Cleanup or make a super trope?: Bridge Bunnies

A lot of the non-Japanese examples seem just shoehorned into the trope. Most seem just "Women on the bridge" or just the standalone woman on the bridge examples both of which are not this trope.

These are always a Cast Herd of a Pair or Trio of girls who's only real job is Eye Candy, Romance the fighter pilots, add Angst when one dies, report the general situation while being generally useless, while the men fight or otherwise hold the authority.

edited 3rd Aug '11 8:03:24 AM by Raso

I think there is a larger "Bridge Personel" trope we are missing.

Any given woman on the bridge of a ship is not a Bridge Bunny

Even the singular examples are just useless eye candy on the bridge though. They meet every single one of your other points. The only difference is number. As this is a Stock Character, number shouldn't really matter.

No, Bridge Bunnies are more than just Living Props

Lets see Film.

The aliens example is not the trope I dont think (it seems to be the exact opposite of the trope)

The Star Trek example is an aversion and is all Natter and justifying edits.

Spaceballs those girls do not hold a position on the bridge or headquarters or whatever it is they just go wait in the trailer.

Carry On Spying isn't this its more just female minions.

Live action

Star Trek Rand does not serve on the bridge at all. Number one is an aversion and was first officer. The Star Gate examples are both male, the latter actually being useful more than once and is just a junior officer, and the former is just an extra with a name. both are really not this.

Literature.

Starship Troopers the girls are quite good and good at their jobs and are far from this trope, Honor Harrington seems to be just girls on a ship NOT this trope.

Unsure on the Web and western animation stuff and the other live action stuff.

The Real life examples are NOT this trope.

Setsuna can probably explain better than I can though...

edited 3rd Aug '11 8:50:49 AM by Raso

I think we have a bridge personnel trope somewhere, I just can't remember where. Let's check the indexes for The Captain.

Edit: Hm, nope. So, we'll need: The Pilot, The Science Officer, The Tactical Officer, what else?

edited 3rd Aug '11 5:51:24 PM by Deboss

I agree with the claim that Bridge Bunnies is a somewhat more specific trope then people are using it as. This looks like another case of "supertrope aversion". However, I can't see any reason why we would need separate articles for the various positions, instead of just something like Standard Sci Fi Bridge Crew. (Disclaimer: avowed lumper speaking)

Considering the shear numbers we will get it will probably have to go like Five-Man Band Supertrope for the actual crew then pages for each position.

Let's see The Captain, Number One, Science Officer, Operations Officer, Navagations Officer or The Pilot, Tactical Officer or Security Chief, The Doctor, Comunications Officer, The Engineer

Should probably do the same for Standard Fantasy Party now that I think of it.

Ok The Doctor redirect needs to be deleted...

edited 3rd Aug '11 7:32:15 PM by Raso

I don't think it's scifi specific. I think that's (y)our genre preference showing.

Neither The Doctor nor The Engineer are likely to be on the bridge. I think there is a The Guy In The Back or some similar titled trope out there though.

edited 3rd Aug '11 7:33:04 PM by Deboss

I was just pulling names out of my ass... I had no idea they actually existed becides The Captain.

The Doctor and The Engineer get bumped up to the bridge a lot in Star Trek there is a station for the latter on all ships. Which is why I put it down... The Guy In The Back sounds good for those too though.

And no not Sci-Fi specific it would be Standard Ship Bridge Crew a navy has the same setup .

It seems we have Command Roster but that seems different and all over the place.

edited 3rd Aug '11 7:46:37 PM by Raso

I only had it as Standard Sci Fi Bridge Roster because Bridge Bunnies seems to be written as exclusive to that genre, and there are a few differences between real life crew positions and those of a Space Navy. I don't see any glaring reason that it needs to be exclusive to any genre, though.

Though again, I still don't see why we need a bunch of different tropes here. That there would be many examples doesn't have much do with it - as I understand it the choice is between something like this:

and something like this:

I don't see any reason the first is better then the second.

On another note, is Bridge Bunnies an established term (even in fandoms) in any way? I'm curious whether it could be contributing to the misuse.

The Bridge Bunnies name stems from Real Robot s and Gundam, Macross and most other real robot series have a pair or trio of girls on the bridge crew while the men are all in their suits and Piloting Mecha they are all plot relevant but they all rarely actually do anything.... well pretty much everything on the page. Female Pilots are usually the Shrike Team and are little more than Mauve Shirts (inverted with Zeta Gundam where all male bridge crew and the females get a surprising number of pilot spots which is a plot point with the Big Bad.)

edited 3rd Aug '11 8:22:57 PM by Raso

But is it a sufficiently established preexisting term that renaming it would seriously hurt the trope? If not, I favor a name change to something like Useless Female Bridge Crew - something that makes it clearer what this is.

In its favor, it does have pretty strong inbounds.

It's been around longer than I have been a Mecha fan (which is a long time.), It's the only term I have ever seen used to describe the Girls outside of Those Two Girls which is something different. And Useless isn't the right word for them. *

edited 3rd Aug '11 9:16:10 PM by Raso

I prefer the first for reading purposes. Anyway, we're likely wondering off topic. If we're going to try and build a block of tropes like this, we should probably coordinate in Trope Talk instead of TRS. I'll go make one, we can hammer out the basic roles we want to cover, and we can just scoop any of them out.

I'd, personally, take the useless requirements out, and use it as an instance of cramming fanservice into a scene by making the less important officers females in miniskirts.

Bump. Has any progress been made on either fixing this page or creating pages for bridge crew roles?

No body else is commenting on the Trope Talk thread about a Bridge Crew, so we can either take whatever we want straight to YKTTW or we can start cutting.

I've never even noticed that that thread was actually created. I'll have to look at it.

It looks to me that a few of the anime examples don't even count.