Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Pure Fantasy or Feminist Trailblazer?

Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft is a character of contradictions. Is she a male fantasy, or a feminist hero? Can she possibly be both?
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Transcript provided by Youtube:

00:04
The 2018 Tomb Raider movie got us
00:07
thinking about Lara Croft
00:09
and what the character has meant
00:11
to audiences over the years.
00:12
The character’s history represents a complicated mix of
00:16
oversexualization and empowerment
00:18
that reveals a lot about our relationship
00:21
to strong female heroines.
00:22
“I woke up this morning and I just hated everything.”
00:26
Thanks to her popularity, Lara opened the door
00:29
for more female video game characters
00:31
and more female action protagonists onscreen.
00:34
But the original Lara Croft rose to fame in part
00:38
thanks to being objectified
00:40
for her exaggerated feminine appearance.
00:43
Gaming and Addiction researcher, Dr. Mark Griffiths,
00:46
noted that when talking about Lara,
00:48
most players mentioned her breasts.
00:50
“Don’t you think you’ve seen enough?”
00:55
And when the first movie, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,
00:58
came out starring Angelina Jolie,
01:00
producers tried to replicate the allure
01:02
she held for male gamers.
01:05
“Are you going to shoot me, Alex?”
01:10
So from the very beginning, Lara Croft’s function
01:13
was to be a sex symbol marketed primarily young men
01:17
— but along the way she became a female trailblazer,
01:20
too, almost by accident.
01:22
So this brings us to our main question —
01:24
is Lara Croft just a male fantasy
01:27
or is she a feminist hero,
01:29
and is it possible to be both?
01:31
“That’s a secret.
01:32
If I told you
01:33
I’d have to kill you.”
01:40
Looking back on Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,
01:42
you could use this movie as a Hollywood crash course
01:45
on how to craft the perfect male fantasy:
01:48
a heroine who’s extra sexy and strong
01:50
but somehow absolutely non-threatening.
01:54
Before we go on, be sure to hit subscribe
01:56
and click the bell to get notifications
01:58
on all of our new videos.
02:03
The first step is making your sexy heroine
02:05
be all man inside.
02:08
From the opening scene of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
02:10
it’s like the film is saying —
02:12
Lara will turn your preconceived notions
02:14
about women upside down.
02:17
Which means that what we’re about to see
02:19
is a man’s personality in a woman’s form.
02:22
She wears no make-up, plain clothes
02:24
and a tight braid.
02:25
She is brusque, a woman of few words.
02:27
“Time to save the universe again, is it?”
02:31
“Absolutely.”
02:32
Lara is strong, assertive, inquisitive and brave —
02:35
all very traditionally “male” qualities.
02:37
Lara’s tomboyish ways are a fantasy
02:40
for male viewers and players —
02:42
she has the body and looks of a woman
02:44
they’d desire,
02:45
but the interests and behavior of
02:46
their best male friend.
02:48
“Thank you boys.
02:49
Over and out.”
02:51
Sadly, the message to any female viewer, though is,
02:54
to be a badass, be more like a man.
02:56
18 years later, Daenerys Targaryen is both badass
03:00
and very feminine.
03:01
But Lara was sort of de-feminized
03:04
so that she’d be more desirable,
03:05
and that didn’t make her a very empowering
03:07
role model for women.
03:08
“The lady should be modest.”
03:10
“Yes, a lady should be modest.”
03:17
The second thing that’s really revealing
03:19
is the story’s point of view.
03:23
If Lara were a heroine we’re supposed
03:25
to be identifying with,
03:26
we should be seeing things
03:27
from her point of view.
03:29
Sometimes we do.
03:31
But Lara’s opening fight with the robot
03:32
is not filmed with her point of view in mind.
03:36
The robot pounces on top of her,
03:38
while she is on her back,
03:39
and pushes down on her —
03:40
this shot choreography places Lara
03:43
in an overtly sexualized position.
03:45
And we see the robot’s point of view —
03:47
watching her fight back,
03:49
rather than just living her experience
03:51
of the fight.
03:52
Then in this scene, again,
03:53
it’s just blatantly obvious that we are meant
03:55
to be seeing Lara in a sexualized way.
03:58
Compare that to this shower scene from the same film.
04:02
This scene puts you in the experience —
04:04
makes you think about how it feels
04:05
to have the water hitting your skin.
04:08
Whereas Lara’s scene is shot to look like
04:10
what you would imagine
04:11
if you were fantasizing about Lara Croft
04:13
taking a shower.
04:14
It has nothing to do with her actual experience
04:16
and everything to do with how she looks.
04:18
“Always a pleasure.”
04:19
“Never a cold shower.”
04:26
The Tomb Raider video games are third-person,
04:29
so from the start the experience has been
04:31
about always seeing Lara,
04:33
and the movie’s maintains this appeal
04:35
with its point of view.
04:40
Players have complete control over video-game Lara
04:43
because that’s the nature of a video game.
04:45
She was a badass with a built-in lack of agency.
04:48
So video-game Lara can be as accomplished
04:50
and awesome as possible,
04:52
and still not be intimidating —
04:53
which added to her original sex appeal.
04:56
But in a movie, this level of control
04:58
isn’t really possible —
04:59
so in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,
05:01
filmmakers found other ways to make viewers feel
05:03
they had power over Lara.
05:06
To understand how the movie does takes power
05:08
away from Lara,
05:09
let’s look at her backstory —
05:10
or lack thereof.
05:12
She has no mother and identifies strongly
05:14
with her father,
05:15
who was an explorer/archaeologist.
05:18
She lives in a huge mansion with a hacker
05:20
who seems to be like a brother to her —
05:21
“Bryce.
05:23
Don’t start.”
05:26
and a butler named Hillary.
05:27
“Anything you need?”
05:28
“No.
05:29
Thank you, Hillary.”
05:30
“Don’t you stay up too late.”
05:31
This setup makes Lara feel like a child
05:34
in an adult’s body.
05:36
Her drives and priorities are basically those
05:38
of a kid —
05:39
adventuring —
05:40
“You know I can’t resist a bit of fun.”
05:42
and pleasing her parent.
05:43
“I miss you daddy.”
05:46
The scene that sets her Lara’s adventure in motion
05:48
wouldn’t be out of place at the start
05:49
of Harry Potter —
05:50
she wakes up because of a mysterious ticking sound
05:53
and walks around in her PJ’s
05:55
looking for the source of the sound.
05:57
So because Lara has the story
05:59
and motivations of a kid
06:01
“I still have you, daddy.”
06:03
she elicits a kind of protectiveness in male viewers.
06:07
And however strong she is,
06:08
the movie is on some level making her
06:11
a “damsel in distress” to recreate
06:13
that protective feeling in viewers.
06:15
Also critics have noted that video-game Lara
06:17
was especially attractive to players in part
06:20
because of her sparse backstory —
06:22
So viewers can imagine her inner life
06:25
as whatever they prefer.
06:30
Lara also has no romantic story line,
06:33
at least not at first.
06:35
She doesn’t seem interested in any man
06:37
besides her dad.
06:38
“Your father said you will never give up.”
06:41
“My father?
06:43
You knew my father?”
06:45
Her dormant sexual agency makes Lara more approachable
06:48
and less threatening.
06:50
Her unawakened sexuality is hinted at
06:52
in the symbolism of her adventures.
06:55
“Egypt again.
06:57
It’s nothing but pyramids and sand.”
07:00
“I know.
07:01
Gets everywhere, in the cracks.”
07:04
She’s on a mission to protect a tomb
07:06
from men who want to invade it.
07:09
Furthermore, she’s on this mission
07:10
because her father told her to
07:12
protect the tomb’s secret from the men.
07:14
“The world will be in great danger.
07:18
Devious, dangerous men who seek
07:20
the triangle’s awesome and terrible powers.
07:24
This you must prevent at all costs.”
07:27
And then we get this scene in the cave-like tomb itself
07:30
which is also pretty telling
07:32
and then if you had any doubts that this was symbolic,
07:35
there’s this genius line
07:37
“The log must pierce the urn.”
07:39
and then of course, this happens.
07:44
If this scene isn’t a hamfisted metaphor
07:46
for a sexual awakening, then what is?
07:50
After the log and urn scene, Lara seems
07:52
to become more in touch with her sexuality.
07:55
She starts developing a very understated
07:57
romantic rapport
07:58
with Daniel Craig’s character, Alex West.
08:01
Near the end of the movie, she saves his life.
08:04
But there’s still next to no explicit romance —
08:07
they never even kiss,
08:09
unless you count the sexy CPR Lara performs.
08:12
So keeping Lara relatively chaste is an
08:14
invitation of sorts to male viewers —
08:17
it makes it easy for the audience to imagine themselves
08:20
filling that empty place and being her partner.
08:24
“Alright.
08:26
Let’s go.”
08:29
The second movie, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Cradle of Life
08:33
performed poorly,
08:34
earning 157 million compared to
08:37
the first film’s 275 million.
08:39
The film was actually received more positively
08:42
by critics,
08:43
who cited better character development for Lara.
08:45
But as we’ve seen character development wasn’t
08:48
necessarily what audiences wanted from Lara.
08:51
The first Tomb Raider leaves off when Lara
08:53
has gone through a symbolic sexual awakening
08:56
and discovered her femininity.
08:58
She even wears a dress.
09:00
“Oh my God.”
09:01
She bosses all the men in the movie around
09:02
and seems more aware of her sexual attractiveness.
09:05
We even see her ex-boyfriend, which might have
09:08
disappointed all Lara’s would-be boyfriends
09:11
in the audience.
09:12
So giving Lara even this small amount of sexual agency
09:15
and character development evidently ruined the fantasy
09:19
and negatively affected the film’s success.
09:24
So it’s pretty clear that Lara in the original movie
09:27
and game was an ultimate male fantasy —
09:29
but despite that, she should still be considered
09:32
an important character in the feminist canon.
09:35
It’s hard to see her like that now,
09:37
but in 90s and early 200s
09:39
Lara was a step in the right direction
09:41
for action movies.
09:42
She was a very popular female hero
09:44
in two huge, male-dominated industries.
09:48
And we should even give Angelina Jolie props because —
09:51
as much as the movie seems ridiculously
09:53
sexualized to us today —
09:55
the actress actually fought against
09:57
replicating video-game Lara’s unrealistic proportions,
10:00
because she did not want to set this kind of ideal
10:02
for young girls.
10:07
In 2013, the 10th Tomb Raider game
10:10
rebooted Lara’s character as a more realistic,
10:13
3-dimensional, relatable character,
10:15
fit for our times.
10:16
“A famous explorer once said that
10:21
the extraordinary is in what we do,
10:23
not who we are.”
10:25
And in the 2018 Tomb Raider movie,
10:27
Alicia Vikander has the same mysterious,
10:30
vaguely foreign allure Jolie had,
10:33
but her appearance is less overtly sexual
10:35
and more realistic.
10:37
The set-up is pretty similar:
10:39
Lara is still the rough and tumble explorer.
10:41
“It’ll be an adventure!”
10:42
“Death is not an adventure.”
10:45
And her story doesn’t hinge on a romantic plot.
10:48
So in that sense the movie is still appealing
10:50
to those audience that kind of prefers it
10:53
when she’s single.
10:54
But in the context of 2018, not emphasizing romance
10:58
is generally viewed as positive.
11:00
Lara’s also still obsessed with her father.
11:03
“I thought I saw Dad today.
11:06
I think I’m going mad.”
11:08
“Lara, your father’s gone.”
11:10
But there’s a key difference in the new version.
11:13
Now she’s set on getting answers about her dad
11:15
and the whole film is set up
11:17
to be a backstory for Croft.
11:19
As we saw, the previous lack of a backstory
11:21
was intentionally depriving her of agency
11:24
and a fully formed adult persona.
11:26
So the fact that we’re getting an origin story
11:28
is in itself the righting of a major wrong
11:31
in the character’s history.
11:32
“And it was important to us that
11:34
Lara felt like a real girl,
11:36
a real human being.”
11:38
So over the last 22 years
11:40
and throughout all her iterations,
11:42
what does Lara Croft represent for our culture?
11:45
Jolie’s Croft was obviously a sex object
11:48
for all the reasons we’ve discussed,
11:50
but she was still a trailblazer —
11:52
if only because she was both a female
11:55
and a strong action hero.
11:57
She was even a kind of feminist Trojan horse:
12:00
she masqueraded as pure male fantasy,
12:02
but the success of her female-led story
12:05
opened the door for others who came after her.
12:08
“I’m just that kind of Croft.”
12:14
I’m Debra.
12:15
I’m Susannah.
12:16
We’re the creators of ScreenPrism.
12:17
If you like our videos, please subscribe.
12:20
Down there!

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This post was previously published on Youtube.
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