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9 Feb
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Posted by Musashi
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This week we talk some video games – Farmville and Saints Row 3 – and review the Filipino exploitation film documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! And after the movie talk, find out why Alex is the ‘Filipino Ron Jeremy’.
Show Notes
| Category: Podcast | Tag: exploitation flicks, film, machete maidens unleashed, Philippines, Podcast |
Heya!
Re McDonald’s in Japan: The reason for pork explosion in fast food is because of the mad cow disease scare from imported US beef from a few years ago that led them to cut off most continental American beef. It pretty much NUKED all “beef-centric” businesses, and most had to switch to pork or other.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshinoya
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/01/01/2003085969
Still, wondering if she accidentally ordered a McPork Burger? I saw that they created it in a response to crappy beef sales in 2001-2004 because of the scare, but it looks like after that they went back to regular beef, yet still serve the minced pork burgers as well… Hmmm.
Also, Catwoman in Batman: I dunno, this issue is a gestalt depending on how you see things. I agree that folks who haven’t played the game and just want to wring their hands at the sky should just go STFU. However, when I played it through, then went back and played the Catwoman missions, I *totally* noticed that every peon, every baddie (incl Two Face and all his goons) I encountered were all constantly screaming “Get that bitch!” and other things. It was probably that in their move for randomized bad-guy soundbites, no one lined them up to realize that a majority of them had “bitch” in them. It made me a little uneasy that every single line every character said at one point involved “BITCH!” (usually in a sneery-voice) in some way. It was enough that I took notice of it, and this was like DAYS before it became the big internet hubub.
(and yet, I love most of Saints Row 3 as well, go figure)
Oh yeah, now I do seem to remember reports of beef bowl joints getting hit hard because of that business.
As for the Catwoman stuff, I haven’t played it myself so I reserve judgement. Still conflicted about it, since I play the heck out of SR and GTA and those both put you in the position of being the aggressor. It’s not like I sit around and yell ‘Bitch’ at my TV for hours on end while abusing women, but capping innocent bystanders happens alot, and it happens to women frequently. At least in Batman – you’re the one who’s empowered. It might be tasteless, but criminals are a tasteless lot.
I think they changed the bitch frequency, as I got the game later, but I couldn’t get anyone to actually answer the question of when they played the game so it’s hard for me to confirm. I had absolutely no problem, but I also still quote the Dave Chappelle show. So “Sayonara bitches,” or ” I’m rich, bitch,” are part of my lexicon. I suspect that I’m part of the Patriarchy.
Again I found the rape threats more transgressive, but still have no problem with the game making that choice. Just wished they threatened to rape the bat’s too… now that would have generated some talk.
I still see other games which I think cross the line in ways that Batman doesn’t. In Heavy Rain, for instance, there’s an extended sequence in which you (as the game’s female protagonist) can engage in a lengthy, and pretty tasteless, striptease sequence in order to lull a suspect into a false sense of security. The way the game is designed there are interactive motions for *everything*, and the game doesn’t end until she’s more or less completely naked. That bothered me more than anything I’ve heard about Batman – but again, I’ve not played Batman yet…so I could be talking out my ass.
NSFW
I’d be curious of your analysis of bitch frequency if you played the game again in the future Andy. I still suspect some of the perception difference is in the code.
Hey Clyde, that’s a thought I actually had at the time. I played the Catwoman scenarios pretty much in the course of an afternoon, was kinda off-put by it but otherwise “whatevs”. Then I sold my copy of the game (cause I was done with it, not because of issues or anything; I tend to quickly recycle games so as not to lose money, and to have more cash on hand to buy more games!) . Then about three days later I saw the news on Kotaku and other places (“Ahhh, it wasn’t just me then, other folks noticed it too”).
About two weeks later, I saw your posts back on G+ I think, and saw you draw a lot of criticism. However, you stated that you simply didn’t hear the words that much (as opposed to me and the Kotaku guy, where it was quite literally – not figuratively – every single sentence). That led me to think at the time (I was busy then so I forget if I posted publicly or not) that they did surreptitiously fix the language behind-the-scenes; and whereas you were getting chewed out for “not recognizing the inherent sexism”, it was actually a case that “you didn’t begin playing it until that sexism was recognized, fixed behind the scenes*, patched then redistributed”.
* (could have been the company recognizing the problem and fixing it; or it could have been something as technical as “There are 20 lines of dialogue, but our algorythm keeps selecting these top 4, all which are the Worst of the lines. Gotta fix that…” Unfortunately, no one is saying)
But based on the difference between the early players’ experiences (from release to the first two weeks), then yours a few weeks later, I honestly did assume that they had simply fixed it before you loaded it up.
Cause it was pretty bad at the time.
-Andy