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Electronic Mediations
Lara Croft. Modell, Medium, Cyberheldin
Lara Croft, die Heldin des Computerspiels »Tomb Raider«, ist in kurzer Zeit zu einem »Cultural icon« geworden. Sie ist Traum-Frau und weibliche Heldin, Pin-up-Girl und »Grrl« in einem. Damit bedient sie männliche ebenso wie weibliche Ermächtigungsphantasien. Doch statt die hierarchische Geschlechterordnung zu unterlaufen, befördert der Kult um Lara Croft einen Prozeß, der als »Medialisierung« der Körper beschrieben werden kann und der die dualistische Geschlechtermetaphysik auf einem höheren Level auferstehen läßt.
Welche Bedeutungsverschiebung durchläuft der Begriff des Geschlechtlichen im Zuge seiner Virtualisierung? Die Autorin nähert sich dieser Frage entlang einer Analyse der Entstehungs- und der Wirkungsgeschichte des Phänomens Lara Croft.
Welche Bedeutungsverschiebung durchläuft der Begriff des Geschlechtlichen im Zuge seiner Virtualisierung? Die Autorin nähert sich dieser Frage entlang einer Analyse der Entstehungs- und der Wirkungsgeschichte des Phänomens Lara Croft.
109 pages, Paperback
First published August 27, 2001
28 people want to read
About the author
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky
9 books1 followerAstrid Deuber-Mankowsky (born 1957) is a Swiss media and cultural scientist and a professor at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum, Germany.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 16, 2016
Obviously a fan of Lara Croft, Deuber views Lara Croft as a cultural moment. Connecting her to de Lauretis's Dream Woman--the idea that the ideal woman is a mythic existence that no real, actual woman can live up to--Deuber reads Lara Croft as a fantasy of desire for both men and women (heterosexuals, of course). Men enjoy the action and the control of the desirable figure (wow it sounds creepy when I write it like that), and women can enjoy the fantasy of a woman who is smart, resourceful and respected. Both want...and can never have nor be.
Lara Croft spanned media--not just a game, but a movie, advertising, etcetera, becoming larger than life and larger than any male game character. Her hyperfeminine qualities (the boobs, mostly) Deuber reads as necessary markers of femininity, that serve to counterbalance the 'masculine' performance.
The real tragedy, which Deuber merely alludes to, is that for Lara Croft to be the iconic figure that she is, she must be...alone. In the movie and games, she has no parents, no family, no love interest. She is sexual and sexy, but never uses it. Which does interesting things to the femme fatale identity, I think. Deuber relates this to, of course, the Ideal Woman, who is also disconnected from all personal entanglements, but it makes Lara a rather hard figure to emulate for long--is the price of autonomy for a woman that kind of isolation?!
Lara Croft spanned media--not just a game, but a movie, advertising, etcetera, becoming larger than life and larger than any male game character. Her hyperfeminine qualities (the boobs, mostly) Deuber reads as necessary markers of femininity, that serve to counterbalance the 'masculine' performance.
The real tragedy, which Deuber merely alludes to, is that for Lara Croft to be the iconic figure that she is, she must be...alone. In the movie and games, she has no parents, no family, no love interest. She is sexual and sexy, but never uses it. Which does interesting things to the femme fatale identity, I think. Deuber relates this to, of course, the Ideal Woman, who is also disconnected from all personal entanglements, but it makes Lara a rather hard figure to emulate for long--is the price of autonomy for a woman that kind of isolation?!
November 22, 2011
I'm getting a collection of books all to myself on this site.
So I'm writing a paper on Lara Croft for my media class. She is a media icon after all, and good example of the all sorts of transmedia enterprises. This book is pretty well done. It's short and easy to read, but gets into pretty complicated ideas of psychological identification and gender collapse, etc. Too bad for this paper I need to focus on the industry and less on the psychoanalysis. Oh well. It was interesting.
So I'm writing a paper on Lara Croft for my media class. She is a media icon after all, and good example of the all sorts of transmedia enterprises. This book is pretty well done. It's short and easy to read, but gets into pretty complicated ideas of psychological identification and gender collapse, etc. Too bad for this paper I need to focus on the industry and less on the psychoanalysis. Oh well. It was interesting.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews