Is #GamerGate misogyny posing as concern for ethics?

[Lagmonster]

Does it not bother you that when you look at games that actually do portray positive female characters (for example, "The Last of Us", "Half-Life 2" IIRC, etc.) you don't need to come up with weaselly explanations for everything, because positive portrayals are so blindingly fucking obvious when they happen?

I don't get why young men don't simply up and admit that they want to enjoy a fantasy wherein they are special and everything they crave - power, money, sex - all comes to them frequently, easily, and in high quality. It would give them a position of confidence and self-awareness that would be a hell of a lot easier to defend than the arm-wrenching justifications I hear now. I've learned from experience that "I don't care, fuck you" is a lot harder for a culture critic to fight against than a well-rehearsed playbook of excuses and bullshit.

[salm]

I don't get why young men don't simply up and admit that they want to enjoy a fantasy wherein they are special and everything they crave - power, money, sex - all comes to them frequently, easily, and in high quality.

That seems obvious. They don´t want to be branded as sexists because that is an undesirable title.

[TheFeniX]

I don't get why young men don't simply up and admit that they want to enjoy a fantasy wherein they are special and everything they crave - power, money, sex - all comes to them frequently, easily, and in high quality. It would give them a position of confidence and self-awareness that would be a hell of a lot easier to defend than the arm-wrenching justifications I hear now. I've learned from experience that "I don't care, fuck you" is a lot harder for a culture critic to fight against than a well-rehearsed playbook of excuses and bullshit.

I admit, I definitely don't mind fan-service... when done right. But I'm not too sure about the "easy" part. A lot of popular fiction has "hard work" as an emphasis. Sure, the character is usually a special snowflake that picks up everything in record time, but they "earn" their love interest and fame by busting ass, usually in the wake of many dead bodies.

But I don't think this kind of fantasy is especially unique to men. My wife and I talk about pretty much everything... except her love-affair with Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray, because they are her (her words) guilty pleasures. I only know what I know about them through plot synopsis's, so correct me if I'm wrong, but they seem to be in the same boat as most romance novels my mom used to read: A woman with a lot to offer is saved from her boring life by a ridiculously attractive man (or men). My mother told me stories of the shit she got for reading "those filth books" when she was younger, and that really isn't fair.

The women in this kind of fiction are still primarily passive, finally giving in in the end, and being happy that they listened to said man. This is quite popular in movies targeted at women. Hell, the only "romance" style movies where women are usually allowed to be proactive are Romantic Comedies and those tend to play better among male viewers anyway.

Now, I'm just spitballing here based on what I've read and conversations with my wife (because I'm honestly not going to hit up my girl friends for info on them), but I don't see a whole lot of difference between the heroines of these books and a lot of female characters in male dominated media. With one big exception: they don't shame the characters or the reader for enjoying sex.

[Lagmonster]

I don't get why young men don't simply up and admit that they want to enjoy a fantasy wherein they are special and everything they crave - power, money, sex - all comes to them frequently, easily, and in high quality.

That seems obvious. They don´t want to be branded as sexists because that is an undesirable title.

I might agree, if from a different perspective. I don't know that people really care what their opponents think, because but I'd buy that these excuses are a way of reminding themselves that they're not bad people.

[salm]

I don't get why young men don't simply up and admit that they want to enjoy a fantasy wherein they are special and everything they crave - power, money, sex - all comes to them frequently, easily, and in high quality.

That seems obvious. They don´t want to be branded as sexists because that is an undesirable title.

I might agree, if from a different perspective. I don't know that people really care what their opponents think, because but I'd buy that these excuses are a way of reminding themselves that they're not bad people.

Can you rephrase that? I don´t know what you mean.

[Lagmonster]

I'm suggesting that a person who makes a strained attempt at justifying something may be doing so to convince himself more than to convince other people.

I suspect that normal people aren't comfortable with thinking that they are bad, so they try to explain their behaviour in a way that makes them feel they are in the right.

[salm]

Yes, I agree that this is probably the reason in a lot of cases.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm suggesting that a person who makes a strained attempt at justifying something may be doing so to convince himself more than to convince other people.

I suspect that normal people aren't comfortable with thinking that they are bad, so they try to explain their behaviour in a way that makes them feel they are in the right.

I think that's what it is. It requires you to admit that you consciously choose to participate in amoral or morally troubling activities - it's the same reason why people generally won't just admit that they pirate content on the internet purely out of convenience and a lack of desire to pay for it.

It's too bad. Game criticism doesn't mean that these games should be banned - it just means that you'll have to play them either aware of the potential social/political implications or try your damnedest to ignore such criticism. It's like if you get off on watching staged rape porn (or simulated BDSM porn).

[Covenant]

Or, heaven forbid, engage in consensual BDSM play with other adults like yourself. There is a lack of language for people to express an acceptable degree of amorality, at least amoral from an outside observer perspective, that any behavior which gets criticized turns into the Last Stand for The Good People to fight about.

Boob Jiggle Physics should be acceptable in a society that has moved past normalized and institutionalized sexual repression, and even in a society that is lurching towards something resembling a better future it should be fine to say to yourself "I know this isn't ideal, but it is a guilty pleasure--a pleasure because I enjoy it and a guilty one because I know, and would not advocate, it becoming the normal thing we all do all the time."

Adults lose the ability to think at the level of children and say "fanservice is a sometimes food" and comfortably live with moderation. They must be all right all the time, or when they are wrong, they must be wrong specifically to enrage (and thus achieve a good) their appointed enemies.

[TheFeniX]

I think that's what it is. It requires you to admit that you consciously choose to participate in amoral or morally troubling activities - it's the same reason why people generally won't just admit that they pirate content on the internet purely out of convenience and a lack of desire to pay for it.

It's pretty easy to find the link between immorality and theft. You've got some hoops to jump through to claim the same thing about fictional theft, such as in a game like Payday.

Game of Thrones is ridiculously violent and sexualized and women just don't seem to mind it. Do all these male and female viewers somehow need to justify their immoral viewing habits or is it just that they can differentiate between reality and fiction? Being guilt-ridden some of those fantasies you may or may not have might give other people pause (although I think comparing the current situation female characters face in fiction to rape porn is pretty disingenuous) is some biblical levels of thought shaming.

Modern video games have their own issues. We can't get fleshed out characters to save our lives so all we get is the fanservice with little to make it more than "well, this character is hot and scantily dressed, so we're good" or they just don't bother with women at all. Characters are routinely pegged down to 1 or 2 stereotypes and guess what those end up being for females?

But that's a whole separate issue than thinking men should feel ashamed for wanting to see attractive women (or vice versa) or full-fill some power fantasies through fiction. I think we'd be in a much better spot if instead publishers got off their asses and allowed more women to fullfill their own power fantasies. But they've got enough of a purchasing block locked down based around the young(er) male demographic, we're actually at a point where Squeenix of all companies seems to be one of the few willing to pick up the torch.

[madd0ct0r]

Or, heaven forbid, engage in consensual BDSM play with other adults like yourself. There is a lack of language for people to express an acceptable degree of amorality, at least amoral from an outside observer perspective, that any behavior which gets criticized turns into the Last Stand for The Good People to fight about.

Boob Jiggle Physics should be acceptable in a society that has moved past normalized and institutionalized sexual repression, and even in a society that is lurching towards something resembling a better future it should be fine to say to yourself "I know this isn't ideal, but it is a guilty pleasure--a pleasure because I enjoy it and a guilty one because I know, and would not advocate, it becoming the normal thing we all do all the time."

Adults lose the ability to think at the level of children and say "fanservice is a sometimes food" and comfortably live with moderation. They must be all right all the time, or when they are wrong, they must be wrong specifically to enrage (and thus achieve a good) their appointed enemies.

isn't that how social ridicule works? No-one holds up Mills And Boone as literature, but they are accpeted as guilty pleasures. How do you know it's guilty? expect ridicule if you read it in public.

[AniThyng]

so are we at games should be written to appeal to more women ( insofar as you can generalise all women ) or "women who happen to like games that men like" should not be ostracised or worshiped by male gamers?

[Thanas]

Why not both?

[AniThyng]

Why not both?

sure both is good and can coexist. But in the same way that we don't expect Mills and boon and tom clancy to be in the same shelf?

[TheFeniX]

Appealing to women isn't as hard as people make it out to be. You don't even need a female lead to do so. The shaved-head 30-something white dude is so popular because we've become so used to it we don't get all pissy when he's just a blank slate that spends time yelling cliche one-liners at the bad guy. He's boring, but he's not particularly insulting in of himself. There's Avatar, which only made like... all the money ever and you've got Worthington, who's the epitome of the Video Game protagonist. But Jake has motivations outside of "kill the bad guy, save the girl." The Navi may have started out as blue aliens you can bang, but Neytiri isn't just a hot piece of alien ass. She's a developed character like Jake. Even though the movie could have easily been a turn-off to women as a generic action flick, it wasn't.

There's always the "throw a love story in there to grab the female demographic" and while women do like a good love story is that just talking past the point? Do women like a love story because they get all gooey inside or do they like it because you have to actually develop that female character to make it feel real? So, you get someone who not only shares their biological junk, but also a character they can relate to.

Someone check to see if I'm wearing Rose-colored glasses here: but I remember in the 90s and early 2000s of having a much more varied list of protagonists and supporting characters in video games.

I've been re-watching Friends on Netflix because I remember growing up with it. Still a good show. But, I almost immediately (re)noticed there's like... no minority characters on the show except Chandler's boss, who is a niche character. The video game medium right now feels like Friends released in 2014 and the creators are saying "well, black and hispanic people don't sell." "But what about..."

"I said they don't sell!" when what they really mean is "we spent 300 million dollars on graphics and marketting, so..... what's left for writing and character development?"

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Someone check to see if I'm wearing Rose-colored glasses here: but I remember in the 90s and early 2000s of having a much more varied list of protagonists and supporting characters in video games.

I think you probably are wearing those cheap pink sunglasses. While there was Cate Archer and Imoen back then, there also wasn't FemShep, Lieutenant Mira, or Flemeth.

[TheFeniX]

Though there were other Bioware, Obsidian, and Bethesda titles with possible female leads and supporting characters and KOTOR2 with a canonically female Exile. I'm not talking about just women though. Guys that were just weird like the Nameless One. Even in the hilariously bad group of co-op TPS games consoles were crapping out had you possibly playing as Lizard Men.

There just seemed to be a much larger variety of weird shit back in the day. Even FF9 had you playing as some kind of rat boy. Not saying all of it was good.

[Lagmonster]

i suspect as well that people accept art with shitty, unrelatable themes as long as it is well done and exciting. Jane Austen novels are ridiculously popular with women, but nobody is likely to say that women who agonize over being married off to the right man make for good female role models.

[AniThyng]

i suspect as well that people accept art with shitty, unrelatable themes as long as it is well done and exciting. Jane Austen novels are ridiculously popular with women, but nobody is likely to say that women who agonize over being married off to the right man make for good female role models.

not really on point, but I don't always expect my fiction characters to be role models of any sort whatsoever. How else could we explore the dark paths of games like alpha protocol or kotor?

[Alyrium Denryle]

i suspect as well that people accept art with shitty, unrelatable themes as long as it is well done and exciting. Jane Austen novels are ridiculously popular with women, but nobody is likely to say that women who agonize over being married off to the right man make for good female role models.

not really on point, but I don't always expect my fiction characters to be role models of any sort whatsoever. How else could we explore the dark paths of games like alpha protocol or kotor?

Sure, but for those dark themes to be in any way meaningful, there has to be something about the characters you can identify with. Which, for something as abstract as a game means that depending on what is going on you need to actually give a shit about the protagonist or supporting cast as people, which means they have to be developed enough that your brain thinks of them as people. RPGs with self-created characters are good for that and it is notable to me that many of the best games insofar as inclusivity is concerned just so happen to be bioware rpgs...

[TheFeniX]

i suspect as well that people accept art with shitty, unrelatable themes as long as it is well done and exciting. Jane Austen novels are ridiculously popular with women, but nobody is likely to say that women who agonize over being married off to the right man make for good female role models.

Video games are also fairly unique in that gameplay can carry a lot of other deficiencies. Bayonetta 2 had a lot of controversy and women have differing opinions on if it's good or bad for their gender, which I don't know if that kind of controversy is a bad thing considering it gets people talking. But reviews about the gameplay are not so split: the game plays extremely well and few, if any, people have issues with it. The fact is: if you like Devil May Cry type hack-and-slashes, you really can not go wrong with Bayonetta WRT gameplay and that's going to push a lot of it's popularity.

Sure, but for those dark themes to be in any way meaningful, there has to be something about the characters you can identify with. Which, for something as abstract as a game means that depending on what is going on you need to actually give a shit about the protagonist or supporting cast as people, which means they have to be developed enough that your brain thinks of them as people. RPGs with self-created characters are good for that and it is notable to me that many of the best games insofar as inclusivity is concerned just so happen to be bioware rpgs...

I won't see for myself because I'm not breaking my EA boycott for Dragon Age, but from what I've heard "Dorian" was a pretty well-done character. There was a lot of mockery about the first "fully-gay" character and certain cesspools were filled with morons crowing about how this is The Worst Thing ever.™ Since the game has come out, the same idiots seem more than content to instead bash Bioware's lazy modelling and animation work and the gameplay issues the game has. There's a fair amount of hate directed toward Sera, but it all seems based around the idea that she's ridiculously annoying, not her sexual preference. And judging from the cutscenes I've seen with her, I can't disagree with them. But even what I've seen of Dorian in cutscenes: he's just written better and more relatable.

[White Haven]

Dorian made me sexually confused in all the best ways, and I'm not even a little bisexual. He was fantastically written and delivered.

[Starglider]

There's a fair amount of hate directed toward Sera, but it all seems based around the idea that she's ridiculously annoying, not her sexual preference.

.

She is ridiculously annoying but she is also well written, in the sense that her characterisation is strong and quite original.

(I was badly sick with flu for a whole week, so I marathoned DA:I, which my wife gave me for Christmas)

[White Haven]

Point of order: That was Fenix saying that.