• By Square Enix Image of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.    But
that misogyny and abuse, wrapped as it is in the peculiar
context of a cartoonish ultraviolent virtual experience, asks
another question about the extent to which games are meant to
portray fantasies or simulations. As Seth MacFarlane showed just
last night at the Oscars, sexism in entertainment is hardly
consigned to video games. So is Lara Croft meant to embody the
PC-friendly better angels of our nature, brushing off any jerk
that dismisses her as “just a girl” with a shotgun blast to the
face in some ridiculous video game version of social justice? Or
is Tomb Raider really meant to be an exercise in empathy, giving
those same teenage boys that spent the last two decades lusting
after Lara Croft a taste of the oppression she faces every day
from men like them?  Whether it wanted to or not, Square Enix
took on this question when it decided to reboot Tomb Raider.
Gallagher could have chosen an easier franchise to mess with,
after all. One would be