I'm also not an expert at male gaze theory (I read the essay a long time ago) and controllable cameras and photo mode complicate things, but I'm pretty sure the cinematics of TLOU2 do not do male gaze, which is more relevant than other games since it's a horror specific theory
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
Ellie still strongly *initially* fits into male paradigms of action heroines. Physically smaller/weaker, stealth/traps oriented, ranged-attack specialist, Dex-based armor class. That she gets stripped down to a gaunt shadow of herself having a fistfight is deconstructive of that.
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Replying to @DB_Grimwalker @BootlegGirl
The deconstruction starts in Day 2 as she starts getting less and less funny/spunky, and makes bad decisions against the advice of cooler heads. That’s when “ruined her character” nonsense creeps in. It’s a psychological repudiation of the “beauty must not be tarnished” trope.
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Replying to @DB_Grimwalker
I mean I still think it's a big deal that it's made very clear from fairly early on that she's not bisexual, not pansexual, definitely never interested in fcking any dudes It's not even that I feel more represented by that, it's that it makes the Bros less pandered to
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @DB_Grimwalker
(I mean also a lot of women also would rather see ourselves as a protagonist like Ellie rather than Abby, physical wise, because we've internalized beauty norms. That's not a great thing, but it does mean that Ellie's physical build isn't just or even primarily pandering to men)
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @DB_Grimwalker
But yeah, I don't think many other games with sapphic characters have had them decidedly say they're NOT bisexual. The closest is Life is Strange Before the Storm and it does it in a confusing way (by having Chloe write about how she fcked a dude and didn't like it)
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Replying to @BootlegGirl
Trust me, cishet dudes have no trouble aligning themselves mentally with a character who would never touch someone else’s dick.
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Replying to @DB_Grimwalker
Yeah but did they really intend to align mentally with Ellie at all? I know when I play ND games as dudes I'm very much in the "this is a movie" mindset. I mean I am as Abby too, and would be as Ellie in all likelihood if we didn't share a name.
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @DB_Grimwalker
It's not like a Bioware game where you create another "you" (and even then, it's hard for me to see myself in Commander Shepard regardless of how they look). I feel like a lot of creepy gamer dudes in fact wanted to fck Ellie in 1, and some creeps probably said as much
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Replying to @BootlegGirl @DB_Grimwalker
I *know* shit-ass Gamer Dudes talked about wanting to fck Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite, bc she looked "legal" And they probably still thought that for Burial at Sea pt 2
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Elizabeth is supposed to be 19 in Bioshock Infinite, to be fair
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