Women in fantasy

[Mindfire]

I firmly believe it is the responsibility of men to fix the man problem. Why are there so many dirtbags? Because fathers don't teach their sons. They don't work every day to mold their sons in to good men. When they do, amazing things can happen.

This. This so much. The catastrophic failure of so many fathers in this nation is astounding. Especially in the Black community. The fact that I and my sister have an awesome dad who's still married to my mom and was directly involved in raising us is the rough equivalent of winning the lottery (slight hyperbole in terms of raw mathematics). That's just... sad.

 

[Trick]

The fact that I and my sister have an awesome dad who's still married to my mom and was directly involved in raising me is the rough equivalent of me winning the lottery. That's just... sad.

I couldn't agree more. My mother passed away when I was about 18 months old. I'm the youngest of seven, two of whom were off on there own already by that time. My father raised five children alone. Every one of us is a law abiding, genuinely good person. Though he has his flaws, my father is a hero to me. I have two boys and plan to have more kids and I want to do my best everyday to teach them how to be men in the noble sense of the word. I'm also lucky enough to have a wonderful wife and together I think we can do it. I can't even imagine going it alone.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Although the comments here are civil & respectful, we're veering away from fantasy writing and into the realms of social commentary (as mentioned in some of the recent posts). Please, let's rein it back into how these topics are represented in fiction.

Thanks.

 

[Mindfire]

So how about this short film?

That was pretty awesome. Well, except for

Spoiler: thing that almost ruins the film

Wonder Woman standing by and letting her date get the crap beaten out of him. So much for love and compassion for all humanity. That was both harsh and out of character.

 

[Zero Angel]

I don't feel like we can have the conversation without the word. The word is shocking by its mere mention, and I think it should be shocking. If we call it R, we might as well be calling it surprise sex.

I'm not sure I get the specific paranoia over this one word. When I posted a topic about the creation of homemade bombs for use in domestic terrorism, no one panicked and told me to call it T so Google wouldn't think we were Al Qaeda. But if we really can't have the word, let's just ban the topic like we keep considering doing.

I think Mythic Scribes is big enough now that it shouldn't matter, but I just know that Black Dragon has dropped in on a couple of threads before that were starting to talk about R and CP, etc, so why tempt fate (or dragons)? There's been talk of banning another topic? I've been out of it.

I'd really like to watch the video but recently had my unlimited status revoked, so I will just imagine what it is supposed to be about...IS IT A DRAGONLANCE MOVIE?!?! FIZBAN!!!

 

[Mindfire]

I'd really like to watch the video but recently had my unlimited status revoked, so I will just imagine what it is supposed to be about...IS IT A DRAGONLANCE MOVIE?!?! FIZBAN!!!

What do you mean you had your unlimited status revoked? And no it's not Dragonlance, but it is relevant.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

So how about this short film?
That was pretty awesome. Well, except for

Spoiler: thing that almost ruins the film

Wonder Woman standing by and letting her date get the crap beaten out of him. So much for love and compassion for all humanity. That was both harsh and out of character.

Totally with you on the spoiler, Mindfire. Even though it was a fan film, and for a fan film it was well made, it reminds me of all the reasons the pilot never got off the ground. Of course, my thought about it naturally becomes...

Spoiler: Bad Guy Spoiler

Why does the lead bad guy a) not only have his jacket buttoned up over his gun until the very last second; b) wait until said last second to draw it; and c) hesitate to shoot just because some shlub jumps in the way? Did he, what, forget how to villain that morning?

But then, I do love my bad guys.

 

[Zero Angel]

What do you mean you had your unlimited status revoked? And no it's not Dragonlance, but it is relevant.

Sorry. Typed too fast. I meant unlimited data has vanished from my Internet so I'm keeping a close eye on every MB. Videos eat it up.

 

[Mindfire]

Totally with you on the spoiler, Mindfire. Even though it was a fan film, and for a fan film it was well made, it reminds me of all the reasons the pilot never got off the ground. Of course, my thought about it naturally becomes...

Spoiler: Bad Guy Spoiler

Why does the lead bad guy a) not only have his jacket buttoned up over his gun until the very last second; b) wait until said last second to draw it; and c) hesitate to shoot just because some shlub jumps in the way? Did he, what, forget how to villain that morning?

But then, I do love my bad guys.

I agree. Things like that really lose the film points in my book. I liked the "don't judge a book by its cover" take, the reveal was great, and so were the... brief cameos, shall we say, at the end. But I still can't give the film full marks because of those glaring character flaws.

 

[glutton]

There's a big difference between someone standing up for their beliefs on principle and someone intentionally trolling the internet to make a profit.

Which one you think she is doing is an opinion though unless you're a telepath like Martian Manhunter...

 

[JBryden88]

I think in fantasy there's room for all kinds of women, just as there are for men. Heroic, feminine, masculine, gay, straight, cowardly, good, evil, etc.

I've got alot of projects all in various stages, and one thing I do is I base it off of the culture I'm writing about. The culture that is effectively the main culture, is a tribal, barbarian culture where EVERYONE is equal as long as they are strong, and do their part. Are there weak women? Yep. Same with weak men.

Gender shouldn't have to matter beyond the equipment a person has on their person. IMO.

 

[Mindfire]

Which one you think she is doing is an opinion though unless you're a telepath like Martian Manhunter...

Oh, darn. Looks like my secret is out.

 

[saellys]

Um, a minor point, if you're going to point to people who've been abused for standing up to The Man, Anita Sarkeesian is not a particularly good example. All indications are that she intentionally provoked the backlash she received (or at least indulged or enabled it) so that she would gain martyr points and thus more publicity and funding for her project.

Am I to understand that you think Anita Sarkeesian was asking for it? Because I can't see this boiling down to any other sentiment, but feel free to backpedal. And oh please, do let me know what all those indications are. PM if you want so we don't derail this mess even more.

Furthermore, the actual points she makes in her videos are not terribly insightful and sometimes contradictory. And just to put the cherry on the sundae, while she has publicly made much hay out of the vicious and hateful messages she has received, she has never at any point (to my knowledge) attempted to engage in discussion with her more civil and thoughtful critics who have legitimate points to make and questions to ask about her work (unlike the good folks we've got in this thread). I wouldn't call this "standing up for your beliefs". And while she isn't nearly as bad as the vitriol-spewing neanderthals who resorted to cyberbullying because they couldn't form a more coherent response to her message, I still wouldn't call what she's done laudable. As I said, I don't find her videos to be terribly insightful anyway.

It's cool that you don't personally get anything out of her videos, but she has no obligation to engage in discussion with her critics apart from the videos she makes, nor to keep silent or observe some arbitrary, externally-set maximum threshold when talking about the harassment she received. (Because women don't get told to not talk about harassment at all, ever, nope!)

I just looked up that oh-so-controversial Kickstarter, and the most recent version was updated when she got 2,000 backers (the funding closed with almost 7,000 backers). She posted a nice thank you message and picture, a couple links to the more egregious examples of harassment for quick reference, a vague description of the measures she took to protect herself against threats that she had to take seriously, and a couple links to press around the Internet. It all seemed perfectly straightforward to me, and was never played for anyone's pity. Sarkeesian is no one's helpless damsel, woe-is-me-ing her way to Kickstarter stretch goals.

At no point in the original description for the project, or anywhere else I could find, did Sarkeesian say she wanted to open a dialogue between herself and anyone else. She did say she wanted to "contribute to and help amplify the existing conversations" with her videos. Not personally respond to everyone who has a problem with how she does what she does. Her videos adequately represent her opinions, and the fact that she does not elaborate in long-winded comment exchanges or Twitter wars or whatever else should not count against her character. No one wants to saint her, so could you not go to the opposite extreme by villainizing her?

 

[Mindfire]

Am I to understand that you think Anita Sarkeesian was asking for it? Because I can't see this boiling down to any other sentiment, but feel free to backpedal. And oh please, do let me know what all those indications are. PM if you want so we don't derail this mess even more.

"Asking for it"? I'm no rhetorician, but I know a loaded phrase when I see one. I would not say she was "asking for it". But I would say that she may have gone into this expecting to get a certain amount of backlash, and then carefully calculated her actions to take advantage of this fact. Her messages do not appeal to me, but Sarkeesian is intelligent and educated. She knows how to provoke a response. And when you're dealing with a group (let's say, gamers) which is known to have strong opinions and attachments to something and which has within it a certain subclass infamous for a lack of civility, it's not difficult to predict what response you might get and find a way to take advantage of it. I'm not saying she created sock puppets to publicly defame her, but IIRC she also didn't censor comments until after she no longer needed her haters. Shrewdness is not a bad quality, but let's not start calling her a hero.

It's cool that you don't personally get anything out of her videos, but she has no obligation to engage in discussion with her critics apart from the videos she makes, nor to keep silent or observe some arbitrary, externally-set maximum threshold when talking about the harassment she received. (Because women don't get told to not talk about harassment at all, ever, nope!)

I just looked up that oh-so-controversial Kickstarter, and the most recent version was updated when she got 2,000 backers (the funding closed with almost 7,000 backers). She posted a nice thank you message and picture, a couple links to the more egregious examples of harassment for quick reference, a vague description of the measures she took to protect herself against threats that she had to take seriously, and a couple links to press around the Internet. It all seemed perfectly straightforward to me, and was never played for anyone's pity. Sarkeesian is no one's helpless damsel, woe-is-me-ing her way to Kickstarter stretch goals.

At no point in the original description for the project, or anywhere else I could find, did Sarkeesian say she wanted to open a dialogue between herself and anyone else. She did say she wanted to "contribute to and help amplify the existing conversations" with her videos. Not personally respond to everyone who has a problem with how she does what she does. Her videos adequately represent her opinions, and the fact that she does not elaborate in long-winded comment exchanges or Twitter wars or whatever else should not count against her character. No one wants to saint her, so could you not go to the opposite extreme by villainizing her?

It is not my intent to villainize. But I will admit my opinions on her are incredibly biased. When someone proclaims that Lego Batman and Nerf guns are somehow psychologically damaging and tropes are bad because they exist (context be damned), I am prone to treat them with suspicion.

 

[saellys]

Yeah, the loaded phrase was intentional. You said she enabled her own harassment. That logic sounds really familiar.

Her project was fully funded in under 24 hours, so at which point did she need her haters?

 

[Steerpike]

I'm not that familiar with Sarkeesian apart from her "Damsel in Distress" videos, but the impression I got from those wasn't that the trope was bad because it exists, but that it is was bad because of the extent to which it exists and dominates the medium.

 

[saellys]

^ And that in the case of her "Tropes vs. Women" series, the dominant themes are overwhelmingly harmful to female characters. So no, not "tropes are bad because they're sexist," but "tropes are bad when they're sexist."

 

[Mindfire]

Yeah, the loaded phrase was intentional. You said she enabled her own harassment. That logic sounds really familiar.

The rather large difference being that in this case the response she got was both forseen and profitable.

Her project was fully funded in under 24 hours, so at which point did she need her haters?

My understanding is that prior to her project being funded, her videos were freely available for comment. After the project was funding, comments were closed.

Step 1: Allow haters to act like idiots
Step 2: Point to this as evidence of persecution
Step 3: Profit
Step 4: Disable the comments before intelligent commenters can arrive with legitimate points.

I'm not that familiar with Sarkeesian apart from her "Damsel in Distress" videos, but the impression I got from those wasn't that the trope was bad because it exists, but that it is was bad because of the extent to which it exists and dominates the medium.

^ And that in the case of her "Tropes vs. Women" series, the dominant themes are overwhelmingly harmful to female characters. So no, not "tropes are bad because they're sexist," but "tropes are bad when they're sexist."

Her argument would have been more persuasive had she not chosen Mario of all things as her prime example, while carefully cherry-picking her evidence in the process.

 

[saellys]

She probably knew to expect a certain level of animosity from the gaming community. Maybe she made the conscious decision to be optimistic about the potential responses and move forward in good faith, in which case I applaud her. I very much doubt that she expected the extreme responses she received. If I was Sarkeesian and someone told me in advance that I would receive rape threats and death threats for attempting to fund my video series, I might think twice about it. I don't know what Sarkeesian would do, but it's a moot point since she didn't know in advance, as evidenced by the fact that she had to take measures to protect herself.

As for profitable, how many people funded her out of pity (or in order to leave a nasty comment because you can't comment on a Kickstarter without backing it) vs. how many funded her because they liked the idea, which they happened to hear about because of the publicity of all her haters, is a question for the backers, not for Sarkeesian. Again, it's not something that should reflect on her character. She is under no obligation to enable comments on her videos. If people want to talk about the videos or about her in a negative light, they will (see also: you). Why should she have to wade through thousands of people who would spew hate on her videos to find the few sensible human beings who have good points to make?

I'm sorry a thing you like got called out for employing an old trope. It happens. Like I said, you can dismiss her points and her methods, but that does not add up to Sarkeesian milking her own harassment.

 

[Mindfire]

Speculation can go both ways, fair enough. Regardless, weathering internet harassment is not a qualification for sainthood. Nor does it make her opinions sacrosanct, or even correct.