[Solace]

Originally Posted by kyp275

No one? you sure? See, this is what I mean when it comes to perspective. They joked about it because of the question that was brought up. Was the question about Iron Man? or Batman? It may be double standard if they were asked the same question about Iron Man/Batman and didn't make the same jokes, but crying double standard when they weren't simply doesn't work logically on any level.

Yeah, I'm sure. Did you actually read the thread you linked? It opens with "just for fun" and quickly enters into a discussion about the meaning of "slut" and "whore" and if those monikers actually apply to the characters being listed.

In addition, it's far easier to have such open discussions among a group of like minded individuals. It's not any different than the discussions you see here. That's far different than joking about it during a public interview to people who probably won't "get it". It's called knowing your audience.

It'd be like if person A made a joke about American cars being crap when asked about the performance of American sports cars, and someone cries foul about double standard because person A didn't also joke that Japanese cars are crap too.

How about it's because nobody had said anything about Japanese cars in the first place?

The double standard is implied because the joke is about American cars being crap. So does that mean all non-American cars are better? I can see someone thinking "hey, I wonder what he thinks about <insert nation>'s cars if he thinks American ones are crap?"

Of course, maybe that person would be reading into the joke too much, right? A joke might just be a joke, meant for the cheap laugh and not anything deep? That's fair but then again, it is just a car. Telling a black man a racist joke about blacks is different from telling Ford a joke about how they make shitty Mustangs. Well, perhaps both might involve police afterwards. But one will linger and do more damage than the other, I think.

I'm not arguing that there's no sexism, what I'm arguing against is throwing the misogyny label at everything.

Sure, that's fair. But in this case what they said was a reflection of misogyny in culture. Slut and whore are strong words, and they should be used carefully. That's why I said "Many people who partake in it, don't even realize it."

Like the person in Ahn's quote pointed out, it's not this one particular instance that is the problem, but that it is reflective of an issue of a whole. Constant open use of derogatory words and innuendo, even in jest, can shape how people talk to and treat each other.

Two wrongs doesn't make a right. And let's not be disingenuous here, when the outrage machine is in operation, it's about as close to "wanting to talk about it" as a thermonuclear explosion is to a firecracker.

That still doesn't mean there isn't something to the outrage. I'm interested in root causes of problems. There's something to be learned in every instance, including freakouts.

See where I said about two wrongs don't make a right? Why does FF14 have to bear the cross for the offenses of other games? And I find the entire line of reasoning to be ignorant at best. Game devs aren't government agencies, they are no different than any other enterprises that create products to sell to generate profit. They tailor the design of their products to maximizes their profit, whether that be skimpy female armor or brain-dead aim assist mechanics.

It's no different than a car company tailoring the design of their cars to the performance/cost/environmental-concerned crowd. That game designs caters primarily to heterosexual male today is because that remains their primary customer base. As you say, nothing exists in a vacuum, you want a certain type of products? then you need to have the market for said product.

Have you ever considered that markets can be created and shaped? Ask yourself, did the preteen market exist before the 1990's? Remember how suddenly you starting hearing about stuff like "tweens"? Companies realized the children of the 80's and 90's had a lot of "parent money" that could be tapped into, so they tried creating a demographic no one had ever heard of. Today it's an industry worth billions. How about sports drinks? Do people really need them? Not really, but those commercials do a great job of convincing people otherwise. Marketing is really good at getting people to the point where they'll happily parrot and defend the "virtues" of brands and products blindly, even if it harms them.

Creating markets from nothing, shaping existing markets, using marketing to make people think, believe, and want whatever you're selling....there's a reason that marketing and propaganda are closely related.

FF14 bears a cross because they chose to be like everyone else at a time when people are being vocal about wanting something different. That's a criticism, not a crucifixion. There is a market demand for female armor that doesn't look like it is being sold to horny males. But if you can continue to make a healthy profit from pandering to those horny males, why take the risk? It's a catch 22.

Yea, or you can try to not put words in my mouth. I recognize things just fine, I just don't subscribe to the crusader mentality that some people defaults to.

Let's clear up some confusion here. I didn't put words in your mouth. My line was directed at this, which you said:

Perspective is something that seems to have become a lost art. A small difference in a piece of armor makes the game sexist, a crude joke against a fictional female character is now misogyny (but somehow totally ok if it's directed at a man). I simply cannot imagine what goes on in the minds of people like that, I would be too busy being offended by everything to actually have a life.

Yeah, I used the misogyny label, which is why you felt compelled to reply to me in the first place. So was this part directed, at least in part, to me?

I would hope that by now you have noticed that I'm a pretty leveled headed, even handed type of person. I'm not big on crusading or tossing buzzwords out just for the sake of it. I'm not big on being part of any outrage machine. While I would say I'm a feminist, I'm an old school one. A lot of this modern internet social justice activism irritates me, to say the least. A lot of it is exploited for agendas and profit (like clickbait articles). Sexism exists on both sides of the gender divide, and I don't believe "men" are the sole problem many vocal internet "feminists" claim them to be.

Just because I commented on this news piece about how it reflects ingrained social gender issues does not mean that I don't also recognize how men are affected by it as well. If there's one thing in all discussions that I try to hold on to, it's perspective. Probably to the point of being overly pragmatic at times, but that's just who I am.

But when it comes to something like this news piece, yeah, I'll call a spade a spade. The actors could have refused to answer the question, or chose better words to describe their opinions. These types of questions and their responses don't come up in many interviews, which is why this particular instance makes headlines. But hey, we're all guilty of saying something stupid once in a while, right? I'm not out for their heads. I'm sure they're good men who treat women great.

It's already blown over, and I'm sure the movie won't be harmed by it, nor the actors careers. But as a curious instance of a moment in time, there's something to be considered and said about how the answers those actors gave even comes up in the first place and how that reflects on our culture as a whole.