I read that as “toupees vs women”, and pictured a Captain Kirk supercut full of 60’s machismo, go-go boots, and blue women. Which, in discussions on this topic, was a nice bit of (unintentional) levity. That you for your glorious typo.
On topic: she’s made more than 3 videos. Her Kickstarter does raise some, potentially ill-founded, suspicions, but no more than most Kickstarters. Kickstarter is an ethically grey area, and without any transparency or accounting there is no way to actually know what your money went to. Nor are any backers actually obligated to anything. Basically the value of Kickstarter wholly exists in the opinions of the backers; if her backers feel like they got their monies worth, then Sarkeesian did her job.
Also, bringing up the value, honesty, or whatnot of her Kickstarter doesn’t really have anything to do with anything. It doesn’t effect her message, or content in anyway. You have to evaluate her merits on her statements, not on the ethics (or lack of) of her funding.
I haven’t actually figured out if Whedon is a feminist, or a creep. He does love strong female characters, but to the point of it being fetishistic. He also loves leather pants.
I don’t see that as a problem, if handled well. I’m a guy, and not a famle, super-powered, kung-fu, supernatural vampire killing machine, but I can see where the tension would lie in my mundane life. The dissonance between who you are, and who you “should” be (ala social norms). There is a comfort in norms, and further, there is an expectation in them. Also, Buffy didn’t want to be transgressive, she just was; this caused conflict. Remember the movie, she was a social standard “girly girl”, who was basically forced to become strong and independent, her fate broke her comfortable norms which caused tension.
How can you complain that someone you don’t like hasn’t released enough videos that you didn’t pay for, that you hate, without looking like an utter tool?
And how do you reconcile your complaints with the fact that the people who did crowdfund them are very happy with what she’s produced?
I mean, there’s nothing wrong with having a fetish for strong women. But in Whedon’s case, he’s not only interested in the strength but also exposing vulnerability, and for that reason I think the result is some really mixed messages about strong women. I think that although he consciously intends to do otherwise, in reality he falls into many of the traditional patterns of film and TV in his portrayal of strong women and the ways that they are punished for it.
Again, I don’t consider my view on it to be a universal truth or anything, but I think that the ‘but I just want to be one of the popular girls’ theme would really have sufficed for the movie, and OK, maybe the first series since it was a lot later and many people hadn’t seen the film. Continually returning to it was boring, but it also tells transgressive viewers (or those that feel they are transgressive) that actually, really there isn’t any adjustment or adaptation or other way; really you should just be unhappy about not fitting in, because there’s no substitute for just being normal.
I see your point. But I think if the conflict between transgression and “normality” is done well and intentionally it can also be a very strong storytelling. I think that most of us, even on the normal end of the spectrum feel that conflict from time to time, so it is somewhat universal. To over-analyze; doing what we’re “supposed” to do is a psychologically comforting thought because this is what society tells us to do. We’re trained to see this as the path of least resistance. To overestimate Buffy, she had a conflict between normative behavior and her transgressiveness, but ultimately she didn’t need the normative behavior and could find solace in her being her, and the other “misfits” drawn to her. Basically “You can’t be a materialistic girly cheerleader, but that’s okay”. I suppose, in watching the show the audience would rather be in her group of misfits, than in the normative group. The main normative character (Cordelia) wasn’t portrayed as happy or whole until she learned to transgress.
I’m not going to say I’m right, I’m probably not; or that this was the intentional message in Buffy, it probably wasn’t since that show went off the rails in later seasons.
Hah, I was on another computer and usually log in with another account I created long before the move to this commenting board
With all the Redpill rants about / participation in “false flag” lunacy, I don’t blame you for any paranoia about a new account posting in these threads!
Joss and his portrayal of people is initially simple but complex as the layers are examined. He uses entertaining, accessible tropes to expose people to hard ideas.
I believe his work has made the world better more than it has detracted from it. (Wish I could say the same for myself)
I like Sarkessian’s videos. I like the way she discusses issues, and I like that people gave her money. I still find her output to be low compared to her revenue, but explicably so. I don’t think it’s an issue that Gators should be bringing up, because it doesn’t actually affect them or change the substance of any of the arguments. I’m personally not suspicious of Sarkeesian, given that with Kickstarter, people got what they were willing to pay for. I think people couldn’t reconcile how the video costs and the money match together unless Sarkeesian was paying herself a salary. Which is totally okay. It’s not unethical to sink hours and hours of work into something and pay yourself from the funds people gave you to do the work. Also, startup costs for equipment are huge. What’s a professional Adobe Lightroom license going for these days? You can’t make these with Windows Movie Maker.
That being said, and she’s probably not reading this, I’m going to offer her a tip I learned from radio broadcasting: ACT!
Video and audio tend to dilute your personality. She ends up sounding monotone. Just as real acting is to some extent over-acting, presenting is over-presenting. I found myself on radio (just a community radio station, I’m no big-shot DJ) sounding like a monotone jackhole. I learned that you have to inject a certain amount of manufactured enthusiasm into your presentation to come across as normal. It feels unnatural at first. In the recording booth it sounds over-the-top, but the result in editing is someone who sounds merely normal and conversational.
I’m a bit late, but while the feminist aspects are nice (although they do sort of fall into the “it’s a traditionally male hero, only a girl” valley, which is fine if it’s part of a broad spectrum of female leading characters in society but a bit of a trap if that’s all that happens), I was most impressed with the idea that the hero loses power as the quest goes on. Most games ramp up the difficulty by making the enemies more powerful/faster, and the hero as well (and often mostly keeping pace with the enemies), it’s kind of interesting to see a game where the difficulty increases because the hero gets less healthy, less strong, loses, say, the magic sword and has to make do with a normal one.
I’m sure it’s not the first game to do it like this, but I like it nonetheless.
