[shikshake]

It really wasn't, it just had a lesbian protagonist. There are still many prominent sympathetic male characters with agency. Plenty of women enjoy action movies targeted towards men, I always find it confusing when men feel they can't enjoy media with a woman in it.

[SunlightEdge]

Respectfully I don't agree with you. I do think that part 2 massively changed the story to one where it catered to female/lgtb audiences. Examples: 1. Ellie and her girlfriend 2. Abby (who I really wasn't sure if they were trans or just a very butch woman (turned out to be the later) 3. Abby's male forest friend (who turns out to be a trans-man).

I have no problem with game companies creating a range of stories (in fact I fully support it) but it was very much a game for female/lgtb audiences. I do also think that the difference in tone between part 1 and 2 was quite striking.

Personally I do think it was a very bold creative direction but I know I will not play part 3 - its not a series that interests me anymore. But that's just an opinon.

[foldr]

It seems like you’re just saying that any game with female and/or LGBT characters isn’t suitable for a straight male audience.

[SunlightEdge]

Respectfully I am not saying that, you are making that claim. TLOU part 2 in my view was very different in tone to part 1. I didn't enjoy the story. This is an opinion.

[foldr]

The only examples you give of it 'catering to female and LGBT audiences' are the existence of some female and LGBT characters.

Also, Abby is just a regular cis heterosexual woman, and there is never any indication that she might be otherwise. I can't really see how the mere existence of a straight cis female character in a game could signal very much about its intended audience.

[SunlightEdge]

Respectfully I don't agree. I didn't enjoy the story - so there's that (again just an opinion).

I literally thought Abby was a trans woman she was so muscular (and so have plenty of other gamers). She then later teams up with a transman. What's interesting is how you portray Abby vs how I and a lot of others saw here (a massive hulk that was kind of a woman but kind of something else). Note I am talking about the video game.

Ellie and her girlfriend were very alike and there wasn't an interesting contrast between them. The lesbian element seemed very played up. I also didn't find her interesting enough to want to play as her. That's not to say all women characters are not appealing. Ellie just wasn't likeable in the game.

Hence... I do think that while there certainly a lot of over reaction from some men about the game. There are also some legitimate points that left wing types refuse to see (see above). There is a ton of other examples I could give on this.

But honestly part 2 was a lame story (for me). We can agree to disagree. That's ok.

[foldr]

As you probably know, the misconception that Abby was trans was fed by online commentary made before the game was released, when people had just seen the trailer and only knew that there was a trans character in the game. No-one who actually plays the game would get the impression that Abby is trans. For all that you play up Abby’s physique, I’m sure you’re perfectly well aware that cis women can have big muscles and that trans women don’t usually spend hours at the gym developing physical traits that would be perceived as masculine. But for some reason you’re repeating these nonsense complaints made years ago by people who hadn’t even played the game.

Your only specific complaint about Ellie and her girlfriend is that they’re lesbians. And you keep mentioning the fact that the game has some LGBTQ characters as if that in itself is some kind of gotcha that proves your point (“she then teams up with a trans man”). I’m not trans but I don’t feel that a game is any less aimed at me just because one of the characters is trans. Why on Earth would I?

You’re obviously entitled to have whatever subjective reaction you have to the game or the characters. But you chose to frame your reaction primarily in terms of the LGBT themes in the game, and that’s the part of your comment I’m responding to.

[skyyler]

>I literally thought Abby was a trans woman she was so muscular

Do you think that trans women are muscular? How many trans women have you met in real life?

>The lesbian element seemed very played up.

Can you expand on what you mean by this? Do you have any examples of games with lesbian elements that aren't "played up"?

[A4ET8a8uTh0_v2]

Huh? Lara Croft, female Shepherd ( that is how I played it anyway ), Bayonetta all featured female protagonists. The difference between then and current crop and the games were enjoyable to its audience.

I personally disliked 2nd last of us, but that it is because, unlike the first one, it was missing something from the original. I absolutely disliked the 2nd act as the former antagonist despite understanding the need to include their portion of the story in the narrative.

I am lukewarm towards the end message despite it, oddly, aligning with my own personal views. It felt it was preachy.

And that, I think, some find off-putting. It is supposed to be entertainment.

Hell, Wick just released Ballerina that features strong female protagonist and.. people don't hate as much as other forced entries. I have theories as to why, but those, I think, can only derail this thread.

[spinach]

But Lara Croft and Bayonetta were made for the male audience. They were very palatable to males because that was their purpose especially visual wise. I don't think it's very representative of actual women and their experience.

[BrightHonest]

> But Lara Croft and Bayonetta were made for the male audience.

That isn't really true, well at least in not the way you are implying. In both circumstances the motivations in development of the characters were to do something a bit different.

> Lead graphic artist Toby Gard went through about five designs before arriving at the character's final appearance. He initially envisioned a male lead character with a whip and a hat. Core Design co-founder Jeremy Smith characterised Gard's initial design as derivative of Indiana Jones and asked for more originality. Gard decided that a female character would work better from a design standpoint. He also cited Virtua Fighter as an influence; Gard noticed that while watching people play the game, players selected one of the two available female characters in the game almost every match he saw. Gard expressed a desire to counter stereotypical female characters, which he has characterised as "bimbos" or "dominatrix" types. Smith was sceptical of a female lead at first because few contemporary games featured them. He came to regard a female lead as a great hook and put faith in Gard's idea. Inspired by pop artist Neneh Cherry and comic book character Tank Girl, Gard experimented with different designs, including "sociopathic blonds, muscle women, flat topped hip-hopsters and a Nazi-like militant in a baseball cap". He settled on a tough South American latina woman with a braid named Laura Cruz.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Croft

Similarly with Bayonetta. The guy had made a bunch of games with Male Protagonists and fancied a change by the sounds of it.

> Given the suggestion to create another action game by producer Yusuke Hashimoto, project director Hideki Kamiya decided to create a female lead, having felt he had already done all that could be done with male protagonists. To this end, he told character designer Mari Shimazaki to create her with three traits: a female lead, a modern witch, and to use four guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayonetta_(character)

It very much "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when designing characters because someone is going to criticise you for something or other and assume the worst reasons why you did it.

[api]

There's a very loud minority of people who think anything with a female or LGBTQ character in it is "woke-washed" or whatever, and apparently have tons of time to complain about it on social media. There's apparently entire subreddits dedicated to slagging on apparently "woke" media that has a GiIIiRRlllLL in it (eEEEeeeWWW!). People need a life.

[dyauspitr]

Or we just go back to having separate media directed at boys and girls because the current paradigm doesn’t work.

[brcmthrowaway]

Reminder: You can draw a straight line from Gamergate to Trump

[akimbostrawman]

Reminder: it has been over a decade ago...

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/729/316/993...

[PintScotch]

You are misstating the complaint.

If you have a fictional series/universe it is important it is internally consistent. Most people use fantasy/science fiction as a form of escapism. They don't want to be reminded about stuff in the real world while trying to escape it.

What frequently is perceived (rightly or wrongly) by fans of a particular franchise is that Female/LGBTQ characters are inserted into places where it doesn't make sense to fill quotas. People generally don't have problems with the characters being female or LGBTQ if the character is charismatic and it doesn't break the internal consistency of the Universe.

The reason why people are vocal is because they've heavily invest their time into something and when it fundamentally changes they feel like they've had the proverbial rug pulled from under them.

[api]

> Female/LGBTQ characters are inserted into places where it doesn't make sense to fill quotas

Every case of "ruined by woke" I have seen ultimately just boils down to bad writing, with people blaming "woke" for it when, well, it's just shitty writing. If you ignore the woke stuff and look more broadly usually the whole thing is at best mediocre.

Also sci-fi, fantasy, and horror have always been "woke." Star Trek was one of the first popular shows to prominently feature black characters in important roles and has always lampooned racism and other kinds of bigotry. Night of The Living Dead is pretty easy to see as a racism allegory, or at least it contains one as a sub-plot. Star Wars had an evil empire that was transparently a mix of Nazis and arrogant condescending colonialists. Alien was one of the first huge films I can recall to have a super competent female action hero with skills like engineering who didn't need any help from a man. The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.

[PintScotch]

> Every case of "ruined by woke" I have seen ultimately just boils down to bad writing, with people blaming "woke" for it when, well, it's just shitty writing. If you ignore the woke stuff and look more broadly usually the whole thing is at best mediocre.

No not really. Claiming this is a hand waving away legit criticism. Fans/Superfans have legitimate criticism of how it breaks the in franchise universes. Constructive Criticism has been claimed to be racism/sexist/homophobia.

> Also sci-fi, fantasy, and horror have always been "woke." Star Trek was one of the first popular shows to prominently feature black characters in important roles and has always lampooned racism and other kinds of bigotry. Night of The Living Dead is pretty easy to see as a racism allegory, or at least it contains one as a sub-plot. Star Wars had an evil empire that was transparently a mix of Nazis and arrogant condescending colonialists. Alien was one of the first huge films I can recall to have a super competent female action hero with skills like engineering who didn't need any help from a man. The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.

No they haven't. It so annoying when people point to some ideas that were slightly progressive at the time being an example of it always being "woke". It is quite honestly tiresome.

None of the examples you have given are what people refer to as "woke" today anyway.

Star Trek was certainly progressive, no argument there. But progressive != woke. When people use "woke" as a pejorative they mean extreme left-wing politics that is bordering on insane. Star Trek TNG was progressive, but none of the politics were seen as extreme even at the time of release.

Alien (like Terminator) were very well done horror movies. They worked because women are seen as traditionally vulnerable. It a well known trope in horror movies.

Also there have been femme fatales and heroines in movies well before Alien. I've seen it in a silent Japanese Martial Arts movie from the 1930s where the Heroine avengers her friend who was raped after going to Samurai master (can't remember the name of the film though).

Heroines didn't just pop into existence sometime after 1960.

> The Expanse depicts a society that's so post-gender-mattering you don't even notice it, it's just the way it is (probably a good example of good writing in this regard). Etc.

Never seen it, probably won't now. If a piece of media is going to pretend that someone's sex isn't important to at least some aspect of their character, than it is bad writing. The fact that the show had to be saved by a Billionaire, tells me that it probably wasn't any good in the first place.

[api]

Yeah, I think a lot of that's just bad writing. Changing things for TV/film is common, but if you do it badly or ham-fistedly it's bad writing.

The Expanse is great. The show has uneven production quality if you look closely but the acting and writing are good and that matters more than VFX or sets. Definitely a fun watch. The books are better, but a lot of the detail in the books would be way more expensive to film properly (like more realistic space sequences or the Belters with their altered physiology).

[skyyler]

>Star Trek TNG was progressive, but none of the politics were seen as extreme even at the time of release.

Season 5, Episode 17 features a genderless species that enforces a type of conversion therapy on any member of the species that believes they do have a gender. It's very thinly veiled, if you could consider it veiled at all.

I think I would agree that TNG's politics weren't considered extreme at the time. However, it's easy to believe that some themes the show touches on would be considered "woke" today.

[api]

> I think I would agree that TNG's politics weren't considered extreme at the time.

They would be considered more extreme by today's right than they were in the 1990s. If that came out today it would be woke gender ideology propaganda or something. But today's right is trying to low key rehabilitate Hitler.

[koakuma-chan]

I definitely enjoyed Stellar Blade