Whatever it is, your character in this is a small girl with her hair in bunches and looks to be armed with a bug net. The sheer joy of writing that, and watching it play out, seems to fly in the face of Anita Sarkeesian and her whole women on the periphery never main character whine shtick and Social Justice Feminism against games and gaming as a whole.
I've been attempting to do a YTP of the whole Feminist Frequency videos kinda like Insector did for Michael Rosen back in the day. It means I have to listen to a whole bunch of Anita Sarkeesian talk about gaming about tropes vs Women and about advertising and sexism and edit it to say something funny. Even worse trying to keep eye contact (for an autist that's truly painful) and do the whole ironic sexist thing of not staring at her chest!.
Mainly I'll be here to destroy the video Retro Sexism and Uber Ironic Advertising Give it a download and join in if you want. But first a quick digression into Edgeification.
For those who aren't English we have a games magazine over here (from the bastards at Future Publishing) that seems to do nothing but suck the life out gaming. Its called Edge and if you want to know why I read Retrogamer and would rather I get my news from sites like Siliconera then this argument sums it up. I used to buy it regular back when it was good around about when the PS2 came out it had a few articles and wasn't afraid to look back and smile (oh and Mr Biffos column helped a lot in this). Then the articles changed, from dull developers to indie gaming, (when they talked to Phil Fish about Fez) they tried to scholarise when it should have just stuck to being entertaining. I gave up in the end when they got rid of their excellent Nintendo wall planner that was in their Xmas issue, so now I just read it in Smiths.
Anyway review time and our first clip is Mikes Hard Lemonade ,an alcopop named by Beavis And Butthead it has some poolside hotties and a few lame attempts at pick up lines. The Fosters Radlers ads do it so much better and am agreeing with Anita on this only because the guys are douches.
Second clip time, and its Twix, something about some do with a bloke staring at some girls while his wife gets the baby out of the car. Be honest its a damn sight better than our twix adverts and its left biscuit vs right biscuit bollocks, and anyway if you really want jokey sexism then I'm surprised she didn't flag up the Yorkie ads.
Third ad and its Coors time in the spotlight as a numbskull gets a call from his equally dull friend about venting and convinces his wife to go and see him (its OK its for beer). I guess its portraying women as idiots and the only equivalent that I can currently go is that daft coffee ad from nescafe (you know pretends to go out in the pouring rain for barista style coffee). I could point out a shed load where men are portrayed as idiots, but the Maltesers advert where the two women make the two sleeping guys cuddle makes me cringe. Put it this way if you can reimagine it from a female standpoint you wouldn't get away with it but if its two guys well hard luck.
Finally some bell end in a camper van is talking bollocks at a hula doll for Carls. Jr burger chain. The whole advert is painful to listen to, I don't know enough about Hawaiian culture to know if its being patronised or if flicking a hula doll whilst trying to eat a burger is sexist or just bad table manners but, its a shit advert, a life sucking bastard of an ad.
In fact I've saved my best to last to counter this. This is probably the most sexist thing I've seen, some guy getting changed on the beach has his trunks stolen by an old ladies dog so they can ogle his ass for Bertolli margarine and apparently as its women on men its OK.
Finally as I've gone on long enough and as I originally found this in Edge so encapsulates the whole thing, have a link to Napple Tale a platformer where most of the programmers were women.
Edit have at thee with some photos.
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| This is Old Edge, Old Edge is good. |
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| Ghost Sarkeesian |
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