Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture

Action Chicks is a book that has been edited by Sherrie A Inness, and takes a look at the image of tough women in popular culture, both in film, tv and gaming. The most relevant chapter to my practice is one written by Claudia Herbst, offering an incredibly in depth analysis of Lara Croft, star of Tomb Raider, and one that is also quite disturbing.

Highlighted quotes from the introduction by Sherrie A Inness 'Boxing Gloves and Bustiers'

Action heroines might be tougher than in the past, but they also adhere to various stereotypes about how they are supposed to look and behave. This section teases out the complex, sometimes contradictory, strands that make up the modern action heroine.

Lara Croft is held up by those who promote 'grrrl power' as representing a powerful new image of womanhood. Herbst offers a more disturbing interpretation: Croft is an oversexualised stereotyped character who appeals primarily to males. To understand Lara's image, one has to recognise that she and other similar figures stem from computer technology connected to warfare. Herbst suggests the importance of acknowledging the computer industry and visual imaging technology that make Croft possible.

Highlighted quotes from Lara's Lethal and Loaded Mission by Claudia Herbst 

Into this land of war and violence has stepped a new figure, Lara Croft. The virtual heroine of the computer game Tomb Raider made her debut in 1996 and reportedly is her designer's idea of a dream woman. (Herbst, 2004; p22)

Lara, it has been pointed out before, exemplifies changing definitions of gender. Technology allows for a stylised representation of the female and permits her to be placed in the context of toughness and heroism that traditionally has been reserved for men. She adopts male forms of behaviour but is unmistakably female and highly eroticised; in a discussion of Lara, the question of gender is inevitably involved. (Herbst, 2004; p22)

Lara's role outside of the erotic and violent spectacle she provides for the sake of entertainment is worth investigating as her internationally recognised and discussed presence suggests a greater cultural relevance than thus far acknowledged. (Herbst, 2004; p23)

Lara Croft and other digitally generated heroines are the sexy messengers announcing a shift in the definitions of gender, and therefore a shift in the definitions of power, informed by state-of-the-art imaging technologies. (Herbst, 2004; p23)

Lara's hyperviolent design is as much a product of the game industry as it is a response to an audience demanding the excessive use of firearms and to a larger audience endorsing such a use. (Herbst, 2004; p24)

She is a sex symbol and is openly exploited as such. (Herbst, 2004; p25)

Technologically advanced cultures value visual representations. Of the five senses, vision is the most preferred sense of Western culture, a circumstance enhanced by the abundance and expansion of modern imaging and surveillance technologies. (Herbst, 2004; p25)

The gratification and pleasure of the gaze in the context of war and eroticism are closely related. The female is sought after with the intent of procreation (or the act leading up to it); the enemy inversely, is chased with the intent of destruction. Possibly that is why the new images of women currently permeating popular culture are a composite of sexualised aggression; in computer games and films today, the continued objectification of women in the offspring of the process or visualising sex and death, humanity's most frequently depicted spectacle. (Herbst, 2004; p26)

In the countless virtual worlds of military inspired computer games, the representation of the female body is pushed to new extremes. Hyper-realistic productions of sex and death reduce the female to a territory of lust and deadly menace. Based on Lara Croft's appearance, actions and equipment, she is a fine example of this trend. (Herbst, 2004; p26)

Lara offers a sexy identity void of demands and stipulations. The terrain of computer games has become the site of erotic spectacle; in it the virtual heroine, as Mulvey described, plays to the male, holds his gaze, and is utterly and completely in his control. (Herbst, 2004; p26)

Lara originates from a male dominated industry and gaming culture. The virtual worlds in which she makes her appearances are designed and implemented by men in their teens and twenties, focusing on the topics young men tend to focus on. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

Lara has been designed to please male urges. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

Not only is Lara subject to total control, the virtual space in which she was created allows for an entirely fantasy based design as the virtual body can take on any proportions and abilities unhindered by the limitations nature presents. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

Lara Croft is the virtual sex symbol of the digital age. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

Lara offers risk free excitement. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

Virtual female characters, such as Lara, have become hyper-real versions of the female persona. The virtual body is entirely synthesised, an exaggerated version of flesh and blood, and delivers what the real cannot: it omits all human imperfection. (Herbst, 2004; p27)

However, the fact that Lara's eroticised body does not exist only increases her desirability; her virtuality gives her existence more, not less, credence. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

The image of Lara has been employed in the promotion of female empowerment. Because she is born out of a male fantasy and so clearly caters for male desires, it is ironic that she has also become a poster girl for a new brand of feminism, recognised under the headings 'cyberfeminism', 'cybergirlzzz', and 'girrrlpower'. Women are supposed to ignore that the image of Lara was created neither by them nor for them. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

It would be an overstatement to claim that digitally created heroines such as Lara Croft present the audience with an entirely novel interpretation of a tough female character. Rather, she represents an excruciatingly exaggerated version of the female as tough. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

Lara signifies excess; at the site of her body an ongoing exhange takes place between sex and violence, one leading to and allowing for an amplification of the other. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

Lara and her peers are noteworthy not because they represent exteme version of the sexy, tough female. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

Virtual females such as Lara negotiate the loopholes of the provocatively acceptable. Her measurements, at times verging on the obscene, at times on the absurd, defy not only nature but also the properties of silicon. The image of Lara borders on the pornographic; what barely legitimises her design is the context of games and play. (Herbst, 2004; p28)

A tiny waist, such as Lara's, is considered seductive because it indicated she is not pregnant and thus "available" for the act of procreation. (Herbst, 2004; p29)

Lara's exaggerated hourglass figure signifies the forceful manipulation of the body, a practice nowadays mostly associated with sadomasochism. Her sexuality is emphasised by portraying her as a dominatrix. (Herbst, 2004; p30)

Lara's character often wears her trademark green rubber tank top, a material rarely paired with hiking boots but commonly found in the wardrobe of a dominatrix. Because of the manner in which she is depicted and the danger of violence (and thus pain) she represents, it is difficult to address the eroticism linked to her outside of the context of domination. (Herbst, 2004; p30)

Moreover, the sustained illusion of power and control is a key ingredient in the context of sexual domination. In Tomb Raider, the camera, the player's cinematic view, plays a decisive role in how Lara is perceived. Most other computer games are experienced through the eyes of the protagonist (in these 'first person' shooter games the player is often represented by a gun that appears on the lower half of the screen, a phallic symbol perpetually protruding into the field of vision). Tomb Raider belongs to the genre of "third person' shooter games, in which the virtual world is seen through the "eyes" of a third person. While the player controls her every move, cinematically she is depicted as though she is the leader and in charge. Lara is perceived to be the tough fighter, the one in control, kicking and shooting, when in actuality she is granted no autonomy whatsoever. (Herbst, 2004; p31)

Lara's sexuality is indistinguishable from the deadly danger she represents. Her body signifies femaleness in an overwrought way while her attitude emulates combat sensibilities. (Herbst, 2004; p31)

In many ways, she is a composite of traits that are the exact opposite of those traditionally identified as desirable in a woman, she is the antithesis of a caretaker. (Herbst, 2004; p31)

Her presence seems to deny the very question of menstruation, much less pregnancy and the potential of motherhood. Void of the dark, soft, and mysterious vagina, her body has become a hard instrument. (Herbst, 2004; p33)

Lara's body is designed to trigger sexual impulses leading up to reproduction but biologically she is clearly not capable of reproducing. Presumably male identity is less threatened and the need for exclusiveness reduced if the female body is no longer the mysterious and powerful place from which life springs. (Herbst, 2004; p33)

In an unprecedented way, Lara and her peers become sex and destruction symbolically unified. (Herbst, 2004; p34)

Lara puts an end to long-held convictions about the female in the context of organised violence. (Herbst, 2004; p34)

Throughout history and across cultures, reproduction has been associated with the womb. It was understood that the female body had to be present in all of the processes associated with the creation of life. This has changed as the capacity to visualise the womb and its processes has led to the capability to create life in the absence of the female. Cloning, for example, is a process that involves the visualisation of the mother's egg and the fusion of cells. Because the creation of life has become feasible outside of the context of the female body, the representation of the female and the meaning of gender have changed. (Herbst, 2004; p34)

It is improbable that virtual heroines such as Lara Croft would be conceivable and placed at the site of carefully constructed scenarios of violence if reproductive powers were still exclusively linked to the female body. Never before has the female body been depicted in a climate so saturated with violence and danger. (Herbst, 2004; p35)

Lara belongs to a collection of futuristic females who will no longer need to reproduce ; her womb has been substituted with technology. (Herbst, 2004; p35)

Despite the fact that Lara is represented as an empowered female, she appears to have lost something quintessentially female. Men may interpret her toughness and her tiny waist as sexy. Many women find her figure disturbing and respond negatively to the nature-defying design of her body. Perhaps what women are responding to is that biological femaleness as we have identified it in the past has simply been denied in Lara's design. (Herbst, 2004; p35)

The moment the body ceases to be the essential vehicle in the creation of life, its loss becomes more tolerable. In part due to reproductive technologies and in part due to the new virtual heroine, the womb - and therefore to a degree the female - is portrayed as expendable. (Herbst, 2004; p35)

Lara's three-dimensional representation as tough and sexy is understood not as fiction but as fact. The illusion of reality becomes more convincing as programming power steadily increases. (Herbst, 2004; p36)

Through modern imaging technologies, so often applied in the real and virtual production of death, the abuse of female characters gains entertainment value. Such abuse is not entirely new; the threat of violence directed against women has long been a device employed by the entertainment industry, and the tension created by such violence has been considered titillating by many. Only now, encouraged by the illusionary safeness of the virtual world of pretend, have threats against the female turned into the most direct and forceful assaults formerly reserved for the male. (Herbst, 2004; p37)

More than ever, overwrought sexiness is inseparable from the violence and aggression amidst which the female is placed. As though sex appeal was a prerequisite for danger, the female characters kick and kill in outfits more suitable for seduction than combat. (Herbst, 2004; p37)

The design of the virtual female makes distinct reference to masochism, the treatment of women on the big screen, equally eroticised, in unequivocally sadistic, especially in these game-based films. (Herbst, 2004; p38)

Lara's design is not only overtly sexual; her guns are a constant reminder of deadly violence, and the title of the game places her in the context of tombs and graves. It is the continuously visualised simultaneous transgression of the sex and death taboos that is utterly exhilarating and during which the female suffers so intriguingly. Her suffering, depicted as safe and without consequences, particularly in games and in the films inspired by them, satisfies a sadistic appetite. (Herbst, 2004; p38)

Lara exemplifies fascist fantasies of hardness and toughness typically projected onto the male body. (Herbst, 2004; p38)

The hatred for women is deeply rooted in and results from extreme states of conflict such as war. Because the female has joined the ranks of combatants, terrain clearly marked for the demonstration of violence, the hatred directed against the female, according to Theleweit, is represented as justifiable. The fact that she is now a solider legitimises her as a target. The actions on the screen instruct us that the hatred and dread of women no longer needs to be repressed but can discharged with fury.(Herbst, 2004; p38)

Though we tend to think of war as the exception, virtual heroines like Lara exist continuously and exclusively in states of conflict and are portrayed in settings that ignite hatred against them. In this context, it should be remembered that war and sexual violence against women are inseparable. The accounts of assault against women during war, particularly against their reproductive systems, including rape, forced sterilisation, and sexual slavery, are as horrifying as they are endless. (Herbst, 2004; p39)

As the newfound female invincibility breaks with the previously prevalent images of incompetence and weakness, women and men, for different reasons, have embraced women's latest, tough identity. (Herbst, 2004; p39)

Women's onscreen ability to survive serious physical assault largely unscathed inadvertently implies intolerance of violence against women. (Herbst, 2004; p39)

Definitions of power may be flexible, but they are invariably formalised by those in power. In the past, killing has been defined as the ultimate power, a power generally attributed to men. In the new images portraying women as tough, this formerly exclusive power is quite suddenly generously attributed to the female. (Herbst, 2004; p40)

Lara's most basic of human rights, survival, is challenged continuously. Like a gladiator, she knows no other form of existence than to defend her own life and to take the lives of others. She has no rights or options; her world is not one of empowerment but one of desperation. The potential for violence and equality should not be equated as violence undermines the structure necessary for equality to flourish. (Herbst, 2004; p41)

Her notoriety should be interpreted as an indicator that ideas promoted by computer games and digitally enhanced films are far reaching. (Herbst, 2004; p41)

Whereas, until recently, we were supposed to be alarmed violence, we are now encouraged to glorify it. (Herbst, 2004; p41)

The images of the virtual, violent female will at least facilitate, if not ensure, her physical manifestation. While these trends can be expected to profoundly affect women's lives, they scarcely reflect women's perspectives or interests. (Herbst, 2004; p42)

The current transformations in gender and power definitions originate in the military and the sciences, the male cornerstones of computer technology. As long as technology remains firmly rooted in these disciplines, it is unlikely to be applied in the creation of a positive female role model. (Herbst, 2004; p42)

For now, Lara may look like a sexy and powerful messenger; nevertheless, the voice of the female remains suspiciously absent from her mission. (Herbst, 2004; p42)

Inness, S.A., ed., 2004. Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian.

Herbst, C., 2004. Lara's Lethal and Loaded Mission In: Inness, S.A. ed. 2004. Action Chicks: New Images of Women in Popular Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. .