Even if you only study a small portion of a communicative product, you still need to look at it as a whole when making your conclusion, or else it's considered taken out of context.

I don't think developers are under any obligation to do anything differently; it's their choice. It's simply a choice they should make with full awareness of what they're doing.

And again, it's not generally about any single portrayal; it's about aggregate trends. I know that makes it difficult and confusing for any…

Thanks for the vote of support. I really do appreciate it.

So games are never supposed to show woman being a victim of a bad guy? That sounds pretty sexist to me.

Nor does Anita's being a woman make her objectively correct either.

And all the various men that are killed are not props, either?

And seriously, how is it okay for you to assume that every man wants to look like some cartoonishly buff dude?

What the fuck do you call this?

Oh, god, yes. "Why don't they just make their own games?"

*proceeds to freak out that Gone Home, Depression Quest, et al. even exist*

Again, to be clear: men's rights are absolutely important, and there are societal issues that disproportionately affect men which absolutely deserve to be addressed. The lack of proper domestic violence care for men (and, hell, the stigma attached to men even reporting it/the frequency with which they're not believed)…

Who knew?

Would you agree that the issues she calls out are just a prevalent in all of contemporary pop culture? Like every single episode of SVU or any crime procedural, or any horror movie, action movie, comics etc?

I simply don't understand how anyone can not see that.

See, I think interviews with the developers could be interesting, but I don't think it's applicable to the sort of critique she's doing, which is very "Death of the Author". It's concerned purely with what's in the text.

Nah; a lot of this would be mitigated by more diverse, well-rounded portrayals. Again, it's not any single instance of these tropes that's necessarily a problem. It's how deeply ingrained and widespread these tropes are, to the point that they often become the default.

Hey, no problem, and thanks for the kind words. It lets me know that the whole endeavor isn't entirely pointless.

In a sense, yes, but only in the sense of "Guys, you can do better". And...you know, that's fair. This is the exact same sort of criticism that other forms of media have been subjected to for years. Why should games be exempt?

I just fail to see why an instance of "man beating up on scantily-clad prostitute" is somehow unacceptable territory for showing the base nature of men.

She doesn't say "stamped out". Her argument is that it needs to be discussed and addressed, yes, but she's not calling for the Feminist Gestapo to come in and take away Grand Theft Auto.

Thanks for your contribution. I look forward to seeing your work published in a number of academic humanities journals.