Well, in that case, we completely disagree (phew)!
Anyway, this is totally illogical. “Not all of them are sexualized, and they’re not completely reduced to worthless sex objects… and so therefore it’s not a clear case of ‘discriminatory sexualization’?” You need to substantiate this.
Because gigantic ass shots don’t just fall from the sky and land in serious action shows out of nowhere. They’re, you know, painstakingly drawn, and there’s some reason for that. You seem to be saying that it happens for (literally) no reason in particular, which is on the same level as saying “cause and effect doesn’t exist,” to me. Hopefully this is a misunderstanding of some sort, but you’ve now reiterated that you believe random pointless ass shots in serious action shows don’t “necessarily” have any sort of implications on reality whatsoever, so I’m going to treat that as your actual stance. And I mean, sorry, but just like “cause and effect doesn’t exist,” it’s an alien statement that, for me to rebut, would require an incredibly thorough breakdown of like… fundamental logic. It would spill well beyond the borders of this thread, and just… it actually tires me just thinking about it.
Um, absolutely not. Suggesting that “your argument is subjective, and therefore it is invalid” is a complete non sequitur and the onus is entirely on you to somehow assert otherwise. You can’t just go around saying “yeah but that’s just your opinion, man. I win unless you can prove otherwise!” That’s not how logic works, remotely.
In this particular case, I said something along the lines of “yeah, there’s male gaze in Ghost in the Shell. Here is an example.” Your responses were “male gaze is irrelevant in the case of fictional characters because fictional characters aren’t real,” which is a completely unsubstantiated non sequitur, and “instances of male gaze in Ghost in the Shell might serve as some sort of commentary on society, but that doesn’t matter because it’s completely subjective,” which is also a completely unsubstantiated non sequitur. There is nothing invalid about subjectivity, but I completely unironically look forward to watching you try to explain otherwise.
You’ve been abusing this idea that “Kristoph is the one with the burden of proof, at all times, no exceptions” throughout the course of this entire argument. You can consider it an act of kindness that I’m only now calling you out on it. ^_^"
This seems pretty easy to substantiate. The reverse, what I feel is your implication, is that all sexualization is inherently discriminatory. You can’t possibly mean that EVERY time a women has short skirt, boobs bigger than an A cup, a nice butt etc. is discriminatory. That’s an ABSURB standard to hold. It is not a standard we expect of RL women, I’m not sure why we would expect it of fictional women. Sexualization is always for sexualization’s sake since here and in all other fictional universes, these characters are created. I think what you are trying to say is that you have an issue with sexualization whose only purpose is to titillate and even then there is a huge gradient. As I feel I’ve already said before, sexualization has other uses than to titillate such as for comedy, irony, spice, to make a statement about the characters personality, affiliation or motivations, etc. It’s fine if you or anyone else doesn’t like or disagree with particular instances of sexualization in this game or any other. We will all defend that right regards of whether or not we agree with any particular instance you object to. But you have to use and see nuance and context.
I’m sorry if you feel people are getting a bit heated and using language towards you that is more colorful than needed (I agree that people should stop doing that). However, accusing other people of splitting hairs and some of your subsequent posts make me feel like you don’t actually appreciate the meaning and power of these words. I think that is what is causing some people to become frustrated with you. Saying something is “sexist” has VERY particular, damaging implications. You CANNOT just go around calling things sexist, racist, xenophobic casually; that’s not the way things work. When people who are only tangently aware or interested in the game hear people argue whether or not a game is “sexist”, especially a lot of people over a long period of time, they oft just assume there is some sort of truth without doing any research.This is especially compounded when you don’t see threads on the subject for other, more popular or established games that have stuff that is often 100x worse than anything seen here. This is not comparable with particular features (like netcode) that has little to few subjective elements and specific, identifiable fixes.
For me the sexualization adds to the entertainment value of the game. In part it is attracting me to the game. I think they should make more games with more sexualization.
Wow what? They would have already done it in any other game subforum. Seriously I dare you to try to make this thread in the UMvC3 subforum.
Why do you target Skullgirls? What’s such a big deal with a panty shot only when doing a high kick as opposed to somebody like Cammy who essentially has every single frame of animation as a panty shot because she shows as much skin all the time? Is there something worse about only showing it sometimes(while still only when realistic?) What about somebody like Felicia who has no clothes at all AND a extremely shallow depth as a character? You aren’t over in MvC3 forums complaining about her and I’m guessing it’s just because you think you can get away with it here since the moderation has been lax about it so far. Do you want to troll the Skullgirls forum and damage Skullgirls’ potential success just because they are a small, vulnerable, independent company? Do you hate the fact that they cater to the competitive community instead of trying to cash in on things like X-factor?
Identifying that the reverse is wrong is not a substantiation of the statement itself. I’m in complete agreement with you that there’s a gradient here, and that context is relevant. Let me repeat this: “I’m in complete agreement with you that there’s a gradient here, and that context is relevant.” Okay, there. Now it should be clear that I agree with you that there’s a gradient and that context is relevant.
So you’re probably thinking “wow, if you agree with me on this, then why aren’t you talking about this gradient that you purport to agree with? Like you seem to just be assuming that it’s obviously sexist or whatever. Weird.”
And my answer to that is: I’m arguing with Nitro263, who is asserting (among other things) that subjectivity is invalid, and so there’s kind of not a lot of room to talk about “context” in the first place!
Like yeah, I think there’s room to assert that “hey, maybe these pantyshots are for awesome ironic effect or whatever, and so it’s not actually demeaning, it’s all cool and blah blah blah.” This sort of analysis is totally possible, and I absolutely welcome it. For example, I can and do defend incredibly ostensibly-sexist music artists (recent example: Tyler, the Creator), and so does one of my feminist music critic friends! Clearly I have nothing against contextually analyzing these sorts of things, and there’s an implicit analysis going on in my head before I start posting conclusions like “Skullgirls is pretty obviously sexist” or whatever.
The problem is that my discussion with Nitro263 never has a chance to even delve into that territory, because he/she is denying (or at least strongly, fundamentally questioning) things such as: the existence of male gaze, the existence of fictional art’s impact on the real world, and the validity of subjectivity (!!). For me to elaborate on why I think pantyshots are a terrible way of expressing irony or whatever (not my actual opinion necessarily; just an example, ha) would be laughably naive given that the relevance of artistic analysis is itself being called into question by one of the most active participants in this discussion.
So, okay, I have two responses here.
First: it’s hard to make these kinds of judgements, but my guess would be that you and I have fairly similar understandings of the connotative and denotative meanings of of the word “sexist.” I think the disconnect isn’t in our grasp of the “gravity” of the word, and that it’s purely in our sensitivity to feminist issues. So to me it’s like you’re saying “hey, don’t use that word, it’s a pretty big deal you know,” and my response is, “oh, trust me, I know!”
That’s sort of a jerky-sounding response and it totally makes me seem like I’m trying to kill Skullgirls or whatever. So, second: I intentionally stopped relying on that word a while ago! I just did a cute little ctrl+F search and it showed that I kept using it periodically (so there goes that clever plan), but the point is that I’m cognizant of the fact that sexism can be kind of a buzzword that automatically (and perhaaaaps wrongfully) sends off a bunch of alarm bells in people’s heads, and I want to avoid that as much as you do. My reasoning is a little different (you’re concerned that buzzwords are bad for Skullgirls, I’m more sensitive to their negative influence on reasoned discussion), but know that I at least did try to avoid it.
The better word to use would be “asserter,” because otherwise it sounds like you’re just talking about legal systems. And in a number of situations throughout this argument, Nitro has been the one making assertions and then arbitrarily claiming that I’m the one who has to substantiate otherwise. For example, he/she asserted that subjective arguments mean nothing (like that is seriously a paraphrase of some things they said). So I poked fun about that, and their response was “prove otherwise!”
If the burden of proof there really is on me, then I guess I should start gathering evidence to disprove the incoming claims that I’m four years old, a serial killer, and a part-time Chuck E. Cheese robot?
I’m not even going to respond to the “why don’t you ‘target’ other games” stuff, because I’ve already explained that over and over again, often specifically addressing you!
The more important point to make here is that this really isn’t about “earning” anything. My main purpose in drawing attention to your constant antagonism was to point out the hypocrisy of you claiming that I’m “hurting Skullgirls” right before using incredibly alienating, aggressive rhetoric. If you were really as single-mindedly interested in supporting Skullgirls as you imply, I don’t think you’d be acting this way.
That being said, I do disagree that I “earned” any of this antagonism. I intend to be a pretty sexy supporter of Skullgirls myself! ^_^;
Now, for treatment to be proven discriminatory, it has to be shown that it was taken *towards a group, *or shown that it was taken against an individual *because *of the individual’s membership in said group.
Meaning basically, there are only two ways to prove treatment as discriminatory:
Reveal that the reason behind the treatment of an individual was solely due to their membership in a group. Ex. “You can’t come here, because you’re Black”
Treat all members of the group that you come into contact with in a way separate from normal treatment. Ex. “This person never allows Black people to enter his home”
In Skullgirls’ case, not all females are sexualized, and the degree of sexualization varies depending on character. If the sexualization of those specific characters is handled on an individual basis, there’s no real case for discrimination on basis of sex. Peacock and Painwheel aren’t sexualized. Filia and Fortune have very few sexual elements in their design. The only character where sexualization is a focal point of her is Valentine. Yet all of the characters are female. So how is it discriminating against females? This is regardless of male characters.
If there are sexualized male characters as DLC, they work as a definitive counterpoint to prove that there is no discrimination at all. But even without them, there’s not enough solidarity among the females to prove it’s discrimination, as opposed to individual design elements. Making any perceived discrimination nothing more than opinion.
Then stop overthinking it, and stop taking my stance to illogical extremes. I’m not saying it happens for no reason in particular. I’m sure there *is a reason. There could be hundreds of reasons. I’m saying that I’*m not the creator, and I can’t read the minds of the creators of the GitS anime. So, I don’t know what the reason is. And if you’re not the creator, or psychic, then neither do you. You’re assuming that something that could be as simple as mindless fanservice, or symbolism pertaining to an individual character, is some kind of subliminal implication towards womankind as a whole. And you’re nearsighted (or arrogant) enough to relate *your personal interpretation *of it to cause and effect? Seriously?
To imply that the only reason for the sexualization of a woman is to demean women is ridiculous.
Please. Claiming that there’s some sort of fallacy with my logic (IOW non sequitur) without even properly paraphrasing the argument? Calling “unsubstantiated non sequitur” is not proof of non sequitur.
You stated your GitS example to be objectifying. I called you incorrect, because the definition of objectification is reducing a person to an object. Kusanagi is not a real *person. *
“Instances of male gaze in Ghost in the Shell might serve as some sort of commentary on society, but that is** completely unsubstantiated because deriving any commentary from it is** completely subjective.”
Explain how that is a non sequitur. In fact, you’re accusing me of non sequitur when you’re the one committing a *textbook *one!
Male Gaze can be used to make implications that demean women
GitS has examples of Male Gaze
GitS is making implications that demean women.
Fallacy.
On *top *of that, you never addressed the point I made concerning there being no emphasis on the sexualization in Skullgirls, which is different from your example of male gaze in GitS.
Here’s the process I evaluated your argument on to come to the conclusion that your argument holds no factual weight:
Your argument has supporting points.
Those supporting points consist of personal interpretation* “* it’s not even that I’m analyzing Ahad himself. it’s like, a basic artistic observation of the game”, incorrect assertions “I’m not saying that the characters are sex objects, just that they’re being objectified”, pure assumptions “I’m operating under the assumption…” and zero factual statements.
Therefore, your argument is supported by nothing but subjective points, and thus, holds no factual weight.
As your argument holds no factual weight, it is equivalent to an opinion, by the definition of the word opinion:
As to what’s invalid about opinion? Nothing.
What is invalid is using opinion as if it was a factual basis. Your claims that Skullgirls is sexist, discriminatory, or demeaning is based on nothing but your own opinion, and yet you have made multiple posts assuming it as fact, in order to claim it as problematic. That is what makes your arguments invalid.
“Act of kindness”? That act is completely unnecessary and unwanted. I implore you to call me out on any and everything you can, as quickly as you can manage it. Anything less is just wasting time. This is how we’re going to get to the bottom of this, so the quicker you say all you have to say, the sooner we get to the end. And I’ve already told you what’s going to happen in the end. It’s much more productive to have you reach it for yourself though, because you have no reason to believe me just yet. If you want to do me a kindness, start replying to my posts directly instead of your misinterpretations of them.
Have at it. I can back up everything I say, thank you very much.
Not really. What I’m asserting is your regard of certain subjective points as established fact is invalid. Start by establishing something. All we’ve established in all this back and forth is that “Sexualization exists in Skullgirls”.
From there, your posts have used that as a springboard into assertions that said sexualization is “male gaze”, “sexist”, “discriminatory”, “unnecessary”, etc. My problem with this is you never explain how you come to this conclusion. If the answer is simply “viewing it made me feel this way about it”, then Congratulations! We just skipped to the end. No one can debate or invalidate your opinion as long as you’re willing to admit that it’s only that. Other people disagree with this base opinion. The End. I told you this would happen.
If you have some kind of objective reasoning that can help you make a case for anything more substantial than “There are some characters that are sexualized in Skullgirls”, please, by all means, do so.
Just Nitro is fine. Let me clarify what I’m questioning, so that you may answer correctly:
The existence of male gaze in Skullgirls, and how it has any negative connotation towards women.
Why your definition of the impact a specific piece of fictional art has on the real world is the correct one/intended one.
The validity of your assertions when they are based on nothing *but *subjectivity.
Get the picture now?
I have no intention of antagonizing you, and simple discussion never warrants animosity. Just because I’m hard on your posts doesn’t mean I’m mad at you. Don’t take it personal.
This doesn’t substantiate anything; it’s just a restatement of what you said earlier.
I agree that treatment must be shown to be “taken towards a group, or against an individual because of the individual’s membership in said group.” It does not follow that one must “treat all members of the group abnormally.” That is a statement that would only follow from the following (faulty) premise:
“Treatment must be shown to be taken towards a group, or against an individual because and only because of the individual’s membership in said group.”
In other words, there can be mitigating factors to discrimination. Maybe I don’t normally let Mexicans eat at my taco bell, but if they’re wearing funny sombreros I’ll let it slide. “Maybe Painwheel isn’t sexualized because it would be super super incongruous with her persona if she were.” Mitigating circumstances. Still what I would call a “clear case of discrimination,” male DLC characters notwithstanding. And yes, I’m coming to that conclusion subjectively (which we’ll get to in a moment). I do not have an inherent issue with you calling my conclusion into question; my issue is only with your particular rebuttal, which is that a clear case of sexism can only be determined by the restrictive metric you’re defining it by.
Okay great, but dude, real talk, you did say that. Like you totally said that! –
Anyway, it’s great that you don’t stand by this statement anymore. I just want to make it clear that I’m not intentionally creating strawpeople or anything.
Hahahaha, dude, this is a fighting game forum. It’s called “yomi,” and yeah I’m being tongue-in-cheek here, but it’s also true, funnily enough. It doesn’t matter if we don’t 100% know what the artist was literally thinking when they made their art. That’s not what I’m interested in, and I never indicated such in any of my posts. It’s about analyzing the meaning communicated by the work itself, which, yes, is a very subjective process.
In fighting game terms, our aim isn’t to be ST computers and react to player inputs perfectly. It’s to observe the behaviors of the opponent’s on-screen character and make reasoned conclusions based on an analysis of those behaviors. It’s one of the central ideas in fighting games, and it’s totally how art analysis works too!
I’m not assuming it, I’m asserting it based on subjective analysis that is easy enough for most people to identify and agree with (strong female character is suddenly and seemingly-gratuitously sexualized out of nowhere, hm) that they’ve created a whole term for it (male gaze). I could go back and substantiate why it’s a harmful example of male gaze, but that would require me to substantiate male gaze itself which would kind of take a while (and has already been done, so you could just look it up maybe).
Yeah it could totally just be symbolism or whatever. It’s textbook, textbook male gaze though, so unless you really think the onus is on me to break down exactly what male gaze is and how it applies in this situation where, ostensibly, it clearly does, you kind of have to substantiate any claims to the contrary.
Now, okay, my previous two “rebuttals” or whatever-- up until this point you probably find them woefully inadequate, because they both run into this little “subjectivity” hangup that you seem to have. It’s time to thoroughly address that, because it’s pretty much the source of our entire disagreement and I’m tired of it continuing to pop up.
Now, first of all, I’m going to acknowledge one of your later statements where you suggest that “there’s nothing invalid about subjectivity.” Obviously I totally agree with this, and at first I was satisfied despite its incongruity with your previous posts, which clearly asserted that subjectivity is invalid (pretty sure you used the term “invalid subjectivity” in there somewhere, ha).
However, it’s also incongruous with your earlier statement that “I can’t read the minds of the creators of the GitS anime. So, I don’t know what the reason is,” and a number of other major arguments you’ve made. Based on this, it’s clear to me that you don’t conceive of subjectivity in even remotely the same terms as I do. Which is a slightly vague assertion, so bear with me as I attempt to explain it.
To elaborate! What you’re implying by the above statement is either that
a) "straight up, one can make no statements whatsoever about the reasons the creators had for the fanservice, unless they can read the minds of the creators themselves"
or
b) “one can have strong substantiated opinions on what the reason is, but those aren’t important. What’s really important is knowing, based on fact (and not substantiated subjective analysis), what the reason is.”
Both of these implications necessarily diminish the value of subjectivity in artistic analysis. You’re either saying that (a) one substantiated opinion cannot be deemed better or worse than another, or (b) those conclusions hold no weight regardless because purely objective conclusions are simply that much more valuable (even when they’re completely impractical to obtain).
This is like, a deep philosophical difference that you and I have, and we can’t continue this discussion in any meaningful way until you either acknowledge that or change your conception of “subjective validity” entirely. Regardless of my opinion of your philosophy (which I’ve already given but will not repeat), there’s absolutely zero doubt that there’s no reconciling it with my own (leaving little room for substantive debate).
And this is the reason why:
I absolutely haven’t done that, and it’s proof of the aforementioned “deep philosophical difference regarding our conceptions of subjectivity” that you would even think I was trying to do something so inane. Prove, objectively, that a piece of art is _____ (in this case, “sexist”)? My thoughts when initially reading that were “hahahaha, what?”
Yeah, I made confident statements. But they were statements of opinion and were never meant to be seen as anything else.
So maybe now you’re thinking, “Ha, see? Kristoph finally admitted that he/she’s just been spouting pointless opinion this whole thread! My classy shit-talk prophecy thing (seriously, what?) has finally come true! Cool, thread over.”
But secretly we’re at the exact same impasse we were at before. The real difference in our points of view is that I believe that subjectivity is a really, really big deal, and completely totally matters forever. Some opinions are better substantiated than others! Some opinions are just better, period, than others! And when they’re better, that’s really a very substantive and critical distinction!
It’s also what artistic analysis is completely based on. Nobody says that the Star Wars directors cuts are “objectively” awful, because that would require some magical body of insanely specific and conclusive evidence (“Lucas was held at gunpoint and forced to ruin them as best as he could, and we have him and his entire crew here to testify!”). What they say is that they’re awful because they ruin the spirit of Darth Vader’s redemptive turning point (I made this up but also it’s totally true, and also fuck George Lucas) or whatever. Then they substantiate that by talking about subjective and just plain difficult-to-articulate things like emotions, or other bodies of work, or other contextual things like history. This isn’t just a “valid” way of discussing these things. It’s the way that it’s done, because the alternative is to treat all opinions with equal value in the space of public criticism, even when one is surrounded by in-depth contextual analysis and the other is “I think Episode 1 is really good, actually! Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always just thought of Jar Jar Binks as kind of a badass, I guess.”
You are quite absolutely endorsing that second point of view, and therefore questioning the entire institution of criticism itself. This might seem like I’m trying to make you out to be completely crazy by using hyperbole or whatever, but I understand (and have made!!) the arguments against formal criticism at the very least. The point isn’t to suggest that your point of view here is ridiculous or indefensible, but that have experience with it and therefore know what will happen should I continue contending with it. Namely, this thread will devolve into a ridiculously far-off philosophical discussion that ultimately has nothing to do with sexism, much less Skullgirls, and it’ll be kind of fun but mostly a waste of time for everyone involved, perhaps excepting some particularly eccentric lurkers who happen to enjoy reading that kind of nonsense.
Anyway, I’m not really willing to take part in that kind of DBZ-level argumentative scope/power creep. And unless one of us experiences some sort of rapid, drastic change in our fundamental philosophies, that’s what’s going to happen.
I will give sort of a cursory explanation as to what my thought process was when confronting the “is Skullgirls sexist/demeaning” thing, though. I swear I’ve already explicated this to some degree, just in bits and pieces instead of all at once, but whatever; the original discussion has kind of gotten away from us so this is just me trying to put it on track.
Actually having panties magically blocked by physics defying skirts in situations where it makes no sense has bad implications. It’s basically admitting that there is something wrong with women’s bodies via censorship, since it made perfect sense for it to be seen in that instance. It’s the equivalent of putting a black box over the area for the move and makes about as much sense. This would be even worse if it happened in a game where men were wearing something similarly revealing like Urien and not censored.
I’m bothered by the general consensus of what constitutes indecency being so inconsistent between men and women.
But “high-kicking in a miniskirt” isn’t something from which one automatically concludes “panties are going to be revealed to the viewer here.” That’s probably almost never the expectation one has in the context of 2d animation, I would imagine.
The point is, yes, many of the pantyshots in the game make physical sense, that’s great. But they don’t necessarily make more sense than not having them.
So I would hesitate to say that there’s any negative implication there, and I’d hesitate to call it “censorship.” Granted, it would be totally different if there were also like, a dude in a kilt or whatever, and his high-kicks totally exposed whatever it is people wear underneath kilts (yeah you know what, it’s my example: I’m gonna say panties). In that case, yeah, that’s a double standard that I have a problem with!
Anyway, I see your point but I don’t think it applies in this situation. It’s actually the exact opposite of what Nitro harped on me earlier about: “it’s not sexism unless it’s discriminatory sexualization,” but in this case, “it’s not a double-standard unless it’s discriminatory *un-*sexualization.”
I disagree. Cerebella’s showstopper has her upside-down. Parasoul’s Ryu-esque side kick also wouldn’t make much sense to somehow not show anything considering her outfit. And they don’t always show them when they could. When you use Cerebella’s anti-air throw on another Cerebella, she uses Vice-Versa to hold her skirt in place.
I said it doesn’t necessarily make more sense. Certainly the examples you gave are exceptions (well Parasoul’s kick I actually disagree with but that’s besides the point).
Because story-wise the characters chose to wear the outfits they’re wearing, and if you made Alex change that because of people pressuring him over this whole argument you are basically censoring his ideas of what the characters want to do (in this case, wearing the outfits they are wearing).
I didn’t want to post in this thread but I don’t want anyone to suggest that Alex to change his ideas for whatever reason.
