“Get your artifacts out. Lara’s on her way.”
That caption on an X post from the official Tomb Raider account for the upcoming show on Prime Video was apparently too much for some to handle.
Playing Lara Croft will be Sophie Turner, known for playing Sansa Stark on “Game of Thrones” and Jean Grey in “X-Men: Apocalypse.”
Turner posted the picture on her own Instagram, where she faced similar criticisms as the X post did, for looking too much like Jean Grey, being too skinny, or not looking enough like Angeline Jolie.
However, a couple journalists from surprisingly large outlets couldn’t resist but make it about gender.
On Gaming Bible — a subsidiary of LAD Bible — the author battled with herself over the idea of her being able to handle a joke.
“’Get your artifacts out’ is to me, very obviously a play on the sexist heckle ‘get your t*ts out,'” she wrote. Despite admitting this was her own interpretation, the writer then said that “instant association” perpetrates “sexist stereotypes against women.”
She coupled that with the ever-lingering threat of theoretical violence.
“… all too often a precursor to them facing real-life harm. Don’t roll your eyes at me, it’s uncomfortable, but a critical take.”
Over at The Wrap, a male writer declared responses to a post from GameStop critiquing the character as “a flurry of misogynist ‘critiques’ focused largely on Turner’s breast size in the image.”
These arguments about gender, diversity, and misogyny have followed the Lara Croft character in all of her travels in recent years, and most of the time, it comes from the developers themselves.
In February 2024, the release of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered gave itself a content warning, which was assumed to be due to the depiction of tribesmen in the third game.
“Rather than removing this content, we have chosen to present it here in its original form, unaltered, in the hopes that we may acknowledge its harmful impact and learn from it,” the warning announced.
It was around that same time that Evil Hat Productions released a Tomb Raider board game, Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth. In the instruction manual, creators threw a heaping pile of trash on Lara Croft, and declared her a colonialist.
“Later games released in the franchise have started the work of addressing this by having Lara Croft acknowledge her past mistakes and try to understand and show respect for the cultures and communities she comes into contact with,” the manual reportedly read.
“Much of this game is inspired by her humanity, struggle with heroism, and her tenacity. We believe that all three aspects are an important component in creating a game that celebrates history and culture while acknowledging the respect and work required to live in a world wounded by colonialism.”
“In this game, we seek to continue in that work alongside Crystal Dynamics by creating a sandbox for you to tell stories that address colonialist themes in play and create your own stories of respect and support for the people and cultures your Seekers encounter.”
Months after the release, the studio censored its own game, removing Lara Croft pin-up posters that were now more graphically visible.
The developers also reportedly covered up PS1 era graphics of a woman on the back of Pierre’s jacket in Tomb Raider (1997).
None of this is promising for the upcoming Amazon series, especially given what these platforms typically have to offer for gaming IP. It all depends what the viewer is willing to overlook in terms of DEI ideology being injected into a series.
