DEPEND=">=media-libs/gdk-pixbuf-0.16 media-libs/libpng =x11-libs/gtk+-1.2* avi? ( media-video/mplayer ) jpeg? ( media-libs/jpeg ) gtk2? ( >=x11-libs/gtk+-2.0 ) mpeg? ( =media-libs/xine-lib-1* ) nls? ( sys-devel/gettext )" so if i have gtk2 as a USE flag, I will get gtk+-1.2 (and gdk-pixbuf) anyhow just because... what reason? escape as provided with good examples (see dependency)
Closing, I've commited the fix out of annoyance.