Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age, Borderlands, The Last of Us...the industry IS growing up. The classic "Damsel in Distress" is not sexism, its lazy storytelling.

I can't believe how far off base Anita is about Spelunky. She honestly goes leaps and bounds to try to sensationalize this notion here. "Enhanced with boob jiggle" is really a stretch too (she even shows the run animation). The male damsel is even more naked than the female one.

You can play as a woman in the game too which she fails to mention. It's like she didn't do any research at all and just makes dumb blanket statements that are out of context.

I'm still not sure what she is suggesting exactly (haven't watched all episodes).

I'm assuming the simple act of a man saving a woman is not sexist is it? And if a storyteller wishes to tell a story which involves chivalry and other such romantic notions, is that personal choice somehow a false one? So many questions this video does not come close to answering.

It's like you guys aren't even watching the video.

Regarding the Spelunky comment, the original PC version (which the subsequent versions are based on) didn't feature a female hero, and only featured a female damsel. The intent of the author is pretty obvious, he wanted to parody the Indiana Jones hero/Temple of Doom helpless female situation.

I love Spelunky, and I think in the context of the individual work, having the damsel be a tool that you can pick up and throw is humorous. The entire game is pretty slapsticky and satirical, so it fits.

But this is not about Spelunky as an individual work. The overarching point is that TONS of popular video games feature women as a goal, auxiliary character, or otherwise in an inferior role to the male's role. Plenty of recent games buck this trend -- my friend and I were discussing recent Bioware games -- but the balance is still off.

Games featuring women in auxiliary roles totally have a right to exist, and I grew up with and enjoy fairytale stories about hot blooded males rescuing vulnerable princesses.

That being said, if you went to a movie theater/Netflix and 90% of the movies available were Temple of Doom/Hero & Princess male power fantasies, movies would bring in fewer female viewers, and females would probably say "the medium of movies is just not for me". That's pretty much what the state of games is right now (although it has improved a lot over the years).

As more and more women become game developers, and different types of contexts and narratives appear in games, the medium as a whole will become more inclusive. Another classic fairytale where a dude saves a princess is less of a problem when right next to it, there are games about strong women doing cool stuff. Variety is good!

"I'm certainly not arguing all stories must include completely fearless hyper individualistic heroic women who pull themselves up by their bootstraps and never need anything from anyone."

I don't believe you as the very next clip you show is a heroine doing just that.

I agree we should try to remove sexism, just like we should try to remove any form of bigotry and discrimination from games. However every example you gave of their being a heroine who could take care of herself comes directly from making the male character look incapable or stupid. The secret of monkey island(Great game btw.) has Guy being a bumbling idiot throughout the game. How is portraying men that way and making the female be awesome any better than the damsel in distress?

You can switch the role reversal all you want and make the leading female crazy powerful, smart, and whatever else, but generally speaking you are just then going to be making males play the helpless role.

However next time I'm playing a Mario game I will specifically not save the princess and tell her sorry princess Anita told me that you should be able to pull up by your bootstraps and save yourself with minimal help on my part. :D

Hmph. I suggest people watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJihi5rB_Ek

"There's no long-standing stereotype of men being weak or incapable because of their gender."
Yes there is. the stereotypical male from most sitcoms since the 50's is an idiot incapable of doing anything right and must rely on his wife for anything worth doing.

And she says that a skin swap to change a character's gender isn't enough, because that indicates that there isn't a good reason for the character to be a woman. But then she hated on the princess Peach game which took one of the biggest differences between men and women (the woman's greater range of emotion), because it's "stereotypical." What characteristics does she think are worth exploring, if they have to be things that are different between men and women, but can't be something that is stereotypical? Couldn't Beyond Good and Evil's main character be palette swapped for a dude and the game would be the same thing? What "womanly" things does she do in the game?

I've watched some of Anita Sarkessian's videos before; and they typically fall into the un-researched unintentional (?) "feminist" flamebait category. Is this another one of those? Because they just make my blood boil. If it is, I don't see how anything she says is helping women.

Is what I'm writing making sense? Seriously, even just thinking about her videos is pissing me off.

One of the things I noticed never mentioned once during any of these videos is an acknowledgement that video games are both a business and they have actual game play. It's as if Anita only measured games based just on their story lines, and nothing else. She didn't bother to spend any time attempting to contact the designers or developers to find out what their motivations were. However, she certainly applied her own bias to their intentions and uses those as supporting evidence in all of her videos. This is very shoddy reporting, and it makes me wonder what all that money was actually spent on, as the quality of the videos doesn't seem to require the roughly $100k she Kickstarter says she raised.

Yes, games do use lazy story telling; it is effectively intentional, usually because they want to spend their budget to push the bounds of what sort of game play is possible, or because they are taking advantage of a business opportunity, rather than spending time on creating a unique story. It is the exact same reason special effects movies use very obvious and simple plots for their movies. I didn't go see Transformers, nor plan to see Pacific Rim because I expect to have a unique, interesting plot. I want to see giant things beat up other giant things; it is fun! I play Super Mario and other games for the same reason. I play games like Heavy Rain, or watch movies like Good Will Hunting and Big Fish, when I want something where the plot intrigues or moves me.

I was happy to see Anita finally provide some sort of idea of what she thinks would be a positive representation of a woman in a game. I hope she takes the next step and actually puts forth as much or more effort in getting it created as she did in making these videos. If she has leftover money from Kickstarter, perhaps she could put it towards doing so. On a personal note, I was a bit disappointed that she didn't provide some sort of romantic subplot; a lot of her criticism surrounded the depiction of the relationship between men and women, and to not provide a positive example feels a bit like a dodge to me.

@Matthew M.: "I believe that the damsel in distress trope is not directly sexist."

I couldn't agree more. Again, does anybody believe that the act of a man saving a woman is inherently sexist?

Despite the money behind this project, I can't help but feel Sarkessian is just making some fairly obvious and superficial points. I was hoping for much more. Also, KiteTales didn't have/need six figures to do her equally insightful video.

I think all us guys are just as tired of rescuing the girls as much as the girls are tired of being kidnapped.

The 150k would be much better spent producing games that the video author deems 'appropriate' instead of making these cringe and facepalm worthy videos.

Judging by the comments on this video, and the fact that nothing here is new, noteworthy, or actually wrong I honestly feel people have simply kickstarted a troll series of videos.

The game that's dreamed up towards the end, with the Damsel taking her fate in her own hands and becoming the protagonist, -kind of- already exists. It's a very obscure Japanese PC Engine game called Götzendiener.

Admittedly, it's not quite as aware as the example proposed here. IIRC the heroine's freeing happens more or less accidentally (hard to tell what happens to her shackles with the low-res pixel graphics) after the knight that's supposed to be her savior dies together with the demon guarding her. She then picks up the dead knight's sword and sets out to escape from the dungeon on her own.

The clothes thing is also handled a bit double-edged - throughout the game, she gets rid of parts of her clothing that would be a hindrance in an adventure - the long skirt, for example, and I think at one point she cuts her hair off - but that also results in more skin being visible, so YMMV in judging that part.

Of course, the whole "overcoming monarchy/patriarchy" plot is missing (it's a very short game), but anyway, I think this is the closest example to the proposed game I've ever seen.

I've watched some of her other videos as well, and I have to disagree with her main premise of all m.o.

She looks for things that might in any way reinforce some gender stereotype about women.

If a love song is about a women loving a man, its sexist; if its about a man loving a woman, that's also sexist.

Let's not wage war on images but be vigilant of the realities and fight the sexism there.

I would also be interested to know the male/female ratio of the examples she specifically selected.

I understand the 60/40 statistic everyone likes to throw around, but my guess would be that these are heavily skewed by mobile and social games (including MMOs). I think you will see a 60/40 ratio on games like candy crush, farmville, angry birds, and possibly WoW; but I doubt you see that ratio on most of the games she vilifies in her video (Super Meat Boy, Spelunky, etc).

None of her points are new or even noteworthy. The industry has been aware of them for years and has made the tropes running jokes in many titles (as she even shows in the video).

I am actually quite sad that this kind of video series gets kickstarted. A much less biased and more informed version of this video as an intro for a kickstarter with a goal to actually MAKE a game or series with a strong female lead would have been a better idea and would have actually contributed something to the community that it focuses on.

I just wanted to say that when she was talking about how games parodying the trope doesn't excuse it, that is such a major problem for any trope in gaming and developers really need to stop doing that. As for the topic of discussion, I'm more in the middle saying we shouldn't shun the trope from gaming but instead just encourage diversity.

pleeeaaaaase stop giving Anita attention.

It is easy to get tunnel vision and only think of these issues in the same way Anita presents them in these videos. So we discuss if this or that character is following this or that trope, and everyone argues about whether Princess Peach is a sexist design or not. I've tried to figure out what my own position on all this is, many times since Anita's first video came out. In the end I don't believe that it is very important that some games here and there uses the damsel in distress trope is any harm at all to anyone, anywhere. Anita does come up with a healthy amount of examples of games that feature the 'damsel in distress', but they are only a fragment of all the games out there in the end.
What I think we need to focus on to affect positive change in games and gamer culture is the most insiduos examples of sexism or racism, and not least the lack of women and people of color as playable characters.
Not to mention playable, colored women - they're practically unicorns!
It might partially be because I'm not Danish, but I don't buy for a second that sexy outfits or even nudity is a problem that needs solving either. I just wish Anita would take a look at something bigger. Personally, I think diversity - in sheer numbers - is the main thing that needs fixing in the games themselves. Sexism is really only a problem in the game industry and gamer culture - while the games are getting better at this every day. It's just that no one ever talks about all of the good examples of female characters. They've been there since the early nineties by the truckload.

Damsel in distress/princess trope comes from a different place in time when men were most dominate. It doesn't excuse games set in modern times, but you can't blame games that are based on and/or take place during past social norms. Only in modern times has this trope been considered sexist. And even today there are still a lot of women alive who still don't consider this trope sexist.

I think it's possible to empower women and convince men to make more games with strong female protagonists without isolating men and enraging women with a series of videos targeting a classic plot device.

First off, I think this has been a fantastic discussion. A small round of applause to everyone who's been taking such an active part in talking about all of this. Ultimately, I think discussions like this - taking place IN the community, by people who span every side OF that community - are going to do a lot more to actually change the face of the games industry than the original videos have.

All the same, the videos WERE the catalyst for this conversation, so there's a lot of credit due there, as well. I would hope - though I can't speak for her - that Anita wanted to inspire debates just like this one.

Back on topic:

The problem is more than just how women are represented. Fixing that avenue of the problem would only be a band-aid for the real issue. Let me ask you: How many male protagonists are realistic? How many of them set a good example for men to follow? How often are they overblown sexual caricatures of men, rather than a realistic dude?

It's not just that - name ANY protagonist who's, down in their core, through and through, realistic. Mario? Man, if he were half real, white men really COULD jump. Sonic? There's never been a naturally blue hedgehog, let alone one that chose to wear running shoes of its own volition.

The problem we're looking at here is a fundamental schism between fantasy and reality. The really big issue is that no one wants to play a character that's as... ordinary as they themselves are. We want to play characters that are exciting! We want EXPERIENCES that are exciting, new, and investing!

And, no matter HOW you blow a characters traits out of proportion, to accomplish that excitement, there are always going to be people that take offense.

One of my professors in college put it to us this way: As an artist, of any kind, you can't ever control how people choose to look at your work. Ultimately, it's up to each of us to decide how we choose to look at art, in whatever form it takes.

I'm not claiming that what you say in your game won't impact how people view it - that would be grossly naive. The core of the point is that, as a creator of any kind of media, your primary focus shouldn't be on how your message will come across - your focus should be on the message itself. Expressing it as clearly as you can, and as well as you can.

People will take it however they'll take it.

Issues like this one, sexism in games, are so difficult to discuss because perspective is so wildly different from person to person. Where one gamer sees a helpless princess that's reinforcing gender stereotypes, another will see a role-model.

Trying to tackle the problem by removing things that might - to some - be offensive will never EVER solve the problem. If the damsel in distress has become a stale trope - which, personally, I think it has - then the problem isn't the trope. It's the lack of new ideas.

We've created the very constricted space that we're now complaining about. We've created an industry where companies CAN'T try new ideas, a lot of the time. Because if it's new then it becomes a target. We, as an industry, spend far too much time listening to our audience, strange as that sounds. We focus on how we tell our message, and who we might piss off, because we're scared to try new ideas and become the focus of ridicule or scorn.

Ironically, if we were focusing more on the message itself, we would be opening up new paths to explore in our games all the time. We'd end up with games that have openly racist characters that AREN'T a central part of the plot, and male and female characters alike that are full of sexist tendencies, without ever being important to the real message of the game.

Sure, we'd piss some people off. But, as the internet so wisely informed me, it's impossible to please everyone, but pissing them all off is a piece of cake.

I still can't believe that people gave her $160,000 in kickstarter funds to create just over 60 mins in YouTube videos in over a year. I'm all for people being treated the same, but she just taken 7000 people for their hard earned money just so she can buy and play video games and people will get 60 mins worth of youtube videos.

I'm sorry, but it sounds like a well thought out scam.

Here's hoping that after she fix this sexist problem in gaming. We can then work on the race problem in gaming.
Honestly if you want change do it yourself. Hoping, asking, begging for someone to do it for you is not going to get it done. Women you want change start making games. The same I would say to any minorities out there. Asking young white males to change their ideas, dreams, and fantasies for you sake. Is a complete waste of time.

I actually am not Anita's biggest fan. I would prefer for someone more talented, for lack of a better word, than her to be getting a lot of attention. But it just so happened that Anita did the right thing at the right time and a bunch of ignorant sploopers piled on attacking her thus catapulting her into the spotlight.

What is lucky is that although Anita is not the greatest spokesperson for this issue, the conversation only started with her and a whole bunch of people have made their own brilliant points. So for all those people who refuse to contribute anything valuable but defend their behavior by making complaints about Anita, you are only hurting yourselves and not her. If you think her rhetoric has limitations, transcend them. Create a conversation with nothing but amazing commentary on the state of video games and women and minorities. Stop using Anita as your excuse to be intellectually lazy. She is not the topic, she is just a participant.

You can say whatever you want, but I just fail to see how this completely unbiased and agenda free "research" from Anita Sarkeesian needed to cost over $100,000 in Kickstarter money. That's more than some of these small indie game projects could even hope to receive.

Could have paid anyone of us here - man or woman - to properly analyze the issues regarding sexism in gaming (if any).

Personally I feel a bunch of people got tricked into giving someone who obviously does not really play or respect video games as a medium >$100,000 to -not- actually play or finish a bunch of video games she claims to be an expert on, and then pocket the rest of it. This is the same person who seriously wonders why pirate filesharing and torrent websites will plaster pornography advertisements all over their pages. If this is a mystery for you too, I am more than willing to investigate this matter for AT LEAST $200,000...