Schadenfreude time!


You may have heard that a pair of no-talent MRA hacks named Jordan Owen and Davis Aurini were making a bad “movie” called The Sarkeesian Effect. The excerpts seen so far have been uniformly atrocious: bad lighting, bad sound, droning interviews, all somehow supposed to make Anita Sarkeesian look bad.

Well, it’s a pair no longer. Owen fired Aurini. Aurini is threatening to accuse Owen of absconding with all the money they raised. It’s hilarious!

If you must, Owen has made a video explaining his side of things. It’s also terrible: it’s a video of an unkempt guy with a sad, world-weary air explaining…very…slowly that he had to fire the guy who makes videos with a skull in the background. Aurini hasn’t made a public statement yet.

It’s kind of discouraging to be a Social Justice Warrior and find that we’re at war with bumbling, self-important nincompoops who keep tripping over their own toes. Owen is still promising to finish and release The Sarkeesian Effect, but even if he does, you know it’s going to be tedious crap. Where’s the challenge?


Aurini presents his side of the story. Would you believe the breakup was over jealousy of a third person…and the third person was RooshV?

It just gets funnier and funnier.

Comments

  1. Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy says

    It’s so hilarious that people who are making a video at least partially based upon the premise that Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter is a fraud of some sort are going to end up actually not producing the content they asked fans to pay for.

  2. some bastard on the internet says

    Wow, two complete assholes start devouring each other, and all we had to do was leave them to their own devices for a couple of months. It’s almost as though they’re the ones with the self-destructive ideology that they accuse us of having!

    Funny, that.

  3. UnknownEric the Apostate says

    Actually, it’s about ethics in shitty Youtube video journalism.

  4. doublereed says

    It’s kind of discouraging to be a Social Justice Warrior and find that we’re at war with bumbling, self-important nincompoops who keep tripping over their own toes.

    Eh, I’m pretty sure that’s how the Southern Poverty Law Center feels everyday.

  5. anteprepro says

    Voltaire’s prayer strikes again. Also: didnt something similar to this happen to other anti woman assholes, decrying another entirely manufactured fraud and turning around to commit blatant, obvious fraud themselves? Ring any bells to anyone else?

  6. A Masked Avenger says

    Uh, how do you publicly threaten to accuse? Isn’t the act of making the threat, in public, itself an accusation? Like when my son says, at Christmas dinner, “Let me open a present, or I’ll tell Grandma you called her fat!”?

  7. embertine says

    anteprepro, I know that Paul Elam of AvfM got into a bit of hot water after soliciting donations for “men’s rights causes” and then admitting that every penny he received went into his pocket. Of course, he is a man, and his right to be a raging douchecanoe on the internet would be threatened if he had to pay his mortgage via a real job, so…?

  8. says

    Its clear from the YouTube video that this guy is unable to make a decent YouTube video, so I’m skeptical of his ability to make a “film”, whatever the content. Was this the first thing he did after waking up with a hangover?

  9. says

    I’d be really interested to see how someone could attack Sarkeesian’s videos and remain honest. I agree completely with her, but because of the way my brain works, when I watch the Feminist Frequency videos* I am constantly assessing for truth — and I haven’t caught her out at all. When I see people say “Sarkeesian is wrong about … stuff” I’m always eager to ask them “what stuff, exactly?” although I’ve yet to see a substantive critique of her critique.

    I suspect a video about Sarkeesian’s “lies” would consist of: lies. It’s too stupid and annoying to be ironic. As much as I hate the youtube video war as a means of conveying information, it has the advantage that what you say is right there, and can be evaluated point-by-point for truth. If someone cherry-picks and spindoctors her words that’ll be pretty obvious and many are standing by ready to laughingly deconstruct such an attempt.

    (* disclaimer: I am a backer)

  10. microraptor says

    @Marcus- the other criticism about Sarkeesian that I see regularly is that she’s doing it for “attention.” And making up most of the threats against her. I have yet to see anyone actually offer an explanation for why she’d falsify threats to get her own speaking engagements canceled.

    It’s like the classic xkcd- people don’t want to associate with Gamergate but they’ve got to find something wrong with her arguments too so that they can have a way to feel superior to both.

  11. speed0spank says

    anteprepro, I know that Paul Elam of AvfM got into a bit of hot water after soliciting donations for “men’s rights causes” and then admitting that every penny he received went into his pocket.

    Let us not forget the MRA conference. They charged hundreds of dollars for their shitty conference, and even after they got booted from the hotel and went to a VFW hall they STILL charged hundreds – and didn’t refund anyone. They had to have paid a fraction of the cost for that hall rather than a nice hotel. That was sketchy right off the bat.
    Then (!!!) they claimed they were getting threats from feminists, so they somehow raised like 30k (I think? Or maybe it was 30k for the entire thing) for extra security. They didn’t bother to actually employ any extra security but I bet they were secure knowing that some poor dude bros just picked up the tab for their rent for the next….few years?
    But Anita is the real scam artist here. Mhm. Yup
    Not to mention that when Anita gets threats and shows them to the public in black and white they claim she made them up or shouldn’t take them seriously. MRAs claimed threats and couldn’t produce any evidence for that whatsoever (I am pretty sure the hotel denied the reports as well) and their rabid fanboys just poured out their wallets for them. Not that anyone expects these people to be consistent.

  12. GuineaPigDan . says

    I don’t think it’s just mere coincidence that this break up happened right after Jordan Owen did two videos attacking PUA culture and strongly condemning Roosh V’s books and recent writings about wanting to legalize rape on private property. Aurini just so happens to be amiable with Roosh , and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if their disagreements over Roosh were a factor in Aurini finally getting the boot.

  13. =8)-DX says

    @benbennet #11

    Its clear from the YouTube video that this guy is unable to make a decent YouTube video, so I’m skeptical of his ability to make a “film”, whatever the content. Was this the first thing he did after waking up with a hangover?

    Well, he did say he’s going to use the money to pay a group of people with actual skills to produce the final cut, probably based on Aurini’s sad attempts at putting a video together and YT vlogs are an entirely different medium (certain 144p bad audio vods are gems!), but yeah pot kettle, black, etc.

    @Marcus Ranum #12

    and I haven’t caught her out at all.

    Most of the criticisms fall into the following categories:
    1) Personal attacks on Anita Sarkeesian that are irrelevant to her Tropes series (she took a long time making the videos, she is ugly/wears makeup/isn’t a “gamer”)
    2) Complete misrepresentations that seem to have come from people who haven’t watched the videos or were frothing at the mouth and brainfarting so hard they failed to like, listen to her words. (“Anita wants to outlaw all boobs/nekkidness in our games!”)
    3) Criticisms based on the idea that feminism critique or feminism itself are illegitimate, or that other male-centric criticism is needed, ignoring the actual points made in the videos. (“But men are also portrayed stereotypically in games!”, “I don’t care what feminists think about it, I’m a man and just want to enjoy my violence/sex/male power fantasies in games!”)
    4) “Good” criticisms of cherrypicked portions of the videos that ignore the fact that Anita actually responds to these points and takes them into account (“Some very good and even feminist media includes violence against women!”, “We shouldn’t limit artistic freedom!”, “Developers are often shackled by producers and have to pander to their perceived audiences!”)
    5) Valid criticisms or at least valid discussions. There aren’t many but I think I spotted a few places Anita is slightly off, for instance:
    – Just like violence in other forms of media, there’s no data to suggest that gendered violence in videogames in particular leads to more violence in society in general (compared to times before these forms of media were prevalent) and that seems to be what Anita is suggesting in some videos. From what I’ve seen it seems that socialisation that accepts playing violent games but strongly stigmatises the actual violent acts depicted may have a positive influence on the level of violence in society overall. Videogames, like books and movies are often exclusively fantasies that people enjoy playing out, while rejecting that behaviour in their own life. But this criticism ignores the fact that sexism in media in general definitely does affect attitudes and negatively affects the inclusion of women in a particular media type, so underrepresentation or exclusion of women is a harm in and of itself and Anita does a great job of documenting that.

    Either way Aurini and Owen’s video will fall mainly into points 1-3, at least from what was shown in their trailer vid.

  14. Donnie says

    @Marcus Ranum #12

    I haven’t watched all the Feminist Frequency videos but the ones that I have watched are:
    – Professionally done
    – Clear-and-informative
    – Support her theory that women are usually treated as objects

    The only nitpick that I could find on one video, and this comes from a Thunderdoof video, so taking away his inane ramblings, was that she criticized the female background objects as part of the ‘sex slave market’. Thunderdoof was very offended by her characterization of the sex slaves being displayed and marched out while the main character ignored them. Thunderdoof was correct that the premise of the game (?) was to destroy the sex slave trade (?). Thus, within the context of that one scene of that one video game his criticism may have been valid. However, in the long list of ‘women as non-playable sex objects’ of all the video games her criticism of that scene fits well within the overarching criticism of the videos. Hence, I suspect those who want to feel superior take a nitpick approach in order ‘not 100% agree with Anita’ but still agree with her or some such crap like that.

    I personally would be embarrassed if I were a GGer with supposedly “super skeptical powers” and would give up if I had to make an equivalent video defending ‘the non-sexist context’ of video games as a counterpoint to Anita’s videos.

  15. tulse says

    While I am delighted that there is all this infighting and generally ineffectiveness in the douchecanoe universe, I am also sad that I now know so much minutiae about the douchecanoe universe.

  16. =8)-DX says

    @Donnie #17

    Yeah, I’ve heard that criticism as well and it falls kind of into my number 4 – Anita does mention that in many of the games she is critiquing the elements of female objectification/ gendered violence are only a small portion of the actual games and that often make very good narrative sense with all intention of portraying the objectification of women negatively. But I think here criticisms of Watchdogs was largely accurate: they fall into many of the same old tropes: only male protagonist, women are often reduced to objects where slight changes in depiction, writing or mission outcomes could give these same women voices/more complexity. And those are things not necessary to the game, only required when one accepts the premise that such games have to be male power-fantasies (women have power-fantasies too!)

  17. says

    Also, as I’ve mentioned before, even the AAA companies are listening a little: GTA Online has women avatars available, and other than the clothing tending to be the Halloween version of women’s clothing, it’s pretty badass to be me finally.

    And more recently, and unannouncedly, women started to show up amongst the enemies: gangbangers, police, bikers, whatever, sometimes the people shooting back at me are women. Not many, but even a few puts more women with agency into the world, and it’s made a real difference to my appreciation of the game.

    It also facilitates in game cosplaying. See here:

    https://theexpansionboard.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/gta-online-cosplay/

    For example.

  18. trollofreason says

    Isn’t this the 2nd time that something like this has happened? I remember there being a Kickstarter not too long ago, to make a movie like this, and the money was just up and taken. Or is this the same thing? Iunno, I don’t pay much attention to the MRA movement.

  19. A. Noyd says

    some bastard on the internet (#3)

    Wow, two complete assholes start devouring each other

    Maybe the film they should be making is Human Centipede: Ouroboros.

    ~*~*~*~*~*~

    @trollofreason (#22)
    You’re probably thinking of the same project. It’s funded via Patreon, not Kickstarter, so they keep getting money in installments in exchange for updates. What they produced for the first installment got them laughed at by all sides.

  20. Knabb says

    I don’t remember a Kickstarter scam, but given the amount of accusations that “Tropes vs. Women” was one and the known tendencies for projection among these assholes…

  21. says

    Reading Aurini’s post, it sounds like they raised even more money on top of the kickstarter. I guess that’s all down the drain, then.

    I wonder how much of this was planned and how much was just a sudden impulse of opportunity.

  22. Muz says

    @ Caitie Cat
    Monolith put out a female character for Shadow of Mordor really quickly, even though it doesn’t really make a lot of narrative sense. Such that it really seemed to me like they just did it to show they could and they didn’t care, especially after all the long winded prevarication and fairly poor excuses from Ubisoft about how hard it would be to do something similar in Assassin’s Creed : Unity

    Anyway, where are we now? For all the talk of Sarkeesian being a fraud and sucking money out people under false pretenses, we’ve got serious detractors like Elam, The Amazing Atheist and now these guys in serious controversy for raising money and then just kind of keeping it.
    Can Thunderfoot be far behind?

  23. says

    she criticized the female background objects as part of the ‘sex slave market’. Thunderdoof was very offended by her characterization of the sex slaves being displayed and marched out while the main character ignored them. Thunderdoof was correct that the premise of the game (?) was to destroy the sex slave trade (?). Thus, within the context of that one scene of that one video game his criticism may have been valid

    Actually his “criticism” admitted that it was objectifying women. In his words: “When she used the game ‘watch dogs’ on the very mission where you have to try and shut down a sex-trafficking ring. Well, how could you possibly portray that without objectifying women?”

    Yes, that’s the point. Someone came up with a mediocre excuse to have a bunch of naked women in chains and built it into the plot. Does that not make it objectification?

    Looks like the game is one of those ones where your character roams around (like hitman) and can look around the room; are you trying to tell me the game designers didn’t expect a lot of immature boys to run right over to the shackled women and see how well-rendered they are? Yeah, sure, they’re going to be thinking “must rescue. must make the world better for humanity.” And of course they have to be nude, because: objectification. There are any number of ways to portray a sex slavery ring that don’t involve a roomful of clothed men with naked shackled women standing on a dias.

    Now, I had to listen to a bit of Phil Mason’s ranting on youtube. You owe me a new brain.

  24. says

    Addendum: if it was truly about sex-trafficing, where are the naked guys? In gamer-land it’s only women that happens to, isn’t it?

  25. =8)-DX says

    @Marcus Ranum #27

    Well, how could you possibly portray that without objectifying women?”

    Yes, that’s the point. Someone came up with a mediocre excuse to have a bunch of naked women in chains and built it into the plot. Does that not make it objectification?

    There are any number of ways to portray a sex slavery ring that don’t involve a roomful of clothed men with naked shackled women standing on a dias

    Yes, and Anita gave that critique: some members of the sex-slavery ring could participate in their rescue, actively work with the hero to save themselves. No, it’s a male power-fantasy so women don’t get to participate. I mean the critique of her points on Watch Dogs all ignored what she actually said: when you’re portraying a horiffic instance of abuse of women in your game, there are multiple ways to do so past just showing “nekkid ladies” and beating up badguys. Give the women voices, give them personalities, make them participate in their “rescue”. It also makes male-power fantasies even more intense and meaningful if the women are actual characters not just “quest goals”.

  26. =8)-DX says

    @Marcus Ranum #28

    where are the naked guys?

    Yes. If the developers/writers took feminist critique into account, the same game mission could have been much more interesting: include men and include all the exploited people as part of their rescue. My Hero, just saving the day by being superintelligent/cyberpunk is a lazy shortcut.

  27. says

    #BREAKING Comic Book Guy fires Ming the Mirthless from idle fantasy. Anita Sarkeesian and rest of world untouched and unmoved, except perhaps by hearty chuckles. Plastic skull futures remain steady.

  28. jste says

    Absolute only slightly valid criticism I’ve seen of Anita is that she once said some not-nice things about sex workers.

    @LykeX, #25

    So the story in my news feeds (possibly hearsay, admittedly) is that all the money they raised went into the personal account for one of the pair, and there were no contracts or any actually legally binding agreements between them about the money or anything else. I suspect there was very little planning involved here.

  29. anteprepro says

    It is very common for Anita’s critics to be as vague as possible. They seem to insinuate “dishonesty”, lack of context, and sometimes will also whine about tone, or maybe same bluster about the costs and some picky, handwringing, subjective assessment of the quality of her work. Most just have that, and will huff and puff endlessly, with nothing but bluster. But in many cases, when they are pressed for specifics and actually dare to give a real example, Hitman Absolution almost ALWAYS fucking comes up. Somehow, a bunch of Anita’s critics magically managed to all find the same specific “error”, which is in fact some myopic, idiotic knitpicking about one thirty second segment of one of her videos, often levelling criticisms that are themselves explained elsewhere in the video (in fact, I have seen most criticisms rebuffed in the video itself either the minute before or the minute after the relevant clip!). Seriously, they complain that the game doesn’t support killing strippers because it penalizes your point total, when Anita fucking gives exactly that kind of thing as a pathetic excuse for a punishment or deterrent. They complain about how you don’t need to even go to the area where the strippers are, and don’t need to kill them, and she brings that kind of argument up to: if it was programmed as a possibility into the game, then it is something that you were, on some level, meant to do. Or at least meant to be able to do. And I have seen ridiculous self-imploding arguments that she obviously didn’t bother to anticipate, like “it isn’t sexist because obviously a strip club level would need to have strippers in it!”. Seriously. That argument has fucking happened.

  30. microraptor says

    Hey, while we’re on the subject, is it true that Sarkeesian has called Zoe from Firefly “an anti-feminist character” and criticized the character for being too masculine? The TV Tropes page for Feminist Frequency makes this claim, but it sounds funny since, she’s such a supporter of female action heroes.

  31. anteprepro says

    microraptor: (I may have overkilled my response, and it is slightly redundant)

    I found this article on the issue. http://www.theslateonline.com/article/2014/03/ill-make-a-man-out-of-you-anita-sarkeesian-speaks-about-strong-female-characters

    Description of her lecture given below:

    These characteristics were then separated into “masculine” and “feminine” groups. Sarkeesian pointed out that the characteristics are typically associated with “strong” female characters are all defined as masculine characteristics, and that any “strong” female characters that exhibit definite feminine characteristics are looked down upon. Examples listed by Sarkeesian included Kara “Starbuck” Thrace from Battlestar Galactica and Zoe Washburne from Firefly.

    Sarkeesian then took all of the masculine and feminine characteristics and presented them neutrally, showing that “this is the road to strong female characters” – one where no characteristic is labeled “masculine” or “feminine”. They’re just characteristics. One example that she gave (Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager) really struck a chord with the audience. In Sarkeesian’s words, “She’s not a female captain. She’s just a captain who happens to be female.” Other examples included Veronica Mars of the titular TV show, Sarah Connor of The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Buffy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

    Another one describes it similarly here:
    http://thedailyquirk.com/2013/04/04/anita-sarkeesian-opening-eyes-to-gender-tropes-stereotypes-one-pop-culture-reference-at-a-time/

    At her lecture, Sarkeesian presented work she did for her thesis on female characters in mostly science fiction TV shows. She talked about what traits were valued in male characters (aggression, violence, no emotion) and how they differed from traits typically considered feminine (hysterical, innocence, helplessness). In an attempt to introduce strong female characters starting in the ‘80s, pop culture introduced the trope of the Woman Warrior, who more or less still glorifies the masculine traits but now in a female package. Examples of these characters could include Lara Croft (Tomb Raider), Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica), and Zoe (Firefly).

    Sarkeesian noted that this view of gender hurts both women and men. Women are often only considered “strong” in so far as they act like men while men have to adhere to a specific idea of masculinity in order to still be considered men. Ideally, strong female characters (and male characters as well) would emphasize problem solving and teamwork over violence – such as Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars).

    Not sure if I agree with her completely, in one sense. Portraying women with “masculine” traits, or men with “feminine” ones, in my opinion, shows that the distinction is arbitrary, if done consistently enough. Of course, the issue is when it is done in a way where the woman or man in question is itself a stereotype, an obvious Exception That Proves The Rule, instead of part of pattern showing that the Rules are bullshit. Though the bigger issue is that the masculine heroes, male or female, have traits that should not be glorified (the ones given: violence, aggression, and no emotion).

    Oh, and I just found her paper on the subject here: http://www.academia.edu/4066522/I_LL_MAKE_A_MAN_OUT_OF_YOU1_STRONG_WOMEN_IN_SCIENCE_FICTION_AND_FANTASY_TELEVISION

    It appears that one of the key reasons why she thinks Buffy would be a better Warrior Women role model than Zoe, is that she says that Buffy is better at drawing from both Masculine and Feminine traits.

  32. says

    @33, anteprepro:

    [FailGaters] complain about how you don’t need to even go to the area where the strippers are [in Hitman], and don’t need to kill them, and she brings that kind of argument up to: if it was programmed as a possibility into the game, then it is something that you were, on some level, meant to do. Or at least meant to be able to do.

    I sometimes wonder if gaters even watch – or properly comprehend – Sarkeesian’s videos in their entirety before making their hysterical video responses, or if they just watch the hit-pieces of Thunderdo0uche or “Skulls” Aurini some other rageboy and riff on them. The amount of times I’ve seen “rebuttals” to Sarkeesian’s criticisms that she herself addresses, often immediately after making said criticisms, leads me to believe it’s the latter.

    Now, I myself have complained about “open-world” games that arbitrarily restrict the freedom of the player to do anything they want for no good reason (aside from artificially extending play-time, which is *not* a good reason). Open and non-open games alike often do irritating things like show you a room you need to go into which is protected by a locked but rickety wooden door which is nonetheless impervious to guns and grenades, or maybe a waist-high police tape you can’t break, cut or hop over. I dislike arbitrary restrictions – not just because they can stymie progress and institute busy-work like step-retracing fetch/unlock-quests but primarily because they interrupt my suspension of disbelief. With regard to Hitman or GTA or RPGs or whatever, on some level I appreciate that the option to be a bloodthirsty bastard and kill innocents is included, because that option already exists in reality (with starkly differing consequences, of course). If your quest in designing a game about an assassin is to make it somewhat realistic, leaving moral decisions about who to murder (besides the official target) up to the player and then imposing consequences for those actions (even if it’s only a points penalty or a quickly-evaded police chase) is one way to go about it. If you don’t want the player to make moral (or immoral) decisions, don’t give them options – make the game an evil-doer shooting gallery like Call of Battlefield XXIII: Advanced Medal of Duty.

    A lot of games directly encourage multiple play-throughs by providing different endings or influencing subsequent missions based on your choices as a player. FP stealth/assassin game (and one of my favourites of recent years) Dishonored, for example, provides two very different endings/epilogues based on whether you kill the enemies you encounter or evade them in the course of your various missions. This way you can be the noble infiltrator-assassin the first time around, remaining undetected and eliminating only specified targets, and indulge your inner psychopath the next time you play, wreaking bloody havoc at every turn, even on the innocent. The game tells you explicitly at the outset that your actions will influence future missions and the world you’re trying to save, making it highly probable that a curious player will play through at least twice, just to see what happens. If they didn’t want you to play through and kill as many people as you could at least once, they wouldn’t have designed the alternate endings – just as they wouldn’t have included the game’s many side-missions if they didn’t expect you to try and accomplish at least some of them.

    So, you’re exactly right of course: if game developers didn’t want players to at least experiment with the consequences of indulging their darker side, they wouldn’t give them the opportunity. If the developers of Hitman didn’t want you to stalk some unsuspecting half-naked NPC women and murder them at least once, just to see what happens, those women either wouldn’t be there or wouldn’t be vulnerable to you. “Not being part of the mission” isn’t the point. The presence of yet another group of decorative NPC women – as opposed to, say, some grotty strip-club punters, bouncers, a janitor or maybe just some women with actual clothes on – for your titillation and cold-blooded murdering (but mostly titillation), should you choose to indulge in either, is the point.

    But hey, whether they’re killable or not, far be it from anyone to expect developers to resist the urge to include some near-nude sprites because “horny little ratbag” is apparently the core gaming demo … right?

  33. microraptor says

    Thanks, anteprepro. I’ll read those when I get the chance (bookmarking them all right now).

    Briefly, though, I think that she might be right that Zoe wasn’t a very good character, but for the wrong reasons: I feel very comfortable in saying that Zoe was the most shallow of all the Firefly cast. Her whole role on the ship was defined by being a former soldier who served under Mal and her being married to Wash. She had no depth beyond that- her history was always about being a soldier with Mal and her interactions with the crew were mostly with her husband- she never spent any time talking to Simon or Book (except for sharing war stories), didn’t really have a section of the ship that was “hers” like Inara’s shuttle or Wash’s dinosaurs in the cockpit. And she had zero focus episodes- War Stories was the closest one and it was still more about Mal and Wash. That being said, the show only lasted half a season so I don’t think it’s quite fair to compare her to Buffy, who was the title character of a show that lasted for five years or so. Of course there’s going to be a dramatic difference in the level of character depth between a main character of a 5 year long show and a secondary character from a show that only lasted half a season.

  34. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    Sarkeesian noted that this view of gender hurts both women and men. Women are often only considered “strong” in so far as they act like men while men have to adhere to a specific idea of masculinity in order to still be considered men. Ideally, strong female characters (and male characters as well) would emphasize problem solving and teamwork over violence – such as Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars).

    Really honest question. I don’t understand. Isn’t this propping up bullshit gender roles?

    Like this:

    Sarkeesian then took all of the masculine and feminine characteristics and presented them neutrally, showing that “this is the road to strong female characters” – one where no characteristic is labeled “masculine” or “feminine”. They’re just characteristics. One example that she gave (Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager) really struck a chord with the audience. In Sarkeesian’s words, “She’s not a female captain. She’s just a captain who happens to be female.”

    Why is there such a thing as masculine and feminine traits?

    It’s from a different article (quoted above), but does she mean the following?

    She talked about what traits were valued in male characters (aggression, violence, no emotion) and how they differed from traits typically considered feminine (hysterical, innocence, helplessness). Sarkeesian

    This bugs me especially for a starship captain like Janeway. Military commanders like a starship captain generally call for aggression, violence, and control of emotion. You cannot have a hysterical, innocent, helpless starship captain.

    Going back to this:

    Ideally, strong female characters (and male characters as well) would emphasize problem solving and teamwork over violence – such as Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars).

    Again, I cannot see this as anything but defending bullshit culture gender roles.

    Am I misreading her? I admit I haven’t seen or read anything by her before. Am I missing something here? She just seems incredibly wrong on this single, isolated, point. Let me emphasize that from what little I’ve read in this thread, she seems spot on for many other points, and that this is a minor complaint which in no way validates gamergate at all.

  35. says

    Enlightenment Liberal
    Well, you can, of course, pretend that such characteristics are not seen as inherently gendered in our society. Just like certain characteristics are not inherently racialised. That would be bullshit, of course, and prevent any meaningful conversation about the topics.
    If the only way for women to be “strong” characters is to be men with titts, ass and lipstick, that’s misogyny, especially since many of those “male” characteristics like violence, aggression and vulcanism are inherently problematic.

  36. says

    I left:

    Oh sweet Jesus Christ, this is the most lol-worthy thing I’ve seen in a long time. The ‘magnanimous’ tones that are played throughout are the icing on the cake.

    “I’m sorry guys, but we, as poor, misogynistic, repressive, easily led, unable to function in normal society, people just cannot work out our personal differences in how to represent this Glorious Master Race portrayal of the poor man dominated by the repressive female! But please, believe us when we tell you that women are evil as a whole, rather than just avoiding those-of-us-who-engage-in-this-sort-of-behaviour, and send me money, but not that other prick!”

    Signed, Davis “It’s So Schadenfreude It Has To Be A Poe” Aurini

    On Aurini’s site. Gives me a little warm glow inside to see.

  37. komarov says

    Regarding Watch Dogs and Thunderfoot’s arguments about the slave market setting, even those don’t hold water. I just checked the tropes video again because I remembered this bit and the criticism of it as well. Before discussing the slave market, Sarkeesian introduces Watch Dogs in an earlier part of the video.

    It’s the same game where, as part of random events, women in the street are being abused and murdered by men (in a domestic violence context) so the player has a reason to go after them. It’s seems to be a sort of repeating side-quest, just an opportunity to pick up some experience, nothing more.

    These women could easily be replaced by a shop window which the ‘villain’ breaks (noone said vigilante justice had to be proportional) or simply a person of either gender being mugged rather than being hurt or killed. As Sarkeesian also notes in the video, you can’t even do anything to actually help the victims. Either you chase and kill the attackeror you fail the side-quest. No actions to help the actual victim can be taken (except maybe killing the attacker really quickly). Dead or fatally injured, it doesn’t matter and the player simply moves on.

    So any ‘good’ that thunderfoot or others might see in having the player break up a slave trading ring is more than offset by the casual killing of women over the course of the game. The women being killed are simply collateral damage. Likewise, any slaves that might be freed are just inverse collateral damage. It’s just an (un)fortunate happenstance that, depending on the context, the player’s actions involved the death/rescue of women. Which one it is makes no difference whatsoever in the grand scheme of things.

    Re: #38, EnlightenmentLiberal

    This bugs me especially for a starship captain like Janeway. Military commanders like a starship captain generally call for aggression, violence, and control of emotion. You cannot have a hysterical, innocent, helpless starship captain.

    That may be true for actual military command but I wouldn’t compare that to Star Trek, since Starfleet or at least the ships from the shows are portrayed as something much broader than a military organisation or vessel. Excepting DS9, most Star Trek shows dealt with protracted fire fights at most. During these fights and comparable crises the crew and captain (including Janeway) would indeed often act very professionally in the manner one might expect from military personnel under pressure. The rest of the time they were anything but military, acting as scientists and engineers, diplomats and negotiators, tourists and traders and generally just being human(oid) with all the ups and downs that come with that.

    So there was plenty of room for Janeway and other characters to display any number of traits, and this was usually done when appropriate. Janeway certainly displayed aggression and self-control at times, ‘male trait’ or not, but it worked without turning her into another dull trope because she could do or be other things as well. I suppose I’d argue that (like snacks) traits are good in moderation.

    I don’t know how or why one specific trait might become associated with one gender and personally I wouldn’t be inclined to do this kind of sorting, but it does happen all the time. The resulting stereotype is an incomplete character who has so few traits that they end up on permanent display or a default reaction to certain circumstances. An example would be TV’s ever popular Hysterical Woman And Aggressive Man In A Dangerous Situation. And from there it’s a short route from awful story-telling to sexism and similar crap.

    The quotes by anteprepro do seem a little strange to me, too. They make it sound like Sarkeesian was prescribing what female characters should be doing, but I may be getting that wrong as well. In her videos he spends almost all her time describing how women are being objectified and why this is problematic.

    She gives some examples how things might work better. But I do not recall her ever saying anything about the minutiae of female characters or what they should be like. Her ideas were more among general lines, e.g giving female characters more agency, not using them as sexual decorations and including more female NPCs where you usually only get male ones unless a woman was specifically ‘needed’ (going back to sexual deco).

    My guess is that Sarkeesian was trying to use Buffy or Mars as examples of what female characters could be like and either she or the article didn’t get it across quite right. This would at least be more consistent with what she says in the tropes videos.

    I’d certainly recommend the videos to you and anyone who hasn’t seen them, EnlightenmentLiberal. They’re on youtube and here. They are well-argued and explain why these tropes are problematic.

  38. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Giliell, professional cynic -Ilk-
    I agree that we should not stick our head in the sand and ignore these stereotypes. However, it seems to me that the way to defeat these stereotypes in media is to have characters regularly break them, not have all of your characters conform to the stereotypes.

    @komarov
    Yea, I’m very familiar with Star Trek. There’s a lot of double speak going on. Star Fleet pretends to not be a military organization, but most people in it have military rank, there are strict rules for following orders, the ships are armed and armored, Star Fleet is the only effective fighting force of the government, etc.

    I was reading a little bit again, and this struck me. “=8)-DX” noted a possible undertone in Sarkeesian’s videos that violence in video games causes people to be more violent in the real world. This is totally not true – except perhaps for a few isolated people who already had problems with violence and distinguishing fact from reality. I agree with “=8)-DX” that I am much more concerned with how the portrayal and treatment of women in video games almost certainly changes people’s behavior in the real world in a negative way, but those are different (but related) topics.

    Then I read this again from the quote of Sarkeesian:

    Sarkeesian noted that this view of gender hurts both women and men. Women are often only considered “strong” in so far as they act like men while men have to adhere to a specific idea of masculinity in order to still be considered men. Ideally, strong female characters (and male characters as well) would emphasize problem solving and teamwork over violence – such as Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars).

    I’m really sensing an undertone that violence is bad, that men are violent, and women are not violent, and there are better ways to solve problems than violence, and we should have less violence in video games and other media, have better role models, etc.

    Again, this is just a somewhat minor nit in the grand scheme of things, but it irks me. I’ll watch some of the videos later today.

  39. says

    Enlightenment Liberal

    This bugs me especially for a starship captain like Janeway. Military commanders like a starship captain generally call for aggression, violence, and control of emotion. You cannot have a hysterical, innocent, helpless starship captain.

    Emphasis mine
    Shows how much you buy into that bullshit.
    1. Aggression is usually not rational or sensible. It is, quite often, highly emotional
    2. Violence is a shitty way to resolve conflicts. Look at the state of planet earth if you don’t believe me.
    3. Control of emotion is not the same as not having or showing emotion.
    4. Bonus points for mentioning “hysterical” in that context.
    5. And “innocent”. Because all men are born experienced.
    6. Being smart, cooperative and non-aggressive are not “helpless”.
    It is quite telling that you think that violence is a universally appropriate way to solve conflicts.
    7. Star Trek had more than one Captain. The other one who comes to mind is Picard who got a hell lot of screen time to deal with his emotions. He got a fucking counselor to deal with the impact on his psychology and in order to better understand all those people with whom he is dealing. He got way more time to deal with his emotions than his crewmembers who got traumatized.

    I’m really sensing an undertone that violence is bad(1), that men are violent(2), and women are not violent(3), and there are better ways to solve problems than violence(4), and we should have less violence in video games and other media, have better role models, etc(5).

    1) Yes
    2) Men are portrayed as violent (I have a rather higher opinion of them than that)
    3) Women are portrayed as not violent
    4) Hell yes!
    5) Probably

  40. microraptor says

    I may be misunderstanding the argument as it’s being presented, but it seems to me that the real issue should be the stereotyping of different behaviors into being masculine or feminine and how this affects the way in which characters a depicted in movies and TV shows rather than criticizing a character for being too manly or too feminine.

  41. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Giliell

    It is quite telling that you think that violence is a universally appropriate way to solve conflicts.

    I fail to see where I said that. I fail to see how you can honestly come to that conclusion. That is not my position. Violence is generally the option of last resort.

    My position was, is, and continues to be the same. Microraptor gives another way of describing it in 45.

  42. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @Galiell 47
    I’m using Sarkeesian’s apparent characterization of Janeway. If you don’t like that characterization, take it up with her.

    I think a better characterization of Janeway is calm, collected, rational, in control of her emotions, level-headed, good leader, intelligent, compassionate, can be violent and aggressive when called for but is not actually all that violent. If you want an example of aggressive and violent, then B’elanna Torres is a much better example.

    However, it seems that Sarkeesian is upset that Janeway sometimes does kick ass with violence, and I think it possible, perhaps likely, that Sarkeesian is bringing in her own prejudices against media violence and confusing them with critiques of misogyny. Again, this seems to be the outlier of her critiques rather than the norm. It seems most of her work is spot on.

  43. =8)-DX says

    #48 @EnlightenmentLiberal

    She’s not a female captain. She’s just a captain who happens to be female.

    Anita’s point was that Janeway is not defined by her gender, but (as every woman in the workplace), her job and position are what define her, she’s not a “feminised” version of other Enterprise captains.

  44. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    @ =8)-DX

    she’s not a “feminised” version of other Enterprise captains.

    What does this even mean? Does this mean that Janeway does not fit the stereotype of women in media? That’s great! That’s exactly what we need to do to start breaking the stereotypes of women in media. Why is this a problem?

    Does Anita want Janeway to match the stereotype of women in media? Why would she want that? Isn’t Anita complaining about the stereotypes of women in media?

    Or does Anita want Janeway to conform to her own preconceived gender roles – something which isn’t the usual stereotype of women in media, but which is some other equally bullshit gender stereotype which is just as false and harmful? IMHO, that seems to be the most plausible option.

    Of course, we should have characters in media run the gamut of gender identities and sexual “identities” (sorry don’t know the right term). We should have strong women, weak women, strong men, weak men, etc. We should have characters run the agamut of violent, non-violent, cooperative, intelligent, not intelligent, etc. We should have people who are queer, and people who neither identify as man or woman. The characters should be complex, real, compelling, interesting, not one-dimensional, etc. We should explore all of the issues of the minority gender identities and sexual “identities” which rarely receive media-time.

    If Anita’s intended point is that Janeway is one-dimensional and that she is defined by the job and nothing more, which is dehumanzing to Janeway in particular, and thus which is dehumanizing to women in general, then that is a good point. (I don’t know if I would agree that the Janeway character is especially one-dimensional, but I do like the form of the argument.) However, that’s not what I understand Anita’s point to be, and that’s not what I understand your clarification of Anita’s point to be.

  45. EnlightenmentLiberal says

    One last possibility: Perhaps Anita is upset that women-specific issues were not addressed by the Janeway character. This is basically exploring gender roles, but it can be done without blinding obeying cultural gender roles. But Voyager did do exactly that!

    For example, several episodes were about Janeway and romance in a very human way I think.

    Many episodes were also about the problems that women face when they are sometimes treated as second class citizens. While it’s purported the Federation culture has overcome these problems, these modern day issues can be explored by proxy by using aliens cultures, which happened in basically every Kazon episode, and there were a lot of Kazon episodes.

  46. anteprepro says

    EL

    One last possibility: Perhaps Anita is upset that

    Great choice of phrasing. She is making a rational case for something and using fictional characters as examples. I don’t think “upset” is an accurate way to describe that, whether you think she is right or not.