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Heroine Undermined: Tomb Raider
The success of the Tomb Raider
franchise from Core Design/Eidos may be unmatched in PC gaming history.
The first installment in 1996 introduced an inventive third-person perspective
to the action/adventure formula, helping this genre rival the popularity
of the first-person shooter. However, it wasn’t just the revolutionary
game design that helped ensure Tomb Raider’s success. Tomb Raider
also marked the arrival of what PC Gamer referred to as “the first truly
watchable action heroine” (57): Lara Croft.
To be sure, the introduction of a heroine into the action E-gaming genre
is a notable achievement, and Croft does embody many of the qualities embraced
by the Feminist movement: she’s strong, brave, intelligent, and independent.
Unfortunately, Croft’s positive qualities are undermined, both by the rhetorical
approach of the game itself, and by the external rhetoric of society at
large.
The third-person perspective of Tomb Raider contributes in large
part to the undermining of Croft’s feminine strength. Unlike the first-person
perspective of Duke Nukem 3D, which allows the gamer to play through
the eyes of Duke, the third-person perspective places the camera-angle
behind the main character, as seen in this Tomb Raider screenshot.
In terms of Burkean identification, this perspective does not allow
the gamer to truly merge with Croft; there is a distinct division between
the character and the person playing the game. Thus, a gamer does not become
Lara Croft (true merger), but rather controls Lara Croft during game play.
This is an enormous distinction that, coupled with Croft’s impossible physique
(continually viewed from the side and behind by the gamer) sculpted to
caricature patriarchy’s current idea of feminine beauty, helps keep Croft
in the category of “creature of whims and will” that Stanton spoke out
against over 150 years ago.
Also contributing to the anti-feminist rhetoric revolving around Tomb
Raider are the numerous websites devoted to Croft.To be sure, there
are many sites that merely provide strategies or walkthroughs for completing
the games; these sites neither help nor hinder Croft’s Feminist identity.
However, most of the websites devoted to Croft are interested not in her
strength of character but in her sexuality, and are filled with pictorial spreads that reduce Croft to a female body to lust after.