Lara and BloodRayne rarely save men in distress, they're more used to killing them while looking sexy. And the male victims in their games are mean crooks and nazis, not poor innocent boys.

A better example would be Jade in Beyond Good & Evil saving children and a helpless agent, but I guess the point is not that games like this don't exist but that they are very rare in the history of videogames compared to the opposite. Name at least 5 other games similar to BG&E in this regard, now. There are some (mostly p&c adventures), but I seriously doubt there would be enough material for an extensive series of Videogame Tropes about "Women Saving Men" (or even children or other women) or "Power- or Resourceful Women Who Are Not Predominantly Defined By Their Sexiness".

I think the issue are not necessarily the specific games that portray women in a one-sided way, but the lack of alternatives, the lack of variety, the lack of imagination. And the reason why I care is also that it restricts the choices and roles for males as well. Those are two sides of the same coin, they shouldn't be played off against each other.

After all this I am certain Jim Sterling is gonna make another Video about Women in games so he can get more ratings, because everytime he does it his comment sections gets flooded with comments...

Want to know why "dumbshits" gave money to her? Read the kickstarter comments, mostly because of all the hatred for her by your type. So keep it up, she can surely milk your attention for more projects.

What woman doesn't love rape threats?

I don't know StarMaker since your the Expert you tell us!

example? (preferably one that isn't a straw man fallacy or false dichotomy)

Or your male cousin, as Roman in GTA IV. Or your shot down comrade Catscratch in Wing Commander IV. Or your good friend Doc Brown in Back to the Future: The Game. There are helpless men in games. I don't deny that there are more helpless women than men (remember: I started my posting with "That's right, there's a lot of sexism in video games. But she's exaggerating the issue."), but she sounds more like "Never again should a woman be freed by a man."

Play Final Fantasy. Men and Women are captured all the time. Sometimes you have to free them, sometimes they don't need your help. But again: I don't deny, that it is heavily imbalanced.

So she is advocating for dropping the whole "I'm going to rescue my spouse"-scenario. If a woman has to be freed by a man, she is displayed as the incapable property (or: "the ball") of the man (or: of men), because in other games men are freeing themselves. That's BS. Duke Nukem is sexit, ok, 100% agree. But how in hell can you say that Super Mario Bros is a sexist game? Or Double Dragon? If something that looks like the child of Schwarzenegger and Stallone, decides to beat you up and capture you (that's the 5 seconds space for storyline that Double Dragon had), you'll be beaten up and captured. Neither women (by the way: What's Cynthia Rothrock doing these days?) nor men could defend themselves. You'll need Chuck Norris and Jean Claude van Damme to save you. And they wouldn't beat up hundreds of men to save their favourite cookie jar.

Honestly: Super Mario and Double Dragon are harmless. Mario freeing Peach from Bowser is a classic scenario. You can't swap Peach for Yoshi. Kenny's dying in every episode of South Park and Peach is captured in every "regular" Mario game (Anita is excluding Mario games where you can play Peach, to show that you can't play Peach!? oO). You can't change those things. It's somehow defining the series. You don't change the "plot" of a 30 years old game series, because it could be seen as sexist today.

Yes, she IS right, modern games do use the Damsel in Distress far too often. But please, differntiate. Just a little bit. It's not a generally BAD and cheap plot.

I don't fault her for that. If I wasn't interested I wouldn't have watched the two episodes (50 minutes) and some of her other videos. What IS disturbing me is, that she seems to seek ways to make every appearance of anything that could be female, something sexist. Tell me, what is sexist about Angel from Borderlands?

*spoiler*

She isn't helpless and she definitely doesn't fight her way out of everything as a male charakter would do. She's manipulating things. Yes, okay, she's sacrificing herself and asking you to kill her/free her from her suffering. After two whole games! She was an important character, pulling the strings and leading you through the games. But when she's dying all this is for naught, because this one scene is soooooo sexist -.-

*end of spoiler*

If you really want to, you'll find something sexist in every female character. Not only in video games. But if you do so, you shouldn't wonder when people say you're exaggerating.

I know that. I just wanted to add that men are being stereotyped as well.

That's because the two episodes have the title "Damsel in Distress". That's not something I think of when I'm playing Blood Rayne or Tomb Raider. I think we'll see Lara Croft and some others (Miranda from Mass Effect?) in "The Fighting F#@k Toy". And she would be absolutely right with that :/

That's something that youtube should do generally. The internet would be a better place without youtube comments O.O



_________________________

I think I'll agree with her on most of her other topics. But this "Damsel in Distress" was too one dimensional. You can't say that every game where a woman is in a situation where she can't help herself is sexist, just because there are other games where men can help themselves in similar situations. That's ridiculous. If there was only ONE single game designer and it would be the same in every game (men freeing themselves, women beeing freed), than this would be the case. But she is generalizing every game. Woman needs help? Sexist! Hope that no man backed her on Kickstarter. Would be somewhat sexist otherwise.


ps. Don't take the last two phrases too seriously ;)

+1

Thank you for this post, this was excellent. I myself forgot that I should be more vocal in speaking out against threats and hostility of this nature. Disagreeing is one thing, releasing a flash game where you can punch her repeatedly in the face is quite another.

I think it's disgusting to challenge her not allowing ratings or commentary on her work after the concerted efforts that have been made to delete and remove her videos completely. Don't fucking sit there and call her a shit for not allowing others to speak when far more has been done to try to silence her. She actually has a reason for blocking others. What reason can anyone come up with for trying to post her personal information online and sending her videos of her being gangraped? Has she actually hurt or threatened anyone? Is anyone suffering in even the slightest bit because of her? Has anyone's eagerly awaited game been cancelled because of her?

The fact is she no longer needs to make a clear connection between the ubiquitous portrayals of women as abused victims and real world consequences. All the men attacking her proves that better than she ever could.

No it proves there are Toxic people that use underhanded and cowardly tactics to silence someone. That's not the fault of Video games but of a selfish jerks.

And yes she didn't do any real harm to them and they had no right but I do find that saying she's done no harm as false.

She has harmed the feminist movement, Her videos and papers contradict themselves. Probably the worst is the straw feminist where she tries to tell the world that Feminist extremists are a myth created by Holywood. That'd be the same as a Muslim claiming Terrorist don't exist. So yes she has done harm, and don't lump me in with troglodytes that pull that crap, I'm practicing my freedom of speech to criticize her much as she does video games, she has the right to make the videos but I have a right to say what I think about her work.

Perhaps you missed this sentence? I'll repeat it:

"Disagreeing is one thing, releasing a flash game where you can punch her repeatedly in the face is quite another."

I have zero problem with anyone disagreeing with Anita or anything anybody says. But there IS a difference between civil disagreement and threatening someone. If you feel lumped into the second category, then perhaps you should examine your manner of critique.

You claimed that the backlash is proof that she's right, it's not.

you also asked that if she harmed anyone and I answered she has done harm.

please don't patronize me.

Are you suggesting the hostility is from men angered at the harm she's doing to the feminist movement?

Oh her again... is she not the one that said that female characters should have no traits what so ever? If i remember correctly there was some list where she spoke against herself with traits that characters have.

Anyway 100% pointless thing to talk about.

I mean why are all the males flawless super awesome and perfect guys? Sexism? Maybe its some kind of deep hate for males? I think someone should do a video on "tropes versus males!"

If you have read the thread, then you would see that - yes this is a problem as well. It is two sides of the same coin. However, Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist, so this is her angle.