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.
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Grand Theft Auto IV promotes hetronormative hierarchical distinctions between feminity and masculinity through its framing of female and male bodies, its presentation of females as objects of the male gaze and its encouragement of players to adopt and act out a hypermasculine role. It is of vital importance that we do not exclude race, gender or sexuality from discussions of videogames, because as Leonard (2006, pp. 84) asserts, doing so ‘contributes to problematic, if not faulty, understandings of video games and their significant role in contemporary social, political, economic, and cultural organization.’ Instead as players we must engage in discussion regarding videogames and, as Jenkins writes, we must ‘find a way to move beyond our existing categories and to once again invent new kinds of virtual play spaces’ (1999, pp.
Movies are a big part of people’s lives; everyone has a favorite movie, or set of movies. They have impacted people’s lives since they were first made, and continue to do so today. In recent years, movies have cast women to play the roles of heroes. Although women have been playing heroic roles recently, they have always been role models in movies, which have set examples for future generations, empowered women, and have shed light on the feminist movement in the U.S.
Diana is an excellent illustration of the many struggles of women to find a place for themselves in sports. On an individual level, defying societal stereotypes is extremely difficult. The buriers that the first person must overcome are often extreme. However once the first person breaks down those buriers, it becomes increasingly easier for others to follow in their footsteps. Diana's struggle demonstrates both how far women have come and how far women still have to go.
Mists of Avalon she is the epitome of feminist ideals, and while she is portrayed in a very
And after many researches, it been found that men are more addicted to video games, because most of games reflects their actions and behavior, and the type of games they play are usually contains violence and, action. And the male characters are always represented as a muscled and tough men. Unlike females they are less addicted to video games, because when they found most of games contains violence, and their naturality is usually calm and soft, they stayed away, so they turned to adventure, and puzzle games. But what made arguments is the representation of females, they were often shown as a sex object, and that because game designers tend to please male players, more than females because their percentage is higher. Games industries are willing to change the representation of each character from different gender in next the generation of games. but will it be more successful than the way genders are being represented now
Since the humble origins of the video gaming industry, individuals used it as a challenge of their abilities. In modern day, this industry is just a popular as any other media which exists in the mainstream world. Video games reflect society’s changing views of the normalities of which individuals and/or groups must abide to. This is exemplified in the evolving representation of the queer individuals within the virtual world. As the video game industry came into focus, so did the LGBT rights movement. This illustrates that society’s views on the LGBT community were reflected in the video games made, however, it was rare that such characters existed as protagonists until the twenty first century. Due to the extreme lack of asexual and non-binary
Quittner, Joshua, and Maryanne Murray Buechner, et al. ?Are Video Games Really so Bad?? Time South Pacific 19 (10 May 1999): 50-55
This journal article is entirely credible and written by two women who know what they’re talking about. This article discusses how video games form stereotypes about both genders and that they impact both gamers and non-gamers. Men are portrayed as aggressive and women are unsurprisingly portrayed as sex objects. A main issue with this is that video games are mostly played by the younger generation meaning these are the ideas being imbedded into the youth of the world. The...
Women have been seen as weak and submissive throughout history in society and that is reflected in many films and movies. These are the feminine qualities that have often been associated with being a woman, which results in the role of women being overlooked and seen as weak or sexualized. They are either in the scene to look pretty or as the one in need of a savior. It is rare for them to fall out of their feminine categories of being motherly or sexual. However, there are more recent films that challenge the singular role women seem to always have. Examples of these are the films, The Matrix (Lana and Lily Wachowski, 1999) and Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015). The films bring rise to a more progressive view of women that are reflecting
Women have made progress in the film industry in terms of the type of role they play in action films, although they are still portrayed as sex objects. The beginning of “a new type of female character” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 41-47) in the world of action films began in 1976 with Sigourney Weaver, who played the leading role in the blockbuster film ‘Aliens’ as Lt. Ellen Ripley. She was the captain of her own spaceship, plus she was the one who gave out all the orders. Until then, men had always been the ones giving the orders; to see a woman in that type of role was outlandish. This was an astonishing change for the American industry of film. Sometime later, in 1984, Linda Hamilton starred in ‘The Terminator’, a film where she was not the leading character, but a strong female character as Sarah Connor. She had a combination of masculine and feminine qualities as “an androgynous superwoman, resourceful, competent and courageous, while at the same time caring, sensitive and intuitive” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 41-47). These changes made in action films for female’s roles stirred up a lot of excitement in the “Western society” (Starlet, 2007). The demand for strong female characters in action films grew to a new high when Angelina Jolie starred in ‘Tomb Raider’ in 2001 and then in the sequel, ‘Tomb Raider II: The Cradle of Life’ in 2003 as Lara Croft. Her strong female character was not only masculine, but was also portrayed as a sex object. Most often, strong women in these types of films tend to fight without even gaining a mark. At the end of each fight, her hair and makeup would always be perfect. The female characters in these action films, whether their role was as the lead character or a supporting character, had similar aspects. I...
Video game industry have been representing female character as sexually objectified or shown as a victim who is in desperate need of help through male protagonist, this portrayal has negative effect on the mind of our generation and the gender roles they identify with.
Many video games portray women as objectified beings, purely used for sex appeal and to attract the larger male gamer population. We also see men idealised in a similar way as well – the males in video games are portrayed as muscly, brawny men. However, we rarely see a scantily clad man in a game, but there is a vast abundance of games which feature women wearing ‘sexy armour’, or a noticeable lack of substantial amount of clothing. This isn’t female-friendly as these games are made for men, causing women to feel alienated and uncomfortable.
3. “Video Games” by Chris Jozefowics. Published by Gareth Stevens Publishing 2010. Pleasantville, NY 10570-70000 USA. Produced by Editorials Directions Inc.
The first video games didn’t call for much attention to gender as there weren’t really any humans present. Games such as Snake or Asteroids were really just a revolution in technology. As time progressed, gaming consisted of male-dominated industry whose