Tropes Vs Women - Ms. Male Character

Took Anita long enough to get this one out! But without even watching the video, I learn that she has, of course, disabled comments. But, at least for now, she has ratings up. And although I am critical of her, thinking she is biased and over-reacting, she does make a few good points.

Watching this, she does have good points. Albeit somewhat extremist based on her view as a feminist, but her facts hold true. There is a lot of games which are lazy and use stereotypical methods of portraying gender to the audience, like long eye lashes and a bow.

While this is a cheap character profile, it does not in any way diminish female roles. In the contrary, using these kinds of characters may have opened up the portal for more advanced and independent women to exist in videoames. In the game Fighting Force you are able to play as two different kinds of women, and in games like FF12, you are able to fight as one of your 3 female characters. So games exist where you can play as a female. In Okami, the main protagonist is a strong female. So yeah, they exist. And she aknowedges that as well, albeit it in the last 30 seconds of the video.

Maybe I'm a dude? Nah, that'd be
too hard to explain to the audience.

I adore the fact that she does mention that gender is a false dichotomy, and should not be forced into two separate categories, a topic that I may have mentioned once or twice before. This is a fact, gender is a spectrum, and people should not base characters on gendered stereotypes. But it does happen, and it'll take awhile for people to stop using stereotypical methods of character design. I love how she also mentioned transgender references in gaming as well, granted only for about 20 seconds of the over-all video.

While she does make many good points, I believe that her video could have been better. But hey, at least in this one, there was far less extremist feminism and male-bashing! But she is correct, it is a notable trope in all media that portrays certain aspects as girl, while everything else is male. And for most great game designers, it is changing. I am sure I will still have to live with this for awhile longer though, because it's part of game design.

What do you think of Anita's new video?