436 réponses à ce sujet

[JAZZ_LEG3ND]

0:40: "The subset of largely insignificant non-playabe female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way of infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players."

Largely insignificant non-playabe female characters
As I’ve already said, I didn’t know the elf characters in question, so their role wasn’t very significant.
"Non-playable" and "female" are both a check.

whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds.
She never says the trope requires all of these things. She says it requires at least one. And to look at Dragon Age, we have victimhood (on account of sexuality, but not directly, visually, sexual), we have gritty/edgy, as it is a rough world where people get raped.

In the real world, elves don’t exist. I’ll say it again, context has no impact on a trope. That the subjugation of elves is important to Dragon Age lore is not in any way relevant to the presence of a “Largely insignificant non-playabe female character, whose victimhood is exploited as a way to infuse edgy and gritty flavour to the [Dragon Age] world.”

These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players.
This part has nothing to do with her Dragon Age reference.

I have argued why this is false: the victims are not insignificant (they are a character to interact with outside of sexual victimhood), in certain cases this concerns the PC itself, nobody is sexually objectified and they are more than environmental texture. You talk to them, you interact with them, you learn of who they are.

“Sexually objectified environmental texture” is a part of the trope not relevant to Dragon Age, and it is never implied to be so. Also, the characters sexuality and victimhood are not mutually exclusive in the definition, she clearly says “or”. The only point she was making was that a victimized “largely insignificant non-playabe female character” was used as one-note character development for a “badguy”.
 

15:58 "specifically designed to appear pitifully vulnerable. These scenes serve no other purpose to the plot other than to let the audience know that the perpetrator are truly deplorable monsters"

That's obviously false for DAO. The whole DAO city elf origins plot is built around that scene.

Anita never said that was true for DAO.

Her video is a deconstruction, she continuously pulls reference from different games to demonstrate different parts of her point. What you’re doing is criticizing her for something she never said or implied.
 

17:01 "is exploited by the developers as a sort of cheap, one-note character development for the bad guys"

While it is true that it is a way of designating clearly the villain, the way she describes it is definately judgemental. Both "exploited" and "cheap" are used in a negative way. I see nothing wrong with that form of power play using to characterize the bad guy. And I have yet to hear how many female players who play that sort of game for enjoyment felt creeped out by that scene.

And that’s all she was saying.
 

There is nothing that normalizes or trivializes experiences of raped women in that scene -- not any more than violent experiences in general are normalized in Dragon Age.

She never said there was. Again, you’re looking at the trope in context, tropes exist outside of context. What she’s calling “normal” is “The subset of largely insignificant non-playabe female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way of infusing edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players.”

Across gaming as a medium, not Dragon Age. Dragon Age is simply a game that includes enough of this trope to qualify, and was thus fairly used to demonstrate.
 

Again, looking at DAO, context is required. If ONE specific woman is raped by ONE man, then using the game as an example to draw this kind of conclusion is just bullshit. Women play a very critical role in DAO, are largely not objectified and vulnerable or victimized. Anora or Morrigan being the strongest examples, but also Wynne and Leilana come of as anything but objectified victims. In fact, Leilana is the victim if female evilness (plotting by Majorlene) and Alistair is basicly used for sexual purposes by Morrigan.

No. That’s not how this works.

Anita didn’t bring up Dragon Age to show it did something wrong, she brought it up to show it did something normal.
Think about that.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Bah. Most of Anitas complaints are just nitpicking or seeing problems where there isn't any.

She speaks as if all of those tropes are bad or wrong.

 

 

Bad guy kicks a woman as a way to establish his badness? How is that different from bad guy kicking a puppy or another man?

Women as a background character? How is that different from men as a background character?

Bah.

And all that noise about "trivializing" stuff from mentioning/showing it or using it as a piece to build narrative.

[schall_und_rauch]

Largely insignificant non-playabe female characters
As I’ve already said, I didn’t know the elf characters in question, so their role wasn’t very significant.
"Non-playable" and "female" are both a check.

The female PC is about to be raped -- it just didn't happen, because she stops the guards. Would anything be better if it was the PC who was raped?

And Shianni is very significant in for the city elf origin -- you just didn't play it.
Both your father and your mother are significant for the human origin. Violence is done to them as well. You wouldn't remember them if you didn't play the human origin.
In all instances, those characters are more than just "decoration"
Point is: Violence happens in a lot of fashion to a lot of characters in DAO, both to males and females. Only to females it happens in a sexual way. She draws a lot of conclusions on that, but not further elaborating that violence is commonplace in a lot of video games and that it happens to both men and women, just sometimes in different ways.
That's what I mean with out of context.

 

And that’s all she was saying.

You crossed out part of my sentence which was significant. She said "cheap" and she said "exploitation". Are you saying that there is no judgement in those words? Are you honestly saying that a sentence like "game x exploits Y to use a cheap story-telling mechanism" is free of any value and is neither negative or positive?
 

She never said there was. Again, you’re looking the trope in context, tropes exist outside of context. What she’s calling “normal” is “The subset of largely insignificant non-playabe female characters whose sexuality or victimhood is exploited as a way of infusing edgy, gritty or racy flavoring into game worlds. These sexually objectified female bodies are designed to function as environmental texture while titillating presumed straight male players.”

Across gaming as a medium, not Dragon Age. Dragon Age is simply a game that includes parts of this trope, and was thus fairly used to demonstrate.
 

No. That’s not how this works.

Anita didn’t bring up Dragon Age to show it did something wrong, she brought it up to show it did something normal.
Think about that.

So basicly the trope that is applicable to DAO is "A minor female NPC was raped, as part of a plot to serve the quick characterization of a villain as well as show that the world is violent and in many ways unfair, where evil men have power". I don't deny that.
Yes, it happens frequently, just as violence and death is used frequently in video games.
If her point is just "oh, I saw a trope on DAO", nobody would have given her any money. I mean, there are http://tvtropes.org/...ragonAgeOrigins so many tropes in DAO that pointing them out doesn't require any funding money from kickstarter. It's obvious.
However, where is the significance of that?

She makes a conclusion of why these tropes are bad.
Her critisism is "it ends up sensationalizing an issue that is painfully familiar to a large percentage of women on this planet, while also normalizing and trivializing their experiences. ...So when games casually use sexualized violence in a hamfisted form of character development for the bad guys, it reinforces a popular misconception of gendered violence by framing it as something abnormal, as a cruelty only commited by the most transparently evil characters"

However, drawing any general conclusions from this part of the trope that is used in DAO is not possible. It does not apply.
She does that by adding stuff to it which are not applicable to her example of DAO. The name of the video is called "women as background decoration" -- which, in that case, they are clearly not. So DAO is a bad example for her conclusion and shouldn't be included in the first place.


She claims "The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective." There are many tropes used in DAO concerning women that can be used in a very positive light. However, she focuses ONLY on the ones which she calls "cheap", "exploitative", "trivializing women's experiences", "sensationalizing", etc.
Nowhere do I see the systemic, big picture perspective which says "hey, DAO shows women as very clever political players" or displays a variety of strong and powerful women, or shows women as religious authority figures, etc. Those kind of tropes do not appear in her videos. So as far as fair evaluation goes, she falls completely flat.

[schall_und_rauch]

Another thing that's annoying me about the videos: Sarkeesian makes such a big deal that women are used as damsel's in distress who need to be rescuing by the male lead.
She would like to see for once a game when a woman is tired of waiting for the male guy to rescue her and breaks out herself.

However, the exact same game which she uses as an example of "woman as background decoration" does exactly that: You are captured, your cousin manages to get to you with a sword, so what does he do? He passes the sword to you, because he thinks you're better at it. So you have the weapon and the leadership of the breakout of the cell, while he is relegated to a sidekick role. Perfect example of strong female lead.

If she would have looked one meter further than her preconceptions, she would've found exactly what she was looking for. Not mentioning that in a research project is a perfect example of her bias.

[Beerfish]

Of what I've seen that writers articles are illogical and stupid.  Also when anyone says the objhect of stupoid over the top artciles is to 'make you think' it makes me think the author has zero clue what they are talking about.  It's an excuse to write what ever the hell you want and get away with it because it 'makes you think'.

[Lady Nuggins]

 

Honestly, is this even the case? Not that her playing video games is the only important criteria, but most I've actually heard regarding Anita is that she has not actually played most (if any) of the games she references in her videos and does not regard herself as a gamer. 

 

She plays games.  She calls herself a gamer.  She has posted photos of her extensive collection.  Only people who try to discredit her say otherwise.  

 

Another thing that's annoying me about the videos: Sarkeesian makes such a big deal that women are used as damsel's in distress who need to be rescuing by the male lead.
She would like to see for once a game when a woman is tired of waiting for the male guy to rescue her and breaks out herself.

However, the exact same game which she uses as an example of "woman as background decoration" does exactly that: You are captured, your cousin manages to get to you with a sword, so what does he do? He passes the sword to you, because he thinks you're better at it. So you have the weapon and the leadership of the breakout of the cell, while he is relegated to a sidekick role. Perfect example of strong female lead.

If she would have looked one meter further than her preconceptions, she would've found exactly what she was looking for. Not mentioning that in a research project is a perfect example of her bias.

 

Right.  If you are playing a female PC.  If you are playing a male PC, then your job is to rescue your raped and battered cousin.  

 

Look, I love the City Elf origin--if I'm playing a female elf.  Because as gross as the treatment of Shianni is, at least you're still playing a female character who rescues herself from her would-be rapists.  I could not possibly ever play it as a male who gets to be the hero who saves a raped woman from, presumably, more rape.  In the former scenario, you get to play someone who rose up in the face of adversity and fought off her own attackers.  In the latter scenario, you get to be a noble white knight whose nobility is dependent on the brutal treatment of another character.  No matter how well they wrote it, it's still too similar to many, many other versions of this trope, where the male gets to be viewed as a hero at the expense of a raped woman.  

 

I have multiple female friends who can't play the City Elf origin, even as a female character.  It hits home way too much.  Yes, there is horrible violence all throughout the DA games.  But most people who play these games are unlikely to have had parents who were killed by a sword, whereas there is a very high chance that many people who pick up the game are rape survivors.  Rape should never be thrown casually into a story, especially not as a quick and easy way to establish good and evil characters.  

 

Long story short, nobody's saying you can't enjoy the City Elf origin.  I do.  But you can't say that it doesn't have a whole lot of problems, and you can't say that it doesn't fit easily into the trope she's discussing, even if it's a better written version of that trope than most.  

[General TSAR]

Back to Gaider's post. He does nothing to validate Anita's claims, and he does the one thing I despise: every dissenting opinion is an attack. 

Yeah same thing with Angry Joe. 

 

I still can't believe he became a white knight for this professional victim. 

[Lotion Soronarr]

"But there is nothing mature about invoking female trauma. It ends up sensationalizing an issue that is painfully familiar to a large percentage of women on this planet, while also normalizing and trivializing their experiences.

"so when games casually use sexualized violence in a hamfisted form of character development for the bad guys, it reinforces a popular misconception of gendered violence by framing it as something abnormal, as a cruelty only commited by the most transparently evil characters"

(She then goes on about how rape is common and is commited by seemingly normal people among friends and family)

 

See, this is the kind of thing that rustles my jimmies.  No matter what you do the radical feminist will something to complain about.

 

So, showing rape as something that only the most henious humans do is wrong? It's trivilizing rape?

What kind of message does she want?

There is no winning. There is no satisfiyng people like that.

[schall_und_rauch]

I have multiple female friends who can't play the City Elf origin, even as a female character.  It hits home way too much.  Yes, there is horrible violence all throughout the DA games.  But most people who play these games are unlikely to have had parents who were killed by a sword, whereas there is a very high chance that many people who pick up the game are rape survivors.  Rape should never be thrown casually into a story, especially not as a quick and easy way to establish good and evil characters.  
 
Long story short, nobody's saying you can't enjoy the City Elf origin.  I do.  But you can't say that it doesn't have a whole lot of problems, and you can't say that it doesn't fit easily into the trope she's discussing, even if it's a better written version of that trope than most.

Thanks for voicing your opinion. I appreciate you writing it down.

I personally don't think the male version of the story is bad per se, but that's a matter of taste.
However, I understand now that for some players, the issue of rape as a plot device always touches them personally where other sorts of violence does not, because of what they have experienced before.
I have not considered it that way before.

And while games are often supposed to be "edgy", creating an emotional experience (which can definately include horror or frisson or anger or outrage), they should not makes us feel bad and take away our enjoyment.
So, yeah, I understand where you are coming from.

And I might have reacted more favorably to the videos had they presented the case in such a fashion.

[JAZZ_LEG3ND]

The female PC is about to be raped -- it just didn't happen, because she stops the guards. Would anything be better if it was the PC who was raped?

Typically, when a studio commits to a female protagonist, optional or otherwise, they do it with the intent of empowerment, so I don’t think “the player character is raped” trope is due to occur anytime soon. From that we can safely assume that Anita was in no way referring to the player character.
 

And Shianni is very significant in for the city elf origin -- you just didn't play it.
Both your father and your mother are significant for the human origin. Violence is done to them as well. You wouldn't remember them if you didn't play the human origin.
In all instances, those characters are more than just "decoration"

Just for the sake of curiosity, I may play the city elf origin later to experience it for myself. From that I’ll be able to make an education deduction of the situation. I have no doubt that Shianni is an important character for that origin story, but as a generalization, she is not a significant character. But really, I don’t think her significance in this case is really a part of the equation. Anita is simply using DAO to illustrate how female characters, in games, are often treated as defined by this trope.
 

Point is: Violence happens in a lot of fashion to a lot of characters in DAO, both to males and females. Only to females it happens in a sexual way. She draws a lot of conclusions on that, but not further elaborating that violence is commonplace in a lot of video games and that it happens to both men and women, just sometimes in different ways.

Indeed, but her series is labelled “Tropes vs Women”. Doing anything but concisely referencing material that supports her point would be a waste of time. The absence of acknowledgment for the game’s qualities does not automatically mean the presence of unspecified criticism. Even mentioning Dragon Age lore would be grossly off topic in her video. Her goal is to illuminate the status quo as she sees it.
 

You crossed out part of my sentence which was significant. She said "cheap" and she said "exploitation". Are you saying that there is no judgement in those words? Are you honestly saying that a sentence like "game x exploits Y to use a cheap story-telling mechanism" is free of any value and is neither negative or positive?

There was a scene she used from Dragon Age which depicted a couple “depraved” soldiers standing over the bodies of dead women, if I recall correctly. And with a bit of analysing, I agree that the seen was rather cheap and tasteless. That was what I thought she was talking about in that instance. I crossed it out because we were talking about Shianni.

But regardless, she’s illustrating the trope as seen across a very broad spectrum of games. Pulling herself up to enlighten us all that because of X and Y in Dragon Age lore, it gets a free pass, is not how one deconstructs a trope. That is how one talks about Dragon Age.
 

So basicly the trope that is applicable to DAO is "A minor female NPC was raped, as part of a plot to serve the quick characterization of a villain as well as show that the world is violent and in many ways unfair, where evil men have power". I don't deny that.
Yes, it happens frequently, just as violence and death is used frequently in video games.
If her point is just "oh, I saw a trope on DAO", nobody would have given her any money. I mean, there are http://tvtropes.org/...ragonAgeOrigins so many tropes in DAO that pointing them out doesn't require any funding money from kickstarter. It's obvious.
However, where is the significance of that?

Now we’re talking about something very different. What Anita is doing is a bit more comprehensive than “hey, I saw this thing in Dragon Age”. No, she is analysing, deconstructing, categorizing, and explaining various regressive, sexist and misogynistic tropes found in ridiculous numbers in a medium she holds dear. Video games.

People go to Kickstarter for thousands of different reasons. Anita Sarkeesian is a young woman trying to make a living in a field where traction is consistently difficult to find. Why shouldn’t she go to Kickstarter? If nothing else, she makes noise and a few people listen. I mean, she is a person, she needs to eat and pay the bills to keep the lights on.

Through Kickstarter, a guy was able to raise several thousand dollars to cook an omelette.

And beyond the trivial, we’ve already seen real progress made because of Anita. Neil Druckmann was a fan of her work, and because he was inspired (his word, not mine), we have The Last of Us. Specifically, we have Ellie. As appose to Ashley Graham. I love Resident Evil 4, by the way, I’m just aware of its flaws, Ashley being an abysmally regressive sexist mess is one of them.
 

She makes a conclusion of why these tropes are bad.
Her critisism is "it ends up sensationalizing an issue that is painfully familiar to a large percentage of women on this planet, while also normalizing and trivializing their experiences. ...So when games casually use sexualized violence in a hamfisted form of character development for the bad guys, it reinforces a popular misconception of gendered violence by framing it as something abnormal, as a cruelty only commited by the most transparently evil characters"

However, drawing any general conclusions from this part of the trope that is used in DAO is not possible. It does not apply.
She does that by adding stuff to it which are not applicable to her example of DAO. The name of the video is called "women as background decoration" -- which, in that case, they are clearly not. So DAO is a bad example for her conclusion and shouldn't be included in the first place.

Again, you’re arguing against her conclusion because of your conclusion. As I’ve said already, I didn’t even hear her mention the game by name, she doesn’t list it either, or show the cover on her wall (correct me if I’m wrong). How can she condemn something she doesn’t even mention by name?
 

She claims "The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective." There are many tropes used in DAO concerning women that can be used in a very positive light. However, she focuses ONLY on the ones which she calls "cheap", "exploitative", "trivializing women's experiences", "sensationalizing", etc.

It’s called Tropes Versus Women, Not Yay Bioware!
 

Nowhere do I see the systemic, big picture perspective which says "hey, DAO shows women as very clever political players" or displays a variety of strong and powerful women, or shows women as religious authority figures, etc. Those kind of tropes do not appear in her videos. So as far as fair evaluation goes, she falls completely flat.

Because the precious little progression we see in this industry is not her topic. Bringing up the “this game shows women as being X,Y,Z, blah blah great things” would take focus away from her criticism. You’re literally asking her to sabotage her campaign so she doesn’t hurt people’s feelings.

[General TSAR]

I hate to appear to attack culture (disclaimer: I'm part Asian myself), but if she wants ammunition to make her point, she should look to Japan. Not only do their games contain more of these tropes, but their culture is apparently oblivious in many ways. They still have a legalized sex trade, some of their hospitality industry even contains women in mock servile "maid" roles, etc.. And their games sometimes reflect this attitude.

 

When looking to the West, it's less apparent. The degrading depictions of women are largely in juvenile crap like Duke Nukem. Dragon Age is just stretching it. If anything, she could have found an ally in Bioware and it's fans. Instead she makes them look stupid.

Ahh Japan, the nation that doesn't give a toss about political correctness, at least in their video games. 

 

I wish more European and North American companies adopted the same mindset. 

[Gothfather]

 

Just read through David Gaider's last blog entry.

It defends Anita Sarkeesian's fem frequency videos.

 

First off, I want to say that I think she has every right to say what she does, and I find the threats against her, the calls to shut her up, as well as the cyberstalking, completely unacceptable.

Yes, she should be able to voice the critique as she does, and the people who think real life threats are a way to deal with it should all go to hell!

However, it should also be possible to talk about the critisism. Examine it for what it is, discuss its validity and appropriateness, without any attacks on her personally.

 

And I find her critique, for the most part, invalid. Cherry-picking, confirmation bias, never looking at the whole picture and completely neglecting to put video games as a medium as well as the setting they play in the proper context. While she may have a few valid points, they are so much drowned in manipulative half-truths that I can't take her criticism seriously.

 

I don't consider her videos industry-ruining, but I do find it odd that such a one-sided way of looking at things receives so much respect from industry insiders.

 

 

However, I deeply respect David Gaider. I think he is an awesome writer and he has brought much joy to my gaming. Basicly, I wait with baited breath to see the story he and his team has written.

So when he says 

"That is the purpose of critique. To make you think. That’s it.

Try it."

I sit down and think. And afterwards, I am more bewildered than before.

 

I realized that the moment I grew angry at the femfrequency videos was the moment I saw DAO on there. It was basicly a trope about trivializing rape or using it as a mere plot tool, showing a scene from the city elf origin. 

And while I don't care much about Mario or Donkey Kong, I do care if somebody goes to slander MY favorite game. Yes, I think the DAO story is perfect. Given the medieval fantasy setting, I think it's pretty much on the progressive side and in no way sexist.

 

I played a female city elf back then and considered the scene perfectly all right: Yes, rape threats can be used in such a setting in the same manner as other exploitation/punishment/physical harm: to demonstrate power and take advantage of people with less power. I personally never understood why an evil rapist makes a game horrible, while an evil murderer is perfectly ok.

Not only that, but DAO also empowers the female character by having her lead the way to escape from the capture, with her male companion regulated to the role of side kick. The exact thing that Anita Sarkeesian complains never happens is happening in a game she is critisizing, even without bothering to look closer. Even the accusation of the trope -- that it sexualizes females without giving them personality -- is false, as Shianni displays a lot of personality. So I was angry about her unfair criticism of such a cool game.

 

And here, now, the lead writer of that game defends the person making that criticism. And tells me I am one of the bad guys.

"But, look, she's making unfair accusations against your masterpiece without really looking at it" -- "Look, you don’t want to be lumped in with the bad guys? Then don’t be a bad guy"

 

Aeh...what? Color me confused.

 

 

I think you missed the entire point of David Gaider's article and it rather sad.

 

David Gaider is defending the person making the criticism because he understands that criticism isn't bad. He is capable of see a position that doesn't show his "masterpeice" in the best light and reflecting. It is only by employing critical thought can we improve the state of any endevour, this includes games.

 

For criticism to be successful and meaningful it isn't required that you agree with it, what is required is that it makes you reflect (aka rethink) on a subject. And this is something the reader has to be mature enough to do, it is a skill highly lacking in the public in general and gamers specifically. We gamers are some of the most selfish, self centered groups around. Look how many threads on games sites came be boiled down to, " You suck [insert company here] You didn't add [insert subjective want here] so your game will fail!." Or, "Remove [insert subjective feature here] the game is better without it!" So many rants and threads are gamers trying to tell the world why their subjective desires are more important than anyone elses. With refelction it is perfectly okay to come to the same conclusion as you had previously, nor is criticism wasted if you do so. Reflection doesn't require you agree with or acquiesce to a criticism for the criticism to be valid or have a possitive impact on a topic.

 

Criticism is there for mature people to take a step back and think of an issue from the prespective of the criticism. Is the city elf origin insensitive? If someone found it so why did they find this to be the case? Can we do a better job at presenting the story? If you think everything is perfect then you never improve but if you listen to ciriticism and refelct on it you can progress and improve. It doesn't matter if you think the city elf origin is perfectly acceptable, because the goal isn't to defend yourself from criticism but to use it to think. If you have no desire to think beyond the surface than criticism makes you mad. Yet if you think beyond the knee jerk reaction of "I disagree!" you can use criticism to make improvements even when you disagree with the criticism's points and merits.

 

There is nothing wrong with writers and game designers taking a second look at something through the lens of criticism even criticism you disagree with they don't need defending from criticism. If you believe the criticism is unfair then the work itself will weather any criticism. Case in point, Fox news' moral outrage over sex scenes in mass effect. Bioware didn't need defending because the work itself could weather the criticism. If the work can't weather the criticism than the criticism obviously had a point even if you disagree with said criticism.

[The Poster]

She doesn't allow people to post comments on her videos or anywhere else. I can't take someone who does that seriously.

[Lotion Soronarr]

https://twitter.com/...2948096/photo/1

[Isichar]

Just like many issues in gaming, Anita takes something that has some merit, and then attacks every possible angle she can to further her beliefs, and the rationale bit of conversation gets drowned out by the few idiot trolls who end up getting more publicity with the issue then any rationale conversation.

 

Anytime I read about her in my local newspaper it's always "Gamers are threatening women for trying to say women should be treated equally in games" to which I say **** off

 

To be fair this is more an issue with the media then Anita though. I just think it detracts from any real conversation and I think a lot of her valid issues, as well as the people who don't agree with her and actually explain why get drowned out by the idiocy.

[schall_und_rauch]

I’ve said already, I didn’t even hear her mention the game by name, she doesn’t list it either, or show the cover on her wall (correct me if I’m wrong). How can she condemn something she doesn’t even mention by name?

By explaining the trope and that there are many games which use that trope and explaining how horrible this is while showing at the same time footage from the game and displaying the title underneath.
In a critisizism video, what is said should match to what is shown, because the audience draws automatically an association.

It’s called Tropes Versus Women, Not Yay Bioware!

She claims to "examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective."
Except she doesn't. She only picks up the negative parts. What I have said from the start: Confirmation bias.
Make a video about anything on any claim you want to prove: Americans, blacks, whites, men, movies, songs, books, Europeans, women, Comics, paintings, whatever. With enough material, you can find enough anecdotical evidence for that claim.
Doesn't prove anything and holds no significance.

Bringing up the “this game shows women as being X,Y,Z, blah blah great things” would take focus away from her criticism. You’re literally asking her to sabotage her campaign so she doesn’t hurt people’s feelings.

I am asking for differentiation and fairness to the medium, especially if she makes value statements about it.

[General TSAR]

What!!!? This is news to me. Why couldn't he just stay neutral? Is this type of limelight worth it?

Dunno.

 

But from that point onward, I don't care for him nor his reviews. 

[Zeroth Angel]

I hate to appear to attack culture (disclaimer: I'm part Asian myself), but if she wants ammunition to make her point, she should look to Japan. Not only do their games contain more of these tropes, but their culture is apparently oblivious in many ways. They still have a legalized sex trade, some of their hospitality industry even contains women in mock servile "maid" roles, etc.. And their games sometimes reflect this attitude.

 

When looking to the West, it's less apparent. The degrading depictions of women are largely in juvenile crap like Duke Nukem. Dragon Age is just stretching it. If anything, she could have found an ally in Bioware and it's fans. Instead she makes them look stupid.

If these feminists will start their crusade against Japan I'll hope that the developers react just like these guys. Japanese developers probably wouldn't even care if some woman is going to criticize their games because of something as silly as feminism.

[General TSAR]

If these feminists will start their crusade against Japan I'll hope that the developers react just like these guys. Japanese developers probably wouldn't even care if some woman is going to criticize their games because of something as silly as feminism.

Clap Clap Clap.

[Gothfather]

If these feminists will start their crusade against Japan I'll hope that the developers react just like these guys. Japanese developers probably wouldn't even care if some woman is going to criticize their games because of something as silly as feminism.

It is rather sad that people think Feminism is silly.