Rock, Paper, Shotgun

16/01/2013 at 06:15 gwathdring says:

I don’t know enough about Deep Silver’s games to comment on how unfair it is for them to be caught out.

“I would say stereotypes exist in games and permeates society. The stereotypes aren’t limited to lithe women as sex objects though. When was the last time you played an effeminate man in a video game? When was the last time a gay man wasn’t portrayed in most media as a “flamer”? Where are the positive representatives of those that don’t fit neatly into the usual stereotypical gender roles? Focusing on a solitary issue, or a solitary sex (as opposed to gender) as if it were *the issue* negates the bigger picture. ”

I disagree. Sort of. I’d argue that diffusing every issue by saying “there’s a bigger picture” to the point that no one is allowed to criticize individual components of a problem is every bit as counter-productive as presenting a single issue as *the issue*. Which is why I endeavor very hard to do neither of those in my own arguments.

I tend to lean towards the smaller scale when possible, though. I like to add as much flavor and context and relativism to a discussion as I can, but there’s a point where we stop talking about anything and stop arguing in favor of just generically pontificating in slightly different directions, no matter how nuanced the opinions inspiring those particular directions might be.

I think I said it best in a conversation about sexism party-way through the Cyberpunk thread in the forums. A non-sexist society has to have room for gender bias in the same way that a random coin toss has to have room for tails coming up seven times in a row. Fluctuating inequities are inevitable in a truly egalitarian system. This makes it difficult to deal with borderline cases. Perhaps Deep Silver plays off of tropes that appear sexist to genre outsiders but are simply a part of the traditions of said genre–but perhaps the origins of those tropes or the tropes themselves have issues beyond the scope of Deep Silver’s intentions as well.

There’s nothing wrong with showing characters naked, portraying characters as sexy, portraying characters even as sexual objects to be fetishized. But when there is a consistent (i.e. non-random) inequity in the way these things are done in media, specifically in video games and video game advertising, we have an obligation to ask why. When those inequities map onto larger-scale inequities in our society we have an obligation to investigate the correlation and to insure we are neither perpetuating them nor invoking them incautiously–that is, if we want to improve this medium. I do.

I’m more than happy to discuss the frequent mishandling of atypical sexual orientations and genders in media. I’m more than happy to approach fixing social issues and their intersections with media in a bottom up fashion–the most oppressed first, the most privileged oppressed class last. Things tend not to happen that way, though, and I’d just as soon address inequity for white, middle-class women as not address inequity at all.

Essentially, for me it comes down to this: we can talk about why this discussion isn’t as important as other discussions or we could enact my preferred, two part plan: 1) Have this discussion and 2) Have those other, more important discussions. Social issues are complicated. We can’t always trust our own thoughts and feelings, let alone those of others. It’s a mess. We lie to ourselves and have implicit assumptions that usually flash by too fast for us to notice explicitly, and so forth. As such, I’m much more concerned about avoiding talking about important things than I am about having a possibly unimportant discussion. I’m more worried that some of the “It’s not that big a deal” talk is a symptom of the problem than I am that a rational, in depth discussion will lead to some kind of irrational catastrophe.

Questioning our instantaneous assumptions is important in dealing with insidious social issues like sexism. I don’t care especially for John Walker’s approach, but I like the discussion. And you know, that’s quite possibly the main reason he keeps posting these things. If is in fact the case, I revise: I might not agree with his opinions, but I applaud the approach.