The article touches on this topic. Why should Lara Croft be changed towards a more realistic female shape when pseudo-Schwarzeneggers abound in games?
’On the other hand, the same male gamers had for years been seeing images of almost equally unattainable masculine perfection on their screens, all bulging biceps and chiseled abs. How was this different? Many sensed that it was different, somehow, but few could articulate why. Michelle Goulet of the website Game Girlz perhaps said it best: Lara was “the man’s ideal image of a girl, not a girl’s ideal image of a girl.” The inverse was not true of all those warrior hunks: they were “based on the body image that is ideal to a lot of guys, not girls. They are nowhere near my ideal man.” The male gaze, that is to say, was the arbiter in both cases.’
Yeah, that argument is simply misguided. It's like me demanding, as a man, to change male characters in Sailor Moon, Felicity, or 50 Shades of Grey. Those male characters behave (and sometimes look) like female fantasies of men, not like men view themselves. But that doesn't give me any right to demand changing them, after all, they are created for girls/women. I'm not the intended recipient!
For the same reason it is absurd for feminists like Goulet to demand changing Lara Croft. Those feminists weren't in the main audience in the first place. They could have ignored Tomb Raider like most guys ignored Sailor Moon.
Well, is it more likely that the lack of female main characters caused few girls to play videogames, or that the lack of videogame playing girls caused the lack of female main characters? Arguably the latter, since boys form also the majority at most games without any main character. Boys just like video games more, it's not that alleged sexism sacres the girls away.
Nowadays there are more women in gaming, but when Lara Croft first appeared, it would have been odd to expect anything but a male gaze from a popluation of nearly 100% male developers and customers.
Oh man, I still remember the day my parents found my drawings of naked Lara. Not that I was any good at drawing, I just used the old technique of tracing the original pictures on a thin piece of paper, adding a dash of teenage horniness in the process.
Did you not see the Maxim "photoshoot"? Lara and Aki Ross from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within were both covergirls of Maxim, rendered in underwear or swimwear. Or, perhaps you disregard the fact that the most persistent rumor about Tomb Raider 1 & 2 was the "nude code"?
Lara Croft was the nerd equivalent of Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, at the same time. She was the gaming sex symbol.
Gamers would be interested in a nude code for any attractive female main character of any well-known video game whatsoever. Just like men would like to see even a politician like AOC (like any reasonably attractive celebrity woman) in Playboy. But that doesn't make AOC a sex symbol.
Lara Croft is more like a mixture of Indiana Jones and Duke Nukem: Hot body, badass (two guns at once), and cool sunglasses.
Yes, her figure is one property that makes her stand out, but the others were equally important. In fact, sexy video game woman are nothing new, there have been many before Lara, and with far more revealing outfits. An example is the character from the Brandish series:
’On the other hand, the same male gamers had for years been seeing images of almost equally unattainable masculine perfection on their screens, all bulging biceps and chiseled abs. How was this different? Many sensed that it was different, somehow, but few could articulate why. Michelle Goulet of the website Game Girlz perhaps said it best: Lara was “the man’s ideal image of a girl, not a girl’s ideal image of a girl.” The inverse was not true of all those warrior hunks: they were “based on the body image that is ideal to a lot of guys, not girls. They are nowhere near my ideal man.” The male gaze, that is to say, was the arbiter in both cases.’