What is Digg?512 Comments
- BlueSkyfish, on 12/08/2007, -39/+372I guess the author never heard of a little game called Metroid.
- terminal157, on 12/08/2007, -33/+309Women should use portals to instantly deliver me sammiches from the kitchen.
- fhornplayer, on 12/08/2007, -26/+234"The turrets are easily deactivated by tipping them over, which is accomplished through the clever placement of portals. The power of the feminine overcomes aggression without the use of force."
Because, you know, if your man is being aggressive, all you have to do is tip him over and he'll shut off. Since guys are machines and all. Right? Talk about reading too deep into something... - Hoxie, on 12/08/2007, -22/+230It is an interesting article, especially the parts about tomb raider, and that female PCs are usually seen in the third person, thus forcing the player to stare at the body of the player.
However, the part about the portals symbolizing the female organ us a load of DaVinci code *****. It is justified through emotional means rather than fact.
Meanwhile, gabe newell is laughing his ass off about people philosophizing about this. It's just a game. - Spinfusor, on 12/08/2007, -43/+219This is one of the most stupid, over-analyzing articles I have ever read.
- HappyScrappy, on 12/08/2007, -11/+133Gets retarded real quick.
It's a different kind of game, it's true. But by the time it gets to saying the companion cube represents the uselessness of men (all they are good for is being heavy enough to hold down buttons), it shows itself to be either a cleverly constructed gag or a stupidly slanted "analysis". - EvaMonkey01, on 12/08/2007, -8/+117You know Sigmund Freud, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
- thebellmaster1x, on 12/08/2007, -8/+105Thought this was from The Onion.
- nitroburn, on 12/08/2007, -2/+91Didn't read the article? The first page discusses First Person Shooters in general, and to illustrate, has a picture of an average FPS.
- stalefries, on 12/08/2007, -18/+102I'm a little dissapointed; it seems like the author got stuck with a deadline and cut it short. It was getting pretty good, too.
- tuxidomasx, on 12/08/2007, -5/+79"The turrets are easily deactivated by tipping them over, which is accomplished through the clever placement of portals. The power of the feminine overcomes aggression without the use of force."
to me, that sounds more like women can satisfy an aggressive man by offering him their hole(s)... - djh816, on 12/08/2007, -71/+144Is there a reason there is a picture of CoD4 instead of Portal?....maybe i'm missing something.
- theotherdude, on 12/08/2007, -7/+71"Ultimately, Chell incinerates the Weighted Companion Cube, symbolizing a mental unburdening from the need for approval from a father figure."
*cough*******cough* - skanlessflipboy, on 12/08/2007, -5/+63just because the creator did not intend for the metaphor, it doesn't mean it isn't there. literary scholars discuss interpretations to author's work even when the author himself claims he or she did not intend for it to be that way.
- RobotBuddha, on 12/08/2007, -4/+60It did give me some happy nostalgia for schools. I miss writing horrible ***** papers at 3am which coasted only on pandering to a particular person's prejudice to get a passing grade.
- inactive, on 12/08/2007, -7/+63Anyone who uses Freud's psychoanalytic theory must have forgotten to read the next paragraph, which basically says that it's all just a crock of *****, that he rarely, if ever, cured any of his patients, and that Freud was most likely just projecting his sexual fixations and frustrations onto others, and proclaiming the penis and vagina to be the basis for everything.
So let me get what I just read straight: You're comparing a firearm, a machine designed specifically to maim or injure an enemy from long range, without having to engage them in close combat, to a penis.
A penis is not a weapon. Nor is it ranged-- (go ahead and insert your banal penis comments, begging to differ in that you could hit someone with your massive club-like member, or that your penis has a secret ranged attack at the end of it's turn). The only reason you think of a gun as masculine is because the majority of the world's armies aren't made up of women. Is camouflage phallic? Is a canteen phallic? What about an aircraft carrier? No. Implement's of war. Stop writing stupid *****. "Guys only enjoy playing Portal because it's reminiscent of sexual intercourse, going in and out of holes time and time again, until completion." - Optimaximal, on 12/08/2007, -1/+54That's more likely to turn him on than off...
- baldgye, on 12/08/2007, -26/+77I'm all for equal rights, but i really don't agree with most of the things she put. I've not come across anyone who cares about the gender of the character they play as in an FPS or any other game. Her points may have been more applicable about 50years ago, but is pretty irrelevant now.
Also I see a gun not as "a phallic symbol of masculine agency" but as a tool to kill someone else. - goblindegook, on 12/08/2007, -9/+56FTA: "In the rare event that a female character is playable, she serves as an object of male fantasy and her interactions with the game world are still forced through the male-oriented lens described in the previous paragraph." Read: hot chicks wielding big guns don't necessarily make it feminist.
- gh0st3000, on 12/08/2007, -4/+50It may not be that they've never heard of it, it's probably that Metroid doesn't work with what they're saying about feminism in games- It's another game where blowing stuff up and killing stuff is front and center, even if it does have platforming.
- Locke2053, on 12/09/2007, -10/+55This article is a classic example of sophistry: Make up total BS, completely unsubstantiated by evidence or logic, and hid your lack of reason behind sophisticated vocabulary.
There is nothing sexual about this game at all. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. - KniteWulf, on 12/08/2007, -5/+47If you tip a guy over and get on top of him, well...
- jaynemother, on 12/09/2007, -0/+40And that was before you knew samus was a woman
- Godlesswanderer, on 12/08/2007, -3/+42What the hell did I just read?
What ever happened to games just being very fun games? - megabytehl, on 12/08/2007, -5/+43I dunno about this type of retrospective analysis. None of the development team thought like this, they thought they were reshaping the FPS archetype for sure, but the the gender shift seemed to be a last minute alteration. They had a male model created for the game, as evidenced by the trailers, up till the point of release it seemed that's what they would use. However the decision to use the female model should not indicate a "revolution for the perception of females in a male dominated medium", but a design choice by the developers to take their revolution a step further from the norm.
- mike81890, on 12/08/2007, -3/+40: / ever play metroid for NES? She doesn't seem like much of a male fantasy there... except every dude loves robots
- Fizban140, on 12/08/2007, -9/+45I couldn't take it seriously after reading the part about every other first person shooter forcing you into the perspective of a man, because men start wars and guns look like penises.
- inactive, on 12/08/2007, -2/+37THE PORTAL REPRESENTS A VAGINA
i thought that needed restating - blanktarget, on 12/08/2007, -4/+39Honestly who cares if the main character is male or female? She must have just stepped out of a portal to the past to think that anyone cares about those things. Any guy who is so insecure that can't play a game without a male lead role obviously has other issues.
- evi1, on 12/08/2007, -5/+38Personally I felt the connections the author made between feminism and portal are a stretch at best, oval shape represents women, dropping a heavy object on a turret is somehow a womans non violent solution, etc. Furthermore I would question the authors fundamental ideas on what is considered feminine and what is masculine. To say that it is a male characteristic to resort to violence and the female characteristic is to solve problems in a non violent way is laughable. I have personally witnessed women become angry and violent far sooner than a man would in the same situation. Women have similar violent tendencies to men, however society propagates the misconception that they are peaceful beings and I feel peaceful actions being attributed to feminism is simply wrong.
- RobotBuddha, on 12/08/2007, -7/+39"As such, she comes to represent man's attempt to construct an idealized mother figure through the cold logic of science."
It's not a feminist paper until the author begins spitting on science or technology. Yah, damn cold logic of science. What with the feeding of starving children, the healing of the sick and dying, or allowing infertile women to become mothers. And of course it's not like there's ever been a female scientist, now that'd just be silly. It's all just men stumbling about, never realizing that crystals and hugs are the ultimate treatment for bacterial infections or genetic diseases. - mst3kcrow, on 12/08/2007, -0/+31You could also justify it as being similar to goatse.
- MatttK, on 12/08/2007, -1/+32I'm wonder if the author played through the whole game, though. Many of the turrets cannot be disabled simply by dropping them through a hole. Instead, you have to get them to either shoot each other or have heavy objects drop on them. Sounds pretty violent to me. The article makes good points but it seems a little bit like they're trying to force some of the pieces into the puzzle where they don't really fit.
- bpollay, on 12/08/2007, -10/+40The cake is a lie!
- imnojezus, on 12/08/2007, -1/+30The author says that a psychoanalytical reading "would likely conclude" that the oval shape is yonic in nature, which is true. Doesn't mean the game's creators knowingly intended for you to walk through a bunch of vaginas all day.
- inactive, on 12/08/2007, -9/+37Frankly, I think it's just a breath of fresh air that for once, we've got a game with a female lead that isn't hyper sexualized. That in itself is quite an achievement. No fancy real-time boob-jiggling physics, no chain mail bikinis, just a damn good game. Can't we just leave it at that?
- darny, on 12/08/2007, -0/+26"Sometimes a cake is just a cake."
--Deanna Troi - nebunezzar, on 12/08/2007, -4/+29Besides all the feminist crap, it was quite a read. I hate how some people twist nothing into meaning something for their own agenda. I mean, I doubt the game designers though about giving birth when making the portals ovular.
- fhornplayer, on 12/08/2007, -1/+26I think that's actually the point the article makes. But that's basically saying that sex is just a thing to do to appease men, which is a rather non-feminist thing to say.
- itsatrapadbar, on 12/08/2007, -6/+31because COD4 kicks ass.
- Raiu, on 12/08/2007, -13/+38So basically....this game is pro-feminist because she's ugly?
Gotcha. - gh0st3000, on 12/08/2007, -5/+29I think it's a bit of a stretch that an oblong circle makes it similar to the female sex organ. That part seemed like they were looking at the game with the specific feminist mindset and searching for anything that remotely fit.
- TheMahdi, on 12/08/2007, -7/+30this article is hilarious, hopefully not unintentionally.
- Remmiz, on 12/08/2007, -0/+21And turned it orange/blue and added electrical current to the edge of it.
- TomP, on 12/08/2007, -0/+21GLaDOS is hot!
- Godlike, on 12/08/2007, -0/+20Samus as a sex object? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/11/13
- evi1, on 12/08/2007, -1/+21In the article they first discussed traditional First Person Shooters and I believe the COD4 screenshot was an example of this. You could also blame digg's image grabber for grabbing the only image on the linked page and not the Portal screenshots found later in the article on other pages.
- spoonallka, on 12/08/2007, -14/+34*I* care. Ever since I was a little kid it annoyed me that the best toys and games required me to play as a boy. I remember collecting lego "girl" hair and faces and keeping them in a separate box for easy finding. Otherwise it was too hard to find them... being that there were so many more male looking faces.
- nanded, on 12/08/2007, -1/+21Leaving aside the discussion of whether Samus is a true feminist character, or simply a male protagonist masquerading as a woman, what's happened with the development of Samus is sad. It was interesting initially when you realized that Samus was a woman, but then by super metroid, they fan serviced her up to being a buxom blond. You could see that during the death clip when her suit exploded, and the zero suit didn't leave any doubt. She's fairly waifish and supermodel looking (not that I mind such things, but that's not the body of a bounty hunter). Meanwhile, the original Samus, while it's hard to comment on her 8-bit body type, was at very least a brunette/red-head. The fact that in her very next iteration she was gussied up/down to the most common denominator of "Hehe, she's blond and has a huge rack, I'd totally nail that", is somewhat sad. Not that I'm saying they aren't entitled to make her pretty and shiny, but they didn't even try to make her more realistic to her character.
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