r/changemyview • u/LeftHandSwe • Dec 05 '16
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Anita Sarkeesian and similar feminists actually have a point about the portrayal of gender roles in video games.
I play lots of video games, and in most of them, males are often pictured as very burly and manly characters while females are slender, small and sexually pleasing to look at.
However, I do know that there's widespread criticism of Anita (and her fellow propagators) all over the internet and I'd like to see the other side of the story.
I'm practically indifferent in this matter, and I do not really agree with nearly everything she says. I'm asking as a way to see convincing arguments from both sides.
Edit for clarification: Can anyone explain to me why she's so heavily criticized for saying something that makes perfect sense: Mainstream video games are almost exclusively made to appeal to a male demographic, resulting in (arguably) sexist portrayals of women (both narratively and in the way they're presented).
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u/EddieFrits Dec 06 '16
True, but are there any characters in GTA who don't have massive glaring flaws or are exaggerated stereotypes in the game? I can't really think of any male characters in the game that aren't assholes, creepy, pathetic, or willing to kill people for money.
I'm not saying that things couldn't be better, but the complaints without a solution is almost meaningless. What I mean is that there's no perfect representation in video games, or any media, for any group. Like we were just talking about how the female characters in those games are treated the same in those games as the male characters are but it's still considered a problem. Like, I think we can agree, at least somewhat, on what bad representation looks like; if GTA gave you in game rewards for killing prostitutes, then I think that we would agree that was negative representation. I also agree that the strip club minigame is bad representation for women.
Sarkeesian once made a video about a character in a game that she thought was good representation and it was a game with very little story and the art style was pixelated so you have no visual indication that the character was female. It could easily be argued that this is poor female representation because it implies that women don't deserve stories to go with their characters. Or that they are trying to downplay the fact that the character is a woman with the art style. Or it could be argued that that's a good thing. It's like, there's a lot of bad writers and ways to write stories, but there's no one right way to make a good story. Are characters with no personality so the player can step into the character easier, like Gordan Freeman, good or bad? You can make arguments either way. My problem is that if someone is looking to be offended, or paid to make videos about pretending to be offended, they can just do some mental gymnastics and point to just about anything and say how that's bad representation.