Talk:Lara Croft (Survivor Timeline)/@comment-25242766-20140730024603

This is way longer (twss) than I planned to type out but, check it out; it's all about the sexual orientation controversy in the comments below:

Lara's definitely straight - the idea of it is that women depicted in films, books, games, pretty much anything that tells a story since the very first written plays in the Shakespearian era and before have always characterised the main female leads to be a damsel in distress; making the sole purpose of central female characters for 'love', and existing in the productions based purely off the 'romance', 'sexual interests' and 'aesthetics' - women rarely appeared in story telling for the merits of heroism or strength like a male protagonist, they always relied on men and were put in stories to introduce the theme of love only. This precedent was established in plays like Romeo and Juliet, Measure for Measure, and even Duchess of Malfi in the Elizabethean and Jacobean times - because the society always viewed women second class, ergo they were depicted in plays as the second most important to men; being typecasted to roles of romance and introduced no other themes like men could. Additionally, any raunchiness or sexiness in this time were usually for the joke characters of plays; the whores and scum of society.

Now, recently, pretty much since the mid 1900s after women rights to vote, society started to break out of the convention of depicting weak females, but the usual 'princess in the tower, heroic adventurer saves and marries' scenarios mostly remained in the framework of stories - it just feels natural to view women as weak and helpless, and men strong and courageous; it makes females feel feminine and males feel masculine.

THEN enter Tomb Raider in the 90s; the idea of a strong, self sufficient, classy, suave, cool young chick whilst being sexy AND the protagonist of a story, without any concrete relationships or necessary love interests. It totally defied most of the female conventions, and the novelty or even uniqueness of the Tomb Raider franchise got it super popular from just how different it was; it was a cool concept - she could be smoking hot without the stereotype of a whore, she instead was a wealthy, intelligent knighted Lady with an upper middle class accent. She could be the protagonist without being solely used for love; she instead explored ancient Tombs and saved the world without the involvement of a male in many games and had a deep backstory. And finally she could be both masculine AND feminine; she sometimes seduced men to get what she wanted, like with Alex West in the first fiilm, and at the same time save the life of the man she seduced by sending a dagger in to the antagonist, like James Bond would do to some random bond girl. SO Lara is all about breaking conventions.

Alright, so how's it important that she's heterosexual? Like I said; by seducing a man, and then saving the man, which opposes the 'princess in tower' convention, it makes the point of a reversed gender barrier. Suddenly, Alex West and Terry Sheridan (using the films as an example) are now the princesses and Lara is the prince regardless of sexual nature; It shows Lara no longer needs to submit to men in order to succeed, it's infact the other way round.

Now, if she was homosexual, the whole purpose of breaking the 'princess in tower' convention means nothing - it means that Lara didn't do what she did to oppose her natural love and desire and prove she can rise above her gender's submisiveness and reliance in sex; it means all this time, Lara wasn't being in control of herself and her love, it means she just didn't find attraction and so could efficiently complete a mission by dismissing men. There's no longer a struggle or point being made about women being able to control their own destiny over love and feelings like women used to be stereotyped for not doing - suddenly Lara's lack of interest in relationships is simply because she's not attracted to them; not that she can make her own decisions and rise above the conventions that cage the gender in story telling. If she didn't find men attractive, then it means she wasn't rising above her gender's stereotype, it means she proved more powerful than a lot of men because she shares a mutual interest - sexual attraction to women. It's like saying she's no longer a complete women, and so doesn't represent the average heterosexual women, but that's a homophobic way of saying it.

I guess I could have just said that last paragraph. Anyways, the reason Lara's straight, is because it represents women with a sexual attraction to men being able to overcome their submissive role and reliance in relationships to males and control their own destiny; in order to break the stereotypical role in storytelling - and these 'convention buster' elements of Tomb Raider is what makes up the character of lara Croft - like I said earlier; the whole attraction and popularity to her character is how she goes against the traditional representation of women in story telling, and so going against these kind of conventions is crucial to her appeal and likability. By making her homosexual it takes away from the factors that make her up, as she simply wouldn't care about men, and so isn't rising above them because she's 'strong', she's rising above them because she's a lesbian.

Of course, this is aaaall pre 2013 reboot and could totally change, I've got no idea what they're doing now; it sounds like the next game's bringing her closer to what she was before, naturally, but she might disprove the whole thing about the gender convention I talked about now. They could suddenly make her lesbian to kind of make a brand new way of going against conventions, adding to her uniqueness and novelty as a character by being 'the first lesbian protagonist in video games,' staying true to making her different like the first did by portraying an unconventional lady protagonist back in the 90s - instead this time making a statement at how homosexuals can be as strong as Lara. It's possible, as difference is what makes Lara's character.

But pre-Lara, we'll call her Larry, was and is definitely straight for characterisation and storytelling purposes throughout the games, films, novels, comic books and whatever media.