Wolfram23 said:
Well I'm looking at - literally looking at, on my desk - my copy of Tomb Raider on PC CDROM copyright 1996 Core Design Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited. And guess what? There's a big pixelated picture of Lara and her huge tits.
This just occurred to me. Lara has always been a sex object. Always. Now, in the trailer we see her in a desperate struggle against that issue, and she fucking kicks ass. Maybe that's a good thing?
Yes, and she's also always been confident and in control. Here, not so much. That's a major part of the issue, this is not a "fight or flight" response, this is Lara as a "cornered animal" (also the words of the executive producer).
The scene is a deliberate attempt to remove all control from the hands of a female character, by threatening her with sexual violence (which, it bears repeating because some people still don't get that this is important, happens to female characters
vastly more frequently than it does to male characters) so that male gamers can feel all big and proud when they "protect" her.
Also the words of the executive producer.
When feminists talk about "rape culture"
this is they type of thing they are talking about, the use of sexual violence against women in media for the sake of cheap drama. It is something which
needs to stop, it is
bad and lazy storytelling.
Sexual violence in fiction is currently not treated with the severity it should be. I am reminded of what Bryan Talbot said about writing
The Tale of One Bad Rat, where he had initially intended to use child abuse as a catalyst for the story, provoking the main character to run away from home, but when he started researching the issue he realised that that wasn't the right way to approach it, it had to
be the story because it was too important a social issue to treat so casually. Sexual violence
should be the same, it should not be handled casually, and this type of thing, using it as a disposable catalyst for a completely unrelated story
is handling it casually.
It needs to stop. Not just in games, in every form of media.