Tag: commentary

Posted on

It’s not that we should censor or be down on individual women for doing things that make them feel empowered, but the larger question shouldn’t be about individuals. It should be about systems. Why do we live in a world where the easiest way to be empowered is to put your naked body on display when that’s not true for men? Why is that something we commodify? Why do we have such a limited set of options to begin with?

We Were Feminists Once author and Bitch Media co-founder Andi Zeisler in this interview, “Is Mainstream Feminism Bad for Women’s Rights?”  (via femfreq)

These are all very important questions to ask about popular depictions of female “empowerment”. Yet we so rarely see them asked, let alone treated as a systemic issue, not individual choice of a person (or fictional character).

~Ozzie

Posted on

If there’s something more pathetic than refusal to finally have a female protagonist in a well-established game franchise (especially when there’s clearly demand for it!), it’s the attempts to justify why only a guy main character is a possible option.

Jim points out what amazingly absurd rhetoric Nintendo employed lately to explain why neither female Link nor playable Zelda are viable option for the next Legend of Zelda game. The arguments are downright nonsensical.

At this point @LewieP’s joke explanation* sounds more cohesive than anything Nintento representatives had said:

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[props to jimquisition commenter who found this]

~Ozzie

see fan imaginings of Zelda-led game: @annalandin‘s elemental-powered armors |

タバコ’s Hyrule Valkyrja | @dresdencodak‘s Clockwork Empire

*edit: Sadly, the joke, unlike Jim’s video isn’t trans-inclusive.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Posted on

rejectedprincesses:

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CLICK HERE TO READ PART TWO (the conclusion).

And yes, she has a movie, please click the read more on the part two post.

(shout-outs behind the cut – more details available in footnotes at the main site entry)

Keep reading

Maybe if more people at big studios cared to do the research into lives of real female snipers, like Lyudmila Pavlichenko, they’d have second thoughts about introducing such “novel” concepts like breathing through skin or being brainwashed into killing people while having an absolute cleavage to justify having a gun-wielding woman in their story.

@rejectedprincesses is all-around a great project highlighting many amazing women in history who are basically too unmarketable to get a lot recognition in mainstream media.

It also provides a handy list of female warriors throughout ages, for anyone in doubt how “historically accurate” it is to portray women in combat roles.

We recommend it as a great starting point to learn about many interesting (not necessarily good, but always fascinating) women who shaped the history by daring to break conventions. Really great source of reference and inspiration when creating a new, non-conformist female characters.

~Ozzie

Posted on

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

phoenix-ace:

curseboxes:

‘political correctness kills creativity’ if you can’t create something without furthering the oppression of minorities, you aren’t a very creative person.

Exactly.  It is funny how people say this and don’t realize the irony.  As in, if you cannot visualize people different from you without using the same old stereotypes, you can’t exactly say you were the paragon of creativity can you?  

RE: the insistence that when we ask for costume designs to stop recycling the tired skimpy armor tropes we’re somehow hurting the very idea of creativity.

Fun fact: adhering limitations to a project (like, I dunno, striving to not hurt feelings of large part of the population) actually helps to come up with something way more original than sticking to tropes that are offensive towards lots of potential fans.

~Ozzie

Invariably whenever someone claims that “political correctness” is killing creativity – it showcases a real lack of effort on their part.  Even politically incorrect comedians like John Cleese will stress that you can’t expect your first idea to be your greatest idea, you have to refine it and be willing to let it go if it can’t be saved.

If you have an idea that you think is great, but you can’t use it because it’s “politically incorrect” then three possibilities exist:

  1. The core idea is great however the way you envisioned it is problematic – so you need to rework it until you have the core without the terrible stuff.
  2. The core idea is actually terrible, but some other aspect of it is good so what you want to do is ditch the core idea but keep the good aspect for another idea (or make it the core idea).
  3. The whole idea if fundamentally terrible and you need to examine why you thought of it in the first place to help you grow as a person and avoid problematic ideas like it cloud up your brain storming in future.

Regardless of which it is, it’s basically an opportunity to help you improve your creativity and yourself.  Passing up on this opportunity just means you’re taking one step towards being more like many, many problematic creators of the past.  

So why be an imitation of someone else when you can be a pioneer?  Because plenty of professionals are calling for people to drop the use of harmful stereotypes and get creative instead.

– wincenworks

Figured it’s high time to bring this post back, as a reminder that blaming “political correctness” (read: basic human decency) for “censorship” of creativity is nothing more than a cheap way to deflect attention from how uncreative something truly is.

image

~Ozzie

Posted on

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

phoenix-ace:

curseboxes:

‘political correctness kills creativity’ if you can’t create something without furthering the oppression of minorities, you aren’t a very creative person.

Exactly.  It is funny how people say this and don’t realize the irony.  As in, if you cannot visualize people different from you without using the same old stereotypes, you can’t exactly say you were the paragon of creativity can you?  

RE: the insistence that when we ask for costume designs to stop recycling the tired skimpy armor tropes we’re somehow hurting the very idea of creativity.

Fun fact: adhering limitations to a project (like, I dunno, striving to not hurt feelings of large part of the population) actually helps to come up with something way more original than sticking to tropes that are offensive towards lots of potential fans.

~Ozzie

Invariably whenever someone claims that “political correctness” is killing creativity – it showcases a real lack of effort on their part.  Even politically incorrect comedians like John Cleese will stress that you can’t expect your first idea to be your greatest idea, you have to refine it and be willing to let it go if it can’t be saved.

If you have an idea that you think is great, but you can’t use it because it’s “politically incorrect” then three possibilities exist:

  1. The core idea is great however the way you envisioned it is problematic – so you need to rework it until you have the core without the terrible stuff.
  2. The core idea is actually terrible, but some other aspect of it is good so what you want to do is ditch the core idea but keep the good aspect for another idea (or make it the core idea).
  3. The whole idea if fundamentally terrible and you need to examine why you thought of it in the first place to help you grow as a person and avoid problematic ideas like it cloud up your brain storming in future.

Regardless of which it is, it’s basically an opportunity to help you improve your creativity and yourself.  Passing up on this opportunity just means you’re taking one step towards being more like many, many problematic creators of the past.  

So why be an imitation of someone else when you can be a pioneer?  Because plenty of professionals are calling for people to drop the use of harmful stereotypes and get creative instead.

– wincenworks

Figured it’s high time to bring this post back, as a reminder that blaming “political correctness” (read: basic human decency) for “censorship” of creativity is nothing more than a cheap way to deflect attention from how uncreative something truly is.

image

~Ozzie

Posted on

Hi! First of all thank you for your hard work, this blog opened my eyes about the game industry and made me realize how sexist it is. I’m sending you this cause I have some mixed feeling about one one of my favorite characters: Bayonetta. I know she’s sexualized to the extreme and thats sad, cause she’s awesome, and I still like her. My question its if you think its okay to like a sexualized character like her and still be against the bikini armor, or maybe that’s hypocrite? Thanks for reading.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

It’s perfectly okay, normal and healthy to enjoy things that are problematic.  There is a DIRE shortage of media that isn’t problematic and nobody should be expected to just sit in a corner and wait until something perfect comes along.  Furthermore, media creators can’t be expected to create better media unless they release things to be critiqued so they can do better next time.

The problems come when people deny media they like has problems and want to hold it above critique or when they decide that if anything detracts from the media then it’s not worth worrying about.  Not only does it lead to a lack of progress – it leads to people normalizing and internalizing the problems.

As an example: Bayonetta core concept is pretty awesome and open to all kinds of interpretations – super witch with unlimited access to magic and fashion who battles all kinds of powerful and weird stuff.  The gameplay exists essentially independent of the concept and is really enjoyable for many people. 

It’s just unfortunate that literally everything in the production sets cranking the male gaze up to 11/10 as the top priority.  Whether the problems offset the fun aspects is a matter entirely up to the individual experiencing it at the time- what aspects could have been improved is a matter between critics and creators.

– wincenworks

How to be a Fan of Problematic Things

Bringing this back since the new @femfreq video has got the Internet in a giant flame war over whether Bayonetta is an textbook example of sexism in media or a flawless depiction of female empowerment.

It’s absolutely fine to like problematic things, because no matter what you fave, your fave is going to be problematic.  There will be issues of representation and ways things could have been done better.

– wincenworks

(edit: It appears Social Justice League’s site is having some issues, an archived version of the How to be a Fan of Problematic things is available here.) 

Posted on

lidoxia:

Hi! First of all thank you for your hard work, this blog opened my eyes about the game industry and made me realize how sexist it is. I’m sending you this cause I have some mixed feeling about one one of my favorite characters: Bayonetta. I know she’s sexualized to the extreme and thats sad, cause she’s awesome, and I still like her. My question its if you think its okay to like a sexualized character like her and still be against the bikini armor, or maybe that’s hypocrite? Thanks for reading.

bikiniarmorbattledamage:

It’s perfectly okay, normal and healthy to enjoy things that are problematic.  There is a DIRE shortage of media that isn’t problematic and nobody should be expected to just sit in a corner and wait until something perfect comes along.  Furthermore, media creators can’t be expected to create better media unless they release things to be critiqued so they can do better next time.

The problems come when people deny media they like has problems and want to hold it above critique or when they decide that if anything detracts from the media then it’s not worth worrying about.  Not only does it lead to a lack of progress – it leads to people normalizing and internalizing the problems.

As an example: Bayonetta core concept is pretty awesome and open to all kinds of interpretations – super witch with unlimited access to magic and fashion who battles all kinds of powerful and weird stuff.  The gameplay exists essentially independent of the concept and is really enjoyable for many people. 

It’s just unfortunate that literally everything in the production sets cranking the male gaze up to 11/10 as the top priority.  Whether the problems offset the fun aspects is a matter entirely up to the individual experiencing it at the time- what aspects could have been improved is a matter between critics and creators.

– wincenworks

How to be a Fan of Problematic Things

Bringing this back since the new @femfreq video has got the Internet in a giant flame war over whether Bayonetta is an textbook example of sexism in media or a flawless depiction of female empowerment.

It’s absolutely fine to like problematic things, because no matter what you fave, your fave is going to be problematic.  There will be issues of representation and ways things could have been done better.

– wincenworks

(edit: It appears Social Justice League’s site is having some issues, an archived version of the How to be a Fan of Problematic things is available here.) 

Posted on

femfreq:

The latest episode of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games is live! 

In “Lingerie Is Not Armor,” we explore the ways in which female characters are frequently placed in wildly impractical, sexualizing outfits specifically designed to objectify them for the titillation of the presumed straight male player. We then discuss the problems inherent in linking the sexualization of female characters to notions of female empowerment, and examine what positive depictions of female sexuality and sexual desire in games might look like.

You can find a list of resources and a full transcript on our website.

Finally, the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games episode we awaited the most arrives! And it doesn’t disappoint.

Not surprisingly, Anita touches many subjects we frequently discuss on BABD, including:

~Ozzie

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)