Women are Useless and Weak

[Music] do you paint at the single water one o'clock don't levels notice again [Music] clean up this to the water one do I apply well okay it looks like I can open them from here but I won't be able to come in with you here goes this is your opener what's the point what could possibly be wrong with this scene for oh yeah that's right your feminist frequency everything is sexist everything is racist everything's homophobic and you have to point it all out you might just think this is an innocent scene from half-life that has absolutely no subtle motivations or clues at all however what you fail to miss is that this is a computer that's used only for the spreading of all right Pepe memes this fence is actually the entrance to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz complete with gas chambers this shotgun was made in Italy so that's cultural appropriation oh and Alex you're looking a little sexualized for the male gaze with your pants there how about you cover up you whore this moment in social justice has been brought to you by the letter P for patriarchy this episode is called the lady sidekick it's just as retarded as the other ones so let's take a look in keeping with feminist frequency tradition the comments have been disabled and the likes of dislikes have been hidden maybe this has been going on for so long if I was making videos like this and I was bombarded with people telling me why I was wrong yeah I might get a little insecure and I might make sure that I would do whatever I possibly could do to ensure that these opposing opinions correcting me and offering me critique and making fun of me for being such an idiot could never be seen or you know alternatively you could take that criticism see what people are actually saying and use it to make your content better hmm look I'm absolutely certain that a lot of those comments are worded in some of the most vile despicable ways imaginable but but bear with me here the reason for that is because you're a vile despicable awful terrible person the only way that you could ever have an honest bone in your body is if I was fucking you Anita you're the one who started this you're gonna have to deal with the consequences you took whole groups entire communities gamers and you tried to turn them into something despicable and vile with identity politics as your sword and with the block button as your shield you attacked the identity that gamers had you told the world they were sexist you told the world they were racists you told the world that they were white men who hated women you deserve ever hateful comment you've ever received except for the rape and death threats you got an occasion which obviously weren't representative of any large group but I'm sure you made it sound that way kind of how it almost sounds like you know anything about video games the opening scene of this video only goes to show that I'm right you are disingenuous you'll put anything out of context and anything out of proportion if you think it will help but you want to push what does Alex say okay it looks like I can open them from here but I won't be able to come in with you now Anita have you ever wondered did you ever wonder during the high quality production that this was did you ever wonder why she can't come with you why you have to go alone the answer is of course not that would be due dilligence do you see that blue barrier behind the fence there right next to the gas chamber you have to get through there you see off screen to the left there is a second forcefield one that she deactivates with this panel she uses the Pepe computer to deactivate the forcefield you walk through the panel short-circuits the barrier comes back on she physically cannot come with you she has to open the way for you to go through oh but that's what sidekicks do well fuck if she doesn't open that shit for you you just kind of be shit out of luck huh I mean Anita what if Alex thinks you're the sidekick huh you did he doesn't give a shit about woman's opinion did you huh did you Anita no of course not after all feminism is about the collective liberation of women as a social class feminism is not about personal choice so fuck Alex for wanting to get you through that barrier that's not very feminist is it [Music] in 2013 2k games released BioShock Infinite the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the earlier hugely successful Bioshock games you know kind of a shit game compared to the first two I mean it looked pretty the story was neat everything else was garbage infinite story centers on a man named Booker DeWitt piece-of-shit white male a private investigator with a bloody past who takes on a mysterious assignment bring us the girl and wipe away the debt what follows is Booker's adventure to the flying city of Columbia where the girl Elizabeth has been imprisoned in a tower for her entire life this is actually a really important point please don't forget that she's been locked in a tower her whole life busting her out of captivity while she busts out of her corset don't be jealous Anita Booker shoots his way across Colombia getting caught up in all sorts of drama in the process as the game tells players a garbage story which suggests that oppressed people are just as bad as their oppressors oh let's pull the brakes on this crazy train for just one second the game tells players a garbage story that suggests the oppressed are just as bad as the oppressors now how you can take a game like BioShock Infinite for all of its a for all of its obvious faults and all of its and all of its downgrades from the previous two in these here why we talk about that another time but I don't think a lot of people are faulting the game for having a bad story in fact it's a great story I think it's a story that lets you go through and play the game over a second time to see everything that you miss to understand all the references you didn't catch the first time it's amazing how you boil down the entire story of BioShock Infinite to that how but you got to point it all out right but Anita that's right sometimes the oppressed people can become just as bad or be just as bad as their oppressors wait did you hear that the little Glade air freshener did that pick up in the my hello anyway yes and even sometimes the oppressed people can become even more cruel and awful than their oppressors can be in fact Anita it seems as if you despite your team this you're hundreds of thousands of dollars in money despite all the research you claim to do you don't seem to understand that the point of this is that violence is not necessarily the answer just social and justices the Vox Populi the voice of the people rose up against their oppressors and they legitimately were being oppressed yes they rose up violently indiscriminately being cruel and killing and slaughtering and they became the thing that they hated they became worse than their oppressors they didn't just keep people down because they were black or Irish or gay or anything like that as second-class citizens they became killers murderers of children slaughterers of the innocent and that's not to excuse the bad things of people who came before them did but that's worse through their anger and their violence and their vengeance and their thirst for for retaliation and revenge they became worse than the thing that they fought against and they justified it because they did it in the name of social justice now isn't that a cause that lets you justify anything you do anyway I'm getting a little long-winded this big mouth of mine lets me talk for a long time and also suck the biggest dicks and that the truth is always somewhere in the middle yes moral greys they're a thing that's why it's important to have a focus on the justice of individuals and not necessarily the justice above of causes or of societies as a whole but that's much too big a can of worms rest to open in this video because you lack the capacity let's just focus on Elizabeth Elizabeth of s is an incredible ability to open portals to other timelines an ability that plays a significant role in the plot as Booker and Elizabeth hop forward and backward and from side to side in time yeah I mean arguably she's the most powerful creature in existence because of that I mean that's if that's not female empowerment I don't know exactly what is even the leader of the Vox Populi resistance was a woman keeping from one version of Columbia to another and sometimes trusting Booker into the past for the future so as a plot device which drives LMS my voice correct I'm just saying you just have this huge budget no anyway so as a plot device which drives elements of the game's narrative she's very significant in gameplay terms however Elizabeth serves a different kind of role um duh yeah obviously that of a glorified door opener well gosh you serve the role of a glorified cunt oh wait there's more to it than that it's almost like if we reducing to the most basest utilitarian forms it doesn't give us an accurate representation of the reality of what they are hmm how about that as with most shooters BioShock Infinite often puts you into situations where you can't progress until you've cleared an area of enemies one of the many criticisms I have of the game that's different than the first there were segments of Bioshock 1 and 2 that had these horde style levels that you had to kill all the enemies to progress but BioShock Infinite relies on them the game is basically a series of hallways that connect you with these shooting galleries that you have to kill all the enemies into progress it wasn't nearly as open-ended in free-flowing as the original Bioshock 1 and 2 were even though they were linear games they give you a lot of options and extra avenues to explore and to find new things and to look for upgrades that you might need to survive especially on harder difficulties the way it frequently does this is by blocking doors in the next area that can't be opened by poker so it makes every bit of sense from a gameplay perspective that this character who's with you for a huge chunk of the game who also is useful in other ways can also pick locks thereby opening the rest of the game up for you you are reliant on her without her you are stuck only Elizabeth can do this which she does only when all the enemies have been killed well yeah because combat is dangerous for all of her tremendous powers Elizabeth was reduced by the games mechanics to doing the most basic and menial tasks and waiting around for her to open a door becomes a significant aspect of how players experience her let me scout ahead see if there's some way to move forward all right and look it's obvious you've never played the game and I played it a long time ago but even I remember a couple things here let's see this is why people hate your guts Anita because you don't do any free search when you come up with these examples that don't make any sense in the story of BioShock Infinite Elizabeth has the ability to yes open up portals or open up tears into alternate realities and timelines blah blah blah that's why she can open up a tear to Paris showing revenge of the Jedi however in the context of where you are currently she can't just open portals and tears willy-nilly she can't just do it at whim she even says she had more control over her powers when she was younger that she was stronger when she was younger but as she's aged and matured her powers have grown weaker that's because there is a series of siphons built by scientists in the game to limit her power so she didn't grow too powerful because her powers were getting a bit unstable as a child I mean it's obviously neither why don't you think she didn't just oh hey Booker why don't we just open a tear to new york and go there oh gosh you think if she had total control over her powers like this she would just leave literally any time she wanted that's why even though she has this immense power it's not something that she can just command necessarily whenever she wants and secondly and it looked take this with a grain of salt I have many talents and I am handsome and charming in attractive I got a big-ass dick also I cannot actually create tears and portals in the fabric of space and time to access alternate realities however I imagine that if I could much like Elizabeth who remember has been locked in a tower for her entire life does not know much about the ins and outs of you know combat guns reloading shooting aiming or even if she has the capacity to just kill indiscriminately just because she has power in one area doesn't mean she's knowledgeable or even helpful in another I'd be worried about her shooting herself in an accident she doesn't have combat experience of course she performs other actions as well sometimes tossing booker ammo first aid or other useful items or opening tears through which he can have her summon things like weapons or killer robots to help him in combat all right I mean she's literally helping the player she doesn't get in the players way she doesn't annoy the player she is helpful she is useful she uses her abilities to assist you nobody thinks lesser of her for that indeed we are grateful to her for her assistance except for Anita sarkeesian you find some way to make this about massage now there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of characters who play a supporting role in combat situations well me clearly there is but Elizabeth is an example of a female sidekick who is reduced to a tool um yeah just like how booker dewitt is a tool for someone else i mean like how many times has booker dewitt tried to rescue Elizabeth again hmm I mean like he's literally an expendable tool that can be used over and over and over in combat her personality her character her force of will and her triumph of the human spirit I mean those things are useless I mean in combat things have to take a utilitarian function because it's a matter of life and death it's about survival people can die personality character that stuff doesn't matter when you're in the thick of combat there aren't gameplay mechanics that allow you to have meaningful interactions with her well it's all yes that's a point at the point of the story you have constants and variables needed that's the point of the story in the ways that you interact with Elizabeth are done through the cutscenes she just opened doors and dispenses useful things and her tear opening powers are not her own but yours to call on in control with the press of a button a little help I mean it's because it's a game and Elizabeth isn't a real person and she's doing what her programming is telling her to do and I mean if this was real she could say no you understand that right I mean if Columbia and Bioshock if this was all real and she was a real person she could say no she could say I've had enough of this shit Booker where are we going my feet are tired I I want a new drug well know what make me sick at other times she's less like a person and more like a sexualized slot machine tossing you the occasional coin um I don't see Elizabeth as sexualized she's pretty she's a pretty human being she's attractive but she's not sexualized I swear unless someone's wearing a burka you think they're sexualized elizabeth is not sexualized in BioShock Infinite also for the sake of some brevity at least I might skip over some parts of hers that I don't think are very valuable no not not the whole video I mean I mean relative I could have worded that better I admit you know after making three whole videos about damsels I kind of hope to never have to talk about them again but you and me both Anita gaming's love of using helpless women as those narrative and gameplay devices was too much for even those videos to contain men are plenty of instances of helpless men you have to rescue and save but those don't count I guess damsel escort missions occur when a female character joins the male player character but is largely helpless and rather than being a clear benefit to the player she feels more like a burden um yeah if they were capable of not needing assistance why would you be escorting them at all and as a burden they are almost like a handicap on the player they are an extra challenge and video games well they've got challenges in them games don't say oh this character is a woman and by virtue of them having a vagina they need your help because women are weak I mean even though sexually dimorphic creatures like humans the women are are physically weaker and smaller than males our games don't rely on the idea that just because someone's a woman they need help from a male character and I go players free Horta from a cage early on she then joins I go on this journey and much of the game consists of solve a puzzle so that you're de who can't make leaps or climb walls on her own can traverse the environment yes she's a young girl she's youthful she's a youthful human girl who has been locked in a cage how strong do you think she is how physically capable is she's supposed to be she's supposed to be an athlete meanwhile players also need to protect her from the shadow monsters who sometimes try to whisk her away some might say this is a noble act on the part of the player risking themselves to save someone else to Anita sarkeesian this is misogyny spoiler alert yes in the ending cutscene Yorta carries ICO out of the crumbling castle but with the narrative tells us or shows us in the end doesn't undo the impact of how we experience a character through the gameplay why does it have to be through the gameplay how come the actions that they do and the things that they are capable of doing in a cutscene how come that magically doesn't matter I mean the character is the same that just seems like a really arbitrary limitation you're putting on this it only counts if it's in gameplay I mean anything you do understand I mean you don't know anything about video games it's obvious but you understand that the gameplay is the part of the game that you play right like it involves you performing actions and having it represented on the screen is what you do that's where the challenges are instance games first and foremost have to be interactive or fun or entertaining or challenging the mechanics found in games often will contain narrative reasons why they must be done to give the story context another classic damsel escort mission occurs in Resident Evil 4 where Ashley Graham the president's daughter has caused players tremendous frustration over the years by burdening them with the need to protect and manage her yeah Anita she is the daughter of the President of the United States she's not a warrior she's not a soldier for all intents and purposes Leon is the resident evil has been known as a game that has challenges in it it can be difficult I mean what you want to give her a gun and have it tell her to shoot people and kill people like she's been doing it her whole life wouldn't that be toxic masculinity Anita I mean you know Resident Evil has been known to have some pretty difficult parts into it and overall be a challenging series so this is just another set of challenges you now have to worry not only about your own health and well-being but that of another character I mean it's shocking how you could take Resident Evil 4 as an example of mutiny when me what about 8 is character she's strong she's competent she's capable but about Jill Valentine - all of these characters rags they get captured by the enemy - yeah so does Luis Serra so does Leon but you don't hear Anita bitching about how they're I don't know damsels because they're men terminology aside whether they're presented as capable or helpless female companions often encounter situations in which they just can't proceed on their own huh kind of like how Booker cannot proceed without Elizabeth kind of like Leon cannot proceed without actually now what am i doing I'm applying the same standard to everybody that's what an idiot I am le in the Last of Us for instance is hardly a year - like damsel when she encountered the body of water she may as well be and jill has to go out of his way to get her across yeah Ellie can't swim just because you can shoot a bow and arrow accurately does not mean you can tread water and in the post-apocalyptic world in which Ellie grew up it is much more survival oriented much more useful for you to be able to hunt your own food with a weapon you can make yourself with your own hands than it is to be able to swim it's just more useful to be able to fashion a weapon in order to defend yourself in this violent world that she lives in instead of being able to you know swim we were the most part as long as you don't go near any deep water that you can't just jump up and down in there's no point in learning how to swim it makes sense that she can hunt with a bow and not swim it also highlights the idea that even though she's very competent in a lot of areas and she's tough and headstrong and capable she's vulnerable in some kind of like a human being Anita no look there's a lot to admire about the Last of Us but I guarantee you nobody's favorite part of that game was helping Ellie get across the water you know you'd think with all those hundreds of thousands of dollars and a team of creators you'd be able to like get a pole or something be clear there's nothing whatsoever inherently wrong with depictions of people helping each other in times of difficulty unless it's a man helping a woman misogyny if anything we could do with a lot more narratives that focus on companionship cooperation and support but why Anita Elizabeth can use her lock-picking skills to help me progress through the level and I put myself in danger to protect her cardfight locksmith I need your des to activate magical devices in the castle that she's being held in so we can progress glorified magician Alex uses her knowledge of combine technology to deactivate their barriers so that I with my weapons can go in and fight them glorified IT technician I mean every time you have a female secondary character that you cannot control who is assisting the male protagonists that you do control I mean it's misogynist it's sexist it's showing the world that women are incapable even though you're both helping each other and you need them as much as they need you what's the point in having the relationships if no matter what they do everything is sexist and you have to point it all out but the models games gave us rarely offer experiences in which this kind of support is truly mutual because one person is playing the game and one is an AI controlled character that has a lot to do with it and games like resident evil 5 for instance where one player controls Chris Redfield on the other control Sheva Alomar now she's so fucking hot anyway they're both completely capable they are both equally useful they're just two different characters instead we see a pattern of men frequently caring and helping women in situations where they're otherwise helpless because sometimes women are helpless without the help of others sometimes that help arrives in the form of a white male the worst kind of male but I still don't actually even see what the problem is most of the people who play hardcore video games are male you know candy crush and all that stuff that women play that those aren't hardcore video games those aren't gamers if that's all they do it's much easier for a lot of people to simply put themselves into the role of the person they're playing as if that person is male helping a female that's what society tells us to do you should help other people in fact Society tells us that it's even extra virtuous if you're a man helping a woman she sits down first you push the chair in you go around to the other side of the car and you open it you're kind or on a sinking ship women and children go first men get the draft not women we can argue until the cows come home whether or not this is misogynist or not or whether we live in an actual gynocentric sort of society but that's the way that our society shows us and people definitely don't do it because they think lesser of women but because we want to be better men we want to channel the natural strengths advantages that we have over women men at least for a good cause something that society tells us is virtuous this pattern is rooted in sexist ideas about men as protectors and women as the ones who need this kind of protection look it's not sexist to understand that human beings have larger males and stronger males than females hashtagged not all society tells us that the strong should use their strength for the virtuous purpose of protecting those who are not as strong strong men should protect weak men strong women should protect weak women and since human beings are sexually dimorphic the men are stronger and larger than women on average normally just comes into play as the larger man should protect a weaker woman if she needs it this is just being a good person Anita its people with certain advantages using them for a good reason it's amazing how you can turn this into sexism you think Ronda Rousey needs help in a bar fight it's coated into the gameplay that men are the ones who kill and protect and that women are the ones who experience moments of helplessness and need to be carried I mean there are plenty of times that men are helpless and need to be carried in video games happens all the time in fact but yes in society men do the killing men do the protecting men are the warriors men are the soldiers men are the killers who fill the prisons they are the generals they are the warlords there are physical differences between men and women and mental differences between men and women that make men more suited for combat in history especially men had an expendable nature to them that women simply did not possess kill the men spare the women bring them back or send all the men to die in battle but the women will be safe at home at least even if it was for purely cynical or survival reasons the point still stands video games have men as the killers and the protectors because in our society men are the killers and the protectors in the further back you go the more this was the case when these female characters are of aid to the player it's often in rudimentary ways as a glorified door opener or even as a more basic tool well aren't you a glorified escort to all of them aren't you a glorified rescuer aren't you a glorified protector you don't think that these women if they were actually characters because they're not real people but if these were real carrot don't you think that those women would at least be able to see the people rescuing them as oh well even if I hate his guts or don't like him I can see that he has the value to me of getting me out of this situation you know if the roles were reversed it would be the exact same thing right there'd be no difference in the ocarina of time dungeon inside jabu jabu's belly players would carry the snobby princess fruto around at one point even using her as a weight to press down a switch yet women can be rude bitches men can be absolute assholes that's the way people are at least she's being useful I mean that's more than you could say about yourself and in Metal Gear Solid 5 you've got four psychic options to take with you on mission a dog a horse a robot and a woman well d dog is a male and oh by the way don't Google D dog sex you'll get you'll get something else D horse is also a male the robot D Walker is well I wouldn't dare assume it's gender and quiet is female I do not know what the point is though of you highlighting the fact that the only human companion you could have as a woman I mean would it be better if the only human companion was a male and there was no choice to have a woman companion it doesn't matter do I never use quiet I like to be more hands-on I like to be the one doing all this stuff that's why I like to have D dog around because D dog was actually useful unlike dogmeat from fallout the worst companion ever in the history of companions D dog was useful D dog was helpful D dog never got in my way D dog was never frustrating I never had to worry about D dog's health and safety you don't never got between me and what I wanted to be looking at or what I wanted to be interacting with now take all of those the opposite of them that's dogmeat fuck dogmeat Ryan his fucking dog asshole worst companion ever finally female companions often function as cheerleaders doling out little ego boost to players for gunning down bad guys are pulling off other feeds and I have to get you out of here now come with me but what's what's wrong with that they're encouraging you they're giving you emotional support if you want to reduce that to well they're just cheerleaders for the player you can but what's wrong with that was like hey Ashley I'm here to save you from this evil cult is captured you like fuck you asshole you piece of shit I don't need you I'm a strong independent woman along with the glorified door opening and the damsel like aspects female sidekicks are there to make players feel better about themselves to make them feel important and skilled [Music] are you impressed got all those guys not by myself all right sometimes a voice of encouragement or a character that is used to tell you you did a good job or congratulate you on something is a woman then yeah other times it's a male male voices do the same thing all the time all right it's only sexist when a woman does it but these interactions are rarely depicted as mutually supportive it's not nearly as common in these scenarios for the male player character to offer emotional support to their female sidekick to tell her that she's doing a great job you do though it's the actual player who does that not the character that the player is controlling you're comparing an NPC an AI a computer-controlled character to the actual human being player if I want to congratulate an NPC who is a woman then I'll do that on my own I don't need the character to do that for me I don't need a button prompt I tell d-dog he's a good boy all the time no ID dogs and mail never mind it doesn't count but really I don't play games to congratulate the computer characters on doing things up their programming tells them to do if anything the little then it gets in my way the better of a companion that it is these particular sidekicks aren't designed as characters that players can actively engage in developing a relationship with do I need to do we need to establish a relationship with a character that I'm playing characters who are fully fleshed out people with their own goals and desires but sometimes require players to compromise their own wants or desires but if we compromise what we want to do for the sake of a computer character a lot of people consider that not fun and what it wait a second ago you were saying that it's a damsel in distress that they are often indebted to the player they need the player to do shit for them and now you're saying well that's the same thing what make up your mind Anita do they need to be a burglar not when or win isn't it sexist I don't know when I'm supposed to be misogynist or not Anita tell me orally be consistent for God's sake this pattern of female sidekicks who serve more as gameplay devices door openers and ego boost Senate people they're not people is a design approach rooted in the idea of games of power fantasy there is nothing wrong with power fantasy players get to feel powerful and important sometimes issuing orders that are obeyed without hesitation or doubt yes Anita because if your companions were always second-guessing you in combat saying things like oh I don't know if that's the best way to do this I oh I I really don't feel like this is what I should be doing or no I just don't like you enough I mean first off that would be awfully realistic for a woman character to do haha but in all seriousness that that wouldn't be fun did computers just do what I tell you to do please like there's a reason I'm telling you to do something the game is about my fun as a guess as the player so just just do what I tell you to do please don't be annoying be like Dee dog companion dynamics and games almost never model with equal footing cooperation and collaboration in a relationship might look like Amina they're not trying to be those things if anything video games offer an escape from real-world relationships and it's a video game there's a player there's a player it's not about equal footing it's about putting the player first because they're the consumer who bought the game who's controlling things it's about them having fun being creative overcoming obstacles and challenges and these companions are not real Anita they're not real women they're not real men they're not real people they're pixels on a screen they're just characters of a video game just like a character of a book they can't actually be oppressed in video games well some of them but that's sort of their purpose but video games are not really meant to mirror actual real-life relationships with actual real-life people companions both male and female are meant to assist the player or to be a part of the story or to I mean really in every sense of the word be there to help the player have fun in the video game just because you're so much of a psycho nobody would want to be in a relationship with you that's no reason for you to make fun of video games we're not for try relationships and the way that you like but instead serves to make the player feel like the center of the world um yeah I'm the player it is all about me I am the Alpha and the Omega of this game this game is mine it is my challenge to overcome it's my world to immerse myself in characters listen to me they follow my orders they do what they say they are at my beck and call they are there to assist me if I need them I'm the master of this universe and it is all about me it's always about the player in games that don't make things about the player are normally not very good games the one in control which is not at all a model for healthy relationships why are you looking at video games as accurate models of real relationships why would you do that video games are not a model for healthy relationships that's not what they're for that's not the point the fact that you think they should be is well it's fucking batshit insane of course a huge number of games focus on men fighting alongside other men and yeah how very sexist of them to all be male in these games the male companions often have some of the same characteristics we sometimes see in female companion that's at least 10 more confirms hundred to one good reason yeah this happens all the time Anita it's very common for male characters to compliment the player on their good shooting or to breach a door that the player character can't open himself yeah they do all the time but I'm sensing a big butt here not that one however typically these characters are presented as equal participants in the conflict because they are soldiers on a battlefield and that's their job to do the same job that you do because you're all soldiers which contrasts immensely with all of the previous examples that you've given where they're not female soldiers that you're in charge of saving or assisting shooters ranging from Call of Duty to Gears of War the players male companions are armed and active and our portrayed is playing their part to fend off or eliminate the enemy threat occasionally in these games male characters do have to protect other men no it's not occasionally it's all the damn time but unlike scenarios in which men protect women these less common instances reinforce pre-existing cultural attitudes about men women and gender well this video is reinforcing the stereotype that your videos are shit when it happens to a woman it's sexist when it happens to a man well that's just fine people don't think on the lens of sexism all the time Anita normal people don't do that it's not healthy no one plays a video game and always looks at everybody by virtue of what their genitals are nobody plays video games and says you know what after that video game I'm convinced that males are just superior in every way to females and women do not deserve my respect that's the problem of having the attitude that everything is sexist everything is racist blah blah blah we have to point it all out it means you have to invent dragons for yourself to slay you have to jump at shadows you have to imagine problems for you to solve so that you come across as some sort of a virtuous white knight and I'm sure you'll find a way to make that analogy sexist too similarly the occasional situation in which a female character protects a male one which happens in the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot among other games also isn't a problem because it doesn't work to reinforce limiting harmful ideas about women or men that already exists in our culture say I told you it's ok when women do it it's not OK when men do it and if we frame everything as reinforcing societal stereotypes then only men are just fucked aren't they if everything reinforces a stereotype in a video game based on the gender of the character doing it well then men don't have a chance men can't help a woman in any scenario without reinforcing some stereotype men can never truly be the hero men can never be virtuous in other words we live in a culture that says generally speaking men should be the protectors and women should be the protected no Anita its feminism that does the opposite a normal healthy human being wants everybody to be the protectors based on their ability to actually do the protecting since women are weaker than men generally they have less of an ability to protect others as men do thus why men are normally looked upon as the protectors in a society women are never encouraged to be the victims or to be the protected and Anita how fucking dare you how dare you say that it's video games and people who are encouraging women to be the victims when you and your ilk your feminist cabal are the ones who constantly espouse the virtues of victimhood when you are constantly looking to be made the victim you have made a living off of it Anita you're the one who went to the United fucking nations to bitch and complain that people were harassing you and making fun of you because of your bullshit videos and you making people out to be demons as your pockets were stuffed full of the cash of people stupid enough to give to you because you want the internet regulated you wanted everybody to make sure that your feces didn't get hurt you wanted to make sure that it was only you who could sling the shit and not worry about anybody slinging it right back you could have acted as an actual proper at least virtuous feminist icon for the world with this huge voice sitting on a pedestal again in front of the United Nations you could have been up there standing up for the rights of women in this world who actually were oppressed people who have to cover their entire bodies who can't leave the house without a husband who have their clitoris is hacked off who live in war zones women who are starving sold into slavery put in forced marriages places where women aren't allowed to vote where they can't drive where they can't fly where they can't do anything they can't even get an education some places and what do you do on this massive global podium you bitch that people are being angry at you on the internet and while you're raking in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from your little pity parade with your fucking firstworldproblems while there are women out there getting killed and being mutilated and having acid thrown in their face I'm the victim I'm a victim I'm a victim you said in front of the whole world some people said me knees to me on Twitter all that power all that influence all that say all that poll that your voice actually does have with some people squandered wasted for your greed for your desire to want to control what other people say and think you anita sarkisian are the shining example of how one can monetize victimhood how you can turn it into not just a profession but a hobby a passion a way of living that's why I hate your guts Anita you're a shit stain on humanity you're a scamming con artist and there is not a good intention in your heart there's a lot of awful terrible people in this world Anita but at least not all of them take advantage of other people like you do when women function as confident companions whose skills are more or less equal to those of the player-character well we like it it gives us more gameplay options it makes it more level playing field for more characters it can challenge these ideas hmm or-or-or just being able to play as a female character affords us more options gives us more variety and therefore makes the game better in fact I think the only one getting scared of a society monster here is you the last of us goes against the grain by giving us the character test a somewhat rare and refreshing example of a woman who fights alongside the male protagonist um that's not going against the grain there were plenty before it they weren't necessarily the majority but it definitely wasn't anything special and the later Gears of War games do a decent job of including female squad members who are on equal footing with their male counterparts which is really odd considering how much smaller and skinnier they are compared to the male characters who are often cited as being over buffed mountains of meat when in a scenario like a you know war physical strength is a huge component of whether or not you might succeed or fail especially in the Gears of War setting and thankfully we're seeing more games that complicate and subvert the old patterns providing players with relationships with supporting characters who don't function as mayor extensions of the player but if you like separate individual people Anita I suppose you haven't actually been paying attention to video games you just make a video and then pick out what you think is relevant and then say up this must be gaming but we have had characters like that for ages and ages and it is nothing new to see them and it is not surprising to see them the 2016 indie title one-night stands were players into a situation with a female character who clearly has her own feelings in her own and communicating with her as a matter of trying to find some common ground for mutual understanding not one in which the player is in total control of the situation the game is $3.00 on Steam right now and is rated very highly and I'm sure it's a good game based on all the reviews and things that people say about it and I'm sure it's an interesting premise but I personally have no interest in it I'm just not as interested in a simulated one-night stand I suppose but the fact that it is rated so highly obviously shows that gamers have no issue with this kind of thing going on whether or not it has broad appeal or not it's just the question and obviously there's a lot of people like me who don't have a problem with it they're just not really interested in left behind the wonderful add-on for the Last of Us Ellie's companion Riley is not someone players can issue orders to or someone may have to protect Riley is constantly active often taking control of the situation a facet of a character when if done poorly can be extremely frustrating to the player sometimes I feel like an Fallout 4 my companions want to take control of the situation even though they're all basically autistic masochists sometimes competing and being playful with Ellie and as a result she doesn't feel anything like the companion characters in most games or even anything like Ellie herself felt in the original game it's almost like they're different people or something and we're specifically designed to be different characters said she feels much more like a real person accompanying Ellie on the journey I think it's also really important to note though that these characters that are really highly praised that feel real that feel like they've got a lot of substance behind them let's not put malice as the intention where sometimes it's just incompetence or just a lack of ability human beings are very complicated multifaceted multi-dimensional things they have their own desires likes dislikes preferences they all have their own priorities and ambitions and goals and personalities it's not necessarily easy for you to take a character and make them feel real that's why developers oftener see the great amount of praise for making characters who have extremely attractive attributes or who feel very real that's why reviews will often say yeah the game was all right but the characters were shit it's just not something everybody can necessarily do although this deal see for the last of us is rated very highly so obviously gamers don't have any issues with these things being in games it's just a matter of whether or not they're well done well there are even more male characters who are done poorly compared to female characters there's more characters in the pool who are male but I don't see you complaining about all those male characters who are developed well enough this is a design issue in games that transcends gender that's just a character thing and just because someone makes a character in a video game who is female who isn't very good of a character that doesn't mean that it's misogyny or reflects some sort of a deeply rooted subconscious society value and while tricot in 2016 The Last Guardian may not be a human character he does possess some of the characteristics we'd like to see more of in human companions and games really I heard he was extremely annoying and wouldn't listen to commands well asking Treecko to do things isn't a simple matter of pushing a button and watching him immediately obey he's not a simple tool not just an extension of the player well how much of that was because of design and how much was because of incompetence it's like me playing with dogmeat in Fallout 4 and saying hey guys guys the companions in this game are great he hacks just like an actual retarded dog sometimes he's hesitant reluctant even frustrating but this makes it feel more like he's a living breathing creature with thoughts and feelings of his own and by taking time to pet him you can sometimes express your connection to him in ways that fall outside of the requirements of the gameplay and the story a moment ago you were complaining that games don't tell us more about real relationships and how they work and now you're praising a game for making showing affection as optional and not necessary to have relationships flourish and work I don't understand you Anita based on everything else you said I was expecting you to bitch and moan because showing affection to Treecko is optional not the other way around and crucially Treecko is often the one protecting the player rather than the other way around he does not exist to fuel up our fantasy but to allow for gameplay mechanics that focus on cooperation care and helping each other yeah but one of the game's biggest knocks against it was people complaining that it was difficult to cooperate with Treecko in many places and in many ways how he was just incompetent in following out basic orders how he would just not do what you told him to in a game that's about relying on something else especially if that something else is not a co-op buddy that's controlled by a player who can understand and think on the fly that could be a huge killer for a game maybe the game would be better if you had more control over Treecko and did you assume treecko's gender Ania it's not very progressive of you when supporting female characters and games don't have this kind of depth when they exist primarily to be protected or to be ordered around they not only reinforce harmful ideas about gender oh fuck off Anita I cannot believe you look at videogames like these many of which are considered masterpieces or gems by a lot of people and then you look at the game and you see a female character that you cannot control who exists there as part of the narrative as part of the story that extra challenge to add depth to the game to add some unique functionality to the experience I cannot believe you look at that and say well this reinforces some oppressive societal subconscious biases against women my gosh after I played Resident Evil 4 I was so used to taking care of Ashley once I stepped outside I went to every single woman I could find and was like oh holy shit ma'am are you okay do you need to be fucking rescued from an evil cult blink twice if it's yes I know they're watching but hey I suppose if you sit up there on stage and tell yourself and other people that you actually think everything is sexist then you'll start to believe it everything about women that we don't like every representation of a woman we don't like it has to be because they're women it has to be because society just fucking hates women I mean how terrible it must be for you to go through life thinking these things just assuming the worst out of everything that you see I mean if something happens to a male well that's just fine but if something happens to a female well it must be because of her vagina if Liam Scott Kennedy had to rescue the president's son instead of daughter you wouldn't have said a goddamn thing but up it's a daughter that means it's fucking sexist and Capcom hates women they also fail of characters well yeah sometimes they do but there's a lot more failures of characters who are men and that doesn't seem to be an issue Anita regardless of their gender race class or sexuality a person is more than a tool and yeah a person characters and video games are not people when characters are well written in books and movies and video games everyone knows they're not actually real people but we can appreciate as human beings having the illusion of their personhood fool us or trick us into thinking they are real that's what makes it so hard to make characters like this because people are complicated games can be complicated you have to mix them together in tricks a player into thinking that a bunch of pixels on screen or people no one looks at a man in a game and says oh all men must be like this no one looks like a woman at a game and says AHA a woman must be like this and believe it or not most people in the world don't look at a woman and say she is a victim just because she is a woman anything that happens to her that I don't like or that isn't anything short of the utmost highest praise well that's oppression against her because she's a woman in society just hates women even though France just elected a female leader more than a burden and games can and should give us mechanics and stories that reflect that yeah but they do Anita all the time they do all the time there are so many female characters who are strong and admirable that we look up to you just don't want to see them ever some of the most iconic people in games are females I want you to stop for just a moment and I want you to think about what percentage of characters and video games that you kill are men all the soldiers all the guards all the Raiders all the bandits all the Nazis and I want you to compare that to how many female characters and games you kill now if I was going to push for instance the idea that this represents who's the real victimized gender and video games who exactly do you think would be the victim oh no this woman is a damsel in distress in this one game and I have to go and save them I mean never mind I had to kill dozens and dozens of male guards in order just to get to this point they're dead on the ground they've they've been slaughtered but oh no the poor woman she might need some help how sexist that is anyway that's the end of that garbage there's a lot of these feminist frequency women vers tropes and video games nonsense videos that I haven't gone over obviously I think I might are doing them in streams and having people come in and we can just talk about them do something like that I don't know let me know what you think I mean these things are gold mines of stupidity I'd hate to not take advantage of them which is so misogynist of me but before I go if you would like to support what I do here on YouTube you can donate to my patreon there was a link in the description I would super super appreciate it if you did that that would be like the best thing that would be the best thing pretty much ever always you can follow me on Twitter if you want links in the description and as far as channel news goes let me see I've got a 1080 Ti coming in the next few days when that gets here I'm going to start streaming a bit more and I'm going to be posting those streams to my secondary channel and I might do a bit of shit posting stuff on there too feel free to send me ideas of videos you want me to go over if you think that it might be entertaining for you for me maybe maybe not so much I mean this thing was a chore I mean I was completely flaccid to the whole thing not even a wiggle oh and about the new doggy pictures now get into those down below don't worry about it I'll explain it later but thank you guys a whole lot for watching I'm going to go and be a total misogynist by helping a woman in a video game

Channel: Rags

Views: 579,182

Rating: 4.7930102 out of 5

Keywords: anita sarkeesian, feminist frequency, rags anita, rags feminist, feminism video games, tropes vs women in video games, tropes, anita tropes, rags dog, rags rebuttal, rags response, dog anita, trico, the last of us, left behind, ellie, ashley, resident evil 4, elizabeth bioshock, infinite, bioshock infinite, bioshock infinite sucks, anita sarkeesian sucks, video game feminism, feminism sucks, feminism response, feminist rebuttal, fem freq, feminist tropes

Id: UR-zpX1CGhE

Length: 52min 12sec (3132 seconds)

Published: Sun May 14 2017