Gaming Lounge

[Dazz]

So it appears that anything I say is misconstrue as me being sexist towards women, and this is not the case. I agree with you that there are games which poorly represent this, such as Lollipop Chainsaw. I agree, this game is horrid with regards to its representation of the female sex in order to appeal to a general male audience.

I agree that there are many occasions where the female characters in games are made to be visually appealing with no brains and do nothing but appeal to a man's penis - there is no denying that because it is 100% without a shadow of a doubt something that happens.

I know about sexism, and I know about videogames. I know that they go hand in hand. I am not disagreeing. I can't state this enough, I look forward to a day when women are represented as equally as men in videogames. And this I stand by with my heart. The issue here is not that this isn't happening, it's that when progress is made, everybody attacks the people are are doing their best to assist this direction taken - this is my opinion.

The discussion I'm referring in the most recent context is the new Tomb Raider. After it was agreed rape wasn't on the table as it's a sensitive subject, it was brought more forward that the dramatic turn was the fact that she kills a man for the first time after he attempts to sexually assault her. This is something that any man would go through - not so much the sexual assault, but these bad guys are fucking slime. They aren't going to see a moderately attractive female alone in the woods and go "let's give her some flowers" - that's dumb. If you think the thought of sexually assaulting her wouldn't cross their mind, then you need to get out more.
The argument now is that she screams and sounds like she's having sex when she walks into walls, falls down cliffs and get battered and bruised - in any game where it's from the view of a male, there are grunts, and even screams. Uncharted, Heavy Rain, Diablo, God of War, Aladdin, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Super Mario 64, Sonic The Hedgehog, this happens in litterally every fucking game ever. Because it's now a female, it's now a problem because she has a female's voice and standard human reaction to something happening?

This game is attempting to stop sexualising women in videogames. They are literally stepping in the right direction - I understood the rage over the rape scene, but I didn't understand why people were raging yet.
This entire fiasco was brought forward because of bad journalism, and poor choice of words. People raged because somebody said something is going to happen. People were already waving the sexism banner before the matter had actually fucking happened. And I stated this in my previous post that Meta deleted. I said something along the lines of that you shouldn't start beating up on something before it has even happened, because that is not fair.
[Just for the record, I have stated in the admin board that should a mod ever delete another member of staff's posts again, they are going to be dropped. Because going over a mutual position's head is not ok. He is angry because he thinks that he made the right decision, but right or wrong, you do not silence somebody. Especially the person who owns the forum he is voicing his opinion on. I also recently decided that retired staff should no longer see the happenings of the admin board because it is none of their business how the site is conducting itself when they have no direct involvement. Meta doesn't like that, likely because it means that because it might be seen as me prevent Grooveman and Alpha Six seeing the discussions held in there which have nothing to do with these debates. But when the time comes around that they decide to peek their heads out and argue their point, they should have the advantage of seeing my discussion with the rest of the staff. Cool stuff.]

Now on to my argument about skirts in videogames. I'm not saying that Lollipop Chainsaw and every game where a female character wears a skirt is right in its decision. What I am saying is there are circumstances where it is what the character would wear, and it is the reaction that that piece of clothing would have. Tekken, while containing what many would class and trope designs for females, has logical points to these "flexible" women wearing them - they are also wearing casual tops. These characters are dressed in their standard day attire, and in a game like Tekken where a fight is brought to them, not they go to fight, it is understandable that this situation would arise. This has occurred in other examples of characters from several games, but I can't really think right now as the perfect examples, because I frankly don't play these games enough to warrant my opinion. My argument is that female wearing skirt + gravity =/= sexist. Sexy female wearing skirt and blatant attempts to see her pants to appease a male audience in a game that is not targeted as such = sexism.

My point really is not that there isn't sexism. As I said before, I agree, but you can't tell somebody that what they are doing is a bad thing when they are trying to correct this in stepping stones. It isn't something that can change over night because it is a complicated subject. The tropes that female characters are given are the same for male roles, but the attractive aspects are often withdrawn, at least in my straight male perspective.

My point before is that because people are starting to wave the sexism banner in the face of anything that has a female in it now, it makes me wonder why companies are even trying. Because it seems everything is "a little sexist" when it's given the point that sometimes women do women things. Just like men sometimes do men things. Like women have female voices. The recent issue regarding this woman's direction to make a tropes on females in videogames series has angered me due to the completely incorrect direction it is taking. So now I need to state why for each reason currently supplied by this person;

Damsel in Distress - Video #1
This is based on old age lore. It is something that still happens. This "Damsel in Distress" issue isn't always going to avoid the sexist point, but there are examples in the industry of this not being the case. Heavy Rain puts you in the role of a man searching for his male child. There are cases in several other games of having to go and save the male president. They aren't in the majority, but princesses, knights and dragons are famous historical stories handed down. As somebody who appreciates old stories, I understand the use of bringing this forward to a modern scenario - Mario and Peach has been around for a long time, and the story is one that is akin to that of a knight in shining armour saving the stranded princess. It evolved over the years, even to a point where Peach is not just a damsel in distress any more, and this is still being treated like it is hurting the female representation in the industry.
The woman who is doing this video also decided to give us some rather poorly made redesigns of Zelda and Peach...

Zelda's redesign is fine. That looks like it'd make a pretty sweet game.
Peach's design is fucking stupid. She is a princess, not a plumber. The reason Mario and Luigi wear dungarees is because they are plumbers. Why would a princess wear fucking dungarees with a dress underneath and crown? What. The. Fuck.

The Fighting F#@k Toy - Video #2
I've don't even know what she's talking about with this one. If someone could let me know that'd be cool, I just don't understand the terminology I think.

Now as for the rest;

The Sexy Sidekick - Video #3
The Sexy Villainess - Video #4
Background Decoration - Video #5
Voodoo Priestess/Tribal Sorceress - Video #6
Women as Reward - Video #7
Mrs. Male Character - Video #8
Unattractive Equals Evil - Video #9
Man with Boobs - Video #10

Let me give this distinct sum of what these are:
Everybody on the fucking planet.

Men fall into these categories too, and because of that we're seeing it as sexism against women still. It is just tropes of people on the planet, it isn't just about their gender. Gender is in my opinion always secondary to these things, it really doesn't matter.

I'm angered by the fact that everybody posting after my last post thinks that I would not agree that theere are sexist views. I never felt the need to state it because I thought it was blatantly fucking obvious that this is the truth.

I'm by no means now saying that people who feel stronger about their opinions on these points given are wrong, because it's fine, it is down to opinion. There is no right or wrong in my eyes, because it's not black and white. For the love of fucking Christ though guys, can you please just stop picking out poorly chosen wording as me being a dick - I believe that the way forward is stepping stones, and that's being attacked by the majority who are fighting for a cause that they aren't even effected by isn't going to solve anything. I respect the male audience defending the female issue, because I don't think it's segregated by sex. But you aren't women. Physically, at least. I fall into this issue too.
I agree women are allowed to get angry. But I just wish they'd take on board that attacking people who are trying to help you, even if they aren't doing EXACTLY what you demand, is really not the answer.

And after I post all of this I wait for somebody to reply and paint me out to be the major problem, but seriously? If I'm not allowed to have my own opinion on this matter and it be respected, I don't really give a shit what you have to say. You can disagree, but going back to previous remarks and making me out to be an idiot is just not helping you in changing my mind about a point.
I assumed we all had enough mutual respect by now, especially people those who know me better than that. Incredibly so by Grooveman, who has come back to the forum just for the sake of painting a target on my fucking forehead. I guess I was fucking wrong.

Edit: As an additional, I've missed anything, this started at 8am. If I've misworded something, consider it as that. I believe my opinion is straight forward.