Lara Croft: Why Will She Or Won't She Be Raped?

In the UK Guardian, an article about the Tomb Raider video game franchise by Mary Hamilton that states, among other things that sexual assault is lazy writing that too many writers employ far too often.

[ " The inclusion of the attempted rape scene raises some difficult questions. If the scene is playable, what exactly happens should the player fail? If it is not, why show it at all? Lara is already going through a lot – shipwreck, major injury, a friend's kidnapping, the threat of death – and adding sexual assault to the mix might just be over-egging the pudding.
Then there is the fact that rape is not a naturally occurring event like a rockfall, or a transformative one like a radioactive spider bite. In too much media, its use is a lazy shorthand that allows a writer to paint a bad guy as particularly bad, and a woman as particularly vulnerable (the genders are rarely reversed), without dealing with the consequences or meaning of such an act for any of the parties involved. That doesn't mean no storyteller or video game should ever tackle rape – of course they should, where a story demands it – but if the only reason to include sexual violence is to emphasise a woman's vulnerability or a man's evilness, then it's fair to question why a threat of murder is not enough.
The bigger question, in the case of Tomb Raider, is why the game's designers decided to make Lara Croft so vulnerable. In a recent interview with Kotaku, executive producer Ron Rosenberg said players want to protect Lara, and that the new game would break her down, put her through awful experiences, and make the players "root for her in a way that you might not root for a male character".
His statements take some unpacking, and for fans of the Tomb Raider series they're not encouraging. As a player, I don't remember having many problems projecting myself as Lara – and I don't particularly want an avatar in a game that needs protecting. Players aren't expected to want to protect Nathan Drake in Uncharted, or John Marston in Red Dead Redemption, or Max Payne – so why Lara? Rosenberg seems to suggest it's because she's female – and it's hard to see that as anything other than a sexist approach, an assumption that men can't lose themselves in stories with female protagonists and/or that female gamers simply don't exist.
He also says she's forced to suffer such horrors that she "literally turns into a cornered animal". I hope it turns out that Lara's been a werewolf all this time – but I suspect he means that her character and spirit come under such attack that she's reduced to fight-or-flight responses. The Lara Croft of previous games has generally been intelligent, witty, resourceful and ingenious, as well as athletic, strong and skilful. Lara has always been a pragmatic survivalist with a keen sense of adventure; to decide that she needs to be tortured in order to be able to kill goes against what we know of her history and personality so far.
The idea that Lara – like Samus from Metroid – should have an origin story in which she is weak in order to explain her strength is difficult to swallow. Male characters are generally permitted to be strong without needing a back story in which they are broken – why should female characters be different? Why do we need to protect Lara through an awful ordeal for her strength to make sense? Judging by the comments on Kotaku and elsewhere, I'm not the only one who shares these concerns. " ]

There is more, plus several pages of comments, as you would expect. Many of the comments come down to, rape-rapey rape big frackin' deal it's an action game what's your problem men get raped too lighten up get out in the real world find a job blahblahblah -- also as you would expect.

The link included at the top of this pull, " too much media" takes you to the site, Gaming As Woman: a collection of thoughts on womanhood and (mostly) analog gaming, to the entry titled, "Geek Media – What’s With All the Rape?" which is well worth reading.

It is a relief to see, finally, a pushback against the enormous amounts of rape, violence, humiliation and degradation meted out to women in entertainment media in general, and geek-nerd entertainment media in particular (because I foolishly had always assumed that sf/f sorts were smarter than that). I personally have been long deeply disturbed and deeply concerned by this, and finally gave up saying anything because I always got slammed by males, females and even feminists for objecting to the ever-increasing violence of our popular culture and how women in particular are victims of it. I was a spoilsport because it's so much fun!

It comes through to me as sensation as substitution for something happening, i.e. story telling. I have also long believed that constant and continuing scenes of violence blasted into our brains has an effect on how we think and how we behave, and is detrimental to our society on every level, just as big monoagribusiness degrades the planet and finally makes it incapable of producing food at all.

This may explain the depths of delight I've taken in the television series of The Good Wife*, White Collar and Sherlock. Women -- no one, in fact -- is casually raped to make a motivation, no one is casually beheaded to throw out waves of blood with which to swag the screen. We depend instead on good, smart writing to make actual stories.

* If it is gorgeous kickass women that knock off your sox, I give you Kalinda Sharma, though it's her kickass brain and her poise that turns me on; I was a little disappointed in this season's finale, because it seems the showrunners even for The Good Wife couldn't resist making Kalinda all vulnerable and endangered.

Boing Boing Essay Series: Mind Blowing Movies

You can see all the entry essays so far in the series here. The writers include, but are not limited to, Cory Doctorow and Bruce Sterling.

This morning after el V had performed his daily BoingBoing perusal, he asked, "Right now off the top of your head, what's the most mind-blowing movie you've ever seen?"

Ahhhhhh .... Hmmm.

"Cleopatra," I said. "Not the greatest or best movie I've ever seen, but the most visually impressive, which is what they mean, probably? There's nothing like her entrances on her Nile barge and the Spectacle of Spectacles, her Introduction to Rome. Elizabeth Taylor carries a whole lot of what made that movie the most expensive at the time right where you can most appreciate it, on herself, as Taylor comfortably feels entitled to. Burton -- all the men -- look like the idiots they feel in togas, soldier tunics and sandals, and Burton emotes as usual as if he's on a nineteenth century theater's stage. But Taylor's herself in the cosmetics, the wigs, the jewelry, the costumes, the worhshipping crowd scenes, the sets. There is nothing remotely like it still, because it's before CGI, so it's all real! I probably appreciated it all the more because I saw it when I was more than an adult. And now I've even got the DVD."

We discussed this for a while. I would put The Ten Commandments in second place, because I saw it as a child with my mother at a special screening during Lent in the church basement. I was so excited by the creeping green fog that killed the wicked Egyptian pharaoh's son. Third would be El Cid, because castles in Spain and swords and Moors! Too bad about the Charleton Heston part. El V then asked how I'd felt about Ben-Hur.

"Not in the running," I said. "I've read the novel a hundred times at least as a kid and teenager and the movie left out all the good parts and my favorite character. Not to mention the Charleton Heston part. But to make up for Charleton Heston was The Vikings! With Kirk Douglas running the oars and going to Valhalla via the wolf pit -- and I saw it first with you, because you love it too! We've seen it together at least three times that I remember."

Next I'd add the three Godfather films, and particularly the third one, built on and around an opera, which most people seem to believe is an much inferior product. This is the only one el V saw -- predictably, he hated it, as I recall all too well. I've watched them solo ever since as I do almost all movies, because another person tends to confuse the experience. These films created a mythology for Italian American identity that has played out in U.S. culture and entertainment ever since, whether you have Italian background or not. To flip the script then on the Godfather, is American Gangster.


Finally, the animated Cuban music film, set in 50's and 60's Havana (the same Havana of Godfather 2!) and New York that was up for an Oscar in its category this year, Chico and Rita.

Making such a selection was nearly impossible for me since movies never blew my mind, so to speak, even as a child, though I loved watching them. The attitude of everyone around me growing up was that movies were recreation, which was an extension of of playing "cowboys" as all we farm kids did -- well maybe not the girls, except for me, and often I got the other girls to play too, though it was easier to get them to play pirates -- however, none of them would play spaceship with me, not one, but then, neither would any of the boys, except my wonderful brother!

As an adult, surrounded by people who not only take FILM seriously, as will  people who direct films, act in them, write them, produce them, compose music for them, I watch movies generally within a cultural, political and historical context. Thus, my abiding fascination with Westerns, which was the dominating movie context in the culture in which I grew up, as Westerns were from their own beginning which in turn was a primary part of the film industry's beginning and continued so for decades. Among my most memorable were The Searchers, Fist Full of Dollars, as well as the bonkers Johnnie Guitar and The Outlaw Josie Wales. So, still, probably, the most mind-blowing film for me in all contexts is the vile Birth of A Nation, because it is what it is, which has distorted our popular notion of national history via film, and particularly the western, ever since.

What movie would you name from off the top of your head as the most mindblowing you've watched?

*White Collar* Season 3, Disc 2 - 3

It's ironic that the most effective screwball comedy escapism thing on television (or the movies) is a show featuring the FBI.  Can this show become more of a New York City fairy tale, a city of such magic that it turns the FBI cuddly as well as stylish, glitzy, even elegant at times, particularly in how the writers make the cogs work together and come up with a new twist so very often.  All it takes evidently, judging by one of the themes of season 3, is vast wealth, or even, just the proximity to vast wealth, which is where this Art Crimes FBI investigative unit is located -- thus New York.

Where I'm up to in season 3 is the Grand Bromance Triangle -- Sara's gone, only another marcher in Neal's indistinguishable parade of female distractions, whose names, even, can't be recalled. I do agree with Sara though, that she had the best date ever the night of "The Veil." Such perfect screwball. However, in the long arc of things, what matters is, will Neal choose Mozzie, or will Neal choose Peter? Myself, I'd have a hard time choosing between the two, though perhaps I would lean to neither of the above.

"The Veil" episode, complete with the 'servants' hiding behind doors and coming in and going out at inconvienent times -- classic, yet so updated, and so perfectly within the context this series set up. Eliza Dushko has a guest role in "On the Fence," as a grown up Egyptologist. Sleekly beautiful you hardly recognize her as an adult, until at the end, busted for her criminal activity she reverts like a rubber band taken off its package to her old cocky strutting mannerisms, which are so age inappropriate now -- though she does seem to be trying really hard to keep those mannerisms under control. "Upper West Side Story," features two actors who have recurring roles on The Good Wife. 

Last night, er, in the episode "Upper West Side Story," Neal definitely chose Peter, but Mozzie is also present, seemingly having given up the treasure without qualms in order that Peter's Elizabeth be saved. One wonders if Mozzie relinquished ALL the treasure, because Mozzie always has a trick, and Neal did lie to him about the manifest -- ah the perils of lying to nearest and dearest. But Elizabeth saved herself, or just about, though Jones did need to shoot her guard.

The writers did a fantastic job with the stolen treasure all season, but now the treasure's found. And what will Mozzie do? Four more season 3 episodes still to go.We're at the point where Neal is reduced to even impersonating a high school (English!) teacher and helping kids make the right choices, showing his teacher Peter that he can be a member of stability instead a lord of chaos. Will Peter favor commuting Neal's sentence with this evidence of Neal's commitment to responsibility and nurturing. Can we enjoy Neal as a true blue FBI member rather than as a leashed convicted consultant?

Since Season 4 debuts in July I wonder how they will follow the twisty turns and reveals and changes from Season 3, and will they be successful? Or have we come to a natural conclusion, all We Are Family, kumbayah?  If so, it's got to be over and out, because no tension no conflict.


Falling asleep I did start thinking comparison and contrast between Sherlock and White Collar. I am certain the Sherlock writers have been watching White Collar too.

*White Collar* Season 3, Disc 1

Season 3 released on dvd today, and the first disc duly arrived in my mailbox from netflix. That doesn't happen very much these days as netflix isn't servicing me the way it used to. But perhaps there weren't so many requests for White Collar as for, say, Boardwalk Empire?

In any case, it's lovely to be back with Neal and Mozzie, Peter and Elizabeth -- and finally, some more Satchmo! I've said this before, but this series shows NYC the most luxe and glamorous place to live and work. I love entering it again. :) Living here is is not the same as this show, needless to say.

The opening of the first episode involves a small plane my dad would have loved, and certainly could have piloted, and even owned. The episode's plot was a twisty one, exactly what one would hope for a season's first episode. The showrunners are continuing to build on strength and charm of the previous seasons* by foregrounding the ensemble character of the show. None of the protagonists, primaries or secondaries, are strong enough to carry a show alone. But all of them playing off each other in the milieu of the frothy escapism that White Collar is what works the show's charm. It's not often you get that as successfully as in White Collar (why yes, Hell on Wheels, I look at you, you wooden mess you -- also, Sherlock writers? check how they do codes right on White Collar).

So I got all wired up after long talk-meet with -- not Editor -- Publisher. It was all good, but whew, these things put my mind in knots and take my feets off ye olde ground! Some Neal and Mozzie and Peter and Elizabeth were just what I needed to get back down to earth. Besides, as has been the case for every sky spectacle this year, I was not able to view the Transit of Venus due to cloud pile-up  -- though many viewers did head for the western edge of our island, particularly the High Line Park, to see what they could see.

And now I'm missing Deborah Harkness at the Algonquin, but that's OK. I'm pretty worn out. And still haven't had dinner.**


-------------------------


* Season 4 of White Collar debuts in July.


** Had dinner now.

Louisiana Retrocession

One of those turning points of history that like most turning points is either forgotten or these days not even heard of.

The deluges returned yesterday, sadly.  The sun's just come out now for a bit.  Errands need to be done, but instead I'm messing about with the Retrocession  It's almost like messing about with boats, except instead of Ratty you have Toussaint, and instead of Toad you have Napoleon and instead of Weasels, Stoats and Ferrets you have Tallyrand. We also have Josephine, who might possibly be Pan? No, don't thinks so.  And who, pray tell are Adams, Jefferson and Madison?  The ragtag and bobtail?

Yet the NYT Continues to Bombard Me With Bewildered Inquiries As To Why I Do Not Give Them Money!

Da menz Invented the Innernetz!  The NYT sez so!   By Xeni Jardin on Boing Boing.

LIKE HELL THEY DID!

[ " the opening graf (bold-ing, mine):

MEN invented the Internet. And not just any men. Men with pocket protectors. Men who idolized Mr. Spock and cried when Steve Jobs died. Nerds. Geeks. Give them their due. Without men, we would never know what our friends were doing five minutes ago.

You guys, ladies suck at technology and the New York Times is ON IT.

Radia "Mother of the Internet" Perlman and the ghosts of RADM Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace and every woman who worked in technology for the past 150 years frown upon you, sir. Women may have been invisible, but the work we did laid the groundwork for more visible advancements now credited to more famous men.

"Men are credited with inventing the internet." There. Fixed it for you.

I ragequit this article like, 10 times, and couldn't get past that awful opening line. But eventually, I managed to put down my frying pan and unbunch my apron, and I sat down on my princess tuffet and asked a man to help me read the whole thing. " ]

It goes on from there.

I Must Tell You About The Mothers Who Copulate With Donkeys! + *Kiss You Down South*

Our friend, Elijah Wald, has his new book just out, The Dozens: A History of Rap's Mama. Among the illustrations, getting a whole page to itself, and a long caption, is the Stela of Great Chief Of Militia Nesdjehuti c. 725 BC) reads (right to left)

[ "A donkey shall copulate with him, a donkey shall copulate with his wife, his wife shall copulate with his child." The Egyptian term for copulate was n-k, cognate with the Arabic nik, whence the French nique, as in nique ta mére. The concept survves in Swahili, mama yako anatombwa na punda, "Your mother copulates with a donkey," quoted in the filmCotton Comes to Harlem. (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Tanslation by Jac. J. Janssen.) " ]

And, why yes, if you should ask, el V is credited in the acknowledgments -- his kind of book fo shu! Actually, it is wonderful, and makes great reading aloud, which of course it would, the subject being what it is. Eiijah's books are always great -- his previous title was, How the Beatles Destroyed Rock and Roll, a valuable and entertaining study of the Billboard Number One hits from the time it began. You can just hear Elijah chortling away as he writes all those Bad Words on every page and knowing that the Oxford University Press will be publishing them.

El V's having a photo shoot of self, hat and guitar for Kiss You Down South's cover art.  Why yes, the album - cd - whatever is finally coming out!