To the specific point on Sarkeesians's work, what you propose sounds like making a review of a review which is something that feel is in poor tact and frowned upon in published writing. Sure, that's what happens in university research, but I have rarely seen it in op/eds for pop culture products. I think the games press lets Sarkeesian's videos stand on their own and trust the audience to come to their own thoughts and conclusions in a respectful manner. Or maybe some of them don't care about the videos or their line of thinking and just let the videos exist peacefully out of their minds.
My problem with this argument is that Sarkeesian doesn't present these videos as just another series of reviews on the internet. They are
meant to be academic-style critiques on the history and evolution of gaming culture. If that wasn't clear just watching the videos, it's right there in her stretch goals on her
kickstarter page: "
Tropes vs Women in Video Games Classroom Curriculum". This is meant to be part of a
teaching tool used to discuss and instruct people outside our industry
on our industry. Sorry, but in the academic world, when you release a paper on a particular subject, it is discussed; debated; and critiqued
by your peers. And I'm sorry, but I were to release an academic paper with as many holes; lack of proper sourcing; flagrant mis-use of words ("misogyny"); and fondness of blanket, unsupported statements as Sarkeesian has in her videos, I'd be the laughing stock of the academic world. When a politician goes up and makes a speech, you have journalists racing around the clock to fact-check and critique their arguments, because it is their
duty to present the truth to their audience.
It would be one thing if Sarkeesian just released her videos, the internet talked about it, and that was that. But no, instead websites like Joystiq or Polygon take great pleasure in posting an article about her latest video, say
absolutely nothing about their views of the content (yet treat it as "important"), and then call out anyone who disagrees with her work as misogynist.I really wonder if they're afraid of the backlash from the cult of Sarkeesian if any site actually took a stand and seriously examined their work. If gaming culture is to grow and evolve, we owe it
to ourselves to critique and examine works such as Sarkeesian's, even if we agree with them. That's how the discussion happens, and that's how we better ourselves.
My issue with this whole controversy is that both sides will not accept that change needs to happen on both ends. Gaming culture
in general (I accept that we on NWR are on the enlightened side of that spectrum just based on the fact that we can have this conversation calmly and rationally, without the moderators having to get involved) needs to accept that we need fresh blood. We
need female perspective in our industry, alongside us on the controller; reporting for us in the media; and working to create the next great new idea in the development community. We can't accept or tolerate the casual racism of Xbox live, nor the overt sexism of 4chan (just as examples).
However, by the same token, the gaming media needs to be willing to acknowledge that they have become, circumstantially, the same sort of "hive mind" that they're fond of accusing their audience of being. I'm not saying there's a malicious intent or overt conspiracy behind it. The talent that runs our favorite websites comes from an astonishingly small pool of experiences; backgrounds; and aspirations. Add in that people fairly frequently cross between the development and journalistic communities, and you have an astonishingly inbred gaming industry. So when you have the media circling the wagons around their
friends in the development community (even to the extent of outright
subsidizing their lifestyle through programs like Patreon) or someone like Sarkeesian without ANY critical explanation, it gives a very negative appearance when judged against the more "separation of church and state"-style journalistic integrity of other journalistic fields.
TL;DR Version: Both sides need to **** off and let us all get back to discussing games again. I'm tired of the in-fighting over something we all love.