I wouldn't mind different characters. I wouldn't mind thoughtful, insightful discussion. Hell, I've yet to see a single character of my ethnicity in a video game. However, that's not what Sarkeesian is bringing. Sarkeesian and McIntosh serve only to galvanize our (my) culture. Sarkeesian raised over 100k (dozens of times higher than her goal) for a video series that is a year late and not even halfway done. I could cut her some slack, maybe she was in over her head, whatever. However, upon closer examination, Sarkeesian's bare bones videos contain the academic fire power of a dollar store squirt gun. It's laughably pathetic how little she has managed to actually back up with cited evidence (after all, it is meant to be "academic," right?). Though I'm sure academics wouldn't stoop so low as to purposefully lift people's Let's play footage and pass it off as their own. I'm calling her out on her bullshit.
Uhg...Let's put some things to rest here. This ding dong is getting upvoted for saying lots of general things that in general sound damning if you want to pander to the lowest common denominator on Reddit, but when you close read it, it's another bunch of bullshit. First, video game "culture" isn't owned by anyone, especially this guy and considering it's status as a multi-billion dollar business, it's owned by more people who are not of the opinion of this clown and who don't pay attention of online squabbles about the fembots. Second, the video series she delivered was three hours of content. Considering the time it takes to play all those games, living expenses like food, writing and producing the series it seems the 100,000 dollars didn't go to feeding her insatiable desire to go to the club and make it rain on them hoes. Finally, this dude didn't call anything out on any bullshit. There's no content in his comment to call out. There's one throwaway metaphor to side step the claims, a bad metaphor at that.
Sarkeesian's elevates women the same way religious fundamentalists do, by loading them up with expectations and idealism. Her stance on female characters is horribly contradictory. Being too strong is to be a Ms. Man, to be weak is a damsel in distress. Everything that a woman does in Sarkeesian's screwed up world view revolves around the masculine other. In Sarkeesian's world, a woman isn't a person, she is a cultural ambassador for her people. A set of contradictions that cannot function without having her femininity and autonomy challenged, which ironically, cannot both exist. If I wanted to watch the sophomoric application of feminist theory, I would take an entry level gender studies class or speak to myself in the mirror.
None of this makes sense. Academic writing strives to present a point and it often can contain suggestions about how things should be rather than what they are. But here's how I know he didn't watch the video, because he accuses Sarkeesian's argument of being nonacademic and claiming that heroes should be Mr. Man or delicate damsels in distress missing the middle ground that the series looks at. No claim is ever made by Sarkessian, or by anybody that all women should be cultural ambassadors for their gender. And this is not a contradiction if it never happened. It's just fart gas. If you wanted to watch a sophomoric theory I believe he can browse his own Reddit postings because the same accusatory claim of Sarkeesian's no content lies solely in that comment. The video series isn't great, it's grad level analysis, but it's certainly better than the hot air spewed in that comment section.
I've learned one thing from Sarkeesian though and that's teleseminars might actually worked.
Hahahahah...funny guy. Let's not address claims, let's talk about the character of a person.