She finally learned how to wear her coat on her shoulders, it only took switching to a whole new medium.
Examples of Adaptational Modesty in live-action television.- Animorphs: The kids are able to take their clothes with them when morphing. In the original books, they went the Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing route except for skintight clothes.
- Arrowverse:
- Arrow
- Black Canary's trademark fishnet stockings are replaced with a pair of leather pants. The second Black Canary takes it a step further, taking the original Canary's cleavage baring corset top
and replacing it with something more like a turtleneck. - Huntress is given a more modest outfit as well. This is hilariously lampshaded when she poses as a stripper... wearing the costume from the original comics.
- Black Canary's trademark fishnet stockings are replaced with a pair of leather pants. The second Black Canary takes it a step further, taking the original Canary's cleavage baring corset top
- Legends of Tomorrow gave Hawkman and Hawkgirl costumes that were much more modest than the usual costumes worn by the original comics versions, who tend not to wear more than the bare minimum above the waist.
- The Flash (2014): Savitar. While his comic counterpart was a shirtless man covered in muscles, the Savitar of the show not only wears a conservative black jacket and trousers but spends all but a few episodes sealed in a giant suit of Powered Armor.
- Supergirl:
- Supergirl's costume covers more. In-universe, Kara was not comfortable with a midriff-baring costume. Her skirt covers the calves until near the knees and she wears Stocking Filler to avoid panty shots. At the start of Season 5, Kara's dumped the skirt and wears pants with her costume, making her more in line with her cousin, seeing as he's off on semi-retirement while he and Lois have a kid.
- In the comics, Reign the Worldkiller wears pants, boots, a bra, and a shoulder pad and gauntlets. In the show, she wears a black variation of Supergirl's costume that has pants instead of a skirt.
- In the comics, Dream Girl wears a skimpy silver swimsuit and matching gloves and boots. Her TV counterpart, Dreamer, wears a full-body costume and a mask.
- The comic-book version of Menagerie wears a skimpy outfit that consists mainly of a sports bra and a thong. The TV version wears a pantsuit.
- Arrow
- The 2005 live-action version of Attack No. 1 removes the School Sport Uniform outfits from the manga and anime, replacing them with biker shorts that reaches the kneecaps, to accommodate the Setting Update as the traditional schoolgirl buruma have since fallen out of favour in Japanese schools around the late 90s.
- The Boys has Queen Maeve, who being a Wonder Woman Wannabe, went from the very cleavaged Leotard of Power featured in the comics to something more in line with the armor-like costume worn by Gal Gadot in the DC Extended Universe.
- The original Scandinavian series of The Bridge (2011) had Stefan naked in his apartment, with everything shown. The US remake's corresponding scene had Steven wearing a pair of jeans.
- In Call the Midwife, the episode where a woman gives birth on a ship has Trixie dither about modesty for a moment before she and Sister Evangelina climb an intimidating rope ladder successfully in their nurse’s skirted uniform and habit, respectively, and the patient gives birth in a nightie. In the original memoir, Chummy climbs the ladder with her skirt shoved into her knickers to keep it out of the way and the patient delivers her baby naked. (In general the books contain a lot of vulvas, perineums, and breasts that a visual medium can’t get away with without seriously upping the rating.)
- The three leads from the 2018 Charmed series dress much more modestly than their original counterparts, whose series was very heavy on Fanservice.
- The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC): Downplayed in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, in a non-sexual example. In the book, Edmund forgets his big fur coat when he sneaks out of the Beavers' house, so he has to make his travels in the snow without it, making it a terrible journey for him. In the adaptation, however, he does have his coat. He even tries to take it off when the snow starts melting, until the Witch glares at him.
- In the Sky One adaptation of The Colour of Magic, Liessa Wyrmbidder is basically wearing a leather halter top and shorts. Not very modest, but more so than the book, which calls her "almost naked save for a couple of scraps of chain mail".
- Cowboy Bebop: Faye's main outfit consists of the same building blocks as her Cowboy Bebop outfit (a yellow crop top, shorts, and a red jacket). The main difference is the addition of tights, bumping up her shoes to thigh-high boots, and wearing her jacket normally as opposed to letting it slinkily fall over her shoulders as she does in the anime. The changes are largely a practical decision to give Daniella Pineda and her stunt double a way to cover up protective padding during stunt work.
- Doom Patrol (2019):
- Celsius' Doom Patrol uniform is shown to cover up as much as those worn by her teammates Mento and Lodestone, when in the comics her costume left her legs bare.
- This continuity's interpretation of the SeX Men wear fully concealing jumpsuits, when their depictions in the comics had them walking around bare-chested with open jackets.
- Valentina Vostok wears a fully-concealing spacesuit, when her comic counterpart wore a costume with a Navel-Deep Neckline even when she wasn't bandaged.
- In the Generation X TV-movie, Emma Frost wears an almost-modest white strapless corset-like top, and usually has a white suit jacket on top of that.
- A downplayed example in the live-action Kim Possible film. Said film removes the bare midriff of Kim's outfit from the cartoon, following in the footsteps of later seasons of the show, which gradually toned down the fanservice. Here is a side-by-side comparison.
- In the j-drama adaptation, Miki from Life (2002) works at a more average cafe instead of a bunny cafe.
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe series:
- In Daredevil, Elektra's outfit has pants and some more covering on the torso, in contrast to the leotard/bathing suit-type costume she usually wears in the comics. In The Defenders, Elektra gets a costume more similar to her iconic comic look upon her resurrection, but with black leggings. She also often wears a long black coat over it for additional modesty.
- Kate Bishop's costume from Hawkeye (2021) is based on her purple Spy Catsuit from the Fraction/Aja run, but with the hip cutouts removed. The outfit also has two sleeves this time, though that may have been for the sake of practicality, since the show taking place during Christmas in NYC made the idea of Kate running around with an exposed arm less sensible.
- Sylvie from Loki is a direct expy of Amora Enchantress, although instead of the skimpy comic outfit has a full body suit. Triple example as MCU Sylvie takes influence from both Young Avengers’ Sylvie Lushton and Lady Loki both of whom rock a Navel-Deep Neckline unlike their TV counterpart.
- She-Hulk: Attorney at Law: The titular Amazonian Beauty gets this. Most Marvel readers know Shulkie’s iconic outfits are: a shredded shirt that only manages convey her naughty bits and in modern times a small and form-fitting Leotard of Power, which Depending on the Artist barely covers She-Hulk’s vulva and butt cheeks. In the MCU, She-Hulk has more a modest costume with a shoulder and thigh-length bodysuit. Played With though, as the tone of the show is actually Hotter and Sexier in liu of the John Byrne’s very popular The Sensational She-Hulk, with She-Hulk casually dressing sexily and being explicitly amorous with Amazon Chaser men.
- WandaVision sees sees the Vision's rebuilt all-white form wear a bodysuit like he usually always does. In the comics, the Vision's costume in his all-white phase only amounted to a cape and speedo, the rest being his "skin" on display.
- For MTV's Spring Break broadcasts, some women who come to the beach/concert wearing particularly skimpy bathing suits note are variously given a bathing suit with more coverage, edited out of footage, or covered with a Digital Bikini.
- In the BBC adaptation of Neverwhere Neil Gaiman was unhappy because he wanted Hunter to be more stripperiffic than in the TV show.
- Once Upon a Time:
- In-universe example. In Storybrooke, everyone's cursed personas wear far more modest clothes than their Enchanted Forest counterparts, with the exception of Ruby/Little Red Riding Hood. Ursula, Maleficent, Zelena and Regina all have form-fitting dresses that emphasize cleavage in the Enchanted Forest — but rather modest clothes in Storybrooke. The fairies as a whole show plenty of cleavage in the Enchanted Forest, but in Storybrooke they're nuns (and not that kind).
- Ariel is naked when she transforms from mermaid to human (save for her Seashell Bra) in her film. Whenever she transforms in the series, her tail turns into a skirt.
- In Peter Pan, Tinker Bell wears an off-the-shoulder mini dress with a very short skirt. In the TV show she has sleeves and a higher neckline, though the skirt appears to be the same length.
- Sirens in Greek mythology are commonly depicted nude or as scantily clad Cute Monster Girls. The one that appears in the series wears a long dress.
- Megara has a very sexy dress with shoulder straps that are always on the verge of falling down. In the show, she's dressed more modestly (presumably as she's now a teenager rather than adult).
- Aladdin is also more covered up in the Agrabah scenes on the show than he is in the film. Jasmine is a borderline case, as she's given a variety of outfits and cloaks that she wears while out and about — as opposed to her famous Bedlah Babe outfit. She does however appear wearing the Bedlah Babe costume towards the end of the episode — amusingly enough applying this trope to another part of the movie; she gets trapped in an hourglass by Jafar. In the movie she's wearing an even vampier red costume (per Jafar's Go-Go Enslavement), but is wearing her original costume on the show.
- In Power Rangers, though they're People in Rubber Suits and not very sexy to begin with, characters like Jellica from Power Rangers Jungle Fury often have more boob-coverage than their Super Sentai counterparts. Necrolai from Power Rangers Mystic Force almost always has her arm in front of her chest. However, human villain Nadira from Power Rangers Time Force has a more revealing outfit; mostly the same but with midriff bared, and bare legs instead of stockings, whereas her counterpart, Mirai Sentai Timeranger's Lila, was designed with an eye toward not being as Stripperific as recent past villainesses.
- Preacher (2016): God in the comic was always nude, but in the live-action television series, he is only shown clothed.
- Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon:
- The skirts of the Sailor Senshi are much longer than the ridiculously short mini skirts the Sailors wear in the manga and anime.
- Queen Beryl has a Navel-Deep Neckline in the anime and manga. The costume here covers things up a little more, as well as giving Beryl a cloak that she wears over her gown.
- The anime and manga featured a lot of villains that were really just Cute Monster Girls. Not many of them appeared in the live-action.
- When Luna is turned into a human in the anime, it's that of an attractive woman in a flattering princess dress. She gains a human form in the live-action too, but instead it's of a little girl.
- The Sandman:
- John Dee escapes from the mental institution wearing nothing but his pajamas. In the comic, the institution was more of a Bedlam House (the comic was set in the DC Universe with said institution being freaking Arkham Asylum!) and the warders didn't trust him with anything, so he wasn't even wearing pajamas.
- The Anthropomorphic Personification of Despair wears a dowdy outfit suggesting that she can't be bothered with what her clothes look like. It covers a lot of skin, especially in comparison to her comic book counterpart, who generally didn't bother with clothes at all.
- "Lost Hearts": In the comic, the climactic dream sequence saw Rose either nude or clad in a gauzy drape that left very little to the imagination. In the TV version, she's fully dressed throughout in the same sensible clothes she wears while awake.
- The Sandman, "Calliope": In the original comic story, Calliope is kept naked by her captors and scenes where Madoc violates her for his inspiration are shown on page. In the TV version, Calliope is permitted some clothing, though not much, and her violations are not shown: the first time Madoc does it gets a Rape Discretion Shot, and subsequent instances are only implied by the fact that he continues to gain inspiration.
- A Series of Unfortunate Events: In "The Penultimate Peril, Part 1", Esmé Squalor wears a full swimsuit and sarong instead of the "bikini" made of four lettuce leaves held together with tape that she wore in the book.
- Stargirl (2020): The Shiv suit in the comics had an open space between the neck piece and chest plate, exposing the character’s cleavage. In the show, a collar is added to the open area.
- Titans: When Starfire finally gets her purple costume in Season 3, it shows off far less skin than the one she wears in the comics.
- The Umbrella Academy:
- In the comic, Vanya once she is transformed into the White Violin by the Orchestra Verdammten is completely naked, albeit lacking visible genitalia but with some Nipple and Dimed. In the show, Vanya is clothed throughout the finale with only her suit turning white along with her skin and irises.
- Also Luther in the comic only wears underwear, since it's a big plot point that he's got a Gorilla-like body. In the show, he wears a Conspicuous Trenchcoat to hide that fact. Though even after The Reveal Luther always wears a top save a for a few occasions, unlike the comic.
- The Warrior Nun Netflix series does away with the infamously skimpy costume from the original comic.
- The live-action Witchblade series did away with the Clothing Damage aspect of the titular Instant Armor.
- The failed Wonder Woman pilot for NBC originally had the heroine wearing a pair of rubbery blue pants,◊ but outrage from the fanbase led to the inclusion of a more comic-accurate version of the iconic costume. A third option, a pair of pants that were darker and not as rubbery was received a lot better from several groups (both those that disliked the first pair and those who want Diana to have a costume that's a little more dignified than her typical swimsuit look,) but the series wasn't picked up for a full season, so it became a moot point.
