Argobot

But that were to happen, and mainstream media was finally able to admit that women have different modes besides sexy and even more sexy, then we'd miss out on totally awesome stuff like this: http://www.complex.com/video-games/2012/12/the-11-best-asses-in-video-games/

I can only hope that the title of this thread is a reference to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cySnG42s0lE

I have done quite a lot of falling down hills while playing this game, but at least everything sure is pretty to look at. What are your thoughts on the liger/giant cat? I haven't played far away to actually encounter it yet...

I don't know, I think you'd be surprised at the number of women (and men!) who are dissatisfied with the way both genders are represented in mainstream media. The portrayal of women is just discussed more because they are so underrepresented, and are fair less likely to have any depth of character outside of their appearance. I agree that sometimes men are not fairly represented either, especially in video games where they tend to be hyper-masculinized to the point of farce. It's not a zero-sum conversation though, it is possible to discuss how women and men are poorly represented in our culture, there's no need to pick sides. But anyway, Bioshock. Despite some of the issues that have come up around, this game still looks pretty good! I will probably preorder it.

The Social Network was particularly terrible since there actually were a lot of women involved in the creation of Facebook (like Zuckerburg's then girlfriend and now wife). The Sucker Punch argument is one that comes up a lot. Someone tries to defend their product by saying they're empowering women by depicting them as sexy, competent action heros (common argument I hear in video games). It's very convienent that your female empowerment just happens to look a lot like a male heterosexual fantasy of women. The issue of cultural appropriation is really important and I wish more people would consider it. As a woman, I feel underrepresented in a lot of media, but as a white person, I'm never lacking for examples of people that look like me. It's easy to let that privilege blind you, but I'm glad that more and more people are starting to notice an question it.

Isn't that what the Star Wars prequels were, a separate story with some of the same characters? I think people are making the comparison because both are examples of a director returning to the same universe with less than stellar results. I heard the same comparison after Prometheus came out ( a movie I enjoyed but can admit had some serious flaws). Do I think it's fair to compare The Hobbit to the prequels? Probably not, but that's what some people are doing. My point is that these negative reviews might be slightly overblown and I will be watching this movie with an optimistic view of its quality.

I read a review somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that claimed the 48fps combined with the 3-D give the movie an uncomfortably fake-look. Everything is so sharp and in focus, that it's really clear what you're watching is a movie and it's hard to not the artifice of the whole experience. The reviews are certainly disheartening, especially the comparisons that people are making between Lucas and his prequels to Jackson and this movie. I'm really hoping that some of the negativity is just coming from the expected backlash that arises when the latest installment of a popular movie series appears (see the reactions to The Dark Knight Rises for a good example of how backlash really drives opinion) and that the movie isn't as cataclysmically bad as some people are claiming.

That's a really astute point and is something that I did not consider. I still need to actually reread this book, but I will definitely keep what you said in mind while I'm reading. Your point is true for really all kinds of literature. An example from my own reading past is with Russian literature, which is notoriously hard for American audiences to read. One of the major complaints that I always hear when someone is struggling with a Dostoevsky or a Lermontov (besides the quality of the Russian-English translation) is that the author expects you to be familiar with over 200 years of Russian history. I tried to read Crime and Punishment in high school and did not understand a word of what I read. It wasn't until two years later, when I had taken a number of Russian history classes, that I tried to reread CP and finally had a eureka moment of understanding. Books--especially those that are written by foreign authors--cannot be read out of context, and I think that you're right to highlight the context in which we're read Gatsby. I just really need to sit down and reread this thing so that I can actually form an adult opinion on it.

I mean I agree that they shouldn't have let creative concerns be superseded by marketing/economic ones, but that's the decision that Irrational made and I think they should stick by it. Having a fan poll for a reversible cover is just putting a band aid on a much larger problem of how games are marketed.

I guess my objections is that I don't really believe that everyone is happy. I imagine the people who voted for the losing reversible covers will not be happy, for example. Irrational designed a generic cover for a very innocuous reason -- to sell the game to people who are not immediately familiar with Bioshock. I get the sense that they were not prepared or even expecting such a massive backlash from their fans and I think Levine really put his foot in his mouth with the 'frat boys' comment. But at the end of the day, I don't think that you should be allowing fans to dictate designs. After this all blows over, what will we have accomplished? A reversible cover that not everyone voted for, that most people will probably either forget about or even more likely, not even see, because they bought the game on Steam.

Everyone is happy for now, until something else happens that makes the fans upset. Like I said, this sets up a dangerous precedent where creative decisions are constantly being influenced by a small but very vocal minority.

This here is why discussions like this are so complicated. Yes, real life women will sometimes dress in an attractive way, for a number of different reasons. It's ok to want to feel attractive! A problem comes up, however, when women see how they're portrayed in most mainstream media, and feel the need to mimic that appearance or attitude because it's what society is telling them the 'norm' is. Of course, I'm not trying to sit here and argue that all women should dress like nuns as a way to fight the patriarchy, which is why conversations like this are extremely difficult to have. I don't want to tell other women how to dress or act, but I think it's important that they seriously asks themselves 'why do I feel compelled to dress or act this way? Am I doing it for myself or for others?' Speaking out against the character design of someone in a low-cut dress doesn't mean that I think all characters in games should be modestly dressed. Looking sexy is fine! It just starts becoming a problem when it's literally the only depiction of women that is available.

Dressing to feel attractive and being sexualized to appeal to a very specific segment of the population are two completely different things.

It's just frustrating that Irrational feels obligated to do something like this poll in the first place. Even though I think the original box art design they came up with for the game is really lame, I don't think it warrants caving to fan pressure; it just sets a bad precedent.

Now this is a thing: http://irrationalgames.com/insider/poll/

I have no idea why marketers continue to believe that the presence of a non-stereotypical woman in a game/movie/book's marketing will always mean that thing will sell less. There are so many examples where the exact opposite has happened (most recently with the Hunger Games movie: female lead character who was all over the marketing images, and they movie still did amazingly well with the young male demographic). At this point, I think most people are just holding up the 'things don't sell well if there are women in it,' as an excuse to not make more of an effort to include a different perspective in their game/movie/book's marketing or development. It just reeks of laziness and close-mindedness.

I can only imagine the back pains that lady must have.

I'm currently reading Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies. I loved Wolf Hall, and her follow up to the first Thomas Cromwell book is fantastic (and I'm hard to please because I usually hate historical fiction). I think it's a testament to Mantel's talent as a writer that her novel actually contains suspense, even though all the historical events are already forgone conclusions. There's a scene where Henry VIII has a joust accident and is unconscious for a few hours and all the characters are running around yelling about the king being dead with no male heir, and it made me feel stupid, because for about five seconds I actually thought 'holy shit, he's dead, she's killed him,' even though, historically, I know that Henry lived for much longer. Mantel's writing made me temporarily forget reality and be completely drawn into what was happening on the page. Great book, Mantel deserves all the prizes she's been given for this and Wolf Hall.

(It was better than Super Sad True Love Story at least. Probably shouldn't have beat Freedom for all the awards though)

I guess Opal was able to forgive Flash for what he'd done, because she didn't have as a long of a history with him as Fos did. Fos and Flash knew each other for years, then suddenly Fos is confronted with these horrible things that a man he must consider his brother has done. Opal doesn't have that history, so there's less of a sense of betrayal. She always had a much more realistic way of relating to Flash, and had a much easier time admitting to his faults than Fos did (great example of this is when she confronts Flash over where he got the funding for the photography store). Fos is blinded by his love for Flash, and can't handle the idea of admitting that this man he has known for decades might not be the nicest person. Not only is Fos forced to confront the bad aspects of Flash's character, but he also has to question how he, Fos, could ever become so close to someone who would do such a horrible thing. Opal doesn't have the same issue, which is why she keeps in touch with Flash and encourages Fos to contact him as well; she understands the importance of their friendship and doesn't want Fos to completely abandon it, even if he has every right to hate Flash.

Really not that bad, swear.

Well, the Slate reviewer was not a big fan of the 48fps or the movie in general: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2012/12/the_hobbit_reviewed_peter_jackson_s_new_tolkien_movie_is_too_long_and_looks.html (That article has spoilers, in that it says exactly where the first movie ends, so beware)

I was glad that Sean/Chris mentioned how evenly Wiggins writes her female and male characters in this novel, because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot since I finished reading it. Wiggins really does write convincing male characters, but I think where she really excels is with her female characters; her portrayal of Opal was just so brutally realistic. Of all the authors that have been featured so far on this cast, Wiggins by far has written the best female characters. Opal's inner regret and shame over her inability to conceive was so painful and, for me at least, so relatable. In a lesser writer, I think the 'infertile woman who wants children' trope would have driven the book too far into cliche, but Wiggins manages to deftly describe a very real fear without delving too much into melodrama. That section that Chris read from the book, where Opal thinks how she is good at counting and other women are good at having children, just drove home how perfect a character Opal is.

Does the VGA win mean that the Walking Dead has to be the Idle Thumbs pick for GOTY.CX?

Well now I take back every bad thing I said/thought about the VGAs. Good for Sean and Jake (who had the best speech).