Does not appear to be a trope: Short Haired Hottie

Short Haired Hottie looks like it was intended as a Distaff Counterpart to Long-Haired Pretty Boy, but the latter at least is supposed to apply only to guys who are meant to be attractive in an androgynous-to-feminine way and have other design features or personality traits to match.

Short Haired Hottie makes no demands other than short hair, and does not even seem to be limited to characters who are meant to be especially attractive. It was also never YKTTW'ed.

I contend that something like Short Haired Tomboy would be a trope, but without any pattern of use specified, this is just a haircut.

edited 5th Jul '11 1:02:47 AM by Bailey

Agree with all of the above. I say cutlist.

agree'd either redefine into a real trope, or cut.

Yeah, it looks like it could be a trope, but it would have to go into personalities or more than just "any woman with short hair."

my main concern about creating "short haired tomboy" is that most tomboys already have short hair, so it will be mostly duplication. For the few that don't it is just the same but more specific.

I think the trouble is (and without getting into the rights and wrongs of such a view), that when a guy a wears his hair long it generally sends (or used to send at least) a certain specific cultural message. A woman that wears her hair short is just a woman who wears her hair short. Women have access to a greater range of hair styles as a matter of course so there is no predefined cultural expectation really.

Yeah, that's the other issue. We have tropes like Power Hair all ready for specific reasons to have short hair. There are specific cases that we can document. Short hair means lesbian. Short hair means tomboy (most tomboys in fiction don't actually have short hair). But this lacks the trope bit behind the style.

yeah. I suspect the reasoning behind this trope was "we have to have a female equivalent to LHPB for social justice reasons", and no one wanting to point out that not every male-female trope has to have a direct equivalent.

edited 5th Jul '11 5:17:28 AM by CrypticMirror

Yeah, not everything wants or needs a Distaff Counterpart. Some tropes only have one side.

Tomboys don't always have short hair. We've got one about ponytails. I think it's Tomboyish Ponytail?

^ I actually just used tomboys as an example off the top of my head; my point was that if were short-haired in conjuction with another unrelated character trait, that could be a trope, but not short hair all by itself.

But we seem to be pretty much in agreement with that.

Yes, just having short hair is not a trope. Using short hair as a sign that a character is tough would be. That should probably be YKTTW'd.

There might be some interesting tropes that we're skating around the edges of here. I was reading some stuff about female softball players, and apparently there's some curious stuff going on related to "female athletes are lesbian" stereotypes. The stereotypes seem to be widely and correctly regarded as dated and incorrect, but there are weird little artifacts. Hair ribbons, for instance, are seen by some as a "not-a-lesbian" signifier (so if you don't wear them, you might be a lesbian!)

I wonder if "short hair = lesbian" might also have some ongoing currency. I've noticed watching the NCAA tournament on ESPN that very few players wear their hair short.

Short Haired Lesbian is very much a trope, though it tends to indicate a more butch lesbian as opposed to a Lipstick Lesbian.

^^ I think it's probably more that hairstyle length is a sort of cyclic thing, suedenim. The "fashionable" length tends to swing back and forth from Cropped, to Shortish, to Shoulder length or so, and back.

Right now we're in a 'Jaw-length or so' stage, but that's an awkward length for an athlete, so they tend to go either longer (so they can pull it into a ponytail) or shorter (so they don't have to do anything).

I think something like Tough Short Haired Girl would work as a trope. Maybe an Apperance Trope that often appears on an Action Girl, athlete, or military personnel?

edited 6th Jul '11 8:02:39 AM by chihuahua0

Yeah, that I can see. All of these would make more sense than the current page which is "Girls with short hair I think are attractive."

That could work. It's would probably be a Sister Trope to Power Hair.

cut and YKTTW?

I don't see why not.

Was this ever cutlisted and sent back through ykttw?

Doesn't look like it.

seems to have just been cut out right. It does appear to have been tropable though, at least as tropable as any other visual characteristic trope. (Hair, eyes, ectra.)

Well. Wish we spoke more about it, but I agree it's not a trope. "Her hair is short and she is hot" is not good enough. Having short hair to emphasize being tough, having short hair because you're a Butch Lesbian, or being a feminist in a time when short hair was unacceptable—those are tropes, but they probably belong as aspects within other tropes.

I think we could have a trope for "short-haired Action Girl", to match Tomboyish Ponytail.

But short hair can be feminine or masculine—that's the thing. Short hair is such a broad style, and very common for women. Even very feminine women can have short hair. But it's not nearly so common for men to have long hair. It denotes dirtiness, femininity, or goths. In order for it to be trope, it has to get more specific, and then it's probably under the realm of another trope. For instance, an Action Girl who has short hair and acts masculine is The Lad-ette. Her hairstyle is a common feature of it. Short hair that appears masculine entirely on a masculine woman is liable to be a Butch Lesbian or Brawn Hilda.