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Thursday, June 14, 2012

The "New" Lara Croft Needs You To Protect Her

So, this morning when I read my Twitter feed I was alerted to a large amount of rage being thrown around about the new Tomb Raider game trailer.

There's a great article about the whole debacle by Kellie Foxx-Gonzalez at The Mary Sue about the awful misogyny inherent in the notion that a woman has to suffer physically and be threatened with rape before she can actually become a "stronger person" - whatever that means in the minds of the obviously male game designers.

I'm just so pissed off right now.

Ron Rosenberg, executive producer of Tomb Raider had this to say about the direction of the new game:

"When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character...They're more like 'I want to protect her... She's definitely the hero but— you're kind of like her helper..." [Via Kotaku]

Torture Porn Lara 
What the actual fuck?

So, after the internet flame wars started up, Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher released a statement in which he claims that that there is no rape attempt against Tomb Raider hero Lara Croft in the scene shown in their "Crossroads" trailer. Not only do I call clear bullshit on that statement, but it directly contradicts a statement made by Rosenberg to a Kotaku journalist previously:

Rosenberg: "And then what happens is her best friend gets kidnapped, she gets taken prisoner by scavengers on the island. They try to rape her, and -"

Kotaku: "They try to rape her?"

Rosenberg: "She's literally turned into a cornered animal. And that's a huge step in her evolution: she's either forced to fight back or die and that’s what we're showing today." [via Kotaku]

So...Lara Craft becomes a strong woman because she's threatened with sexual violence. Hey, thanks men! Without you, awesome Lara would never have happened! Oh my god, we have men to thank for female empowerment!

Fuck you, Crystal Dynamics. Fuck all of you. I hope this game bombs like Lucifer's stand-up show at a Brian Tamaki bbq.

Twitter says:












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