Tomb Raider Dev: Rape is Not in Our Vocabulary

[Condiments]

God what happened anyways? There was a huge backlash towards that one "Women Vs. Tropes" project, then all of a sudden anything that even implies rape because a huuuuuuuge no-no, articles flood in on here about it, and then tvtropes goes and hits the flush switch on anything with even the word in it.

What? Did the wife of every man who lashed out against the kickstarter project suddenly go on the offensive by locking them out of certain things, and now men are doing damage control? Is that what this is?!
If that is what it is, then dammit women, use this kind of power to cure cancer or something!


Though, last I checked, groping someone can easily be sexual assault. If I went out and involuntarily groped a woman's breast, arse, or crotch I'm sure as hell the cops would be all over me for that.

This is a perfect example of the free floating nature of public conscientiousness, where a succession of incidents causes of a perfect storm of a topic repeatably being brought up due to people seeking inquiry into what the fuss is about and the widespread nature of this controversy. There in turn causes a chain of people seeking context, followed by their initiation into the debate, followed by them re-entering the debate seeking resolution to their internal discomfort, and the cycle continues. You could see how something like this could continuously pile up like a snow ball as opinions and people collide seeking some grounding.

Anyways, while Rosenburg's comments are reprehensible(seriously, what the hell was he thinking), the game's suggestion of rape isn't inherently bad. Its merely about execution, and treating the subject with the proper respect it deserves, rather than exploiting subjects for publication and appealing to our baser natures. We needed clarification, not back-pedaling crystal dynamics.

If you worry about the fetishes of people involving anything even remotely sexual in game before making it then you couldn't ever have anything remotely sexual in game. Heck, even non sexual things become sexual given the right (aka wrong) fan base.

There is a certain difference between creating a scenario where you want to defend your character from undesirably outcomes(like death, in most games), and exploiting a female character, and a controversial issue such as rape to appeal to our need to "protect someone". It turns an otherwise good moral judgement(preventing rape=good) into a marketing tactic that takes advantage/patronizes both the male gamers playing it, and trivializes a difficult issue and reality that women/men have to deal with. Rape itself should not be used to appeal to our inner "white knight". Its a topic that deserves the respect of material it is represented in, and the audience that will be experiencing it.

 

[Mirrorknight]

Wow. Really? ...I mean...seriously?

Do people even listen to themselves speak? A little groping doesn't constitute sexual assault? Ugh.

On a aside, I don't want to feel like I need to protect Lara Croft. If this is how the game makes me feel, then it has failed. Because it is Lara Fucking Croft. Lara Fucking Croft should be breaking the man's arm in three places for trying that shit.

I'm tired of strong female characters in games having to have some sort of requisite horrible emotional trauma in order to be a strong female character. I'm not saying that their life has to be sunshine and teddy bears, but can we start getting away from rape/attempted rape/sexual assault/close physical intimidation = super-heroine thing?

 

[antipunt]

God what happened anyways? There was a huge backlash towards that one "Women Vs. Tropes" project, then all of a sudden anything that even implies rape because a huuuuuuuge no-no, articles flood in on here about it, and then tvtropes goes and hits the flush switch on anything with even the word in it.

What? Did the wife of every man who lashed out against the kickstarter project suddenly go on the offensive by locking them out of certain things, and now men are doing damage control? Is that what this is?!
If that is what it is, then dammit women, use this kind of power to cure cancer or something!


Though, last I checked, groping someone can easily be sexual assault. If I went out and involuntarily groped a woman's breast, arse, or crotch I'm sure as hell the cops would be all over me for that.

This is a perfect example of the free floating nature of public conscientiousness, where a succession of incidents causes of a perfect storm of a topic repeatably being brought up due to people seeking inquiry into what the fuss is about and the widespread nature of this controversy. There in turn causes a chain of people seeking context, followed by their initiation into the debate, followed by them re-entering the debate seeking resolution to their internal discomfort, and the cycle continues. You could see how something like this could continuously pile up like a snow ball as opinions and people collide seeking some grounding.

Anyways, while Rosenburg's comments are reprehensible(seriously, what the hell was he thinking), the game's suggestion of rape isn't inherently bad. Its merely about execution, and treating the subject with the proper respect it deserves, rather than exploiting subjects for publication and appealing to our baser natures. We needed clarification, not back-pedaling crystal dynamics.

If you worry about the fetishes of people involving anything even remotely sexual in game before making it then you couldn't ever have anything remotely sexual in game. Heck, even non sexual things become sexual given the right (aka wrong) fan base.

There is a certain difference between creating a scenario where you want to defend your character from undesirably outcomes(like death, in most games), and exploiting a female character, and a controversial issue such as rape to appeal to our need to "protect someone". It turns an otherwise good moral judgement(preventing rape=good) into a marketing tactic that takes advantage/patronizes both the male gamers playing it, and trivializes a difficult issue and reality that women have to deal with. Rape itself should not be used to appeal to our inner "white knight". Its a topic that deserves the respect of material it is represented in, and the audience that will be experiencing it.

Good post. Rape is a serious topic; ignoring it is not going to make it go away. Whether people like it or not, women get raped, especially in violent situations like war, etc.

Also, your first paragraph blew my mind. I feel unclean .__.

 

[Doom972]

Well, there goes the only interesting thing about this new Tomb Raider game. For a few days I thought someone in the AAA gaming industry finally grew some balls but I guess not.

Someone did grow some balls, but then PR came and confiscated them.

 

[newdarkcloud]

"Rape" might not be in your vocabulary, but "mixed messages" and "unfortunate implications" are.

 

[Wolfram23]

I don't even get the problem.

There is no rape in the game either way.
There IS an npc who might conceivably have the intention to commit rape, or at least feels a bit rape-y.
Said npc then gets fought off (and, in my Mind-Vision-Version at least, he also gets his nuts crashed).
So no rape happens.

So why the fuss ?

She fights the guy off and shoots him in the gut, then watches him die.

So... I agree with you. If the exact same thing happened with a male protagonist (and I mean literally swap character models, same animations) - let's say Nathan Drake - nobody would give a damn. Nobody would assume it was a gay enemy trying to rape him, it would just be a little mortal scuffle and life goes on.

EDIT: Just watched it again. So the only "rapey" thing I see is they slow mo the guy's hand going down towards her waist line. Of course, most people seem to like holding weapons there so he might be checking her for weapons. But he gets kneed in the nuts, and then grabs her from behind. He goes in, maybe to kiss her neck... although it's hard to say because she lunges at him and bites his neck. Then they're on the ground and she puts a bullet in him.

So, yeah, it looks a little rapey and that's probably their intention, but she's not a victim here. She's a fighter, a survivor, and now a killer too.

 

[Imthatguy]

Hmm... Rape happens and art being a reflection of life should be able to inspect it. Jim made some very good points about rape vs murder however he failed to see another aspect of the argument - Victims of Violence - much like a victim of rape is reminded constantly of her/his experience and the numbness inside them a victim of violence feels much the same way when s/he looks at his/her tattered body in the mirror or feels the limitation imposed by her/his disfigurement or injury. Yet video games revel in violence and its almost never brought up in a serious context for debate.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Every single word they say at this point will just dig them deeper. I hope they understand this.

Hey. Crystal? No matter how right you are, you will not win against these people. They are determined, by this point, to HATE you. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't, and you'll garner more respect if you do. So go out in a ball of flames, I say.

 

[kurupt87]

If you worry about the fetishes of people involving anything even remotely sexual in game before making it then you couldn't ever have anything remotely sexual in game. Heck, even non sexual things become sexual given the right (aka wrong) fan base.

There is a certain difference between creating a scenario where you want to defend your character from undesirably outcomes(like death, in most games), and exploiting a female character, and a controversial issue such as rape to appeal to our need to "protect someone". It turns an otherwise good moral judgement(preventing rape=good) into a marketing tactic that takes advantage/patronizes both the male gamers playing it, and trivializes a difficult issue and reality that women/men have to deal with. Rape itself should not be used to appeal to our inner "white knight". Its a topic that deserves the respect of material it is represented in, and the audience that will be experiencing it.

Bollocks.

If the character is liked and harm is indicated then the white knight will appear, there is no choice. It doesn't matter if it's film, book, tv or game; if the character is liked the consumer will wish grievous harm not to occur.

There is no difference between wanting to protect your character from death or protecting them from rape. In fact, real world I'd choose to protect someone from death over rape.

The only reason this is a big deal is because of the stupid youtube docu explosion and because rape is sexual. Just because death doesn't mean anything to the gamer anymore doesn't mean that it doesn't actually mean anything; it taking the unaccustomed mention of rape to remind players that their actions have story consequences (or even cutscene inactions just giving weight) is a good thing.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

CD, you are not smart enough to not make this look bad. That entire scene was just icky and sleazy. It is COMPLETELY obvious that you've implied the men assaulting Lara also want to violate her. Sexual violence is not something you are talented enough to discuss, so you were probably better off not implying it in the first place.

And guess what, groping CAN be classified as sexual assault or molestation.

 

[Overquoted]

So... I agree with you. If the exact same thing happened with a male protagonist (and I mean literally swap character models, same animations) - let's say Nathan Drake - nobody would give a damn. Nobody would assume it was a gay enemy trying to rape him, it would just be a little mortal scuffle and life goes on.

Except it's not a mortal scuffle with Lara Croft, and that's the point. If you genuinely can't see that guy gearing up for some good ol' fashioned sexual violence, then I don't think you understand what attempted rape is. Just because he didn't get far with it doesn't change his intentions. Your contrast with Drake...if another dude had Drake tied up and then began pressing himself against Drake and running his hands down his body, yes, people would assume that Drake was in danger of some Deliverance-style torture. A "mortal scuffle" can be accomplished without any form of sexualization. See: every Lara Croft game prior to this.

I'm not quite as mad over the scene as some; more just disgusted in general. The objections to it have stemmed, imo, from two points. The first is that games are an activity involving fantasy. Having attempted rape in a game is a reminder of how common sexual crimes against women are. And women know how common they are simply from the number of family members and friends with the experiences. An example of not wanting to be reminded of gender-specific reality: I don't watch the LFL because, regardless of how talented the women are, they're on the field, dressed in lingerie. They're there because of tits, not because they're talented. And that's pretty standard IRL, much more so than it is for men. (Doug Stanhope has a routine on ugly people that's applicable.)

The other part is that this is an origins story. Everything up to the point of her fighting off a rapist would be enough to create a "strong woman." The fact that they put in the attempted rape makes it seem far more an important moment in her character development than it should be. Lara Croft became Lara Croft because someone tried to get his tarse up her petticoats rather than because she likes wandering around death traps? It's aggravating. And that kind of plot is more in line with rape-revenge horror (sexploitation films) than with a just a standard slasher flick (mortal scuffle).

If this had happened to a Lara Croft who was older, or just seemed less vulnerable, I doubt anyone would draw the conclusion that the attempt had some major effect on her. I also doubt it'd have played out the way it did. She'd have sneered at him instead of displaying fear. The trailer made her a victim by her actions, not just by his.

 

[saintdane05]

Rape in gaming is nothing new. Hasn't anyone played Corruption of Champions?

 

[Teshi]

Someone needs to take these guys' shovels away.

 

[GloatingSwine]

According to Crystal Dynamics, a little groping doesn't constitute sexual assault.

Jesus fucking Christ Grey, did they say that ANYWHERE? What the fuck is wrong with you? Fuck.

The very fact that they're quibbling about the words used means that they're totally OK with sexualised violence towards a female character.

And really, the people saying that this means that games are "growing up" need to think carefully about what being grown up means. Smoking crack because all the big boys are doing it does not make one "grown up", just stupid. And the way that sexual violence is trivialised in many media is an addiction that writers need to break out of. And it is trivialised, and this is a perfect example of how. They needed a situation where their character was forced to kill, and because that character was a woman they jumped straight to the sexual violence. This scene would never occur with a male character but occurs with female characters with depressing frequency. It's bad for storytelling because it homogenises female characters, there's nothing unique about this, it would be written the same for any woman. Sexism via narrative laziness is not a thing which videogames should be seeking to emulate from other media.

 

[Overquoted]

I wish people would stop shitting their pants over stuff like this.

First it was the Hitman: Absolution trailer that had a few nuns show a little skin and people flipped their fucking shit over nothing (the trailer was good, made me more interested in the game) an now a bit of groping...*sigh*

Chill the beans people.

I didn't care one way or another over the trailer, but have ya ever considered maybe it's not specific game but the industry as a whole? With the exception of games that simply have no women at all, a large number of AAA games have women who are either victimized or sexualized to the point of stupidity. Dead Island had rape; Dead Rising 2 had the Titty Twins. What do either have to do with zombies, exactly? "People" (and I think you mean female gamers) aren't mad over skin. They're mad because a bunch of clearly dangerous women showed up in clothes from Frederick's of Hollywood. It'd be like a dude showing up in a pair of boxer-briefs to kill someone.

Here's an easy way to spot whether or not a game is doing something insulting by showing skin: Does the clothing make sense in context? (No.) Do all the female characters wear "sexy" clothes, or can it be panned off as one chick's inner weirdness? (They all do, so no.)

"Tits or GTFO" shouldn't be the defining sell for a game outside of those Japanese hentai games. And you really shouldn't expect female gamers to be okay with it. You wouldn't expect people to be okay with an industry that routinely made mockeries and caricatures out of characters with non-white ethnicities. And yes, that is exactly what is happening. Faith from Mirror's Edge is an exception, not the rule.