Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games
This video explores how the Damsel in Distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself. As a trope the Damsel in Distress is a plot device in which a female character is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or motivation for the protagonist’s quest.
ABOUT THE VIDEO SERIES
The Tropes vs Women in Video Games project aims to examine the plot devices and patterns most often associated with female characters in gaming from a systemic, big picture perspective. This series will include critical analysis of many beloved games and characters, but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it’s more problematic or pernicious aspects.
For more examples of the Damsel in Distress see our Tumblr for this series: http://tropesversuswomen.tumblr.com
Visit http://www.feministfrequency.com for more information, videos and a full transcript.
(Source: recklessabandonedsoul, via dimmitutto)
I gave my 2 cents for this AMAZING Comics Alliance article by Laura Hudson on how to write better female characters in super hero comics:
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/10/13/female-characters-superhero-comics/
Jess Fink: (Chester 5000) When people talk about this issue they use the word “comics” to refer only to super-hero comics and it kind of gets under my skin. There are so many amazing indie comics out there that treat female characters the way they should be treated. People keep asking how they can make female characters in super-hero comics better and it’s just so frustrating because it’s right under their noses, indie comics already do it. I could name so many.
A perfect example for me is Nausicaa. If Nausicaa was a main stream US super-hero comic her t*ts would be the size of her head and she’d be dressed as skimpy as possible. She’d probably look like something out of Heavy Metal magazine. It makes me feel like some comics publishers don’t think readers can take a woman seriously unless she looks like a hot piece of ass.
A lot of writers don’t seem to be able to write female characters unless there is a need for them to be female. What I mean is that women are treated like cake icing, something to make the story sweeter, sexier, to give the reader something nice to look at amid all the violence. It feels like if you asked one of them to write a female character who wasn’t overtly sexual, like they do with males all the time, they’d look at you like you had two heads and say, “Well then, what’s the point of the character being female?” The simple solution is to stop treating women like icing,a pair of boobs, a pretty face, just treat them like people.
Obviously I don’t have a problem with sex; I draw porn comics most of the time. But even in my comics when the characters aren’t getting it on or about to get it on I am considering their personalities and their situation and I dress them accordingly. Just because Priscilla highly enjoys sex with a robot doesn’t mean she’s going to walk down the street in Victorian society with nothing but her knickers on. So why then do so many women in super hero comics do JUST THAT? They fight crime in things that look like they should be hanging in the window of Fredericks of Hollywood. You can’t wear a thong on a Victorian street but super-hero ladies wear floppy corsets, skin-tight tube tops, thigh high, g-strings and high heels to fight crime and they AREN’T EVEN IN A PORN COMIC.
Can I marry this girl’s brain? I love her for debunking such a propagandic video.
Oh my God marry me
I just love everything about this.
PERFECT HUMAN AWARD.
I, um…can gay marriage become legal everywhere so we can…we can get married, because yeah.
I think I’m in love.
(via doedearest)
#abortion #planned parenthood #pro choice #propaganda #Government and Politics #media
Fox News Headline v. Real Headline of the Day
Fair and balanced journalistic integrity.
(via scooterpiebanana)
I don’t have any exact criteria of what “reasonable armor” is. That’s on purpose. There’s obviously a lot of silly and eye-rolly stuff out there but it’s important to question your dealbreakers; because we’re talking about imagination, we’re looking at things that are meant to be fun, and cathartic, fantastical and engaging. These things should be on a spectrum of appreciation.
What am I saying here? I dunno, something like, “don’t be cynical, try to like things, then when you’re discerning it’s so much richer.” Does that make sense?
The source was from the unpopular opinions blog. The worst thing about that post from that blog is it’s not an unpopular opinion, yet everyone reblogging it probably feels like some sort of radical. No, you’re very banal. Over 85,000 people read that garbage with you and liked or reblogged it. You’re following dominant ideology. Wake the fuck up.
As for the blog, it seems to often substitute tone for substance, empowering people to think less. My blog, transfeminist blogs, socialist blogs, or any blog based on dissent, would be more aptly named the unpopular opinion. It’s quite an irony.
I certainly don’t agree with how many young girls dress now a days (meaning how they dress “sexy” even at a young age becuase they have been sucked into out society’s teaching of what girls should aspire to be like, and women’s value being in their sex appeal), but what’s more important is that women should be free to wear what they want, how they want, without fear of being ridiculed or raped because of what they wear.
There’s a lot of talk, even among girls now a days, about how “people just don’t take care/present themselves like they used to”, a notion that I’ve heard so much in my young life from many people online, in my schools, even some family and friends. And it’s a notion that is misguided. Much of what’s left to us from those past eras which so many use as examples were glorified, idealized versions of what those times were really like; the media. movies, TV shows, etc. These sources almost always base their appearances on upper-middle classes, who could afford nicer things. But even then, most mornings they didn’t wake up and plan the day’s eye-catching, flattering, classy outfit. They did what most of us do still today; wake up, pick out some things from our closet that went together well enough and threw them on.
These sources also completely fail to represent the majority of people who couldn’t afford the nicer clothes/makeup/shoes, so on. Nor do they accurately record that women in particular were much more limited in their choices, and restricted by what society expected of them.
One of the last big hurtles for women in fashion is that they get blamed for others actions in respect to what they wear. Mainly, of course, that women are “asking for it” if they wear something that is deemed too risque. Women should not have to think about others’ reactions to what they decide to cloth themselves in.
But, to go on a little side point, I feel that there’s a lot that need to be done for men on this topic. Women can wear pretty much whatever they’d like now a days without an eyebrow being raised. They can be extremely “girly”, have a wardrobe full of “men’s” clothes, or somewhere in the mix. A man cannot wear something “designed for a woman” without getting called a fag, or ridiculed similarly. It’s much more socially upsetting for a man of the heterosexual persuasion to wear something designated to just women, because that lessens his value as a man; it makes him a woman.
My husband is a rather free spirit, and is much more liberal with “just being himself” than many other guys I know. Being himself also includes painting his toenails, wearing a sundress, putting some frilly clips in his hair, and sometimes makeup in a way that’s typically designated for women. He has just as much “womens’” clothes in his wardrobe as he does “mens’”. But he doesn’t usually go out in the more girly stuff, even if he wants to. Because it would take away from his social portrayal as a man.
Things need to change for both genders, here.
(via feministdisney)
How Harry Potter’s Hermione suffered a very Hollywood fate (via The Guardian)
“I can’t.”
What? Did Hermione Granger really say “I can’t” during the climactic battle in the final chapter of the Harry Potter film saga? Presented with her chance to destroy one of the horcruxes she had put her life on the line to hunt, she backs away and needs her almost-boyfriend Ron to insist that of course she can. Sorry, filmmakers, that quavering girly-girl is not Hermione.
Maybe it was a fluke, a contrivance to make Ron the more capable one for a change, showing that Hermione was no longer a bossy know-it-all. Maybe. Except that in Deathly Hallows: Part One, when the snatcher Scabior pauses at the edge of the hidden encampment and sniffs, Hermione wobbles to Harry and Ron that he could smell her perfume. Perfume?! That’s just riddikulus. We’ve known since Goblet of Fire that when the occasion arises, Hermione can dress up and be a glamour queen. But on the run, living rough, hunting horcruxes, and facing the possibility of death at any moment, Hermione is not even going to pack perfume in her magical bag, let alone wear it.There’s almost a direct correlation with actress Emma Watson’s growing prettiness through the course of the films and Hermione’s decreased bookishness and pragmatism. Screenwriter Steve Kloves may have liked Hermione best when he was first given the job of adapting the books but as she became an adolescent, something shifted. It’s one thing for a girl to be the brains of an operation when everyone is prepubescent. But an adult woman who is brainy and takes charge is “domineering”. A very scary witch indeed. Presumably Kloves didn’t want any young male filmgoers sneering (or crossing their legs nervously) when Hermione was on screen.
Which misses the point that millions of young males and females already considered her an old friend long before the first owl hit the screen. While cinema demands streamlined plots and arcs – and, of course, the stories are about Harry – diminishing Hermione’s overt scholarliness and complex thinking under high pressure is more peculiar than a Blibbering Humdinger.
It’s also discouraging. Hermione is a great role model who doesn’t care if her bookishness or activism (absent in the films) are laughed at. She knows the power of books.
It can’t help Hermione that, although the productions are British, the series is owned by the very Hollywood studio Warner Bros. Warner’s president, Jeff Robinov, was alleged to have said in 2007 (when Half-Blood Prince had begun filming) that the studio was “no longer doing movies with women in the lead”. Such sexist policy would no doubt affect supporting characters, turning famously multilayered females into more standard Hollywood fare.
Hermione steadily became blonder and sexier in Deathly Hallows, wearing jeans so tight you’d think her legs would break if she tried to run. When it comes to film, something about a smart, fearless woman who doesn’t care about her looks makes Hollywood leery; even if, in this instance, she commands a loyal and loving built-in audience before the film begins.
Why is it so difficult for proudly brainy, bookish, outspoken girls of any age to see themselves on screen, especially in major studio films? Where are the girls who don’t make an effort to fit the “feminine” stereotype and are still admired and even loved anyway?
And where will girls learn and be validated in their belief that they don’t have to compromise fundamental aspects of their personalities to prosper? That there is never any reason to say “I can’t”? Books, for a start.
(via kaylacheri)
(Source: lumosleviosa, via theothedragon)
