Escapist Podcast: 019: Batman & Blizzard Controversies | |
019: Batman & Blizzard Controversies This week, we discuss our thoughts on Batman: Arkham City and the language controversy. We also talk about another controversy at BlizzCon and another Escapist staff sits in today. | |
Misogyny doesn't enter into Silence of the Lambs? We must not have watched the same movie. Misogyny not only appears in, it, but Clarice *calls her boss on it* when he perpetuates it, in front of the other cops. Yes, it's not the same as 'bitch', but that just makes it more insidious. The problem is not that convicts curse at Catwoman, but rather what the word implies. It is not just a female-oriented slur, it's a sexually oriented slur too. The very fact that someone talks about 'making [Batman] my bitch' proves that. And it's used relentlessly. And it highlights the *very* insidious sterotype of casually using female oriented words to indicate negativity, particularly in regards to sex. Which is constantly demonized in multiple arenas, due to the double-standard between male sexuality and female sexuality. There is a serious problem that we accept 'bitch' but don't accept 'n*gger' or other racial slurs. That needs to be addressed in all walks of life, not just here. | |
Yeah is it just me, or do T games have a lot of language these days? Granted the last T game I bought was Uncharted 2 (I don't buy very many games) and that one used the "S" word more times than I could count. It's like they choose a particular swear and just stick with it throughout the entire game. | |
But as they said, these are bad guys. They're not nice and they're not ones to mince words. As mentioned, there may be a case for limiting its use for reasons of creative variety, but that seems like a flimsy criticism and is more matter of taste or personal sensitivity. I won't sit here and argue that the predominance of "bitch" in media is a good thing, but at worst, it's a symptom of a larger issue and I don't think this game should be that battleground. That said, I don't even think it's a particularly bad word compared to others; I think some people are just using this as a rickety soapbox for arguing about sexism, yet there are so many more egregious examples to point at in media. Fortunately, it's a great game and I don't think this minor concern will overshadow that in the slightest. | |
To me, the Catwoman thing is a small issue -- it's not a "torches and pitchforks" kind of a thing. But that doesn't mean it's not a flaw worth talking about for future reference, and it doesn't mean there is not some sexism present. The fact that the characters saying it are "bad guys" doesn't excuse the writers. The fact remains that all of the female characters (even the minor ones) are characterized in the same way -- and that's from a male perspective. The only insults levied at the female characters are oriented around that. There comes a point where a writer's technique betrays some kind of underlying flaw. I don't think anyone believes it's intentional. I also don't think the folks behind the less-reasonable female costumes in other games are intentionally trying to devalue their female characters. The "sexism" comes into play not by intentionally designing "against" women... but by unintentionally failing to consider them in the design, especially the design of female characters (or the way the game treats them). Again, it's a small issue, but at least worth mentioning. Most of the furor surrounding it has come from the "other side" acting as though it's something that must not be mentioned! Or that if you say anything about it at all, it must be everything to you. It's a classic example of one side forcing an argument to the point of near-absurdity... but then blaming that absurdity on the other side. | |
Guest stars? Will Yahtzee show up, via phone if nesscessary. | |
That's a really good point. It's not that the Catwoman part is any kind of dealbreaker, and you can certainly find some real world parallels in it. But that shouldn't be any reason why the debate should be stifled outright under some ridiculous 'you're either with us or you're against us' mentality. There's something really incongruous about playing as Batman, whose costume is designed to terrorise his foes and has the effect of them shouting in terror or unnerved panic, and then playing as Catwoman, whose costume doesn't seem to intimidate anyone but is more fetishised and prompts them to shout correspondingly derogatory abuse at her. It's also worth noting how it's usually the female villains who end up quote unquote helping Batman at some point (such as Ivy in Arkham Asylum), because as much as you can justify their actions through the plot, the writers can never help themselves to avoid ramping up the obvious sexual tension whenever this happens. Again, none of this is any kind of dealbreaker, but it's definitely more than a little sexist. | |
If you are going to discuss the Arkham City controversy, do your research. I suggest you start here: http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/goddammit-video-games-the-first-few-hours-of-arkham-city-is-lots-of-fun-but-super-duper-sexist/ It's two long articles but you should read them both to get an excellent in-depth discussion of the topic. If you are feeling particularly brave head on to the comments. The second article, posted almost a week ago, smashed all of your lazy arguments. "They're psychotic criminals", "it's lazy writing", and all the other greatest hits are covered. | |
to be honest even though I havnt played that much of arkham city, I havnt noticed the "bitch" thing yet it doesnt bother me so much because I would actuatually find it weird if a bunch of thugs/criminals WERENT calling her bitch or even implying rape | |
actually in this depiction I dont mind catwomans costume, aside from being almost zipped down to her navel it actually looks more or less functionl, helping with her agility and such I havtn looked close enough to see if she is wearing heels, (probably is, thats a given in comic books and somthing that kind of bugs me) | |
About the World of Warcraft antagonism bleeding into real life: Look up Stanley Milgram's prison experiment. Or the case in which a teacher separated third grade students by eye color and gave one group (blue eye) more preferable treatment than the other (brown eyes). And as a Yankees fan, I have experienced some of the overboard Yankees-Red Sox rivary. It's hard for me to do it myself, though. My roommate and one of my best friends is a Red Sox fan. On bad voice-acting: Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom. Everyone sounds like they are from a poor quality show for toddlers. | |
Nice podcast, but am i the only one who notices that one of them breathe REALLY loud? i could hear one of them breathe almost through the whole podcast, especially when they talked about Mass effect 3. it was quite annoying>.<. | |
Is there any particular reason these aren't on iTunes? I could find time to listen alot easier if they were. | |
Except they WEREN'T smashed. Not entirely, anyways. Context is important to keep in mind. He keeps bringing up Nolan's films, but these are movies that neither make use of female characters to any great degree nor tend to focus on random thugs. "Bitch" is a fairly demeaning and depowering word, so it definitely makes sense that a thug who is terrified of getting his a** kicked around by a woman, and point in fact WILL get his a** kicked around by a woman, to use this word. It's a knee-jerk reaction on his unintelligent, sexist, weak part. He's trying to make himself bigger in the face of something he's terrified of, and it doesn't work because Catwoman still lays waste to him. He also keeps talking about bits where it's "supposed to be funny", and I'm never really sure what parts he's talking about there. Maybe a thug said it like a joke? That doesn't mean it was intended to be funny to the PLAYER, it means that Rocksteady tried to give a certain character to the thug. They try to crack jokes all the time, and the jokes are never funny and never come off like they're supposed to be found funny by the player. So that aside, they only use the word in the above context, which absolutely makes sense in the game's setting. Maybe this "Hulk" (what an incredibly obnoxious way to write a post; it doesn't undo his otherwise friendly and approachable demeanor, but I found it pretty irritating)doesn't feel it appropriate, but I completely disagree. Then again, it never struck me as an issue in the first place, so maybe there are people more sensitive to this stuff that were bugged by it. Still, I know plenty of people who normally are pretty sensitive to it that took absolutely no issue with the game, so it does kind of come off as finding sexism because you're always looking for it in everything you watch. It's like people who call James Cameron's casting of Zoe Seldana as Naitiri racist, because he said he liked her "exotic" look: sure you can find prejudice in there, but that doesn't mean it was done with prejudice in mind. | |
My personal problem with the swearing in that particular case is that... it's forced. It really feels like something added just to appeal to certain demographic that can't accept the fact that swear words aren't the only way to communicate. I do not agree that those swear words are used to show that bad guys are bad. Batman never, ever needed vulgarity to portray the characters and yet you knew who was who. Swearing is just to make things obvious for, sorry but, dumb people. There is just so very little reasoning to put it in a Batman game. Want to use all those "bad" words? Make a gritty medieval fantasy game or gang oriented game or a war game, pick a setting that will really make those words natural, because comic series usually don't need those to tell the story. Still, the part of Asylum series that annoys me the most is the way the do portray some of the characters. As much as i enjoy the gameplay i will never forgive them for what they have done to Harley Quinn. From a cheerful and wacky character in comics and animated series she got turned into a ditzy "goth" bimbo, loosing all of her charm just because the art department at Rocksteady had a schoolgirl fantasy. Give me back real Harley. | |
First of all, to quote Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw: "I think you may need to get your audio equipment checked out, guys." | |
Well,that "dumb" people thing works both ways. If you're not very bright, odds are good that your vocab won't stretch too much, and you won't have all that many ways to expss your anger or frustration. I don't think it's a bad characterization to make thugs swear a lot, given at they're not supposed to be all that bright. | |
gah!! Tarren Mill... not Tauren Mill :p | |
Or, we call all stop being offended by racial and sexual slurs and then there will be no problem. | |
That's what bugs me about this. Is all this because of this guy's rant on his blog? Because it's definitely mountains out of molehills. He even acknowledges that the game is really good and everyone should play it. And having played it myself, I'm surprised he managed two longs posts worth of text. It seems like an attempt at being a white knight for all the marginalized women of gaming, but he picked a tame example. It's a discussion worth having, and perhaps Arkham City could have a paragraph in such a discussion, but the game itself isn't a major offender. | |
Was it needed in the comics, animated series or even movies? Somehow the writers on those managed to show thugs as thugs without putting tons of swear words in their mouths. It kind of was part of the setting. Sure Gotham was the dystopian future part of DC Universe, dark and gritty in places, but just as Batman didn't want to kill any of the villains, they avoided swearing. Also, English language has such limited swear words they get much more repetitive fast. | |
The reason there is no random crime to fight in AC is because its a prison. There are only criminals living their and not normal people. | |
I do find it funny people getting so worked up about the word "bitch", seriously - its the same sentence looped and repeated by the AI of the enemy. Of all the words to call a woman, bitch is the most tamest word their is. If you played the game, you will know that Catwoman is a bitch. Look how she treats Poison Ivy when (spoiler Start) breaks the plant she promises she would rescue if Ivy helped her. Also, you can decide not to help Batman and escape with the cash and she says "screw him" and its game over.(Spoiler finished). | |
Okay well multiple issues here. I rarely comment on the podcast, but I figured a few things needed to be said. For one, I think the actual issues involved in the whole Blizzcon speech are being sidestepped. What is going on here is that Blizzard has created a competitive game, and shows outright favortism to one side over the other. This has been a known factor for a very, very, long time, with the guys at "Penny Arcade" even calling rolling Alliance one of the biggest gips in gaming in their strip at one point, and so called "Alliance Syndrome" becoming synonymous with horrible game balance in a compeititve game due to developer favortism both in the design, and the way the game is administrated. Without focusing on specific issues (which I could go on about at length), I will say that Blizzard has created an enviroment of institutionalized bullying, and encouraged it, it's no surprise that this spilled over into the internet at large, and then into real life. Blizzard's spokespeople taking this attitude is only a slight elevation of their normal behavior, with someone verbalizing the attitude the company has been showing towards the game since day #1. You can't seriously discuss what happened here, without looking at the overall situation (and that would ger very long, both in a serious podcast on the subject, and in making this long post even longer). When it comes to Batman, to be honest I expect criminals to use rude slurs. It's ridiculous for anyone to think that hardened inmates and violent mental patients would take the time to be politically correct. The very fact that we have discussions about the slurs being used and who they might be targeting shows that political correctness has gone too far. As far as Batman fighting random crime goes, understand the enviroment and the locaton. On top of that ALSO understand that if someone actually DID make a game like that anyone who is going to get upset about insensitivity towards women here, is so politically correct that they would freak out if we actually saw Batman engaging in vigilante activity as per the comics. Guaranteed some politically correct sorts would notice that Batman is a billionaire philanthropist who makes the city a better place by basically going into the ghettos and beating the living hell out of people. Granted in the overall scheme of things there is much more to him than that, but at it's core this is what Batman's approach to fighting crime randomly involves. Batman literally heads for the bad section of town, hides on a rooftop or whatever, waits for some gang members with their flags and colors to come by, or someone to step out of line, and then BAM he comes out of nowhere and beats the holy hell out of them. This is to say nothing about his attitudes about wiretapping and surveillance and whatever. Guaranteed people would be screaming about how horrible this is because it's an insensitive take on "complicated issues"... even before you get into the ethnicity of the the thing. That's right, ethnicity. See, in an attempt to be fairly realistic Batman's Gotham is largely ruled by ethnic gangs. We have Italians and Greeks running the mob (and look at the horrible reactions shows like "The Sopranos" for this... OMG The Mob is Italian, stop the presses!), and we have Chinese, Latinos, and Blacks all running their own gangs like the "Burnley Street Massive" and so on. Brought out as a video game, the random crime fighting is going to doubtlessly involve painfully stupid political correctness (white members of what are supposed to be black gangs) and even then get complaints like "Resident Evil 5". I honestly think this would be the beginning of a timer before we saw someone commenting on how if your a minority your a random criminal, if your a white guy your a I'm just saying, I think there are good reasons why we've seen the recent Batman games taking place in prison-type enviroments, as opposed to a free-roam enviroment set out in Gotham itself. Batman's approach/style (not just personally, but the harder/slightly more realistic presentation of crime in his titles) is going to raise a lot more eyebrows than when it was done with Spider-Man or Superman. Among other things Spider-Man or Superman are basically nice guys, Batman might be a goodguy overall but he's not a NICE guy and even if It might occur to some people that games like "Grand Theft Auto" and "Saint's Row" involve ethnic gangs and random battles with them as well, but understand that those games have been magnets for contreversy to begin with, both in how they present crime, and the general levels of violence in the content to begin with. The racial issues have kind of been sidestepped for the most part because the politically correct crowd can find so many more general aspects to complain about. "Protect The Children" in a general sense gets more attention than an outcry against racism, and these guys pick their issues and approach for maximum impact, because it's about the attention, not the issues. | |
All valid points. Perhaps I was overzealous by saying that Hulk "smashed" those arguments. My primary point was that this podcast sounded like a broken record, rehashing the same old arguments aimed at strawmen without acknowledging some of the more nuanced arguments made by the other side. In fact you are making the same mistake - your first paragraph is the "psychotic criminal" defense all over again. To be honest, I don't have a horse in this race. My dismissiveness was aimed lass at the arguments themselves and more at the intellectual laziness of the podcast. But then again I'm not presenting any ideas myself, so I guess I'm guilty of it myself. | |
Random thoughts: 1) Hope you're feeling better Susan! | |
No, but comics and cartoons only have to show you exactly what they want - they dont need to account for looping dialog, barks from NPCs, background chatter as the player looks around, etc. Video games need to fill the space with far more fluff than other types of media, because the designers don't know what the player will do, or how long it will take. I'm not disagreeing that there are other ways to express the same idea, just saying I think there are morer factors that need to be considered. | |
I think what they were saying is that even though misogyny is present in Silence of the Lambs, it's on the part of the characters, and definitely not on the part of the writers. I think I would agree with that sentiment. | |
On corpsegrinder: I don't like what they're talking about, BUT, I oppose censorship in music. I don't really have issues when it's publicly played(like at Blizzcon), but calling for it to be censored outside of that community, in private places, that is worth opposing. Don't stop, believing. Podcast cast mashup. Music. Now we have Music mashup. "You're generalizing a whole bunch of people, that's what the horde does" - Brilliant line. ME3:I'm glad it's entirely OPTIONAL. I plan on enjoying it. Also, ME3 got delayed exclusively to add in the multiplayer. The single player mode was completed on time, and would have been put out in November as single player only. | |
It's funny; I was just thinking about my future and how to get a job into the game industry and then Carrie starts talking about how she got into The Escapist. Man, I hope I get to be as luck as her someday. Also, not to sound like a jerk, but you guys might wanna have those mics checked. There was a segment where you couldn't hear anything except for everyone's distant voice. I'm sure you guys already noticed it, though. Still, great podcast. OT: I don't really have a problem with thugs swearing their butts off. I mean, it's gonna sound crude and maybe rude, but rude people in real life do this! It's been mentioned before; "dumb" people have a very limited vocabulary and there express themselves in a more...rude way. Whoever has a job that involves dealing with people can vouch for this. So yeah, thugs, be rude. You guys can get away with it. For Batman, who is supposed to be a philanthropist and a pseudo-genius, that would be unforgivable if he suddenly started swearing at people like a drunk sailor. He's supposed to be better than that; superior, if you will, seeing as how he can take out an entire island full of criminals by himself. As far as the rumored Superman game...eh, I don't know if I wanna see one...yet. I know said game wouldn't be launched tomorrow, but still. I think Batman's got this one, at least for a while. And at any rate, I can't help but feel that it would be somehow similar to Arkham Asylum/City. You got a superhero who cannot be killed (At least head-on) and a super-villain that uses people as bait and also as a way to torment the hero. Sounds like Batman? And part of the reason why Batman is so successful, and I'm sure most people would agree, is because he's, again, still human! He's flawed and tormented. Superman is just the impersonation of a perfect man. He's not even human, so how can you relate to him (Don't take that too seriously)? You can relate to Batman, but Superman is just a distant god-like figure that's unreachable for us. But hey, if they can manage to make an awesome Superman game and prove me wrong, that would be awesome. I mean, who would have thought we would have not one, but two good Batman games a couple of years back, huh? | |
54 Minutes in all I heard was... breathing... and a distance angel in the distance >:D | |