You know, I think I'm seeing this everywhere far too much, and I'm not even looking for it. Today, Anita Sarkeesian released her first Tropes vs. Women in Video Games video on Damsels in Distress. It's about 25 minutes of incoherent tripe, erroneous factoids, some french thrown in to make herself look cultured, and a continuation of the anti-love/anti-sex/anti-women- wanting-to-be-with-the-man-the y -love attitude that she's always had. She disabled ratings and comments on the video because, although she claims she's all about discussion, she's against being proven wrong and prevents anyone from being able to do that as much as she can. If you feel like facepalming eternally, then go ahead and click the proceeding link.
http://youtu.be/X6p5AZp7r_Q
Watching that video really induced some serious rage within me. I was fully ready to make a blog post dismantling every single word she said to expose her as the ignorant, hate mongering, opportunist she really is. But in all honesty, that is a huge undertaking that requires more energy than I'm willing to expend at the moment.
Instead, I turn my attention to Adam Sessler's review of God of War: Ascension. Towards the end of the review, Adam turns on White Knight mode when Kratos beats down on a Fury, steps on her head which crushes it, and a trophy that says "Bros before Hos" pops up. Adam spews off the feminist buzzword "mysogyny" (and of course misuses it) when referencing this particular trophy, and a war erupts in the comment section of his video. Sides are drawn between the White Knights and the "It's just a joke"/"It's just a trophy" crowd. This trophy is being linked to all manner of hate, from racism against Africans and Jews, to homophobia as the very descriptive nature of the Internet is used as a weapon in this war.
I thought it was only there that this was happening, but nope. A cursory glance on google turns up a multiple of "a change is needed" articles about how misogynistic God of War: Ascension is just because of a frickin' trophy and thousands of Politically Correct fools who take things WAY too seriously. God of War is actually relatively absent of gender inequality. Kratos is an indiscriminate killer, and he faces many female adversaries and even the goddesses/female titans themselves. But that's not apparently the problem. A trophy is the problem. A kilobyte of lights that has a saying so old it's become a cultural cliche of frathouses and "thugs" is what is being used as the banner for this war.
You want to know the absolute best part of this? Most of the fighting is happening between men. Women are barely discussing this at all.
See, this is why games and social issues should be separate. Games should be allowed the freedom of expression that many cultures enjoy. And people need to stop taking everything so literally and seriously in life. The eventual arguments of "you can't say that because you don't know... blah blah blah" are going to come up, but to that I say this. What good has this "movement" done for the world lately? Because all I can see is constant fighting, misinformation, misrepresentation, and focus being placed in the wrong area. There shouldn't be a movement whose goal is "equal rights with no responsibility" and it damn well should not seep into games.
Frickin' lighten up people. It's a goddamn trophy alright.
And for the last time, misogyny is a profound hatred or distrust of women, alright? Hatred or distrust. It's not a woman in a bikini being looked at by men. It's not Princess Peach being rescued by Mario. It's not a trophy name. It's hatred. Hatred is a strong word backed by strong actions. You want to know hatred? Auschwitz was hatred. Slavery was hatred. A trophy name isn't hatred. If you're going to use such a polarizing and damaging term, use it correctly.
Alone in the Dark developer Pieces Interactive has been hit with layoffs a month after its release, as per the latest information.
That genuinely, genuinely sucks. The reboot has clear flaws, but it really felt like a solid first step for this team to receive *greater* investment.
Venturing into a post-apocalyptic world, Bandai Namco resurrects the forgotten treasure, Sand Land: will it capture the magic of the Manga?
I enjoyed the demo so I'll be picking this up. The gameplay made me think of Metal Max Xeno so it sold me on it.
After the release of the horrid avatar update, Pokémon GO fans are trying to get items refunded. This has led to some getting threats of being banned.
This is what's going on.
http://s214.beta.photobucke...
I watched that video and ugh... I really wish I hadn't, she's just hate mongering and spreading misinformation that's being hidden behind carefully crafted words of concern and understanding, I would love to have a debate with her over all of this but I fear it would be a waste of my time since a resolution to all of this isn't really what she is after.
We all know games aren't perfect and yes there are some feminist issues that need to be addressed but let's not pretend it's causing any real harm or enforcing any negative viewpoints towards women's, I can honestly say It hasn't effected me negatively in that respect anyway.
I love playing Mario and Zelda games and I have never seen Peach or Zelda as simply an object that needed saving, I see them both as the most important characters in their respective games, that absolutely must be rescued because the lands and people they rule over simply cannot do without them, it may harken back to an old over used plot device but heck one of these main female characters actually has her name in the title of every game! in such a way it actually makes pretty much every Zelda games story focus much more about Zelda than it does even Link, I never once heard "Anita Sarkeesian" address that, probably because it would be a great disservice to her attempts to wrongly label these games as being misogynistic.
Anyway nice article and good food for thought, IMO.
While I do think there are gender issues that need to be sorted, I think the story behind this video is pretty lame.
She takes thousands of dollars. Disappears for 9 months. Results in a video containing things that we've all largely been saying for years.
And why did she get thousands of dollars or even a modicum of attention? Because nasty internet men were being mean to her.
If she really believed in what she's pedaling, she'd donate a little of that money to charity, or give it back to people who paid for the series.
So they dont wanna be treated as damsel in distress but they cant be torn to shreds by Kratos either? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Im so sick of feminist/mangina's that bitch and moan how women should be treated equal then whine when a female character gets ripped to shreds. Should i go bitch that Lara Croft only kills dudes?
Its like those women on twitch/youtube they have a boob cam and cleavage thats almost spilling out, but when you comment about it they get offended.
I wasted my time watching 2 min of that video......