5,962 Forum Posts by "Dr-Worm"
At 4/13/14 01:07 PM, Natick wrote: visually speaking, it's incredible but when noe disregarded any religious interpretations of it, i had no idea what to make of the whole thing other than a interpretation of death and reincarnation as bare-bones concepts.
Yeah, I wouldn't really take the director's outside word as gospel when you're interpreting a film, it's kind of out of their hands at that point. I mean, Leos Carax has emphatically denied that Holy Motors is a self-reflexive statement about cinema but that didn't stop me from writing a 20-page paper about exactly that.
Sometimes I really wish filmmakers, even great filmmakers, would just let their work speak for itself instead of pushing what often turn out be really narrow and less compelling interpretations (*cough* Spike Lee *cough*).
At 4/12/14 08:53 PM, Natick wrote: i'm pming this because the last thing i need is more enemies who think i take a strong stance on gender issues when i'm merely trying to have a discussion (profanity)
Well so much for that haha.
my honest opinion on her is that she is not a reliable source for information or even theories, considering that she didn't cite sources in her research (which mostly made up of let's plays that she didn't make)
She's doing informal popular criticism, though, is there really a precedent for extensive citations there? Especially on YouTube videos?
I'm struggling to even find places in her videos where there should be citations to back up her points but aren't. Failing to cite Let's Plays she's taken footage from might be bad form but I don't see how it has any effect on the actual substance of her arguments.
used attention-whoring tactics in response to the trolls that gave her hell when she first appeared
I have no idea what this means.
doesn't engage in any real public discourse as far as i know (blocking comments and ratings and ignoring even the legitimate reply videos but if i'm wrong on this one, then i'm wrong)
I think a quick glance through some of the posts in this thread will make it abundantly clear why she has to disable comments. And this place is downright civil compared to the shit that regularly gets spewed out in YouTube comments. YouTube is not a place for "real public discourse." If she enabled comments on her videos, then what, everyone on YouTube would have a really productive, respectful dialogue on representations of women in games? Doubtful. The gaming community's reaction to the mere announcement of the project, let alone their reaction to the actual content of the videos, doesn't inspire much confidence.
I don't see how Sarkeesian is obligated to respond even to "legitimate reply videos," she certainly isn't obligated to respond to trolls and bullies, and I can't exactly blame her for declining to engage with the former given her experiences with the latter. Besides, the series isn't even halfway done yet, right? For all we know she could be working on responses to common criticisms right now.
But just out of curiosity what are a couple examples of response videos that you find "legitimate?"
starts with her conclusion that there is rampant misogyny in any form of entertainment
I mean, she's hardly the first critic to come to that conclusion and she's not exactly wrong. There's deeply entrenched sexism in just about every facet of society and entertainment is certainly no exception. And video games are especially bad and blatant about all this stuff, stuck in a cycle of defiantly uncritical adolescent indulgence that even the dumbest filmmakers or musicians would find embarrassing.
but it's the fact that she went through on a serious straight-faced project on tropes as if she really knew much about the current situation in gaming or exactly like you said, how game tropes even work.
I mean, right, it's a little disappointing that she isn't really getting into tropes that are specific to games (the "Ms. Male" thing sort of is I guess but it's still entirely narrative/aesthetic), but games are also a visual and narrative medium that borrows lots of elements from other visual and narrative media. Her observations on the narrative and aesthetic tropes in games aren't off-base or uninformed.
And I dunno how much she does or doesn't know about the "current situation in gaming" but for her examples she's brought in some pretty deep cuts, cult items, indie games and obscurities. By this point I'd say she's certainly familiar with a much wider and deeper swath of gaming history than your average CoD-obsessed bro.
and to make matters worse, her arguments are just not very good.
I think they're very broad, and a little Women & Gender Studies 101-ish, which to be fair is more or less the stated aim of the series. Plus unfortunately it seems pretty necessary given the paucity of mainstream, highly visible feminist critique in games at this level and the mainstream gaming industry/community's astounding lack of introspection or awareness and understanding of even the most basic concepts when it comes to gender issues. Judging by the reaction she's gotten so far it looks like even that's too much for the gamer crowd to handle, so as much as I'd like to see her go deeper with her arguments, it does make sense that she's keeping things at the level of broad overview.
But yeah, that approach does inevitably lead to a loss of nuance and some possibly unfair generalizations, and I'm not sure I agree with a bunch of her individual assessments of particular games (among other things I think the twist on the damsel trope in Spelunky is a lot more thoughtful than she gives it credit for). But the broader ideas are pretty spot-on, and besides, it's not like she's saying these games are bad or shouldn't be played because of the stuff she's pointing out. To quote her own YouTube channel description: "but remember that it is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of it's more problematic or pernicious aspects." I think that's pretty fair.
thank you, i'll keep all these names in mind. i remember reading and listening to reviews for "sex and the city 2" by mark kermode and lindy west who consider themselves to be feminists and they just went to town on that film.
Yeah, Lindy West's brutal takedown of Love, Actually is also pretty entertaining.
For something to be a double standard the two situations being treated differently have to actually be equivalent. And maybe the situations you're describing here would be equivalent in a vacuum or in some post-racial, post-gender utopia, but not here in the real world, where the power dynamics between the groups being described and the social/historical context of their interactions are so incredibly disparate.
At 4/13/14 06:48 AM, Radaketor wrote: People can't make jokes about jews but they can make jokes about muslims.
Though this one is its own special kind of ridiculous because I've literally seen and heard dozens of people, some of them on this very website, complain that the opposite is true. It is an utterly nonexistent and unimportant problem.
At 4/13/14 10:29 AM, Slint wrote: Sun Kil Moon's Benji is pretty good, but I think over hyped. What did you guys think?
I love Ghosts of the Great Highway and all of Kozalek's work with Red House Painters, but his most recent stuff is starting to get just a little samey and sleepy. Like you said it's still pretty good, and I always look forward to a new Sun Kil Moon album, but yeah.
#Wikifurstworldproblems
At 4/12/14 11:32 PM, ThundurusGod wrote: Otherwise I will never go to Wikifur again!
That's probably for the best...
At 4/12/14 10:10 PM, Lemonardo wrote: The first American slave owner was African. The African tribes that were involved in the Slave Trade were known to have kept slaves as well.
Oh I guess that makes it okay then.
At 4/11/14 04:48 PM, TheMaster wrote: Consistently hilarious, and really plays with what you can do in an animation that you can't in live action.
Yeah, it reminds me of Looney Tunes in that way, or maybe a Godard film or something. As soon as they bring the show to a screeching halt so the characters can complain about working in slow motion you know you're in for some awesomely weird shit.
Though also people don't give the show enough credit for this but the writing (and the English localization, I guess) is fantastic. I don't usually find the dialogue in anime to be especially memorable but FLCL has some wonderful exchanges and one-liners, my two possible favorites being Naota's anguished "aaah, it's spicy! I don't care if it goes to New York!" or this exchange, which manages to both be hilarious and perfectly encapsulate the show's central character dynamic:
Haruko: I should teach you to be a man, Ta-kun.
Naota: Yeah, like you'd know!
The manga sequences, especially the second fourth-wall destroying one, are spectacular.
The jokes and visual gags fly by so fast in those sequences I still don't think I've picked up on all of them. "Fooly Cooly is...you do it like this with your hands, see?" I love how Naota's grandpa never stops making those fondling motions or croaking "cooly, cooly" for the entire first sequence. And how the second one inexplicably ends with him flying away from the house in a Superman costume (seriously; go back and look closely at that last exterior shot of the house).
I mean, it turns into South Park for 30 seconds or so at one point, and then flicks back to normal just as quickly, seemingly just because it can.
Though of course it's not just because they can, it's also used to illustrate Amarao's character. This is a man-child so insecure that he sticks seaweed eyebrows onto his face in a misguided effort to appear more masculine, so of course his attempts to come off as a mature adult come out sounding like the squeaks of a South Park kid. The South Park aesthetic is a perfect metaphor for arrested development.
But also yeah, I think the staff on FLCL were just big South Park fans too, since they slip at least two other references into the show (among the other debris flying up when the teacher's car gets wrecked you can briefly see a Kenny dashboard ornament, and later on there's a scene where Naota looks and talks like Kenny when he puts his hood up).
There doesn't seem to be much going on below the surface, but it moves so fucking fast and is so infectiously fun that it doesn't matter.
There's actually lots of stuff going on below the surface! It's just not necessarily apparent the first time you see it because the craziness is so overwhelming. But the show really lends itself well to rewatching for that reason. I'd also highly recommend checking out Hayden Childs's A.V. Club write-ups of the show from a few years ago to help make sense of some of the more coherent thematic stuff going on underneath the wild experimentation.
And the music, man.
Cheers for recommending that one.
No problem, glad you liked it. Everyone I've introduced the show to has either fallen in love with it or was totally repulsed by it. That's the measure of a truly special work of art if you ask me.
At 4/10/14 12:45 PM, Evark wrote: excellent primer on what feminism is and isn't
Wow, thank you. Fantastic post, and apparently a desperately needed one at that. A lot of people on here seem to be profoundly misinformed about what feminism is and what it works against, and it would do them well to read your post and learn from it.
Seriously, I get into these sorts of arguments with people on here all the time and I always struggle to describe these issues succinctly, but you've done a great job of it.
At 4/10/14 01:03 PM, Natick wrote: well, i'm genuinely curious about who are some trustworthy and recommended names that have contributed to the betterment of equality or social justice causes? i ask because i feel the need to counter the voices that i hear from people like anita sarkeesian, valerie solanas and suey park whom i think have done more harm to the public relations and overall image of feminism.
Admittedly I've only seen her first couple videos, but I don't get what the big deal is about Anita Sarkeesian. What could she possibly have said or done that's so offensive? If anything what I saw seemed overly broad and I felt like she could have pushed even harder and gone even further. Plus her lack of a background in games crit is pretty evident and might be a detriment to what she's trying to do considering the videos seem to be all about general narrative tropes instead of getting into issues that are specific to games (and there are lots). But all this is cause for mild disappointment at worst. The kind of widespread frothing rage that makes fanboys unable to so much as utter her name without hurling crude gendered insults along with it just baffles me.
Anyway, as for recommendations, @HeavenDuff seems to be much better informed about this stuff than I am so first I'd take a look at some of the people he's listed, though I do have a teensy bit of experience with reading feminist theorists and critics through the field of feminist film theory (natch), so I guess I'll add a couple names. Molly Haskell and Laura Mulvey might be a little dated by now but they did pioneering work that's still very important (especially Mulvey; if I'm not mistaken she coined the term "male gaze"), and since then there have been lots of other really interesting feminist film writers like Mary Ann Doane, Linda Williams and Gaylyn Studlar. I'm kind of embarrassed not to know more about this subject off the top of my head, but yeah.
In terms of more popular, accessible media criticism though, there a bunch of current critics I really like who don't exclusively write about feminist issues but do bring them up pretty often. For TV, Emily Nussbaum and Alyssa Rosenberg have been writing some excellent counterpoints to the masculinist antihero worship that dominates much of the present conversation about "prestige" television. For video games, Leigh Alexander and Mattie Brice are both fantastic writers.
At 4/11/14 04:50 PM, Elitistinen wrote: Return America Continent to its rightful owners, the Native.
Return Earth to its rightful owners, the trees.
At 4/10/14 11:36 PM, Pop-Tart wrote: What are some of your favorite lines?
Oh man I don't even know where to start. Here's the first few that came to mind:
"Everything's coming up Milhouse!"
And of course, "To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
Milhouse to Bart: "Remember when he ate my goldfish, and then you lied to me and said I never had any goldfish. But why did I have the bowl Bart? Why did I have the bowl??"
Hahaha, yeah that's also one of the best.
Btw just a heads up that Slacker is also available to stream on Netflix.
At 4/9/14 05:19 PM, MrWade wrote: I never said anything against women here, but okay.
Key words: "thinly coded."
But that's practically beside the point considering the last sentence of your original post literally says "Why do women think like that?"
At 4/9/14 05:22 PM, stafffighter wrote: If this is going to devolve into a back and forth about gun control we already have an official thread for that http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/689748
By all means keep talking about this case and the particulars but generalized yay and nay about guns goes in there.
Oop, sorry, did not see this until after I already posted. I was just responding specifically to what VicariousE said, but I'll be sure to take any future general discussion about it over to Cowboy Tony-DarkGrave's Pew Pew Blog.
At 4/9/14 04:11 PM, VicariousE wrote: Stricter gun laws only impact legal buyers of guns, the criminals and crazies will still have guns regardless.
Actually the "crazies" tend to come by their guns legally, so stricter regulations could go a long way towards hampering them. As for the criminals, they often get their guns from other localities or states with looser gun laws. Depending on how they go about it these purchases may or may not be legal, but the practice is obviously made possible by loose regulations and could be curbed by tighter ones.
I'm glad there aren't any fatalities reported yet, radio said 4 were in critical :(
The article the OP linked to says all four are expected to live. Let's hope it stays that way.
She may not have realized how quickly the phone unlocks and thought you'd made it so she couldn't use it. People can get really touchy about their phones nowadays. Or she could have just been in a bad mood for any number of reasons, which is something that happens to everyone and isn't exclusively caused by periods, for fuck's sake.
Or maybe she just don't like people playin' on her phone.
At 4/9/14 01:41 PM, VicariousE wrote: Lets just be thankful he wasn't pissed off enough to want to outright kill.... or maybe he just though stabbing and slicing were more quiet, gave him time to assault more people.
I think you've put way more thought into this than he did.
Gun deaths are at an all time low in America, despite having shit-tons more guns per capita.
Violent crime as a whole is down for a number of reasons that have little to do with this conversation. But we still have a substantially higher gun death rate than every other first-world nation. With stricter gun laws, we might not need to "be thankful" that a would-be school shooter chooses to use a less deadly weapon.
At 4/9/14 02:33 PM, Amaranthus wrote: Why do the title and the cover contradict each other all the time?
Well that's the hook isn't it. "The title says Dracula doesn't drink lemonade, but whoa, there he is on the cover, drinking lemonade! How can this be? I better read the book and find out."
At 4/9/14 12:26 PM, Makakaov wrote: The solution is simple: Ban knives.
If you really want to make this about gun control, the real takeaway here is that nobody in this incident died.
At 4/9/14 12:29 PM, Radaketor wrote: Apparently not
Don't forget the less popular entry "Charlie Don't Surf."
I like how you guys keep mentioning these "radical" and "extreme" feminists (I'm not even going to dignify that idiotic, insulting popular portmanteau by using it here) who are causing so much trouble yet none of you can point to a single concrete example of encountering such a person in real life.
You're willfully characterizing a far-reaching and complex social movement that's existed for half a century based solely on your impressions of a handful of misguided teenage Tumblr posters because you know that doing so will give you an avenue to loudly express your preexisting and thinly coded prejudices against women. This thread is pathetic.
At 4/9/14 12:18 AM, Blink-the-God wrote: Feminists are just selfish cunts that want a free ride and pull a 180 on what they say men are. The real women for equality earn it and don't complain... Well no more than men do about the bullshit of work life.
The OP is 13 years old and on the spectrum, what's your excuse?
At 4/9/14 08:05 AM, irishiweredrunk wrote: You're so bluepilled.
Hahahaha what a dork.
At 4/8/14 10:31 PM, Oolaph wrote: Chooosen oooone!
Weeooweeooweeooweeoowee!
Ah balls I forgot the @ mentions...
Uh, new Album of the Week pick, it's #1 Record by Big Star, children by the million sing for Alex Chilton, yada yada yada.
@Dromedary
@Gobblemeister
@Innermike
@Jay
@JaY11
@Jester
@Makeshift
@Natick
@Otto
@Ryanson
@Sekhem
@Sense-Offender
@Sinerider
@Slint
@Snuff
@TehSlapHappy
@Viper
At 4/8/14 02:40 PM, NeonSpider wrote: Violence creates poverty and social ills, so expecting to fix the latter without doing anything about the former won't work.
Other way around champ.
At 4/4/14 10:50 PM, Elitistinen wrote: Detroit. Land of jungle.
Ummm...
It's cool that you're trying to make stuff, but you should be coming up with your own original ideas instead of "remaking" someone else's. And you should realize that it isn't realistic to expect a full team of artists and programmers to work with you unless either 1. you're already friends and/or collaborators, or 2. you're willing to pay them for their work.
I totally understand the excitement and ambition of trying to do a big project with lots of collaborators right off the bat, I tried to do similar things and made similar threads myself when I was (I'm assuming) your age, but it's putting the cart before the horse and ultimately it will never get you anywhere.
If I were you I would try to focus on smaller, original projects you can do by yourself. That way you'll actually have some experience developing your skills and some finished products you can show to potential collaborators so they know you're capable. Have fun with it!
At 4/8/14 07:21 AM, Slint wrote: Jesus christ dr. worm.
Huh, I'm surprised you're not a bigger Frogs fan. They seem to be pretty in line with your musical/comedic sensibilities, just, y'know, with a lot more explicit references to gay sex.
It's Only Right and Natural isn't their most technically accomplished album, but I think it best captures the spirit of the band. I love the scrappy off-the-cuff nature of the music (like how sometimes they'll start cracking up in the middle of a line) and the lyrics and their delivery are hilarious. There's just nothing else quite like them.
For me it's the WON'T YOU LET ME WALK YOU HOME FROM SCHOOL. Not because I actually did that, but that time of innocence and discovery and first love is like a punch in the gut.
Yup, the song takes me right back, the joy and the pain. I practically respond to it the same way Elaine's boyfriend responds to "Desperado" in that one episode of Seinfeld.
When I come back I'll definitely listen to this.
When you get the chance you should check out I Am the Cosmos, which collects all of Chris Bell's solo material. It's almost like having extra Big Star songs.
By the way, you know of any tabs of You Get What You Deserve? I always wanted to learn that song, but I'm terrible at picking up by hear.
Nah, I've actually looked for them myself but no dice so far.
At 3/31/14 02:04 PM, Entice wrote: You're joking right? I'm pretty certain there aren't laws in the UK that govern or define "religious marriage" in general.
To be fair England does have a state church, so it's not a totally ridiculous question.
Uh, it's not, and the fact that you think it is goes a long way towards explaining your posts.
Though this thread does remind me of one of my favorite Onion articles.
At 4/7/14 10:11 PM, Slint wrote: 8/10 album. I TOLD YOU THIRD IS BETTER. Next time you're going to get it nerd.
FWIW I almost picked The Frogs' It's Only Right and Natural, so you guys should consider yourselves lucky.
Anyway, this album is really good, you guys should definitely listen to it. Thirteen gives me massive feels.
Yeah man. "If it's so, well let me know / if it's no, well I can go." Oof, right in the memory.
Chris Bell's You and Your Sister (with Chilton on backing vocals!) might be even more heartbreaking.
Other highlights for me are Feel, Don't Lie To Me and When My Baby's Beside Me.
The highlights for me are everything that isn't "The India Song." But especially "Thirteen," "Ballad of El Goodo," and "Feel."
Though clearly the all-time best Big Star track (and really one of the best pop songs of, like, the 20th century) is September Gurls. Actually I waffle back and forth on liking Radio City better than #1 Record overall, I just picked the latter because I think it's a better introduction to the band, plus it's the only album with the full original lineup.
At 4/7/14 11:55 PM, Piggler wrote: Okay, well, movies readily available on Youtube seem to get larger viewership so, I guess I'm going to have to pick Slacker.
Awesome pick! I've been meaning to watch this for a long time.
