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erere

Hey, look! It's another infuriating goddamned illustration from Ashley Davis! I'm going to kick her in the ovaries.

This week, the (ironically) full, original cast consisting of Tiff Chow, Aaron Linde, and Jim Sterling finally came together to talk about sexism in videogames. Our topics of discussion included:

-A sonnet, a Spore, and an outtake

-Do girls have better things to do than play games?

-Muscled, hardass male protagonists: just as sexist as Lara Croft types?

-Contradictory female strength and sexual portrayal in Metal Gear Solid? It can't BE!

-Should men and women be portrayed with total equality, or by acknowledging realistic gender weaknesses?

I'm pretty happy with this week's episode, and I hope you are as well; there's a pretty good balance of actual discussion and absolutely horrendous, awful imagery (especially during the Games of the Week segment) to make this a pretty standard Podtoid episode.

It was incredibly hard to choose a best question this week, but I'm nonetheless going to go with Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's. Send me an email and you'll get yer $25.

[The song is "Shine," from the Mirror's Edge trailer.]


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30 comments | showing # 1 to 30

Jim Sterling's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:12
Jim Sterling
I regret nothing that was said during the Games of the Week part.
sleepingagain's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:18
sleepingagain
something to listen to at work! woot!
topgeargorilla's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:23
topgeargorilla
Truth be told, I've been a part of Destructoid for nearly a year and a half, and I still have not listened to a single podcast. Guess I should get around to it...
Colette Bennett's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:55
Colette Bennett
That drawing is adorable. I'd like to eat the little Aaron Linde.
Scary Womanizing Pig Mask's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:57
Scary Womanizing Pig Mask
Hey, I won! :) Can't wait to listen to the episode!
eternalplayer2345's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 14:59
eternalplayer2345
I want to play elite beat-off agents
coffeesash's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 15:00
coffeesash
Anthony looks like Ness :)
Tiff's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 15:20
Tiff
I REGRET NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to everyone who replied to my twitter question before the podtoid recording. I got a lot of good perspective on what to talk about, so props to you guys!
GrayFox's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 15:24
GrayFox
The picture is genius.
falinter's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 15:25
falinter
Ashley Davis is my favorite.
Alexradl's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 16:21
Alexradl
Giant penis. Anyway, great episode. It was a very interesting discussion.
Dan CiTi's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 16:35
Dan CiTi
that cartoon could be taken so many places.
Samit Sarkar's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 16:58
Samit Sarkar
iTunes-ed and Mininova-ed!
Ashley Davis's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 17:18
Ashley Davis
@falinter: Your favorite what? Can you be more specific? I am very interested!
wardrox's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 18:22
wardrox
Good ep, just one thing you might want to watch out for in future eps. Often when you guys talked about women, you kinda meant "feminine brains" or something along those lines. Just a small gripe in an otherwise good cast... apart from all the things I disagree with, but that's normal.
Jetsetlemming's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 18:28
Jetsetlemming
Bitching about Meryl in MGS is pretty lame, considering Otacon is RIGHT THERE. Far more emotional, far weaker. He pisses himself when you frist meet him, he shies away from fights, he cries over Sniper Wolf...
Also lol at the apparent claim big tits are inherently sexist. Apparently nature is misogynist.
Tubatic's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 19:04
Tubatic
@jetslamming

Well there, I think its important to consider that Otacon, as a character/job role has the archetypal expectation of physical/emotional weakness (or arguably, no expectation). He's a scientist.

When you get to Meryl, one of two female soldier characters, Meryl has this emotional conflict, which is sterotypical, and even cliche.
Jetsetlemming's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 19:11
Jetsetlemming
Emotions are things we decry in gaming now? Since fucking when?
Tubatic's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 19:20
Tubatic
You're getting focused on specifics without context.

Talk about sexism/racism is in relations to a trait compared against the stereotype, taking into consideration the arguable supporting factors around it. Any character can be anything, have any size chest, have any type of emotion. But, considered in context of other things (Soldier are ideally not having emotional breakdowns, women are so often attributed with emotion as a negative, women are so often portrayed as being emotional, mysoginistic rhetoric doesn't believe a woman can handle military duty), yes, emotion is something we decry, in this specific (not generalized) instance.
Tiff's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 19:20
Tiff
@Jetsetlemming My personal experience, in the game, was being involved in a high-pressure, combat situation, upon which Meryl all of sudden breaks down in a long-winded monologue about being emotionally unsure of herself. That experience, for me, was *ugh, really?*

@wardrox Curious, what do you mean by *feminine brains*?
Drunken Haze's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 19:46
Drunken Haze
Podtoid, the semantics edition
Dead Movie Star's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/19/2008 21:55
Dead Movie Star
Women in Oblivion are weaker? At the start of the game I can only see them being a few points below men (maybe 5 or 10). My personal experience is that guy assassins hit just as hard as the women assassins of the same race.
wardrox's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 05:04
wardrox
@Tiff, it's just that men can have female brains and women male ones.

There isn't a clean, sex-defined line, it's more gender-defined (gender being socially defined as oppose to the biologically defined sex).

So when I say "feminine brain" I was meaning brains with typically female qualities. The BBC made a little test which is meant to tell you your brain gender which is quite interesting. If you google for "brain gender" or something along those lines you can probably find some of the research papers.
ScottyG's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 08:05
ScottyG
Another example of a strong female character is Cate Archer from the No One Lives Forever games. Very strong willed, able to handle herself, and not over-sexed. Just a fairly normal person who also happens to be a good secret agent in a pair of really good games. :)
victory lap's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 08:09
victory lap
MGS is tricky. The characters are often pretty deep, but then again, the first MGS2 boss fight involves filling a pregnant woman with tranquilizers.

In MGS3, The Boss was pretty great, but Eva was still kind of a glorified bond chick.
Demtor's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 09:50
Demtor
Like, am I the only one that, like, that has a hard time following Tiff's comments that, ya know, start with a good point but, ya know, the argument goes in, like, two directions at once, ya know, in the end I get, like, lost. Like, its just hard to keep what she's saying straight, like, she changes direction in thought mid sentence almost like, if I were drunk and, ya know, and trying to, like, make sense. Female mind = FAIL! Muwhaha! Controversy! Less talk and more jiggle!

;-P

Just kidding, good show guys. I'd ramble my ass off too if I were on a podcast so I shouldn't talk. You guys do well in getting your points across in the end. Maybe its just my stupid male brain that can't process the higher pitched chattering I'm so used to blocking out, lol.

Also, why does everyone forget to mention Elena Fisher from Drake's Fortune when talking about believable female characters? She's a good example of a female video game character done right.
Anthony Burch's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 13:11
Anthony Burch
She WAS kind of drunk, incidentally.
naia-the-gamer's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/20/2008 19:14
naia-the-gamer
Aaron, just to make you feel better I too played all the way through 7th Saga. I asked for it for Christmas when I was a kid and got it.

Looking back, I don't know what I was thinking.
Tiff's Avatar - Comment posted on 06/24/2008 02:53
Tiff
I was, incidentally, kind of drunk.
gokhan's Avatar - Comment posted on 11/07/2008 07:12
gokhan
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