Sexism, Racism, & Homophobia In Games

[Drithius]

I *don't* want more weak men There's more and more of those in everyday life as it is! Give me more Korgans any day of the week ! By the same token, I don't want weak damsel women!

 

[DArtagnan]

I don't care about weak or strong, I care about plausible. All men are weak as are all women.

 

[JemyM]

I believe games can be a mature medium that can explore and reflect reality.

 

[DArtagnan]

I believe games can be a mature medium that can explore and reflect reality.

Agreed, which is why I prefer plausible characters.

That said, I think there's room for both fantasy and reality.

 

[Drithius]

Ugh. You two are boring; I play to escape reality, not relive it.

 

[DArtagnan]

Ugh. You two are boring; I play to escape reality, not relive it.

I'm not surprised

Personally, I play to have fun and be distracted.

 

[JDR13]

Sounds like pretty much the same thing to me.

 

[DArtagnan]

Except I can be distracted by plausible characters in a story. I can also be distracted by reality - like if I notice a big pair of breasts.

You know?

Sometimes, I feel like pure escapism - and sometimes I feel like putting myself into a very life-like scenario, which is often about immersion.

Almost like I want a part of reality I can't really get through reality.

But that's how we all differ.

 

[JDR13]

All I read was something about a big pair of breasts. Therefore I must agree.

 

[DArtagnan]

I knew that'd convince you

 

[txa1265]

He he ... Boobies

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I *don't* want more weak men There's more and more of those in everyday life as it is! Give me more Korgans any day of the week ! By the same token, I don't want weak damsel women!

Read this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RatedMForManly

I want more weak men, or should I say men that are more "human". I haven't been able to relate to most modern male heroes.

I liked James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2. He was broken and depressed. The whole story is about his personal loss.

I liked Ethan Mars in Heavy Rain. Again, burdened with his personal loss, struggling with depression and agoraphobia.

I liked Guybrush Threepwood. I like him because of his incompetence and habit of ending up the damsel in the story all the time.

I like these characters because they are "real men" facing "real challenges". While Threepwood is a joke, Sunderland and Mars are not. They struggle against real emotions and real fears, not aliens or fictional wars.

I don't know this James Sunderland or the Ethan Mars, but as a whole, I agree.

I get so sick by only seeing games made by men for men boasting about how manly, powerful and strong their are - and MMOs have become bragging fests, especially when there are Leader Boards available.

No, no, I want heroes with an active posstraumatic stress disorder to be displayed. I want to see handicapped people becoming heroes because they manage to overcome the burden of living with one leg less or with one arm less.

Deus Ex Human Revolution touched this - but it didn't show the hero as someone who has overcome his handicap - instead they moved into the direction of "machine or man ?".

I want weak characters to become heroes in a game. And with "weak" i DO NOT mean "chararacters with less-than-optimal gear & guns", I mean "weak" in an psychological sense !

Because the common approach in games is this (slightly exaghgerated) : We take an already manly man, who will become a hero, which we know because we bought this game, and give him a stone axe, a rugged cloth and nothing else.
A weak point in terms of materialism from which he can rise into MOAR POWAH.

Basically the run from an stone age man into an Sci-Fi hero, so to say.

But, since this man is already displayed top be manly (he has guns, he has armor, he has power), this progress is only going on on an purely materialistic level. We learn NOTHING about his INNER progress. No psychology, please !

A good writer can express inner/psychological developments through outer display. Comic artists for example can do that. In one Asterix comic, the rather fat Gladiator trainer is displayed as a thing man when he is at the end of his nerves.

However, game developers usually are not able to displaythis fine art of storytelling. Especially in man-oriented war games (even DAO is more or less about war). ALL modern games are more or less about war - except The SIMs, which are hated by manly men, so to say, because The SIMs displa something they cannot understand or even cope with : Psychology.

All modern games are made so that
men = outside = material world
and
women = inside = emotional & spiritual world
but a mixture of both hardlöy ever happens.

Even more modern strong female protagonists in games are showing the men's way of acquiring power - or in other words : strong woman = woman going the manly way.
What's totally missing is that men are going the female way of getting strong in terms of resilience, inner strength, emotions, spirituality.

And those who do are considered weak.

The perfect example for this is this quote by Purpleblob :

@joxer: Alistair is always whiny…. and weak. That's why you need to "harden" him to make him less sissy.

Okay, if whiny men must be "hardened" to become less whiny - then, please, tell me, what about women ? Must they be "hardenedx" as well if they are too whiny ?

Now watch your reaction when reading what I just wrote. It shows a lot about in how far you are applying double standards there.

Regarding double standards, look here : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AmericanKirbyIsHardcore

And regarding weakness read this : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Moe
By the way, the makers of the last Tomb Raider game tried to make a Moe version of Lara CRoft - they stated several times they made her so weak that male players would want to protect her (they never said that female players would want to protect her, the game was very clearly made by men for men, with having the goal in mind to deconstrict Lara Croft as an powerful character into some weak character who needs to be protected, at least judging from their statements).


Further reading : "THe Girl show ghetto" : http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GirlShowGhetto

"The belief that boys shouldn’t be interested in girl things is the main reason there’s hardly anything decent for girls in animation — or almost any media for that matter. It’s a backwards, sexist, outdated attitude."
—Lauren Faust, creator and former executive producer of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

Mainly, the Double Standard most people have regarding media: that women's entertainment should only be enjoyed by women with no crossover allowed — despite it being okay for women to watch shows primarily marketed towards men — keeping in mind most media is male-focused. Not to mention the stigma that media specifically tailored for women is 100% guaranteed to be of inferior quality, no exceptions.

This line of thinking is very clear in most creators and executives' minds. Men and women could watch shows meant for men/starring a man, only women could like a female-centered, never mind "girly", show. Watching a girl show would be unmanly and be subject to ridicule. Just watch any show and the guy who's the more sensitive and caring member of the cast is usually the Butt Monkey.

Much, much more stuff can be found here (commented by me) :
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061249333&postcount=164

And here : http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1061249402&postcount=165

A quote from one of those TV TRopes articles :

To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it."
— Peter Marin, Jill Gets Welfare—Jack Becomes Homeless

 

[JemyM]

...

I agree. This is one of those cases I wish RPGWatch had a like button.

 

[crpgnut]

There's some titillating conversation in this thread. Of course I skip anything over two or three lines.

 

[joxer]

crpgnut, just make sure you don't skip the first sentence or two in the initial post.
The thread title suggests it's about general presence or non presence of certain things in games and as such I'd probably skip it completely. Games are games. Good or bad, fun or not fun, politically correct or not, they're still games and not phylosophical tractates or behavior studies.

But since it went onto Bioware's attitude on things I just couldn't help myself but exploded.

—-

@Alric

You forgot to add Mars:War Logs. Unlike endless damsel in distress cliche games, in Mars, it's finally not a damsel, right?

Also, where is last year's DLC:The Game praised by some people on this forum? Yes, the one where you save overpowered female. She's a master of many skills, can escape from anywhere to everywhere, can't die ever and etc, yet the plothole is so huge that you, a macho male, have to break her free - if reviews I've read didn't lie. I don't want to play such sexist crap.

My Little Pony game? Didn't see it but I'm already saying I would never buy that. IIRC MLP is some cartoon with cute characters. And IIRC the whole idea of the cartoon was just to be cute like the cuteness holds it's own purpose. As such, I find it dull.
Why is My Little Pony, or any show about coutside uteness and nothing else, a girl thing? I'd say it's an idiot thing. I don't care for one's make-up if there is nothing worth under it!
And sorry for me not buying that game just because I'm interested more into inner cuteness and not looking cute so it'll sell crap.

 

[Alrik Fassbauer]

An not uninteresting and new article : http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-06-18-editors-blog-i-am-sexist

 

[joxer]

Sexism? Bah. It's so 20th century.
Ppl are onto new stuff now. For example…

I hate EA.
We need a definition of that negativity soon as that plague is spreading.

Oh and btw… Escapist, Critical Miss:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...cal-miss/11743-NSFW-Assassins-Creed-Unisexity

(NSFW) Assassin's Creed: Unisexity

Gamers ask for feature in popular game.
One of the richest developers in the world, helming one of the most successful franchises in gaming history, claims a lack of resources means game won't have said feature.
Eyebrows are raised.

Eh, whatever, hopefully we'll get some playable female characters in next month's Assassin's Creed game.

More on French revolution with a pic in case you didn't get the strip epilogue above:
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/french/french.html

 

[ManWhoJaped]

If I play a game set in medieval japan I don't expect to play as a white woman. I think there's something wrong with people who do, or who even really care about it at all.

In a larger sense this kind of stuff is a way to step out and pretend to give people something they already had and take credit for it. In politics it's a distraction from real issues to let crooks keep getting elected. In games it's a sickening way for people to sell out and cash in on a heap of free PR. Maybe if they concentrated on making people happy through making good games instead of concentrating on selling a crap product on PR alone companies like bioware would get a lot less criticism.

 

[ManWhoJaped]

I shall quote one of the reply's on the article as it sums up RPS perfectly.
I wont deny what they talk about is a problem but the site goes to far sometimes. I don't know what happened, but in the last two years I really hate reading their articles.

It's interesting that decades or centuries can pass where some issues are just not an issue, then they are taken up furiously from every direction. Do they get paid by someone? Is it some weird group-think mind control?

Either way I can't wait til I never have to hear about this crap again, though I am sure something else will follow.

 

[xSamhainx]

I'm so glad Bioware's around to teach me a little lessons on sexism/racism/homophobia. I dont know what i'd do without them!