Rest in peace, Bayonetta

I’ve spent the four years since Bayonetta 3’s release wanting to write more about it. A big reason why I haven’t is that a lot of people hurt my feelings way back when I reviewed it upon release in 2022. I was still on Twitter back then, and despite that I’ve been harassed online many times for writing about video games, I was shocked by the amount of homophobic slurs I received in response to my review. That experience was deeply upsetting. What was also surprising, and a lot more interesting to talk about, was the response to the game from queer and women writers, who, like me, had a lot to say about the game’s themes and writing decisions. I couldn’t spoil the game in my review, nor could other critics, so I never fully expounded on why the game’s story fell flat for me and so many others. The time has come.

By the time Bayonetta 3 came out, the title heroine had very much become a queer icon. This was the lens through which a lot of queer fans fans saw the character. It’s easy to see why if you look at her character design. She has heavily exaggerated feminine features — extraordinarily long hair, for example, and a Barbie doll body with mega-long legs. If you create a character, any character, with extremely exaggerated feminine features (like Bayonetta, or Lara Croft) — or exaggerated masculine features (like Duke Nukem) — it’s likely that character is going to be claimed by the queer community. Thus, Bayonetta is both a sex symbol for straight men, and a drag icon. This is also why Duke Nukem can be both a hyper-masculine ideal for straight men as well as a drag king.

This creates a complicated dynamic in the world of video games, where so many characters are exaggerated in this fashion. (The same thing happens with pro wrestling, by the way.) Straight male fans often do not understand this dynamic, if they see it at all. The ones who are bigoted get scared when queer fans claim characters in this way, because it forces them to confront their own insecurities about sexuality and identity. A person who is afraid of confronting any of that is probably also very freaked out at the idea that there’s anything queer about Bayonetta, whom they see as a sexy lady meant for straight men only. Hence the response to my review of Bayonetta 3.