I think you're missing the issue here. The problem with this mode isn't the sex. It's how the 'seduction' of the woman is performed... by being disrespectful and pervy.
Yes, exactly - it's disrespectful and pervy, that's the fucking point. Thanks for stating the obvious, grab your gold star on the right side of the room.
It's clearly pervy. Even if Suda didn't intend it to be pervy, the very fact that it's based on every tired, lazy pick-up session in every cheap, trashy spy novel (and even in some of the founding works of the genre, like the Bond series) would ensure that it was, outside of a staggering level of subversion that would warp the concept to the point of being unrecognizable. (I'd actually pay attention to something like that, because it would actually be clever, but it's besides the point.)
But Suda wallows in this stuff, unabashedly. He has no shame, and whatever respect he's garnered comes strictly from his serious writing and his direction - and there's not that much of it to go around. So I find it odd that Lees put so much effort of stating his 'retraction of respect', as he puts it, at the end of the video - like a big exclamation point. After all, no reasonable critic would stress a point, even one drenched in stagnant hyperbole, unless they had a point to it. And yet, if Suda himself were to see and understand the ending, he probably wouldn't give a shit - and it's clearly not for his benefit anyway. Some of his fans would clearly be upset enough with the content of "Gigolo mode" (as this thread has surely proven) to drop the game entirely based on faulty impressions from a person who doesn't even speak the language the game was made in (which is a bit ironic, considering all that bluster about context and tone, but oh well), and I'm sure some of them want him to call it quits after this whole debacle as well, but that's essentially preaching to the choir. And considering how niche the collective body of Suda51/Grasshopper Manufacture's work is, the average person on the street would have little to no respect for this game's creator or its lineage to throw away. And since I'm not scrambling to call you an idiot like some of your detractors, I'm going to assume that you were aware of all this when you uploaded this video. So I was a bit puzzled about the whole song and dance at the end of the video.
But now, after Lees' little chest-puffing session in the thread, I can see why he'd make such a big show about respect; it's pretty much all about putting himself at the purview of the incoming backlash, and little more than that. Respect for women is secondary, respect for the future of video game development is tertiary, and holding back on the urge to tar anyone who disagrees with his analysis outright (instead of cushioning their statements with conditional disagreements that praise his work first and foremost) is a non-issue. This is all about putting himself at the front of the charge. And this is no attempt to crowbar a pre-cooked agenda into the discussion, as he and yourself are so quick to claim; his responses in this thread are proof enough of that. He's already propped himself up as the guy on the wall, standing tall and proud against the unwashed masses.
"If what you've just read makes me your enemy, I'm fucking proud to wear that badge." Remember that condescending piece of detritus? He wasn't my enemy for making the video, but he seems hell bent on waging a war on the concept of self-awareness. I'm sure that Matt Lees is smacking away death threats and personal insults like the best of them, but let's be real here - he's dealing with Youtube comments and GAF posts here. He'd be getting manifestos on the "insideousness of femeojodnism" if he uploaded a popular video on kittens on that site; and he's getting shit from posters because he's a video game journalist here. I suppose it'd be nice if people weren't carrying over baggage from the last time a games journalist made a big stand against "pervy moppets", only to stumble a considerable distance in the process. It would be nice if that baggage wasn't being used to smack around Lees and everyone who feels that his main message overrides his mistakes. And it would be really nice if some posters (SOME, not all like you insist on claiming to make yourself look better) wouldn't dismiss the thread out of hand because of previous,
extremely similar threads.
But honestly? I think the handwaving you and other posters have done towards the fact that Lees was misguided in some respects, and flat out wrong in others, is a bigger problem. It tends to happen a lot in threads like this, and it really sticks in my craw. No issue is so strong, so imbued with urgency that it excuses a lack of consistency or accuracy, intellectual dishonesty or a copious amount of grandstanding. And yet it crops up all the time, even from people who have a good handle on the situation.
Remember this little gem of a post?
So your point is that because games are violent it's okay to leer at women without their permission? You sure have funny logic. Are you also looking for a game that lets you segregate black people? (don't worry it's not violent)
It's an escalatory, ham-fisted appeal to emotion that strips every bit of context from the debate and turns everything on the person that disagrees with you. Takes the main point that the person was arguing (that no one gave a fuck about this intensely violent, racially insensitive, glossy, hard-to-read-visually gorefest until questionable sexual content was brought to light), tosses it out the window, and throws in an unanswerable question to suit your own needs. It's shitty, and you should be called out on it - but as I'm typing this big old wall of text, I see that no one has just yet, and I doubt that anyone will. Of course they won't - you're talking about an important issue, and you're upset over an issue that the board hasn't handled well, so anything fucking goes, right? That probably why you flat out said that Lees being wrong about most of the details of the mode
isn't as important as people not giving him the time of day.
And it seems that the people who don't approve of the video might feel the same way that I do, since there hasn't been any serious opposition to the idea that Gigolo mode is pervy or scummy. I'm well aware that some have take issue with the idea that specific parts of it are off-putting - I saw that bit about one poster asking how giving roses could be sleazy, and I actually agreed with you on that point (and I cannot express how grateful I am that you didn't turn the whole exchange into a teaching moment). But the general response has been reasonable on that front, so I think it's really disingenuous to say that the thread is trying to shout down discussion on that front, because there's not much to argue about there to begin with.
But intellectual dishonesty is always an issue for GAF, because you and other posters like yourself engage in it with reckless abandon. You and other posters swagger in with some brain-dead obvious platitude, and then pat yourselfs on the back (or each other, because you show more humility that way.)
I really do not need to hear some dude who "cares about women's rights" lecture me how to be a "real" feminist. You know what gets old even faster than criticizing the choices of game designers regarding their female characters? Game designers being creepy fucks.
Yeah! When you mess with one feminist, you mess with all of 'em! Even if "messing" with them amounts to pointing out that the discourse on social responsibility withing game development has been commandeered by glory-hound journalists with about as much knowledge of feminist social theory and accomplishments as a bowl of fruit, leaving the more knowledgeable commentators saddled with a big helping of contempt from the backlash against blowhards opening their mouths and letting all the shit spill out. Here here!
Did you even see the post I replied to. I'm not talking about violence in general. He quite literally said that we thought slicing a half-naked woman is OK.
quoting the post because who the fuck reads anything on NeoGAF
And this is what goes unresponded to.
Ha, reading anything that doesn't glorify your own work. What a crazy nut you are. Honestly, if anyone responds to it, I'd be surprised.
The solution to the portrayal of women in videogames as sex objects is obvious... You simply say that the main character is a womanizer!
Sorry ladies -- we had to design you as a vehicle for teenage erections because this character we invented had to be a pervy sleazeball! You can't say anything about it though... because art.
Right. That's what's going on here. Yep. Couldn't be that people think that womanizing is the whole point of the thing, but acknowledge that's the point. Couldn't be that they want to wait and see how it turns out. Couldn't be that they're uncomfortable about taking a proactive approach towards stomping out objectionable stuff in art instead of just criticizing it and letting it die off. Nope, every critic is really just a horndog looking to get their rocks off of polygons, and they're using art as a shield from criticism. That's gotta be it. Thanks for clearing all that up.
Yeah, "amazing" is a word for it.
Edit: just noticed this post
The guys who defend this pathetic bullshit are the exact same type who will be cranking it whilst playing this game.
I don't care about the arguments for or against the realities of the situation 'gigilo mode' is supposedly imitating, it's just totally unnecessary. It serves no thematic purpose, at it's worst it's incredibly embarrassing and potentially offensive, and at best it's providing base titillation for basement dwelling perverts and hentai aficionado's.
Love you guys, byeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Oh really, you've got the game already? Can you hoop me up with a copy? I want to see how this mode plays out in the grand scheme of things, too.
