It has nothing to with the almost rape, it's just the point where's she's absolutely "cornered" and has no other choice but to fight her way out of it.
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Tomb Raider - Burning camp gameplay, full "rape scene" segment
- Thread starter Larson Conway
- Start date
Couldn't agree more. They're trying to build a controversy over nothing.
Ninja Moomin
Banned
title am fail.
She didn't rape him in the least.
Meh.
She didn't rape him in the least.
Meh.
lolololol
This isn't even funny considering that's far from the message they're trying to send.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
I always think people have this weird need to defend video games no matter what, as if videogames doing something wrong affects them. Sometimes they do stuff wrong, and this is an example.
First of all, there's nothing inherently bad about showing attempted rape in a game. This one, however, did it in a tacky and trite manner. From developers' comments, Lara was already a survivalist and capable of handling herself, but there NEEDS to be a scene where she's (and I quote) "cornered like an animal"" in order to become capable of killing. This is ridiculous. If your game is attempting at some sort of mature storytelling, pretending this experience would make her a-ok with killing thousands as she'll most likely be doing with no second thought is bad storytelling. And follows the example of "heroines need a near rape experience to be pushed into badass". An example of this, every now and then would be bad? No. An example of this, to not only of the very few stand alone video game heroines, but THE most famous one? Ridiculous and unnecessary. Lara Croft is a videogame icon, her abilities are taken for granted, and including a near rape experience as her character defining moment is yet another example of how in the videogame industry the defining part of a female character is her sexuality.
And again, this wouldn't even be that bad if the game hadn't made such a sexualization of all violence against Lara. Unlike Uncharted, where what you get to experience is how Drake overcomes all his problems in an adventure movie-like fashion, you get Lara moaning throughout all of the suffering she goes through, which is heavily emphasized. And don't even try to deny this. Most of the promotional material shows her bruised and hurt. Almost all ads and demos have her gone through a different situation where she's getting wounded. And it all goes with lots, lots of moaning.
It all adds up. It's not just this scene. It's this scene, to this character, in this medium, given the advertisement and the focus. Ignore it all you want, call everyone who sees this as a problem a white knight or whatever the fuck new name GAF has for people like that, but please stop spewing out bullshit because it's both tiresome and ignorant.
First of all, there's nothing inherently bad about showing attempted rape in a game. This one, however, did it in a tacky and trite manner. From developers' comments, Lara was already a survivalist and capable of handling herself, but there NEEDS to be a scene where she's (and I quote) "cornered like an animal"" in order to become capable of killing. This is ridiculous. If your game is attempting at some sort of mature storytelling, pretending this experience would make her a-ok with killing thousands as she'll most likely be doing with no second thought is bad storytelling. And follows the example of "heroines need a near rape experience to be pushed into badass". An example of this, every now and then would be bad? No. An example of this, to not only of the very few stand alone video game heroines, but THE most famous one? Ridiculous and unnecessary. Lara Croft is a videogame icon, her abilities are taken for granted, and including a near rape experience as her character defining moment is yet another example of how in the videogame industry the defining part of a female character is her sexuality.
And again, this wouldn't even be that bad if the game hadn't made such a sexualization of all violence against Lara. Unlike Uncharted, where what you get to experience is how Drake overcomes all his problems in an adventure movie-like fashion, you get Lara moaning throughout all of the suffering she goes through, which is heavily emphasized. And don't even try to deny this. Most of the promotional material shows her bruised and hurt. Almost all ads and demos have her gone through a different situation where she's getting wounded. And it all goes with lots, lots of moaning.
It all adds up. It's not just this scene. It's this scene, to this character, in this medium, given the advertisement and the focus. Ignore it all you want, call everyone who sees this as a problem a white knight or whatever the fuck new name GAF has for people like that, but please stop spewing out bullshit because it's both tiresome and ignorant.
Pinko Marx
Banned
Ain't that the truth.
porno? No. Rated R movie that happens to have a sex scene? Grow up.
Didn't know you replied here as well lol.
Anyway, where did I ever say that? I'm just saying the OP's title is misleading and stupid. For an 'attempted rape' scene that scene is very, very, very tame almost to the point of me not really considering it attempted rape either. I'm just saying from the OP and the replies it seemed the op was trying to say there was something much worse within the trailer than there actually was.
It's Lara, dammit.
Nothing can be worse than Lara in AoD. *tries to push vent fan* "I'm not strong enough! I'm not strong enough! I'm too weak!" *pushes box* "I feel stronger now!"
The difference between the grunts and sounds that Drake makes in UC2, and the sounds that Lara is making in all the media that they've released thus far, is that Nolan North is a good convincing voice actor, and this women voicing Lara is not. It's that simple.
In fact, as soon as she opens her mouth or thinks and speaks to herself internally, a fair bit of the positive hard work they've put into the other parts of the game are diminished. It's that bad and distracting.
What other VA experience does this actress have on her CV?
In fact, as soon as she opens her mouth or thinks and speaks to herself internally, a fair bit of the positive hard work they've put into the other parts of the game are diminished. It's that bad and distracting.
What other VA experience does this actress have on her CV?
Except you don't hear Drake breathing 24/7 as you play the game. It's a design/audio problem, not a VA problem.
So being "cornered" results in super-human powers, going mental and on a killing spree?
I really don't get it.
Laura kills that one almost-rapist. Fine. That would make sense in the situation. But going after hundreds afterwards. Why? Because they are man? Because they all tried to rape her?
It's "we want action, we want Laura to kill many, many humans" in gameplay, but then "oops, Laura is just a 21-year old woman on her first adventure" and it doesn't make sense for her to do it. "Oh well, what about we add some almost-rape, so that she is "cornered", so everything makes totally sense". I'm betting her "friends" in that game won't bother at all that she killed maybe 100+ humans. Or maybe she kills them too. At least that would make a bit more sense. But then they should call it Manhunt 3 instead of Tomb Raider.
That's the problem with this one. They wanted to create a game of her first adventure, which would be just pure adventuring and real survival. To me that would have been awesome, but to most that screams "boring" and wouldn't sell. Gameplay conflicting with story/character development/character behaviour. Sort of like Uncharted (I mean the "Drake is such a nice guy"-story conflicting with "Drake is actually a mass murdering psychopath"-gameplay).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESl6t7Or-z8
This put alot of perspective into the series for me. That, and it's fucking hilarious.
At this point I think the whole "rape" scene needs to be removed because it's all people are seeing the scene for. Which, there's no issue with taking it a face value, but they want the gunshot to be emphasized. Not the fact that she was almost groped by some Russian guy.
And for Christ's sake, it's not Laura.
This put alot of perspective into the series for me. That, and it's fucking hilarious.
At this point I think the whole "rape" scene needs to be removed because it's all people are seeing the scene for. Which, there's no issue with taking it a face value, but they want the gunshot to be emphasized. Not the fact that she was almost groped by some Russian guy.
And for Christ's sake, it's not Laura.
You have no problem with your family seeing you brutaly murder thousands of people?
I agree with the moaning, though I don't see how showing her bruised and hurt in the promo material is sexualizing her. The whole idea of the game seems to be to introduce a more realistic Lara. While the old Lara did the most amazing and dangerous stuff without even losing a single hair, is the new Lara now more real and relatable. When she falls down a pit she'll be hurt and will bleed (I can't think of any other game that focuses so much on that aspect), just like it would be in real life. It has nothing to do with her being a women. It's the design philosophy of the game. Uncharted's design philosophy is to be like a popcorn move, Drake having to deal with a broken arm wouldn't fit into that.
It's a new territory for the Tomb Raider games so they focus on that to show people what's different in the newest game.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think if they had made the game with a male character it would look exactly the same
...well except for the almost rape part and the moaning I guess.
That can all be true, the thing is that it would be equally weird if she had merely saved herself from being executed. That she has been almost raped doesn't factor into this character change.
base shagohod
Member
Laura Croft guys.
Shes not "going after" them. They kidnapped her and her friends, killed some of them, and one dude almost raped her. Shes not getting revenge on them. Shes doing it so she survives.
I do agree that it should be more about adventure and survival, though. Im not thrilled one bit about Lara mowing down hundreds of generic bad dudes. Its shame because the game looks really good when they arent showing off QTEs, set pieces, and killing sprees but theyve done very little to focus on that. I know theyre trying to hype it up and show off cool shit for E3 but cmon, just show me 3 minutes of platforming and puzzles and Ill be thrilled.
What? No, maybe it's just cuz they're, you know, trying to kill her and all. And have your friends held hostage. But no, what am I thinking - of course the only possible motivation is that she became a man-hating lesbian.
And it's Lara, dammit.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
First of all, if the game wants to be "realistic" the first thing would be to have some sort of realistic writing. As has been said many times (and far better by both Incendiary and Opiate than I could), it's not.
Showing her hurt and bruised isn't sexualizing her, not. But the game, from promos and all, doesn't show how it's about Lara overcoming her challenges. It shows Lara getting hurt and bruised. Every single thing about the game has her either hurt or in the process of getting badly wounded. Okay, this is bad, but not terribly so. Now, sexualizing this (and they are doing it with the unneeded excessive moaning, as pretty much everyone has noted) is what makes it a problem. A woman getting hurt and wounded in a sexualized way. And this is what this game seems to be entirely about.
And it's not this way, but happens to feature a woman. It's this way because it features a woman. The "almost rape" part and the "moaning" part is what makes all her suffering a sexual thing. If with the little footage we've seen we know there's an attempted rape scene and lots of moaning every time she gets hurt, which is all the time, what can we expect from this game? A game about how someone ends up overcoming damn near torture isn't a bad thing. But while every other game of the genre is about being badass, the one that has a female character is the one that just so happens to focus on this? You yourself said this. If the game were about a male character, it WOULDN'T have any of this sexualization. This game wouldn't be a problem if Lara suffered all that without sexualization. And it wouldn't be a problem if there were more female-centric games that weren't about this. But not only all of this happens, it's that they're using the most famous female video game character to do it.
It's not just the breathing though. Her line delivery is poor as well. It's all so forced and unnatural sounding. Where as North is Nathan Drake, this actress sounds as if she trying to fit into the mold of Lara.
Is she even English? The accent sounds unnatural.
RustyNails
Member
Actually no. Me and my dad loved watching Rambo movies, Robocop and other great 80's 90's action flicks. Sex scene = red cheeks. Call it societal mores if you will.
lucius
Member
I blame the director, it is possible she is so bad it was too hard to get her not to sound annoying but they shouldn't have hired her then or replaced her. Also if they just toned it down a bit maybe it wouldn't be so grating. With all the physical and mental stuff happening around Lara she would still be reacting internally which is lost, sure some moans or grunts are fine but it is so over the top she is just wailing like a mental case which does not makes sense at all for even a younger Lara Croft.
A page or two back.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
har har rape jokes
If you ask me, it's because people are so concerned with political correctness (because of fear of bans?) that it has created this whole different culture. I don't a single forum that's like GAF in this regard, I really can't name any, it creates too much faux outrage and controversy over nothing while actual opinions are severly covered up
No, its not. Her screams are very flat and monotonal, puts scream acting in games like MAG to shame!
Ok, I think I can see where you're coming from.
Basically all I can say is that I hope that all the material so far is from the early parts of the game, and all her torment, screams etc. is overemphasized to point out more directly how she changes towards the end of the game. That's hardly subtle or good writing, but at least it would be less sexist I guess.
Hope you're just as strict about killing!
Games are fiction. Wouldn't hurt a fly in real life.
They're only showing off very early parts in the game so as not to spoil anything. So no, you're not going to see the evolution of the character to the self-reliant, multi-lingual, repartee-spouting person she becomes over the course of a 4-7 minute demo. But I've seen some platforming footage from early in the game too and it looks good, without any groping or moaning.
I think you're right that the whole drive to "humanise" and "make the main char more sympathetic" seems to be almost exclusively a concern when it comes to female protagonists, as if we need to show girls getting boo-boos and being helpless in order to believe that they're real women (because of course real women are helpless!)
But I don't think that Lara is going the direction of Aya Brea and Samus Aran. I've listened to a bunch of podcasts and it seems that they've actually managed to evoke a sort of protective instinct in many guys - they don't WANT to see her hurt. They are rooting for her. They want to see her succeed and they are cringing every time she suffers. And that's a very important distinction from fetishised violence against women, where guys aren't rooting for the woman, but actually enjoying her suffering. I can't emphasise this difference enough: they've got a bunch of male gamers who don't want to see her suffer more and want to see her succeed and become self-confident. And that's, like, the opposite of weakening, objectifying, and fetishising a character.
http://gamingaswomen.com/posts/2012/05/geek-media-whats-with-all-the-rape/
There’s a meme in geek culture of making female characters “strong” by raping them, to the point where strong female characters who haven’t been raped or otherwise assaulted can be hard to come by. And that says so many very fucked up things about women. Like women are only allowed to be strong if we’ve been raped? The only reason we could possibly buck gender norms and become heroes is because we’ve been “damaged”?
“Rape is such a common trope in geek media because of a failure to imagine women as human beings. Instead, a woman’s vagina (and how it’s used by others) defines who and what she is. If women are not human, then human tragedies don’t apply to women – only special
“woman” tragedies. And that means vagina tragedies.” – Jessica Hammer
There’s a meme in geek culture of making female characters “strong” by raping them, to the point where strong female characters who haven’t been raped or otherwise assaulted can be hard to come by. And that says so many very fucked up things about women. Like women are only allowed to be strong if we’ve been raped? The only reason we could possibly buck gender norms and become heroes is because we’ve been “damaged”?
“Rape is such a common trope in geek media because of a failure to imagine women as human beings. Instead, a woman’s vagina (and how it’s used by others) defines who and what she is. If women are not human, then human tragedies don’t apply to women – only special
“woman” tragedies. And that means vagina tragedies.” – Jessica Hammer
Well that's unfortunate. I guess Lara is a female character written for male players.
I guess it makes sense considering the audience... really a bummer though. It could've been an opportunity to have a real strong female lead in a big AAA release.
People root for Nathan Drake because he's lovable. People didn't have to feel protective about him to like him. Isn't Nathan Drake generally said to be a great (and realistic) video game character?
I personally don't equate anything I've seen with some overt sexual innuendo. Lara's moans and gasps strike me as annoying, not particularly sexually charged. Even beyond the "attempted rape" there isn't anything that I've seen any any of the trailers that comes across as overt sexual innuendo.
I haven't played Other M yet but I thought the biggest problem with Samus was she constantly deferred and was dependent on a male character. There doesn't seem to be any of that here so far.
CrushDance
Banned
Fixed that for you.
either her breathing is, or the devs just suck at audio.
Well I won't deny that. I just find the devs placement of her constantly audible breathing to be 10000x more annoying than her random screams
Yeah. It's quite eyebrow raising.
The game is rated M, that "should" be enough. It's enough for a movie to be rated R, it should be enough for a game to be rated M.
Critiquing the context of the scene presented without even seeing or playing the game is akin to bashing a book or a movie without seeing it as well, BUT, ignoring that, it's still disturbing how far people are going with this.
Saying you don't want a scene like this in a videogame you purchase is fine.
Saying the trope is used too often for female protagonists is also fine as that's similar to a literary critique, but that doesn't make them immediately wrong in using it. Despite it being cliche, it's also an accepted storyline in other mediums. Why is it? Bad guys do bad things to women. It's real. It happens.
Going overboard and critiquing the story without actually, y'know, seeing the whole story and/or ripping into it is hilarious and reminds me of the stories I used to hear as a child of people viewing rock and roll with distaste and saying it would ruin the country. Same with rap music.
And again, it's rated M.
The Anti-Monitor
Banned
It's what I don't remember which mod (Opiate I think) said before banning whoever made the joke. I tend to joke about everything IRL but I'll think twice about making certain jokes here... just saying.
If on the first say 2 hours she has no problem with killing hundreds of guys because one of them tried to rape her, well, yeah, it's bad writing. And it's okay, it's to be expected with videogames, but I'd rather them not trying to use something like rape in a serious manner if the writing isn't up to it.
So far I don't see anything against the sexualization of the violence against her. It's just there.
Barkley's Justice
Member
this game's corny. every scene is laura getting beat the fuck up.
So celebrate! Because Lara just got some unwanted attention and messed that guy up good. She wasn't raped. She wasn't even "nearly" raped. I've had more unwanted sexual contact than she had there.
She's not suddenly strong after encountering that (and hell, she actually shows more toughness during that encounter than I could muster). She slowly toughens up through having to survive alone.
Also, have you played Legend and Underworld? She has a regular human tragedy: she lost her mother.
He's not a very deep character. People like him, but I don't think many people really identify with and care about him.
I don't think Lara is being written solely for male players. I mean, just think about how she reacts in that trailer. When the guy she's with puts down his weapon to surrender, she's the one saying, no don't do it, and raises her own weapon. When that guy tries to put his hands on her, she doesn't just go along with it - she fights back. I think this glint of toughness we already see in Lara is one of the very reasons why women have always been attracted to her character. She's pretty inspirational in not putting up with crap. :-D
daym, never realised that.
Sapphire Dreams
Member
Good lord ! Lara screams too much in this game !
Why do you think the girl is usually the lone survivor in horror films? Its to illicit the same response. That I think is the desired appeal of the female game character. Males will live vicariously through Solid Snake ro Nathan Drake, but they will typically adopt a sort of fatherly sense of protection about the female characters they control. Its actually a stronger bond than the sex appeal, which wears off quickly. Not saying that's right or acceptable, but its understandable to an extent.
SLEEPS7ALK3R
Banned
Damn. I had a dream about fighting grizzlies. Like literally punching their faces.
Anyway, there's something about her moany voice and the costant physical punishment she's under that brings up a lot of points that article about "rape culture" made recently.
This may seem horrible and bad, but fuck it. As I watch gameplay vids for this game I'm not feeling any sort of chivalric urge as I watch this girl struggle for her life. Instead I'm amused by the beatings and the moaning that follows, as if the game was appealing to my inner misogynistic instinct, and getting it off on this screaming charicature of a woman.
Whatever it is, I'm deeply off-put by this game. I can't watch for more than a couple of minutes, let alone the entire game.
Why do people keep making the connection that she will go on to kill because of this assault? Why can't it be seen as part of a totality - a collection of experiences that shape her? Why are we trying to force the notion that only "vagina tragedies" as bhlaab quoted define who she is?
You see, it's not the devs who are being sexist by making this sexual harassment be her defining experience that shapes her. It's us ignoring every other aspect of the game - surviving alone, being attacked by dangerous animals, being hunted by gangs, trying to find shelter and food, watching your friend die in front of you, etc. - and acting as if this sexual harassment she received is the only danger she has experienced and the only thing that could possibly change her.
I can't make too many judgements until (if) I play the game. But so far, it seems like an action game. Much like a summer action film. But they spend all their promotional time showing us that Lara is weak and has to be cornered before she develops. There's nothing about her character so far that appeals to me.
I just can't think of any male character that has this happen to them. I can't think of any game where a male character has to be broken down and shown as weak and cornered before they become heroic.
It just feels like a case of "well... a woman can't just be naturally strong - it's too unrealistic so she has to experience horrific events and get beaten down first." But we'll see when the game actually comes out.
Nathan Drake's origin story is that he was an orphan at the Sir Francis Drake orphanage. That inspired him to look up Francis Drake's history and become an treasure hunter for it. And he just happens to be strong because he has to be.
What we know of Lara Croft's origin story is that she gets beaten down to nothing. There is just so many other things that could be done with her. I'm just a little sad that her turning point was when a man tried to take advantage of her being a woman. The threat of death and watching your friends get murdered should be enough.
But maybe she'll end up being a way better and more deep character than Nathan Drake. I don't see it right now though. But I have to remember to reserve judgement until we see the finished product.
Yes, it is understandable given the audience. I just feel it's unfortunate because this was an opportunity to have a strong female character who girls could be proud of.
Honestly based on the two trailers they've show so far, I don't have high hopes for this game being deep in any way whatsoever.
Exactly, the "sexualization" that seems to be the issue here is a problem created by the ones who see it that way. If anything, the Laras of yesteryear were much more sexualized than this iteration, and very blatantly as well.
I actually understand what you're feeling. In fact, when they first showed off Tomb Raider, I had the exact same misgivings. I think though the discrepancy you just pointed out in how male characters are treated is one of the reasons why there are so very few interesting and truly sympathetic protagonists. The most interesting male protagonists are the ones whose weak sides are also shown. It's why Francis York Morgan from Deadly Premonition is more interesting than Chris Redfield.
Have you played Alice: Madness Returns? Here we have a protagonist who starts out as a mentally shattered, helpless orphaned girl. I don't want to spoil too much but there's also an overshadow of sexual exploitation. Yet she repairs her own mind and stops being helpless by the end. And you know what? It was a way more memorable game than Uncharted 3, though UC3 had better production values. It can be done right, and when it is done right, the ending of the game is far more satisfying.
Well, sorry if me asking whether anyone quipped "Womb Raider" was insensitive. It's more like wondering if I'm the only one to see the obvious pun here.
Now here's my two cents on the topic, all silliness aside: From what I've seen (which admittedly, is just the extended E3 trailer), this game looks like it's doing the complete opposite of sexualizing or fetish-izing Lara. If anything, finally we have a game that's providing some sort of context where the main character's actions make sense; namely, the enemies are really developed to be cruel individuals, dragging her through the dirt, torturing her, etc. The inappropriate touching just further drives home how detached these individuals are from her humanity -- not the gamer's. It's not meant to please the gamer, it's meant to make their skin crawl and create a sense of vulnerability. And yes, in ways it's vulnerability unique to women, but if it was a man they could do an attempted anal rape scene and create the same repulsion.
The failing here is not with Tomb Raider so much as it is with other games. For instance, when Drake kills someone, yes, it's out of self-defense (even if he's the aggressor; he's still vastly outnumbered and will be killed on sight). And yet, it doesn't feel like self-defense since Drake makes light of everything (in UC2, at least; UC3 improved this), and he doesn't suffer much at the hands of his enemies (though he does get put in some tight fixes -- the boat scene in UC3 comes to mind). This Tomb Raider does a convincing job of creating a predicament with some sense of weight, and that's something missing from most games, imo.
Now here's my two cents on the topic, all silliness aside: From what I've seen (which admittedly, is just the extended E3 trailer), this game looks like it's doing the complete opposite of sexualizing or fetish-izing Lara. If anything, finally we have a game that's providing some sort of context where the main character's actions make sense; namely, the enemies are really developed to be cruel individuals, dragging her through the dirt, torturing her, etc. The inappropriate touching just further drives home how detached these individuals are from her humanity -- not the gamer's. It's not meant to please the gamer, it's meant to make their skin crawl and create a sense of vulnerability. And yes, in ways it's vulnerability unique to women, but if it was a man they could do an attempted anal rape scene and create the same repulsion.
The failing here is not with Tomb Raider so much as it is with other games. For instance, when Drake kills someone, yes, it's out of self-defense (even if he's the aggressor; he's still vastly outnumbered and will be killed on sight). And yet, it doesn't feel like self-defense since Drake makes light of everything (in UC2, at least; UC3 improved this), and he doesn't suffer much at the hands of his enemies (though he does get put in some tight fixes -- the boat scene in UC3 comes to mind). This Tomb Raider does a convincing job of creating a predicament with some sense of weight, and that's something missing from most games, imo.