There’s been a lot of discourse surrounding The Last Of Us Part II in regards to its depiction of violence and how it handles its diverse cast of characters, which isn’t too surprising since gamers having a whinge isn’t anything new. Having said that, The Last Of Us Part II has drawn complaints from puffy-chested bros about something that shows how backwards gaming still is: Abby’s muscles and how buff she is.
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While we’re seeing more female video game protagonists these days, they’ve almost always fit a specific build. They’re lean, svelte, have somewhat unrealistic body proportions, and are ultimately made to be desirable to straight dudes who make up a majority of the gaming fanbase.
For Abby, a major character in The Last Of Us Part II, her buff frame doesn’t fit the image a lot of bros have of female video game characters, like Tifa from Final Fantasy VII. Abby is square-jawed, muscle-bound, and looks like she could take anyone down in a fight (and she definitely can).
Predictably, the puffy-chested bros weren’t too happy that Abby and her muscles doesn’t look like a model and flooded the internet with their not-so-enlightening thoughts about why The Last Of Us Part II “sucks” because of it.
One just needs to search up “Abby” and “The Last Of Us Part II” on Twitter to find countless threads of bros whinging about how her body type is “unrealistic“, how women don’t look like that and she must be on steroids or hormones to be that buff. But the worst insult has to be how Abby must be transgender for her body to look like that, as if those assigned as male are the only ones who could have big arms.
It seems like all the incels and bigoted gamer bros out there don’t realise that Abby’s body type is very normal and akin to what someone who does crossfit or rock climbing would look like. There’s no enhancements needed, just good old-fashioned hard work. If anything, Abby’s appearance is aspirational – I’d love to have arms like hers.
The irony about all this complaining is that these women-hating bros conveniently forget or don’t seem to realise that Abby and her muscle-bound frame was based on a real-life woman.
We’ve known for a long time that gaming has its share of sexist bros, but the level of vitriol directed at Abby, her muscles, and The Last Of Us Part II just shows how far gaming has to go in terms of unrealistic body standards and accepting diverse body types.
For all of the flaws present in The Last Of Us Part II, Abby’s muscles certainly isn’t one of them and the fact that she doesn’t look like most women in video games is a great thing. It’s just a shame that the puffy-chested bros had to go out and ruin it for everyone (again).
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