Settling for the next best thing.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

As a blog focused on criticism, there’s something we come across regularly in responses to our writing – insistence that we’re “never happy” no matter how much better a particular example is than most media we feature on BABD. 

Readers (though mostly detractors) question why we can’t qualify something (mostly games) as 100% positive example if it does one thing better than the rest in its medium/genre/etc. 

Examples: 

It’s quite disheartening to have the audience insist that we should settle for media to be tiny bit better than mediocre and call it a day. That a game or its creator not being as bad as they could deserve to be awarded and held up as an example for the rest of the industry. 

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We refuse to set our standards so low that “her battle costume isn’t a literal bikini” or “has characters who are female in it” or “shows a male butt/chest sometimes” qualify a title as good, equal gender representation with no room for improvement. 

Being better than a random asset-flipping game with stolen artwork in their web ads isn’t hard. Being better than your last project and learning from its mistakes should be a given. Simply not making asinine excuses for poor representation shouldn’t be applauded. 
No-one is asking for perfection, but all creators should be held accountable for the product they’re selling, with its good and bad sides.

Popular media, especially video games, has a huge problem with fan backlash against lesser-than excellent reviews scores*. And this is not much different – expecting negatives not to be acknowledged because positives exist. 

BABD in particular, instead of doing comprehensive reviews, is focused on female costume and character design compared to male ones. Yet even such specific topic can’t be talked about from both angles without someone decrying unfairness.
Does it really say more about us being negative and cynical or the fans being entitled and blind to any challenging point of view?

~Ozzie 

*The link leads to a satirical @pointandclickbait article, but the satire is not really all that exaggerated. Yes, really.

We must be doing pretty well lately, given that the majority of totally legit criticism we receive seems to be around the idea that there is really nothing wrong with anything… so naturally we must be deluded or clueless to think there’s some sort of issue with depictions of female characters.

(My personal favorite for this has been people rushing in to tell us since we don’t, allegedly, know enough about a male character in a scene – we clearly can’t tell if a female character’s outfit is ridiculous)

All of this, of course, coming back to the same statement when properly translated: “I am comfortable with the level and quality of representation other people are being given, so fuck them if they’re not.

When really, the overall goal shouldn’t be to make everyone begrudgingly accepting of the state of global media.  The goal should be to make everyone excited about the state of global media.

Because right now every major professionally produced piece of media has so much potential to explore long neglected opportunities and break away from painfully boring cliches.  That they’re not doing that isn’t some sort of mild disappointment, it’s just ridiculous.

– wincenworks