First off, let us look at the definition of "feminism":
"Feminism is an intellectual, philosophical and political discourse aimed at equal rights and legal protection for women."
Basically, feminism revolves around the belief that women are equal to men, fair enough. So how exactly does Lara Croft enter this equation? Simple. It is down to being one of the very first female game characters who took on a role of a hero and a supporter, but only to support herself, not other characters unlike in other games. Lara Croft was no damsal in distress and took on the role traditionally male game characters would have been given. Although she appears in not only the game,
"It is also increasingly difficult to distinguish between Lara Croft the character in Tomb Raider and Lara Croft the ubiquitous virtual commodity used to sell products as diverse as the hardware to play the game itself, Lucozade or Seat cars. What follows then is an analysis of the efficacy and limitations of existing feminist frameworks through which anunderstanding of the kinds of gendered pleasures offered by Lara Croft as games character and cultural icon can be reached."
Lara Croft, hardcore female archaeologist or just a plastic bimbo doll in a catsuit?Her character is a form of representation to sell products due to her "sex appeal", though it's no doubt her character draws in her spectator, that being whoever is drawn in to her character, as Lara Croft is considered a visual spectacle. Her sexualised appearance in general has been known to disrupt the relation between the two key words, which has taken its affect on its audience and within gameplay, not just outside in the real world. Though feminists were in awe at the fact a new female game character would rise and mark a significant departure from the typical role of women within popular computer games and take female gamers by storm, their icon was merely a piece of eye candy for male gamers, which made gameplay more enjoyable for their sake, which of course led to countless arguments as to whether she was just another disgusting "cyberbimbo" and not a true feminist icon at all.
"Psychoanalytically informed approaches which have developed from the insights offered by Laura Mulvey's landmark essay (1975) on the function of women within film narrative have a very different take on the tropes of this type of image. Two key insights which appear relevant to Lara are Mulvey's argument that the female body operates as an eroticized object of the male gaze and the fetishistic (fetish: a form of sexual desire in which gratification depends to an abnormal degree on some object or item of clothing or part of the body) and scopophilic pleasures which this provides for the male viewer."
There is one argument that can relate Lara Croft, that she is nothing more then a eroticized object of the male gaze, in our case the gaze of male gamers and gives them pleasure due to her fetishistic appearance. Another argument aimed at the heroine is that "active" or "strong" female characters signify a potential threat to the masculine order, as Lara Croft appeals in a slight "castrate" body (castrate-emasculate: deprive of strength or vigor) with her heavy layering of fetishistic signifiers such as her glasses, her guns, the holster/garter belts and her swinging hair.
Although Lara Croft may seem as a male fantasy object, discussion of the matter has been brought up in how she may possibly be available for female fantasy, the encapsulation of both "butch" and "femme" modes of representation make Lara open to potentially queer indentification and desire.
To wrap this up, due to both sides of continuous arguments and discussions that arise about Lara Croft, there is no definite answer as to what she truly is. A feminist icon or a cyberbimbo? In my opinion she is a consideration of both titles. She may look like a cyberbimbo wielding a pair of guns in a revealing outfit, but she also represents a female game character with power, something feminists look for due to their beliefs. The fact that Lara actually has neither sexual or romantic encounters in the game tells us something, even though some male characters in Tomb Raider are shown to be attracted to her, friend or foe. With this being said, Lara Croft has no sexual identity or subjectivity and was designed to be an object of male desire.
As for a definite answer to the question?
There is none.
[References]
-http://www.gamestudies.org/0202/kennedy/
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism
-http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=fetish
-http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=castrate
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