Finally!... the thread has fell apart. Time to post Cats, its been a while since my last cat, so I'm allowed. Anyhoo, as soon as Part2 is posted this thread will return to an "opinion debate".
no, I don't think anybody should have the power to close a thread they disagree with using cat pictures. Sorry for editing your posts - I try to refrain from this kind of stuff.
OMG! censorship on PC! Thats a whole new kettle of fish! I'm disappointed...
anyhoo.....
I'm letting the rest of the team know if they disagree with me then I'll revert the changes but I think the "cat bombing" has become a really bad tool to game the system and shut a thread down. So yes, I censored users trying to censor a discussion, it's a slippery slope and I made a snap judgement to edit them instead of posting a warning and handing out infractions.
So gender issues are a big deal. This may not be directly related to what we have been talking about, but I came across this game on newgrounds that I feel is worth a gander and a ponder, dys4ia.
"dys4ia is an autobiographical game about the period in my life when i started hormone replacement therapy. it's a story about me, and is certainly not meant to represent the experience of every trans person."
game by ANNA ANTHROPY auntiepixelante.com
music by LIZ RYERSON
OK, back on topic. Here's a game that puts women as the main character/s but also objectifies them horribly. I have to say though, apart from the massive boobed/naked player characters the art is quite nice for a game of this "calibur".
btw, by posting a cat I wasn't looking to have the thread closed. I just thought a lovable cat would be a welcome break in a disscussion that seems to be going down hill a bit.
Seeing more than 5 people play that crap made me sad, I mean Jesus.
And I didn't post the Corgi to derail anything, I just wanted to post a Corgi because they're adorable and puppies.
OK, back on topic. Here's a game that puts women as the main character/s but also objectifies them horribly. I have to say though, apart from the massive boobed/naked player characters the art is quite nice for a game of this "calibur".
btw, by posting a cat I wasn't looking to have the thread closed. I just thought a lovable cat would be a welcome break in a disscussion that seems to be going down hill a bit.
it is look like they treat those female character as "generic average guy".
I love mirrors edge but the character has weak selling point.
I see game like final fantasy XIII , tomb raider , lollipop chainsaw
has "strong" female characters either supposed to be sexy or quite feminine .
"there are some exception that average female can be appealing if they shares much to audiences interest, or given tons of personality/back story ( mostly in rpg)
Which is amusing since it is one of the games my wife enjoys the most since it allows her to be a girl that can hold her own in an action game. She also enjoyed the hell out of the original "Rumble Roses" which many people may dislike for it being an all female cast, but you know, to each their own.
On that note though, she really disliked the one for the 360. apparently there is a "camera mode" where you pose the girls and get points or something and she found that to be really tasteless and hasn't picked that game up since.
Actually I do find it funny that Juliet does in every way subvert the nature of this conversation, especially the point Ms. Sarkeesian brought up: Julient does in no way represent women who are nothing but strong male archetypes in disguise, and also panders directly to the stereotypes and tropes that Ms. Sarkeesian wants to remove.
But also knowing that this is a Suda 51 games: That's the joke!
I really wish we could have that discussion without the "strong female character" part. The male and/female characters of a good game don't have to be strong characters - they have to be *good* characters. As in well-constructed.
Oh pior I actually think that's what the word strong means in that sense. I don't think the general conversation is that we need masculine or steroid abusing female characters. The discussion is about need strong, solid, deep, etc. characters. So female characters that have more depth and aren't just symbols for something.
There's nothing wrong with female characters as symbols, just as there's nothing wrong with male characters or white characters representing an idea. But if women are only symbols and never someone to be associated with, there's an unfortunate imbalance. So we want strong (as in deep) female characters.
If anyone is arguing that women need strong (as in tough, physical) traits, I think they're getting their issues mixed up. Especially if Lollypop Chainsaw is used as an example.
Oh yeah totally ! Sorry if I wasn't being very clear - strong doesn't have to mean physically strong, indeed.
I guess what I am saying is that having a "strong male" or "strong female" as a protagonist (in the more subtle sense of the word) doesn't guarantee that the game or the character development is of quality anyways.
For instance, the movie Rampage is all about a character with no redeeming quality whatsoever - the shooter is the bad guy, period. That doesn't make the movie any less excellent.
I hope to find that kind of subtleties in games one day too! From what I understand one of the few games to achieve that is Spec Ops - The Line. Gotta check this one out thoroughly one day...
I hope for female (and male!) characters in games to be given this kind of clever treatment more often ; something beyond "look, our good hero is a strong woman" solution.
Oh yeah totally ! Sorry if I wasn't being very clear - strong doesn't have to mean physically strong, indeed.
I guess what I am saying is that having a "strong male" or "strong female" as a protagonist (in the more subtle sense of the word) doesn't guarantee that the game or the character development is of quality anyways.
For instance, the movie Rampage is all about a character with no redeeming quality whatsoever - the shooter is the bad guy, period. That doesn't make the movie any less excellent.
I hope to find that kind of subtleties in games one day too! From what I understand one of the few games to achieve that is Spec Ops - The Line. Gotta check this one out thoroughly one day...
I hope for female (and male!) characters in games to be given this kind of clever treatment more often ; something beyond "look, our good hero is a strong woman" solution.
I'm trying to get your point, but I do think that one of the reasons that the "strong" identifier is a common event is that so many games are about conflict and overcoming great odds through brute-force/acrobatics. It justifies itself as an explanation for the player avatars' competency.
I'm also having trouble understanding how "the bad guy is the bad guy" is subtle. (maybe it's just because I haven't seen the movie.)
Ah well I do remember that now. I still stand by my theory that it is used so much without thinking because we set up scenarios where characters have to be "strong" by default even before they manage to get turned into real characters or not; for men or women.
I know this thread is running in circles and I hate to spin the wheel but, what was the right way to depict characters again...?
meh. I think that girl needs to get laid... seriously, that's how people act when they fall in love or are falling for someone... I'm referring to the first video, with the pixie bulls shit. Men act that way too in real life. If she doesn't like "chick flicks" then she shouldn't watch them. I don't really see her points as valid, simply because it's reality. How many times have you not seen a girl fall for the bad boy, she is really supportive etc, but the guy is a piece of crap, instead of wonderful and unlike in hollywood never changes... Sometimes women get what you see in the movies, but in real life when the girl gets the loving man then she turns around and screws over the guy when she gets bored...
Sage, you realize your opinion is colored by your own or preceived viewpoints of women as a gender vs individual? One is where you claim she "needs to get laid" to solve all her issues. Two is women fall for the bad guy. Three is where you state some woman of a certain type will necessarily screw the guy over.
Was in fact your post in jest or a troll? Otherwise if anything, it shows you have some issues and are part of the problem. Your reply is full of stereotypes as your defense.
Snacuum : the great thing about the bad guy in that movie is that there is no good guy to balance him out or for the audience to relate to. There's one character, he's bad, he wins, and the viewer knows it all right from the start. In that sense I find the construction of that movie to be much more subtle (and hard to pull off!) than what is seen in mainstream Hollywood year after year.
This totally relates to your question of "what's the right way to depict characters again" : in my opinion, there is no right way and no formula for it (besides the old tired ones of course), that's why I find the "strong women" character clich
Snacuum : the great thing about the bad guy in that movie is that there is no good guy to balance him out or for the audience to relate to. There's one character, he's bad, he wins, and the viewer knows it all right from the start. In that sense I find the construction of that movie to be much more subtle (and hard to pull off!) than what is seen in mainstream Hollywood year after year.
This totally relates to your question of "what's the right way to depict characters again" : in my opinion, there is no right way and no formula for it (besides the old tired ones of course), that's why I find the "strong women" character clich
Oh I remember playing the Blackwell demo a few years back! Very cool stuff. A fine example. At the end of the day the only thing that really matters is the quality and the consistency of the experience, for sure.
To sum up: what's in between the character's legs isn't important; their personality, growth, and how they react to circumstances are what make a well constructed character.
Am I right in saying that? This issue is so complex I think I may be wrong in oversimplifying the solution.
Now for a more mature post since I was a bit of a dick.... the problem I have with her views is that not all cliche stories like say the Notebook, Forrest Gump, Chasing Amy are bad. When you add elements to your creation to make it good as an after thought that is when it usually fails. For example, for a space adventure to be good it has to have a space marine with a big gun... If you thought I was going to say dick, then maybe you know where I'm going with this. It's not that a wife got stuffed in the fridge that's the problem or a space marine has scars. The problem is when people think that for a story to be good it has to have things like the wife got stuffed in the fridge or a marine has scars and tattoos. What I'm getting at is simple, why does the space marine have a scar on his face and tattoos... That isn't what makes an experience enjoyable. I enjoyed Starcraft 2 and you could argue it's the biggest cliche of all time... The experience was good so it was good. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter that Raynor only purpose to live is to save Kerrigan and the she is bent on revenge. Of course if you were to follow the logic presented by the trope then that's like a big no no, no more of that...
And to expect comic books whose target audience are young teens to be works of literature is a bit silly. The main problem I do have with her videos is that she is just making a huge generalization about different stories like it's always a pattern. Why was Green Lantern's wife stuffed in the fridge? Probably because that's the worst thing you could do to him. What was the context? If it was just to make money it was probably a poor decision, since fans would resent the publisher for insulting their intelligence. Kill Bill was a fun set of movies, even though it's a cliche. It's still different. Batman's back was broken to start that series over. DC wanted to get a new bat, Batman fans got pissed and so they brought him back. I thought it was a shitty decision on DC's part since they just had killed Superman and then brought him back. What really matters is the experience you provide. Pretty much every story has been told depending how you look at it. The reality is just because themes are common it doesn't mean they are bad or shouldn't be used, it just means it's real. People, get raped, killed, abused discriminated against everyday. That's reality. People fall in love, they act a certain way when they do. I don't think good writers add elements to a story for money, or just to develop a character, they decide to do it because it makes sense. What I mean by the comment about the developing the character, is I don't think they have a check list as in strong female character got raped, character is developed now she goes and take revenge. I think certain elements are thrown in there because that's how the story goes, in their mind at the time of the writing.
If you actually took the time to read my first post then you realize I'm just saying, I think she is full of shit. You don't have to be sarcastic to come off as intelligent or talk down at people or have snarky remarks. She is just being a trope. Bitching about smurf it when she doesn't know the context of why the creator decided to do that is pretty lame. Maybe Peyo was just criticizing the church for preaching women as the root of all evil. In the 70s a lot of cartoons were written the way they were to criticize the society of the time, which is nothing new.
I think the problem with a lot of things made today is that publishers copy what they think works and they don't understand or care why it worked. Just because Forrest Gump worked as a movie doesn't mean doing something similar would work again. Also just because there have been good movies made about people with disabilities or "feel good" movies are a dime a dozen it doesn't mean we should stop making them. Rain man was a good movie, does that mean Forrest Gump is any less good because of it. I love romantic movies, if they suck they suck, ditto with horror, action and drama. If it has a good story I will enjoy it. The same goes with games, but if the gameplay sucks balls it will piss me off. I won't care if it's the most original thing ever.
While I personally think Anita Sarkeesian is a nice lady, her presentation, examples, and logic is often times stretched a little far. She also isn't very funny, and that rubs people the wrong way too. But that doesn't make what she's trying to say any less valid.
She's just asking for better writing, and better characters that she and others can relate to. She's trying to do what Extra Credits does by bringing up the issue and asking us to transcend to a higher plane of thinking. We can make better games, and the tropes with female characters is perhaps one of the biggest issues we have holding us back.
I'm tired of the industry and gaming community being a boy's club.
So we *have* to make complex, nuanced female characters in our games for us to not be sexist? We can't have a simplistic, archetypical depiction in a game of anybody who isn't a male and have it be taken for what it is, a simple archetype, instead of some kind of proof of pervasive female-hating testicular-supremacist rape culture?
Because besides that being patently ridiculous itself, and perilously close to offensive...
...sometimes people want to make simple games with two-dimensional characters. And they should be free to make what they want to make without being berated and bombarded in an attempt to make them feel guilty for not creating solely the kinds of things Ms. Sarkeesian, et al, approve of.
You know, sometimes you just want to play cowboys and indians. Without an exhaustive, meticulously detailed recounting of the entire history of both the native peoples of the North American continent, the European settlers, their clashes and mutual triumphs, and the tragic violent conclusion forced upon both parties by political whims of the budding continental power that was the United States (with a special epilogue describing not only the twilight resistance of the Nez Perce and Apache, but the later resurgence of the American Indian Movement from the 1950s on).
If all we want is to play "indians are attacking the wagon train", we don't need all of that. Is it nice to know? Yeah. Is it important history? Hell yes. Is it all but completely irrelevant to what we WANT to do? Without question.
All we need for what we WANT to make are some cowpunchers with 10 gallon hats and Colt revolvers, and some indians with fast ponies and war paint. Boom. Done.
At this point, if you start lecturing us about not including that giant mouthful of context and history in our deliberately simple scope, you're making yourself look like an idiot and annoying us. The simplicity of what we make is not inherently a malicious statement of racism and oppression. Only somebody who spends their time desperately searching for the next thing to get offended about could possibly find that in it. Please find something else - somewhere else - to launch your next daily crusade.
(cowboys and indians example kindly provided and thumbs-up'd by my native american wife who calls herself indian)
Because Juliet is not an appropriate archetype for this conversation for a variety of reasons. It's a character feminists frequently rail against.
There's even a costume shop full of skimpy outfits in the game, and an achievement for looking up her skirt...
Not derail the thread, but this is something which I kinda saw happen as a debacle not tooooo long ago.
A few sites (one of them is called GoMakeSammich I think? Been a while) argued that the King of Fighters female characters were 'OK' because that is what represented in their culture, especially for the J-Pop costumes.
They argued basically that since in Japan you need to be an open flirty girl with your dress, that having sexy J-Pop outfits is OK and acceptable in any game.
They also argued that since Bayonetta is so over the top, it can be forgiven (this coming out suspiciously around the time it was stated that Bayo's original artwork was made by a woman and not a man), kinda like the same deal with Fat Princess.
At the same time, the it was argued that Chainsaw Lolipop is not OK, since (unlockable costume not withstanding) it had a girl in a Cheerleader costume, and half of her move-set was demeaning to women, which kinda contradicts the entire 'culture habit' side of things.
I'm not trying to start a debate by the way since I'll be damned if I have to sit through another 10 pages, but half of the entire issue here is that everyone wants something that fits their bill at this point, and aren't willing to see the entire picture.
Basically, everyone is cherry picking their issues as they see fit, which is is kinda the opposite of how equality of one medium should be brought up to debate.
Lastly, I would suggest everyone to start rethinking who they think are 'nice people', because last I checked, nice people want to fight for equality, not segregation of male-female genders on stuff like buses, or make jokes about rape and suddenly are redeemed because they made a random video which only furthers the issues in society as opposed to solving them.
I guess you could say Anita and the AmazingAtheist deserve each other.
While I personally think Anita Sarkeesian is a nice lady, her presentation, examples, and logic is often times stretched a little far. She also isn't very funny, and that rubs people the wrong way too. But that doesn't make what she's trying to say any less valid.
She's just asking for better writing, and better characters that she and others can relate to. She's trying to do what Extra Credits does by bringing up the issue and asking us to transcend to a higher plane of thinking. We can make better games, and the tropes with female characters is perhaps one of the biggest issues we have holding us back.
I'm tired of the industry and gaming community being a boy's club.
Really Makkon? Do you realize the entire issue is that even what someone is doing in their privacy is being penalized, right? Not about the 'public product' in question and what the consumer wants?
These are the type of people you vouch for? Really Makkon? Do I need to explain to why blatant blindness of supporting people who consider "4chan = Techies" to be not only wrong, but shows gross example of not doing research, and being condescending all the time?
So we *have* to make complex, nuanced female characters in our games for us to not be sexist? We can't have a simplistic, archetypical depiction in a game of anybody who isn't a male and have it be taken for what it is, a simple archetype, instead of some kind of proof of pervasive female-hating testicular-supremacist rape culture?
Because besides that being patently ridiculous itself, and perilously close to offensive...
...sometimes people want to make simple games with two-dimensional characters. And they should be free to make what they want to make without being berated and bombarded in an attempt to make them feel guilty for not creating solely the kinds of things Ms. Sarkeesian, et al, approve of.
You know, sometimes you just want to play cowboys and indians. Without an exhaustive, meticulously detailed recounting of the entire history of both the native peoples of the North American continent, the European settlers, their clashes and mutual triumphs, and the tragic violent conclusion forced upon both parties by political whims of the budding continental power that was the United States (with a special epilogue describing not only the twilight resistance of the Nez Perce and Apache, but the later resurgence of the American Indian Movement from the 1950s on).
If all we want is to play "indians are attacking the wagon train", we don't need all of that. Is it nice to know? Yeah. Is it important history? Hell yes. Is it all but completely irrelevant to what we WANT to do? Without question.
All we need for what we WANT to make are some cowpunchers with 10 gallon hats and Colt revolvers, and some indians with fast ponies and war paint. Boom. Done.
At this point, if you start lecturing us about not including that giant mouthful of context and history in our deliberately simple scope, you're making yourself look like an idiot and annoying us. The simplicity of what we make is not inherently a malicious statement of racism and oppression. Only somebody who spends their time desperately searching for the next thing to get offended about could possibly find that in it. Please find something else - somewhere else - to launch your next daily crusade.
(cowboys and indians example kindly provided and thumbs-up'd by my native american wife who calls herself indian)
So. All I can say with your overly defensive attitude - as if somehow she is singling out you, not taking what she said in context (example-she mentioned past), and using your SO as your backup/proof versus your arguements alone.
UMAD Bro?
Its hard to take you seriously when you over react and globalize one persons pov (Last paragraph especially telling ).
You have no idea how much of this professional hurt-feelings social justice activist crap my wife and I have had to put up with. Most of it has been somebody waltzing up to us and assuming because of certain ethnic or gender aspects that we intrinsically support their "cause".
And then when we politely inform them that we don't completely agree with what they're doing (or, much more often, how they are going about it... I'm the last person who you're going to find opposing something like gay rights, or equal treatment for men and women in the workplace) we get both goddamn barrels of the full hate-rage-indignation-you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourselves-you-oppressive-privileged-monsters. (It's especially hilarious when somebody comes up and assumes my wife supports something because she's a woman, and then goes after her for "white privilege", and then is informed she is by no means 'white'... hilarious to watch that oftentimes grind things to a screeching halt)
It's ridiculous, it's exhausting, it's aggravating, and the people / groups responsible never seem to get the message and reconsider why somebody could POSSIBLY disagree with them. There's a frustrating dogmatic thread to it that makes their vitriol especially tenacious.
And so I kind of have a short fuze with it nowadays.
When I typed that, I was doing so from the perspective of myself, a number of my friends, a variety of people I know and associate with who share my opinions, but most of all the mental picture frame of a specific experience where my son and myself were happily playing in the park and were rudely accosted by somebody when they realized we were playing cowboys and indians. (Hey, in a family with two native members, it's kind of a popular theme. Grats to my wife for pointing out the incident makes a great example for the prev. post..)
"How could you be so racist and insensitive?" They demanded an explanation, at the top of their lungs, no less. Their goal was to make a scene of it and shame us publicly.
"I'm part indian, my mom is indian", my son told them. "The indians are winning!"
Rather than pulling out their foot, zipping up their mouth and dropping the whole issue, they proceeded to lay into me about indoctrinating my son with oppressive white racist distortions of his own ethnic heritage. They singlehandedly ruined a wonderful day for a father and son with their bullshit. And even when confronted with contradictory facts that completely undermined their accusations, they doubled down because they refused to even consider that somebody's dissenting opinion could possibly be valid.
So, yeah... iMad.
bHadEnoughOfThisPerpetuallyOffendedCrap == TRUE.
Long story short, sometimes an archetype is just an archetype. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Let people play with cardboard characters if that's what they feel like doing. Sometimes it works best for what they want to do. Not every character ever created has to be the most fulfilling and empowering character ever depicted for insert-social-cause-here, and shallow, two-dimensional characters aren't automatically part of some kind of sexist or racist or ageist or whatever culture of discrimination. But most of all, the creators behind them aren't automatically the sort of narrow-minded sexists Ms. Sarkeesian is assuming they are, based on how she interprets and the values her ideology assigns to those archetypes.
$10 says she's never talked at length, directly, to any of the writers or character artists behind the characters she's railing against. Chances are pretty decent she'll be hard pressed to find one honest-to-dog full blown woman-hater amongst them.
If Ms. Sarkeesian stopped and talked to the people behind a lot of those archetypical cardboard cutout characters she's frothing about, she might find that the people who created them are far less sexist than she assumed. But she never got that far, because instead of judging them by the content of their character, she assumed.
GarageBay, aren't you doing exactly what that rude individual in the park did?
You're painting a wide variety of people, many of which have extremely legitimate reasons to express unhappiness, with an incredibly broad stroke.
Just as very few people playing cowboys and indians are trying to indoctrinate anyone or perpetuate racism, very few people talking about equality are reactionary, self-aggrandizing bullies like it sounds like the individual you encountered was.
GarageBay, aren't you doing exactly what that rude individual in the park did?
You're painting a wide variety of people, many of which have extremely legitimate reasons to express unhappiness, with an incredibly broad stroke.
Just as very few people playing cowboys and indians are trying to indoctrinate anyone or perpetuate racism, very few people talking about equality are reactionary, self-aggrandizing bullies like it sounds like the individual you encountered was.
Maybe.
But when it comes to the specific subset I'm intending to refer to (and I'm probably not delineating that very well, which I take full responsibility for), I have yet to meet any serious exceptions. Maybe one or two. The rest I've encountered fit the mold to a T, sadly.
I desperately hope that's just bad luck on my part, because I really don't want that to be how bad it actually is. And I really, really hope I'm proven wrong as time goes by. I'm crossing my fingers, and I'll be the first one to apologize.
EDIT: Upon further reflection, there's a distinct possibility that my exposure to native american social politics is partially responsible, and I suppose given the sort of unique nature of that, I should reel out a little slack. Having genocidal acts against your people still in living memory can wind people up tight, and I can admit my experiences with that might color my impression of vocal activists from other causes I've bumped into. I'll try and keep that in the back of my mind a little better.
This thread is just embarrassing now, is there a tipping point where it actually becomes harmful to the community of polycount? I think we got there a while back.
Yeah, so much disappointment from me. I kinda wish I could un-see this thread, but all in all I'm not too surprised that it ended up like every other thread in the video game community that deals with this subject.
This thread is just embarrassing now, is there a tipping point where it actually becomes harmful to the community of polycount? I think we got there a while back.
I don't know how anyone was expecting to get out of it? (apart from never having seen or posted in the thread.
I mean there is seriously no way that "hey here's an issue that has no direct solution that people may have strong opinions about. Discuss it right here on the internet!" could not cover every aspect of the argument rainbow.
We can't talk about *snip* or *snip* and our workplaces don't let us talk about *snip* and we may as well not even mention *snip* so what can we talk about?
Should we get the moderators to approve topics before they're for wholesome discussion before they're made public, or hey remove GD entirely. Many of us would probably get more work done that way.
I don't know how it could be damaging to the community apart from a few hurt-butts or maybe some over-zealous HR looking for dissenters of opinion. Otherwise this thread has probably done some good: people can make whatever art they want in my opinion but now things should be even more awesome if this discussion now make people at least think about tropes and cliche and stereotype when they do.
Garagebay9 - as far as your EDIT - I'm Cherokee and you've invoked you're post cursor relationship with native heritage like, 5 times. This is about women's issues in the here and now. In this society which is mixed. I understand you want to champion native issues but this is a separate issue given that we live in the US - like it or not.
Start a thread about the most recent Assassins Creed
I'm only using it as a firsthand-experience example of my dealings with aggressive, vocal social activists (that's my intention, anyway. Apologies if it's coming across differently, wouldn't be the first time). I'm close friends with a very poltiically involved gay rights activist. He's an awesome guy and someone I have immense respect and admiration for, but I don't pretend to try and speak knowledgeably about that field of activism, even though I've watched him working in it now and then. I DO know the social activism and activists I've been personally exposed to, and they've predominantly been native causes. I only bring it up because it's the parallel to this activism issue I can touch on for an example without totally talking out of my butt.
I'm a heterosexual white male. From my past exposures to social ideology debates, especially with the family of ideology Ms. Sarkeesian ascribes to, without some kind of credible connection to the "not-white-hetero-male" side of an issue - ANY issue - my opinion is otherwise pretty much considered worthless on its own.
And that's probably not entirely the truth; I try to remind myself that there are probably numerous people here who are willing to consider what I have to say on its own merits. But in these kinds of discussions over the years, I've been repeatedly taught the hard way (usually at full volume) that my opinion is worthless because I'm the bad guy for being white, male, and hetero and causing all this horrible sexism, or homopobia, or racism, or whatever the topic at hand is. Listen to Ms. Sarkeesian's videos. Count the number of times she speaks disparagingly about or blames "males" or, even better, "heterosexual males" for whatever the specific problem is she's ranting about. I got up to four in one of those videos. Four times in less than five minutes.
Now, if you were regularly on the receiving end of accusations and invectives like that, you'd probably start looking for ways to defend yourself, too, right? Everybody would.
Mine was finding a core flaw in her argument. Break down the belief system her arguments are built on (radical feminism) and it basically states that because of who I was born as, I'm inherently <insert oppressive, discriminatory nature here>. For her, it's sexist. To her I'm sexist because I'm male. Just listen to her own words. She constantly blames males with a massive broad brush. But the flaw in her base ideologies is that somebody can't be both an oppressor and the oppressed (or a supporter of the oppressed). The closest thing I had to shut down her kind of exasperating accusations was my family relationship with people she would think of as oppressed minorities - somebody who was a racist or a sexist or whatever would never MARRY the very people they oppressed, at least in her mind. And it has worked repeatedly with people very similar to her making emotional arguments and mean-spirited accusations that are related to or very similar to hers.
Like I said before, I'm worn out. I'm worn thin from being accused of things I wouldn't allow myself to actually do or be or believe in a million years - things I've spent a lot of energy working against, in fact. But the people who hold those very vocal, very radical beliefs have basically worn me down. I love to talk over and debate these kind of subjects objectively with impartial people precisely because they're so important, but when somebody like Ms. Sarkeesian charges in, agenda spun up, guns blazing and slinging blame and scorn, all I've got energy left for these days is to toss the one thing back at her that I know from experience will get her to stop and just leave me alone.
Look, I just want to make games. I want other people to be free to make the games they want to without feeling judged or guilty or blamed for somehow perpetuating some massive social ill. I don't see prejudices and the propagation of discrimination behind every tree when I look at the creative aspects of a game. I see something created by people who busted their asses and made what they wanted to make (or pretty close). Sometimes that's a pretty shallow, archetype-driven, almost disposable story filled with cardboard-cutout characters. And if they WANT to make that, dammit, they should be free to do it. I know people who have made a game or two like that, and they are the furthest you can possibly get from the kind of people Ms. Sarkeesian would assume based on her readings of their creations. She doesn't even know them or even BOTHER trying to learn who they really are before she goes about judging them at the top of her lungs for everybody to hear.
And on top of being burned out, her doing that really, really rubs me the wrong way.
I'm only using it as a firsthand-experience example of my dealings with aggressive, vocal social activists (that's my intention, anyway. Apologies if it's coming across differently, wouldn't be the first time). I'm close friends with a very poltiically involved gay rights activist. He's an awesome guy and someone I have immense respect and admiration for, but I don't pretend to try and speak knowledgeably about that field of activism, even though I've watched him working in it now and then.
I'm a heterosexual white male. From my past exposures to social ideology debates, especially with the family of ideology Ms. Sarkeesian ascribes to, without some kind of credible connection to the "not-white-hetero-male" side of an issue - ANY issue - my opinion is otherwise pretty much considered worthless on its own.
And that's probably not entirely the truth; I try to remind myself that there are probably numerous people here who are willing to consider what I have to say on its own merits. But in these kinds of discussions over the years, I've been repeatedly taught the hard way (usually at full volume) that my opinion is worthless because I'm the bad guy for being white, male, and hetero and causing all this horrible sexism, or homopobia, or racism, or whatever the topic at hand is. Listen to Ms. Sarkeesian's videos. Count the number of times she speaks disparagingly about or blames "males" or, even better, "heterosexual males" for whatever the specific problem is she's ranting about. I got up to four in one of those videos. Four times in less than five minutes.
Now, if you were regularly on the receiving end of accusations and invectives like that, you'd probably start looking for ways to defend yourself, too, right? Everybody would.
I'm a white male also, hetero (not that it matters), and I don't see that at all. I do see you as I say, taking this all personally for some reason. I can separate myself from my culture or sex to attempt to see what others mean. Your mention about Native politics does not excuse your pretense here.
Her rants are very specific to a subject and situation. Your rants on here seem to be beyond that into the scope of assumptions about groups of people. I note your previous comment "I have yet to meet any serious exceptions. Maybe one or two. The rest I've encountered fit the mold to a T, sadly.". Some of the things you claim of her, you are doing yourself. In fact lets bring up this older response of yours.
Here's the issue: you're feeling the irrational irritation of postmodernist social philosophy. Diversity politics, feminism, inclusivism - they're built on a social philosophy school called postmodernism that is, at its root, complete bullshit. Because at its core, it is built on two things: assigning people into "groups" that are inherently either oppressors or victims (usually by skin color or gender or other politicized identities), and making the oppressors feel guilty about being who they are.
Good example... a decent everyday definition of racism is, more or less, "the belief that certain races are inferior and others are superior due to inherent racial characteristics."
Racism is bullshit. We all know that. It's offensive and completely without basis.
Want to know what the postmodernist concept of racism is? It adds ridiculous crap like "privilege", "power", and "oppression" into a big convoluted notion of "racism". Get this: postmodernist racism is where somebody is "racist" because they belong to a certain identity group that has unfair "privilege" because of their identity, and that those people therefore hold "power" and are "oppressive". Those who don't have privilege, and thus power, are victims. Supposedly you are born with privilege and can never get rid of it, or you are born a victim and can never not be one.
Know what all that crap actually boils down to? Postmodernist social philosophy - at least as it is commonly applied in the United States (which is really the only place it doesn't instantly fall apart in laughable tatters) - literally believes that white people, especially white males, are born privileged, born with power, and therefore born racist and can never NOT be racist no matter what they do. Inversely, it states that black people are born victims and can never be anything but victims no matter what they actually do.
Which is pretty fucking racist. That's about as far as you can get from judging somebody by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
You're feeling judged because you are being judged when people who ascribe to social ideologies built on that structure criticize you. Whether they understand it or not - and most of them, sadly, don't - their ideologies are built atop a social philosophy movement that fundamentally is about judging "privileged" people (you're probably in that category) and making them feel guilty in order to try and bring about radical social diversity political goals.
So don't feel bad ignoring them and telling them to piss off and pound sand. I don't. I'm in a biracial marriage, they ain't got shit on me to complain about not respecting diversity.
Above you group a set of people into one and then use that as a reason to ignore the rest (post modernism being as you claim all about the white mans power).
Replies
EDIT: funny cat gif removed....A sad day indeed.
anyhoo.....
I'm letting the rest of the team know if they disagree with me then I'll revert the changes but I think the "cat bombing" has become a really bad tool to game the system and shut a thread down. So yes, I censored users trying to censor a discussion, it's a slippery slope and I made a snap judgement to edit them instead of posting a warning and handing out infractions.
"dys4ia is an autobiographical game about the period in my life when i started hormone replacement therapy. it's a story about me, and is certainly not meant to represent the experience of every trans person."
game by ANNA ANTHROPY auntiepixelante.com
music by LIZ RYERSON
Edit: dys4ia is an amazing game. I'm looking forward to Anna's rant at GDC.
[ame="
btw, by posting a cat I wasn't looking to have the thread closed. I just thought a lovable cat would be a welcome break in a disscussion that seems to be going down hill a bit.
It's Skyrim Bodymods: The MMO.
Seeing more than 5 people play that crap made me sad, I mean Jesus.
And I didn't post the Corgi to derail anything, I just wanted to post a Corgi because they're adorable and puppies.
Oh well. Looks like I wasn't the only one dreaming of an MMO with all the usual trimmings, but with added pornography.
That. Is. Amazing.
and
Games with exclusively female heroes dont sell (because publishers dont support them)
I love mirrors edge but the character has weak selling point.
I see game like final fantasy XIII , tomb raider , lollipop chainsaw
has "strong" female characters either supposed to be sexy or quite feminine .
"there are some exception that average female can be appealing if they shares much to audiences interest, or given tons of personality/back story ( mostly in rpg)
in my perspective I don't really discriminate to what kind of audience it sells
There's even a costume shop full of skimpy outfits in the game, and an achievement for looking up her skirt...
On that note though, she really disliked the one for the 360. apparently there is a "camera mode" where you pose the girls and get points or something and she found that to be really tasteless and hasn't picked that game up since.
But also knowing that this is a Suda 51 games: That's the joke!
There's nothing wrong with female characters as symbols, just as there's nothing wrong with male characters or white characters representing an idea. But if women are only symbols and never someone to be associated with, there's an unfortunate imbalance. So we want strong (as in deep) female characters.
If anyone is arguing that women need strong (as in tough, physical) traits, I think they're getting their issues mixed up. Especially if Lollypop Chainsaw is used as an example.
I guess what I am saying is that having a "strong male" or "strong female" as a protagonist (in the more subtle sense of the word) doesn't guarantee that the game or the character development is of quality anyways.
For instance, the movie Rampage is all about a character with no redeeming quality whatsoever - the shooter is the bad guy, period. That doesn't make the movie any less excellent.
I hope to find that kind of subtleties in games one day too! From what I understand one of the few games to achieve that is Spec Ops - The Line. Gotta check this one out thoroughly one day...
I hope for female (and male!) characters in games to be given this kind of clever treatment more often ; something beyond "look, our good hero is a strong woman" solution.
I'm trying to get your point, but I do think that one of the reasons that the "strong" identifier is a common event is that so many games are about conflict and overcoming great odds through brute-force/acrobatics. It justifies itself as an explanation for the player avatars' competency.
I'm also having trouble understanding how "the bad guy is the bad guy" is subtle. (maybe it's just because I haven't seen the movie.)
I know this thread is running in circles and I hate to spin the wheel but, what was the right way to depict characters again...?
Was in fact your post in jest or a troll? Otherwise if anything, it shows you have some issues and are part of the problem. Your reply is full of stereotypes as your defense.
This totally relates to your question of "what's the right way to depict characters again" : in my opinion, there is no right way and no formula for it (besides the old tired ones of course), that's why I find the "strong women" character clich
Am I right in saying that? This issue is so complex I think I may be wrong in oversimplifying the solution.
And to expect comic books whose target audience are young teens to be works of literature is a bit silly. The main problem I do have with her videos is that she is just making a huge generalization about different stories like it's always a pattern. Why was Green Lantern's wife stuffed in the fridge? Probably because that's the worst thing you could do to him. What was the context? If it was just to make money it was probably a poor decision, since fans would resent the publisher for insulting their intelligence. Kill Bill was a fun set of movies, even though it's a cliche. It's still different. Batman's back was broken to start that series over. DC wanted to get a new bat, Batman fans got pissed and so they brought him back. I thought it was a shitty decision on DC's part since they just had killed Superman and then brought him back. What really matters is the experience you provide. Pretty much every story has been told depending how you look at it. The reality is just because themes are common it doesn't mean they are bad or shouldn't be used, it just means it's real. People, get raped, killed, abused discriminated against everyday. That's reality. People fall in love, they act a certain way when they do. I don't think good writers add elements to a story for money, or just to develop a character, they decide to do it because it makes sense. What I mean by the comment about the developing the character, is I don't think they have a check list as in strong female character got raped, character is developed now she goes and take revenge. I think certain elements are thrown in there because that's how the story goes, in their mind at the time of the writing.
If you actually took the time to read my first post then you realize I'm just saying, I think she is full of shit. You don't have to be sarcastic to come off as intelligent or talk down at people or have snarky remarks. She is just being a trope. Bitching about smurf it when she doesn't know the context of why the creator decided to do that is pretty lame. Maybe Peyo was just criticizing the church for preaching women as the root of all evil. In the 70s a lot of cartoons were written the way they were to criticize the society of the time, which is nothing new.
I think the problem with a lot of things made today is that publishers copy what they think works and they don't understand or care why it worked. Just because Forrest Gump worked as a movie doesn't mean doing something similar would work again. Also just because there have been good movies made about people with disabilities or "feel good" movies are a dime a dozen it doesn't mean we should stop making them. Rain man was a good movie, does that mean Forrest Gump is any less good because of it. I love romantic movies, if they suck they suck, ditto with horror, action and drama. If it has a good story I will enjoy it. The same goes with games, but if the gameplay sucks balls it will piss me off. I won't care if it's the most original thing ever.
While I personally think Anita Sarkeesian is a nice lady, her presentation, examples, and logic is often times stretched a little far. She also isn't very funny, and that rubs people the wrong way too. But that doesn't make what she's trying to say any less valid.
She's just asking for better writing, and better characters that she and others can relate to. She's trying to do what Extra Credits does by bringing up the issue and asking us to transcend to a higher plane of thinking. We can make better games, and the tropes with female characters is perhaps one of the biggest issues we have holding us back.
I'm tired of the industry and gaming community being a boy's club.
Because besides that being patently ridiculous itself, and perilously close to offensive...
...sometimes people want to make simple games with two-dimensional characters. And they should be free to make what they want to make without being berated and bombarded in an attempt to make them feel guilty for not creating solely the kinds of things Ms. Sarkeesian, et al, approve of.
You know, sometimes you just want to play cowboys and indians. Without an exhaustive, meticulously detailed recounting of the entire history of both the native peoples of the North American continent, the European settlers, their clashes and mutual triumphs, and the tragic violent conclusion forced upon both parties by political whims of the budding continental power that was the United States (with a special epilogue describing not only the twilight resistance of the Nez Perce and Apache, but the later resurgence of the American Indian Movement from the 1950s on).
If all we want is to play "indians are attacking the wagon train", we don't need all of that. Is it nice to know? Yeah. Is it important history? Hell yes. Is it all but completely irrelevant to what we WANT to do? Without question.
All we need for what we WANT to make are some cowpunchers with 10 gallon hats and Colt revolvers, and some indians with fast ponies and war paint. Boom. Done.
At this point, if you start lecturing us about not including that giant mouthful of context and history in our deliberately simple scope, you're making yourself look like an idiot and annoying us. The simplicity of what we make is not inherently a malicious statement of racism and oppression. Only somebody who spends their time desperately searching for the next thing to get offended about could possibly find that in it. Please find something else - somewhere else - to launch your next daily crusade.
(cowboys and indians example kindly provided and thumbs-up'd by my native american wife who calls herself indian)
Not derail the thread, but this is something which I kinda saw happen as a debacle not tooooo long ago.
A few sites (one of them is called GoMakeSammich I think? Been a while) argued that the King of Fighters female characters were 'OK' because that is what represented in their culture, especially for the J-Pop costumes.
They argued basically that since in Japan you need to be an open flirty girl with your dress, that having sexy J-Pop outfits is OK and acceptable in any game.
They also argued that since Bayonetta is so over the top, it can be forgiven (this coming out suspiciously around the time it was stated that Bayo's original artwork was made by a woman and not a man), kinda like the same deal with Fat Princess.
At the same time, the it was argued that Chainsaw Lolipop is not OK, since (unlockable costume not withstanding) it had a girl in a Cheerleader costume, and half of her move-set was demeaning to women, which kinda contradicts the entire 'culture habit' side of things.
I'm not trying to start a debate by the way since I'll be damned if I have to sit through another 10 pages, but half of the entire issue here is that everyone wants something that fits their bill at this point, and aren't willing to see the entire picture.
Basically, everyone is cherry picking their issues as they see fit, which is is kinda the opposite of how equality of one medium should be brought up to debate.
Lastly, I would suggest everyone to start rethinking who they think are 'nice people', because last I checked, nice people want to fight for equality, not segregation of male-female genders on stuff like buses, or make jokes about rape and suddenly are redeemed because they made a random video which only furthers the issues in society as opposed to solving them.
I guess you could say Anita and the AmazingAtheist deserve each other.
Really Makkon? Do you realize the entire issue is that even what someone is doing in their privacy is being penalized, right? Not about the 'public product' in question and what the consumer wants?
[ame="
These are the type of people you vouch for? Really Makkon? Do I need to explain to why blatant blindness of supporting people who consider "4chan = Techies" to be not only wrong, but shows gross example of not doing research, and being condescending all the time?
So. All I can say with your overly defensive attitude - as if somehow she is singling out you, not taking what she said in context (example-she mentioned past), and using your SO as your backup/proof versus your arguements alone.
UMAD Bro?
Its hard to take you seriously when you over react and globalize one persons pov (Last paragraph especially telling ).
You have no idea how much of this professional hurt-feelings social justice activist crap my wife and I have had to put up with. Most of it has been somebody waltzing up to us and assuming because of certain ethnic or gender aspects that we intrinsically support their "cause".
And then when we politely inform them that we don't completely agree with what they're doing (or, much more often, how they are going about it... I'm the last person who you're going to find opposing something like gay rights, or equal treatment for men and women in the workplace) we get both goddamn barrels of the full hate-rage-indignation-you-should-be-ashamed-of-yourselves-you-oppressive-privileged-monsters. (It's especially hilarious when somebody comes up and assumes my wife supports something because she's a woman, and then goes after her for "white privilege", and then is informed she is by no means 'white'... hilarious to watch that oftentimes grind things to a screeching halt)
It's ridiculous, it's exhausting, it's aggravating, and the people / groups responsible never seem to get the message and reconsider why somebody could POSSIBLY disagree with them. There's a frustrating dogmatic thread to it that makes their vitriol especially tenacious.
And so I kind of have a short fuze with it nowadays.
When I typed that, I was doing so from the perspective of myself, a number of my friends, a variety of people I know and associate with who share my opinions, but most of all the mental picture frame of a specific experience where my son and myself were happily playing in the park and were rudely accosted by somebody when they realized we were playing cowboys and indians. (Hey, in a family with two native members, it's kind of a popular theme. Grats to my wife for pointing out the incident makes a great example for the prev. post..)
"How could you be so racist and insensitive?" They demanded an explanation, at the top of their lungs, no less. Their goal was to make a scene of it and shame us publicly.
"I'm part indian, my mom is indian", my son told them. "The indians are winning!"
Rather than pulling out their foot, zipping up their mouth and dropping the whole issue, they proceeded to lay into me about indoctrinating my son with oppressive white racist distortions of his own ethnic heritage. They singlehandedly ruined a wonderful day for a father and son with their bullshit. And even when confronted with contradictory facts that completely undermined their accusations, they doubled down because they refused to even consider that somebody's dissenting opinion could possibly be valid.
So, yeah... iMad.
bHadEnoughOfThisPerpetuallyOffendedCrap == TRUE.
Long story short, sometimes an archetype is just an archetype. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Let people play with cardboard characters if that's what they feel like doing. Sometimes it works best for what they want to do. Not every character ever created has to be the most fulfilling and empowering character ever depicted for insert-social-cause-here, and shallow, two-dimensional characters aren't automatically part of some kind of sexist or racist or ageist or whatever culture of discrimination. But most of all, the creators behind them aren't automatically the sort of narrow-minded sexists Ms. Sarkeesian is assuming they are, based on how she interprets and the values her ideology assigns to those archetypes.
$10 says she's never talked at length, directly, to any of the writers or character artists behind the characters she's railing against. Chances are pretty decent she'll be hard pressed to find one honest-to-dog full blown woman-hater amongst them.
If Ms. Sarkeesian stopped and talked to the people behind a lot of those archetypical cardboard cutout characters she's frothing about, she might find that the people who created them are far less sexist than she assumed. But she never got that far, because instead of judging them by the content of their character, she assumed.
You're painting a wide variety of people, many of which have extremely legitimate reasons to express unhappiness, with an incredibly broad stroke.
Just as very few people playing cowboys and indians are trying to indoctrinate anyone or perpetuate racism, very few people talking about equality are reactionary, self-aggrandizing bullies like it sounds like the individual you encountered was.
Maybe.
But when it comes to the specific subset I'm intending to refer to (and I'm probably not delineating that very well, which I take full responsibility for), I have yet to meet any serious exceptions. Maybe one or two. The rest I've encountered fit the mold to a T, sadly.
I desperately hope that's just bad luck on my part, because I really don't want that to be how bad it actually is. And I really, really hope I'm proven wrong as time goes by. I'm crossing my fingers, and I'll be the first one to apologize.
EDIT: Upon further reflection, there's a distinct possibility that my exposure to native american social politics is partially responsible, and I suppose given the sort of unique nature of that, I should reel out a little slack. Having genocidal acts against your people still in living memory can wind people up tight, and I can admit my experiences with that might color my impression of vocal activists from other causes I've bumped into. I'll try and keep that in the back of my mind a little better.
Yeah, so much disappointment from me. I kinda wish I could un-see this thread, but all in all I'm not too surprised that it ended up like every other thread in the video game community that deals with this subject.
I don't know how anyone was expecting to get out of it? (apart from never having seen or posted in the thread.
I mean there is seriously no way that "hey here's an issue that has no direct solution that people may have strong opinions about. Discuss it right here on the internet!" could not cover every aspect of the argument rainbow.
We can't talk about *snip* or *snip* and our workplaces don't let us talk about *snip* and we may as well not even mention *snip* so what can we talk about?
Should we get the moderators to approve topics before they're for wholesome discussion before they're made public, or hey remove GD entirely. Many of us would probably get more work done that way.
I don't know how it could be damaging to the community apart from a few hurt-butts or maybe some over-zealous HR looking for dissenters of opinion. Otherwise this thread has probably done some good: people can make whatever art they want in my opinion but now things should be even more awesome if this discussion now make people at least think about tropes and cliche and stereotype when they do.
I'm only using it as a firsthand-experience example of my dealings with aggressive, vocal social activists (that's my intention, anyway. Apologies if it's coming across differently, wouldn't be the first time). I'm close friends with a very poltiically involved gay rights activist. He's an awesome guy and someone I have immense respect and admiration for, but I don't pretend to try and speak knowledgeably about that field of activism, even though I've watched him working in it now and then. I DO know the social activism and activists I've been personally exposed to, and they've predominantly been native causes. I only bring it up because it's the parallel to this activism issue I can touch on for an example without totally talking out of my butt.
I'm a heterosexual white male. From my past exposures to social ideology debates, especially with the family of ideology Ms. Sarkeesian ascribes to, without some kind of credible connection to the "not-white-hetero-male" side of an issue - ANY issue - my opinion is otherwise pretty much considered worthless on its own.
And that's probably not entirely the truth; I try to remind myself that there are probably numerous people here who are willing to consider what I have to say on its own merits. But in these kinds of discussions over the years, I've been repeatedly taught the hard way (usually at full volume) that my opinion is worthless because I'm the bad guy for being white, male, and hetero and causing all this horrible sexism, or homopobia, or racism, or whatever the topic at hand is. Listen to Ms. Sarkeesian's videos. Count the number of times she speaks disparagingly about or blames "males" or, even better, "heterosexual males" for whatever the specific problem is she's ranting about. I got up to four in one of those videos. Four times in less than five minutes.
Now, if you were regularly on the receiving end of accusations and invectives like that, you'd probably start looking for ways to defend yourself, too, right? Everybody would.
Mine was finding a core flaw in her argument. Break down the belief system her arguments are built on (radical feminism) and it basically states that because of who I was born as, I'm inherently <insert oppressive, discriminatory nature here>. For her, it's sexist. To her I'm sexist because I'm male. Just listen to her own words. She constantly blames males with a massive broad brush. But the flaw in her base ideologies is that somebody can't be both an oppressor and the oppressed (or a supporter of the oppressed). The closest thing I had to shut down her kind of exasperating accusations was my family relationship with people she would think of as oppressed minorities - somebody who was a racist or a sexist or whatever would never MARRY the very people they oppressed, at least in her mind. And it has worked repeatedly with people very similar to her making emotional arguments and mean-spirited accusations that are related to or very similar to hers.
Like I said before, I'm worn out. I'm worn thin from being accused of things I wouldn't allow myself to actually do or be or believe in a million years - things I've spent a lot of energy working against, in fact. But the people who hold those very vocal, very radical beliefs have basically worn me down. I love to talk over and debate these kind of subjects objectively with impartial people precisely because they're so important, but when somebody like Ms. Sarkeesian charges in, agenda spun up, guns blazing and slinging blame and scorn, all I've got energy left for these days is to toss the one thing back at her that I know from experience will get her to stop and just leave me alone.
Look, I just want to make games. I want other people to be free to make the games they want to without feeling judged or guilty or blamed for somehow perpetuating some massive social ill. I don't see prejudices and the propagation of discrimination behind every tree when I look at the creative aspects of a game. I see something created by people who busted their asses and made what they wanted to make (or pretty close). Sometimes that's a pretty shallow, archetype-driven, almost disposable story filled with cardboard-cutout characters. And if they WANT to make that, dammit, they should be free to do it. I know people who have made a game or two like that, and they are the furthest you can possibly get from the kind of people Ms. Sarkeesian would assume based on her readings of their creations. She doesn't even know them or even BOTHER trying to learn who they really are before she goes about judging them at the top of her lungs for everybody to hear.
And on top of being burned out, her doing that really, really rubs me the wrong way.
I'm a white male also, hetero (not that it matters), and I don't see that at all. I do see you as I say, taking this all personally for some reason. I can separate myself from my culture or sex to attempt to see what others mean. Your mention about Native politics does not excuse your pretense here.
Her rants are very specific to a subject and situation. Your rants on here seem to be beyond that into the scope of assumptions about groups of people. I note your previous comment "I have yet to meet any serious exceptions. Maybe one or two. The rest I've encountered fit the mold to a T, sadly.". Some of the things you claim of her, you are doing yourself. In fact lets bring up this older response of yours.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1793276&postcount=733
Above you group a set of people into one and then use that as a reason to ignore the rest (post modernism being as you claim all about the white mans power).
EDIT:
Here is what Postmodernism really is
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1077292/postmodernism