The Victimization of Lara Croft

Cyia · Jun 12, 2012

Today, on Chuck Windig's blog, he presented THIS link, which is to a piece about the new "reboot" of Tomb Raider, with Lara's "origin" story. I'm going to quote the pieces of the original article that he did:

“When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character,” Rosenberg told me at E3 last week when I asked if it was difficult to develop for a female protagonist.
“They’re more like ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.’”
So is she still the hero? I asked Rosenberg if we should expect to look at Lara a little bit differently than we have in the past.
“She’s definitely the hero but— you’re kind of like her helper,” he said. “When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character.”

and

In the new Tomb Raider, Lara Croft will suffer. Her best friend will be kidnapped. She’ll get taken prisoner by island scavengers. 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.”

Now, Lara Croft is by no means a realistic character, but she was one of the few gritty, capable female leads out there. And now, she's being reduced to "cornered animal" who the player doesn't actually play, but "help," because we all know that no one could possibly want to portray a strong female character.

For bonus points, if you don't help her, then you get her raped because, apparently in gamer-world, that's the only way a female character can ever be truly strong. (Never mind that rape survival often has the opposite effect on people who've gone through it)

And sadly, for the state of humanity anyway, one of the comments points out this gem:

Yep. Lara’s first human kill in the game, apparently, is a douchebag who tries to rape her in an interactive segment, so not even a cutscene. Which means that something obviously has to happen if the player FAILS to stop the rape.

So... someone animated a rape. A rape that you may be able to stop if you're "strong" enough. Of course, if you aren't, then you don't "save" the little lady and you get to watch what happens next.

:Soapbox:

Zoombie · Jun 12, 2012

Well, that's just abysmal.

veinglory · Jun 12, 2012

It doesn't say if actual rape is a possible outcome. There may be a 'save' that comes in to prevent that.

barnhijl · Jun 12, 2012

Why are they putting rape into a video game anyway???? seriously what is wrong with these people!? can't they make her a stronger character or more relate-able without sexually violating her or making it so she needs to be protected? aren't there enough women in games that need protected, do we really need one more?? *angry face*

leahzero · Jun 12, 2012

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

This is why this is important.

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 12, 2012

I've been mulling this over, but my reaction now is the same as it was forty minutes ago.

Ewwwwwwww.

barnhijl · Jun 12, 2012

leahzero said:
Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

This is why this is important.

agreed. it's the first thing I thought of when I saw this, but I didn't know if anyone would have any clue what I was talking about

BigWords · Jun 12, 2012

Aside from the question of the existence of rape footage in the game, the "cornered animal" bit is warning enough for me to avoid the game completely. If that is what the devs think the character is about, then they have seriously misjudged the franchise.

Can anyone imagine the announcement of a grittier Serious Sam reboot, where, if he fails to kill wave after wave of monsters, they rape and eat him? No?

Zoombie · Jun 12, 2012

You know...it's not that hard.

I haven't played that many Tomb Raider games, but here's an idea...lets make it like any good adventure story.

STEP 1: Give Lara Croft a good reason to want to do something. Lets say there is some ancient possibly magical doohicky that has to be found before the Nazis/Russians/Chinese find it.

STEP 2: Make Lara Croft awesome. Frankly, in these kinds of stories, we're okay with unrealistically awesome characters. I mean, it's okay when MEN are awesome (Tintin, Indiana Jones, and so on). So, give her witty one liners, a handsome lug to rescue, sexy outfits (Come on, who hasn't drooled over Harrison Ford at least once in their life?) and bitching guns.

STEP 3: Create an engaging gunplay/martial arts/exploration combination.

STEP 4: Lots of large, beautiful levels in exotic locals.

Throw in a snarky British, Australian, or possibly American side kick and boom!

Quality.

I mean, maybe this is just me, but the adventure genera is...pulpy. And pulpy, to me, means generally optimistic and upbeat. There are evil things, but you can beat them with courage, luck and two fists.

KateSmash · Jun 12, 2012

Yeah, I'm still in a blind rage for this. Especially after the first images and trailers gave me so much f'ing hope.

They basically took her, stripped of her initial objectification and added new (and frankly) grosser ones on top. They took her from an item to be fucked and made her an item to be sat on the shelf like a fucking porcelain doll.

And then THAT bring in the whole tired old trope of there not being any female gamers every and ... GAH! I want to fly to England and punch each every person involved in this in the junk.

Mara · Jun 12, 2012

We really need to get a crowd of gamer women together and start heckling these sexist assholes whenever they try to speak at gaming conventions. Not with the expected protest slogans, but outright heckling, stuff that geeks understand.

"Your game sucks! So does your personal hygiene! What, you demean women in games because you're too scared of us to do it in real life? Oh, you want to brag about your game's realistic jiggle physics? Good for you. I guess that's the closest you'll ever come to seeing real breasts, you little sexist twerp!"

Sophisticated? No. Effective? Probably.

KateSmash said:
And then THAT bring in the whole tired old trope of there not being any female gamers every and ... GAH! I want to fly to England and punch each every person involved in this in the junk.

*buys some brass knuckles and comes along*

Zoombie · Jun 12, 2012

Can Allies come too, or is it women only?

I could put on a dress...

KateSmash · Jun 12, 2012

You can wear the dress I probably wouldn't, Zoom.

efkelley · Jun 12, 2012

To me the most important sentence of the linked blog is:

I’m not saying there’s not a mode for a story where a woman fights off brutal male attackers and triumphs against them. There is. I’m also not sure that Tomb Raider is it.

I quite agree. Lara Croft is a pulp action heroine (as Zoombie pointed out perfectly). She's unrealistic by design, larger than life by design (no pun, you gutter-brains), and almost never operates in the gray areas of storytelling. THAT is the Tomb Raider we know. They're making the case that some event forged her into that person, but I'm not entirely sure that the scenario described in this game need necessarily be that event.

I say vote with your cash on this one. Don't buy it. When Tomb Raider came out initially, I said to myself 'NICE!' followed by 'I wondered when they'd start using boobs to peddle video games.' It was obvious even to those of us in the target demographic what they were doing. For this new game though, they said they toned down Lara's cup size and upped the gritty realism. Gritty realism isn't Tomb Raider and toning down the cup size isn't a way to make sexism 'okay.'

barnhijl · Jun 12, 2012

I wonder if not buying it would even matter... would enough people be PO'd about this?? I'm sure there are plenty of people that don't see this as an issue (the guys who harass female gamers come to mind) and obviously the game company thinks it's cool. I just wish there was a way to smack sense into more people about how this really is an issue.

Amadan · Jun 12, 2012

Well, it just wouldn't be realistic for a woman not to be threatened with rape, you know.

(I need to use this thing, don't I? :sarcasm

)

KateSmash · Jun 12, 2012

barnhijl said:
I wonder if not buying it would even matter... would enough people be PO'd about this?? I'm sure there are plenty of people that don't see this as an issue (the guys who harass female gamers come to mind) and obviously the game company thinks it's cool. I just wish there was a way to smack sense into more people about how this really is an issue.

That right there's the problem. A large and the most vocal chunk of video gamers are awful little sexist trolls. They're the guys that harass female gamers. They're the ones that say such vile things in multi-player that player like me give up on kicking their asses because we don't want to be threatened with rape any more. Been there, done that, have the bills from therapy and two suicide attempts to prove it.

These are also the kind of gamers that keep franchises like DOA around and complain to the high heavens when anyone mentions the misogyny inherent in the genre needs to change. Because they're not offended and video games need to cater to them instead of these other player who have been playing just as long (if not longer, since I'm getting kind of old).

There's a lot of chest beating and dick measuring that goes on in video game culture. And unless those of us with a better grasp on reality speak up, this shit is never going to change.

Zoombie · Jun 12, 2012

The only thing we can do is bitch about it.

There's a reason why I don't play multiplayer games...

Cyia · Jun 12, 2012

In one of the links from Chuck's post, a woman mentions trying to point out the epic fail-ness of the rape storyline, only to be shouted down and heckled by those looking forward to the game. So, it's not likely that the core target audience is going to have any issues with the scenario.

If they had to have a rape scenario - which they didn't - then why not use the more plausible set-up. Lara's rescuing her friend, someone who's been kidnapped. It would be realistic for a kidnapping victim to be in danger of assault, so why not have Lara's moment of "evolution" be in rescuing the friend?

Oh wait... then the girl's the hero, not the guy "protecting" her.
That, and you can't possibly have depth in a woman's character unless she's been hardened by unspeakable tragedy in her past. Nothing says strength of character and impetus for learning how to wipe the floor with everyone carrying a Y chromosome like being dehumanized and humiliated.

I think I'm still a bit upset about this one.

Shadow Dragon · Jun 12, 2012

This is part of a larger problem that they do with a lot of female heroes. It's particular common in comics.

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 12, 2012

Shadow Dragon said:
This is part of a larger problem that they do with a lot of female heroes. It's particular common in comics.

Ah yes, the girl in the refrigerator.

And they wonder why they have such a hard time getting female readers.

(Tempted to insert cusswords here about their idiocy and blindness)

There's a good thread here about privilege and point-of-view.

The game designers stand in a position of privilege. They and the bozo players don't seem to even see why what they're doing is obnoxious.

Which is, of course, one of the perks of privilege.

J.W. Alden · Jun 12, 2012

Was just conversing on the twitter machine about this. It was odd that Nathan Drake didn't mind killing all those dudes, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have felt any better if they'd tried to rape him first.

I just don't get how they arrived at the conclusion that this was a "deeper" direction for the old pointy-boob Lara. What's worse is that being a 27-year-old, straight, white male, I feel like this weird masochist fantasy game is being marketed toward me. And that makes me feel icky.

"Hey, we hear that a lot of people had problems with the objectification of Lara Croft in the old games. How can we address this in the new one?"

"We could have the bad guys fondle her!"

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 13, 2012

Article about this in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/13/tomb-raider-lara-croft-rape-attempt

It is rare that strong women characters get to be protagonists in video games – and that's part of the problem. If there were a multitude of women whose stories were told well – flawed, brilliant, good, evil, strong, weak and everything in between – the mischaracterisation of one would not have such an impact. Lara Croft has never been without design problems (or presumably back pain), but to adjust her appearance while smashing her characterisation into smithereens would rather miss the point of all the criticism.

Although this really does remind me of the cack-handed way the boys in the comics industry tried to appeal to women readers back in the '90s: paper fashion dolls, pin-ups of curvy chicks on every page with dialogue (but not story or plot) written "by a girl," more female supes arching their backs all over, attempts to bring back romance comics ...

Ugggh.

All this while never really dealing with the vicious woman in the refrigerator problem I mentioned above.

“When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character,” Rosenberg told me at E3 last week when I asked if it was difficult to develop for a female protagonist.

This really bugs me. Who doesn't? I guess female gamers and male gamers who are not squicked out at the thought of playing a female role are invisible.

Torgo · Jun 13, 2012

Can I just make a couple of points, not necessarily in mitigation, but I'm wondering if a lot of this is down to the way Kotaku reported it?

I read a different article over at PC gaming blog Rock, Paper Shotgun, which puts a somewhat different spin on the violence in the game. I recommend a read of it.

In neither of those blogs, at RPS or Kotaku, is there any direct mention from the developer of Lara being threatened with rape. They say "she's a cornered animal" but an explicit threat of rape seems to be something that the Kotaku writer has inferred rather than something the dev told them. In the RPS article, we have a somewhat weaker formulation. In short, I believe that although there's an implication that Lara is fighting for her life against a crew of desperate and brutal men, rape isn't explicitly referred to by the game.

There's absolutely no chance in hell that the failure mode for this sequence is an animated rape scene. Not. A. Chance.

That said, I don't have a terribly high opinion of the writing in video games, or of the way video games treat women in general. Rob Florence sums it up for me.

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 13, 2012

Torgo said:
Can I just make a couple of points, not necessarily in mitigation, but I'm wondering if a lot of this is down to the way Kotaku reported it?

I read a different article over at PC gaming blog Rock, Paper Shotgun, which puts a somewhat different spin on the violence in the game. I recommend a read of it.

In neither of those blogs, at RPS or Kotaku, is there any direct mention from the developer of Lara being threatened with rape. They say "she's a cornered animal" but an explicit threat of rape seems to be something that the Kotaku writer has inferred rather than something the dev told them. In the RPS article, we have a somewhat weaker formulation. In short, I believe that although there's an implication that Lara is fighting for her life against a crew of desperate and brutal men, rape isn't explicitly referred to by the game.

There's absolutely no chance in hell that the failure mode for this sequence is an animated rape scene. Not. A. Chance.

That said, I don't have a terribly high opinion of the writing in video games, or of the way video games treat women in general. Rob Florence sums it up for me.

Not sure that Rock Paper Shotgun article puts any better a spin on it. Lara Croft weeping over killing a deer? Lara Croft angsting and throwing up after killing some guy? Lara Croft with the crud beaten out of her, hiding from searching bad guys, sweaty and bruised with her hands tied behind her? Lara Croft looking all sad and emo? And Rosenberg is claiming sensitivity?

Uh huh.

Gee, and he thinks gamers don't identify with that?

A bunch of incoherent, contemptuous rage deleted here.

The Victimization of Lara Croft

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