Well I won't be buying the new Tomb Raider...

[cynicalandbored]

A couple of hours ago a friend of mine directed me toward this article in Kotaku.

http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

I've been following the recent controversy over the Hitman trailer, the one that inexplicably featured bondage nuns getting seven shades of holy water beaten out of them by 47. In my opinion, this description of Lara Croft is even more offensive to women than that.

In the Hitman trailer, overly sexualised women were being beaten up because we're supposed to want to kill them. They are, after all, attempting to murder the game's protagonist, moody anti-hero that he is. In a certain context it makes sense, and it's clearly the glamorisation of violence against scantily clad women that offends, rather than the fact that 47 kills women at all. If they hadn't been wearing fetish gear (or habits) and hadn't been dispatched in super slo-mo then there might have been less negative reaction. You know, if they'd been dressed like hardcore assassins rather than strippers...

Isn't this description of the "new" Lara Croft much more offensive to female gamers in particular, and women in general? It manages to imply that large breasts make a woman less human for starters. It also makes a point that gamers (who are ideally supposed to be projecting onto the characters they are playing) will want to "protect" her, because she's "more vulnerable." Yes, you make a woman more realistic by ensuring she's less sexually empowered and needs a lot more looking after by the (presumably target male demographic) gamers that play her. *sarcasm*

Is it just me that's a little disgusted by this? Fair enough, original Lara was a caricature, sexualised to the point of hilarity, and completely unsuitable as an aspirational model of womanhood. But she was at least able to look after herself. She was a bit of a badass, no denying, and that was something she had going for her. Men may have been more focused on her breasts, but the fact that she had an attitude was inescapable, albeit an attitude that occasionally spilled over into parody. In some ways original Lara was much more honest than this new, "realistic" Lara. After all, the protagonist in most games, male of female, is a ridiculously badass, fit, attractive, muscular specimen of humanity, who is perfect in almost every way. I know these aren't things we realistically aspire to, as I'm sure most gamers out there do. To believe that you could be exactly like these people, indeed to want to be exactly like these people, is clearly delusional behaviour. But at least they usually have some admirable personality traits, be it confidence, determination, etc... Original Lara was no different. Her body shape was literally impossible to achieve, but at least she wasn't just a pair of breasts bouncing above a hot-pants clad arse.

To aspire to be new Lara would be the pinnacle of insanity. Here is a young woman who is portrayed as being totally helpless and vulnerable. Yes, she learns to fend for herself. Yes, by the end of the game we can assume she'll be strong and independent with a badass attitude. But what does it take for her to achieve this? This wilting violet of a girl has to be subjected to more hideous torture and brutality than any of us are ever likely to experience. The implication of this is that the only way for a woman to develop an attitude and be able to look after herself is for her to undergo unspeakable hardship. And of course to have the big male ego of the gamer caring for her at every step. The fact that this hardship has to be rape as opposed to anything else is truly despicable.

Why couldn't we have a Lara we could try to identify with? I see no fundamental difference between one that men only play because they want to ogle her tits and one men only want to play because they feel the need to take care of the poor little girl. Both models of femininity are equally sexist in my opinion. And rape, seriously?

Am I just overreacting? Or is it a valid point? What do you all think?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Like I always said, if people want to be offended they will find a way to be offended.

But in no way does the game suggest all people must undergo torture in order to be skillful, it simply tells her story and how she came about this.
Still I won't be buying it either for similar reasons, depictions of genuine torture and watching people suffer is not my idea of entertainment, yes I am well aware that such things happen but I will never seek them out let alone pay for them.

 

[Fappy]

It all depends on how it is handled. If the character and her arch is well written and believable then I really don't see an issue. As far as I can tell they aren't suggesting women are weak and need protection, but rather that Lara is young an inexperience with absolutely no concept of what kind of hardship this adventure will bring her. I am wondering how they will handle the rape attempt though. I would be pleasantly surprised if they managed to actually make a non-offensive and compelling scenario, this being the game industry and all. Rape is hard enough to handle in other media, especially when being written primarily by men for men.

Also, I am surprised more people aren't upset over the depiction of natives as crazy rapists. Reminds me of when Race Bannon would murderer a bunch of them screaming, "SAVAGES!"

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Why is removing oversexualisation mysoginistic?

People would buy the game because of boobs. People complained, rightly, because it was very objectifying.
Why do you have such a problem with this?

 

[Sixcess]

"And then, Rosenberg says, those scavengers will try to rape her. "She is literally turned into a cornered animal," Rosenberg said. "It's a huge step in her evolution: she's forced to either fight back or die."

Wow.

And I thought I was maybe reading too much into the trailer when I saw it last week, but this, coming from one of the producers of the game, just raises it to a new level of creepy.

I'm dreading this. I don't want to see Lara pick up her iconic handguns as a reaction to an attempted rape. That's not a strong believable female character - that's just sleazy, and I am really concerned that this is the kind of exploitation movie thinking that's driving the reboot.

Lara was the iconic female video game hero of the 90s. She didn't need a justification for going on adventures and kicking ass any more than her male counterparts did. Now it's a reaction to an attempted rape. How can this possibly be seen as a step forward?

This is going to be worse than Other M.

 

[Zhukov]

Urgh... apparently it's impossible to have a female protagonist without stirring up gender politics.

The game is about a young woman on an expedition that goes pear-shaped. Ugly shit goes down and she has to fight to survive. Why is this getting people's hackles up? Would people be getting upset if it was a guy?

We finally get a game that's trying (albeit rather haltingly) to get away from the standard kill-everything-that-speaks-Russian power trip and people start squalling because "OMG, it's a chick."

 

[Jynthor]

Urgh... apparently it's impossible to have a female protagonist without stirring up gender politics.

The game is about a young woman on an expedition that goes pear-shaped. Ugly shit goes down and she has to fight to survive. Why is this getting people's hackles up? Would people be getting upset if it was a guy?

Men don't have feelings, so that would be okay.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Would people be getting upset if it was a guy?

Uh, if the latest Duke Nukem game revealed that a near-rape experience was why the Duke became who he is, you'd be able to hear the jimmies rustling from miles away.

 

[shiajun]

Oh wow people, where does it state that it was just because of the attempted rape that she became the badass Lara? It's the whole experience, the whole having to fend of a multitude of hardships by yourself. In the original bio in te 90s it just said that Lara trecked through the mountains for two weeks barely surviving as she walked into a village. After that she was incapable of fitting back into her comfortable social status and began adventures all over the world. This game, if done right, is just taking that sentence and making a game out of it. It hasn't changed anything, just making it more explicit.

What I'm wary of is the sheer amount of people that seem to be on the island in spite of its "remote and mysterious nature"(Is this Lost or what?) and what seems to be this telegraphed and linear gameplay, again. What ever happened to letting people wander around feeling confused? That's what made the exploration in these games different. In fact, it's what would make it stand apart from Uncharted.

 

[Zhukov]

Would people be getting upset if it was a guy?

Uh, if the latest Duke Nukem game revealed that a near-rape experience was why the Duke became who he is, you'd be able to hear the jimmies rustling from miles away.

Well, you'd hear me laughing from miles away.

...

Okay, seriously now, would folks be less upset if it was a new IP? Are people upset because it's Lara Croft specifically? 'Cause it seems to me that the developers have been very clear that they're going for a different tone to the old games. They use the word "mature" like it's going out of fashion.

Also, and this is speculation, I don't think the near-rapage is supposed to be "why she becomes who she is", but rather just the first time she has to kill a dude.

...

Is the "gaming community" just not ready for a game where the protagonist nearly gets raped?

(Although I'm sure it's happened before. I remember the guy in Mafia II nearly finding himself on the receiving end of a prison shower scene.)

 

[Kahunaburger]

Also, and this is speculation, I don't think the near-rapage is supposed to be "why she becomes who she is", but rather just the first time she has to kill a dude.

Well, here's the developer quote Sixcess put there:

"And then, Rosenberg says, those scavengers will try to rape her. "She is literally turned into a cornered animal," Rosenberg said. "It's a huge step in her evolution: she's forced to either fight back or die."

Is the "gaming community" just not ready for a game where the protagonist nearly gets raped?

Well, considering the whole issue with writing of all media using a simplistic take on rape as an easy way to drum up teh dramas and/or create conflict/backstory for female characters they don't know what to do with otherwise, I'm not particularly eager to see video games jumping on the bandwagon as well. I mean, seriously, that shit was played out even 2-3 decades back in Red Sonja.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Also, BTW, if people want to create a "mature" version of Lara Croft, the obvious angle is a satire of imperialism. Because you literally have a person from a colonizer country travelling the colonized world in search of shiny shit to take.

 

[Zhukov]

Urgh... apparently it's impossible to have a female protagonist without stirring up gender politics.

The game is about a young woman on an expedition that goes pear-shaped. Ugly shit goes down and she has to fight to survive. Why is this getting people's hackles up? Would people be getting upset if it was a guy?

Because it's Lara Croft, and Tomb Raider we're talking about. People expect Lara Croft to be a serious yet fun-loving English lady, richer than the world, who travels the world in search of powerful artifacts for shits and giggles. She also shoots stuff.

So far, what I've read about the new game is going to break that. I wouldn't mind or care much if they called it any other character and game, but once again, it's Lara Croft and Tomb Raider.

What is also weird is that this is supposed to take place before she became the badass, treasure hunting, tomb raiding, gun toting lady she is right now. I recall there being both Tomb Raider 4 as well as Legend and Underworld, that both had bits about Lara's past. In the TR4 bit, she was very young, probably not even an adult yet. She was already hunting treasures by then, I recall. So did the new Tomb Raider happen before that? How old is she supposed to be in the new game anyway? If it's supposed to have happened before the TR4 bit, she'd be in puberty in the new game, if not before that. That makes it a lot creepier all of a sudden.

It's called a reboot for a reason.

The developers have been clear and consistent throughout that they're not trying to recreate the shits-and-giggles tone of the old games.

 

[Zenn3k]

I probably will, if only because I've kinda wanted to try out uncharted, but I don't own or wish to buy a PS3.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I don't want to see Lara Croft nearly raped. I don't want to play a survival horror where she gets beat up and broken. I want a strong female protagonist that is self sufficient, I want her to be defined by her heroic actions, her strong will to do whatever is necessary, and her strength to take on whatever comes at her. I want to face off against Krakens, Egyptian Gods, ninjas and mummies, not watch her get tied up and beaten by bandits. As someone else pointed out this is very much 'Josh Whedon' feminism, and that sickens me.

What is also weird is that this is supposed to take place before she became the badass, treasure hunting, tomb raiding, gun toting lady she is right now. I recall there being both Tomb Raider 4 as well as Legend and Underworld, that both had bits about Lara's past. In the TR4 bit, she was very young, probably not even an adult yet. She was already hunting treasures by then, I recall. So did the new Tomb Raider happen before that? How old is she supposed to be in the new game anyway? If it's supposed to have happened before the TR4 bit, she'd be in puberty in the new game, if not before that. That makes it a lot creepier all of a sudden.

Yes, Lara Croft's history is very very well documented, and has been visited plenty of times in the games already. In Tomb Raider the last revelation you play the tutorial missions as a 16 year old Lara on her first tomb exploration, and she is a witty, sarcastic, flirty high-spirited rebel. I'm This just completely throws that out the window.

 

[Elamdri]

A couple of hours ago a friend of mine directed me toward this article in Kotaku.

http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft

I've been following the recent controversy over the Hitman trailer, the one that inexplicably featured bondage nuns getting seven shades of holy water beaten out of them by 47. In my opinion, this description of Lara Croft is even more offensive to women than that.

In the Hitman trailer, overly sexualised women were being beaten up because we're supposed to want to kill them. They are, after all, attempting to murder the game's protagonist, moody anti-hero that he is. In a certain context it makes sense, and it's clearly the glamorisation of violence against scantily clad women that offends, rather than the fact that 47 kills women at all. If they hadn't been wearing fetish gear (or habits) and hadn't been dispatched in super slo-mo then there might have been less negative reaction. You know, if they'd been dressed like hardcore assassins rather than strippers...

To address this quickly. I don't think that there is particularly anything wrong with that trailer. It isn't presented in a hateful manner; you're not rooting for 47 to kill those assassins because they're women, you are rooting for him because they are the antagonists and he is the protagonist. Now, to address their style: We live in a world where our media has a lot of freedom to explore ideas. One of the things that we choose to explore often is our sexuality. Human sexuality isn't always clear-cut, God approved missionary sex. People have ALL sorts of fetishes and often times, in exploring those in media, we get a story that better resonates with the audience and at the same time, allows us to better understand ourselves. Now take the Femme Fatale. This isn't the first time that someone has said that there is something sexy about deadly, beautiful women. It's a trope you see all the time. Look at James Bond. I think that it's fine for movies and games and other media to explore concepts like this as long as they're not done in a hateful manner as I said.

Isn't this description of the "new" Lara Croft much more offensive to female gamers in particular, and women in general? It manages to imply that large breasts make a woman less human for starters. It also makes a point that gamers (who are ideally supposed to be projecting onto the characters they are playing) will want to "protect" her, because she's "more vulnerable." Yes, you make a woman more realistic by ensuring she's less sexually empowered and needs a lot more looking after by the (presumably target male demographic) gamers that play her. *sarcasm*

No, it doesn't say that having large breasts makes a woman less human. It is saying that the old Laura was a sexualized caricature; NOT a person. She was sexualized to point where you could not believe she was a person because no real person looked the way she did. She did not feel human because no human being looks the way she looked. There was absolutely nothing "sexually empowering" about the original Laura. Now she looks like a person rather than a doll.

As for the "Protecting her" thing, I'm sure I'm going to be addressing this a lot, but the main point is this. This Laura Croft is not the Laura Croft from the rest of the games. She is not a "hero" at the start of the game. She's a young adult who from what can be surmised by the trailers is not at the start of the game particularly skilled in any of the endeavors she is undertaking. She's just a normal person thrust into a extraordinary situation. In that context, wanting to "Protect your character" makes SENSE, because the character is incapable of mounting a serious offense. What is important here is that this is a gender neutral concept. I'm male, but if you stuck me in a scenario like this, I would need just as much "protection" because I have no survival skills or combat skills myself and would just as easily die as this game's Laura.

Is it just me that's a little disgusted by this? Fair enough, original Lara was a caricature, sexualised to the point of hilarity, and completely unsuitable as an aspirational model of womanhood. But she was at least able to look after herself. She was a bit of a badass, no denying, and that was something she had going for her. Men may have been more focused on her breasts, but the fact that she had an attitude was inescapable, albeit an attitude that occasionally spilled over into parody. In some ways original Lara was much more honest than this new, "realistic" Lara. After all, the protagonist in most games, male of female, is a ridiculously badass, fit, attractive, muscular specimen of humanity, who is perfect in almost every way. I know these aren't things we realistically aspire to, as I'm sure most gamers out there do. To believe that you could be exactly like these people, indeed to want to be exactly like these people, is clearly delusional behaviour. But at least they usually have some admirable personality traits, be it confidence, determination, etc... Original Lara was no different. Her body shape was literally impossible to achieve, but at least she wasn't just a pair of breasts bouncing above a hot-pants clad arse.

To aspire to be new Lara would be the pinnacle of insanity. Here is a young woman who is portrayed as being totally helpless and vulnerable. Yes, she learns to fend for herself. Yes, by the end of the game we can assume she'll be strong and independent with a badass attitude. But what does it take for her to achieve this? This wilting violet of a girl has to be subjected to more hideous torture and brutality than any of us are ever likely to experience. The implication of this is that the only way for a woman to develop an attitude and be able to look after herself is for her to undergo unspeakable hardship. And of course to have the big male ego of the gamer caring for her at every step.

This is amusing to me. You consider the old Laura to be more realistic, when everything about her was exaggerated and the new Laura to be less realistic because she's like a normal person? What I'm even more surprised by is that you are so attached to the old Laura simply because she has an attitude? Do you have any idea how trite and played-out the "Hot woman with an attitude" character is? You are so offended by this idea of what you see as a Laura that needs a male gamer to look after her, but have no problem with marginalizing complaints of exploiting female sexuality by tacking on a cheap attitude to a character?

To address what I view as your chief complaint, which is new Laura not being a "badass," consider this: If you haven't figured it out, this new Tomb Raider is a type of "Hero's Journey" story. In these types of stories, the hero always starts out as a young and unskilled normal person who is forced on an adventure and over the course of the adventure, develops into the hero. That is exactly what this game is. You say that the new Laura isn't inspirational because at the start of the story she has no worthwhile qualities or that her worthwhile qualities will be a result of subjecting her to torture.

Let me pose this question: In what way is the new Laura's story different from Frodo's from Lord of the Rings? Besides her being a woman. Both start out their stories without any knowledge or skill. They're both thrust unwillingly into a dangerous situation. They both have to adventure and overcome extreme obstacles to survive. They both are subject to torture and beatings and violence. They both grow throughout their journey. At the end of both of their adventures they have become self-dependent and heroic.

There is absolutely no difference thematically and yet while people consider Frodo to be very heroic, you are dismissive and disdainful of Laura.

The fact that this hardship has to be rape as opposed to anything else is truly despicable.

This is something that doesn't get talked about enough, so I'm going to separate it out, because it's very important and doesn't quite fit with the above discussion. Rape is something that is largely a uniquely female danger in our society (I know that it happens to men and children, but lets stay on topic here). It's difficult to discuss rape because of it's taboo nature and worrying about offending others or hurting women who have been raped. But at the same time, I think we hurt our society because we don't talk about rape. We are so afraid of talking about it that I think we marginalize it sometimes.

Now here is my problem. I believe that the way you are presenting this game, it almost sounds like you believe that the game will be Laura being tortured non-stop until someone attempts to rape her, in which case she will suddenly be transformed and finally fight back. I don't really see that as being the case from what I have seen of the game. Now, I'm sure there is likely going to be some sort of scene where Laura manages to kill her attacker, and it may even be the first person she kills, but I do not believe that they are going to use the attempted rape in the game as some sort of transitive moment for her. I think there is importance in covering this topic. Like I said, I'm male and well, quite frankly I don't ever really worry about being raped. It's just not something that realistically is going to happen to me. But if I was female, it's an entirely different story. That's something that's very scary to think about: that simply by being a different gender, the odds of me being the victim of a crime go up astronomically.

I will have to see how this is done inevitably, but I have hope that the subject matter will be presented tastefully (because if it isn't there will be hell to pay for the developers in the news media).

Why couldn't we have a Lara we could try to identify with? I see no fundamental difference between one that men only play because they want to ogle her tits and one men only want to play because they feel the need to take care of the poor little girl. Both models of femininity are equally sexist in my opinion. And rape, seriously?

Am I just overreacting? Or is it a valid point? What do you all think?

I think you are seriously overreacting for the reasons described. This isn't some sort of "White Knight" simulator. The developers are using an INCREDIBLY old story formula that starts out with a weak protagonist developing into a strong hero. Laura isn't being portrayed as some weak little girl you need to take care of because all women are weak and need to be taken care of. She's being portrayed as weak because at the start she IS weak and the plot demands that she BE weak at the beginning so you can see how strong she becomes at the end.