Portrayal of a female protagonist in video games

For my blog post I decided to look at how the old Tomb Raider games and the new Tomb Raider games differ. Wether the character has progressed in herself or not throughout these years away from the media. The main question I had from thinking about this was that does it really make a difference if the protagonist in a game is male or female. The answer was yes it does. I decided to look at how a female main character differed from when it was originally released in 1996 and how it is now and wether it is now more accepted and treated the same as other games. I am going to look at it from a feminist perspective and look at how she is portrayed and if that makes a different in the game or how people look at the game overall.

Tomb Raider is a franchise that has been around since 1996. Since then Lara Croft has come a long way from being 'that female character with the big boobs, to the protagonist in the best game of the year. She became 'one of the first female protagonists in a gaming industry filled with women in supporting roles' (2013).

This game again was huge for its time and brave to bring out a woman lead game, it was originally made for a male lead but the creators changed their mind, this was a huge risk because 'common sense that women should have babies and cook, the women cannot be company directors or bricklayers'(1993, p. 123). As the times were changing this was a huge step in the idea that this could either be a disaster and no on could take to the idea of a women lead or it could be a hit because its new and offers a new female role model.

Available at: http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/attachments/sony-playstation/14702d1336145056-tomb-raider-pal-font-rear-ps1_tombraider_front_eu.jpg

In the original games of Tomb Raider she was very much portrayed as being the lone hero. She completes most of the tasks on her own and manages to do it like a badass. Back in 1996 the major audience for gaming were male and so the way she was portrayed had to be a way that would encourage men to play the game, this is where her costume comes into it. Wearing short shorts with a tank top and gun holsters attached to her thighs she doesn’t look like an ordinary game character. She later became the first game character to become a sex symbol. She was created in a way to become a strong female icon, this seemed to work, though maybe not as much as they had hoped. She stayed an icon for being a tough woman lead in a adventure game with large sales yet she didn’t seem to keep such a strong hold on being a feminist icon. In the original games she didn’t speak too much and no real personality, she was a character that wasn’t scared of anything and implying she was 'just a video game character' and she was more about the body image and how men saw her. This said, she did become a popular fancy dress idea. The games over the years became something new and something people loved because of its uniqueness, this then spouted a 2 movies in which Lara Croft was portrayed by Angelina Jolie.

Below is a trailer for the game in 2012.

(2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol_-QGlwRqc

As times have changed, with females doing jobs that they didn’t used to be able to the games have also changed from one another and both used different starting points and end points to fit in with the time they were made. 'Patriarchal ideology and how it operates to mask and distort gender relations'.(2001, p. 4) This talks about looking at how much more power men have these days compared to the past. With males not having as much power and control over women this is where the new Tomb Raider would take a change and make her herself an iconic character rather than a character a male would expect the woman to have in a game or any other media form.

In the new release of Tomb Raider in 2013 Lara Croft has been rebuilt to rekindle the love people once had for this franchise. The game uses a whole new approach to the character by having a much younger Lara Croft before she learnt all the things she knows in the old games. This is very much a origin game of the character, showing her as a vulnerable girl stuck on an island trying to help her friends. This reboot saw her coming back as a inexperienced young woman who ended up on an island after her boat crashed. It gave a good platform to build her character from and see how she would handle it. This version of Lara Croft is very much more believable then the old ones. “Gone are her ridiculous proportions and skimpy clothing. This Lara feels more human, more real.”(2012). The new representation of Lara Croft takes a different route, she isn’t as handy with weapons as she used to be shown as well as being someone people can relate to easier by the way she tries to save her friends yet being more cautious about it and what she’s doing. This time this franchise isn’t about 'the male gaze', and has Lara Croft wearing long trousers and a vest top instead of the earlier shorts and a crop top, they are not trying to turn her into a sex symbol like they did the last time around, the game is more focused on her journey and story. From a feminist view this is important and has come along way by having gamers accept a female protagonist as 'a character' and not as a woman who needs rescuing. She still shows emotion in the game as halfway through the game she has to kill a deer, she apologises about this and this shows a sensitive side to the character. Her character develops more and by the end of the game she is more comfortable in killing.

Available at: http://gamershavennews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/box-art.jpg

As more women are beginning to play games then this game had to be able to draw in female players as well as male players which is not something it had to particularly worry about when originally released however the way the character is shown I can see why both male and female would want to play the game. The women would play it because she is a role model and the fact that there is a game with a positive female lead is amazing. Men would still play it because she was once a sex symbol and still is today, the game itself has violence as well as adventure, this is the sort of games men play anyway, this is the same just with a female lead. Although this game is the same as with a male lead it still actually isn’t seen the same or as an equal to these such games. Ron Rosenberg in an interview said “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.”(2012) To me this sounds as though what he is saying is that if you put a male and female in the same situation such as she is in in this game then the gamers would think nothing of it if it was the male in the position but when its a female in the same situation immediately it becomes dangerous and hard for a female to handle. If this is what a lot of people think when playing this game and prefer to 'look after her' than to be the character, then from a feminist point of view this isn’t good for the portrayal of women, that they are once again being looked at as the lesser gender. This is saying that men don’t want to play as the hero, they want help her stay alive. In the game it shows her vulnerability with a controversial scene in the game known as the 'attempted rape scene' in which the creators implied the scene was to create the character stronger and to show her as a fighter and that things happen that you can overcome. It gives this game more of a backbone and story compared to the first game. As she gets better through the game then obstacles occur that know her back, this makes her seem more human again how she is trying to progress yet something is stopping her each time.

(2013) GameReaction: Then & Now... Tomb Raider. 

The sales for the game overall were good, they didn't reach the target they hoped for but it was still a massive sale. This is the main game available with a female lead and the sales prove that it is a hit and that people want a change. After what a hit this became they are now rebooting the franchise on the big screen, it will be similar to the game, back in her early years. After doing basic research on the game I decided to match it up against one of the other biggest games of the year which was far cry 3! Both being released within a few months of each other I decided to look at which one people were more excited for before released, I found that some people would pick Far cry 3 plainly because Tomb Raider had a female protagonist. Far cry since December 2012 has sold 4.5 million copies (2013) while Tomb Raider sold over 3.4 million in its first month (2013). This shows that most people are not put off by the fact that there is a female protagonist and that wether it is a good game or not should not depend on the main characters gender.

References:

Big Fish (2013) Body Image in Tomb Raider -- Lara Croft's Changing Look | Big Fish Blog. [online] Available at: http://www.bigfishgames.com/blog/tomb-raider-body-image-lara-crofts-changing-look/ [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

Richardson, D. and Robinson, V. (1993) Introducing women's studies. London: The Macmillan Press LTD

[online] Available at: http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/attachments/sony-playstation/14702d1336145056-tomb-raider-pal-font-rear-ps1_tombraider_front_eu.jpg [Accessed:May 3, 2013]

Storey, J. (2001) Cultural theory and popular culture. 3rd ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited

Kotaku (2012) You'll 'Want To Protect' The New, Less Curvy Lara Croft. [online] Available at: http://kotaku.com/5917400/youll-want-to-protect-the-new-less-curvy-lara-croft) [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

Shacknews.com (2013) Far Cry 3 sales 'much higher than expected,' - Video Game News, Videos and File Downloads for PC and Console Games at Shacknews.com. [online] Available at: http://www.shacknews.com/article/77743/far-cry-3-sales-much-higher-than-expected-franchise-to [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

[Online] Available at: http://gamershavennews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/box-art.jpg. [Accessed: May 3, 2013]

[online]  gametrailers (2012) Tomb Raider - E3 2012 Exclusive Crossroads Trailer. [video online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol_-QGlwRqc [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

gamespotuk (2013) Far Cry 3 sales 'much higher than expected,' - Video Game News, Videos and File Downloads for PC and Console Games at Shacknews.com. [online] Available at: http://www.shacknews.com/article/77743/far-cry-3-sales-much-higher-than-expected-franchise-to [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

Gamereaction.co.uk (2013) GameReaction: Then & Now... Tomb Raider. [online] Available at: http://www.gamereaction.co.uk/2013/04/then-now-tomb-raider.html [Accessed: 2 May 2013].

By Sara Jenkins