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About ozyfrantz
Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.
I never mentioned the audience as an excuse for video games to be aimed primarily at men. I just said that video games are primarily aimed at men. I wouldn’t feel the need to excuse it because I think that making media for men is just as totally ok as making media for women is.
I think it’s inappropriate to compare the female characters in video games with the male characters in video because video games are usually aimed a men the appropriate comparison would be to the depiction of male characters in media aimed at women, like for exemple Twilight. Based on what I know of those depictions without having consumed those media it seems that the depictions of women come out largely even. Possibly worse but not enough to justify the way those male aimed media are uniquely criticized.
“I think it’s inappropriate to compare the female characters in video games with the male characters in video because video games are usually aimed a men.”
At that, right there, is the problem. Actually…it’s more that video game characters are designed with stereotypical, straight, adolescent men in mind. And yet, stereotypical, straight, adolescent men do not make up the majority of gamers.
So objectifying protrayls of women in games would be ok if those portrails were enough to drive away women totally? Otherwise looking at target audience vs. real audience and deciding that there’s a problem if they don’t match.
Not that it really matters anyway as I blame the lack of a similar male peripheral demographic for female directed works more on the world being devided into hers and theirs than I blame it on women’s media being designed to exclude men.
“So objectifying protrayls of women in games would be ok if those portrails were enough to drive away women totally? Otherwise looking at target audience vs. real audience and deciding that there’s a problem if they don’t match.”
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was saying (sarcasm). No, what I was saying is that the argument “it’s okay because video games are made for men, because men play video games” is inaccurate. That particular justification for crap portrayals of women in video games doesn’t hold any water.
Recently on some site unrelated to either feminism or men’s issues, I saw someone posting that virgins are valuable because “you know how things are so cheap at a secondhand goods store? Think about it.” To which I basically responded that it explains why antiques are also dirt cheap and why you pay the guy who has ten years of experience in the field crap wages and give the big bucks to the kids just out of college. After all, antiques are old and nobody wants old things, and you don’t know what those nasty other companies might have been… Read more »
So is there a reason for all the pointless sexism in the ACA? What possibly half-sane reason could they have for not requiring HPV vaccines being given to boys, or covering birth control for men. Seriously, why the pointless random sexism?
Jim Sterling is now against rape culture in gaming.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5972-Rape-vs-Murder
There’s still some things I take issue with, but it’s amazing how much he’s changed from routinely making fun of rape.
Love love love Steampunk. All I can think about is Final Fantasy 7 a.k.a. my childhood–that I relive too many times per year.
I find steampunk hugely overrated, quite silly, and faintly politically dubious.
STEAMPUNK: http://harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=266
Lots of good stuff in metafilter over the last 2 days. First, about video game imagery: http://www.metafilter.com/117395/Are-we-all-14-years-old-over-here Nobody does this to men in the industry. Nobody says Cliff Bleszinski is wearing such a tight shirt today, and oooh I’d love to rub my hands all over him. At least not to the point where he’s uncomfortable at tradeshows. Likewise nobody sexualizes male characters. Some may argue that Kratos represents an unrealistic image of a male, but there aren’t massive forum threads dedicated to whether and how people would like to have sex with him. Kratos, Marcus Fenix, and their ilk,… Read more »
“First, about video game imagery:” The gamasutra article is good (if nothing groundbreaking). The meta-filter summary misses some important nuances. One thing though: “As producer Ron Rosenberg told Kotaku, “When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character, they’re more like, ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of, ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.'” Why don’t people project themselves onto Lara? Because “people” means males.” Actually, people do project themselves onto female video game characters. Even males. I discussed this with several people when we first heard… Read more »
“Likewise nobody sexualizes male characters. Some may argue that Kratos represents an unrealistic image of a male, but there aren’t massive forum threads dedicated to whether and how people would like to have sex with him.”
Try a livejournal thread, or a kink meme, or the tumblr tag for any male character. You’ll get shipping, squee and sexualization (woo alliteration :D) in no time.
On the link about ASOIAF article. ASOIAF is a crap-sack world. To those of you who haven’t read the books, without spoiling too much: The best hope for humanity is the Lucifer stand in and his anti-christ figure. I think that should make it clear how much the world sucks. This guys complaints are silly: For his example, he complains about how the Mongol stand ins act like horrible people. He does realize the Mongols were horrible people right? Or his complaint about magical blondness. Umm… okay, she has purple eyes. And hair which is silver, not blond. (Note that… Read more »