BODY LANGUAGE
Polly Vernon
She gazes defiantly from behind the battered perspex of any number of bus shelters. Statuesque, dewy-thighed, leather-booted. Guns and techno-gadgetry strapped to her bare flesh, glossed lips slightly parted, hair damp with the (not unduly pungent, mind) sweat of her recent exertions.
She is Lara Croft or, rather, Angelina Jolie pretending to be Lara Croft, in the promotional material for Tomb Raider, the movie version of the PlayStation game, which will be launched on Friday. According to the strapline (for which designers have managed cleverly to employ a typeface that suggests a gravel-throated voice-over), “This is her time.”
But is it? Lara Croft’s move to celluloid has been accompanied by a grumble of protest. American reviews have been harsh, Sony, makers of PlayStation, kicked off about prospective sex scenes, and much of the United Kingdom’s target demographic is muttering loudly about boycotting multiplexes as a protest at the casting of an American actress in the lead role.
You see, Croft inspires high passion in men. Depending on what variety of man you ask, this zombie-dodging, mad-dog-slaying aristocratic lovely is the defining postmodern icon, or more simply, the ultimate male fantasy made real-ish, all high kicks and unfeasibly large yet pert bosoms. She is, accordingly, a multimedia phenomenon.
Since Tomb Raider was launched about six years ago, The Face, Time and Newsweek have all put Croft on the cover, thus granting her the status of “person of cultural significance”. The Face also, bemusingly, created a fashion story around her, in which she “wore” assorted designer frocks.
Radio 4 has dedicated an entire episode in a series entitled Remarkable Women to deconstructing her fabulousness. Gordonstoun School, educational institute for assorted royals, has included Croft in its promotional material after discovering that according to her biography, Croft is a former pupil.
Ask a man, pretty well any man, how he feels about Croft, and he will probably respond in a similar vein to Steve, a 27-year-old Croft devotee: “What can I say? Ilove her. To be honest, the most attractive parts of Lara Croft are not her boobs. Anyway, most of the time you’re behind her, so you can’t even see them. Though she does have great legs. But anyway, it’s actually the whole package, the education, the poshness, the unavailability, the fact that she would never phone you up while you were at work and she was stranded in the depths of a temple and say, ‘I can’t cope.’ Oh, and don’t say she’s not real. She is real.”
Ask women their opinion of Croft, however, and you will encounter a distinct froideur. Women don’t like Croft. We don’t relate to her, aspire to be her or champion her. After all, there is not a great deal to be said for a female icon without a pulse. A female icon created by men, for other men to manipulate via the means of a key pad. A female icon who is mainly admired by her legions of fans for not ageing (she is perpetually 29), for not speaking (but grunting quasi- sexually every time she pulls herself up from a precipitous ledge), for being terribly, terribly feisty but only when instructed to be so by her man-handler.
“I really, really like the way she grits her teeth when she shoots a gun,” says Steve.
Ironically, women do like Jolie, who plays Croft in the film. Now there’s a hip, edgy broad with a serious back catalogue of sharp one-liners and a dream body which, though thin, suggests strength, not waifishness.
Yep. We definitely like Jolie. But she should tread carefully. Models Nell McAndrew, Rhona Mitra and Lara Weller were among a series of women hired to play Croft at promotional events but each was found lacking. Sony said that they were sacked over creative differences, but insiders whisper that the girls’ social status (not posh enough), sex lives (average, but active) and all-round realness sullied Croft’s reputation.
Ultimately, that is the source of Croft’s appeal for men. She is so wonderfully not real. Relatively, Jolie and the rest of us flesh-and-blood women will forever fall short. But we shall just have to learn to live with that.
@Notes&Queries
Two friends who gave up smoking say they feel the effects of alcohol far sooner. Does nicotine suppress the effects of alcohol?
l It is likely that your friends are suffering from fidgety-finger syndrome: they are unknowingly drinking at a faster rate than before, and therefore are feeling the effects of being drunk more rapidly. Kevin Lynch, Hertfordshire, UK
Do submarines really contain machines that go “ping”?
l Submarines carry various types of listening devices, known as sonar, to assist in navigation and to detect other vessels. Some of these are “active'”; that is, they transmit sound pulses and receive an echo from the target. These are the “pings” heard in movies about subs. In reality, modern subs rarely use active sonar as it gives their position away. Peter Keene (former submarine commander), Cape Town
Are international chess competitions held spearately for men and women. If so, why?
l Yes, for the simple reason that men are s*** scared that they will be soundly beaten. Jeya Wilson, Durban
A black cat crossed my path, but it appeared to have a broken leg. Will my luck be adversely affected?
l A black cat, in whatever state of health, crossing one’s path can only affect one’s fortunes if you happen to be a mouse. Christo Lombaard, Pretoria
When I kill cockroaches using an aerosol spray, they invariably die belly-up. Why? Do other pests behave similarly?
l I have, after years of scientific research into the unnatural mortality of insect pests, discovered that striking a cockroach with almost any type of footwear has many advantages. It is more economic and more environmentally friendly than insecticide sprays, and there is no accompanying unpleasant aroma.
Moreover a percussive execution usually leads to a more immediate and hence kinder extinction. While demanding greater courage and an advanced degree of stealth on the part of the hunter, the prey invariably dies the right way up and hence with dignity. The great disadvantage with this method is that, on occasions, the reliquiae of the deceased become less intact, leading to more complex funerary rites, obsequies and procedures for the predator to perform. The post-mortem may also create a slightly uneasy feeling. Paul Wiseman, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Any answers?
l What kind of alcohol does the body needs and how much? Lesego Mashigo, Johannesburg
l How did Bunny Chow get its name? S Sherry, Johannesburg
l The sell-by date on one of my jars of organic baby food, which contains meat and vegetables, is in 2004, yet no preservatives are listed in the ingredients. How is this is possible? Alice Taylor, London