Tropes vs Women in Video Gaming - Damsel in Distress

Nothing wrong with what she said at all. Though I feel like it's been recognized as Samus kind of threw a curveball. Heavenly sword was pretty much a female god of war.

I also found another video that was interesting but not related

 Spoiler

[video=youtube;MLhiWw3pzQk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLhiWw3pzQk[/video]

Nothing wrong with what she said at all. Though I feel like it's been recognized as Samus kind of threw a curveball. Heavenly sword was pretty much a female god of war.

I also found another video that was interesting but not related

 Spoiler

[video=youtube;MLhiWw3pzQk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLhiWw3pzQk[/video]

she focused mainly on nintendo though, rather than "the videogame industry" so i dunno if heavenly sword would be mentioned at all.

Nothing wrong with what she said at all. Though I feel like it's been recognized as Samus kind of threw a curveball. Heavenly sword was pretty much a female god of war.

I also found another video that was interesting but not related

 Spoiler

[video=youtube;MLhiWw3pzQk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLhiWw3pzQk[/video]

That was a really interesting video. I already knew about religious practise in Japan but never attributed it to how they view religion in media.

she focused mainly on nintendo though, rather than "the videogame industry" so i dunno if heavenly sword would be mentioned at all.

Her title doesn't though, I think she just focused on Nintendo because it's the biggest offender, then again, it's nintendo.

To the people who backed her kickstarter, did she ever detail (and I mean seriously detail) into where 150k was going? I mean sure, better equipment and purchasing games/consoles would in my opinion cost $8000 max. You're not really paying for labour, as she's (as far as I know) working by herself.

Just saying 150k is a lot of money. I'm sure a lot of university research teams would kill to get that much money to fund their projects.

I'm going to reserve final judgement for after all the videos are released. But the issue I've had with her videos was always the focus on the negative and what's wrong. Feminism shouldn't only be about what things get wrong but also about what things get right. She mentions Crystal in Star Fox adventures (which many regard as one of the weakest Star Fox games, along with Assault, but that's besides the point) as a damsel in distress, but it's also true that Crystal is a much more stronger, and independent character in Star Fox command, having left Fox and refusing to take his bullpomegranate (taking her off of Star Fox due to a concern for her safety).

Also it made me sad that she didn't mention Super Princess Peach, and Super Paper Mario when talking about the games where Peach was playable. Especially Super Princess Peach, since it throws the damsel trope on its head.

Also it made me sad that she didn't mention Super Princess Peach, and Super Paper Mario when talking about the games where Peach was playable. Especially Super Princess Peach, since it throws the damsel trope on its head.

She did mention Super Princess Peach (which, in my opinion, isn't a very good example, because Peach uses her... emotions to fight???), and that's most likely coming in at Part 2.

In fact, a lot of missed things are probably coming in in later videos, as there is going to be a video on positive female characters at one point, but I do see where you are coming from with the negativity, but the issue lies in the fact that the trope itself overshadows the female character's actual usefulness (which is why I disagreed with the Zelda portion, as her actual usefulness overshadows her damsel role IMO) and how the actual creators of the game treat their female characters.

Also, in the case of the Paper Mario games, where Peach was a lot more useful (even while in distress from the start in the first, and her being kidnapped not being apparent until later in the second), those games weren't developed by Nintendo themselves, but by Intelligent Systems, and aren't part of the main franchise (which she was focusing on) and are in a category of their own. Same goes for Super Mario RPG, developed by Square Enix.

It's funny, developers that adopt a franchise's characters tend to do a better job at characterization than the actual creators of the franchise. @_@

It's funny, developers that adopt a franchise's characters tend to do a better job at characterization than the actual creators of the franchise. @_@

might be because they don't use the "winning formula" of the game they're adopting, they just use the characters in a new role. in a way like fan fiction i guess.

Also it made me sad that she didn't mention Super Princess Peach, and Super Paper Mario when talking about the games where Peach was playable. Especially Super Princess Peach, since it throws the damsel trope on its head.

To be fair, she did say that the next part will revolve around more recent games and even uses the exact words of throwing the trope on its head, so she'll probably display a counter argument in the next part.

In regards to the money, I really don't know. The amount of money the kickstarter raised was because of the horrific bullying that happened and it went way way over the original project goal.
In one of her updates which I was emailed, she mentions this as a possible direction the extra funds will go towards:

What we do know for sure is that the issue of harassment both in the gaming community and on the internet in general has sadly, become intertwined with this Kickstarter campaign so we're definitely going to include a substantial additional component to this project that will directly address the epidemic of misogynist, racist and homophobic online harassment.

That video was insightful and clear throughout, I'm glad I decided to watch it despite my issues with watching anything without subtitles.

My main problem with the Damsel in Distress trope largely has to do with its side-effects as most stories that employ this trope tend to be lazy and the female characters end up being flat which is a big shame especially if they showed promise. Likewise I usually find that the games where this trope isn't enforced in spades tend to have more detailed writing and I'm sure we can all agree that a game where you don't hate whatever percentage of the female population is on the basis that they're bland is a decent game.

There's one favourite series of mine that does employ this trope and yet actually balances it out too: The Lunar series. Sure, the lead female character is basically rendered helpless and can't break out of her own, but on the flip side two of your party members are a kickass mage and priestess respectively who take no lip, get downed only a short while and smack sense into the male leads when they're wallowing in self-pity. Now that's a balance that games today could learn to strive for.

And of course no mentions of awesome female characters can be made without drawing on the Suikoden series. While there's sexualization present it's still a lot less than what you'd expect of the era or of games in general, there's plenty of female characters who hold their own either in fighting, being politicians or tactical leaders and one of the funniest scenes you can get features the protagonist's sister busting out of jail on her own imagining her brother and his friend need to be rescued.

I'd also love to see Zelda starring in an actual Legend of Zelda game because she's already shown herself to be a capable fighter for one, and given that puzzles are a staple of the Zelda games it could be an excuse for Nintendo to make a game with more difficult puzzles too. Or maybe this has nothing to do with the trope and I just want more puzzles, but you get the point.

It's funny, developers that adopt a franchise's characters tend to do a better job at characterization than the actual creators of the franchise. @_@

Well, Character driven story, or story in general was never Nintendo's strong point. Only a handful of their games have an actual deep narrative.

Well, Character driven story, or story in general was never Nintendo's strong point. Only a handful of their games have an actual deep narrative.

yep, usually nintendo's games are "something happened (usually damsel in distress indeed)" have this cool game with cool mechanics, rescue her.
speaking of, i'd love to see more rosalina.

yep, usually nintendo's games are "something happened (usually damsel in distress indeed)" have this cool game with cool mechanics, rescue her.
speaking of, i'd love to see more rosalina.

Oh man, Rosalina is a great example of a character with a lot of unused potential. Essentially a space goddess, pilots a space observatory on her own (well, with the help of her Luma children), obviously knows how to hold her own. She's hardly ever used again (only being seen at the end of the second game) and that makes me sad.

Honestly, as much as I fangirl about Nintendo, I feel like they can do great things with the Mario franchise, if they didn't stick to the whole "Peach gets kidnapped, Mario goes to rescue her" plot almost every time. Sadly, it's what the series is best known for, and they just don't want to deviate from that because it makes them money, even though other developers have done a lot more with it and it's obvious that it works very well.

I can find a reason to disagree with almost everything she says, even the examples she uses. >.> And I'm a girl....I don't know, I think she's over analyzing. Zelkova and I are going to make a video response to her tonight.

I can find a reason to disagree with almost everything she says, even the examples she uses. >.> And I'm a girl....I don't know, I think she's over analyzing. Zelkova and I are going to make a video response to her tonight.

Hey hey hey, leave me out of this!

Let's take a slightly different approach. Think about feminine-appearing males and the general video game community reaction.Well, she is making this a 12+ video series.

Hmmm. Thats interesting. So there is a "human figure" that has sexualizing characteristics. But its just that women tend to fit this figure than men. Instead of two different standards,1 each for men and women, for what is sexualizing and what is not.

I been thinking about this throughout the day and talked to my girlfriend about it and I've come to the working conclusion that I agree with the goal that feminist theory and feminist in general are aiming for. But as for the path they follow, I am not on-board.

Though I still want to see everything she does because she seems like one of the main leaders, for internet people, to follow.

I can find a reason to disagree with almost everything she says, even the examples she uses. >.> And I'm a girl....I don't know, I think she's over analyzing. Zelkova and I are going to make a video response to her tonight.

Everything here basically matches up to me, except for making a video response thing. Maybe I'll make a video response to your video response? That would be very meta.



Anyway, to be completely frank I simply don't care about all this stuff honestly. Whether I am playing a male character going to save a female/male character or I am a female character going to save a male/female character I am simply enjoying the game.

I do think girls get sexualized in video games a lot more than guys, but at the same time that doesn't effect my enjoyment of playing the game.

I found this video’s premise to be completely ridiculous. Ever play Luigi’s Mansion? Mario is just as helpless as Peach usually is in that game. Any Sonic game? Saving the animals, man. Helping people in need is one of the main defining traits of a hero. The “damsel” can often be male, or a robot, or whatever. They just happen to be women more often because we live in a culture where women are more likely to need protection. And that’s not entirely for bullshit traditional sexist patriarchal reasons. Women are physically weaker than men. Their survival is more important to passing on genes. I’m all for feminism, but let’s not deny biology while we’re at it.

Princess Peach is a plot device. There are plenty of male and female characters in all kinds of fiction that serve no purpose other than to set the stage or advance the plot. Get over it. If she could be a strong independent woman who didn’t need no Mario, there wouldn’t be a game. It’s not a stellar example of writing, but it never set out to be. Does she realize that virtually none of Miyamoto’s games have any semblance of a real plot or dynamic characters? The whole “Peach got kidnapped again” is pretty much a parody of itself at this point, too. Same with the Double Dragon remakes.

One thing she does accurately expose is the low amount of strong female protagonists in gaming, but this is a problem best solved by creating more games with strong female protagonists. I’d be interested in seeing what she has to say about how that can happen.

[video=youtube;X6p5AZp7r_Q]

A lot of people are really shooting this thing down, and I really don't see why. She's making an awareness to how women are usually portrayed in video games, but people are taking the message the wrong way completely. It's nothing more than opening your minds to think critically.

Because she's not even trying to give a balanced argument. She claims Zelda games treat Zelda as a prize or goal, and then uses the 3d zelda games as examples.
But at best that's not the whole story and at worst that's downright lying. It never has anything to do with Zelda being female: In wind waker, they leave her under the ocean to protect the triforce of wisdom. In skyward sword, zelda is literally the worlds god. In ocarina she spends the entire game helping undermine ganondorf.

The fact that she didn't even mention Midna is a downright travesty: A playable Female Character in zelda that does all the things she accuses zelda games of doing wrong, including rescuing link when he is kidnapped and unable to do it himself, and is the main character of the game, not link.

Not to mention most incarnations of link are deliberately as androgynous as possible.

I feel that if she was ever going to make a full game herself, she would put too much effort into stressing the female protagonist with all of the traits she wants in her protagonist and, in turn, spend less time on making it a good game.

I agree that females are underrepresented as heroic figures in gaming and in other media. I think it would be really cool to have the opportunity to play games with great art, an interesting storyline (or opportunity to explore many) and a female protagonist. Damsel in distress gets old. Being a sort of "side kick" gets old. It would be nice to see more females as the star of the show. And for them not to be "sexualized" when they are.

Not to say I don't enjoy games that are already out there today or games with male protagonists. I think it would just be nice to tell a different story. I'd like my daughter (if I ever have one) to have role models to look up to other than Barbie. I guess I'm speaking from personal experience here... not so objectively. I think the industry could greatly benefit from an ounce of balance. It would be really cool if it even caused a change in culture. How would it feel if males in gaming needed rescuing just as often as females? I'm oversimplifying things, and perhaps this doesn't apply to everyone... but I wonder what it would be like if the men in my life were able to show vulnerability without shame. Being comfortable with the idea of males needing to be rescued might make someone feel less shame if they need to ask for help. Maybe my train of thought doesn't make sense but I think the stories we are surrounded with can greatly impact or reflect social norms.