

 Damsel in Distress: Tropes vs Women in Video Games - edent
http://youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q

======
joshaidan
I don't understand why people find her video series to be so threatening. It's
really fascinating and what in reality she is doing is validating the
legitimacy of video games in our society. Which is important as video games
are being attacked for being the cause of gun violence, a source of addiction,
and a time waster for males.

Her purpose is not to take away our video games, which seems to be the
sentiment motivating the community attacking her. She wants to talk about
video games, and honestly, I think she motivated by a passion for them. She's
investing a lot of thought and intellect into the art form of video games.

I just find the opposition to her work rather hilarious. It's almost like all
these "males" see her as a mother trying to take away their video games.

------
jQueryIsAwesome
Many logical fallacies:

Cherry picking 1:18 - Dinosaur Planet, probably the only game where the main
role was changed after significant publicity and development had been done.

Equivocation (Ambiguity) 3:06: When she says "Disempowering"

False attribution 10:38 - If one is a secondary character therefore is an
object of the main character, therefore is being objectified.

Slippery Slope 10:48 - Kidnapping is equal to stealing, you only steal
"things", therefore women are always objects when they are kidnapped.

Black or white fallacy 11:19 - Because woman are not the main focus, therefore
men are, therefore games are sexist (Hint: False, its about entertaining
subjects plus supply and demand eg: Hitman = Killing silently, GTA = Anarchy).
Strawman and appeal to emotion 11:39 - Provincial quote just to focus anger on
the game industry. ("Is said that in the game of monarchy woman are not the
opposing team, they are the ball.").

Strawmen - Saying that browser and mario are the important characters and the
princess is just "the ball", Browser is not important and you don't even think
about him until the end of the game. And Mario for its lack of emotional and
psychological traits becomes more of representation of the player (the human)
than a character by itself. She uses an image of Peach inside a bubble jail in
order to persuade the viewer in favor of her position.

Cherry picking 12:30 - Showing games of the 80s and 90s purpousolly omiting
titles such as Metroid (Woman character), Tomb Raider, Resident Evil 1, 2 , 3
and 5. Mortal Kombat (All, Kitana, Sonya, Jade, Sheena) Rogue (X-Men), Kirby
(unknown sex femenine characters), genderless games (Metal Warriors, arcanoid,
tetris, Sim City, Uni Rally, lemmings), all sport games (most people who play
soccer are men, more people playing videogames are men, therefore is so
obvious why the game only haves men that she better omit this enterely to not
let anyone make a correlation of this same logic in other area of her
critique. This also happens with games and proffesions, more firefighters are
men, therefore the main player in the game "The Firemen" is a man)

Omitting information [all video] - Soldiers are historically the ones to go to
war and kill, therefore most representation of soldiers and similar roles will
be man. Real-life reasons to go to war are corrupt or/and highly
controversial; games try to be more friendly and less controversial by using a
well accepted premise from centuries ago and one of those is the cliche of
Knights fighting to rescue women.

Not a established logical fallacy but introduces a lot of history that doesn't
support any of the facts she is talking about but she speaks as it does; plus
doing it in a overly-formal tone just to look more serious to gain credibility
with mostly biased, false or unrelated claims.

~~~
dalke
> Cherry picking 1:18 - Dinosaur Planet

What's the cherry picking? It's used to "illustrate how the damsel in distress
trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes
in their own right." An illustration need not be a random sample nor a
carefully selected representative sample, and I didn't hear any claim to be
so.

What's ambiguous about "disempowering"? Most of the presentation elaborates on
how "disempower" is an appropriate word in this context.

> False attribution 10:38

This section interprets the trope using the subject/object dichotomy, where
subjects act and objects are acted upon. This does restrict things to a single
dimension, and you may think it's not a useful reduction. But objectification
means "denial of autonomy, inertness." Where is the false attribution?

> Slippery Slope 10:48

Is the time quote right? The text around 10:48 doesn't mention kidnapping. "..
damseled women are acted upon, most often reduced to a prize to be won, a
treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved." Perhaps you mean the
kidnapping implicit in being 'damseled'?

But, the presenter at 17:50 gives examples of how imprisoned (kidnapped people
are imprisoned) male characters are not treated as objects. "They are
ultimately able to gain back their own freedom. In fact that process of being
able to overcome the ordeal is an important step..." Clearly, kidnapping does
not imply that the kidnapee is necessarily an object, and I don't see how you
draw the opposite conclusion.

> Black or white fallacy 11:19

Where does the presenter say that games where women are not the main focus are
necessarily sexist? I don't get that inference that you draw. This is about
the damsel in distress trope.

> Browser is not important and you don't even think about him until the end of
> the game

Bowser is the antagonist in the games. He has motivation for what he does,
even if that doesn't affect most of the game play. Eg, from Wikipedia "His
ultimate goals are to marry Princess Peach, defeat Mario, and conquer the
Mushroom Kingdom." Under the subject/object description, Bowser is definitely
a subject when looking at the Mario series as a narrative, rather than just a
set of actions.

Tell me - what motivates Princess Peach? Does she have any goals? What actions
does she do to carry out those goals? If you can't answer those questions then
she's an object, not a subject.

> Cherry picking 12:30

"Cherry picking" doesn't really apply when there are "literally hundreds" of
examples. But in any case, your objections of the last three paragraphs are
not related to this presentation. The goal of this video was to examine the
'damsel in distress' trope, not to examine sexism or lack thereof in all video
games.

> doing it in a overly-formal tone just to look more serious to gain
> credibility with mostly biased, false or unrelated claims

I disagree quite strongly. The language was easy to understand, the logic
consistent, and the points valid.

In another video ("Feminism in Focus - Anita Sarkeesian"), the presenter says
"I started Feminist Frequency because I felt like feminism was sort of trapped
in academic spaces and politically radical spaces ... in this language that
was really hard to understand and I wanted to create a space where feminism
was easy to engage with in an accessible way."

So what may be throwing you off is that the presenter uses (and explains!)
literary analysis techniques, while you are not used to this rigorous
presentation style.

As an example, you might say "Indiana Jones is the protagonist of 'Raiders of
the Lost Ark'. The Nazis die in the climax and the Ark is hidden in a vast
warehouse in the dénouement" then you are specifically using a literary
analysis described by Freytag.

I might come along and ridicule you for using an overly-formal tone, when
everyone knows that "Indiana Jones is the good guy in 'Raiders of the Lost
Ark', the Nazis all die just when it looks like they are going to win, and it
finishes with the Ark being hidden into a large warehouse."

We've said exactly the same things, but in this analogy you are using the more
technical language while I am using the less precise vocabulary.

I propose that this is quite analogous to the case here. This is a literary
analysis, and so it is entirely appropriate to use terminology from that
domain. I suspect you haven't had much experience with feminist analysis, and
so the use of basic technical vocabulary from that field - even when explained
- makes you think it's overly-formal.

I have not studied feminist analysis, but I have studied some literary and a
lot of scientific analysis. I saw nothing in this presentation which was
overly formal or lacked credibility.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
>'What's ambiguous about "disempowering"?'

>disempowering present participle of dis·em·pow·er. Verb. Make (a person or
group) less powerful or confident.

Do you honestly think that there are less woman in congress because Dinosaur
Planet was never released? In today world political power is the most
important kind of power, that's why saying "disempowering women" is extremly
ambiguos.

> But objectification means "denial of autonomy, inertness."

That's clearly NOT what it means in the mind of most people. In most people's
mind it means "To become/transform into an object", no more no less; even the
formal definition I found (different from yours) implies this:
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/objectification>

>Where does the presenter say that games where women are not the main focus
are necessarily sexist?

Quote: "Is not about women at all!"... are you trying to tell me she is not
suggesting that is about men? A honest non-biased person would add that men
are also NOT the main focus; the relevance of the genders is not given by the
players but by outsiders interested in judging those and accommodating those
judgement inside their agendas.

> The goal of this video was to examine the 'damsel in distress' trope

False, as you can see in one of my arguments you didn't respond she makes
unrelated proverbial quotations and commentary victimizing women for the lack
of their presence in video-games.

All the claims are extremly biased; Dinosaur Planet was transformed to a
StarFox game because it makes so much business sense but unsurprisingly she
didn't mention this _extremely_ obvious fact.

~~~
dalke
"Do you honestly think that there are less woman in congress because Dinosaur
Planet was never released?"

That's a specious argument. Do I think Title IX increased the number of women
in Congress? No, not really. Do I think Title IX directly addressed an
existing practice of discrimination based on sex? Yes, absolutely.

It's against the law to fire a woman because she is pregnant. I strongly agree
that firing someone on that basis is a form of sexual discrimination. But I
don't think there would have been fewer women in Congress if that law hadn't
been passed.

If laws which directly addressed wide-spread discrimination based on sex don't
pass your test then there's no way a single video game would ever pass the
same test.

"In today world political power is the most important kind of power"

I'll assume that your assertion is true. So? There are other types of power.
Your argument seems to be that since women don't have equal political power,
we should ignore all other sorts of imbalances. Should women be subordinate to
their husbands? Should it be okay to prohibit women from school athletic
competition? Should women be allowed to drive? To vote?

Your view seems to be that we should ignore all of these issues and focus only
on getting more women in positions of political power before making any other
changes. That's absurd.

> objectification means "denial of autonomy, inertness." / That's clearly NOT
> what it means in the mind of most people

I pulled that quote from Wikipedia. It's a shortened version of Nussbaum's
seven qualities of objectification, those being: instrumentality, denial of
autonomy, inertness, fungibility, violability, ownership, and denial of
subjectivity.

Most people think that "theory" means something like speculation. This is
quite different than what a scientist or mathematician calls a "theory." When
talking about scientific research, should we use the general definition, or
the specialized one? When doing media analysis, should we use the terms from
that field or create new ones?

Since the term from feminist analysis is that of philosophy/ethics, where's
it's been in used for over 200 years (eg, Kant's "Lectures on Ethics" says
objectification 'involves the lowering of a person, a being with humanity, to
the status of an object' <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-
objectification/> ), and since the use of the term 'objectification' in
popular culture arises from this same source, I see no reason to avoid using
the correct and appropriate term.

> the relevance of the genders is not given by the players but by outsiders

Ahh, since you reject the underlying concept that media (books, movies,
newspapers, advertisements, video games, etc.) affects the way insiders think
and perceive the world, then of course you reject any sort of media analysis
as irrelevant. I think you are quite wrong in that viewpoint.

I also don't understand your insider/outsider distinction, so if you would,
please elaborate. Also, I would appreciate if you could tell me where the
quote "Is not about women at all!" comes from, as I don't see it in the
transcript nor our earlier discussion. How does it support your hypothesis
that the presenter asserts that all video games are sexist?

> False, as you can see in one of my arguments you didn't respond she makes
> unrelated proverbial quotations and commentary victimizing women for the
> lack of their presence in video-games.

The intro starts by saying that the series will explore multiple tropes, then
says that this episode is about the damsel in distress trope. I inferred from
that that the presentation was examining the damsel in distress trope only,
and not the larger set of topics that the series is about.

The episode's home page at [http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/03/damsel-
in-distress-...](http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/03/damsel-in-distress-
part-1/) says "This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of
the most widely used gendered cliché in the history of gaming and why the
trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium
itself."

This concurs with my view that this episode examines the damsel in distress
trope, and not wider issues of sexism in gaming, even though you say it does.
How do you draw your conclusion?

Where does the presentation "[victimize] women for the lack of their presence
in video-games"? I can't respond to your reference to 'proverbial quotations'
because I can't figure out what you are talking about. Can you elaborate?

The only one I can see is your statement 'Provincial quote just to focus anger
on the game industry. ("Is said that in the game of monarchy woman are not the
opposing team, they are the ball.").' What does "provincial quote" mean?

The quote, btw, seems to be from Jonathan McIntosh on Twitter as
@radicalbytes, 11 Aug 2012. I think it's quite a powerful and descriptive
quote, and quite appropriate for its context. It doesn't talk about the games
industry, but serves to emphasize how Princess Peach can be viewed as an
object in the Mario franchise, as she's passed back and forth between Mario
and Bowser.

> Dinosaur Planet was transformed to a StarFox game because it makes so much
> business sense but unsurprisingly she didn't mention this _extremely_
> obvious fact

No? The logical implication was clear to me.

Between 1:50 and 2:12, we learn that Dinosaur Planet was revamped to use the
'damsel in distress' trope.

At 12:03: "The trope quickly became the go-to motivational hook for developers
as it provided an easy way to tap into adolescent male power fantasies in
order to sell more games to young straight boys and men."

The obvious implication is that Dinosaur Planet was likely changed in order to
sell more games. This sounds very much like saying that it was transformed
into a StarFox game for business reasons. Do you not make the same inference?
Why not?

Moreover, the presenter argues that the reason it makes business sense is
because it "[taps] into adolescent male power fantasies", while you fail to
describe any alternative reason for why it makes business sense.

> "Why is the main character of such violent video-game a woman? Such violent
> behavior is a thing of men". That means they don't want more presence in
> video-games, they want presence in very specific videogames where "she"
> should be undoubtedly good.

What the fuck? Violent behavior is a 'thing of man'? Women are only supposed
to be 'undoubtedly good'? What kind of world do you want to live in where that
should be considered normal? Let me wake up my wife, the ex-soldier who served
two tours of duty in Iraq, so she can laugh at you. (On second thought, no.
She doesn't like being woken up.)

Your view is that gaming companies should produce games that people buy.
That's a reasonable first-order solution. However, the market is notoriously
amoral. The games market is at a rough equilibrium. Girls will play both "girl
games" and "boy games". Boys will mostly only play "boy games." Therefore, the
market is bigger for "boy games." That's perfectly obvious.

As a result, the original Master Chief model was bulked up because it looked
'too slender', "almost effeminate". His face is never shown because 'Bungie
says this helps the gamer fully assume his character'. But surely there's no
essential in-game requirement that (cybernetically enhanced, genetically
special) Master Chief could not have been a woman. No, these tweaks were made
to appeal to the market.

The question is, as a culture, should we encourage market partitioning based
on sex and gender roles, ignore it, or minimize it, and what are the likely
effects of that decision? This is a question of market, not market.

And this presentation addresses that question.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
You are to feminism what Fox News is to news channels; I'm not trying to pull
an "Ad hominem" but pointing out that it makes no sense to keep a discussion
where one of the sides try to cover up all the mistakes and recognize none by
constantly changing the conclusions extrapolated and interpretations of the
subject.

~~~
dalke
Yes, I claim that you made mistakes in your analysis of the presentation, and
that you are covering up the mistakes by not addressing my critique.

For example, I said that the presenter did not make the argument that 'Because
woman are not the main focus, therefore men are, therefore games are sexist'.
You have never present the reasoning behind that assertion, and I did not get
the same conclusion from the presentation.

For example, you said "Dinosaur Planet was transformed to a StarFox game
because it makes so much business sense but unsurprisingly she didn't mention
this _extremely_ obvious fact.", and I show that while it wasn't explicitly
said, it was a simple inferences from two other statements, to wit "the
transformation used the damsel-in-distress trope" and "game companies often
use the damsel-in-distress trope to make more sales".

This does leave the possibility that the change was done for other reasons,
but I think it's reasonable to infer that the speaker knows that it makes
business sense, but also believes it doesn't make good moral sense.

For example, you describe 'objectification' as the dictionary definition of
"To become/transform into an object", and argued that the speaker was using
"false attribution." I responded by pointing out that the speaker was using
the definition as it's used in the philosophy of ethics, with a heritage
dating even back to Kant, and that that was the appropriate definition for
this presentation. I don't see where the presenter used false attribution.

As as for ad hominem, I realize that you do have experience in that matter.
The phrase "doing it in a overly-formal tone just to look more serious" is ad
hominem, in that it references the presenter's style, rather than the logic.

So please, justify your original assertions rather than making new statements.
Otherwise I could just as easily say that you used the "overly-formal tone" of
naming common logical fallacies "just to look more serious" in your opposition
to the contents of the presentation. And where's the fun in me being a parrot?

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
You are purposefully lying in the claims that "addresses your critique". I'm
not longer trying to convince you because you made up your mind long time ago,
but for anyone else just check this part of the discussion:

jQueryIsAwesome> Dinosaur Planet was transformed to a StarFox game because it
makes so much business sense but unsurprisingly she didn't mention this
_extremely_ obvious fact

dalke> No? The logical implication was clear to me.

Ask anyone after watching the video "why do you think Dinosaur Planet was
never published?"; they will tell you that is because society is sexist or
because Yamamoto said so or because Nintendo is misogynist. Very few people
will go the logic route and try to convey the very logical reason that it just
made business sense.

> I responded by pointing out that the speaker was using the definition as
> it's used in the philosophy of ethics, with a heritage dating even back to
> Kant

Didn't you know that words mean what most people think they mean? Not the
definition of "philosopy of ethics" or Khan.

...you are the uploader of this submission and/or part of the same feminist
group aren't you?

~~~
dalke
I would appreciate my lies being pointed out. I am unable to see them myself.

Ahh, since "very few people will go the logic route" then must I avoid using
logic when talking with you, and only use emotional arguments? You started off
by highlighting what you thought were logical fallacies in the presentation. I
assumed that you wanted a discussion based on logic.

Am I to infer instead that your objections here are based in emotions, and not
in logical thinking? That would explain your frequent leanings towards the ad
hominem arguments, including the attempt in the last line of guilt by
association.

Once you appeal to the abstract "anyone", then you are making an argumentum ad
populum. An equally invalid counter-argument from me would be "no, only fools
would draw the same conclusion as you do." Neither point is based on logic,
and easily dismissible. (Though you could use that argument if you've done an
appropriate random statistical sampling, I strongly doubt that's the case.)

Therefore, your reply just now does nothing to strengthen your original
argument, and I believe your reach towards arguments by fallacy undermines the
emotional component of your position.

You say it "just made business sense". Please explain the "just" part. How
come it didn't make business sense during the original development?

"Didn't you know that words mean what most people think they mean?"

You know that isn't true. Words have multiple meanings and different meanings
to different groups of people. I presume you are making another emotional
argument here rather than a logical one. I will explain the logic, starting
with the same example I used earlier. (I doubt it will make a difference.
Perhaps I'm an optimist, or a masochist, at heart.)

Words can have multiple meanings. Most people think "theory" means something
like "speculation." You'll see that in dismissive claims against evolution,
saying "it's only a theory." But scientists will also use "theory" to mean a
'general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena', as in
"Einstein's theory of gravitation" or "the germ theory of disease."

Most people will say that a "clip" and a "magazine" are the same thing, but
someone who knows firearms will point out that a clip lacks a feed mechanism.
Most people will ask "is that snake poisonous?" when they mean to ask if the
snake is venomous. Is there really a vehicle inside your computer or does
"bus" mean something else when talking about computers?

To insist that everyone use the general understanding of a word and hence deny
subgroups the use of appropriate technical vocabulary is absurd.

Instead, the correct analysis is to examine the context. Is the presenter
using terminology appropriate for the domain and audience? is the terminology
well-established in that field? etc. I then showed that the presenter is using
the appropriate terminology for this sort of video, with a long established
history. (And that's "Kant", not "Khan". Should I infer from that typo that
you know little about philosophy?)

It is valid to propose that the presenter used terminology that was
inappropriate for the audience. I would disagree with the proposition, but not
the logic behind it. It is muddled thinking, however, to outright reject the
existence and usefulness of specialized vocabulary.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
"Words have multiple meanings and different meanings to different groups of
people."

I don't know the exact name of this logic fallacy but you are basically over-
amplifying the variations implicit in the definition of something; in this
case the meaning of words.

Yes, words can mean different thing for different people but if you say "Fuck
you." to someone the possible interpretations are a very limited range
centered mostly in the definition of being "aggressive slang to dismiss or
show strong disagreement towards a person and/or an specific action done by an
individual or group".

In the same way "objectification" is mostly centered in "transform something
into an object"; bringing all subjective negative connotations this may have
in the mind of the viewer (e.g. objects have no rights, objects can't think by
themselves, objects have no soul, etc)

May I add that the extend of the words in your argument and the complexity of
the words you are using in it helps nothing to your point.

> I would appreciate my lies being pointed out. I am unable to see them
> myself.

I already did but you will never see them, like a colorblind asking where the
color green is.

PD: Yeah, I accept I did some ad-hominems against you, not a very smart thing
but I also presented logic refutations against your arguments that you don't
seem to acknowledge.

~~~
dalke
> May I add that the extend of the words in your argument and the complexity
> of the words you are using in it helps nothing to your point.

You've now twice in this thread made the claim that the person whose views you
disagree with used a style that was too complex. Have you considered that you
may be beyond your intellectual depth?

You have not established that "objectification" is used incorrectly here. You
have acknowledged that it can have multiple meanings, and stated that the most
common usage as defined in a dictionary does not apply. You have not shown
that all alternative definitions of the term, including specifically, the one
used in the philosophy of ethics, is also incorrect for this use. I gave a
citation to Martha Nussbaum as a relatively recent reference for this
definition.

You'll noticed that in my replies I summarized the relevant points I had made
earlier. You do not do the same courtesy.

I am not able to see in radar frequencies. I still know where X-band is, and
I've measured its wavelength. I am not able to hear the ultrasonic sounds of
dolphins, but I can hear it after shifting downwards. I cannot feel distant
earthquakes, but I can read the output from a seismograph. Yes, I can explain
to a colorblind person where green is. Can't you?

You pile specious arguments on top of ad hominem ones, yet still consider
yourself assailable on a mountain of logic? Do you have the humility to
examine your logic for faults, and the grace to help others? Or are you only
out to win internet debating points?

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
> You've now twice in this thread made the claim that the person whose views
> you disagree with used a style that was too complex

Now I am 100% sure you are just another silly troll.

~~~
dalke
"Silly troll?" You do like the use of ad hominem. Here are the citations.

"doing it in a overly-formal tone just to look more serious to gain
credibility with mostly biased, false or unrelated claims"

"the extend of the words in your argument and the complexity of the words you
are using in it helps nothing to your point."

I observe that statements like this are rare in just about every conversation,
HN thread, or other debate that I've participated in or read. I believe then
that this is part of your debate style.

Those quoted statements are prima facie ad hominem statements, and lack the
followup to show that they are otherwise. The frequent use of fallacies is, as
I've shown, characteristic of your arguments. That you disparage others for
using those fallacies does not mean that you yourself avoid them. Indeed, it
seems that your argument style is to attribute fallacious reasoning on your
opponent, rather than explain why it is actually fallacious. This, of course,
is a fallacious appeal to authority.

Based on your resistance to explaining the logic behind your reasoning,
including even your disdain at providing citation references for the quotes
you gave, and combined with the rest of this discussion, I have come to the
tentative conclusion that you enjoy rhetoric for the edge that it gives you
during debates. But you have been swayed by its power at making an easy
attack, and do not care for the slower, more difficult job of using it as a
tool to understand your own prejudices and inconsistencies.

In other words, you prefer to call people names than to explain yourself.

