[…] Plot wise it might be even better than Alien: Isolation but it was problematic. I wrote about this in my review of the game: it included a lot of gratuitous ass shots, gratuitous violent death sequences, rape as character […]

Bored at work and trolling through old posts.

Where do you want to see the next Tomb Raider game go? Through most of this game, she’s dealing with death, turmoil, needing to escape the island, etc. As a result, Lara is not really a calm, confident woman through most of it, always needing to run or escape or fight. Where can they take her in the sequel so that she’s a more stable, confident, adult (more mature) character, closer to the Lara from the original games?

One comment on the infamous rape-as-character-building:
You asked whether it would have been too much for game designers to ask someone who was qualified to comment on these things whether it was used appropriately. In fact, it was much worse than that: when it was first revealed that attempted rape was going to be used as a way to give Lara ‘character development’ (and I believe that the designer in fact made a comment about how it would make the — straight, male — player feel like she needed protecting) there was in fact a large amount of concern from feminists, especially feminist gamers, which was essentially dismissed and brushed aside. It’s interesting to know that as you describe it, the scene has turned out in exactly the way which was predicted by its detractors…

@ agn0sis:

Well, original Samus thing was a fluke I think. Designers just made a silly bait and switch at the end where she takes of the suit and stands there in a bikini for a cheep thrill and whaaaaa-no-wai moment. So it didn’t really come from a place of tolerance or concern for gender equality – it was still mostly done for objectification. But side effect of the bait-and-switch routine that all of a sudden there was this hyper-competent, awesome and fun space hero who is also a girl. They accidentally created a female character who was not defined by her gender but by her skills and actions. And by the time players found out she was a woman, they already identified with her and respected her as a awesome ass-kicker. Thus by accident they made a female hero who was truly equal to her male counterparts. And then the more recent games went “wait, no – she is a girl, make her do girly stuff and have girly concerns and stuff”. :(

As for the rape: Tomb Rider was rated M in US so it’s not really going to be useful as object lesson for children. Also, it’s not really doing anything useful in terms of education.

If you talk to rape survivors you’ll realize that often “fighting back” like Lara did may be actually extremely dangerous as it escalates the violence and will likely result in more severe injuries and possibly even death of the victim

Also, the type of rape depicted in the game is rather uncommon IRL. Here are some stats (source):

– 70% of reported sexual assaults have been perpetrated by non-strangers
– 40% of rapists are victims friends or acquaintances
– 30% were someone victim was intimate with
– over 50% of rapes occur in victims own home or within 1 mile from home
– only 11% of reported rapes involved use of a weapon
– less than 3% of victims were raped at gun point

So the scenario depicted in the game is very much an outlier and something that most women will thankfully never have to deal with. Ironically this uncommon scenario is what we predominantly see in movies and TV over and over again. Overexposure of this specific rare scenario often convinces people that when we discuss rape related issues or legislation that has to do with sex crimes, this is the biggest threat women face. It’s not.

But you are right – we do need educate young women about rape. But I think perpetuating this atmosphere of fear and dependence is not really productive. I think it’s better to empower young women, teach them self respect and self value (so that they can’t be pressured into thinking they for example “owe” a guy something), show them how to clearly establish boundaries, how to deal with pressure tactics, how to say “no” without risking escalating situation to violence, and how to act and how to seek help if something does happen. We can also help to create safe environment for victims so that it is easier to them to seek help without being blamed shamed and etc. Action-chick power fantasies unfortunately don’t help much here. And the usual “don’t go out alone at night” and “don’t wear revealing clothing” type advice is silly and outdated and counter productive because they disempower women.

Young men on the other hand get almost no rape-related education, and astonishing number of them grows up to perpetrate these crimes. They are picking up all kinds of wrong messages somewhere. In fact half the dudes on reddit think that “rape culture doesn’t real” or that “patriarchy is fake and made up by misandrist lesbians” and etc. I mean, it would make a lot of sense to spend at leas the fraction of the resources we spend teaching girls how not to get raped, to teach boys how not to grow up to be rapists, no? :)

I am familiar with the most classic Metroid games. Damn, it is unfortunate that they decided to sexualize the character. I remember a lot of people getting really surprised and exited when they realized Samus was a woman.

Going back to the rape thing, and believe me, I think it is one of the most heinous crimes that a human can commit, it is very important to teach the children that rape must never occur, but not alerting them that it is a danger is not going to help. In the case of Lara, being a woman that has to deal with people of “relaxed moral” must increase the chances of being the victim of a sexual crime.

@ Tj:

Yes, so true. As much as princesses can function as role models to some degree, Disney has a pretty bad track record in terms of reinforcing the gender roles, propping up the patriarchy and etc. Lindsay Ellis does a great job of deconstructing Disney movies and highlighting both good and bad bits in her reviews. She has a great review of Little Mermaid where she shows that despite her being one of the most iconic and beloved princesses the movie’s main message is terribad (hey, it’s totally ok to throw your entire life away, sever ties with your family, reject your ethnic/cultural identity and radically alter your body for some random pretty dude you saw like once from afar, because “true love”) and has almost no redeeming value other than maybe few memorable songs. It’s actually kinda depressing how hard it is to find positive role models for girls out there.

I have been completely oblivious to all of this stuff most of my life too. It’s scary how privilege works. If you’re a straight white dude like me you can go through your entire life without a shred of awareness of any of the social injustice that affects millions of people around you every day – some of whom are your close friends and family members. And the worst part is that even though you are not aware of it, the subtexts and attitudes do seep in, and do inform your ideas and shape your world view. So I’m actually quite thankful I am able to see it now, because it lets me be a better person and hopefully help to make make a tiny amount of change in my corner of the interwebs. :)

@ Luke Maciak: Well said, Luke. I enjoyed reading this post but wasn’t able to comment earlier as I was on a smartphone (nothing to do with the site, I just don’t like typing on the lil’ keyboard). Had a bunch of stuff to say and you’ve covered it all. Thanks for the link to that TED video, the only thing I disagreed with him on was the effect on Disney princesses on little girls being a good one. In my experience it hasn’t been that way. In fact the further all little kids are from Disney the better. That being said I spent most of my life blissfully unaware of all the dreadful subtexts (change for your man, wait to be rescued, if you are special there’s a prince out there searching for you, put up with being a hostage+fall in love with your captor etc) and am quite thankful for that.

@ Carl: Not sure how a movement championing equal rights for half the human species is something you need kowtow to but.. whatever makes it happen for you XD

@ agn0sis:

Yes, this has been something I’ve been thinking and reading about about a lot lately. :)

Here is my problem with that scene: yes, it is good that Lara was able to defend herself. This is preferable to being rescued by some guy. But you know what would be even better? Just skip the suggestive groping completely. I mean, her life was already in danger. The guy was already holding her at gunpoint.

Defeating a violent thug who is trying to kill you is just as heroic, character building as killing a violent thug who is trying to rape you and then kill you. The rape bit just adds insult to the injury. It doesn’t really do anything for Lara in terms of character development. The scene would play out exactly the same with or without groping. Her shock and remorse after killing the assailant would be just as intense.

It doesn’t do anything for the guy either, because he is for the most part just some no-name thug. He shows up, gets creepy and violent and dies shortly after. No point in making him extra evil, or making players hate him any more.

The rape thing was there for the straight male player. It was put there specifically to feel protective of her. I believe the lead designer of the game said in an interview they specifically put Lara through an emotional wringer so that male players would want to protect her and lead her out of danger, because otherwise he didn’t see how they could possibly identify with a female hero. But she didn’t really need any of that. Men can identify with female characters. I played fem-Shep in Mass Effect and it was fine. My main favorite character in Skyrim is a Bosmer woman. I don’t need extra incentive to identify with Lara.

Unfortunately adding the rape bit has side effects. For one, it triggers rape survivors. According to some recent surveys in US on average one in five women have been a victim of some form sexual assault. That’s a huge portion of the growing population of female gamers that do not need to be reminded that “hey, rape happens” because they already know that all to well.

It helps to normalize rape as something that just happens, and we are powerless to stop it. It desensitizes us to it. When it is used for character building, or to add extra drama to a scene, or as an excuse to introduce a new male character it becomes mundane. There is a great Ted talk I watched recently in which a guy talks about role models in for children in movies and television (I can’t find it at the moment) and he touches on rape culture. He had a great line in there – he said something among the lines of “Instead of teaching our daughters that they always need to be careful and scared of getting raped, we should be instead teaching our sons to consider rape something absolutely unthinkable and beyond comprehension”. A good way to do that would be to not use it so casually in our media.

Now, I’m not saying we should never have stories that talk about rape. I’m saying that the tone and the way characters deal with it is important. It shouldn’t be something that just pops up in every third story for no other reason as to make a point that this or that chick is especially tough.

And I know – you could make an argument that movies and games desensitize us to other stuff like murder for example. But in real life murder is a very high profile crime, and murderers rarely get away with it. Rapists on the other hand frequently get off with a slap on the wrist or go unpunished, and society is still very keen on blaming the victims. Not only that, but murder is a social taboo, condemned pretty much by every religion there is, whereas rape is a bit of a gray area. There is a lot of misconception as to what counts as rape. Like the fact that a lot of people think that most rape happens somewhere in dark alleys where women are attacked by complete strangers, when in fact most reported rape cases are perpetuated by someone the victim knew and trusted. There are also a lot of men out there who for example think it’s not rape if she is not fighting back, or that it’s not rape if she was to drunk to say no and etc.

So that’s kinda my reasoning behind the rant. What bothered me was how unnecessary the groping was in the scope of the story. Cutting it out would not diminish the game as a whole in any way, and it would not subtract from the story or make Lara’s character any less awesome. All the rape thing it accomplishes is to alienate some players and send weird, insensitive messages to others.

Speaking of Metroid, wasn’t that one game kinda terrible in terms of plot as well? I haven’t played it but I remember seeing a review that mentioned that not only Samus model was sexed up to the max, but also the whole game was about motherhood (whereas other games were about being a bad-ass bounty hunter fucking up aliens) and she also gets a forced romantic subplot with some dude who constantly rescues her in cut scenes?

@ Carl:

Well, fem-Shep in Mass Effect is perfectly exchangeable with dude-Shep and it works quite well. But yes, I agree – you don’t want to make all characters gender-neutral. I think I didn’t articulate that I meant this mostly in context of action hero archetype. That’s a very specific niche, and right now we have a very clear division of what an action-dude and action-chick are supposed to be like.

Action-dude can be pretty much anyone. Look at the cast of expendables for example: there are all kinds of men out there – big muscular body builder types, grizzled older veterans, tall and lanky dudes, short and skinny martial arts dudes, pretty boys, ugly dudes covered in scars and tattoos and etc. Pretty much anyone can be an action-dude provided they can pull of the “tough, doesn’t give a shit, doesn’t look at explosions” routine. You don’t even need to be especially athletic as long as you can look cool holding a gun. Action-chicks on the other hand have to be young and sexy and not too muscular and wear tight fitting clothes. There is vely little verisimilitude in the way female action hero protagonists are portrayed.

So I think that a healthy dose of feminism would actually invigorate the genre. I’d love to see some action-hero women who are tough, gruff and awesome at kicking ass, but not necessarily skinny, athletic, lithe, and sexed up martial artists. For example Briene of Tarth from game of thrones is probably my favorite female warrior character because she is actually looks strong, tough and intimidating.

Sexual dimorphism. Men and women are not the same. A compelling storyline should not have to be gender swappable, unless it is sci-fi that is exploring an alternative universe. Kow towing to feminism only hurts the verisimilitude of a story.