Becoming the Gay Pig – A Mapping of Queer Entanglements with Disease and Monstrosity in Bloodborne

Abstract

In this article, queer player–game experiences with Bloodborne are mapped. Bloodborne is approached through a player-researcher framework that examines how subjectivities become entangled with the game’s various elements. The cartography is grounded in the positionality of a white, cisgender, ablebodied, gay Irish man whose identity has been markedly shaped by the relationship between the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and the Irish Catholic Church. From this acknowledgement, experiences of playing Bloodborne are related to experiences of growing up in the Irish state. The aim is to construct a cartography of entangled experiences with the game that begins from this positionality, and to explore its implications for formulations of queerness and Irish queer identity. To accomplish this aim, textual analysis is conducted from a feminist new materialist perspective in order to isolate and analyse elements of Bloodborne. Drawing in particular on Barad’s (2003, 2006, 2018) work on entanglements, the analysis focuses on the game’s use of blood and monstrosity, mapping them as in-game Gothic-Lovecraftian elements and using them to identify parallels between the game and experiences within the Irish Catholic Church. These relations are then connected to queer identity through consideration of the HIV and AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, and of how discourses at the time formulated Gay, Bisexual and Men Who Have Sex with Men (GBMSM) identities in particular. By attending to these entangled subjectivities with Bloodborne, a mapping of Irish queer identity with the game is constructed, exploring how liberation from oppressive systems may be achieved if one risks their own humanity.