History Main / TheSmurfettePrinciple

** ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'' has a DoubleSubversion. It appears there are two major female characters, Queen Amidala and Padmé, but in the end they turn out to be the same person.

* While ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' has a not-bad 3:2 male-female ratio for the Golden Ticket finders and 5:4 ratio for the parents/guardians who come with them (the latter reduced to 3:2 in adaptations), there is a tendency for the GreekChorus of Oompa-Loompas to be depicted as almost or exclusively male in adaptations, even though the novel makes it clear there are females. Only males are seen in [[Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory the 1971 film]] and [[Theatre/TheGoldenTicket 2010 opera]] (the latter has an all-female squirrel chorus as a counterpart). While ''hundreds'' are seen in the [[Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2005 film]] only ''one'' is depicted as female, though this is partially because [[ActingForTwo one actor plays all of them]]. The [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]] has about equal numbers of male and female Oompa-Loompas played by the chorus.

* While ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'' has a not-bad 3:2 male-female ratio for the Golden Ticket tour finders and 5:4 ratio for the parents/guardians who come with them (the latter reduced to 3:2 in adaptations), there is a tendency for the GreekChorus of Oompa-Loompas to be depicted as almost or exclusively male in adaptations, even though the novel makes it clear there are females. Only males are seen in [[Film/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory the 1971 film]] and [[Theatre/TheGoldenTicket 2010 opera]] (the latter has an all-female squirrel chorus as a counterpart). While ''hundreds'' are seen in the [[Film/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2005 film]] only ''one'' is depicted as female, though this is partially because [[ActingForTwo one actor plays all of them]]. The [[Theatre/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory 2013 stage musical]] has about equal numbers of male and female Oompa-Loompas played by the chorus.

* ''Radio/TheBrewingNetwork'''s Justin tries hard to make sure there is at least one woman on The Session- usually it's the chat moderator, with the role mostly filled in the early years by Daniela and afterwards by Beevo. Occasionally Suzie Q would join the crew. Listeners have criticised the show as being overly blokey as a result. The other shows are almost always 100% male, though Beevo occasionally makes a contribution to The Sour Hour, as she is working at The Hop Grenade while the show is recorded.

* Betty Marsden was the only female performer to appear on ''Radio/RoundTheHorne'' and it's predecessor, Beyond Our Ken.
* ''TheBrewingNetwork'''sJustin tries hard to make sure there is at least one woman on The Session- usually it's the chat moderator, with the role mostly filled in the early years by Daniela and afterwards by Beevo. Occasionally Suzie Q would join the crew. Listeners have criticised the show as being overly blokey as a result. The other shows are almost always 100% male, though Beevo occasionally makes a contribution to The Sour Hour, as she is working at The Hop Grenade while the show is recorded.

** ''WesternAnimation/{{WALL-E}}'' has 4:3, plus a male-sounding text-to-speech program for the autopilot. D-Fib has been confirmed as female in obscure media.

* UpToEleven in ''Fanfic/MyLittleUnicorn''. According to WordOfGod, the population of Unicornicopia consists mostly of males. While the story has at least four female winged unicorns in it, only Starla (who is mostly there as the LoveInterest) and Dementia have any form of slight significance to the overall plot.

* ''{{Disney/Frozen}}'' only has two female characters, but the bonus is that they are both the protagonists. Aside from Anna and Elsa, the only other females in the film are in the trolls (who are one-scene characters) and the girls' mother who dies within the first twenty minutes.

** ''{{Disney/Aladdin}}'' has only Jasmine. Aladdin's mother was originally in the film too but got cut.

* ''{{Disney/Frozen}}'' only has two female characters but the bonus is that they are both the protagonists. Aside from Anna and Elsa, the only other females in the film are in the trolls (who are one-scene characters) and the girls' mother who dies within the first twenty minutes.

* In Creator/{{Bally}}'s ''Pinball/DungeonsAndDragons,'' the only adventurer is the Valkyrie.

** ''Disney/TheLionKing'' - Nala is the TokenRomance and Sarabi is there as Simba's mother. The hyenas also have only one female Shenzi (who was originally supposed to be male). Again, the sequel fixes this by making the protagonist Simba's ''daughter'', the villain being the female Zira and also including her daughter Vitani. But again Sarabi and Shenzi were dropped and Nala was even less important.

* Like its source material, the 2011 film ''Film/{{Tintin}}'' exemplifies this trope. It has only a handful of female characters, and only two of them (Tintin's landlady Mrs. Finch and opera singer Bianca Castafiore) have names, dialogue, or any importance to the plot.
* 7 is the only female ragdoll in ''WesternAnimation/{{Nine}}''. The twins 3 and 4 never talk, so their gender is ambiguous, but that's still a 1/2/6 ratio. On the other hand, only 7 is a fighter or independent by nature. Plus, they were made from the brain essence of a man, so it's surprising there are ''any'' females among them. Made fun of in [[http://mad-but-happy.deviantart.com/art/Pick-of-the-Litter-140004585 this]] comic.

* ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'' has exactly one female Autobot, who gets one short line and appears on screen for the entirety of thirty-eight seconds (before getting blasted away), making her appearance more or less a cameo.

** Arcee was cut at the last minute from the first movie and was replaced by Ironhide because of negative fan reaction to her. Also, it was decided that there wasn't enough time to discuss why there were female Transformers in the first place (not that it stopped them from appearing in the second movie). There are a handful of female human characters, though most are simply eye candy.

* Out of all the support crew for {{Film/Captain America|TheFirstAvenger}}, Peggy Carter is the only significant female on the SSR team. She, however, is arguably one of the main characters of the movie, though.

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick talks about this in a video titled "[[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thedudette/nostalgia-chick/16616-the-smurfette-principle The Smurfette Principle]]". At that point, she was also an example of it, though two other women joined the site at the same time, and Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses, as a site, has gone on to build a larger female cast. Her hiring was, in fact, an attempt by Website/ThatGuyWithTheGlasses to apply The Smurfette Principle: there were no female reviewers on the site at the time, and the site advertised a contest specifically to find a DistaffCounterpart to WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic.
* With Website/CollegeHumor's ''WebVideo/HardlyWorking'' skits, Sarah Schneider was often depicted as this.
* Anita Sarkeesian of WebVideo/FeministFrequency tells Hollywood that it is in fact possible to have more than one woman in your script. You could even have 2 or 3 women or even the majority of your cast be women.

* Before they became animated series, the ''Franchise/GIJoe'' and ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' toy lines debuted with a single female character each (Scarlett and Teela, respectively). Each added a female villain before long (TheBaroness and Evil Lynn). For a while ''G.I. Joe'' added one woman per year, plus variations on the existing characters. ''Masters of the Universe'' added...one.
** Although ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' eventually spun off an entire Distaff Counterpart franchise, ''Franchise/SheRaPrincessOfPower'', which featured only three MALE characters amongst an otherwise all-female cast. (And two of those males, Kowl the owl and Loo-Kee the elf, were pretty androgynous anyway.)
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' series' toy lines. All of them. [[FridgeLogic Though one could argue why alien robots conform to human genders in the first place]].
* Most action toy lines in general follow this trope, generally on the basis that boys won't buy action figures of female characters. This was the reason Katara from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' never got an action figure despite being an ActionGirl on the main cast, while a male character, Bumi, who was only in ''one'' episode, got one. Howver, there were a far share of males who missed out on figures, like Iroh and Ozai, and a live-action Katara was made.