#tr 2013

Plus a silly little photo because “they were roommates”

So, to celebrate the game’s tenth anniversary, I invited some fandom friends – old-timers and relative newcomers alike – to share their thoughts on what Tomb Raider (2013) means to them and their fandom.

i think what’s ultimately so frustrating to me about them is how it sells this lie about “female empowerment”, and giving women a “relatable” protagonist “to look up to”, or w/e. like. firstly, there’s something patronising about us having to have an aspirational, representative protagonist - why can’t we just have a power-fantasy adventure. do you think guys are playing rdr because they want john marston to give them positive life lessons? huh. but lbr, you absolutely can draw inspiration from, and relate to, lara croft - i know i do. so there’s something incredibly cynical and manipulative, to me, about how the reboot gives us a ‘softened’ version of lara that we are never allowed to experience as a fully ‘empowered’ version of herself. she is ultimately restricted to being softer, more ‘feminine’ appropriate, which is always unfeminist bc it’s within the parameters of the patriarchal configuration of a woman’s place. i am convinced that the developers/publishers/everyone involved w/ every facet of making and marketing the reboots absolutely hate(d) lara croft. so we can be ‘empowered’ ONLY if we perform womanhood ‘appropriately’ - the messaging directly suggests that women who are ambitious, unemotive, independent, confident, or w/e are inherently wrong and lesser. and what’s especially gross is how this has trickled down into the way that the squeenix reboot stans (in particular) treat lara the character, and female fans of her. we are told that liking the classic, 90s lara is “unfeminist”, by people uncritically subscribing to a misogynistic reduction of a female protagonist as defined by the patriarchy.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!!