Congrats, contributors: you gave her $150 000 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6p5AZp7r_Q. Anyone who donated to her Kickstarter could have gotten as much understanding of the topic by reading the website from which she cribs her theses. Huzzah, Mediocrity!

Edit: it gives me much satisfaction to type: I told you so.

Edit edit: there's a better video on youtube, called "The Damsel in Distress", by user gamesvstropesvswomen. (I can't link to it, however, as it has a swear word.) I'm shocked he managed to make it without $150 000, or even $6 000.

People donated 150k to this?

I hope she bought one hell of a camera for her act, because I've seen people do a whole lot more with less money on YouTube.

Ok, here's my constructive conversation:

I can't take this girl seriously for the life of me, simply because of her outrageously pretentious and lecturing attitude. I've watched some of her videos before, and SOMETIMES there's pretty good content (Smurfette Principle), albeit obviously the girl is just regurgitating everything she learned about feminism in her liberal arts studies or whatever, not actually thinking up any of this stuff herself.

Other times, however? I remember when she said "I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus" is sixist because it implies women are promiscuous. I just don't even....

The problem with her show is that in a way, it has an agenda. She's pushing the feminist agenda to the degree that she's unable to recognize what art is or WHY it's sometimes portrayed the way it is. For example, I remember she wanted to say the Big Bang Theory is guilty of the Smurfette Principle because there's only one girl who's devoid of personality and only serves the role of being a six object. Two things: Penny definitely has personality, and second, the SUBJECT MATTER of Big Bang Theory is the nerd cliché. You know what part of the nerd cliché is? Not being good with women, so the show itself would seem a little disingenuous to the nerd trope if they had dozens of female friends. Personally, I'd consider the fact that the main characters are all male (for the first couple seasons, anyways) to also be part of that nerd trope, not because there's not nerdy women, but because nerdy women often aren't subject to the same stereotypes that nerdy men are, one being that nerdy women don't struggle to talk to men as much simply BECAUSE men typically take the initiative in relationships in modern society, and you better believe there'll be at least a couple guys asking out literally any woman.
In that sense, there's good REASON why Penny was the only one there: she's a tool to show how the nerd trope interacts with women; there's not dozens of women everywhere because that's not the purpose of the show. The focus is nerds, not women. And sure enough, within a few seasons there's plenty of nerdy women aswell. But she doesn't care. She just has her little checklist and sees that objectively, the show qualifies, and she cares not the reason as to WHY it qualifies. The result is she's there giving this pretentious little speech about how they could've made the show BETTER (as if her opinion is law) by having it focus more on women and female issues.

FFS I bet you I could play http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Mse62NFl4 and she would hear it and say it could be better if it were a duet, with Martha responding to him and talking about what a weird stalker he was or whatever from the female perspective. THAT'S NOT WHAT THE SONG IS ABOUT!! It's about his perspective on things, it's a song FOR the creep or the hopeless romantic!

She seems to fail to comprehend why art exists, and views it with an outlook of art that shows female equality as being objectively better than media that doesn't include an equal female outlook. The reason this fails entirely is because art is about a message or idea that a person felt was important enough that it was worth expressing in one way or another. And sometimes? Sometimes these messages or ideas are gender exclusive, sometimes it's a man carrying the message, and sometimes the issue of gender just has jack-all to do with the message itself and therefore detracts from it if she tries to shove gender equality to the driver's seat. She seems to think all art has a duty to ALWAYS involve gender equality; no, no it doesn't. Art is a form of expression, and therefore it can be anything you like. Yknow why Mario saves the Princess? Because it reflects the culture of the time, it's as simple as that. That she preaches for it to be that Mario saves the princess just as often as she saves him? This is a purely idealistic view that's simply alien (in a sense, at least, though not completely) to the culture of the time of it's creation. They don't have a duty to portray it otherwise, nor would it be any less oppressive or anymore productive if she were to somehow force gender equality into any and all art forms. The result is that her messages, while sometimes true, are simply idealistic rants that one can do NOTHING about. Things are the way they are because that's how things work. What I would like to hear as an alternative to her little finger-waving, headshaking of shame at all these guilty media forms, is an actual SUGGESTION about how to do anything about it without shoehorning gender equality as the top damned issue of EVERY piece of media, no matter how little that media may have to do with gender at all. Do something productive and name something we can do to change this. I doubt she has any good suggestions, both because I think she's targeted "innocent" media forms in the past with a close-minded outlook, and because she just wreaks of never having experienced life outside of the classroom. Don't just sit there saying "can you believe a MAN wrote a story about saving a WOMAN?! The audacity!!" Were you born ****ing yesterday, girl?

But yeah, the fact that she seems to push an agenda at -any- costs along with her pretentious tone just ruin it all. Which is a shame, because ironically, while I've seen plenty of legit criticisms on her videos, there's also plenty of blatantly sixist criticisms too.

In the very first example of the video, she goes to great lengths to portray a marketing/business decision (to turn an original IP with a female protagonist into the sequel of an established IP with a male protagonist) as a sixist ploy. Her dogma prevents any critical thought on her part. It's embarrassing. The whole video is just so ... small, inconsequential, insipid. Feminists are furious that she represents them in the gaming community, and rightly so.

She later goes on to say that Peach's inclusion as a protagonist in Super Mario 2 for the -EXACT- same reasons that Fox is the protagonist of Dinosaur Planet "doesn't count" because she only ended up there by chance. Fox replacing Krystal though? No, that's sixism!!

She also cites that when women are kidnapped, they're helpless, and when men are kidnapped, they take charge and break out. No no, PROTAGONISTS break out, NPCs do not. I promise you Laura Croft has broken out. I promise you Samus Aran has broken out. I promise you Mario did NOT break out of Bowser's clutches in Luigi's Mansion. It just so happens that 90% of protagonists are male. You wanna discuss that? Fine, but don't go exaggerating the issue and discussing non-issues instead of just admitting when you're wrong so you can move onto more valid points.

Like I said, her videos just fall flat. Part of it is that she doesn't address simple points like the ones we just made, though having read some of her responses to some of her other videos, I always just get the sense she's blindly stubborn about her stance and unwilling to look at it from an objective, unbias perspective, but rather always sits in the feminist camp. That's what ruins her videos for me. I might like them if I got the sense she were a person you could discuss all of her points with and simply weed out the stupid points while highlighting the truer ones, but I definitely don't get that sense.

As I said, she pretty much lost her credibility with me when she said "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is a sixist song because it projects women as promiscuous cheaters. I can't facepalm hard enough, and I'm amazed she hasn't admitted she was wrong there.

Never heard of her or her KS...watched first few minutes of it, skipped thru it here and there, got the idea. Just her yapping in front of green screen clips and pics, and the topic doesn't interest me much to begin with. There's a few "feminist" points of view re: entertainment as a whole that I do find interesting to discuss/ponder, but this sort, not so much. Certainly doesn't seem very polished, certainly not worth $150k, and probably not even worth the $6k she was originally asking for. Looks like something you could make in a weekend.

Did she originally have comments enabled, or did she turn them off after being pummeled with negative ones? Heh.

How many examples could you find, with a subjective agenda, of "games are sixist as they portray men as knuckleheads, only fit for fighting and killing, with no feelings or social skills", for 150K?

Initially didn't have them disabled. As I said, I remember distinctly seeing people offer good counter-criticisms or counter-points to her points in the past, but her reponses were always just her saying that "objectively" she's right and they are wrong (usually in the sense that something does qualify for a trope, not whether the trope is justified for the PURPOSE of the artform she was criticizing) rather than her truly looking at what they were saying.

EDIT: Here. This is a great example of everything I've been saying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpDnr2s9yxQ

That's the video where she says "I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is sixist, and as you can see someone clearly points out the OBVIOUS flaws with her claim, but instead of actually listening to the post, her response is basically "ya but objectively I'm still right cuz kid still thinks mom cheating."

*watches that Creepy Xmas Songs video of hers*

....whatever, girl, whatever.

That song is using a child's perspective as light humor and was written during a different social culture period to boot - to say it's conscious intention is/was to say "women are promiscuous/cheaters" or something is absurd. Creative efforts don't exist in a vacuum, they can/do often reflect attitudes/culture "norms" of the time but for heaven's sake ... that was a poor example to try to make a case from.

It's even more absurd when you consider the alternative is "I saw Daddy kissing Cindy Claus," basically rewriting the history of Christmas as we know it.
Because yknow, the song will totally catch on and you won't get weird looks or anything if you release it as Cindy Claus.

Damn straight. I've never seen, or heard of this lady before, but wow. She's got a narrow, small-minded view.

she's clearly one of those feminist goons who only talk about the sixist things in public forms of expression. while completely ignoring the other half of whats going on, where woman are expressed as strong self motivated protagonists.

The fact that she completely excludes any game in which females are protagonists and rescue themselves is point in fact that she is just another feminist who takes up the war cry of "equality" while really what she is all about is a supremacy war. She doesn't want to be equal, she wants to be dominant. She accomplishes this by taring something as misogynous and stirring "social justice" to censor and edit any thing in which a male is shown to be dominant.

what about samus aran? what about female characters in fighter games (im sure she would go off on about how their dressed)?

What about streets of rage? the entire point of her video was that '80s games were sixist because females were protrayed as helpless and weak opposed to males who were the protagonists and strong. However in streets of rage there were three playable characters; a black guy, a white guy and a woman. In that game you fought your way through waves of gang members eventually to become the king of the streets (i think, i never actually beat the game as a kid, just watched my dad do it, so my memory on that is hazy). you could do this as the woman character, or the male characters.

it didn't matter which gender character, all that was different in each ending was that they sat in the king pin criminal's chair before the credits rolled. but does that count? I guess not.

Also, golden axe was just the same as streets of rage now that i think about it, only in a fantasy setting.

Another thing I don't get, and I hope by some odd chance a feminist might show up and explain this to me, but...

She complains that the damsel it distress trope is nothing but fantasy designed to fuel male testosterone pumped fantasies.
....Ok, and? Like I agree with you, but how is there anything wrong with it? Personally I'm more disgusted with how companies willingly produce a product KNOWING it's designed to feed off the least common denominator to make money rather than I'm concerned about how it shapes our culture. People fantasize. It's what they do.

Great example? Twilight. Do I read it and think it's ridiculous? Yes. Do I think it's obvious it's a blatant female fantasy? Yes. Is it devoid of any realistic factors of a realistic relationship, and do I laugh/shutter at the thought of myself acting like Edward or Jacob? Yes.
Do I get all up in arms about it, telling women that's a pathetic fantasy and that it needs to change and Edward needs to be more realistic? Umm, no. Because it's quite clear that that's it's purpose. The people reading it are reading it to fantasize. Is there a problem with that? I mean ok, sometimes there can be some pretty delusional fans for stuff like that who seem to have issues with facing reality, but that's more of a personal problem, no? It's not really a result of the book either, but rather something about their personality. But holy crap, everyone fantasizes. Try and name the number of times you've fantasized about yourself being popular/rich/powerful/loved by your crush/important/whatever; happens a lot, doesn't it?


So yeah, just like I can't see myself going on a crusade to get Twilight fans to realize what a fantasy it is, I can't imagine why she feels it so important that this damsel in distress trope dies. I'm not saying bring on more of the damsel in distress trope, mind you, but I honestly couldn't give a damn if it returns or not, aside from a potential "*sigh* not this overdone BS again..."

She's acting like it's a crime, yet I fail to see the crime. If she wants a pro-feminine game or form of media, go write one or make one yourself, or at least suggest a workable solution to the problem as she sees it aside from "developers/artists have a duty to monitor gender equality in their works at all times," cause that's a load of horse crap. I simply fail to see how her show is in anyway productive or exceptionally educational.

Watched 4 minutes... don't see why so many people give her so much [censored].

At least her presentation is somewhat balanced.

I only knew of how people were threatening to kill her and do other awful things to her. Really, I didn't care about her but did care that a million jerks were making such threats. Hopefully now people will be quiet about her now and another one of these bad examples of how not to act towards people you don't agree with doesn't happen for awhile and isn't so publicized.

The video itself is really immensely harmless. It's out now. Hardly matters. Not that many people outside of gaming and her circle of friends really know about it.

Also, this thread will not last long.

there were a few people threatening her, but not nearly as many as she claimed. which is why i didn't thumbs down her video and wouldn't have left a comment criticizing her. because she is one of those people who turns any criticism or contrary opinion into "misogynists trying to suppress her feminine expression" basicly, if you don't agree with her you are a sixist.

apparently in all of her public presentations about sixism in video games she pulls out a list of "supposed thousands" of death threats and viscous negative comments and uses that as "proof" that the entire gaming industry is sixist. when really 1% are threats and the rest just out right point out the flaw in her arguments.

You're a better man than I, I'm at 3:20, and this video SUUUCKS. Seriously, people paid 150,000 Dollars to hear her go 'I'm not saying it's sixist, but it's sixist.'? Those people got hoodwinked and how.

Seriously, I'm sick of all this feminist BS in video gaming culture. Is there sixism? Undeniably. Are women PCs often glorified six symbols? Yes, but could one not say this strikes down the same trope of 'all looks, no brains' pretty girls are given by jealous 'smart average girls'? Look how many NPCs and PCs are strong and well crafted female characters. I seriously wish people would pull their heads out their own self righteous asses and try to see things from all sides.

That's the downside with kickstarter I guess. She only asked for 5000. Then the internet freaked out for no good reason whatsoever because some idiots started harassing her over the internet (uuuuh it has the word feminist in it), the word got out, people sympathized and she ended up with 150k. This isn't a videogame you can just keep adding new things to, this video series can't possibly come close to costing 150K when 5K was the intended budget.

Still, considering the budget the production values of the video are pretty mediocre. She could've hired a professional editor or do something more. For that money, it should've been better.

As for the actual content of the video, I really don't mind. She can make whatever videos she wants. The start of the kickstarter was one of the biggest non-issues I've seen blow up on the internet lately, and ironically the only reason it got so much attention and money was because there were people harassing her. So that backfired.

I'm glad those threats were not as bad as I thought. I'd better leave this thread before the fire turns up. I'm all for equal rights, but I just call myself equal rights person. Not really surprised how she was acting since she seems to be of the extremist third wave feminism type of feminism. I have nothing against her seeing as I only was hoping she wasn't being given terrible comments that were threatening and am glad the hopeful side of me was right.

I watched the whole video while playing Pokemon. Got a few female Absol out of them. Come to think of it, I think my Pokemon White 2 game is sixist to Absol because I keep getting females. The male to female ratio for them is 50/50. Huh.

I actually have something against her. Her arguement at its core consists of the 'I'm a girl! Look at this girl in ____! She was a prisoner in it, clearly this game is sixist!' and that crap snowballs somewhere. I'm for equal rights across the board, but its biased garbage like this video that grates my nerves.

Well, death threats to the lady are way out of line, certainly. She can have her opinions and broadcast them, don't see the big deal in that regard.

I am not what I'd call a "feminist" but I do strongly believe in not being discriminated against simply for being female. But that's a bit different then the issues she's bringing up. In entertainment, I may have preferences, I may want multiple options, and I may roll my eyes or sigh at stereotypes at times, but in a broad general sense stereotypes (again, in entertainment) don't bother me, because if one displeases me, I have a choice not to engage in them.

P.S. - it is nice when a game gives my female character plenty of other options besides "babe armor" to wear, however.

I do find those kinds of views fairly irritating, but only really care if it is actually hurting someone. This video may give people the wrong idea, but it there's far worse videos made by extremist third wave feminists. Heck, I'm sure many feminists actually are irked by this woman since not everyone will know feminism has various forms and will assume they are all of the kind Anita is.

I do hate how the movement is seen as some man hating thing by the uninformed. I'm not a fan of misinformation in general.

Dang, maybe I can get free money out of people, though I have this little problem with the voice in my head that tells me not to screw people over. I think some people call it a conscience, but I call him boy scout... stupid little snot always makes me do the right thing, except to myself that's when "HE" comes out and i'm an a hole.

Speaking seriously, I just refuse to get into these debates. It's mostly due to the regurgitated facts i've heard that i'm a guy, have 0 knowledge about the "opposite six," and my opinion is therefore invalidated based solely upon those reasons and nothing more.