How Lara Croft Steals Hearts

A less conventional view of Lara Croft's appeal to guys....

...I think young boy gamers loved Lara for reasons that were considerably stranger. They weren't just ogling her: They were identifying with her. Playing the role of a hot, sexy woman in peril -- surrounded by violence on all sides -- was, unexpectedly, a totally electric experience for young guys.

I am not merely pulling this argument out of my butt. I'm basing it on a famous piece of film theory: the "Final Girl" concept of slasher movies.

...

The Final Girl theory emerged in 1985, when Carol Clover -- a medievalist and feminist film critic -- was dared by a friend to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre....

...as Clover sat in the theaters, she noticed something curious. Sure, the young men would laugh and cheer as the villain hunted down his female prey. But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman -- the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance -- and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho.

This, Clover argued, was not mere garden-variety sexism. On the contrary, it was a generation of young guys who apparently identified strongly with the situation of a woman who faced agonizing peril yet came out victorious. The slasher dynamic was unprecedented in film history: "The idea of a female who outsmarts, much less outfights -- or outgazes -- her assailant (was) unthinkable," Clover wrote. With this new crop of slasher movies, the young men in the audience essentially became the Final Girl: exhausted, freaked out and ultimately triumphant. They weren't just ogling the sexual violence. They were submitting to it.

But the story survived long enough for Wagner to write the opera, right? It must have been interesting in some regard to do that

I think the story is better in summary than fleshed out over 4 hours, but I think that of most heroic sagas.

I hope everyone's Mondays get better or at least go quickly.

reasons that were considerably stranger. They weren't just ogling her: They were identifying with her.

The burden now becomes: prove that a boy/man identifying with a woman deserves the word "strange."

t Waves at -t, with whom, too, I hadn't posted in quite a while How are you guys doing?

(At least this Monday is nice to me, with regards to "seeing" Buffistas I missed. But I'd rather share that niceness and not hog it to myself, if possible.)

The burden now becomes: prove that a boy/man identifying with a woman deserves the word "strange."

See, 'cuz guys only see women as the soure of teh sex.

Or something....

What tommy said.

I don't think it should be strange (and will never be so once I take over), but that doesn't make it not so.

The burden now becomes: prove that a boy/man identifying with a woman deserves the word "strange."

Just to be a pedant, strictly speaking the word used was 'stranger', i.e. a comparison of the relative strangeness of identifying with Lara Croft as opposed to ogling her.

Due to the fact that the driveway behind our house is being torn up and replaced, the local roach population has been disturbed and is making appearances in our house. (Please note: we are not horrible unclean people. Roaches are an unavoidable fact of life in the south.)

I'm putting together an online auction to benefit my mother's chorus. A friend of hers got people to donate all sorts of amazing music-related items, and I am paranoid that I'm going to do something to mess it up.

I sooo feel your pain dear.

Fella is living in an apartment, around which, construction is creating new condos. Everytime anything gets shaken up, (which is pretty much daily) the roaches come marching in. He's been staying at my house 5 days a week because, otherwise, he keeps waking up in the night with the surging beasties on his body. Shudder.

I'm also worried about messing up the massive reunion I'm organizing for June. Not sure why, but the paranoia is strong.

bugbegone and confidence ~ma headed your way!

t waves at Nilly We're doing pretty well, thanks. Still settling, but I have a deadline for having the house in shape for visitors, which should help motivate me to actually finish unpacking and so forth.

Speaking of which, I should do that rather than chat here.

This morning we had our first mouse sighting here at work. Eeek! (for the record, I didn't see it, but the person who did, screamed.)