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Dylan Lichter
Professor Ditch
English 114a
14 October 2014
The Tomb of Female Self-Empowerment
Video games have had a rise in popularity since 1958. What first began as fun
activities to play on spare time has become so much more. People today have now
started making a living off of video games (creating and playing). Video games have
become more and more about the storyline and about the lifes of the video game
characters in the game. Many game characters have become idols for some people.
These characters have become someone to look up too as a role model. Lara croft is
one of the most well known female characters in video games. Since Tomb Raider
was first released in 1996, the main character Lara Croft has become a celebrity.
Lara has been featured in many sequels to the original game, a line of action figures,
two Hollywood films staring Angelina Jolie, forty comic books, a series of novels and
a variety of clothing, and merchandise. She has appeared on the covers of Time and
Newsweek, and has created a spawn of innumerable Internet fan sites. Although
some may perceive Lara as a sex symbol, and more may perceive it as just a game of
violence, In my opinion she is a symbol of female self-empowerment.
In Tomb Raider, Lara Croft is depicted as an athletic and fast woman with
brown eyes and reddish-brown hair. She is a London-born daughter of the fictional
Lord Henshingly Croft. She was raised as an aristocrat and betrothed to Earl of
Farringdon. Lara attended a Scottish boarding school and a Swiss finishing school. A

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plane crash left Lara stranded in the Himalayas for two weeks, this experience
spurred her to shun her former life and seek out adventure around the globe. She is
perceived as a well-educated woman who is not scared to get dirty pushing her
boundaries. Martens, from the Los Angeles times, says As a video game heroine,
she's an outlier. Croft is the rare female leading lady in an industry dominated by
male characters.(New Media by Todd Martens)

Since Tomb Raider was first produced, animation has gone nowhere but up,
so with that there has been a lot of changes to Lara Croft. Her costume or outfit is a
turquoise tank top, light brown shorts, calf-high boots, and long white socks. She has
accessories like double pistols, a backpack, and fingerless gloves. " Luddington (the
voice and motion-capture actor of Lara Croft) says they changed her out of the hot
pants and made her more real looking which is much more relatable
(foxnews.com). Rhianna Pratchett, who scripted the latest game. "She looks like a
woman who has dressed herself, rather than a woman who has been dressed by a
male video game developer. You can't ignore the fact that she's female. You have to
give that some respect. You can't just create a male character with boobs." This is an
amazing point of how this game has evolved how she is not being dress as a sex
symbol she is being dressed how the character Lara would want to dress it gives her
a lot more realistic character and becoming her own person. Luddington says
changing her out of her old clothes and body is very important because female
gamers will see Lara as vulnerable but, eventually, will feel empowered. Theyll see
how Lara evolves and starts kicking butt against bad guys. For any game, a good

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story line is what you need in series to keep it alive, Tomb Raider has this, so the
only thing it needs is to build on is to connect girl gamers and voice actors closer
with the character so they can see themselves in her as a symbol of female selfempowerment.

But with all this progression Lara is most known as a sex symbol of video
game culture. Just because a woman portrays a capable fighter doesnt mean she is
empowered. In the old games Laras movements and actions were something to
laugh about. Sarah Hansel (a 23-year-old human female. Who has a Bachelor of Arts
degree in English with a minor in Women and Gender Studies from UC Davis.) States
that The new Lara hurls herself at ledges, runs through crumbling wreckage, and
yes, almost gets sexually assaulted. She asserts that a woman can believably be a
total bad-ass and also wear a bra. (about-face by Sarah). She is becoming a strong
example of girl power. In becoming members of society Devor says femininity and
masculinity might be to label masculinity as generally concerned with egoistic
dominance and femininity as striving for cooperation or communion.(Devor 39) yet
Lara does the opposite of what feminine would be in tomb raider she is taking a
step to morph the two together. The game maintains the essentials of a Tomb Raider
game but de-sexualizes Lara which it a step towards making her more relatable.
Sarah also then states that Thankfully, the video game industry is moving in a good
direction with the reinvention of Lara Croft, and maybe the next Tomb Raider game
will feature Lara as a real, full-fledged hero that any player, male or female, can
identify with. With the video industry pushing the boundaries it is opening up what

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we can see in the future we can picture what games will become if we keep moving
forward in making female characters more realistic and giving them the qualities
they should have now what society is saying they have they should have all qualities
and its shouldnt be called a masculine or feminine game it should just be a game
and a good game at that.
Even though in Tomb Raider the main objective is to kill and survive it still is
a serious game. Elena Bertozzi says Predation videogame play is an opportunity for
making progress on both fronts. There is now no lack of representation of
competitive, capable fighting women inside game worlds. Male heroes have always
outnumbered them, but it is not difficult to find and play as females such as Lara
Croft in any of the Tomb Raider games (Gard, 1996) So in the end this is a good step
in making this game about doing what you have to do to survive and not just making
the game about feminine activities. Judith Lorber says men dominate the
positions of authority and leadership in government, the military, and the law
gender inequalitythe devaluation of women and the social domination of men.
With this, just the aspect of Lara being the main character and a hero in her game
sets her above the rest since there arent many female main characters as heros. In
a study it was found that Stereotypes are often linked to social positions and roles.
With respect to the roles played in the games the hero role was observed in 60% of
the cases (13 of 22 characters). This was followed by the friend or helper role
(18%), the villain (9%), the victim (9%), and the tough character (5%). A result
counter to traditional gender stereotypes is that all women in leading roles played
the part of the heroine. Leading men were generally heroes (Jeroen Jansz 146) So

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women arent the heros they are usually the one that sparks up the hero. Tomb
Raider breaks this boundary Lara is the hero not the heroine.
In conclusion although some may perceive Lara as a sex symbol, and more
may perceive it as just a game of violence. She is a well-educated woman who is not
scared to get dirty. She asserts that a woman can believably be a total bad-ass and
also wear a bra. She is a symbol of female self-empowerment.

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Works Cited
Martens, Todd. "NEW MEDIA; Lara Croft Gets a Pair of Pants; the Rare Video
Game Heroine is Made over for 'Tomb Raider.' Tight Shorts Are Out, and Personality
is in." Los Angeles Times, (2013): D.1.
Bertozzi, Elena. "Killing for Girls: Predation Play and Female Empowerment."
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 32.6 (2012): 447-454.
Jansz, Jeroen, and Raynel Martis. "The Lara Phenomenon: Powerful Female
Characters in Video Games." Sex Roles, 56.3 (2007): 141-148.
Groner, Rachael, and John F. O'Hara. Composing Gender. Bosten/ New York:
Leasa Burtin, 2014. Print.

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