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Kotaku & Vice Collude To Trash Mortal Kombat 11 & Ronda Rousey?

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Kotaku:

Ronda Rousey Being In Mortal Kombat 11 Is Bullshit

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Ronda Rousey: Trailblazer, UFC Hall of Famer, and WWE star. Ah, I forgot a couple of her accomplishments: She shared an inflammatory conspiracy video about the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre to her millions of Twitter followers and made transmisogynistic and outright asinine comments about transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox. And as of Mortal Kombat 11, she’s the voice of iconic character Sonya Blade. Let’s take a moment to consider how messed up that is.

In 2013, Rousey shared a conspiracy video regarding the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that claimed 26 lives, including 20 children. The video suggested the massacre was a hoax carried out by the government. When called out about it, Rousey started by doubling down.

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“I just figure asking questions and doing research is more patriotic than blindly accepting what you’re told,” she said in a reply on Twitter. The following day, she made another tweet saying that she “never meant to insult or hurt anyone” and that she was “sorry if anyone was offended.”

But it doesn’t stop at her sounding like a corporate bullshit apology bot. Take her comments regarding Fallon Fox. Fox is the first transgender MMA fighter in the sport’s history. She had undergone sex reassignment surgery in 2006 but received pushback against the idea that she could fight against other women. UFC president Dana White stated that he didn’t believe Fox should be allowed to fight other women. Former NFL defensive tackle and MMA fighter Matt Mitrione called Fox a “lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak,” and was later suspended for his comments. Through all this, Rousey declined to fight Fox, insisting that her fellow fighter would have a physical advantage in the ring.

“She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has,” Rousey told The New York Post. “It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.” She also commented that she was glad the UFC didn’t “straight cut” Mitrione for his comments.

Thank the stars that Ronda got the pronouns right, I guess. We can talk about Rousey’s concerns but she definitely could have behaved like less of a jackass. Then again, this is also the woman who once said that if she grabbed her opponent in a choke, she would “hold onto it until she’s actually dead.”

I didn’t write anything sooner because I thought that maybe I wouldn’t have to be the one writing this. As this piece was in the middle of being edited (I’ve been writing this over the course of two days) my peer Danielle Riendeau atWaypoint published an article about Rousey’s involvement, which is heartening. Still, I wish it didn’t have to be queer folks speaking up. Where are our allies on this?
You know what I want to do? Play Mortal Kombat 11. But I would have to be wild to consider it. I’m not obligated to let bygones be bygones, and I’m just not going to. Rousey’s presence in Mortal Kombat 11 is unacceptable. Sonya could have been played by any number of capable actresses, but instead, NetherRealm stunt casted someone whose very presence makes many of my friends feel completely uncomfortable playing Mortal Kombat 11.
Tl;DR, this sucks.


http://archive.is/DKkT6


Waypoint:

Ronda Rousey Has No Business Being in 'Mortal Kombat 11'

Rousey is a noted MMA pioneer and WWE star, and also a transphobe and not-great voice actor. What's she doing here?

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I’m having a blast playing Mortal Kombat 11. As I said in the podcast last week, I suspect that Mortal Kombat functions for me much the way pro wrestling does for other people: it’s a batshit costume drama with no pretenses in reality, featuring larger than life characters and violence/fighting that bears no resemblance to the real thing. It’s just wonderful, campy, colorful nonsense and a lot of fun to play with.


But two complicating factors are getting in the way of my wholehearted recommendation: the allegations of terrible work practices at the studio, and the casting of one Ronda Rousey as Sonya Blade.

Like so many women who train and compete in combat sports, I sure have had a journey with Rousey, and I’m not the first to espouse complicated opinions about her. She was a pioneer for women in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), the first American olympic medalist in Judo, and the superstar that made competing in MMA at the highest levels not only viable, but possible and attractive for women. Back when I was boxing and only just becoming interested in grappling, I used to watch her takedown game with awe. Years later, grappling is the side of the sport that I have embraced fully, and it’s now my complete focus in training and competition.

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I came to grappling and MMA much later than I would’ve liked, but it’s been an absolute godsend for me during some of the most challenging times of my life. You likely know what MMA is: two people, matched by weight class, get into an octagon and fight one another. Grappling is the side of the sport (and a sport onto itself) that’s all the fun stuff of MMA minus punching and kicking: so, wrestling, takedowns, ground fighting, submissions.

It’s intense, and personal, since you are with another person literally face to face, often with your body pretzeled around theirs, fighting with every muscle. You cannot half-ass it, it’s truly a whole-ass kind of sport. It keeps my mind focused, and provides a healthy, positive outlet for aggression and the sort of body positivity that comes, very literally, with facing scary situations and finding the skills to cope with them.


As a sport and a martial art, It’s strategic and difficult and has a learning curve that would make the “git-gud” part of the Dark Souls fandom weep. It’s also, famously, a system by which a smaller person can defeat a bigger, stronger opponent via technique. I’ve seen it in action on the mat and in real life (I’ve used it during tense moments in 911 calls and helping to break up a bar fight, as a bystander), and I adore that aspect as a pretty small person myself.

That I was awakened to this sport partially because of Rousey, her success, her stardom, and her skill... makes this as personal as a punch to the gut. Or, to be a little more accurate, a flying armbar.

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Let’s examine some of Rousey’s worst sins. In a New York Post interview regarding Fallon Fox (a professional fighter who happens to be a trans woman), Rousey said some really awful transphobic bullshit. That’s not all—she definitely tweeted a piece of tasteless Sandy Hook Trutherism. She later apologized for that one, but the damage was done. Rousey has used her massive platform irresponsibly, and in the case of her comments on Fox, to accept and relay downright hate.

She also delivers a terrible performance in Mortal Kombat 11. In a world where the voice actors are given miles and miles of bananapants scenery-chewing lines to indulge in, she sounds as if she put about as much passion in as she does to brushing her teeth. It’s stunt-casting, but, importantly, bad stunt-casting, and it sticks out in cutscenes that are otherwise a lot of fun.


Worse yet, that she’s playing General Sonya Blade, a character that I—and I suspect many young girls in the early 90s—identified strongest with. Mortal Kombat has never had a serious tone, it’s always been an exercise in campy, ridiculous excess. But as a young girl, long before Rousey convinced me I could step into the ring or cage, Sonya Blade made me excited that I could play as a girl in a fighting game. And in her first incarnation, she wasn’t a wildly sexualized adolescent fantasy. She looked like a martial artist: a woman in a sports bra and workout pants (aka, an outfit you may actually train and fight in), and I obsessively learned all her moves, like any good 90s kid. The kiss of death was a little much, sure, but those scissor kicks? Hell yes.

(pointles video)

And I sure loved Mortal Kombat 2 when it arrived for consoles in 1994 (so much so that I purchased an official players guide and devoured every word and screenshot, for lore as well as great babality and friendship codes), but… no Sonya. Mileena and Kitana were ok, I guessed, but I wasn’t as jazzed to play as them. Where was my 90s-fantastic yoga mom? My ass-kicking 90s-fantastic yoga mom, that is.

(She was is in the game… sort of. She’d been captured by the interdimensional warlord Shao Kahn, and was chained up n a background in the game’s final battle. But she wasn’t a playable character.).

It’s among all this stew of history and context and disappointment that I find myself in with MK 11, a game I am otherwise loving every batshit moment with. I don’t even care much about the fighting (it’s fine! I’m just shitty at fighting games), I’m completely in it for the experience of seeing where these wacky characters will go. I know something very dramatic happens to Sonya here (I won’t spoil it, but I’ve been spoiled on it), and it’s a massive shame that this ended up in Rousey’s not-so-capable hands.

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Netherrealm Studios (or WB, I’m not privy to exactly who made this decision) certainly wanted to evoke something in the casting. Rousey is a draw, after all, and she’s a WWE superstar now, known and presumably loved by millions. She’s a woman known for her fighting prowess and, to some degree, stage presence. Star presence? She is, for better or worse, a celebrity.

But there are so many other women fighters they could’ve drawn on who aren’t terrible transphobes. How about Angela “Overkill” Hill, a UFC fighter who has taken her own love for games and fighting to a new level? Or hey, if you want a woman MMA pioneer there, Gina Carano has a budding career as an action star. I’m just saying, there’s no shortage of camera-ready women who kick real-life ass out there who haven’t resorted to throwing trans women athletes under the bus.

And I daresay, they’d probably do a much better job than this delivery.




http://archive.is/bZcaJ
 

Enjay

Banned
Just imagine now how fellatial the article would've been if it was one of the Williams sisters as Jax and you'll see why gaming is a joke now.
 
So she fell down a conspiracy rabbit hole, tweeted a video, then apologized a day later. Okay? Dosen't speak volumes for her critical thinking skills but people have been (and should be) forgiven for worse. Why would that mean she cant get a voice acting gig later in life?

Her other offense is thinking that late game MtF trans people have a competitive advantage in contact sports... Okay? As far as I know this is a contentious topic and the relevant science actually backs Rhonda's position.

The only valid criticism here is that she's not a talented actress. From what I've heard she's not but that aesthetic issue shouldn't be thrown in the mix with this moral condemnation witch-hunt BS.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Her Sandy Hook comments were shitty.

Not wanting to fight a transwoman in a professional fighting sport is not transphobic no matter how much they want to attach that label to Ronda. It's not like Ronda was misgendering her, she was doing the opposite.
 

Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
It's funny how Netherrealm decided to go to bat for these lunatics and make a game to pander to them and now once again, they've found something to throw a bitch fit about.
Game developers never learn.

The definition of stupid: Doing the same thing over and over again in the hope of achieving a different result.
 

Orenji Neko

Member
Don't really care for Ronda Rousey (I've heard about her Sandy Hook comments), but as far as her view regarding competing against trans in the UFC, I do think she has a point. Wasn't it not too long ago that a trans fighter in the women's UFC ended up busting the skull of their opponent? Don't know much about it or even the UFC for that matter (is this a thing that happens?), but damn, the thought of that gives me like a phantom headache almost; sounds fucking awful.
 

Tiamat2san

Member
I agree with her on trans comment.
A man is generally stronger physically, so if he became a woman , his/her body will have the same skeleton and muscles.
Does that makes me transphobic, I don’t think so.

For the rest , I don’t like her that much.
The conspiracy shit and her voice are terrible.
 

CDiggity

Member
I mean her voice acting in the game is pretty offensive.

Also, wouldn't someone who is transmisogynistic mean that they are actually misandristic? I mean, if someone is transgender, then they are a person who has a gender identity that differs from their assigned sex, then wouldn't it stand to reason that if someone is transmisogynistic then they are a person who has a belief that differs from the defined meaning of misogyny?
 

sn0man

Member
This is the game that just keeps giving. I am almost sure to miss a controversy but here is my attempt at a list.
  • Female costumes
  • An ending for Jax that is too “woke” for some
  • A “transphobic” voice actor
  • Grind / micro transactions
  • Developers being treated like crap / crunch
I’m just going to theorize that the guest character is going to be foghorn leghorn, and the outrage will be that he said “boy” in cartoons from 50 years ago.
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
I can kinda understand Kotaku because they started off as something else, but who the fuck reads Waypoint? What kind of braindead dribbler actually consumes that nonsense unironically?

I don't expect Waypoint to be around much longer.
 

Petrae

Member
Just when you think that “games journalism” can’t be any shittier, Kotaku and Waypoint find ways to do just that. They exist to be outrage generators for the video game sector— no more, no less.

To think there was a time when video game press focused on the games themselves instead barely-related bullshit to bitch and whine about, like modern “games journalism” does.

As many advances as the internet has allowed us, the subsequent devolution of video game press that resulted from the internet killing off print media is a really lousy setback.

Print media didn’t have room for this sociopolitical slop. Short reviews, decent previews, some behind-the-scenes features or interviews, and cheats/codes (which the internet also killed thanks to connected consoles and DLC)... along with advertisements, that was all the room they had aside from 2-3 “Letters to the Editor” pages. I’ll never be convinced that it wasn’t better this way, even though we had to wait a month between new nuggets of info.

Modern “games journalism” aims to destroy and tear down video games— and that’s a fucking shame.
 

h00ters

Member
I remember when Kotaku and Joystiq used to be legitimately useful websites to visit to get news on the video game industry (I'm talking back around the time of the 360 & PS3 launches).

What Kotaku has become now just makes me so sad. Not only does it only contain about 30% of news stories, but even they aren't immune to some kind of form of politicizing.

It's almost like the "journalists" who write for it now are trying to destroy it from the inside.
 
Her comment on MMA (combat sports in general) and transgender athletes wasn't transphobic

In a MMA fight there are 2 people. And in this situation it feels like the ones considering the comment transphobic are only looking at the 1 fighter. The one side of this. Weight classes and Testing for PED's are in place there for safety and competitiveness reasons.

And the science behind the issue seems to outright say that yeah... a transgender woman has a competitive advantage

I understand we are all about feelings now. I'm just not sure why we don't care about the other persons feelings or physical health in this.

They don't seem to even consider the other women at all

But what do you expect from a Kotaku or any other gaming site. Their entire model is based on clicks. And Kotaku won't get clicks if they don't run shitty stories like this.

If she retweeted a conspiracy video and later apologized for it, get over it already.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
She's not a "transphobe," and neither is Martina Navratilova.

Joe Rogan covers the matter with Fallon Fox well:




It's a safety and fairness consideration. Fallon Fox brutalized biological women in the octagon because she's a biological man, with the bone structure and musculature and reaction times of a biological man. It's dangerous and cruel to biological women to be demanding that they fight biological men.

Everyday life? Sure, identify as whomever or whatever you'd like. It's not hurting anyone. Live and let live.

Combat sports competition where people are putting their lives on the line in a fight against each other until knockout or submission? Biological men fight in the men's division.


These gossip shitrag writers at Kotaku and Waypoint should fight Fallon Fox in the octagon. Or are they transphobes?
 
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Iorv3th

Member
Why don't they just make it mandatory for every person who is portrayed in a videogame to take a purity test?

I wish developers and publishers would just stop giving these bloggers anything. They can't possibly be helping them with publicity (unless there are more people that are going "look what this dumbass said now i'm going to buy the game to spite them").
 

Varteras

Gold Member
It's the way people like them operate. You're not allowed to point out facts because heaven forbid someone get their feelings hurt for being excluded or not accepted under all conditions. No matter how many hormone injections you get, no matter what you cut off or add to your body, no matter how much you think you're not the sex you're born as the fact remains your very building blocks make you either a man or a woman. With all the advantages and disadvantages that comes with. Until a day comes when we can completely alter someone all the way down to their most basic components you are the sex you were born as. End of story. Pointing this is out is not bigotry or fear mongering. It's quite simply wrong to expect women to get their ass beat by a man simply because he feels like he should have been a woman and you don't want to hurt his feelings. Fuck your pronouns. Why is that more important than biological women NOT getting their skulls crushed by Dwayne Johnson because he decided he wanted a vagina?
 
Well I dont know what is Kotakus take on Rhonda personally but most MK fans will agree. She did a terrible job at VO Sonya and actually there was no need for her at all there, it was just a PR thing.

Anyone remember her Fast n Furious lines? She sucks, that is a fact, doesnt matter what she did or does in her personal life or tweets.
 
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Scopa

The Tribe Has Spoken
Yeah, I'm sure they cried and whined about her like all the good little liberals from the coasts.
The ‘Lord of the Emos’, Alex Navarro, definitely made a very official disclaimer before tackling the extremely serious and life-threatening subject of Ronda Rousey on The Giant Beastcast.

It literally tickles my balls that this dork takes himself so seriously.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Rousey is a great Judoka and MMA fighter. I do not agree with her politics, but she is a great fit for a fighting game.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Noted MMA pioneer

source.gif
I like how you picked one of her final fights to discredit her as a fighter. Forget every one before that. They don’t count.

Chuck Liddell was never a good fighter either, just look at his last fights in UFC. Right?

Anderson Silva broke his own leg, he must suck also. Shit happens, but it doesn’t discredit everything they did before that.
 
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Majukun

Member
I agree with her on trans comment.
A man is generally stronger physically, so if he became a woman , his/her body will have the same skeleton and muscles.
Does that makes me transphobic, I don’t think so.

For the rest , I don’t like her that much.
The conspiracy shit and her voice are terrible.
No she would not have the same muscles because part of the change process involves taking a lot of stuff that inhibits muscle growth.
If that is enough to level the competition, we dunno, most studies I've read fall into the 'fuck of we know' category because number of athletes tested and funding is small.

There are als concerns about bone density of course
 
Ignoring all the nonsense complaints surrounding her, her terrible acting alone is reason enough to criticise her inclusion in Mortal Kombat XI.

Every time people acknowledge these bullshit outrage articles, they're just helping promote the website even more. These articles are bait.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
No she would not have the same muscles because part of the change process involves taking a lot of stuff that inhibits muscle growth.
If that is enough to level the competition, we dunno, most studies I've read fall into the 'fuck of we know' category because number of athletes tested and funding is small.

There are als concerns about bone density of course
But it doesn’t retro act the pre existing muscles that were there before.

Granted there would be a giant difference for someone that started transitioning at 5 vs someone transitioning at 30, and there will always be women that are bigger and stronger then some guys.

I don’t know where I sit on the trans sports theories yet, but right now I say that men transitioning to women, have a significant advantage over their natural female counterparts, especially if they trained hard and waited to transition until they were in their 20s.
 

angelic

Banned
No she would not have the same muscles because part of the change process involves taking a lot of stuff that inhibits muscle growth.
If that is enough to level the competition, we dunno, most studies I've read fall into the 'fuck of we know' category because number of athletes tested and funding is small.

There are als concerns about bone density of course

This is grade A bullshit by the way. Being born a man and going through puberty cannot be undone by hormones. Bone density, frame size, men tend to have larger skulls, larger hands and feet, completely different torsos, the list goes on and on. A man who has drilled exercise into his muscles and body with testosterone completely retains this muscle memory and technique, no matter how much you attempt to transition them.

The same was as taking steroids or other PEDs is banned, because if you train on steroids or EPO to improve your cardio, your body retains the abilities after the banned substances are gone. It's pretty standard stuff and well known to MMA fighters, boxers etc. Vitor Belfort abused TRT for years and had a ridiculous body of a 21 year old at age 40, causing serious damage to other fighters along his win streak. Cris Cyborg, while clean now, roided up in Brazil and looks like a man still. She passes tests because shes clean, but remains a murderer.

Theyve even just banned a runner for having natural elevated levels of testosterone, and all she does is run on a track. A man who goes through puberty, spends 30 years with testosterone in his system, training, living, working, who then transitions, is not a woman. He's a man with an altered body, retaining a large amount of his advantages, and should not be beating up women. It's not even up for debate, apart from by deranged activists.
 
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Winter John

Member
I like how you picked one of her final fights to discredit her as a fighter. Forget every one before that. They don’t count.

Chuck Liddell was never a good fighter either, just look at his last fights in UFC. Right?

Anderson Silva broke his own leg, he must suck also. Shit happens, but it doesn’t discredit everything they did before that.

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llien

Member
Just hold on and think what we are discussing here.

A person, who did something certain folks dislike.
And that "something" is:

1) believing school shooting conspiracy (re-tweet)
2) claiming that transwomen have advantage over cis-women (I hope I'm not messing terminology up), since they at the very least have male bones (which are bigger/heavier/stronger)

This is not a sort of #censorship is it? They don't suppress her speech, merely want to erase her as a person.
 
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