2013-05-29, 01:25 PM
Kabanaw Wrote:The problem is that you see the tropes of women being used as token storytelling tools, some of which involve brutalizing women, and say that that's appealing. Why the pineapple is that appealing?! What is god damn appealing about seeing a defenseless woman get tortured?
These tropes aren't going to make gamers of any intelligence level change their perception of women because this is already how society thinks of women. A lot of men going out to bars think that getting a woman in bed so they can get laid is the ultimate prize. A lot of people on the internet think that because they are nice to a girl, they deserve the girl. Video game tropes aren't building the subconscious idea that women are a prize, possession or a tool because that's already there.
This, 100%. These tropes in video games aren't single-handedly creating a dominant male power structure in society that institutionalizes sexism, but contribute to it by perpetuating . In essence this is also the response to your long-winded essay, Harrison (because I'm pretty sure that's who you are), as sure, Ted Bundy, O.J. Simpson, etc. didn't directly commit violence against women due to playing video games (I mean hello Anita even mentions this by saying: "We typically don't have a monkey-see, monkey-do cause and effect relationship with the media we consume."), but that doesn't mean the incessant use of these tropes doesn't subtly contribute to a great societal view of women as . That kind of assumption, my friend, is a logical fallacy - as you should know.
Also Harrison, calm your tits about people reading your lengthy rhetoric. I didn't address it in my post above because you hadn't finished writing it by the time I logged off the site. So relax, bro.
Razmos Wrote:So yeah, it's lazy storytelling and it makes it hard for writers to create female characters without disempowering them or empowering them too much and making them seem like a "pro-girl power" Buffy/Firefly deal.
That's the frustration with this point. Because women as a gender as so consistently typecast into certain flat roles/tropes in narratives, our cultural conscious can't view actually dynamic, complex female characters as a fictional representation of a normal reality, but as, like Razmos said, someone "pro-girl power." Even then they lose their identity as an individual and are written off as an attempt to push a feminist agenda, or some other nonsense.
These issues are, of course, not limited solely to women, but exist with any identity as tropes and stereotypes serve to perpetuate institutionalized bigotry. For example, Asian-American actresses at the turn of the 20th century were almost always cast in one of two "roles": (a) the damsel in distress (oh look it's here too), or (b) the villainous vixen. Even today Asian artists find popularity by resorting to playing into American racial stereotypes (see: PSY, whose success in Western markets can be linked to his embodiment of the goofy/clownish Asian man trope, also seen in the likes of Ken Jeong, William Hung, and others). And though I love the show, I recognize the glaring issues with Will & Grace as its success was due to its exploitation of extremely narrow gay stereotypes in the name of comedy.
The bottom line is that, yes, bigotry against human identities was born and raised long before the advent of its usage in popular media. However, it's the continued use of such tropes and whatnot that keeps these bigoted institutions alive today. If we want to seriously (tying you in here [MENTION=1130]Dusk[/MENTION]) end racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., we must cease lazily defaulting to these inappropriate methods of representation, put our thinking caps on, and develop fictional characters actually evocative of the real people they're trying to emulate.
Dusk Wrote:How would it be any different if it was his brother?
Because there's no entrenched precedent for that like there is for possession-based sexism against women. It's the same reason why black face is incredibly racist: the method was developed as a means to dehumanize black people for the sake of entertainment, creating a stereotyped caricature of the race that played a significant role in cementing and proliferating racist images. In other words, the utilization of damsel and distress tropes, black face, and other designs is an issue because they continue a damaging, bigoted tradition alluded to by their very existence.