Open thread! As always: No trolls, no MRAs.
This is a general open thread; for more personal stuff, go here.
Oh,and the pic above is from a hilarious new website called Manfeels Park, which mashes up whiny MRA complaints with … Jane Austen.
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@katz: I suppose that is a point, but I don’t really think that is the fault of the work itself. Yeah, Poe’s Law exists, but I don’t think one can fault the work for a small minority missing the point super-hard. :
I’m not being clear here. It’s not a matter of Poe’s Law, it’s that while they’re trying to do a sendup of how Dudes and Dude Feelings are So Very Important, they’re still telling a dude’s story and talking about his feelings–and not telling any other story–which implicitly gives importance to them, even if they go “look at this guy, he’s such a loser.” He’s still central to everything. I had the same objection to 500 Days of Summer.
I felt like 500 Days of Summer tried to have its cake and eat it too by going “well, yes, obviously he’s being unreasonable” but at the same time setting him up as the protagonist in a way which almost compels the audience to sympathize with him.
The “he’s being unreasonable” message also seemed to carry a strong undertone of “…but what’s a guy to do, women are totally incomprehensible amirite?”
@katz: But I am not sure how that legitimizes Tim. Making a character the focus of the story doesn’t mean that the story is necessarily on their side. Especially when the story goes so out of its way to portray Tim as an asshole (like the way he thinks of his parents of the way he treats the dinosaurs at the end of the levels).
@katz: And I read the texts between levels not as an actual third-person narrator, but Tim’s own internal narrator. They are how he thinks of the world and his version of events, hence how pretentious they are and how they seem to be on his side. He is basically an unreliable narrator.
BreakfastMan: You don’t see how choosing Tim as the narrator, instead of someone else, and thus presenting everything from his perspective, instead of someone else’s, is inherently sending the message that these are the sorts of stories that ought to be told?
@katz: Not really? The game isn’t making a commentary on story-telling as a whole, it is making commentary on an all-too-common thought pattern about relationships among men. I don’t really understand the idea that who the protagonist is is inherently commentary on how stories should be told.
It’s not a commentary about how stories should be told, it’s an example of how stories are told, and since they chose to do it that way, obviously the creators think that’s a good way to tell a story. That, in aggregate with how all the other content creators choose to tell their stories, builds the general cultural message of how stories should be told. And Braid is pushing that aggregate narrative in the rather conventional direction of “stories are about the feelings of thin-skinned white boys.”
TL;DR: The medium is the message.
If you wanted to write a game that was about the Nice Guy problem, but from the point of view of a woman or women, and exploring her/their feelings instead, how would you do it? I’m having trouble thinking of how you’d structure it to make it compelling, but I am not very good at that sort of thing.
Also, I bought Braid, but I had no idea it was about that at all because I got stuck so soon and gave up.
Kim: Like this, maybe?
Or you could have a genderswapped Nice Guy to highlight how weird and out-of-touch that behavior would seem if it was a woman. Or you could have two protagonists and divide the time equally between them. Just some ideas off the top of my head.
I’m not trying to rag on Braid, btw. It was pretty good. But there is an element of self-defeat in its themes.
Playing as 2 separate people, one who was trying to escape the other would be really interesting, but really mess with your mind at the same time. You could still build it up slowly like in Braid too, where at first they seemed to be heading toward each other, or at least in the same direction, and then slowly their perceptions of what is happening diverge.
It would be particularly weird to be playing the female character when you realise what’s really going on, and then switching back to the male character and still having to help him chase her. I think it would be very effective for getting guys into the female gaze and for making them uncomfortable about the male characters attitude.
I would love to see this game, as long as the puzzles weren’t too hard. You’re very good at this Katz 🙂
They’d always be in separate stages but you’d have to complete some objective in one stage in order for the person in the other stage to progress (ie, pushing a button in one stage to open a door in the other stage). At first the goals would be compatible. But partway through it would become apparent that the male character was actually interfering with the female character’s goals — eg, blocking off a doorway she was trying to get through. And from then on it becomes a sort of fatalist competitive game where you’re encouraged to root for the female character even as it becomes increasingly apparent that the male character has all the real control.
(Full confession: I’m cribbing some of these ideas from Thomas Was Alone, which anyone who likes platformers should play.)
You’re being hunted.
Let’s say it’s… some future… and you’ve escaped from… somewhere, because this is still a game, and if it’s a game, you have to do gamey things. So it’s a platformer / rpg / adventure.
The only thing you (=the protagonist) wants is to escape from…. this place… and go … somewhere else … but people won’t let you. Officials at check-points look at you with dismay and ask you to double-back and re-check your papers. Your reasons for wanting to escape this… place… is questioned as possibly being unpatriotic. Unworthy. How bad could it really be? Come on now, just stay for a little longer.
Staying still slowly erodes your health pool.
The Man Above, who leads… this place… changes the rules of the environment to hamper your progress, changing the rules of the game as you go along trying to complete it. You want to walk through an exit portal, NO SORRY It’S ON THE OTHER SIDE.
You got a red key-card to get through the red-pass, well, nice, but they want blue passes now, and if you ask why, I mean, do you really need to ask why? Come on, why are you being so uppity, it’s perfectly normal to want blue cards for a red gate. Yeah, it was like this yesterday too, why are you asking so many questions about this, sheesh lady.
Cameras follow you. Always. Small messages play over telecoms and radio-towers, asking you to just… come back to this place. Why are you running? Where are you trying to go? Don’t you know, everything is great here. You were so happy. Why are you trying to leave? Do you want more food? You can have more food. Just come back.
Please.
We miss you.
There are moments of solace away from the cameras, where you can rest. Sleep. Maybe participate in some kind of crafting mini-game, creating things from the debris you’ve found and using it to mark out your journey away from… this place… But you can’t stay for long. The cameras find you. They track you down. Why are you spending so much time trying to hide from the cameras, anyway? Are you trying to hide something, are you being subversive? They only want what’s best for you! I only want what’s best for you!
Oh, you made a thing? Some art-painting grafiity on an old wall. That’s cute. Come on, we’ll tear it up and frame it somewhere else. Just come back home, you’ll get real pencils and real paper to draw on. I’ll make sure of it. You’re too good for guerrilla graffiti in some slum city street. You’re better than those other people. They don’t get you, or your art.
Just come back to… this place… They understand how special you are. The outside world is so big and vast and frightening, and they only want to protect you. Why are you running?
In later stages, societal breakdown sets in. Gravity fluctuates. The rules become absurd or meaningless, gates green red blue coding and buildings de-stabilizing a whim. The officials start actively trying to track you down, asking questions. They won’t accept your answers.
They also say you used to be so happy together. This is just a phase.
——–
WELL THAT, or you play a telekinetic superheroine busting down robots with flung objects in a physics engine and the robots are trying to capture you to take you to some dark villain tower because the villain just REALLY likes you and won’t accept no for an answer.
As usual, Fibinachi wins. I’ll launch the Kickstarter.
Thanks for bringing this glorious site to my attention, I foresee great things…and plenty of laughs 🙂
Just for my own morbid curiosity, because I’d rather not try to warp my brain trying to read judgybitch’s writing… what is this Jezebel thing the MRAs keep bringing up? Apparently they’re all man-beaters or something? (the stupidity of trying to tarnish David by association aside, I’d really like to at least be educated about what drivel they’re pushing)
@Katz:
Thanks! Is it really “as usual”, though? That’s erh… more appeasing to my ego than I quite know what to do with :b
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Tangent: because this is an open thread.
I wish I knew how to code better. I’ve always wanted to make tiny games, and I’ve done all sorts of Flash action scripting and random game maker things and so on but it never seems to quite be able to do what I want.
I’d love to know enough about random generation to hack together a rogue-like where instead of controlling a single individual you controlled a small squad of mercenaries and had to lark about on an overland map and deal with contracts and betrayal and procedurally generated monsters coming by to stomp some town, not to mention supplies and diseases and just how nice / mean / decent your lot decided to be.
I think it’s damage from too many years GM’ing pen and paper games – I have difficulties percieving of “hero” as singular, because there’s always been more than just the one heroic dude.
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@strivingally
In 2007, Jezebel posted this story http://jezebel.com/294383/have-you-ever-beat-up-a-boyfriend-cause-uh-we-have
It’s basically “Some of us have attacked our partners at various times”. That’s it. The MRA-crowd just bring it up a lot. It’s shitty and terrible, and I don’t understand just what the fuck is commendable about beating someone in the face and breaking their glasses (as one “Jez” apparently did), but…. that’s it.
That’s the thing they harp on.
Congrats Fibi, that game premise was terrifying!
Kittenserf, on hypothetical marsupial humans:
Women could be topless in public, and not carry a purse?
That Jezebel piece is awful – I mean, the end part kinda suggests it’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but not really? But WTF, if it’s meant to be satire it’s terribly done, and if it’s not, then they’re joking about physical assault, which is worse – but seriously? That’s meant to somehow balance out day-in-day-out, week-in-week-out hateful crap about how to manipulate women? To somehow negate Paul Elam’s spittle-flecked rage-boner rants? To make it okay for AVfM to claim that feminism is a violent movement, while minimising or distancing themselves from ALL the hateful and violent rhetoric their own wheelhouse is overflowing with?
Jezebel should be ashamed of themselves for posting that article. But AVfM should be embarrassed to be associated with worse things being said every day. Let’s not pretend “Fuck Their Shit Up” isn’t a thinly veiled threat.
Not having to carry bags/backpacks would be a major improvement!
Though I just know stuff would still get lost at the bottom of the pouch.
“What’s the difference between a girl and a toilet?”
“A girl is a living being with feelings, thoughts and emotions while a toilet is non-living sanitary equipment”
(Sorry, I’m still on a self-imposed troll challenge)
@Fibinachi
You game’s description somehow reminds me of the game “Pappo & Yo”.
I really would like to see that being made too. A game that details the horrors of being in an abusive relationship with a supposedly “Nice Guy” who uses passive-agressiveness and psychological instead of physical violence sounds like an interesting idea.
By the way, have you read the (very credible) theory “Metroid: Other M” is an illustration of an abusive relationship between Samus Aran and Adam Malkovich?
http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html
According to this theory, Samus Aran, the protagonist of the Metroid Series, the second oldest female video-game protagonist, the woman that single-handedly destroyed space pirates and living biological weapons, the idol of woman gamers everywhere, is a battered spouse who takes her abuse and likes it. It’s the only way you can make sense of her character derailment.
@BreakFastMan
Have you gotten the hidden ending where it’s revealed that the princess is the atomic bomb?
@Katz
Ultimately, it would be very interesting to see a game where you actually control the captured princess and try to take control of your own destiny somehow. The idea is fresh and full of potential.
The problem, the way I see it, is something that seasoned gamers have been complaining for years: Game Companies are very reluctant to take risks and try out new ideas. They stick with the “Distressed Damsel” trope because it’s a tried and tested formulla to get the player quickly invested in the plot.
Games like “Braid” and “Escape from Monkey Island” aren’t intended to break the narrative, (such break would involve a huge risk) but rather force the player to ask himself questions about the Distressed Damsel Trope like “Does my fixation on saving a princess actually make things worse?” and “Does my fixation on saving the princess ultimately makes me a villain?”
It doesn’t change the way the games are played but it does make players to question their own actions.
Which is the first step in breaking a game narrative and going after fresher ideas.
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As a side note, would anyone here like to discuss Anita’s latest video, Women as Background decoration?
Personally… I have no objections.
I completely agree with her on this one. In fact, it got me thinking…
There is a game called “Spec Ops: The Line”, in which you are sent into a Call-Of-Duty type of rescue mission. The game looks like a typical First-Person Shooter, but it soon becomes apparent that it’s more of an anti-war game disguised as one. Your actions have devastating consquences and war is not just some sort of shooting game.
The problem with the “Women as Background Decoration” trope is that it ultimately dehumanizes women. It doesn’t force you to look at the horrendous results of your sexism. The scantilly-clad women in video games are little more to the player than power-ups with legs. Shooting them, killing them, harassing them means nothing, because there are literally no consequences.
But what would happen if games went the Spec Ops route and actively forced the players to see the very real consequences of their sexism? What if, for example, the hookers that you shoot in GTA had grieving families and kids that needed feeding? Would the player still feel the urge to rob them or shoot them?
Yeah, bad example, I am aware that most GTA players would still shoot the hookers and take the money and most likely kill the grieving kids and family. But what if you could somehow make the players care?
I think that’s the biggest challenge for feminism in video games: convincing game developers to make player care about the consequences of their sexist attitudes via more mature and better developed narratives and to somehow make those narratives fun and marketable.
@Arctic Ape: Women could be topless in public, and not carry a purse?
Maybe… alternatively… the pouch opening would be considered a secondary sexual characteristic ergo ‘sexy’, and women would be obliged to cover at LEAST the opening (come ON, no one needs to see THAT) for modesty’s sake. Additionally they’d be expected to be ‘decent’ about it when they have a pouch-based baby who’s in and out of the pouch – I mean how hard is it to go to the bathroom to take your baby in and out of its pouch and really if you can’t do that couldn’t you at least turn away and cover what you’re doing with a scarf or something?