Move Over Marianne*: Enter Lara Croft

La Poste, the French postal system released a set of stamps in November celebrating ten legendary figures of video games.  Among those honored in the Héros des Jeux Vidéo was Lara Croft, the leading Lady of video games.  It is quite a distinction, to be included among such superstars as Pac-Man and Mario in this postal celebration, as well as temporarily replacing the traditional female face on French postage stamps, Marianne*.

Lara Croft presents a bit of a conundrum here at Guilded Lilies.  On the one hand she is a role model of the empowered woman: She is a world traveler with knowledge of antiquities, plus an expert with a gun.  She is of course a modern female version of Indian Jones, and she knows how to have fun while getting the job done.  On the other hand, there are her physical endowments to be considered.  As a character design, she is a bit, well, exaggerated.  She's an object, with features that are worse than a Barbie Doll.  Is she to be lauded as a progressive female character in games (a rarity indeed!), or deflated as another virtual sex object?

It is difficult to separate the game character Lara from the movie character played by Angelina Jolie.  It would seem that Jolie was born to play Lara Croft, and in many ways she herself embodies the same Brilliant Barbie Doll conundrum.  But what Angelina has done for female movie stars, Lady Croft has accomplished for computer games as well, proving that women make great action characters.  The fact is that as much as I enjoyed Indiana Jones, I found the Tomb Raider movies to be much more entertaining for the fact of a strong female character. The same can be said for computer games, and for now we will have to take Lady Croft as we find her and hope for more realism in future games with female protagonists.

Although female movie stars appear to treat breast augmentation as a routine career move, there is (at least for now) a physical limit to how far they will go.  Had Angelina donned prosthetics to reproduce the proportions of her computer game heroine she would have had difficulty preventing herself from falling top first down every flight of stairs.  With all the gains in the world of realism in computer games; the fine tuning of physics engines, the demand for more exactness of details; how is it then that certain female protuberances have evolved to such impractical proportions?

It remains to be seen how much the computer Lara Croft will be influenced by reality in the next release from the game franchise, Tomb Raider: Legend, which will be available in April.  Judging from the images available on the Tomb Raider website, things seem to be in their usual proportions, supporting the Lara Croft tradition of largesse.  I will admit that I am looking forward to playing Legend, in spite of the silliness of Croft's physique.  I can forgive Lara for not being more realistically proportioned, especially since there are no other comperable games available.  It's like Jessica Rabbit says: "I'm not bad . . . I'm just drawn that way."  Lara is a victim of her polygon count, so we will just have to blame her modelers.

I think the Tomb Raider website says it best, summing up Lady Croft's bio with this:

"Idealized and vilified in equal measure, she is perhaps one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of our times."

*Marianne is the name of the woman that graces many French postage stamps. You can recognize her by her trademark Bonnet Rouge, popular headwear during the French Revolution.

Update 3/7/06: See the update post HERE.

Comments

[Claire]

Hi! And heres me thinking I was the only one (weird) woman who loves playing pc games! I havd had every games console known to man - well, from the Master System up anyway! I loved everything from 2D Sonic, to Zelda series, and am now playing Age of Empires Gold (Expanded).I liked Lara for a whie too. I also have a Nintendo DS for out and aboutness. Nice to meet you!

[Guilded Lily]

Claire - Nice to meet you too - You certainly sound like you know your games, I look forward to your input on Guilded Lilies!