Lara Selected as Spokesmodel for the Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation
 

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Lara Croft Puts on a New Face: Video Game Icon Selected as Spokesmodel for the Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation | Yahoo News, Wednesday May 3, 5:05 pm ET

They do know she's not real, correct?

*sssshhh* Yes she is!

Well why don't they put this in the next Tomb Raider game? On the Wii/Revolution, use the controller to apply sunscreen to her hot, firm, pixel-perfect body. I think that would help the children relate to her even more.

;) What, you suddenly feel 'childlike', artsie?

Lara can be my spokesmodel any day of the week.

Well, Angelina Jolie as Lara can be my spokesmodel any night of the week.

Oh to be a Cambodian baby adopted by Angelina Jolie. At lunch time.

Yet another role model for young girls to feel ugly from. As much as this cause indeed is a good one, why pick an image that is very much NOT like what young women look like, or how they´ll look like when they get older. Is this the best way of catching the young ones attention? Perhaps. But they also send the message that this is a healthy look for you. A waist that thin with boobs like that. That´ll at least make some girls want silicon implants and get rid of the tummy with surgery. I have a teenage daughter and I don´t want Lara Croft to be her ideal figure.

End of rant.

Lara Croft say:

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/1990/lol0jx.jpg

Considering the fact that Lara Croft couldn't get skin cancer, even if she wanted to, I think this is just pure brilliance.

Bah. How stupid.

Is this not a tad ironic? One of the easiest ways to prevent sunburn and skin problems is to cover up, and you're hardly going to see Lara doing that...

And how exactly does she personify "the benefits of having a healthy body"? Unless they mean that we should all be wanting to run around tombs escaping from dinosaurs/tigers/strange creatures/whatever? Are they suggesting that avoiding skin cancer is going to help us all to dangle off ledges by our fingertips?

Oh well, at least Eidos have managed to market the brand even more...

This opens up an opertunity for other game characters to step up and become spokesmodels for other issues.

Leisure Suit Larry will help raise AIDS awareness, Kirby will fight morbid obesity, the namless one lends his support against cancer and Gordon Freeman will speak on the behalf of those with autism.

They should have had the woman out of Bloodrayne instead.

"Stay out of sunlight! It buuuuurns!!!! Aaaaaaggghhh!!"

I was thinking Jabba The Hutt might make a good spokesbeing for Weight Watchers.

This doesn't really make any sense to me. How does being fit (which I assume is what the president of the Skin Cancer Awareness Foundation means by "healthy body") have anything to do with how you care for your skin? You could be a ball of lard and still take good care of your skin.

Does Lara Croft mention sunscreen and hats in the game? As RLacey pointed out, she surely doesn't cover up properly to protect herself from the sun.

PS: Lara Croft looks like a praying mantis in that graphic.

PPS: The current beauty standard is inching closer and closer to tranvestite territory. Very soon it will be hot for women to look like men who impersonate women.

:shifty: to you all.

:) Well, it's more complex than that, I argue. First of all, I personally never fixated on Lara's 'hyper-stylization'. Secondly, to simply scapegoat a video game character for a huge many societal and cultural problems is something I can't do, it would be ignoring the complexities of it all.

I also would never underestimate how savvy young people are today about these things, and if I were the parent of a young girl I would of course give them guidance, saying things like "You have a particular body type and you gotta work with it and be proud of yourself! Lara just happens to have another body type, and she works with it. You're not Lara, but then again, Lara can NEVER be you! So work it, babe!"

In this day and age, role models are taking form in various ways, even in non-human ways. But the message is NOT necessarily 'starve yourself to look like me' (c'mon, kids are smarter than that, especially when they have guidance and love from their parents), it's more 'I am smart enough to take care of myself and be responsible'.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...7142_burns.jpg

:D

But I see it as yet another trap for young girls. I´m not saying that exposing unrealistic bodies to girls is the blame for a lot of the societal and cultural problems.

I´m sorry Trep, but too many are not! Remember I work (when I work) with young children 9-14 years old and have done so for 20 years. You wouldn´t believe the fixation of bodies many of them have: weight issues, even when there´s no problem at all and clothes issues: many look very much like the cool girls on MTV in school. (if you know what I mean) Poor girls.

:D You can be a dad, anytime!

I still find that the Lara-stereotype is very much representated: in movies: Angelina Jolie (and she truly is beautiful, no doubt about that), MTV: the whole bunch almost, the documentray soap crap (don´t know the expression)like The Bachelor, Paradise Hotel. Stuff that a lot of young girls watch (And yes, Elin and I discuss those shows to give her perspective)
And on TV there is Extreme Makeover where people tell how much more happy they are now that they are beautiful.