Poll: Lara and the Tomb raider controversy

[Martin Toney]

I'm not going for hits don't worry
But you do bring up some good points, while I agree with what you're saying about her being the most prominent of bad female characters, what do you think of the over arching theme of her sexuality always being taken to the forefront in one manner or another? I was always turned away from the series because I don't think blatant sex appeal is a means to get attention in games ( or real life for that matter ). Personally I think they should tie the series up and make a new IP. just my opinion though =]

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Not yet.

What with the whole 'game isn't released and none of us have actually played it but we still feel ready to make decisions about its importance in relation to every other game ever' syndrome (which really needs a catchier name) I think that trying to decide whether the entire game will be sexist is a bit premature.

What I will say is that the idea in itself is not sexist.

Sexist would be 'Lara Croft is a woman and thus helpless.' 'Lara Croft is a woman, and thus without a man is incapable of making decisions or caring for herself.'

What we have seen so far of the game suggests 'Lara Croft is young and inexperienced and is thus having a hard time adapting, but alone and without anyone's aid she realises her inner strength and becomes the badass we all know and love.'

How is that even remotely sexist? From all we've seen she doesn't need a man, she isn't helpless in any way because of her feminity, even the greatest threat to her because of her gender, the attempted rape, is defeated by her without outside assistance. In fact, it almost seems like they haven't treated her as a woman at all, but more like (shock horror) a young person in a terrible situation.

 

[Im_not_Akira]

I feel the way the development team talk about the game is a kind of sexist and kind of demeaning to the audience. In the way they talk about events in the game making us care for Lara, and rape seeming to be used as a narrative device for her to overcome to become the strong independent woman we know.

But when watching the trailers, I feel like the most important thing is about her surviving. We see that she's a young woman off in search of adventure to make her mark so she's clearly already confident and outgoing (Like she was as a kid in Tomb Raider 4, if she was an annoying little shit). Let's not ignore the fact she's escaping when attacked not just swooning like a damsel in distress. And while some one tries to rape her it feels like the narrative is much more focused on someone wealthy and privileged losing everything they're used to (her team etc.) so they can find what they need to survive inside their self. A bit like the graphic novel 'Green Arrow: Year One'

But lets be honest even if it is sexist it's hardly going to go down hill from a game which was originally popular because the character was accidently given big breasts. I mean it's not Dead or Alive.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

No, it's not sexist.
What the devs said on the other hand, that's pretty sexist. If they'd just shut up about it, this would've been much better

 

[Treblaine]

They would never do it with a male character though because apparently male characters don't have to go through a traumatic experience to be tough...

Actually, they would have male characters go through this.

I don't think anyone can make the case that "being raped by perverts in remote woods" is something that has disproportionally been affecting women in fiction. This isn't not just about women, this is not a sexism issue.

 

[Starik20X6]

I wouldn't say it was sexist, no. Isn't the whole 'attempted rape' thing supposed to a: show how sleazy her captors are and b: show Lara being powerful enough to fend them off? I don't see how it's sexist to show a female character overcoming such a heavy obstacle.

I could see people having an issue with it if we were supposed to side with the attempted rapists, I'd have an issue with that, but that's not what's happening. As for the physical abuse, well, doesn't that just show she's just as tough if not more so than any male hero? Hell, if I was in any of the situations Lara gets into in the trailers alone I'd be a corpse within seconds.

I'm having a hard time grasping the chain of logic that says "a single female character goes through some harrowing experiences but manages to pull through and become stronger as a person, that means the creators have an anti-women agenda."

 

[Pink Gregory]

As for sexual assault, that is something that happens extremely often in the real word (something like 1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted at least once during their lifetimes) and it makes sense to see it in games depicting teh real world, but "attempted rape as backstory" sorta seems to be the default choice for many writers who can't think of any other motivation to give female characters. Likewise, IIRC, the PR people announced it in a way that reflects badly on the,/society as a whole.

Exactly, kinda reeks of trying to drop everything possible on her for no reason beyond shoddily defined 'motivation'; not really any causal link between these events and the future.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Since this is apparently a hard concept for some ppl in this thread: replacing sexism with a different kind of sexism doesn't make something less sexist.

And, really, with the comments from the dev team, I think we can all agree that if they manage to produce a non-sexist game it will probably be by accident.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Since this is apparently a hard concept for some ppl in this thread: replacing sexism with a different kind of sexism doesn't make something less sexist.

And, really, with the comments from the dev team, I think we can all agree that stuff if they manage to produce a non-sexist game it will probably be by accident.

I think the harder concept for some people is the realization that this isn't sexist, nor is.... well anything... about the game that has been sown, or described, to us.

 

[Mysterious Druid]

Anyone calling the new game 'sexist' or 'exploitive' is an idiot who's jumping the gun.

 

[lord.jeff]

How about Adam Jensen. In the beginning he gets his ass kicked and then augmented, a process which he was expressing moral reserve before getting his ass kicked.

He's about the only one I can think of that goes through it 'on screen' and even then he bounces back and is back to kicking asses.

Other protagonists more often or not have their wives killed or their girlfriend kidnapped to try and provide them with motivation. Which is also a terrible couple of tropes. (Hell even Jensen think his wife is killed or kidnapped for the majority of the game)

I agree that save your girlfriend and my wife died are stupid cliches and both have been overused but for argument I can't really think of any female characters in gaming who had to go through the whole I'm only a bad ass after I get raped or some equally horrible thing, I'm not saying they don't exist but I don't think it's any worse then the trails that get faced by most horror protagonists, or a few zero to hero stories.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I wasn't talking about film. I was talking about games. It just annoys me that a female character can't just be accepted as being badass and needs some sort of brutal origin story to 'toughen her up'.

Also I'm not sure those examples you gave count. The guys in deliverance and pulp fiction are hardly in a zero to hero trial by fire? They are just having nasty stuff happen to them. Bruce Willis is pretty much already a badass in that movie.

 

[Treblaine]

snip

I wasn't talking about film. I was talking about games. It just annoys me that a female character can't just be accepted as being badass and needs some sort of brutal origin story to 'toughen her up'.

Also I'm not sure those examples you gave count. The guys in deliverance and pulp fiction are hardly in a zero to hero trial by fire? They are just having nasty stuff happen to them. Bruce Willis is pretty much already a badass in that movie.

Games or films, the point is this isn't the first time rape has been depicted. Please tell me what it is that distinguishes this Tomb Raider video game from those films in terms of mode of storytelling? They are similar in so much as they have characters depicted visually and by voice recorded performances. I don't think the interactive or gameplay element makes enough of a difference.

"It just annoys me that a female character can't just be accepted as being badass and needs some sort of brutal origin story to 'toughen her up'"

Nonsense. EVERY character, male or female, of adventure genre goes through hardship for their back story. Yeah Samus Aran's parents were killed, dittof for Batman who lost his parents and had a traumatic accident, Luke Skywalker lost his uncle and aunt, Superman had his planet blow up, James Bond's parents are dead, Harry Potter's parents were killed and he was raised by abusive uncle. Generally it doesn't make for a good story or character that "oh I had a really comfortable and normal life, nothing interesting or worth hearing about".

It's part of Campbell's monomyth that the protagonists has endured trials and loss.

But still there are plenty of female characters who are accepted in video games with no stated hardship in their backstory:
-Chell of Portal
-Faith (mirror's edge)
-Zoey and Rochelle from left-4-dead series
-Jill Valentine
-Claire Redfield
-Ada Wong
-Rebecca Chambers
-Aya Brea

Have you seen the film Deliverance? It is very much about ordinary people thrust into extreme circumstances and forced to toughen up and fight and take chances to survive. Pulp Fiction is still an example of male characters being afflicted by rape horror and having to deal with that. It was a pivotal turning point in that story. Butch going back to save his mortal enemy from such a terrible fate shows a lot about how the character develops.

It's churlish to just call it "nasty stuff happening". It shows no consideration to what the characters think, fear and have to balance.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

Please tell me of a male game character who has as much stuff happen to him on screen as we have seen in the Tomb Raider trailers.

Why can't we just accept Lara as she is, a tough woman.

 

[The_Waspman]

Ugh. I'm not even going to go into this whole rape thing as a larger issue, or why it has suddenly become such a powderkeg, but there is nothing in the trailer to indicate this. Its the stupid fucking marketing department going on about it thats caused this. In the trailer, the only thing that happens is some guy runs a hand over her ass. Then she beats the crap out of him and kills him. Is that exploitative? Well, maybe a little, but like I say, if the people behind the game had kept their fuckig mouths shut (especially where the R word is concerned) then I doubt this would even be news.

 

[Erttheking]

My head is still reeling from the argument that Lara was supposed to be a tough independent woman and not a sex symbol.

 

[Taunta]

Sexist? Ehhhhhhhh. I have to think on that one. Wait and see.

Insensitive? Most definitely. The trailer hasn't really pissed me off as much as the comments about it. The thing about the developer comments that pissed me off the most was the idea that rape was just something that builds character. Seriously? Seriously now?

 

[itsthesheppy]

The game isn't out yet. I will say that's its definitely looking... a little skeezy. And the comments from the lead developer are some of the dumbest crap I've heard in a long time.

 

[LetalisK]

The whole "Why does she have to be so fragile?" blows my mind.

Just because she's not fucking Superman like every other boring archetypal badass out there doesn't mean she's fragile. When you can do half the shit she does in the trailer alone, then maybe you can call her fragile.

I hope this trend continues. I'm tired of "badasses" in general, but if we're going to have one, I want their badassery to be defined by how they can take a hit and keeping pushing, not by how they're avatars of pure destruction.

That said the infamous developer statements were very facepalm worthy.