491 réponses à ce sujet

[Lennard Testarossa]

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Frankly, I think this article should be required reading for... well, everyone, but especially everyone who thinks including women, non-white, and non-straight characters is "a political message."

While the article does have somewhat of a point, it does seem an awful lot like it was written by some random internet feminist spamming wikipedia articles of people she found on Google.

Some of her claims are incorrect, such as female achievement in science being belittled, citing Marie Curie, Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether as examples. To claim that their contributions are being belittled is rather ridiculous, given that they're not only well known within the scientific community, but indeed far more famous in general than the vast majority of male scientists of similar import within their field.

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 24 février 2013 - 07:39 .

[Blazomancer]

Harle Cerulean wrote...
Frankly, I think this article should be required reading for... well, everyone, but especially everyone who thinks including women, non-white, and non-straight characters is "a political message."

Thanks for the link.



I've been thinking that Rani Lakshmibai and Lyudmila Pavlichenko are great examples of the FemHawkes and the Femsheps in modern history.

Dave of Canada wrote...
White-washing history and making sure we're not dealing with anything
that can upset people is the very product of throwing politics into a
game for no reason, you're not dealing with it and not making the people
reflect upon it to the point that it becomes truly interesting. It's
simply thrown in.

Throwing in stuff just for the sake of it doesn't necessarily mean it has any political inclination to it.

To be honest, my beliefs are completely opposite to yours. I think dissecting a RL issue inside a virtual world would be more like a political message than when the interpretation is left to the end user without spoon-feeding him/her experiences that are so-called out of the social norm. After all, a blind man would never see even when it's evident. Trying to make him see what they want him to see would be more akin to a political message. Well, that's what I think anyway.

[Harle Cerulean]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Frankly, I think this article should be required reading for... well, everyone, but especially everyone who thinks including women, non-white, and non-straight characters is "a political message."

While the article does have somewhat of a point, it does seem an awful lot like it was written by some random internet feminist spamming wikipedia articles of people she found on Google.

Some of her claims are incorrect, such as female achievement in science being belittled, citing Marie Curie, Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether as examples. To claim that their contributions are being belittled is rather ridiculous, given that they're not only well known within the scientific community, but indeed far more famous in general than the vast majority of male scientists of similar import within their field.

Re the bolded: You clearly missed the point of that section.  The point was that those are the few acknowledged female scientists whose achievements are recognized by most - but that there are far more women who have made major contributions to the field than just them, and those women's achievements are unknown, or worse, credited to male colleagues.

Calling her a "random internet feminist" does not make her points invalid, and there is a point to the links you accuse her of "spamming."  If she didn't "spam" those links, the response from readers inclined to believe in the overwhelming straight white maleness of history, would be "Where's the proof?!  You don't have examples!  You're wrong!"

[Blazomancer]

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Frankly, I think this article should be required reading for... well, everyone, but especially everyone who thinks including women, non-white, and non-straight characters is "a political message."

While the article does have somewhat of a point, it does seem an awful lot like it was written by some random internet feminist spamming wikipedia articles of people she found on Google.

Some of her claims are incorrect, such as female achievement in science being belittled, citing Marie Curie, Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether as examples. To claim that their contributions are being belittled is rather ridiculous, given that they're not only well known within the scientific community, but indeed far more famous in general than the vast majority of male scientists of similar import within their field.

Re the bolded: You clearly missed the point of that section.  The point was that those are the few acknowledged female scientists whose achievements are recognized by most - but that there are far more women who have made major contributions to the field than just them, and those women's achievements are unknown, or worse, credited to male colleagues.

Calling her a "random internet feminist" does not make her points invalid, and there is a point to the links you accuse her of "spamming."  If she didn't "spam" those links, the response from readers inclined to believe in the overwhelming straight white maleness of history, would be "Where's the proof?!  You don't have examples!  You're wrong!"

This. Also, Lise Meitner was in fact deprived of a deserving nobel prize.

[Dave of Canada]

Blazomancer wrote...

Throwing in stuff just for the sake of it doesn't necessarily mean it has any political inclination to it.

It's mostly the behavior attributed to the developers themselves, constant messages as if they're being progressive by changing a pronoun in the character's dialogue and always bringing it up when negativity focuses on them.

To be honest, my beliefs are completely opposite to yours. I think dissecting a RL issue inside a virtual world would be more like a political message than when the interpretation is left to the end user without spoon-feeding him/her experiences that are so-called out of the social norm.

The selected minority which is brought into the game may feel included but the people which you want such a message to impact aren't going to notice it, I'd say portrayals such as Serendipity are more harmful than good.

A quick browse through Tumblr or whatever and you'll always see the minority groups constantly insulting others, saying they don't understand the difficult lives they live. Hiding it in media won't help, you have to show it and make others understand.

I was homophobic in my early years until my friend--which I didn't know was a lesbian at the time--was crying and feeling outright defeated by life, showing lesbian couples happily wouldn't have thought me anything until I knew. Dismissing anyone who doesn't have your opinion as "blind" isn't progressive, it's an opinion which further isolates and causes more problems when people don't understand because there's no attempts to teach them.

Hell, look at the realisation most people achieved while playing Spec Ops: The Line. It's a very relevant issue which was hidden by the fact that every soldier game in the world always shown them as big goddamn heroes, most people never realised the horrors of war until they experiened it in that game.

Before anyone says it: War =/= Social issues but I'm just using it as a point.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 24 février 2013 - 08:10 .

[Lennard Testarossa]

Harle Cerulean wrote...
Calling her a "random internet feminist" does not make her points invalid, and there is a point to the links you accuse her of "spamming."  If she didn't "spam" those links, the response from readers inclined to believe in the overwhelming straight white maleness of history, would be "Where's the proof?!  You don't have examples!  You're wrong!"

I wasn't trying to fault her for giving examples and providing sources. It's just that the article fails to paint a coherent picture. All it does is point out what seems like randomly picked examples of female/non-white and non-asian achievement. What is this supposed to tell me? That these things exist?

Harle Cerulean wrote...
Re the bolded: You clearly missed the point of that section.  The point was that those are the few acknowledged female scientists whose achievements are recognized by most - but that there are far more women who have made major contributions to the field than just them, and those women's achievements are unknown, or worse, credited to male colleagues.

Hm, it is certainly true that there are more female scientists than the ones that are commonly known. Then again, there are also far more male scientists than the ones that are commonly known. I don't think it is correct to claim that the less known female's achievements are credited to male colleagues. What might be true is that for contributions whose contributors are less known it is often implicitly assumed the contributors were male, which is statistically likely to be true for any single contribution, but takes away credit from female scientists in general if applied to all of science.

Edit:

Blazomancer wrote...
This. Also, Lise Meitner was in fact deprived of a deserving nobel prize.

So was Otto Frisch. The Nobel Prize tends to be awarded to the one who first discovered a stunning new phenomenon.

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 24 février 2013 - 08:22 .

[Lennard Testarossa]

Bah. delete this pls.

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 24 février 2013 - 08:23 .

[MstrJedi Kyle]

The role of women in Dragon Age is to be a bunch of badasses, just like the men.

[Blazomancer]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Blazomancer wrote...

Throwing in stuff just for the sake of it doesn't necessarily mean it has any political inclination to it.

It's mostly the behavior attributed to the developers themselves, constant messages as if they're being progressive by changing a pronoun in the character's dialogue and always bringing it up when negativity focuses on them.

To be honest, my beliefs are completely opposite to yours. I think dissecting a RL issue inside a virtual world would be more like a political message than when the interpretation is left to the end user without spoon-feeding him/her experiences that are so-called out of the social norm.

The selected minority which is brought into the game may feel included but the people which you want such a message to impact aren't going to notice it, I'd say portrayals such as Serendipity are more harmful than good.

A quick browse through Tumblr or whatever and you'll always see the minority groups constantly insulting others, saying they don't understand the difficult lives they live. Hiding it in media won't help, you have to show it and make others understand.

I was homophobic in my early years until my friend--which I didn't know was a lesbian at the time--was crying and feeling outright defeated by life, showing lesbian couples happily wouldn't have thought me anything until I knew. Dismissing anyone who doesn't have your opinion as "blind" isn't progressive, it's an opinion which further isolates and causes more problems when people don't understand because there's no attempts to teach them.

Hell, look at the realisation most people achieved while playing Spec Ops: The Line. It's a very relevant issue which was hidden by the fact that every soldier game in the world always shown them as big goddamn heroes, most people never realised the horrors of war until they experiened it in that game.

Before anyone says it: War =/= Social issues but I'm just using it as a point.

Whether the game developers want to influence people or not is up to them. I'll withhold my comment on that. The point of my post was that inclusion of minority groups in a fictional setting in a fictional way don't necessarily have to be a 'political message'. I don't see anything wrong with such portrayals; if bioware at some point decides to be the moral savior of humanity, then well and good, but I don't think the inclusion of a minority group without going deeper into the related RL issues would annoy me, even though that inclusion may be just to make people feel included or just for historical accuracy or whatever.

[jillabender]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Blazomancer wrote...

Throwing in stuff just for the sake of it doesn't necessarily mean it has any political inclination to it.

It's mostly the behavior attributed to the developers themselves, constant messages as if they're being progressive by changing a pronoun in the character's dialogue and always bringing it up when negativity focuses on them.

To be honest, my beliefs are completely opposite to yours. I think dissecting a RL issue inside a virtual world would be more like a political message than when the interpretation is left to the end user without spoon-feeding him/her experiences that are so-called out of the social norm.

The selected minority which is brought into the game may feel included but the people which you want such a message to impact aren't going to notice it, I'd say portrayals such as Serendipity are more harmful than good.

A quick browse through Tumblr or whatever and you'll always see the minority groups constantly insulting others, saying they don't understand the difficult lives they live. Hiding it in media won't help, you have to show it and make others understand.

I was homophobic in my early years until my friend--which I didn't know was a lesbian at the time--was crying and feeling outright defeated by life, showing lesbian couples happily wouldn't have thought me anything until I knew. Dismissing anyone who doesn't have your opinion as "blind" isn't progressive, it's an opinion which further isolates and causes more problems when people don't understand because there's no attempts to teach them.

Hell, look at the realisation most people achieved while playing Spec Ops: The Line. It's a very relevant issue which was hidden by the fact that every soldier game in the world always shown them as big goddamn heroes, most people never realised the horrors of war until they experiened it in that game.

Before anyone says it: War =/= Social issues but I'm just using it as a point.

I completely agree that issues of social injustice and inequality shouldn't be avoided just to avoid making people uncomfortable, and I'm also all for stories that challenge preconceptions.

But I'm uncomfortable with the idea that including, for example, non-white and non-straight characters, necessarily obligates a writer to make a strong social statement about inequality.

To illustrate what I mean: I can't help but think of a Jewish friend who once remarked to me that she was a bit tired of seeing anti-semitism brought up in every book featuring a Jewish character. She said that although she appreciated that there were writers addressing the issue, she didn't necessarily want to read about it every time she encountered a Jewish character. She didn't necessarily want for every story featuring a Jewish character to remind her of the prejudice that she has to deal with in her day-to-day life. So, that's something to consider as well.

In short, I think that there's room for many kinds of stories: there's room for stories that focus heavily on issues of inequality and discrimination, as well as stories in which a character just happens to be a member of an underrepresented group without that identity being a central focus of the story.

Modifié par jillabender, 24 février 2013 - 09:16 .

[Blazomancer]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

So was Otto Frisch. The Nobel Prize tends to be awarded to the one who first discovered a stunning new phenomenon.

Well, it is not like that nuclear fission was discovered by Otto hahn alone. There had been joint recipients before, and so should have been the case that time as well.

[Das Tentakel]

philippe willaume wrote...


Well despite being a manly dude.

I think I will have a pop at that.

In the DA and ME series, male and females are usually strong, weak, useless good or evil in about the same proportion. You can play a man or woman and regardless of your gender you can romance a man or a woman.
Now how many other games do that?  and that's the problem.

To put it another  way
If you take most of the medieval literature womanlead char  you will find that they are usually strong, intelligent, are an active part of team  (and i don't mean look pretty), and when they get abducted, it is by a baddy that eat 15 knight for breakfast without breaking a sweat and when they are prisoner they actively try to spoil the plan of the baddy, not to mention that as  it happens they even save the male hero.
Well you know an equal share partner in the business, that does not only look meek and pretty.
How often does that happen in game?

Phil

Heh, good point. You're referring to Bradamante and others, I think?




There's an old Dutch medieval ballad, 'The Song of Lord Halewijn', where the heroine tricks the villain (the eponymous Lord Halewijn, a mass murderer with supernatural musical abilities) and decapitates him. After she returns to her family they all have a party while Lord Halewijn's severed head is put on the table.
Not something you'll find in games either .




Anyway, regarding the topic.

The issues that always crop up in this context are visibility and believability (not strictly realism). Visibility as in the presence of women, children, minorities of whatever kind etc. in the game, both as player- and non-player characters. Believability as in things being 'credible' in the context of the game's story, setting etc. 

I totally get it when Carolyn Petit gets pissed about the late inclusion of any women in the Aliens Colonial Marines game, though I am not surprised given the fact that ACM apparently was (and is) a total 'cluster****'.
But like Billy the Squid I am afraid that it's going to be a hard sell to get more females (and other under-represented people) into videogames. Like him I don't think it's going to affect sales if it actually happened, but particular subgenres of games (mostly excluding adventures, RPG's and strategy games) are exceedingly risk-averse and conservative.
Shooters in particular, although there are some exceptions (Halo has some decent female characters including Spartans).
And let's not talk about Japanese beat-'em-ups...which do have quite a few female characters, but ahem...<_<

Modifié par Das Tentakel, 24 février 2013 - 10:12 .

[Yuqi]

Modifié par Chris Priestly, 24 février 2013 - 11:24 .

[Zkyire]

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Re the bolded: You clearly missed the point of that section.  The point was that those are the few acknowledged female scientists whose achievements are recognized by most - but that there are far more women who have made major contributions to the field than just them, and those women's achievements are unknown, or worse, credited to male colleagues.

If their achievements are unknown, then how can you claim that they even exist at all?

[Chris Priestly]

If someone is trolling in a thread DO NOT ENGAGE THEM

You are not helping things by poking fun at a person or quoting and continuing the toll. Report them to staff or moderator and IGNORE THEM.

Bans have been handed out, posts edit. If this continues more bans will be handed out.

[Orian Tabris]

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...

Wulfram wrote...

I don't believe Mr Gaider is a woman

Seriously? Guess I was confused by the fact he wrote Alistair who was obviously there to fill the role of the cute, goofy romancable guy you see in all those romantic comedies the ladies like.

Actually, Alistair was originally a much more serious type of character. Gaider decided to rewrite him. They didn't think "Oooh! Let's make a main character that will appeal to the ladies! That will show people that we're sensitive!" I think Gaider realised that people would more likely accept him in his important role, if he was more personable.

[brecka]

I always thought the Dragon Age games portrayed women quite well.  Yes, Isabelle is a bit...let's just say free with her favors, but she always decides who she'll sleep with, and when she'll sleep with them! More importantly she can fight.  A character's ability to fight is the reason I have them in my party.   

****card carrying member of the feminist brigade (seriously, I mean it, well except for the part about the card)

[Eternal Phoenix]

It's Gamespot. Just as bad as IGN and Kotaku.

[Ianamus]

I think Bioware's representation of women in their games is great, they just usually don't bring attention to gender at all. Knight commander a woman? Nobody mentions her gender with regard to her role at all- Shepard a woman? yep, and it's never commented that she's beating up enemies as a woman, just that she's beating up enemies. And that's the way it should be.

To everyone saying it doesn't matter: it really does. There's a reason I can't stand games like call of duty, and that's because as someone who loves good characters it is so tedious to see the same character (badass male) cut and paste over and over and over... and then occasionally the suspiciously similar stock female LI's.

I don't care if having gay or bisexual LI's or "non-standard" female characters is "political-correctness", the characters are not the boring, boring, boring standard "badass male" and occasional shallow LI, which means I can actually get engaged.

Modifié par EJ107, 25 février 2013 - 12:36 .

[Harle Cerulean]

Zkyire wrote...

Harle Cerulean wrote...

Re the bolded: You clearly missed the point of that section.  The point was that those are the few acknowledged female scientists whose achievements are recognized by most - but that there are far more women who have made major contributions to the field than just them, and those women's achievements are unknown, or worse, credited to male colleagues.

If their achievements are unknown, then how can you claim that they even exist at all?

Man, I'm kind of embarrassed for you that I actually have to explain this - it's pretty basic reading comprehension.  'Unknown' in this context means the essentially same as when you say a role was played by an "unknown" actor.  Obviously, who that actor is is known.  They are not, however, previously known for their acting.  I don't curently have access to the research databases I'd usually use to pull up names and precise examples, but it is historical fact that, for example, before female ownership of property was accepted, many female inventors patented their inventions under the name of their father, husband, or male colleagues, because they were not allowed to own a patent.  Therefore, the male whose name is on the patent got the credit.  These things have been discovered via personal papers, etc.  These women are not known for their contributions to science, but the fact that they contributed has been uncovered.

And if you didn't actually know that usage of 'unknown' and weren't just trying to be a trollish jerk, then I really feel sorry for you.

[andrew252]

Foopydoopydoo wrote...

Gandalf-the-Fabulous wrote...
I mean look at Dreamfall: the Longest Journey, the game was obviously written to appeal to women to the point where the only male controllable character says stuff like "Gee I sure am glad our society is run by females and not brutish testosterone driven males like myself", that is far more sexist than any imagined slight you might have with women not appearing in the new Aliens game but you dont see men up in arms complaining about the blatant sexism and feminist propaganda rife in this game, we simply dont care.

Uh. Don't speak for me. I totally care. Reverse discrimination is an AWESOME way of absolutely never moving forward.

andrew252 wrote...
how about we all agree to disagree?

BUT WHAT WOULD I DO IN MY SPARE TIME?!

you get to find a cure for cancer on the tears of deathly ill orphans and get into a bigger discussion on whenever its the moral act to do,also you get rich. its a WIN/WIN

[Volus Warlord]

 Seems I missed some flavorful discussion.

EJ107 wrote...
I think Bioware's representation of women in their games is great, they just usually don't bring attention to gender at all. Knight commander a woman? Nobody mentions her gender with regard to her role at all- Shepard a woman? yep, and it's never commented that she's beating up enemies as a woman, just that she's beating up enemies. And that's the way it should be.

To everyone saying it doesn't matter: it really does. There's a reason I can't stand games like call of duty, and that's because as someone who loves good characters it is so tedious to see the same character (badass male) cut and paste over and over and over... and then occasionally the suspiciously similar stock female LI's.

I don't care if having gay or bisexual LI's or "non-standard" female characters is "political-correctness", the characters are not the boring, boring, boring standard "badass male" and occasional shallow LI, which means I can actually get engaged.

Eh, the whole gender neutrality thing isn't really too much a plus IMO. A character's gender is part of their identity, and whether they stick by the stereotypical gender roles or ignore them entirely, it is still elemental to who they are. Would you view Isabella the same way if she was a dude? Doubtful. 

As per Call of Duty, apples to oranges. Call of Duty isn't a story driven RPG, it's a multiplayer oriented FPS- essentially a reflex shoot 'em up. People that play CoD don't play for deep, involving, memorable characters. If the characters are fleshed out, that's great, but if they aren't, it isn't too much a loss in a game like Call of Duty. 
In contrast, Dragon is a story driven RPG. If the major characters are flat, goofy, unrelatable, poorly written, and/or any other of about a million faults, the quality of the game will suffer. 

CoD the characters are a sidepiece, DA they are front and center.

how about we all agree to disagree?

What fun is that?

Modifié par Volus Warlord, 25 février 2013 - 02:13 .

[Xilizhra]

Eh, the whole gender neutrality thing isn't really too much a plus IMO. A character's gender is part of their identity, and whether they stick by the stereotypical gender roles or ignore them entirely, it is still elemental to who they are. Would you view Isabella the same way if she was a dude? Doubtful.

I view Isabela and Zevran in a fairly similar way, yes.

[Volus Warlord]

Xilizhra wrote...

Eh, the whole gender neutrality thing isn't really too much a plus IMO. A character's gender is part of their identity, and whether they stick by the stereotypical gender roles or ignore them entirely, it is still elemental to who they are. Would you view Isabella the same way if she was a dude? Doubtful.

I view Isabela and Zevran in a fairly similar way, yes.

Consider yourself the exception that proves the rule.

[Xilizhra]

Volus Warlord wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

Eh, the whole gender neutrality thing isn't really too much a plus IMO. A character's gender is part of their identity, and whether they stick by the stereotypical gender roles or ignore them entirely, it is still elemental to who they are. Would you view Isabella the same way if she was a dude? Doubtful.

I view Isabela and Zevran in a fairly similar way, yes.

Consider yourself the exception that proves the rule.

Why wouldn't you? They fulfill a very similar party role and romance role, both mechanically and characterwise. They're very much counterparts of each other. The biggest difference is that Isabela lacks Zevran's fascination with deathdealing.