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Dad Hacks "Donkey Kong" - Now Pauline Rescues Mario
H_Fisher writes "What do you do when your daughter wants the girl to be the hero of your old video game? If you're Mike Mika, you hack the game ROM to reverse the roles. He even changed the 'M' at the top of the screen to a 'P.'"
It's another article with something cool, vaguely mentioning something about gender biases, that ignites comments across game industry websites spewing reactionary sexist bullshit. Even as innocent and heart-warming as this story is, primitive individuals with no understanding of privilege can't help but attack the father and even the 3 year old, if you can believe it.
Are other industries as bad, or is the gaming industry one of the worst?
He did it so his daughter could play as the character she wanted to play. Not as some feminist statement.
Why not have those things? Maybe his daughter likes them? Just because they're traditionally female, doesn't mean they're inferior.
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Let the haters hate, and the lovers love. We know who's who by their comments.
If your daughter wanted it all princessy, and you loved her, you'd do it too. Remember (if you RTFA), she asked to play as not-Mario; we don't know what more she said beyond that. If my son asked for an elephant in the game, I'd make peanuts for him to use. And a little feather because of Dumbo.
Got my man-card, and my dad-card, and nobody's pulling either of them.
He said "that aren't sex objects"
While things like Zero-suit Samus can certainly be considered a bit of fan service, I wouldn't consider most of her outings as putting her in the sex-object position. I don't know if the GPP would agree.
Meanwhile, on the flip side, Lara Croft *definitely* is, except in her latest game (written by the excellent Rhianna Pratchett) where she's actually written like a real human being.
You seriously think Lara Croft isn't a sex object? .
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Parenting - you're doing it right!
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Since I have no reason to hate you with a passion, I won't suggest you watch Twilight but aren't the males in that drivel just as much sex objects?
What really is the difference between Lara Croft and Fabian? Don't know who he is? Google it and you will find he is a model who appears on countless romance novel covers and NOT because he is a novelist.
Sex... wasn't really all that much a part of the original Tomb Raider. yes, she had big polygons, which most of the time you don't see since the camera is behind her. Meanwhile the women in Planescape: Torment had FAR bigger tits but nobody complained about that. Because part of the reason to have big tits in low-rez games was so the tits would be visible at all.
In Israel right now there is a law banning thin models. To protect the feelings of the whales. Because the only thin women are freaks who don't eat of course, not just a normal percentage of women who just happen to not overeat and have a natural slender built. To protect one groups feelings, another group is excluded. For every a-cup girl supposedly offended by doubt D Lara, there is a double D girl offended by every small titted heroine. Can't girls with big busts be heroes or are they condemned like blondes to always be stupid whores?
HERE IS THE SECRET
Every personality you see in the media, is a role. Doesn't matter whether you like said role or not. It is a role. Every actor acts a role defined by the writer. Media can NEVER show reality (which is why people who take 1984 as a prophecy as such idiots) because the writer WROTE everything as if he/she was god. A personality is self-destructive or succesful because the writer made it to be like that. In Far Cry 3 and the new Tomb Raider the "hero" goes from a snivelling coward to lean mean well adjusted killing machine because that was what the writers put in the plot. A different writer could just as easily have written a plot showing how both lapse into insanity. When backdraft was made, fire departments around the world saw an increase in volunteers and Pretty Woman has been claimed to have caused an increase in girls thinking prostitution always has an happy ending... for the girl. Mind you, the postman always ring twice didn't see more people wanting to be postman. Because the writers made on proffesion seem heroic while the other... wasn't. And many movies have shown hookers in bad light. The role an actor plays is not real.
REAL people are often WAY more complex then can be put in a 1.5 hour movie. Lara Croft breasts are often the joke of back pains... and? This is well known among women and those who live in the same world as them. Breast reduction surgery does exist and STILL women with small breasts want to be sultry big bossomed and big breasted women want to be slender and cute. And men want big cocks despite most women not particularly liking to be stretched to wide or to deep while men with actual big penisses wish that girls wouldn't run out the door when they get naked. We all want what we can't have because SURELY the grass is greener on the other side, so we all climb the fence and never wonder why so many people are climbing the other way.
BUT it is NOT the media's fault, it is our own.
Take publicity shots for say Star Wars. You can probably find some of Carry Fisher in her metal bikini and say "fan service". That is because all the pictures of Harrison Ford strutting it, don't appeal to YOU. But they ARE fanservice to a LOT of women. You drooled over Leia, they drooled over Han. Or Luke. Or Obi-Wan... women are weird or Jabba... my gf picked me after all.
You might think that a Lord of the Rings does not have much fanservice but just search the net. So... does that make the characters sex symbols? YES! Just not to you, but if SOMEONE drools over it, it is a sex symbol.
Sex sells, it always has done and both genders lap it up.
Sexism is only seeing it in one gender. Note the Israeli law on thin models ONLY applies to females. Because everyone knows bulemia
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
This is a win on so many levels.
I'd wager that first and foremost this dad did this without any ulterior motives. He simply made a lovely gift to his beloved daughter.
But he did more than that, whether he intended to or not.
He implicitly stated (to his daughter) that he, as a man, is perfectly ok with a woman rescuing a man. He may not even have done this consciously. His daughter may not even consciously see or understand this message. But he makes a nice example.
He also showed his daughter, that it is possible to change the "current state of affairs".
And yes, all of this would be a non-news if not 97% (made up on the spot, but probably not far from the truth) of all games reinforced the stereotype of the female damsel in distress with the male hero - or the sex-objectified heroine
Yeah sure, blah blah blah.
He hasn't actually released the modified game and big gaming corporations don't give a fuck about a dad hacking a 30 year old game this way to make his daughter happy. To "squash" this, a corp needs to spend more money than it's worth, so they're not going to do a thing about it. Simple as that.
Your article is pretty old. I don't think the risk is as high as you state, but I don't doubt that there are risks.
As far as the desire to cut your wrist, was it due to suicidal ideation or due to a desire for self injury? Suicidal ideation often occurs in people that self injure, but they are very different disorders. Self-injury is usually due to a desire to make a situation feel real (stop dissociation) or to counter stressful or painful thoughts. Self-injury is actually a coping mechanism, though a very bad one. Suicidal ideation is more of a problem solving type of behavior. But if you felt that you were compelled to cut your wrists to kill yourself (not as a problem solving behavior), then that would be neither self-injury nor suicidal ideation, but psychosis.
In any case, there aren't really many great alternatives. This is partially because it costs too much to do research for new drugs and partially because ethical guidelines prevent testing on the people that actually need the drugs. If you have ever had suicidal ideation or self injured, you will be excluded from a trial. If you have a severe mental illness (which can include major depression) you will be excluded. Thus, only the least depressed patients are tested. It is sort of like being pregnant--nobody will test drugs on you due to ethical concerns. In the end, these drug companies have to get statistically significant findings when they test their drugs on the least depressed people. To say that is hard, is an understatement. So they do lots of tricks to get their drugs approved. But there really is no certainty that those drugs will help with the people that need them most because they have never been tested on those same people. Only after the drugs are prescribed en masse can scientists really determine the impact.
They aren't buff like that to entice females or gay males to play, they're buff like that as a kind of ego fantasy for the males that buy those games. They aren't sex objects.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
You seriously think Lara Croft isn't a sex object? .
Within the game world, Lara Croft is not a sex object, she is an empowered woman. Outside of the game, there are enough weirdos out there that everyone/thing becomes a sex object. Have you not heard of Rule 34?