I mean... Yeah. Yeah, thatās kinda the thing.
I was trying to keep things centered without going in to matters of pointing fingers or accusing anyone, but... Well, honestly, at this point, Iām tired and grumpy and not inclined to be generous, so Iām not going to offer credit. This is not a court of law, I have only my own personal opinions to go on, opinions that are subject to change over time, but based on what Iāve seen and the way things have gone down to this point, these are the conclusions that I have ultimately come to conclude. I will revise my opinions and stance if provided with new information that proves otherwise, but until and unless, this is where I stand.
Mac Walters, the person being interviewed, takes a question about āwhy didnāt Kaidanās bisexuality be implemented in the Legendary Editionās version of ME1?ā and goes off on a tangent about Liara having a higher quality model in ME3, and how she had changed over the games.
Mac Walters is the one who will fight for - or not fight - things to be included or changed. And to him, Kaidan in particular and queer men more broadly do not matter. To Mac Walters, Mass Effect is, first and foremost, for straight men, for the fantasy empowerment of heterosexual men. And he does not give a damn about the empowerment or enjoyment of queer men.
Iām not saying that heās actively homophobic, in that he is saying āno, I donāt want this content in there.ā But itās the indirect homophobia of not thinking that it MATTERS. Of believing that it is not his place to āget involvedā in a āpoliticalā matter of arguing for, of fighting for, of including queer content.
He is more than willing to include more and more focus on asari, the sexy blue space babes of the franchise, explicitly modeled in the vein of Star Trekās iconic Orion dancing girls. The species that were built in to the franchise to be a species of only women, of finding a fetishistic way of providing a species of only attractive women to sexualize (not a man in sight among the asari). But try and bring up the fact that there is nothing in the way of queerness from a masculine direction, and he evades the question and goes right back to talking about what he wants.
Mac Walters remaining in a position of authority in the Mass Effect franchise is only going to see continued marginalization of queer men in this franchise. That is just how things are.
Frankly, if I thought it could get anywhere, Iād be on the ādump Mac Waltersā train. But I know that, to BioWare, he is āan experienced hand,ā who āknows the franchise.ā Even though this is a franchise that has several people whoāve been as involved as he has, voices who are more willing to fight for queer representation (and portrayals of the asari that arenāt as sex objects), because he has been at the head of it, BioWare wonāt want to ārock the boat.ā
But not rocking the boat is ABSOLUTELY at the detriment of queer representation.
