Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[Talvalin]

There's a video where someone hacked Dragon Age 2 so that male Hawke had female Hawke's movements, such as twisting a pointed foot or splaying out a leg with hand on hip when idle and massively exaggerated hip swaying when walking and running.

Which makes me wonder if Bioware did the same with Shepard in the Mass Effect games

[K]

ISTR Femshep didn’t have an exaggeratedly feminine gait, and strode about the place like a boss - enough so that she looked really uncomfortable in that one mission where she’s in a cocktail dress and heels (which only added to the character).

[Talvalin]

That any complaints from Outlet X during a real story on this issue will be belittled by those who hate this whole debate by pointing to the fuss they also made during Not A Good Example Y. It's convenient chaff for dickheads to loudly dismiss decent points being made by having an example of previous behaviour that does appear overly reactionary. Making scattershot fuss about everything, rather than carefully targeting no-argument examples, can be counter-productive in the future, hence my reference to the dangers of crying wolf on this subject. Giving sexist idiots any ammo to use against decent arguments later is misguided, IMO.

I accept that the original defense of women being too hard to animate was a PR gaff and the real reason was story, but even taking that into account, what good reason did Ubisoft have for leaving women out?

As Unofficial Who noted up thread, Ubisoft have picked a historical period for AC:Unity where women played a significant role and, more crucially, the most famous assassination was carried out by a woman. Failing to include a female playable character smacks of laziness and male privilege, which are endemic problems within the industry. So no, I don't believe that this is a bad example to kick up a fuss over.

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Also there have absolutely been female assassins in previous games, not only as NPCs (like the assassin recruits who definitely shared animations with Ezio) but AC: Liberation had a woman as the main character. Even if they've completely redone the animations for Unity and thus couldn't use hers, it's not like anyone at all thought that the female assassin recruits in Brotherhood and Revelations looked out of place or odd when they were presumably using the 'male' animations/skeletons. Just nonsense justifications.

[Guest]

While the whole "double the animation" thing was utter rubbish (spouted by the technical director) no less!) - maybe Ubi left them out because of all of the above.

Had they "Just added a bow" or similar to the female models they could then be criticised for adhering to lazy tropes. Perhaps they wanted to avoid that - because then the dialogue is different. "They've just whacked them in as an afterthought" etc.

Of course likely the real reason is because they've looked at their overall demographic and decided it wasn't worth it. There's probably nothing wrong with that - they are a business and need to make money. The real problem is that they've made up bullshit excuses instead of being straight with people.

Their conference was the most hateful swearingiscool bloodbath gun totting crap that made me die a little inside, especially when you look at just how nice Nintendo's direct event was. There seems to be a market for that though, and that market must be boys who want to play as boys who stab boys.

[Chadruharazzeb]

There seems to be a market for that though, and that market must be boys who want to play as boys who stab boys.

That'll be me, then. I love fucking shit up in games. Thanks, Ubisoft!

[RubberJohnny]

I've no idea why people immediately go to "oh well it won't hurt their sales" when that has never been the argument for inclusion.

[Spacehost]

So Grip Digital's CEO is wading into this with all the tact, grace and subtlety of an elephant fucking a rhino. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-06-12-the-lady-killers

[Harsin]

Christ the comments section of 'indsutry professionals' on that link is depressing reading.

[Lag]

Christ the comments section of 'indsutry professionals' on that link is depressing reading.

"Someone explain to me why no-one complains the Three Musketeers novel doesn't have a female lead."

Yeah, let's send Alexander Dumas a petition...

[Straps]

New one.

[Smitty]

I think of the issues here for me, and I admit I struggle to articulate it properly, is that having watched a bit of that I'm just wondering why she feels the need to criticise the depiction of certain things where the depiction itself of said thing is what she's criticising seemingly?

I mean, how would you actually get around that without eliminating it entirely? Often some of the observations (is she criticising these things or just observing them?) are so broad that you can help but wonder what she actually proposes to be done. Is it the sheer presence of these things that is bad or that alongside the absence of other things ie 'strong' female characters?

I've struggled with some aspects of her critiques before along these lines. Only some aspects, mind - after finding her videos a bit so-so I think I appreciated the last one (i think) that she did ,or I thought it was the best one she'd done so far.

----

Mr Male Character, that was the one. I think it was because to me it seemed like her conclusions were strong and heavily factual without relying on leaps which require me to say 'if you say so'' because Anita hasn't bothered to show her working out . Simple proposition - videogames often have very lazily designed female characters. Demonstrated. Bish bash bosh, job done. Thumbs up from me.

----

I think she also has a habit of listing a whole bunch of examples of something whilst not really explaining why they're relevant or what she is trying to say about them ie what significance does she feel they have?

So she mentions Max Payne 3 in a passing way seemingly just because it contains some prostitutes in a bar at one point - but I don't really know what her point is. She says this is a 'trope'. Are things that happen in the real world always a trope? When are they not a trope? Is it problematic? Is it neutral?

Does it matter that Max clearly thinks the place is grim and reacts with disgust when he confronts a patron later? Does anything in the game matter except some small part of it stands as an example of a 'trope' in a list? Is it purely just a list of games in which a certain kind of situation occurs? Is that....what does that mean?

Edited June 16, 2014 by Smitty

[Smitty]

Also i often feel like she makes these leaps in logic which are just stated like facts without supporting evidence and moves on promptly. I feel like I have to engage in a certain amount of 'well, if you say so' to actually feel go along with the whole of her argument. Then again sometimes I feel like she's barely making an argument at all. Here's a list of a things...um...tropes....sexism.

I'll give an example - in the video above she states:

''Scenarios like these are part of a long racist tradition of representing women of colour as mysterious and hyper sexual creatures who exist as an exotic spice to be consumed by the white Western man''

Now to me she's obviously onto something there with racism, colonial attitudes etc - I mean, sure, right? Fine, I guess. Seems a bit tangential here to their actual use, but sure.

But I don't find that her observations actually always match her conclusions, or at least that they should pass without actually examining the context. That context is obviously that we're talking about seeing these 'women of colour' in scenarios where they are prostitutes. That's why they're 'hypersexualised'. They're a woman in a specific situation doing a specific thing - looking for business as a prostitute. There's no mention of that in Anita's authoritative statement on what these examples represent. So scenarios like these (and this is a merely factual statement) are depictions of working prostitutes but you don't see any reflection of that. Where does the racial element to Anita's claim fit in here as well?

It feels like the context of examples are only important where they can be used to strengthen the conclusion Anita is heading towards.

I mean, with the examples she's given, how it can be said that 'these' (examples she's talking about) how can her conclusion *only* be that 'scenarios like these are part of a long racist tradition yadda yadda? What about them also or otherwise merely being the pure depiction of a prostitute (Asian or otherwise) doing her job? You can then make judgements about that and the stuff around it but surely you actually need to acknowledge that factually it is also, on its face, a depiction of a prostitute?

How does that line in anyway actually reflect the use of what she's talking about? It seems to be that with Anita things like this are only as she sees them in a particular, limited regard. I often feel like she has this tunnel vision around certain issues and can't actually take into consideration context.

So instead of those being, say, 'depictions of women working as prostitutes', with the structure being here's my examples and now the critique (as in the way these depictions of prostitutes are used is problematic), instead, its fairly grand binary black-and-white statements like ''scenarios like these...''.

Really, Anita? Is that the only thing that could be said about those NPCs?

[shesaid]

I think the main point is to raise awareness - once she points it out, it's up to you to decide whether you (as the buyer of games) really want to continue feeding that trope, etc.

The point isn't that prostitutes are there to abuse in games like GTA and Saints Row, the point is there's so few alternatives to that trope.. unless you want to play something like Minecraft or Angry Birds.

[Chadruharazzeb]

Really, Anita? Is that the only thing that could be said about those NPCs?

To be fair, she does seem to have a bit of a one-track mind.

[Smitty]

Having completed the video I think there's more and more of what I talked about as you go on.

'Here's this thing and it means Y' where crucial information is excluded and context is nowhere to be seen. It seems to me to be a very strange way of constructing the scholarly critique Anita has pretensions to . It just feels like its all designed to reach one conclusion and it doesn't really matter what facts you have to elide to get there.

I mean sure, in Sleeping Dogs you can punch a prostitute in the face in and bundle her into the trunk of your car and it certainly makes for an exciting snippet of footage for your video....but you can also do it to anybody. Any NPC, male of female, prostitute or otherwise. Viewed out of the artificial isolation Anita has placed it in it suddenly doesn't like such a strong demonstration of what it supposedly proves. So you end up thinking that context is excluded specifically because it undermines the point being made - that these female NPCs are subject to unique depredations and devs are encouraging this sexist abuse or whatever.

She makes good points about gamifying prostitute NPCs (her focus here) but then to my eyes she really, really undermines them by making implications which are deeply dishonest - watching that video and hearing Anita talk about players being 'encouraged' to 'objectify' and attack sexualised women over said footage rather gives the viewer the impression that its something you might only be able to do those characters. Which is something that sound outrageous.

You see, it's pretty important to have the context to these things which Anita keeps insisting on stripping out.

Y'know, in the midst of all of this I wonder if Anita's work here is actually deeply mundane, not very good and that she's gained rather undue attention because rabidly sexist idiots on the web launched a horrific campaign of abuse against her and because, y'know, people want to support stuff which sounds laudable (even if the details are wrong).

The way she argues things often leaves me deeply unsatisfied and bothered by her methods and I think that's something I felt since I saw her first video. Again it's that whole 'if you say so' problem. If you say so Anita. Which is obviously a shame because much of the time she's also highlighting real problems and making some good points and more importantly the actual issues here are very serious and weighty.

[ah]

I mean, with the examples she's given, how it can be said that 'these' (examples she's talking about) how can her conclusion *only* be that 'scenarios like these are part of a long racist tradition yadda yadda? What about them also or otherwise merely being the pure depiction of a prostitute (Asian or otherwise) doing her job?

Is a depiction of something in art ever merely a depiction of something?

Given that people have all sorts of different ideas about what the world is like, any piece of creative work is, in part, the author trying to impose their view of the world on an audience and having their audience buy into that. When you sit down to write a narrative or design a world, you choose what various kinds of people are capable of being in the view of the world you're encouraging your audience to accept, just the same as you choose which moral codes are relevant, or in the case of videogames you choose which kinds of activities you want your audience to think are exciting prospects (Nintendo: exciting is bright colours and movement. Infinity Ward: exciting is men running around killing other men). Consciously or otherwise, you describe the world to your audience, and in amongst all those choices you make you're also choosing - whether you notice it or not - how you want your audience to think about women.

With your example, then, it says something about the wider culture if a trope develops wherein large numbers of otherwise independent artists choose to portray women - even certain subsets according to ethnicity, class, etc - in very similar ways. Partly it says that a large number of artists are lazy in their depictions of women and therefore fall back on established stereotypes/tropes to fill out the bits of their story that aren't really interesting to them. Partly it says that a large section of culture has somehow developed similar (often negative) ideas about what women are, and artists are now reinforcing those ideas by choosing to replicate them in their art.

[shesaid]

Y'know, in the midst of all of this I wonder if Anita's work here is actually deeply mundane, not very good and that she's gained rather undue attention because rabidly sexist idiots on the work launched a horrific campaign of abuse against her and because, y'know, people want to support stuff which sounds laudable (even if the details are wrong).

She's gained undue attention because she's one of the few who've actually pointed it out, and it brings the nerds out of the woodwork screaming for her not to tinker with their toys. I don't think she's making any claims to high scholarship - she's just presenting case after case after case of these tropes appearing over and over and over again in most games.

What percentage of women in games - NPCs or playable characters - are not prostitutes or princesses?

And if she's wrong, why not make a response video showing how out of context her examples are? You are making a claim that she's being mundane by not citing her data correctly - why not call her out on it with a response? Should be easy enough to do. If she is wrong.

[Festoon]

I think of the issues here for me, and I admit I struggle to articulate it properly, is that having watched a bit of that I'm just wondering why she feels the need to criticise the depiction of certain things where the depiction itself of said thing is what she's criticising seemingly?

I mean, how would you actually get around that without eliminating it entirely? Often some of the observations (is she criticising these things or just observing them?) are so broad that you can help but wonder what she actually proposes to be done. Is it the sheer presence of these things that is bad or that alongside the absence of other things ie 'strong' female characters?

I've struggled with some aspects of her critiques before along these lines. Only some aspects, mind - after finding her videos a bit so-so I think I appreciated the last one (i think) that she did ,or I thought it was the best one she'd done so far.

----

Mr Male Character, that was the one. I think it was because to me it seemed like her conclusions were strong and heavily factual without relying on leaps which require me to say 'if you say so'' because Anita hasn't bothered to show her working out . Simple proposition - videogames often have very lazily designed female characters. Demonstrated. Bish bash bosh, job done. Thumbs up from me.

----

I think she also has a habit of listing a whole bunch of examples of something whilst not really explaining why they're relevant or what she is trying to say about them ie what significance does she feel they have?

So she mentions Max Payne 3 in a passing way seemingly just because it contains some prostitutes in a bar at one point - but I don't really know what her point is. She says this is a 'trope'. Are things that happen in the real world always a trope? When are they not a trope? Is it problematic? Is it neutral?

Does it matter that Max clearly thinks the place is grim and reacts with disgust when he confronts a patron later? Does anything in the game matter except some small part of it stands as an example of a 'trope' in a list? Is it purely just a list of games in which a certain kind of situation occurs? Is that....what does that mean?

I think I know what you mean but I think she is explicitly taking about 'tropes' that you see over and over again because she's interested in the aggregate effect of them. She has spoken before about attempts to show the scenarios in an ironic fashion or where the character apparently finds them abhorrent but, well, they're still there, the trope is still present, regardless of context.

[ah]

It does feel a bit like your real problem might be that you're looking for something that's not there - I feel like you want a primer on contemporary feminist criticism of pop culture, but the original audience for this series (i.e. her pre-existing readers/viewers) already have that understanding. The video series is to help those people with an overview of common tropes and why they might be troublesome. Remember that it's a follow-up series of videos to other similar stuff she's done for other media, and builds on an existing conversation with which most of her audience is familiar enough that they don't really want to sit and listen to the very basics of it again.

People in this thread have tried to help explain the wider context of that cataloguing, though, and I'm sure they'll be happy to do so again.

(all of which is not to say that I think you're wrong to offer your criticisms. I haven't even watched the later videos so wouldn't know how well she's doing at that original project, though the first couple seemed useful to me.)

[Smitty]

With your example, then, it says something about the wider culture if a trope develops wherein large numbers of otherwise independent artists choose to portray women - even certain subsets according to ethnicity, class, etc - in very similar ways. Partly it says that a large number of artists are lazy in their depictions of women and therefore fall back on established stereotypes/tropes to fill out the bits of their story that aren't really interesting to them. Partly it says that a large section of culture has somehow developed similar (often negative) ideas about what women are, and artists are now reinforcing those ideas by choosing to replicate them in their art.

There's a bit where Anita looks at DE3 and Far Cry 3 and talks about asian prostitutes, which I was referencing above.

Now she shows footage of these Asian prostitute NPS in DE3 in a section of the game that's set in...Asia. Right, ok. There are also prostitutes in the US section of the game too - black/white/Asian. Is it the Asian prostitutes that are the problem? Was she trying to imply that devs just like to chuck an Asian prostitute in randomly because that's a 'trope'? Like Anita has got it into her head that devs love Asian prostitute NPCs because of racist attitudes and/or pop culture exposure and/or some overeliance on tropes? (see below)?

Because obviously it being an Asian red light district means its not really an example of a dev chucking in an Asian prostitute because he saw Full Metal Jacket once, especially when its contrasted alongside the non-Asian prostitutes. So I end up thinking...what's your actual point here?

Anyway, onto your response. This point about different people having different ideas of what the world is like. Sure but, as a relevant example, it doesn't really matter what my view of the world is like when it bumps against a fact like 'prostitutes exists'.

And - ' culture...developed..ideas about what women are'. So a depiction of a prostitute NPC is an 'idea' of what women are? I can see how it is a reflection of either an idea or a reality or both of what a woman can be, but I don't see flatly that it's solely and inherently a reflect of what they *are* or should I say that merely showing their existence is an inherently a statement of what women (as opposed to prostitutes) are.

I mean I hate to stretch the point here but in all of the examples used I can't see many of those games only female NPCs being prostitutes (Asian or otherwise). You don't drive around in Sleeping Dogs watching prostitutes take photos, prostitutes talk on their mobiles, prostitutes drive in cars etc. You find prostitutes looking for work in the red light district or what have you. What comment on the pure depiction per se of prostitutes does this have? What does it say about women?

Anita pulls, tugs and distorts the context to ensure that it seemingly says a lot but I think that's because she *needs* it to say a lot.

[Smitty]

It does feel a bit like your real problem might be that you're looking for something that's not there - I feel like you want a primer on contemporary feminist criticism of pop culture

No, I'm not and I don't. I'm just examining what's in front of me.

I honestly there's real glaring problems with her method for bolstering her argument. It surprises me that others don't stop and think 'um...really?'.

There's whole section of that video where's talking about the player being encouraged to attack or objectify women and she doesn't at any point give any indication that a lot of these things can be done to any characters. Or indeed that in many of these games most NPCs are treated as objects for the player to abuse (or not) - women/men, black/white, prostitute/sexualised woman/non prostitute/non sexualised woman.

But you don't get even a hint of that as she plays video out of context and talks about their litany of sins. I can't be the only person who both groans at some of the depictions of women (or the consistency of it say, with no prostitutes expressing dismay, fear, resistance etc) but ALSO groans when Anita very dishonestly talks about flinging female NPCs about (que shot of female prostitute NPC ragdolling around) and shooting them in the face but can't bring herself to acknowledge that she paints as a unique evil visited upon female NPCs by gamers 'encouraged' to do is in fact something that be done to any NPC in the game.

Why does she do that? Why do her supporters forgive this? The video is littered with it. She really presents a very slanted and unrepresentative view of the material in service of a noble aim. I can't get behind that. You can't talk about these things, exclude loads and loads of actual context and then pretend you're doing some balanced scholarly thing. I don't like the way she reaches her conclusions or the way the process of reaching those conclusions is presented to the player.

Which, again, is a real shame because the actual issues deserve a serious and honest examination in order to combat them.

[ah]

What I'm saying is: why are you even making a game with prostitutes in it anyway? Why did you set it in the asian red light district? What are you saying with this? Is there a point you're making about how life is hard and we do what we can to get by? Maybe something about repressive gender stereotypes meaning we think poorly of sex workers when actually some of them are living happy lives? Perhaps you are ironically commenting on false equivalences between sex, power and money? Maybe you're saying that there are dark parts of the world and it behooves us to recognise how the world really looks outside our nice houses and flatscreen TVs?

The thing is, that's almost never the case in videogames. In pretty much all videogames the only thing you're saying by putting prostitutes in your game is that women who sell sex make for an enjoyable background to a story about powerful men running around committing exciting acts of violence. You can't claim that they're just there because they exist in the real world too because you've chosen to omit so many other things - does your game have buskers? Beggars? Supermarkets? - so clearly you took a decision to include prostitutes in your vision of the world and, no matter how much they fade into the background, you're choosing to make them part of the backdrop of your character's psyche and your world's composition. In much the same way as choosing to make a gun game where men kill men feeds into a wider cultural idea that it might be exciting to be a violent man, choosing to put prostitutes in the background of that gun game feeds into a wider cultural idea that it might be a normal expectation of women to sell sex.

[Smitty]

What I'm saying is: why are you even making a game with prostitutes in it anyway? Why did you set it in the asian red light district? What are you saying with this? Is there a point you're making about how life is hard and we do what we can to get by? Maybe something about repressive gender stereotypes meaning we think poorly of sex workers when actually some of them are living happy lives? Perhaps you are ironically commenting on false equivalences between sex, power and money? Maybe you're saying that there are dark parts of the world and it behooves us to recognise how the world really looks outside our nice houses and flatscreen TVs?

The thing is, that's almost never the case in videogames. In pretty much all videogames the only thing you're saying by putting prostitutes in your game is that women who sell sex make for an enjoyable background to a story about powerful men running around committing exciting acts of violence. You can't claim that they're just there because they exist in the real world too because you've chosen to omit so many other things - does your game have buskers? Beggars? Supermarkets? - so clearly you took a decision to include prostitutes in your vision of the world and, no matter how much they fade into the background, you're choosing to make them part of the backdrop of your character's psyche and your world's composition. In much the same way as choosing to make a gun game where men kill men feeds into a wider cultural idea that it might be exciting to be a violent man, choosing to put prostitutes in the background of that gun game feeds into a wider cultural idea that it might be a normal expectation of women to sell sex.

I don't know of any games that are set of exclusively within a red light district. Do you need to be making a 'point' about prostitutes to have them in your game? Do you think depicting a prostitute is always reflecting some sort of view? Why?

I think it's wrong to assume that the mere depiction of prostitutes produces an 'enjoyable background' - I don't really ever remember feeling gleeful perusing the prostitutes in a game and I'm sure many of my fellow gamers who will be mostly hetrosexual do either. It just feels like so much i read in this area is assumption layered on assumption reinforced with implication and then buttressed by supposition.

I think a lot of those games do have buskers, beggars and supermarkets by the way.

[Smitty]

What percentage of women in games - NPCs or playable characters - are not prostitutes or princesses?

And if she's wrong, why not make a response video showing how out of context her examples are? You are making a claim that she's being mundane by not citing her data correctly - why not call her out on it with a response? Should be easy enough to do. If she is wrong.

Well actually, no, that's not the subject of this particular video at all. It's all about NPCs specifically particularly with a focus on sexualised ones. What you describe there is a big issue of course and obviously exists (and this obviously leads into it) but it's not the subject under discussion.

Also I really don't think I need to make a 'response video' when I'm discussing the matter on a forum. But I guess if you feel differently you could always make a response video of your own addressing this very post.

[ah]

On beggars and supermarkets: okay, I picked bad examples. I know for example that in GTA4 you can go to a strip club but you can't buy groceries. I haven't played a lot of those kinds of games, though - I'll trust that you get my wider point anyway.

By "enjoyable backdrop" I just mean that you're choosing it because you think it will either support or enhance the audience's engagement with/ appreciation of the work.

As for why I think depicting a prostitute (or anything else) in your game is always significant, that's what I was trying to explain in my previous two posts. Yes, I think it's always significant, and the manner in which you do it is similarly significant, but if I've failed to explain it thus far I'm not sure what other words I can use to make my view more clear, sorry.

[Smitty]

The point isn't that prostitutes are there to abuse in games like GTA and Saints Row, the point is there's so few alternatives to that trope.. unless you want to play something like Minecraft or Angry Birds.

Did you watch the video? I actually think that it is the point.

[Smitty]

On beggars and supermarkets: okay, I picked bad examples. I know for example that in GTA4 you can go to a strip club but you can't buy groceries.

Sure and that's part of an argument I can recognise and agree with. Like uh do we really want to gamify these prostitute NPCs? Do we need that? Could we comment on that? And so on.

But I think that's a separate thing. That's gamifying and what the player can do 'with' these NPCs. Anita is critiquing the mere depiction by its own at various points it seems. Your yourself also seem to endorse that angle focusing on the mere visibility of prostitutes 'even if they fade into the background'. That's not a complaint about something you can do with a prostitute NPC or an attitude that is seemingly projected from the same - it's a complaint that a prostitute NPC even exists.

As for why I think depicting a prostitute (or anything else) in your game is always significant, that's what I was trying to explain in my previous two posts. Yes, I think it's always significant, and the manner in which you do it is similarly significant, but if I've failed to explain it thus far I'm not sure what other words I can use to make my view more clear, sorry.

But if everything is so significant why isn't it also the cause for much complaint and anaylsis? Devs are rather wedded to the trope that gravity exists and that houses have doors too, but i'm not really sure what aspect of their views i'm meant to assume (lots of negative assumption in this arena I think) reflects a negative view that they hold of the world?

More significantly in setting out to examine the 'significance' of certain things in don't you have an obligation to actually honestly represent their true significance within their own context? Again I go back to what I talked about above. You can talk about doing horrible things to women in isolation with a load of footage that will titillate and outrage your feminist audience but it's pretty dishonest to not even acknowledge the truth that this casual abuse can be meted out to any NPC of any description in the same games.

Is it ok to make blatant misrepresentations because it's in the service of something good?

[Lag]

What on earth is possibly offensive about gravity and doors?

[Wiper]

I agree with Smitty pretty much entirely about this video. I think it's a particularly problematic one, taking a good, solid observation - that female NPCs are frequently depicted in highly passive, sexualised roles; that we are disproportionately invited into brothels and sex clubs in our games; that where male NPCs mostly get to be 'neutral', female NPCs are more frequently identified as objects of lust, and that this reinforces the view of women as sexual objects.

This is then watered down with a variety of extraneous arguments. The particular exploitation of non-white women is something which deserves serious discussion, and instead is woefully underdeveloped and populated with questionable examples such as Binary Domain - a Japanese game set in Japan whose prostitute characters are, shockingly, Japanese.

Other arguments are just plain deceptive - rather than discussing how all of the NPCs in GTA/Fallout/Sleeping Dogs/Hitman etc. are designed to be toyed with as the player wants, and how this is made considerably more problematic for female characters within the games because of this being twinned with their sexualised presentation, thus adding a sexual aspect to the violence, Anita both simplifies and obfuscates the situation to suggest that the games specifically encourage you to abuse the sexualised female characters.* There's a massive problem already, it didn't need to be misrepresented for dramatic effect.

Her previous videos have been relatively simplistic, but that's not a bad thing - they were always meant as primers. This is the first one I've felt is a genuinely poor video; it has a few good points, but then throws them under the bus for a range of glossed-over and deceptive arguments which only weaken the core issues being discussed. A disappointment.

*I wasn't aware of that Red Dead achievement, mind. I can see why someone at Rockstar thought it would be funny, but yuck.