March 11, 2013 - Star is not a role model.
Meanwhile I don't know how many people have been following what happened with Anita Sarkeesian, but her first video in her series examining Tropes vs. Women in video games has gone live. I'm still somewhat critical of her analysis of tropes as previous videos seem to have completely ignored the cyclical nature of anti-feminist media. It's not just creators that are necessarily anti-feminist, but additionally blame must also be placed on consumers supporting anti-feminist media. Such media isn't produced in a vacuum, it's produced because there is demand for it and consumers want to consume it while producers want to take consumers' money.
Take for example her Dinosaur Planet analysis. The protagonist wasn't simply made male but rather into a franchise character (who happened to be male, and the lack of female franchise characters is definitely a worthwhile discussion I hope she gets to). By making the protagonist of Dinosaur Planet a franchise character, the game sold more copies (this can be debated, but I know I bought it because it was a Star Fox game and completely would have passed over it overwise). The goal of the producer is not to promote his beliefs but cater to the beliefs of the consumer (or his perception of them, which importantly can be wrong, but most likely a producer doesn't want to take risks when there's no evidence the market would support such risks). The success of Star Fox Adventures thus suggests that consumers are potentially somewhat sexist possibly moreso than producers (but until a side by side comparison of something with a male protagonist vs. a female protagonist is analyzed this becomes moot. Though it's interesting to note that in the Mass Effect series where players can choose the gender of their avatar (as well as other attributes), the male version is considerably more popular despite the voice acting of the female voice actress being significantly better reviewed critically, again suggesting a consumer problem).
I think it's a bit early to criticize her for not dealing with this issue, but it is a concern I have that she won't make as her movie critiques almost always ended with the line "the real solution here is for filmmakers and screenwriters to focus more movies on women and women's lives" (this is a quote from this video) or something like it, leaving consumers completely absent and ignoring such products as a consumer good that was developed based on how much demand exists for it (and even suggesting we're powerless to change our nature as consumers). Unfortunately demand does exist for such products, which her unfortunate experiences for just announcing the intention to make her video game series demonstrate, and maybe I'll discuss some of my reactions to her videos in future blogs.
As TV Tropes notes tropes aren't always a bad thing. A lot of fun can be had subverting tropes or they can make situations much easier to set up (though sometimes this does have consequences like inadvertantly making something sexist). The Secret of Monkey Island, one of my favorite video games, and it's first sequel (after that the series falls of a cliff in quality, and part of that may be due to ignoring how the first two games handled the damsel trope) involve subverting the damsel trope somewhat by having Elaine escape her imprisonment some time before you reach her and have the conclusion of the game facing the villain after screwing up her plan because you tried to rescue her (heck in the sequel you don't even succeed defeating the villain, you're that pathetic a hero). But it's really a rare example that actually presents the trope as ridiculous instead of something players readily accept and consume.
-D
Meanwhile I don't know how many people have been following what happened with Anita Sarkeesian, but her first video in her series examining Tropes vs. Women in video games has gone live. I'm still somewhat critical of her analysis of tropes as previous videos seem to have completely ignored the cyclical nature of anti-feminist media. It's not just creators that are necessarily anti-feminist, but additionally blame must also be placed on consumers supporting anti-feminist media. Such media isn't produced in a vacuum, it's produced because there is demand for it and consumers want to consume it while producers want to take consumers' money.
Take for example her Dinosaur Planet analysis. The protagonist wasn't simply made male but rather into a franchise character (who happened to be male, and the lack of female franchise characters is definitely a worthwhile discussion I hope she gets to). By making the protagonist of Dinosaur Planet a franchise character, the game sold more copies (this can be debated, but I know I bought it because it was a Star Fox game and completely would have passed over it overwise). The goal of the producer is not to promote his beliefs but cater to the beliefs of the consumer (or his perception of them, which importantly can be wrong, but most likely a producer doesn't want to take risks when there's no evidence the market would support such risks). The success of Star Fox Adventures thus suggests that consumers are potentially somewhat sexist possibly moreso than producers (but until a side by side comparison of something with a male protagonist vs. a female protagonist is analyzed this becomes moot. Though it's interesting to note that in the Mass Effect series where players can choose the gender of their avatar (as well as other attributes), the male version is considerably more popular despite the voice acting of the female voice actress being significantly better reviewed critically, again suggesting a consumer problem).
I think it's a bit early to criticize her for not dealing with this issue, but it is a concern I have that she won't make as her movie critiques almost always ended with the line "the real solution here is for filmmakers and screenwriters to focus more movies on women and women's lives" (this is a quote from this video) or something like it, leaving consumers completely absent and ignoring such products as a consumer good that was developed based on how much demand exists for it (and even suggesting we're powerless to change our nature as consumers). Unfortunately demand does exist for such products, which her unfortunate experiences for just announcing the intention to make her video game series demonstrate, and maybe I'll discuss some of my reactions to her videos in future blogs.
As TV Tropes notes tropes aren't always a bad thing. A lot of fun can be had subverting tropes or they can make situations much easier to set up (though sometimes this does have consequences like inadvertantly making something sexist). The Secret of Monkey Island, one of my favorite video games, and it's first sequel (after that the series falls of a cliff in quality, and part of that may be due to ignoring how the first two games handled the damsel trope) involve subverting the damsel trope somewhat by having Elaine escape her imprisonment some time before you reach her and have the conclusion of the game facing the villain after screwing up her plan because you tried to rescue her (heck in the sequel you don't even succeed defeating the villain, you're that pathetic a hero). But it's really a rare example that actually presents the trope as ridiculous instead of something players readily accept and consume.
-D
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