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I know it's not PC and all but uh, I'm pretty sure women sometimes call other women lovely things in real life too. I mean if a male writer does that kind of thing nonstop with every character yeah that's pretty deplorable, but y'know, Haley is a loving street thug, not a Yale cotillion director. Sometimes she's just gonna straight up call some bitch a oval office or whatever.
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May 28, 2013 08:26
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But this isn't real life; it's a fantasy setting. It doesn't inherently have to be bound by the social norms of our society. For instance, for centuries, women were kept out of the important roles in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and they still are in many denominations. Religions are a huge driver of social norms; if men are the only people who can shape those norms, then the norms are going to be more misogynist. But in D&D, so far as we see, women aren't kept out of religious roles; it would be pretty hard to argue that Thor doesn't want women priests, if Thor is granting women the power to cast Cure Light Wounds. So logically, to the extent that religion -> misogyny, a D&D world should be an explicitly less misogynist place. Obviously, there are other drivers of misogyny, which may or may not logically exist in a fantasy world. And also, if the author wants to explicitly set up a misogynist system that parallels the real world, that's a different matter. But just because street thugs in our world often use racist/misogynist/etc language, it doesn't follow that they have to in a fantasy world. fake edit: I mean, racism is a huge problem in our world, but nobody has ever called Roy the n-word. And I think that makes logical sense - in a world where there are green dudes, or snake dudes, or orange flying dudes, the difference between "black human" and "white human" is much less noticeable, and so would logically be less commented-on. Whereas there's a clear subtext of racism between humanoids and goblinoids, which is commented-on.
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May 28, 2013 09:26
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Ponsonby Britt posted:But this isn't real life; it's a fantasy setting. It doesn't inherently have to be bound by the social norms of our society. Eh. I hope I haven't kicked off an endless, tedious argument - It's a deliberately bawdy comic, and I'd guess all the 'bitches' (which is the extent of what's being criticised by the dude I quoted) is a consequence of that. IMO Rich has a bunch of well-drawn, strong female characters and if the extent of his sexism is some arguably slanted Bad Words then he's done pretty well. And I love what he's done with V, it's a very clever tweaking of gender and genre norms.
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May 28, 2013 10:16
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OotS has a setting with a very interesting origin and backstory, but it's still very much an origin and backstory that support the story about the heroic adventurers first and foremost. I doubt following through on the finer details of social norms was high on the agenda. In the end women are called bitches and men are called jerks in OotS because those are insults a reader will readily recognize from their own society, and that definitely doesn't reflect well on a society where those are the recognizable insults, and does bring up the question if Burlew could have chosen other, equally recognizable but not quite so loaded terms, but I don't think there's anything more to it. My Lovely Horse fucked around with this message at 13:34 on May 28, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 10:25
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Ponsonby Britt posted:But this isn't real life; it's a fantasy setting. It doesn't inherently have to be bound by the social norms of our society. I believe you mean when some evil deity is granting them the ability to cure wounds as well as deceiving all alignment checking skills and spells to shake the faith of true believers. It's not like in our world when women used "miraculous abilities" they weren't burned at the stake for colluding with the devil while men were seen as being living saints for the doing the same poo poo.
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May 28, 2013 11:30
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Eh, I don't think gendered insults are the worst thing, but they're still not the best thing to use when we're supposed to agree with the character speaking. D&D is supposed to be a completely gender-neutral setting, at least as far as player races are concerned. OotS has a much bigger issue with representation, anyway. Haley, Sabine and Lien are the only active female players in the story, and Julia, Celia, Hilda and the Empress are still alive but inactive. Everyone else is either dead, gone or a dude. EDIT: Shoot, I was totally gonna put something clever about V in there. V is certainly none of those. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 13:58 on May 28, 2013 |
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May 28, 2013 11:33
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Kajeesus posted:Everyone else is either dead, gone or a dude. Or V.
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May 28, 2013 13:16
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Let this be a lesson to everyone - undergrad gender studies students ruin everything.
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May 28, 2013 13:24
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Vorgen posted:Let this be a lesson to everyone - undergrad gender studies students ruin everything. 
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May 28, 2013 15:05
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JohnnyCanuck posted:Or V. Or Z.
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May 28, 2013 15:18
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Colon V posted:It's like alignment arguments, but even dumber. Not really, since gender issues actually have effects and relevance in the real world. That person's concerns with gender representation are pretty valid, and something I've noticed as well.
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May 28, 2013 15:43
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greatn posted:Not really, since gender issues actually have effects and relevance in the real world. That person's concerns with gender representation are pretty valid, and something I've noticed as well. Wait, are you suggesting that alignment doesn't have relevance in the real world? gently caress that. I can totally divide everyone I know into one of the nine alignments. My old boss is totes NE, but my new one's pretty much CG and reminds me of a hyperactive weresquirrel.
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May 28, 2013 16:39
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greatn posted:Not really, since gender issues actually have effects and relevance in the real world. That person's concerns with gender representation are pretty valid, and something I've noticed as well. Then you should make your own "Gender issues in Webcomics" thread, and leave it out of here.
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May 28, 2013 17:34
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Rich isn't particularly good at writing women, but that's not really an unusual weakness as far as these things go. I place it with "wordswordswords" on the annoyance tier list
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May 28, 2013 17:45
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Johnny Aztec posted:Then you should make your own "Gender issues in Webcomics" thread, and leave it out of here. I'd follow that thread. Personally, I never noticed anything amiss with women in OotS. The women are strong characters who get to do much more than just look pretty and serve the men, and there's never been an indication that women as a group are inferior to men as a group. As a feminist, I'm satisfied.
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May 28, 2013 19:39
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Gender issues in <niche> threads tend to do... poorly, on Something Awful. Eventually a bunch of people get banned, a new subforum has a rule about not discussing them at all, and the threads disappear into whatever hellhole is hidden behind the Comedy Gas Chamber. Proceed with caution.
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May 28, 2013 20:10
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This comic is blatantly disrespectful to Atheist viewpoints and I will not support this Theist garbage 
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May 28, 2013 20:17
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Mystic Mongol posted:Gender issues in <niche> threads tend to do... poorly, on Something Awful. Eventually a bunch of people get banned, a new subforum has a rule about not discussing them at all, and the threads disappear into whatever hellhole is hidden behind the Comedy Gas Chamber. I can give you the cliff notes of how they go. The artist's duty is first and foremost to the story and attempts to breach subjects they are undereducated about benefits neither the story nor the subject. Any attempt to inject gender issues by those with only a Wikipedia skimming or college entry level course level understanding of them ends up an insulting farce that goes against the core creative concept of write what you know. What you end up with when somebody with cursory knowledge of gender issues tries is a straight-faced version of Stong female character The core problem is societal and that's the tail that gets chased until it devolves into a series of ad hominem attacks where everybody is a white knight or an MRA.
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May 28, 2013 22:52
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SirDan3k posted:I believe you mean when some evil deity is granting them the ability to cure wounds as well as deceiving all alignment checking skills and spells to shake the faith of true believers. It's not like in our world when women used "miraculous abilities" they weren't burned at the stake for colluding with the devil while men were seen as being living saints for the doing the same poo poo. Hah, quite good! I think I'm going to steal that idea for the next campaign I run. My Lovely Horse posted:OotS has a setting with a very interesting origin and backstory, but it's still very much an origin and backstory that support the story about the heroic adventurers first and foremost. I doubt following through on the finer details of social norms was high on the agenda. But people in our society would readily recognize racial insults just as easily. So why does Roy use a gendered insult to attack Miko, instead of a racial insult? Why does nobody ever insult Roy or Julia or Durkon for their skin color? You can't appeal to "how our society is today", because Burlew has clearly chosen to write about a society that's not racist (at least in the same way that ours is). So why didn't he choose to write about a society that's not sexist? (I mean plural "you" - not singling you out in particular.) SirDan3k posted:The artist's duty is first and foremost to the story and attempts to breach subjects they are undereducated about benefits neither the story nor the subject. Any attempt to inject gender issues by those with only a Wikipedia skimming or college entry level course level understanding of them ends up an insulting farce that goes against the core creative concept of write what you know. I agree that the artist's duty is first and foremost to the story. But nothing about this story intrinsically requires misogyny to exist in this setting. And it's not like Burlew has to "inject gender issues" to fix the problem - he could just replace "bitch" or "oval office" with "scumbag" or "fuckhead", and convey the same level of anger without the gender implications. Finally, Burlew does a pretty good job of handling race issues (they're not present between humanoids, and are an explicit part of why Redcloak is a sympathetic antagonist). So I think it's reasonable to assume that he's smart/empathetic enough to think about these things, and to hold him to a higher standard. This is super  already, but I just want to clarify that Burlew is pretty good from my feminist perspective. As somebody pointed out earlier, he writes female characters who have their own motivations, who are just as vital to the story as the men, and who exist as protagonists (or NPCs) in their own right, rather than to support the male characters. It's not like the gendered language is a large problem, or one that should keep you from enjoying the comic. It's just a blind spot - one that we ought to identify and discuss, instead of ignoring or apologizing for.
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May 28, 2013 23:58
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Ponsonby Britt posted:I agree that the artist's duty is first and foremost to the story. But nothing about this story intrinsically requires misogyny to exist in this setting. And it's not like Burlew has to "inject gender issues" to fix the problem - he could just replace "bitch" or "oval office" with "scumbag" or "fuckhead", and convey the same level of anger without the gender implications. Finally, Burlew does a pretty good job of handling race issues (they're not present between humanoids, and are an explicit part of why Redcloak is a sympathetic antagonist). So I think it's reasonable to assume that he's smart/empathetic enough to think about these things, and to hold him to a higher standard. I think the problem with non-gendered insults like "scumbag" or "fuckhead" is that even though they denotatively don't have gendered meanings they always sound male to me. ShadowCatboy fucked around with this message at 00:52 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 00:49
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Maybe the OOtS universe is so non-sexist, that "oval office" and "dick" are equally insulting. We just think oval office is more insulting because we're from a backward society.
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May 29, 2013 01:02
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The "oval office" thing came from one of the comics where Haley was speaking in cipher, with no other lines from her in that strip, so I think that's actually just the guy making an assumption. I remember people saying she said "Liar" there (she was talking about Miko), which makes sense to me. Since it's the only word Haley said in that strip, it's not really one that can be figured out (unless the print comics translated those, I don't remember because I don't have the physical copies). Not defending the gendered insults in general, mind, those are bad. Just, that particular one, I don't think it exists but is just that guy with the terrible analysis assuming it does.
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May 29, 2013 01:21
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Roland Jones posted:Since it's the only word Haley said in that strip, it's not really one that can be figured out (unless the print comics translated those, I don't remember because I don't have the physical copies). The translation note for that particular cryptogram in the printed collection is: No Cure for the Paladin Blues posted:Strip #250: (The translation of this four letter word is left to the imagination of the reader.)
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May 29, 2013 01:52
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W.T. Fits posted:The translation note for that particular cryptogram in the printed collection is: Ah, huh. Well then, I appear to be wrong. That is disappointing.
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May 29, 2013 02:02
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Roland Jones posted:Ah, huh. Well then, I appear to be wrong. That is disappointing. Well, seeing as how it's been left to the imagination of the reader, and I happen to be the reader who read the translation note, I choose to interpret it as Haley calling Miko a jerk. This is now canon. 
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May 29, 2013 02:17
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Roland Jones posted:Ah, huh. Well then, I appear to be wrong. That is disappointing. oval office is hardly the only rude four letter word in the English language.
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May 29, 2013 02:57
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Sefer posted:oval office is hardly the only rude four letter word in the English language.
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May 29, 2013 03:03
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Trapezium Dave posted:That was my take - the joke being Haley calls her a "four-letter word", the equivalent of "@#$%". It doesn't even have to be Haley calling her something. "The gods took away your speech!" "gently caress!" makes as much sense as "The gods took away your speech!" "oval office!"
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May 29, 2013 03:07
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W.T. Fits posted:The translation note for that particular cryptogram in the printed collection is: Okay, so the joke is that it's a four-letter word. The end. I think we can agree on the following: 1. Gender politics is complicated. 2. Some people are too over-sensitive to these issues, while others are too insensitive. As for whether Rich is a misogynist; if we interpret that to mean "One who actively hates women and/or sees them as insignificant/objects", the answer is obviously No. Rich's female characters are too nuanced, competent, and plot-important to support that belief. Is he sexist, though? Maybe. I don't know the man. For what it's worth, I think the Avenue Q song about racism could probably be applied to sexism as well. Regarding his word choices, I never thought anything of it before, since calling someone a bitch/whore/etc. generally means "You are a bad woman," whereas a racial insult like the n-word means "You are black, and that itself is bad." It's not really the same thing, context-wise. *Steps down from soapbox*
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May 29, 2013 03:08
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Sefer posted:It doesn't even have to be Haley calling her something. "The gods took away your speech!" "gently caress!" makes as much sense as "The gods took away your speech!" "oval office!" I'm gonna go with gently caress. gently caress is an awesome word. Fuckity gently caress gently caress. gently caress is the best word.
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May 29, 2013 03:32
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Vorgen posted:Let this be a lesson to everyone - undergrad gender studies students ruin everything.  ).
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May 29, 2013 04:23
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I've never entirely understood why people expect characters in a story to use sanitized language. A modern-day street thug is unlikely to use enlightened language, never mind one from a faux-medieval world. There are times when an author might be using the smokescreen of their fictional setting to indulge in getting to write as much degrading material as they want (for example, anything with the word Gor in the title), but I'm pretty sure Rich isn't that. If the characters were stepping on eggshells to avoid language that makes the reader uncomfortable I'd find that pretty forced. Roy and Haley use the word bitch because people like them would use the word bitch in real life too, even if they shouldn't.
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May 29, 2013 04:27
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Well, pulling something from my own undergraduate days, my literature professor once said that one way to look at stories is that they are all moral object lessons and that the reader can feel as though they must evaluate the moral values of any story and then emulate the values they find within them. He also said that this was an immature way to look at stories, probably stemming from a reader's relative youth, because when you're young parents and teachers often do use stories as moral object lessons. But he also said that eventually everybody should grow up and realize that sometimes stories are not there to teach moral object lessons but are written for other reasons, and that those loving freshmen need to understand that sometimes a story is just a goddamn story. I think he was a little frustrated that day. So people who expect characters in every story in the whole world to use their own preferred sanitized language and morality are like children.
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May 29, 2013 04:37
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sebmojo posted:Eh. I hope I haven't kicked off an endless, tedious argument - History's greatest monster
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May 29, 2013 05:04
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Is he sexist, though? Maybe. I don't know the man. For what it's worth, I think the Avenue Q song about racism could probably be applied to sexism as well. Regarding his word choices, I never thought anything of it before, since calling someone a bitch/whore/etc. generally means "You are a bad woman," whereas a racial insult like the n-word means "You are black, and that itself is bad." It's not really the same thing, context-wise. I don't think it's useful to label people as racist or sexist or whatever. People are complicated - they act differently in different situations. And people can say racist or sexist things without intending to be sexist. I think it's better to label the act as sexist or not. This way, we recognize that even people (like Burlew) who generally act in non-sexist ways can slip up; and we keep the focus on the specific harms of the sexist act in question, instead of getting sidetracked into long, unproductive arguments about what the author really meant or whether the author should be pigeonholed as sexist or feminist. So I think that we can definitively say that the use of gendered insults is sexist. For instance, in our society, when "whore" is used as an insult, it reinforces the sexist norm that women are supposed to stifle their sexuality, and women who don't are "bad". We don't use the word "gigolo" as an insult for men; because men are supposed to have lots of sex. We use "bitch" as an insult, because it literally (and metaphorically) compares a woman to a sub-human animal. But we don't use "dog" as an insult for men, because men are the baseline definition of human. (And when we do call men "dogs", it's usually a compliment about their sexual promiscuity.) And I have to disagree with your gloss on "bitch/whore/etc" versus the n-word. It may not happen in your social circle, but there are plenty of people out there who use "bitch" or "whore" as a blanket, negative descriptor of all women. Dolash posted:I've never entirely understood why people expect characters in a story to use sanitized language. A modern-day street thug is unlikely to use enlightened language, never mind one from a faux-medieval world. There are times when an author might be using the smokescreen of their fictional setting to indulge in getting to write as much degrading material as they want (for example, anything with the word Gor in the title), but I'm pretty sure Rich isn't that. Right, but this isn't a real world. People like Roy and Haley wouldn't exist in real life, so why do they act according to real-world norms? And if they did act according to real world norms, real world thugs probably WOULD be using racist language as often as sexist language. The author is clearly capable of choosing to "sanitize" his language when it comes to race; so why doesn't he choose to do so when it comes to sexist language? My contention is that he has a culturally-determined blindspot, where he doesn't view sexist language as problematic in the same way that he views racist language. This normalizes sexist language, to the point where you would find it "forced" if the characters didn't use that language. Racist language used to be normalized in the same way; my late grandfather used to call all Asian people "japs". But today, it's not considered "sanitization" to not use racial slurs; nobody is complaining that Roy should have busted out some WWII-era racism on Miko's fallen rear end. We should be striving to get to that point with sexist language as well, instead of making excuses. Vorgen posted:So people who expect characters in every story in the whole world to use their own preferred sanitized language and morality are like children. Ah yes, "people who disagree with me are like children", truly you have mastered the undergraduate mode of argument. Of course stories don't *have* to have a moral. And there are plenty of stories with compelling immoral or amoral characters. This thread is explicitly about such a story! Noone is arguing that OotS is bad because Redcloak acts immorally. For that matter, noone is arguing that OotS is bad because the characters occasionally use sexist language. But there's a difference between something like Lolita, which intentionally portrays an immoral protagonist who comes to a happy ending, and something like OotS, where the sexist language is not important to the story and doesn't seem to be intentional. Nabokov made a deliberate choice to depart from traditional morality; there's artistic value in that departure. But where's the artistic value in Roy calling Miko a "bitch"? Leaving morality out of it, what other values are served by including sexist language in this comic, where it doesn't need to be?
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May 29, 2013 05:09
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Dolash posted:I've never entirely understood why people expect characters in a story to use sanitized language. A modern-day street thug is unlikely to use enlightened language, never mind one from a faux-medieval world. There are times when an author might be using the smokescreen of their fictional setting to indulge in getting to write as much degrading material as they want (for example, anything with the word Gor in the title), but I'm pretty sure Rich isn't that. The argument isn't that people expect them to use sanitized language. It is that the desanitized language almost always tends to be in very specific areas. At its most extreme you get the age-old fantasy story trope of "I'm being realistic by including all this rape" that mysterious ignores any uncomfortable things which the author might find personally icky. It's pretty common for an author to include a lot of desanitized language for women but then avoid the 'touchier' subjects like racism or homophobia. I don't really agree with it in the case of OotS but in general people who makes these complaints aren't expecting sanitized language. They're expecting unbiased sanitized language instead of "bitch, bitch, bitch, oh poo poo there's no way I can use the N-word" that pops up in a lot of fantasy media.
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May 29, 2013 05:09
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RentACop posted:History's greatest monster Well, what else is there to do between updates?  ETA: Ponsonby Britt posted:I don't think it's useful to label people as racist or sexist or whatever. People are complicated - they act differently in different situations. And people can say racist or sexist things without intending to be sexist. I think it's better to label the act as sexist or not. This way, we recognize that even people (like Burlew) who generally act in non-sexist ways can slip up; and we keep the focus on the specific harms of the sexist act in question, instead of getting sidetracked into long, unproductive arguments about what the author really meant or whether the author should be pigeonholed as sexist or feminist. I actually disagree with this. A person can hold a deep, internal opinion: that group X is a certain way. This belief will result in certain actions being done or words being said. It can be anything from "this is how X talk" to "X are inferior to Y and should all die horribly". Actions are symptoms, not isolated cases independent of each other. Ponsonby Britt posted:So I think that we can definitively say that the use of gendered insults is sexist. Gendered insults are, to me, a subtype of gendered language. Just as the spanish use Chico/Chicka and Amigo/Amiga, we English speakers use Jerk/Witch and their stronger counterparts. It does not convey anything about the gender, other than that the target is a member of it. Although, I do acknowledge that the word "whore" is a product--only a product, mind you--of sexist biases. Ponsonby Britt posted:We use "bitch" as an insult, because it literally (and metaphorically) compares a woman to a sub-human animal. But we don't use "dog" as an insult for men, because men are the baseline definition of human. (And when we do call men "dogs", it's usually a compliment about their sexual promiscuity.) Only in English, my friend. Try calling an Arabic-speaker a dog, and see whether he high-fives you or punches you in the face. Also, I think the logic you apply here could be reversed: Calling a woman an animal brings her down, and is therefore an insult. Calling a man an animal has no meaning, because men are animals anyway. Ponsonby Britt posted:And I have to disagree with your gloss on "bitch/whore/etc" versus the n-word. It may not happen in your social circle, but there are plenty of people out there who use "bitch" or "whore" as a blanket, negative descriptor of all women. Hm, perhaps. The words themselves still carry specific meanings, though: "dog-like". "Promiscuous". It's not like the n-word, which only told you a phenotype and left you to fill in the "obvious" short-comings yourself. TheAceOfLungs fucked around with this message at 05:29 on May 29, 2013 |
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May 29, 2013 05:10
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TheAceOfLungs posted:Well, what else is there to do between updates? Sit around the campfire and tell Goblins stories!
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May 29, 2013 05:20
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The racist language comparison doesn't hold up so well simply because that's true in the real world too. Most people I know would be comfortable using "bitch" as an insult but not a racial epithet. Real language as commonly used is not unbiased, and while you might say "fantasy is our opportunity to create worlds where this is true!" that should only really be in service to the artistic goals of the writer. If Haley calls someone a bitch that's not a reflection of Rich's lack of sensitivity, that's a reflection of Rich capturing the actual lack of sensitivity that familiar sort of person has in our society.
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May 29, 2013 05:24
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ImpAtom posted:I don't really agree with it in the case of OotS but in general people who makes these complaints aren't expecting sanitized language. They're expecting unbiased sanitized language instead of "bitch, bitch, bitch, oh poo poo there's no way I can use the N-word" that pops up in a lot of fantasy media.
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May 29, 2013 05:30
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