Breaking down borders in video games.
Hey, Baby Link Roundup/Open Thread
A screen shot of Hey, Baby. A woman is sitting on a bench in a city while a man stands next to her. It looks like he is trying to get her attention.
Trigger warning: Street harassment.
So, recently a Flash game was released that caused a bit of a stir on a number of gaming (and feminist) websites. The game is called “Hey, Baby”, and it is a game about street harassment. It is a first-person shooter where you play as a woman walking around a city fighting off waves of men who approach you while repeating “classic” street harassment lines, everything from the notorious “Smile, baby” to shouted rape threats. Killing the harassers results in a gravestone popping up with their line engraved on it. There are also both male and female bystanders who do nothing and can’t be killed. If possible, I do recommend playing the game a little before reading this post; it’s a Flash game and only takes a minute to play, although it is quite violent.
There have been a number of different reactions to the game around the internet. It has started a conversation in the gaming online community about street harassment (and in the feminist blogosphere about satirically violent video games), and for that alone, I think this is a win. But I’d like to take a closer look at the various reactions surrounding the game.
Some people (myself included) interpreted the game as a statement on the frustrating nature of street harassment. Kieron Gillen at Rock, Paper, Shotgun gets all 101 on his readers, patiently explaining what male privilege is and how the game taps into the experience of being on the receiving end of harassment:
You approaching a woman in the street and being what you think is politely flirty is a different thing when, down the street, someone’s suggested that maybe you’d like to suck my dick and you’re a fucking bitch if you don’t.
From her perspective, it’s a culture of harassment she has to either politely deal with or ignore.
From your perspective, you’re just showing how you feel.
That your passing desire means you get to derail a woman’s life whenever you feel like it is the absolute definition of male privilege.
If you’re a man, and you’ve acted like this, the woman you do it to, beneath the polite smile she has to offer, has probably fantasised about you dying.
He goes on to point out that, if guys are disturbed by the game, good. They should be. That’s the point. “You should be disturbed that we live in a world where a woman feels the need to make the game – and for other women to smile at it, recognising it.”
Seth Schiesel at the New York Times had a similar take, writing about how the game gave him a powerful lesson about what it’s like to be a woman in public:
But as I played on, I came to realize that it is equally unrealistic and absurd to suppose that saying, “Thank you, have a great day” is going to defuse and mollify a man who screams in your face, “I want to rape you,” with an epithet added for good measure.
And that is the point of Hey Baby. The men cannot ever actually hurt you, but no matter what you do, they keep on coming, forever. The game never ends. I found myself throwing up my hands and thinking, “Well what am I supposed to do?” Which is, of course, what countless women think every day.
Amanda at Gaming Angels had a different take (additional trigger warning on this link for victim-blaming). She talks about how she gets catcalled on the street very often, but makes a snide comment about how thinking about that harassment is selfish: “You question if what you’re wearing is too provocative, even if it’s a sweater paired with slacks. You, you, you, you, you. It’s always about poor you.”
Well… yes. If you’re walking down the street and someone yells “Suck my dick” at you, then it is about you. And it’s the harasser that is making it about you. Otherwise you would just be walking down the street instead of blaming yourself for doing something to provoke a man to harass you.
And that’s what Amanda goes on to write: paragraphs of victim-blaming. It’s women’s fault for not enjoying harassment! Don’t get angry just because “men are capable of being wolves.” It’s a “social normalcy.” They can’t help it. Smile and enjoy it!
She goes on to say that the man in this situation is actually the victim, but the key quote here is: “When a man ‘flirts’ with you, hes giving you the power to accept or reject him. You’re just complaining you have this power.”
Aha. Yes. This old gem. Women have all the power over men because men can’t control themselves around women they find attractive. (Forget, for the moment, that Amanda notes there is a difference between men who are trying to flirt and men who are going on a “power trip”–how can they go on a power trip by making themselves a victim? And what are women supposed to do about those men?) Never mind that real empowerment comes from within a person, it’s not given by anyone, much less street harassers. Because power given to you can just as easily be taken away.
Amanda ends with the super-helpful comment, “Get over yourself.” Don’t complain because you’re so pretty you take male attention for granted. But the fact is women have just as much right to be out in public as men do, harassment-free.
The game was covered in the feminist blogosphere as well, and some of the responses surprised me. Amanda Hess, who has done extensive coverage of street harassment on her blog, The Sexist, describes her experience playing the game and concludes, “Call me a pessimist, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that feminist issues can never be perfectly applied to a game based on simulated murder.” At the Hathor Legacy, Jennifer Kesler writes about how the game’s extreme reaction to street harassment undermines real women’s actual reactions and work against street harassment. On the other hand, Sarah at Feministe focuses on the afore-mentioned reactions of Kieron Gillen (a friend of hers) and Seth Schiesel.
What I think the detractors are missing is that this is a video game, and it’s helpful to look at it in the context of video games and video game culture. Both Hess and Kesler seem hung up on the violent aspect of the game, but, like it or not, video games are, by and large, violent. Many of the most successful and popular games are first-person shooters, like Hey, Baby. The game presents the problem of street harassment–and the frustration and lack of adequate options that individual women have in the face of harassment–in the language of video games. I also suspected that the game wasn’t necessarily made for women to let of steam about harassment (though it could certainly be used for that purpose), but for men to learn what it’s often like to exist as a woman in public. And that aspect of teaching men about women’s experiences reminded me of a game idea I wrote about a little over a year ago, a game that would show, rather than tell, men what it’s like to live in a rape culture (TW: discussion of sexual assault). I admire Hey, Baby because of the way it teaches is much more direct and less convoluted than my design.
But let’s hear what the creator of the game, Suyin Looui, has to say:
A few years ago I was on the subway, just on the platform and it was just a really cold winter day, totally bundled up in layers and someone said hot ching chong.
…
So that was the moment when I decided that I was going to make this game and it would be an ode the young man on the subway platform in New York. The next two years it just became this other thing this project about how to create conversations around the whole issue and just how its a very difficult topic, just how people engage in a really different way around it.
About the violent aspect of the game, she says:
I definitely had women saying, you know, why dont you try hugging them or how do you what is a way that you could actually flip it around so they become embarrassed? For me, in particular, I really wanted the violence to be so ridiculous and sort of over the top gory, that people would know that it was a joke.
But I do understand and it was one of the huge things when I was making it to make sure not to give points for everybody that shot someone. I didnt want to advocate that violence was an appropriate response in any way.
About Kieron Gillen’s posts about the game, she says, “I couldn’t have asked for anything better than that.”
What do you think of Hey, Baby? (And again, if at all possible, please take a moment to play the game.) Does the violence undercut its message?
Related posts:
- Open Thread: The Prince of Persia Movie Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time opened this past...
- Open Letter Implores Games Industry: “Don’t Forget Women” During one of my internet meanderings, I came across this...
- The Sexist Interviews Courtney Stoker On Feminism and Geek Fandom Today, Amanda Hess posted an interview with blogger Courtney Stoker...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Alex on July 20, 2010 at 5:00 am, and is filed under PC Games, Web. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
No trackbacks yet.
Stardock’s Elemental and What It Says About the State of Games
about 6 days ago - 12 comments
by guest contributor Andrea Rubenstein Andrea Rubenstein is the co-founder of the Iris Gaming Network and (when she has the time) posts on her two blogs The Official Shrub.com Blog (focuses on a variety of anti-oppression topics) and Better by Design (focuses her experiences learning game design in Japan). This article was originally published at
Daughter of Zero Queens: Roleplaying as Resistance
about 1 week ago - 2 comments
This was crossposted from Quin’s blog. Picture it: a World of Warcraft RPPvP server, 2006. A good friend of mine takes up a wager with a female friend of his to test a “theory”- at least it was nothing but a theory to him, at that time. She had often sparred with him about the
Two Must-Read Posts About Olivia Munn
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Olivia Munn has long been a source of frustration for many female geeks and gamers. As co-host of G4′s Attack of the Show, she more or less was the representative of female geeks on television, and yet the humiliating tasks she performed on the show sent a loud-and-clear message about what most male gamers seemed
Ain’t I a Gamer?
about 1 month ago - 16 comments
I have often described language as that mortar that binds together social institutions, and in this vein it is as instructive to consider what language elides as much as it includes. Take for instance the well worn, extremely tired joke about how there are no women on the Internet or the assorted nonsense about Guys
Article about female main characters lures out the trolls
about 1 month ago - 19 comments
Recently Gamasutra posted an article by Leigh Alexander discussing Activision’s lack of female main characters in their games. The article included numerous quotes from former Activision employees outlining the company’s logic when designing main characters. There is a systemic “lose the chick” attitude for main characters: But 2007 was a year when the top sellers on
Undead Labs Child’s Play Charity Beat Down: Interview with Frag Doll Valkyrie
about 2 months ago - 6 comments
Recently I attended the Undead Labs Frag Doll Beat Down Event in Seattle, Washington. This was a charity Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 tournament at Undead Labs. This was no ordinary tournament, however. This tournament was held to raise money for Child’s Play, a charity that donates games and console to hospitals, for the
The Sexist Interviews Courtney Stoker On Feminism and Geek Fandom
about 2 months ago - 10 comments
Today, Amanda Hess posted an interview with blogger Courtney Stoker about being a feminist and a nerd, and participating in geeky fandoms where sexism seems particularly rampant. She doesn’t talk about games, but her experience is probably all too familiar for many of our readers: I’ve blogged about Doctor Who and geek culture quite a
Modern game character creators, not very creative indeed
about 2 months ago - 25 comments
A friend of mine linked me this picture today, and I thought it was interesting enough to share here on the Border House. We’ve talked in the past about the default human in games being a straight, white male, and I think this picture speaks for itself. (Edit: I know not all of these characters
Characters Done Right: Blue Dragon’s Jiro
about 3 months ago - 31 comments
There is a trope of female healers in role playing games. Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, Yuna in Final Fantasy X, Marle in Chrono Trigger, Estelle in Tales of Vesperia, and Yukari in Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 are all examples of female party members whose role was primary healer. The medic in Valkyria Chronicles
We Need More Women in Indie Games
about 3 months ago - 44 comments
Whenever I find myself in discussions about women in games, it seems like it’s always about getting women into more positions in the mainstream game industry. That’s all well and good and useful, but I have a better idea: why don’t we just get more women to develop indie games? It’s arguably far easier than
about 1 month ago
I think the people that don’t like the game have to remember it’s an escape from reality, a fantasy and they are just overreacting. Yep.. I think that’s what needs to be said. (They say it all the time about Boob Fantasy 9…it’s just escapism)
But really, I played the game and I enjoyed it for what it is. It’s a way to relieve your frustration, a way to escape a way to “deal justice” in an extreme way back to the guys that you feel deserve it in a space that won’t get you arrested.
How many people have played GTA and ran over and beat all the women in the game to fantasize about beating up that woman that told them to “GTFO” basically?
Does it undercut the message? I don’t think so. It’ sending a strong message about how some women feel about such harassment. They’ve taken it for so long that they just feel like getting a gun and solving it with violence. Talking hasn’t worked, being nice hasn’t worked, asking nicely hasn’t worked, non-violent punishment hasn’t worked. Maybe violence is the answer? Maybe not, but it does feel good to mow down hordes of douchewaffles.
It’s that one feeling though, of feeling helpless and feeling that the only solution is to end a person’s life because they “won’t get it” or won’t change and treat women like humans or even “That way of thinking doesn’t make money”.
Really I don’t like the view that feminists have to be non-violent. True violence doesn’t solve much, but in a game that can’t hurt anyone (might as well use their point of view against them, that game don’t hurt people), I don’t think we should hold back. It just feeds the stereotype that women are passive, infantile, fragile peacemakers which are easy to ignore as they won’t raise a hand to defend themselves and all they have is “pretty words” that are easily derailed by common derailing tactics.
I can see how some even might say that the game is “man hating”, however you have to see that it’s the men in the game that toss the first gauntlet by thinking women are pieces of meat.
Saying that we have the “sexual power” (like my roommate buys into) does nothing but continue to make women sexual objects and “creatures” for men’s pleasure. Do I think the problem lies in the men? Yes, the problem is that men are continuing to teach men that this is OK to do and the fact that some women consider it as a compliment and think that “Oh, I shouldn’t be so selfish and think about me..”, give that thinking more credibility.
The problem also lies in the women that make games, movies, TV shows, commercials that teach women that they need to be fashionable, be pretty, impress a boyfriend. That getting told such things is a compliment.
It’s really a two way street there.
To blame the victim for the harassment is just wrong.
I’m surprised that a game like this hasn’t come sooner. I know I’ve been so frustrated with the patriarchy and the way culture is that I’ve certainly felt like taking an uzi to the whole problem.
Rambly thoughts are rambly and ranty.
about 1 month ago
(For what it’s worth in interpreting this comment, I’m a feminine bisexual male who is routinely mistaken as a female. I receive both catcalls and homophobic slurs on a fairly regular basis. I do not assume my experiences fully correspond with that of women, and acknowledge that my situation is quite different from what Hey, Baby portrays. Please, brain, let me steer free from mansplaining -_-’)
If anything, I thought the violence in Hey, Baby only emphasized the message of the game, and also the ineffectiveness of violence.
At first it was almost empowering to fictively wield a gun in a situation that normally would leave me without any realistic tools of interaction. As far as I have figured, there is no correct reaction to catcalling, to the point where all reactions have more negative than positive consequences. As a friendly person I would not want to (or am scared to) outright offend the catcaller, but I wouldn’t for the life of me want to acquiesce to them, either. And since the caller, I assume, is fishing for reactions, any reply would merely enforce their view that catcalling is a way to get responses from women.
So, the gun. It’s a way to respond (in a fictive setting of course) to a catcall so that it actually puts a stop to the whole interaction. It’s relieving and empowering to notice that you really do have the power to put a stop to the slurs whenever you want.
But in a while it becomes obvious that no amount of shooting helps. The calls keep on coming no matter what you do. And this, I believe, is the strongest point the game makes against violence as a solution: It isn’t a solution. Or rather, it is a solution but not a very good one. It’s a temporary solution to a very permanent problem, and the game highlights, in only a couple of minutes of playing no less, how very temporary solution violence really is. It’s hot ching chong all over again no matter how much you shoot. There was a moment in my experience with Hey, Baby where violence went through a total inflation. It no longer worked, helped or granted comfort.
Opting to run instead of fight, the method I employ in my life, is a little more effective long-term solution in the game, not to mention ethically immensely more preferable than shooting everyone. Yet, even that isn’t a solution really, since it doesn’t remove the original underlying problem. Not a groundbreakingly unforeseeable conclusion, but poignant nevertheless.
Violence: not good. Running away: better but still not very effective. Violence in Hey, Baby worked, for me, only to strengthen the message of how pointless violence is, and how unbearably difficult a situation being catcalled is.
Also, Hey, Baby felt at times a lot scarier than any sequence in the survival horror games I’ve ever played. Hard to consider that a cool aspect, really, but an interesting reaction anyway.
about 1 month ago
Totally agree, Maverynthia. i think especially in this video game, that the violence in this case gets the point across. I mean, the NYT piece really exemplifies this.
I think if the creator had used hugs in the game, it wouldnt have been as widely discussed, and wouldnt have had the same impact.
Excellent article, Alex!
That GA piece makes me extremely sad.
about 1 month ago
“It has started a conversation in the gaming online community about street harassment (and in the feminist blogosphere about satirically violent video games), and for that alone, I think this is a win.”
With this i agree, still i would say game is pretty conventional, it’s fps in which you play as a woman shooting men harressing you on the city streets, it certainly has novelty value but i havn’t found it specially controversial or provocative, to a degree it can ba called actually as quite funny. I know that game was created with different goal but i can’t help to notice that it lacks polish and depth ( i would add score points, levels, maybe more weapons, combos, special attack for most notorius lines etc. ). So basicly it’s a game that cuses discussion about street harassement and hopefully rise awereness of this problem but i have a strong feeling that people spend more time discussing it and reading other opinions then actually playing it.
about 1 month ago
I’ve really enjoyed all the on-topic discussion on Hey Baby (actually, there are only two gaming blogs that I read on a daily basis – Border House and RPS.) It’s great to see those topics coming out in the open in a community that normally keeps them under wraps.
The post I recall the most was this one, which mentions the surprise the writer felt at the responses from Rock Paper Shotgun’s commenters:
http://cunningslice.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/a-bad-week/
“The premier website for people like me, really, is Rock Paper Shotgun. It’s full of clever, irreverent, and altogether super-entertaining writing about games you play on your computer. I’m a fan.
On Thursday, writer Kieron Gillen posted a link to a fairly rubbish and altogether quite innocuous game which lets you gun down catcallers, and the comment thread exploded. Exploded. It turns out people like me aren’t okay. People like me are awful.”
I wasn’t so hot on the other conversation that went on around the game. Several commenters took the stance that, as a game, Hey Baby isn’t very good. *They* then took a lot of heat from supporters of the game’s message and its effect, which they weren’t opposed to. It all got very messy, with people who are normally very good about game critique defending the gameplay of a game that never aimed to have good gameplay.
about 1 month ago
A lot of the objections to the game seem to come from this place where people are shocked, shocked to find that women have violent fantasies. We’re supposed to be all nurturing! When people routinely make pests of themselves we’re supposed to treat them with respect and understanding and hugs. We’re never once supposed to think about how nice it would be to cut off the annoyance at its source. That so many women, and feminists even, seem uncomfortable with women’s violent fantasies being expressed like this shows just how internalized the idea that women aren’t violent at all is.
I’ve read about this game before, but this is the first time I actually bothered to play it. I sadly don’t have sound on my computer currently, which probably changed the effect of the game. It was sort of interesting though. I couldn’t tell what they were saying to me until I’d killed them. At first I did feel a bit guilty for shooting the guys who said things like “Wow, you’re beautiful”. But then I got bored with shooting guys and wanted to explore the level to see the design of it. When I was less vigilant about shooting the harassers I would find myself sort of boxed in by them. It didn’t matter if they were saying “nice” things or horrible gross things; they were a physical impediment to my exploration of the city. This is also what reminded me the most of my own experiences with street harassment. When I used to take public transit it was the guys who managed to corner me that disturbed me the most. The sense that I couldn’t get off the train unless the guy twice my size permitted me to was far more distressing than any specific thing they said.
about 1 month ago
As a foreigner, I just find it terrifying and very strange that you live in a country where such behaviour is a “feminist issue”.
It is not a feminist issue.
The issue is that you live in a country where it is considered OK to behave in a threatening manner to someone on the street.
Where I am from, if you behave in a threatening, intimidating manner – NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE, NO MATTER YOUR GENDER, OR THE PROVOCATION, you are breaking the law, and you will be arrested.
It’s a very, very simple concept and the easy, no-nonsense reason we never have to deal with it where I’m from.
about 1 month ago
I wonder if Amanda at Gaming Angels would spark a clue if someone asked if she was pre-menstrual when she wrote that article.
about 1 month ago
I dont normally comment as I am content to lurk about and read everyone’s thoughts instead. However, I want to comment about this because it;s related to something I feel strongly about. Namely, women having violent fantasizing and being aggressive. The way society views women, it’s impossible, impossible! For us to ever have violent fantasies or be angry enough to want to take matters into our own hand about anything. Also the violent reaction to catcalling only seems disproportionate if you don’t understand how painful and difficult catcalling can be to deal with. I’ve only been catcalled twice in my 22 years of life and it was fucking awful. I am pretty shy and paranoid about people already, and I prefer when I’m out in public alone to just be kind of invisible and left to my own devices as it were. So suddenly being focused on in such a vulgar intrusive way was downright nauseating. It didnt help that the first time it happened to me I was only twelve and was still learning about sex was and sexuality and all that stuff. I don’t have long term grudges towards those two moments in my life, but I remember those feelings. I also knew the pain and helplessness of bullying and harassment (though this was thankfully not related to my gender/sex, at least not directly) and I can tell you I had many a fantasy involving swift violent death of my harassers. But I did not act on them and never would because it would be wrong and it would ruin my life (among other reasons) but playing this game was very cathartic….until the end and then I just felt sad.
I think the violence in this game has many useful functions that IMO do not distract or undermine the message but highlight it and drive it home. For one it shows that women do feel rage, pain and have the ability to even fantasize about doling justice to those who make them feel that way. It gives a picture of women that society usually does not show, does not believe could ever exist. For two, it also shows how violating and downright frustrating it can be to deal with harassment first hand. Not mention the helplessness at stopping it from happening, over and over and over. Furthermore, the violence does not permanently end the harassment. More of harassers come. More and more. Because it wont ever end. Because killing random asshole on thee street wont solve the problem since the problem is not just said asshole but SOCIETY which allows, even encourages this kind of behavior against women. Because society still views women as property of the public. Because society thinks that women dont have pride or that their entire self worth is determined by how many men noticed their nice boobs or round ass one day or some stupid shit like that. So no I dont think the violence here is bad. It makes a powerful statement. and I think because violence is such a staple of not only video games but also US culture, I think it is far easier to understand for men than a game about “hugs” would have been. It would have just been laughable to most men and gamers I suspect. Violence however, is something everyone can understand. Whether they admit it or not and whether they would personally advocate it or not.
I think the problem with some feminists is that we have to make women the upholders of reason and sense, because otherwise we make feminism look bad and then undermine our message. While I understand that tact and reason is important. The things that feminism is tied to, women’s experiences, identity, humanity etc are not something that exists only in the sphere of reason and sense. Some really heinous shit is experienced by women the world over on a daily basis and I think it is impossible for the response to this to always be reasonable and sensible and articulate. Sometimes you just wanna go on a rampage and shoot some motherfuckers.
about 1 month ago
I found the game a little unresponsive when I played it, which seemed to underscore the harassment. There were men all around saying unwelcome things, and I was supposed to have a tool to deal with them, but I couldn’t get it up and working right. Obviously this is either a design flaw or a problem with the browser I was using, but it made the experience extra frightening. That was really frustrating, as an FPS gamer I’ve honed certain reflexes, and I like to see those rewarded with responsive game play.
I like the idea of using a run of the mill FPS to convey this message since the FPS culture is chock full of harassment to begin with.
The problem with Hey Baby is that the men can’t hurt you, which is a complete piece of escapism. The real stress of street harassment is never knowing which of the men is the violent one who is going to take things past calling you names. If Hey Baby took on more of the survival-horror genre by making some of the men dangerous, while still being an open-ended slog through street harassment, it might have even more of an impact for men who don’t really get the point.
about 1 month ago
@Princess Stomper The fact that most women are harassed by men, often in a sexual manner, while out in public, and men largely are not to the point where many men don’t even believe this happens, makes this a feminist issue.
about 1 month ago
@Tai Thank you for sharing your experience, and I think your last paragraph is really true. Once you start identifying as a feminist, it’s only a matter of time before someone accuses you of “hurting the movement”, or whatever. But feminists are human just like everyone else.
about 1 month ago
Godless Heathen, perhaps you mean a game designed like the one described here?
about 1 month ago
Great round-up of some of the discussion happening in the games / feminist blogosphere.
The Gaming Angels post about Hey Baby made me so angry. When I read it a while ago, I was disappointed at how dismissive it was of a real, problematic issue that affects many women’s lives–and to pin it all on the women! Amazing and saddening. Victim-blaming FTL.
about 1 month ago
@Princess Stomper Um… I live in the same country as you, and I see this crap ALL THE TIME. It doesn’t have to be an actual death/rape threat to be harrassment. Maybe you’ve just been very lucky?
about 1 month ago
@Tai Thanks for writing that fantastic comment, I couldn’t agree more!
about 1 month ago
I am an FPS player whose two favourite first-person-shooters are Doom and Killing Floor, both about isolated protags with limited resources fighting off near-endless hordes of grotesque, inarticulate, variously humanoid and comically stupid monsters that seem drawn to them like iron filings to a magnet. I am also a guy who’s tried to engage women in conversation on the street before with mixed results. With that background the semiotics of the exaggerated violence (and the hilarious choice of death sound!) in Hey Baby instantly, viscerally clicked with me.
I found it to be a very natural progression between first sign of threat and pure run-gun-and-kill mode where I was very rapidly mowing down these annoying, like-me-but-uglier-and-bigger-and-broader-shouldered humanoids making ominous and disgusting advances towards me. It was a while, maybe a minute, before a few things really started to sink in.
First, I was mowing down quite a few individuals who were saying completely innocuous things – more so than I have probably said in real life.
Second, after that happy little surprise after the guy who you think was just saying “Hello”, I was starting to not care the way in other games you stop caring about ammo and send a few shots into dark holes you can’t see into or leave grenades in front of the rows of person-sized alcoves in the wall before picking up the blue key. Just in case.
Third, however natural a reaction it seems to be during play, the gun not an option in the real world. The fact that the only thing about “you” that you can see is the part that isn’t available in real life makes this especially poignant.
Fourth… and in the real world, unlike in the game, some of these guys can actually cause you serious harm. This is in considerable contrast to, say, Killing Floor if you consider what a miserably botched attempt to genetically engineer a superior human being would probably be like in real life.
It was a pretty stark demo I would have had to stop playing even if the performance hadn’t dropped precipitously as the difficulty ramped up and more guys were swarming in. I didn’t get the sense of futility that Personamatters mentioned, but I think that’s because I tend to play a lot of games that of the “go as far as you can, the game doesn’t end until you choke and die and maybe get on the highscore list” variety so I sort of took that progression for granted.
I also got that boxed-in effect that laterose mentioned. When combined with the relative size and the talking, it feels much, much worse than anything the clots and crawlers in Killing Floor ever do (even when in the latter game I’m dead and looking up from the floor watching the zeds pantomiming ripping up my remains).
But I do agree with PM when he says this:
One of the better examples of experiential theatre I’ve been privy to.
@Princess Stomper: Which country are you from? And, uh, how is employment and openness to immigrants there? :V
about 1 month ago
@ Alex, what I meant was that the same Caveman who is making such vulgar comments is pretty unlikely to confine himself to one area of assholery and is just as likely to be making racist, homophobic, etc. remarks at the same time. I’m just appalled that someone engaging in threatening behaviour in public isn’t immediately arrested, regardless of the particular form of nastiness.
@ Kateri, wow – maybe you’ve just been spectacularly unlucky, or perhaps it’s the old North-South divide thing. I guess I grew up in a particularly “progressive” city.
@ Matt, I live in the UK. As always, when the country was booming, it was completely open to immigration – hugely mismanaged, in fact. Now things are starting to turn bad, it’s not so good and the borders are closing – but thankfully picking on immigrants is regarded as a particularly vile offence, so if the abovementioned Caveman felt like hurling out a few insults, he’d be banged up before he finished the sentence.
That said, I do recall the N-word being said for the first time in decades (outside a rap song) to a black guy sitting quietly on the bus. After a few seconds, my husband pulled the black guy off the offending hooligan – “it’s OK, he’s had enough. He’s got your point, you can stop hitting him now” – as everyone stared on in confused horror. Perhaps that guy would have enjoyed this game.
about 1 month ago
EUREKA! I was actually beginning to wonder why I alone seem to be not just unthreatened but completely invisible when I’m walking down the street. Now I know The Big Secret.
It’s not because the city I grew up in was a multicultural, liberal utopia (though it pretty much was), but because it was a tourist resort. I live in another tourist resort now. Tourists have plenty of time.
I just took a walk, and in light of this discussion, glanced surreptitiously at the other people on the street. Every one of them was walking at a brisk pace, staring fixedly at the ground in front of them. Someone tried to catch my eye and – feeling like a gazelle ambushed by a hungry cheetah – I quickly turned up my MP3 player and walked on. I knew what they would say, and it wouldn’t be “Hey, Baby.”
No, I do not have a pound.
No, I do not want to subscribe to your broadband provider.
No, I do not want to set up a direct debit to save the whales.
No, I do not want to buy your book on Hare Krishna.
I soon merged into the crowd of floor-starers and completed my circuit unmolested. Nobody would hit on me because nobody would even know what I looked like: everyone’s far too busy trying to avoid being collared by a salesman. If you keep your head down and eyes fixed on the floor in front, you might just make it to the other side of the street without having to say, “No, thank you, I do not want to join your mailing list.”
You don’t need a gun to get rid of the “Hey, Baby” culture. You just need a truckload of people with manic grins and clipboards, saying, “Excuse me, sir, may I just have a minute of your time?”
about 1 month ago
Hey Baby 2 : Attack of the Petitioners!
about 1 month ago
Princess Stomper, don’t you think that if it was that simple it would’ve been taken care of by now? I can’t say much more because of how absolutely frustrated I am right now, but really, a truckload of people with manic grins and clipboards??? Please tell me you’re joking. Also, news flash, if someone is asking you for a pound they’re probably poor. If they’re poor, then there’s some inequality in your social system there. If there’s inequality in your social system, there’s probably oppression. If there’s oppression, then, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not living in the paradise that you think you are.
about 1 month ago
The criticisms of violence in message games like this always strike me as odd. I mean yeah, if the game’s message were along the lines of “if only we were allowed to shoot random people then everything would be fine” then you could totally criticism the game for undermining the cause it’s ostensibly supporting. But message games like Hey Baby aren’t proposing to solve the problem by by gunning people down, they’re communicating what it feels like on an emotional level to be in a situation where some drunk dickhead wobbles over to screech at you.
So yeah, the suggestion that a more positive thing to do would be to hug your opponents into being decent human beings is correct, but not for what Hey Baby was trying to do. You hug the world to peace and harmony in a game that’s posing the question of why so many people seem determined to not get along, you don’t do that either in a game that’s trying to demonstrate what it’s like on the receiving end of antisocial behavior, or really in real life because chances are that you’re not magic.
i forgot what my point was so i hope i made it there
>_>
about 1 month ago
You definitely made your point, Ohma, and it’s a good one! =)
about 1 month ago
Leigh Alexander’s blog had an epic post and comment thread about the topic.
about 1 month ago
I tried it out and here was my experience playing it. The comments from the harrassers started out minor (well, it’s not minor but you know what I mean) but got progressively worse until it brought out the big guns with the rape comments. I do not know if the designer intentionally programmed that the comments come in order or if they were random, but it did have a powerful effect either way. At first I let them come to me to listen to the comments. Then I found myself going full auto and shooting any male character walking towards me like Left 4 Dead. If I lost patience with the catcalls that quickly, I can’t imagine how you all must feel. Eventually I turned the game off and that was it. But I realized that I have that luxury. I don’t get catcalled when I walk down the street. Overall, that game had a very, very important message.
about 1 month ago
There isn’t a lot I can say here that hasn’t already been said by many of the other fine commenters.
I would just add, Alex that your point here:
“Aha. Yes. This old gem. Women have all the power over men because men can’t control themselves around women they find attractive. (Forget, for the moment, that Amanda notes there is a difference between men who are trying to flirt and men who are going on a “power trip”–how can they go on a power trip by making themselves a victim? And what are women supposed to do about those men?) Never mind that real empowerment comes from within a person, it’s not given by anyone, much less street harassers. Because power given to you can just as easily be taken away.”
Was extremely well made and I could not help but cheer. It always saddens me when I hear people claim women have some kind of sexual authority over men. The fact of the matter is, it isn’t real empowerment for the reasons you described, and the fact that this false power is *sexual* is itself very telling about how we’re viewed by certain sectors of society. It’s very disconcerting.
It’s as if Amanda never considered what happens when, whilst exercising your “power to accept or reject” the offending man, he *doesn’t* take no for an answer, something I have heard from other women time and time and time again.
Being transgender complicates street harassment. I’ve been catcalled in the street quite often already. Most recently some man passing me in the street outside my school looked me up and down quite blatantly and said “Whoa, you’re hot.” It produced a very deep seated discomfort and fear for the next few blocks. For trans women that fear takes the form a rather pernicious cycle in which is tied up all sorts of social issues: “Woo! I passed!” “Fuck! I’m being objectified”
Knowing that you rely on the judgement of cis men for your safety, only to realise that even if you do “pass” you’re merely in the frying pan to transgender’s fire, is one of the more difficult realisations I’ve had over the last few years. Knowing I’m being constantly scrutinised is extremely scary. There is always that fear that while someone is ‘checking me out’ he’ll see something that ‘gives me away’ and suddenly my life is in even more danger.
At first I objected to Hey Baby’s violent content but I quickly understood it in context and support what it’s trying to do… if even a few men like that NYT writer get the point, it has at least done something worthwhile.
about 1 month ago
Nice post. It’s good to see some different view points on the same issue collected together in this way. Regardless of what anyone makes of the game itself, anything that inspires this level of discussion can only be a good thing for gaming on the whole. Personally, I took exception to Kieron and Leigh’s posts for their apparent desire to equate polite flirting with sexual harrassment. In Kieron’s case he seemed to be suggesting that women were incapable of making a distinction between the two and Leigh’s article gave the impression that any unwanted human interaction is unacceptable. I fail to see Amanda’s post at Gaming Angels as anything other than a provocation and I think the general notion that this game is meant to teach men anything is perhaps attributing the game with too much intellect and men with too little.
That said, the game has raised an interesting question about female violence perpetrated against men for how the men make them feel. This is not a common theme in games and it is in the reaction to the relatively rare occurrence of this scenario (from those who seemingly enjoy violence in other themes and who apparently lack a degree of self awareness) that we can observe Hey, Baby’s true value: Equal opportunity to behave terribly, virtually.
about 1 month ago
Thanks for commenting, Blue Casket!
I don’t know about Alexander’s post, but what I took Gillen’s post to be saying was that what could seem like polite flirting to the men doing it could actually be harassment to the women experiencing it, especially those women that have to deal with street harassment a lot and are less likely to want to put up with any male attention on the street, no matter where it is on the harassment spectrum. For example, a guy may think tossing out a pickup line at a woman walking by is harmless, but I think that definitely constitutes street harassment in most cases. I think Gillen’s post was trying to explain the problem to clueless dudes, which is why he took that approach.
about 1 month ago
This is just a nitpick, but…
I’d like to mention something I once read.
Power is something other people give you.
Power is, roughly, the ability to get people to do what you want; “power” and “influence” are both pretty much the same thing. As such, pretty women really do have power over men, because men are often willing to do things for them in the hope of getting their attention. And, yes, that power can be easily revoked. But power being revocable doesn’t mean it’s not real power: the power an individual manager has over an employee is revoked as soon as the employee says “I quit” (or the manager’s own boss says “You’re fired”), but few people would dispute that a manager has power over his or her employees.
Amanda’s post is still pretty stupid, though.
about 1 month ago
Doug S., I’d like to mention something I once read:
O. Every power to exert symbolic violence, i.e. every power which manages to impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate by concealing the power relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own specifically symbolic force to those power relations.
By correcting Alex’s definition of Power you are, albeit not consciously, reproducing the very values that a game like “Hey Baby” is trying to tear down.
about 1 month ago
Hey @ Alex,
My concern with this interpretation is that it risks infantilising women. The difficulty here is that there is no identifiable line that can be drawn to decide what is acceptable and what isn’t because a woman’s experience, in this situation, is the variable factor. For sure, we can all agree that shouting “suck my dick” definitely isn’t polite flirting and I genuinely don’t believe that anyone thinks it is (even the men who are neanderthalic enough to shout it). But conversely, when we synonamise making eye contact and a smile with harassment (regardless of whether it was intended as polite flirting or just friendly interaction with another human being) then no matter how low down on the spectrum we’re placing it we’re fundamentally suggesting that men shouldn’t exhibit any kind of warmth (sexual or otherwise) towards a woman in the street because of how she might interpret it. For me this isn’t dissimilar to the benevolent sexism of the past in which men are still essentially the ones giving power to women by appeasing a percieved inherent weakness.
about 1 month ago
I would agree with both Doug and Alex. Although in this case I believe the power is not given by the victims of cat calling but by american society. By defining it as socially appropriate for men to approach women they don’t know and solicit them we enable this behavior and give the harassers the power. See Male privilege.
about 1 month ago
Yeah, it’s just a nitpick; I agree wholeheartedly with the assessment that women don’t have power over catcallers. (I don’t want to derail the discussion any further, so I think I should leave it at that.)
about 1 month ago
when we synonamise making eye contact and a smile with harassment
No one did that.
about 1 month ago
“when we synonamise making eye contact and a smile with harassment”
“No one did that.”
I think Kieron does this in the very quote that you pulled from his article: “You approaching a woman in the street and being what you think is politely flirty is a different thing when, down the street, someone’s suggested that maybe you’d like to suck my dick and you’re a fucking bitch if you don’t. From her perspective, it’s a culture of harassment”
If making eye contact and smiling isn’t polite flirting then we must disagree about what is.
about 1 month ago
Smiling at someone isn’t flirting. It’s just being friendly. And again, he is talking to dudes who want to approach (ie., STOP AND TALK TO) women on the street. He’s talking to dudes who think throwing out a “hilarious” or “clever” pickup line while a woman is trying to catch a train is “politely flirting.”
Again, no one said smiling and making eye contact is harassment.
This is a total nitpicking derailment, people.
about 1 month ago
I put a different name on my last post by accident (Rubacava), nothing surreptitious I assure you
I fail to see how my posts have been derailment but if you feel that way I wont continue to post. This article is an interesting collection of interesting articles about a video game. Commenting on them, the author’s interpretation of the game and how they’ve communicated that to their readers is surely very much on topic.
Without question smiling at someone can be flirting (it can also be a gesture of friendliness) furthermore, it may be seen as being inappropriate. The determining factors are how it’s intended and how it’s received.
In his article Kieron’s clearly equating polite flirting with a harassment. He doesn’t specify one way or the other what he defines as ‘polite flirting’ so your guess is as good as mine. But he fails to place any significance in the intention and instead deems it unacceptable because of how it might be interpreted. I personally found this offensive to women.
about 1 month ago
In his article Kieron’s clearly equating polite flirting with a harassment.
No, he isn’t. He’s saying to male readers that what they think might be flirting could actually be harassment to women. He’s trying to get men to think about how they come across to women, regardless of their intent. He is using this approach so that men listen to him instead of taking the knee-jerk defensive reaction of “I’m not harassing anyone!!!!11″ He’s giving them a benefit of the doubt they don’t (necessarily) deserve just so they will listen.
And he didn’t say anything about just smiling at someone. Smiling is a passive act that doesn’t draw a person’s attention in the way that saying something to someone does. He specifically says: “That your passing desire means you get to derail a woman’s life whenever you feel like it is the absolute definition of male privilege.” Smiling isn’t interrupting anyone or trying to insert yourself into their business. He is talking about opening your mouth and saying something.
And by the way, I’m not sure if you identify as a woman, but if you don’t, you don’t get to decide what’s “offensive to women.”
about 1 month ago
I guess we read the article very differently in this case. Personally, I think he’s saying that what a man might think is polite flirting becomes harassment (regardless of his intent) if a woman has been verbally abused further down the road. But for me, what a man might think is polite flirting could really be a number of things (passive acts included) and what a woman has previously experienced doesn’t change the intent with which it is delivered.
“And by the way, I’m not sure if you identify as a woman, but if you don’t, you don’t get to decide what’s “offensive to women.””
I do identify as a woman but your logic would invalidate Kieron’s article on the grounds of his sex and that’s not something I’m prepared to do. I would hope that all men decide verbal abuse is offensive to women.
“That your passing desire means you get to derail a woman’s life whenever you feel like it is the absolute definition of male privilege.”
I genuinely believe that his intention is good but this quote shows his attitude to still be one of ‘women are the weaker sex’: Don’t flirt with them even if you think you’re being polite because they won’t be able to tell the difference between that and sexual harassment if they’re upset.
It should be assumed that women and men are on a level playing field when it comes to interpreting behaviour. I don’t want men to be socially impotent just because they’re terrified of offending me. Like I said, that would be benevolent sexism.
about 1 month ago
Gillen isn’t making a claim about what’s offensive to women, he’s explaining male privilege. And he’s not saying that women are weaker, he’s saying that we face barriers to public life that men don’t, which is true. He’s not criticizing women, he’s criticizing patriarchy.
And no one’s making blanket statements about telling men not to flirt because it could be harassment. What people ARE saying is trying to get someone’s attention as they’re walking around going about their business is not a good place to flirt. There are appropriate venues for flirting (bars, for example! Or the internet), but the street is not one of them.
And besides, the vast majority of street harassers aren’t innocent guys just trying to get a date, they’re out to intimidate women and prove their manhood to their bros. Again, he’s just trying to get guys to look at the situation from the perspective of a woman who deals with harassment on a daily basis–something he must have actually listened to women about quite a bit, given his understanding of it.
Your comment touches on a lot of myths about street harassment. Try these:
http://www.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/97ph.html
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/street_harassment_ruins_everything/
The first one contains handy guidelines for men to follow so they don’t end up “accidentally” harassing someone. Problem solved.
about 1 month ago
You make many good points Alex, and I agree with most of them I just simply don’t see them being made in Gillen’s article.
If I’ve read your posts correctly your starting argument seems to be that we assume a man has already said something along the lines of ‘suck my dick’ and that he thinks it is polite flirting. My starting argument is that we don’t know what the man has said or done, all we know is that he thinks it’s polite flirting.
If that is a fair description of our positions then I reject the claim that any man thinks shouting ‘suck my dick’ is polite flirting. And if we then ask ‘what if he says this or what if he says that” and present something less severe then we’re back to my question about what constitutes polite flirting.
Gillen is indirectly saying that women are weaker by making the assumption that we’ll be offended by something no matter how it was intended (something that for me he doesn’t define and for you defines clearly). And furthermore by suggesting men are the ones capable of making that distinction. But because of the ambiguity with which he presents the behaviour, for me, his attitude results in undermining a woman’s judgment. This lack of clarification means that a blanket statement is the only thing that can be made of it.
I’m at a loss as to what myths you think I’ve touched on but in regards to your first link; the idea that someone feels it necessary to explain to men that shouting “nice tits” and “stuck up bitch” at women in the street is harassment but that they might not realise how it comes across is so worryingly patronising that it bounces between surrealism and sexism.
Women face the overwhelming majority of social barriers but my personal opinion is that it is counter-productive to feminism to assume men don’t face any. Men are more likely to be the victims of violent crime, for example, but I’ve never heard anyone suggesting that they be treated differently in the street because they might misinterpret something you do or say as being aggressive. I’ve also never heard anyone suggest to other men that when they say “do you want some then?” or “I’ll kick your head in” that it might be taken the wrong way.
Reading through these posts it does seem like we’re starting to repeat ourselves a little. Thank you for your replies though, you’ve certainly made me think more about this issue.
about 1 month ago
“Men are more likely to be the victims of violent crime, ”
I want to see the research on that one. From what I have gathered, women are the likely victims of violent crime. All that just sounds like “Think of the menzz!111″ Really they have a lot more looking out of them than women do.
Honestly, I feel any man approaching me on the street is out to harass me. It’s just what I’ve learnt from the rape culture that is prevalent today.
about 1 month ago
According to the FBI, in 2004, 10,990 men and 3,099 women were murdered.
I don’t know if this generalizes to all violent crime, but men are clearly more likely to be murdered than women are.
about 1 month ago
(In the United States, that is.)
about 1 month ago
I think if you looked at rape as an aspect of violent crime you would find that women are clearly more likely to be brutalized then men.
about 1 month ago
then = than . I hate myself and grammer.
about 1 month ago
also spelling
about 1 month ago
Doug S.: It was stated “violent crime”. I can see you went with “murder” as being a violent crime and ignored domestic violence, rape, and sheer assault and battery. I don’t really consider murder as violent. Once the person is dead they can’t really feel much pain. Certainly they can suffer before they die, but they don’t have to live with the scars and mental trauma that those other violent crimes consist of.
about 1 month ago
Maverynthia, men ARE more likely to be victims of violent crime, in general. Among specific violent crimes, rape is the only one where women are far more likely to be the victim is rape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_and_crime
However, most perpetrators of violent crimes are also men.
None of this means that violence against women isn’t an important feminist issue, because the crimes that are committed against women are particularly gendered (eg., 1 in 6 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime compared to 1 in 33 men, and the vast majority of rapists are men; most domestic violence survivors are women; these crimes are often not taken seriously because of social attitudes about women’s roles [as property of men], etc.).
See also Twisty, via Feminism 101:
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/feminism-friday-two-posts-from-jill-at-feministe-on-rape-myths-vs-statistics/
And come on, murder isn’t “as” violent? Really? That is a seriously inappropriate statement. It doesn’t matter what YOU consider violent, it’s a simple fact that taking someone’s life is by definition violent.
about 1 month ago
And Casket, if you really think that feminists assume men have it easy and don’t face any social barriers, I suggest you take a while to go through the Feminism 101 blog I linked in the above comment. Your comments have contained similar myths about both feminism and the issue of street harassment (for example, that men don’t need to be told shouting at women in the street is harassment–actually, many do), and I ask that you please do some reading on both before commenting again. I have linked three sources for you already, and there are more on the “Helpful Resources” page linked in the header.
Or, here’s a good place to start: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/phmt-argument/