The 2001 film Tomb Raider, directed by Simon West, breaks some ideas in the classical Hollywood Narrative form of male heroes with women as love interest, victims, or sex objects. The heroin Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) is a tomb raider who is highly trained in physical combat, weapons training and foreign language. She sets out to stop the Illuminate from obtaining a device that can control time, ultimately saving the world. Although this would make her like many other male heroes, she is always in tight and revealing clothing that objectifies her body. Tomb Raider fights the stereotypical feminine job norms as well as acting and looking like a “lady,” but the sexuization of Lara is the ultimate drawback of this film.
Tomb Raider enforces the idea that “gendered expectations [are] not absolute,” and opposes the “classical Hollywood narrative form (male heroes, female victims and sex objects, etc.)” (293), as defined in America on Film by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean…show more content… “Lara Croft’s body is constantly fetishized in tight clothes and even tighter close-ups,” (298). It is true that Lara’s clothing is provocative, when we are introduced to her she is in training and wearing skin tight shorts and a skin tight tank top, something most women would not work out on. Also with all the other characters being male, everyone in the movie either wanted to kill Lara, or kiss Lara. One scene that exemplified this was also one that quietly slipped in an objectification of Lara. Lara breaks into Alex’s room and Alex hears the break in. He stops the shower, grabs a gun, then inspects the room all while he was fully unclothed. Lara sneaks up on him and warns him not to betray her, looks down at his crotch, then leaves. After Alex states, “Now for a cold shower,” implying that he was aroused just by her