Stephen Colbert interviews Anita Sarkeesian

[PickelledEggs]

Her dishonesty is something I have a huge problem with. She fabricates statistics to support her assertions. And because it's in defense of women's oppression, no one questions it.

Sent from your mom.

[Hydra009]

... so I really was having a hard time figuring out why we seemed to be disagreeing...

Nothing, I suppose.  Though I'm a little less forgiving in my appraisal of Anita.  I don't think she's merely fighting the good fight the wrong way.  I think she's out to make a name and a buck, which I'm fine with, by playing this role as this gamer who's up against the heavily misogynistic video game industry and the women-hating gamer little boys club and she's somehow vindicated by the hateful comments she gets online, which I'm not fine with.

Come to think about it... I have a feeling the only reason I thought  as kindly as I did about Sarkeesian (which still wasn't very good, just slightly better than before) was because Colbert painted the picture that way.  Now I'm back to square one. That's the disappointment I get for being the optimistic prick that I am.....

And that's the really screwed up thing about this whole thing.  She can say a couple canned lines about equality and people in general but especially liberals flock to this stuff.  And it's really only after a digging into this stuff a little bit that you get a hint that it's not actually on the level.  (needing six figures for a familiarity with a couple tv tropes entries and a console game collection that apparently went unused in preference for cherry picked and uncredited YouTube's Let's Play videos probably should have come across as a little bit of a red flag)  I remember the Emma Watson thread and it seemed to teeter favorably toward Sarkeesian till me and a couple others piped up.  Good thing we did.

[PickelledEggs]

Well, I still think Emma Watson has the right idea of what feminism should be about. But I do remember the topic of Sarkeesian taking over that thread and it basically an argument of if we should say "feminazi" because of how misogynistic some self declared feminists like Sarkeesian can be. Let's not re-hash the topic of the use of the term "feminazi" though, please.

Obviously there are some people like Sarkeesian that are asswipes, and some of them are self declared feminists. People that are asswipes is not a gender specific thing. There are asswipe atheists, asswipe theists, asswipe gay people, asswipe straight people, asswipe *insert ethnicity here* people... etc. Hell, even some of the people on this forum are asswipes. (I wonder how many times I can say asswipe in this post.... )

Some of these people are asswipes because they are simply asswipes and some are asswipes because they are trying to make some quick cash. I'm not going to assume which of those Sarkeesian and the like are, but they are nonetheless..... asswipes. It's important, I think to try to divert the spotlight from the jerks like Sarkeesian and move it towards the people like Emma Watson... people that are actually going about feminism the right way. It's like dealing with a troll. Don't feed the troll, don't give it attention.... it eventually gives up and goes away..... Unless it's a psycho like phattmatt.


Anyway. I took melatonin because I need to go to sleep and I think I'm starting to ramble. 

[Hydra009]

It's important, I think to try to divert the spotlight from the jerks like Sarkeesian and move it towards the people like Emma Watson... people that are actually going about feminism the right way.

Truer words were never spoken, but it's a shame that we did just the opposite on that thread.  Maybe we can rectify that here.

I really liked Emma Watson's speech because she did basically everything correct - she was humble, sincere, you could tell that this is something she passionately believes in, and best of all, actively tried to get men on board.  It was a great gesture and definitively a step in the right direction, but I'm still kinda shaky on the HeForShe plan of action.  I'm all for raising awareness, but words are wind.  What's actually being done to combat gender inequality?

[GrinningYMIR]

I agree with you guys, watsons speech is a step towards the equality that I think we all want, true equality not just censorship or defined gender rules.

sarkeesian sounds like a bad apple who got offended by a game or two, and instead of doing what hydra said, and not playing, she went on the Internet to complain and made it a big deal. We have the same things jn movies, people protest them all of the time but usually to no effect, the best decision is not to play/watch, because if you announce you're offended you're just giving it more press, whereas If you ignore it, it collapses under the weight of it's own mediocrity. (Anyone else reminded of innocence of Muslims?)

The damsel in distress trope has existed since the days of the brothers Grimm, and probably before that too. It's not anti-feminine it's just a scenario. Just like I've seen the guy in distress, the woman being the hero/villain, and the entire cast save for one or two members being women. (Mario rescues peach, metroid, DA2, Portal)

I find it disturbing that she ignores all of this and claims that games are misogynist, that's not a representation of the whole, that's not even an objective viewpoint, that is 100% opinion based, so it's open to all of the twists that an opinion can bring

[Hydra009]

sarkeesian sounds like a bad apple who got offended by a game or two, and instead of doing what hydra said, and not playing, she went on the Internet to complain and made it a big deal.

I wish she was a gamer who played a game that offended her.  She said she didn't even play video games until she made them her hobby horse.  She simply found a ripe target and exploited it for all that it was worth.  And the crazy thing about this is that these are hardly new objections; people have been complaining about this stuff for decades and devs have steadily shifted to more inclusive and less sexist games for almost as long.  It's like calling 911 about a fire when there are already 3 fire trucks on the scene.  They already know and they're already working on it.  And when the fire dies down, I fully expect her to take credit for it.  :/

I find it disturbing that she ignores all of this and claims that games are misogynist, that's not a representation of the whole, that's not even an objective viewpoint, that is 100% opinion based, so it's open to all of the twists that an opinion can bring

She cherry-picks scenes from a few games that could be interpreted as sexist.  Some of them actually are sexist.  Some of them are simply taken out of context.  People not familiar with the games used as examples would never know the difference.  And of course, non-gamers get a very misleading impression of video games in general as a result.

[Solitary]

http://youtu.be/N_K13iEWQfY?list=PLM9L2W5aOI_1zFJPiJST1GpxOTP-qomDS

[Berati]

Another example of someone who is against censorship except for the things she doesn't like.
You can't tell someone else what they're fantasy should be. Yes, I have male fantasies. I'm male so sue me.

I think a case can sometimes be made about hate speech and that kind of thing, but video games like movies are presented as fantasy.