Apparently Davis Aurini is capable of sometimes telling the truth.
As you may recall, the bald, semi-Nazi stain on humanity released his version of The Sarkeesian Effect (that was officially not his version of The Sarkeesian Effect) last week to something less than universal acclaim, with one critic describing the “film” as “worse than a dead squirrel in your wall.”
Ok, that was me.
Weirdly, it turns out that Aurini actually agrees with some of my criticisms. While still maintaining that his not-version of The Sarkeesian Effect is a “damn good film,” he admitted on a livestream last night that the section of his film critiquing Anita Sarkeesian’s alleged lies was “crap.”
He then suggested it would have been much better … if he’d actually watched Sarkeesian’s videos.
Yep. He spent a year — and tens of thousands of dollars of other people’s money — ostensibly making a film about Sarkeesian. But somehow he never got around to watching any of her videos.
ETHICS!
You can hear the whole segment on “Bechtloff’s Saturday Night Livestream: Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour” on Youtube here. (The link should take you to the relevant portion of the livestrean, which starts just short of an hour and twenty minutes in.)
Here are the highlights.
In this first clip, Aurini responds to someone with a question about his attacks on Sarkeesian’s alleged dishonesty.
This clip ends a bit abruptly because Aurini was cut off by Bechtloff before finishing his sentence. Luckily, he went on to elaborate on his point. And threw in in a racial slur while he was at it, because why not?
And here he admits he didn’t bother to watch Sarkeesian’s videos.
It’s about ethics in making an entire film about someone without actually knowing anything about them.
EDITED TO ADD:
We Hunted the Mammoth has obtained this footage of Davis Aurini as a child.
H/T — Thanks to the alert reader who pointed me to the relevant section of the livestream.
Ugh, I have to say as an avid video gamer that GG is the reason that I stumbled down the rabbit hole of MRAs and the like.
So Gators are just the worst, they are outraged about everything for no reason at all. Nothing impacts their hobby but they act like some huge injustice has been committed.
I just want to say that for me Anita’s videos are terrible. I just don’t think they really say anything that isn’t blatantly obvious to even the most uninitiated with gaming. That said, I am glad her videos are being made and I would never try to destroy them. They exist and people can consume what they want to. I personally hope that because she has started this discussion that we can get other women in the gaming industry to have shows/articles/etc examining women in games.
My personal “greatest thing ever” would be a half hour roundtable discussion show featuring women in the industry. ONLY WOMEN. I don’t need a dude offering his opinions, we have enough of that. But multiple voices, unscripted on various topics concerning women/feminism/social issues in games. My dream team would be Ashly Burch, Ashley Jenkins, Patricia Hernandez, and Tina Amini.
I’m not into computer games and I only know about the people referenced peripherally through posts here; but this article gave me a sense of déjà vu. And now I’ve remembered why….
http://youtu.be/Mp_EArT4H_E
What is a sea lion?
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/760/206/66a.gif
Should have been used by now.
@Michael P, it’s a reference to this Wondermark comic:
http://wondermark.com/c/2014-09-19-1062sea.png
I’ve only watched clips and think along pretty much the same lines, with the huge proviso that while I think that what their core conclusions are “blatantly obvious” to those even tangentially familiar with gaming, they may not be to those with little to no contact with it.
In that regard, I respect them in that they’re casting an unaffiliated, feminist academic eye to games.
It’s entirely arguable that she gets some particulars wrong [citation needed], but that complaint would be more constructively answered with further, measured critique rather than expletive-laden rants.
I also agree with the rest of your hopes, but have to admit – for the time being – this all has simply reassured me that I’m justified in not allowing my daughters to participate in any online gaming (at least with chat – they can go nuts with Splatoon).
RE: GG and video games as art:
When GG folks say they want video games “to be taken seriously as an art form,” they mean they want to be taken seriously for the act of playing video games. They want their hobby to be considered a mark of sophistication and prestige by mainstream society the way music, painting, and film are. (And they are more than happy to point out that film had a hard time being taken seriously as art at first, and therefore Roger Ebert was being a total hypocrite when he said games would never qualify.)
They want “logs 50 hours a week playing COD” to be something they can put on a resume.
They want playing military games to be considered as manly and heroic as serving in the actual military.
They want hot babes to throw themselves at them, overcome by awe at all the achievements they’ve unlocked.
They want their mom to stop yelling them to shut down the game and do their chores, which she would totally have to do if games were “art,” because you can’t interrupt an artist at
playwork!What they want is for the thing they spend all their free time on to be retroactively declared the most important thing anyone can do with their free time, thus freeing them from any obligation to self-improve.
Sealioning is the worst. And that is pretty much the only tactic of GGers.
Also, Castlevainia: Symphony of the Night is my all time favorite game.
Orion:
It was in the women as background decoration videos. She discusses assorted studies and research (all sited on the video’s page, and referenced in the video) regarding the real world negative effects of objectification in media.
(From the transcript)
https://feministfrequency.com/2014/06/16/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/
There’s more after that, but I didn’t want to spam the whole part.
The problem with gamergaters and the like conflating sexism with violence in this argument is that one is a view\perception while the other is an action. It’s much easier to affect and manipulate one’s views than it is to directly cause action. If people’s opinions were immune to media then propaganda wouldn’t be a thing.
@Karalora Exactly, excuse the vulgarity here but my response to those guys that brag about their gaming prowess is, “Xbox achievements don’t add inches to your dick.”
Also, I don’t know if anyone has brought this up here but what are people’s opinions on the ridiculous outrage on the Overwatch “Butt Pose” scandal. I am completely for removing it btw. Especially after Blizzards fantastic response to the outrage.
[returns to metastasizing thread]
Guess my presumed answer wasn’t quite correct: he’s just a miserable little pile.
chippywillbethere:
That became a scandal? Really? Are the Gamergaters treating it as the end of the world that an out of character pose the designers didn’t really to begin with like was changed during the beta testing?
I think they should have changed the outfit instead; it’s a fairly standard smug victory pose that would normally be unobjectionable. But yeah, given that they kept the form-fitting pants, pose had to go.
@Tessa
Yes, it’s quite overblown. Of course my favorite negative response is the cry of self censorship on the developers part by caving into SJWs and the slippery slope that will inevitably follow.
@Guy
True, but I like that they have another pose that they like better ready to roll out. Might as well give your game’s mascot a fitting pose made especially for her instead of a generic one shared by 3 other characters and unfortunately shines a spotlight on her ass.
@chippywillbethere
Developer changed a game in beta inspired by fan feedback that disagreed with a design choice, they (the developers) weren’t 100% behind (pun intended) anyway and already doubted its inclusion.
In regards to Anita’s work, since the victory pose is a reward for a job well done, it would mostly be covered by her “women as reward” video and not so much, her “strategic butt covering” video.
The irony of the claims demanding that the “developers original vision for the game” must not be changed, is that Overwatch only came into being, because of Blizzard rejecting their “original vision for Project Titan”. For something they liked better.
So the angry crowds should really be demanding that Project Titan gets released to them with nothing excised or changed, their original blueprint to be preserved in its full entirety.
@Jamesworkshop
OMG that is the best gif ever.
@Guy: That a sexy butt pose is “standard” in video gaming should not necessarily be evidence of its appropriateness.
Citation: Tropes v. Women in Video Games
http://reelgirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/avengers.png
It’s a silly pose.
I think that, in a world where GG hadn’t completely poisoned the well, the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series would be considered a great 101-level resource within the larger field of feminist video game criticism, and feminist media criticism in general. The problem is that Sarkeesian’s harrasers and detractors have insisted, over and over, that she acts as the unifying voice of the SJW menace!!1! As a stand-in for all feminist criticism, her work seems basic and unsophisticated, and so we fault her for that. But Tropes vs Women was never intended to be the be-all end-all of feminist thought; and basic, accessible criticism serves a different and complementary function as compared to more in-depth analysis.
^ Exactly.
They are / would have been an excellent jumping off point for discussion.
Instead, they’ve become the focus of a temper tantrum.
@chippywillbethere:
And them having more inches would give them something worth bragging about?
No offense taken, and I don’t want to derail — just quickly say that I wish penis-shaming could die a quick and unceremonious death. It reinforces an ugly aspect of toxic masculinity; one that also feeds the racism of the “white genocide” and “cuck” crowd.
@Chippywillbethere
Oh, a custom pose? Nice.
I haven’t really been following Overwatch so I don’t have any impression of how prominent she is; I’d assumed it was just an instance of a stock victory pose that turned out to look unfortunate on one of the characters it got assigned to. It’s extremely common to recycle poses because animation costs money, so there’s nothing inherently untoward about having a mascot character share poses with other characters. However, usually they’d make the pose for the mascot character first and then copy it for secondary characters. Because, well, this. Plus a pose can look awkward or impossible on a significantly different character and you want the important characters to look the best.
@hugseverycat
My point is that it’s a sexy butt pose because she’s wearing form-fitting pants. Here’s the same pose on one of the male characters, only slightly adjusted:
http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas/e664c920815708199f5a3e4f82e2096a/203611210/hanzo-victory-pose-3-over-the-shoulder.png
Note how his pants change the effect of the pose. They opted to remove the pose from Tracer’s set rather than change Tracer’s character design.
@Littleknown
I knew that it was a bad idea when typing it, but I use it as a reference from “The Departed” when Jack Nicholson is talking about bringing automatic weapons to a deal. I just always though his delivery was hilarious. So it has become my go-to response to bragging about insignificant accomplishments. That doesn’t make it OK though, just giving the background info.
Anyway, I totally agree with you and not to get into my own personal stuff and derail the conversation, but as the owner of an average sized penis (read: not porn star sized) I have/still struggle with body confidence issues about my penis size and sexual prowess. So yes, get rid of penis/weight/body/whatever shaming, it’s dumb.
Oh, look, a brand new He-Man Woman-Haters Club on Reddit.
Another sausage sizing discussion? Ugh. I mean, I get the sentiment, but, ugh.
(EDIT: no harm no foul, chippy 🙂 I get it. )
Anyways, I love the Tropes vs Women series! They aren’t in-depth feminist critiques, sure, but that wasn’t what they were supposed to be. They were meant to be gentle introductions to feminist concepts and concerns within the context of video game tropes, to do exactly what’s talked about in posts above – start conversation, introduce ideas, and provide a bit of structure to feminist critique of video games. It’s TVTropes-for-Feminists-for-Videogames. And it does that well!
Shame that Aurini didn’t watch it. His ‘documentary’ would be five minutes of him making excuses “sorry guyse, i don’t have the brain power to take any of this apart.” More funny and much shorter.