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EmptyTimCup
Guest
Sexism In Fighting Game Culture Says Nothing About Gamers, But It Says Everything About Bullies
If you’ve been around any tech or gaming sites this week, you’ve already seen the big brouhaha surrounding Cross Assault, a fighting game reality show sponsored by Capcom. To sum up: The leader of the Tekken team, Aris Bakhtanians, made a number of rather jaw-dropping remarks concerning sexual harassment in the fighting game community, which he seems to view as a God-given right. Player Miranda Pakozdi later threw a match after Bakhtanians — her own teammate, mind you — continued to harass her (queries about her bra size were the just the tip of the iceberg).
The whole to-do has already been covered extensively elsewhere, and a significant portion of the fighting game community has loudly decried Bakhtanians’ actions, stating that his boorish behavior is not reflective of gaming culture as a whole. If you’re a gamer, you already know that. There are plenty of awesome gamer guys out there who would never even consider engaging in this kind of nonsense. The Cross Assault incident is yet another case of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch.
However, what I would like to address is the all-too-familiar sentiment behind Bakhtanians’ appalling comments. The argument I see popping up a lot around this issue — and indeed, around most discussions of sexism, racism, or homophobia — is one of censorship. It goes like this: Trash-talking is funny, comedy is inherently cruel, and toning it down every time someone gets offended flies in the face of free speech. If you don’t get the joke, then go somewhere else.
Okay, yes, but…no.