What I find interesting is that despite this debate raging on I've been playing more games with strong female protagonists than I ever have. And the ones that don't have it? A lot of those have had strong female supporting characters. Maybe I'm just inadvertently selecting games that happen to have a more diverse range of characters. Maybe there's actually something to be said about the number of great games with solid female protagonists.
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So this thread should really be called 'The Koopalings promote constrictive traditional gender roles?'
I disagree in regards to Wendy, she's leader of a successful invasion force (she did succeed in taking water land, Mario just managed to overthrow her). Not many societies consider "successful conqueror" a traditional gender role for a woman
Bow, jewelry, make up, heels, the color pink, need I go on? These are part of girl's traditional gender norms in the west (the biggest intended audience) whether you recognize it or not.
Appearance yes, but like I said her role in the story is anything but a traditional gender role.
Which you said in response to my original point about this being an issue or 'gender roles,' so, my point still stands. #S&D4Lief
But you are just judging on appearances, going on Wendy's actions and the little bit of information in the manual, she does not fall inside the "traditional gender roles." She's not a homemaker, she's a boss. She's going to kick your butt, not offer you a cup of coffee and gossip about what the neighbours are doing.
So this thread should really be called 'The Koopalings promote constrictive traditional gender roles?'
I disagree in regards to Wendy, she's leader of a successful invasion force (she did succeed in taking water land, Mario just managed to overthrow her). Not many societies consider "successful conqueror" a traditional gender role for a woman
Bow, jewelry, make up, heels, the color pink, need I go on? These are part of girl's traditional gender norms in the west (the biggest intended audience) whether you recognize it or not.
Appearance yes, but like I said her role in the story is anything but a traditional gender role.
Which you said in response to my original point about this being an issue or 'gender roles,' so, my point still stands. #S&D4Lief
But you are just judging on appearances, going on Wendy's actions and the little bit of information in the manual, she does not fall inside the "traditional gender roles." She's not a homemaker, she's a boss. She's going to kick your arse, not offer you a cup of coffee and gossip about what the neighbours are doing.
I'm just recognizing the visual language of traditional gender norms. This image:
Tells the same story as this one;
And before you come back with the obvious retort that 'Roy iz boy pink too!' I would like to point out that it doesn't change the fact that the only girl (woman? what is their age?) amongst them is wearing pink, and two of the most prominent males blue. Also his stature and dress are more masculine (for instance, he doesn't wear make up).
They all serve literally the same purpose narratively (be it castle boss battle or kart racer), the only real difference is in their design. However equal their roles may be they still follow determinative gender roles when it comes to their dress.
And why wouldn't you complain about the Tomb Raider reboot narratively? It was nice that the principal characters were all women, but all of the characters were hollow. There was just no depth, themes; only a justification for the game's existence.
I had to go back reread some comments and watch that specific part of the video. While she has a point and is valid. Making Mountains out of mole hills is my take from this. If the koopalings were all male to begin with, her tune might be about no female representation instead. So while it's fine to debate this, Nintendo is hardly the guilty party for "propagating" this particular trope when they are all focused on FUN and engaging games.
The only people making mountains out of mole hills are the people who get really uptight about the topic of Anita's videos and feel the need to attack her as if she represents some mortal threat to gaming.
If the koopalings were all male she wouldn't be saying anything about them, the koopalings in and of themselves aren't relevant, but the design of Wedy O Koopa does support her argument regarding the "Ms. Male" trope (which someone else nicely posted out does not mean the Koopalings "promote misogyny" as the OP misleadingly titled this thread). And yes, Nintendo has been guilty of furthering this trope with this kind of character design.
And to another poster she does have a solution; if you bother watching the whole video she has several examples of characters from other games that have no lazy-ass markers of female-ness like pink bows and high heels.
And it seems again it needs to be stated that she's not attacking Nintendo or Namco, etc. She's just saying this is a lazy design choice and often not even necessary (see Angry Birds and gender - why?) and asking for game designers to ask the question: does the nature of my game require any use of gender at all and if the answer is yes to be more creative than "slapping a bow on it."
I don't understand why this is so contentious or requires any lengthy debate at all.
Have people considered that perhaps Japanese culture has a different attitude towards gender 'norms' to the US? It reminds me of the Tomodachi Life fiasco, which was very nice taken down a peg here:
As for my own issues with a lot of this feminist crap in gaming. It's because it seems the news media has become riddled with hipsters who seemingly care more about appearing 'progressive' than supporting their readers. The kind of people who barely played games at all and now think they're better than everyone else.
They will not succeed. I shall not let the Nintendo fandom go the same way as the skepticism community or oh so many others turned into gender and privilege wars.
That aside, pretty much all the videos on stuff like this and gaming (especially Nintendo games) are a gross oversimplification that focuses purely on a few well known games and pretty much ignores the three bajillion counter examples in slightly lesser known ones.
They will not succeed. I shall not let the Nintendo fandom go the same way as the skepticism community or oh so many others turned into gender and privilege wars.
Haha I think we swim in similar circles. Something to do with elevators if I remember rightly?
The only people making mountains out of mole hills are the people who get really uptight about the topic of Anita's videos and feel the need to attack her as if she represents some mortal threat to gaming.
It's the internet. If you have any remotely controversial view and you put it out there, you get attacked.
The people who are really making mountains out of molehills are those who take the crazy kneejerk sexists and ultra-MRA types and deliberately try and exaggerate their numbers to try and validate the need for some great social reform. Which they personally plan to make a lot of money from.
Deliberately inflating the risk or prepondence of certain social ills is pretty much the great marketing con job of the last century. Hell, it's the only reason some newspapers stay in business.
Anyway, further than this I don't see the cause in examining characters as skin-deep as the koopalings. What's a far more ripe subject would be examining the gender preference in Xenoblade Chronicles and how that relates to Japanese gender roles. Namely, why don't Fiora and Melia ever get to do anything of consequence on their own? (in the cutscenes)
A single example can never establish a trend. You're making the exact same flawed analysis as Anita does. You have to look at these things statistically or it's completely meaningless. JRPGs have also provided some of the very best female characters in my opinion. Yuna and Celes being my personal favourites. In fact I'd say Yuna's my favourite character in any video game. I thought she was completely perfect.
If you were to analyse it statistically you'd have to somehow include how you controlled for the differences in the audience demographics. Games mostly directed at men will naturally tend to have more male characters in active roles. Just as romance novels overwhelmingly have women in active roles with men mostly being there to fill a role in the narrative.
Anyway, further than this I don't see the cause in examining characters as skin-deep as the koopalings. What's a far more ripe subject would be examining the gender preference in Xenoblade Chronicles and how that relates to Japanese gender roles. Namely, why don't Fiora and Melia ever get to do anything of consequence on their own? (in the cutscenes)
A single example can never establish a trend. You're making the exact same flawed analysis as Anita does. You have to look at these things statistically or it's completely meaningless. JRPGs have also provided some of the very best female characters in my opinion. Yuna and Celes being my personal favourites. In fact I'd say Yuna's my favourite character in any video game. I thought she was completely perfect.
If you were to analyse it statistically you'd have to somehow include how you controlled for the differences in the audience demographics. Games mostly directed at men will naturally tend to have more male characters in active roles. Just as romance novels overwhelmingly have women in active roles with men mostly being there to fill a role in the narrative.
Obviously a single example doesn't set a trend, but the thing is, if you'd read my post, I wasn't claiming that, or even making any sort of explicit point. And since statistics on subjective portrayals of women either don't exist or aren't readily available, we're left with examining works on a case-by-case basis.
And I'm gonna call BS on your claim that works directed at a particular gender have to pander and portray the genders unequally. I want games, movies; all media I consume to focus on crafting good characters whose actions and arcs make sense based on who they are as people, not determinative gender role nonsense. That I don't want male to be the default gender for protagonists. I want whatever character is most pivotal in the narrative to be the main protagonist. Media that panders to gender role tropes is just beneath everyone nowadays.
What you y'all say is a better way to design Windy? That's what I think needs to be addressed more than anything.
The best way to design Wendy? However Nintendo wants their character to look. It's not our character to mess with.
Please, this doesn't further any good discussion in the least. You can hide behind the idea of preservation of an artistic vision, an important idea, but that isn't what I'm asking. If a progressive game artist wanted to create a female character that was a part of a non-humanoid race, how could they make the audience identify the character without the artist using the general devices (pink, bows, etc.)? If this isn't possible, then it is a reflection of our current culture. If this can be achieved, then her design is an representation of a previous state of culture.
Do the Koopalings promote misogyny? No, they don't. Do I find Wendy's design to be complete overkill? Yes.
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I dunno, everyone was kinda even with Shulk above everyone in importance around...the 1/3 or so point in the game? I mean there's Seven, who arguably does the most outside of Shulk towards the end game (though I'll grant you that for quite a while she's more of a plot point than an actual character) and Melia is almost hilariously strong in her refusal to weep in any sort of (at least in America), traditional girl role despite constant tragedy. I'd say Sharla is more a weak character with Reyn protecting him so much, and really that's probably the only reason Reyn wasn't the guy who kept failing to be Shulk's protector.
I could really not think of Seven as weak anyway when she was destroying everything for most of the gameplay in the latter half (not to mention Melia is OP if you use her right) while then doing some crazy DBZ fights against God-like creatures in cutscenes. Maybe there's some cliches there, but more often than not, they very rarely felt particularly biased against women (again, outside of the fact that Shulk is better than everyone ever and is a man). I mean, you could maybe make some argument about the inconsistency between cutscene and gameplay, but as soon as you no-sell how awesome these characters are for the constant battles in the game, I find it hard to find your point particularly relevant. It's why Peach is eye-roll worthy in many games but is my favorite character in Mario 2.
People having a serious discussion about Wendy Koopa??!!
She's a controversial mini diva. As for giving her a redesign, NO to that. She's perfect just the way she is. The only Koopaling that needed that redesign was Iggy and I think they've done a perfect job on him, especially since his hair was too similar to Lemmy.
I think the claim that Wendy's design plays off female stereotypes is absurd. ALL OF THEM, and pretty much the majority of Nintendo characters, play off stereotypes.
Lemmy - the child
Roy - the "too cool for school" brute
Morton - all brawn, no brains
Wendy - the princess
Ludwig - the brains
Iggy - the crazy one
Larry - the trouble maker
Obviously a single example doesn't set a trend, but the thing is, if you'd read my post, I wasn't claiming that, or even making any sort of explicit point. And since statistics on subjective portrayals of women either don't exist or aren't readily available, we're left with examining works on a case-by-case basis.
And I'm gonna call BS on your claim that works directed at a particular gender have to pander and portray the genders unequally. I want games, movies; all media I consume to focus on crafting good characters whose actions and arcs make sense based on who they are as people, not determinative gender role nonsense. That I don't want male to be the default gender for protagonists. I want whatever character is most pivotal in the narrative to be the main protagonist. Media that panders to gender role tropes is just beneath everyone nowadays.
I'm not claiming they necessarily have to pander to a gender. I'm just pointing out that they're more likely to than not. That's an annoying thing about these kinds of debates. An expression of believed facts seems to get instantly interpreted as a value judgement.
And once again, the proof that this is nothing to do with video games can be found by looking at romantic novels. Romantic novels are overwhelmingly written by women. And they overwhelmingly have female main characters. Same situation.
And I'm not sure what you're counting as "determinative gender roles". Men and women are just different so of course there are differences in the portrayals. You make it sound like all of the female characters are in the kitchens waiting for the males to return from hunting or something.
So lets go with an example. If you create a piece of fiction where, like in reality, men are physically stronger than women but you also create a world where, for example, swordfighting soldiers are 50:50 men and women just because you want everything to be "equal". Well that's great but it's bad fiction because it's incredibly implausible. Any world in which men are physically stronger is incredibly likely to have melee combat armies made mostly of men. I don't see why that's at all problematic. This idea that equality can only be achieved through sameness strikes me as incredibly silly and borderline marxist in it's potential for disaster. (Though I do understand and sympathise with where it's coming from. Treating people equally if you admit they start out differently is a hard thing to do.)
Deliberately inflating the risk or prepondence of certain social ills is pretty much the great marketing con job of the last century. Hell, it's the only reason some newspapers stay in business.
I'll bite, what social ills aren't real outside of certain newspapers or con artists raking in the dough?
Deliberately inflating the risk or prepondence of certain social ills is pretty much the great marketing con job of the last century. Hell, it's the only reason some newspapers stay in business.
I'll bite, what social ills aren't real outside of certain newspapers or con artists raking in the dough?
I'll bite, what social ills aren't real outside of certain newspapers or con artists raking in the dough?
Well I never said they aren't real. Newspapers tend to inflate the risk of things that are real but aren't worth worrying about. There are so many examples to choose from. Here's a fairly typical bit of statistical misdirection: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/295296/Daily-fry-up-boosts-c...
So the headline, which is what's intending to reel people in, is that fried breakfasts increase cancer risk by 20 percent. They do then explain in the article that this is regarding pancreatic cancer and that pancreatic cancer killed 8000 people in 2012 in the UK.
The actual KEY piece of information here which is what you need to establish the actual overall risk involved is what percentage of all cancers are pancreatic cancers. So they conveniently leave that part out. The answer in 2012 was 5% of all cancers. So when you properly understand the statistical context of the claim, you immediately realise that what they presented as 20% was actually no more than 1% (20% of 5%). I could find hundreds of articles that do this exact same thing on different subjects: conveniently leave out the key bit of information that allows the risk to be seem in the meaningful context. I'm not even saying I blame the newspapers. As far as I'm concerned, it's people's own responsibility to learn not to be fooled. Newspapers are running a business.
I'll bite, what social ills aren't real outside of certain newspapers or con artists raking in the dough?
Well I never said they aren't real. Newspapers tend to inflate the risk of things that are real but aren't worth worrying about. There are so many examples to choose from. Here's a fairly typical bit of statistical misdirection: http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/295296/Daily-fry-up-boosts-c...
So the headline, which is what's intending to reel people in, is that fried breakfasts increase cancer risk by 20 percent. They do then explain in the article that this is regarding pancreatic cancer and that pancreatic cancer killed 8000 people in 2012 in the UK.
The actual KEY piece of information here which is what you need to establish the actual overall risk involved is what percentage of all cancers are pancreatic cancers. So they conveniently leave that part out. The answer in 2012 was 5% of all cancers. So when you properly understand the statistical context of the claim, you immediately realise that what they presented as 20% was actually no more than 1% (20% of 5%). I could find hundreds of articles that do this exact same thing on different subjects: conveniently leave out the key bit of information that allows the risk to be seem in the meaningful context. I'm not even saying I blame the newspapers. As far as I'm concerned, it's people's own responsibility to learn not to be fooled.
Okay I agree that coverage of science tends to be poor in mainstream press, however you were talking about "social ills" and last time I checked cancer doesn't fall into that category.
Yes, controversial statements are magnets for trolls and bad behaviour (which still shouldn't be shrugged off with "that's the Internet for ya"), but saying that Wendy O. Koopa is part of a pattern of female character designs using simple cultural markers in lieu of anything more indicative of their individual personality ISN'T CONTROVERSIAL.
Okay I agree that coverage of science tends to be poor in mainstream press, however you were talking about "social ills" and last time I checked cancer doesn't fall into that category.
Yes, controversial statements are magnets for trolls and bad behaviour (which still shouldn't be shrugged off with "that's the Internet for ya"), but saying that Wendy O. Koopa is part of a pattern of female character designs using simple cultural markers in lieu of anything more indicative of their individual personality ISN'T CONTROVERSIAL.
Lol, cancer doesn't count as a social ill? It's not specifically science newspapers suck at reporting. The entire concept of newspapers is based on the idea of just listing examples of various phenomena, which once again goes back to my earlier criticism of Anita's videos. If you simply list things that are either a positive hit or a negative hit for any particular phenomena, you can convince people of almost any point of view as long as you have enough examples to fill a short list. I could create a video series called "Smokers who didn't get lung cancer" where I just gave thousands of examples of heavy smokers who never got cancer. Surely in that sort of example people would understand how disingenous it is?? Or maybe they wouldn't. I don't know. I certainly hope you couldn't con the public that easily.
And yeah sure this specific claim isn't particularly controversial. Although it's quite hard to say anything she's claiming is controversial because nearly everything she says is presented in a vague enough way so that it could mean anything. Is she saying that this particular phenomena actually leads to some real world problems? Or is she just pointing out that it's a bit of a silly relic of traditional gender roles. Cos I agree with the latter. But I seriously doubt the former.
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Topic: The Koopalings promote misogyny?
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