Anita Sarkeesian had an unpopular opinion today.
Gosh darn you, Sarkeesian, for being magnanimous and conceding that your opinion may not match the opinions of other people! And gosh darn if the SJW-o-sphere hasn’t just broken out in civil and interesting conversations about the topic, as if we can have reasonable and interesting debates about these issues!
All joking aside, I came away from Mad Max: Fury Road with a vastly different impression of the film. I went in pretty much expecting this article to be a ridiculous mockery of this article. I was also expecting to see a decent popcorn flick. I walked away blown away, not just by the quality of the action film itself, but also by the sheer audacity and scope of the feminist themes running throughout it.
No, it is not an Andrea Dworkin biopic by any stretch of the imagination. However, if you imagine feminism as a slider from 1-10, I’d qualify this film as an easy eight. It’s easily more feminist than, say, 99% of the action films out there, but also probably more so than 90% of the twaddle on the Lifetime Channel. Places where I’d differ from Anita after the break because, you know, spoilers.
1) Primarily the views on violence. Anita’s views on violence quoted here seem to imply that the words ‘male violence’ necessarily belong together, or for that matter, that violence is in itself inherently bad. It’s worth noting that Anita’s partner and producer has tweeted some pretty silly stuff over the last year or so about violence, and its overall impact on civilization (no, the impact of violence on the media is not as cut and dry as he would have you believe).
At any rate, if you want to get feminist messages to a mostly male audience, you’re not going to do it with a Hallmark movie. One cannot expect to add feminist themes to an action film, particularly one with Mad Max in the title, and then be dismayed that violence is the solution of problems.
2) It would seem worth mentioning to me that Furiosa has far more screen time, far more lines, far more impact to the plot, far more courage and far more character development than Mad Max himself. One of my only complaints about the film is that Tom Hardy felt very underused.
3) Anita’s viewpoint that the camera ‘caresses’ the brides bodies does not map at all to my memory of the film. There is one scene where the camera lingers in a male gaze – and then Splendid turns around to reveal that she is very, VERY pregnant, and it very, very quickly and effectively makes the viewer realize that he has been perving out to the victim of sexual slavery, turning those expectations on its head.
4) Shortly afterwards, this is sold by the chastity belts falling to the ground. In this way, Miller managed to depict the horrors of sexual slavery without showing gratuitous scenes of sexual violence.
5) The best character arc in the whole movie is actually of Nux – the guy who starts literally attached to Mad Max to drain his blood. Nux’s story is the story of Toxic Masculinity – buying into the empty promises of violence and mayhem to serve a patriarchy that is fine with using him and tossing his carcass aside when done, if necessary. Nux is literally brought back to sanity by the empathy of a woman, before ultimately finding redemption (and perhaps, interestingly, backsliding into the Valhalla-worshipping glory he seeks – but now for a worthy cause).
6) Despite Anita’s assertions, we frequently see women trying to solve problems with means other than the ‘guy stuff’ of violence. Furiosa tries to run instead of fight. Splendid uses her body to protect the others, leveraging her value as a prize. Capable uses empathy and trust to turn Nux to the cause. The vulvani leverage deceit and misdirection because they lack numbers, and ultimately seek to repair the earth rather than to simply exploit the status quo as the men do.
7) Anita’s assertion that the brides are just ‘things’ is bizarre. Yes, they are all pretty (as one would expect the king’s wives to be), scantily clad and ill-prepared to fight. However, all five also have strongly different personality traits and motivations, which was very fascinating to see in motion as the four remaining actresses really stepped up their game to sell those differences once Splendid died. (Incidentally, working with the brides is rumored to be Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler’s primary task consulting on the movie).
8) Let’s not forget that the final showdown of the film was to literally take a handful of women and a handful of seeds into the teeth of the Patriarchy so they could literally topple it completely, so that the final scene could be the royal milkmaids revitalizing the world with the gift of water, which is life,
Was it violent? Yep. Was it cartoonish? It was a Mad Max movie, of course it was. And that cartoonish violence was, ultimately, glorious to behold. Does this mean that it cannot be strongly feminist? Anita defines feminism as ‘redefining our social value system’. Certainly – but to what? To one that excludes ALL violence, no matter how fun or cartoony, from our media? Should we stop trying to add more feminist tropes to our action movies and games, because they will never be feminist as long as violence is gratuitous and fun? Should we discount the strides that games like Mortal Kombat X made this year, because it is still *gasp* a fighting game? Or shouldn’t we instead realize that the best way to get feminists to stop talking amongst themselves is to embrace and appreciate when strong feminist messages do make their way into great works that non-feminists want to see.
The gay pride movement didn’t win by writing grad papers that other gay rights activists read. The gay pride movement won when shows like Will & Grace and Ellen showed outsiders the relative harmlessness and banal normality of their worlds. Feminists like Anita should recognize that such conversions take strong, convincing messages in media that non-believers actually want to absorb. For the target audience that needs to hear the feminist message, the best way to do that is to wrap it in a summer blockbuster film.
‘Sometimes violence may be necessary from oppression, but it’s always tragic. Fury Road frames it as totally fun and awesome.’ – Feminist Frequency, Anita Sarkeesian
This strikes me as more of a statement on pacifism than that of feminism. I know plenty of women, strong feminists who believe women should have equal rights to men, that chill out watching some pretty violent films. Besides, it’s Mad Max it’s all about fun and awesome violence, well if the first three films are anything to go by (hopefully off to see Fury Road over the weekend).
There also seems to be a misunderstanding on the use most people have for popular culture.
Let me ask, if your life is a 9-5 grind on minimum wage are you wanting to kick back with a film/documentary exposing the depressing reality that life is pretty much an unfair meaningless ordeal and then you die (hopefully without the indignity of a slow degrading illness), or do you want to evade that ever present shadow with a bit of over the top escapism? If you can start to introduce ideas of equality in there then all the better.
Simon Pegg was saying something very similar after he upset some people over comments he made about the dumbing down of Sci-fi http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/20/simon-pegg-still-a-nerd-and-proud-after-dumbing-down-of-cinema-comments
[Warning: May contain spoilers 😉 ]
Finally got to see Mad Max: Fury Road.
The issue of gender was definitely part of the movie, the main narrative seemed to push the need to step beyond the role that society places upon an individual and make your own choice. There was also a healthy dose of pointing out the ills of extreme wealth inequality and environmental concerns (better to sort your own backyard out rather than dreaming of a greener garden over the horizon).
The biggest issue I would have with the film was the need to have Mad Max in it. Tom Hardy mumbled dialogue to the point of incomprehension and seemed to be channelling Bane more than Road Warrior.
Hi
You will see it more and more. It’s just a click bait to get more replies, comments, views.
So called journalists are trashing the good things to get more comments, views, reposts (can you believe this shit..) and discussions. Polygon is an main source of such journalism now.
Dismissing any article that disagrees with your worldview as ‘clickbait’ is, of course, really, really narrowminded. Anita no doubt deeply believes in her stances on feminism and violence. Stating one’s views isn’t clickbait, and at any rate, most people on the left, while quoting her, have been having interesting and civil conversations about it. KiA has ignored it because there’s no way to respond without admitting that feminism in Mad Max is both real and pretty well done.
Your slamming of polygon is noted. You don’t like people who hope to push the state of the art of video games with their cultural criticism. I personally find this kind of sad, but hey, not everyone has to like everything.
Hi
You will see comments like these more and more. It’s just a click bait to get more replies, comments, views.
So called commentors are trashing the good things to get more comments, views, reposts (can you believe this shit..) and discussions. Doc is an main source of such commenting now.
You will see it. I promise. Some day.
Articles about “Hatred” will push other content from Polygon. You will see no more deep dives on visual style of Journey or visual storytelling analysis of Bioshock. Sensationalism and controversy gets clicks and thus shows ads.
They wanted to become a New Yorker but give it two years they will turn into a british tabloid with boobs in the middle.
Same for Anita. The more controversy the better. If I remember polygon wrote something on mad max too. What was it btw? They tried to trash it?
I… wait, what? How do you get from feminism to “a british tabloid with boobs in the middle.” That’s the kind of crazy statement that makes nobody want to take you seriously.
Ms. Sarkeesian likely wouldn’t be a household name if it weren’t for harassers making her one; she was relatively unknown in video games until everyone heard that she was “evil” and “ruining video games”, and folks came running to see what that was about. You are correct that Polygon’s articles wouldn’t have skewed this far unless they saw an audience for it–after all, they’re a website who makes money for clicks. But that means there’s a large enough audience who wants to read this stuff. An audience that apparently consists partly about people complaining about it, given I hear more about people complaining it exists than anything else. Again, if it weren’t for people shining a big light on it, it would have gone unnoticed. But hey, now I wanna go read that Polygon article, thanks for pointing it out!
It’s like no one has heard of the Streisand Effect. *eyeroll* Controversy does generate clicks and views, but the content itself still needs staying power to continue to get those views once they’ve caught someone’s eye. But just because some jerks make a big deal about something doesn’t mean the author is pandering to get those jerks’ attention. It just means that the jerks don’t like what that person said.
Well, Talarian has the right of it.
But I’m also confused about the comment about the Mad Max review. How did they trash it? ( http://www.polygon.com/2015/5/14/8607723/mad-max-fury-road-review ) It reads like a very positive review to me.
You DO realize that Polygon is an internet magazine, and can therefore publish a near infinite amount of content if they so desire. Polygon publishes more than a thousand pieces per month. There is room to cover many games from many angles.
I am sure that when Hatred comes out, Polygon will cover it, among many, many other games, and Polygon’s critics will pretend that all they do is criticize Hatred. I’m also pretty sure that Hatred will be a pretty awful game when it comes out (at least to my tastes) and merit that criticism.
Polygon loved Mad Max. Sorry. Funny, it was the SAME GUY who gave Witcher 3 an 8/10.
I think it might be worth noting that Mad Max was labeled a feminist film not by feminists, but by MRAs.
I would need a coherent and consistent definition of what a “feminist film” is before I could argue whether it was or wasn’t one. I can think of potential definitions that could go either way.
I haven’t seen the movie, but assuming your descriptions are accurate, I’d have to say that your criticisms are spot on.
This is part of the problem I have with many 3rd wave feminists: Anita will go on television and tell Stephen Colbert that he is a feminist if he believes in equal opportunity for women, then goes on twitter and tells you that you’re not a feminist if you don’t agree with everything else she says. It’s aggressive recruiting and gatekeeping in one, still limiting the number of people that self-identify as feminists because they have so many people telling them they aren’t right after telling them that they are. It also serves to undermine people who could be emissaries when those people are viciously attacked and called anti-feminist.
Yeah, right.
Anita started off her talk with an admission that her opinion was an unpopular one, and that she conceded that others don’t agree with her and she sees why many of her followers like it. Most of the people I know of who follow her have written on the topic, and I’d say that 80% of them disagree with her on this, and 20% agree with her. Most of the discussion has been remarkably thoughtful and civil, despite the fact that I think Anita is way wrong on this one. That’s okay.
Saying that she demands everyone agree with her or they aren’t true believers is— well, something that gamergaters do. Remember? If you care about social issues, you are POISON. That’s pretty much the exact opposite of ‘I have an unpopular opinion’.
This was probably a bad example for me to use for Anita specifically. Even within a movement with overaggressive gatekeeping, there can still be grounds of reasonable disagreement.
Your point about Gamergate is irrelevant, but also inaccurate. There are opinions that are unacceptable to most Gamergaters, many go too far, but there is little gatekeeping for ideological purity within the movement.
“then goes on twitter and tells you that you’re not a feminist if you don’t agree with everything else she says.”
Surely you can point to specific tweets to back up this claim?
Perhaps I am specifically incorrect about Anita. And, of course, I was exaggerating. Slightly.
In Damion’s post, she’s telling people that a film is not feminist. Then says that, no matter what they think, feminism is about redefining our social value system.
That and many of her other tweets are consistent with the attitude found on Jezebel and much of the feminist blogosphere that participates in aggressive gate-keeping that labels 2nd wavers “anti-feminists” or simply non-feminists. I can’t recall a specific tweet from Anita, but a general attitude. And even if it’s not specifically true about her, it is absolutely true about many 3rd wave feminist. Spend a little time at Jezebel once in a while.
So, you’re literally bullshitting and expect to have your claims taken seriously with no proof. Got it.
Pretty sure Daniel Minardi just admitted twice over that he’s just a bullbaiting weenie with nothing to add.
Go get your own blog, Daniel. Go see Mad Max first. Worth your time.
John,
Now are you going to resort to trying to harass me away from commenting here?
“Then says that, no matter what they think, “
Are you reading things she hasn’t said again?
Here’s the thing around Gamergate that you illustrate so well. You argue against what you think people said, not what they actually did say. It makes you all look really disingenuous, and frankly, a bit stupid.
“That and many of her other tweets are consistent with the attitude found on Jezebel and much of the feminist blogosphere that participates in aggressive gate-keeping that labels 2nd wavers “anti-feminists” or simply non-feminists. “
Daniel, you make it sound like you really wanted to be a feminist but those evil 3rd wave feminists don’t let you. Nobody’s buying it.
Alastair,
I don’t much care what you buy. I read Jezebel on occasion, Skepchick, Feministing, follow feminists on twitter, etc., and throw in my opinion only rarely.
My wife and I switched churches largely because of an overt anti-feminist message.
If you think feminist gatekeeping is a myth, go to Jezebel and try to express a dissenting view about abortion.
No, I haven’t seen the film, and I don’t care to see it, but reading this leaves me eagerly awaiting the Feminist Frequency guidelines for the depiction of violence and other problematic topics in motion pictures. She could call it a quote Production Code unquote. This whole thing about equal-opportunity violence, today it’s Mad Max, and fifty years ago it was Bonnie and Clyde. I don’t care for gratuitous violence myself, but let’s not pretend this isn’t an attempt at setting the clock back to an earlier age she would likewise have objected to.
In other words, what she proposes is nothing more than Puritanism from the Left (while still castigating same Puritanism when from the Right, of course).
Some fine quality pearl-clutching there.
You did miss the part where she said it wasn’t a *Feminist* movie, not that it wasn’t an “acceptable” movie or even a “good” movie? And since no one has yet given me a coherent definition of what a “Feminist Movie” is, there’s no reason to say that she’s wrong about that, because we’re using words that don’t have any consensus meaning. If a feminist movie means a movie where three women sit in chairs and talk about feminism, it is absolutely not a feminist movie. If a feminist movie means that women and men get to equally share in the joy of exploding things together, Mad Max sounds like a feminist romp. Until we have agreed on our terms, arguing over whether they apply to things is utterly meaningless.
Regardless, I saw nothing in what she said that implied that only movies she considers “feminist movies” should be made.
What the hell does pearl-clutching mean, anyway?
Yes, she says it isn’t a feminist movie. According to her description “feminist” has a few attributes (“redefining our social value system”) that Mad Max fails to include. Instead, she mentions the film’s gratuitous and fun depiction of violence, objectification of women, and for not “challenging more prevalent forms of sexism”. Gee, if you’re Anita Sarkeesian and if your audience is the kind of people who want to put trigger warnings on Ovid, what’s to like, then?
As I said, I haven’t seen Fury Road, and I don’t intend to, for reasons that may or may not be dissimilar to Sarkeesian’s: I find that today’s films are too loud, too violent, too CGI-and-explosions-heavy, and too obviously aimed at teenagers and at a large international market where everything, according to H’wood, must be kept as simple as possible. (Meanwhile, a French film just shown at Cannes, a social drama on the working class translated in English as “The Measure of a Man”, sounds exactly like my kind of thing.) But her argumentation is little more than a feminist left-leaning rehash of arguments made by US conservatives more than eighty years ago to decide what ought or oughtn’t be shown in motion pictures, and that the kind of gratuitous violence she decries now was seen, in the sixties (not just in the aforementioned Bonnie and Clyde but in other films by ultra-violent directors like Peckinpah), as a liberating force against a kind of stifling middlebrow orthodoxy that the Production Code had imposed on motion pictures.
I won’t disagree that what happened then was the opening-up of a Pandora’s box where violence took on an edgy, transgressive aspect even as it became, within a few years, ubiquitous and lowbrow instead of a hallmark of the avant-garde. But I will disagree with you in that Sarkeesian (and if not her personally, then her followers) does want feminist films according to her definition of feminism, and only feminist films, thereby unwittingly putting forward what had always mostly been a moral-conservative agenda.
Can you point to the parts where she said this sort of thing shouldn’t be allowed?
Allowed by whom?
Does she want government censorship? Perhaps. But it’s unconstitutional.
Does she want publishers to refuse to publish works that are “harmful”? Very likely.
Does she want distributors to refuse to distribute works that are “harmful”? Again, very likely.
McIntosh at least doesn’t seem offended by the idea: http://i.imgur.com/o4j9SP6.png
That’s not conclusive proof of his actual position, and certainly not conclusive proof of hers, but it certainly is indicative.
Ultimately she wants developers to decide that these things are indeed harmful and that they should not make them. But the way this Gamergate war is being carried out, there are plenty of people on both sides who want to skip the step of having people voluntarily reconsider their own words rather than having their distributors/servers/advertisers/payment systems taken from them in order to financially cripple them into submission.
>Does she want government censorship? Perhaps. But it’s unconstitutional.
[Citation Needed]
>Does she want publishers to refuse to publish works that are “harmful”? Very likely.
[Citation Needed]
>Does she want distributors to refuse to distribute works that are “harmful”? Again, very likely.
[Citation Needed]
All that image is showing is McIntosh arguing, *correctly,* that a private entity making the choice not to sell/stock something in regards to feedback is not censorship.
You keep on deciding peoples’ positions for them regardless of what they’ve done or said. It’s sort of ridiculous.
“McIntosh arguing, *correctly,* that a private entity making the choice not to sell/stock something in regards to feedback is not censorship.”
It becomes de facto censorship, though, if the private entity in question is close to having a monopoly in the selling of that kind of product. It’s been seen before. (The solution, though, is not to force the company to sell what it refuses to sell; it’s to break it up.)
For that matter, I regard government censorship as perfectly acceptable, under some circumstances. At least it has the legitimacy to do so, unlike all of those cyber lynch mobs who are forever out for the head of people who disagree with them.
Citation for what? A “perhaps”? Or that most forms of government censorship that you’d think of off the top of your head are unconstitutional?
As for the things that I consider very likely, those are assessments. They are not things that I can recall she has specifically called for. It is consistent with much of what the Gamergate battles have done. Politicized Steam Greenlight so that some people try to prevent offensive works from being published, and others voting for inane looking games just because someone else doesn’t want it made. Do you want to know Anita’s stance on all this? Ask her yourself. I don’t have a database of screenshots of tweets. You are free to disagree with my assessment.
McIntosh is wrong. If every single one refuses to carry a game, that’s putting financial pressure on the creator to not create “harmful” material and it makes it harder or even impossible for me to receive this “harmful” content. Perhaps you don’t think that’s censorship. I do. And so does the ACLU.
https://action.aclu.org/free-speech/censorship
McIntosh explicitly argued that it would not be censorship for every outlet to refuse to carry a specific product. That’s absurd.
And just because there is some outlet where content can be sold and received, doesn’t mean that there has been no censorship. Censorship doesn’t require a complete silencing. A limitation on outlets is censorship. It’s usually unconstitutional when the government does it, and it’s sometimes not. It’s sometime reasonable for a private entity to do it, it sometimes is not. Just because there is still an outlet, there can still be censorship. And even if there is censorship, it can still be reasonable. The more it limits, the more pressure it applies, the less reasonable. The Comics Code Authority was a means of censorship, and it was ridiculously unreasonable. It was a cartel of publishers and outlets giving in to hysteria about what types of stories children read. But, you know, people could still write whatever comics they wanted and distribute them on the street, so maybe it wasn’t censorship.
At least now we have the internet. Some PC film distributor is too afraid to put your masterpiece “Innocence of Muslims” in its theaters, you can publish it somewhere on the internet. Until the anti-hate brigade tries to get your server shut down, anyway.
Interestingly, I do wonder if many of the current internet activists would support a push to get the MPAA and ESRB to more strictly rate media in ways that would prevent it from being distributed in mainstream markets. Hey, it’s not censorship because it’s not government!
http://i.imgur.com/o4j9SP6.png
And neither was the Comics Code Authority!
A lot of people seemed pretty excited when Target stopped selling GTA 5 in Australia. I don’t remember if Anita was one of them or not. Not sure if McIntosh was genuinely pleased with Target or just wanted to make some inane point about censorship that is at odds with the ACLU.
But we can ignore that attempted censorship because Gamergate does it. And we can ignore Gamergate’s attempted censorship because the other side does it. Of course, we could just argue that we can ignore all of it because it’s ineffective.
Freedom of speech does not stamp over the freedom of a merchant to decide what to sell, the freedom of a bar owner to decide who gets to shout in his bar, the freedom of a convention host to decide who gets to speak at their convention, or the freedom of a forum owner to decide who gets banned or not.
It is completely within bounds for consumers to threaten to boycott or call attention to retailers who support speech they don’t like, or vice versa. This does not mean that Target has to listen to them, anymore than it means that Intel and Gamasutra has to listen to #gamergate idiots. However, Target does have to decide what is best for them, their publicity, and their existing customer base. But no, Target deciding not to sell GTA is not censorship, and people making that argument are just silly.
Thanks for your pedantic reply.
That’s an interesting way of spelling “accurate”. Never seen it with a “p” before.
You are free to define “censorship” as narrowly as Damion does that and in a way at odds with how most normal people define it except when they want to be pedantic and/or snarky toward people that they presume to know more about the 1st Amendment than.. Sure, the Comics Code Authority had nothing to do with censorship. The Production Code had nothing to do with censorship. Fine.
If you think censorship is something other than the suppression of speech perceived to be offensive or harmful, good for you. Censorship is the attempt by 3rd parties to limit outlets between people who want to speak and the people who want to hear them because the speech is believed to be “harmful” as opposed to merely convincing the speakers that their ideas are wrong.
Just because you think something is “in bounds” doesn’t mean you aren’t censoring. Parents censor the media their children can consume, and usually, until the kids are grown, that’s fine. But if you think it’s “in bounds” to try to collapse pipelines between creators and consumers, well, whatever, man..
Oh, brother.
The Comics Code Authority and the Production Code were both clearly censoring organizations. While not controlled by the government, they were external organizations who effectively had full sway over what was acceptable in all markets. It has almost nothing in common with a single retailer deciding that they are not going to sell a particular good, particularly when that good is extremely available through other means, including other stores and the Internet. We don’t force Target to sell porn, bibles OR GTA. They get to sort that out for themselves.
No one is obligated to give ANY game shelf space. We will likely see this when Hatred comes out – I find it unlikely that at least the family friendly stores such as Target and Wal-Mart will shelve it. This isn’t Censorship. This is ‘being an asshole and feeling entitled to be given shelf space which is, I want to stress, incredibly valuable and incredibly competed for. If you want to complain about censorship, you’d have better luck aiming your guns at Microsoft, Sony and Apple, all of whom have hammerlocks over what games get approved for their various platforms.
If you believe that what Anita is doing is attempting to engage in censorship, then I have news for you, buddy – GamerGate is a censorship based organization by this definition. One of their primary goals is to discourage writers and shut down media sources who write about so-called ‘SJW’ points of view.
I get that private censorship is a real thing. But censorship is kind of inherent to physical retail. They can’t sell everything.
I’m not thrilled that Target Australia decided not to sell GTA V, that strikes me as absurd. But, seriously, are we gonna demand that they sell RapeLay? Does it make a moral difference whether they decide not to sell it because A) they don’t think it will sell B) it’s not consistent with their brand C) they’re afraid it will offend some of their customers or D) they fear public backlash?
Consumatopia,
I don’t disagree with anything that you’ve said.
I think A, B, and C, are legitimate reasons not to sell something. I think they should be more bold regarding C, though, and stand up to a few bullies. But, hey, I don’t know Australian politics. They have legitimate government censorship, and maybe their private censors have more political power, too.
As for Rapelay, if the developer had an interest in selling it in America, it would absolutely be censored. I doubt any reputable outlet, physical or online retail, would carry it. And I could absolutely sympathize with that. That’s most likely B for anyone reputable, C without a doubt, and maybe A. I’m sure plenty of them would yell “That’s not censorship!” when of course it is. It’s a bunch of angry people intimidating retailers because they want to limit the market for particular product that they find offensive and harmful.
Australia has made remarkable strides in recent years, due to them finally coming up with a decent ‘adults only’ rating system. I wrote about this last year when the Target kerfuffle first arose: link.
Well, that’s one of the main problems with the US — since practically everything is allowed under the First Amendment, including some stuff that can’t really be justified, it’s left to a coterie of special interests to say, vigilante-style, “we’ll cut ’em off at Retail Pass”. Greenwaldian-Snowdenite information-wants-to-be-free Romantics notwithstanding, the greater peril to free speech in the US (and elsewhere) comes precisely from those special interests.
At least when censorship is carried out by a government — assuming a democratically elected one here — at least there is a case to be made that this is done for the common good. In addition, the government is not only bound by its own constitutional limitations but also by the possibility that voters get to decide how much censorship can actually be done by their government. (Official secrets are an exception, and a thorny one, in that they are meant to be kept away from the public, which means the discussion on such matters is either reserved by insiders with access to the information at stake, or done blindly by the population at large; but they aren’t my main preoccupation here.)
What good is it to be guaranteed free speech if your boss can fire you for something perfectly legal you do on your own time, or if you can get ostracized or persecuted for not thinking the right way? (Or if you can get shot for drawing the Prophet.) The Production Code and Comics Code, by the way, were not the works of “outsiders”, but by consummate insiders — the Hollywood studios and comics publishers. As far as censorship goes, it’s like a Zionist media baron who won’t have any news item reflecting badly on Israel printed in his pages. And well, freedom of the press gives him that right; this turns out to be a problem only if that media baron happens to have a national 80% market share and a de facto monopoly in one-newspaper towns (surely Canada remembers the Asper family at its worst) with which he can have a direct influence on politics. Which is why I’m not worried over the Xbox/PlayStation requirements (or Nintendo’s infamous Seal of Approval back in the day), as long as there are other platforms for games that should refuse to conform to those requirements.
In other words, the problem has never been that Archie Comics isn’t going to print your opus full of rape and cannibalism; you know that they’re not into that. It’s that these trade organizations — the MPAA and the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers — which did impose those codes are essentially cartels with so much control over their trade area that nobody could really go against them. And why did they impose those codes? Because they wanted to ward off the possibility of government censorship, which would be messy and, crucially, potentially beyond their control.
And that’s the lesson I get from this: if the government doesn’t censor, someone else will, for whatever reason they see fit, and without any accountability. And like any industry self-regulation, can you really trust it?
That’s why I dislike both Feminist Frequency and Gamergate: they both attempt to dictate how games should be made, in keeping with what they find desirable and objectionable.
The Australian Target situation, by the way, makes little sense to me, considering that that country has some of the most stringent censorship laws in the Anglosphere. But if Target had a 90% market share in games retail, there would be cause for concern.
Damion,
Apparently you missed the part where McIntosh said it wouldn’t be censorship if every retailer refused to sell a game.
Or the part where I said that we could largely ignore the attempts at censorship because they were ineffective (as in, you know, just targeting a single store). The battles over Steam Greenlight are more concerning.
And apparently you missed the part where I acknowledge that many in Gamergate engage in attempts at censorship. That doesn’t excuse anyone else’s attempts. And Gamergate’s attempts aren’t excused by the attempts of others. Of course, I already said that in the post you responded to.
So, ultimately, what’s your point? You’re just talking past me.
Target pulling a single game is sort of censorship but not really and it’s no big deal because there are other outlets. An internet campaign to destroy eliminate as many pipelines for media as possible is a censorship campaign. I think targeting advertisers over being offended by something is shitty. I think boycotts are almost always shitty.
It is absolutely not what most people consider censorship if, for example, every retailer decided that they didn’t want to sell RapeLay the video game. Which is effectively the way the world works for those extreme video games – you have to get them online usually, or from very small time dealers. That is a bunch of independent retailers exercising their own freedom of speech. And for what its worth, most decisions to carry or not carry a game are based not at all on the content of the game, but are based entirely on shelf space.
If you want to call that censorship, then I will counter that what you call censorship is not a bad thing. Steam should, for example, feel free to remove ‘Kill the Faggot’ from their store. The guy who sells KtF is free to go and seek out other means of selling the game, such as Humble Bundle and Kongregate. However, I doubt either of those will choose to sully their stores with that disgusting piece of shit game either. These outlets have their own reputations to worry about, and what you sell speaks loudly for you.
So far, I have seen no evidence that Anita is engaged in an ‘internet campaign to destroy eliminate as many pipelines for media as possible’ (sic). Anita’s videos, in fact, start with the disclaimer that it is fully possible for good media to use tropes, or to completely enjoy media that is problematic. This is a pretty far cry, for example, from a leader in the GamerGate movement trying to get developers fired for their points of view, or attempting to brigade store rankings because they just don’t like the developer’s point of view. So you admitting that GamerGate engages in some behavior that is inherently anti-free speech is good. Can you now admit that they have gone way beyond anything that Anita has actually done?
Vetarnias,
I share most of your concerns, but, what things are allowed under the 1st Amendment that can’t be justified? I’m not saying necessarily that there’s nothing that is protected that shouldn’t be, but I am curious as to what you believe falls in this category.
I think we certainly can’t give in to the heckler’s veto. If people are getting fired for off the job political activity, that seems to me just to be justification for more protection for speech, not less. I really don’t see that this happens a whole lot, unless you are a public servant who passes around racist emails and your constituency loses faith in your ability to serve fairly and justly. In that case, you probably deserve to be fired.
The only thing I’d trust the government to do is to actually be able to enforce their brand of censorship, but not to really be accountable for it. It would probably be in the hands of some unelected bureaucrats and you’d probably have to go through an administrative appeals process if you didn’t like their decisions. And I certainly don’t want an even more politicized IRS and FCC.
Private censorship is never a black-and-white thing. Firing people for belonging to the wrong mainstream political party is wrong (though it happens all the time, http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/what-workplace-intolerance-really-looks-like/ ). But firing someone for being in the Nazi party or in NAMBLA seems pretty reasonable. Private censorship can’t be judged without reference to context and cultural norms. Some boycotts are reasonable, some of them aren’t, but there isn’t any simple set of rules that determines which are which–it’s a matter of how much market power the censoring entity has, and how far outside community norms the product in question is.
Note that boycotts are a form of private censorship, but they’re also a form a speech, so speaking out against boycotts is … private censorship. Private censorship is literally unavoidable without moving to Futurama’s Neutral Planet
I’d only point out that speaking out against boycotts doesn’t censor them. It’s an expression of disagreement, to either convince the boycotters that they should act otherwise, or to convince the target that the boycotters shouldn’t be heeded.
In a way, countering them sort of suppresses their implicit argument that the market doesn’t want what they don’t want, but that’s just by trying to show that argument factually wrong.
Gamergaters are censorious when they harass advertisers to drop sites that offend them, but just trying to actually exercise their market share really isn’t.
Damion,
Yes, “Kill the Faggot” will be effectively censored. I’m not disappointed about that. Just because I or you thinks that a decision to suppress something based on content is reasonable in a particular case doesn’t mean it’s not censorship. I believe in a wide open marketplace of ideas, and for the criticism of those ideas. Private censorship is more reasonable the more outside of bounds of acceptable viewpoints it is. Debates over private censorship are largely just a meta-discussion about what viewpoints are still allowed to be held while still being considered a decent person. If Brandon Eich or Orson Scott Card had given money to the KKK rather than a campaign to ban gay marriage, hardly anyone would have cried about censorship or defended them.
Have many Gamergaters among thousands advocated more private censorship than Anita has, personally? Probably. As I said above, McIntosh has gone a little further than Anita has, but I was still ultimately (and admittedly) speculating. Hell, forget private censorship for a minute; supposedly 40% of Americans support actual laws against “hate speech.” It’s somewhat bipartisan, but I can confidently guess which side of gamergate they are on, and I’d take most gamergaters over any of those ~40% when it comes to defending speech.
“I’d only point out that speaking out against boycotts doesn’t censor them. It’s an expression of disagreement, to either convince the boycotters that they should act otherwise, or to convince the target that the boycotters shouldn’t be heeded.”
I think this depends. If you object to the boycott because you think the particular thing shouldn’t be boycotted, that’s not censorship, that’s just disagreement. If you object to the boycott on the grounds that all boycotts are censorship, you’re basically just saying “shut up”, or at least “don’t listen to them!”.
“In a way, countering them sort of suppresses their implicit argument that the market doesn’t want what they don’t want, but that’s just by trying to show that argument factually wrong.”
Once a boycott extends any further than simply not buying a game that you don’t like (which I think falls under what you call “exercising their marketshare”) then it’s no longer making that implicit argument at all. For example, if you say that not only will you not buy product X, but you’ll stop buying all products from a retailer that sells X, you aren’t saying that there is no market for X, you’re saying that fulfilling that demand will cost them more than its worth. That cost may not even be economic–you might actually be trying to simply shame the retailer into doing what’s right (in your view) rather than what’s profitable. And you might call that censorious, but on the other hand I don’t think it’s that hard to come up with examples of products so terrible that such a response would be justified.
I’m just going to leave the link here: http://www.macleans.ca/work/jobs/hes-fired-whos-next/
As I mentioned above, though, depending on the market share of the company in question, it could be tantamount to censorship (which is why press concentration, among other things, is such a big deal).
On such questions, I fear the Market a great deal more than I do the government, This is why I distrust Gamergate, by the way — because it too seeks censorship, by means of consumer demand instead of the Sarkeesian/Jack Thompson appeal to morality. When it comes to film, for example, the latter two would rather dust off the old Hays code (it’s not the first time I argue that those two are not entirely dissimilar), whereas GG would stack test screenings to make clear what it is that they want, artistic integrity be damned, with a call to boycott at the ready if their desires go unheeded.
To wit, the internet is already polluted by calls to boycott this Mad Max film for excessive SJWness (cf. Return of Kings’ “Why You Should Not Go See “Mad Max: Feminist Road”). Which, in the end, is not unlike Australian Targets caving in to customer pressure. Both camps know that if something no longer makes money, it’s no longer made.
Here’s a friendly tip on making arguments: It helps if you attack people for things they have actually said, instead of attacking them for things you’ve imagined them saying inside your head.
I agree with your post but I would just like to add to your point about Furiosa having more screen time and dialog. This is actually not uncommon in the Mad Max movies. In “The Road Warrior” Max has 16 lines of dialog in the entire film and two of them are “I’m just here for the gasoline”. The character “Pappagallo” has the most dialog in that one.
Your point still stands, just wanted to point out that the character has never been a big talker, anyway.
It’s at least consistent with the third movie, not that it needs to be a model for how things work. Tom Hardy in particular does very well when he says little. Max doesn’t get many lines, but he’s on screen almost as much as Furiosa. She just says more.
Max’s purpose in the last two movies is to be the audience’s eyes. He’s the one guy who remembers what the world used to be like, though it’s not clear how long it’s been since that old world fell apart. Maybe one day he’ll be a main character again. Right now, he’s just a vehicle.
I think it is arrogant to imply that the stupid masses can be better educated with this kind of entertainment product. Seems like an arrogant attitude.
Aside from that……… it is just a fun movie. Why does a part of US modern culture have to deconstruct everything? I think it is because we are for the most part very affluent and have a high standard of living and high level of security (some of this is just a geographic fact). So we can concern ourselves with such trivial topics.
“Why does a part of US modern culture have to deconstruct everything?”
It’s post-modern. That’s what post-modernists do. They deconstruct everything.