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[PA Comic] Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - The Rules
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I view these things as equally wrong and deserving of criticism. We are just confused why Jerry can see one so obviously as being a negative gender based stereotype and yet not the other. He certainly didn't end his argument today by saying the answer to his son not wearing pink shirts, was just to give him more pink shirts.
The social pressure involved is directed at her for NOT taking offense or being bothered by fictional boobs in fictional video games. Watching porn does not make you a rapist, having cleavage in your character art does not make you sexist and when people start describing art or comedy as "problematic" you can be damn sure they are the ones bringing the problem to the table.
You can just as easily interpret Jerry's argument as an argument AGAINST censorship. His son is forced to censor his own opinions due to societal pressures, as reinforced by the manufacturer when they come right out and say this game is for girls.
In the case of the Bejeweld board game the people who market it themselves say that this product is specifically for girls. In the case of Dragon's Crown the people who made the game made it the way they felt like, and for some reason everyone is assuming that only males can appreciate the art style. Personally I find it offputting, but that's just, like, my opinion, dude.
In general I wish people would let eachother like the art they enjoy and refrain from creating the kind of weird motives for eachother you see on display here. The art in Dragon's Crown is an expression of artistic preference. What limits its appeal for any single individual is that individuals own preferences for their own reasons. Assuming those reasons are a manifestation of a need to oppress/rape/objectify actual women is at the very least a less than nice thing to do.
Meanwhile, all this takes away from dealing with the *actual* societal problems with discrimination. What the game industry needs to do is not censor itself or keep trying to constantly put themselves in the shoes of other demographics and guessing at what would offend them, but rather simply hire (more) women and start giving them equal pay. That is what will lead to progress and equality, not being angry at drawings.
1) I haven't played Bayonetta but from what I have heard the sexualization in that game may actually be justified. Even if justified, it still can be a contributor to the mosaic of "women are sex objects always and forever."
2) Saying "a girl likes it" is not an argument for anything. Don't be that guy. For one thing women are just as socialized by our sexist environment as men, of course we're going to have the same positive reactions to things that both men and women are socialized to like! It's like saying, "well I know a bunch of guys who hate pink" as an argument against what Jerry is saying in his post. It literally has nothing to do with the topic and is in no way contradicting what Jerry is saying is the problem here, nor what I would say is the problem with sexism in video games.
3) The problem isn't that one game has big boobs, or that a couple do, or that 10 or 20 do. It's the sheer volume of media (Video games are not the only source) that insists that female characters must also be sexy. A male character can be an office worker, a grimy technician, a fat cop, etc. without these things necessarily being played for laughs. These are defaults. But a large amount of female characters are not allowed to be that kind of default. A female side character must be the sexy office worker, the sexy technician, the sexy cop (if they exist in triple A games at all). And that's a problem for the same reason any stereotype that is pounded into people continually is a problem. It doesn't matter that the stereotype is "positive" as far as it goes. That's irrelevant. The problem is that the stereotype is so thoroughly maintained and rarely deviated from. Just like the stereotype that men can't like pink is so firmly held. You may as well say to Jerry, "Well Blue isn't going to turn your son into a less thoughtful person, who cares if he can't like pink?"
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You're equating sexual and aesthetic preference, though, as well as overlooking a whole slew of negative (or positive, depending on your mood) gender stereotypes. There's the obvious one which people seem to rally against exclusively, where women are nothing but objects of sexual desire. Then you have the one where men are nothing but slaves to their gonads, unable to control themselves, make a rational decision or appreciate artistic merit on account of their libido. There's also an implication that women do not have hormones, their own sense of sexuality or an interest in sexual imagery.
When you start constructing motives for groups of people is when things go bad. People's paranoia, mistrust of eachother and willingness to condemn is boundless, and in the meanwhile we have much bigger problems going on in the actual world around us that can be much more efficiently dealt with by taking actual steps towards equality there. Dealing with those problems will also create a cascade effect leading to a more balanced representation of both men and women in, for instance, video games. There's no reason to create problems out of peoples imagined reactions to art when we have so many obvious, actual issues that need to be handled properly.
I've largely said what I needed to, but I want to point out that I did not use "a girl likes it" as an argument for some stereotypical piece of media being okay. I used it to point to an example where assumed gender stereotypes ("only men enjoy this sort of sexual imagery") leads to a societal pressure, leaving her as an outcast for not assuming her role as an outraged victim of objectification, or at the very least concealing her shameful enjoyment of problematic imagery in solidarity with all the girls who are marching towards an inevitable future as downtrodden sexual objects as a consequence of the fiction we surround ourselves with. She gets to experience people ascribing her responsibilities and shame when she just likes a video game, which seemed apropos in a debate about arbitrarily assigned gender roles restricting our preferences. It bugs me!
I'm getting off this soapbox now, hopefully before I earn an infraction. I think I'll go play some Bejeweled.
No one is saying people shouldn't enjoy Dragon's Crown. However, the fact that the vast majority of games look like Dragon's Crown is a way the games industry tells women, "this isn't for you"--in effect not letting women enjoy the art form (games) that they like without feeling aberrant.
In the end, though, people aren't saying Dragon Crown shouldn't exist. Some people are saying, "that art is stupid and immature, and may reinforce negative stereotypes since that type of art is so common." Tycho criticized that response as "telling people to censor themselves," while being willing to say "an ad billing Bejewled as 'for girls' (btw, it's not just the purple thing...the ads specifically say that the game is for girls) is stupid and immature and may reinforce negative stereotypes since that type of attitude is so common".
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.