Corpos masculinos em jogo: gênero, sensualidade e sua representação nos videogames

Abstract

This research investigates the representation of male nudity in video games, focusing on how it is systematically decoupled from sensuality and eroticism in hegemonic media. Utilizing a qualitative, analytical-interpretive approach rooted in gender studies and visual culture, the study analyzes the visual and performative mechanisms of art direction, character design, costuming, and animation. The documentary corpus comprises multifaceted case studies that challenge hegemonic masculinity, including the God of War game franchise, the Soul Calibur fighting game series, the music video Crucified by the band Army of Lovers, and the feature film 300. The analysis demonstrates that while the female body is routinely objectified for desire, the exposure of the male body is displaced into the symbolic realms of brutality, comedy, or the grotesque as a protective safeguard to prevent its sexualization. In contrast to this protective desexualization, the study culminates in an autoral studio practice consisting of a series of digital illustrations. In these works, the character Kratos is removed from his customary hyper-violent power fantasy and recontextualized through dynamics of passivity, vulnerability, and submission aimed at visual pleasure, operating as a visual amalgam and a platonic ideal that challenges patriarchal conventions of the gaze.