Kickstarter "Tropes vs Women in Videogames"

[Valkyrie-Favor]

I'm watching the new video. Only a quarter of the way though, but so far everything has come straight from TVTropes.

[BoneSnapDeez]

....................what does that even mean?

[Forlorn Drifter]

I think there's merit to what she is trying to do and say, but I'm not in agreement with some points. The main thing I didn't like is her comparison between killing possessed or otherwise transformed loved ones and domestic violence. To me, it seemed like a jump. I'm not going to say that there might not be some kind of sub-conscious mumbo jumbo that might promote violence such as that after seeing it, but I sure as hell don't think "I just killed a fictional female in a video game, I should slap the shit out of a woman now."


I also feel its a hard thing to fight against, seeing as the damsel in distress is a basic storyline, just a bit specified. Warrior working to save something. It is supposed to be more personal and more understandable to save a loved woman instead of the world- although that is up to argument. I just feel it is too ingrained at this point to attack head on like this- it should be dealt with differently.

[J T]

I love this series. Partly because I'm a feminist and I'm glad to see these issues being talked about and given lots of attention across gaming press, but also because I'm a gaming enthusiast and I love innovation. This is a call-to-arms to the games industry to not only be less sexist, but to also be more narratively creative. The way she just rattles off example after example of damsel-in-distress, refrigerator-girl, etc. really emphasizes how similar game stories are to one another. I can't wait until we see stories about complex female (or even male) characters that don't simply exist to forward the protagonist's story arc, but actually have some real personality to them.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

....................what does that even mean?

It means most of her material is taken from the free, community-built wiki TVTropes.

In most of her videos, she uses that site's unique terminology.

[BoneSnapDeez]

....................what does that even mean?

It means most of her material is taken from the free, community-built wiki TVTropes.

In most of her videos, she uses that site's unique terminology.

Well yeah, her series is all about tropes - so I can see why her language would overlap with a website dedicated to such a topic. I don't think she's "lifting" anything from the site - she has written about pop culture long before the site even existed.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

That's true, but currently there's no doubt there's some shared material.

"Damsel in Distress" is a common phrase, so I'm not counting that. Next to the Damsel in Distress: Part 2 video, there are links to videos titled Straw Feminist and The Smurfette Principle.

This is more than language overlap. She actually is taking much of her content from TVTropes.

[jinx]

Finally got around to watching the latest installment, and enjoyed it quite a bit. There were a few things she lost me on, but overall I agree. Can't wait to see the next one.

[8bit]

I am in full agreement with JT above. Her videos are not only pointing out the honest truth that games are very stereotypical towards woman but also extremely repetitive. This repetitiveness is what perpetuates the stereotypes and engrains them into societies psyche.

Also keep in mind there are a lot of young gamers out there learning and forming their personalities while they spend time gaming. While there are a lot of benefits to be had from gaming, conversely they don't need these kinds of stereotypes repeated over and over, embedding themselves into their young impressionable minds.

[Hobie-wan]

She actually is taking much of her content from TVTropes.

TVTropes is a collection of information about common tropes in fiction. Unless she speaks in sentences directly lifted from articles there, she isn't taking her content from there. Tropes existed long before the site. What you are accusing her of doing would be like saying I had stolen from Webster's Dictionary or Encyclopedia Britannica because I said that Washington DC was the capital of the US or I lifted a list of US states from the World Atlas. I'm sure she used TVTropes as a research tool, just like one would use references when writing a paper.