Feminism

[feelthedarkness]

Re: games causing domestic violence. I don't think she was actually trying to make the argument that the "kill lady to save lady" is a cause or justification of domestic violence in real life. I think she more was trying to draw the parallels between women 'asking for it:' in the case of games, women are literally asking to be killed by the protagonist; in real life, 'she was asking for it' is used to defend all kind of violent actions against women. My interpretation wasn't that this trope is a mirror of domestic violence, just that it has some gross similarities, and that games writers should think more about those similarities when they're writing this kind of plot.

 

Agreed, and also an illustration that popular media can reflect and reinforce mainstream attitudes. Also, pointing out that these things can affect isn't the same as saying "these things are making you do X."

 

She also points out in the video that the developers aren't setting out to say horrible things about women out of hatred, but asking you the viewer to consider how these ubiquitous messages are deeply ingrained in our culture and how they can affect your thinking.

[Twig]

Re: games causing domestic violence. I don't think she was actually trying to make the argument that the "kill lady to save lady" is a cause or justification of domestic violence in real life. I think she more was trying to draw the parallels between women 'asking for it:' in the case of games, women are literally asking to be killed by the protagonist; in real life, 'she was asking for it' is used to defend all kind of violent actions against women. My interpretation wasn't that this trope is a mirror of domestic violence, just that it has some gross similarities, and that games writers should think more about those similarities when they're writing this kind of plot.

It seemed to me more like those were two SEPARATE subtropes of the overall damsel trope. They could be related, but in this case, I don't think she was actually trying to say they were. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression I got from the way she presented things!

 

She had a bunch of examples of women "asking for it", followed by a bunch of examples of women not actually asking for it, but being "saved by violence". Both of those things are true, separately, but I feel like the theme of the former examples doesn't necessarily apply to the latter examples. They're not mutually exclusive, sure, but none of the examples she provided for the "saved by violence" scenario actually had the woman "asking for it". At least, not that I remember, the next day. If that makes sense?

 

At any rate, to address your main point: I've seen plenty of situations where a guy also "asks for it". I know, I know, history of men vs. history of women, but I really disagree with the assertion that this has anything to do with gender (beyond women-are-weak!). The real thing here, I think, is that most protagonists are male, and it's super easy(/lazy/boring) to make the protagonist's story more TRAGIC OH ME OH MY by choosing the significant other as the victim. 

 

Of course, I say that, but I'm sure daughter-danger happens much more often than son-danger. But like I said in my first post, I think that's just more indicative of the "women are weak" bullshit than anything else.

 

The main thing is: I agree it's a problem, but not necessarily for the same reason. Hah.

[Argobot]

Hmm, I think I get what you're saying, but I honestly don't remember the explicit examples. Are you trying to say that when the protagonist has to kill their girlfriend/wife that sometimes the woman explicitly asks to be killed and sometimes she doesn't, but either she ends up dead? That makes sense to me, if it's what you meant, and you're right, those two examples should probably be separated into different ideas/tropes.

[Twig]

Ah, sorta.

 

1) Lady is transformed, asks dude to kill her to end her suffering, dude kills her (usually half-lady form).

2) Lady is transformed, doesn't ask dude, dude kills the monster, frees her from monster form (usually full-on monster form). She lives.

 

Those were the two separate sets I was talking about.

 

It was when she proposed that number two had some sort of correlation with domestic violence that I kinda went ehhh.

 

Or maybe I'm an idiot and am completely misremembering things. I'm at work now, so unfortunately don't have the time to double-check.

[BigJKO]

She doesn't seperate the two. But her tangent about domestic abuse starts off when she talks about the sub category of Euthanized Damsel in which the player is forced to fight their loved ones. And I feel like it's fair to interpret the subtext of those scenes as domestic violence, even though that's obviously not the intended subtext of the developer. Describing a man attacking his girlfriend/lover/wife, I can't think of any other label to put on it than "domestic violence" even though in this situation the woman literally becomes a monster.

 

The Euthanized Damsel is the darkest and edgiest of these trope-hybrids but it’s also an extension of a larger pattern in gaming narratives where male protagonists are forced to fight their own loved ones who have been possessed or brainwashed by villains.

When Kratos finds his mother in the PSP game God of War: Ghosts of Sparta, she morphs into a hideous beast forcing you to fight and kill her. An act for which she thanks you with her dying breath.

 

 

Although the narratives all differ slightly the core element is the same, in each case violence is used to bring these women “back to their senses”.

These stories conjure supernatural situations in which domestic violence perpetrated by men against women who’ve “lost control of themselves” not only appears justified but is actually presented as an altruistic act done “for the woman’s own good”.
Of course, if you look at any of these games in isolation, you will be able to find incidental narrative circumstances that can be used to explain away the inclusion of violence against women as a plot device. But just because a particular event might “makes sense” within the internal logic of a fictional narrative – that doesn’t, in and of itself justify its use. Games don’t exist in a vacuum and therefore can’t be divorced from the larger cultural context of the real world.

It’s especially troubling in-light of the serious real life epidemic of violence against women facing the female population on this planet. Every 9 seconds a woman is assaulted or beaten in the United States and on average more than three women are murdered by their boyfriends husbands, or ex-partners every single day. Research consistently shows that people of all genders tend to buy into the myth that women are the ones to blame for the violence men perpetrate against them. In the same vein, abusive men consistently state that their female targets “deserved it”, “wanted it” or were “asking for it”,

Given the reality of that larger cultural context, it should go without saying that it’s dangerously irresponsible to be creating games in which players are encouraged and even required to perform violence against women in order to “save them”.

transcript

[Argobot]

Ah, sorta.

 

1) Lady is transformed, asks dude to kill her to end her suffering, dude kills her (usually half-lady form).

2) Lady is transformed, doesn't ask dude, dude kills the monster, frees her from monster form (usually full-on monster form). She lives.

 

Those were the two separate sets I was talking about.

 

It was when she proposed that number two had some sort of correlation with domestic violence that I kinda went ehhh.

 

Or maybe I'm an idiot and am completely misremembering things. I'm at work now, so unfortunately don't have the time to double-check.

 

Ah, ok, I get what you're saying.

 

Yeah that's a fair point. I still think that even if the wife/girlfriend character lives, the fact that you have to fight her at all (even if she's literally a monster) is part of the larger problem that Sarkeesian is pointing out, but I can see what you're objecting to. I'm going to have to watch it again to see which girlfriends are actually alive at the end of the game (Probably a few, that seems like a really popular cop out in these kinds of narratives. The player is emotionally manipulated by having to kill their lover but then TWIST, it all works out in the end because she's actually alive so we don't have to touch on any of the emotional baggage that would necessarily come with killing your girlfriend.)

[Twig]

Haha, yeah. It's such a super common trope, too, that we've probably seen every variation of it a number of times. I always think it's kind of lame, period. Even lamer when she's A-OK at the end. No one ever actually makes it feel real. It's pure fantasy. SAVE THE GIRL. Eh.

 

Describing a man attacking his girlfriend/lover/wife, I can't think of any other label to put on it than "domestic violence" even though in this situation the woman literally becomes a monster.

The problem I have with this is there's just a general trope of "save a person who turned into a monster by killing the monster", regardless of gender. Women-turned-monsters are more common because women are "weaker", so it makes sense. Also, women are the traditional significant other to a male protagonist. And male protagonists are the most common because women are "weaker" AND because men are the target audience. It's just a spiral of men saving women. That is to say, the entire point of this video: the damsel in distress. I can't believe it's anything more than that. To then go on and label this particular combination of damsel-in-distress trope and loved-one-turned-monster trope where the loved one is your significant other as DOMESTIC VIOLENCE seems like a really strong position to take. I don't like it. It doesn't jive.

[tegan]

As a side note, I totally get why people can see sexist themes in Ico, and I think that interpretation is totally valid, but I've always seen the differences between Ico and Yorda as being about their ages rather than their genders. I always saw Ico as being kind of brash and stupid, like a kid his age would be, and more likely to do something dangerous than Yorda; whereas I always felt Yorda acts like a young adult who doesn't normally interact with children being forced into a situation with one, where she doesn't really know what to make of anything he does.

[BigJKO]

Haha, yeah. It's such a super common trope, too, that we've probably seen every variation of it a number of times. I always think it's kind of lame, period. Even lamer when she's A-OK at the end. No one ever actually makes it feel real. It's pure fantasy. SAVE THE GIRL. Eh.

 

The problem I have with this is there's just a general trope of "save a person who turned into a monster by killing the monster", regardless of gender. Women-turned-monsters are more common because women are "weaker", so it makes sense. Also, women are the traditional significant other to a male protagonist. And male protagonists are the most common because women are "weaker" AND because men are the target audience. It's just a spiral of men saving women. That is to say, the entire point of this video: the damsel in distress. I can't believe it's anything more than that. To then go on and label this particular combination of damsel-in-distress trope and loved-one-turned-monster trope where the loved one is your significant other as DOMESTIC VIOLENCE seems like a really strong position to take. I don't like it. It doesn't jive.

 

I guess I don't see why it's so far fetched.. Like I said, and Anita also says, this isn't to say that's what the developers are trying to say with these scenes. But this video is about interpreting and analysing any further meaning these scenes might have when looked at in a larger context beyond what the game's plot is trying to say. Saying those particular scenes (and the key scenes pointed at were ones that the player has to fight their significant other that has turned into a monster) could be interpreted as symbolic for a man exacting violence on their wife thinking they're "acting out of place".

 

It's totally fair that that's not how you'd ever interpret these scenes, however.

 

And you're right that this issue isn't necessarily about gender. Switch up the genders, but keep the relationship dynamic, and it could still be symbolic of domestic abuse. That doesn't invalidate her point, though, on the specific scenes she talks about..

[Twig]

To put it plainly: I think it's reaching, trying to find some underlying misogynistic meaning that doesn't actually exist, just because it happens to be a female that is the out-of-control monster.

 

Sure, they COULD be interpreted as that. If you decide to do so. If you look deep enough you can find almost any meaning in anything. I don't like it's implied that this is symbolic of some existing problem. In this specific instance, anyway. I'm not denying the possibility of it being a problem elsewhere. Seems like a stretch here, is all I'm saying.

 

Also I'm totally aware she isn't saying it was intentional, c'mon now...

 

At any rate, whatever, agree to disagree. U:

[BigJKO]

I think the reason she reaches the conclusion is because of the relationship involved, not that the character happens to be female. From that, the fact that the character is female, she argues it's irresponsible storytelling considering the larger context of domestic abuse.

 

Sorry about harping on about the intentional part, you never know.. 

 

I'm actually interested if there's a case of the opposite happening. Of course, there's lots of men turning into monsters. But are there any that then have to assaulted by their significant other to turn back normal (or, like in some of the examples, die in the process anyway..)?

 

EDIT: I wish there was some way to make my tone clear on the internet, because I feel like I've come off more confrontational than I mean to. Sorry, Twig! Didn't mean to argue about anything, was just hoping to clarify what I thought Anita meant.

[youmeyou]

To put it plainly: I think it's reaching, trying to find some underlying misogynistic meaning that doesn't actually exist, just because it happens to be a female that is the out-of-control monster.

 

Sure, they COULD be interpreted as that. If you decide to do so. If you look deep enough you can find almost any meaning in anything. I don't like it's implied that this is symbolic of some existing problem. In this specific instance, anyway. I'm not denying the possibility of it being a problem elsewhere. Seems like a stretch here, is all I'm saying.

 

Also I'm totally aware she isn't saying it was intentional, c'mon now...

 

At any rate, whatever, agree to disagree. U:

 

Don't you think that there's significance in the fact that it happens to be female in nearly every example of this kind of trope happening? That's why gender matters; if it was merely a discussion of lazy plotting ideas applied to both genders equally, it would be an entirely different discussion.

 

For example, the trope of having brightly colored hair or carrying weapons that are oversized to a ridiculous extent is a video game trope that could be applied to both genders, generally. This is why she goes over example after example after example to support her assertion. It's a culturally enforced trend that it is the woman specifically who is 'out of control' and must be put back to normal (or sacrificed) through violence.

[youmeyou]

About my only complaint is the two references to Hotline Miami. Surely the hyper-violence in the game, which is actually about violence unlike most violent games, is kind of a gimme. Whatever, she was just using it for the images, which certainly are effective.

 

She makes the really important statement in the beginning that these can still be considered great games that you enjoy and that have nuanced and compelling reasons for the employment of their tropes - but they do still add to the greater body of work that establishes the prominence of that trope. An argument certainly can be made that some of these examples are employing the trope ironically (Double Dragon & Hotline Miami and probably others) but I think it's still valid to consider whether a trope, even ironically applied has a cultural impact. But that's probably a video in and of itself.

[feelthedarkness]

If I have any criticism it is that I wish the examples used in the final video were a bit more consistently mainstream or large titles. Bioshock Infinite, and Far Cry 3 are both emblematic of the main trope, and were played by a huge number of people compared to relative obscurities like Grabbed By the Ghoulies, Inversion, or Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs The Soulless Army.

 

I don't think this detracts, and including lesser title can demonstrate the ubiquity, but the bigger titles give a bit more heft. 

[Gormongous]

She makes the really important statement in the beginning that these can still be considered great games that you enjoy and that have nuanced and compelling reasons for the employment of their tropes - but they do still add to the greater body of work that establishes the prominence of that trope. An argument certainly can be made that some of these examples are employing the trope ironically (Double Dragon & Hotline Miami and probably others) but I think it's still valid to consider whether a trope, even ironically applied has a cultural impact. But that's probably a video in and of itself.

 

Yeah, I know. It's the thematic equivalent of Far Cry 3 parodying goofy blood-filled empowerment storylines, but because almost every video game's storyline is goofy blood-filled empowerment, the parody is a little moot. I knew that, but I still had the typical internet reaction of "stop disliking things I like" for a brief moment.

 

I could never go past an impertinent comment on an internet forum, though. The people who are so threatened by Sarkeesian that they'll have her videos taken down by any means necessary baffle and upset me.

[Erkki]

Not me! I wasn't pretending, I really am that rubbish!

 

That was me.

[Twig]

she argues it's irresponsible storytelling considering the larger context of domestic abuse.

You know, in retrospect, I think I was looking at this from the wrong angle. This is a good point that, even though it was pointed out to me earlier, I forgot. I think what I said is still true, but it doesn't really matter because that wasn't so much the point, probably. My bad!

 

 

I'm actually interested if there's a case of the opposite happening. Of course, there's lots of men turning into monsters. But are there any that then have to assaulted by their significant other to turn back normal (or, like in some of the examples, die in the process anyway..)?

I feel like man-monsters happen quite often, as you say, but again I'm strapped for examples, 'cause I'm the worst. But, yeah, it's definitely very rarely (if ever!) dealt with by the man-monster's significant other. I don't think I've ever seen an example of that. At least, not in video games. Granted, how many video games have female leads.

 

EDIT: Also, no worries! I didn't think you were being confrontational at all.

[Erkki]

This video was better than the first one. I think the part with the wife-in-fridge & daughter-in-distress was especially effective.

[TychoCelchuuu]

To put it plainly: I think it's reaching, trying to find some underlying misogynistic meaning that doesn't actually exist, just because it happens to be a female that is the out-of-control monster.

 

Sure, they COULD be interpreted as that. If you decide to do so. If you look deep enough you can find almost any meaning in anything. I don't like it's implied that this is symbolic of some existing problem. In this specific instance, anyway. I'm not denying the possibility of it being a problem elsewhere. Seems like a stretch here, is all I'm saying.

 

Also I'm totally aware she isn't saying it was intentional, c'mon now...

 

At any rate, whatever, agree to disagree. U:

Talking about whether the "underlying misogynist meaning" does or doesn't "actually exist" is the wrong way to go about it. Meanings don't "exist" in works of art in the sense that thinking about it this way assumes - that is, developers don't pick a "meaning" and then embed it in the game, leaving it up to us to dig through the game and discover the "meaning" in a process which we can do correctly or (as you claim in this case) incorrectly.

It's true that developers may intend for a game to mean something, or many things. It's also true (and probably more likely) that most developers (especially the developers of a lot of the games in question) don't intend for them to mean anything aside from "this is cool" or "this is fun." But what a developer intends their game to mean is entirely separate from what a game does mean.

What a game (or what any other work of art) does mean depends not on what the developers wanted it to mean but on what it means to people who experience it. (This is all just repeating what BigJKO said, really.)

A better way to put your point is that, when Sarkeesian thinks that these games mean certain things (in this case, "games seem to continually give us a justification to kill or at least fight our wife or girlfriend, and this is creepily suggestive of domestic abuse") she's off-base, because the games in question don't mean that.

This, I think, would be a much stronger point, although I think you would still be incorrect. I think you would be incorrect because I think it's pretty clear cut that if a shitton of games are going around giving us stupendous reasons to visit violence upon our character's female partner this is blatantly justification of violence again women.

The closest we can get to making this look okay is to point out that games do this to men, too: "hey, look, you have to kill your best friend and he's a dude also!" One response would be to say that games do this to women much more often, but I don't know about that. I think a better response would be to say "sure, let us assume games are equal opportunity when it comes to giving you narrative reasons to hurt someone you love. But of course in our society we don't really have any issues with people, men or women, beating the shit out of the men in their life that they ostensibly love. But of course we have ridiculously unacceptable levels of domestic abuse that gets perpetrated against women on a daily basis. So in the context of the real world, a work of art that gives us justification to smack down our best friend is just that, whereas a work of art that give us justification to clobber our girlfriend obviously smacks of domestic violence."

[Jake]

Really curious to see what is in part 3. Elaine from Monkey Island is the tease image for "flipping the script" on the damsel, but across the five Monkey Island games she has had a really bumpy ride, with probably the most weird stuff in the fifth game.

[Argobot]

Yeah, I'm actually really looking forward to some positive examples (especially after this most recent episode, because, jeeze).

 

I wonder what the criteria for the third video will be: Female characters who are never damseled? Gender flipped damsel in distress? Damsels who rescue themselves without the aid of the male character? At the very least we can probably expect Samus to make an appearance (so hopefully angry commenters on the Internet can stop using her as a trump card that disproves any kind of skewed representation of women in games).

[Twig]

Really curious to see what is in part 3. Elaine from Monkey Island is the tease image for "flipping the script" on the damsel, but across the five Monkey Island games she has had a really bumpy ride, with probably the most weird stuff in the fifth game.

Yeah, I was thinking about that, too. Bumpy ride is pretty accurate, heh.

 

I'm also excited to see some positive examples! Although I think that, personally, I'd prefer the positives be interspersed with the negatives. Maybe that would defeat the purpose, though. Could come off more as a "Well, it's okay then! No worries!"

 

Whateverrrr. Hopefully the next one won't take as long to come out. Is there a set schedule, or does she just plan to release these things as they're done?

[Gormongous]

At the very least we can probably expect Samus to make an appearance (so hopefully angry commenters on the Internet can stop using her as a trump card that disproves any kind of skewed representation of women in games).

 

Samus is the Obama of video games.

[TychoCelchuuu]

I've always thought that a woman who strips for you when you beat the game is sort of a bad trump card for people to pull out but what do I know.

[youmeyou]

You know, in retrospect, I think I was looking at this from the wrong angle. This is a good point that, even though it was pointed out to me earlier, I forgot. I think what I said is still true, but it doesn't really matter because that wasn't so much the point, probably. My bad!

 

 

I feel like man-monsters happen quite often, as you say, but again I'm strapped for examples, 'cause I'm the worst. But, yeah, it's definitely very rarely (if ever!) dealt with by the man-monster's significant other. I don't think I've ever seen an example of that. At least, not in video games. Granted, how many video games have female leads.

 

EDIT: Also, no worries! I didn't think you were being confrontational at all.

 

The strongest example I can recall of a man-monster is the cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid. He even does the whole 'kill me' thing at the end. Of course, it's not a romantic relationship so it's slightly different but I think some of the same notes are struck. An old friend stuck in a monstrous shell which causes him to lose control. I'm sure it'd be easy to find more such examples. However, I find compelling the idea that the importance of this trope lies not in its preponderance but in its cultural context. The "hysterical woman" is a notion that has existed for centuries, I'd argue accusations of witchcraft are quite closely connected. Think about it: a town woman is acting strange, probably under satan's spell, she must be sacrificied to exitricate the evil, and so on. It's this context (in addition to domestic abuse) that makes the video game incarnations more problematic than their male equivalents.

 

On a slightly unrelated tangent: I was playing Borderlands 2 (which is prominently featured in the video) recently and Lilith - who has been captured and made the quintessential damsel in distress - instructs you to kill her if you can't help her escape. She says: "I'd rather die than be a damsel." Which is to say, she'd prefer to be a fridge woman variant of the damsel trope, which is fascinating not the least because the writers clearly recognized how worn out the trope they were using was and used it anyway and additionally made it kind of worse by doubling up the trope with another even creepier one. It's making me very...