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October 19, 2007
"Portal is for Lesbians"

Bonne Rueberg has a fascinating take on the game Portal:

3) We’re dealing with a reshaping of a highly masculine genre, the FPS. If that itself weren’t “queering” enough, there’s the whole holes issue. We’ve talked before about how the guns in first-person shooters act as phallic avatars–that is, as penises. But in a world of women, this gun doesn’t shoot bullets. It shoots orifices. Openings. Fine, vaginas. Vaginas you, a female character, have to enter/exit to solve puzzles. I don’t say this often, and almost never with so much support and enthusiasm, but that is so gay.

I love the idea of FPS-subversion, but personally I think one shouldn't get too Freudian in symbolism... that's a tangled mess right there!

Posted by jane at October 19, 2007 07:59 AM | TrackBack
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That is possibly the greatest thing I have heard in a super long time.

Posted by: gillman [TypeKey Profile Page] on October 19, 2007 04:34 PM

Interesting, particularly since one of the lead developers on the game happened to be a female. However, I think Freudian stuff like this is complete bunk.

Besides, there's no way a game like Portal could begin to undermine the traditional FPS, as games like Portal would get too boring the longer they were dragged out.

Posted by: cesarano [TypeKey Profile Page] on October 21, 2007 06:33 AM
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