Anita and the Crying Wolf

I know what you’re all thinking: I’m going to do another sexism in gaming blog that you’re all probably tired of seeing. I’m going to be putting out something that you don’t think you need to be told for the millionth time within a few weeks span.

However, while this is about the sexism in gaming issue, this is about the person who jettisoned this into the limelight for the past few weeks. An until now little known YouTube feminist by the name of Anita Sarkeesian who put out a very controversial video entitled Tropes vs. Women in gaming. First video? The “Damsel in Distress” trope.

Before I get anywhere else, let me explain how wrong the usage of that term is in that video. The way she describes the “trope” does not make anything a trope, but rather a cliché. TV Tropes.org has several different tropes used in all forms of entertainment, and those are all things that we enjoy seeing; plot devices that are actually entertaining to see. A cliché, by comparison, is the overused version of a trope; when you get tired of seeing it over and over again. In this sense, this is her describing something that is a cliché to her rather than a trope.

Now that that’s out of the way, you might have noticed how many blogs, posts, and commentaries have been rampant within the past few weeks as opposed to how it was before the video came out. It does bother me to some extent how obsessed we are at the issue right now, but before you label me a sexist or me not wanting to discuss any portion of the sexism in gaming dilemma, let me explain why this is bothersome to me.

For one thing, look who what we’re using as a launching pad for the discussion. This is a video in which the host seemed to get some things both factually wrong (Fox McCloud did NOT replace the female in the game), and twisted both facts and her own rules when it would benefit the viewpoint she wanted to have. Starfox Adventures could be considered a spinoff due to it being a departure from the core gameplay and story of the original two Starfox games. However, while this game was looked at by Anita, another game in the Super Mario franchise was not due to a “no spinoffs count” rule: Super Mario RPG, in which Peach was one of the major reasons Culex, the optional super boss, was beatable (she could even solo that guy if you were good enough with her). She also has the best healing and crowd control abilities in the game. No wonder that the spinoff rule was in effect for that game that didn’t put Peach in the Damsel role for the entire game, and no wonder why she wrote off Super Mario Bros. 2 as not a true Mario game because of its origins (even though Nintendo has treated as such for years now). We’ll excuse Anita for not including Zelda’s Adventure when dealing with that series because…well, who WANTS to be reminded of that disaster?

But it begs the question of why the selective enforcing and cherry picking? Why were the two biggest offenders to her also two of the biggest franchises, and why is the trope itself the target when there are several games that use creative ways to employ the trope while not making the female involved not be what Anita makes them out to be in her video: males’ property that’s stripped of their dignity and strength just for become the game ball for the males to fight over? The matter becomes, in a way, what is she hoping to accomplish. To do this, we have to explore who she is, what she has done to command such attention to her in the first place, and if she has laid such claims down before that have been stripped of their credibility.

Unfortunately, her defenders have made every attempt to not allow such questions to be asked. Any attempt to do so gets you labeled anything in the book. Anything from censoring the discussion of the general subject to you being sexist is employed, and any words are being twisted to mean something detrimental that you’re doing, even if it was never even close to what was said.

But such might be the case with some feminists. There’s a Wiki page devoted to labeling different groups of their detractors ( http://geekfeminism.wikia.c... ), and concern trolls, which I’ve been labeled by a few people on the thread about the video over on NeoGAF ( http://www.neogaf.com/forum... ; I enter the thread at around the 120 page mark) whenever I even mention her name (much less put any amount of criticism about her or her video as a post in the 100+ page thread), is one of them. No getting through to some people involved in this discussion about someone who they’ve made as invincible as Anita has become thanks to her supporters. Thankfully, at least I would hope, the people on N4G would be more sensible, but then again, I think of N4G’s track record, and I find myself crossing my fingers that recent history doesn’t repeat itself.

I won’t comment on the supposed written study she did since I can’t seem to find it now on the internet. Me saying anything about that would be heresy. However, her review on Bayonetta and on some Christmas songs are very well documented, but you’d need to use The Google to find said documents: the actual videos were deleted by Anita. Her TEDxWomen speech made light of despicable comments she received via the Kickstarter page for the series that has now pushed buttons across the gaming map desiring rape and pillage, and even highlighting a “punch the feminist in the face” game that probably wouldn’t have gotten as much attention had she not brought it up. However, said comments wouldn’t have been able to be posted on any other video she made: she disables comments, or heavy moderates them, on each YouTube video she makes for her sponsored page…and this was before she even thought of her Kickstarter project, the only time she didn’t moderate the allowed comments. What’s the problem here, aside from the immaturity of gamers and the inability they have to comment about anything without resorting to such tactics like using prejudices and making personal attacks? It’s that the mainstream gaming community knows there’s an issue with people who choose to wage that kind of war with people who they feel are attacking their hobby. Sadly, such an issue is growing and it’s not being addressed as seriously as I would like, but Anita made it seem like, one, she was the only target of this kind of premeditated attack (just ask Geoff Knightly about those….hell, ask any one of any different race, origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation about what they have gotten from these wastes of life), and two, that she never tried to separate the idiots from those that disagree with her but choose to be civil about it. To her and her supporters, all criticisms of her are the same, it seems, and there’s no way to separate the civil discourse from the lunatics that give the rest of us a bad name and rep. Of course, this is not downplaying the seriousness of the comments in question, but the people who did all of that don’t, or at least shouldn’t, represent the entire gaming community.

And then there’s what this video created. The very freak out (for lack of a better term) about the trope because of this video. The N4G blogs about Peach and Zelda and the sudden outrage over GoW trophy names, among other things, are just small fish in this vast sea right now, and until we understand the situation we could get ourselves into by this mass overload of concern, it’ll become a case of us having burnout over the topic.

This is because we have a serious case of people crying wolf right now. How many things can you find in gaming that could be considered sexist by definition? Now, how many of those things wouldn’t actually offend you had you not tried to find something offensive about them? This is what some people are beginning to do. Scenes from games no one found anything sexist about before are suddenly getting a second look, and this time, we’ve got the fine toothed comb at the ready. We’re picking apart and overanalyzing several scenes, and trying to be offended at something that, when watching it casually before, never gave us any offense. This is simply a matter of if you go watching or reading something looking to be offended, you will be offended. The problem, however, comes from us crying wolf, as the boy did in the Aesop Fable the term came from, too often: people will stop running to the call. In this case, people will stop taking it seriously because they can’t possibly handle the many, many things we’re calling sexist that no one else is. Look at what people think of the Parents Television Council now, or even Jack Thompson. The PTC started to do way too many FCC complaints, and people had way more important things to do with their lives. As for Jack Thompson, we all know where he is now, and how he got there.

And this brings me to the most important aspect that both Anita and everyone who’s blindly shouting sexist at everything they see because of the video. Before we are male and female, we are human beings. We have individual personalities, characteristics, tastes, styles, etc. We all have strengths and weaknesses, things we fear, things we fight for, and things we couldn’t care about. Basically put, these things exists in every one regardless of gender. There are males that are pacifists, and some that are warmongers. There are women who can kick your ass in a heartbeat, while other women are physically weak because they choose to take a different path. Some people like to cover themselves up from head to toe, while others like to bare all if they could. If you rob game developers the ability to define human characteristics in a character they create for a game from fear that they might be branded with whatever hysteria we create, then we not only get a boring game that is not representative of anyone, but a game that has no immersion factor. Part of why we love the new Tomb Raider game is because of how Lara is defined in it. She’s is strong willed (just doesn’t know it yet when you begin the story), but she is human and, because of that, she has the same flaws that you’d expect of any human. We should be careful of not stripping women of dignity, but we shouldn’t go the other way, either, and put all women into a superhuman category (not sure what you’d call it, so bear with me as I try to do the best I can here) that would be sexist, too. Women want to be treated as equal as anyone else. They are not looking to be superior (well, not in the serious sense, anyway), and they are as human as anyone else is.

But if we allow ourselves to get carried away, do the “cry wolf” routine, and make anyone who criticizes certain figureheads of a movement into a label which they have no fair chance to remove from themselves without subscribing to a belief they fundamentally disagree with, we defeat the purpose, and we just give more reason for the darker side of the gaming community to begin to take hold. If a scene or game offends the feminist in you, it should offend you without you trying to find a reason why it would, and no figurehead of any movement is invincible from vetting or criticism, regardless of the ways and means their supporters try to have you believe otherwise.

[DragonKnight]

Excellent blog. And btw, if you want to see her college thesis, here is a video discussing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

And Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[caseh]

Well that was an eye opener, thanks for the links. I wasn't aware of half this stuff but if I had to summarise these videos in a sentence (or two):

Anita has effectively drawn enough attention to herself to justify a Kickstarter project that would pay for her to re-hash the same videos and topics she has covered in the past.

I'd honestly feel ashamed of myself if I had contributed money to that kickstarter then seen these videos afterwards. Anita has clearly made a LOT money from this.

[DragonKnight]

She's a business woman, she knows how to manipulate people and events to her advantage. I wouldn't even be surprised if she has no actual opinion on actual feminism.

[coolbeans]

I don't mean to act pedantic about a portion of the blog that's really irrelevant compared to the body of the blog itself, but...the "let me explain how wrong the usage of that term [trope] is in that video" part isn't exactly correct.

This is directly from TVtropes.org (the site you mention): "...'trope' has the even more general meaning of a pattern in storytelling, not only within the media works themselves, but also in related aspects such as the behind-the-scenes aspects of creation, the technical features of a medium, and the fan experience."

Regardless, fine blog if a bit...cliché. :P

[JD_Shadow]

I was going on the front page's definition:

"Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them."

[coolbeans]

Look at the "behind-the-scenes" portion of my first post and recall her using the 'damsal in distress' video to point out how Fox McCloud eventually became the protagonist instead of Krystal for one of Rare's games (with the name changed from Dinosaur Planet to Star Fox Adventures), a decision suggested by Miyamoto when he was looking at the project.

http://www.ign.com/blogs/ga...

[zerocrossing]

Even if Anita where to point out any genuine problems that do need to addressed in regards to the representation of women in video games, the fact that she chooses to censor her video comments and avoid any criticism has lost her any credibility outside of her loyal but overly biased supporters.

You're very right that it's possible to point out negatives in games if you're looking to find them, but it honestly does beg the question as to why she is so intent on doing so, is there really that big of a problem and the fact we are men is getting in the way of seeing it? or better yet "what does Anita hope to gain from all of this?" I wouldn't like to guess honestly because I'd end up looking as petty, blind and biased as she does... which is a shame really since I would of genuinly liked to debate with Anita over many of her arguements she has stated.

Anyway excellent blog, an enjoyable read :)

[admiralvic]

I always got the impression that wants "equality", but in a way that isn't exactly equal. Like anyone can make anything offensive if they try hard enough, but at the end people need to pick and choose battles. In a lot of ways her arguments can be downplayed by simply looking at said franchises.

Peach is in virtually every Mario sport game, was playable in the RPG, had her own spin where she rescues the men no less and isn't even immune from toughing it out with other legends in Smash Bros.

Zelda features a similar history and isn't someone defined by simply the girl you save. A lot of people remember her as Shiek (in one of the, if not the most popular Zelda), plus she also gets the honor of fighting it out in Smash Bros.

In a lot of ways I feel sorry for her, since a lot of people expect a LOT more after all the money and time she had to do this video (and later videos). Clearly her opinions aren't well rounded and the issue is not even an issue in most blogs, just various people explaining how she is wrong. I think the worst part is that even if she read said blogs / posts about her, I sincerely doubt (and it pains me to say this) she would read it as more than a man supporting sexism to oppress her.

[InTheLab]

She chooses to censor her video comments because not everyone can have a sensible argument with calling her foul names and attacking her personally.

If you know who she is, then you know why she is famous. Not for her work, but how she was basically cyber bullied by millions of closed minded individuals.

[zerocrossing]

Really? There are other methods of communication you know? heck she could organise a non biased debate instead of those silly vids.

Anite just wants to pose her opinion and have everyone accept it as fact, if she can't accept legitimate criticism then she obviously doesn't feel her views are valid or hold any real weight, or is everyone who disagrees with her sexist, anti feminist who just want to oppress women?

Im not saying she doesn't have a point but her genuine concerns loose credibility when they're over shadowed by the mountains of biased lies and misinformation she's creating.

[admiralvic]

Millions of people took the time to attack her? You make it sound like she's some infamous celebrity that everyone knows of, when she's a very bias individual that most people never heard of past all these articles.

Ultimately she's bring a confrontational topic (really topics) to the table and getting just that, conflict. The second you close yourself off from the other side (even if you're just avoiding idiots, which can be answered with removing their comments), you instantly give up all your creditability and even lowers your overall impact. I honestly believe she simply doesn't want to answer any question that questions her, since you can attack her in plenty of simple arguments. Like Super Princess Peach being about Peach (girl) saving Mario and crew (men).

[InTheLab]

You guys are in denial and a prime example of why blogs of this type are pointless to he overall discussion. You see what you want to see instead of what is.

Here's one from something other than FemenistsFrequency..
http://www.dailydot.com/cul...

Dtoid
http://www.destructoid.com/...

Here's one on why she disabled comments..
http://www.dailydot.com/soc...

I could go on but all of you have google and you're, presumably, not stupid. IGN, 1UP, Kotaku, etc...all did a piece on the attacks.

So some of you may have valid points but you're drowned out by the fools that threaten her with rape and violence, call her all sorts of anti-Semitic slurs, or childishly deface her web site and wiki. And you expect her to go through that again?

I don't agree with everything she says, but I do agree that out industry needs to take a deeper look at some of this issues like Women in games as well as the portrayal of minorities. But there's a large group of so called gamers who never question the status quo because they are young white males who are unaffected by issues of racism or sexism.

[SilentNegotiator]

No! Stop giving her attention, darn you!

[zerocrossing]

I can't argue with you there.

[SilentNegotiator]

Every time I see her mentioned, I'm all like
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Christopher]

***But it begs the question of why the selective enforcing and cherry picking?***

The irony is strong here.

[Bimkoblerutso]

Yeah, I agree with you there.

I'm as tired of reading anti-feminists responding to EVERY MENTION OF GIRLS IN GAMING as I am of reading feminists getting pissed off for the same reason.

[majiebeast]

If the people who attacked her in the first place didnt do that, we wouldnt have these trope videos. She put herself perfectly in the victim role and people came running to give her money pretty genius.

[DragonKnight]

She was going to make the videos regardless of the attacks. The attacks just helped her make more money.

[OmniSlashPT]

The attacks made her popular, she made herself a target in order to get attacked, then she used that in her favour and her 'cause'. She wouldnt get that much money and 'popularity' if she didnt had all those headlines due the the internet trolls and the 'attacks'.

She has gathered her audience and 'fans', besides she gathered more than 150k for a video series (where did that money go? lol).

And for someone that defends equality and feminism and talks about the 'damsel in distress', she did the exact same thing, making her the damsel, weak against the hate and that could only be saved by having her kickstarter founded in order to fight against those trolls. Absolutely ridiculous.

I want her to talk to Miyamoto about the tropes and all the criticism she has against his games, that would be a good discussion instead of talking to herself and disabling comments and further discussing.

[DragonKnight]

She'll never talk to the developers about any of her tripe. She isn't interested in discussion, she's interested in slander, misinformation, and misrepresentation. It isn't even about feminism for her, it's about business.

[JD_Shadow]

She did mention in that conference that she did meet with a few of them (Bungie, for instance). Not sure what came of that (I heard they made something as a result). So yeah, she's at least CLAIMING that some meetings happened, or at least invitations did go out...though judging from the misinformation she gave all of us in the video, I wouldn't be surprised if she wasn't spouting off then, too.

[ShaunCameron]

@ InTheLab

LOL @ Anita being sensible enough to argue with. She chose to censor the video comments because because she wanted her otherwise flawed (and rather easy to refute) claims to be accepted as fact without any questions. Not much different from the typical progressive in the face of reality, nature and history.

I wouldn't call the millions that saw through her facade and called it out for what it really was "closed-minded". If anything the only "closed-minded" individuals were those that blindly jumped to her defense under the guise of chivalry and gave her $160 000.

[smashcrashbash]

I would like to point out that people are still hiding behind certain things to deny the sexism that goes on with women.Maybe some of the things she said were questionable but the fact remains that people still don't take the female role seriously.First of all Princess Peach.People keep harping on about she was in games like Mario Kart and Mario Tennis but those are outside the main franchise.That makes it like it is okay for Peach to be independent as long as there is no real danger like Mario and Luigi put themselves in constantly.and even when she is put in a platformer she still takes a secondary role or is in a game that holds no importance. Remember in Super Mario 2 she was only used because they needed an extra character and not to empower Peach.Even in her own game it just boiled down to Peach using her emotions instead of just being like Mario and Luigi.Why couldn't she just run and jump like them instead of using umbrella's and emotions? Even in Paper Mario she took back seat for a lot of the game. We all know Zelda was Shiek but in the end she was captured again as per usual.Not sure why people always think that Zelda should always be incapacitated or take the role of information giver or simply be there to strike the final blow against Ganon.She has a Triforce, can fight with a bow and arrow and probably could go on a quest to kill Ganon on her own. But is always reduced to having to wait for Link to do it despite her having her name in the title for years.

And Lara is already established as a strong woman.We got that a long time ago. But we need more then just her and Samus.People just keep using them as shields to fend off the claims of sexist behavior just like people claim 'I am not racist, I have at least one black friend' as if that exonerates you from accusation.We all know that women in games have some strong roles but many time these things are negated when they are put into simply being put into secondary roles or on the side lines instead of being more involved or taking the lead role.I was talking to some people about having a female in GTA and people went ballistic making a ton of weak excuses why that would be bad.

You see if you still have such negative feelings about the female gender taking a more active role in games and take offense when people mention it then we haven't advanced as far forward as people seem to think we have.If a race or gender is trying to be treated equally and you still find it strange or try to dictate the roles they are in and limit them then we haven't advanced that much at all.You are doing like many people do with many races and genders.You give them a little acknowledgement and get enraged if they want any thing better or higher.Up to this day Lara and Samus are the only women who people are comfortable with taking the leading role or fighting directly and as well as any guy could.Anything besides them gets low sales or difficulty to pitch.When Zelda gets her own game or female roles are taken seriously in FPS and games like GTA. We are talking about what is usually done with the female role in gaming and what needs to change not what this woman's ulterior motives were.You are using it as an excuse to skirt the real issues.

[admiralvic]

One of the problems with this debate is how many shades of grey there actually are. Take your Peach remarks, you could read them that way and you could read them as Nintendo not trying to change what works (a problem MANY games suffer from and many others suffer from changing too much), or you could look in context of the Japanese culture, which look down on women. Most of these debates just show that not everyone feels the same way and in some cases seem short sighted. Like Anita is probably targeting westerners where sexism isn't as bad, but is doing it with Japanese examples. I could get into a long explanation of how sexist Japan actually is and how Nintendo is most likely targeting Japanese gamers, so a lot of these choices fall within their cultural norms, but I would do that in the form of my own editorial.

As far as the rest of it goes, I believe a big part of the problem is infact on Anita, as she seems to be limited to simply pointing out the problems. Perhaps if she had better examples, gave some options to resolve this so BOTH parties are happy (sorry, but saying Women can't be captured just limits story telling, so at least meet us halfway) or anything in this ball field would be better. There are plenty of things I thought would be a stupid idea, yet someone gave a strong debate for and was pleasantly surprised.

[smashcrashbash]

You see that is where people get it wrong.I am not saying that women CANNOT be captured.I mam vying for both sides to get captured equally.The fact that people, even western people, seem to be against the fact that women should take a more active role in gaming is what needs to change. Maybe in Japan that is more apparent but the resent uproar I heard from people when anyone suggested that a female should be a protagonist in GTA shows that we have it to some extent.I will admit there are a few holes in Anita's theory and she could have voiced a few solutions to the problem but many people don't want to hear about the way females are treated in games whether you make good points or not.

Like someone above mentioning what happened to the last game that starred Zelda and how it failed. Yeah it did because it was a badly made piece of crap.So now we have more modern ideas we should try again and this time with true effort to make it work and be done well.She didn't make every point clear but I have a feeling that much of the anger towards her stems from people being insulted and over sensitive whenever anyone points out things like this.Princess Peach being the ball or object to keep from the villain is a very accurate summation of her usual situation but many people don't want to think that it is possible that someone could be purposefully being sexist while throwing you a bone every now and again like Super Princess Peach to keep you off their backs.

I don't think everyone thinks like this or every developer does the whole no female protagonist thing on purpose and many times it is because of sales or preferences by gamers.But it is partly our fault as well because we accept it or say 'it doesn't matter'. And despite saying things like race or gender not mattering people are still adamant about any attempt to change the norm.Maybe Anita and many of her misguided followers are not the best example of the solution but we have to give some effort on our side too and not attack every attempt to change the situation so all parties are equal in value.All media are changing and allowing all races and genders to be an active part in stories instead of just being on the side lines or as minor characters or just simply the trophy at the end of the story. We should be doing the same.

Also I can bet my head that the anger aimed at Anita is not only because her points were not as clear as they should have been.I am certain a portion of it was from her questioning the role of a woman in games as opposed to a man. And that anger would have been there whether she made good points or not.Many people don't want to look at themselves and think they could have been taught to think in a sexist way.No one wants to admit that they are bias, sexist or racist even if it wasn't intentional.People were already chomping at the bit ready to say 'Get back to the kitchen you angry woman we are not sexist.Don't you EVER say that!' instead of 'We see what you are trying to say but here is what I disagree with' and give solutions and alternate points

[TongkatAli]

Tips to the Nintendo fans that messed up, don't send a female wannabe activist death threats and "go in the kitchen and make me a sandwich comments" and you wouldn't not have have made a rich women, fail.

[Alos88]

The sad thing was that she almost didn't have to make a video; she could have just said "I'm about to talk about sexism in videogames, read the comments for this video to see what the problem is."
I think the biggest problem is that for every intelligent person that took issue with her video, there were a hundred idiots ready to spout abuse at her for even daring to bring it up. The people with valid complaints were drowned in a sea of angry stupid people.

[JD_Shadow]

I don't think anyone who is criticizing her civilly have condoned those comments. We all know there are asshats, and we deal with them making the rest of us look just as bad every day.

The problem comes in if she knew she would get a certain response going in and actively solicited such responses in the hopes that she can get sympathy from the rest of us for it. She was going to make the videos anyway, as someone said, so it wasn't as if anyone were going to stop her. However, she had restricted comments on her YouTube channel before that occurred, so no one can really say that was the only reason. So why was Kickstarter the exception to this rule? Didn't KS have any means to restrict or monitor comments? She was well aware of the things people said about the internet (she even brings up the common phrases in the TED conference, which makes me think she knew she would get comments like that before she opened the flood gates), so why was it different that time? It was like she knew people wanted to get their proverbial licks in on her, and she was picking the fight and was daring people to say their worst to her, and people bit. This is not saying that they should have, or that they shouldn't be reprimanded, but that doesn't mean that every person who has an issue of how she does business is going to elect to engage in that kind of behavior. Plus, her gender was just the easy thing to target. If she was black, then you might've seen several racial epithets. If she was a lesbian, then homophobia. The minority epithets are always the easiest thing to troll with, and that's always where it'll go because it's, again, too easy to do.

But this doesn't mean that she's immune to any criticism. No one should say that questioning if she did her homework when talking about feminism topics means that the problems she brought up don't exists. We know about how gender differences are played up too much, or how females are degraded into some of the worst roles sometimes. This is far from a new discussion, and it deserves highlighting. But in doing so, evidence has got to be accurate and prove your point without you trying to twist the story and enforce certain rules only when it benefits your cause. And dissenters have to be listened to, as well, and not be dismissed as concern trolls and whatnot.

Questioning her credibility means questioning if she has done her homework on the evidence she presents in her video, not if a pressing issue in gaming she's trying to prove with said evidence exists.

EDIT (SO I DON'T USE UP AN EXTRA BUBBLE): I think this is the most comments I've ever gotten for one of my blogs. Even if you don't agree with my assessment on Anita, thank you all for the debate and for showing me that I've made people pay attention.

[Theo1130]

I'm almost convinced that 99% of male gamers hate women for some reason.

[ShaunCameron]

Actually they don't hate women. They're just not putting them on the pedestal while claiming gender equality like a lot of apologists on this board, treating them for the equals they really are. And they're certainly not impressed with what's passed off as gender equality, which in truth and reality is blatant favoritism just because they were born female.

I hate to break it to people, but equality is a flawed ideal based on envy and ego that only those with delusions of grandeur, some serious entitlement issues and/or just plain don't measure up believe in.

[Conquerbeard]

Thanks for the chuckles, chum - so, the gay rights and civil rights movements were based on envy, ego, and entitlement? Gotcha.

[JD_Shadow]

Not all people within a movement are doing it out of sheer goodwill. I do mention individuality. There are, unfortunately, straw activists that will piggyback a movement only to get famous and not once actually believe what they say they're for. Gay activists, for instance, did not like Queer Nation's style of activism when they began.

Many believe Anita to be a straw activist.

[Deadpool616]

According to this video, 99% of male gamers hate zombies.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Theo1130]

Zombies and Women? Geez, you guys don't like anything.

[Ravenor]

Good god, it's always the same people with the same feeble crap.

No Super Mario didn't secretly train me to think women are fucking objects. I don't base my buying habits on the gender of the main character and I couldn't care less about what my objective within the game is as long as it makes sense within the context of the story.

Everyone always forgets all about the Resident Evil ladies, everyone always forgets Regina from Dino Crisis, everyone leaves out Zelda's role as Sheik, Anya, Mona Sax, Jade, Chell, Alyx Vance, my dear Jane Shepherd, April Ryan, Nariko, Meryl. Why are these all forgotten?

My biggest issue with the whole discussion is how it whitewashes every white male/male as the same. The truth is, we fucking aren't the same. I would never in a billion years ever threaten Anita with violence or sexual assault, such behaviour is abhorrent. Yet I will not allow her to freely talk down to every person who grew up playing Mario, as some kind of secret misogynist. That's insane.

I have many female friends who love the Mario and Zelda series, I have many female friends and even a sibling who love the action and shooter genre's and have never once heard them complain about how they don't have female characters in CoD or Counter Strikes multiplayer.

Now that I am thinking about it, I don't even know why Anita would meet Bungie since they have had female Marines since the second Halo game, and the female voice and model for MP in the third game (Not sure if it was there for the second) as well as the series having a Jennifer Hale voiced Sarah Palmer in Halo 4.

The issue with the violently opposed is they felt this way seperated from games, they are sexist or racist outside of games. Nothing about the portrayal of women or minorities in video games makes someone feel and say the things certain people in the community say. To say that video games influenced these people, is to apologize for their views and that's far more dangerous than Mario saving Peach.

[Ravenor]

use your words

[Blacklash93]

In my time, we ignored people we didn't agree and whose minds proved they could not be changed. It's an ultimately pointless effort.

I'm not a fan of a lot of what she says and same goes for some voicing against her, but this Tropes project is harmless and its being made to be waaaay more of a deal than it's worth. Who cares? If she want to cry wolf, let her. It doesn't mean we have to listen.

The militancy on display here is ridiculous. The only things more annoying than listening to her is reading the comments sections of these articles and blogs on N4G. This isn't discussion, it's redundancy.

[unworthyBOZO]

Great read :)

[whamlollypop7]

Only land owning white males should be allowed to game. Problem solved.