Yesterday I wrote about a vile online game in which players were invited to “beat up Anita Sarkeesian,” the feminist cultural critic who’s faced endless harassment because she had the temerity to ask for donations to fund a video project looking at sexist tropes in video games.
The game, which (happily) has been removed from Newgrounds.com, where it was originally posted, was put together by a young Canadian gamer named Bendilin Spurr. On the game’s page, he offered this explanation as to why he created the game:
Anita Sarkeesian has not only scammed thousands of people out of over $160,000, but also uses the excuse that she is a woman to get away with whatever she damn well pleases. Any form of constructive criticism, even from fellow women, is either ignored or labelled to be sexist against her.
She claims to want gender equality in video games, but in reality, she just wants to use the fact that she was born with a vagina to get free money and sympathy from everyone who crosses her path.
That doesn’t really explain much, as asking people for voluntary donations to a video project is a far cry from “scamming,” especially since she’d asked for far less, and that the misogynist backlash to her project began long before she’d collected anywhere near this amount.
It also doesn’t quite explain why Bendilin felt that a Sarkessian-punching game was the best format to make this, er, critique.
Last night, after learning from the comments here that young Bendilin had a profile on Steam and a Twitter account, I decided to peruse both to see if I could find more clues that might explain his foul game.
On his Steam profile, he’s set forth his basic philosophy of life, video games, and how much women suck:
I think it’s just adorable how absolutely no girls are any good at video games, just like how no woman has ever written a good novel. They are nothing but talk and no action, probably because girls are such emotional creatures and base everything they do on their current feelings and then try to rationalize their actions later. How pathetic.
You know what’s priceless? When a gamer girl posts a pic of herself looking as slutty as possible and then throws a fake fit when people talk to her like she’s a whore. What did you think was going to happen, you dumb broad? Lose thirty pounds.
Sadly, these aren’t terribly rare or original opinions for a young male gamer.
Over on Twitter, Bendilin has offered a number of conflicting explanations for why he felt so much hostility for Sarkeesian and her video project that he felt justified in creating a video game devoted to punching her in the face.
There’s the fiscal argument:
There’s the laziness argument:
There’s the rather strange argument that Sarkeesian is not taking the proper time to research the subject, although she has not yet started the project. (Also, one of the reasons she was asking for money was so that she could take the time to research the subject properly.)
The “nuh-uh you’re wrong” argument:
The “she won’t listen to me argument.” Part one: The Lego Incident
And Part 2, in which our hero explains that making a video game about punching someone in the face is a great way to open a dialogue with them:
Naturally, Bendilin, like most misogynists, fervently denies that he’s a misogynist:
Yep, that’s right. The guy whose Steam profile claims that “absolutely no girls are any good at video games” and that “no woman has ever written a good novel,” and who decided to express his criticism for a video project that hasn’t even started by making a video game in which players punch the woman behind it in the face, is angry that anyone might conclude that he hates women.
Well, Bendilin, if you wanted to defend video games and the gaming community at large from charges of sexism, you’ve done a bang-up job of it.
UPDATE: Bendilin is also an artist! Here, Virgil Texas takes a look at Bendilin’s erotically charged Sonic the Hedgehog art.
That last paragraph and the update contained
“Defending yourself against a man threatening you with physical violence > threatening a woman with physical violence who is peacefully making an internet video.”
I don’t think most people would look upon shooting a cat-caller dead as legitimate self-defense…
Ben Spurr made the game because he wanted frighten Sarkeesian and shut her up. That’s a abuser’s tactic, to threaten her with violence in order to force her into submission. When someone like Spurr threatens a woman with violence for voicing her opinion, it has an effect on other women, who have their freedom of expression stifled by online bullies. That is misogyny.
@Johnny_M80
Well, see, “it’s not worse than this other place that is incredibly sexist, ableist, racist, transphobic, classist, etc.” is not exactly a good defence, dude
Yeah, we should’ve seen that coming.
“And you know what makes it all the more suspicious? It’s not like hoards of screeching, entitled, y’all-don’t-know-what-it’s-like-being-male-middle-class-and-white wastes of carbon turn up every single time it’s even hinted that the video game industry’s treatment of women and minorities might be less than perfect.”
Yeah, I can totally see how every gaming media site and blog are defending those guys and condemning her. No wait, it’s the other way around.
And I resent the implication that somehow this video game isn’t so bad because it only targets one woman. Grow up.
“When someone like Spurr threatens a woman with violence for voicing her opinion, it has an effect on other women, who have their freedom of expression stifled by online bullies. That is misogyny.”
Wow, with mental gymnastics like that, you could probably take a Honda Civic user’s manual and find misogyny in it. Something about the shifter being phallic and by women being forced to touch it, they are submitting to male authority?
Bendilin also does erotic Sonic the Hedgehog fan art!
http://virgiltexas.com/post/26783536415/tropes-vs-women-in-the-work-of-bendilin-spurr-sonic
“And I resent the implication that somehow this video game isn’t so bad because it only targets one woman. Grow up.”
One is about killing men who harass you. The other is about punching a woman who’s annoying. Seriously, you need to pick your battles.
Something about the shifter being phallic
You need to go see a doctor if that’s the case.
@Johnny
“Yeah, I can totally see how every gaming media site and blog are defending those guys and condemning her.”
Yeah I guess it’s hard to see with your head so far up your ass.
http://www.the-spearhead.com/2012/06/24/real-backlash-has-emerged/
“People who spend their lives looking for things to be offended by, will always find them.”
Big words from someone who’s offended by an anti-misogyny blog.
I take it Johnny missed the Fat Princess debacle on Shakesville and Film Crit Hulk’s post on Batman’s Arkham Asylum game.
“Seriously, you need to pick your battles.”
Oh, the irony.
“I take it Johnny missed the Fat Princess debacle on Shakesville and Film Crit Hulk’s post on Batman’s Arkham Asylum game.”
I’m not up on the latest happenings in feminist circles, I’ll admit. 🙁
Fembot: There’s no irony. I dare you to try your argumenting skills in a place that isn’t a circlejerking echo chamber and see how well they hold up.
One is an over-the-top revenge fantasy with the goal of exploring the problem of and responses to street harassment. The other is an over-the-top revenge fantasy made by an avowed sexist against a woman critiquing sexism.
lol pick your battles, fool
“Yeah, I can totally see how every gaming media site and blog are defending those guys and condemning her. No wait, it’s the other way around.”
Yeah, every comment thread of every article or news post ever written that even tangentially relates to the depiction of women or minorities in games is full of people discussing the issue in a mature and measured way. Which is why it’s so suspicious that Feminist Frequency is the one and only time a crowd of vile entitled fuckwits bowled up to lob their toys out of the pram and it’s so easy to believe that those comments were a hoax.
OH NO WAIT THE OTHER THING.
I think we’d argue the same anywhere, we’d just get yelled at more if we did it on a game forum. …What’s your point?
God, you’re so sensitive. Someone criticized a stupid flash game and now you’re all OFFENDED. Grow up and get a thicker skin, Johnny!
I don’t have the patience for this troll. I’m going to go scrub my bathtub. Keep fighting the good fight y’all.
Film Crit Hulk isn’t a feminist cite, it’s a blog that talks about games and television and cinema, among other things. ONE post talked about misogyny in Arkham and the internet blew up. As it is wont to do when people talk about misogyny. Which was pointed out to you. Which you apparently thought was a ridiculous statement.
If you’re “not up on the latest happenings in feminist circles”, then WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU IN A FEMINIST CIRCLE TRYING TO ARGUE WHAT IS OR IS NOT UP?!?!
Seriously, just think about it for a second.
Ahahaha, ah, oh god.
@Johnny_M80:
I dare you to come up with an actual point rather than puff up about whose turf you want to fight on.
threatening physical violence = catcalling? Not in the real world.
I have no interest in gaming, but I often overhear my 13 yo nephew playing online with his friends, and it’s all cussing each other out and death threats and insults. ( And a bunch of weedy little kids thinking they have mad warrior skills because they can click buttons on the controllers, which is JUST EXACTLY LIKE hand-to-hand combat.)
I can see somebody developing an idea that threats of physical violence are just a bunch of people talking shit to each other, and it’s an expected part of social interaction.
Here the thing you (Johnny) don’t seem to get: in a lot of people’s lives, threats of physical violence are taken seriously because they’re often followed up with actual physical violence.
So you may think it’s all just good fun, but for a lot of people (many of whom are women), it means that every thing you do or say, and everything you wear, and every place you go has to be evaluated to minimize risk of actual, real-life, physical violence. You have to always spend some time and effort strategizing how you’re going to respond to that violence if it occurs.
It’s really not being oversensitive, or looking for things to be offended by, to object to utterances of threats.
“One is an over-the-top revenge fantasy with the goal of exploring the problem of and responses to street harassment. The other is an over-the-top revenge fantasy made by an avowed sexist against a woman critiquing sexism.”
One is an over-the-top revenge fantasy made by a person with violent criminal impulses, the other is an over-the-top revenge fantasy which boldly explores the issue of violence in video games in the framework of contemporary feminist theory.
See, I can do that thing too. 🙂