Feminism

[dibs]

Regarding the MRA/PUA stuff, my concern at this point, now that a fleshlight has been shown on these subcultures

 

waaaaaaaaaaaa

[Bjorn]

waaaaaaaaaaaa

 

I don't know if it's better as a typo, or if it was intentional.

 

 

Regarding the MRA/PUA stuff, my concern at this point, now that a fleshlight has been shown on these subcultures, is that people are going to drill down on them as The Problem rather than a symptom of the problem. Misogyny, gender expectations, virgin-shaming, etc, may be values that are exemplified by these groups, but they weren't founded there, and are really just extreme examples of omnipresent social pressures.

 

I worry that, now that this is starting to get acknowledged by the news outlets, the understanding is going to be "THIS IS WHAT MISOGYNY LOOKS LIKE", making it even more difficult to understand the extent to which it defines our society, far beyond the bounds of any particular subculture. This is pretty close to the popular misconception of racism, where racists are Bad Guys, obvious villains, and are motivated entirely by hate, granting onlookers license to ignore the more minor instances of racism that pervade the narrative of our culture.

 

I completely agree with this. 

[Problem Machine]

I don't know if it's better as a typo, or if it was intentional.

Whichever makes you happier

[Dewar]

I hate to bring this up, but if we're going to have a run-up at why Rodgers (a name that will never stick in my head) did what he did, some attention needs to be paid to how much more common shootings are in the US compared to any other developed country. Plenty of other countries have MRAs, have spoiled entitled rich kids, have poor handling of mental illness, have guns reasonably available. At this point, violent rampages are almost part of American culture, and that's a horrifying scenario that you can't really revert.

While I'm not generally a gun supporter (I'm kind of ambivalent on the subject in reality) I'd just like to point out that he stabbed three people in his apartment before he ever went on a shooting rampage. While ease of access to guns can definitely be blamed for a lot of tragedies in the US, Rodgers seemed pretty intent on hurting people regardless of the method.

[Problem Machine]

While I'm not generally a gun supporter (I'm kind of ambivalent on the subject in reality) I'd just like to point out that he stabbed three people in his apartment before he ever went on a shooting rampage. While ease of access to guns can definitely be blamed for a lot of tragedies in the US, Rodgers seemed pretty intent on hurting people regardless of the method.

Seemed like Merus explicitly pointed out that a lot of countries have guns in their post. I do think that the US has much more of a cultural narrative of justified violence than other countries do, and I worry sometimes about the role that games play in forming this narrative (though it long predates them). I don't know, this is just my impression, and I don't have a lot to back it up at the moment.

[Bjorn]

America does seem to have a much more deeply ingrained culture of violence than other countries.  Though we are actually growing less violent (overall violent crime is down), but these kinds of killings seem more common.  It's really hard to separate the perception on that though, as the Internet and 24-hour beat-your-competitor-to-the-breaking-story news cycle likely amplifies events now that would have only been regional a generation or two ago. 

[Dewar]

Seemed like Merus explicitly pointed out that a lot of countries have guns in their post. I do think that the US has much more of a cultural narrative of justified violence than other countries do, and I worry sometimes about the role that games play in forming this narrative (though it long predates them). I don't know, this is just my impression, and I don't have a lot to back it up at the moment.

Sorry, you're right. I was projecting other posts earlier in the thread onto Merus's post and not reading very carefully. To comment on the actual subject in the post, yes, it worries me that sex is so Taboo and violence is so "normal" in the US.

[Argobot]

This is a good piece on the futility of speculation http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117922/elliot-rodger-race-isla-vista-shooter-was-not-just-white-guy-killer

[BusbyBerkeley]

i've seen quite a lot of 'you shouldn't focus on mental illness as it stigmatizes people who already have enough issues', at least on twitter, but i'm not sure if i agree with it. prime facie, yes, you absolutely want to avoid people correlating mental illness which is common and an ordeal with you being a dangerous out of control nutter. that's very unfair and otherizes people with them in a cruel, unhelpful way. these are also extraordinary events, though clearly not nearly as extraordinary as you'd hope, and it's sometimes dangerous to try and relate them to more quotidian life.

 

now i'm not really knowledgeable enough to make expert judgments but after reading the reports and manifesto i've been thinking a lot about it to try and process how you get to that stage, and i think there's stuff to be learned from this case that can increase understanding of mental illness and empathy towards those with them. i think people struggle to see mental illness as a real problem because the idea of someones brain working against them and undermining them and robbing them or the ability of make rational choices constantly is alien to their experiences and just what our understanding culturally is of a person, yet reading about rodgers you can really see how his brain just completely fucked him over constantly and led him to dangerous, self-destructive, irrational takeways from events in ordinary life. such an extreme example somehow makes this easier and clearer to process than the more banal experiences i'm used to. i also think there's a sense that mental illness is untouchable and there's nothing you can do, which can make people distant and evade talking about it. yet i feel like the way he was completely isolated and trapped in his horrible thought patters, his inferiority yet also superiority, his anger, his jealousy, for years really fueled him and made real problems absolutely toxic and ultimately fatal. i don't think this means other people are bad people for not being friends with him, but to me the takeaway from the manifesto was to try and be more cognizant of friends that seem isolated and distant and pay more attention to what's going on with the people around me. rodgers was probably too much of a mess to live a normal happy life even with optimal treatment, but i think a meaningful human connection at the right time could at least have prevented this tragic outcome, so i'm going to try and remember that in how i relate to those around me with mental illness or symptoms of them, being there to help prevent them from getting worse.

 

[This is good]

 

As someone who has struggled with mental illness, I don't really think it's offensive to say that yeah there was something going on with this kid. We need to work on helping people before this stuff happens. This person clearly WAS mentally ill. Extremely so. If we are to take away something from this about the mentally ill it shouldn't be "whoa, don't focus on that, it's offensive" it should be "whoa, how can we help people, especially people who are so far gone that they think this kind of shit?"

 

Also, I LOVE your avatar. My girlfriend did a final paper on that painting in undergrad. Love it.

 

ALSO ALSO, because this kid is fucking depressing to talk about check out this pretty sweet news from a baptist church in my hometown today! 

[Problem Machine]

If we are to take away something from this about the mentally ill it shouldn't be "whoa, don't focus on that, it's offensive" it should be "whoa, how can we help people, especially people who are so far gone that they think this kind of shit?"

It's not that it's offensive, though I can certainly see how some might find it so, but that it's reductive and distracts attention away from more substantive exploration. No one's claiming that it's out of line to say he was mentally ill: He obviously was. The problem is if you just throw up your hands and say "well he was just crazy" as though that's all the explanation needed.

[Merus]

While I'm not generally a gun supporter (I'm kind of ambivalent on the subject in reality) I'd just like to point out that he stabbed three people in his apartment before he ever went on a shooting rampage. While ease of access to guns can definitely be blamed for a lot of tragedies in the US, Rodgers seemed pretty intent on hurting people regardless of the method.

 

I think this just reinforces my point - Rodgers didn't need a gun to kill enough people to count as a serial killer, and while gun control made a big difference in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre, that's clearly not the only issue at play here. I think a cultural narrative of justified violence is a good way to put it. Games have an effect, but they're mostly aping action movies which have long had the same justified violence narrative.

 

As for these kinds of killings seeming more common, it's had to say, but I note, once again, that lots of other countries have 24-hour news cycles now and these countries don't seem to find more of these massacres occurring that they wouldn't have otherwise heard about. I'd suspect it goes the other way, actually - there's more incidents than you hear about, and the 24-hour news cycle has squeezed out the local reporters who would have reported on them.

[Problem Machine]

I think there have been quite a few knife attacks in China recently, actually.

[BusbyBerkeley]

It's not that it's offensive, though I can certainly see how some might find it so, but that it's reductive and distracts attention away from more substantive exploration. No one's claiming that it's out of line to say he was mentally ill: He obviously was. The problem is if you just throw up your hands and say "well he was just crazy" as though that's all the explanation needed.

 

Yeah, I chose the wrong word there for sure. I didn't have the right words in my brain. Mostly I wanted to comment on that avatar and that cool church.

[Zeusthecat]

This has been quite an excellent conversation to read through. Thank you to everyone involved for making such thoughtful and intelligent observations about the circumstances surrounding this horrible event.

[Bjorn]

Putting this here because it's more fitting than the movie thread.

 

So we say Maleficent tonight, as she's my wife's favorite Disney character ever.  My wife tends to like villains more than heroes/princesses, and plays evil whenever she can in a video game.

It's kind of a weird movie.  Jolie is great, but the structure of it is...troubling?

 

The entire movie is a rape allegory about a violated woman having to live with the child born from the rape.  A human boy Maleficent one fancied returns as a man with a mission to destroy her.  When what little of his humanity he has left stops him from murder, he instead slips her a roofie and mutilates her while she sleeps (cutting her wings off).  He goes on to become king, and have a daughter.  Maleficent becomes the de facto mother of the child after cursing her, wanting to ensure that she lives to see the curse fulfilled and the 3 fairy guardians are too inept to keep the child alive.  Years later, after essentially being a hateful, abusive mother taking out her anger and pain from being raped on her daughter, Maleficent realizes how shitty she's been and recants her abusive ways and her daughter embraces her and everyone lives happily ever after.  It's...really fucked.

[Twig]

Well that's not what I got out of the movie at all.

[Bjorn]

What did you think of it?

[Twig]

I thought it was pretty standard villain motivation and redemption affair. I can definitely see why you'd think that way but I definitely never would've arrived there on my own in a million years. Maybe that speaks more of me than the movie though.

[Argobot]

Putting this here because it's more fitting than the movie thread.

So we say Maleficent tonight, as she's my wife's favorite Disney character ever. My wife tends to like villains more than heroes/princesses, and plays evil whenever she can in a video game.

It's kind of a weird movie. Jolie is great, but the structure of it is...troubling?

The entire movie is a rape allegory about a violated woman having to live with the child born from the rape. A human boy Maleficent one fancied returns as a man with a mission to destroy her. When what little of his humanity he has left stops him from murder, he instead slips her a roofie and mutilates her while she sleeps (cutting her wings off). He goes on to become king, and have a daughter. Maleficent becomes the de facto mother of the child after cursing her, wanting to ensure that she lives to see the curse fulfilled and the 3 fairy guardians are too inept to keep the child alive. Years later, after essentially being a hateful, abusive mother taking out her anger and pain from being raped on her daughter, Maleficent realizes how shitty she's been and recants her abusive ways and her daughter embraces her and everyone lives happily ever after. It's...really fucked.

Christ what a strange thing this movie must be.

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/telling-an-old-story-anew

[Bjorn]

Christ what a strange thing this movie must be.

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/telling-an-old-story-anew

 

I should clarify that I'm not sure that I'm necessarily down on Malifcent, even if my original post sounded that way.  I just typed that up pretty quickly after seeing it.  I can totally see some of the stuff in that piece you linked.  And my wife absolutely loved the movie.  Like seriously loved it.  She was a very, very angry young woman with some temper control issues who ultimately views her daughter as one of the things that saved her, as she had to learn a level of patience and forgiveness that a younger her didn't think possible.  So she literally saw herself in Malificent.  Then there were a pair of girls a few seats down from us who squealed with delight when

 

it was Malificent's (a mother's) kiss that awoke Sleeping Beauty, and not the typical boy kiss.

  They were so charmingly delighted that it wasn't the typical fairytale. 

 

And yet then all the stuff in my original spoiler is also there.  It's a movie with a ton of different things going on, much odder than I expected in many ways and the reception to it has been interesting. 

[Argobot]

Fair enough. I was interested in seeing this movie but the dumb, epic battle stuff they keep advertising it with has really turned me off it. I'm not sure if this story angle is enough to get me to change my mind but it's interesting that they tried to do something different with the story.

[Twig]

YOU'RE DUMB EPIC BATTLE STUFF.

 

FWIW, that stuff is pretty minor.

[Bjorn]

FWIW, that stuff is pretty minor.

 

 

Yeah, basically two scenes and the second one is actually pretty badass and a great re-imagining of the climatic scene in the original. 

 

This is a movie where I really can't endorse or condemn it.  I'd say it's worth catching at some point for anyone interested in Disney stuff, fairy tales or feminism, though not necessarily needed to see it in the theater. 

[Gormongous]

I feel good that I can actually contribute some original content to this thread. One of my favorite video game ephemera blogs recapped the Metal Gear series' history of using rape as a plot device, then explored several other games to see if there's a better way. It's a bit short and gets tied in a bow at the end, but overall I'm glad it was written.

[syntheticgerbil]

One thing though is Meryl was not sexually assaulted and that particular line in question is something the translator admitted he added in. Well written article though!