There are legitimate issues with objectification of women in media (including video games), and it'd be hard (probably even asinine) to deny that. However, I think Sarkeesian totally misses those real issues. Instead, she's focusing mainly on appraising these cases at face value (i.e. as tropes) when the devil's in the details; she rejects the positive aspects of characters like Peach and Zelda either by ignoring them or debunking them on arbitrary grounds, and reduces them to the basic "Damsel in Distress" trope instead of what makes them great characters (the vid Koh linked to at the end of his post brilliantly explains this in further detail). Now, this is a bit of a stretch, but doesn't reducing female characters to a soundbite and trying to remove most/all of their positive aspects... sort of objectify these women characters? Seems Anita's doing more harm than good in this regard.
EDIT: when she talks about how Dinosaur Planet/Starfox Adventures was originally going to be Krystal's game, she entirely edits out and ignores any trace of the male protagonist Sabre from DP both in terms of gameplay footage and concept art. Frankly, considering how deliberate the removal of Sabre's presence was, this is something that serves to hurt her credibility in my eyes.
I really think this sort of mindset hinders the equality movement, as Anita tries to keep the aforementioned "damsel" characters in as much of a negative light as possible in lieu of embracing their empowering characteristics, and (at least so far) ignoring many of the "outwardly" empowered characters (e.g. Samus). In fact, I daresay she's achieved more polarity than equality/understanding of issues.
EDIT2: In her third vid, Anita tries to use Earthworm Jim and Castle Crashers as serious examples of sexism (when both series CLEARLY used the damsel trope in a parodic manner), and further saying that this is a conspiracy amongst devs that enables them to further objectification under a veil of comedy. Also, more of her arguments as of late boil down to "because I said so" (women dying in games is not sexist in and of itself and you just saying it is doesn't make it different), and has more often neglected attempts to use any evidence for her claims. Also, she's now trying to absolutely destroy outright empowered damsel characters like Marian in Double Dragon Neon, who end up accomplishing/finishing the protagonist's work (in DDNeon's case, Marian deals the death blow to the final boss).
Oh, and the blocked comments dealie: having thought on it, I'm fine with it, since sexism is a controversial topic (but maybe she could've kept the ratings enabled). What I don't like is her and some of her supporters cherry-picking the worst of the (admittedly) horrid comments made against her and using them to portray EVERYONE who disagrees with her as an evil misogynist/troll. Instead of being the better person and addressing legitimate criticisms, she and the supporters who follow suit in these actions are simply trying to generate more polarity and thus more attention and support by labeling all her dissenters as sexist pigs. Conclusion: Anita Sarkeesian's series has led me to believe that she doesn't give a shit about equality or actual sexism, but rather to stroke her own ego, and the worst part for me: the series is built off the backs of (mostly) women who wanted a chance to give power to a voice to address the real issues. Considering she was doing this sort of shit beforehand for free (and even recycling material from old videos in Tropes vs Women), I find it disgraceful that she got over $150k for this operation, especially since the series has not adequately reflected the use of this money.
EDIT: when she talks about how Dinosaur Planet/Starfox Adventures was originally going to be Krystal's game, she entirely edits out and ignores any trace of the male protagonist Sabre from DP both in terms of gameplay footage and concept art. Frankly, considering how deliberate the removal of Sabre's presence was, this is something that serves to hurt her credibility in my eyes.
I really think this sort of mindset hinders the equality movement, as Anita tries to keep the aforementioned "damsel" characters in as much of a negative light as possible in lieu of embracing their empowering characteristics, and (at least so far) ignoring many of the "outwardly" empowered characters (e.g. Samus). In fact, I daresay she's achieved more polarity than equality/understanding of issues.
EDIT2: In her third vid, Anita tries to use Earthworm Jim and Castle Crashers as serious examples of sexism (when both series CLEARLY used the damsel trope in a parodic manner), and further saying that this is a conspiracy amongst devs that enables them to further objectification under a veil of comedy. Also, more of her arguments as of late boil down to "because I said so" (women dying in games is not sexist in and of itself and you just saying it is doesn't make it different), and has more often neglected attempts to use any evidence for her claims. Also, she's now trying to absolutely destroy outright empowered damsel characters like Marian in Double Dragon Neon, who end up accomplishing/finishing the protagonist's work (in DDNeon's case, Marian deals the death blow to the final boss).
Oh, and the blocked comments dealie: having thought on it, I'm fine with it, since sexism is a controversial topic (but maybe she could've kept the ratings enabled). What I don't like is her and some of her supporters cherry-picking the worst of the (admittedly) horrid comments made against her and using them to portray EVERYONE who disagrees with her as an evil misogynist/troll. Instead of being the better person and addressing legitimate criticisms, she and the supporters who follow suit in these actions are simply trying to generate more polarity and thus more attention and support by labeling all her dissenters as sexist pigs. Conclusion: Anita Sarkeesian's series has led me to believe that she doesn't give a shit about equality or actual sexism, but rather to stroke her own ego, and the worst part for me: the series is built off the backs of (mostly) women who wanted a chance to give power to a voice to address the real issues. Considering she was doing this sort of shit beforehand for free (and even recycling material from old videos in Tropes vs Women), I find it disgraceful that she got over $150k for this operation, especially since the series has not adequately reflected the use of this money.