If Bayonetta were an actual person, then it would make sense to proclaim that her sexuality is a choice and that she’s an empowering female figure. But she’s not a real woman. …When looking at fictional characters like Bayonetta, you can’t disregard the creator.
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“So. Bayonetta is a sexy character who technically goes around naked designed by a guy who is pretty sexist and coded by a studio of men who are all spending their time thinking about the types of sexy moves they want to see Bayonetta do. This for me is the biggest nail in the coffin.”
Bayonetta and the Male Gaze « Go Make Me a Sandwich
(via theoppositeofstupid)
This is an unfortunate title (and not entirely accurate, as it talks about individual gamers as much as the “industry”), but this is still a good snapshot of the current state of sexism in videogame culture as a whole.
Please check out this very funny (and obviously satirical) post that tries to give you ladies the information you will need to get into the very male world of the modern FPS genre.
I don’t know if rape jokes encourage rape culture. I don’t care. You still shouldn’t tell them.
Statistically, if you have told a rape joke to a group of more than five people, one of the people you told it to was a rape survivor, possibly of multiple rapes. They will not necessarily disclose this to you; rape apologism is endemic in society and most rape survivors are cautious about whom they tell. Some may even be too ashamed of their rape to admit it to anyone, or because of rape-minimizing narratives like “men can’t be raped” and “I consented to oral, so I couldn’t have been raped” may not admit it even to themselves. The fact remains: if you’ve told dozens of rape jokes in your life, then you have almost certainly told a joke that minimizes or trivializes rape in front of a survivor.
And if you put as your Facebook status “I totally raped at Halo today” for your two hundred Facebook friends to see, statistically, you have just reminded thirty-three people of one of the worst experiences of their entire lives.
To describe how well you did at a video game.
Good job!
Can’t remember if I’ve posted this before, but either way, it bears repeating.
(Source: rebel-against)
Lately, I’ve seen a lot of complaints against male gamers, especially in WoW and SWTOR and it’s really pissing me off! It’s like all guys are suddenly awful stalkers and horrible monsters who just want to see tits for loot, and don’t even realize that dudes who get sucked into this by one guild…
Oh boy. A new “mens’ rights/misandry” Tumblr has popped up, and the first post is about gaming. In case the title of the blog (“Fight Female Privilege”) didn’t tell you all you need to know, let me break down this first post for you.
The guy basically says that he’s sick of women complaining that guys in gaming communities are assholes. He then goes on to explain how women in World of Warcraft and similar games use their sexuality (“she’s e-sucking the GM’s dick) to get loot/gold/whatever people play these games for, implying that women can’t play these games well on their own, but must rely on their tits to get guys to do it for them.
And finally, without even the hint of irony, he complains that “bitches” aren’t interested in talking to him, because they think he might be a bad guy. Gee, I can’t imagine why. This lack of self-awareness is almost impressive.
A few months ago, if you were to search the tag “gamer girl” (or “girl gamer” or “gamergirl”), all you would see is an avalanche of photos of naked girls holding some kind of controller or other bit of game paraphernalia.
Now, if you search those same tags, you find almost none of that, replaced with pages and pages of people saying what horrible people those girls are, what sluts they must be, and how they could never be “real” gamers.
This is not what I would call “progress.”
For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of white privilege, shieldxmaiden provided me with this link to a little paper on the subject. There exists TONS of material on the subject, but it’s a good place to start.
I do hate stereotypes, portraying people in the wrong way and so on. But as my tutor told me, it only becomes an issue when people bring attention to it. Resident Evil 5 wasn't racist until someone said it was. A mature audience will understand that not all minorities are represented. Does Japanese games all include Muslims? Of course not and why should they. If issues like this are affecting the design process then it is not true creative freedom and I think that is sad :)
Anonymous
Racism is only an issue when someone talks about it? I don’t even know how to respond to that.
As for your comment about inclusion of muslims in “all” Japanese games, that is a fallacy. NOBODY is asking for every game to contain every race/gender/religion or any similarly silly idea. People just want games to be a reasonable reflection of the culture in which they exist. If an alien civilization tried to judge the world by movies, we might seem far more attractive and interesting than we really are, but they would see all different kinds of people doing all different kinds of things. If that same civilization tried to understand humans based on videogames, they would get the idea that we are a race of generically handsome, brown-haired, 30-something white men, who occasionally run into large-breasted nymphos and dark-skinned psychopaths.
Once again, you seem to think that developers are going to be pressured to include gay characters (or something) to the detriment of the design and the artistic intent. That’s simply not the case. As it stands, most decent developers want to include a more diverse cast of characters, but can’t because 1) they believe they might not do those characters justice and offend people, or 2) the big publishers are scared these games won’t sell well enough, and they put a stop to it.
So, instead of new IPs with diverse characters and interesting narratives, we get the same Call of Duty and Madden games we’ve been getting every year for decades. Do you really want to be a designer who pumps out the same sequels over and over again? Or would you like to be doing new, interesting, dynamic things that have never been done before?
Let me just close by saying this: having reasonable, non-stereotypical representations of all different kinds of people in games harms exactly NO ONE, and is key for pushing the medium forward into the mainstream respectability and cultural importance it has always deserved.
Thanks for giving a reply, but you misunderstand. I appreciate all the work that has gone into a game, all the processes, decisions and the teams behind them. What I meant by looking into them too much though, is the social implications of games. By looking at how things may cause offence to some communities, worrying about hitting certain criteria to keep people happy just goes against what games are about - fun, they should be an expression, not something manufactured for the masses.
Anonymous
I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are a straight white male. So am I. We are so privileged that our privilege has become invisible to many of us, such that we see the attempts by so-called “minority” or marginalized groups to gain some small semblance of representation in the media as some sort of “affirmative action.” That’s pathetic. There should be balanced and nuanced characters in games that happen to be black, women, gay, and so on not because we need to “keep people happy” (to do what, prevent lawsuits or protests?) but because that’s how you tell good, interesting stories.
Do you really not see anything at all wrong with the fact that 99% of all videogame protagonists are straight white men, and that women are all overly sexualized, gay characters are fetishized, and black characters are always angry, swearing stereotypes? Does that not strike you as odd? Look at any other medium (television, film, books, theatre) and tell me if that would fly. If every book you ever read was about a bunch of white guys, scantily-clad nymphomaniacs and guys who talked like Mr. T in the 80s, you would think it was insane. But because these are “just games” that are meant to be “fun” you don’t care, and that is the exact wrong attitude to have.
Because these are not “just games” - these are interactive art. Yes, most games are supposed to be entertaining, but there is nothing incompatible about entertainment and social awareness. If having a female character in your game with some clothes on, or a black character who actually speaks in complete sentences somehow infringes on your enjoyment of the game, there is something seriously wrong with you, not with those of us looking into these issues.
Interesting read… I think a further exploration of this theme in gaming is needed.
This article is in response to the fact (unknown to me before this) that the infamous Pyramid Head rape scene was removed from the HD version of Silent Hill 2. The article discusses how rape has been shown in games in the past, and also how language of sexual violence continues in gamer culture today. Here’s a quote:
Saying that you “raped” the other team, or “raped” a dungeon is not only disgusting, but also horribly crippling for a medium that is trying to get itself taken seriously. Just because you’re online and not going to get your teeth knocked in for saying you raped someone’s mother doesn’t mean you should feel free to say it.
Because I know SOMEBODY will bring this up: obviously, there are still differences in what we societally see as gendered clothing, and some things would look more ridiculous on a man but less so on a woman, but that becomes irrelevant if we’re talking heroic or military clothing (or space suits, or battle suits, or uniforms, or etc.)
The above still illustrates a great point, though. If it makes no sense for men to fight in, it makes no sense for women. We’re not going clubbing here.
I especially like the random thong straps because they seem to show up so much (Michael Turner seemed to draw them in on every woman he could, as if they were just a natural part of a woman’s body xD )
(Source: feminishblog)
This article over on the Border House site addresses the “concerns” some male gamers have with killing female “grunt” enemies. The author argues that disallowing regular female enemies is sexist, as is the oversexualization of the few special female enemies in games.
i would agree with you in so much as i don't think that the 12 year olds on COD servers give a shit about gaming's image. However, if we take a look at that whole tekken x sf fiasco, i think a majority in that community wants to have a more mainstream audience (otherwise why stream the events), but they aren't willing to let go of the misogyny that is so extraneous to the game. It's really paradoxical, "we want to be taken seriously, but we also want to continue to ostracize women"
Yeah, I didn’t think about those guys (because I usually try not to), but they might be an exception. You may be right about them streaming to get a bigger audience, but then again, I’m not sure any “mainstream” audiences are going to watch a gaming competition online. So they may not be interested in a wider audience, but instead just broadcasting their niche misogynist shit to other niche misogynist shits.
This is one writer’s response to a GDC talk on “women in games” initiatives - specifically one that tries to put together all-female developing teams. As the title suggests, the author appreciates the idea, but also sees the problems with this type of solution. And I basically agree.
About Hyrule Chozo
