But you wont see me jumping to join that crusade because well.... those things just dont matter to me in a game, the gameplay does. Real life is a whole different matter entirely and again for me, the two are completely different things.
Definitely dont expect me to pay attention to the new character / gender roles, and shout from the rooftops how good they are because Ill be too busy actually playing the game part of the game, or commenting on how they look.
Looking forward to the next vid!
It's not a matter of a big evil message that needs you to boycott it, it's just people saying "dude, not cool" when a game is needlessly sexist.
A game can present messages that are kinda problematic and should be discussed without being the most important, evil thing ever. It's not that you're a bad person for enjoying a sexist game, it's not even like hardline feminists can't enjoy sexist games, it's just that maybe you want to be aware that sometimes what games promote isnt cool.
Games have dealt with hate-speech, lynchings and racism. The Witcher 2 did a good job of this, at least when the main character wasn't too busy having sex.
Edit: I am comparing Zelda in ocarina of time where she goes from a cunning warrior to a damsel in distress with Splinter who is a master warrior and then later a damsel in distress..
I think it's silly of her to mention Sonic CD though. It was the only game where they had a damsel in distress IIRC and Amy(along with more female characters) are pretty able and strong characters in the later games/series/comics.
I don't think that the scenario is necessarily sexist on purpose but rather a result of not putting too much work thinking about it most of the times. The stories in the 80s/90s games were either about saving someone or saving some city from the grasps of some evil man... Some times both!(Final fight) and sometimes you just had to defeat the bad guys for no particular reason
Or jade.
Also... almost being done with Conan the Barbarian original stories represent women as more than just a reward. They are strong and equal to Conan. The only thing that separates them is their character goals and ego in their stories.
The video is informative, sure. But recognizing the problem goes in hand with solutions and examples of other games that do a good job at this. Examples like cartoons, like Dora are becoming more of an icon.
At the end of the day, i think awareness is important... just also be aware that there's people that don't define the industry for its portrayal of women... but of gameplay. With that said... i agree with the whole i never looked at video games with the mindset of social impact.
and... i dunn see us making a fuzz about our portrayal of men in things like Twilight, Justin beiber, or that other twilight movie clone Host. Anyways...
More characters i can think of that are great female characters.
On uncharted Sully is the damsel in distress sometimes... it just goes with the character personality, and they are not there as a reward, but as a story plot.
sexy cg chicks are one of the most commonly approached things in most cg community next to elves and orcs.
dont be lazy people. learn some anatomy and do it right.
i would like to see is more of Chell(Portal) and Faith(Mirror's Edge) where the girls still look very appealing and sexy without having big TnA and in skimpy clothes. plus they are also portrayed as powerful protagonists.
While the video was playing, I actually thought of The Secret of Monkey Island, and how it inverted that trope during the course of its story. I was pleased to see here make a quick mention of it near the end of the video. Of course, by the third Monkey Island game they succumbed to the same temptations and "damsaled" the primary female protagonist. (but that was not a Ron Gilbert game, so it's not all that surprising that the writing wouldn't be as solid)
While that's obviously a bit of an outdated view in 2013, I can't help but wonder, with him, whether our expectations of good female characters are actually fair. Mass Effect is often regarded as a step forwards, but with a female Shepard who murders her way through all her problems and ends up with alien hotties, I think it might be legitimate to ask whether you're breaking new grounds or whether you can only appreciate women as long as they act like men. Sarkeesian's MA thesis is actually on the same subject, though where Huizinga saw saintliness and the transcendence of gender as the ideal, Sarkeesian instead saw Buffy the Vampire Slayer, combining murder (manly) and drama (womanly) as something to strive for.
Edit: I do very much agree with her criticism of the damsel trope in the video, however, and it's a good thing that it's being brought to attention. Although I often wonder if it's even possible to have a reasonable conversation about this with the Japanese.
Edit2: It was her MA thesis, not BA.
By not giving some credit to those who tried to make a difference, I felt like they were saying the solution is for every game to feature a strong female lead. That would get just as old as every game featuring a space marine or military soldier...
This is not directed at your post, per se, more to anyone mentioning how this focuses on such older games. One point she touches on is that a lot of these retro 80s and 90s games are being relaunched on mobile devices, and a whole new generation is consuming them. So it really is not enough to just say "oh yeah well attitudes were more sexist then, and we have evolved (true or not)".
Two things about your post. First, could you please lead us down a little bit further your conclusion with this criticism? I am not sure I follow. Fairly obviously saintliness is not going to become the role of most male characters in games, so where would that leave gender equality in representation if the industry remains fixated on heroics? This is of course ignoring the wealth of heroines even in the 1940s like the Night Witches of 1942.
Second, I am fairly sure that you are mischaracterizing Buffy´s appeal as a strong female character by saying her strength comes solely from murder (is it even murder when it is a vampire?). I am not a huge fan of the series, but I always saw her as strong because she was the main character, had the most screen time, other characters looked to her for direction and decision making, in addition to her not being helpless when it came to physical altercations.
I know you weren't directing that at me specifically, but my disappointment wasn't that this episode was focused on older games, but that it failed to mention any older games that actually went against the norm back then and featured strong female characters. I just think it's important to look at both sides - problems are clearer when you can look at the solution at the same time...
Let's wait to see if she does that in Part 2. There's no reason she can't go back and show the first games to go against the Trope.
Hey Hazardous, I thought I might add something, you touched on a very interesting point here!
I can see your point and that's a quite common way of looking at things, and there's no problem with this at all. Each person looks for something different while playing their games, watching movies... What we can't really ignore is that games are cultural products, just like any kind of entertainment or art form out there, right?
The way I see it, being a cultural product means that you draw from a source, our general culture, our past games, movies, stories, myths, fears, interests, prejudices, everything. And after your product is out there, seen and experienced by people, it feeds back to this cultural pool to influence the future and so on. And I believe is within our reach as communicators to stop perpetuating such old and obsolete concepts and step up, do something different, go beyond the basics, add something back to people. Making the world a better place bit by bit while still creating entertainment, you know? And by doing this we also help our whole industry to be more inclusive, bigger and more mature.
Yeah, good point - a history of the games that went against it would be a good lead-up to how games could better handle things in the future. I'll shut-up until the next part
Another very hopeful sign is that when she mentioned that she would show counter-examples in the next episode, she flashed up a picture of Elaine Marley from the remake of The Secret of Monkey Island. This character from this game in particular is a prime example of subverting the Damsel trope. It is also an older game, contemporary with most 8 and 16 bit titles. Here are a few points on why it is such a fine counter-example.
1. The character of Elaine Marley starts the game in a position of power and authority, and is established from the beginning as being highly competent and capable at her job as governor.
2. Elaine is "kidnapped" halfway through the game, but she is never shown being kidnapped, tied up, or otherwise captured. While they set her up as a potential "Damsel", they never actually show her being subjugated or otherwise dis-empowered. It is even implied in some of the dialogue that the ghost pirate crew has considerable trouble dealing with her.
3. At the game's climax, it is revealed that Elaine has actually been several steps ahead of both the primary protagonist and antagonist. (both male characters) While those characters attempted to do things in the standard hero's quest fashion, she quietly and capably went behind the scenes and managed to secure the necessary materials to solve the problem on her own. She never really needed saving.
Elaine is a perfect example not because she behaved like a man would, but because she behaved like a rational, reasonable human being would. (regardless of gender) The whole story of the Secret of Monkey Island points out how silly and contrived the Damsel trope is.
Look forward to the next vid.
Also: Lara Croft
I don't think this first video was really "pointing the finger" at our industry, but rather our culture. Was the "damsel" plot device absolutely necessary/important? Maybe, maybe not, but I think the point is that we rarely tried presenting our female characters in a different way.