Lichter 1

Progression 2 revised
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 life 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

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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 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

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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 story line is what you need in a 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 self-empowerment.

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. She 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

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boundaries it is opening up what 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.