> Cherry picking 1:18 - Dinosaur Planet

What's the cherry picking? It's used to "illustrate how the damsel in distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own right." An illustration need not be a random sample nor a carefully selected representative sample, and I didn't hear any claim to be so.

What's ambiguous about "disempowering"? Most of the presentation elaborates on how "disempower" is an appropriate word in this context.

> False attribution 10:38

This section interprets the trope using the subject/object dichotomy, where subjects act and objects are acted upon. This does restrict things to a single dimension, and you may think it's not a useful reduction. But objectification means "denial of autonomy, inertness." Where is the false attribution?

> Slippery Slope 10:48

Is the time quote right? The text around 10:48 doesn't mention kidnapping. ".. damseled women are acted upon, most often reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved." Perhaps you mean the kidnapping implicit in being 'damseled'?

But, the presenter at 17:50 gives examples of how imprisoned (kidnapped people are imprisoned) male characters are not treated as objects. "They are ultimately able to gain back their own freedom. In fact that process of being able to overcome the ordeal is an important step..." Clearly, kidnapping does not imply that the kidnapee is necessarily an object, and I don't see how you draw the opposite conclusion.

> Black or white fallacy 11:19

Where does the presenter say that games where women are not the main focus are necessarily sexist? I don't get that inference that you draw. This is about the damsel in distress trope.

> Browser is not important and you don't even think about him until the end of the game

Bowser is the antagonist in the games. He has motivation for what he does, even if that doesn't affect most of the game play. Eg, from Wikipedia "His ultimate goals are to marry Princess Peach, defeat Mario, and conquer the Mushroom Kingdom." Under the subject/object description, Bowser is definitely a subject when looking at the Mario series as a narrative, rather than just a set of actions.

Tell me - what motivates Princess Peach? Does she have any goals? What actions does she do to carry out those goals? If you can't answer those questions then she's an object, not a subject.

> Cherry picking 12:30

"Cherry picking" doesn't really apply when there are "literally hundreds" of examples. But in any case, your objections of the last three paragraphs are not related to this presentation. The goal of this video was to examine the 'damsel in distress' trope, not to examine sexism or lack thereof in all video games.

> doing it in a overly-formal tone just to look more serious to gain credibility with mostly biased, false or unrelated claims

I disagree quite strongly. The language was easy to understand, the logic consistent, and the points valid.

In another video ("Feminism in Focus - Anita Sarkeesian"), the presenter says "I started Feminist Frequency because I felt like feminism was sort of trapped in academic spaces and politically radical spaces ... in this language that was really hard to understand and I wanted to create a space where feminism was easy to engage with in an accessible way."

So what may be throwing you off is that the presenter uses (and explains!) literary analysis techniques, while you are not used to this rigorous presentation style.

As an example, you might say "Indiana Jones is the protagonist of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. The Nazis die in the climax and the Ark is hidden in a vast warehouse in the dénouement" then you are specifically using a literary analysis described by Freytag.

I might come along and ridicule you for using an overly-formal tone, when everyone knows that "Indiana Jones is the good guy in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', the Nazis all die just when it looks like they are going to win, and it finishes with the Ark being hidden into a large warehouse."

We've said exactly the same things, but in this analogy you are using the more technical language while I am using the less precise vocabulary.

I propose that this is quite analogous to the case here. This is a literary analysis, and so it is entirely appropriate to use terminology from that domain. I suspect you haven't had much experience with feminist analysis, and so the use of basic technical vocabulary from that field - even when explained - makes you think it's overly-formal.

I have not studied feminist analysis, but I have studied some literary and a lot of scientific analysis. I saw nothing in this presentation which was overly formal or lacked credibility.