“It was a defining moment for me as I watched her strut seductively across my screen and into the sex symbol status that would turn the gaming world on its head. Fast-forward eight years through the evolution of next-gen hardware, multimillion-dollar budgets, and massive acceptance of games in pop culture. Still, Lara Croft continues to personify an ongoing culture clash over gender, sexuality, empowerment, and objectification.” - Writer Zoe Flowers on Lara Croft's icon status in 2005.
Lady Lara Croft, originally intended by her designer to be sexy “only because of her power” holds the Guinness Book of World Records record as the most popular video game heroine. She is the combination of most male fantasies- she is a sexually attractive woman, powerful, capable of taking care of herself, smart, rich, self-sufficient, and capable of taking down hordes of enemies quickly. Although her measurements have gone up and down throughout her evolution, the average set of measurements put her at 38"-24"-24'. Is the image of women portrayed in video games what young men really expect women to look like? While the video gaming industry still seems to believe that only young men play video games, in reality, 40% of the video game audience is female. Berrin Beasley and Tracy Collins Standley found in their study of video games that 28 per cent of females in the game were portrayed as sexual objects; as a matter of fact, the women portrayed in these games must be both strong and beautiful- it is not simply enough that they be strong intellectually, emotionally and, they have to also be able to kick the ass of a large group of foes with their hair looking perfect. The greatest problem with video games is that there is an emphasis on the breasts and buttocks. With women making up a larger and larger population of the video game consumer population, why is this emphasis continued? Why is the emphasis still on the tits and ass of the characters rather than on their beauty and brains?
It is interesting to note that the characters in the games are sexual objects that are often engaging in acts of violence. Is it more acceptable to see a woman shooting nonstop at an undead army or take a chainsaw to a zombie if her boobies are jiggling at the same time? Why is the sexualization of the video game heroine more palatable to the general public when accompanied by rampant violence? The voyeuristic feeling of control given in a video game, the over arcing sense of control when dealing with the feminine character, and leading her into situation wherein the player controls whether or not the character lives or dies appeals to many, and can also exercise a sense of chivalry in a weirdly twisted manner.
For further review, please check out:
Beasley, Berrin, and Tracy Collins Standley. "Shirts vs. Skins: Clothing as an Indicator of Gender Role Stereotyping in Video Games." Mass Communication and Society 5.3 (2002): 279-93.
Tragos, Peter. "Monster Masculinity: Honey, I’ll Be In The Garage Reasserting My Manhood." The Journal of Popular Culture 42.3 (2009): 541-53.
Harrison Kirsten, Martins Nicole, Ratan Rabindra A. and Williams Dmitri C., A Content Analysis of Female Body Imagery in Video Games, 2009. It can be read here: http://dmitriwilliams.com/femalebodies.pdf
Posted by Franki Simms
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