Goodbye cartoon breasts, hello sweat stains: the feminist reinvention of Tomb Raider | Television

Hot on the heels of that Oasis reunion comes news of the return of another 90s icon – Lara Croft. She bounds back on to our screens with a new animated series, still sporting that holy triumvirate of classic ponytail, backpack and combat boots. From the get-go she’s performing seemingly impossible feats in the name of archaeology: she outswims a ravenous crocodile, and uses her signature blend of parkour and gymnastics to avoid a pit of sharp spikes. But this isn’t the Tomb Raider star quite as you might remember her.

The eponymous star of Netflix’s Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft – voiced by Agent Carter’s Hayley Atwell – looks different to how she appeared in the original games. Her thighs are now strong enough to realistically run, climb, stomp, swim and do all the other myriad things Lara has to do on a daily basis, while her waist is more realistically proportioned. Her shoulders are broader, her arms more defined (biceps, triceps and flexors; oh my!), and those impossibly perky and oh-so-pixelated breasts have been deflated to a size that fits somewhere within the realms of reason.

Essentially, she no longer looks like a strong wind would knock her over. It’s part of a reimagining that feels like a big feminist act – something many critics have been clamouring about ever since her first outing in 1996.

The most influential female protagonist of her genre, Lara redefined what women can and can’t do in the world of video gaming. “Compared to the burly men shooting guns, she had a real appeal,” says her designer, Toby Gard, who originally intended her to be “a guy in some tombs” before he decided to go in another direction. “She was mysterious and had a danger about her, and this gave her a real difference to other female game characters that were basically sex objects. Also I was very keen to get Lara to animate properly, which no one else at the time was doing. This made her move slowly but look realistic, which helped players empathise with her.”

Realistic, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. For her high-adrenaline exploits, Lara wore a tight tank and teeny shorts – all the better to accentuate those gravity-defying breasts, but also her slender waist, arms and legs. She moved with the grace of a ballerina, opting for unnecessary handstands and swallow dives whenever she could, and spoke with the clipped, confident cadence of a BBC newsreader – even if she was just uttering a stern “no” to gamers attempting to force her through a locked door. (Hey, she had agency!)

Hers were puzzle games, of course, and not RPGs, so we didn’t know much of Lara’s backstory. What we did know, though, was that she was incredibly wealthy and had a passion for ancient relics. She was also, presumably, a keen gymnast. And, most importantly, she was smart, relying on brainpower and survival skills, not just combat (AKA shooting anything and anyone that came between her and her prize) to complete each quest.

As time passed, the marketing around Lara changed – so much so that Gard felt compelled to leave the games’ developer, Core Design, entirely. “It wasn’t about her boobs getting bigger,” he later insisted, although the objectification of the character was undeniable; ever-expanding breasts aside, consider the unforgettable shower scene of Tomb Raider II, the ripped little black dress of Tomb Raider Legend, the ever-prevailing promise of the “Nude Raider” cheat code (since proven to be an urban myth).

Like Wonder Woman before her, Lara Croft was a strong woman created with a male gaze. Still, though, she managed to symbolise something bigger: she was a bona fide adventurer on her very own hero’s quest. A rescuer, not a damsel to be rescued. A woman with far more important things on her mind than romantic side quests. As time went on and ownership of the character changed hands, these key elements never altered. Designers focused more on her facial expressions than her breasts; her backstory was fleshed out. They even gave her friends – indeed, it was Lara’s relationship with Sam Nishimura in the 2013 video game reboot that allowed her to finally pass the Bechdel test with flying colours – and it’s this that takes the spotlight in the new series.

From China to Istanbul, the Paris catacombs to the Kunlun mountains, the globetrotting of Netflix’s Lara has all the appeal of her previous incarnations. Her past is, she admits, “complicated” – which is why she’s a little more vulnerable and a lot more self-destructive than we’ve seen her before. She wears comfortable cargo pants and high-necked tank tops when the occasion calls for it (with visible sweat stains, no less). She enjoys an unexpectedly ambiguous relationship with a person from her past. She is – to quote her pal, Jonah – a “crazy bastard” in a backpack; as fearless and intent on not just raiding tombs, but returning treasures to their rightful homes, too.

This Lara is dealing with a messy past. This Lara smells like a professional hiker, gets battered and bruised, and is weighed down by a lot of emotional baggage. A lot of emotional baggage. This Lara shuts herself away from her friends, resulting in questionable decision after questionable decision. This Lara is brimming with strength, but needs to work out who she is before she can regain the cool composure that’s so synonymous with the legendary Croft of old. And, yes, you’d best believe that her found family might just be the key to that; no woman is an island, after all.

This Lara isn’t perfect, by any means, but her imperfections feel revolutionary when you compare them with her original blueprints. Because, unleashed from her controller, she’s allowed to move through her story on her own terms. She’s the undisputed custodian of her own complicated life at long last – all thanks to her new TV incarnation.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft is on Netflix now.