This weekend, many of us will meet the already iconic Lady Dimitrescu for the first time. Or, as many of us know her, the Big Vampire Lady. I haven’t played Resident Evil Village yet, so I’ve no idea how much of the game she’s in, whether she’ll live up to the hype, or whether she’s secretly a slithering mass of tentacles under her elegant silks. I’m sure once I’ve played it, I’ll have a lot to say about ol’ Lady D. For now though, I want to look back on Lady Dimitrescu until this point – Lady Dimitrescu before we meet her. She has been wrapped up in arguably the biggest gaming meme of 2021, but maybe she’s a bit more important than that.
The gag with Lady Dimitrescu is that she’s tall. Very tall. She has a very dominant vibe, and the physical stature to back it up, but she’s also very sophisticated and feminine, and has an older, motherly way about her. It’s easy to see the appeal. I hesitate to place any onus on her about diverse body types, because while 9 foot 6 is clearly incredibly tall – so tall she’d definitely kill you if she stepped on you – she looks like a fairly standard glamorous woman. It’s similar to Hades being praised for its body diversity, when in fact everyone was just a different type of muscular, athletic, and conventionally attractive.
I also don’t think being a tall woman is as stigmatised as being a short man – I’m 5 foot 11 and it’s not one of the things I feel particularly insecure about. Megan Thee Stallion, Taylor Swift, and Karlie Kloss are all around the same height as me and I don’t look to any of them as role models either, because much like Lady D, I look nothing like them, and I don’t see any of them as breaking barriers on who or what gets to be labelled ‘beautiful’.
So I don’t think Lady Dimitrescu is groundbreaking in that sense – although if you are a tall woman empowered by Lady Dimitrescu, more power to you. Still, it does feel as if there’s something different about Lady D compared to many of the other female characters that are sexualised in the gaming space. I think it’s because we’re all in on the joke.
Take a character like Lara Croft, for example. When Tomb Raider first launched, she was hailed as a watershed moment for gaming – a tough female heroine here to ruffle some feathers in a very male dominated medium. And no doubt about it, Lara was that watershed moment. But several men tried to steal this power away – whether intentionally, in order to keep gaming male dominated, or accidentally, because they had never had to consider women in the space before. Things like the Nude Raider myth, the boob size bug myth officially busted once and for all in our interview with Toby Gard, and other oversexualised depictions of her tried to rob Lara of her shine. While women saw her as an icon, a trailblazer, many men acted as if nothing had changed – Lara was there as a plaything for them, both literally and metaphorically.
Thanks in part to heroes like Lara though, things have changed. Things are still not ideal in the gaming space – there’s still plenty of discrimination, as well as glass ceilings and stereotypical depictions of various minority groups across games. Nevertheless, things have changed – Lady Dimitrescu may not be a new summit for diverse body types, but she is clear proof of the turning tide. I’m sure there is fanart out there that depicts Lady Dimitrescu in a variety of ways, but that’s the point – it’s out there, in the nebulous somewhere. The demeaning of Lara Croft was mainstream, but with Lady Dimitrescu, we’re all in on the fun.
It’s not there to humiliate women, to make them feel unsafe or unwelcome in the gaming space – Lady Dimitrescu is for everyone. It’s because of this that we’ve seen Capcom get in on the Lady D love on its incredibly thirsty TikTok, as well as selling Dimitrescu towels. It’s not just that she’s dominant either – Ann Takamaki is placed in a dominatrix role against her will in Persona 5, and it very obviously makes her uncomfortable. The key quality to the Lady Dimitrescu hype is that it’s all consensual. It’s not just men fantasising. The whole fanbase, whatever gender or sexuality, is in on it. Lady Dimitrescu is in on it, suckling blood from your hand. Capcom has played this terrifically, consistently centring Lady D – even making her into a seductive sock puppet – but never objectifying her or presenting her as a plaything.
I have no idea if she will live up to the hype in the game. I suspect not, because Resident Evil has a habit of blowing it after the set up, and Lady D has been built up so much I’m not sure anyone could live up to it. Still, we’ll always have the memes.
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