Could we possibly put the video after the bump, so my coworkers don't think I spend my time looking at porn?

That skit is a wonderful example of how what appears to be fighting sexism can in fact reinforce it.
Note the continued use of "girls" to refer to the women; men as teachers, women as eye-candy; representation of men only as gamers; the man-splaining all over the place; and I'm sure I've missed a number of things because all I can think is oh my god, did they seriously cover the woman's exposed breasts with melons?

Nobody honestly thinks those skimpy outfits are going to hold up in a fight, and whatever the purpose behind this was, "women fighting in skimpy outfits" is not going to tear down anyone's sexism.

I wonder if they tried to convince actual women martial artists to wear the outfits. Would have probably been more insightful to hear the women's opinion of wearing "Video game clothes" vs the traditional clothes they would wear to a tournament

I totally agree with anonymouse....I was going to ask at the end of the video (silly me, i'd assumed it was going to be a real test) whether there were any issues with the host of the show being male in a context like this. But I got as far as "we didn't actually make an effort to find TRAINED women, just pretty ones" and I basically had to turn it off. This could have been a really interesting unscientific test - bring in two real swordfighters with painted boffer weapons, and see how many times the women would have been hit in unprotected areas; attempt martial arts forms and see how well or badly the costume stayed in place. This was not that video.

Yup, anonymouse gets the cheese and this video gets the gong.

Things this video learned me up on:

Hot women are inept and martial artists couldn't possibly be hot.

A few seconds of a woman objectifying a man makes all the male gaze totes okay, plus you can mock women's desire. Two for one!

Women need to use a nice tone of voice or the dudes get all sad.

Hipster humour is really all about reinforcing the status quo. (But I knew that one already.)

I was especially insulted at the implication that there are no female martial arts masters (or that they couldn't find any who were pretty enough...or had large enough boobs). That is a load of crap. And the fact that the two women playing the role of the video game characters were silent the entire time! It basically turned them into sexual objects merely there for the male gaze to see two video game sex fantasy characters brought to life.

Good to see the word "hipster" already used twice in the comments to attack this video! Ah yes, the word with no meaning, applied indiscriminately as a catch-all, wink-wink you-know-what-I-mean put-down.

PS: At 0:07 into the video, "girl" is used as a descriptor. At that point, how can ANYONE take what follows seriously? The other heads-up about the video's true nature is that the video is FROM A YOUTUBE COMEDY CHANNEL.

Just look at the channel's logo:

http://i3.ytimg.com/u/zH3iADRIq1IJlIXjfNgTpA/watch_icon.jpg?v=4bb246a1

It screams "marketing and branding attempt." If one looks at the channel's info page there's currently a link to purchase an unfunny shirt about zombies. All of these signs should alert a viewer to the untrustworthy nature of the video's source, and by extension, the video itself.

So while it's really embarrassing Sociological Images considers this video to be a worthwhile analysis of gender dynamics, this post DOES provide an excellent example of the constant necessity for vigilant critical reading and viewing skills.

You all act like there is something wrong in objectifying women. Those were some hot girls though, gotta get those costumes for my girl.

That was awesome. I'm a big proponent of ridiculing the ridiculous.

Without this truly informative video, how would we have had any clue that those skimpy video game outfits are impractical?

So did we just glaze over the part where the female host was rubbing down the guy and the male host was stumbling because he was trying to maintain the stereotypical male dominance?

To me it seemed fairly obvious that they were poking fun at things you seem to think they were actually being serious about.

I love this blog but sometimes it just seems like there is a whole lot of over analyzing going on.

I mean did you really expect and ACTUAL scientific test? You know, with like peer review and stuff? What do you expect the results to be?

It's a comedy show...

Okay people, listen up.

This is a blog. Sometimes, what's posted might not be 100% serious. Usually, the person who posted will say something like:
"Lindsey V. sent in a considerably-humorous skit in which two great sports are dressed in the sexy outfits of two genuine-video-game-characters and set to battle. Hijinks and wardrobe malfunctions insue"
They don't take it seriously. Neither should you. Laugh. Not everything is academic.

That is all.

Was Ivy the best example of generic-scantily-clad-game-character? The sexual politics of her whole dominatrix outfit strike me as kind complicated (and I don't mean to suggest that there's some grand nuance there, just that there seems to be more to psychology behind the design than the usual thoughtless objectification). /niggle

it is surprising (and by that I mean not at all) that the four comments with stereotypically male name basically said "get over it". Sure, some non gender indicating and female indicating names said the same thing, but ALL of the male indicating named posts (at the time of my reading) did it.

Yes, the old, "lets objectify a man so we can get away with objectifying women" trick. I don't buy it, I don't think it makes it better. the outfits were falling off, by the end, by design. ha, ha half naked women are now even more naked! how edifying. it is Blatently sexist.

and homophobic. "why are YOUR hand oily" she asks, he then stammers and says there is no reason, and we are led to believe he had oiled up the man as well, which he couldn't admit to! HOW GAY!! I repeat, treating a man as an object doesn't make treating women as objects ok. it just means we shouldn't treat people as objects.

as for the "but what do you expect its COMEDY so lighten up" comments, what I expect does not have bearing on whether I am allowed to critique it. Just because I should "expect" this, doesn't mean I have to be thrilled by it, or not call out the bull shit. I expect lots of horrible things, that doesn't mean I have to sit down and shut up about them.

also, it is not unreasonable to think they might do a real test. mythbusters is funny as hell. They test real things. There are lots of hilarious blog posts actually testing the resilience of twinkies. those things do exist. why not a real test for this?

Sociological Images really dropped the ball on this one.

Yet somehow the stereotypical treatment of men as chronic masturbators goes unmentioned. Pot, meet kettle.

How is finding sexism funny not sexist...

So is the female host just perpetuating sexism then by agreeing to put up with such a blatantly sexist show?

It's sort of a conundrum. If you think she is just putting up with it then you're presuming to know better than her which is in itself sexist.

If she's doing it because she doesn't think it's sexist then, while not being definitive, it's a mild challenge to the notion that the show is horribly sexist.

I feel like there is a certain level of bias going on. The objectification of women for sake of satire in this is bad but the objectification of a guy to illustrate the subject of the satire not only isn't bad but it somehow makes the objectification of the women worse??

The entire point of the oiling up of the guy was that the female host was drawing a proper conclusion about revealing outfits in games. After all guys wear them too. But the male host stumbled because he was trying to maintain control of the patriarchal interpretation.

I mean that's the KEY moment in satire that lets you know it's satire.

And if satire is just so terrible then why do people praise Colbert and Stewart on this blog?

Is using a term like "Senior Black correspondent" ok in your books?

I suppose but I feel like that rests on a multitude of assumptions.

I mean do you have any evidence that the oiled man bit wouldn't have been put in if they had the chance. You said yourself that you feel the majority of the production was done by men, so were they just humoring the lone woman?

Just because you belong to a demographic doesn't mean that you have to subscribe to the stereotypes that demographic has placed on them.

I know a lot of male gamers and I love games too. At least in my very small sample it appears that most people think that the objectification of women is ridiculous.

Granted, it's my bias, but I look at shows like this as satire of an industry that keeps shelling out tired and repeated sexual content so blatantly that people mock it.

That and I feel like you don't have to go very far to find otaku, heavily sexist and creepy male gamers on the internet. Comparing the above video to that level of creepiness makes Immersion look like brilliant satire.

I don't think it's fair that you say I lack the context to understand this but when I try to utilize the context of what actual sexist behavior is in comparison to satire of sexist behavior I'm chastised for making a logical fallacy.

I'm pretty sure that failing to discharge assumptions is a logical fallacy too.

That and how exactly can I not reference other things but you can reference shows in support of your argument?

I never said that anything can be made ok with a "just kidding" tag. That's a strawman.

While I do believe that something like satire can and has a right to exist, I never said that satire is by default free from inquiry. I think that satire is a gamble, either it works or it doesn't. If it doesn't then the satirists are responsible for their actions.

I can be a judge of sexist behavior yes, but I never said I was "the" authority. If irony is subjective as you stated then aren't we all judges?

I'm not the one making repeated logical fallacies here.

I've been on your case for HOW you criticized the clip, not for the act of criticizing in itself.