If this Lara Croft trailer really has problems for some people, I can safely say there is no way to avoid issues in RPGs, which are often adventure and action-oriented.
Agreed, and we risk running into even worse discrimination by NOT being allowed to show women in a fight for their lives. In which they are going to take some hits. Because, fight. Can not fight without hitting and getting hit. Not a difficult equation to parse.
I wanted to avoid posting anymore on the issue but this is extremely disappointing. More and more, this isn't even about sexism. Like, at all. It's about personal perception and preferences. And diatribes about how we live in an unfair world for women, so as a result, Lara Croft shouldn't take a beating like any worthy adventurer should!
Absolutely I get that point. I also get that this is a bloody complex issue, and staying aware of the real life bad stuff that deeply shapes women's perceptions and preferences while not over-censoring and whitewashing everything is a delicate balance at best.
Here's an analogy to think about. Drop gender and replace it with race. Can you tell a story that shows an African-American being enslaved and beaten, and that includes discriminatory language? Yes, you can. Roots was a huge success, and it told a powerful and compelling story about our American history. Which I sincerely hope that no one is proud of, or glorifies, or thinks would be a good idea to repeat. But that's not what Roots did. It did a very good job of telling this story from the protagonist's point of view, humanizing the African-American slaves and telling their human stories.
What if that same work had subtly or not so subtly glorified or justified or focused more on just beating up black people, dehumanizing them, objectifying them, etc? What if instead of telling the human stories of the protagonists, it focused heavily on the acts themselves, seemingly for their own sake? Maybe not such a good story to tell to folks who actually lived that history.
We saw the protagonists of that story being beaten and referred to with derogatory language, and struggling with that adversity. What we did not see was a primary focus on those acts of violence or humiliation, to the detriment of the human story of how those men and women courageously stood up to them. So it worked. It was a good story, an inspiring story, a human story.
The story that got told in Roots was one of heroism and humanity under adversity, not of racial degradation and white on black violence. Even though those latter two elements were a crucial part of the story and were liberally depicted. There is a difference.
I think we can make a pretty solid comparison between stories that are ultimately about the humanity of the protagonist and their strength under adversity, and stories that are mainly about violence and degradation and that lovingly focus on those sequences to the detriment of telling the protagonist's story.
But I'm seeing cases that are far from black and white being brought up as issues. And in the case of this Lara Croft trailer, something that boggles the mind. That's sexism? That's a social issue? That's a women issue?
It's not a black and white issue. I don't think anyone's ever said it was.
I see no sexism in this trailer, but I do see stuff that might be personally triggering to a woman who has been threatened with violence or who has been the target of violence. At that point we need to ask ourselves whether game manufacturers are responsible for this, or whether individual women who have reason to be sensitized are the ones responsible for not choosing to view things they know will be upsetting to them.
I don't think there's a single solve-all solution. I do think that clear labeling is a great start, and the video game industry generally does this. If we were talking about a minority of women here, it might be less of an issue, but the percentage of women who are survivors of violence, sexual and otherwise, is insanely, unacceptably high in our society.
Is this fair? No. Are the game manufacturers responsible for this? Also no. And personally I'd tend to err on the side of more freedom and less censorship, as long as everything is clearly labeled enough to let people choose what they do and do not wish to view. But, and this is a pretty big but, the social condition does exist and it is huge. Being *aware* of it rather than ignoring it entirely is a really good idea, even if you choose to make products that are targeted to a different demographic.
Some of it has got to be audience, and context. If I'm visiting a household of Holocaust survivors and their immediate family, do I really want to show "Ilsa, She-Wolf Of The S.S." as our evening's entertainment? Er, probably not. Is it okay for the movie to exist so other people can watch it if they want to? Sure. I'm not going to suggest censoring it, even if I'm not going to show it to Holocaust survivors.
The question gets a little trickier if we're talking about something mass marketed to the general public. Is it a numbers game? Because half the population is female, and a very high percentage of that percentage are survivors of male on female violence, and their fundamental perceptions and experiences have been shaped by the very real fear of that violence, or the actual personal impact of that violence. And that's a real social problem.
What you're doing by putting a male on female violent game out is still not the same as sticking a Nazi movie in front of a Jewish family who lost loved ones to that regime, because it's a matter of choice. No one has to buy the game if they don't want to, and censorship sucks. It is a heavy price to pay.
But freedom has a price to pay also. What the game manufacturer may be doing is contributing just a little bit to the general culture of depicting violence against women, normalizing it, making it okay. Does that make it worth censoring? Is it worth setting women's issues above human freedom and choice and censorship issues? I have to say no, it's not, but on the other hand, I do want publishers to
be aware that the social issue exists. And that it is very, very huge and personally impactful on not just some women, but very nearly all women. That is all.
