Feminism

[Gormongous]

Unrelated to anything ever said on this forum, I could live the rest of my doubtlessly short life without having to hear another straight white dude play out the "slippery slope" fallacy because he wants to make those talking about his privilege look ridiculous. Bonus points if he accidentally brings up disability rights or fat acceptance as an unthinkable extreme that would make any and all discourse unworkable.

 

Actually, the link Clyde just posted had a recent XKCD that says it better in the comments:

 

 

Okay, carry on, everyone.

[Ben X]

Yes, you're right, I should have spoilered that post (now edited in).

And for context I should have indicated that the general tone of the article was not table flipping rage but closer to disappointment at select aspects.

Also I should have not succeeded in accidentally irking you again, Ben. Again!

Please accept my apologies.

Glad to hear that the author's interpretation is not universally shared, great news for a progressive Lego!

 

 

Ha ha, no worries! It was actually Jake's post that really slammed it in my face.

[James]

As I am on a phone I am tempted to mass-quote BenX above but yeah definitely agree with him and Jake (Jake and him? He and jake? Fuck you undereducated internal English teacher!)

"Him and Jake" is entirely grammatical, but "Jake and him" might be preferred stylistically. I'm not sure whether that applies to all personal pronouns, though, or just "I". As to whether it should be "him" or "he" (or "me" or "I"), just remove the other item from the conjunction: you wouldn't say "I definitely agree with he", so don't say "I definitely agree with he and Jake". A lot of people believe that as soon as you add another person, all references to the self become "I", but that isn't true. "He and I are going to the cinema" is correct, but "She will come to the cinema with he and I" is wrong.

Anyway I think your points are well made. In a world where so much stuff is questionable I really don't see any reason to give even that soft amount of grief to a movie (for kids!!) that has a pretty nuanced take on conformity etc

While, as I said, I didn't have much of a problem with the film, I think the fact that the film is for kids is probably reason to be more careful about the subtleties of its characterisation, not more lenient. The less damage done at an early age, the less to be undone later. Which isn't to say that all kids' stuff should be completely sterile, but I think it's important for writers to be mindful of these issues, and critical punches shouldn't be pulled for children's media.

Anyway, that was more of a theoretical point than anything else.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I think that is a fine starting point but in reality kids gravitate towards garbage and I suspect it's always been that way. I have three kids who are certainly not "all children ever" but I really think "something that doesn't totally suck" tends to > "most of the shit my kids consume all day"

[Roderick]

"Him and Jake" is entirely grammatical, but "Jake and him" might be preferred stylistically. I'm not sure whether that applies to all personal pronouns, though, or just "I". As to whether it should be "him" or "he" (or "me" or "I"), just remove the other item from the conjunction: you wouldn't say "I definitely agree with he", so don't say "I definitely agree with he and Jake". A lot of people believe that as soon as you add another person, all references to the self become "I", but that isn't true. "He and I are going to the cinema" is correct, but "She will come to the cinema with he and I" is wrong.

 

You must not be a fan of Van Der Graaf Generator.

 

[brkl]

I came across this while researching my thesis. It has an interesting history of how board games used to be playtested. http://ict.usc.edu/pubs/The%20Hegemony%20of%20Play.pdf

[sclpls]

"Female Representations in Desktop Dungeons"

 

http://www.qcfdesign.com/?p=845

[Bjorn]

"Female Representations in Desktop Dungeons"

 

http://www.qcfdesign.com/?p=845

 

That's a great read.  This jumped out at me:

 

"Quite frankly, we wanted the women in DD’s universe to be adventurers first and runway models second. This adjustment turned out to be startlingly non-trivial – you’d think that a bunch of supposedly conscious, mindful individuals would instantly be able to nail a “good female look” (bonus points for having a woman on our crew, right?), but huge swathes of our artistic language tended to be informed by sexist and one-dimensional portrayals. We regularly surprised ourselves with how much we took for granted."

[sclpls]

Yeah, I really appreciated how it was an honest self-evaluation about putting feminist ideas into practice, the difficulties involved, and thoughts about how they can do better with their next game. People are at their best when they are focused on constructive criticism and self-improvement instead of engaging in knee-jerk defensiveness.

[James]

Very interesting. I'd considered before the difficulty of avoiding gender stereotypes without denying the existence of gender; it sounds like it's even trickier than I thought.

This sentence stood out to me:

Now, Desktop Dungeons itself isn’t some haven of progressive social ideas and forward thinking.

While it's important that some do attempt to produce "havens of progressive social ideas and forward thinking", I think that it's also very important that smaller steps are made in games nothing to do with that. In fact, as far as I can fathom, normalising positive attitudes pretty much requires it. You shouldn't have to go looking for well-rounded portrayals of people; they should be everywhere.

[Nachimir]

A former landlady of mine was given this a short while back:

 

 

Visiting last week, I was asking her about it in the kitchen while her boyfriend was there. She talked about the things she did from the 80's on, and that she got an invite to an event the Lord Mayor of Nottingham held, not expecting anything like this. Max asked:

 

"Did you have to go up on stage to get it from him?"

 

She replied:

 

"The current Lord Mayor's a woman"

[BigJKO]

Brilliant! :tup:

[Bjorn]

MTV Movie Awards blasted for sexist exclusion of Katniss Everdeen

 

But it's okay, they made sure they didn't forget that girls exist completely:

However, there are numerous female nominees among this year's crop, including...Jennifer Aniston for Best Shirtless Performance for Melissa McCarthy.

[Ben X]

Meanwhile, this avclub article pokes fun at how many awards they shove JLaw into in the hopes of securing her attendance.

 

If it weren't for Bilbo Baggins' presence, I'd argue that Katniss maybe doesn't quite fit on that list, but she definitely would work better than the hobbit.

 

"Blasted" is a bit misleading, though: there's an online petition. I think the shirtless jab is a bit unfair too, seeing as the other four nominees are male and there's actually a pretty good spread of male and female nominees elsewhere.

[Bjorn]

Meanwhile, this avclub article pokes fun at how many awards they shove JLaw into in the hopes of securing her attendance.

 

If it weren't for Bilbo Baggins' presence, I'd argue that Katniss maybe doesn't quite fit on that list, but she definitely would work better than the hobbit.

 

"Blasted" is a bit misleading, though: there's an online petition. I think the shirtless jab is a bit unfair too, seeing as the other four nominees are male and there's actually a pretty good spread of male and female nominees elsewhere.

 

What, she's only nominated in...four, really?  Nevermind.  Maybe if they would have nominated her for hero, she for sure would show up.  Or would a fifth nomination just look desperate?

 

That original "blasted" article I shared actually amused me for its inability to name Jennifer Lawrence.  Seems like the kind of detail a writer or editor might think is important. 

[BigJKO]

Saw this on twitter:
 
Why did Patty Hopkins get photoshopped out of the BBC's line up of Great British Architects?
 

 
The answer is: She wasn't the focus of the show, but it's still pretty amazing to take the photo and then photoshopping the only woman out of it.
 
Bonus: The photographer also photoshopped Richard Rogers' shirt to be even more pink!

[Gormongous]

Bonus: The photographer also photoshopped Richard Rogers' shirt to be even more pink!

 

They photoshopped the woman out, then realized her blouse provided a lot of the warmth in the picture's color, so they amped the only other bright color up even higher. Simple solutions for simple problems!

[brkl]

What, she's only nominated in...four, really? Nevermind. Maybe if they would have nominated her for hero, she for sure would show up. Or would a fifth nomination just look desperate?

That original "blasted" article I shared actually amused me for its inability to name Jennifer Lawrence. Seems like the kind of detail a writer or editor might think is important.

That entire site is somehow built on the premise of never naming anything if they can link to it. It's infuriating and impossible to read, and once you realise it, kind of funny in how it just ruins the site.

Edit :

POkay, I read this and came to that conclusion : http://movies.msn.com/most-surprising-razzie-winners/photo-gallery/feature/?ocid=ent_dontmiss_module

[Ben X]

I always find it surprising that anyone reads that site. I think of it as just the exit splash screen for Hotmail.

[Roderick]

Yes, it is so weird to me when I notice that my dad actually uses a comparable site as his homepage, as an actual news source.

[Bjorn]

I can't say that I've spent any time on there to get a feel for how they write.  I keep a bunch of blocks setup on both Chrome and Firefox to keep me productive throughout the day, but I do have IE as a backdoor if I really want to visit one of the sites I normally block.  So the only time I see any of the MSN sites is the rare occasion I decided to use IE to do that, because I'm too lazy to change the default load page.

[Bjorn]

Ha!  Great stuff.  

 

If Male Superhero Costumes were Designed Like Female Superhero Costumes!

 

[SecretAsianMan]

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh man, the image chosen for Dota Today 11 is terrible. I'm glad even though this woman is in a freezing cold blizzard, she can manage to get her tits out for the fans. Sheesh.

 

Lords Management artists are the worst.

[Twig]

She's not freezing in a blizzard. She IS the blizzard!