Bechdel test and other media analysis about discrimination

[Crimson Wizard]

Do you mean the film-grain like flickering effect on the screen?

I mean what happens when you take the pills: the reddish overlay with shaking and blurring.

Last time I tried I felt so sick that had to stop playing. 

[KyriakosCH]

Just a little correction if I may, but Fran Bow was not made with AGS, they had their homebrew engine afaik.
(I still was not able to play it because it has a fullscreen effect during the mental hospital scenes that gives me nausea, and no way to turn it off. Maybe I will try again later)

It did look like AGS ^_^

[Pogwizd]

Just a little correction if I may, but Fran Bow was not made with AGS, they had their homebrew engine afaik.

I think I read in one of the interviews that they made it with Game Maker Studio.

[Blondbraid]

Do you mean the film-grain like flickering effect on the screen?

I mean what happens when you take the pills: the reddish overlay with shaking and blurring.

Last time I tried I felt so sick that had to stop playing. 

That's a shame.
I wish more games had people with sensitive eyes test the game before release, not to mention considering what would happen if say, someone epileptic played it.

[KyriakosCH]

Grace (Nakamura, iirc) was a cool female character in the game Gabriel Knight. I have only played 1 and 3. Gabriel, on the other hand, was really ridiculous and a stereotype - but a female friend of mine was in love with him, and he was written by a woman in the first place 

[Blondbraid]

Grace (Nakamura, iirc) was a cool female character in the game Gabriel Knight. I have only played 1 and 3. Gabriel, on the other hand, was really ridiculous and a stereotype - but a female friend of mine was in love with him, and he was written by a woman in the first place 

Haven't played the game, but I've read a blog post by Jane Jensen on her thoughts on writing Gabriel and her other characters, and specifically writing men she would want to fall in love with.

[Ali]

I also think Fran Bow is excellent, and made in Gamemaker as far as I remember. (And, though the moment has long passed - I accept that Tintin has an apartment, I just don't think that many specifics are particularly important to his character.)

Grace (Nakamura, iirc) was a cool female character in the game Gabriel Knight. I have only played 1 and 3. Gabriel, on the other hand, was really ridiculous and a stereotype - but a female friend of mine was in love with him, and he was written by a woman in the first place 

I'm sure you don't mean it like this, but I'm not sure why you're listing good female characters and (supposedly) bad male characters as if they offer a counterpoint? It's good that there are well written women, but for as long as there's a demonstrable imbalance in the ways men and women are portrayed in the media, it's worth talking about the kind of tools we can use as writers and critics to tackle biases.

That said, I don't know if Gabriel Knight is a stereotype - a stereotype of what? He may be the archetypal vain heart-throb and I'm sure he's popular with some female players, but he's not written in a way that insults the intelligence of male players.

[heltenjon]

That said, I don't know if Gabriel Knight is a stereotype - a stereotype of what? He may be the archetypal vain heart-throb and I'm sure he's popular with some female players, but he's not written in a way that insults the intelligence of male players.

Perhaps except that he's not good with languages. It's been too long since I played these games, but I remember knowing a lot more than the character, simply because he couldn't understand a word of German. I didn't really mind, as I tend not to identify with the player character.

[Blondbraid]

I'm sure you don't mean it like this, but I'm not sure why you're listing good female characters and (supposedly) bad male characters as if they offer a counterpoint? It's good that there are well written women, but for as long as there's a demonstrable imbalance in the ways men and women are portrayed in the media, it's worth talking about the kind of tools we can use as writers and critics to tackle biases.

Yeah, KyriakosCH, I'm not trying to dissuade you from this discussion, but I would hope that in your future replies here, rather than just throwing out examples on a conveyor belt, if you want to bring up a female character you like in this discussion, try adding some thoughts on why you think they are a well-written character or a positive example in your reply. This isn't a competition where whoever namedrops the most positive examples win.

That said, I don't know if Gabriel Knight is a stereotype - a stereotype of what? He may be the archetypal vain heart-throb and I'm sure he's popular with some female players, but he's not written in a way that insults the intelligence of male players.

I haven't played the game, so I couldn't say, but I haven't seen any other men complain about Gabriel before.

As for male creators making idealized female characters, there are plenty of attractive characters like April Ryan, Lara Croft and Lightning from Final Fantasy that have a large female fanbase and are well liked, because they still are interesting characters in their own right,
and even female NPCs like Farah from Prince of Persia, Elena from Uncharted, and Governor Marley from Monkey Island are praised by lots of female gamers because they have memorable personalities and offer a lot more to the story than just being love interests,
wheras the female characters that have drawn the most criticism usually have been character that are nothing and do nothing except look hot and/or fawn over the male hero, and they are objectified in a way I've never seen a male character be outside blatant parody.

[Ali]

Yeah, if you compare Elaine Marley with her counterpart in Pirates of the Caribbean, she's leagues ahead. She's the Governor, not the Governor's daughter and she's perfectly capable of rescuing herself - until Guybrush messes up her plan. She fulfils a conventional Princess-in-a-tower role - but she does it in individualised way.

By contrast, Heavy Rain's Madison Paige (from a game 20 years later) is an absurdly underwritten character. But Heavy Rain was critically acclaimed - it won 3 BAFTAS here in the UK - and I think it matters when big 'serious' games fail so badly to represent anyone other than deeply incurious (white) men. (I don't want to bang on about how bad Heavy Rain is. But on the other hand, I do, because it's extraordinarily bad.)

[KyriakosCH]

I also think Fran Bow is excellent, and made in Gamemaker as far as I remember. (And, though the moment has long passed - I accept that Tintin has an apartment, I just don't think that many specifics are particularly important to his character.)

Grace (Nakamura, iirc) was a cool female character in the game Gabriel Knight. I have only played 1 and 3. Gabriel, on the other hand, was really ridiculous and a stereotype - but a female friend of mine was in love with him, and he was written by a woman in the first place 

I'm sure you don't mean it like this, but I'm not sure why you're listing good female characters and (supposedly) bad male characters as if they offer a counterpoint? It's good that there are well written women, but for as long as there's a demonstrable imbalance in the ways men and women are portrayed in the media, it's worth talking about the kind of tools we can use as writers and critics to tackle biases.

That said, I don't know if Gabriel Knight is a stereotype - a stereotype of what? He may be the archetypal vain heart-throb and I'm sure he's popular with some female players, but he's not written in a way that insults the intelligence of male players.

Not sure what you are talking about, clearly the male characters in Gabriel Knight are well-written; for another example, take Gabriel's Friend, Moseley, who is there as a joke about middle-aged males with thinning hair 

My point is just that more often than not, media have uninteresting writing about both males and females.

Though I can accept this thread is about problematic presentation of females, so perhaps there's nothing of use I can contribute, given I don't feel strongly about the subject and am pessimistic about the results of any rules forced to bring about meaningful change.

[Blondbraid]

By contrast, Heavy Rain's Madison Paige (from a game 20 years later) is an absurdly underwritten character. But Heavy Rain was critically acclaimed - it won 3 BAFTAS here in the UK - and I think it matters when big 'serious' games fail so badly to represent anyone other than deeply incurious (white) men. (I don't want to bang on about how bad Heavy Rain is. But on the other hand, I do, because it's extraordinarily bad.)

I remember thinking Heavy Rain was deep the first time it came out, in part because I was young and stupid and still an edgy teen, but also because I'd been "taught" by media and reviewers that overtly showing a bunch of emotional things on the screen in a "realistic" fashion automatically makes it deep, and I think David Cage, the writer of Heavy rain, very much plays on this. I already wrote in my previous comment here on how I thought Madison was a badly written character drawing on sexist tropes, but I've come to feel David Cage is a huge hack in general, using cliched emotional imagery to trick people into thinking that provoking emotions is the same as being deep, and relying on the fact that video games have yet to utilize the cliches he's using to the same extent as bad movie dramas and soap operas to make gamers think he's novel and daring.

David Cages modus operandi is basically to show scenes containing any of the following;

- a 6 to 9-year-old child in mortal peril
- an attractive white woman threatened with sexual assault
- people of color being mysterious and inspirational, possibly magical
- showing that drugs are baaaad
- a white man brooding about how depressed he is
- mentions of world politics. No real commentary, just copying imagery from news
- random dream sequences
- homeless people hanging out in the cold
- show how "human" and "vulnerable" his characters are via a bunch of shower scenes

And he then relies on the audience associating those subjects with similar scenes from oscar-winning dramas and think that because both his games and oscar dramas both have such scenes, his games must be just as deep as oscar dramas.

[KyriakosCH]

I didn't know of that game (Heavy Rain), and looking at youtube thumbnails I am not inclined to learn more... I am biased against this style of graphics

As for "incurious white men", I am not seeing how formatting this to include "white men" as if it is a block, helps with anything - incurious or not. In the US it seems to be a distinction ("white men" or xyz "white men") that exists specifically because of the very numerous black and also "hispanic" (which imo are mostly white too, fwiw) minorities, but it makes little to no sense in most of Europe (only a couple of european countries actually have significant number-wise "non-white" minorities).
Of course, to note the obvious, no two people are the same. Let alone whatever groups "white men" is supposed to gather and pack together. As someone who lived in London in his late teens-early 20s (due to university studies), I can tell you that there isn't that much in common between the average english person and a south european, regardless of terming any group as "white".

[Blondbraid]

Though I can accept this thread is about problematic presentation of females, so perhaps there's nothing of use I can contribute, given I don't feel strongly about the subject and am pessimistic about the results of any rules forced to bring about meaningful change.

If you don't feel strongly about the subject, why do you keep posting here then? Also, NO ONE is forcing a bunch of universal rules on writers, all people have done here is discussing media trends and tried to raise awareness,
the idea that the Bechdel test and similar things is forced upon writers is a big straw-man argument, and this har already been pointed out several times in this very thread. How have you been able to miss this?

I didn't know of that game (Heavy Rain), and looking at youtube thumbnails I am not inclined to learn more... I am biased against this style of graphics

As for "incurious white men", I am not seeing how formatting this to include "white men" as if it is a block, helps with anything - incurious or not. In the US it seems to be a distinction ("white men" or xyz "white men") that exists specifically because of the very numerous black and also "hispanic" (which imo are mostly white too, fwiw) minorities, but it makes little to no sense in most of Europe (only a couple of european countries actually have significant number-wise "non-white" minorities).
Of course, to note the obvious, no two people are the same. Let alone whatever groups "white men" is supposed to gather and pack together. As someone who lived in London in his late teens-early 20s (due to university studies), I can tell you that there isn't that much in common between the average english person and a south european, regardless of terming any group as "white".

I phrased it as "a white man brooding about how depressed he is" because David Cage keeps including scenes of white men brooding, something he's never done in any larger capacity for his female and non-white male characters. I commented on a pattern in David Cage games on which kind of characters he keeps putting in which kind of situations, and I also noted that he keeps putting white women in damsel positions and none-white men and women in the role of inspirational helpers, and I'm not sure why it's the generalisation of white men brooding that you took umbrage with.

Also, while you're right that in real life, there will be lots of ethnic and cultural differences between "white men", within media depictions,
and video games especially, there very much are a specific type of white men that keeps being portrayed over and over again:

(and more than one of these characters is from a David Cage game)

[Ali]

I'm not making generalisations about white men as a group.

I'm talking about "incurious white men", because Heavy Rain is written from the perspective of the white, male protagonist (arguably, the white male designer / imagined player) and the game only approaches making sense if you don't think about any other characters' perspective.

I'm going to leave to one side the idea that whiteness is irrelevant in Europe, because I think you're wrong, but I also think it's beyond the bounds of this thread.

[KyriakosCH]

(double post!!!)

[KyriakosCH]

(and more than one of these characters is from a David Cage game)

^Hey, buying different models costs money, so they may as well use the same model for all "white men" ^_^

[heltenjon]

^Hey, buying different models costs money, so they may as well use the same model for all "white men" ^_^

Well, that's what happened (more or less) with regards to paintings of Christ.

[Blondbraid]

^Hey, buying different models costs money, so they may as well use the same model for all "white men" ^_^

Well, that's what happened (more or less) with regards to paintings of Christ.

I get why a poor village church 200 years before the internet would copy paintings, but I don't get why a modern multi-million dollar company
wouldn't be willing to shell out a few extra bucks to make the dude they're gonna put on their marketing look different from the dude that rival
multi-million dollar companies are gonna put on all their marketing.

[WHAM]

Am I the only one who looks at that list of "generic white dudes" and can't find two who are really all that alike? Is this just a reverse case of the "all asians look the same to westerners" trope? That image alone hosts a wide array of different nationalities, facial structures, archetypes, hairstyles, skin colours and more, and thus seems to already represent a wide array of different races where one might well argue several of them aren't even all that white.

Also: when did this thread become about white men being a problem again? I thought we were talking about gender equality?