Gender in Games
Gender has been an issue in video games for some time now mainly because men typically design and play video games. Laura Croft is not the only good looking female character in video games, there is the blatantly sexist game known as "Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball" in which the characters are all women dressed in bikinis and playing volleyball with unecessary grunts and moans. DOA Beach Volleyball is the extreme though. In the case of Laura Croft, I feel that her character is more positive than negative. She is a lot like a female Indiana Jones with more guns. The reason Laura is attractive is because no one wants to go running around with a fat, ugly character because the character becomes the gamer's persona. If the character is fat or unattractive in any way then so is the person controlling that character. Also, Laura is athletic looking, and she does some pretty athletic things in the games, it only makes sense that she would be attractive because she has to be in shape to do her job. Laura is not a character that I feel you can compare to Barbie because there is no Ken to make Laura feel as though she has to look sexy. Laura is on her own and dresses that way for her own comfort and pleasure. No one that she encounters during gameplay is going to judge her, the only judgement comes from the guns she has in her hands.
Interesting perspective on the age old debate about sexism, realism and the relation to Laura Croft. You must note that Croft takes on a lot of feminist criticism because she was one of the first female avatars to emerge onto the gaming scence that had such over blown sex appeal.
Laura does not have to look sexy for a Ken, but she does essentially have to be sexy for the outside gamer taking in her every suggestive movement. It is also interesting to note that the only (human) enemies that Croft comes up against in all of the Tomb Raider games are men.