No offense, but that's just a common argument towards poor parenting. That only makes sense if games were exclusively meant for kids, or lots of games rated towards kids had sexual content. If the parent doesn't want kids playing games with sexual content, then they should check the ESRB rating or whatever method available. The parent is mostly at fault for providing that to their kids. 

Are you even vaguely familiar with how Disney works?

The whole concept that Disney was built on was taking fairy tales and other similar types of stories and changing them for no particular reason aside from the fact that they thought it would be more appealing to their audience.

In the original story, Prince Eric winds up with some other girl, and Ariel's tongue is cut out. King Triton is a Greek God with horse legs and a fish tail and has nothing to do with the original story. There were no talking crabs or animals. In the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Esmeralda was kind of a stuck up bitch who barely tolerated quasi modo, Pheobus was a moron, and Esmeralda is killed. They literally reversed the whole message of the story from being "yup the world is shallow" to "be yourself and people will recognize your inner beauty. Disney even rewrites reality itself sometimes. In reality Pocahontas was 12 when John Smith came to America, and she did not talk to Willow Trees. 

We could go on with tons and tons of examples of Disney changing and adapting stories to what they believe their audience wants. And we can give plenty of examples of other companies doing the same, and I have already presented several way more drastic changes. Yet, generally nobody really cares. So, why is Ariel being black especially problematic? Why do these kinds of arguments only come up when race, gender, or sexuality is at issue? 

Lol! Well it was well-written by the metric of drunkenness then. I appreciate the greater clarity of this response. Still, I think we're just going to have to disagree on your first two points. While I think we all need and value our shallow escapes every now and again (myself certainly included) and while I think we can agree that changing things just for the sake of doing so isn't always a good thing since it can lead to "fixing" a lot of mechanics and such that aren't broken, at the same time my choice of avatar here ought to make it obvious that I value games for much more than empty escapism and see no reason why games, as any other art form, shouldn't push boundaries or challenge preconceptions or take commercial risks. Reliance on tropes to me is a lazy alternative to crafting believable, dynamic, interesting characters and creative stories. In that sense, there are more than just moral reasons why sexist (and other) stereotypes in our media landscape deserve to be challenged.

Concerning your final point, you're right: there's no such thing as complete freedom. But I also really feel that your speculations on Anita Sarkeesian's motives for creating the Tropes vs. Women in Video Games web video series are just that and nothing more. You keep using the term "force" to describe criticism. There is an innate difference between the two things that I don't think you're appreciating.

Should Anita have made a video series about the kind of toxic climate that female gamers and developers often face instead? *shrugs* I feel like that work has been done and continues to be done by others. The purpose of Feminist Frequency was to examine the media landscape itself and I feel like she did plenty in the way of bringing attention to the harassment of women in gaming in the process. The Tropes series is a one-of-a-kind project that has no true equivalent and that's the legacy I wanted to honor with this thread.

To be sure, in case there's any confusion about this, I am not infected with the woke mind virus. Too much political correctness can get people killed. So can too little though.

Thanks so much!

I'm encouraged by the positive reception this thread had gotten. I've been crafting it for a little over a year now and, as you can see here, the version I finally landed on wasn't as sweeping as my original vision for the OP, which was to include a more comprehensive discussion of the entire history of Feminist Frequency as a site/organization and an overview of each individual video in the Tropes series. That just got kind of unwieldy and became too overwhelming a goal, so I wound up streamlining it more before pitching it to a few friends and a separate audience for final tweaks (which I'm glad I did). The final draft still wasn't exactly short. At least it's digestible though. That wound up being an objective in and of itself.

The single biggest reason I joined VGC six years ago was because of persistent harassment elsewhere over just this sort of topic, to which end I was honestly kind of scared to post it and wanted to make sure it was worded as perfectly as possible and thoroughly sourced. Had really just hoped that enough time had passed...that enough water had passed under the bridge that a healthy and productive conversation could now be had and I'm so glad that that's proven to be the case!

And yet the statistics you share are just so disheartening. I haven't even perceived the improvements in representation of women in this medium as slow. To me, the difference in that regard between ten years ago and today (which doesn't feel like that long anymore when you're 41 ) is night and day. I sense a corresponding difference in the culture of gaming-oriented spaces like online gaming forums too. And yet when I look at stats like those you share here, I am reminded that venues like Twitch exist and that there is still clearly work to be done. Thanks for sharing.

(And I agree with you on the power of Papo & Yo!)

Your post is mainstream website article level quality. Have you considered pitching it?

As a note, I enjoyed A Case of Distrust.

No offense taken but I feel you missed my point.  10 years ago there was a limited amount of quality games that also were kid friendly.  That has gotten better.  Meaning I never exposed my kids to inappropriate content but I am thankful my kids are getting a better selection of games.

There are multiple reasons. One I already explained multiple times, whether the change makes sense or not. It makes sense for Disney to adapt existing fairy tales and changing the plot for entertainment purposes like to kids. The character "Ariel" is based off of the original story and Disney made it a character. It doesn't make sense to change the appearance of a character that already exists. Disney's "The Little Mermaid" is copyrighted whereas Anderson's is a public domain. One of the reasons for copyright is to protect the image and sell on that image. Idols and celebrities are perfect examples of selling an image, they create an image and people become fans because they like it. The recent film is a "remake" of the original. If Disney really wanted to make a different looking mermaid, the least they should have done is separate them with Ariel. In fact just make one with no connection to "The Little Mermaid" because it's described as white in the original as well, and people are going to complain regardless. I said this in my other comment, this isn't just about appearance but characteristics. People will argue if the way they talk is different, their voice, their unique traits like exaggerated gestures. Why are people mad with most adaptations? Because it doesn't share the same vibe with the original. Sometimes change is okay with the fans, sometimes it's not. That kind of understanding naturally develops within the community. Let's think what the purpose of changing Ariel black was. It's for inclusion, representation, but they are also taking away the representation of a red hair white female main character. It seems like some people in modern society are biased towards "minorities" doing whatever they want for the sake of representation, but red haired white people could also be considered as a minority. Would people want to hear that Michael Jordan is now considered Asian for Asian representation in the NBA? I'm sure people would be pissed. Fictional characters are no different if it's already established. 


It's not an easy answer, reality is that sometimes there's multiple answers, sometimes none. It's not just a yes or no, but in this case it does feel a little forced resulting in angry people. Tbf there will always be angry people no matter what, but there were lots this time around and for understandable reasons. I personally think this is an  example of crossing the "line" I talked about earlier. 

What are you talking about. There were plenty of quality games that were kid friendly. In fact 10 years ago was when mobile games already took off like Angry Birds. Nintendo obviously exists as well. Is Wii sports not good enough? There's still sexual content to this day and game selection hasn't really changed in favor of kid friendly content so what's gotten better? Not tryna be aggressive but I didn't understand your point.  

As a parent of kids who love games they don't want to play Angry Birds.  They want high quality AAA games.  My kids are young but have beaten games like Breath, Tears, Hogwarts, Bugsnax, etc.  I'm not talking about cheap mobile games, I'm talking about high quality big budget games.  The selection, for a younger audience, has gotten better over the years.

Of course stuff like Dead Space and Bayonetta still exist, as they should.  But the selection has gotten wider in diversity, which is also good.

Spiderman on the ps4 is another good example.  It appeals to a wide range of ages.  They could have overtly sexualized Mary Jane but didn't.  In fact you get to play as her.  Excellent game that I enjoyed as an adult but my kids could also play.

Hmmm I see. There are still plenty of quality games that aren't AAA titles, but I won't judge here. Games had increased in variety when the Wii/DS took off. I would argue there were already plenty of varieties in video games 10 years ago and in fact it hasn't really changed these past couple of years. Maybe more open worlds? It really depends what you decide what's not kid friendly and what the kid decides it's good enough quality. Some parents consider violence like shooting okay but not sexual content.