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Post by M is for Morphine on Feb 17, 2012 9:57:55 GMT -5
As misogynist humor goes, I admit, I find it hilarious. But I'm a fan of absurd humor, and misogyny is absurd. (no, I don't buy the false dichotomy labeling that finding some kind of offensive humor funny makes you of that offensive mindset.) I know girls are split on that kind of humor, to some extent. The people I know who make the jokes are the kind that don't actually act that way and more make a statement for contextual lulz. (it's especially fun when the girls themselves get right in on the joke or lob a few back) Absurd humor is based on the subverting of expectations. The "how to defend yourself from an attacker armed with a piece of fruit" skit from Monty Python is a great example. Fruit is not dangerous, why is the instructor focused on it instead of, say, a knife? Absurd humor is the meeting of two ideas that are logically incongruent. Misogynistic humor is not generally absurd. Most of this 'humor' is repeating the idea that women are stupid, bad at driving, incapable of rational or deep thought, and not suited for anything other than domestic tasks. These are actual views that have been held for hundreds of years, and are still held by some people. A joke that points out the absurdity of these beliefs (which sexist 'jokes' are not generally concerned with) could be a great satire, but the jokes in themselves are not inherently absurdist. If your friends like to joke that way, that's great. Good for them. But I hope that you can see the difference between people accepting a joke in the intended humor from a friend, and having the same joke come from a stranger or acquaintance. When you make a sexist or offensive joke at people who you don't know well enough to guess the reaction, you're basically saying you could give less of a crap about their life experiences up to that point. You don't know what they've had to deal with, and it's of no concern to you. It doesn't make you a chauvinist pig, but it does make you inconsiderate. Edit (oh no, still goin!): When you notice a sexist joke directed at you, it's a reminder that some people consider you to have no value as a person because of your gender. The impact of the joke will depend on a number of factors, not the last of which is the number of times you have been made to feel like less of a person in a more serious context. For me it's just another reminder that Xbox and facebook are just like the outside world. I am not allowed a safe place, even in fun. My only value to some people is as a sexual object and they're pleased to let me know this fact, whether it's with a rape threat (far less serious and scary over voice chat then on a street at night, but one recalls the other) or something less severe. "Get back in the kitchen", even said in jest, is just another reminder that women have been treated like chattel in the past and some would be happy to see it again. Whether that's the real opinion of the 'joker' doesn't really change that. Anyway, how many times do you have to be told you're worthless before you start to believe it?
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Post by Stal on Feb 17, 2012 10:54:57 GMT -5
Please forgive the use of the word absurd--I define things with the term based on what I view it as. Not the strictly humorist lingo jargon of definitions. Just layman definitions.
And I expected you to go on about this-- I recall sharing a photo on FB I found particularly hilarious, knowing most of my friends would appreciate it, and you getting in an uproar over it (though comment disappeared later as I went to respond).
And there is a huge difference between making jokes like that to people you don't know, and people you do. Nothing in my statement suggested otherwise. Simply that I was admitting I found it funny due to pure absurdity (or "satire" if you care) and it was a thing among my group of friends.
Yes, some people are going to have wildly different views on that humor. That's to be expected. But what are you really arguing here? You seem to be attacking some position or view when I simply admitted to an enjoyment of a type of humor. Or are you just throwing views out there now that the topic has been broached?
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Post by M is for Morphine on Feb 17, 2012 11:15:28 GMT -5
I deleted my comment because I saw that your friends, who you intended it for, were enjoying it. It was not the time or the place for it. You're getting awfully specific bringing that into this, though.
I'm doing the latter, putting my views out there. The subject of misogynistic humor and it's offensiveness (or lack thereof?) seems on topic, at least tangentially, since it comes up a lot when you're on vent/teamspeak/xbox live.
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Post by Stal on Feb 17, 2012 11:20:21 GMT -5
I deleted my comment because I saw that your friends, who you intended it for, were enjoying it. It was not the time or the place for it. You're getting awfully specific bringing that into this, though. I'm doing the latter, putting my views out there. The subject of misogynistic humor and it's offensiveness (or lack thereof?) seems on topic, at least tangentially, since it invariably comes up when you're on vent/teamspeak/xbox live. It was related musing. I hit post and said "I bet Teow will have a lot to say about this topic, come to think of it." and that was why I did. Thanks for the clarification on your post. I wasn't sure if I'd unintentionally made it seem like I was taking the position of "If you don't find it funny, you're just a stupid-head" (people mistaking unstated and unheld positions happens a lot based on my confusing wordy textwalls at times) or discussing how you feel in general. There was a lot of passion in your post, and I wasn't sure if my view was under attack or simply a statement on feelings of the institution.
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Post by M is for Morphine on Feb 17, 2012 11:24:16 GMT -5
It was related musing. I hit post and said "I bet Teow will have a lot to say about this topic, come to think of it." and that was why I did. Thanks for the clarification on your post. I wasn't sure if I'd unintentionally made it seem like I was taking the position of "If you don't find it funny, you're just a stupid-head" (people mistaking unstated and unheld positions happens a lot based on my confusing wordy textwalls at times) or discussing how you feel in general. There was a lot of passion in your post, and I wasn't sure if my view was under attack or simply a statement on feelings of the institution. I have a loooot of vitriol in that regard, but you're not the cause of it. XD
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Post by Stal on Feb 17, 2012 11:28:32 GMT -5
It was related musing. I hit post and said "I bet Teow will have a lot to say about this topic, come to think of it." and that was why I did. Thanks for the clarification on your post. I wasn't sure if I'd unintentionally made it seem like I was taking the position of "If you don't find it funny, you're just a stupid-head" (people mistaking unstated and unheld positions happens a lot based on my confusing wordy textwalls at times) or discussing how you feel in general. There was a lot of passion in your post, and I wasn't sure if my view was under attack or simply a statement on feelings of the institution. I have a loooot of vitriol that regard, but you're not the cause of it. XD Understood. I don't know how I'd feel about it if I were a girl and faced with a history of certain things. I mean, I know I would like to believe I'd laugh it off (I try to do that with a lot in life), but knowing that there are things that get my ire raised... Were I in different shoes, who knows.
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Post by Ikkin on Feb 17, 2012 15:03:24 GMT -5
Isn't Heavy Rain gritty modern noir? That seems like standard tropes for the genre, and when doing a story, aren't you kind of expected to carry some of those tropes in? (I know people talk about wanting originality and non-cliche stories within a genre, but tropes of a genre are tropes for a reason) The problem with Heavy Rain is that it clearly wanted to pave the way for videogames to become a more mature and respected storytelling medium... and then took "mature" to mean shower scenes, forced stripping, and (TW) attempted rape. Considerations really ought to be different when you're trying to be a trailblazer and there aren't any other choices out there, y'know? Especially because the main hook of Heavy Rain ("How far would you go to save your child?") is something that could easily be gender-neutral. The Mass Effect series appears to be getting worse, unfortunately. They always kind of had an issue with the Asari (who kind of end up as the Twi'leks of their universe, showing up as strippers/dancers all over the place, except only female), but there's definitely been some complaints about what they've been doing with characters in Mass Effect 3, and some really skeevy merchandising that they've had made. Even FemShep in her newly-minted "official" form ended up worse off; I'm not sure what possessed them to give her that much makeup, but it doesn't really make for a flattering contrast with the male version they've been using all along. Not sure I agree there. KH is one of those things that seems to balance out the other way, to be honest. As much as I love Aqua as a character (and her really awesome armor that takes realistic damage without showing anything in the CG teaser), she's wearing a corset and zettai ryouiki in her normal outfit... and Larxene kind of takes the Femme Fatale role, as fully-clothed as she is. It's probably not quite as noticeable next to Riku's bare bellybutton and Terra's armored butt/unusually accurate depiction of what men look like wearing spandex, though! Heh, I really wish I could link to Go Make Me A Sandwich, but... language. >_< So, I'll just link the relevant text/images from the article I wanted to reference instead, which should make the point well enough: The diversity of depictions of men in gaming is staggering. You can find male characters of all body types and ages in video games. Sure there’s a fair number of muscled meat-heads: But for every Amarant that’s out there, there are many more non-idealized depictions of men. I mean, hell – look at Team Fortress: Check it out – every silhouette is different. You’ve got huge guys, short guys, fat guys, and skinny guys, and some just average guys. And that’s just one game! Look at what happens when you look at existing video game characters! You’ve got gangly, half-developed teenagers: LEFT: Hope from FFXIII, RIGHT: Sora from Kingdom Hearts 2There’s a fair amount of differences just between Hope and Sora even. Hope is a more passive, less fighty type of character while Sora is more aggressive and hits things with large keys a lot – even if both of them do fit certain JRPG design tropes. You’ve also got older characters: LEFT TO RIGHT: Ansem the Wise from KH2, Leisure Suit Larry from ?, Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid (not sure which game)Sure, Ansem looks pretty good for an old guy. But Snake looks pretty haggard here, and Larry is pretty tubby as well as balding. And again, you have a diversity of character concepts as well – from scientist to aging playboy to grizzled veteran, each of these characters is unique. Most characters, of course, fall somewhere in between these two extremes in terms of age. You can find male characters in this set that represent every body type imagineable.You’ve got your super-skinny/gangly characters: LEFT TO RIGHT: Guybrush Threepwood from the Monkey Island series, Luigi from many Super Mario games, Kiros from FFVIII, and Zidane from FFIX.There’s also a whole host of average dudes, like these guys: LEFT TO RIGHT: Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Max Payne, Gordon Freeman from Half-Life 2, Link from the Zelda series, and Leon from Resident EvilSay what you want about Link being sort of androgynous, but dude is definitely not a body builder. He looks like a pretty average guy who just happens to bash people with swords. Same goes for Gordon Freeman. But really, I think the real nail in the coffin is the mind-boggling number of fat male characters out there: TOP, LEFT TO RIGHT: King Hippo from Punch Out, Ward from FFVIII, Rufus from Street Fighter, Bowser from Super Mario games BOTTOM, LEFT TO RIGHT: E. Honda from Street Fighter, Steiner from FFIX, Karnov from Karnov’s Revenge, Mario, and Rodrigo Borgia from Assassin’s Creed 2So, yes, while there is some truth to the fact that mainstream game designers are not the most creative people out there, the fact still remains that the diversity of body types seen in male characters in gaming is enormous. The thing that sticks out in my mind is that guys are more likely to get turned into caricatures in several different ways (old and wrinkled, uber-muscular, uber-skinny and gangly, uber-fat, uber-ugly), whereas women tend to have one set form (healthy 18-25ish thin-to-toned woman) that's just stretched a little bit depending on which part the designer wanted to focus on (eg. bigger or smaller hips and breasts, skinny or wasp-like waist). Well, that does kind of depend on which Tifa you're talking about. ...than in Chun-Li's outfit! Tifa's got actual muscle definition in her arms, which is kind of a plus, and her outfit makes far more sense in the context of her running a bar than Chun-Li's does as an Interpol agent. FFVII Tifa, of course, was a travesty, but even her character designer didn't seem to like what was done there very much, given the difference when he had the chance to redesign her for his own project. XD Remember, though, there's two parts to it: it's not just the outfits, but the context of who's required to be attractive, too. Tifa's surrounded by some of the most attractive men in videogames (eg. Cloud, Sephiroth, and Vincent), while Chun-Li's surrounding cast consists mainly of not-traditionally-attractive men (particularly the icky muscle-blobs in thongs -_-). Fanservice always seems a bit less egregious when it works both ways, because at least then it isn't exclusionary. I'll grant that AC Tifa was much better. I feel like they took a step backward when they put her in Dissida though, by giving her her cowgirl outfit (which was an outfit she wore when she was 14, mind), but them's the breaks. As for Cloud/Sephiroth/Vincent, though, I can't exactly say they're the most attractive men in videogames- sure, they have tons of fangirls, but that's because they are prettyboys and a lot of people like prettyboys. XD Some people do like the more muscle-blobby types (I... guess Barret would have had his share of fans?), but then again, it's Japan, where prettyboys are everywhere (which was why they made Vaan the lead against Basch, I guess). I actually thought Tifa stood out more amongst her case than Chun-Li, but I guess that's just me. XD But coming back to that, it does feel like a lot of times when they design females to be 'attractive' they tend to stick to a fairly uniform ideal, whereas men seem to run the gamut. Well, Dissidia was definitely a step back, but that game was designed as fanservice all around, what with shirtless Sephiroth and Tidus. There were even comments in the battle tips about how shirtless Tidus had "all his youth on display," how the player should check out Squall's masculine tank top, and how Jecht had "the body of a bronzed god," lol. And I guess the thing with Cloud/Sephiroth/Vincent is that there's clearly an audience that they're aiming for there. I mean, different people obviously find different sorts attractive, but Final Fantasy's bishie type is there to sell, rather than just being something some people find attractive by accident like the Street Fighter men would be. I'd agree that she stands out more in FFVII (because, man, that art is awful!), but she fits right in with Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts. She stands out in Dissidia, too, but that has more to do with the fact that almost all of the other women on her side either have more average figures (Cosmos, Lightning, Yuna), are/look like teenagers (Terra and Prishe), or are Shantotto (ie. tiny, adorable, and completely non-sexualized)... which is probably why she got the short end of the stick, to be honest. =/ I'm a little surprised at the choice of Impa. xD I would've thought Midna would be more of a problem from an appearance standpoint, but maybe I've been influenced by how the fandom tends to portray her. Impa's incarnations actually tend to show quite some diversity, seeing as we've seen her as an old woman, as a heavy woman, and as a young warrior; she's always been implied to be strong, and although her costumes in OoT or even OoS/OoA probably aren't the greatest examples, her design usually doesn't really scream "sexualized" to me-- her recent incarnation in SS actually does quite a good job on that front, despite her being young.Impa's Skyward Sword design is awesome. I particularly liked how, before you saw her, they were talking about a "man in black" with Zelda... and then, no, it's just Impa. xD I don't think there's really any problem with her being young, particularly when she actually looks like someone who could protect Zelda physically. Plus, she doesn't exactly fit into the normal "young woman" shape, either... she's really tall and somewhat imposing, rather than generically pretty.
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Post by Stal on Feb 17, 2012 15:32:18 GMT -5
Ikkin, I think you missed what I was saying about the diversity in male characters. Not that it stems from "I'm just going to be diverse in with this character" but each actually plays to the tropes inherent in the character role.
You briefly mentioned caricatures... That was kind of what I was aiming at. The role itself is usually what defines the way the character will actually look for men. So when you consider roles (not just male), as far as I see, the diversity of designs plummets among male characters. You'll see more characters that look similar across the spectrum of a particular character trait
And where it really shows up as glaring for females is their design is consistent across almost all roles and less variety of roles themselves.
EDIT - I think what I'm getting at is that all archetypes are pretty generic really. There's just far fewer archetypes for females (again, problem) and female design lends itself towards being able to see just how generic character design is.
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Post by Ikkin on Feb 17, 2012 18:20:09 GMT -5
Ikkin, I think you missed what I was saying about the diversity in male characters. Not that it stems from "I'm just going to be diverse in with this character" but each actually plays to the tropes inherent in the character role. You briefly mentioned caricatures... That was kind of what I was aiming at. The role itself is usually what defines the way the character will actually look for men. So when you consider roles (not just male), as far as I see, the diversity of designs plummets among male characters. You'll see more characters that look similar across the spectrum of a particular character trait And where it really shows up as glaring for females is their design is consistent across almost all roles and less variety of roles themselves. EDIT - I think what I'm getting at is that all archetypes are pretty generic really. There's just far fewer archetypes for females (again, problem) and female design lends itself towards being able to see just how generic character design is. Oh, okay, that's fair enough, and I'm not really seeing any reason to disagree. Diversity within roles is generally bad for everyone, outside of intentional expectation-breaking. But, I'm not entirely sure that having archetypical roles is necessarily a bad thing, especially in videogames, where story often takes a back seat to gameplay anyway. That "The Woman" (as opposed to "Soldier (female)," "Magician (female)," "The Heavy Artillery (female)," "The Tank (female)," "Savior of the World (female)," etc.) is considered a role in and of itself is a bigger issue, since as you said, it leads to genericness across the board rather than just within a single role. I mean, even in mechanical terms, it's a pretty significant issue if every woman looks essentially the same at a distance while the men are clearly distinguishable by archetype. =/
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Post by Crystal on Feb 17, 2012 20:13:16 GMT -5
You know, that might actually be a pretty good character-creation exercise. I've done something similar before in art class and it's way harder than you'd think.
So if I could pose a challenge to anyone here who feels like it: Take the character archetypes of Soldier, Magician, Tank, Hero, Villian, Bookworm, and draw/envision them in male and female form; do all the females first.
Stipulation: They all have to be relatively attractive. Which is to say, they can't look like a complete troll; be reasonable. Weight, height, race, background, clothing are all up to you, but species should be 'humanoid'.
It would be interesting to see what people could come up with. :3
If you do take up the challenge, post them in a spoiler box so we can continue debating, and we could discuss what we see.
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Post by Komori on Feb 17, 2012 20:37:30 GMT -5
Why can't the women be complete trolls? We have plenty of troll men in games.
(Either way, challenge accepted)
Also, thank you, Ikkin, for posting that big chunk of article. That is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of male vs female character design sexism!!
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Post by Jayeee on Feb 17, 2012 21:04:10 GMT -5
I've been reading this thread closely, and I recently came across an example of pretty much what's being discussed here; I thought it'd be worth posting. This is super recent, as in, about a week ago this was released. But there is a Square-Enix game titled Final Fantasy XIII-2. They've started to release DLC content, and among them are costumes for the leading male and female character. I think what I was most surprised about with this is that the website I found these pictures on (finalfantasy.net) had a comments section, and it surprised me that so many people were picking up on this. Comments ranged from the typical 'dat bikini', to a lot of disdain for the female representation. I guess for me, i'm quite naive when it comes to this kind of thing, because I tend to make friends with females more, but none of them were ever gamers, so I suppose it just never really occurred to me that there were that many. And that is entirely my fault - i'm very naive and ignorant in that, but seeing that the majority of the comments were talking about this mass difference in clothes, it really made me think of how wrong I was to think of things as so set to male audiences because that's who were playing, when that's obviously no longer the case at all.
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Post by Ikkin on Feb 17, 2012 21:39:35 GMT -5
You know, that might actually be a pretty good character-creation exercise. I've done something similar before in art class and it's way harder than you'd think. So if I could pose a challenge to anyone here who feels like it: Take the character archetypes of Soldier, Magician, Tank, Hero, Villian, Bookworm, and draw/envision them in male and female form; do all the females first. Stipulation: They all have to be relatively attractive. Which is to say, they can't look like a complete troll; be reasonable. Weight, height, race, background, clothing are all up to you, but species should be 'humanoid'. It would be interesting to see what people could come up with. :3 If you do take up the challenge, post them in a spoiler box so we can continue debating, and we could discuss what we see. Ooh, this reminds me of something... let me get it. =3 There was this article I'd read online where someone designed female versions of some of the Team Fortress 2 characters (some language on the article's other pages, but none on the linked page) with the intent being to have each of the characters easily distinguishable by silhouette alone, just like the original designs. Here's Female Heavy: And here's Female Medic: The article itself is really interesting, though, and explains a lot about the process that went into making those characters. =3 Also, thank you, Ikkin, for posting that big chunk of article. That is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of male vs female character design sexism!! No problem! Go Make Me A Sandwich really is a fantastic site for this sort of thing, but I can't link it for obvious reasons. xD Wundergeek (the blogger for the site) also did some gender-swaps and anatomy deconstructions that were quite instructive, too, so you might want to look up the site itself if you hadn't seen it already. I've been reading this thread closely, and I recently came across an example of pretty much what's being discussed here; I thought it'd be worth posting. This is super recent, as in, about a week ago this was released. But there is a Square-Enix game titled Final Fantasy XIII-2. They've started to release DLC content, and among them are costumes for the leading male and female character. I think what I was most surprised about with this is that the website I found these pictures on (finalfantasy.net) had a comments section, and it surprised me that so many people were picking up on this. Comments ranged from the typical 'dat bikini', to a lot of disdain for the female representation. I guess for me, i'm quite naive when it comes to this kind of thing, because I tend to make friends with females more, but none of them were ever gamers, so I suppose it just never really occurred to me that there were that many. And that is entirely my fault - i'm very naive and ignorant in that, but seeing that the majority of the comments were talking about this mass difference in clothes, it really made me think of how wrong I was to think of things as so set to male audiences because that's who were playing, when that's obviously no longer the case at all. Final Fantasy has a pretty large female fanbase, so it shouldn't be that surprising that a lot of people would be annoyed. (There's actually been some statistics that suggests that the female FF fanbase wasn't particularly happy with what they did in XIII-2, actually) In that particular case, though, they'd probably have been better off just sticking Noel in swim trunks for his alt costume and calling it a day. xD
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Post by Crystal on Feb 17, 2012 21:57:35 GMT -5
Why can't the women be complete trolls? We have plenty of troll men in games. (Either way, challenge accepted) Also, thank you, Ikkin, for posting that big chunk of article. That is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of male vs female character design sexism!! (Hey, the men can't be complete trolls either! xDxD) It's because I felt it would be more challenging to cater to the concept; i.e. a character that appeals to the audience. They can be ugly, for sure, but not so totally out-there that the vast majority of people (assuming mature, not-sexist people) wouldn't want to play as them. Team Fortress-level appearance, for instance, is no problem at all. I particularly like that female medic character Ikkin just posted. :3
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Post by Komori on Feb 17, 2012 23:12:05 GMT -5
Well, I was working on this until I realized I really need to finish a Spooky comic and those Neoquest 3 thumbnails and a slew of other arts, but I did finish all the gals, which I think is most important. I'm not sure all of these characters could be the main, playable character (Isn't that the Hero anyway?), but I could definitely see all of them as significant characters in a game. I tried to tackle a few different genres of games, though my style is inevitably cutesy, so. Gah, the magician's supposed to be wearing spectacles, but I obviously forgot the bridge over her nose. Considering I knocked these six out without too much trouble, I'm not seeing that game designers have much of an excuse for just making slinky, well-endowed 20-somethings.
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