Small script decisions like this have begun to upend years of sexist tropes in popular culture. “We wanted to explore other parts of her character.” “The temptation in a lot of these movies is to have a full-blown romance plot,” says Robertson-Dworet. (Daniel Craig played Jolie’s in the original films.) In fact, every time any man tries to work up the courage to ask Lara out in the movie, she’s already biking away on to another adventure. The writer and director also decided not to give Lara a love interest. They also gave Lara more of a background story: She can shoot arrows because she was once a champion archer she can fight because she’s trained in a boxing ring she can sprint because she’s spent months as a bike messenger. Perhaps wisely, the creators of the new Tomb Raider film omitted this scene from the movie. But gamers still debate whether playing through a triggering scene was worth it for the moment of empowerment. If Lara escapes, she learns to craft fire arrows and returns to kill the kidnappers with righteous fury. The scene communicates the very real threat of rape and gender violence. Make a misstep as a player, and Lara is choked to death. SquareEnix quickly walked back the language, but the actual scene remains an uncomfortable play-through: A kidnapper touches Lara’s cheek inappropriately and then chases her as she tries to escape. And before the reboot’s release in 2013, one of the creators said there would be an attempted rape scene. The 2013 game seemed to take sadistic pleasure in Lara’s injuries and moans of pain. That’s not to say that SquareEnix became the model of woke gaming. On the other hand, it reinforces this notion that only women who are sexually attractive are valuable.” “On the one hand, it gives these men a socially acceptable way to identify with a woman. “Sexiness is often used in gaming as an excuse for men to play and enjoy playing a female character,” says Hammer. Lara is far from the only sexy female avatar in video games: female heroes as well as damsels are first and foremost sexy, often fighting in heels and lingerie instead of flats and armor. In 1997’s Lara Croft 2, Lara climbs into a shower before turning toward the player and saying, “Don’t you think you’ve seen enough?” An ad campaign for the games suggested men were abandoning strip clubs to play the game and fantasize about Lara. (As cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian once pointed out, game makers usually cover male avatars with capes or make it impossible for the camera to zoom in on their behinds.) A rumor spread that a certain line of coding could remove Lara’s clothes. The camera often focused on her rear end. Not only did Lara’s creators endow her with a Barbie doll figure, but the mechanics of the game encouraged objectification - already a problem in the male-dominated gaming space.
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