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Rant: Crystal Dynamics Hopes Gamers Will Care about Lara Croft… [UPDATED]
Update
A new post on Kotaku reports that Crystal Dynamics’ studio head, Darrell Gallagher, has issued a statement to clarify the “attempted rape” portion of the Tomb Raider trailer, noting that it’s not, uh, you know, attempted rape. I guess it’s, like, attempted-attempted rape? The statement:
“We had a great E3 with Tomb Raider and received a fantastic public and press response, with the game picking up numerous game of the show awards based on the new direction taken with the franchise. Unfortunately we were not clear in a recent E3 press interview and things have been misunderstood. Before this gets out of hand, let me explain.
In making this Tomb Raider origins story our aim was to take Lara Croft on an exploration of what makes her the character she embodies in later Tomb Raider games. One of the character defining moments for Lara in the game, which has incorrectly referred to as an ‘attempted rape’ scene is the content we showed at this year’s E3 and which over a million people have now seen in our recent trailer entitled ‘Crossroads’. This is where Lara is forced to kill another human for the first time. In this particular section, while there is a threatening undertone in the sequence and surrounding drama, it never goes any further than the scenes that we have already shown publicly. Sexual assault of any kind is categorically not a theme that we cover in this game.
We take great care and pride in our work and are focused on creating a release that will deliver meaningful storytelling, drama, and exciting gameplay. We’re sorry this has not been better explained, we’ll certainly be more careful with what is said in future.”
Just to clarify my own position: the incident of sexual assault–attempted or implied–isn’t the whole of the issue, though that certainly is a huge part of it. To me, the horrors that Lara Croft seems to be experiencing in the above trailer go much further than necessary to give her sufficient adversity to RISE ABOVE. The main issue, I think, is that Rosenberg and the trailer above imply that Lara Croft is, as a woman, in need of “help” and “protection,” and that only through these pretty over-the-top experiences can she become the “Tomb Raider.”
But there’s no such equivalent when it comes to male heroes or protagonists…at least none that spring to my mind, with quite such intensity as the scene above. Remember the origin story for Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade? He was, like, a boy scout and he beat up a bunch of bad guys and got a hat. No crazy, violent trauma to “build” his character. The fact that Crystal Dynamics is easing off the “rape” plot point helps, but–to me–the main issue of weird, out-dated gender assumptions and inequalities remains.
Original Post
When I saw the Tomb Raider playthrough at Microsoft’s E3 conference last week, I thought to myself, “that looks pretty cool.” Lara Croft was running, jumping, shooting bad dudes with a flaming bow and arrow—pretty bad-ass.
Towards the end of the demo, she fell and hit a ton of tree branches. “Well, she should probably die of internal bleeding—but whatever,” I thought. That’s how video games go, right? Characters take a lot of damage.
Then this past weekend, I watched the actual gameplay trailer on Xbox LIVE, which is posted above. In it, Lara Croft gets abused every which way—at one point, she even steps in a fucking bear trap.
Just to be clear, when a character gets caught in a bear trap, it’s supposed to be hilarious. Observe:
In Tomb Raider, however, it seems kind of like the icing on a snuff-film-flavored cake. Seriously, why doesn’t she just get an anvil dropped on her head, too?
My point is that Lara Croft sure is taking a ton of abuse—quite a bit more than you’d think considering the relatively “realistic” look Crystal Dynamics is going for in this Tomb Raider reboot, in which we learn of Croft’s origins as an adventurer. It turns out that’s no accident.
The game’s executive producer, Ron Rosenberg, explained to Kotaku that Croft is getting beat up so much in the game—including surviving a failed rape attempt—in order to get gamers to care about her, and want to help her:
“When people play Lara, they don’t really project themselves into the character. They’re more like ‘I want to protect her.’ There’s this sort of dynamic of ‘I’m going to this adventure with her and trying to protect her.’ […] She’s definitely the hero but— you’re kind of like her helper. When you see her have to face these challenges, you start to root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character. [...]
The ability to see her as a human is even more enticing to me than the more sexualized version of yesteryear. She literally goes from zero to hero… we’re sort of building her up and just when she gets confident, we break her down again. She is literally turned into a cornered animal. It’s a huge step in her evolution: she’s forced to either fight back or die.”
Okay. Allow me to put on my feminist hat for just a second.
So much of what Rosenberg discusses here seems to assume that gamers can only project themselves onto male protagonists—which is total malarkey. The massive success of books like The Hunger Games should prove that sympathy and empathy for protagonists defies gender boundaries. The fact that, yes, more gamers are male than female doesn’t mean that gamers can’t take on the role of a female hero. That’s absurd, and it is, in fact, sexist.
It’s something of a cliché at this point that in order for a female character in fiction to be sympathetic and/or ass-kicking, they have to have suffered some kind of sexual trauma to start with. But why is that? It’s not like we needed to learn about how Han Solo was sexually abused as a kid and that’s how he was able to turn around and become a bad-ass space smuggler. No—he’s cool and he’s got a blaster and he’s awesome.
So why does Lara Croft need to be busted down into “a cornered animal” in order to grow enough to fight back? And also: who tries raping cornered animals? What? We’re mixing up metaphors and ideas here and it’s revealing some very, very strange stuff about how women in pop-culture are viewed.
Furthermore, why should gamers be convinced to “protect” and “help” Croft? Aren’t we playing as Lara Croft? The language Rosenberg used in the interview is extremely paternalistic, not to mention patronizing. Do we protect and help Mario in his games? Hell no—gamers ARE Mario, dammit, and WE run and jump and stomp koopas. Why does Lara Croft need to be “helped”? She doesn’t. She never did before, and I’m baffled as to why she needs to be now.
Last week, I discussed the controversy over the Hitman: Absolution trailer, in which Agent 47 goes to town on a bunch of sexy nun-assassins. While it definitely raises some questions about how far is too far in terms of sex and violence in games, to me, those women are all on an equal playing field with the game’s protagonist. They’re all paid killers, and they all embody fantasy ideals about gender. It’s not totally equal, no—for it to be truly equal, Agent 47 should be wearing, like, a cock-sock and should be showing some nips or something…something to equal the fetishization the female characters are showing. But regardless, essentially it’s killers trying to all kill each other in a more fantasy-type setting.
In the case of Tomb Raider, however, gritty realism seems to be the name of the game. And the sheer amount of physical torture and the attempted sexual assault that Croft suffers through—all in the name of somehow needing to convince gamers to sympathize with a character who has already successfully sold games and movies for over a decade—is insulting to me as a gamer and as a thinking human.
This is all disappointing, considering the fact that the Tomb Raider reboot actually looks like it’ll be a lot of fun in the style of Uncharted—another game featuring a bad-ass male character whose awesomeness is never questioned or needs an explanation. I’m all for learning about how Lara Croft became so great—but I never needed it to be done like this. The ironic thing is that Crystal Dynamics is actually taking great pains to de-sexualize the character from her past incarnations, where she was little more than a bunch of polygons shaped like boobs. And yet, the way in which they’re doing so ends up somehow being more insulting and degrading to her as a character, and assumes that us gamers need to somehow be tricked into caring about a female character who we already care about.
Phew! Okay. Glad I got that out of my system. Just so we’re clear, these are all my opinions. You’re more than welcome to disagree or discuss. Game on.
Via Kotaku
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Well-put. That excerpt from the Kotaku article paints a picture of a worldview that is frankly pretty terrifying.
Actually, I half agree with you. I agree on the part where we want to BEthe character, not to HELP them. To me, beating her to a pulp made her seem more badass, making me more willing to emulate her. Every time she got stabbed, shot, burned, electrocute, or whatever, I was constantly saying, “F**K YEAH! SUCK IT UP AND KEEP RUNNING!” And that whole sexual assault thing… I sort of felt creeper out… Not because of some feminist crap. It was because I was still in the mindset of being Lara during that trailer. It made me feel like “I” was being manhandled. THAT is yet another reason why I felt more like this protagonist instead of her narrator. I don’t need them to make me feel sorry for her. I want you to show us that this Croft can have the living sh*t kicked out of her and still hit the ground running. THAT is why I decided to buy the game when it comes out. I want to see her climb the trenches and come out like a shiny penny. “I” want to be that penny.
And that’s my two cents.
And pardon the grammar… I’ma typin wiz on ma mobil devizes. :)
I agree with you.
I expect when I come to play the game, I’ll be shouting “Get up and f***ing run!” but when it comes to that creepy guy, I expect I’ll be shouting “Get the hell off me!”.
That’s what makes a game good, playing with your emotions, at one point I may feel distant, like I realise I’m playing a game, another time I might feel like it’s actually me who has a gun pointed to my head.
A game can’t suck you in entirely, that would be bad for your mental state I think. But when it really counts, that’s what they have to do.
My friends like to make fun of my Female Couriers and Lusty Argonian maids =(.
I know what you mean.
My brother walked in on me playing FemShep! on ME3 the other day and said: “Are you playing as a girl?”
I said: “Yeah… why?”
“Oh, ok. Never mind.”
He’s more of a FPS player, however I do know how much of a different experience you can get from a game playing a different Gender. Usually if I have the choice, I’ll play male first, complete the game, then start a new one as female.
I mean if it’s worth it. I doubt I’ll play a female in Dark Souls… not much difference between the two.
Wow, I would never play this game. I’ve played almost all the Tomb Raider games. I remember sitting around with friends, drinking, playing Tomb Raider 2, just trying to figure out the game and how to beat it. I don’t give a crap about the character. She was a hot woman who kicked ass. That’s all I needed to know. The thing that made Tomb Raider so great is that it was an interesting, fast paced, game with cool locations and challenging puzzles. I don’t care at all about the character.
We should just ditch plot all together, right? You know, make games funner…. ):<
“Sexual assault of any kind is categorically not a theme that we cover in this game.”
It seems to be covered in the trailer though, no? A threatening guy with a gun is groping tied up Lara – come on we know what that means and where it is headed
I find my self disagreeing with some of your opinions. True it does seem that Lara is being put in a position in which she is being beaten up to try and draw players into the game. However if the true pursuit of the developers is to try and make a more serious real to life game, some of the experiences Lara may have or more to the point should never have to deal with, in some opinions including my own, make her a richer charicter in the arena that is the struggle to suvive unsuvivable situations. And while I agree that the implied potential rape is not on, it is somthing that might happen in a real life situation. (And please, I’m well aware that Lara should have died in a real life situation, though in the pursuit of a achivable game some discrepancies are exceptable.) Also while I’m ranting, untill a game is created in which the potential male protagonist is put in a situation in which he is surrounded by people who would attempt to abuse him, it would be unbelievable for young Shepard or John to be attacked in such a manor. However Lara is in a belivable situation in which such an attack might occure. So please, while I agree that the potential attack may not be in good form, do not critasise the studio for trying to create more believable situations. It’s a touche issue at best, though we should respect the studio for pushing boundries which if succesful may someday result in more life like experiences for other male characters. And is’nt it sexist of its self to say female protagonists should not be put in the situation until a male charicter has been through the unfortunate incident?
Sorry if I offend, but that’s just my opinion.
Regards,
George. G. Crickmore, Esq.
No pun was intended in the ‘a touché issue at best’ line, I beg your pardon for any offence caused.
No offense taken. My issue isn’t simply that it’s a woman in these circumstances, though the sexual assault aspect of the “origin story” is such a loaded cliche it’s impossible to ignore. The main issue that I’ve got is the producer’s comments, in which he claims that Lara needs protection and help. She never did before, nor do just about any of the other video game protagonists we’ve had throughout the history of the industry.
It’s a package deal. Sure, it’s totally possible that a person–male or female–could be put in a situation like the one depicted in the trailer. And certainly if a person were faced with those circumstances and rose above them to grow and fight back, that’d make a pretty bad ass character. But none of these experiences (over-the-top physical and sexual abuse/assault) are a requirement to make a character–male or female–a hero. Crystal Dynamics chose these circumstances to explain how Lara Croft became the Tomb Raider. To my knowledge, there are no correlating stories for male characters in games. That difference is one of the issues.
The other issue is the way in which these choices are described. Again, the developers felt the need to make the players want to “protect” and “help” this character, and the only way they could think to do so was “literally” turn her into a “cornered animal.”
All of this is open for debate and interpretation. And do these things happen to people in reality? Absolutely. But games, literature, movies, are all made by people who make choices. Those choices could be clever or interesting or inspiring–or they could be retreads of cliches and overused tropes that reinforce stereotypes in ways that may not even be intentional. I’m sure that when the people who made this game set out to do so, they never intended to reinforce gender stereotypes–but that’s what appears to be happening. Subtext and context are very important.
Phew! There’s another rant. Thank you, Mr. Crickmore, for helping me keep this discourse civil and respectful. I totally appreciate where you’re coming from–I hope you appreciate where I’m coming from too.
Thank you as well. Until these issues are discussed the true reactions and understanding of situations of potential assault and the ways in which game makers veiw stereo types are an unknown. It is also good to find through good debate the ‘line’ to which game makers should in future try to observe.
My thanks for a good debate Mr Rubin, I’m sure that we will continue into the future on other issues.
Regards,
George. G. Crickmore, Esq.
P.S You do make very compelling arguments!
Massive LOL at the new press-release. If tying a woman up and groping her as she struggles against you isn’t attempted rape, then what the heck is it? Just ordinary, run-of-the-mill sexual assault? “Don’t worry guys, she doesn’t get raped, she only gets molested!”
/exploding facepalm