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Game Developers and Unintentional Sexism

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Of course (Score: 2, Insightful)

by guises@pipedot.org on 2014-03-14 07:22 (#J6)

I'd say that a work can only be sexist or racist if its creator doesn't mean for it to be. Intentional racism is generally either a bad joke or a troll - done to provoke. The KKK isn't intentionally racist, assuming that they actually believe what they preach.

As for the folks in the article, these people seem to be searching for something to feel guilty about. There are some real negative stereotypes, but smooth skin? Homogenised facial structures (whatever that means)? Their solution seems to have been to make all of their female characters either old or weird looking, and from a player's perspective (male) I kinda like that. Putting so much thought into the portraits seems to have given them more character than most. However, there's nothing particularly enlightened here - no one likes to fantasize about being ugly. Even the grizzled-veteran-with-the-knife-fighting-scars fantasy is just a different kind of attractiveness.

That said, how we relate to our media is an interesting subject. The best article that I can recall was this one comparing four versions of The Office. It's not all about beauty, but that's part of it:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2006/09/foreign_office.html

Re: Of course (Score: 5, Interesting)

by quadrox@pipedot.org on 2014-03-14 12:20 (#J8)

I cannot agree with your assertion about racism, it would make the entire word meaningles. The word racism simply describes any statement or belief that different (human) races are different beyond color of skin. This gets ugly when this is taken so far as to say one race is superior/inferior to another because of these alleged differences.

When it comes to the character portraits, I agree with most of what you are saying, especially this part:

However, there's nothing particularly enlightened here - no one likes to fantasize about being ugly. Even the grizzled-veteran-with-the-knife-fighting-scars fantasy is just a different kind of attractiveness.

Personally I think they made the characters far too ugly and weird - they don't have to be pretty, young supermodels, but they certainly don't ALL need to be ugly either.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2014-03-15 17:24 Interesting +1 danieldvorkin@pipedot.org
2014-03-14 18:50 Interesting +1 fishybell@pipedot.org
2014-03-16 03:21 Normal 0 reziac@pipedot.org
2014-03-14 17:25 Informative +1 rocks@pipedot.org
2014-03-14 21:16 Insightful +1 scott@pipedot.org

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