Psycho Lesbian Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

Doesn't this happen to straight characters too?

Andyzero: I anticipated that question. "One could argue that a Psycho Lesbian just happens to be a Stalker With A Crush and a lesbian at the same time, but there seems to be a larger percentage that share the traits."

Rosybloom: Here's an FAQ about the cliche http://www.stephenbooth.org/lesbiancliche.htm

Dark Sasami: Fans of the lesbian in Mai-Hi ME consist of those who feel the writers threw it in to discredit her, and the ones who actively the insanity.

Actively what the insanity?

Semiapies: Willow's a bad example - her crazy flip-out happened due to the murder of her girlfriend right in front of her, two seasons after she came out. Removing it.

osh: This page has a weird undercurrent of snarkiness, so I'll ask in advance if anyone minds if I take a crack at making it a bit more objective?

Citizen: This is a page about crazy lesbians, and you want to make it more objective? =P

Seth: While i hold no objection to making it more objective i think it sort of defeats the point of the website.

To quote the main page "Oh, and just for the record: This is not Wikipedia. We're a buttload more informal. We encourage breezy language and original thought. (And we won't object to the occasional snarky comment, either.)"

We don't want to be objective, we want to be fun. WikipediaUpdaters running around trying to make things objective sort of kills a small part of the site.

Mister Six: Yeah, the snark is part of the fun. I enjoy reading a good snark even if it's about a show/concept that I like. I've restored some of the snark while keeping bits of Osh's work.

osh: I guess my major issue with the trope is, not that the trope doesn't exist, but nearly all the examples given have a primarily female cast (especially given the tacofest that is Strawberry Panic...)

Susan Davis: The canonical list of examples would be Erica Freeman's Evil Psycho Lesbian list; a link to that would be particularly helpful.

Janitor: Erica Freeman's Evil Psycho Lesbian list does not exist on Google. Which is like it does not exist. Is this a dead-tree thing? Because ... e-yuw ... tree corpses!

osh: Probably cause it's Friedman...

Lale: Even so, no offense, but I hardly think that's enough evidence that it wouldn't exist.

Janitor: I tried "Friedman", just now. Nada. Look, this is not about whether the list exists or not. It is about "Where's the frackin' link!?"

Seth: All i've found now (With my epic search skillz) is that Erica friedman is the president of Yuricon

- Will keep looking.

Found The List

- but this is lesbians period. Will keep looking.

Found a few references to the list in her blog, no link tho - BTW this woman is hillarious, well worth a read.

This woman lists everything, top ten lists galore - but i can't find a copy of her evil psycho lesbian list - just many references in her blog. Ozaku

. Which of her (Five that i have found) sites did you read the list on?

Susan Davis: I just emailed her, and she sent me a copy of the list by email; as far as I know, she doesn't keep it on the web anywhere. I've added it to the entry.

Ununnilium: ...Miu from Ichigo Mashimaro? O.o She's a fairly normal (if weird) 12-year-old girl in a slice-of-life comedy series. Are you sure you got the right list?

Susan Davis: I'm pretty dubious about that one (and wouldn't mind seeing it edited out), although it is the case that Erica considers her an EPL in training.

osh: Removed the Strawberry Panic example; neither is psycho and being a lesbian isn't notable in that show. I think I'm only having issue with some of the examples because a lot of them are from bishoujo series, and I'm not sure how you can avoid this trope if men are pretty much a non-entity.

Susan Davis: Are you kidding? Those two are among the most obvious examples... and known among fans of the series as the "EPL duo". I'm putting them back in.

osh: Also, ignoring the straight examples, why does the Boys Love version of the trope not raise anyone's hackles? Or is the stereotype of the melodrama-loving fangirl true?

Lale: It's acceptable for bona fide villains to be psycho(?)

Roland: Perhaps it has to do with the somewhat more ambiguous place of Boys Love in viewers' expectations- the old 'lesbians are ok, gays are bad' double standard?

osh: considering Boys Love viewers tend to be very fond of Ho Yay, i doubt it.

Ununnilium: Some details would be appreciated on the "list"

Steelhead Tsotha: What would be a good exampe lof a male equivalent of this? A "Camp Gay" villain like, say, Buffalo Bill from The Silence Of The Lambs?

Twin Bird: I don't think there really is a male equivalent, at least not in the West. This isn't just about psychos who happen to be lesbians, or we would have to have tropes from Psycho Redhead to Psycho Bostonian; this trope goes back to the idea, although seldom intentional nowadays, that desiring women (or men, excessively - cf Femme Fatale) was itself an early symptom of "hysteria." Although homosexuality was once viewed as a pathology, there was no comparable greater pathology.

However, there is an idea of "devians in uno, devians in omnibus" that could account for a male version, as it certainly does for the more current Depraved Bisexual.

If there is a male version, the first people who come to mind are Hitchcock villains, especially Bruno from Strangers on a Train.

Jisu: Neither April nor Marciano were lesbians, although they were definitely psycho. Methinks someone's been reading a few too many incest doujin of the SISTERs.

Wasn't there a picture for this once?

Lale: If Shego qualifies, Azula definitely does. Want to cut all the Subtext Fanon examples? (I vote "aye.") In the meantime, back up.

Sketch: How is Azula a Psycho Lesbian? Seriously, how? There is no subtext, there is no text-text, there's nothing! Just fantasies by fanboys who enjoy their Rule Thirty Four. And the "favorite prisoner" line was purely to taunt Sokka, nothing more. And if Shego's inclusion is so questionable than maybe that entry should be removed too.

Lale: There's no subtext for Shego, either, so, yes deifnitely to that.

Twin Bird: Um, Lale...have you ever seen the show? Shego's banter gets very suggestive in some episodes. Seriously, when I heard about this, I thought it was just Yuri Fanboys being Yuri Fanboys, but having watched a few episodes, and someone's definitely got it for "her Kimmie."

I hardly ever watch Avatar, but from spending too much time on this site, the "my favorite prisoner" line seems like the only thing beyond "if Azula were male...", and that line was probably just to taunt Sokka.

Editted out the Persona 3 one - considering Natsuki was under mind-control at the time that Fuuka got hurt protecting her from the Shadow, this should more go under Brainwashed And Crazy.

H. Torrance Griffin: Pulled

The Amazons are a lethal biker gang in Y:The Last Man who are distinguished by their psychotic hatred for the former patriarchal society and their lesbianism. Although, the latter isn't that distinguishing in a world where all the men have died.

Because the proverbial 'hat' of said gang/cult is not so much lust for women (even as a perverse hobby) as hatred for all things remotely male. I do admit that the whole Victoria/Hero thing leaned toward Stockholm Snogging, but as an overall driving force for the group?

Re-editted the Code Geass example, because while Nina is, or originally was a pretty good example, she's uh... nowhere near as bad as the editor presented her as, and she was definitely not cold and arrogant to Kallen, especially since she almost began to cry and fell to her knees when her friend refuted her when she said that 'half-Britannian' is Britannian enough.

Attilargh: Edited out the completely misplaced, absurdly long paragraph of Nina-hatin'.

Should we scrap the Red Adept from this trope? All the Tropers who've commented on the issue, not to mention Word of God, say that Red wasn't a lesbian and that the readers were mistaking asexuality for homosexuality. (No idea why that seems to happen.)

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