I have mixed feelings about Kickstarters. The idea of customers giving a creator money to create something which will cost the same customers more money to obtain when complete creates a weird ass financial/creative Ouroboros, but undoubtedly, projects that would be hard to find private, corporate funding for, it’s a godsend.
My feelings on rampant, unapologetic misogyny are crystal clear: Fuck those people. Full stop. Misogyny, misandry, homophobia, any sort of superiority based solely on that ridiculous thing between your legs and how you use it is bullshit at its runniest.
Which leads to the tale of one Anita Sarkeesian. Anita’s a feminist blogger who focuses on stereotyping in popular culture, which on the internet is regrettably like painting a target on her vagina to begin with. And then she decided to create a kickstarter for an online documentary called Tropes vs Women In Video Games covering female stereotyping, sexism, and characterization in gaming.
That idea went over as well as you might expect.
That picture is of the comments section under the YouTube video of her pitch, which I’ve linked below. Granted, yes, it’s the comments under a YouTube video, cancer cures and world peace will not be starting there, but that picture alone would be reason enough for why this documentary needs to be a thing that happens. But really, this is a hideously under-explored subject that needs to have volumes of material and research done, and deserves such as the medium starts going through its creative growing pains. Granted, I say that on a day where I’m hours away from getting started on a game where a short-skirted cheerleader kills zombies with a chainsaw, and I’m kinda okay with that. Here’s what the type of people who get offended when someone points out the problems with, say, every male character calling Catwoman a bitch in Arkham City don’t get: Minor objectification is not bad in itself. Objectification and respect do not have to be mutually exclusive; guys tend to be short on that second point, game designers even shorter. When the first reaction to someone even suggesting there’s a problem is to call her a feminazi cunt and to go back to the kitchen, we are a long, long way from a point where women are being unreasonable in asking for even basic consideration to the ideas Anita wants to explore here.
To that end, Anita deserves all the help and support that can be mustered. Especially from men. We have a role to play in this too, in this our asshole brethren can’t be allowed to be the loudest voices in this argument. They feel entitled to call this woman a cunt because there’s 1000 other guys who are on his side. Never minding those of us who wouldn’t take this shit about our mothers, sisters, daughters, but for those of us who want this medium to do better, be seen as better in so many different areas, stifling the idea that game creators are faltering in any specific area, let alone in terms of gender roles, and need to strive for more is creative death. Fuck that noise.
The easiest way to do your good deed for the day on this is to shoot Anita a few bucks via Anita’s Kickstarter page. You can also see what and how she plans to tackle in the documentary.
The bigger effort, however, is to not be silent on this. And not just by posting somewhere on her site, or on the YouTube page, though it certainly helps. I’m all for civilly debating the minutiae of the male gaze in this or any other medium. Simian chest beating and rape threats are the opposite of that. Reinforce everywhere we can that these assholes so do not represent us all. You want better characters in games? That starts by lobbying for better humans to create and support them.
11 comments
Misogyny, misandry, homophobia, any sort of superiority based solely on that ridiculous thing between your legs and how you use it is bullshit at its runniest.
This x 1,000,000
And thanks for a great highlight for a worthwhile and interesting project.
This article kicks ass, and thank you for linking me to Anita Sarkeesian.
Anita’s videos on pop culture are great. This is something WELL worth supporting.
This is a great little piece, man.
” The idea of customers giving a creator money to create something which will cost the same customers more money to obtain when complete creates a weird ass financial/creative Ouroboros…”
Pretty much every Kickstarter I’ve seen and supported has offered a copy of the film/album/game/whatever as the basic bottom tier reward for investing. You have to offer something in return – that’s the Kickstarter rule – and the most obvious thing to offer is the thing you’re making. What you’re really doing is saying “I like your idea enough that I’m going to pre-order it”.
Are you intentionally tying to set the Internet up to reply with “She’s a great little piece, man?”
Having seen her list of tropes and hearing that their harmfulness is presented as a given, I don’t think I’d support this project. Since every possible version of a “sexy” character is considered harmful, I can’t imagine that I’m going to find her argument compelling.
I had no idea that Smurfette was created by Gargamel to destroy the Smurfs, though.
@Three Oranges
There’s a difference between “sexy” and “exploitative”
Sexy? Mona Sax from Max Payne.
Exploitative? Ivy from Soul Calibur (unless her ever increasing tits are meant to flatter chicks)
Personally, I don’t understand what’s here to be against. Is she saying we shouldn’t be playing these games? That they’re all awful and they all should be banned, and all the people who play them are scum? No. All she’s doing is having a discussion about it, and honestly, why not? Why are we allowed to have this conversation about film or books, but apparently, video games can’t be discussed in such an intelligent manner?
Absolutely have a discussion. But her judgments on these tropes precede the discussion … she’s not asking if these are harmful, she’s just explaining how they are. She chose the word “sexy,” not me.
I’m not offended or outraged by the videos she proposes, just not interested.
I’ll donate when this becomes Tropes vs Gender in video games. By omitting the violent stereotypes of the male characters it’s almost as bad as actually saying that their portrayal as Bipedal Muscle Mountains of Screaming Destruction is accurate a majority of the time.
The argument put forth by feminists that women are disgustingly oversexualized to the point of reproductive objects is beyond valid and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who disagrees. But we never hear from them how if the genders in sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond were switched that relationships would be viewed as psychologically abusive. Imagine Raymond berating his wife and constantly, talking to her as if she were a child, and calling his wife stupid, ignorant, or worthless: then this would be followed by the canned laughter, supporting his actions. That show we would certainly hear about.
We need to start treating people as individuals rather than members of a tribe.
I couldn’t agree with you more, but I don’t hear of many feminists making documentaries that even briefly touch on the dangers of misandry.
Where are they when books/movies like Twilight and The Hunger Games come around and the female protagonist is stringing along multiple boys instead of committing? Switch the genders and the battle cry of “Misogyny!” would shake the earth.
I just fail to see how oversexualizing women is somehow so unquestionably more damaging that encouraging boys to repress any emotion or thought that isn’t Joy or Anger becomes trivial.
The blame shouldn’t be solely on how men stereotype women. This alone misses a major part of the discussion, and that is how men stereotype themselves.
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.