GTA V

[ThunderPeel2001]

Can I ask what we're taking about here? Just the advertising for GTA?

The argument that the perp is posing for the advert because she's in an advert makes no sense. (Why isn't the cop posing?) And how does being meta make it OK anyway?

[TychoCelchuuu]

Why are any of the women posing in any of the GTA ads going back to 3? The cop isn't posing because she's busy arresting someone. And this is the third time in this thread that I've said being meta doesn't make it okay, it just makes it different, distinct, and better than most objectification of women in the media.

[elmuerte]

I blame the James Bond movies for all of this

[Sno]

I was messing around with GTAIV a bit recently, and it struck me that the game is a remarkably strange time capsule.

Poking around the fake internet in that game feels super weird, it has dated in a super weird way.

[TychoCelchuuu]

It was dated when GTA IV came out, wasn't it? The game is only four years old. The Internet, like almost everything that goes into the Grand Theft Auto games, is a wonderful piece of mood/environment building in action.

[Erkki]

Why are any of the women posing in any of the GTA ads going back to 3? The cop isn't posing because she's busy arresting someone. And this is the third time in this thread that I've said being meta doesn't make it okay, it just makes it different, distinct, and better than most objectification of women in the media.

I really don't see how it makes it better. Distinct, I can agree with.

[TychoCelchuuu]

It's better because there's a purpose behind it, and because if the objectification of women were not a recurring problem that is endemic of our culture's bias against them and thus a component in the ongoing oppression of women then it would be perfectly fine, whereas something like Cortana or Ash's boob job in Mass Effect 3 would be at best silly and at worse steering us in the wrong direction back towards sexism even if you waved a magic wand and made patriarchy disappear.

[soggybagel]

I read a bit of the GameInformer article this morning and there's a lot of head shake-worthy things being said by Hauser and co. First off, the idea that an older gangster who's getting pulled back in to a life of crime (necessitated by debt) is a "new, interesting idea" to paraphrase, is ridiculous. Hauser should really start watching some of the relavent media he's been purposely ignoring, like, I dunno... Heat? to get some perspective on how original a story he's writing. The main characters really don't interest me. They feel very much like cookie cutter models designed to narratively support the type of city exploring/destroying gameplay gta is known for. Nothing more. Which will be fine for most, but I don't think this story is going to add much that is new.

And in terms of gender stuff: as disappointed as I am that there aren't female protagonists, this image bothers me a lot more:

Seductress and Dominatrix stereotypes playing perfectly off each other into an image of pure pornographic fantasy for a male audience. Yay! Not!

The issue with the police woman image is that the perp is posing for the camera. It makes zero sense that she'd be doing that while being arrested... Except to try and turn the image into a male pornographic fantasy.

I think you're both completely overreacting here. These illustrated adverts among the others that have been released as promotional material are selling an image and are evoking very specific messages. I'm your average late 20's target for these type of ads and the first thing I saw wasn't a hot dominatrix/seductress role play scene that I could get my rocks off. I saw an image that along with the others was selling me a fun adventure in fictional Los Angeles. Yes they're selling a sexy image in a couple of the promos but I don't think they're selling the explicit concept of the male patriarchy and women being beholden to a lower rung of status.

The two things I noticed immediately was that she was wearing a Love Fist shirt which is a call back to previous games, and that there is a fake Bentley and Louis V bag which is telling me this is some sort of high status woman who is perhaps flouting the law.

There's another image of a black male, with a big rottweiler holding a bat, with a liquor store sign behind him and high tension wires above his head. It's playing on a familiar trope of what I'd have to assume is south central Los Angeles.

I'm not saying you're completely wrong. Rockstar is in a unique position as a company that can do what they want and could push the platform of a woman protagonist in a way that most companies could not. They can pave the way and show that "hey, you don't have to be afraid to do these things." Where I think you're barking up the wrong tree is saying that Rockstar isn't self aware. They're aware more than basically any other video game company out there. And if you doubt their creativity and maturity, I would point no further than the two DLC/Expansions to Grand Theft Auto 4. Lost and the Damned had some of the best writing coupled with performances in a video game period. It explored interesting ideas and was clearly a reflection of its time and place (looking specifically at the financial melt down).

I'm not saying this was some massive coup for equality but the fact that they released their second DLC titled THE BALLAD OF GAY TONY is hilarious and amazing if you really think about it. Yes, the Gay Tony character wasn't the lead protagonist but he was a main character whom your character worked for. He wasn't portrayed as some dandy fop gay stereotype. He was just a guy who wanted to live the American dream and he happened to be gay. Again I don't want to say this is some groundbreaking character work, but compared to what most other companies are doing and have done, this might as well be a man walking on the fucking moon.

The old trope of "one last job" or "getting pulled back in" or "new guy trying to make it on the scene" is old and as tired as you all are stating. I agree. But it's also a trope that exists because its good. Plenty of great pieces of film from the last five years have basically been this, but presented in new and fun ways. We'll always have these crime stories because they can be extremely compelling. Its about Rockstar working harder, being better, because they know they can and want to impress audiences. Grand Theft Auto 4 did A LOT to shift that narrative. People tend to say Saints Row 3 was a reaction to GTA 4 in the sense that it went all out and was just pure lunacy to GTA 4's more buttoned down "real" world reaction. The reality is and Jeff Gerstman recently pointed this out, was that Saints Row series was really a reaction to San Andreas and how insane that game went. My point is that GTA 4 now gets pegged a lot, by lots of people including all the Thumbs guys on the podcast for having a bizarre and jarring narrative dissonance. I agree. But people tend to ignore the part that GTA 4 was a game that actually helped establish a base line point where people actually started noticing it. It helped push story telling in video games. It's been almost five years from the games release at this point. I think people over look how much more restrained GTA 4 was from San Andreas and then you can see how they're changing how they narratively handle things even more so in Red Dead Redemption. Where due to the very strong early character building of the protagonist, even when you had the option of say, slaughtering a whole town, you didn't want to, or at least I didn't because of how strong they created character and world. I felt it out of place if i went on a rampage and tended to inhabit a more balance morality.

Back to the image at hand though. I guess I'm approaching it wrong but I'm not perturbed that much by the image. It's selling sexuality but maybe I just don't care or see it as a complete negative as some of the other posters. It's selling the Grand Theft Auto image. Which in other spots is guns, crime, danger, and sex. Perhaps I'm a too indifferent, but to me they're operating under the rules of the world that they sell.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I think you're both completely overreacting here.

I'm not saying you're completely wrong.

Well as long as we cleared that up :-P

Let's just say that I don't believe that the facial expression of the woman being arrested wasn't something given a great deal of thought to. She's pouting for the camera, and that's no accident.

It's not the end of the world though, it's just a little... really?

[soggybagel]

Yeah she is definitely pouting. It's definitely intentional. But dominatrix seductress lesbian fiction so I can get off to it? I don't know. You can argue about women and male patriarchy because these are some what unquantifiable BUT also something I don't disagree with.

I'm mostly on the side of this being selling sex but mostly on the side of it being silly as opposed to insidious.

And yes Rockstar could be doing a lot better, but as i outlined above, they're doing a lot better than basically any other company out there.

[youmeyou]

I'm glad we can at least agree that they are selling sex.

My main purpose in linking that image was that, in addition to the tired conceit of the storyline, trotting out the same ol' sexy babe poster that comes with every GTA game inspired that 'really?' moment ThunderPeel mentions. Maybe you can argue it's somehow satire, but it just looks immature to me. And that jars with what Rockstar seems to be driving towards: mature narratives that move the genre forward.

[Etnos]

Yeah she is definitely pouting. It's definitely intentional. But dominatrix seductress lesbian fiction so I can get off to it? I don't know. You can argue about women and male patriarchy because these are some what unquantifiable BUT also something I don't disagree with.

I'm mostly on the side of this being selling sex but mostly on the side of it being silly as opposed to insidious.

And yes Rockstar could be doing a lot better, but as i outlined above, they're doing a lot better than basically any other company out there.

Wether or not you morally agree with those images messages/intents, Rockstar is still boss on creating iconographic memorable material, which is so hard to do in this day and age. I'm personally not offended, and I believe is a great piece of "graphic satire", is it going to be in the moma any time soon? I don't think so, yet it still cualitative way better than the usual Video game promo.

Rockstar seem to be one of the few companies with an art department that actually know about fine art, contemprary art and media, unlike the usual run of the mill "I grew up with Video games" art director.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I'm glad we can at least agree that they are selling sex.

My main purpose in linking that image was that, in addition to the tired conceit of the storyline, trotting out the same ol' sexy babe poster that comes with every GTA game inspired that 'really?' moment ThunderPeel mentions. Maybe you can argue it's somehow satire, but it just looks immature to me. And that jars with what Rockstar seems to be driving towards: mature narratives that move the genre forward.

Rockstar seems to be driving towards mature narratives that move the genre forward and not satire? Those two are not mutually exclusive and Rockstar has doubled down on both, I woudl argue. Their last DLC was called "The Ballad of Gay Tony" and the trailer prominently featured a silly man in his underwar - tell me they aren't trying to be satirical and even downright goofy. Or even just watch the GTA V trailers! In the first one, a truck drives by selling microwaveable burgers with the slogan "Once It Pings, Eat Like Kings." Then a postal delivery truck drives by with the slogan "We Aim Not To Lose It" which is a double pun! There's an ad for Pisswasser in the second trailer, followed by the zany crazy guy who's like "yeah I'll swing by to sign the lease, ignore the dead bodies" and the faux-thug son of the white guy with his silly neck tattoo who says "let's bounce." A jeep drives out of an airplane and a guy jumps off two trains that are crashing into each other and exploding. Hell, Grand Theft Auto is more parody than mature narrative even in the most serious installment, #4.

If you want to pretend like Rockstar is just aiming to make Heat in video game form as an excuse for getting mad at the blatant oversexualization in their ads then go ahead, but that oversexualization is, as I have argued earlier in this thread, absolutely tied in to the parody of American media culture that forms perhaps the strongest baseline theme in the GTA games after the hyperviolence and the games' treatment of it.

Maybe if every second of every Rockstar game weren't suffused in joke advertisements, joke TV shows, joke radio broadcasts, joke characters, and ridiculous situations, you would have a strong leg to stand on when you argue that their advertisements don't have any satire going on, but I think you're better off with the argument you were making on the previous page of this thread, which is that it's legitimate satire but that this doesn't make it OK. That's a much better argument than saying "Rockstar is just drawing sexy ladies because sex sells."

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'm mostly on the side of this being selling sex but mostly on the side of it being silly as opposed to insidious.

There's definitely a playfulness in the GTA games, but I think even *that* is often wrong-footed. I could totally see this image as being silly, by itself. But if that were the intention, wouldn't the rest of the campaign also feature similar levels of silliness? :-/

[TychoCelchuuu]

Have you ever PLAYED a GTA game? Those are nothing if not packed to the brim with EVERY kind of tone, from silly to serious to ironic to murderous rampage. There is indeed another silly picture in the ad campaign, though - the woman taking a picture of herself with her not-an-iPhone that I discussed the previous page of this thread.

[Tundra]

the woman taking a picture of herself with her not-an-iPhone that I discussed the previous page of this thread.

The Apple parody is named 'Fruit', with a typically GTA phalic logo.

[elmuerte]

Is it just me or does that GTA5V image remind you of the last season of Dexter? The cop looks like Dexter's sister, and the other women looks like Dexter's latest girldfriend

[youmeyou]

Rockstar seems to be driving towards mature narratives that move the genre forward and not satire? Those two are not mutually exclusive and Rockstar has doubled down on both, I woudl argue. Their last DLC was called "The Ballad of Gay Tony" and the trailer prominently featured a silly man in his underwar - tell me they aren't trying to be satirical and even downright goofy. Or even just watch the GTA V trailers! In the first one, a truck drives by selling microwaveable burgers with the slogan "Once It Pings, Eat Like Kings." Then a postal delivery truck drives by with the slogan "We Aim Not To Lose It" which is a double pun! There's an ad for Pisswasser in the second trailer, followed by the zany crazy guy who's like "yeah I'll swing by to sign the lease, ignore the dead bodies" and the faux-thug son of the white guy with his silly neck tattoo who says "let's bounce." A jeep drives out of an airplane and a guy jumps off two trains that are crashing into each other and exploding. Hell, Grand Theft Auto is more parody than mature narrative even in the most serious installment, #4.

If you want to pretend like Rockstar is just aiming to make Heat in video game form as an excuse for getting mad at the blatant oversexualization in their ads then go ahead, but that oversexualization is, as I have argued earlier in this thread, absolutely tied in to the parody of American media culture that forms perhaps the strongest baseline theme in the GTA games after the hyperviolence and the games' treatment of it.

Maybe if every second of every Rockstar game weren't suffused in joke advertisements, joke TV shows, joke radio broadcasts, joke characters, and ridiculous situations, you would have a strong leg to stand on when you argue that their advertisements don't have any satire going on, but I think you're better off with the argument you were making on the previous page of this thread, which is that it's legitimate satire but that this doesn't make it OK. That's a much better argument than saying "Rockstar is just drawing sexy ladies because sex sells."

Like I said, you can argue that it's satire but I personally think its unsuccessful in that respect and comes off more as pandering. Is it really necessary to use pinup babes to make a statement about oversexualization in American media? Seems about as useful as the trend Chris pointed out with violent video games trying to make a statement about hyper-violence in American media. You get to make an easy, obvious statement, and then pretend you're not just pandering to your audience's base instincts. Win-win!

As for all this stuff about clever writing and puns, that's great but besides the point. I agree the writers of Rockstar are far more clever than many of their industry counterparts. How does that make them any less male-centric and negative in their depictions of women? In the end of GTA 3 you shooting your annoying gabbing female partner as the credits roll. Ha ha, what a bitch amiright? Rockstar loves to make jokes at the expense of women in its games. Women in the games are either date power ups or hookers to use for health. And while the actual written narratives have gotten more nuanced, the playable actions within game world and the packaging of the product seems as immature as ever. So I see a dissonance there.

[youmeyou]

As to using sexualization towards the purpose of satire, I think a great example of how to do it right is Aeon Flux.

The exaggerated way in which she is depicted manages to both invite and disgust the male gaze. It's sexualization taken to a grotesque level. And it is 100% a comment on how women are depicted in comics and cartoons. And I think the comment is way more clear in this case, where her features are actually distorted, than in ads for GTA where you're just given an image of a well-proportioned women posing seductively and without context (besides being a comment on other pictures of women posing seductively without context i guess)

[TychoCelchuuu]

There's a big difference between "maybe you can argue it's somehow satire, but it just looks immature to me" and "the satire is still male-centric and negative in its depiction of women." I can disagree with the first statement but agree with the second. I take my posts to be disagreeing with the first. I don't think misogyny or male-centricity is immature - it's just misogyny. And either way, it's definitely satire, not just senseless pandering to the male gaze.

edit: with respect to your Aeon Flux point - I took the completely nonsexualized policewoman, who isn't in an advertisement so much as she's busy arresting that oversexualized lady who IS in an advertisement, to be exactly the kind of satire we're talking about. The officer is the real woman - no fancy makeup, sensible haircut, non-sexualized pose, normal clothes, not staring invitingly at the viewer, while the perp is the classic "sexy lady trying to sell you something" bullshit. It's the absurd (in the form of oversexualized American media) intruding into the pedestrian (the police officer) which is a hallmark of the entire GTA franchise. The absurd, represented by all the aspects of American culture that GTA satirizes, intrudes into the pedestrian, which is Rockstar's pitch perfect recreation of what American cities feel like.

If you think there's zero context to any of the GTA ads and their seductively posed women, I feel like you're just ignoring everything the GTA series has stood for. They take everything toxic and ridiculous in American culture and amplify it, shine a spotlight on it, and turn it into the narrative of t he game, the background noise of the game, the advertisement for the game, and so on, then they wrap it in a cloak of artistry that comes from their amazing art and sound design and so on in order to present a package as slick as anything they are making fun of. Suffusing the parody in the same authenticity that makes the original stuff grab us in the first place keeps the irony from feeling crass or unthinking. Rockstar can do what we can do, just as good or better, so when they make fun of us it's not from a position of jealousy but from a position of bemusement or morbid fascination.

[soggybagel]

IT doesn't make it okay but Rockstar still is slowing pushing the needle in a more nuanced direction.

I'm kind of getting annoyed somewhat at the complaints about dissonance in Grand Theft Auto 4. I know its only been four plus years, but in the game industry that is a long time. Rockstar themselves have already showed they're maturing as story tellers. Red Dead is a clear marker. It's not award winning writing, but the characterization of Marsten is the strongest character I can think of in nearly any video game. It's the same old cliche story, man gets pulled in against his will to do one last job to save his family. Its your standard crime story draped also in the tropes of the western. But the way they build the character, the world, you're inhabiting him. You can go about towns shooting and killing everyone you want just as in GTA but at least in my playthrough I was far more reticent to do so because it felt against my character's own moral and behavioral compass. Which is a way that Rockstar is fighting against that dissonance that people complain about a lot.

Why I'm annoyed is not to say that it wasn't there, the dissonance of narrative vs. character action, but I think they may get somewhat unfairly piled on as this start reminder of how they really fucked up...when in fact they were operating as I noted in a very constrained fashion. Pulling back from the jet packs, and area 51's, and crazy shit in general of San Andreas. They were buckling down, creating a world, and giving people what they thought everyone wanted. Narrative structure in video games has gotten so much better in just those few short years that is actually kind of remarkable. If you go back and play that first generation of xbox 360 and ps3 games its pretty remarkable how shitty most of the storytelling was even compared to something that comes out right now. They've gotten better.

Once again, I'm not excusing their short comings, but at least offering some context as well as the fact that we're shitting on a story for a game that no one has played. I would certainly argue that in GTA 4 most of the side periphery characters are very shallow one dimensional joke characters. That includes a complete meathead like Brucie. I think they've matured a lot since GTA 3 though, which was over a decade ago now at this point. I'll be honest that I haven't touched GTA 4 in a long while, a few years now, but I can't off the top of my head think of any horribly depicted women. In fact most of the women (of which there were few!) were depicted as anyone else in the universe is. A comical exaggeration of what we know. I think one was definitely a Puerto Rican drug dealer.

One thing I will say about Rockstar's GTA games though is that they are building an inhabitable universe. I played Saints Row 3...which was just okay. But it still felt like a video game world. Same with Sleeping Dogs. GTA 4 is the only game where I genuinely felt for moments that I was driving around a living breathing city. Remo mentioned it a long while ago when he mentioned the Lost and Damned DLC. How when he came back to it he remembered as you do in real life visiting your old home town or things like that, familiar streets, and turns and landmarks. It's a unique feeling that Rockstar created that no other game has done for me. And by shaping that world and filling it with advertisements, radio stations with commercials and djs and songs, and atmosphere in general I think that they are able to pull off commenting on American culture and eating their cake too in a way that other games aren't able to or fail to do so. Because they're creating an experience in a way that no other company does. Which isn't to say THEY CAN'T DO BETTER...and I know I'm coming off as this massive rockstar apologist. I think they can push harder and faster but I'm just trying to contextualize what I think they do so well, why they deserve some credit, and why I don't think they're quite as bad as you may think they are.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I guess I'm weird, but the dissonance didn't bother me. The sloppy and inconsistent attempts at satire did, as well as the predictability of their stories.

I don't really believe my character ran over 30 citizens on the way to his mission. But *I* did, because I wanted to get there quickly.

[Tundra]

Hopefully the Los Santos sharks are more aggressive/potent than the ones in FarCry 3

Source

[brkl]

They're certainly fatter, so you have to be getting more tasty human flesh.

[melmer]

SUBMARINES and TRAINS. Christmas has come early!!!