Sonic Rob: god dammit
Sonic Rob: I just blew my nose so hard I farted
FyreHaar: damn
Sonic Rob: I am so skeeved out by this new Tomb Raider game
FyreHaar: por qua?
Sonic Rob: well, they say they want to give us a younger, vulnerable Lara Croft
Sonic Rob: so instead of a confident woman with huge tits being awesome
Sonic Rob: you have a scared woman with huge tits being wounded and chased around
Sonic Rob: they’ve disempowered her
Sonic Rob: it’s the beating her up that makes me feel worst
FyreHaar: this should be the story of her empowerment
FyreHaar: how she got tough
Sonic Rob: I don’t know what the game is like as a whole, but all of the preview coverage mentions her getting impaled, gutted, dropped off of high places
FyreHaar: gah!
Sonic Rob: see, you can look at it either way
Sonic Rob: is it about the journey to empowerment?
Sonic Rob: or about the status of fear and pain?
Sonic Rob: we know who she’ll become
Sonic Rob: so seeing her like this is like seeing her tied up
Sonic Rob: and cut
Sonic Rob: I’ve said it before: the preview coverage makes the game look like violent, degrading pornography without the sex
Sonic Rob: just the power over and degradation of an independent woman
FyreHaar: damnit
FyreHaar: this often happens with female empowerment story lines
FyreHaar: it’s like sucker punch
FyreHaar: it’s purportedly about how this woman will come to her strength
FyreHaar: but it’s really all about watching the degradation that requires her to become strong to survive.
Sonic Rob: sucker punch was about all you have is your ass
FyreHaar: I’m looking forward to Colombiana
Sonic Rob: sure, Luc Besson actually likes women
FyreHaar: exactly
FyreHaar: his women actually have a journey
FyreHaar: and the film is about that
FyreHaar: and they actually do come to control their lives
FyreHaar: the pain they go through has a point
FyreHaar: besides showing them being sexy
FyreHaar: I mean
FyreHaar: La Femme Nikita
FyreHaar: fucking amazing
FyreHaar: she goes from absolutely powerless
FyreHaar: through the gauntlet
FyreHaar: and then ends with control
FyreHaar: dopeness
Sonic Rob: maybe that will happen with Tomb Raider, I don’t know.
FyreHaar: prolly not
FyreHaar: gamers are not exactly up on their feminist cred
Sonic Rob: I mostly talking about how they’re selling it
Sonic Rob: I can’t speak to the game itself
FyreHaar: that is very true
Sonic Rob: that is something fucking with me most tho
FyreHaar: ??
Sonic Rob: the idea that some guys see Lara Croft scared and bleeding, and their dicks just dingle up a little for a second
Sonic Rob: and they don’t even know it
Sonic Rob: but now they’re gonna buy this game
Sonic Rob: sorry to make you feel gross
FyreHaar: I’m sure you do as well
FyreHaar: conscious people would feel gross
Sonic Rob: well, maybe an enlightened person would just feel bad for the character
Sonic Rob: which I guess is the stated goal for all the violence against her
Sonic Rob: so it’s weird, if you’re a pervert, the preview coverage is perverse, if you’re not, it’s not
Sonic Rob: how does that work?
FyreHaar: perception
FyreHaar: it’s very descartian [ed: foucaultian?]
FyreHaar: the world comes through your lens
Sonic Rob: so is it not the game’s fault at all? am I reading all of the misogyny into it?
FyreHaar: oh, it’s there
FyreHaar: prolly
FyreHaar: have you seen her boobs?
Sonic Rob: is it?
Sonic Rob: or is everything misogynistic to a misogynist?
Sonic Rob: if your world is about how women are meat, everything will reinforce that
Sonic Rob: some stuff more than others
FyreHaar: yeah
FyreHaar: but if you are truly examining
FyreHaar: you will be able to differentiate that which could be taken as misogynistic versus that which really is
Sonic Rob: I think the violence against this character in the previews is similar to violence that has been done to male characters
FyreHaar: that is good, then!
FyreHaar: she’s been around a lot longer than Nathan Drake
Sonic Rob: but just the fact that it’s a woman being hurt by men
Sonic Rob: it’s not the same, even if you turn it around and do the same things back
FyreHaar: so it’s exposing your sensitivity to violence against women
Sonic Rob: I guess so!
FyreHaar: but also it’s exposing that we are more conditioned to accept violence against a man as part of his job as a treasure hunter
FyreHaar: where as a woman should practice more avoidance, right?
FyreHaar: that she should be treated more gently because of her gender
FyreHaar: even though she is doing the exact same thing?
Sonic Rob: the weird thing is, I’m not just talking about in-game. The game developers are men
Sonic Rob: and they have total control over her
Sonic Rob: and she’s not a real person
Sonic Rob: it reminds me of Bayonetta
Sonic Rob: People said that character was an empowered woman embracing her sexuality
Sonic Rob: but the character isn’t a woman
Sonic Rob: it’s an image created for men to look at
FyreHaar: if women made games where men got naked and beat to shit would we call them out?
Sonic Rob: ha
Sonic Rob: gamer guys wouldn’t like it, but they would say it makes all the sexist shit that’s come before ok
Sonic Rob: like haha, now we’re even
Sonic Rob: don’t have to feel bad about the status quo anymore
FyreHaar: sorry, you do
FyreHaar: 10,000 years of patriarchy is not going to be balanced out by one fucking video game