Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Challenging Gender Dichotomy

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Recommended: Perception of media representation of women

Lara Croft, the idealized woman figure, with a man’s touch. In the movies, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the sequel Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, the main roll of Lara Croft is played by actress Angelina Jolie. She has the typical idealized look for such a role, small waist, large breasts, and overall “fit” demeanor. Angelina Jolie fits all the necessary criteria for the starring role, she is viewed by many people as a sex object, an image of their desire that they can fantasize about, but will never really be able to attain. In Hollywood, she is valued for her “to-be-looked-at-ness”, and in the normal female roles of today’s Hollywood movies, she would do just fine at that.

However in the Tomb Raider series she does not play the typical female part. In the Tomb Raider movies they go above and beyond what is known as “Gender Representation Divide.” This is basically where the man plays the butch role of getting dirty while trying to save the girl from some mess she has gotten herself into. In turn, the girl plays the princess in a distress role where she sits there and waits for her knight in shining armor to come to her rescue and sweep her off her feet. Angelina Jolie, while playing the part of Lara Croft, however does things a little differently. She tends to skew the line between what we have come to accept as the normal gender roles. The character of Lara Croft takes on a more masculine ass kicking role. Angelina portrays the role with a more masculine confidence and power. She projects the image some people would expect to see from a man, who isn’t going to take grief from anyone and if you don’t like it, well that’s just too bad. Lara Croft is arguably one of the most rugged female characters the media has ever ...

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...e it. Lara Croft while being criticized for helping to empower women, showing that anything a man can do, women can do just as well.

Bibliography

Cornell, Drucilla. Gender in America. New York: Other Press, 2004.

Radtke, Stam. Power/ Gender. London: SAGE Publications, 1994.

Weitz, Shirley. Sex Roles. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Maynard, Mary "THE RE-SHAPING OF SOCIOLOGY? TRENDS IN THE STUDY OF

GENDER." Sociology 24.2 (1990): 269-290.

Williams, Dmitril. "The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in

video games." New Media & Society 11.5 (2009): 815-834

Mikula, Maja "Gender and Videogames: the political valency of Lara Croft." Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 17.1 (2003): 79.

Lancaster, Kurt "LARA CROFT: THE ULTIMATE YOUNG ADVENTURE GIRL." PAJ: A Journal of Performance & Art 26.78 (2004): 87-97.

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