Feminist Frequency has finally finished its series of videos about video games and how they treat women. I followed this series over the years, having written a little about it here and there. The channel is quite compelling in just how media ignorant it all is. Unfortunately the ending shows no improvement in argument style and even falls backwards. Less video games are referenced, 24 in total with there being repeats from previous videos, and no sources from any type of research. Ultimately, the project that started out saying it was going to be well researched, just went back to what the channel was before, opinion videos.

Ratings

I’m reading the book “How to win friends and influence people” and after the first three chapters I’ve basically been told that everything I do is wrong. Makes sense with the lack of strong friendships and how it takes me painful amounts of time to get people to follow my suggestions, “Ordinary people” and “Nightcrawler” are extraordinary movies. Not quite in the mindset to have an entire life change just yet, so I’m going to violate the tenet of the first chapter and engage in some CRITICISM.

Game, movies, restaurants, they all have their critics and reviewers. Reviewers who very much care about those who will take their advice. It seems that the best way to get some eyes and be part of the method of aggregate, is to slap a good old number to your review. Could be increments of 5, 10, or even out of one hundred. Then get it crammed into metacritic, or Rotten Teeth, and have comments just spill over about how the numbers are wrong. Weirdly enough Game title plus score will get you clicks. Though this still pales in comparison to having an article title of “Top 10 [childhood nostalgia] of all time”. We live in the age of all knowing wizards.

There is a huge problem with numbering all these icons. Everybody concludes different things from assigned scores, and everybody assigns scores for different reasons. Before I get you too strung along, bored, or pissed; I’m not actually getting mad at reviewers or even the standard watchers. There are nice fully fleshed out reports behind many of these figures, highs and lows praises and concerns, and I assume many people base their judgement on the words more than the numbers (There are always way more people who view something than those in the comment section). For this ‘little’ entry I’m examining those who analyze an analysis because they believe it receives too high a number, even though they essentially agree with everything that was laid out in a review. (I do know that now I’ll be in the absurd position of critiquing criticizers who critique critiquing)

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is by critical average a fantastic game. It is even terrific by my own tastes, though I’ve always had a fondness for the series. It may be hard not to be swept up after playing this game, if you are into how Nintendo goes about sequels in their main installments which then can be milked for spinoff of varying quality. Side of gush, the developers behind these sequels have a great ability of add/subtracting elements that can fully change your experience without changing the core of what happens. For “Breath of the Wild” according to a few behind the scene videos released, the creator wanted to go above and beyond shaking up the series, they even went with a completely different sets of grunts and hyatts for Link. Exploration and openness were the key elements with the game delivering on the promise of “If you see somewhere cool in the distance, you can go there.” Many reviewers saw this as excellent. Something they really hadn’t experienced in recent memory and gave the game their highest marks, 5 out of 5, 10/10, and 100 percent.

This comes back to one of the main problems when you try looking at a score. What does a 10 mean? A site like IGN actually says it means they believe the product is a masterpiece. I read on one review “Master class in openworld design.” What I didn’t read anywhere, which could just be me not pooling enough data, is “This game is flawless” or “Perfect”. I did read the opposite though from people responding to these scores, “This isn’t flautless” or “How can people consider this game perfect?”

Okay, I dislike scores for reviews also. Actually, I only hate them completely when they aren’t laid out terms of metric meaning. This is why Metacritic and Rolling Tomatoes are so useless, they are just collecting many different rationalization and trying to give them a single meaning and metric. Scores also make it so your comment sections will be filled with speculation about how a score is given and how it compares to other scores. Games like BOTW, put long time reviewers in tight spots when assigning scores. They’ll have scored the last games with a 9 or 9.5, but still say in the review, “Bit too formulaic and felt boxed in to be the grand adventure promised.” Then you get a sequel that counters your critic plus confronts things you dislike from other games in the same genre, so by the standards set up, a 10 is appropriate. Netflix use to have a multiple level rating system which even use to tell you what each level on the scale meant. 1 star, you hated it. 2 stars, disliked it. 3 stars, no strong feelings either way. 4 stars, liked it. 5 stars, loved it. I think this system is quite alright. It isn’t going anywhere when conducting an analysis on the art of filmmaking, however; it does do a great job in rating an experience. Something like the series “Daredevil” gets a five from me because of how many element hit it out of the park. Though Daredevil does have sinking plots and poorly acted characters at times.

The commenters feel a 10 means perfect, however. In some ways, if you go by grading methods, that is what it should mean. Nothing is perfect, so nothing should get a perfect score, I assume that is the logic behind it. Then you can go into an hour of explaining all the faults and differences in taste you have with the game, even though you preface the entire monologue with “This is probably the best game I’ve played in recent memory” I am sounding a bit harsh. I actually gravitate towards videos of long drawn out analysis which has high emphasis on misgivings. I’m probably under the same mindset of those I’m criticizing. I’m just taking a topic (those score critics) and using it as an easy way to segue into a topic I actually want to talk about (how video game feminist like to grasp at straws).

Year or so back, I mentioned an internet channel that goes under the banner of Feminist Frequency. A non-profit to bring feminist rhetoric to pop-culture, which means to basically point at something and say, “This is sexist/homophobic/racist.” The main face/colored hair of this business is one Anita Sarkeesian who shows up on the majority of the videos produced. She gets most of the scorn and is usually assumed to be the voice behind all the outlandish stuff, but rising among the ranks is an employee. Carolyn Petit.

About a month ago, the feminist frequency twitter chimed in with their take on the new Zelda game’s fabulous reception. “The slew of perfect scores BOTW received from critics shows that most still don’t give a damn about how women are represented in games” was how they saw this as Zelda is, as they put it, a damsel in distress. After some obvious push back, Carolyn reinforced their position with, “It doesn’t matter how strong the story makes [Zelda] when the whole structure of the game is still ‘Hey male hero, go save the princess again!’” Quite the aggressive wording, noh?

If not obvious by now in the reading, I follow internet gossip a bit (this is a bad habit I need to break because it isn’t making my life any more joyful. Just sad and pitiful). While the FemFreq statement is out there and probably just a way to bait attention, the responses to it haven’t been very well handled either. Straight out of the gate 2 points will be made. Anita posted this tweet and Anita obviously hasn’t played the game. Both of which aren’t totally true and can be easily countered, which just pours kerosene on the fire. Feminist Frequency historically has done its best by pointing at angry people who over exaggerate their comebacks, saying that they are just being misogynists. All Anita has to say is “I did play the game” and then move on to the feminist dogma she wants to push. It is also not conclusive that Anita made the tweet, and shouldn’t really matter. The feminist frequency twitter has gone into a small rebranding in the past year or two to display it speaks like a collective rather than an individual. The account had a picture of Anita as its image in the past, but now it is a non-personal logo. I’m guessing anyone working at FF HQ has authority to make tweets. It is better to just delve into what is being said and the ridiculous philosophies behind the opinions.

Feminist Frequency finds the ‘damsel in distress’ role to be sexist. Game critics who don’t also see the DiD as sexist and make a point as to reflect this in their overall opinion on the medium are contributing to a repulsive society. First major flaw in this thinking is the belief that somehow everyone sees the same thing. The core, and often contradictory, philosophies within each FemFreq video lecture is treated as a ubiquitous school of thought that everyone should go by, damned if they don’t. The next list is in reference to fictional works, but I don’t want to write that adjective 20 times.

Some of what FemFreq teaches: Women with emphasized physical bodies are directed to the male gaze, Men with emphasized physical bodies are male power fantasies, the male gaze and power fantasies negatively affect the women in the real word or perpetuate negative ideas about women, Men don’t face hardships at any level comparable to women, any removal of power or agency from a lady is a sexist trope; even in situations where it is only for a brief period, fully fleshed out female characters who face hardships are actually worse than the stereotypical ones because they are disempowered even more, etc. All these things will also be said to not be that bad if it comes to a game that the group overwhelmingly likes. Many things in gaming has also been glossed over to more properly drive the narrative being pushed. Games with no story whatsoever, like tetris, aren’t touched upon and games that have characters with absolutely no gender, such as driving or sim games where you just are the vehicle, strategy games where the driving force is some unseen entity, or games like world of goo where things are just things. The biggest caveat of them all that is pushed is: Context doesn’t matter.

In terms of Breath of the Wild, as stated earlier, the stance taken was, ”It doesn’t matter how strong the story makes [Zelda] when the whole structure of the game is still ‘Hey male hero, go save the princess again!’” which is reflective of their original Video Game analysis “Damsels in Distress part 1” . It isn’t that they didn’t play the game and don’t understand what happens, they just don’t see that as an excuse for sexism. Again, Carolyn tweets, “It is very, very easy to build this stuff [contextualizing events] like this into a narrative. It doesn’t change how the game is fundamentally structured AT ALL.” I have to role my eyes at the idea that the world building is the easy part of a story.

So what are these contextualizing issues that might mean BoTW is more than just ‘Man hero save princess’? This is my take after playing through the entire story, finding all backstory pieces, and completing half the side objectives. Here we go.

    1.       Link is not the sole person to the rescue.

Link needs the help of the entire land to face off against Ganon. Before exiting the tutorial area, you are helped by a mysterious old man, and gain abilities from ancient sages in shrines that test your skills. Sections of hyrule have leaders whose aid you will need. In the time before that distruction of hyrule, events 100 years before the start of the games story, Zelda was trying to be proactive in developing a strategy to beat Ganon (even if this was a bit misguided and passing the buck onto others). So a champion was selected from each of the lesser kingdoms, 2 men and 2 ladies if you care about equality of numbers, to become the main force of driving Ganon away.

    2.       Zelda never becomes disempowered

Zelda’s confrontation with Ganon is her developing power instead of losing them. Up until evil reawakens in hyrule, Zelda is a scholar and instructs her kingdom to start preparing for war (oddly the citizens listen to her rather than the King). This creates a shield for her, but then things go tits up. When she final puts herself in the position as a protector, she unlocks her hidden prophesized potential and goes into combat with Ganon for 100 years.

    3.       Zelda rescues Link

In the first confrontation with Ganon, Link is heavily injured and takes Zelda and tries to flee. Once Zelda’s powers awaken she instructs others to take Link to a healing pod where the game starts 100 years later. Everyone and Link would be dead if not for Zelda

    4.       Link’s overall mission isn’t to save Zelda

This is something that is absurdly overlooked by most people and is the running theme in all the games. Link’s mission is to save Hyrule, no one specific person. This is why the games like Ocarina and Wind Waker still have game before Zelda/tetra ever gets captures. (In WW link initially wants to save his sister but a chunk shifts to instead slaying ganon for piece. Should note that Tetra is actually the person who saves Link’s sister in that game). When Link wakes up in he hears the voice of Zelda saying to be a light unto hyrule. Later the old King of Hyrule in ghost form tells Link to save his daughter in relation to saving his kingdom, a task he failed at. At the very end of this King’s speech, which is the end of the tutorial, you are given one last direction from him, “Save Hyrule”

I don’t believe context is separate from the impact of a medium. It is weird to also think that your own values are somehow the inherent good of the world. All those who don’t acknowledge that somehow don’t give a damn about women representation. Though I think focusing on the gender or race or any shallow outward depiction of something can have to narrowing a view. You can just see it as an experience, instead of a strictly male experience.