Research

Gender is free-floating becoming a creation not only of social forces, but also of the inner psyche, and as such is dynamic; constructed by our response to inner awareness, social reality and changes over time. All too often we take gender, and the way that we both perform and attribute gender too seriously. We need to see gender as a game we play, most times solemn, sometimes fun, but always in a state of flux. It is difficult to examine something like gender in contemporary society as it is always changing. Yet, the Lara Croft films are areas in particular where we can see the game called gender being played. The whole notion of Lara Croft is a statement about gender. Does gender lie with society and the cultural mores and expectations that abound? Or does it lie with individuals, such as the producers, the directors and actors? Or is gender much more complex then that, lying within a tangle of cultural nodes requiring us to simplify the extremely complex?


Gender is difficult, it is difficult to handle, it is difficult to understand, and it is difficult to portray. Yet, it is a game, frivolous, fun and fascinating. To see it in any other way, other than a game, is to reiterate what society wants us to see in gender - something serious, that can only be binary oppositions in which there is 'right' and 'proper' gender, and something that is 'salacious' and 'wrong'. My goodness, what is wrong with having a bit of fun and playing with gender. I mean we are not gender constructs that never change, why not give thought to the change and construct ourselves in a way that makes us content. Anything else and we do the cultural run-around.