- Today is an important milestone – “On January 13th 2012, the world will reach a remarkable milestone in the fight to eradicate polio – 12 months without a single case of polio for the first time in India’s history.”
- Librarians have a new religion – The Church of Kopimism has several interesting tenets and believes that CTRL+C and CTRL+V are sacred symbols. From bibliotequetress.
- Boobs, bad games, and misogyny – “Bioshock Infinite is a game that commands anticipation, respect and admiration. Yet its creator Ken Levine has been in the news talking about reactions to the central character Elizabeth’s cleavage. What does this controversy say about the nature of games and their physical portrayal of women?”From Tyler.
- Chinese tree offers hope for alcohol antidote – From Jack99.
- Cute Animal Friday! Which means, bath time for baby sloths! From bibliotequetress, a lovely Nat Geo video. And how about we round things out with some otters chasing a butterfly and some rescued seal pups.
That polio article made me smile, I needed that.
To add to Cute Animal Friday, I present
ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS – this one seemed suited to this site:
http://animalstalkinginallcaps.tumblr.com/post/15594027279/you-mean-to-tell-me-you-dont-think-theres-enough#notes
From what I know about the dude who runs it, I can’t enjoy. :(
Re: Bioshock…
For fuck’s sake, she looks 13. I’m afraid the FBI will seize my computer if I watch the trailer, much less play the game.
I had a similar reaction. I mean how tiny must she be for his hand to be that large in comparison to her hands and her neck.
Your comment was more illuminating than the entire article. I’ve never read anything more rambling and incoherent in my life.
Video game site comment threads are like encyclopedias of mansplaining. Being in the industry, I always check in on the threads of articles like that to see if any headway is being made against sexism. Sadly, it appears as though they may be the last group on earth to get the memo. I wish I had the strength to jump into that flame pit and explain unexamined privilege to them, but I just don’t.
Those mansplainers are the ones who are going to buy the game. I don’t envy the game designers who have to cater to that type of male gamer and still try to do something good and innovative that appeals to other gamers as well. I’d love to have some insight into such a design process.
I have to admit, Elizabeth works on me as a character. I like her, but I won’t pretend it’s not because she’s not tailored for just that purpose, for gamers just like me. I realize how and why it works, and it irks me a little, as well as knowing that having a character so tailored for myself often means it’s the opposite for other gamers not like me. I will however hold off on criticism until I’ve played the game. Ken Levine did pretty well with female characters in Bioshock 1 and 2, so I’ll trust him for now and send him some constructive criticism later.
I’m particularly fond of the ‘she’s dressed in something appropriate for the period setting of the game’ splainers because umm…. no corsets did not become outerwear until quite recently.
The mansplaining on mainstream gaming sites drives me up the wall. Every single time, men feel the need to tell me at length that games are made this way to appeal to a core demographic of young-ish straight males. No, really? I know why developers do it; that doesn’t mean it’s right and that it shouldn’t be challenged. So insulting!
Ah, Schrodinger’s Lara Croft strikes again.
Simultaneously existing as both a testament to misogynistic objectification of the female body and a symbol of empowerment, until the author needs to make a point then she collapses into one form or the other.
Wow! It’s almost like it’s possible for media to contain BOTH negative and positive messages and influences.
Video game female character design very often makes me feel like I’m in a Hooters. It is so often tawdry and manipulative and phony, and is used to cover up the fact that the food/game kind of sucks. It is so cheap and obvious that it distracts me even in a good game. There’s a need for characters to be attractive, I get that. But there’s a huge difference between “attractive” and the fetish-wear of game characters. Not every shirt needs to show a minimum of 2″ of cleavage, does it? Not all pants need to be made of spandex or leather or jeans one size too small. Real people in the middle of an adventure don’t have their midriff showing and high heels on. The characters can be ridiculously attractive and still dressed appropriately.
I enjoy that this article is posted on IGN in consideration of their regular features “Babeology” and “Babe of the Day”. They also, for a time, ran a gaming podcast called “Girlfight” which was a great show featuring their female editors (with occasional male guests) and staff talking about games. Oh division of News Corporation … I sincerely love the dichotomy.
One the things I do notice a lot is that in video games, particularly in shooters is that the protagonist is almost always male. I would really like to see a game that has a strong female protaganist that rescues her boyfriend/husband/love interest for a change.
This game has all those things (Strong female protagonist is debatable though, I suppose): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X-2 So… be careful what you wish for. They’ll still find a way to screw it up.
Metroid.
Other examples from the top of my head of sensibly dressed female video game characters:
Faith from Mirrors Edge
Cat from Halo Reach
Female Vault Dwellers from the Fallout series (usually a giant hulking suit of power armor if I was playing :) )
Can anyone else add to the list?