The Victimization of Lara Croft

[LOG]

Originally Posted by C.bronco

Hi kids! Good to see you!

I think the modern critics should read some of Asimov's stuff and see how far female characters have come since Pebble in the Sky. It's fun to read those novels, and amusing to see the perspective on women as it was in that time.

Is it bad?

[Alessandra Kelley]

Originally Posted by LOG

Is it bad?

Asimov couldn't write female characters for beans.*

I don't see why that has anything to do with modern crudification of female characters.







* A rant I have been working on for some time. Don't get me started. Also it would be a derail.

[Amadan]

Actually, I don't think Asimov wrote any characters well - but his women were particularly horrible. Or rather, empty female-shaped voids.

Not that many of his contemporaries were much better.

[BigWords]

Originally Posted by Amadan

Not that many of his contemporaries were much better.

Careful there - saying that the entirety of the writers of the era wrote terrible female characters does a disservice to a number of highly regarded writers of the time. And, y'know, there were women writing for the pulps when he was starting out (the late thirties), so blanket statements on the quality of representation have to take that into account.

[Alessandra Kelley]

Shirley Jackson did good female characters in science fiction. So did Julian May. But yeah, most were dismal.

I was reading some Asimov recently. I think it was in "The Currents of Space" where he introduced a female character by describing her height and weight and how much pounds per inch of her that was, making her sound like a stack of slabs of steak.

On this thread last month I recreated some notes from when I read Asimov's first Foundation book:

"...No women until more than halfway through?...
First woman in entire novel an anonymous secretary ...
Second, many pages later, is a young servant girl brought in to be bedazzled by alien fashions, it doesn't matter which girl you pick, "any one will do" and she doesn't get to say a word ...
Third woman and first named female character in last chapter, a nasty ambitious politician's wife /shrew"

[RichardGarfinkle]

Originally Posted by Amadan

Actually, I don't think Asimov wrote any characters well - but his women were particularly horrible. Or rather, empty female-shaped voids.

Not that many of his contemporaries were much better.

<Risk Derail>
I'd say Lije Bailey was pretty good.
I'd also say The Black Widowers came out okay.
</Risk Derail>

[Amadan]

Originally Posted by BigWords

Careful there - saying that the entirety of the writers of the era wrote terrible female characters does a disservice to a number of highly regarded writers of the time.

I said "many," not "the entirety of the writers of the era."

Originally Posted by Alessandra Kelley

I was reading some Asimov recently. I think it was in "The Currents of Space" where he introduced a female character by describing her height and weight and how much pounds per inch of her that was, making her sound like a stack of slabs of steak.

The End of Eternity: A time-traveling empire spanning millions of years and alternate worlds, and not a single woman on any world doing anything other than secretarial work. And the one female character in the story causes disaster just by being female in the presence of males.

I could name many contemporary writers who are equally bad, though.

[Alessandra Kelley]

Originally Posted by Amadan

The End of Eternity: A time-traveling empire spanning millions of years and alternate worlds, and not a single woman on any world doing anything other than secretarial work. And the one female character in the story causes disaster just by being female in the presence of males.

I could name many contemporary writers who are equally bad, though.

Sure. But we've already somewhat derailed this Lara Croft thread with talk of Isaac Asimov.

I think the last on-topic post was Kaiser-Kun's about The 14 Worst Boobs in the History of Video Games.

[efkelley]

And, at the risk of being sexist, some of those are damn fine boobs. It's their use is quite egregious, which is really what the article's central point wants to be about.

[barnhijl]

came across this article about the lara croft rape:

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012...ped/?mobile=nc

[RichardGarfinkle]

Originally Posted by barnhijl

came across this article about the lara croft rape:

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012...ped/?mobile=nc

This is a very good blog entry. I found the following paragraph particularly valuable as a response to the kind of misogynist nitwits who prompted the blogpost.

Honestly, I don’t feel particularly threatened by your comments, because they’re so predictable. But I do feel profoundly sad that you would leave them in the first place, and that you’d leave them under your own name, in a form that means those tossed-off, ugly sentiments show up in your Facebook stream. Maybe you assume that the only people reading them are on your same wavelength, that this is a joke you can share on the uptight feminist blogger. But you may be wrong. There may be someone reading your comments, someone you love and who you wouldn’t want to hurt, who has been raped or sexually assaulted or harassed, who you may be wounding all over again without you even knowing it. There may be someone out there in your future who will stumble across these comments, someone you’ve gotten close to and come to care about, who will read these words and have their sense of you rearranged in an instant.

The cruel thoughtlessness of the people she's responding to is pathetic. And having to remind people that maybe someone will read their Facebook entries and decide that they are not people to associate with, shows the brainlessness of remarks they, no doubt, thought were really clever.

[sliccat]

Originally Posted by barnhijl

Why are they putting rape into a story 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 stories that need protected, do we really need one more?? *angry face*

Why people feel the need to pretend that modern games are less a form of story-telling that any other medium bewilders me. Just like a movie, they can have unseemly content, and are regulated for it. Get over it.

But more importantly, the game isn't even out yet. You have no actual idea how it's going to presented. Would you criticize a book for the simple reason of having a female protagonist be raped? Is "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" a commentary on female weakness?

And finally, Lara Croft does not owe a duty to the entire genre of video game literature. That games as a general rule victimize women is an issue. That one has a female protagonist that could be hurt if you're bad at the game makes it reasonable. How is this worse than a person dying if you get shot in a game? Is a woman being hurt worse than a man being hurt? The accusations (implicit and otherwise) of sexism in this debate are frequently misplaced.

[Alessandra Kelley]

Originally Posted by sliccat

Why people feel the need to pretend that modern games are less a form of story-telling that any other medium bewilders me. Just like a movie, they can have unseemly content, and are regulated for it. Get over it.

But more importantly, the game isn't even out yet. You have no actual idea how it's going to presented. Would you criticize a book for the simple reason of having a female protagonist be raped? Is "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" a commentary on female weakness?

And finally, Lara Croft does not owe a duty to the entire genre of video game literature. That games as a general rule victimize women is an issue. That one has a female protagonist that could be hurt if you're bad at the game makes it reasonable. How is this worse than a person dying if you get shot in a game? Is a woman being hurt worse than a man being hurt? The accusations (implicit and otherwise) of sexism in this debate are frequently misplaced.

But when movies have crummy and unseemly content, people do protest, loudly, as is their right. Just because movies and games are regulated does not remove a person's right to protest if they include sexism, voyeurism, and just plain terrible plots.

As for books, comparing a single book title to this game is a bit disingenuous, given that there are over a thousand times more books than games published every year,* with far more varied rôles available for female characters than in games.

Given how many people play them, the world of video games has a remarkably narrow range of rôles available for female characters, far more narrow even than in movies. With so few female characters, every strong one counts. When a formerly strong female character is stuffed into the tired old clichés of rape, helplessness, and objectification, it is not surprising if sensible gamers complain.

The argument that female characters being hurt is no worse than male characters being hurt is a disingenuous one which overlooks the nature of this particular hurt in this particular game. I believe most gamers accept that their characters can suffer harm, can be hurt and can lose games. But I have heard few reports of male characters in games subjected to this sort of harm, to sexual abuse and threats of rape. When a character, male or female, gets shot and dies in a game, there is not for most players a sense of voyeurism. The game is not played in order to ogle the blood and suffering of one's character.

Lara Croft has been turned from an active, capable character into a threatened, shivering "other," someone to protect rather than to be. It is the unmaking of one of the very few strong and competent female characters in gaming, and naturally people are annoyed.




*267 new games in 2011 (if I counted right) and 328,259 books published in the US in 2010.

[sliccat]

Originally Posted by Alessandra Kelley

But when movies have crummy and unseemly content, people do protest, loudly, as is their right. Just because movies and games are regulated does not remove a person's right to protest if they include sexism, voyeurism, and just plain terrible plots.

Given how many people play them, the world of video games has a remarkably narrow range of rôles available for female characters, far more narrow even than in movies. With so few female characters, every strong one counts. When a formerly strong female character is stuffed into the tired old clichés of rape, helplessness, and objectification, it is not surprising if sensible gamers complain.

Lara Croft has been turned from an active, capable character into a threatened, shivering "other," someone to protect rather than to be. It is the unmaking of one of the very few strong and competent female characters in gaming, and naturally people are annoyed.

1.

[UPDATE] After the publication of this story, Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher released a statement on the matter. He explained that Ron Rosenberg's comments to Kotaku during an interview were "misunderstood."

[...]

"Sexual assault of any kind is not a theme that we cover in this game. We're sorry that this has not been better explained. We'll certainly be more careful with what is said in [the] future."

Rosenberg also elaborated on Croft's new look. As fans will have already noticed, Croft's curvy features and skimpy outfits from past games have been replaced by a more functional appearance. This, Rosenberg explained, was intentional.

"The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear," he said.

GameSpot

So, these evil, sexist game developers have had the nerve to take a female protagonist who has always been a sex symbol, and tried to change her into a more human, realistic character. The rape scene everybody is going crazy over doesn't exist, and the emphasis here is in drawing more attention to her struggles, rather than her body, the way it used to be. Horrible.

2. That's why you don't judge stories before, you know, they're finished. And you've read, viewed or played them. Granted, it's possible that the protest made them backtrack. But even in the original story, the reference to rape is drawn from a paraphrase and an inference. Normally, I ignore this kind of laziness on the internet, but you'd think a forum of writers would be more careful.

Originally Posted by Alessandra Kelley

Lara Croft has been turned from an active, capable character into a threatened, shivering "other," someone to protect rather than to be. It is the unmaking of one of the very few strong and competent female characters in gaming, and naturally people are annoyed.

3. And again, how do you know that? Have you played the game? You're basing this entire criticism off one interpretation of the game from one person who worked on it, and he was talking about the need to make her more human and less of a stereotype. And in case you've never actually played a video game, you do know that you're playing as Lara Croft in this, no? If you rescue her from danger, she is in fact rescuing herself, in the actual story.

Originally Posted by Alessandra Kelley

The argument that female characters being hurt is no worse than male characters being hurt is a disingenuous one which overlooks the nature of this particular hurt in this particular game. I believe most gamers accept that their characters can suffer harm, can be hurt and can lose games. But I have heard few reports of male characters in games subjected to this sort of harm, to sexual abuse and threats of rape. When a character, male or female, gets shot and dies in a game, there is not for most players a sense of voyeurism. The game is not played in order to ogle the blood and suffering of one's character.

My argument might be wrong or even stupid, but you have no way of knowing whether it's disingenuous. Furthermore, I in know way overlook the nature of the hurt; that nature is the entire premise of the argument. As simple as I can make it: painful death is worse than rape.

Now, if your point is that the distribution of the crime is uneven by sex, take a brief look at the numbers of men or women killed in every video game ever made. Or the number of men killed in games vs women raped in games.

But the more interesting thrust here is of voyeurism. This is interesting because voyeurism, regardless of creator intent, can only take place on behalf of the viewer.

Furthermore, the process an method of killing has frequently been highlighted in video games (warning: vulgar). I'm not saying this (or the hypothetical rape scene) is right or wrong, but violent, gruesome killing has been exploited again and again in ALL literature mediums. Video games are not unique in this regard. You say that showing of death is not voyeurism, and the showing of rape is, even though death has been shown in a manner that easily allows voyeurism.

That being the case, perhaps your disapproval should focus on the viewer. (Who, by the way, would have the choice to prevent the rape altogether, even if it was in the game. It's interesting that all this criticism comes from a facet of the game that is completely optional. The only way Lara Croft could become a victim is if the viewer allows her to. That you assume this choice will be exercised says more about your opinions on male nature than any merit of the game itself.)

Originally Posted by Alessandra Kelley

As for books, comparing a single book title to this game is a bit disingenuous, given that there are over a thousand times more books than games published every year,* with far more varied rôles available for female characters than in games.

*267 new games in 2011 (if I counted right) and 328,259 books published in the US in 2010.

In and of itself, your point about relative impact is generally valid, even with the shoddy numbers. The problem is that your source is obviously ridiculous (Ipod, Android, and independent PC game releases not included), and you've combined it with my own sloppy phrasing (fictional novels would be a better comparison, though it still doesn't invalidate your basic relativity premise) to ignore the basic point about stories being judged on the basis of medium rather than merit.

[Cyia]

Originally Posted by sliccat

The rape scene everybody is going crazy over doesn't exist,

They're backpedaling. "Rape" was the word used by game's developer himself, so unless he doesn't actually know what he put into the game...

[barnhijl]

Originally Posted by sliccat

Why people feel the need to pretend that modern games are less a form of story-telling that any other medium bewilders me. Just like a movie, they can have unseemly content, and are regulated for it. Get over it.

But more importantly, the game isn't even out yet. You have no actual idea how it's going to presented. Would you criticize a book for the simple reason of having a female protagonist be raped? Is "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" a commentary on female weakness?

And finally, Lara Croft does not owe a duty to the entire genre of video game literature. That games as a general rule victimize women is an issue. That one has a female protagonist that could be hurt if you're bad at the game makes it reasonable. How is this worse than a person dying if you get shot in a game? Is a woman being hurt worse than a man being hurt? The accusations (implicit and otherwise) of sexism in this debate are frequently misplaced.

no. I will not "get over it".

Raping or sexually assaulting a woman in the game is different than getting shot. men don't get raped or sexually assaulted in games.

Honestly I'm tired of defending it, I can't believe people are still bringing up something along the lines of "freedom of speech" as an argument. Yes I will judge something if it has rape in it. that's my right as a consumer.

please read the articles that have been posted and the previous comments before you make all these assumptions. I really feel like we are just beating a dead horse at this point.

I'm tired of the way women are treated in games. deal with it.

[J.W. Alden]

Originally Posted by barnhijl

men don't get raped or sexually assaulted in games.

For the record, they do. Don't click on these if you don't want to see scenes of attempted and implied rape, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh-V0Mf0uC8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_U48SRFFHo

The first link is probably most relevant, since it's a similar scenario as mentioned in the Tomb Raider game; the player is tasked with defending his character from an attempt at rape.

Also for the record, I'm not defending Tomb Raider. Two icks don't make a right.

[Amadan]

Originally Posted by sliccat

So, these evil, sexist game developers have had the nerve to take a female protagonist who has always been a sex symbol, and tried to change her into a more human, realistic character.

If you're trying to impress anyone with your nuanced understanding of the arguments for and against this development, you might want to try by engaging with the actual arguments instead of engaging in hyperbolic straw men and accusing those who object to it of "going crazy."

2. That's why you don't judge stories before, you know, they're finished. And you've read, viewed or played them. Granted, it's possible that the protest made them backtrack. But even in the original story, the reference to rape is drawn from a paraphrase and an inference. Normally, I ignore this kind of laziness on the internet, but you'd think a forum of writers would be more careful.

I watched the cut-scene. What are the subtle nuances you think everyone is missing? Or do you think there's some added context the full game will provide which makes that scene not voyeuristic and heavily sexualized?

My argument might be wrong or even stupid, but you have no way of knowing whether it's disingenuous.

Actually, use of straw men and hyperbole is usually a pretty good indication of disingenuousness.

Furthermore, I in know way overlook the nature of the hurt; that nature is the entire premise of the argument. As simple as I can make it: painful death is worse than rape.

Do you really think a utilitarian scale like that is some clever trump argument? So would TV shows and movies and video games be improved by having characters raping each other instead of killing each other? 'Cause, hey, killing is worse than rape!

That being the case, perhaps your disapproval should focus on the viewer. (Who, by the way, would have the choice to prevent the rape altogether, even if it was in the game. It's interesting that all this criticism comes from a facet of the game that is completely optional. The only way Lara Croft could become a victim is if the viewer allows her to. That you assume this choice will be exercised says more about your opinions on male nature than any merit of the game itself.)

It says a lot about the game if it's explicitly designed to give the viewer a choice of letting Laura get raped (or to imply this as an outcome). And no, I don't believe for a second that the game will actually have a rape scene.

In and of itself, your point about relative impact is generally valid, even with the shoddy numbers. The problem is that your source is obviously ridiculous (Ipod, Android, and independent PC game releases not included), and you've combined it with my own sloppy phrasing (fictional novels would be a better comparison, though it still doesn't invalidate your basic relativity premise) to ignore the basic point about stories being judged on the basis of medium rather than merit.

You're using a lot of words to try to sound all intellectual, and yet you've completely ignored the actual content of the criticism, which is not, as you've implied, people going crazy because they think the game features rape-porn.

[BunnyMaz]

I can only comment on the youtube videos you posted and what I found out elsewhere.

1- That attempted rape scene in the first link is horrible, and I'm frankly surprised that I didn't hear more of an outcry about it when the game came out. Rape of men in society gets overlooked, especially prison rape, and that's not acceptable.

2- The second link is... confusing. As every bit of information I can find states that Kane and Lynch are tortured, and that Xiu, the woman, gets raped. She gets fridged, basically.

That said, thank you for sharing those. I can only imagine the reason there wasn't the same outcry over them might be if the attempted rape scenes weren't used as key moments in the advertising campaigns? Not that it makes it okay, but I wonder why I hadn't heard of either of those.

***

I have one more thing to say on the Lara Croft teaser video with the attempted rape. When people design ads, they put a lot of work into them. When you're designing an ad based on a game or a movie, where you're splicing together short pieces of pre-existing material to make the ad, everything is done with intent. You can make a horror movie look like a romantic comedy if you do it wrong.

Scenes are cut and recut, and spliced together and moved around, and spliced with tone music and jump cuts and so on to create a specific tone, and to send a specific message. Look at the two Lara Croft trailers back to back again and you can see.

The latest trailer is supposed to make Lara look weak. It's supposed to make her look vulnerable and helpless and to focus on the torture she undergoes. It focuses on the screams of pain that sound almost like porn-style orgasms and on her asking for help. All of that culminates in a bit push to action that is triggered by what the ad wants us to see as the catalyst. The moment a man tries to rape her. The entire ad is focused on making her seem as vulnerable as possible up to that scene, making that scene as disturbing as possible, making the connotations impossible to miss, and only then showing a brief moment of strength at the end.

Compare to the older trailer for the same game, where the sense of danger and isolation exists, but all the focus is on her strength of character, her survival.

Why do I believe the statement that was made about the rape? Why do I believe he meant what he said when he talked about her being someone to protect and about rape? Because the statement is a perfect fit for the recent trailer.

I don't believe that this was unintentional. I believe it was intentional, that they wanted to court a little controversy about "risqué" scenes in the game, that they wanted the game to look grimdark in line with current trends and lacked the imagination to put grimdark+female together and get any answer other than rape out of the equation.

But that they underestimated the fan reaction. And now they're back-pedalling.

[efkelley]

Originally Posted by BunnyMaz

But that they underestimated the fan reaction. And now they're back-pedalling.

Yep. Take it from a first-class back-peddler. That is EXACTLY what they're doing.

[sliccat]

If you're trying to impress anyone with your nuanced understanding of the arguments for and against this development, you might want to try by engaging with the actual arguments instead of engaging in hyperbolic straw men and accusing those who object to it of "going crazy."

You've created a hyperbolic straw man (namely, the notion my arguments were in any way more nuanced or intellectual than anybody else's) in the same paragraph as you accuse me of doing do. I'll just say that while I disagree with the majority of your arguments, I don't doubt their sincerity.

The latest trailer is supposed to make Lara look weak. It's supposed to make her look vulnerable and helpless and to focus on the torture she undergoes. It focuses on the screams of pain that sound almost like porn-style orgasms and on her asking for help. All of that culminates in a bit push to action that is triggered by what the ad wants us to see as the catalyst. The moment a man tries to rape her. The entire ad is focused on making her seem as vulnerable as possible up to that scene, making that scene as disturbing as possible, making the connotations impossible to miss, and only then showing a brief moment of strength at the end.

Compare to the older trailer for the same game, where the sense of danger and isolation exists, but all the focus is on her strength of character, her survival.

Why do I believe the statement that was made about the rape? Why do I believe he meant what he said when he talked about her being someone to protect and about rape? Because the statement is a perfect fit for the recent trailer.

I don't believe that this was unintentional. I believe it was intentional, that they wanted to court a little controversy about "risqué" scenes in the game, that they wanted the game to look grimdark in line with current trends and lacked the imagination to put grimdark+female together and get any answer other than rape out of the equation.

But that they underestimated the fan reaction. And now they're back-pedalling.

This is a cool observation, because there is a often a difference between the marketing of a game, book, or movie, and the writers' intent, and the actual morals of a story. That's one reason why I don't like all of the pre-release criticism. We see different takes on it based on how the company wants to sell it to a particular audience. It's unfortunate that this particular gambit has been so successful - they couldn't have thrown the game into the spotlight any better than they have.

If anything, I take it as the consequence of a step forward in the video game industry. We've seen enough high-profile female protagonists that the idea itself is no longer the novelty it used to be. (April rain, samus, the re-interpretation of Zelda, Bioware's entire catalog, the previous tomb raiders and women from mirrors edge, final fantasy X, Prince of Persia, half life, Beyond good and evil, Portal, and a couple others I'm blanking on) The concept of a female protagonist isn't enough to make tomb raider unique anymore.

[Kaiser-Kun]

Originally Posted by barnhijl

men don't get raped or sexually assaulted in games.

Of course they do. Raiden is crotch-grabbed by the president (!) in Metal Gear Solid 2, he's raped by Volgin in Snake Eraser (it's supposed to be comical), Volgin also grabs and squeezes Snake's crotch in Metal Gear Solid 3, and there's prison rape implied in Mass Effect 2.

[Torgo]

So it turns out Rhianna Pratchett is writing it.

[Alessandra Kelley]

In Virtual Play, Sex Harassment Is All Too Real

... is on the front page of today's New York Times.

It starts by talking about Miranda Pakozdi's experience in Cross Assault video game tournament earlier this year.

Over six days of competition, though, her team’s coach, Aris Bakhtanians, interrogated her on camera about her bra size, said “take off your shirt” and focused the team’s webcam on her chest, feet and legs. He leaned in over her shoulder and smelled her.

Ms. Pakozdi, 25, an experienced gamer, has said she always expects a certain amount of trash talk. But as the only woman on the team, this was too much, especially from her coach, she said. It was after she overheard Mr. Bakhtanians defending sexual harassment as part of “the fighting game community” that she forfeited the game.

<snip>

Mr. Bakhtanians, whose actions during the Cross Assault tournament were captured on video, later issued a statement in which he apologized if he had offended anyone. He also blamed “my own inability in the heat of the moment to defend myself and the community I have loved for over 15 years.”

I find Mr. Bakhtanians' apology remarkable for its utter lack of any apology.

[BigWords]

I'm completely baffled on how that could be allowed to happen...

And at a loss for words.