Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from stuff com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: and I have a special guest today. Kristen from Stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never Told You has decided that she is going
Speaker 1: to lower herself to the bar of tech stuff and
Speaker 1: join me in the studio. Jonathan Lowering, Lowering, I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be here. Thanks for having me on. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to have you on. We've done a couple of we've
Speaker 1: done a brain stuff together, which was a lot of fun. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But and I got to be on an episode of
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You. That's right, you came you
Speaker 1: were our expert on trolling, not not because of your trolling.
Speaker 1: I kept that past locked up. Yeah, yeah, we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about that. It's just my expertise on the subject
Speaker 1: of trolls. And we're going to be talking about something
Speaker 1: that very much involves trolling today, although that's not the
Speaker 1: focus of this conversation. We're gonna be talking a lot
Speaker 1: about Anita Sarkisian and her tropes against women, tropes versus
Speaker 1: women's series, specifically the troops versus women in video games. Uh,
Speaker 1: And because we're gonna be talking about a really serious
Speaker 1: subject that has had a lot of attention devoted to
Speaker 1: it from all quarters of the Internet, including some of
Speaker 1: the darkest ones. I think it it's important to let
Speaker 1: all of you guys know out there, we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about some heavy stuff. Uh, it is not all
Speaker 1: sunshine and roses. There's some really unpleasantness going on here,
Speaker 1: So trigger warnings out there. I mean, a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff we're gonna be talking about is specifically things
Speaker 1: like violence or implied violence, or threats against women or
Speaker 1: anyone who actually supports them in their their quest to
Speaker 1: just be heard. So keep that in mind because we
Speaker 1: don't usually explore those sort of things on Texa. But
Speaker 1: it's an important conversation and it's certainly one that's dominated
Speaker 1: the tech world. I mean, if you are on Twitter
Speaker 1: and you're following any uh folks in the technology sector,
Speaker 1: you're going to have seen stuff about Sarkasian at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that for a lot of your listeners,
Speaker 1: her name probably rings a bell, whether they've seen a
Speaker 1: Tropes Versus Women video or simply heard about her. Because
Speaker 1: there's been so much conversation and critique, and not even critique,
Speaker 1: just trending into outright hatred. There have been there have
Speaker 1: been some attacks that have nothing to do with any
Speaker 1: of her work, as at least the attack itself has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with her work. The attack would just
Speaker 1: be a nasty, terrible thing to say. I mean, you
Speaker 1: read some of these attacks and you think, when would
Speaker 1: you ever say this to another human being? I mean,
Speaker 1: well you wouldn't you think It's see, the chances are
Speaker 1: if some of these people would see Sarkasian face to
Speaker 1: face on the street, they would not say the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that they would say online, which is something
Speaker 1: that we talked about. Actually when you came on stuff.
Speaker 1: I've never told you to talk about trolling, just how
Speaker 1: the anonymity of the internet can sometimes fuel the sort
Speaker 1: of vile because it's easier to type something out than
Speaker 1: to say something to someone's face. Well, you don't have
Speaker 1: the social pressures that you have in real life. Right,
Speaker 1: in real life, I have the social pressure It is
Speaker 1: socially unacceptable for me to rent and rave against somebody,
Speaker 1: to threaten somebody. That is not acceptable in society. But
Speaker 1: online there are a different set of rules and or
Speaker 1: or sometimes just a complete lack of rules, depending upon
Speaker 1: what areas of the internet you're talking about. But to
Speaker 1: really dig down into this, first we need to talk
Speaker 1: about who Anita Sarkisian is. And she's a media critic.
Speaker 1: And while the recent conversation has all been about her
Speaker 1: work in studying women's roles in video games, that's not
Speaker 1: the only thing she's ever done. The Troops Versus Women
Speaker 1: is actually a series that pre day. It's the video
Speaker 1: game critique. Yeah, it's It's been interesting too and startling
Speaker 1: to to see the development of Sarkasian's career around this
Speaker 1: video games project, because when I first came across her work,
Speaker 1: it was with a series of six videos that she
Speaker 1: produced looking specifically at a trope surrounding female characters on
Speaker 1: film and in TV. So the first video that she
Speaker 1: put out, for instance, was about the Manic Pixie dream Girl.
Speaker 1: She clearly did not receive any death threats for talking
Speaker 1: about the Manic Pixie dream Girl, but then didn't say,
Speaker 1: you know, I built my career on this. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: was gonna smash her over the head with her ukulele
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And she also devoted videos to
Speaker 1: things like women in refrigerators, which does tie into comics
Speaker 1: the smurfet principle, which comes up again in her video
Speaker 1: game series The Evil Seductress Mystical Pregnancy, and then finally
Speaker 1: the st a feminist, which for people unfamiliar with this trope,
Speaker 1: it's essentially hyper feminist character used in shows or movies
Speaker 1: too at the same time lampoon feminism. And it's a
Speaker 1: little ironic that this was the last video I'm aware
Speaker 1: of that she made before she started in on this
Speaker 1: video game project, because she has now sort of been
Speaker 1: treated as a straw feminist by her haters. Well, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things where you start to
Speaker 1: attribute arguments to someone that they have never personally put
Speaker 1: forth as their own, and then you go forward and
Speaker 1: knocked down that argument and say, see this person was wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: if the person never made that argument in the first place,
Speaker 1: no they're not wrong. That's that's the whole straw man
Speaker 1: argument from the beginning. So for those of you out
Speaker 1: there who may be confused just by the term trope,
Speaker 1: we're really talking about a figurative use of some concept
Speaker 1: that tends to become sort of common currency. It's not
Speaker 1: quite the same as cliche, although the two can be related,
Speaker 1: but a trope is something that, uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: an element that you see within a work that you
Speaker 1: can identify and say, oh, I also saw this in
Speaker 1: this other thing. And it may be a completely different medium.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be the same medium. So here's
Speaker 1: an example, Jump the shark. That's a phrase everyone has heard.
Speaker 1: Jump the shark. Is this trope about a moment in
Speaker 1: a series that changes the the tone of that series
Speaker 1: enough so there's no longer what it used to be.
Speaker 1: It is lesser than what it used to be, and
Speaker 1: we view it as something negative at that point. Uh.
Speaker 1: The the woman in the Fridge trope that you mentioned
Speaker 1: comes from Green Lantern specifically. That's that was a comic
Speaker 1: book where the hero Green Lantern comes back and finds
Speaker 1: that his girlfriend had been murdered and shoved into his refrigerator,
Speaker 1: and the whole purpose of it was to give Green
Speaker 1: Lantern a a story arc. Had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the female character she was. She was just the kind
Speaker 1: of the launching point for his story. And that's sort
Speaker 1: of where a lot of the criticism comes in from
Speaker 1: Sarkasian towards video games and and different types of media
Speaker 1: as well. She was specifically focusing on video games for
Speaker 1: this project. Now, it's a project that she sought crowdfunding for.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and twelve, she launched a Kickstarter campaign.
Speaker 1: She had a goal of six thousand dollars to produce
Speaker 1: a series of videos where she would critique video games
Speaker 1: and she would look at a broad spectrum of games
Speaker 1: and see how women's roles were depicted in these various
Speaker 1: video games. And it wasn't it wasn't a crusade to
Speaker 1: go and destroy video games. She makes a point that
Speaker 1: video games are designed to be fun, and you can
Speaker 1: enjoy a video game while still applying critical thinking and
Speaker 1: saying this game is the gameplay is great, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy elements of the story. This one thing really bothers me, though,
Speaker 1: And she also is very careful to say a trope
Speaker 1: is a trope. It's not. It's not the definition of
Speaker 1: an entire game. But the presence or even the ubiquity
Speaker 1: of certain tropes in the video game industry can be
Speaker 1: troubling because that is a reflection of and a reinforcement
Speaker 1: of certain cultural ideas that can be harmful not just
Speaker 1: to women, but to men as well. And so the
Speaker 1: thing is that I think a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: pay enough attention to the actual arguments. They have a
Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction of you are attacking something that I love,
Speaker 1: therefore you need to be destroyed, which is it sounds dramatic,
Speaker 1: but that's very much what's happening, absolutely, and I mean
Speaker 1: it's it was notable that she wanted to dig into
Speaker 1: tropes and video games at this point where it is
Speaker 1: important as a media critic that she is to look
Speaker 1: into video games considering just how widely their play, and
Speaker 1: I mean in the same way. I mean she started
Speaker 1: out with film and television, which you know, again another
Speaker 1: thing that so many people are consuming. And to say
Speaker 1: that what you see on screen, the kinds of tropes
Speaker 1: that are on screen, the portrayals of different people, not
Speaker 1: just women, but people of color or men, people with disabilities,
Speaker 1: et cetera, the way that they are portrayed on screen
Speaker 1: certainly does have an off screen impact. And with that
Speaker 1: Kickstarter campaign, she initially just you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: one six thousand dollars take five videos, and she immediately
Speaker 1: as soon as the Kickstar video went up, people started
Speaker 1: just making so many vile comments and attacking her and
Speaker 1: essentially trying to. I think her Wikipedia page was hacked
Speaker 1: at one point. Vandalism, Yeah, like all sorts of incidents
Speaker 1: happening to where everyone, like a lot of other people
Speaker 1: came to her aid and she ended up raising almost
Speaker 1: one fift nine thousand dollars and with that money, since
Speaker 1: it was so overfunded, said okay, well guess what, haters
Speaker 1: instead of five videos and making twelve right, So the
Speaker 1: and of course a lot of the haters ended up
Speaker 1: saying that she was conning Kickstarter. That's not how kickstarter
Speaker 1: works people. All right, let me let me just break
Speaker 1: this down for you. Um, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: things that you can criticize people for. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think criticism of arguments is important, but you
Speaker 1: have to make sure that you're actually criticizing the argument.
Speaker 1: Conning Kickstarter, No, she put forth exactly what she wanted
Speaker 1: to do and people decided to support her. Kicksterter has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. Kickstarter has an interest if
Speaker 1: a project does well, because that's how they make money.
Speaker 1: But Kickstarter is not being conned. They had a platform,
Speaker 1: she submitted a project, the project was approved, and the
Speaker 1: project did really really well. It was quote unquote overfunded,
Speaker 1: This is not unique to Sarkasian. We see it all
Speaker 1: the time. I've been part of Kickstarter projects, you know,
Speaker 1: I've can tributed to some that got crazy over funded too,
Speaker 1: and you never hear anyone complain about those. Um it's
Speaker 1: it's so, let's let's set that aside. There's also, like
Speaker 1: you said, this crazy uh flurry of insults and attacks
Speaker 1: against sarkasi And before she's ever produced a single video. Now,
Speaker 1: back in two thousand twelve, before she had ever even
Speaker 1: scripted out the first video, she was already becoming the
Speaker 1: target of attacks. And this pretty much to me says
Speaker 1: the goal is to silence her. There's no you can't
Speaker 1: criticize an argument that hasn't been made. You don't know
Speaker 1: what the argument is yet. Well, she has a website
Speaker 1: called Feminist Frequency, and I think simply by virtue of
Speaker 1: the title or word feminist being anywhere near her name,
Speaker 1: that's going to attract a lot of negative attention. And
Speaker 1: I also find it kind of hilarious that because of
Speaker 1: that swarm of attack with the intent of silencing her,
Speaker 1: if that hadn't happened, Jonathan, I have a feeling she
Speaker 1: wouldn't have gotten so much attention. Because of that, maybe
Speaker 1: her Kickstarter would have funded, but maybe that maybe it
Speaker 1: would have been a series that a handful of people
Speaker 1: would have seen and it never would have gone beyond that.
Speaker 1: But because of this intense focused hatred, it ended up
Speaker 1: grabbing a lot more attention, which also, to me, tells
Speaker 1: me that it's a much more important issue than a
Speaker 1: lot of people would say. I mean, the fact that
Speaker 1: there is so much vitriolic hatred aimed at her tells
Speaker 1: me that even as as careful as she is to say, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that video games make people go out
Speaker 1: and be terrible. What I'm saying is that it is
Speaker 1: a reflection of and a reinforcement of certain ideas and culture,
Speaker 1: and that we cannot be immune to those. Those are
Speaker 1: influences on us. Whether or not we end up, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, embracing them as our own fullosophy is another matter,
Speaker 1: but they do influence us. You know, she's very careful
Speaker 1: to make that distinction. The fact that she's been the
Speaker 1: target of such incredible attacks says to me that maybe
Speaker 1: she was being a little conservative in that, and that
Speaker 1: perhaps her you know, it's a little it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more of an impact than she had given it credit,
Speaker 1: although she is being very methodical about this, which I think,
Speaker 1: you know, is laudable, especially considering the incredible, you know,
Speaker 1: opposition she's faced. I can't imagine having encountered this kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It was kind of crazy. So her series started,
Speaker 1: uh and launched in March of two thousand thirteen, and
Speaker 1: the very first episode was a discussion of part one
Speaker 1: of three on the Damsel in Distress trope, and she
Speaker 1: pretty much breaks it down as the damsel in distress
Speaker 1: is the the object that the hero is trying to
Speaker 1: uh to to rescue. She she's Princess Pea. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: has princess speech, which Princess Peach. The only reason Princess
Speaker 1: Peach exists is for Mario to have something to go after. Right.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have any personality of her own, She has
Speaker 1: no But then again, you know, you could say, oh,
Speaker 1: Mario didn't have any personality. But the thing is that
Speaker 1: this this trope extends well beyond the Mario era, but
Speaker 1: you still get a Princess Peach, right. The character uh,
Speaker 1: there's no intrinsic value to her. The only value is
Speaker 1: the fact that she quote unquote belongs to the hero,
Speaker 1: but has been stolen away by the villain or some
Speaker 1: variation thereof. And so the first three episodes really focus
Speaker 1: on this damsel in distressed trope. The first one specifically
Speaker 1: looks at the basic trope, the Princess Peach version, and
Speaker 1: the second one looks at more recent examples, which get
Speaker 1: pretty grim. We're talking about, uh, not just a a
Speaker 1: female character who has no real agency, she has no
Speaker 1: control over her existence. She's either being rescued by someone
Speaker 1: or kidnapped by someone. She's not doing anything on her own.
Speaker 1: But often she's also the m of some pretty nasty violence,
Speaker 1: uh in more recent ones. And this is sometimes an
Speaker 1: effort to make a video game seem darker and more edgy. Uh.
Speaker 1: The idea being that, well, if we show the villain
Speaker 1: hitting a quote unquote defenseless, vulnerable, helpless woman, then that
Speaker 1: makes him a really bad guy, and you're a really
Speaker 1: good guy for stopping him and rescuing the woman. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the woman has She's just there to be the recipient
Speaker 1: of abuse. She has no other purpose. And her point
Speaker 1: is that you don't have any you know, the sort
Speaker 1: of investment that you put into the male protagonist. There's
Speaker 1: none of that in the female character. She can't do
Speaker 1: anything for herself. She's not even really a person. She's
Speaker 1: just a thing for a character to win. If if
Speaker 1: she were replaced with some other like object of value,
Speaker 1: there'd be no difference there, except for the fact that
Speaker 1: it would be truly an object and not a person,
Speaker 1: or the depiction of a person being treated as an object.
Speaker 1: And it really makes you think, um, for someone who
Speaker 1: like shocking news here, I'm a guy, so yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: and as a guy, the thing is that the video
Speaker 1: games do cater to my demographic, right, I'm I'm a male,
Speaker 1: and so there are a lot of things that are
Speaker 1: in video games that I may have been kind of
Speaker 1: aware of under the surface, but never really given much
Speaker 1: thought to because it didn't directly affect me. I was
Speaker 1: I was the character that was the protagonist watching these
Speaker 1: videos in sequence and seeing sarkas and lay them out
Speaker 1: methodically and compelling lee and giving endless examples. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's when she sits there and says, all right, here,
Speaker 1: here's an example of uh, a character who has no
Speaker 1: power of her own. Here's another one, and here are
Speaker 1: twelve more of them. It really starts to sink in,
Speaker 1: and I think, wow, I have been largely ignorant of this,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with that that being ingrained in culture overall, not just
Speaker 1: video games. That's a microcosm of where this extends beyond
Speaker 1: in all realms of life. And I think I needed
Speaker 1: to wake up a long time ago. This series really
Speaker 1: needed to happen years ago, I think. But well, and
Speaker 1: I think that that often is a point lost on
Speaker 1: a lot of people who don't want to hear what
Speaker 1: she has to say. Um. I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: a lot of times it seems like many of her
Speaker 1: loudest hitters don't even watch the videos themselves, and also
Speaker 1: don't understand the broader point that the video game is
Speaker 1: more of the example, or more of a symptom of
Speaker 1: a broader issue of and reflection of these kinds of
Speaker 1: patterns that have been happening historically in real life are
Speaker 1: reflected on you know, big screens, small screen in or
Speaker 1: now understand or in stories in literature, and now understandably
Speaker 1: are showing up again and again in video games as well.
Speaker 1: So it's not I think it's just often misinterpreted as
Speaker 1: her just wanting to take down video games where it's
Speaker 1: really like, no, what, what's trying. What she's attempting to
Speaker 1: maybe highlight and dismantle is that issue that we are
Speaker 1: seeing in the video game. It's having wrong with playing
Speaker 1: video game. Yeah. She actually gives quite a few examples
Speaker 1: of games that either attempt to overturn these things and
Speaker 1: sometimes unsuccessfully so because the attempt was perhaps a poor
Speaker 1: attempt or misunderstanding of what the underlying cause of the
Speaker 1: issue was, and so it ends up being kind of
Speaker 1: a surface level way of dealing with it. Or it's
Speaker 1: there's some that just apparently have a beautiful way of
Speaker 1: treating the subject matter entirely, so you just you don't
Speaker 1: have those same tropes that you run into. So the
Speaker 1: Damsel in Distressed ones are pretty, um, pretty tough to
Speaker 1: get around. And she in the third episode, the part
Speaker 1: three of the Damsels in Distress, that's where she really
Speaker 1: looks at some of the video games that tried to
Speaker 1: counteract it, including the Dudes in Distress video games where
Speaker 1: it turns it on its head, and she makes a
Speaker 1: really good point that I think a lot of gamers
Speaker 1: miss out on, and that really good point is that
Speaker 1: a dude in distress is never going to be the
Speaker 1: same as a damsel in distress. It either ends up
Speaker 1: being played as a joke, because that's not how things happen.
Speaker 1: Look at the last couple of millennia of fiction, and
Speaker 1: you have the damsel in distressed trope well and truly
Speaker 1: ingrained in Western literature and not just video games. Uh.
Speaker 1: She says. It either becomes across as a joke or
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Even if it's not a joke, that you
Speaker 1: don't have that cultural weight, that cultural baggage behind it, right,
Speaker 1: for the damsel in distress for women, that's something that
Speaker 1: has been a depiction women in literature, like I said,
Speaker 1: for millennia. For men, it's not. So there's not that
Speaker 1: cultural baggage for men. So turning that on its head
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily work. It doesn't. It doesn't really be like, oh,
Speaker 1: look the tables are turned. How does it feel. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the exception, right, So it's it's like, well, that's
Speaker 1: that's weird. Well, and it's a good example too of
Speaker 1: how the how it's erroneous to think that the solution
Speaker 1: to perhaps let's say, in video game terms of violence
Speaker 1: being perpetuated toward women women being the victims of violence
Speaker 1: is to simply just switch those roles and have men
Speaker 1: being the victims of violence. That doesn't really necessarily solve things.
Speaker 1: And she makes another good point of that in the
Speaker 1: fourth episode with the Mrs Mail video game character. Is
Speaker 1: talking about how there have been a number of video games,
Speaker 1: such as, most prominently Mrs pac Man, where you take
Speaker 1: the stock Mail video game character and just put a
Speaker 1: bow on her head and then problems solved. But it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not really, that's not really what we're getting at here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where where where, through the use of some signifiers that
Speaker 1: we associate with the female gender, you have magically equated
Speaker 1: male and female video game experiences, which is not exactly true,
Speaker 1: and it's missing the point largely. Um. Yeah. That one
Speaker 1: I think is also very relevant for a larger conversation
Speaker 1: in technology, where you see companies that are marketing products
Speaker 1: as being meant for women, and they very often fall
Speaker 1: into the same sort of tropes in in a in
Speaker 1: a slightly different way. So example, and everything that's pink, right,
Speaker 1: like it's you know, it's a smartphone for women because
Speaker 1: it's pink. That sort of thing where it becomes it
Speaker 1: relies on these female signifiers. This incredibly shallow and dismiss
Speaker 1: a way of saying this is for for this specific audience,
Speaker 1: because you're clearly not smart enough to be able to
Speaker 1: pick up on that or to enjoy something just as
Speaker 1: a consumer, we have to to spell it out. So
Speaker 1: this pink think, that's for you ladies. Everything else is
Speaker 1: for the dudes. Yeah, there's even a handy marketing term
Speaker 1: for that, and it's pink it and shrink it done,
Speaker 1: and it's for it's odd little hands, twny little things
Speaker 1: and like pink and she and she points out in
Speaker 1: the world of video games, what this means for female
Speaker 1: characters is they tend to look like in a lot
Speaker 1: of video games, they tend to be a slight variation
Speaker 1: on whatever the main protagonist is, so you get a
Speaker 1: female version of that. That and she goes so far
Speaker 1: as to say this isn't the case for all video
Speaker 1: games everywhere. She's saying, there are a lot of video
Speaker 1: games that do fall into this category. But you get
Speaker 1: one female protagonist that looks kind of like the main
Speaker 1: male protagonist, and if you have other characters you can unlock,
Speaker 1: they tend to be other male protagonists that look very
Speaker 1: differently from the original ones, so they all seem to
Speaker 1: have things that distinguish them from the main protagonist. The female, however,
Speaker 1: is just a female counterpart to the male protagonists. You
Speaker 1: don't get dozens of different females who have looks that
Speaker 1: are informed by their own personalities. It's just a variation
Speaker 1: on the male character. So again you're talking about identity
Speaker 1: and agency and dependence, like the fact that the female
Speaker 1: character's existence depends upon the male character, because without the
Speaker 1: male protagonist version there, you don't have a female version.
Speaker 1: She doesn't stand on her own. So these are great
Speaker 1: points again, and it's stuff that really makes you start
Speaker 1: to think, and especially if you've just been playing games
Speaker 1: and not really spending any time considering the the underlying
Speaker 1: factors there. And it doesn't mean that game designers are
Speaker 1: setting out with an agenda to oppress women. You know,
Speaker 1: she she doesn't say that, she doesn't make these claims,
Speaker 1: which is why a lot of the attacks seem to
Speaker 1: suggest that she's got this agenda to destroy video game developers.
Speaker 1: And that's not what she's saying. Uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's she's saying these are these are just tropes that
Speaker 1: are so deeply ingrained in our culture, we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: even realize that when we start to incorporate them in
Speaker 1: our own work. So if I were to go out
Speaker 1: and write a story, it maybe after I've written it
Speaker 1: and I read over and I realized, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what I I I've committed one of those two. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those things that I associate with storytelling,
Speaker 1: which is my hang up. So I gotta really, you know,
Speaker 1: examine that and figure out, well, how can I tell
Speaker 1: a story that doesn't depend upon this stuff. I mean
Speaker 1: that that is just a crutch that I don't want
Speaker 1: to rely upon. And uh. And so that seems to
Speaker 1: be a lot of the focus of her um of
Speaker 1: her work. Now. You also mentioned the Smurfett principle, which
Speaker 1: falls into video games as well. That's where you have
Speaker 1: a group of characters, all of whom save one are male,
Speaker 1: and then you have the one token female character. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this happens in video games all the time, where
Speaker 1: you'll have you'll have groups where one character is female
Speaker 1: and all the rest are male. Um, that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that it's the only the only thing that you see
Speaker 1: out there. Like again, there are exceptions, but she points
Speaker 1: out how this is a frequent trope in video games.
Speaker 1: So the Left for Dead series, you can have a
Speaker 1: you know, there's one female character and then three male characters. Uh,
Speaker 1: so you know that's an example there. There are plenty
Speaker 1: of them. And of course there are a lot of
Speaker 1: games where there's no female counterpart at all. You play
Speaker 1: as a male protagonist and that's it. There are a
Speaker 1: couple where you play as a female protagonist. The Portal
Speaker 1: games are an example, and they're they're phenomenal, and I
Speaker 1: wish they're being more games like them. Um, and I
Speaker 1: think She points out Beyond Good and Evil as one
Speaker 1: of her favorites. Um, but yeah, that's a another trope.
Speaker 1: She she explores she also looks at women as background decoration.
Speaker 1: This is These are a couple of her more recent
Speaker 1: videos which have really ramped up the abuse uh leveled
Speaker 1: against her, and in these episodes she specifically talks about
Speaker 1: female They can't you can't even call the characters, but
Speaker 1: female depictions and video games that are just there as background.
Speaker 1: They are not meant in any way to impact the
Speaker 1: story or to be a character. They're just there, um
Speaker 1: to to add to the tone of whatever the video
Speaker 1: game is. And they are far more frequently than men
Speaker 1: hyper sexualized. They are sexual objects more frequently than men are. Usually,
Speaker 1: if a man is treated as a sexual object within
Speaker 1: a video game, it's for some sort of joke, whereas
Speaker 1: for women, in a lot of video games, that's the default, right.
Speaker 1: And what's telling about the how common these types of
Speaker 1: female characters are is that, you know, as we've just
Speaker 1: been talking about the past few minutes, there there's such
Speaker 1: a lack of those main female protagonists who have any
Speaker 1: sort of depth to them whatsoever. And yet when you
Speaker 1: look in the background, oh, they're the women. They're the
Speaker 1: women being objectified or just sort of randomly disposed of.
Speaker 1: There was another one disposability and la vulnerability where you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of um, the fact that they can be destroyed, killed, dismembered,
Speaker 1: i mean tortured, uh, pretty much in the background, and
Speaker 1: that's just part of that's just part of the game world.
Speaker 1: And they're meant to be there as a way of
Speaker 1: again creating that tone is pretty rough because again, you know,
Speaker 1: there there's they're not meant to create an a deep
Speaker 1: emotional uh impact on the player. You know, it's not
Speaker 1: there to to actually have the person ask why this
Speaker 1: thing happens or uh, what is the you know, what
Speaker 1: are the ramifications of it? Where the implications of it
Speaker 1: is just like this world is bad because of this
Speaker 1: or this world is seedy because this happens. Um And
Speaker 1: she brings out a lot in Grand Theft Auto about
Speaker 1: how I mean, there are a lot of characters and
Speaker 1: female characters and Grand Theft Auto or female figures. I
Speaker 1: guess you could even say a lady bodies and Grand
Speaker 1: Theft Auto that are specifically meant for a sexual objectification there.
Speaker 1: There there are other female characters that are not or
Speaker 1: female bodies that are not, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: in Grand Theft Auto are Yeah. Well, and so there's
Speaker 1: this one controversy in quotes about it was either episode
Speaker 1: five or episode six, in which she calls out the
Speaker 1: video game hit Man and a scene in which and
Speaker 1: she shows the gameplay in the Trops versus Women video
Speaker 1: of the male protagonists walking past a couple of exotic
Speaker 1: dancers and you can like shoot them in the head
Speaker 1: and they die. You can either sneak by them or
Speaker 1: kill them. Yeah, And so there's a particularly vocal hater
Speaker 1: um user name Thunderfoot, who made this video all about
Speaker 1: how a Nita Sarkasian is, is clearly trying to you know,
Speaker 1: as a clear and complete liar because and he showed
Speaker 1: in his video gameplay, you can just sneak by them,
Speaker 1: which the argument was on his end that that just
Speaker 1: dismantles everything that she has to say, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: erase the fact that, okay, but you can still kill them.
Speaker 1: And it's even more troubling if we think about, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what are the real world impacts of this kind of
Speaker 1: video gameplay? That a lot of the indiscriminate violence toward
Speaker 1: women in video games is toward these nameless women. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's one thing if you have a female
Speaker 1: protagonist and she gets really violent, and you know, she's
Speaker 1: like moving on like through a story and violence is
Speaker 1: part of it, whereas you know, a lot of the
Speaker 1: violence in women is just perpetuated toward these nameless characters,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Like it seems a
Speaker 1: little more distinct where you're saying, you've got these these
Speaker 1: characters that the only reason they exist is for you
Speaker 1: to either sneak by them or kill them. So if
Speaker 1: you know, if it were a sense where if you
Speaker 1: killed the characters automatically, your your mission failed, and it
Speaker 1: was clear that you had to sneak by them. That's
Speaker 1: one thing. That's that's a game mechanic that is trying
Speaker 1: to say, no, that's that's the wrong You're going to
Speaker 1: fail the mission this way. But giving that as an
Speaker 1: option was really what Sarkisian was pointing towards. She said,
Speaker 1: these are the characters who are already sexual objects because
Speaker 1: of the nature of what their profession is supposed to
Speaker 1: be and the way that they are designed, the actual
Speaker 1: character designs, they are sexual objects. And there if you
Speaker 1: have given characters the option of killing them, then that
Speaker 1: already is an issue. It's not whether or not the
Speaker 1: player does do that. It's the fact that the option
Speaker 1: is there in the first place. That was her argument,
Speaker 1: not that you were forced to kill In fact that
Speaker 1: she never, as far as I recall, says that you're
Speaker 1: forced to kill them. She says, that's one of the
Speaker 1: things you can do. And then you hide their body
Speaker 1: so that they won't be discovered. Uh, And that's what
Speaker 1: she says. You know, that's the problem. It's it's not
Speaker 1: it's not whether or not the players forced to do it.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that this is existing that's an issue,
Speaker 1: because violence against women is a very real, very serious problem,
Speaker 1: and to make it to gamify it is another serious problem.
Speaker 1: It again reflects and reinforces an idea in the culture
Speaker 1: that is not a great idea well, and one thing
Speaker 1: that Sarcausian doesn't get into in the videos, largely because
Speaker 1: she doesn't have time too, because there's so much to
Speaker 1: talk about just within the gameplay. But all a number
Speaker 1: of studies that have been done looking at how video
Speaker 1: games do influence wants perceptions toward women. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there was a two thousand twelve study which found that
Speaker 1: video games depicting sexual objectification of women and violence against
Speaker 1: women resulted in statistically significant increased rape myth acceptance i e.
Speaker 1: This idea that women are asking for it among male
Speaker 1: study participants, but also it impacts female players as well.
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand thirteen study finding that women
Speaker 1: who played with sexualized doppleganger avatars i e. Like you know,
Speaker 1: sexy avatars that looked like themselves engaged in higher levels
Speaker 1: of self objectification and again higher rape myth acceptance. So
Speaker 1: while again the it's not the argument is not that
Speaker 1: video games or evil, but rather that it is important
Speaker 1: to consider how these on screen behaviors in lunce our
Speaker 1: offscreen beliefs about the kinds of treatment towards women and
Speaker 1: what is and is not acceptable. Because there, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's and those were just two of many studies that
Speaker 1: I could sit here and take off finding again and
Speaker 1: again and again a very strong relationship between beating up
Speaker 1: and or sexually assaulting women in video games and just
Speaker 1: the belief not saying that it turns, you know, men
Speaker 1: into rapists, but the belief that, well, it's not, it's
Speaker 1: not terrible, it just lowers the bar. The way she
Speaker 1: was dressed is the reason why that happened. To it's
Speaker 1: it's essentially taking the accountability off the person who commits
Speaker 1: the heinous crime and then applying at least part of it,
Speaker 1: if not all of it to the victim of that crime. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's a terrible thing. That it's something
Speaker 1: we should strive to get away from. And Sarkasian's point
Speaker 1: is that again, these these games don't exist in a vacuum.
Speaker 1: If the game existed in a world where violence against
Speaker 1: women was not a systemic problem, around the world. If
Speaker 1: women had true equality with men throughout the world, if
Speaker 1: people of color had the same equality as as white
Speaker 1: people do all around the world, then the video game thing,
Speaker 1: it would just be a curiosity, you'd say. You might
Speaker 1: say it's in poor taste, you might say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is this is not realistic. You might say many things,
Speaker 1: But it doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in
Speaker 1: our world where these are real issues. And again, the
Speaker 1: way it's depicted can very much affect our perceptions and
Speaker 1: or at least reinforce ideas that we might already have,
Speaker 1: rather than challenge them. That's a great point she makes,
Speaker 1: is that you can make games that challenge these notions,
Speaker 1: where characters actually do make real critical thinking choices that
Speaker 1: will end up showing that this is, you know, this
Speaker 1: is not something to be desired. But that replication of
Speaker 1: those those um those situations does not mean criticism, right,
Speaker 1: saying look how miserable this world is. Isn't saying, uh, misery,
Speaker 1: is this terrible thing that we need to fix. It's
Speaker 1: It's a different thing. So you know, again, I think,
Speaker 1: like you were saying, I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: criticism that has leveled against Sarkisian in particular, and other
Speaker 1: other female journalists and and female developers, female developers, female
Speaker 1: uh gamers, I mean the whole fake gamer girl. Uh
Speaker 1: mean that's out there, is ridiculous. Uh. All of these
Speaker 1: sort of things are are certainly problematic is the wrong word.
Speaker 1: It's it's too big for problematic. But these are things
Speaker 1: that really need to have this kind of attention and
Speaker 1: it and it shows me that the critics in large
Speaker 1: part are not really listening to what she has to say.
Speaker 1: And again, I think if you find fault in the arguments,
Speaker 1: then what you have to do is you have to
Speaker 1: create your own argument that addresses whatever the point is,
Speaker 1: use evidence to support your argument, and engage in a
Speaker 1: debate or a conversation about it. What is actually happening, though,
Speaker 1: is people are attacking the person, not the argument, or
Speaker 1: if they attack the argument, they also attack the person. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's really an effort to silence the person, not
Speaker 1: to say here's why I disagree. Um, you know what
Speaker 1: is your response to that? And it's pretty clear that
Speaker 1: the people who are attacking have no interest in discourse
Speaker 1: at all. But moving away from tropes versus women, like
Speaker 1: the actual videos and what she's arguing, this whole question
Speaker 1: of how video gameplay impacts and reflects real world situations.
Speaker 1: What to me is even more telling and is worth
Speaker 1: paying even closer attention to, is how this vocal minority,
Speaker 1: and at least I hope it's a minority, It seems
Speaker 1: to be a minority of gamers who really, really really
Speaker 1: hate everything that has to do with Anita Sarkasian and
Speaker 1: want to hear absolutely nothing about any critique of this
Speaker 1: sort about video games. Seems like if you look at
Speaker 1: the kinds of threats that they make against her that
Speaker 1: usually involve rape threats, death threats, etcetera, is really confirming
Speaker 1: a lot of what she is saying and arguing about
Speaker 1: how maybe this is, you know, this sandbox that they're
Speaker 1: playing in isn't so healthy. Yeah, I mean I completely
Speaker 1: agree with that. I think that the the nature of
Speaker 1: the threats again, if they were if they were intelligently
Speaker 1: debating the point that she made, and if they were
Speaker 1: actually coming up with counter evidence and saying, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I know that this is how you frame that in
Speaker 1: the argument, I don't agree with it. Here is my
Speaker 1: here's my approach. Here's why I think that what do
Speaker 1: you think of that that's the civilized way to enter
Speaker 1: a debate. That's not what's happening. What they're doing is
Speaker 1: falling into behaviors that are reinforcing her arguments and completely
Speaker 1: reinforcing it. I mean, they're making the same sort of
Speaker 1: threats where they are showing a disregard for her as
Speaker 1: a human being and using uh charged words you know,
Speaker 1: that are based upon her gender that clearly indicate that
Speaker 1: the argument she makes have some merit. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like after she released her most recent video as of
Speaker 1: this podcast recording, she had to leave her home because
Speaker 1: the threats against her and her family became so specific. Um,
Speaker 1: and she you know, she's been docked over and over
Speaker 1: again that she no longer felt safe in her home.
Speaker 1: And she's not the She's by no means the first
Speaker 1: prominent loud feminist leaning woman on the internet who has
Speaker 1: gone through this. So I'm just wondering, though, do you
Speaker 1: think at some point gamers at large will turn on
Speaker 1: this subset of them who are making so much trouble
Speaker 1: Because around this time we also have gamer Gate happening,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's it's become so ugly that I'm
Speaker 1: seeing more and more articles and blog posts by other
Speaker 1: more rational gamers saying, oh my god, you are just
Speaker 1: ruining this for everybody. I think we're seeing more of that.
Speaker 1: I think I think it's I think it took this
Speaker 1: terrible uh sequence of events of people really being just
Speaker 1: ridiculously awful. I mean, they're the words I want to
Speaker 1: use I can't use on this podcast. UM, but I
Speaker 1: think we're starting to see that. I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot more people speak out against it. We're hearing
Speaker 1: podcasts like this where people are trying to actually intelligently
Speaker 1: discuss what is this the central issue and why is
Speaker 1: there so much vitriolic anger around it. We have people
Speaker 1: making videos saying, look, guys, it's not okay to do this.
Speaker 1: We have videos saying, look, it's not okay to not
Speaker 1: say anything either. If you know someone who is engaging
Speaker 1: in this, it's you know, go ahead and just tell them, like, dude,
Speaker 1: that's that's not cool, that's not that's not okay. The
Speaker 1: same sort of social pressures need to exist online as
Speaker 1: do exist in our regular society, UH, and only through
Speaker 1: this kind of UH. For first, you have to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that that that the problem exists and then grow to
Speaker 1: understand what the problem is is and then work to
Speaker 1: make sure you're not part of the problem, and then
Speaker 1: also work to make sure that the problem stops being
Speaker 1: a problem. There's the series of steps here. I think
Speaker 1: I'm somewhere on between three and four right now. You know,
Speaker 1: I guess this is probably my part. Four right now
Speaker 1: is contributing in this way. Um. I think we're starting
Speaker 1: to see more and more of that. I think we'll
Speaker 1: see the industry change over time as more awareness grows. Um.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that is going to still
Speaker 1: take time. It's not gonna be overnight, as much as
Speaker 1: I wish it would be, UM, but it's gonna also
Speaker 1: take the part of gamers, those that minority to admit
Speaker 1: the fact that m acknowledging these as problems and addressing
Speaker 1: those problems doesn't mean video games go away, doesn't mean
Speaker 1: video games become less fun, doesn't mean that all of
Speaker 1: your video games are gonna suddenly become you know, match
Speaker 1: these cute shapes together. Stein Um goes to the library
Speaker 1: to find a copy of The Feminine Mystique. Can you
Speaker 1: get out of the library before it closes? Jane Austin
Speaker 1: first person shooter game or something you just you throw
Speaker 1: quips at people. Um that I'd play that too, But no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna be the case either. It
Speaker 1: just ends up being something that that the industry needs
Speaker 1: to become more aware of, gamers need to acknowledge and uh.
Speaker 1: And I think overall, the outcome of this, when people
Speaker 1: do come to this sort of agreement, which I think
Speaker 1: is going to be years down the road, I'm sad
Speaker 1: to say that the whole industry as all will benefit,
Speaker 1: will have better games, will have games designed for more people,
Speaker 1: more inclusion, and I actually think that will be a
Speaker 1: fantastic thing for games. I don't like playing online right
Speaker 1: now because of the way a lot of people behave online.
Speaker 1: You know, I find if I do play online, I
Speaker 1: turn off my heads it. I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear what people have to say,
Speaker 1: because they say horrible, horrible things. I'd like to think
Speaker 1: that if we as a culture work together to really
Speaker 1: address these issues and say, now, it's not really funny.
Speaker 1: It's not funny the stuff you're saying, it's not cool. Uh,
Speaker 1: it just makes you seem to be uneducated and hateful,
Speaker 1: which are not good qualities. Well, and there's hope for
Speaker 1: that kind of future as well, because on the flip
Speaker 1: side of all of those kinds of studies linking sort
Speaker 1: of the terrible things on screen with the terrible things
Speaker 1: off screen, there are also an equal number, if not more,
Speaker 1: studies talking about how kids who play highly social games
Speaker 1: tend to be more social people who play avatars that
Speaker 1: aren't exactly like them. You know, games that allow you
Speaker 1: to embody new experiences can actually have positive effects in
Speaker 1: terms of increasing your capacities for empathy and things like that.
Speaker 1: There's so much positive power within video games as well
Speaker 1: that you know, there's still so much out there to harness. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and you know, look at some of the most
Speaker 1: amazing games out there that have nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this sort of of of problem. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: Minecraft is an example I like to think of. It's
Speaker 1: it's I'm you know, you do have an avatar, and
Speaker 1: you can choose what your avatar looks like. But since
Speaker 1: I play, and since most people I know play in
Speaker 1: first person mode, they're not even the avatar is meaningless. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're just a pair of hands. Occasionally you're
Speaker 1: holding something and really the game is more about an
Speaker 1: expression of creativity. It is wildly popular, is one of
Speaker 1: the most popular computer games out there. A game can
Speaker 1: be really tons of fun and it's not sacrificing anything
Speaker 1: in terms of game play, and you can still have
Speaker 1: gritty games and these sort of things that give you
Speaker 1: this ability to live a heroes life. That's another issue
Speaker 1: is that a lot of the games are catering to
Speaker 1: the juvenile male power uh fantasy. You know, this idea
Speaker 1: of women to No, I'm not I'm not arguing, it's
Speaker 1: just that this is a particular flavor meant for juvenile males.
Speaker 1: You know, the idea of you're the big brownie guy
Speaker 1: who gets to rescue the incredibly attractive lady who is
Speaker 1: completely helpless unless you rush to her aid. Hey, listen, John,
Speaker 1: if some women want to rescue other women too, I
Speaker 1: don't know. You know, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, judge them or anything. I'm just saying the
Speaker 1: games are tend to be made in that vein. So
Speaker 1: you know, it's I want to see this conversation continue.
Speaker 1: I want to see people really really take a critical
Speaker 1: look at video games, use critical thinking, don't just have
Speaker 1: a knee jerk reaction, and don't equate criticism with a
Speaker 1: desire for an entire industry to go away. These are
Speaker 1: you know, I think Bernie Burns of us your teeth.
Speaker 1: He said this on a podcast not too long ago.
Speaker 1: He said, the way he sees it, video game players
Speaker 1: often see the world as either winning or losing. There's
Speaker 1: no in between. So it's either a win or a loss.
Speaker 1: So that's why these these things that fall in between,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, get lost in the in the mix.
Speaker 1: So any criticism against the thing they love, that's someone
Speaker 1: who's saying video games are at a loss and the
Speaker 1: only way to combat it is to go full guns
Speaker 1: at the person who's making the critiques so that you
Speaker 1: can be back in the win category. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of truth to that. So I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that the conversations that go around show that, no,
Speaker 1: there are degrees here, and there are things that we
Speaker 1: need to really take a hard look at and say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, why is this a thing and does it
Speaker 1: need to be or if it needs to be, what's
Speaker 1: your justification for it. So yeah, and anyone who's scared
Speaker 1: that their video games are going to be taken away.
Speaker 1: Video games are not going anywhere. Just look just based
Speaker 1: on the money. No one's letting video games go anywhere, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The only question is what is the you know, what's
Speaker 1: the tone going to be? How are how are women
Speaker 1: going to be treated in those games? Will it be
Speaker 1: an inclusive sort of culture where we actually are being
Speaker 1: nice to one another? I mean, you can be nasty
Speaker 1: to those those uh video game enemies as much as
Speaker 1: you need to be to make sure you get to
Speaker 1: that end of that level and go to the next
Speaker 1: one so that you get another onslaught of enemies. But
Speaker 1: be nice to people and make sure that when you're
Speaker 1: creating characters in the game, their characters. Yeah, and not
Speaker 1: just not just you know, a decoration on the background. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's so much more to say. Obviously, Sarkasian's work
Speaker 1: is not done in this regard. She has more videos
Speaker 1: to make. Yeah, she has what six more to make?
Speaker 1: She's only halfway through? Yeah, I think so. And so
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep an eye on the rest of those.
Speaker 1: If you have not watched the feminist frequency page and
Speaker 1: watch the tropes versus women in video game series, I
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. Uh. Sarkisian does again make a point
Speaker 1: at the beginning of nearly every episode that critiquing something
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can't love it. Uh and uh, and
Speaker 1: just keep that in mind. Really, that's that's the important
Speaker 1: thing to take away, and then you know, just take
Speaker 1: a nice critical look. Well, Kristen, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me on this episode to talk about this
Speaker 1: incredibly important topic. Jonathan, thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure. I'll be sure to ask you
Speaker 1: back in the future for for things that may not
Speaker 1: be quite so emotionally charged this is, but this, I
Speaker 1: feel is one of those discussions. It's very prevalent on
Speaker 1: in the text circles. It's an important one to have.
Speaker 1: It's an important one to think about. I am a
Speaker 1: big advocate for compassion and empathy, and so for people
Speaker 1: who are not familiar with your work and shame on
Speaker 1: you you all should be let them know where to
Speaker 1: go to find more. You can go to stuff Mom
Speaker 1: Never Told You dot com, which has all of our blogs,
Speaker 1: videos and podcasts, which includes a two parter on women
Speaker 1: in video games, which might be a nice addendum to
Speaker 1: this conversation. Jonathan yeah, if you want to get you know,
Speaker 1: you further into this and really really get involved, I
Speaker 1: think it's it's important to you know, listen to those
Speaker 1: sort of things, make sure you're informed. So guys, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. If you need to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me while, I've got an email address
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff works dot com, or draw
Speaker 1: me a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler. The handle
Speaker 1: at all three is tech stuff hs W and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics because it has stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com