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Old 28-07-19, 23:18   #30
Melonie Tomb Raider
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Joined: Feb 2002
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir Launcelot View Post
OMG, a female whose opinions fly in the face of what Anita Sarkeesian and other feminists would like us to believe. How refreshing.

I don't think women who have a healthy sexual identity are the ones who hate pretty women in video games, it's the ones who are emotionally disturbed and repressed who do.

Some of them are the ones cawing the loudest for the removal of all "objectifiable" content. It's sort of a form of bolshevism, all female figures must be made plain and non-sexual, so that the "least equal" in terms of female charm don't feel "stigmatized".

Which is a sick idea in and of itself.

As a male gamer, I'd say the TRU wetsuit is the most "objectifiable" outfit in any of the classic TR games, even so, it didn't distract me while playing the game. It's not like I was eaten by a shark while trying to angle the camera for a better shot of Lara's crotch.

I don't see the TRL bikinis as really sexual. Lara has a pool, therefore she needs something to wear while swimming. And she's definitely a bikini sort of woman.
Anita Sarkeesian embarrasses me when people think her opinions reflect most other women, all my girl friends who play video games are with me on this, they like playing as sexy female characters.

TR1 had a 40% women demographic, and we know out of the 60% men a big chunk were gay, so the original game honestly had an incredibly inclusive balance that appealed to everyone.

Obviously I can't speak for whatever the demo is now, but I would be incredibly surprised if the last three reboot games had as high of a female audience as TR1 did, honestly I don't think it would be even close. But that is only my personal speculation and I could be wrong, so take that as a grain of salt.

I guess the point I'm making here is that devs think by lessening curves on female characters or covering them up they are making games more female friendly, but it's honestly appealing more to a select demographic of (some definitely not all) straight men who are offended by women who are comfortable in their own skin (the same people calling streamers "twitch thots" because they show cleavage, etc).

The original Lara Croft was inclusive beyond her time in my eyes. Taking her curves away isn't doing women any favors. I'm all for various body types for new characters, but outright taking those curves away from a character who had them is off-putting to me.

So many curvy and thick girls love classic Lara because they relate to parts of her and that's empowering, and skinny girls like me have fun playing as bombshell Lara too because it's like a fantasy playing as a character with curves that I don't have. It doesn't make me feel bad at all that I don't have DDDD's and those curvy hips and thighs, I think it's fun as hell to play as a woman who does though in a power fantasy kind of way.

But even straight men find her empowering, the amount of them who only look at Lara as an object are few and far between and probably didn't even play the games. Both my brothers are straight and they respect the hell out of classic Lara, they've only ever seen her as a symbol of empowerment, never just some object.

Also regarding sample size from the article, well duh it would be nice to see a bigger sample size of and more studies, hopefully we will get that. It's still a fascinating read no less, doesn't have to be taken as wholly truth, but it's interesting.

Last edited by Melonie Tomb Raider; 28-07-19 at 23:19.
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