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Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

The worst thing about dialogue towards Catwoman is not just the fact that everyone calls her a bitch.

It's the fact that everyone either calls her a bitch or implies that they want to do something violent to her sexually.

Someone made a compilation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADOk3K_lo-Y

To be fair, the only people who threaten her and call her a bitch are the hosed up cartoonish henchmen and the villains. i am not saying its right,its tacky as hell and is hosed up, but to me it kinda fits with the psudo-grimdark city prison setting. Also, i am pretty sure alot of those henchmen insults got cut out in a recent patch.

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timeandtide
Nov 29, 2007

This space is reserved for future considerations.
I think that's one area where Origins is refreshingly better: no sexual threats, Barbra Gordon looks like an actual teen nerd. And I don't recall Shiva looking too bad. There's the poison assassin woman, but she's clearly meant to be primal/feral sexual and it's better since there's actual non-sexualized female characters.

Blade_of_tyshalle
Jul 12, 2009

If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

pengun101 posted:

Also, i am pretty sure alot of those henchmen insults got cut out in a recent patch.

Bender the Henchman posted:

Hey, Catwoman! I respect you as a person! Let's get some gelato sometime! :argh:

This game sucks now.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

This game sucks now.

I would unironically love it if John DiMaggio recorded lines like this completely seriously and threateningly.

But seriously, I'm not saying they have to respect Catwoman. Just cut down on the swearing so it's not every line. I only recall them saying bitch about three times over the course of Asylum whereas here it's every other line. Jack Ryder even calls Vicki Vale a bitch for reporting on Arkham City, since he wanted to do the story himself.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
I mean, even without getting into gendered insults, it's the threats of sexual violence that make things so skeevy. I'm fine with convicts calling Catwoman a bitch, but having them threaten to rape her, implicitly or otherwise, just takes everything to a really creepy, uncomfortable, unnecessary place.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Phylodox posted:

I mean, even without getting into gendered insults, it's the threats of sexual violence that make things so skeevy. I'm fine with convicts calling Catwoman a bitch, but having them threaten to rape her, implicitly or otherwise, just takes everything to a really creepy, uncomfortable, unnecessary place.

I fully agree. The treatment of gender is the one really indefensible thing in AC.

SolidSnakesBandana
Jul 1, 2007

Infinite ammo
I personally thought floaty ghost Ras Al-Ghul giving you a gliding tutorial was pretty much a tragedy.

Hip-Hoptimus Rhyme
Mar 19, 2009

Gods don't make mistakes

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

I personally thought floaty ghost Ras Al-Ghul giving you a gliding tutorial was pretty much a tragedy.

That actually was a pretty out of place part. However, it completely left my mind once I started fighting sand demon Ra's.

Radical 90s Wizard
Aug 5, 2008

~SS-18 burning bright,
Bathe me in your cleansing light~
How are all these super thuggish escaped convicts and gang members supposed to act? I thought Catwoman's characterisation was pretty cheesy and lame, but the constant "bitch bitch bitch" stuff from the goons is pretty much poo poo you'd expect people like that to be saying.

MrJacobs
Sep 15, 2008

Radical 90s Wizard posted:

How are all these super thuggish escaped convicts and gang members supposed to act? I thought Catwoman's characterisation was pretty cheesy and lame, but the constant "bitch bitch bitch" stuff from the goons is pretty much poo poo you'd expect people like that to be saying.

Because the game as a teen rating?

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
This conversation has been had and re-had ad nauseum in all kinds of forums and media venues. The long and short of it is that gendered insults and threats of sexual violence against women suck. You can use "realism" or whatever convoluted logic you want to justify them, but their prevalence is still dumb and horrible.

Radical 90s Wizard
Aug 5, 2008

~SS-18 burning bright,
Bathe me in your cleansing light~
Yea you're right, and I don't mean to sound like I'm really defending it. I just never found it that weird that Two-Face or whoever would call Catwoman a bitch I guess.

Gatac
Apr 22, 2008

Fifty Cent's next biopic.
I'm pretty sick of the "Well, convicts would be saying that stuff!" excuse for the thug dialogue. This is a comic book game, not a linguistic survey of the incarcerated. There is no loving authenticity to cling to.

There is a difference between sexy and exploitative. Although the comics themselves have a very mixed track record with it, most adaptions of Catwoman in other media get that. I mean, poo poo, Batman Returns has Michelle Pfeiffer strutting around in an outfit that launched a thousand fetishes but she doesn't go through the movie with other male characters constantly and casually threatening to sexually assault her.

This is not a matter of realism. "Realism" is the loving Godwin of video game arguments. There is all kinds of bullshit in games where the only justification people can seem to come up with is that it's "realistic". gently caress that. One, it almost never is, it's just what people imagine real life to be based on their own preconceptions. Two, even it is, I'm not playing a game where random poo poo from real life is thrown in. What you need instead is verisimilitude, that is, something that feels real for the world you're portraying. You want Catwoman to be sexy, fine, go nuts. You want her to be a tease, hot drat, look at who she actually has feelings for and who's so stodgy that it'll actually be funny to tease him a little. You want Arkham City to be a horrible shithole, yeah, we got that part. But you don't need a whole prison of misogynist would-be rapists to sell any of that.

So, this is a matter of treating your characters - all your characters - with some basic respect instead of going "she's so fine everybody wants to rape her and rawr she's such a tease too SO HAWT". The portrayal of Catwoman in Arkham City is sexist as hell. There's no excuse for it. Full stop.

fake edit: f,b. Basically what Phylodox said. I'm not even arguing against Two-Face calling her a bitch - I could do without it, but sprinkle a few of those in and I'll go with it. It's the actual threats of sexual assault from the thugs that's very much not cool.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

pengun101 posted:

To be fair, the only people who threaten her and call her a bitch are the hosed up cartoonish henchmen and the villains. i am not saying its right,its tacky as hell and is hosed up, but to me it kinda fits with the psudo-grimdark city prison setting. Also, i am pretty sure alot of those henchmen insults got cut out in a recent patch.

The issue most people have isn't that some of the thug commentary involves calling her a bitch and such, it's that it's 99.999999% of the dialogue in the game when referring to any of the female characters is like this. Like no one cares that Two Face shouts "TWO GUNS! Bitch!" or that one thug conversation exists about that guy wanting to have sex with Harley Quinn, it's that it's all there is in the game.

ImpAtom
May 24, 2007

Radical 90s Wizard posted:

How are all these super thuggish escaped convicts and gang members supposed to act? I thought Catwoman's characterisation was pretty cheesy and lame, but the constant "bitch bitch bitch" stuff from the goons is pretty much poo poo you'd expect people like that to be saying.

The argument of "this is realistic" would work better if they were fully realized and well-rounded characters but they're not. They make goofy-rear end puns, have arguments over the name of the video game and in general are T-rated goofy generic goons. They can't even use foul language because of the game's rating. Nobody would notice it if they just went "We're gonna get you, Catwoman!" like they do to Batman.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 05:53 on May 3, 2014

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
Having just beaten City again today, I can say with full confidence that these credits are just way too god drat long.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!

Neo Rasa posted:

Having just beaten City again today, I can say with full confidence that these credits are just way too god drat long.

You can skip them, you know.

Origins', too.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

You can skip them, you know.

Origins', too.

I know this, but holy crap. I mean there's gameplay after and stuff. I can't believe I sat through them the first time it's worse than an MGS4 cutscene when there's an entire extra mission after it.

Austrian mook
Feb 24, 2013

by Shine

Neo Rasa posted:

The issue most people have isn't that some of the thug commentary involves calling her a bitch and such, it's that it's 99.999999% of the dialogue in the game when referring to any of the female characters is like this. Like no one cares that Two Face shouts "TWO GUNS! Bitch!" or that one thug conversation exists about that guy wanting to have sex with Harley Quinn, it's that it's all there is in the game.

TWO GUNS, BITCH. Is probably my favorite line in the whole game. It's just so perfect, it's dumb and corny as hell.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
"Two guns, bitch" is admittedly pretty great, but I always found it funny how Catwoman was surprised that Two-Face had a second gun.

That's kind of his whole thing, after all.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Don't forget "Objection!-loading cutscene-Overruled!"

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

You can skip them, you know.

Origins', too.

I always get so paranoid I'm gonna miss something, like a mid-credits cutscene or a radio broadcast. Seriously, there's like, half an hour of credits after games, nowadays, and they do love sticking little Easter eggs into them.

PoshAlligator
Jan 9, 2012

When SEO just isn't enough.

ImpAtom posted:

The argument of "this is realistic" would work better if they were fully realized and well-rounded characters but they're not. They make goofy-rear end puns, have arguments over the name of the video game and in general are T-rated goofy generic goons. They can't even use foul language because of the game's rating. Nobody would notice it if they just went "We're gonna get you, Catwoman!" like they do to Batman.

I think some people seem to have a hard time both enjoying video games and also looking at them critically at the same time.

The Catwoman stuff is straight-up uncomfortable to be playing around other people.

Jetfire
Apr 29, 2008

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

I recall precisely one guy saying "You're going to be my bitch, Wayne" and everything else was pretty much generic death threats.

Even that example was because of (presumably) the criminals' impression of Wayne as a prissy, weak-willed billionaire who's never been in a fight in his lifetime. The threats still come from the presumption that he is weak, therefore "feminine" according to old-fashioned tenets of manliness.

This is sort of a stretch, but when a dude threatens to make another guy his bitch, it's "making a woman" (i.e. submissive) out of them. You don't see a grunt in Arkham threatening Bruce to make him ride him like a stallion.

(In the interests of not getting even more bizarre in this post than I already am, it's worth mentioning that this is rendered moot by the fact that Bruce's in-game model is just as broad-shouldered and tall as Batman should be, making these criminals' threats at the beginning of the game even more short-sighted.)

Jetfire fucked around with this message at 15:05 on May 3, 2014

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:
I felt the same way about Gordon model in Arkham Asylum. Dude looked like he could kick Batman's rear end but he still gets kidnapped.

Phylodox posted:

I always get so paranoid I'm gonna miss something, like a mid-credits cutscene or a radio broadcast. Seriously, there's like, half an hour of credits after games, nowadays, and they do love sticking little Easter eggs into them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9u3MgEQKc&t=531s

MrJacobs
Sep 15, 2008

Neo Rasa posted:

I felt the same way about Gordon model in Arkham Asylum. Dude looked like he could kick Batman's rear end but he still gets kidnapped.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP9u3MgEQKc&t=531s

Just cause you happen to be a big guy doesn't mean you are a super-badass? Do all people in shape have the skills of a spec ops soldier?

Blade_of_tyshalle
Jul 12, 2009

If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

Jetfire posted:

Bruce's in-game model is just as broad-shouldered and tall as Batman should be, making these criminals' threats at the beginning of the game even more short-sighted.

Eh, Bruce Wayne is just some prissy rich boy. I read the papers, he plays squash and polo and races his little Ducati bikes for charity. Whatever. He's got a beach body at best, and I bet that guy has a personal trainer to kick his rear end for him. Wouldn't be surprised if he has ab implants, either, you know? drat spoiled rich bitch.

Not like me, though. I've been lifting weights in the rec yard at Blackgate my entire stint, and check out my delts. They're bigger than my head. I could kick Wayne's rear end no problem. I bet he can't even throw a punch, heh.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

MrJacobs posted:

Just cause you happen to be a big guy doesn't mean you are a super-badass? Do all people in shape have the skills of a spec ops soldier?

No they do not, but in comics books and video games? In the grim dark future of Unreal 3.0 Engine character models there is only war.* I mean they even changed his model drastically in the later games because of how ridiculous it was in comparison.


quote:

Eh, Bruce Wayne is just some prissy rich boy. I read the papers, he plays squash and polo and races his little Ducati bikes for charity. Whatever. He's got a beach body at best, and I bet that guy has a personal trainer to kick his rear end for him. Wouldn't be surprised if he has ab implants, either, you know? drat spoiled rich bitch.

Not like me, though. I've been lifting weights in the rec yard at Blackgate my entire stint, and check out my delts. They're bigger than my head. I could kick Wayne's rear end no problem. I bet he can't even throw a punch, heh.

I loved the amount of dialogue in the beginning of Arkham City along these lines to help you feel ultra smug as you break Penguin's hand and own a bunch of guys with both hands tied behind your back, etc. Though it was weird how the entire intro/opening areas of the game was you getting knocked out and foggily waking up over and over again.




*Though I'd hesitate to call any opponent as presented in Arkham Asylum a "spec ops soldier."

CharlestonJew
Jul 7, 2011

Illegal Hen

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

I recall precisely one guy saying "You're going to be my bitch, Wayne" and everything else was pretty much generic death threats.

Don't forget Deadshot also points a finger at him and goes "bang!". He wasn't talking about shooting him in the face.

MrJacobs
Sep 15, 2008

Neo Rasa posted:

No they do not, but in comics books and video games? In the grim dark future of Unreal 3.0 Engine character models there is only war.* I mean they even changed his model drastically in the later games because of how ridiculous it was in comparison.
*Though I'd hesitate to call any opponent as presented in Arkham Asylum a "spec ops soldier."

Deadshot, & Tyger guards.

Neo Rasa posted:

I loved the amount of dialogue in the beginning of Arkham City along these lines to help you feel ultra smug as you break Penguin's hand and own a bunch of guys with both hands tied behind your back, etc. Though it was weird how the entire intro/opening areas of the game was you getting knocked out and foggily waking up over and over again.



Wayne will take a beating in public to conceal his identity. In AC, he needed to protect Ryder, and then not get straight up murdered. He even took a gun butt to the face in the new DLC until he saw Alfred was in danger.

Fargin Icehole
Feb 19, 2011

Pet me.
All this talk about convicts who have murdered plenty of times using foul mouthed language make me sick to my stomach. How can I be batman or catwoman, who is a woman by the way, with this knowledge?

How am I supposed to break their loving bones and put them in a hospital so they can recover for months in misery and some attempt to think about what they've done, or possibly get murdered while in the hospital and defenseless by some newblood for failing the task his supervillain gave him. It's just obscene.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

MrJacobs posted:

Deadshot, & Tyger guards.

Yeah I remember how professional they came off as and how accurate Deadshot's aim is in Arkham Asylum, the game I was talking about in that sentence. :)

MrJacobs posted:

Wayne will take a beating in public to conceal his identity. In AC, he needed to protect Ryder, and then not get straight up murdered. He even took a gun butt to the face in the new DLC until he saw Alfred was in danger.

Obviously, it's just disjoined that that he gets cold knocked out and foggily wakes up so many times in the early game from Harley/Joker, Strange, the sickness, it's like they came up with a bunch of plot twists first and then wrote the story around them, which made the opening feel really disjointed. Though Strange has already known is identity for years and Wayne completely bludgeons out anyone he can the minute there aren't guns pointed at him.

It's especially odd because of how smoothly the game flows from the final battle to the ending to the post-game Catwoman mission to new game plus (minus the slow scrolling twenty-eight hour long credits that you NEED to watch all the way through the first time because they actually do play that voice mail from the Joker you get a few hours before the game ends but can't answer in-game, you're ready for more). Asylum and City are two of the best games of this generation easily, I love them, but I don't see what the problem is with pointing out how some aspects of the character designs/story in each were a bit off, rushed, whatever.

Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 16:19 on May 3, 2014

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!

Fargin Icehole posted:

All this talk about convicts who have murdered plenty of times using foul mouthed language make me sick to my stomach. How can I be batman or catwoman, who is a woman by the way, with this knowledge?

How am I supposed to break their loving bones and put them in a hospital so they can recover for months in misery and some attempt to think about what they've done, or possibly get murdered while in the hospital and defenseless by some newblood for failing the task his supervillain gave him. It's just obscene.

The point is that overusing curses doesn't make good or comfortable dialogue. It really comes across as a sorry attempt at being edgy.

QED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKUSSFzRZGY

Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 16:30 on May 3, 2014

Fargin Icehole
Feb 19, 2011

Pet me.

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

The point is that overusing curses doesn't make good or comfortable dialogue.

QED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKUSSFzRZGY

That'd be a pretty good example for maybe Yaiba or Bulletstorm, who rely on foul language for humor, and also M rated games, but Arkham?

I can count the times I heard bitch in the arkham games with one hand and the catcalls directed at catwoman are understandable considering you are in a desolate hellhole full of murderous convicts who haven't seen the sight of an actual woman in years to decades.

I just don't see the big deal here.

Phylodox
Mar 30, 2006



College Slice
There's just always someone who pops up with "But they're badguys!" and "But it doesn't bother me!" isn't there? If you're not part of a demographic that has to regularly deal with gendered insults or the very real threat of sexual violence then that's great for you, but that doesn't make the perpetuation of that kind of culture okay.

And before anyone says anything, yes, murder and assault are terrible things that happen to people in real life, but there isn't an entire culture dedicated to delegitimizing those crimes and shaming the victims.

Gatac
Apr 22, 2008

Fifty Cent's next biopic.
The big deal is that it's a) lazy writing, b) a disservice to the character and c) sadly just another example of how female characters are portrayed negatively in video games.

Compare and contrast the bad guys in the Tomb Raider reboot, who are on paper the same deal: murderous psychos stranded in a hellhole of a place for years who want to do very bad things to Lara Croft. Except it's not played for a "haha stripper pole fighting moves" joke and the game takes the time to get you into Lara's headspace and make you empathize with her.

For all the good parts of Arkham City (and I've 100% this poo poo, so it's not like there's not plenty of good stuff that kept me coming back), it has deep, deep problems in how it treats its characters. The sexism against Catwoman serves no narrative purpose, it's just bad writing. Regardless of whether you think that's actively a strike against the game worth discussing, can we at least agree that it could have been handled much better?

Trickjaw
Jun 23, 2005
Nadie puede dar lo que no tiene



Phylodox posted:

There's just always someone who pops up with "But they're badguys!" and "But it doesn't bother me!" isn't there? If you're not part of a demographic that has to regularly deal with gendered insults or the very real threat of sexual violence then that's great for you, but that doesn't make the perpetuation of that kind of culture okay.

And before anyone says anything, yes, murder and assault are terrible things that happen to people in real life, but there isn't an entire culture dedicated to delegitimizing those crimes and shaming the victims.

Its preferable to Fire-fly's puns. 'You say lip balm..' I never once heard Batman mention lip balm.

Blade_of_tyshalle
Jul 12, 2009

If you think that, along the way, you're not going to fail... you're blind.

There's no one I've ever met, no matter how successful they are, who hasn't said they had their failures along the way.

I don't even remember a time in Tomb Raider where Lara is threatened with sexual violence. She's sure threatened with absolutely every other kind of violence, but I do not recall an instance of "gonna rape you to death, you loving bitch" type of things. Hell, by halfway through the game she's hit this mythical-terror level of significance for the cultists who kind of stop saying "she's over here!" and devolve into "the Outsider's here!"

Lara Croft: Batman.

Neo Rasa
Mar 8, 2007
Everyone should play DUKE games.

:dukedog:

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

I don't even remember a time in Tomb Raider where Lara is threatened with sexual violence. She's sure threatened with absolutely every other kind of violence, but I do not recall an instance of "gonna rape you to death, you loving bitch" type of things. Hell, by halfway through the game she's hit this mythical-terror level of significance for the cultists who kind of stop saying "she's over here!" and devolve into "the Outsider's here!"

Lara Croft: Batman.

The very first person she kills was sort of almost going to attempt to feel her up but it quickly becomes a purely lethal violence as she completely destroys him. A brief part of this being in a lot of the earlier trailers is what raised the ire of many in the first place regarding how her character would be treated, but I feel like they found a good middle ground and I ended up loving the game.

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Shindragon
Jun 6, 2011

by Athanatos

Neo Rasa posted:

The very first person she kills was sort of almost going to attempt to feel her up but it quickly becomes a purely lethal violence as she completely destroys him. A brief part of this being in a lot of the earlier trailers is what raised the ire of many in the first place regarding how her character would be treated, but I feel like they found a good middle ground and I ended up loving the game.

I remember that scene and I think even the author was like there is more to this game. I almost wrote it off because of that but it ends up being a good game, almost better than the Uncharted series.

Hopefully it will get a sequel.

I would agree that hopefully the third Batman game gets less bitch/rapey comments. That wasn't really needed in the game at all.

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