Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[Larsen B]

I saw someone draw parallels in that scene to the way nymphs and suchlike are presented in epic poems like The Odyssey. Highfalutin perhaps but I could fully agree with that idea.

It doesn't really come across the same way women are shot in something like the Fast & the Furious or a Michael Bay film with slow motion or quick cuts focusing on their bodies. It's a wide shot. The context with which Max is seeing them is important and, as Fury says, it does strike me as played for laughs. It undercuts the tension that's been building up to that point. Kind of a non-scary cat scare.

[K]

I think you could potentially read that bit as somewhat leery on the part of Max and the viewer, but the rest of the film does such a good job with its female characters that I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. And it seems a bit weird that Mad Max is being subject to this kind of scrutiny, when it's one of the few major blockbusters of the past decade or so to bother to develop its female characters, and to treat them as anything other than a mobile bum for the male protagonist to rub his thighs over.

[The Bag]

I think you could potentially read that bit as somewhat leery on the part of Max and the viewer, but the rest of the film does such a good job with its female characters that I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt.

yeah, I'm totally on that page.

And it seems a bit weird that Mad Max is being subject to this kind of scrutiny, when it's one of the few major blockbusters of the past decade or so to bother to develop its female characters, and to treat them as anything other than a mobile bum for the male protagonist to rub his thighs over.

I think that's exactly why it's getting the level of scrutiny, but as someone was pointing out on twitter last night if you end up treating things which try to be better and are better but not perfect in the same way as you treat things which don't even try then there's the danger of putting people off even trying to be better.

[rumblecat]

Didn't feel leery to me in the film. Considering Max's situation at that moment and his (literal) baggage, it seemed to be more they were presenting them as something mythic and almost impossible in that world. Especially considering water is scarce and everyone else in their world seems to be sun-burned, filthy and fucked up. And it's very much played on his viewpoint and reaction.

I don't agree with FF's tweet that the camera treats them "like things from start to finish." I think that's an odd and mistaken reading of the entire film. I also think, again, that twitter isn't really the best place for FF to put forward these discussions as the nature of twitter means brief statements that don't go into any depth.

[Darren]

I took the Max-meets-the-wives POV scene to be the equivalent of him stumbling upon an oasis. He's been to hell and back in the desert and just before he passes out from blood loss and dehydration he sees this amazing vision about which he must be wondering to himself whether it's real or a mirage. Not only a bunch of beautiful young women, but a bunch of beautiful young women with a hosepipe and a tanker full of water! No wonder his head is spinning at that point.

And the fact that they were beautiful and dressed in skimpy robes was perfectly explained in the story. Everyone inside Joe's city is a slave, selected for a particular purpose. Of course he'd choose the most beautiful women to be his wives and dress them like nymphs, the dirty old man.

After that initial sequence of leering POV shots there is never another similar shot of any of the wives in the rest of the film. They are shot in exactly the same way as all the other characters.

Edit: what rumblecat said at exactly the same time!

[SweatyTravolta]

Mark Kermode pointed out a contrast between the writing of MM which is at odds with the way it's directed. In particular the 'supermodel' characters, where apparently the camera shots are there to make them seem more sexy or something. Not seen it myself.

Really? I never would have guessed. The epic will he / won't he tale of Capwn and Mad Max continues on and the forum looks on with anticipation.

Anita really seems to have dropped the ball on this one and it's a bit depressing to see her not listen to reason. I know she had spent a lot of time arguing with idiots on the internet but not listening to other peoples points of view and considering them is just as dangerous no matter what side you're on.

[Blunt]

You only have to compare the way Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is introduced in Fury Road to her first appearance in Transformers 3 to see that there's absolutely nothing leering in the former.

[SeanR]

FUCKING SPOILERS!!!

Edited May 20, 2015 by Wiper
Removed the quoted spoilers

[Darren]

Sorry I'll spoiler tag it now - Sean please delete your quote.

[Darren]

I must confess when I posted that I forgot I was in this thread, I thought I was in the Mad Max thread where such things are being discussed more openly. No excuse though. Sorry all.

[George Clooney]

I think that's exactly why it's getting the level of scrutiny, but as someone was pointing out on twitter last night if you end up treating things which try to be better and are better but not perfect in the same way as you treat things which don't even try then there's the danger of putting people off even trying to be better.

I think part of it is because people have been very quick to trumpet it as a feminist film, especially seeing as it raised the ire of several MRA sites, who labelled it as feminist propaganda. Someones actually taken the film posters and put quotes from some of the more blatant MRA types on there, and they're kind of amazing. Though I cant find them now, so I'll post them if I find them later. But anyway, as Joss Whedon pointed out, any time as a creator you label yourself or your work as following a particular ideology (or if someone else does), the harsher you'll find the criticism from supporters of that ideology is. Small little things often get used to call you a shitlord, and often invalidate any good work you have done. I think anyone would be hard pressed to say that Joss isnt a feminist. Pretty much all his past work features strong female characters in various shapes and sizes, and he talks quite a lot about doing better for women in films. Yet after Age of Ultron, he got quite a few people calling him sexist for how he handled part of Black Widows storyline. Going back further than that, I've seen feminist critiques of Buffy and Firefly, talking about how he actually isnt creating strong female characters and is a sexist shithead (some were slightly more polite).

It was bound to happen that someone saw some issues with the feminism displayed to Fury Road - another point that Joss made was that feminism is so many things to so many different people, it's incredibly difficulty finding stories that wont have someone take issue with - but her issue seems to be that the film is glorifying violence, and that the sytlised visuals romanticise the setting, and that both these things are bad and should be shown as such in the film. But because they arent, all that's happening is that the women are shown to be "equal partners in male violence" and its brand of feminism is simply putting men and women on equal footing as far as the violence goes (there are some other comments about how the bad guys are cartoonish misogynists made to root against and that the films doesnt challenge any underlying issues with sexism today). And I've not seen the film, so I cant say for sure, but there's been plenty of people willing to offer a counter to what she's saying, the main thrust of them being that her views arent really giving credit to Therons character, who is supposedly pretty well fleshed out, and that discounting it as a feminist film due to the high violence shown is essentially telling women it's bad to like these kind of films.

I dont think that she's necessarily wrong to mention stuff like this - I see what she's getting at, even if I dont agree with her - but in this case I think the way she's saying it is something she needs to perhaps do differently. She's getting a lot of people responding, and she cant reply to them all, but I think he normal format of "say thing about media, dont reply to comments" is more likely to come across as "sorry, if you disagree, you arent feminist enough" or something. Sweaty Travolta says up there, that he's disappointed she's "not listening to reason", and that she's not considering peoples points of view, and while I'm not sure what he means by the former there, I think this is something which would help if there were some form of discussion on her part, rather than silence.

It's still better than her partner Jonathan Mcintoshs attempts to comment on it by implying that most the people who watched/enjoyed it are "filmicly illiterate" and didnt understand that the films tone and message were different or something.

[Blunt]

It's still better than her partner Jonathan Mcintoshs attempts to comment on it by implying that most the people who watched/enjoyed it are "filmicly illiterate" and didnt understand that the films tone and message were different or something.

Just read that. He's basically trying to apply the concept of ludo-narrative dissonance to movies, which is complete horseshit. And then gets self righteous when people call him out on it.

[deerokus]

McIntosh is a bit of a fool, unfortunately.

[squirtle]

What the fuck is this thread about any more?

[rumblecat]

Thing about McIntosh is sometimes I can't work out if he genuinely means what he says or if he's just trying to stir things up. He posts this, as if it's an important freestanding statement-

Mad Max isn't a post-apocalyptic warning, instead it frames a world ravaged by war, cruelty and climate chaos as a totally awesome promise.

And I totally agree with it's not a warning, but I don't think the film ever genuinely frames it as such. It's main drive is to deliver action like we haven't seen before. Which isn't a bad thing. Like the Fallout games, like Walking Dead, like some many end of the scenarios- there's an element of enjoyment in them. It's a faulty premise to critique a film. But then he re-tweets this at the end of his Mad Max tweetsl-

Daniel Starkey @dcstarkey · 12h12 hours ago

I've lived through violence. I've caused violence. I've been a victim and a perpetrator. It is not something to be glorified. It. Is. Awful.

And no-one would really argue with that. But the tweet, when you follow it to it's source,has nothing to do with Mad Max at all. Yet he places it at the end of his theories about Mad Max as if it's relevant. Or just something random to re-tweet when you happen to be discussing violence in movies. It's a totally disingenuous thing to do. Also this-

So when an entire production says "THIS IS AWESOME" but the plot/dialogue says "this is bad” we're left with some serious filmic dissonance.

- it's just odd. It's a takedown of Mad Max based on the fact that the film represents violence as awesome, but the characters don't enjoy it and the plot represents it as a struggle. Which isn't a message, it's a dramatic situation. And I understand he uses the term 'filmic dissonance' to suggest the film has a message when the production seems to clash with that message, but he also avoids ever clarifying what he thinks the message is. But still feels confident to keep talking about it.

I use "filmic dissonance" to refer to when a film is shot & edited in ways that conflict with the narrative so as to undermine its messages.

Which is great, but I think it's weak that he uses the phrase 'message' without ever defining it and think it's also weak not to acknowledge that what he sees as narrative conflict might well be narrative contrast. I think it's lazy criticism- assume the message of a film but don't define it, and then attack the film based on a reading you don't wish to share.

He's one of those guys I've felt bad about when GamerGate turn on him and pick up apart his tweets, but I don't think he's doing himself many favours with the latest bunch. I'm genuinely interested in an argument that picks apart Mad Max as a dissonant mess and one of the great strengths of the Feminist Frequency videos were pointing out such things in video games... but dismissing audiences as not being as smart as him maybe isn't his finest hour.

To clarify: Generally speaking audiences don’t seriously consider, or even notice, the messages sent by filmmaking techniques themselves.

[matt0]

It's a fair assessment of most action movies to be honest, but it only works if you ignore the fact that action for action's sake might be the main point. And also people who enjoy them on that level might not be "filmicly illiterate".

Action movies can be weirdly formalist in that they're films largely about motion, framing and editing. Witness Point Break's bizarre suburban chase scene where cinematic grammar is dissected in increasingly weird ways from shot to shot.

The uneasy relationship between pretend violence and reality is just part of the territory. John Woo has talked at length about the contradiction between his personal abhorrence of violence and the stylised, bloody action in his early movies. Sam Peckinpah's goriest excesses were partly fueled by disdain for Hollywood violence that he felt whitewashed the truth of what he'd witnessed in his military service.

TL:DR Action movies are fucking awesome and pretend violence is a tricky thing to pin down.

Also I should really watch the new Mad Max movie.

[DocG]

Tony Zhou, the creator of the blindingly good Every Frame A Painting YouTube series, just did a mini Tweetstorm dismantling McIntosh for being a berk.

https://twitter.com/tonyszhou/status/601143674626412544

[The Bag]

I was coming here to post that response too. McIntosh's tweet:

I really dont get how anyone could sit through 120 minutes of pure violent spectacle and leave believing they saw a critique of violence.

If that's your starting assumption then no wonder you think everyone's wrong, but I don't think anyone made that claim.

[Capwn]

You only have to compare the way Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is introduced in Fury Road to her first appearance in Transformers 3 to see that there's absolutely nothing leering in the former.

I often hear stuff like this. Yes, Transformers is much much much much much more sexist and horrid than Mad Max but that alone shouldn't stop it from receiving any criticism. It's like saying we should stop critiquing Tombraider because her knockers are much smaller than what they used to be.

[Blunt]

But that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that you can make a direct comparison because it's the same actress being introduced in two different movies with the camera at some points focusing on a part of her body. But whereas in Mad Max that shot gives us information both about the character and her place within the film's universe, Transformers litteraly reduces her to a piece of ass. Hence my befuddlement as Mad Max being construed as potentially sexist when it's not, not even remotely.

[Sledge]

Personally I'll only be happy when women's knockers are concave in all media and creatives finally nail drama without conflict.

[Comrade]

This is a, well, movement is too strong a word, but a train of thought that has been circling hipster gaming circles. I.e. that violence in videogames is actually bad after all. It's basically a contrarian position taken after all the Jack Thompson dust settled, and is also a way of looking down one's nose at AAA games like Call of Duty in favour of the indie scene's more pacifist titles like Hotline Miami.

While I definitely agree that there should be more variety in games, and that more non-violent games would be great, the central idea that violent media is bad for society is just fucking nonsense at this point. Violent crime has been dropping for the past two decades, while sales of violent videogames have increased exponentially. The idea that in a theoretical utopia with no war or violent crime people would simply be uninterested in watching violence is bollocks. Humans are genetically hardwired by evolution to kill. It's why we're at the top of the food chain. The answer isn't somehow eliminating our violent impulses through transcendental meditation or something, it's sublimating our interest in violence into fantasy. I mean, all sports are essentially simulations of violence. Chess is a simulacrum of war. I hate violence in reality as much as anyone, but I saw John Wick the other week and if I pretended it wasn't cool as fuck it would be a ludicrous lie.

I'm not sure why people are surprised about Sarkeesian's position on this though. Her response when people point out that in some game you can also kill men or that it's a woman doing the killing has frequently boiled down to essentially "well, we shouldn't be having violence in games anyway." I don't agree with that. I like violent games. So do most of us in this thread. That's not wrong.

It's really something that annoys me in politics in general when people have an ideology with quite a specific remit and it's not enough for them, so they expand it to encompass everything they believe in. Feminism is about way the genders are treated in respect to each other. Nothing more, but that's plenty. Violence is not inherently a feminist issue - when it's applied indiscriminately it's simply not within its remit.

[MK-1601]

Well put Comrade.

The trend for tutting at violence in games almost always completely misreads the appeal. Having thrilling stuff happen that feels responsive and has some immediate consequence to it is something games have always done very well, even with very crude tech. As you're not having to put the performers through weeks of training and risk of injury, you might as well make the action as visibly impactful as possible.

Nobody is playing CoD/BF/etc. nodding along to Tom Clancy's politics, or playing Hotline Miami imagining how cool it would be to flip out and massacre a load of bald men. The only major franchise that's still around that plays up the voyeuristic nature of violence is Mortal Kombat, and nobody sees that as a more than a cheap nostalgic joke these days.

And another thing. It's weird how age rating systems seem to have gradually erased the distinction between realistic and stylised violence. There's nothing in HLM that's harsher than a teen-rated cartoon. And very little in GTAV worse than say, an ep of 24 or Daredevil, for that matter. Australia's ratings board banning games purely for addressing violence *as a topic* is fucking demented.

[deerokus]

"Filmic Dissonance"? Oh what a pseud, what a lovely pseud.

More I think about it, the stupider it sounds. Even if it were a real thing, wouldn't it be inherent to not just action films, but broadly applicable to a majority of works across all forms of drama? It's specifically how tragedy works.

Is Shakespeare 'theatrically dissonant' because we enjoy watching his characters go through a serious mental collapse, killing people and such? Though some of his plays are absurdly violent, so I presume McIntosh hates 'em.

[therearerules]

I'm just glad there was no twitter when I was a pretentious student. This also reminds of the most recent hoohah over Game of Thrones. No spoilers, but certain American reviews have gone mental over it, whereas everywhere else seems to understand why it was how it was.

[Wiper]

"Filmic Dissonance"? Oh what a pseud, what a lovely pseud.

More I think about it, the stupider it sounds. Even if it were a real thing, wouldn't it be inherent to not just action films, but broadly applicable to a majority of works across all forms of drama? It's specifically how tragedy works.

Is Shakespeare 'theatrically dissonant' because we enjoy watching his characters go through a serious mental collapse, killing people and such? Though some of his plays are absurdly violent, so I presume McIntosh hates 'em.

Amusingly enough, there were indeed in-depth discussions and moral griping over the creation and enjoyment of tragic plays as entertainment as far back as ancient Greece. Because surely there was something ethically wrong about taking pleasure in the suffering of others!

So it's nice to realise how far the debate hasn't come in 2500 years.

[RubberJohnny]

Teen pleads guilty to 23 charges of swatting, harassing online game rivals

According to a lengthy report by Canadian publication Tri-City News, the prosecution's case against the Coquitlam, British Columbia teenager asserted that the teen (whose name wasn't released due to his age) targeted "mostly young, female gamers" who declined or ignored his friend requests on LoL and Twitter.

The most notable example was an University of Arizona in Tucson college student who'd dropped out after she and her family members had been victimized by repeated swatting calls (including this nearly simultaneous attack on both the woman and her parents), financial information theft, "text bombs," false cell phone service orders, and intrusions into her e-mail and Twitter accounts. According to prosecutors, the months of attacks against this woman began on September 16 when the teen called Tucson police as if he were at her address, "claiming he had shot his parents with an AR15 rifle, had bombs, and would kill the police if he saw any marked vehicles," the report stated.

[Kelthink]

This is a, well, movement is too strong a word, but a train of thought that has been circling hipster gaming circles. I.e. that violence in videogames is actually bad after all. It's basically a contrarian position taken after all the Jack Thompson dust settled, and is also a way of looking down one's nose at AAA games like Call of Duty in favour of the indie scene's more pacifist titles like Hotline Miami.

Can't say I've seen this at all.

[Capwn]

BUSTED!!

[The Bag]

Does it get any better than someone who doesn't understand how ratings systems work?