Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky,
Lara Croft: Cyber Heroine.
Unversity of Minnesota Press, 2005.
ISBN: 0 8166 4391 1
US$17.95 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press)

Game studies represents one of the fastest growing areas in the field of media and cultural studies, and so it is no surprise to find a book dedicated to one of the medium’s most iconic figures: Lara Croft. Focusing on the meanings generated by one character has both positives and negatives: on the positive side it allows for a detailed analysis, and allows the author to investigate her subject from a variety of different perspectives. On the negative side, it runs the risk of becoming very dated very fast; in a field that is evolving as quickly as game studies a character’s longevity can sometimes be measured in months rather than years. The less than spectacular sales of the latest Tomb Raider game possibly implies that the character’s popularity has already begun to wane, and this may impact on the book in question’s relevance.

Deuber-Mankowsky’s book attempts to straddle the line between academic analysis and popular account, and for the most part manages to succeed in this difficult balancing act. The first thing you notice about the book is that it looks nothing like a traditional academic text: at 175mm by 120mm it is physically smaller than most paperbacks and resembles a gameplay guide more than an academic dissertation. This impression is reinforced by the fact that the book is only 89 pages long (excluding notes and bibliography), which is far shorter than most of the works in this area.

The brevity of the book is not actually a disadvantage, as it might increase the work’s appeal outside the traditional cultural and media studies audience. The writing style also reflects this more broad-based approach, and does not assume that the reader is especially well-versed to the nuances of cultural theory. While this makes the book accessible to a larger audience, it is possible that some with an academic background may find it a little basic, already covering ground that has been traversed many times before.

The book is divided in to 13 short chapters (some only a few pages long), each dealing with a different facet of the Lara Croft phenomenon. Early chapters describe the history of the character and also discuss the institutional development of the games industry in the 1990s, in itself a valuable contribution to the field. Later chapters deal with a range of topics all centred on how the character of Lara Croft reveals much about perceptions of gender in the early years of the new century. In particular, these chapters explore the relationship between feminist theory and new media, at times problematising the extent to which traditional notions of gender can be applied to the fluid environment of new media.

Deuber-Mankowsky’s approach is perhaps best illustrated by chapter 9, in which the author discusses the complex relationship between the video game character of Lara Croft, the models who represented her at public events and the wider construct that appeared on magazines and billboards. According to Deuber-Mankowsky, the company responsible for managing the Lara Croft franchise had to be careful to ensure that the character remained larger than life, while at the same time being (temporarily) given corporeal existence:

Lara’s managers at Eidos were careful to prevent models from claiming to be the perfect embodiment of Lara – from acquiring dream woman status. Instead of being equated with any one of them, Lara was to stand over all of them. None of the models, that is to say, were to be more than her body… To prevent the “true” immortal Lara from receiving unwanted competition from her real life embodiments, ones with which she might be “confused,” models were not permitted to serve as the official Lara Croft for more than one year. (58-9)

As the quote implies, Deuber-Mankowsky blends cultural theory with industry analysis, and this is perhaps the book’s strongest feature. While there have been some excellent analyses of game culture in recent years (for example, the work being carried out through GameStudies.org), much of this work tends to underplay the importance of economic and institutional factors. Deuber-Mankowsky, in contrast, gives these factors their necessarily recognition, while still maintaining her focus on games culture.

In conclusion, it must be said that Deuber-Mankowsky’s book generally balances the needs of both an academic and popular audience fairly well. However, in doing so it could be argued that it fails to fully meet the needs of either audience. For a non-academic audience, some of the discussion of feminist and cultural theory may seem a little dense, while academics might find her discussions of some of the more complex elements of cultural theory to have been over simplified.

Mark Finn,
Swinburne University, Australia.

Created on: Thursday, 23 November 2006