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@ginevra@hachyderm.io
2025-08-30 00:56:10

Thinking about #DiscoElysium succesors(?), including ones with heavy ethical concerns. A lot of them have gone for female protagonists: Good! There could have been a couple more leading women in DE. But the reveal trailers are mainly voiced by men... men berating or mocking the central character.
Longdue's Hopetown has a father figure voice over, berating the protagonist: "Who do you think you are? [...] You don't understand the forces at play" Infantalised, she doesn't get to respond.
ZA/UM's Zero Parades VO is also a man, initially flattering the spy protagonist "brilliant, relentless" ... then saying she came after him and "everything she touched, written into failure". Again, no chance for the female spy to tell her side of the story ... And there's an objectifying/threatening section about how her fair hair is like a dandelion. Tangeant: what's with the heavy/bad pseudo-German VO accent?
Do I bother mentioning DarkMath's XXX Nightshift? Yes, for once a woman's VO, but (as you'll have guessed from the name) a porn-like, male-gaze view of what a woman would say and think.
So, don't be fooled that a female protagonist means we're actually getting a woman's POV. It's just a cosmetic change. Dora Klindžić's bsky.app/profile/did:plc:rx3zl experiences as a writer at ZA/UM show how women struggle to have a voice and stay employed in these types of studios. Many of the senior men she mentions are still at ZA/UM.