A sudden upswing in work to do over the holidays means this will
probably be the last blog post until January. I do my best to update
this blog three times a month but that's going to be tricky this month. I also have a completely different blog post half-written but just finding out about this story today made me switch topics. This one's a lot more interesting.
There's a funded project on Kickstarter by the name of Mighty No. 9, which is being developed by a company called Comcept and billed as a spiritual successor to the Mega Man series. You can see why too; not only are the character designs and gameplay practically identical but it has Keiji Inafune -- director behind Onimusha, Dead Rising and Mega Man itself -- heading up the project.
Recently, Comcept appointed a new community manager called Dina Abou Karam. Her job seems to be to listen to fan feedback and forward it to higher-ups at Comcept. She's also posts blogs and updates on the game, manages the forums and basically acts as a go-between for the fans and developer.
The trouble is that Dina being appointed raised a whole host of questions amongst the many, many backers of Mighty No. 9. Firstly, Dina presented a piece of fan art of a gender-flipped version of Beck -- the male protagonist of MN9 -- and stated:
"As someone who cares about gender representation in games, please make Call [the game's female character] a playable character, or even better, make Beck a female bot alltogether [sic]! It shouldn't and won't affect gameplay! I started on some Mighty No. 9 Fan Art myself as a way to promote this Kickstarter/express my wish:"
Other than that, Dina tweeted that she was "never a Mega Man player" but she supported MN9 because her friends and boyfriend were working on the game. Here's some screenshots of some of the entire situation:
Left-click for larger view.
The tweets were later deleted.
So what's the big deal? Well one of the reasons that fans of Mighty No. 9 and the Mega Man series are so frustrated by these developments is because they've been waiting a long time for a new iteration of the Mega Man series (and yes, this counts, albeit in a different form). There hasn't been a new Mega Man game since 2008 and none on a console since 2004. The fans have had to put up with cancellations of games like Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe. A Western port of the iOS game Rockman X-over was cancelled because of negative feedback.
This video -- "Mighty Number Nope: The Dina Disaster" by a Youtuber called InternetAristocrat -- gives a more detailed account of why fans would be frustrated than I can and provides screenshots from the backers-only MN9 forum. It goes into detail about the social justice causes Dina is interested in according to her tweets and mentions that she stated her favourite Mega Man game is Mega Man X ... after saying that she wasn't a Mega Man player.
Basically, it's understandable that the fans would be angry that a non-MM fan made suggestions that Comcept change the game to suit a personal ideology -- and be hired following it -- when that's not what the backers agreed to when they donated. They have a right to be angry over someone being hired who has been forceful when expressing her political viewpoints in association with the game (and the video by InternetAristocrat shows that Dina herself stated that she was hired because her boyfriend worked for Comcept). It's not what they paid for. Nor is it the person they want speaking on behalf of the backers/the Western audience. Here are some of the responses when Dina was announced as community manager:
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I should point out before I go any further that yesterday, Comcept released a statement saying that none of Dina's views actually effect the game in any way. Their statement can be viewed on Gameranx -- more on that site later -- but here's the important part:
"Will the community manager be skewing things the way they would
personally like to see the game? Will the community manager ignore views
that don’t match with their own personal ideals? Will the community
manager lose the community’s desires due to unfamiliarity with the type
of game we are making? Will the community manager be creating their own
robots and levels and programming, or changing the game in any way, from
what the core creative team wants?! A lot of these or similar questions
have been raised.
The good news is that the answer, in all cases, is no."
So all of the comments in this blog are outdated by now, when people weren't sure just how much influence Dina had, but I haven't seen any other updates on the subject since. Not sure what the response has been to Comcept's explanation.
I've never played a Mega Man game but personally, I think the backers who want a refund are completely justified, even with Comcept's clarification (and as clarifications go, it hits all the right notes).
There's a good reason why companies keep their business and personal lives separate -- in fact, in InternetAristocrat's video, it's stated that Dina deleted her tweets about never being a Mega Man player for that exact reason -- and the backers donated to this project in good faith. I don't want to sound overdramatic but Dina is an unknown quantity in this situation. It's fine to have feminists on development teams -- in fact, it'd be pretty hard to avoid and ridiculous not to -- and it's even fine to have people on a development team who are not fans of previous games in the series. Lord knows that having developers who are fans of the series doesn't always work; look at the Ninja Theory's DmC. However, that's not what the backers paid for. The Kickstarter page itself says the following [emphasis theirs]:
"Every aspect of development—art, level design, music, programming, etc.—is being handled by veteran Japanese game creators with extensive experience in the genre, and with Mega Man in particular, all the way up to and including the project’s leader, Keiji Inafune himself!"
Moreover, this is specifically someone who was hired following a suggestion of her own, game-altering ideas based on a personal, political agenda and who got her foot in the door due to her boyfriend putting in a good word for her in spite of being unfamiliar with the series. There's no real reason for her to be a part of Comcept any more than any of the other thousands (I assume) of bilingual Mighty No. 9 fans out there.
My issue with this entire controversy is Dina's initial suggestion of, "even better, make Beck a female bot alltogether! It shouldn't and
won't affect gameplay!" It's odd how if you said this about making Lara Croft or Samus male, all you would get is funny looks. Unusually, I've actually heard this suggestion before, about Link from the Legend Of Zelda series. I also heard the exact same thing when Peter Capaldi was announced as the next incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who. So why is it that when pushed for a reason why this should happen, the only response I ever see is "why not"?
If the only reason why you should change a character's gender is "why
not" or "because we can", then there's a problem. You could apply that
to any characteristic and make the same claim. "Why shouldn't the
character be from Paraguay?!" Again, you could also say the same thing
about gender-flipping female characters or making every non-white
character Caucasian.
The reason "why not" is because these are established characters -- or
at least characters with an appearance more-or-less figured out in the
artist's mindset prior to drawing them on a page -- and even in the case of a character who can change his appearance, such as the Doctor, doesn't it do more to establish new strong female characters rather piggybacking on the success of a one who has been male for half a century? What would that bring to the table except for tokenism?
Look, there are actually some quite plausible reasons for switching a character's traits during development, such as if the writer adds something to the mythology that would make it awkward for the character to be [insert race/sex/sexuality here]. Or perhaps it conflicts with something that was already there and needs to be changed to suit it. However, regardless of the reasons why, I would think we could all agree that two fans who "care about gender representation" are not a good enough reason to alter the character designer and game director's creative visions.
Having said all of that, hopefully Comcept's clarification puts a few minds at ease. It's probably the best thing they could've done and maybe it will do the trick.
Anyway, one of the wonderful things about this entire controversy is that even though the typical parties have come out of the woodwork to express their frustration with the "misogyny" towards Dina -- do me a favour and take a look at the comments pictured above. See any hatred of women? -- mainstream gamers don't seem to share that viewpoint. If you visited the Gameranx article above, you might've noticed that Ian Miles Cheong (yes, that one) disabled comments. It's hard not to believe he didn't do that because of the backlash against his previous article on the subject, the blatantly clickbait-titled "Be Respectful and Considerate - Mighty No. 9 Kickstarter Explodes With Misogynist Rage". Some of the comments are very satisfying to read, calling out Cheong for casually, and unprofessionally, making the Mighty No. 9 backers out to be misogynists.
Left-click for larger view.
And my personal favourite:
When a game journalist -- even one as biased as Cheong -- actually starts throwing around the term "misogyny" simply because people object to having the rug pulled out from under them on a product they paid for, game journalism really has hit its lowest point. I live in the UK and tracts like Cheong's are quite reminiscent of the snidely aggressive articles we see in the pages of tabloids like the Daily Mail.
In other words ... it's just a typical day on a gaming news site. Feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at themalesofgames@gmail.com
In advertising, much like in sitcoms, it's not uncommon for men to be portrayed as bumbling, useless figures while women are the down-to-earth, intelligent beings who make all the right decisions and often have to clean up whatever mess the man in their life has made. There's an entire series on Youtube called Misandry In The Media that shines a spotlight on commercials featuring stupid, hapless, perverted, irritating male characters and the women who have to put up with them.
Even though commercials for gaming don't fall back on the same sexist portrayals of men as often as other products do, it does occasionally still crop up. Last year, I mentioned how mind-boggling it was that Ninja Theory used male genital mutilation to advertise Heavenly Sword at E3 2006 (in the appropriately-named "Groin" trailer) in a way that no game developer would ever dream of doing with women:
Over the last couple of weeks, the double standard has cropped up again. The Xbox One has given us a couple of very clear examples of how acceptable it is to mistreat men while being unacceptable to use negative portrayals of women.
It started with a light-hearted letter on the Xbox website, supposedly for people to customise and send to their significant others to persuade them to buy an Xbox One. It's only available in the US, so I haven't been able to view the letter itself, but I believe it can be viewed here if you're in the US and want to check it out. For anyone who can't, here's a screenshot:
Left-click for larger view.
Immediately, this letter faced a backlash on Twitter and from journalists, who believed that the letter pandered to stereotypical viewpoints about women; lines like "you'd rather knit than watch me slay zombies" and "did I mention how beautiful you are" indicate that this is supposedly a man speaking to a woman.
... Except it doesn't. The letter uses completely gender-neutral terms and any words or phrases with green text can be customised with different ones. "Beautiful", for example, can be changed to "handsome" instead. Both the sender and the recipient can be either male or female, in other words, so it's astounding that so many journalists reporting on the letter -- some of whom even acknowledge that the letter is customisable, making their outrage all the more baffling -- immediately believe that this is a man sending the letter to his female partner when it could be addressed to either sex, from someone of either sex:
"What was intended to be a cute, customizable form meant for men to
convince their girlfriends to buy XBox One consoles instead brought
Internet ire to Microsoft."
"Microsoft put together an online letter template to help men ask their significant others for Xbox One consoles — either as a holiday gift or requesting permission to get the system for the household.
The ad tries to be cute with the thinking an 'explanation (and a
little sucking up)' will get the woman to budge. But some see the effort
as sexist and enforcing gender stereotypes."
"Microsoft changed the default language Wednesday on a fill-in-the-blanks form on an Xbox website, which appears to give men talking points to sell women on the merits of the new Xbox One videogame console."
"Microsoft has created the most insanely sexist ad for the Xbox One
after presumably binge-watching Mad Men and missing the point entirely.
Or at least that's the only explanation I can come up with for its comically regressive US web-based ad for Xbox One that assumes its audience is full of males attached to sneering harpies who like to knit, love fitness, and hate video games.
The ad in question suggests that men want an Xbox One, but their
female significant other will chide them for it. To counter this
oppressive, domestic force, Microsoft has written a letter to your
stereotypical shrew explaining the benefits of Xbox One to women who
never lived past 1912."
"“Man,” you may have said recently, “I wish my girlfriend/wife/mistress
would let me buy one of those cool new Xbox One consoles.” “If only
there was someone who could talk to her about it for me,” you may have
exclaimed! Well good news, gamer guy: Microsoft has a shamelessly sexist
open letter you can email to the non-gaming lady in your life."
Some articles are less reactionary than others but it's hard to believe so many of them take the stance of "it's sexist against women". As marketing campaigns go, I can't see it being particularly successful -- is the customisable letter going to persuade anyone any better than a list of the Xbox One's features would? -- and, honestly, the idea of poking fun at a partner not being interested in gaming is a silly way to sell a games console. Having said that, Microsoft made an effort to make the letter gender-neutral. There's nothing to say that it's not a female gamer sending this to her male partner who would "rather knit than watch me slay zombies" (which I think is too over-the-top to be taken seriously anyway). So it's an example of dumb advertising but Microsoft at least took steps to avoid offending people, something they made clear when they apologised and changed the letter.
If only the same could be said for their "His & Hers" Xbox One commercial:
In this video, a man is watching sports on the Xbox One. His girlfriend enters the room, uses the Kinect's voice commands to switch to Dead Rising 3, to the man's protests, and then orders him to get her a beer. He complies but finds that they're out of beer. His girlfriend orders him to go to the store. He does so. The "joke" is that the girlfriend can command her boyfriend as easily as she can with the Xbox One's voice recognition.
Basically, Microsoft have fallen back on the same sitcom stereotypes that I mentioned at the start of the blog; a useless doormat of a boyfriend with the same "yes dear" attitude that sitcom husbands typically have when confronted by their by-the-numbers "strong, independent" wife. However, and I can't quite believe I'm writing this, the advert has beenpraised for subverting stereotypes.
Before I get into that, let's read some of the Youtube comments from that particular video, shall we?
Left-click for larger view.
I apologise for that picture being so large that it won't fit on the blog unless resized but basically, the vast majority of comments on that video imply that the only people who dislike the video are stupid, illiterate, fat, ugly, whiny, sexists, virgins, "butthurt", "fucksticks" and/or "dudebros".
Man, we're so lucky that gaming is a boy's club, aren't we? Who knows what kind of abusive, sexist things would be said about men if it wasn't!
Basically, their interpretation is that the commercial subverts stereotypes because it's a woman telling a man to get back in the kitchen and get her something, in the same way that women face online abuse by people who tell them to "get back in the kitchen and make me a sandwich".
I'm sure that was the intention, just as I'm sure the commercial was intended to subvert stereotypes. It doesn't work, in as much as the man in this particular relationship is as stereotypical as the majority of men in both sitcoms and advertising but, as is always the case, the woman's portrayal is the important one. The man is irrelevant.
So let's say that by having a woman tell a man to get back in the kitchen, the commercial attempted to subvert stereotypes. Do Microsoft truly think that making misandric jokes about men is somehow
making a point or striking a blow against sexism
towards women? Or are they just running the risk of normalising "get
back in the kitchen" jokes for the sake of a very petty commercial? By using sexist advertising to market their product, feminist critics of the games industry have lost what little weight the "women are often faced with 'get back in the kitchen' jokes while playing online" argument had; I know for a fact that, when faced with that argument in the future, I'm going to respond with, "so what? Microsoft used that same 'joke' against men to help sell the Xbox One". It's Heavenly Sword all over again. When anyone points to the website Fat, Ugly or Slutty for examples of the ways women are mistreated online, there's an entire comments section of a Youtube video we can point to for examples of men being described using phrases like "fat little man-dodos", "14-year-old virgins" and "man tears". The commercial hasn't made any strides towards equality.
For all the misandric comments about "man tears", there are actually very few people criticising the commercial, leading me to suspect that the comments section of the video is heavily-moderated. However, I did manage to find this comment thread:
Left-click for larger view.
In this particular comments thread, one feminist Youtuber says that they are offended by the commercial because it doesn't promote gender equality. Others tell them that they are not a feminist.
I think Julie De Santos hits the nail on the head here, before being quickly dismissed by people claiming she "misses the point". My criticism of this commercial and the Youtube comments honestly has nothing to do with the content but rather the reactions to it; the blatant double standard where an explicitly misandric advertisement is praised while an implicitly misogynistic (if that) letter promoting the Xbox One is decried. Microsoft gave an apology for one but not the other and I'm sure nobody is guessing which one. Where's the consistency? Where's the backlash against the "His & Hers" Xbox One commercial and the comments to it?
The only article that I could find even mentioning the "His & Hers" advertisement was from Gameranx, in a piece that praised the commercial while pointing out how the makers of the customisable letter were guilty of "not getting it".
"[On the customisable letter] However, despite the lack of gender specific pronouns, many have
noticed that the structure still comes off as a stereotype: the ole
"gotta ask the ball and chain" trope that permeates heteronormal
relationships. It's almost as if the initial ad was rejected and key
phrases switched in the interest of not coming off as sexist. A noble
pursuit, to be sure, but one rather clumsily executed in this case.
This attempt at gender neutrality seems to follow a new strategy for
Microsoft, who recently released a commercial that adequately challenged
some of the general preconceived notions about the target audience for
the Xbox One. Entitled "His and Hers," the following ad features a woman
gamer who kicks her boyfriend off the couch while he's watching sports
to play a video game.
It almost boggles the mind how a company that came up with the
advertisement above could also be responsible for the former ad copy.
But gotta give 'em props for trying."
Little wonder that this particular article was written by Gameranx editor-in-chief, Ian Miles Cheong; someone who, back during the #1ReasonWhy movement, posted a link on Twitter to his Tumblr, featuring a very misandric poem by Carol Diehl, which suggested everything from men being unable to know what it's like to be raped to being oblivious to the feeling of having the appearance of their private parts mocked.
On occasion, I've defended game journalists for the lack of coverage about certain issues if I feel like they're not significant enough to be covered but this isn't like a few sexist comments on an obscure Facebook page that aren't a big enough issue for journalists to cover. This is an advertisement for a major next-gen console. I would expect some coverage for it beyond Ian Miles Cheong's brief praise. It isn't like I think this issue deserves special treatment but the fact is that a lot less significant gender issues in gaming have been given a lot more coverage because, typically, they involved women as the victims and not men.
Take Carolyn Petit as an example. Back when the backlash occurred over the 9.0 score she awarded to Grand Theft Auto V, some people started up a petition on Change.org called "Gamespot Staff: Fire Carolyn Petit". That particular petition was taken down incredibly quickly and a new one started up that, as of this writing, has a grand total of 46 signatures (and several people only signed it to comment on how stupid it was). It's a far cry from the 22559 comments currently on Gamespot's review of Grand Theft Auto V and not what I'd call indicative of any kind of sexism in the gaming community.
Left-click for larger view.
So why is it that this particular non-issue was covered by sites such as MCV UK, Las Vegas Guardian Express, Chaos Hour and System Wars Magazine? A couple of months ago, I criticised a video on Youtube by Jamin Warren and PBS Game/Show that compared Anita Sarkeesian to Rosa Parks. In that particular video, Warren brought up the petition as a reason why "we need Anita Sarkeesian's feminism". While these aren't sites or videos I regularly read people discussing online, they still covered the subject. That's more than I can say about this.
Likewise, something I'm fairly sure I've never written about is the "Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian" game that sprang up around the time of her Kickstarter campaign. Some of you may have heard about it, since it's one of the subjects constantly brought up whenever the abuse Anita suffered is mentioned. It's been talked and written about by Anita herself. Basically, it was a game hosted on newgrounds.com where the player clicked on a photograph of Anita repeatedly until her face became more and more bruised. Given that it's had such a long-lasting legacy when the subject of sexism in the gaming community comes up, you wouldn't think it was made by just one person and taken down from Newgrounds within a day. Does it make the motive or feelings behind it any less despicable? No. Is it undeserving of the reputation it received? Yes. I'm not going to link to any sites because I don't particularly want to give them traffic but just type "Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian" into a search engine and you'll find articles on it by the Huffington Post, New Statesmen, Destructoid and more.
Then there's an article from The Wire, titled "Gamers Can't Handle the New Female Head at Xbox" by Rebecca Greenfield. Greenfield's justification for this claim? A handful of comments from gamers, several of which aren't even sexist.
So again, I don't think the "His & Hers" commercial deserves special treatment. However, because of the blatant double standard when it comes to male portrayals, it isn't receiving even basic treatment. Misandric marketing combined with single-minded journalism focused only on politically-correct articles leaves us with a sexist commercial I'll be surprised if anyone covers.
The odd thing is that the "His & Hers" video posted above was actually a mirror. The one on Xbox's Youtube channel has more views, more comments and yet a lot less sexism in the comments section. I've no idea how that worked out the way it did.
Finally, although I know that engaging with Youtube commenters is a fool's errand no matter what, there is one from the comments section above that I'd like to mention, from a Youtuber called Nimbose:
"What's funny is that some of the guys who hate this commercial are probably those who tell women 'shut up and get me a sandwich' on a daily basis.
Hmn. Looks like someone can't take what they dish out."
That final line, about not being able to take what they dish out, is the part I'm interested in. Using that same logic, does that mean it's now open-season on making "get back in the kitchen" jokes, since Microsoft have done it with the Xbox One? It's been "dished out" towards men ... so presumably, male gamers can "dish it out" towards women as they please from now on and female gamers won't be allowed to complain because Microsoft already insulted men in the same way? Or at least any complaints will be met with, "well, it looks like some people can't take what they dish out".
I'm guessing that won't happen.
Abusive online comments towards women aren't going to end because a console manufacturer created an advert featuring an insulting portrayal of men. If anything, it'll just encourage more abusive comments and, as long as the "His & Hers" advert goes uncriticised, all the misandric advertising has done is remove any way of defending against the "get back in the kitchen" comments! If nobody steps up to criticise the advert that shows men getting back in the kitchen funny, why would anyone step up to criticise the "get back in the kitchen" jokes aimed at women that the online trolls find funny? If you're willing to promote the sexist advertisting double standard -- criticising the letter, not criticising the commercial -- why would anyone bother to help women?
Simply put, if nobody criticises the "His & Hers" advertisement in the same way they did the customisable letter ... I don't know how gaming can ever be referred to as "a boy's club" with a straight face and it's clear why blogs like this one need to exist.
I meant to write this blog much sooner, shortly after my piece on #1ReasonWhy. Unfortunately, I came down with an illness and I've spent most of the last week lying in bed. That's pushed back this blog by a few days and, more annoyingly, one of the sites reporting on #1ReasonWhy has updated the Twitter posts it had embedded in the article. Try as I might, I haven't been able to find the tweet I wanted to write about. It was a #1ReasonWhy about being afraid to read the comments sections on articles about feminism in gaming.
For all the people who are critical of those comments sections, this (informal) open letter is addressed to you.
I can't imagine there are many feminist critics of the video game industry who ask "why are the people who leave those comments so mean?" because gaming sites and high-profile figures have a habit of portraying them in very black-and-white groups; either they support the feminist argument being made, or they're misogynists. By the mainstream gaming sites, the logical arguments about men's issues in games -- the sensible, fair-minded ones -- either don't exist or they're not worthy of discussion and are dismissed along with the misogynists. I have a theory that this has a lot to do with why there are so many misogynist comments beneath feminist articles on gaming sites. I'll go into that towards the end.
On the off-chance that this post brings any new readers, I'd like to give a bit of backstory; this was the year that I decided to start a blog about misandry in video games because this was the first year I noticed such a dismissive attitude towards misandry in video games. Getting annoyed at a polarising game journalist like Jim Sterling is a bit like going to a KKK rally and then complaining that it's a tad on the racist side but earlier this year, he wrote this article in response to criticism of Anita Sarkeesian's upcoming video series, Tropes Vs. Women in Videogames. It highlights all the typical responses that men's rights activists receive when raising concerns about men's issues. Dismissiveness. Insults. Lack of counter-arguments to existing criticisms. The strange belief that these men's issues don't exist unless in response to someone raising issues about women. That one, in particular, is a head-scratcher; the only reason Sterling and the other critics think these issues don't exist without provocation is because they don't take an interest in men's issues. If they did, they'd see the concern, but because they don't, they don't. It's not rocket science.
Sterling wasn't the only one. There was a blog post earlier this year called "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is" that focused on how it was impossible -- or ridiculously difficult -- for men to be discriminated against because they have "privilege" (although the article was written specifically to outline how easy straight white men had it without using that term. All it did was provide a rather smarmy definition of what privilege was). This blog post gained plenty of publicity in video game circles even though it didn't have anything to do with video games beyond the "difficulty setting" analogy. As for its content, it doesn't tell men's rights activists anything they're not already used to reading. Like the Sterling example, it doesn't state any counter-arguments or cite examples. It outlines why you, straight white male reader, have it better and it won't take "hold on, what about ..." for an answer.
The reason I'm bringing up these blogs and articles now, months after they were originally posted, is because the #1ReasonWhy movement and all the responses to it over the past two weeks has brought back all the same reactions to men's issues. The dismissiveness, the hostility, the insults and so on. There's also an oddly condescending attitude towards the people who disagree with the movement; a "the guys who don't get it" phrase tends to crop up and "guys who get it" are praised. The "lowest difficulty setting" blog post had a hint of this too.
For anyone with a morbid curiosity, take a look where that link leads to. A highly misandric "poem" by Carol Diehl that suggests men don't know what it's like for other men to be raped by women, have women promoted over them because of their sex or mock the appearance of their genitals. Looking at (video game journalist, Gameranx editor-in-chief) Ian Miles Cheong's tweets, he seems to believe every stereotype about men's rights activists without doing any research into men's issues. Once again, no counter-arguments. I hope my feminist readers are starting to notice a pattern here.
It seems like the critics think the only reason why anyone would disagree with the #1ReasonWhy movement -- or any previous feminist campaigns, such as Anita Sarkeesian's Tropes Vs. Women in Videogames -- is because they don't "get" it or they're misogynists. Again, it seems like an excuse to avoid acknowledging the genuine criticisms. Criticisms like the fact that women aren't the only people who face verbal abuse during online multiplayer games but sexist insults are the only insults acknowledged as a problem, for example. Much like, say, the unrealistic standards of beauty in games, it's an issue that faces both sexes but is treated as one that only affects women. That's before issues that predominately affect men are brought up, such as making up the majority of victims of violence.
I wanted to write about this because last week, Gamespot posted one of their Feedbackula videos -- as far as I can tell, a video series highlighting and examining their members' comments from previous articles, usually about upcoming games -- and the arguments left a lot to be desired, to say the least. Here it is, if you'd like to take a look:
Hosted by Gamespot UK's Johnny Chiodni, it was basically an excuse to mock the opinions of people who disagreed with them. Now, there are certain comments on every article about misogyny in gaming that I wouldn't mind receiving insults but what galls me is that Gamespot would sooner make a video criticising "easy" comments than -- you guessed it -- providing counter-arguments to sensible ones. In fact, for those who chose not to watch the video, at the mere mention of men suffering discrimination in games too, Johnny "humourously" bangs his shoe against his head, bemoaning "why'd you have to ruin it?"
Johnny himself doesn't even seem to have a very good grasp on the issues that affect women, let alone men; when discussing the sexualisation of women, we see a picture of a female Skyrim character wearing heavy armour. Johnny describes this as "titillating" because the armour has breasts. To me, this completely undermines every single other argument about sexualised women in games; what's the point in criticising the skimpy outfits and bouncing breasts in Dead Or Alive if an aesthetic choice to make the female characters visibly female in Skyrim suddenly counts as "titillating"? When that becomes an example of sexualised female characters, absolutely anything can be. I think a commenter on Gamespot called yamilvirginio said it best:
- "Ironic" hipster beard and glasses: Check ✓
- Arrogant and annoying personality: Check ✓
- Putrid stench of white knight anyone can smell from their monitor: Check ✓
- Cherry-picking the most radical comments and reading them in a silly,
ironic voice: Check ✓
- Homophobic undertone of the ending message ✓
Yep, everything clears out here. Thank you Gamespot® for enlightening these
poor sheep!
The homophobic undertone of the ending message, for anyone who didn't watch the video, was suggesting that anyone who had a problem supporting #1ReasonWhy go join the navy, while the song and video for The Village People's "In The Navy" played in the background. The implication being that if you don't support the women of #1ReasonWhy, you're gay.
The list goes on and on. The #1ReasonWhy site itself is dismissive of men's issues in its FAQ (emphasis by me):
Given the reaction of some of the other figures in the video game journalism industries, I'm actually slightly appreciative of the fact that the owner of 1reasonwhy.net thought to say he/she agreed. I'm no fool; I'm sure it was simply to mollify men's rights activists and to avoid an inundated inbox but frankly, I'm thankful even for that. Other people make no bones about dismissing and insulting people who dare to mention men's rights:
And there's an underlying idea, backed up by things like the Feedbackula video and the idea that guys "don't get it", that critique of movements like #1ReasonWhy isn't allowed.
I'd like to contrast this tweet with everything else in this blog; men complaining that women are complaining about sexism is wrong. Men complaining that men are complaining about sexism describes Jim Sterling's article, Johnny Chiodni's videos, David A Hill Jr's tweet, etc. I went into this quite a lot last time but, again, all these tweets, articles, videos and so forth, all this misandric "men can't be discriminated against" dismissiveness, it all has the unintended effect of making women seem like children. What's being said here is that women have the monopoly on victimhood and how dare those men try to claim otherwise.
Speaking of which, this isn't just men criticising #1ReasonWhy. Someone sent me a link to a PC Gamer article on #1ReasonWhy and directed my attention to one of the comments below. Read it yourself and see what you think:
What we have here is a woman called Iara who refuses to accept her status as a supposed victim and two men (I assume glix is male) who are telling her, "no. You're a victim". The conversation continued beyond these two replies but there wasn't much else of substance.
Let's break this down, bit by bit. First of all, glix's comment that Iara's experiences don't speak for everyone's. That's fair enough but on Twitter, we have thousands upon thousands of examples of people who are claiming that they're providing evidence of institutionalised sexism in the gaming industry. Now what exactly would happen if one of the critics of #1ReasonWhy actually pointed out that the experiences of the women using that hashtag weren't the same as everyone else's?
In fact, I think we might end up with a response much like the one I posted by Kevin VanOrd in my last post:
Maybe this is just my interpretation but it seems to me as if when a woman uses the #1ReasonWhy hashtag on Twitter, it's evidence. When a woman disagrees with the movement, it's subjective; we see the sentence "your experiences don't speak for everyone's".
It's much the same case with Tom Hatfield's comment. Tom has apparently read the "Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is" blog post, judging from his comment about guys having an "easy mode". That's neither here nor there though. What's important is how Tom's reply unintentionally highlights the hypocrisy of the #1ReasonWhy movement.
Put it this way; if a man objected to a #1ReasonWhy example written by a woman in the same way that Tom did, the backlash would be quite severe. Let's say a woman wrote a #1ReasonWhy where she stated she had been groped at a convention. Then, let's say a man wrote to her and said, "that's not sexism". Presumably, he'd receive lots of hate messages. I can imagine he'd be called a misogynist for not denouncing such an act as sexist and he'd be criticised for daring to tell a woman how to interpret her own experiences.
What we have here is a reversal of the positions on sexism. Iara is stating how she doesn't see the verbal abuse she's suffered as an example of sexism but no sooner has she done so than Tom Hatfield rushes in to say "that's sexism"! He's telling a woman how to interpret what she herself has experienced, just as in the first example. Do me a favour; quickly scroll back up and look at Tarryn van der Byl's tweet (@nxtrms). "Because we can't even complain about sexism in the industry without men complaining that we're complaining". That's a complaint about men thinking they know better than the women giving their experiences but isn't that exactly what Tom is doing here? Although just because Tom supports the "right" position on sexism ("everything is sexist, women are children, they need help") and Iara supports the "wrong" one ("everyone is verbally abused, I can deal with it, I refuse to play my victim card"), Tom doesn't suffer the same criticism that a man in Iara's shoes would.
I have nothing but praise for Iara for having such a wise head on her shoulders and, thankfully, I didn't notice any "she might not even be female!" accusations in the PC Gamer comments section (and it wouldn't really matter if she wasn't; Tom Hatfield didn't seem to think so and his reaction is what's important, rather than Iara's gender). However, just in case there was any doubt about women taking issue with #1ReasonWhy too, the genuinely wonderful InuitInua steps in to remove all doubt:
In my last blog, I came to the same conclusion as InuitInua about the #1ReasonWhy movement being about special treatment rather than equality and she had a few specific topics from tweets she wanted to pick apart too. It deserves a watch.
Now, something that I imagine a lot of feminist video game commenters and critics don't get is that people who support men's issues in games support equality in games. That's important. I've heard people say, "people object to women entering a field that has been male-dominated for years and expecting it to immediately change to suit them". I don't think this is the case at all. None of us object to women being given the floor to air the issues that affect them in games, no matter how few there are or how short a time they've been a part of the industry. If they're here, they deserve their say. It's when women are the only ones who are given the floor that things become a problem.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened to the video game industry. I'd like to go into two completely separate tangents to illustrate this point. Remember what happened to Ryan Perez? He was a writer for Destructoid who, to quote my own blog on the subject:
"... Tweeted that he believed that actress, writer and internet 'celebrity'
Felicia Day was 'a glorified booth babe' and asked the question, 'does
she actually contribute anything useful to this industry, besides
retaining a geek persona?'. After a massive outcry from many, many of
Felicia's friends, fans and coworkers, Ryan lost his job."
Now, the reason Ryan lost his job was because his comments were deemed "misogynistic", even though there was nothing sexist against women about them. He disliked Felicia Day and that, apparently, was enough to brand him a woman-hater. The point I want to make about Ryan is that he made those Twitter comments about Felicia Day in his private time and yet still ended up losing his job over them. Meanwhile, Jim Sterling professionally wrote an article expressing very misandric sentiments and presumably got paid by Gamefront to do so. I'd say that's a lot worse that Ryan's not-quite-misogynistic barbs that were directed at Felicia Day.
The second point I wanted to make was about our old friend Anita Sarkeesian, of Feminist Frequency. The latest blog post on her website outlines the talk she gave at this year's TEDxWomen in Washington, DC. Thankfully, she provides a transcript of her speech, which is predominately about the abuse she suffered when launching her Kickstarter project. As I've said before, I don't encourage that kind of abuse -- I looked over the comments again before writing this post and the racist language made me cringe -- but there are a few parts of her speech that I'd like to quote that highlight why people are critical of Anita:
"And whether it’s a cyber mob or just a handful of hateful comments,
the end result is maintaining and reinforcing and normalizing a culture
of sexism — where men who harass are supported by their peers and
rewarded for their sexist attitudes and behaviors and where women are
silenced, marginalized and excluded from full participation.
A ‘boys club’ means no girls allowed. And how do they keep women and
girls out? Just like this. By creating an environment that is just too
toxic and hostile to endure ...
... Everyday I am encouraged by the women who persevere, who continue to engage and who refuse to be silenced."
To me, this seems like a biased view of things, probably the main criticism of Anita. One thing I hope I've achieved with this blog is build a case for a view of gaming culture where not only are men not supported by their peers for sexist attitudes and behaviour -- look at the Sterling article/Feedbackula video/the entire #1ReasonWhy movement and you'll realise the idea of men being rewarded for sexist behaviour is nothing but fantasy -- but sexism against men is overwhelmingly supported. Whether it's insulting men who support men's issues outright, dismissing the issues, ignoring them or portraying certain issues as only affecting women when they actually affect both sexes, there's a lot of examples of men being silenced and marginalised in the gaming industry. That's what I'd describe as a toxic environment. If that's what Anita considers a "boy's club", I'd hate to see what a "girl's club" looks like! Meanwhile, women had tens of thousands of #1ReasonWhy tweets, every high-profile gaming site (and several mainstream ones) supporting the cause and Anita Sarkeesian receiving $150,000 for a video series. Hardly what I'd call being "silenced", in spite of the abuse Anita received.
So finally -- finally -- we come to my theory about misogynist
comments in feminist articles on gaming sites. To every feminist reader
of this blog who has ever wondered why so many of those comments exist,
take a look at all the examples involving men and men's issues above.
Where they've been ignored. Dismissed. Insulted. Where the men who make
them have been told "grow up", "you don't get it" or "you have it easy".
Meanwhile, women's issues are being given "air time" on every website
that's reporting on Anita Sarkeesian and #1ReasonWhy.
Why do those misogynistic comments exist? Well with all this anti-male sentiment, how do you think people are going to react? What do you expect? With intelligent, well thought-out criticisms of these movements completely ignored, why would people bother writing them and just say "to heck with it" and throw out some misogynist comments to get a reaction? You can say it's immature but, hey, so is the attitude towards men's issues. The fact that plenty of the writers of this content are male is also pretty telling, in that male writers have carte blanche to say what they like about men in a way that female writers can't. I don't want that to sound like a paranoid cry of "the women forced the men to do it!" but rather an acknowledgement of how feminist critics frame things; a woman in the gaming industry can't very well write a scathing attack on male gamers who don't support, say, Anita Sarkeesian's Kickstarter project in the same way that Jim Sterling can because, if she does, all those misogynist comments will actually be easy to justify. If Jim Sterling writes the same thing, however, the worst insults that'll come his way are "white knight" and "mangina", making the commenters look a bit mental.
I have a second theory but this one needs to be tested. This is where any feminist readers of my blog will come in very handy, especially on the off-chance that any of you are in high-profile positions. Next time you run an article about sexism in video games, give the male point of view as well as the female one. If you intend to criticise Bayonetta for sexual poses, criticise Final Fantasy's trend of flawless teenage male characters at the same time. Don't just throw it in as a single "oh, yeah, men are sexualised too" at the end of the article either. Point out the lack of real-life teenagers who bear any resemblance to, say, Vaan and the unrealistic standard of beauty it promotes.
My theory? Acknowleding sexualisation of both sexes in video games will reduce a huge amount of the hostility towards the article in question. The frustrating thing is that there is no reason for feminists in the gaming industry not to do this, other than to claim victimhood as a specifically female trait. There are tons of sayings that justify supporting both men's and women's issues in games and you'll have heard them all before; "what's good for the goose is good for the gander". "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". Even the classic "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". You can even quote Jim Sterling (in the name of equality rather than misandry) and say "Start. Fucking. Sharing". So why do feminist critics of the gaming industry make it such an uphill battle for themselves? Why support women's issues and then complain about misogynist comments when you could support the same issues for both sexes and have your approval rating skyrocket?
Obviously, misogynist comments would never completely disappear, even if arguments about men's issues in games were taken seriously. There are always going to be some unsavoury characters in every industry, regardless of how much progress is made. Valve's Christine Phelan said much the same thing in her interview with FMV Magazine. That's certainly a shame but there are things that I think could be done right now to reduce the sexist comments (outlined in the two paragraphs above). If feminist critics are genuinely critical of these misogynist comments and genuinely support equality rather than special treatment, like I said, there's no reason not to support men's issues in interviews/comments/tweets too. Don't "pull a Sarkeesian" by claiming to find misogyny morally wrong but then choosing not to do anything about them just because having more misogynistic comments supports your viewpoint. Again, that just portrays women as children in need of help rather than adults who have the power to change things.
I suppose that's all I have to say. I'd like to finish by linking to a video that a friend of mine posted in the comments of my last blog, by a Youtuber called Billy Clement.
While I don't agree with everything Billy says, there are a few things I like about the video. His comparison to a man in the cosmetics industry is quite entertaining and, most importantly, he reads out a statement from a male developer in the video game industry who'd like to remain anonymous. Assuming it's true, it's quite a damning indictment of "equality" in the gaming industry and wouldn't look out of place on a male version of the #1ReasonWhy movement. One of his final lines sums up the #1ReasonWhy campaign's flaws in their entirety, however, and I'd like to quote it here:
"I'm not arguing against inclusion. Inclusion's good and we all want to see more female gamers. But exclusion is bad and what we really don't want is a games industry to turn into a mirror of television, with weak, stupid, ineffective male characters only appearing to make the superwomen look good."
The part about inclusion and exclusion alone hits the nail on the head; just like I said last time and just like InuitInua says in the video above, it's special treatment -- not equality -- that people are recommending as a solution to the #1ReasonWhy movement's problems. That's exclusion, masquerading as equality.
Well, that's that. Now I suppose I'll just have to wait for my sexuality to be called into question by a "progressive" Gamespot personality.
Please feel free to leave a comment or write to me at themalesofgames@gmail.com.
