Yes, but the damsel in distress isn't about "so-and-so rescues a character in the context of one scene". It's where the entire PLOT is built around the male character rescuing a (disempowered, helpless) female character.

It's just not the same thing. There are practically no significant examples of video game plots…

Who's talking about controlling it?

The artist is free to say what they want to say. I, in turn, am free to respond. So if someone releases a book that's, say, incredibly homophobic and racist, I'm within my rights to say the book is a terrible piece of shit and the author should be criticized for it.

But that's not a…

Well, it's easy to agree on -now-. At the time women's suffrage was being proposed, of course, it was a lot more controversial.

That said, you're right; there's a lot of social inertia behind ideas about gender roles and portrayals of masculinity. There's a lot of deeply-ingrained beliefs and habits involved, so it's…

Yeah. Misery poker, like "Thermonuclear War", is one of those games where the only winning move is not to play.

Because we can't do more than one thing at a time?

No? I'm not sure how you get that from what I said.

I'm not even sure how that would work, really.

One is certainly worse than the other, but that doesn't mean the latter is invalid. Misery poker benefits no one.

The idea that because X is worse than Y, we can't do anything about Y until X is fixed is...well, a false dilemma. It presumes we're only capable of worrying about or dealing with one thing at a time.

Again,…

Is this one of those "let the perfect be the enemy of the good" arguments?

Like, "because women are being horribly mistreated in the Middle East, we can't ALSO address issues of representation and equality in America?"

Do you feel the same way about, say, poverty? I mean, most poor people in, say, Somalia are probably…

Well, sure, but video games are (at least in theory) works of art, so it's fair to judge them by the same standard we would any other artistic product.

To fall back on an old example: it's not necessarily a problem if a game has a black character who's a violent, ignorant criminal.

If every black character in games were…

When she said "no such trope", wasn't she referring specifically to the "damsel in distress" thing?

I think she's correct in that there's not really a tradition of "guy in distress" in fiction, where he has to be rescued by a woman.

That doesn't, however, mean that there aren't other stereotypes about men in fiction…

There are some areas of genuine concern for men. For instance, there are some issues with how the legal system handles child custody. There are certainly problems with how society regards and responds to domestic violence or rape when committed against men.

The problem with a lot of MRAs is that they try to use these…

Yeah, while it's nice to see PBS talking about it, it's kind of a no-brainer.

Of course those stereotypes can also be harmful to men. I mean, the crappy (and insidious) thing about gender stereotyping is that it effectively limits the range of "acceptable" ways of being. People are expected to conform to a very narrow,…

Oh my god, it's so obvious. Why didn't I see it sooner?

EDIT: Ugh, stupid Kinja double post.

That was pretty much my point, yes.

When and if they localize Yakuza 5, I might change my opinion.

I've seen three of those four, and I'd agree with all of them (including your caveats).

I was surprised by how much I liked "The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh", despite the fact that not a whole lot actually -happens- over the course of the film. It's a pretty impressive one-man performance, though. Also,…

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

I mean, I'm still angry at Capcom for not releasing Ace Attorney Investigations 2 over here, but at least there's maybe a reasonable business case to be made for that one. A lot of their other decisions seem almost like active antipathy towards their customer base.

...you waited two days to respond with that and accuse me of needing to get the last word?

Whatever.

I feel like you could use a dictionary so you can look up "nicely".

"ask nicely"
"warped beliefs"
"all you've done is successfully reinforce exactly what I've said about you."

Heh. Classic.

And no, I'm not going to "stop…

That's an interesting example of a movie that's almost all atmosphere and pacing. I do like the lack of reliance on cheap jump scares. Instead it relies on slowly building tension (similar, actually, to the director's previous film, House of the Devil).