Spy Catsuit - Television Tropes & Idioms

alt title(s): Cat Suit

The Baroness knows how it's done.

"A male rogue will wear dark leather armor with little metal studs all over it, because nothing says "stealth" like a bunch of glittering bits of metal all over the place. Ladies in the same profession lean towards the skin-tight catsuit look, because the first step in being stealthy is apparently to make sure every able-bodied man within a hundred paces is staring at you with his mouth slightly open... It's nice to see that when it comes to apparel, roleplaying games have a lot of equality: Everybody dresses like an idiot."

— The DM, Chainmail Bikini

During any infiltration or stealth operation, the female lead will wear an impossibly tight catsuit. It's almost always black, may be shiny leather or plastic. It's never a camo pattern, and it can't have pockets. There will often be a single zipper on the front, which will result in Absolute Cleavage when it's unzipped. The impractical suit will frequently be accompanied by ridiculous high heels. If you see someone in one of these, there's little she can say to convince you she's not a spy or a fetishist (unless It's a Sci-Fi series).

The writers may try to justify it, saying it's a stealth garment with sensor defeating properties (so she's seductively slathered herself in Applied Phlebotinum). It could be for freedom of movement (yes, tight leather lets you flex— about ten degrees at most). It could be that she just swam up to the facility and can't ditch the wetsuit. In reality, it's to make the inevitable climbing, shimmying, flipping and belly-crawling through a Laser Hallway look that much more like a lapdance.

Shows up in most Spy Drama shows. Any action show that puts a female character through an infiltration scene will use it. Mostly used with at least a wink these days.

Often extremely shiny, against all logic.

Popular subversions:

A male character uses one, especially an unattractive one. (see Estrogen Brigade Bait)
It's some very bright color.
The female spy shows up to the mission in normal, practical clothes, and males around her express disappointment.

A variant on this is the excessively Stripperiffic outfits worn by female ninja in Anime (see the female teachers from Naruto). Another variant are leather motorcycle jumpsuits.

Examples:

Advertising

Erin eSurance, the female agent in the inescapable eSurance commercials, frequently sports one.

Anime and Manga

In Ghost In The Shell, Major Kusanagi wears a spy catsuit that really is a stealth device, called thermoptic camouflage. In the movie at least, this technology is used fairly extensively, although she has to be nude to use it (or rather, a flesh-colored skinsuit. The suit leaves a noticeable neckline where her skin color contrasts with the suit's.) It's somewhat less drastic in other iterations, which look more practical.
- While the Major's normal combat wear shows more curvas than the standard models, it's generally quite practical. The major exception to this is in the Stand Alone Complex the 2nd Gig episode Cash Eye, which plays with the infiltration and espionage tropes, and repeated references to Ocean's Eleven, and has her wear a catsuit that fits this trope to tee with little purpose. Perhaps the outfit let the android fetishist Corrupt Corporate Executive to mistake her for a combat android.
In Gantz the male characters also wear skin-tight jumpsuits. It's also worth noting that each outfit is so specifically designed that only the person it was meant for could wear it.
The special corps in Bleach wear a variation of these, their leader wears a kimono version (But Omake shows both her and Yoruichi in more standard ones).
- Yoruichi in a catsuit, eh?
Cats Eye, anyone? Spy catsuits complete with Xtreme plunging necklines and built-in high heels, for added stealth obviously.
Used rather bizarrely in Death Note, where professional thief Weddy wears a classic 60's style catsuit (built in high-heels and all) while infiltrating a building, for no apparent reason. Possibly justified in that the series artist has admitted basing her on stereotypical female spy archetypes, but it still clashes with the feel of the story.
In Lupin III, one of Fujiko Mine's regular outfits is a black leather spy catsuit which she frequently doesn't zip up all the way.
Angel of The Big O will occasionally wear one of these. Like almost everything else she wears, it's bright pink.

Comic Books

Comic book characters Catwoman (DC) and Black Cat (Marvel).
The catsuit is the basic uniform for agents in Marvel's spy agency SHIELD, for men and women (and, as seen in the 1990s miniseries Nick Fury vs SHIELD, even pudgy overweight male administrators).
In Adam Warren's Empowered comic, the heroine doesn't just wear a shiny skintight suit, it's a shiny skintight suit of power armor that tears like a wet hanky if she brushes against anything that has a point on it. Of course, his comic is a parody of all the tied-up, mostly naked superdamsels in distress he was drawing for commissions, but still ...
- "Empowered" goes well beyond skintight; the power suit is actually a membrane-thin piece of nothing that leaves the wearer effectively naked, while fighting crime in public. The point to 'Empowered' is to get your humiliation fetish in your ironically-titled supers fantasy.
The Black Widow in the Marvel Universe.
Oddly averted in Codename: Knockout— though it's a spy parody practically made out of Fan Service, the protagonist almost never wears her catsuit outside of covers.
Archie Comics Betty and Veronica wear black catsuits when acting as "Agents B & V".
Booster Gold uses two of the subversions; he's a guy and the suit is bright metallic gold and dark blue. Goldstar's (his sister's) suit is also bright metallic gold and white.

Film

The Kensington ladies and Foxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers, obviously.
If there was a point to the movie Entrapment beyond showing Catherine Zeta-Jones in one of these as she slinked through a maze of trip beams, this particular editor missed it.
- It's been all but confirmed that the producers said to the scriptwriters, "See her ass? Build a film around it."
Selene in Underworld wears one of these constantly. She's not actually a spy, but often has to be stealthy - she is a vampire, after all. The sequel explains her instantaneous Vampire Healing Powers but never mentions the fact that her suit seems to heal itself as well.
Trinity in The Matrix trilogy.
Played straight and inverted in the 2008 Get Smart movie. Agent 99 plays it straight through the laser field wearing a skintight dress. Max Smart then copies her moves halfway through with a near-lampshade look over his shoulder.
In the Live-Action X-Men movies both the male and female X-Men wear the tight leather suits. The problem of mobility is pointed out in the DVD extra material by Hugh Jackman as the suits created literal Insurmountable Waist Height Fence situations.
Subverted in the Roger Moore thriller FFolkes, where the titular character, upon discovering the wetsuit he will be using to infiltrate the hijacked North Sea oil platform to stop terrorists from blowing it up snarks, "A wet suit in vermilion. Just what one needs at night."
In Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, a quartet of jewel thieves posing as animal rights activists wear these to steal diamonds while the titular heroes are duped into freeing animals from the lab next door as a diversion.
The Avengers. Mrs. Peel and her clone (Uma Thurman) followed her predecessors' examples by wearing lots of skintight catsuits.
Beautifully averted in the Bond flick Quantum Of Solace, where in the Final Battle, Camille is wearing a practical outfit and tennis shoes, and even has her hair in a ponytail.

Literature

Lampshaded in Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Invincible; Jaina Solo more-or-less complains about how the suit she stole from a GAG soldier is more suitable for someone trying to draw some attention to themselves: ...a full size too small, and snug in all the wrong places for a woman trying to avoid attention.
- We also have a straight example in Mara Jade Skywalker - made even more obvious in the Japanese covers for the New Jedi Order novels as well as that of Sacrifice. Fans have even complained about the latter◊, and I can see why - she's 57, for Force's sake! Not that I necessarily agree with it, but still...
- Humans in Star Wars can live to be 200 and the Force users can live even longer, so she's like 30.
  - The main issue is the fact that she is always portrayed wearing it due to one highly inaccurate comic based off of a novel, in which she is described wearing a far more practical jumpsuit, that has sleeves.
  - Apparently Zahn (her creator) latched on to the Japanese covers, because in Allegiance she's described as wearing this exact kind of outfit (which is really impractical for a Jedi, never mind the fact that she wasn't one back then...). I'm kinda surprised that neither Luke nor Ben have called her out on this =/
  - If you were Luke would you call her out for wearing a skin tight catsuit? I think not...
The Executioner. A male example is Mack Bolan's blacksuit, worn not only to hide him in the dark but also for its psychological effect.
Mord-Sith in The Sword Of Truth. Skintight leather suits coming in brown, red, or white. At one point Richard sees one naked, and notes the only difference is color.
As pointed out below, these crop up a lot in Warhammer40k fiction. In Eisenhorn and Ravenor "bodygloves" are popular for both men and women. Inquisitor Amberly Vail wears something a lot like one to fit into and interface with her power armour, and the sight is enough to distract even Ciaphas Cain from the prospect of imminent danger...

Live Action TV

Rather persistently averted in [[Alias]], where any given spy is much more likely to be in nightclub wear. There are also episodes featuring camo Army-style getups, various forms of local ethnic costume, and tourist gear. Somewhat effected anyway in that nearly all these costumes end up being form-fitting and flattering.
The Avengers has the female lead, Emma Peel, and Cathy Gale before her, in this outfit frequently, and may have originated it. It didn't look so out of place◊ in the '60s. She also had a purple one.
- This was, essentially, the entire point behind the character. Her name alludes to it, even: Emma Peel ==> M. Appeal or Male Appeal.
- In later Emma Peel seasons, this ended up as a Justified Trope. The actress insisted on switching from the black leather catsuit to a coloured jersey version - just as skintight, but far more practical for gymnastically kicking Mooks in.
  - It was made of Crimpolene.
One episode of Walker Texas Ranger had the rangers break into a vault (for some reason). The relatively minor female ranger does it because "She's the only one that can fit into the stealth suit."
Most recently worn by Wendy Watson in The Middleman. Actually, she wears one in the opening credits, but "The Obsolescent Cryogenic Meltdown" is the first episode in which she wore one within the episode.
Eartha Kitt wore in an episode of Mission Impossible where she guest starred as an acrobat-contortionist used by the IMF to crawl through the vents of a foreign embassy.
Honey West
A semi-subversion: Parker in Leverage is fond of these... under street clothes or bulky harnesses that provide pockets and carabiner loops.
McGee fantasizes about Kate in a catsuit in one episode of NCIS. It's a little disturbing, because Kate has recently died.

Tabletop Games

Seen occasionally in Warhammer 40000. Several Eldar have one, but it's pretty much standard issue for the Officio Assassinorum agents of the Imperium. Some employ chamaeleonic mimicry abilities, others have no special reason apart from being Fetish Fuel. In one of the newer novels, this tendency is repeatedly lampshaded when several characters can't keep their eyes from the girl-assassin brought up by a rather puritanical sect who would most likely kill them if she had any idea why they looked at her like that...
- Justified in the case of the Eldar in that they make outfits of materials that literally shapeshift to keep contoured to the wearer. The idea is to make something that can be rigid and protective while still allowing the full range of mobility (which for the Eldar is considerable.)
- And, of course, there's the Harlequins in their skin-tight acrobat leotard that emits hologram fields.

Theater

Maureen in Rent. Whoa.

Video Games

Half Life's Black Operations females wore skintight suits. Highly annoying. In fact, in Half-Life 1, their breasts jiggled when they walked. It was removed in Opposing Force, an expansion. It's also worth noting that the males wore skin-tight black, too.
Strangely enough, in the Metal Gear Solid games, the Spy Catsuit is the domain of male spies◊. The female spies get to wear proper camo◊, suits, military uniforms or flight suits. The Boss starts out in a proper BDU, but switches this for possibly the least alluring-looking Spy Catsuit in history◊.
- The character designer for Metal Gear Solid admitted that Snake and Raiden's outfits, particularly Raiden's, were inspired by looking at bondage gear, probably an admission that it was intended as Fetish Fuel. On the character art, he draws an arrow to Raiden's buttocks, explicitly pointing out where his underwear lines can be seen through his clothes - it's subtly visible on the in-game model itself.
- But then Eva in Metal Gear Solid 3 plays this pretty straight, complete with the front-zipper cleavage, which features prominently in first-person cutscenes.
  - While I suppose it counts here, EVA is notable in that she's actively trying to seduce Big Boss.
- And don't forget MGS 4's Beauty and the Beast Corps, every last one of whom are wearing a full spandex (actually nanotech) bodysuit covering what appears to be a complete neck-to-toe see-through latex catsuit.
Rouge the Bat has a Super tight suit compleat with a heart breastplate.
Metroid's Samus Aran wears a bright blue catsuit underneath her Power Suit. This being Metroid, however, you only actually get to play as her in it in two games, the second being a Super Smash Bros. game.
- Also in said Super Smash Bros. game, Snake appears in his catsuit.
  - Oh, and don't forget Captain Falcon.
- Interestingly enough, while usually used for stealth, the Zero Suit is explicitly not designed for sneaking around and acts as more of a connector between Samus and the Power Suit
Cate Archer in No One Lives Forever wears one of these on occasion, probably as homage to Emma Peel, as the game is an irreverent take on Sixties spy fiction.
In Splinter Cell, the main character, a guy, wears a skintight black rubber suit. He often wears standard BDU pants on it, though.
- Fisher also wears flakjackets and other types of body armor over the spysuit◊
Joanna Dark in Perfect Dark.
- At least her catsuit had some armored parts.
A few of the Tomb Raider games has Lara in a cat suit.
Played completely straight in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames. Jennifer Mui's last unlockable costume is a catsuit with cleavage nearly reaching her navel. She will drop a Lampshade Hanging when she puts it on:
God, I might as well be in a video game.
In the Fallout 3 DLC Operation: Anchorage, one of the rewards for completing the simulation is Chinese Spy Catsuit that allows the wearer to gain a stealth field while sneaking. Although both male and female characters can equip it, the enemies who wear it are all males.
- Justified/subverted in that due to its stealth field properties, it IS a great asset to a spy. Not just a distraction for any horny opposite gender guards nearby.
Q-Bee from Darkstalkers is a subversion of this due to almost every outfit color for her is a rather bright color ( her normal being violet ) with VERY bright yellow makings. Then again, she is a bee, and as a matter of fact is actually naked as far as we can tell.
The Mrrshan spy from the first Master Of Orion game. Mrowr...
The Elder Scrolls has the shrouded armor for assassins.
The kunoichi Kasuga from Sengoku Basara wears an especially Stripperiffic black catsuit complete with some impressive Absolute Cleavage.

Webcomics

El Goonish Shive uses the second type of subversion during the Painted Black arc, where three female characters are put into brightly-coloured catsuits for a infiltration / rescue mission. This is only clear in the coloured strips, though, not the standard black-and-white artwork.
In the Future Developments arc of SSDD Tessa wears a dark grey catsuit that's implied to provide some protection (though an Inlay's bullet penetrates it easily), and as she's putting it on she complains about how tight it is and that Dr. Cook only designed it so he could see her tits when she wore it.
Averted in Order Of The Stick: While Haley inexplicably dons black leather in her role as sneaky leader of the Azure City Resistance, it actually is LESS revealing than her normal day-to-day outfit.
When Zoe from Sluggy Freelance tries spying on the cloner nerds, she dons one of these suits, seemingly because that's just what you do when you spy. It doesn't keep her from getting found out but it does have other uses.
Bill: Oh no, Phil! I left this Project Mindswarm dossier out on the floor!
Phil: Gee, Bill! I hope nobody spies on it!
Zoe: I am not putting on my spy clothes!
Kestrel dons a black vinyl catsuit...in her fantasy in the toy store in an early Queen Of Wands strip.

Western Animation

Aeon Flux wore an even less practical outfit on her missions. It must be seen◊ to be disbelieved.
- Turns out all Monicans wear this
On Totally Spies, the uniform worn by the three teenage girl spies is a shiny plastic catsuit. In a partial subversion, each of them has her own very bright color, and the suits can change appearance to look like more ordinary clothing.
Notably for a show about a Spy Girl, Kim Possible uses this trope very sparingly. Her usual mission wear is more practical, although it bares her midriff. On the one occasion where a "Stealth Suit" is used, it can morph into a little black evening gown on command. Also, the overweight Gadgeteer Genius Wade wears one of his own.
- Look at the outfit then listen carefully at the end...I think Sam the boat pilot's last name just might be Fisher.
- Considering the number of episodes where Shego turns up, I'd hardly call its use 'sparing'.
In the Dial M For Monkey shorts on Dexters Laboratory, the titular Monkey's Emma Peelish sidekick/love interest wore one of these.
Standard day-to-day wear for Agent K in The Replacements.
Talia al Ghul's outfit of choice in Batman: The Animated Series

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