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Anyone get reminded of Jack Thompson? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist) He was act

by adekok 9y ago

Anyone get reminded of Jack Thompson? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist) He was active in the 1980's campaigning against obscenity and violence in video games and movies. He got disbarred for lying about things... and it turns out that pretty much everything he said was disproven. i.e. there's no correlation between fake violence and real violence. Anyone else reminded of the current hysteria around "sexist games are making us sexist?" Which has a similar level of scientific support. i.e. none.

Nursie 9y ago
In the 80s? I remember that guy from the early 00s, he was all over the news then, particularly about GTA 3, which apparently really got his goat.
- Zhyl 9y ago
  There was a TV movie starring Daniel Radcliffe made about this called 'The Gamechangers' [1]. The movie was awful, but it featured the legal dispute and the activism over the 'hot coffee' mod/easter egg front and centre. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4590930/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4590930/
arglebarnacle 9y ago
I don't think any serious person is arguing that sexist games are making people sexist who wouldn't be otherwise. Certainly nobody is arguing that sexism is mostly caused by video games. Sexist games are a problem because they are a space in our culture where women are inferior, or are only sex objects, etc. In a similar way, there was a time in America when a white person could safely make derogatory jokes about black people to his white friends with little risk of social blowback. Thankfully, anti-racism eventually took that cultural space away. It's not that those conversations were directly doing black people harm, but rather they were part and parcel of a culture in which it was okay to do black people harm in general, a culture that is hopefully being further eroded. Similarly, I would expect to see the amount of sexist games reduced over time because I hope we are eroding the culture in which it is acceptable to see and treat women the way they are portrayed in these games. That's why speaking out against sexism in games is important--because it is part of the project to make sexist attitudes in general unacceptable in our society, something I hope we all agree is desirable and necessary.
- zaroth 9y ago
  Is it wrong to have female characters in games which are e.g. damsels in distress, vapid, submissive, or simply eye candy in the same way that the game "Ethnic Cleansing" by Resistance Records is wrong? Frankly most game characters - male or female - seem to fall into blatant gendered stereotypes. I think "sexism" is assumed to only be in regards to stereotypes about women though.
  - arglebarnacle 9y ago
    For what it's worth, I think games which portray men as unemotional automatons who are only capable of the grunt work, or portray men as mostly machismo-fueled bro types who constantly degrade women, also reflect sexist attitudes. Sexism stifles and limits men and encourages men to be toxic--as a result it harms men, and these portrayals are a part of that.
    - adekok 9y ago
      > Sexism stifles and limits men and encourages men to be toxic- It's weird... sexism against women hurts women. Sexism against men makes men hurt others. (i.e. be toxic) It's almost like the normal use of sexism is, itself, sexist.
      - SerLava 9y ago
        It surely is. People actually have trouble framing anything as sexist against men. All the men in a hostage holdup can get shot, and someone will talk about how it's sexist against women. When no woman is involved at all, it's often called homophobia. But the hint there is that if no LGBT person or LGBT attribute is involved in any way, it's not homophobia either. It's just sexism. Against men.
      - foldr 9y ago
        Of course it is, because women have historically been oppressed by men and not vice versa.

by adekok 9y ago

Nursie 9y ago

In the 80s? I remember that guy from the early 00s, he was all over the news then, particularly about GTA 3, which apparently really got his goat.

Zhyl 9y ago
There was a TV movie starring Daniel Radcliffe made about this called 'The Gamechangers' [1]. The movie was awful, but it featured the legal dispute and the activism over the 'hot coffee' mod/easter egg front and centre. [1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4590930/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4590930/

arglebarnacle 9y ago

I don't think any serious person is arguing that sexist games are making people sexist who wouldn't be otherwise. Certainly nobody is arguing that sexism is mostly caused by video games. Sexist games are a problem because they are a space in our culture where women are inferior, or are only sex objects, etc. In a similar way, there was a time in America when a white person could safely make derogatory jokes about black people to his white friends with little risk of social blowback. Thankfully, anti-racism eventually took that cultural space away. It's not that those conversations were directly doing black people harm, but rather they were part and parcel of a culture in which it was okay to do black people harm in general, a culture that is hopefully being further eroded. Similarly, I would expect to see the amount of sexist games reduced over time because I hope we are eroding the culture in which it is acceptable to see and treat women the way they are portrayed in these games. That's why speaking out against sexism in games is important--because it is part of the project to make sexist attitudes in general unacceptable in our society, something I hope we all agree is desirable and necessary.

zaroth 9y ago
Is it wrong to have female characters in games which are e.g. damsels in distress, vapid, submissive, or simply eye candy in the same way that the game "Ethnic Cleansing" by Resistance Records is wrong? Frankly most game characters - male or female - seem to fall into blatant gendered stereotypes. I think "sexism" is assumed to only be in regards to stereotypes about women though.
- arglebarnacle 9y ago
  For what it's worth, I think games which portray men as unemotional automatons who are only capable of the grunt work, or portray men as mostly machismo-fueled bro types who constantly degrade women, also reflect sexist attitudes. Sexism stifles and limits men and encourages men to be toxic--as a result it harms men, and these portrayals are a part of that.
  - adekok 9y ago
    > Sexism stifles and limits men and encourages men to be toxic- It's weird... sexism against women hurts women. Sexism against men makes men hurt others. (i.e. be toxic) It's almost like the normal use of sexism is, itself, sexist.
    - SerLava 9y ago
      It surely is. People actually have trouble framing anything as sexist against men. All the men in a hostage holdup can get shot, and someone will talk about how it's sexist against women. When no woman is involved at all, it's often called homophobia. But the hint there is that if no LGBT person or LGBT attribute is involved in any way, it's not homophobia either. It's just sexism. Against men.
    - foldr 9y ago
      Of course it is, because women have historically been oppressed by men and not vice versa.