So it’s true: Feminists have started ruining video games with all their feminism. At least according to some dude called pullupjumper on MGTOWforums who recently wrote a post warning his fellow red pill dudebros about a little game called The Last of Us, which is not only filled with zombies but, get this, girls.
For anyone who plays video games as one of their hobbies, The Last of Us is a pretty fun game…. but…. The feminist messages were close to ruining a game I waited a year for… The game’s setting is in a zombie apocalyptic world and the basic story (no spoilers) is that this guy has to take a 14 year old girl across the country during the zombie apocalypse. Almost as soon as the story started, I knew pretty much every female character in the game (except for the main protagonists daughter) would be portrayed as a”bad ass” character. The message was clear, women are as strong as men… Even when they are only 14.
Also, there were some adult ladies in positions of authority!
During the game , the two main characters meet different survivor groups. Every group leader was a woman. The only group leader who was a man, was a bad guy. The main protagonist even said yes ma’am, no ma’am to these women.
CAN YOU IMAGINE.
Now before you all go, but isn’t this sort of complaining a little hypocritical, given that all these video game dudes got mad when that chick Anita Sarkeesian who isn’t even a real gamer because of boobies made those videos she totally stole all that money for because IT’S ONLY A GAME, LADY JEEZ DON’T RUIN EVERYTHING WITH YOUR STUPID GENDER ANALYSIS.
Well, no, it’s not totally hypocritical because, get this, the girls in The Last of Us are portrayed as being unnaturally strong and capable.
What was pretty funny though is that the 14 year old girl is able to fire a rifle THAT IS BIGGER THAN HER and fire it accurately.
This is a clear affront to the extreme naturalism and realism of a game about a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.
And clearly never before in video game history has any male character been portrayed as unnaturally strong or capable.
Oh but it gets worse:
On the other hand, (not funny) another boy who was about the 14 year old girls age, was portrayed as weak, could not fight, could not shoot a gun and was just made to seem very weak. The Fems cant even leave their “girl power” out of the games.
A male character who is helpless and in need of rescue?
OH NO!
SAVE ME PRINCESS PEACH!
Happily, pullupjumper has an idea for a way to confront this creeping feminism:
Maybe, if any of you are interested, a couple of us can get together and start making our own games after these games become unbearable. What do you guys think?
Grimlock is right there with him:
I’m currently going to school for media arts and animation and am considering starting a small indy animation/film studio with a couple of guys from class. I also happen to be getting pretty good at 3d modeling … and even though i want to start with animation and film video games are my end game.
I don’t think I’d ever put an obvious message into a game, since I find pushing your belief onto others through mediums like videogames more than a little cunty, but will my games be misogynist? You better fucking believe it. Misogyny The likes of which will make duke nukem blush. I won’t need to tell you guys when I break into the industry, you’ll know it from the sheer uproar it’ll cause.
Misogyny … in video games? Now there’s a novel idea!
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Oh, by the way, for new and/or extremely literal readers, I would like to point out that this post contains
*or any non-binary kids as well, of course.
Reblogged this on woosterlang87 and commented:
The brilliant Man boobz
@Argenti: I love the book I Am Legend, and I actually liked the movie. The caveat is, you have to watch the alternate ending version, not the theatrical release. The theatrical release is painfully bad and actually pretty monstrous as the first part of the movie builds steadily towards the revelation that, hey, maybe these aren’t mindless monsters being killed, but then the ending just throws that out the window.
Reading y’all’s descriptions of it, I’m glad I didn’t stick with TWD after the first season. I was turned off by the racism and sexism, plus I didn’t think it was all that interesting. I even like boring zombie movies (original Dawn of the Dead, I’m looking at you) because in my experience that’s how disasters tend to be…lots of boredom, shock (in the “shutting down” sense), exhaustion in between brief moments of survival mode and even more brief moments of joy…but there was just nothing new or interesting at all in TWD. All the characters were cliches that were either unsympathetic or clearly designed to manipulate you into feeling sympathy to boot. Ugh.
Loved I Am Legend! (the book – liked the movie, as AK said with the alternate ending). Also, The Road (movie good, book great) is a good one if you like your dystopia with no zombies.
I just started watching a UK show, Survivors, on Netflix about a global flu pandemic that wipes out most of the population. It’s a little white, but so far really good.
In terms of post-pandemic dystopias Children of Men is an interesting one. Particularly in that (SPOILERS AHEAD) the character who’s set up as humanity’s best hope for the future is black, and the (white, male) protagonist dies saving her and doesn’t regret doing so.
For me, I’m sick of the zombie genre as a whole. Though I make an exception with funny stuff like Plants vs Zombies and the film, Ahhh! Zombies! (even Zombie Strippers has a charm to it.)
Plants vs zombies was pretty awesome. I love the zomboni even though it always squished me.
I have the feeling the ultimate female heroine for MRAs would be the ones from US Angel Corps: nearly all but about two of them are under 25, they wear ridiculously skimpy outfits, the only dark-skinned woman has Caucasian features (so none of those scary black women for them), they’re incompetent at what they do despite all their training and constantly get raped and murdered by men in the most graphic fashion.
AK — spoiler free version of this question — does that version have her give him [spoiler!]?
And does if have the flippin’ stages of infection?
augzillery: I also watched The Thing. The part that scared me was the dog kennel scene… I just felt bad for all the dogs stuck with the monster. Also the end scene scared me a lot.
Don’t read the short story (“Who Goes There”). Great opening line, (“It stank.”), but scary, creepy as hell.
I ought to re-read it. It’s really good.
Ah, I’m of an age to remember the 1975 version of Survivors. My cousin & have our post-pandemic base picked out already (after a particularly rainy holiday) – an old farmhouse with its own well and a solid fuel AGA running the heating as well as providing cooking, tucked nicely into the hillside within easy reach of the coast for fishing & foraging. All manboonz welcome, of course.
Just reading the reviews of The Thing on IMDB and this one’s just where I come from in fiction:
“The gore effects here are absolutely amazing and messily realistic. I could have done without the [spoiler] but that’s just the animal lover in me being picky: kill all the humans you want, but leave the kitties and puppies alone.”
Not that I’m into stuff with lots of humans being killed, at least not these days (FAR too much detective tv seems to focus on serial-killer-of-women stuff) but I’ve always felt that way about animals, even in my most oblivious teen days. Only thing that bothered me on my first viewing of A Clockwork Orange was the possibility that Alex would hurt any of the kitties. I’d never watch that film now, btw.
titianblue, that sounds like the place Candy chooses in Emergence – anyone read that short story/novel?
I just watched an episode of Misfits that had sort-of-zombies in it, including a cat-zombie. They had this whole scene where they were all “we need to kill the cat” and no one wanted to do it and even the guy who ‘hated cats’ and was going to do it, couldn’t bring himself to do it. Meanwhile they’re killing people-zombies left and right. I don’t know if they were making a point about what you can show on tv, or a comment on how different people feel about seeing animals die in shows versus people. Why do you think people react so differently though?
I read The Clockwork Orange.
I liked it since it brought up good questions and points, but I didn’t like reading it since it was so graphic. I can’t read that without crying or panicking.
I hate how a lot of hipster guys(like the “nice guy” kind of hipster) where t shirts from the book and movie just for fashion. It’s creepy as hell. The book is “good” in the sense that it shows how Alex is really really fucked up and the justice system wasn’t helping, but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for a tshirt.
Also, at forever 21 I found a shirt in the men’s section with the movie poster of Lolita on it…. Wtf forever 21. *shudders*. (Btw, I hate that shirt for the same reason I hate Clockwork Orange tshirts, the message of Lolita is actually anti-pedophila, since it shows how he ruined her childhood, but that doesn’t mean that message or story should be glamorized on shirts).
Kim, if I had to kill people/zombies it would be easier for me to dehumanized them. Like I could just repeat to myself “that guy likely was a jerk anyways”, but with an animal you can’t do that. Animals generally have good reasons to be jerks. Also animals are more trustworthy, since they can’t really lie. Plus the animal trusts you to not kill them and maybe get food and cuddles, so its really hard to look into those puppy dog/kitty/bunny eyes, knowing that the animal loves you, and still want to kill it.
OK, I haven’t read the comments, yet, so maybe someone else already said this. If so, sorry.
It makes perfect sense that in a zombie apocalypse (or really, pretty much any apocalypse) the women among the survivors are mostly going to be bad ass. Just as the men among the survivors are mostly going to be bad ass. The most bad ass man can only protect just so many weaklings before it becomes too much for one bad ass person to handle. Therefore, the vast majority of SURVIVORS will, by their very nature, be bad ass.
The protagonist’s daughter, a 14 year old girl, is surviving because her bad ass father is protecting her. Yes, she can shoot a rifle. Lots of kids that age can shoot rifles, and even aim well. Annie Oakley springs immediately to mind.
Yes, there was ONE weak boy (out of how many?). Well, he probably had a protector, too. You see, even though in an apocalypse, there is a whole lot of survival of the fittest, there is also always a certain amount of survival of the fittest’s loved-ones, because the bad ass fittest protect the weaklings about whom they care. And sometimes, the bad asses even sacrifice themselves to give the weaklings a chance to continue, and possibly find another protector for themselves. Yeah, that happens.
But not, apparently, to MGTOWers.
So, based on this guy’s commentary, I am actually convinced that there is a lot of realism (well, as much realism as a zombie game can have) in this game. I’m very interested in trying it out for myself, now. Thanks for the game review!
I’ve watched Walking Dead through the second season. The plot of the second season is SPOILERS that this perfectly nice doctor and his family make the mistake of letting a group of assholes hang out on their farm. The assholes proceed to kill the guy’s buddy, dump zombie guts down his well, release a barn full of ravenous zombies for no reason, run around shooting off guns to attract more zombies, and ultimately burn the place down. For some reason, they’re supposed to be the heroes.
The moral of the season: Don’t Let Those Assholes on Your Farm.
Also, as for the women being leaders of various survivor groups, I’d venture that they were probably already in leadership positions in their communities, and people knew they were smart and creative, and were willing to follow them (and protect them) because of that. For example, a well-respected teacher would have many people electing her as leader, not because of her fighting prowess, but because of her strategical abilities, not to mention the ability to herd frightened and adrenaline-boosted people. More women are trained for exactly that – herding cats, basically – than for fighting up close and personal.
So, in this game, are the women leaders doing the hand-to-hand combat, or are they the ones coming up with the tactics, and calling the shots, based on their knowledge of the people under them, and those people’s skills and strengths? Hmmmm.
@Michelle
I could totally see the woman who started our local farmers market being the leader of a survivor group.
There’s also the fact that most of the very small percentage of the population that has many of the skills that would be needed in world with no more Walgreens or Target (how to make soap, how to grow and preserve food, how to weave fabric from the raw materials, and so no) are women. I used to assume that the sexist dudes who didn’t account for the need for those skills in their plans were assuming that they would just overpower the people who have the skills and force them to provide their labor at gunpoint, but the more I see from wannabe survivalist dudebros the more I realize that they just haven’t thought things through enough to realize that they would need people who know how to do those things around. Most of them don’t even seem to get to the “maybe someone with some medical training would be a useful person to have around” stage.
@Argenti: Seconding watching the alternate ending version of I Am Legend, if only for Will Smith’s excellent portrayal of Neville. The tears he sheds at the end when he realizes the significance of the name of the movie are truly convincing. Although I gotta say, of all the movies based on Matheson’s book, The Last Man on Earth (starring Vincent Price) remains the truest to the source material in practically every way. I found Charlton Heston’s Omega Man… well, sort of dumb.
@CassandraSays: That is a very good point. The worst most movie monsters can usually do to you is kill you. Painfully, granted, but still. The lycantrophy curse is awful, sure, but you only lose your humanity for short periods at a time. Zombies take away your humanity, and there is no cure for it. None. Game over. In modern portrayals, zombification has taken over the role of vampirization, which once was a demonic curse that turns you into a mockery of everything you were in life, but now essentially boils down to “you are you, but with bloodlust and superpowers”.
@Kittehserf: I love the visual aspect of zombies! The freedom of portraying the various stages of decay and the injuries are an amazing way to tell a single zombie’s life’s (un-life’s?) story in a single drawing. The only other monsters I find as interesting to draw are eldritch horrors, whose “otherworldliness” presents a real challenge (how do you draw something that exists in more dimensions than our familiar three?).
Re: TWD. I’ve actually watched* every episode of that stupid show. Why? Because of zombies. And because I hate myself. There have been a couple of good moments (the tearjerker in the penultimate episode springs to mind), but not enough to redeem the offensive parts (seriously the pregnancy thing. Also, what did they do to you, Andrea?). Plus, it’s just plain dull.
*Well, not so much “watched” as “left to play in the background while I do other stuff”.
Sorry for spamming, horror buff here. Will stop now.
@Kittehserf
I loved The Thing!! I found the aliens and effects to be grosser than the ones in Aliens too 😛
RadicalParrot – interesting to draw, no argument! I was thinking of watching things like that on screen rather than doing artwork.
So, you wanna draw eldritch?
“(how do you draw something that exists in more dimensions than our familiar three?).”
Depends on what the critter/being is, I guess! Some other-dimensioners look pretty much the same as their earthly selves. 😉
Quackers – yes, way scarier, and Alien was gross enough! I spent most of that movie terrified that the cat would get killed. Couldn’t understand much of the dialogue; the sound system at the RMIT theatre was crap. (That, or they’d got hold of a really bad print.)