Lara’s Empire

Lara Croft has often been celebrated as a feminist icon, but such a description has invited controversies from many corners including established feminist theorists such as Elaine Showalter and Germaine Greer. Games studies scholars have viewed Lara’s role in more balanced terms and described it as being multiple and more fluid. According to Adrienne Shaw, it is difficult to pin down an identity on Lara Croft, especially given her evolution as a character. Nevertheless, Lara’s attitude to archaeology and spelunking is one that strongly resembles the fictional archaeologist, Indiana Jones, a symbol of American culture for the last forty years, who perpetuates a colonialist narrative that reinforces stereotypes by considering everything that is not a part of Western culture as exotic, dangerous, and/or a threat. This article explores this aspect of Lara as a problematic icon whose colonialism remains innocuous and yet persistent despite her changing identities.