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.
Okay, I’ve gone and read the transcript of the Strategic Butt Coverings episode, and I don’t see how it contradicts my point that the pose emphasizes Tracer’s butt because of the clothing she wears, and wouldn’t if she wore different clothing like male characters with the same pose do. Hence my comment that I felt they should have changed the outfit; the camera in gameplay will be under player control and can get any angle so they can’t simply control camera angles to de-emphasize it.
I mean, yes it does make sense that someone whose combat style seems to involve dives and slides and speed would wear skintight pants, but I’ve never seen “there is a perfectly legitimate in-universe reason why this character wears a sexy outfit” get taken especially seriously, because of course the creators could have avoided putting in that reason and implemented her mechanics with some sort of electrostatic repulsion thing and extended her armor plating over her legs.
Anyways, I don’t personally particularly object to Tracer’s design, but Blizzard did at some point deliberately decide to give her an outfit to emphasize her legs and butt rather than one that did not. The fact that her characterization and outfit are unambiguously awesome does not mean they aren’t also sexy, and beyond “everything is sexy if worn by a fan-favorite woman”. The pose and outfit combine to be sexy in a way that breaks character, so one of them clearly had to go. If the goal was to desexualize Tracer, then it should have been the outfit; if she’s supposed to be sexy but not at the expense of the rest of the character then removing the pose is the right call.
@Scildfreja
Exactly! There was no controversy until the Gamer Gate stirred up a bunch of shit over one stupid pose. Supposedly Blizzard’s ‘artistic vision’ is being compromised. Even though THEY are happy to remove the pose. Even though the pose has absolutely NOTHING to do with artistic vision. They don’t care about what Blizzard wants, they just want Blizzard to continue catering to their boners.
As people on this thread have said, maybe a decade ago these Gators would have made *some* sense (not with the harassment but from the “games are being censored”).
A decade ago there was Jack Thompson complaining about how GTA was going to make America’s children into murderers. When that didn’t happen, gamers began saying that since video games don’t cause such extreme effects of a person’s behaviors, they don’t effect behaviors at all. As media, of course games can effect people. But isn’t that why we should criticize media? It allows us to not only examine bad things, but also good things. GTA has sexism, but even in portraying female characters, it can be decent. For example, in GTA V, Michael’s daughter Tracy is portrayed as a whiny, self-absorbed young girl who seemingly wants nothing more than a sugar daddy and a reality show gig. However, I got the vibe that she was raised to see herself as her body, and is trying to be good at what she knows. Plus, the game implies that she’s going to college, and that she’s empathetic. Sorry about TL;DR and please tell me if my analysis is off mark!
@LindsayIrene – I know it wouldn’t be helpful, but I just want to hug half the guys in that forum.
I know, I know – they’ve brought a lot of this on themselves (women who might otherwise have been receptive have likely been repulsed by their palpable rage and disdain), but so many in this particular subset seem like they’re stuck in what in another time might’ve been an unfortunate but transitory phase.
Now, though…now they have easy meeting spaces in which to nurture their pain and grow it into a metastasizing malice.
I feel profoundly sorry for them.
Eaten up as they are is no way to live.
@S.F.H.C.
Yeah, the only outrage came from those who overreacted to a small handful of tweets.
Reminds me of how Parker Malloy commented that she didn’t like the name of some make-up – which somehow got reinterpreted as “demanding an apology.” Same went with her very positive review of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt daring to even bring up some of the racial humor came off as a bit lazy.
It’s hard to believe the Ess-Jay-Dubyews are the one’s acting irrationally when the other side treats any less-than-complimentary sentiment as if it were a vicious personal attack. Hell, plenty seem to consider even being critical of comedians as “personally attacking” them.
Apparently free speech is only fine and dandy only when a specific group of people allow it based on their sensibilities alone. ‘Cause that makes sense or something…
Oh shoot galt/a miserable pile of misogyny might’ve already decided to fly the coop. I thought they’d be like ruprecht and eloli and keep wailing. Guess it’s more fly by post.
@Nick
its a very high school attitude:
if you dont like what I like unquestionably and fully without question you are a nerd and I must bully you!
Like Breaking Bad is my favorite show, and I also think it was a bit over the top in its portrayal of how eeevil drugs are, & a bit sexist & racist. & I might be wrong, its just an opinion. Im not trying to much leas capable of erasing BB from the record, & heck, if you tried to take it from ME, I will fight you. We can LOVE a media and also criticize it. OR we can just not like what you like and thats fine too. As Aurini’s film makes clear, their fear is we will erase the games they love. & OK, maybe we will take the bigotry out of mainstream mass media the way we no longer make black face minstrel shows, and started letting some blac actors speak in film in a manner that wasnt degrading. Like fucking Night of the Living Dead, an amazing movie better than any Birth of a Nation nonsense. so boo fucking who to bigots losing dominance. but women who love and make games dont want an end to Fallout, we just want FO 5-27 to become more inclusive and leas ignorant, while keeping and raising the overall quality. Theres just nothing to fear from social justice.
FrickleFrackle:
And more hilariously — importantly related to the topic at hand — Professor Skully and Tub-Boy decided to use the same freakin’ Jack Thompson as an interview source for their documentary, to prove that feminists are whack, and it sent GamerGaters… joyously tweeting how great this is.
The dude who actually wanted to ban games.
Galt,
Warren Farrell has complained about date rape being frowned upon these days, saying it used to be “exciting.” He thinks we oppressed men by looking sexy. He whines about how women are so uppity we won’t always fuck a man just because he paid for a drink, comparing that to rape.
We’re not noobs. Spinning Farrell as a moderate non-misogynist is not going to work here. We’re too familiar with him.
Nice try though!
Galt,
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2013/05/03/putting-warren-farrells-notorious-comments-on-exciting-date-rape-in-context/
Read your own sources’ own darn books. You know the mra 101 recommends on reddit? Why did you believe that using the one of the most influential writers of the mra canon would somehow be too obscure for the internet denizens here?
Content warning of a manipulative, entitled, self victimizing scumbag.
Evenings of paying to be rejected can feel like a male version of date rape. (p. 314)
This is the man who is supposed to be your counterpoint.
https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/?s=warren+farrell
Yeah, we know all about him.
@Galt
This is a result of patriarchy. Men are not disposable, the idea is that women are too weak to be soldiers, miners, or engage in other dangerous and physical activities, and therefore female weakness means we can’t contribute to society in any jobs that require physical strength or dashing into danger.
Back this up with some science about this even being a thing, please?
Again, this is all about patriarchy. Women are considered too weak and too flighty and emotional to hold down a job, so men are expected to make the money and women are expected to pay them for it with sex and sexiness. It’s not feminists that set up this relationship, it’s hundreds of years of women being considered too weak and stupid to be of any value in society beyond sexual and maternal.
This is a big problem, because men tend to use more effective methods of suicide than women do, although men and women attempt suicide about equally ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicide ). Please link to something where feminists say anything resembling ‘cry me a river’ about male suicide.
Once again, this is about patriarchy. Men are supposed to be too strong to succumb to emotional stress and any expression of it that isn’t anger is considered ‘womanly’. You can tell because men who cry are referred to very often as ‘pussies’ which is a slang term for vagina.
Okay, I question if this is even a real thing these days beyond a very few women with their own individual priorities, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. Once again, Galt, this is patriarchy. For hundreds and hundreds of years up until women finally got the vote, they were the property of their husbands. Their happiness, livelihood, and even their lives was dependent on the males who had total control over them, first their father and then their husbands. To some extent, because of the pay gap and because of hundreds of years of tradition and habit, vestiges of this need to find the best, wealthiest man could theoretically, although I seriously doubt it, still exist. Feminists want to end this, too, inasmuch as it exists, by closing the pay gap and making it so that women can earn their own wealth and be in charge of their own lives.
OoglyBoggles,
What’s hilarious is Galt says one of the “real issues” he talked about is “woman as a sex machine vs. man as a success machine” when Farrell perpetuates that idea with that quote.
Galt,
most of those issues you listed are also feminist issues, because the source is mainly sexism against women and strict gender roles (yes feminism even fights for the idea of men being able to express emotion without shame, look up toxic masculinity). It’s an effect of men having the power in society, that creates social pressures. Yet somehow Farrell blames women for these issues. As for suicides, it’s not something that uniquely effects men. Women attempt suicide at the same rate as men, but the methods they use are different.
Edit: Ninja’d by isidore13!!!
Farrell is ideologically on the far right of the Men’s Movement even though he acts “nice” and civil. His ideology is more or less identical with the ideologies of “radical” MRA’s. The “radical” MRA’s just happen to use different tactics, like using threats and emotional abuse. Though that’s likely because, in their personal experience, threats and emotional abuse “work” and get them what they want. Meanwhile Farrell essentially says that abusive behavior is a “cry for help” from disempowered men and therefore everyone else (including the victims) is at fault for it.
Don’t forget the Gish Gallop. GG twit(er)s love that one in particular.
Though, they’ve evolved it so that they swarm one person with multiple accounts, some JAQing off and some who are there to harass/threaten/insult you instead of one person just spewing all their bullshit, which makes going through all of it nearly impossible, and leaving the JAQing off Sea Lions crowing that they’ve “won” because you can’t find their bullshit to address in the sea of other bullshit.
What I usually do to prevent that is to put something like “[/sarcasm]” after my sarcastic bit. I find that helps other people know that I was being sarcastic outright so they don’t have to guess.
Sarcasm is hard to detect over text sometimes.
@Scildfreja: Squirrel Girl! She’s the most powerful person in the Marvel universe, and the only hero I will accept (without an argument) that can beat Deadpool.
(The short version of that is that her claws are so small and thin that she was able to scratch Deadpool and have his healing factor ignore it because it was focused on his cancer instead, and he essentially bled out. We don’t fuck with Squirrel Girl.)
isidore13:
This dudebro argument always gets a hearty chortle from me, whenever I’ve heard it. 😀 Yeah, as if. As if.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/-m2-m7RQ7rDI/VGnrdi7j0OI/AAAAAAAAALM/req72hMZ8HQ/s1600/indian-woman-carries-heavy-load-her-head-jodhpur-india-october-october-jodhpur-india-women-work-more-than-men-30781664.jpg
http://www.mayarelief.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Women-Carrying-Wood-1023×767.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XX8PCG5.jpg
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24706863
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/08/head_case.html
@isidore
Feminist and cry me a river:
https://youtu.be/CvByTdMXlPM
Of course, you complain that women had it worse than men under patriarchy and insist that ‘patriarchy hurts men too,’ like we haven’t heard that one before. You all got called on your bullshit, so you found a way to shoehorn men’s issues into it; not ones to be challenged, you have the gall to half-heartedly appropriate mens’ issues so that your ideas can’t be descreditited.
Where do you get off calling men “the more privileged” sex? Men fought wars, raised families, DIED for their families, and you somehow get that women are the more “oppressed” sex? Well, men might have had more *rights* than you all (those were MOSTLY just upper class men, but shhhhh!!!), but they had something that women didn’t have, and that was RESPONSIBILITY! Whether or not men had to take on more responsibilities because of patriarchal culture, where do you get off calling *us* privilieged? But instead of focusing on these issues, all we get out of you are complaints about “sexism” in video games (it’s like the more realistically video games portray natural gender roles, the more “sexist” they become), man-spreading, and tons of snark about legitimate issues that men face in this day and age.
I think Chanty Binx (that’s her name, correct?) said thay when she was being sea-lioned by a trupe of MRAs.
And conversely, women aren’t supposed to ever be angry, because that’s not considered womanly either. Yes, this perfectly real problem really does affect us women too, only instead of not being able to cry, we’re not able to be angry no matter how much cause we have, and we always have to be nice to absolutely everyone.
Not super great.
Oh no, being treated as a success factory! I can’t imagine a more horrifying fate!
Dissection time.
The poster “What is Man” is displaying some fairly typical patterns of behavior for people who are only interested in social conflict and not interested in discussing things they see as problems.
Their first comment is an attack in a defensive posture.
Defensive because they are clearly bothered by potential social connections between Aruini’s behavior and gamergate at large, but how to personally attack in defense? The attack is redirecting the criticism back at Anita Sarkeesian via us. So while the thread is about anti-feminist unethical activity, they try to make it about feminists and putative unethical activity.
This is the redirection. Note that a person who thinks that something is a problem should have an example of that problem in mind, otherwise they are shitty at pointing out problems. OR they are up to something else, like trying to make the person they are attacking do all the work because this is not about arguments, this is about social conflict.
They mention what Sarkeesian’s videos look at in general, simply assert that there is no evidence and then demand that we prove something they brought up. Thus the attempt at shoving our pattern detection in “people criticizing things unethically” to another location.
When Scildfreja actually posted what was specifically requested (list of cited sources) even though they should have looked at what was bothering them already they then did the next thing that someone interested in social conflict would do.
A person who had an actual reason to dislike one of Anita Sarkeesian’s videos would have a reason to be upset and would have a scene or quote in mind that they could tie to one of those sources. But a person interested in social conflict has to make something ordinary (like someone giving them cited sources when that is what they asked for) look ridiculous and assert bad motives like having them read whole books.
Not only does this bit have nothing rational to do with the issue at hand, I’ve seen enough Christians cite specific parts of the bible to know that this is garbage.
Doubling down What is Man adds the contents of this comment which are more of the same.
If they are bothered by something they have an obligation to be able to outline what is wrong with it. Agree or disagree Anita Sarkeesian has clips and citations in her videos and if What is Man had any ethics when it comes to thinking things are problems they would be able to say what they don’t like instead of walking in here, changing the subject and demanding that we prove something they won’t describe.
I think that is my link limit so I’ll stop there.
Paradoxical Intention,
Of course she could beat Deadpool (Thanos could also beat Deadpool)! She already beat Galactus!
http://i.imgur.com/x7hNZIR.png
http://i.imgur.com/UhkgyVp.jpg
Warren Farrell also made excuses for a father raping his underage daughter, saying she seduced him. If I remember that correctly. Not the type of thing I want to think about often. *shudders*
@rosa, okay, I’ll retract that sentence, then, thanks 🙂 I mean, obviously it was said in the heat of anger and frustration, but saying it is saying it, and it’s still bad.
Oh I see, so if he looks ‘civil’ in a video, then that clearly means he is not misogynistic! Now, I understand that most MRAs are incapable of acting civil for any period of time, but that doesn’t mean ‘Warren Farrell acting civil for an event’ somehow magically makes his misogyny disappear.
Oh of course! Our culture treats men as nothing more than disposable tools, that’s why so much of our fiction depicts male characters as heros and protagonists 90% of the time.
Meanwhile the totally-not-disposable female characters fulfill the incredibly important task of dying so that the male lead can have some shallow character development.
Jack D Ripper’s speech was more plausible than the bullshit you just wrote.
Yes, women are automatically assumed to be sexually available by virtue of being a woman, while men are automatically assumed to be more successfull/knowledgeable by virtue of being a man.
This is the first thing you’ve said that actually makes sense and is a great example of sexism.
Yeah if you’re going to make a claim like that, you need to back it up. Also, you’re complaining about a problem caused by the patriarchy to people who are actively working to dismantle the patriarchy. Feminists have done far more to help male suicide rates.
You have it backwards, feminists are the ones saying that men should be able to express their emotions and MRAs are the ones yelling back very loudly that they DONT WANT TO EXPRESS THEIR EMOTIONS
So which is it? Is it misandry if men are told not to express their emotions or is it misandry if men are told to express their emotions?
How dare a woman leave her partner for someone she likes better! And of course, assuming this is even a thing; you seem to imply some fantasy realm where only women have the power to end a relationship. Of course, if a man doesn’t like his partner and decides he wants to date someone who’s more conventionally attractive; that’s totally fine. But a woman being just as shallow is TOTAL MISANDRY and proves that men are TOTALLY OPPRESSED.
Nope, you can fuck right off once you claim to speak for all men. Only misogynistic shitheads like you see women as ‘incubators’. Also, nobody is obliging you to pay for meals or give gifts. You’re doing those things out of your own generosity*
Also, for such a fascinating contribution; the analogy doesn’t work at all. A woman puts money in her bank account; then presses buttons on her husband/boyfriend to withdraw money that was hers to begin with = misandry?
I’m starting to think that perhaps you were told to ‘cry a river’ is because you’re a misogynist who only views women as incubators; not because you committed the crime of expressing emotion.
*And as we all know, the reason you and other misogynists shower women with gifts is because you expect them to repay you in full with sex. And the real thing you’re pissed off is that you’re not given the sex you believe you are owed.