Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was an escape for queer… | Little White Lies

Queer Cinema

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was an escape for queer teens like me

20 Jul 2021

Words by Samuel Sims

Two people walking together, a man and a woman, in a dark, moody setting with warm lighting.
Two people walking together, a man and a woman, in a dark, moody setting with warm lighting.
Through its rejec­tion of gen­der stereo­types, the 2001 video game adap­ta­tion helped me realise the pow­er of my own identity.

Cel­e­brat­ing its 25th anniver­sary this year, the Tomb Raider fran­chise was rein­vent­ed in 2013 and 2018 when it went all seri­ous and explored hero­ine Lara Croft’s bleak ori­gins in both video game and film pre­quels. Today, Tomb Raider has a new legion of fans and seems – dare I say it – cool all over again.

What’s still not regard­ed as cool, how­ev­er, is the game’s first Hol­ly­wood out­ing. Upon its ini­tial release in 2001, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was slat­ed by crit­ics and fans alike for its appar­ent lack of thrills. But for a queer 14-year-old liv­ing in the north of Eng­land, it was the most thrilling, empow­er­ing spec­ta­cle I had ever seen.

While the film didn’t coin­cide with my per­son­al com­ing out, it is very much a part of my for­ma­tive queer years – on a par with see­ing Ryan Phillipe’s rip­pling physique in 1999’s Cru­el Inten­tions and want­i­ng to be a bad ass bitch like Sarah Michelle Gel­lar. When you expe­ri­ence a dai­ly rit­u­al of men­tal and phys­i­cal abuse, as many young LGBTQ+ peo­ple do, watch­ing pow­er­ful women like Lara Croft tak­ing zero crap, oppos­ing the patri­archy, and run­ning around with a big clock in her hand, makes it more bearable.

There’s a Dig­ging into Tomb Raider’ fea­turette on the orig­i­nal DVD release that’s lodged in my mem­o­ry. It sees Angeli­na Jolie, with­out a hint of irony, telling view­ers that she didn’t want­ed to make some­thing car­toony, stu­pid or camp”. This struck me as an odd thing to say because that’s pre­cise­ly what the fin­ished prod­uct – and par­tic­u­lar­ly her per­for­mance – is. What’s even more strange about this com­ment is that, in hind­sight, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider seems to know exact­ly how ridicu­lous it is. The know­ing looks, the cut­ting ban­ter – the sheer camp audac­i­ty of it all – are what made the film res­onate with me.

A man wearing sunglasses and a suit, standing amongst a crowd of people.

Jolie’s Lara is unre­lent­ing in her sar­cas­tic remarks, par­tic­u­lar­ly to her skivvy Bryce (Noah Tay­lor), and her sense of humour nev­er wavers, not even in the face of mor­tal dan­ger. This is how I want­ed to be when faced with bul­lies at school who saw my queer­ness as a weak­ness to exploit. I want­ed to dev­as­tate them with wit­ty come­backs, rather than the eerie mute­ness of a silent movie star.

In 2001, the UK edu­ca­tion sys­tem was still reel­ing from Thatcher’s Sec­tion 28, so try­ing to under­stand my attrac­tion to men while hav­ing no prece­dent for it was con­fus­ing. In a scene where Lara sur­pris­es a naked Alex (Daniel Craig), she looks at his groin with face­tious delight before walk­ing away, leav­ing him need­ing a cold show­er. Although this scene presents a cis-het­ero­nor­ma­tive rela­tion­ship, I saw myself as Lara then; a super­hero, yes, but also a per­son with relat­able desires.

Lara’s frus­tra­tion with but­ler Hillary (Chris Bar­rie) as he attempts to put her in both a dress (“I’m only try­ing to make you into a lady”) and a gen­der-spe­cif­ic box is cru­cial in cement­ing the film in the queer canon. Dress aside, Lara’s com­plete indi­vid­u­al­i­ty and refusal to be nei­ther fem­i­nine nor mas­cu­line is essen­tial queer view­ing. She doesn’t do it out of spite, but out of need to exist and flour­ish as herself.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is far from per­fect. Jolie is fre­quent­ly objec­ti­fied (that show­er scene?!), but for those of us who have long felt vic­timised it pro­vides just the right blend of humour, warmth and escapism. There are oth­er, equal­ly relat­able moments in the film, such as when Lara, wear­ing black sun­glass­es, defi­ant­ly puts her feet on a chair in an auc­tion room full of stuffy, priv­i­leged old white men. She sim­ply doesn’t give a shit.

Queer peo­ple are some­times made to feel like our exis­tence doesn’t mat­ter, but like Lara, we try and rise above it with a cheeky smile and fuck you’ attitude.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them. But to keep going, and grow­ing, we need your sup­port. Become a mem­ber today.

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