Thursday, December 31, 2015

Gamma overreach

Damien Walter is going to work GamerGate and Sad Puppies into his review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens if it kills him:
Call me a geek, but the highlight of my Christmas season was seeing Daisy Ridley as Rey in The Force Awakens, grasping Luke’s old lightsaber, with the John Williams epic score swirling behind her, before beating seven shades out of one of cinema's most creepy-yet-terrifying villains.

If Rey and other kick-ass heroines are icons of geek feminism, Kylo Ren seems like a portrait of geek masculinity at its worst. Twitter has declared the black-helmeted Kylo a “Ren’s Rights Activist”, and that's not the only way the nerd knight reminds us of the most atrocious geek male behaviour of 2015.

Kylo Ren impotently thrashing a computer with his big red sword is the perfect portrait of Gamergate, the online hate campaign that continued its crusade against feminist video game reviewers in 2015. If Kylo Ren’s buddies in the First Order have a manifesto, don't be surprised if point one is "actually it's about ethics in galactic domination".

Whether it was the attempt to push women and writers of colour out of the 2015 Hugo awards, OpalGate and other incidents around the open source software movement, or the backlash against female comic book characters, the same pattern repeated  across geek culture in 2015 - angry men acting like bigots because they believed something only they should be entitled to was being taken away.

There's an unfortunate overlap between geek culture and the “manosphere”. Men who still harbour the low self-esteem often associated with geek culture can be easily sucked in by "meninist" rhetoric, absurd ideas of Alpha and Gamma maleness, pick-up training, and a toxic attitude to women that has enthroned feminism as its enemy.
As one commenter noted: "Yes, a movie that started back in 2012 has a character based on a movement almost three years in the future. Is this what passes for journalism? "

SJW journalism, anyhow.

13 comments:

NMA said...

When he finally finishes destroying his journalistic career, Damien Walter is going to end up working in McDonalds, and he'll be telling the customers that Gamergate is the reason the ketchup dispenser is blocked.

Shimshon said...

Remind me who Damien Walter is again? Any relation to Phil Sandifer?

JCDaedalus said...

@Shimshon
He's a self-styled British "author" who has yet to pen a single work, and lives off the government's money under a supposed "book welfare" scheme. Oh, and he also has a Patreon. When Sad Puppies first rolled around, he tried to pick a fight with the Ilk. You can read more at VP.

Dexter said...

The obligatory response to anything Damien writes:

"How's that book coming along?"

Unknown said...

Geek feminism: it's men, with tits.

modsquad said...

I'd like to thank them for liberating me. The SJW incessant bitching about everything has freed me from caring about anything. Should there be a day where a truly legitimate social grievance surfaces, I'll still no longer care to listen or assist. Row your own boat.

Shimshon said...

@JCDaedalus Sorry I was just having fun. I know who he is. He's a nobody loser.

Rex Little said...

Damien Walter is going to work GamerGate and Sad Puppies into his review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens if it kills him

I dunno, to me it reads more like he's working Star Wars TFA into a rant against Gamergate and the manosphere.

And BTW, that "one commenter" is the only commenter there.

Rex Little said...

Oops, ignore my last sentence. That one comment shows up when you load the article, but there are more to see if you click on "Comments."

Revelation Means Hope said...

what makes it funny is that the creepiness of the Ren character is because he is a gamma.

Like Damien himself.

Sokrates said...

Yes SJW journalism. No surprise - we will see a lot of it 2016 too. There is a lot of work to do.
http://http://freedompowerandwealth.com

darrenl said...

..and the fact that Kylo was first seriously injured by a male Wookie had no affect on the battle with Rey. Right?

I mean...what is TFA really saying here? That a woman needs a male to soften up her enemy first before she can ever defeat him? Pitty.

Dark Herald said...

Honestly if wasn't for right wing click-hate Walters would have no traffic at all.

There was a lot of good and bad in Star Wars. John C. Wright and I disagree on on Kylo Ren. I actually liked the character, he was a lot better developed than any of the other Star Wars villains of the past. Darth Maul looked cool, sure but he was completely undeveloped as a character (making him no different than any character in the prequals).

But JCW and I agree completely on Rey. She was a simply a bad character.

THE BAD

Rey. Daisy Ridley again fine job. Nuff said. Rey is the Princess-who-Rescues-Herself. Doesn't need a man in her life and never will. Rey is pure feminist wish fulfillment. No explanation at all is given for her hyper-competence in everything. And the bad part is the production team clearly felt none was needed. It is purest Grrrrrrl Power. She is already being hailed as a Feminist Icon because she isn't real. Standard Korra-Pixie-Ninja. She gets really mad at Finn for holding her hand and trying to save her when they are being shot at. She can do that herself thank you very much.


No surprise that Rey has Walters making frequent, awkward trips to the bathroom.

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