Full disclosure: I'm a white dude too, Dr NerdLove!
I agree with everything the article said, but what can I tell you, I felt that way before I read it.
I certainly don't fault you for linking it here, and I hope I'm wrong, but I can't see it changing anyone's mind. Louis Armstrong said it before I ever did: "Some folks, if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
Of course, given the thread's raging popularity, anyone reading it is the least of our worries...
It seems to be looking for a bit of a contradiction.
*grabs tigerskin tunic and large wooden club*
Y'see, nobody's saying that women don't receive different treatment from guys… I'm saying that being treated differently is the problem.
This simply doesn't work. I can't make some of the same jokes or innuendos with a girl at the table and assume (as you can with a male) that they will either find if funny, not mind, or take whatever annoyance they have with it, put it in the back of their mind and bury it until its completely forgotten.
.. unless of course they make the same/a worse joke.
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I tend to agree more with this rebuttal. While I have encountered a lot of crap as a black man in this country(er..the US, for those who may not be in my living room reading this post over my shoulder) that ain't cool, one of the ugliest and sharpest double edged swords is that if you go around looking for a discrepancy, you're rarely going to be disappointed. To me, it's all about logistics- it's better to deal with boorish behavior when it comes up than to make blanket statements that do more harm than good. Teachable moments work better when they aren't scripted or forced.
I don't disagree Freehold, and don't think anyone was suggesting going on an educate-the-poor-illiterate-masses-soapbox-rant (well, i wasn't at least). Your approach seems a sane way to deal.
My issue with the rebuttal you linked, assuming you meant Shinta's, is that he said he played tons of games where the female characters weren't portrayed badly and then went on to name seven and a preview for another. That isn't even double digits, much less a ton.
That's the cultural bias (or whatever you want to call it) that I try to look out for in myself: that a list of seven or eight decent portrayals of a minority among the tide of stereotypical ones out there means that the industry doesn't have room for improvement.
Also...
"Stereotypes are wrong you basement dwelling sexually obsessed nerds with no idea how to act around women!"
Also...
"Stereotypes are wrong you basement dwelling sexually obsessed nerds with no idea how to act around women!"
Well said. I agree wholeheartedly. Stereotypes are wrong.
However the ones I have encountered have had nothing to do with the women in the group because they were all treated as either little sisters or they were the wives of other gamers. Anytime anything even remotely sexual was even thought about being introduced the rest of the table stared daggers at the GM and were offended on behalf of the women in the group. The ladies were fine and had no idea what was going on but we policed our tables differently when we had women at them.
Before anyone accuses us of the whole white knight thing, we just prefer the term manners and decorum. After all having a bunch of guys describe how their hero kills the bad guy by slow torture and strangling him with his own entrails( I play mean wizards) is OK when it's an all male table but ladies don't as a general rule like to hear such talk.
Women tone down their speech when it's a mixed group vs a all women group too.
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I've yet to experience this. I've found women to be just as horny and bloodthirsty as men are. In fact, I've found that should women I am gaming with even suspect I'm censoring or something like that, they will say something.
I don't disagree Freehold, and don't think anyone was suggesting going on an educate-the-poor-illiterate-masses-soapbox-rant (well, i wasn't at least). Your approach seems a sane way to deal.
My issue with the rebuttal you linked, assuming you meant Shinta's, is that he said he played tons of games where the female characters weren't portrayed badly and then went on to name seven and a preview for another. That isn't even double digits, much less a ton.
That's the cultural bias (or whatever you want to call it) that I try to look out for in myself: that a list of seven or eight decent portrayals of a minority among the tide of stereotypical ones out there means that the industry doesn't have room for improvement.
Let me add a few more:
Beyond good and evil(for jade), longest journey(April Ryan), baldur's gate(various), baldur's gate two(various), half life two(Alex Vance), portal 1 & 2 (chell), the monkey island games.
No list could possible be exhaustive.
Ofcause the industry could do a lot more, but there are some great female characters out there.
The problem is that improvements to a system rife with issues are like jello -there's always room for more.
your right freehold but that's what keeps us coming back for more as well. Nothing will be perfect to everyone so the game continues to change, evolve and improve based on the majority.
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The question/problem is, when do we stop? When is enough enough? It never is, in many ways, and so people are going to perennially be upset. This isn't to say that improvements should cease, mind. Just that it should be recognized that it is a process, something in motion, not a goal. I would like rather celebrate victories along the way than bemoan failings (save for the most egregious).
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Do women worry that men aren't buying enough romance novels or there aren't enough men watching Glee?
Would any man actually try to lecture women on how the romance novel industry should adjust so as to make it more appealing to men?
Women like what women like, and men like what men like, we can't get hung up about these things.
That's the wrong way to look at things. This attitude is saying: "Why should we change. Girls aren't welcome here."
If straight men took a mass interest in Romance novels and Musicals you could bet your bottom dollar there would be changes to appeal to that new market.
Geek culture should not be gender specific, there's room enough for everyone and I for one want to encourage more women to take the roles of creators and fans without having to defend their reasons for being there.
Just as I have to defend my love of musicals as a straight white man.
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I had to laugh when the one commenter pointed out that the author addresses the entire Kotaku readership as though they were white males.
And then was dismissed as being evasive.
Talk about a need for self-reflection. The writer is a hypocrite, but he is a well-meaning, mostly-correct hypocrite.
Anyway, I think that content producers just need to be a little smarter about how they portray sexuality. Feminists, on average, are not opposed to sexuality in female characters — they are opposed to debasement and objectification. It is possible to handle sexuality without those things (and it should be more prevalent than it is!), but not if you are so narrow-minded that you can't add a bit of class, culture and equality to the sexuality you portray.
I'd say it comes down to bad writing and bad creative direction. If the creative staff is not imaginative enough to understand how their readers/viewers may not share their preferences... then the characters they create (both privileged males and objectified females) will lack depth.
I'm so terribly bored by the male characters who lack any depth beyond id — and they are a ubiquitous counterpoint to the objectified females.
Empathy. Try it some time. It'll make you a better writer (no matter your gender).
{begins collecting straw to build a pyre for the musical lovers}
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But for the majority of women, the idea of sitting down and playing a complex game is boring.
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D&D ain't for girls? Then how come there's so many elfs in it, huh?
And musicals is totally for orcs. We likes it when they do that sissy twirling and then trip and fall off the stage. Heh, heh.
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Ryan Reynolds wants the Deadpool movie to be an R-rated musical. Just throwings that outs theres.
That article reminded me that I'm still mad at Sega for what they did to Vanessa Lewis between Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. Urgh.
And Nintendo for what happened to Samus Aran.
And DC for what they did with Harley Quinn and Amanda "THE WALL" Waller.
And....oh dammit.
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Isn't the Batman quite yummy with all his muscles bulging under his skin-tight costume ?
What do you mean, he cannot be a sexual object to be consumed ?
False equivalence.
If Batman traipsed around in nothing but speedos and a cape, and offered his sexualality as his prime defining character trait I don't think he would be nearly as popular. You can't compare characters who are incidentally attractive (Spider-Man, Batman, Suoerman - all fully clothed, none of whom are defined by sex) with female characters of the same genre: Spider-Woman who's superpower is literally "super attraction date rape smell", Batwoman who is primarily identified as "the lesbian one" and Supergirl and Powergirl (Bare Midriff and Cleavage Woman respectively).
Any attraction to Batman is because he's a figure of power. Not sexuality.
<tongue in cheek>Also as an aloof authority figure he reminds girls and gays of their fathers</tongue in cheek>
Ryan Reynolds wants the Deadpool movie to be an R-rated musical. Just throwings that outs theres.
That article reminded me that I'm still mad at Sega for what they did to Vanessa Lewis between Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. Urgh.
And Nintendo for what happened to Samus Aran.
And DC for what they did with Harley Quinn and Amanda "THE WALL" Waller.
And....oh dammit.
it pains me know to disagree with you. I love harleys new outfit, and Vanessa Lewis' look was getting a a lot of muscle porn accusations.
First off, full disclosure - I frakkin LOVE Power Girl. I even net Amanda Connors. She's so small and petite she would fit in my pocket. Wife's a huge fan as well, and enjoyed many of the comments she made about living with large breasts in her run.
That said, spidey et al sure are sexual. They have been muscle porning it up FOR. YEARS. I Also, if you miss the rather obvious might of their super -codpiecies, then I don't know what to tell you.
Isn't the Batman quite yummy with all his muscles bulging under his skin-tight costume ?
What do you mean, he cannot be a sexual object to be consumed ?
False equivalence.
If Batman traipsed around in nothing but speedos and a cape, and offered his sexualality as his prime defining character trait I don't think he would be nearly as popular. You can't compare characters who are incidentally attractive (Spider-Man, Batman, Suoerman - all fully clothed, none of whom are defined by sex) with female characters of the same genre: Spider-Woman who's superpower is literally "super attraction date rape smell", Batwoman who is primarily identified as "the lesbian one" and Supergirl and Powergirl (Bare Midriff and Cleavage Woman respectively).
Any attraction to Batman is because he's a figure of power. Not sexuality.
<tongue in cheek>Also as an aloof authority figure he reminds girls and gays of their fathers</tongue in cheek>
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I blame Rob Leifeld for being technically unable to portray the human form, irrespective of gender.
I blame Rob Leifeld for promoting unrealistic body images to our youth.
] bad toz! Bad!
Any attraction to Batman is because he's a figure of power. Not sexuality.
first you get the power, then you get the money. then you get the women...
no wait.. first you get the money, then the power.. then the women?
Look, you get rich you get powerful you get women. That's the point.
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it pains me know to disagree with you. I love harleys new outfit, and Vanessa Lewis' look was getting a a lot of muscle porn accusations.Ryan Reynolds wants the Deadpool movie to be an R-rated musical. Just throwings that outs theres.
That article reminded me that I'm still mad at Sega for what they did to Vanessa Lewis between Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. Urgh.
And Nintendo for what happened to Samus Aran.
And DC for what they did with Harley Quinn and Amanda "THE WALL" Waller.
And....oh dammit.
It's like I don't even know you any more.
That said, spidey et al sure are sexual.
Oh... My... GOD!
it pains me know to disagree with you. I love harleys new outfit, and Vanessa Lewis' look was getting a a lot of muscle porn accusations.Ryan Reynolds wants the Deadpool movie to be an R-rated musical. Just throwings that outs theres.
That article reminded me that I'm still mad at Sega for what they did to Vanessa Lewis between Virtua Fighter 4 and Virtua Fighter 5. Urgh.
And Nintendo for what happened to Samus Aran.
And DC for what they did with Harley Quinn and Amanda "THE WALL" Waller.
And....oh dammit.
It's like I don't even know you any more.
That said, spidey et al sure are sexual.:O
and this is why females can wear this stuff and still be viable characters. (the link is mainly for the image on the right.)
more seriously, the over-sexualisation of characters annoys me as it breaks immersion in the game/comic/other reality when i see someone going around in naught but swordproof underwear. (i tested some options on skyrim recently to find that you can, with little effort, make a suit of armour that shows more skin than actual armour yet has better defencive qualities than standard issue deadric armour {the most protective heavy armour in the game})
so yes, we need to look at the indistry as a whole and think "are we overdoing it?"
on the flip side, taking this to an extreme and you have humans, vertically challenged peoples (dwarfs), Really virtically challenged peoples (halflings), other really virtically challenged people with flashy stuff (Gnomes), differently eared people (elves), slightly differently eared people (half-elves), and people we don't want to offend but are subtly predjidiced against because they're a different colour (half-orcs). all politically correct, and at that point i give up playing and go cry in a corner somewhere.
oops, i think my point got lost somewhere along the way. i'm sure there was one somewhere... if anyone can spot it, please let me know and return it when possible.
(Warning: this post may contain traces of satire, psudo-philosophy, and nuts. the core of this post is a strange glowing substance that fell to earth, presumeably from space. prolonged exposure to this post may cause long term neural damage. when not in use, store in a cold, dry place. do not taunt this post.)
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Going back to the linked article, the first problem is the guy was socially autistic. Most people understand that overhearing a comment in a store that you find disagreeable isn't an invitation to start an argument. Social autism is, unfortunately, a problem in geek culture.
Seems par for the course for a lot of comic shops I've been in.
You have to remember that social norms are not written in stone: they vary wildly by location and venue. If geeks have a tendency to treat conversations as a free for all rather than private and the venue in question has a high geek population then the "autistic" behavior becomes the new normal and normal becomes weird.
Someone sitting at the opera in a tuxedo perfectly quietly not making a sound makes sense. Someone painting themselves blue and cheering like crazy at the superbowl makes sense. Switch the two and both seem out of place.. the blue guy will get kicked out of the opera house and people will wonder why the tuxedo guy is so uptight at the game.
I consider myself quite lucky. I spent most of my comic book-collecting years with these ladies.
Sure, you could act like an infantile man-child idiot who has never seen boobies, but then you wouldn't get invited out back to smoke a bowl.
EDIT: This was years ago. DO NOT go there and demand weed.
Totally going there to demand weed. Totally.
{twirls 'stache}
Tell 'em Doodlebug Anklebiter sent you!
I know, OT, but this goes beyond gender. If I stop into a gaming/comic store the way I dress on weekends, in t-shirts and jeans, I get treated normally. When I go at lunch in my suit, I get some pretty hostile reactions. And that has been true in every game store I have ever been in.
Isn't the Batman quite yummy with all his muscles bulging under his skin-tight costume ?
What do you mean, he cannot be a sexual object to be consumed ?
False equivalence.
If Batman traipsed around in nothing but speedos and a cape, and offered his sexualality as his prime defining character trait I don't think he would be nearly as popular. You can't compare characters who are incidentally attractive (Spider-Man, Batman, Suoerman - all fully clothed, none of whom are defined by sex) with female characters of the same genre: Spider-Woman who's superpower is literally "super attraction date rape smell", Batwoman who is primarily identified as "the lesbian one" and Supergirl and Powergirl (Bare Midriff and Cleavage Woman respectively).
Any attraction to Batman is because he's a figure of power. Not sexuality.
<tongue in cheek>Also as an aloof authority figure he reminds girls and gays of their fathers</tongue in cheek>
But they are all just bad characters. Their feminity is used as crutch
By contrast you have actual characters, like Harley Quinn, Aleph, Miranda Zero, Ragged Robin, and Death, all of whom I can safely say I find more attractive than your examples, and all of whom are memorable in their own right.
Harley might be sexy, but its the dark sense of humour, and the subtext of spouse abuse that makes her an interesting character.
Aleph, multi-tasking hub of the frequency, hacker and consummate member of the web generation. Sure that punky looking hair is cute, but frankly I care more about her blowing out the brains of intruders, or organising a information from disparate researchers all across the world to help prevent a memetic plague than I do her wrack.
Miranda might look hot in that suit, but who gives a s~+~, shes resisting torture, kicking arse and personally saving the lives of the heads of major intelligence agencies.
Ragged Robin, yes, I can see her legs and what little there is of that outfit, but frankly she is a time-travelling psychic, trained by the invisible collage to save the world, why do I care again?
Death, probably my biggest crush of any fictional character ever...and i'm still infinitely more interested by her fascination with use mortals, her family strife , her quirky way with word, and the way she occationally lives a day as a mortal, just so she can understand use a bit better.
But your not really comparing like for like. Batman is pretty much the biggest male name in comics, with only wolverine, spiderman and superman giving him a real run for the money, while spider girl is....well honestly a z list superhero. Honestly, the best, most loved female comic characters are often far more interesting than the most loved male comic book characters, though certainly they are rarely as popular.
Feh on that. Power Girl 4 LIFE!
that said, what comic are you speaking of? And are you reading avengers academy?
Isn't the Batman quite yummy with all his muscles bulging under his skin-tight costume ?
What do you mean, he cannot be a sexual object to be consumed ?
False equivalence.
If Batman traipsed around in nothing but speedos and a cape, and offered his sexualality as his prime defining character trait I don't think he would be nearly as popular. You can't compare characters who are incidentally attractive (Spider-Man, Batman, Suoerman - all fully clothed, none of whom are defined by sex) with female characters of the same genre: Spider-Woman who's superpower is literally "super attraction date rape smell", Batwoman who is primarily identified as "the lesbian one" and Supergirl and Powergirl (Bare Midriff and Cleavage Woman respectively).
Any attraction to Batman is because he's a figure of power. Not sexuality.
<tongue in cheek>Also as an aloof authority figure he reminds girls and gays of their fathers</tongue in cheek>
But they are all just bad characters. Their feminity is used as crutch
By contrast you have actual characters, like Harley Quinn, Aleph, Miranda Zero, Ragged Robin, and Death, all of whom I can safely say I find more attractive than your examples, and all of whom are memorable in their own right.
But none of your examples, except for Harley, are really the same genre. And she's a villain.
If you're just talking comics, then there are plenty of examples of strong non-sexually focused female characters. It's just that most of them are in small alternative independent comics.
Far far fewer in mainstream superheroes. Not that some of them aren't good interesting characters in their own right, but the T&A is too often lurking.
Sandman is one of the biggest selling comics in history, over 10 million copys of the graphic novels sold. If I go to any comic shop in the uk, I'll find ten people who've read sandman before i find two who read spiderwoman. I haven't even ever seen Powergirl or supergirl on a shelf here in the UK, and I think I have seen spider-girl a grand total of once. Yet most comic shops, will have Death: The High Cost of Living (1993), and Death: The Time of Your Life (1996), as do quiet a few larger bookshops.
Hell, i've been reading comics since I was about 14, and this thread was the first time I'd ever heard of powergirl.
Wow. Check out the Amanda Connors run at least. I loved her fight with Ultra Humanite, it shows a different side of being a superhero- being responsible and somewhat compassionate while still standing up for what's right.
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But we've drifted far away from the "male superheroes are sex objects too, so objectifying females is ok" line of argument.
Have we though? I mean sure Death may frequently wear a halter-top around, but Gaimen doesn't objectify any of his characters.
Hell, if you read what he's written about coming up with the character, he described Dream as Death's younger brother and pulled a switcheroo by giving us the most level-headed goth chick in comics ever, instead of someone an order of magnitude older and grimmer that Sandy himself. By Gaimen's description, he was knowingly exploiting the reflexive assumption on the reader's part that Death would be male.
If everyone producing comics/video games/whatever put that much thought into what they were doing, this thread wouldn't be half so pertinent as it is.
Well here's the thing, and I think this largely amounts to reverse sexism.
Some guys like the sexuality and skimpy outfits.
Almost no guys really mind it.
That results in a net "put the skimpy stuff in" because its a net gain.
The female response is "you should respect my feelings and be upset about this stuff!" .... which of course, doesn't respect the male perspective of "meh.. whatever"
Which is equally beside the point, since neither is a superhero strip.
Well, I could have as easily given Laurie from Watchmen as an example, but when did this thread become solely about superheroes?
I'm not being a wise-ass asking such a basic question; it seemed to me the Kotaku article was talking about geek culture as a whole rather than the superhero genre specifically, even if he offered character designs from Arkham City as examples.