Lara Croft: The Final Girl

I'm still trying to get a copy of Tomb Raider: Legend out of Eidos' PR agency. But the likelihood that I'll be able to write about it for the main site just plummeted now that columnist Clive Thompson just covered it. (Don't worry about it, man. We're cool.)

He actually did a way better job of it than I would have, arguing that Lara's appeal isn't just about sexual titillation: it was because young men can actually identify strongly with her predicament.

The Final Girl theory emerged in 1985, when Carol Clover -- a medievalist and feminist film critic -- was dared by a friend to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Back then, most feminist theorists loathed slasher films, and regarded them as classic examples of male misogyny.

[...]

But eventually the movie would whittle down the victims to one last terrified woman -- the Final Girl, as Clover called her. Suddenly, the young men in the audience would switch their allegiance -- and begin cheering just as madly for the Final Girl as she attacked and killed the psycho.