Bechdel test and other media analysis about discrimination

Started by TheFrighter, Sat 16/01/2021 17:44:12

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Blondbraid

Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 10:14:53
Also: when did this thread become about white men being a problem again? I thought we were talking about gender equality?
It's not white men in and on themselves that's the problem, it's how a specific character archetype is massively over-represented and used as a "default" that's the problem.

And I don't think they're all that visually distinct, they all have dark brown hair that looks like it came from North Korea's list of state-approved haircuts, clan shave or stubble, square jawline,
and any difference in skin tone looks more like differences in lighting than them really having all that different skin tones.

And if you think they're that different in story and personality, try seeing how they score on the Male protagonist Bingo first:


KyriakosCH

Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 10:14:53
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?

I think that if you are watching too carefully images of white men, you are committing a hate crime  :=
Just buy a random model and use for all - can't afford more when minorities or the relative majority of the other gender are the focus.

Bad writing seems to be universal - it's just that female protagonists are rarer than male, most likely because currently the majority of game writers are male. With female writers becoming a majority, we will see more bad writing from them too.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Blondbraid

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 10:57:49
Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 10:14:53
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?

I think that if you are watching too carefully images of white men, you are committing a hate crime  :=
Just buy a random model and use for all - can't afford more when minorities or the relative majority of the other gender are the focus.
What's this? Can it be?

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's one more straw man added to their growing family!

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 10:57:49
Bad writing seems to be universal - it's just that female protagonists are rarer than male, most likely because currently the majority of game writers are male. With female writers becoming a majority, we will see more bad writing from them too.
I'm not saying there aren't bad female writers, because there sure are, but unlike several bad male writers, at least there's no one pretending their bad writing is deep and high art.


KyriakosCH

#303
Anyway, thank you for not reading each post of mine as directed at you, or as deadly serious despite bothering to even add the "trolling" smiley:  := := := := := := := :=

Imo good writing in computer games is extremely rare to non-existent - for various reasons. The more crucial reason (as I noted before in the thread) being that writing is a solitary work and in games you either have a team with different people doing different stuff, or you just have one person who can't be great in all (writing, coding, gfx etc).
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Ali

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 11:44:34
Writing is a solitary work

This, famously, is the reason that there are no good American sitcoms or long-form dramas. Writers rooms simply don't work, and that's why The Wire was so terrible.

Blondbraid

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 11:44:34
Anyway, thank you for not reading each post of mine as directed at you, or as deadly serious despite bothering to even add the "trolling" smiley:  := := := := := := := :=
I get your implications, but I doubt you got mine.  (roll)
Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 11:51:30
Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 11:44:34
Writing is a solitary work

This, famously, is the reason that there are no good American sitcoms or long-form dramas. Writers rooms simply don't work, and that's why The Wire was so terrible.
Some of the most terrible books of all time were written by authors sitting alone and refusing any form of input, constructive critique or even basic quality control by other people.


Ali

I think one of the reasons I find it difficult to discuss this with you, KyriakosCH, is that you have an extremely fixed idea of what writing is, or ought to be, and anything that falls outside of that can just be brushed aside as "bad writing".

Heavy Rain is definitely an example of bad, bad writing. But there are plenty of sexist portrayals of women from good writers. There are worthwhile questions to ask about the way the film Alien looks at Ripley taking her clothes off, in a film rightly praised for its portrayal of the female lead.

People have valid concerns, and you can't just dismiss them by saying, "Yes, but almost all game writing is bad, and here are some badly written male characters." It's missing the point.

KyriakosCH

Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 12:15:12
I think one of the reasons I find it difficult to discuss this with you, KyriakosCH, is that you have an extremely fixed idea of what writing is, or ought to be, and anything that falls outside of that can just be brushed aside as "bad writing".



Still you might agree that this is a luxury (your own problem with discussing with me) when compared to what I am facing in this thread  :-D

Anyway, I am done here, I fear some people think I think very highly of them and that's why I stay civil.
This is the Way - A dark allegory. My Twitter!  My Youtube!

Blondbraid

Quote from: KyriakosCH on Fri 12/02/2021 12:51:52
Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 12:15:12
I think one of the reasons I find it difficult to discuss this with you, KyriakosCH, is that you have an extremely fixed idea of what writing is, or ought to be, and anything that falls outside of that can just be brushed aside as "bad writing".



Still you might agree that this is a luxury (your own problem with discussing with me) when compared to what I am facing in this thread  :-D

Anyway, I am done here, I fear some people think I think very highly of them and that's why I stay civil.
And what have you faced in this thread exactly?




TheFrighter

Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 10:14:53
Is this just a reverse case of the "all asians look the same to westerners" trope?
Bizarre thing is, in manga and anime the charachter are usually japanese but are draw in full pink skin and even with blonde hair and blue eyes. And even in videogames.

_

Ali

It should hardly need to be said that there's no comparison between the racist assertion that a particular ethnic group look alike, and the correct observation that characters created for AAA games look similar.

Blondbraid

Quote from: TheFrighter on Fri 12/02/2021 17:41:55
Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 10:14:53
Is this just a reverse case of the "all asians look the same to westerners" trope?
Bizarre thing is, in manga and anime the charachter are usually japanese but are draw in full pink skin and even with blonde hair and blue eyes. And even in videogames.

_
I got the impression the "default" anime skin color was a more neutral white (and much of Asia too has a pale skin ideal, not necessarily western), and as for blonde hair, there's also a lot of pink and blue hair. From what I've seen, since so many characters have generic anime faces, the animators use exotic hair colors to discern them instead.
Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 18:01:37
It should hardly need to be said that there's no comparison between the racist assertion that a particular ethnic group look alike, and the correct observation that characters created for AAA games look similar.
True that, real people don't choose the racial traits they're born with, but AAA game developers choose to give all white male protagonists square jawlines, short dark brown hair and constipated facial expressions.


WHAM

The bingo thing still makes sense, though, if we look at the games and their stories from a purely supply and demand point of view. There is clearly a millions strong audience out there, hungry for these kinds of power fantasy games with 'gritty' stories and hulking rolemodel protagonists that are just bad-boy enough to be kind of edgy and controversial, and every kid I grew up with had one or more phases where fantasies of military and combat experience, however unrealistic, ran rampant. Trying to say "We want games to stop catering to this pre-existing audience and instead cater to a different audience" is a futile effort, and seems misguided to me. Rather than trying to say "those games and characters are bad design", we need people actually making those different and better designs, showing off it can be done, and then we need new audiences to find those games and enjoy them.

The question is: is the demand really there? And what will it take to get game companies to take the plunge and make an honest effort at stepping out of their comfort zone and profitable, pre-established market?

In my opinion, it will take a similar growth story that the currently dominant market was born out of. Small indie developers creating new things, and building those up into something greater over time, eventually becoming a business rather than an art. Sadly, 'games for girls' that exist nowadays didn't really start there, and seem to come from one of three backgrounds:
1) The corporate cash grab, along the lines of barbie horse adventures, where a big corporation makes a half-hearted token gesture to the female gamer market.
2) The Bejeweled / mobile game, which is technically a game, but has little to experience and often no story or characters at all.
3) Traditionally male focused games being turned into female variants of themselves, often by developers who aren't entirely interested or are working under such strict limitations that the whole idea is dead on arrival.

What I think we need: more female indie game developers doing their own thing, proving themselves and making the kinds of games that are both worth playing and something these female developers actually want to see.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Ali

I think more female developers doing their own thing and making good games is what we need, but I don't agree that "market forces" or "audience demand" are neutral explanations for the media landscape we live in. It ignores the fact that media production and consumption have a reciprocal relationship. (Indie hits demonstrate that there's no lack of demand for 2D games, but publishers simply wouldn't publish them for about a decade after 2000 because they were believed to be unmarketable.)

More importantly, saying "women need to make more good games" risks placing the responsibility for fixing inequality on the people who are disadvantaged.

WHAM

Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 19:50:57
More importantly, saying "women need to make more good games" risks placing the responsibility for fixing inequality on the people who are disadvantaged.

True, but telling male devs who want to make the kinds of games they like that "you need to make these other kinds of games despite not wanting to" isn't likely to produce quality games either, and will just end up leaving all parties unsatisfied. It happens already, it's called having a crap job, and it is exactly how games like Barbie Horse Adventures and such come to be.
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

Ali

I'm not sure why Barbie fans shouldn't be able to enjoy a Horse Adventure. Either way, I think it's silly to imagine that male devs only want to make macho, violent games, or that they're being forced to make politically correct games by some ineffable feminist agency.

Blondbraid

Quote from: WHAM on Fri 12/02/2021 20:01:37
Quote from: Ali on Fri 12/02/2021 19:50:57
More importantly, saying "women need to make more good games" risks placing the responsibility for fixing inequality on the people who are disadvantaged.

True, but telling male devs who want to make the kinds of games they like that "you need to make these other kinds of games despite not wanting to" isn't likely to produce quality games either, and will just end up leaving all parties unsatisfied. It happens already, it's called having a crap job, and it is exactly how games like Barbie Horse Adventures and such come to be.
1. Most women in this forum already are making their own indie games, myself included, but my most popular game has about a 1000 downloads, a drop in the ocean compared to AAA games.

2. How many of the men in the AAA industry do you think truly want to make yet another bro-dude shooter, and how many are made to do so by executives?
Toby Gard has stated himself that making Lara Croft a woman had nothing to do with developers making him, but because all their earlier concepts making the Tomb Raider a man only led to lesser copies of Indiana Jones,
and on the flipside, the developers behind Remember me said that they had to fight tooth and nail to get to make a game with a female protagonist, but it was publishers and executives from above that tried to force them
to make her a man, and Naughty Dog had to remove the female co-lead Ellie from the front of the cover of The Last of Us for a similar reason.

As for Horse Adventure games, nearly all I've played have been bad, but that is 100% down to a terrible budget and execution, patronizing gameplay and ugly graphics, not because I disliked the concept or ideas.


WHAM

A thousand downloads is nothing to be scoffed at, and comparing yourself to AAA titles with millions of funding is senseless.
The whole game industry started from small, and grew up over time. Now we need to grow a new branch of it, if we want to see a new kind of audience catered to, and a thousand downloads is a damn fine start!
Wrongthinker and anticitizen one. Pending removal to memory hole. | WHAMGAMES proudly presents: The Night Falls, a community roleplaying game

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