Tropes vs Women

[shadowedge]

First off sorry if this is against the rules or has been posted already. I thought it may have been posted, but I did a search for "Tropes vs Women" and Anita Sarkeesian and nothing like this came up. Feel free to delete it mods, if it goes against the rules or is is off limits.

Has anyone seen the first episode yet? Anita Sarkeesian uploaded the first video to her youtube page yesterday titled "Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games ".

What do you think? I liked it a lot. She brings up an issue that affects a lot of people and is something that the video game industry can strive to do better in. She makes some good points about Peach and Zelda especially. She has done her research.

One part that I did not know about was the Dinosaur Planet game. I have never heard about that and have never played a Star Fox game after Starfox 64, so I didn't know that there was a Krystal character.

One thing that she said that really hit home for me was that the Damsel in Distress trope is that women are treated as objects instead of subjects since they are a goal to be achieved or a prize to be won rather then proper heroes.

Why can't more video games have badass heroines like Ellen Ripley, Sarah Conner, Buffy Summers, Lina Inverse, or Wonder Woman? For every Lara Croft we have ten Princess Peaches.

Also do you think these videos will eventuallty bring a change to the video game writing process and world?

[Mighty Hatman]

I watched it and it was average, inoffensive and was perfectly fine with me. Look forward to more of them.

[Panzadolphin56]

Yeah, it was a little flat but a fair enough introduction to talking about the trope.

[shadowedge]

Usually the first few episodes in a new series are a little bit worse then the rest though. It needs time to get in their stride. Still I thought this was awesome.

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Zelda%27s_Adventure

http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Princess_Peach

Curious that neither of these games were mentioned as examples of the few exceptions to the trope. Although most people would probably like to pretend that all of the Legend of Zelda games on the cd-i didn't exist, she's absolutely wrong to say Zelda never starred in her own game (and had to rescue Link to boot). I also have a suspicion dismissing the DS was a way to make Super Princess Peach "not count" as a counter-example later on.

I'm hoping she focuses an episode on strong female protagonists like Samus from Metroid and Jade from Beyond Good & Evil as examples of what more developers should be doing.

[GlowBear]

Still to watch it-going to avoid commentary about it til then. Hopefully people will calm down a bit either way this time.

[shadowedge]

She said she is going to discuss Super Princess Peach later at 9:55 into the video.

[stubbleman]

I was super dissapointed that the ending for Double Dragon Neon didn't get brought up when she was talking about Double Dragon because that would have been awesome. Maybe that will come up in part two though. There's no telling. Otherwise I hope part two moves on from focusing so much on Nintendo, but it was way better than I expected.

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

She said she is going to discuss Super Princess Peach later at 9:55 into the video.

I know, but I get the impression by the way she mentioned "not on the mobile ds" that she's setting up that somehow only console games are legitimate in order to support her argument, which I think would be dishonest. We'll have to see when the next one is released if that's where she's going.

[djnealb]

http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Zelda%27s_Adventure

http://www.mariowiki.com/Super_Princess_Peach

Curious that neither of these games were mentioned as examples of the few exceptions to the trope. Although most people would probably like to pretend that all of the Legend of Zelda games on the cd-i didn't exist, she's absolutely wrong to say Zelda never starred in her own game (and had to rescue Link to boot). I also have a suspicion dismissing the DS was a way to make Super Princess Peach "not count" as a counter-example later on.

I'm hoping she focuses an episode on strong female protagonists like Samus from Metroid and Jade from Beyond Good & Evil as examples of what more developers should be doing.

I kept waiting for her to say something about strong female leads as well, but I kept having to tell myself that this is only the 1st video in a series, and only part 1 of the Damsel in Distress trope specifically. In other words, it may be a while before she talks about Jade, Samus, Nariko, Lara, etc. (though I'm sure we'll hear about Lara in what will surely be the "Sexualization of Women" trope video, calling it now).

[Tarvu]

I like to imagine a trope is some kind of winged creature and that this thread is about women battling them.

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

I like to imagine a trope is some kind of winged creature and that this thread is about women battling them.

I'd play that game.

[TheRemedy]

Cliché is much more fun to say. Trope reminds me of tripe and then I vomit.

[Wedge]

If she didn't/doesn't bring up Princess Peach in the various Mario RPGs (particularly Thousand Year Door), there's really no discussion. Of course she was nothing but an object in most of the early games... because that is literally what she was. Just a throwaway "goal" for you to reach in games that had hardly a mention of any kind of plot.

[GlowBear]

The 1st part of the tropes was well presented&entertaining to watch and a lot of her points were valid.

[Hector Garfria]

She uses the word trope wrong 90% of the time. Women in video games are not figurative or metaphorical, but she keeps saying they are. I don't know why she has an aversion to just say stereotype or archetype, because those would be the correct words to use. I guess TVTropes.com has muddled the word for a good while now and no one remembers what it truly means anymore. Or maybe she says it just to sound smart.

[Aaron Mxy Yost]

She uses the word trope wrong 90% of the time. Women in video games are not figurative or metaphorical, but she keeps saying they are. I don't know why she has an aversion to just say stereotype or archetype, because those would be the correct words to use. I guess TVTropes.com has muddled the word for a good while now and no one remembers what is truly means anymore. Or maybe she says it just to sound smart.

I know, it's so ironic!

[GlowBear]

Maybe she says it because it fits Internet videos

[shadowedge]

How was Peach in the Mario RPGs? Never played them as I had a Genesis instead and didn't get an SNES until fairly recently.

[A Very Drunk Panda]

She's still in the role during most of the mario RPGs, but becomes a cleric-ish healer in SMRPG. That's about it. Otherwise she fits Anita's description of "Helpful Damsel" for pretty much any other that comes to mind.