THIS TOPIC IS NOT:
- about DmC's gameplay
- about comparisons between DmC and mainline DMC
THIS TOPIC IS:
- about DmC's overtly misogynistic overtones
- about how DmC fans (and haters) seem to almost never talk about these issues
Almost exactly one year ago I made a LTTP thread about DmC regarding my appalled reaction to its flagrant misogyny and its poor depiction of its female characters. And almost immediately I go replies from people telling me but um ackshully the gameplay is good and mainline DMC is no better in its treatment of women. And to that I say FUCK OFF, especially after I repeatedly acknowledged DMC's own writing issues in that very thread. Which brings me to the point of me making a new topic about this. I've honestly grown rather sick of discourse surrounding DmC and how people - from both its fans AND its haters - seem to ignore the really important problems this game's writing suffers from. I don't care whether people think it's the best DmC game or whether it's a good game but a bad DMC game - what I care about is the visceral distate I felt the entire time I was playing this game and felt it was a direct attack on marginalized groups from developers who possessed genuine bigotry towards, and no amount of people telling me that the gameplay is actually amazing and the best in the series or what the fuck ever is going to change how I feel about these issues.
If you haven't read my previous topic or don't feel like it, the gist is that I had criticized how DmC's female characters lack agency, strong character motivations, or any genuine development that doesn't involve some kind of targeted sexual violence. There is not a single woman in this game who isn't an accessory to the masculation of a man; every background female character is a stripper or prostitute meant for eye candy and to show how actually really fucking good every man in this game apparently is at sex. Dante's very first scene involves him having sex with two hookers in his dump of a trailer and this is not played in any way remotely ironic or satirical. His first meeting with Kat is flagrantly flashing his junk at her, and I don't think making your main character an unapologetic sexual harasser is a good way to make him endearing off the bat. But that's not even the worst thing that happens to Kat in this game; she's a very weak character who gets no present day development whatsoever, is kidnapped and brutally tortured in order to give Dante some semblance of a personal stake in this scenario, and her backstory involves her being raped and tortured by her father as a child. Rape as backstory is a common fallback for male writers who don't know how to develop a female character in a traumatic way so the only thing they know what to do to give her some "depth" is to subject her to a history of sexual violence. And of course this never actually contributes to Kat's own growth as a character, it's just meant to make us feel sorry for her and to motivate Dante in wanting to protect her.
Beyond that, the only two other named female characters in DmC are Lilith and Eve. Eve is constantly, CONSTANTLY referred to as a whore, a bitch, or a slut by almost every other character in the game that isn't our three main heroes, and of course what happened to her? She was tortured and murdered by demons. Lilith, who says word for word "The world is your bitch, as am I" to Mundus among other phrases of emasculation in his presence, is mostly known for the game's infamous sniper rifle abortion sequence which is so tonally out of touch and tasteless even by this game's low standards, and in spite of Dante briefly going "What the fuck?" at Vergil for it, he gets over it mere moments later and even later mocks Mundus for her and their baby's deaths. Sure she was an evil demon but why the fuck was her death so human and realistic in that case? Was it necessary for Vergil to shoot her pregnant stomach when he could have just shot her in the head killing them both instantly? It's pure shock value and I don't think the game actually wants us to dislike Vergil for his actions considering Dante was perfectly compliant with them and never once even brings it up when the two inevitably fall out from each other's good graces.
But hey, it's not just this game's shitty ass writing that makes me think the writers absolutely fucking hate women. Take a look at this fantastic interview with DmC's very own director, Tameem Antoniades:
Yeah, so Ninja Theory's idea of a strong, attractive woman is one who "[doesn't have] the biggest tits" but rather someone "who could be your girlfriend." In other words, a woman who REMAINS an object of desire for the male player, and not someone with her own independence and agency outside of that. How in the fucking hell can anyone read this interview and still tell me that this game is amazing is something I will never fucking understand about most of DmC's fanbase.
Which brings me to why I'm making a new thread about these issues one year later instead of simply bumping my old thread to do so. Why the fuck do DmC fans constantly gloss over these issues or never even address them when someone else brings them up? It's almost always "This game rules, never understood the people hating it just because of the white hair lololol!" with absolutely nobody willing to engage with this title on a deeper critical level. And when I do see people criticize it it's generally about how it compares to mainline DMC, and like look I get it, I like mainline better than DmC too but that's still not getting to the fundamental point to why I don't like this game. It's a genuinely offensive, hateful piece of work that I believe is truly representative of the anti-Japanese game sentiment that plagued the industry in the 2010s during which this game came out. Tons of journalist pieces would push the agenda that any loser who hated this game was merely butthurt over it being different from the totally uncool Japanese tities. I think this shit really dilutes any possible meaningful critique we could have had in the last ten or so years surrounding what REALLY makes DmC a bad game, and it's not because of its gameplay or its deviation from the original games. It's because it has a truly disgusting, spiteful story that is impossible to overlook when playing it, and I think this is the more serious matter that people should be discussing, and what measures we could take to improve discourse surrounding it from both its fans and its haters.
Look, if you still like DmC after all of this I'm not saying you're a bad person for it. I did finish the game when I played it last year since the gameplay wasn't outright bad and while different from what made me like the originals, still had a fun action game vibe at points. If you can acknowledge the problems this game has even while saying you enjoy it (or at the very least understand why other people wouldn't enjoy DmC as much as you do), then good for you, you're probably not the kind of person I'm bitching about in this topic. But the reason I hate DmC goes far beyond that frivolous stuff and I can barely acknowledge the gameplay or its differences from the original DMC games beyond a footnote of my list of complaints. And I wish I could actually talk about this shit with people on this forum without being told that my complaints don't matter because the game is fun or that the Japanese games have their own issues regarding female character writing. Which they DO, and I don't want anyone coming into this topic thinking I'm saying some shit like DMC has great woman representation, because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that DmC is WORSE because at LEAST the other games don't subject them to rape, torture, misogynstic insults, and mere tools to make the male characters' dicks seem bigger than they really are.
So yeah, come on and tell me after I wrote all that that DmC is still the best game ever 10/10 the haters are so unreasonable. I'm not letting this shit go because I want to force people to come out and acknowledge this game's problems if I fucking have to, because anytime a thread comes along and the drive-by defenders parrot the same shit I've been hearing the last 10+ years it just drives me up a fucking wall considering what this game actually represents for the writers' own beliefs and the general attitude of the industry at the time.
- about DmC's gameplay
- about comparisons between DmC and mainline DMC
THIS TOPIC IS:
- about DmC's overtly misogynistic overtones
- about how DmC fans (and haters) seem to almost never talk about these issues
Almost exactly one year ago I made a LTTP thread about DmC regarding my appalled reaction to its flagrant misogyny and its poor depiction of its female characters. And almost immediately I go replies from people telling me but um ackshully the gameplay is good and mainline DMC is no better in its treatment of women. And to that I say FUCK OFF, especially after I repeatedly acknowledged DMC's own writing issues in that very thread. Which brings me to the point of me making a new topic about this. I've honestly grown rather sick of discourse surrounding DmC and how people - from both its fans AND its haters - seem to ignore the really important problems this game's writing suffers from. I don't care whether people think it's the best DmC game or whether it's a good game but a bad DMC game - what I care about is the visceral distate I felt the entire time I was playing this game and felt it was a direct attack on marginalized groups from developers who possessed genuine bigotry towards, and no amount of people telling me that the gameplay is actually amazing and the best in the series or what the fuck ever is going to change how I feel about these issues.
If you haven't read my previous topic or don't feel like it, the gist is that I had criticized how DmC's female characters lack agency, strong character motivations, or any genuine development that doesn't involve some kind of targeted sexual violence. There is not a single woman in this game who isn't an accessory to the masculation of a man; every background female character is a stripper or prostitute meant for eye candy and to show how actually really fucking good every man in this game apparently is at sex. Dante's very first scene involves him having sex with two hookers in his dump of a trailer and this is not played in any way remotely ironic or satirical. His first meeting with Kat is flagrantly flashing his junk at her, and I don't think making your main character an unapologetic sexual harasser is a good way to make him endearing off the bat. But that's not even the worst thing that happens to Kat in this game; she's a very weak character who gets no present day development whatsoever, is kidnapped and brutally tortured in order to give Dante some semblance of a personal stake in this scenario, and her backstory involves her being raped and tortured by her father as a child. Rape as backstory is a common fallback for male writers who don't know how to develop a female character in a traumatic way so the only thing they know what to do to give her some "depth" is to subject her to a history of sexual violence. And of course this never actually contributes to Kat's own growth as a character, it's just meant to make us feel sorry for her and to motivate Dante in wanting to protect her.
Beyond that, the only two other named female characters in DmC are Lilith and Eve. Eve is constantly, CONSTANTLY referred to as a whore, a bitch, or a slut by almost every other character in the game that isn't our three main heroes, and of course what happened to her? She was tortured and murdered by demons. Lilith, who says word for word "The world is your bitch, as am I" to Mundus among other phrases of emasculation in his presence, is mostly known for the game's infamous sniper rifle abortion sequence which is so tonally out of touch and tasteless even by this game's low standards, and in spite of Dante briefly going "What the fuck?" at Vergil for it, he gets over it mere moments later and even later mocks Mundus for her and their baby's deaths. Sure she was an evil demon but why the fuck was her death so human and realistic in that case? Was it necessary for Vergil to shoot her pregnant stomach when he could have just shot her in the head killing them both instantly? It's pure shock value and I don't think the game actually wants us to dislike Vergil for his actions considering Dante was perfectly compliant with them and never once even brings it up when the two inevitably fall out from each other's good graces.
But hey, it's not just this game's shitty ass writing that makes me think the writers absolutely fucking hate women. Take a look at this fantastic interview with DmC's very own director, Tameem Antoniades:
"I've nothing against big tits," he assured PSM3. "I'd rather have my head resting on a pair right now – but if you're going to try and stimulate someone on different levels, there's better ways to do it."
"If you look at the stars in movies, the women people find really attractive are often not the ones with the biggest tits. You've got to be attractive on a different level."
True enough, female game leads do tend to be somewhat less aerodynamic and considerably more buoyant than their movie counterparts – Either due to the relative youth of the medium, or simply because of the (wrong) common consensus that most gamers are of the spotty, hormonal male variety.
"We did that in Enslaved with Trip. People loved her, not because she had big breasts and high heels, but because she felt like someone who could be your girlfriend," he said.
"That to me is more attractive than a prostitute walking around with a big gun," he added. "Not to demean prostitutes – it's a valid form of commerce."
DmC: Devil May Cry Dev Talks Boobs - The Escapist
www.escapistmagazine.com
Yeah, so Ninja Theory's idea of a strong, attractive woman is one who "[doesn't have] the biggest tits" but rather someone "who could be your girlfriend." In other words, a woman who REMAINS an object of desire for the male player, and not someone with her own independence and agency outside of that. How in the fucking hell can anyone read this interview and still tell me that this game is amazing is something I will never fucking understand about most of DmC's fanbase.
Which brings me to why I'm making a new thread about these issues one year later instead of simply bumping my old thread to do so. Why the fuck do DmC fans constantly gloss over these issues or never even address them when someone else brings them up? It's almost always "This game rules, never understood the people hating it just because of the white hair lololol!" with absolutely nobody willing to engage with this title on a deeper critical level. And when I do see people criticize it it's generally about how it compares to mainline DMC, and like look I get it, I like mainline better than DmC too but that's still not getting to the fundamental point to why I don't like this game. It's a genuinely offensive, hateful piece of work that I believe is truly representative of the anti-Japanese game sentiment that plagued the industry in the 2010s during which this game came out. Tons of journalist pieces would push the agenda that any loser who hated this game was merely butthurt over it being different from the totally uncool Japanese tities. I think this shit really dilutes any possible meaningful critique we could have had in the last ten or so years surrounding what REALLY makes DmC a bad game, and it's not because of its gameplay or its deviation from the original games. It's because it has a truly disgusting, spiteful story that is impossible to overlook when playing it, and I think this is the more serious matter that people should be discussing, and what measures we could take to improve discourse surrounding it from both its fans and its haters.
Look, if you still like DmC after all of this I'm not saying you're a bad person for it. I did finish the game when I played it last year since the gameplay wasn't outright bad and while different from what made me like the originals, still had a fun action game vibe at points. If you can acknowledge the problems this game has even while saying you enjoy it (or at the very least understand why other people wouldn't enjoy DmC as much as you do), then good for you, you're probably not the kind of person I'm bitching about in this topic. But the reason I hate DmC goes far beyond that frivolous stuff and I can barely acknowledge the gameplay or its differences from the original DMC games beyond a footnote of my list of complaints. And I wish I could actually talk about this shit with people on this forum without being told that my complaints don't matter because the game is fun or that the Japanese games have their own issues regarding female character writing. Which they DO, and I don't want anyone coming into this topic thinking I'm saying some shit like DMC has great woman representation, because that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that DmC is WORSE because at LEAST the other games don't subject them to rape, torture, misogynstic insults, and mere tools to make the male characters' dicks seem bigger than they really are.
So yeah, come on and tell me after I wrote all that that DmC is still the best game ever 10/10 the haters are so unreasonable. I'm not letting this shit go because I want to force people to come out and acknowledge this game's problems if I fucking have to, because anytime a thread comes along and the drive-by defenders parrot the same shit I've been hearing the last 10+ years it just drives me up a fucking wall considering what this game actually represents for the writers' own beliefs and the general attitude of the industry at the time.
