WEBVTT - Anita Sarkeesian and Video Game Journalism 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:11.640 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from stuff com. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:15.640 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:19.400 and I have a special guest today. Kristen from Stuff 0:00:19.480 --> 0:00:22.759 Mom Never Told You has decided that she is going 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.759 to lower herself to the bar of tech stuff and 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:31.880 join me in the studio. Jonathan Lowering, Lowering, I'm happy 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.680 to be here. Thanks for having me on. I'm happy 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:36.479 to have you on. We've done a couple of we've 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.840 done a brain stuff together, which was a lot of fun. Yeah. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.120 But and I got to be on an episode of 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.000 Stuff Mom Never Told You. That's right, you came you 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:49.080 were our expert on trolling, not not because of your trolling. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.520 I kept that past locked up. Yeah, yeah, we didn't 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:55.080 talk about that. It's just my expertise on the subject 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.240 of trolls. And we're going to be talking about something 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.280 that very much involves trolling today, although that's not the 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.560 focus of this conversation. We're gonna be talking a lot 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:08.760 about Anita Sarkisian and her tropes against women, tropes versus 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:12.920 women's series, specifically the troops versus women in video games. Uh, 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.280 And because we're gonna be talking about a really serious 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:20.360 subject that has had a lot of attention devoted to 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.280 it from all quarters of the Internet, including some of 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.319 the darkest ones. I think it it's important to let 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:29.480 all of you guys know out there, we're gonna be 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.720 talking about some heavy stuff. Uh, it is not all 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.280 sunshine and roses. There's some really unpleasantness going on here, 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.640 So trigger warnings out there. I mean, a lot of 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.080 the stuff we're gonna be talking about is specifically things 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:46.880 like violence or implied violence, or threats against women or 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:51.480 anyone who actually supports them in their their quest to 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:56.280 just be heard. So keep that in mind because we 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.760 don't usually explore those sort of things on Texa. But 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.840 it's an important conversation and it's certainly one that's dominated 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:04.840 the tech world. I mean, if you are on Twitter 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:08.960 and you're following any uh folks in the technology sector, 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.880 you're going to have seen stuff about Sarkasian at some point. Yeah. 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.560 I have a feeling that for a lot of your listeners, 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.880 her name probably rings a bell, whether they've seen a 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:24.280 Tropes Versus Women video or simply heard about her. Because 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:31.160 there's been so much conversation and critique, and not even critique, 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.760 just trending into outright hatred. There have been there have 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.799 been some attacks that have nothing to do with any 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.200 of her work, as at least the attack itself has 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.560 nothing to do with her work. The attack would just 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.160 be a nasty, terrible thing to say. I mean, you 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.600 read some of these attacks and you think, when would 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:52.560 you ever say this to another human being? I mean, 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.799 well you wouldn't you think It's see, the chances are 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.639 if some of these people would see Sarkasian face to 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.320 face on the street, they would not say the kinds 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.080 of things that they would say online, which is something 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.480 that we talked about. Actually when you came on stuff. 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.600 I've never told you to talk about trolling, just how 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.280 the anonymity of the internet can sometimes fuel the sort 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.720 of vile because it's easier to type something out than 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:19.480 to say something to someone's face. Well, you don't have 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.359 the social pressures that you have in real life. Right, 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:24.640 in real life, I have the social pressure It is 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:30.160 socially unacceptable for me to rent and rave against somebody, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.960 to threaten somebody. That is not acceptable in society. But 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.280 online there are a different set of rules and or 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.160 or sometimes just a complete lack of rules, depending upon 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.520 what areas of the internet you're talking about. But to 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.160 really dig down into this, first we need to talk 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.480 about who Anita Sarkisian is. And she's a media critic. 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.160 And while the recent conversation has all been about her 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.920 work in studying women's roles in video games, that's not 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.400 the only thing she's ever done. The Troops Versus Women 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.720 is actually a series that pre day. It's the video 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:06.720 game critique. Yeah, it's It's been interesting too and startling 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:11.840 to to see the development of Sarkasian's career around this 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.200 video games project, because when I first came across her work, 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.200 it was with a series of six videos that she 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.880 produced looking specifically at a trope surrounding female characters on 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.320 film and in TV. So the first video that she 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.600 put out, for instance, was about the Manic Pixie dream Girl. 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.800 She clearly did not receive any death threats for talking 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.520 about the Manic Pixie dream Girl, but then didn't say, 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.760 you know, I built my career on this. Yeah, she 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:43.920 was gonna smash her over the head with her ukulele 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.000 or anything like that. And she also devoted videos to 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.839 things like women in refrigerators, which does tie into comics 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.359 the smurfet principle, which comes up again in her video 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:59.120 game series The Evil Seductress Mystical Pregnancy, and then finally 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.719 the st a feminist, which for people unfamiliar with this trope, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:11.360 it's essentially hyper feminist character used in shows or movies 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:17.560 too at the same time lampoon feminism. And it's a 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.920 little ironic that this was the last video I'm aware 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.080 of that she made before she started in on this 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:27.880 video game project, because she has now sort of been 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.720 treated as a straw feminist by her haters. Well, well, yeah, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:33.120 this is one of those things where you start to 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.640 attribute arguments to someone that they have never personally put 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.599 forth as their own, and then you go forward and 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.840 knocked down that argument and say, see this person was wrong. Well, 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.160 if the person never made that argument in the first place, 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:48.480 no they're not wrong. That's that's the whole straw man 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.920 argument from the beginning. So for those of you out 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:53.279 there who may be confused just by the term trope, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.200 we're really talking about a figurative use of some concept 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:00.600 that tends to become sort of common currency. It's not 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.800 quite the same as cliche, although the two can be related, 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.040 but a trope is something that, uh, you know, it's 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.640 an element that you see within a work that you 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.680 can identify and say, oh, I also saw this in 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:15.599 this other thing. And it may be a completely different medium. 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.080 It doesn't have to be the same medium. So here's 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.040 an example, Jump the shark. That's a phrase everyone has heard. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.360 Jump the shark. Is this trope about a moment in 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.719 a series that changes the the tone of that series 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.760 enough so there's no longer what it used to be. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.800 It is lesser than what it used to be, and 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.840 we view it as something negative at that point. Uh. 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.600 The the woman in the Fridge trope that you mentioned 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.320 comes from Green Lantern specifically. That's that was a comic 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:45.599 book where the hero Green Lantern comes back and finds 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:49.920 that his girlfriend had been murdered and shoved into his refrigerator, 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:52.360 and the whole purpose of it was to give Green 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.720 Lantern a a story arc. Had nothing to do with 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.440 the female character she was. She was just the kind 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.000 of the launching point for his story. And that's sort 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.000 of where a lot of the criticism comes in from 0:07:07.000 --> 0:07:10.200 Sarkasian towards video games and and different types of media 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.000 as well. She was specifically focusing on video games for 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.800 this project. Now, it's a project that she sought crowdfunding for. 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.200 Back in two thousand and twelve, she launched a Kickstarter campaign. 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.040 She had a goal of six thousand dollars to produce 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:26.240 a series of videos where she would critique video games 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:29.239 and she would look at a broad spectrum of games 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:33.640 and see how women's roles were depicted in these various 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.360 video games. And it wasn't it wasn't a crusade to 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.560 go and destroy video games. She makes a point that 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.880 video games are designed to be fun, and you can 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.880 enjoy a video game while still applying critical thinking and 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.960 saying this game is the gameplay is great, I really 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.280 enjoy elements of the story. This one thing really bothers me, though, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.679 And she also is very careful to say a trope 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.800 is a trope. It's not. It's not the definition of 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:04.520 an entire game. But the presence or even the ubiquity 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:07.800 of certain tropes in the video game industry can be 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.320 troubling because that is a reflection of and a reinforcement 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:16.920 of certain cultural ideas that can be harmful not just 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.120 to women, but to men as well. And so the 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:21.880 thing is that I think a lot of people don't 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.480 pay enough attention to the actual arguments. They have a 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.480 knee jerk reaction of you are attacking something that I love, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:35.720 therefore you need to be destroyed, which is it sounds dramatic, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.240 but that's very much what's happening, absolutely, and I mean 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.800 it's it was notable that she wanted to dig into 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.880 tropes and video games at this point where it is 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.640 important as a media critic that she is to look 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.800 into video games considering just how widely their play, and 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.199 I mean in the same way. I mean she started 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.520 out with film and television, which you know, again another 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.320 thing that so many people are consuming. And to say 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.760 that what you see on screen, the kinds of tropes 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:08.679 that are on screen, the portrayals of different people, not 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:13.560 just women, but people of color or men, people with disabilities, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:16.439 et cetera, the way that they are portrayed on screen 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:21.520 certainly does have an off screen impact. And with that 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.920 Kickstarter campaign, she initially just you know, like you said, 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:31.080 one six thousand dollars take five videos, and she immediately 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.199 as soon as the Kickstar video went up, people started 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.880 just making so many vile comments and attacking her and 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:44.439 essentially trying to. I think her Wikipedia page was hacked 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:49.280 at one point. Vandalism, Yeah, like all sorts of incidents 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.600 happening to where everyone, like a lot of other people 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:58.560 came to her aid and she ended up raising almost 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.920 one fift nine thousand dollars and with that money, since 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.520 it was so overfunded, said okay, well guess what, haters 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.920 instead of five videos and making twelve right, So the 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.040 and of course a lot of the haters ended up 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:16.040 saying that she was conning Kickstarter. That's not how kickstarter 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:17.760 works people. All right, let me let me just break 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.560 this down for you. Um, there are a lot of 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.679 things that you can criticize people for. I mean, I 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.280 think I think criticism of arguments is important, but you 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.559 have to make sure that you're actually criticizing the argument. 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.520 Conning Kickstarter, No, she put forth exactly what she wanted 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.280 to do and people decided to support her. Kicksterter has 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:37.960 nothing to do with that. Kickstarter has an interest if 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:40.760 a project does well, because that's how they make money. 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:45.000 But Kickstarter is not being conned. They had a platform, 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.679 she submitted a project, the project was approved, and the 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.559 project did really really well. It was quote unquote overfunded, 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.640 This is not unique to Sarkasian. We see it all 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.559 the time. I've been part of Kickstarter projects, you know, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.559 I've can tributed to some that got crazy over funded too, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.120 and you never hear anyone complain about those. Um it's 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:10.199 it's so, let's let's set that aside. There's also, like 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:15.439 you said, this crazy uh flurry of insults and attacks 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:20.480 against sarkasi And before she's ever produced a single video. Now, 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.320 back in two thousand twelve, before she had ever even 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.880 scripted out the first video, she was already becoming the 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.680 target of attacks. And this pretty much to me says 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.079 the goal is to silence her. There's no you can't 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.960 criticize an argument that hasn't been made. You don't know 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.559 what the argument is yet. Well, she has a website 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:43.640 called Feminist Frequency, and I think simply by virtue of 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:49.040 the title or word feminist being anywhere near her name, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.520 that's going to attract a lot of negative attention. And 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:57.400 I also find it kind of hilarious that because of 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:02.000 that swarm of attack with the intent of silencing her, 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.720 if that hadn't happened, Jonathan, I have a feeling she 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:12.000 wouldn't have gotten so much attention. Because of that, maybe 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.360 her Kickstarter would have funded, but maybe that maybe it 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.320 would have been a series that a handful of people 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.640 would have seen and it never would have gone beyond that. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.880 But because of this intense focused hatred, it ended up 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.439 grabbing a lot more attention, which also, to me, tells 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:30.320 me that it's a much more important issue than a 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:32.120 lot of people would say. I mean, the fact that 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:36.840 there is so much vitriolic hatred aimed at her tells 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.720 me that even as as careful as she is to say, look, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:43.640 I'm not saying that video games make people go out 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:46.080 and be terrible. What I'm saying is that it is 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.480 a reflection of and a reinforcement of certain ideas and culture, 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.400 and that we cannot be immune to those. Those are 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.880 influences on us. Whether or not we end up, uh, 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.120 you know, embracing them as our own fullosophy is another matter, 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.000 but they do influence us. You know, she's very careful 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.000 to make that distinction. The fact that she's been the 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.440 target of such incredible attacks says to me that maybe 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.880 she was being a little conservative in that, and that 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.000 perhaps her you know, it's a little it's a little 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:17.120 bit more of an impact than she had given it credit, 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.640 although she is being very methodical about this, which I think, 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:25.640 you know, is laudable, especially considering the incredible, you know, 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.960 opposition she's faced. I can't imagine having encountered this kind 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.520 of thing. It was kind of crazy. So her series started, 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.040 uh and launched in March of two thousand thirteen, and 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:42.320 the very first episode was a discussion of part one 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:46.719 of three on the Damsel in Distress trope, and she 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.320 pretty much breaks it down as the damsel in distress 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:54.360 is the the object that the hero is trying to 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:59.200 uh to to rescue. She she's Princess Pea. Yeah, she 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.760 has princess speech, which Princess Peach. The only reason Princess 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.000 Peach exists is for Mario to have something to go after. Right. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.400 She doesn't have any personality of her own, She has 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:10.120 no But then again, you know, you could say, oh, 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:12.679 Mario didn't have any personality. But the thing is that 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.800 this this trope extends well beyond the Mario era, but 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:21.000 you still get a Princess Peach, right. The character uh, 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.440 there's no intrinsic value to her. The only value is 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.320 the fact that she quote unquote belongs to the hero, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.240 but has been stolen away by the villain or some 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.040 variation thereof. And so the first three episodes really focus 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.359 on this damsel in distressed trope. The first one specifically 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.200 looks at the basic trope, the Princess Peach version, and 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.520 the second one looks at more recent examples, which get 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.960 pretty grim. We're talking about, uh, not just a a 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.760 female character who has no real agency, she has no 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.480 control over her existence. She's either being rescued by someone 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:58.040 or kidnapped by someone. She's not doing anything on her own. 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:02.920 But often she's also the m of some pretty nasty violence, 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.720 uh in more recent ones. And this is sometimes an 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:10.080 effort to make a video game seem darker and more edgy. Uh. 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.280 The idea being that, well, if we show the villain 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:18.280 hitting a quote unquote defenseless, vulnerable, helpless woman, then that 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.160 makes him a really bad guy, and you're a really 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.440 good guy for stopping him and rescuing the woman. Meanwhile, 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:27.320 the woman has She's just there to be the recipient 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.960 of abuse. She has no other purpose. And her point 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.720 is that you don't have any you know, the sort 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.120 of investment that you put into the male protagonist. There's 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.080 none of that in the female character. She can't do 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:46.120 anything for herself. She's not even really a person. She's 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.800 just a thing for a character to win. If if 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.640 she were replaced with some other like object of value, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.920 there'd be no difference there, except for the fact that 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:58.600 it would be truly an object and not a person, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.240 or the depiction of a person being treated as an object. 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.520 And it really makes you think, um, for someone who 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:11.200 like shocking news here, I'm a guy, so yeah, I know, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.120 and as a guy, the thing is that the video 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:19.160 games do cater to my demographic, right, I'm I'm a male, 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.600 and so there are a lot of things that are 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.640 in video games that I may have been kind of 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.280 aware of under the surface, but never really given much 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.480 thought to because it didn't directly affect me. I was 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.720 I was the character that was the protagonist watching these 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.200 videos in sequence and seeing sarkas and lay them out 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:43.760 methodically and compelling lee and giving endless examples. I mean, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.320 it's it's when she sits there and says, all right, here, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.920 here's an example of uh, a character who has no 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.800 power of her own. Here's another one, and here are 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.280 twelve more of them. It really starts to sink in, 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.960 and I think, wow, I have been largely ignorant of this, 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.680 and I think a lot of it has to do 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.520 with that that being ingrained in culture overall, not just 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:12.800 video games. That's a microcosm of where this extends beyond 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.800 in all realms of life. And I think I needed 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.920 to wake up a long time ago. This series really 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:21.399 needed to happen years ago, I think. But well, and 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.520 I think that that often is a point lost on 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:28.160 a lot of people who don't want to hear what 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.919 she has to say. Um. I think, first of all, 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.880 a lot of times it seems like many of her 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.960 loudest hitters don't even watch the videos themselves, and also 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.920 don't understand the broader point that the video game is 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:46.760 more of the example, or more of a symptom of 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:51.359 a broader issue of and reflection of these kinds of 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:56.199 patterns that have been happening historically in real life are 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.320 reflected on you know, big screens, small screen in or 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.120 now understand or in stories in literature, and now understandably 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:08.200 are showing up again and again in video games as well. 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.680 So it's not I think it's just often misinterpreted as 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:15.240 her just wanting to take down video games where it's 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.560 really like, no, what, what's trying. What she's attempting to 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.320 maybe highlight and dismantle is that issue that we are 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:25.679 seeing in the video game. It's having wrong with playing 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:28.280 video game. Yeah. She actually gives quite a few examples 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.439 of games that either attempt to overturn these things and 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:38.480 sometimes unsuccessfully so because the attempt was perhaps a poor 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.280 attempt or misunderstanding of what the underlying cause of the 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.840 issue was, and so it ends up being kind of 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.680 a surface level way of dealing with it. Or it's 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.080 there's some that just apparently have a beautiful way of 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:57.560 treating the subject matter entirely, so you just you don't 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:00.320 have those same tropes that you run into. So the 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.199 Damsel in Distressed ones are pretty, um, pretty tough to 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.160 get around. And she in the third episode, the part 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:09.680 three of the Damsels in Distress, that's where she really 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:11.560 looks at some of the video games that tried to 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.720 counteract it, including the Dudes in Distress video games where 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.800 it turns it on its head, and she makes a 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.120 really good point that I think a lot of gamers 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.600 miss out on, and that really good point is that 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.040 a dude in distress is never going to be the 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.679 same as a damsel in distress. It either ends up 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.480 being played as a joke, because that's not how things happen. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.680 Look at the last couple of millennia of fiction, and 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.479 you have the damsel in distressed trope well and truly 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.880 ingrained in Western literature and not just video games. Uh. 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.639 She says. It either becomes across as a joke or 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.439 it doesn't. Even if it's not a joke, that you 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:54.800 don't have that cultural weight, that cultural baggage behind it, right, 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.200 for the damsel in distress for women, that's something that 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.760 has been a depiction women in literature, like I said, 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.399 for millennia. For men, it's not. So there's not that 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.480 cultural baggage for men. So turning that on its head 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:12.200 doesn't necessarily work. It doesn't. It doesn't really be like, oh, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.720 look the tables are turned. How does it feel. Well, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.040 it's the exception, right, So it's it's like, well, that's 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.800 that's weird. Well, and it's a good example too of 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:27.240 how the how it's erroneous to think that the solution 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:33.040 to perhaps let's say, in video game terms of violence 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.919 being perpetuated toward women women being the victims of violence 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.600 is to simply just switch those roles and have men 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.320 being the victims of violence. That doesn't really necessarily solve things. 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:47.240 And she makes another good point of that in the 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.399 fourth episode with the Mrs Mail video game character. Is 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.240 talking about how there have been a number of video games, 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:58.400 such as, most prominently Mrs pac Man, where you take 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.600 the stock Mail video game character and just put a 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.159 bow on her head and then problems solved. But it's like, no, 0:21:05.320 --> 0:21:08.360 that's not really, that's not really what we're getting at here. Yeah, 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.800 where where where, through the use of some signifiers that 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:16.280 we associate with the female gender, you have magically equated 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:21.160 male and female video game experiences, which is not exactly true, 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.560 and it's missing the point largely. Um. Yeah. That one 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:29.040 I think is also very relevant for a larger conversation 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:34.760 in technology, where you see companies that are marketing products 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.520 as being meant for women, and they very often fall 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.359 into the same sort of tropes in in a in 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.800 a slightly different way. So example, and everything that's pink, right, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.080 like it's you know, it's a smartphone for women because 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:53.439 it's pink. That sort of thing where it becomes it 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:59.879 relies on these female signifiers. This incredibly shallow and dismiss 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:03.720 a way of saying this is for for this specific audience, 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.359 because you're clearly not smart enough to be able to 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.360 pick up on that or to enjoy something just as 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.840 a consumer, we have to to spell it out. So 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.600 this pink think, that's for you ladies. Everything else is 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.320 for the dudes. Yeah, there's even a handy marketing term 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.600 for that, and it's pink it and shrink it done, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.720 and it's for it's odd little hands, twny little things 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:28.600 and like pink and she and she points out in 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:31.200 the world of video games, what this means for female 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.320 characters is they tend to look like in a lot 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.000 of video games, they tend to be a slight variation 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:40.679 on whatever the main protagonist is, so you get a 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:43.439 female version of that. That and she goes so far 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:45.600 as to say this isn't the case for all video 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.280 games everywhere. She's saying, there are a lot of video 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.960 games that do fall into this category. But you get 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.520 one female protagonist that looks kind of like the main 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.080 male protagonist, and if you have other characters you can unlock, 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.840 they tend to be other male protagonists that look very 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.199 differently from the original ones, so they all seem to 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:09.439 have things that distinguish them from the main protagonist. The female, however, 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.639 is just a female counterpart to the male protagonists. You 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:17.159 don't get dozens of different females who have looks that 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:22.040 are informed by their own personalities. It's just a variation 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:26.200 on the male character. So again you're talking about identity 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.439 and agency and dependence, like the fact that the female 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.399 character's existence depends upon the male character, because without the 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:35.800 male protagonist version there, you don't have a female version. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.960 She doesn't stand on her own. So these are great 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:41.720 points again, and it's stuff that really makes you start 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:44.359