Some of the Reasons for New Lara's Praise Are a Bit Disturbing
The new Lara Croft is now upon us. She's less sexy and experiences things a little differently this time around. She's praised as a massive improvement, in large part due to her appearances. She's "sensible" now.
Smaller breasts, no short-shorts, no cleavage...but what makes the opposite of those not sensible? If a real woman can make the conscious decision to wear short-shorts and show some cleavage of her large bossoms, why can't game designers make the same without being hassled? And is the suggestion that having large breasts are some sort of negative or impossibility? There are lots of women with real large breasts...it is NOT a conscious decision, unless you get implants. There is a very serious contradiction here; feminists and white knights will rant all about a woman's right to dress however she wants, but then a virtual woman shows some cleavage and it 'detracts' from the game and "shows dat our industree needs tah grow up!!"
She was made hollywood attractive, and there's nothing wrong with that. Kratos doesn't have love handles, Drake doesn't have a lazy eye, and Master Chief isn't overweight; male characters get the same treatment without the batting of an eye. In face of that argument, people go on about how that isn't meant to be sexual. Whose fault is it really that it's not considered sexual when a male character is made attractive? Drake seduces 2 women on a Sunday, Kratos gets his jollies in every last one of his adventures, etc. Their looks are meant to have a relationship with their sexual potency. Just because it's a heterosexual male dominated industry in which THE VIEWER (not the designer) views the female characters as sexy and not the males, doesn't mean that there is any more or less sexuality to how they're designed. Even in the case where it serves as a means to be a macho mega-fantasy, that still leaves us with a sexualized character, stopped from being seen as attractive only by the viewer's own view.
Before we even had much of the game figured out, people were already praising the move to make her a smaller cup size and to cover up more of her nasty, nasty body. It makes me seriously question if the reception would have been anywhere near the same if the game was completely the same but with the old Lara Croft model. Are we really seeing a "progressive" version of Lara Croft or just calmed down versions of prudes, white knights, and insecure women?
I think until we have these issues of sexism and the misrepresentation of women sorted out in the real world, it's probably only going to get worse or better for games, depending on your thoughts on the matter of course.
I must say though, I don't like the idea of any form of creativity being hampered by petty arguments of misrepresentation, especial when the same could be said of the other side.
And yes, the same can be said about male characters. Only when it's about male characters it doesn't have the added controversy of being a "sex" issue, so no one really becomes defensive in the process. Male characters are portrayed with a very specific, idealized body structure in the vast majority of games these days as well, and I for one am more than open to some characters that break the mold if for nothing else than some variety.
The real issue I take is that immediately upon seeing her, people called out how "progressive" it was for the industry. Granted, my blog would have been more effective if I posted months ago.
I dont see the new lara as a way of making it less appealing and trying to be less sexy , especially with the way she abused moanings in trailers .
More bad ass and real maybe , in a John mclane way , but that's it . No progress or regression on the subject
As far as big breast, short shorts, skimpy outfits, etc goes. It depends. If I'm supposed to take a female character seriously but she has big breast that looks disproportionate to her body then I just find it silly. Sometimes we see characters like this created to simply pander which is what people truly have a problem with. Also, trying too hard to make the character look sexy. However, there isn't anything " wrong " with big breast.
Why did you lump prudes with white knights and feminist? Those aren't synonymous with each other. I'm prudish but I've never taken offense to any game character design choices. Developers can do whatever they want with characters.
-- They found an actress to represent the new Lara Croft both physically and audibly.
-- They modeled the new Lara Croft after her proportions.
-- Old Lara Croft models were found to fit a CGI model designed prior to any person was used as a base model. None of the models found have the same proportions as the CGI model Lara and have been dressed up as best as possible to match the CGI Lara.
-- Old Lara Croft models were also not used as voice actors in the games. It was two different people. Most were even restricted from even speaking at press events while in costume.
-- When hiking, let alone exploring, it is never recommended that one wear short shorts or tight clothing that leaves legs or torso body parts exposed.
So, it seems to me what they did is make a more realistic Lara that is still beautiful and strong rather than basing it on a fairly unrealistic CGI mock-up from the 90s. They based it on a real woman, used her real voice, and had her act out the scenes in person.
Seems like a good change to me.
@coolbeans
Not what I meant by "sensible"
Well, the gaming community is immature. At least a good portion of it is.
I would have to agree that utilizing a real-world figure as the basis for the character also does make it a stronger stance for not only strong lead women but also for women in the gaming industry wherein most leads are male.
Lara Croft is one of the best female leads we have in gaming for showing that men aren't needed to save them, but she was cooked up in the mind of male dominated atmosphere, even moreso in the 1990s than it is now, that obvious was tailored to appeal to a male dominated gaming culture.
By rebooting it and utilizing a more realistic design approach to capture a person as the new Lara, they are improving the idea behind it and showing that a beautiful woman who is strong and put into difficult, though 'fantastic', situations is capable of being developed and portrayed in a manner that is more mature--meaning, advanced with time and experience--than what they have done before.
@coolbeans
"Possessing or displaying prudence"
It's one of like 2, maybe 3 meanings that make sense in the situation.
Realism is a maturing factor, actually. And, it's not pandering to your main audience anymore than it is pandering to women by having a woman write the story of Lara Croft in the reboot.
You seem to think the goal was only to present Lara as a different type of 'sex object' or something of the sort. The fact is, their goal was not to make her less beautiful, but make her more relateable (made up word, yay!) from a storytelling perspective and do it in a manner with which it is easier for people to identify. They wanted a Lara with more emotion and updated for where they wanted to take her in this day and age rather than doing the same thing. Somehow that comes off as sexist and yet we don't have an issue when other games have the same thing happen to them because they are male characters.
You and I will have to disagree on this topic.
Not the actually case, mate... Megan Farquhar is Lara's new face model... Camilla Luddington is the voice and performance capture actor--but she's not the model for Lara's "proportions." In a recent interview, Brian Horton, senior art director of Tomb Raider explained, "The body model is actually a stuntwoman..." So, the new Croft is really a composite of 3 different women: a face model, a voice/capture performer, and a body model... Still far more realistic than the 90s CGI job, but clarifying "what we know"...
I think that, if the gameplay is good and whatever drives you to play the game (whether it be story, challenge, whatever) does things well, then those hot button things will not be as much of an issue than you might think. In the case of TR, the controversy switched because of Lara looking like a "real woman" from her being overly sexual to what the trailer for the new game showed.
If you notice, they didn't have the overly sexual Lara to bitch about anymore, so they went with either "Lara isn't sexual enough" (which I would answer "make up your damn minds"), or "she's OOC because she's scared of some dude". For the latter, it's a reboot/prequel, for one, and two, that's a bit of an arrogant stance to take when you're talking about character development. I like characters to be three dimensional and not be the never vulnerable type. The one dimensional characters get boring quickly, and seeing Lara have her hands full and not knowing what to do shows that the developers know that gamers don't want boring, cookie-cutter characters.
But yeah, this is becoming the norm on the internet. TR is the latest case, but you're now seeing what I've been eluding to all over the place for a while now: people have found the medium to act as though they have some importance (don't worry: we all believe that we can make some difference even if our opinions are in the minority), and they express their views so clumsy that you wonder why they tried. Then you have trolls and bandwagon hoppers that should never get the attention they continuously get.
What? Not true.
When a character has a strong back story, they are suddenly alright with the way the character is dressed. Wonder Woman and a lot of other super heroines wear skin tight suits, but people don't have any issues since they have strong back stories. Why is it okay for wonder woman to dress in tights, but offensive when Ayane wears a bikini. Speaking of the DOA girls, I don't think any of them actually bend to male characters or are girl trophies for males. They all have weak back stories when compared to Wonder Woman, but none of them submit to any males. Instead they fight the males (and are arguably some of the best characters in the game).
I think it's alright for characters to be sexy and dress sexy, but I draw the line when a female is just there to be a man's trophy or are represented in some sick or super offensive way.
There certainly is nothing wrong with large breasts, skimpy clothing, or an in-shape body, especially when many women in real life exhibit these characteristics. However, one point you should consider and are possibly overlooking is that when the vast majority of women portrayed in videogames and comics have traditionally been nothing but large-titted, scantily-clad women, it's a refreshing change when you see characters like Lara in the new Tomb Raider, or Heavenly Sword's Nariko, who are more conservatively clothed and proportioned. Again, there's nothing inherently wrong with female characters fashioned to be the object of men's desire, but there should be some variety the OTHER way around as well.
Nathan Drake may not be flabby or have a receding hairline, but he's also not a Mr. Universe contestant in the vein of a Rob Liefeld drawing (or Gears of War character). To me, the new Lara Croft is akin to Nathan Drake as a character--attractive, but not exaggerated.
I will grant you this, her physical proportions were excellent. She looked like she had the torso to swing around the Heavenly Sword.
I think a lot of the hate just boils down to jealousy and they resent male sexuality.
The thing to remember is context. With the new Lara Croft game they've taken the concept of adventure and survival and tried to make it more gritty and detailed, so a caricatured character wouldn't really fit this concept, unless all the characters were equally caricatured (say, if a male character had a massive upper body and stick thin legs for example...) The disproportioned boobs would have ruined the game in my opinion. It was fine back in the 90s where Lara was only made 10 polygons, infact it makes sense to exaggerate her proportions to make her look distinctively sexy while playing the game, but now we have better technology, we can add more detail to her face to make her face prettier (and man does the new Lara have a pretty face...). I like big boobs just as much as any other guy, but I'm not fan of over-sized implants, and yes, I am talking about real life.
Another example of context is Bayonetta. She's WAY over the top in her sexuality but it fits the context of the game perfectly, she's a mega-powerful, egotisical, evil witch, it makes sense for her to dress and behave over the top.
Likewise, if Lara Croft is a young adventurer that searches for strange ancient artifacts, I'd expect her personality, character and design to fit those boundaries. I mean heck, if we're gona make her overtly sexual, why not give her a nice pair of heels to go along with her massive boobs and short-shorts? After all, it's only a game right?
I love female game characters but I never liked the old Lara design. New Lara on the other hand gets my blood pumping.
Really? Those dastardly feminists and white knights!
"She was made hollywood attractive,"
Riiight, because, Lara Croft needed quadruple Q's to be considered attractive by hollywood standards of the 90s? Gimme a break...
"Kratos doesn't have love handles, Drake doesn't have a lazy eye, and Master Chief isn't overweight"
You're absolutely correct, Kratos doesn't have love handles... but Kratos also isn't walking around with a friggin' wafer-thin magic loincloth that has to break the laws of physics to barely contain his prominent, frame-stealing, buldging manhood, and still allow him maximum support AND freedom of movement for his gargantuan, abundantly displayed, schlong... Also, Drake and Master Chief are COVERED from head-to-toe, (fully-armored, in the case of MC), clothing appropriate to their environment, activities and missions; neither are traipsing about in fields of THORNY KNEE-HIGH GRASS, MOSQUITO FILLED RAIN FORESTS or COMPLETELY EXPOSED TO DESERT NIGHT AIR dressed only in Daisy Duke cut-offs and sleeveless shirts... neither Drake nor MC are (laughably) attired in "bikini-bottomed wetsuits" when deep-sea diving in shark-infested waters!
"people go on about how that isn't meant to be sexual."
I can ALMOST understand your perception of a double standard: "why is it okay for Kratos to run around muscled and shirtless and not be considered 'a victim of sexual exploitation' while, if Lara shows cleavage it's considered a criminal 'exploiting her sexuality'" ... but such a perception is nullified when considering God of War is ALL ABOUT EXPLOITATION: it's a total, unabashed glory-splashing of exploitation level violence AND sexuality--all the way through, all games--with NO APOLOGIES whatsoever; further, Kratos particularly reinforces the macho, alpha-male conquerer fantasy trope so prevalent in gaming and our culture at large...