Make her a muscle mommy, you cowards!!!
An homage to buff women, and why The Last of Us got Abby's casting wrong.
SPOILERS for The Last of Us season 2 below.
I fancy myself a fan of strong-as-fuck women.
I’ve watched pro wrestling for as long as I could form memories of watching television. The gorgeous ladies of wrestling1 mesmerized me as a child, and shaped my idea of exactly how physically capable women could be in sports. I grew up to be athletic in my teens and a gym rat in my 20s into my now-30s. I still watch women wrestle on TV every week2. My appreciation for women in sport has expanded into a casual interest in volleyball, roller derby, and (hopefully, if I can figure out how to watch) basketball. I’ve come to idolize not just the sports themselves, but the physical forms these women must take in order to compete in them.
So when I picked up the long-awaited The Last of Us: Part II game in 2020, I was pleased to see how muscular the new character Abby was upon playing. She could kill clickers with her bare hands. She was intimidating. She was badass! I was impressed that Naughty Dog created a female character so bulky as a primary playable character. Typically, even the most adventurous female protagonists in games are of average build; you’d think with as much climbing as a character like Lara Croft did, for example, she’d have more muscle definition than the most recent version of her did.
I was hoping that HBO’s adaptation of Abby would keep in line with canon, as season one did with the most important elements of the game. I was disappointed when I saw actress Kaitlyn Dever sheepishly standing at the start of season two, arms looking more fit for a yoga teacher than a powerlifter.
I was more than disappointed, actually. I was insulted. The real Abby from the game is built like a brick house. She’s more Rhea Ripley, more Jackie from Love Lies Bleeding than Kaitlyn Dever’s shrimpy frame. I’m not body shaming here — there’s nothing wrong with Kaitlyn Dever’s body. I simply feel that it’s the polar opposite of what it should look like for this role. What happened to actors bulking up or slimming down for roles?! Back in my day, actors used to commit!!! If she was going to take this role, she should have went in 100 percent and put on at least a little muscle. A passable amount to bear some resemblance to Game Abby.
As I watched this week’s episode, my husband and I agreed that Dever does not possess the intimidating aura that Abby did in the game. Outside of her slender build, her posture was even weak in the character, often standing with her arms folded and shoulders hunched. Without the seething words written in her monologue (that were admittedly very well-delivered), Dever’s Abby does not exude an unfuckwithable presence. It’s clear what Dever doesn’t have in size, the writers hoped to make up for with spoken words3.
Responding to game loyalists’ critiques of the series’ much smaller Abby, game creator and show producer Neil Druckmann said, “Abby was meant to play more like Joel in that she's almost like a brute in the way she can physically manhandle certain things […] That doesn't play as big of a role in this version of the story because there's not as much violent action moment to moment. It's more about the drama.”
I call bullshit. While yes, there is no gameplay to account for with a television show, Abby’s muscular body is a crucial element to understanding her character. Though not addressed explicitly in the game, it’s heavily implied that she trained for years for the day she would finally kill Joel. Abby became hardened after Joel murdered her father, and became physically imposing to not only one day enact revenge, but ensure she’d never be caught vulnerable from outside threats like her father was. Her muscles represented not only a literal commitment to a singular mission, but a metaphorical shield to the cruelty of the world around her. In short, she made her body a weapon to, in her mind, protect herself. For the franchise’s creator to ignore all of that seems unbelievable to me since he created the character. This reasoning Druckmann gave reeks of PR to the tune of misrepresenting the character entirely.
Clearly, the decision to move forward with Kaitlyn Dever’s body as is was to adhere to the societal standards of female attractiveness, particularly for film and TV. Think about it: how many muscular broads have YOU seen onscreen lately? It is acceptable for a woman to be “fit” so long as her muscles are not prominent. There is a fine line between being femininely fit and “masculinely” muscular. The latter will attract accusations of being a man, especially if you are a woman of color. Ask Serena Williams. (This is why transphobia affects all women, btw.)
The Last of Us is already subversive by our regressing standards. With queer storylines (including one that will be revealed later this season) and a non-binary actor in a lead role, HBO wanted to play it safe. Now under the umbrella of Warner Bros. Discovery — who is responsible for cancelling various female-, queer- and BIPOC-centered shows upon acquisition — HBO is falling in line with WBD’s vision of homogenous content. Yes, a slender Abby is the least offensive of the changes they could have made to the characters (if it came down to this or erasing Ellie’s lesbian sexuality, I’d take this every day and twice on Sunday). I still feel it was, plainly, a cop out by all involved. It reminds me of DC’s casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in an era they could have finally honored the heroine’s canonically Amazonian lineage. If you look at modern Wonder Woman comic panels, you’ll see her body is nothing to sneeze at.
In fairness, Abby was a very polarizing character when the game was released. Fans, both good faith players and bad faith incels, were inclined to hate Abby for killing Joel and being forced to play half the game as her after doing so. As the gamer community is wont to do, the fair criticisms of the second game’s story and Abby’s character turned into misogynistic vitriol that veered into transphobia regarding her frame. I could see a scenario where the showrunners were trying to avoid the same backlash with the series, thus taking away the one defining trait that could attract bad faithers. Yet, always catering to those fans is what holds us back from making progress. And again, I can’t stress this enough, it’s what got us to the point in U.S. history we’re in right now. We need to move forward and force the bigots to come with us, not perpetually run back to them because they’re pretending their feet are stuck in the mud.
I’m not here to nitpick about how “realistic” Abby’s body is for a woman like many of her game detractors. I’m here to say that buff women exist, they are feminine, they are women, and they matter. We must shift our eyes to see beauty in women who dare to be bigger and stronger than the norm — to take up more space with their bodies in a world desperate to keep us small. I’ve come to realize that finding beauty in women’s muscles has helped in affirming my own femininity; my love of lifting heavy and watching women raise the bar in whatever sport they’re in does not make me any less WOMAN. In fact, I believe it makes me more than a woman.4
Kaitlyn Dever may bring Abby to life in every other way shown in the game, but I will mourn that she will not have her character’s canonically powerful body. An opportunity not often presented, but missed nevertheless.
I still haven’t forgiven you for cancelling GLOW, Netflix!!!!!!!!
NOT WWE!!! There’s a new promotion in town: All Elite Wrestling (AEW).
Another thing that bothered me about episode 2 was Abby’s monologue. Abby was NOT long-winded in the game. She was a woman of few words, and in fact had a hard time expressing her emotions.
This is the catchphrase for one of my favorite female wrestlers. I present to you, Kris Statlander.
I need Kaitlyn to be SO BUFF by the end of the season. I need her actively training through out. Flipping tires and suplexing clickers.