I still remember the first time I watched the trailer for Love Lies Bleeding. It dropped in an otherwise unremarkable week back in late 2023, and suddenly I was wide awake. Kristen Stewart with a mullet? A ridiculously jacked queer bodybuilder played by Katy O’Brian? A lesbian crime thriller that felt like a fever dream? Sign me up. Watching the actual film in early 2024 only cemented my obsession. Rose Glass, the director who gave us the searing psychological horror Saint Maud in 2019, had somehow jumped to a sexy, violent, and deliciously surreal neo-noir – and it worked. That last smash cut from Saint Maud still haunts me, by the way. But Glass’s pivot from horror to thriller isn’t as wild as it seems; both genres thrive on tension, obsession, and the ways people consume each other. Love Lies Bleeding just swaps religious dread for raw queer desire and steroid-infused muscles, and honestly, I’m here for it.

But let’s talk about those muscles, because they’re the real star – or at least, they’re what got the internet’s knickers in a twist. O’Brian plays Jackie, a bodybuilder whose physique literally seems to swell and ripple on screen. At times, it’s almost surreal, like she might Hulk out at any moment. Whether that’s a visual metaphor for steroid abuse or a tip of the hat to magical realism, it’s arresting. The character is meant to be big. Her size is the point. Yet predictably, the comments sections filled up with accusations: “She must be on gear,” “Women can’t look like that naturally,” and my personal unfavorite, “That’s unrealistic for a woman.” Sound familiar?

If you’re a gamer – and I am, proudly – you’ll recognize this tune immediately. It’s the exact same backlash Abby Anderson got in The Last of Us Part 2. Abby’s broad shoulders, thick arms, and solid build sent a vocal minority into a tailspin. People twisted themselves into pretzels arguing that a woman in a zombie apocalypse couldn’t possibly get that jacked, that it broke immersion, that it was forced. Never mind that Abby was modeled on real-life strongwoman and CrossFit athlete Colleen Fotsch, who is precisely that size. And never mind that in a world where you’re constantly fighting for survival, having a physically dominant body makes absolute sense. I actually wrote about this before – being a weightlifter myself, I see women in the gym every day who are built like tanks, and they’re not injecting anything but post-workout protein.

Which brings me back to Katy O’Brian. When the steroid accusations flew, her wife clarified on social media that O’Brian didn’t use any for the role. A quick Google search (we’re in 2026 now, but the receipts were there in 2023) shows O’Brian has a lifelong background in martial arts, is a certified personal trainer, and has competed in figure bodybuilding competitions. Could she have used enhancement in the past? It’s possible – celebrities lie about this stuff all the time, and not every federation drug-tests. But here’s what I know from my own experience and from training alongside female bodybuilders: a physique like O’Brian’s in Love Lies Bleeding is absolutely achievable without steroids, especially with years of dedicated training, smart nutrition, and a peak-week cut for definition. The disbelief, then, isn’t rooted in biology. It’s rooted in a limited imagination of what female bodies can be.

Here’s where both Love Lies Bleeding and The Last of Us Part 2 do something radical: they utterly refuse to cater to the male gaze. Neither Abby nor Jackie exist to be found attractive by the average man. They aren’t soft, they aren’t delicate, and their stories don’t revolve around men at all. Love Lies Bleeding is about two queer women in an intense, dangerous relationship, with barely a straight male character of consequence in sight. TLOU2 gave us Ellie, a canonically lesbian protagonist, and Abby, whose narrative is entirely driven by grief and vengeance, not romance. These stories center women who bend the boundaries of conventional attractiveness. And that bothers some people – the same people who think women should always be visually palatable to them – deeply.

But isn’t that exactly why we need more bodies like this on our screens? Hollywood has fed us a monotonous diet of one particular body type for decades: slim, often underweight, rarely showing visible muscle definition beyond a flat stomach. As a result, huge swaths of the population have a completely warped idea of what the average woman looks like – and what a fit, strong woman can look like. I love seeing big women in media, and not just for personal (read: very gay) reasons. It’s genuinely good for everyone. Young girls need to see that strength is beautiful and attainable. Men need to unlearn the idea that femininity equals fragility. And queer women like me? We get to feel seen and celebrated.

The conversation hasn’t stopped with these two properties, either. Since 2024, we’ve seen a slow but steady trickle of buff female characters. The HBO adaptation of The Last of Us gave us a live-action Abby in 2025, played by an actress who clearly put in the work, and once again the discourse went nuclear. Yet the positive voices are growing louder. Social media is full of women sharing their own muscle-building journeys, inspired by fictional characters. Fitness influencers who don’t fit the tiny-yet-toned mold are gaining followings. It feels like a shift, however incremental.

So, can women naturally get that big? Yes, absolutely. Should we interrogate why it bothers us so much when a fictional woman is portrayed as physically formidable? Probably. But more importantly: can we just let buff women be buff? Love Lies Bleeding and Abby Anderson taught me that art can expand what we consider normal, even when it makes some people uncomfortable. That discomfort is the point. It’s a challenge to narrow expectations, and it’s a gift to anyone who’s ever felt like their body was too much or not enough. I’ll happily take another decade of queer thrillers and post-apocalyptic epics filled with intimidatingly strong women. Maybe, just maybe, by 2036, we won’t need to explain why they exist.

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