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On March 16 2015 12:44 DonKey_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 12:32 kwizach wrote:On March 16 2015 10:57 DonKey_ wrote: I feel like the issue of game companies producing sexist content in gaming is putting the cart before the horse. Going after game companies for producing the culturally desired product is missing the mark be a wide margin. Change needs to start with the culture itself not a byproduct of the culture.
Edit: Yes I do know games are a component of culture, but in my mind they are too far a derivative of it to be the place to focus on for change. Games, as cultural products, also contribute to shaping culture and the lenses through which the individuals who play these games look at the world. This is true as well of films, tv series, books, advertisements, etc., etc. It is therefore precisely necessary to change them in order to make steps towards achieving the broader cultural changes that are sought. See also my previous post, in which I cite a study detailing the psychological impact on individuals of representations of women and men in various media. Right I am completely with you on culture products shaping culture and vice versa. It's just that I believe that instead of nitpicking at products on a micro level, that it's more productive to "prevent the disease"(sexism/racism/prejudice) from manifesting in the development stage, rather than going about trying to convince the stubborn older populace that their ways are faulty. To be precise focus needs to be on "youth" as the target not "games/movies/clothing/etc"; go after the core issue not its shadows. I agree with you that acting early is crucial, but we should not forget that video games are also consumed by people whose understanding of the world and of themselves is still very much in the process of being shaped. In addition, I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously. Fighting against sexism through education (in schools and elsewhere) does not prevent us from also fighting against the diffusion of sexist stereotypes in the media, including films, books, video games, etc., given how these also have an impact on how people see the world and themselves.
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On March 16 2015 02:47 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2015 18:43 Darkwhite wrote:On March 13 2015 17:12 Falling wrote: @Darkwhite Do you believe in the idea of criticism at all? (Or for that matter, reviews?) Because I can't understand your comments in any way, shape, or form in terms of what critics do all the time. To paraphrase CS Lewis, an author intends, but a work means. There is such thing as failed art- that is an artist intends to create something according to his vision and he fails. That's why there are films that are so bad, they're good (Star Crash and Troll 2, for example.) A critic can come in and separate from creator intention, evaluate the success of the work on its own merits. I, as gamer, can evaluate whether I think the story holds together, whether I think the gameplay is interesting, whether I think the characters make sense, etc, etc. No an artist is not my bitch- to borrow Neil Gaiman's defence of GRRM. But criticism is a way of engaging in the work- especially if the work isn't working for you. It's not lazy, nor is it naive- uncritical and passive acceptance could possibly be considered lazy- I'm not sure I'd go there. But I don't see criticism as lazy- far from it.
I'm trying to get a sense of your defence of game developers- Was the cancellation of Dungeon Keeper 3 a terrible travesty because people dared to criticize the artistic vision of the free artist, who ought to have been defended and protected from condemnation? I am not at all familiar with any of the particulars you reference, though it doesn't seem to matter much. There is of course nothing wrong holding your own opinions about an art piece, or about expressing these. One can of course try to engage in criticism - to evaluate an art piece, relative to whatever criteria one deems important. But literally no one other than the artist himself can evaluate whether his art is a failure or not, because it is he who has decided to invest resources into making it, and it is he who decides what the purpose of that investment was. It is perfectly irrelevant whether critics think his art is distasteful, insofar as he is himself satisfied. Insofar as he isn't, it is only relevant what he himself feels that he failed to achieve. There is nothing wrong with thinking a game isn't fun to play. There is nothing wrong with expressing an honest opinion either, even with a sweeping generalizations like This game feels like it's straight out of 1992 and will bore you to tears if you even manage to install the broken piece of junk. But everything is wrong with crossing the line and imposing on the artist's right to make whatever he pleases. Every statement about what the artist should have done is a sleight of hand, where you substitute the artist's autonomy with an obligation towards you, or society at large, or your own moral standards. An artist has no right to demand that others care about his art, and a consumer has no right to demand that the artist accommodates his whims. Just try writing out the argument for why Ubisoft should have put a female main character in AC:Unity - or read the article you were yourself applauding (?) . These perversions crop up everywhere - Ubisoft should care about the female demographic, Ubisoft should feel that the sex of the main character is important for reaching this demographic, Ubisoft should take responsibility for the lack of female main characters in games at large (though they themselves have only made a tiny slice of all games), Ubisoft should contribute to upending the heteronormativity of popular culture. Long version short, Ubisoft should surrender part of their self-authorship to my vision of gaming, and if they don't follow up on my supposedly well-intended guidance, I will shame them for it, for who are they to just decide what they want to spend their time making? Notice that this is not a blanket criticism of making requests, but only of pretending others have a moral duty to comply. It's fine to ask someone to be your girlfriend, but not to shame her and call her a failure of a human being for refusing. Your comparison between demands addressed at a video games developer/artist for the product he produces and shaming a woman for not going out with you is extremely dishonest. In the context of the debate going on here, we are talking about attempting to convince video games developers that the characters of their games should not be trapped in sexist, stereotypical gender roles. For example, female characters should not systematically be oversexualized and occupy the position of the damsel in distress. Why? Because this perpetuates a sexist image of women and actually has an impact on people's view of women (for both men and women). This fact is supported by plenty of scientific studies. See, among others, pages 428-430 of Burgess, Melinda C R, Steven Paul Stermer and Stephen R Burgess (2007), "Sex, Lies, and Video Games: The Portrayal of Male and Female Characters on Video Game Covers", Sex Roles, Vol. 57, No. 5, 419-433, available here: http://www.paulstermer.com/resources/SR.pdfTwo short excerpts: Show nested quote +Additional research has demonstrated that exposure to media portrayals of women also influences teens’ and young adults’ perceptions of their desire of and suitability for various vocations (Anderson et al. 2001). Davies et al. (2002) provided some of the most disturbing evidence for a relationship between media exposure and vocational attitudes. They showed women commercials that portrayed women in either stereotypic ways or neutral ways and then asked them to rate interest in educational and vocational choices that required math. The women who viewed the stereotypic commercials indicated lower interest in those careers and higher interests in careers that were more in keeping with traditional, stereotypic female strengths such as teaching children. Show nested quote +It is perhaps in the area of establishing a secure physical identity that the literature is most critical of the media’s influence. A body of research demonstrates that both male and female teens and young adults who have greater exposure to media representations of male and female forms have a more negative self image (e.g., Ferron 1997; Aubrey 2006; Arbour and Ginis 2006; Slater and Tiggemann 2006; Labre 2005). Recent research has even suggested that exposure to objectifying media, such as that found in this analysis, can induce a self-objectified state in both men and women and that this state is associated with significant, negative psychological states (Roberts and Gettman 2004). Contrary to what some posters have suggested, asking for more equality in gender representations in gaming does not entail "dumbing down" games or "making them more casual". It does not have to impact gameplay in any way. It's all about paying attention to gender representation and scenaristic tropes.
Also in this study
There are a number of outspoken critics of the violence contained in video games and it has been well established that the violence in the games is significantly and meaningfully related to violence in the real world (see Anderson et al. 2003). There is also a body of research too large to ignore that shows how pervasive television’s impact can be on adolescents’ and young adults’ beliefs about how they can and should behave. In fact, Anderson et al. (2001) have gone so far as to say, “content viewed is more important than raw amount. The medium is not (emphasis in original) the message: The message is.” Only future research can determine the ramifications of the degrading and sexist portrayals of women in video games.
Which iirc has been disproven time and time again. So I'd take it's conclusions with a grain of salt.
edit: For the record I'd love to see more women characters in video games (and I think we are), but this is actually getting away from the point of the GTFO documentary, which is men harassing women, not portrayal of women in video games.
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there is something called encephalization quotient. larger brain = more intelligent. man has %8 - %13 larger brain than woman thus he is superior. you cant inject your liberal thoughts into nature where harsh facts lay. it is desperate and i'm not happy with this even if it does not apply to every human. we are in an era that we think we can create equality which nature will never have. same thing happened when vegans tried to feed cats with plant based cat-food.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1274952/Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn.html http://www.angryharry.com/esMenareMoreIntelligentthanWomen.htm
they say it in a shifty way so that gender equality believers wont get hurt, like woman has bigger volumes which are related to emotions, while man has better parietal cortex, meaning they "plan" better and have larger spatial intelligence which is defined as a human computational capacity that provides the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems of navigation, visualization of objects from different angles and space, faces or scenes recognition or to notice fine details and works for solving problems in areas related to realistic, thing-oriented, and investigative occupations, WHAT IS INDEED: THE LIFE OUT THERE; science, technology, math, art, construction related works, anything related to survival and advancement. Of course cultural factors will affect such decisions - e.g todays Islamic culture - but first thing is NATURE. Thanks to testosterone, men are far more competitive and motivated for success than women.
edit: you cant fight sexism, human race will always be sexist, but we need to fight violation of sexism.
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On March 16 2015 12:53 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 12:44 DonKey_ wrote:On March 16 2015 12:32 kwizach wrote:On March 16 2015 10:57 DonKey_ wrote: I feel like the issue of game companies producing sexist content in gaming is putting the cart before the horse. Going after game companies for producing the culturally desired product is missing the mark be a wide margin. Change needs to start with the culture itself not a byproduct of the culture.
Edit: Yes I do know games are a component of culture, but in my mind they are too far a derivative of it to be the place to focus on for change. Games, as cultural products, also contribute to shaping culture and the lenses through which the individuals who play these games look at the world. This is true as well of films, tv series, books, advertisements, etc., etc. It is therefore precisely necessary to change them in order to make steps towards achieving the broader cultural changes that are sought. See also my previous post, in which I cite a study detailing the psychological impact on individuals of representations of women and men in various media. Right I am completely with you on culture products shaping culture and vice versa. It's just that I believe that instead of nitpicking at products on a micro level, that it's more productive to "prevent the disease"(sexism/racism/prejudice) from manifesting in the development stage, rather than going about trying to convince the stubborn older populace that their ways are faulty. To be precise focus needs to be on "youth" as the target not "games/movies/clothing/etc"; go after the core issue not its shadows. I agree with you that acting early is crucial, but we should not forget that video games are also consumed by people whose understanding of the world and of themselves is still very much in the process of being shaped. In addition, I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously. Fighting against sexism through education (in schools and elsewhere) does not prevent us from also fighting against the diffusion of sexist stereotypes in the media, including films, books, video games, etc., given how these also have an impact on how people see the world and themselves. With any kind of movement for change in societal values there is a DIRE need for a movement base to stay focused on a "big picture" objective, fracturing the movement into smaller "sub issues" detracts from it in terms of popular support and effort towards the goal.
It's not that I am against "I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously."; it's just that I see it as taking time and effort away from a larger goal. Movements only get so much time in the "press spotlight" to present themselves, in addition to participants of a movement only being able to devote so much of their time before factors like fatigue and disinterest start to manifest on the larger movement. Fighting every existing cultural byproduct that is flawed will draw attention away from creating individual who are not prone to making the faulty byproducts to begin with.
The whole purpose of a movement to change societal values needs to be rooted in a singular "issue" to focus support. There is no reason to try to fight an army when you can just kill the general.
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On March 16 2015 12:44 DonKey_ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 12:32 kwizach wrote:On March 16 2015 10:57 DonKey_ wrote: I feel like the issue of game companies producing sexist content in gaming is putting the cart before the horse. Going after game companies for producing the culturally desired product is missing the mark be a wide margin. Change needs to start with the culture itself not a byproduct of the culture.
Edit: Yes I do know games are a component of culture, but in my mind they are too far a derivative of it to be the place to focus on for change. Games, as cultural products, also contribute to shaping culture and the lenses through which the individuals who play these games look at the world. This is true as well of films, tv series, books, advertisements, etc., etc. It is therefore precisely necessary to change them in order to make steps towards achieving the broader cultural changes that are sought. See also my previous post, in which I cite a study detailing the psychological impact on individuals of representations of women and men in various media. Right I am completely with you on culture products shaping culture and vice versa. It's just that I believe that instead of nitpicking at products on a micro level, that it's more productive to "prevent the disease"(sexism/racism/prejudice) from manifesting in the development stage, rather than going about trying to convince the stubborn older populace that their ways are faulty. To be precise focus needs to be on "youth" as the target not "games/movies/clothing/etc"; go after the core issue not its shadows. Edit: to be fair what I said above about "go after the core issue not its shadows." isn't fair because to reach the youth you will need to a extent influence the media and culture products they use, However i still believe the focus(youth) needs to be not lost sight of. Getting caught up in every minute detail will detract from the big picture.
One of the biggest influences on youth are media/cultural portrayal. Young people take a LOT of cues from how commercials, TV shows, movies, video games, and literature portray people of various types. Because of this, tackling their portrayal of women (or minorities, or LGBT people, etc.) seems like the perfect place to start.
With any kind of movement for change in societal values there is a DIRE need for a movement base to stay focused on a "big picture" objective, fracturing the movement into smaller "sub issues" detracts from it in terms of popular support and effort towards the goal.
It's not that I am against "I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously."; it's just that I see it as taking time and effort away from a larger goal. Movements only get so much time in the "press spotlight" to present themselves, in addition to participants of a movement only being able to devote so much of their time before factors like fatigue and disinterest start to manifest on the larger movement. Fighting every existing cultural byproduct that is flawed will draw attention away from creating individual who are not prone to making the faulty byproducts to begin with.
The whole purpose of a movement to change societal values needs to be rooted in a singular "issue" to focus support. There is no reason to try to fight an army when you can just kill the general.
This is rarely how social movements work. It surely didn't work this way for women, black people, LGBT rights, etc.
In fact, a perfect example of why this doesn't work is the Occupy Wall Street movement. That had huge support but died out because the group had massively wide-reaching goals and ideas that were difficult to really get behind and weren't that tangible.
Social movements work precisely by narrowing down the issue to something concrete that everyone can focus on. You can't effectively end sexism by simply saying, "Sexism is bad! End it all right now!" It has to be tackled in specific cases, which then creates a cumulative effect.
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On March 16 2015 13:18 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 16 2015 12:44 DonKey_ wrote:On March 16 2015 12:32 kwizach wrote:On March 16 2015 10:57 DonKey_ wrote: I feel like the issue of game companies producing sexist content in gaming is putting the cart before the horse. Going after game companies for producing the culturally desired product is missing the mark be a wide margin. Change needs to start with the culture itself not a byproduct of the culture.
Edit: Yes I do know games are a component of culture, but in my mind they are too far a derivative of it to be the place to focus on for change. Games, as cultural products, also contribute to shaping culture and the lenses through which the individuals who play these games look at the world. This is true as well of films, tv series, books, advertisements, etc., etc. It is therefore precisely necessary to change them in order to make steps towards achieving the broader cultural changes that are sought. See also my previous post, in which I cite a study detailing the psychological impact on individuals of representations of women and men in various media. Right I am completely with you on culture products shaping culture and vice versa. It's just that I believe that instead of nitpicking at products on a micro level, that it's more productive to "prevent the disease"(sexism/racism/prejudice) from manifesting in the development stage, rather than going about trying to convince the stubborn older populace that their ways are faulty. To be precise focus needs to be on "youth" as the target not "games/movies/clothing/etc"; go after the core issue not its shadows. Edit: to be fair what I said above about "go after the core issue not its shadows." isn't fair because to reach the youth you will need to a extent influence the media and culture products they use, However i still believe the focus(youth) needs to be not lost sight of. Getting caught up in every minute detail will detract from the big picture. One of the biggest influences on youth are media/cultural portrayal. Young people take a LOT of cues from how commercials, TV shows, movies, video games, and literature portray people of various types. Because of this, tackling their portrayal of women (or minorities, or LGBT people, etc.) seems like the perfect place to start. Show nested quote +With any kind of movement for change in societal values there is a DIRE need for a movement base to stay focused on a "big picture" objective, fracturing the movement into smaller "sub issues" detracts from it in terms of popular support and effort towards the goal.
It's not that I am against "I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously."; it's just that I see it as taking time and effort away from a larger goal. Movements only get so much time in the "press spotlight" to present themselves, in addition to participants of a movement only being able to devote so much of their time before factors like fatigue and disinterest start to manifest on the larger movement. Fighting every existing cultural byproduct that is flawed will draw attention away from creating individual who are not prone to making the faulty byproducts to begin with.
The whole purpose of a movement to change societal values needs to be rooted in a singular "issue" to focus support. There is no reason to try to fight an army when you can just kill the general. This is rarely how social movements work. It surely didn't work this way for women, black people, LGBT rights, etc. In fact, a perfect example of why this doesn't work is the Occupy Wall Street movement. That had huge support but died out because the group had massively wide-reaching goals and ideas that were difficult to really get behind and weren't that tangible. Social movements work precisely by narrowing down the issue to something concrete that everyone can focus on. You can't effectively end sexism by simply saying, "Sexism is bad! End it all right now!" It has to be tackled in specific cases, which then creates a cumulative effect. Right I agree with you on the first part you quoted, but you are generalizing my position. I did not say "I think we don't need to worry about sexist media"
I said:
Edit: to be fair what I said above about "go after the core issue not its shadows." isn't fair because to reach the youth you will need to a extent influence the media and culture products they use, However i still believe the focus(youth) needs to be not lost sight of. Getting caught up in every minute detail will detract from the big picture.
Second part, seems like I did not convey my thought(youth focused prejudice prevention) well enough, because abstract ideas and values are NOT what I support in a movement, but focus is. Using something like "video game sexism" could be great as branch to the larger issue, but effort needs to be made in relaying how it relates to the bigger picture.
This is rarely how social movements work. It surely didn't work this way for women, black people, LGBT rights, etc Can you clarify what part of my statement "this" refers too. I feel like either I did not clarify well enough my position or you misinterpreted my post, Because I was never arguing in favor of "abstract concepts" being the focal point of a movement. I might not have provided a "concrete issue" in my post, but that does not mean I do not believe such a thing is not necessary.
Social movements work precisely by narrowing down the issue to something concrete that everyone can focus on.
I never argued otherwise, in fact I argued precisely that: "It's not that I am against "I don't see this as a choice between acting on one side or the other - we can very much fight against sexism on different fronts simultaneously."; it's just that I see it as taking time and effort away from a larger goal. " Here I argued against the fragmentation of the larger goal of a movement. Also what is "something concrete" for the "video game sexism" movement?
The problem of having something concrete to fight for is compounded by taking all the small battles that also lack direction and trying to run with them all.
My statement above is a far more accurate picture of what "occupy wallstreet" was. On top of lacking any concrete idea for tangible change, they did not create a "single issue" to stand on leading to different groups (anarchist/environmentalist/etc) protesting different things and fracturing the larger protest as a whole. I actually find "occupy wallstreet" as a good example in favor of my whole argument pertaining to a protest fracturing on different objectives.
Edit: also
This is rarely how social movements work. It surely didn't work this way for women, black people, LGBT rights, etc. As far as social movements go; Women - Women's Suffrage, African American's - Civil Rights Act of 1964, LGBT - Gay marriage. All of these successful social movements had a central idea which I am arguing for. I do not understand why you thought I am advocating only "abstract ideas" with no possible implementation.
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On March 16 2015 13:12 lastpuritan wrote:there is something called encephalization quotient. larger brain = more intelligent. man has %8 - %13 larger brain than woman thus he is superior. you cant inject your liberal thoughts into nature where harsh facts lay. it is desperate and i'm not happy with this even if it does not apply to every human. we are in an era that we think we can create equality which nature will never have. same thing happened when vegans tried to feed cats with plant based cat-food. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1274952/Men-ARE-brainy-women-says-scientist-Professor-Richard-Lynn.htmlhttp://www.angryharry.com/esMenareMoreIntelligentthanWomen.htmthey say it in a shifty way so that gender equality believers wont get hurt, like woman has bigger volumes which are related to emotions, while man has better parietal cortex, meaning they "plan" better and have larger spatial intelligence which is defined as a human computational capacity that provides the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems of navigation, visualization of objects from different angles and space, faces or scenes recognition or to notice fine details and works for solving problems in areas related to realistic, thing-oriented, and investigative occupations, WHAT IS INDEED: THE LIFE OUT THERE; science, technology, math, art, construction related works, anything related to survival and advancement. Of course cultural factors will affect such decisions - e.g todays Islamic culture - but first thing is NATURE. Thanks to testosterone, men are far more competitive and motivated for success than women. edit: you cant fight sexism, human race will always be sexist, but we need to fight violation of sexism.
What the fuck is this? You cite an MRA website and a tabloid and say that men are smarter than women? There's lots of literature on this and the fact is its a lot more complicated than that, and many of your observations are flat out wrong, nevermind the fact that any difference in ability is a matter of large demographic groups that cannot be individualized. For starters, evidence is pretty clear that women are substantially more motivated than men, generally working harder, getting into college more, etc. Ambitious, probably less so. But you would be a fool to take that general observation and say that the likes of Sandberg or Whinfrey lack ambition.
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The daily mail and MRA website, with such great likes as "it's not sexism, it's statistics,". Yeah I'm totally going to take that shit seriously.
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Wait that post by lastpuritan wasn't satire? That's a pretty hopelessly ignorant view on human biology right there. I don't think he said a single thing correct in the whole post lol.
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On March 16 2015 18:49 Slaughter wrote: Wait that post by lastpuritan wasn't satire? That's a pretty hopelessly ignorant view on human biology right there. I don't think he said a single thing correct in the whole post lol.
Yeah I was between satire and thinking we were just ignoring the trollyness of the post.
Opening with the "encephalization quotient" without acknowledging it's inherent inadequacy for accounting for density/activity combined with the low post count had me leaning toward the trolling option. I'm really surprised this "but they are different" somehow managed to go the opposite direction I expected to just outright claiming
man has %8 - %13 larger brain than woman thus he is superior.
You move the bar a little lower and they just find a new way to crawl under it lol.
Edit: I just don't know lol. I'll just give em the benefit of the doubt until I see otherwise (don't remember the dating thread posts)
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I don't know, Poes law is in full force. But his posts in the Dating threat make me think he might be serious. He refers to a friend as a "talking female" rather than a women he can sleep with.
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Better representations should not go in the way of story telling tho. When you think about TV shows, for the longest time black characters were always caricaturized and thankfully things changed, but there are still black characters that are caricatures and people don't cry everytime thankfully ! In The Wire, a brilliant TV shows, most black characters are dealers, uneducated, sexists, violents and people don't cry out because everybody knows those characters are here to make us think on an harsh reality. Look at the show "True Detective" now. Only two characters are really interesting in this show, the two cops, and all other characters are side-kicks barely developped throughout the season, aside maybe from one of the detective's wife (but most of her story has one goal which is developping the two main characters). And this show, who in my opinion is absolutly brilliant, created an uproar for its lack of female characters... And now True Detective S2, taking into consideration all the critics, have like a thousand characters, equally male and female, and is going to be shit I'm sure of it (just look at who play those characters... is it miami vice ?). We need video games with various characters, but we don't need all video games to be "gender friendly", with female writters and all. Creativity sometime ask for specific characters - nobody whine that all main characters in Desperate Housewifes are women. Cultural creation do not have to be equal, our society yes, but not culture... There are insulting and violent movie out there that are brilliant master piece for some and complete trash for others.
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On March 16 2015 20:12 WhiteDog wrote: Better representations should not go in the way of story telling tho. When you think about TV shows, for the longest time black characters were always caricaturized and thankfully things changed, but there are still black characters that are caricatures and people don't cry everytime thankfully ! In The Wire, a brilliant TV shows, most black characters are dealers, uneducated, sexists, violents and people don't cry out because everybody knows those characters are here to make us think on an harsh reality. Look at the show "True Detective" now. Only two characters are really interesting in this show, the two cops, and all other characters are side-kicks barely developped throughout the season, aside maybe from one of the detective's wife (but most of her story has one goal which is developping the two main characters). And this show, who in my opinion is absolutly brilliant, created an uproar for its lack of female characters... And now True Detective S2, taking into consideration all the critics, have like a thousand characters, equally male and female, and is going to be shit I'm sure of it (just look at who play those characters... is it miami vice ?). We need video games with various characters, but we don't need all video games to be "gender friendly", with female writters and all. Creativity sometime ask for specific characters - nobody whine that all main characters in Desperate Housewifes are women. Cultural creation do not have to be equal, our society yes, but not culture... There are insulting and violent movie out there that are brilliant master piece for some and complete trash for others.
You know I haven't finished The Wire but I thought the black characters were portrayed better than average. I started writing more but I didn't want to get on a wire tangent like there was a game tangent. Bottom line was that I think people have very different perceptions on the depiction and apt interpretation of the characters from The Wire compared with say black characters on something like Disney, Nickelodeon, or a typical sitcom. On that, I think Blackish has done some interesting things around the issue in their most recent episodes.
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Are these people actually serious with this doc? Because a lot of shit is going on in every competitive game I've seen. LOL, CSGO, DOTA, HON, etc... If you're a guy and you fuck up or just even say something others don't like, you're dubbed as having a small dick and being gay, if you're a girl then you want a dick in your mouth. Even worse, they want you to get aids, cancer or your loved ones. So it doesn't actually matter if you're a girl or a boy to them, if they wanna harass you, you will get harassed. So if you wanna tackle this issue seriously, take one more step back and see the whole picture. Not just some part of it.
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On March 16 2015 20:12 WhiteDog wrote: Better representations should not go in the way of story telling tho. When you think about TV shows, for the longest time black characters were always caricaturized and thankfully things changed, but there are still black characters that are caricatures and people don't cry everytime thankfully ! In The Wire, a brilliant TV shows, most black characters are dealers, uneducated, sexists, violents and people don't cry out because everybody knows those characters are here to make us think on an harsh reality. Look at the show "True Detective" now. Only two characters are really interesting in this show, the two cops, and all other characters are side-kicks barely developped throughout the season, aside maybe from one of the detective's wife (but most of her story has one goal which is developping the two main characters). And this show, who in my opinion is absolutly brilliant, created an uproar for its lack of female characters... And now True Detective S2, taking into consideration all the critics, have like a thousand characters, equally male and female, and is going to be shit I'm sure of it (just look at who play those characters... is it miami vice ?). We need video games with various characters, but we don't need all video games to be "gender friendly", with female writters and all. Creativity sometime ask for specific characters - nobody whine that all main characters in Desperate Housewifes are women. Cultural creation do not have to be equal, our society yes, but not culture... There are insulting and violent movie out there that are brilliant master piece for some and complete trash for others.
As has been said for quite a few pages now, no one is saying any one game needs to portray everyone a certain way, just that there needs to be more diversity in the gaming industry as a whole.
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The general level of discourse in this thread is deplorable, containing everything from victim blaming ('You shouldn't reveal that you're female then; it's asking for it') to false equivocation of experience ('Men get harassed too! If we can deal with it, obviously they should be able to') when the fact is that, overwhelmingly, the perspectives supplied in this thread and the criticisms of the documentary are presented by people with no experience with being a female, or being a female who experiences harassment online.
While it is true that men and women both experience harassment online, the harassment could hardly be said to be equal in scope or depth. How often do men get harassed throughout a game because of their voice, or have their play derided due to their gender? How often do male progamers have their fanclubs filled with vitriol and rape threats? We don't even need to look far afield to see that the level of harassment experienced is far from equal - if anyone else was around for the first days of Scalett's fanclub, I'm sure you remember it well enough.
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On March 16 2015 21:49 Joan_of_Arc wrote: The general level of discourse in this thread is deplorable, containing everything from victim blaming ('You shouldn't reveal that you're female then; it's asking for it') to false equivocation of experience ('Men get harassed too! If we can deal with it, obviously they should be able to') when the fact is that, overwhelmingly, the perspectives supplied in this thread and the criticisms of the documentary are presented by people with no experience with being a female, or being a female who experiences harassment online.
While it is true that men and women both experience harassment online, the harassment could hardly be said to be equal in scope or depth. How often do men get harassed throughout a game because of their voice, or have their play derided due to their gender? How often do male progamers have their fanclubs filled with vitriol and rape threats? We don't even need to look far afield to see that the level of harassment experienced is far from equal - if anyone else was around for the first days of Scalett's fanclub, I'm sure you remember it well enough.
I second pretty much everything in this post. People need to take a second and think about when they receive abuse online and then compare it to some of the things in the article. This isn't an issue that just gaming has a problem with. MTG has a number of issues in its pro community and board games also have similar problems.
Its not a problem with gamers, its a problem with any hobby that is dominated by a single demographic.
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Girls should voice their experiences of harassment, especially from their perspective (and not in a general scope of things), because it really sheds light on how awful online communities can be, and the effect of ignoring the problem on one side. If we can't really stop people from slinging shit on the internet, we can, at the very least, expose people to what they're doing when they do this sort of thing, and perhaps change some hearts and minds for the better.
It doesn't change the fact that everyone who does anything online experiences these sorts of things on varying levels, depending on how they act, who they are, and such on. Obviously, dudes get harassment thrown at them, and while a lot of us tend to shrug it off and move past it, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it, since it creates an environment that allows these sorts of behavior to thrive. Ignoring the problem won't cause it to go away, especially when we're the majority. And I don't think it really has any reason to stay. It contributes absolutely nothing to online gaming to have this sort of shit floating around.
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On March 16 2015 21:49 Joan_of_Arc wrote: The general level of discourse in this thread is deplorable, containing everything from victim blaming ('You shouldn't reveal that you're female then; it's asking for it') to false equivocation of experience ('Men get harassed too! If we can deal with it, obviously they should be able to') when the fact is that, overwhelmingly, the perspectives supplied in this thread and the criticisms of the documentary are presented by people with no experience with being a female, or being a female who experiences harassment online.
While it is true that men and women both experience harassment online, the harassment could hardly be said to be equal in scope or depth. How often do men get harassed throughout a game because of their voice, or have their play derided due to their gender? How often do male progamers have their fanclubs filled with vitriol and rape threats? We don't even need to look far afield to see that the level of harassment experienced is far from equal - if anyone else was around for the first days of Scalett's fanclub, I'm sure you remember it well enough.
Just don't bother. We tried explaining this false equivalency many, many pages ago.
The gaming community as a whole has seemingly endless excuses to throw out so that they don't have to admit responsibility and acknowledge the problems in the community.
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