Restore, redefine and fix: Baby Got Back

Yeah, how about no to your Parts Fetish, it's not what this tread is about.

Yeah, that Parts Fetish is something else altogether.

But back to the Mass Effect example everyone claims to like. It's an example of... someone with a good ass. Not fanservice, not Mr. Fanservice, not Female Gaze, not costuming but just the ass itself.

How is that a trope? Note that we have dozens of breast tropes but no Great Rack page just listing characters with ("in-universe!") great breasts. We have Buxom Is Better, about how BIGGER breasts makes for a hotter woman, so if you want Men Like Big Asses, that's analogous, but a lot of the examples people have in mind now wouldn't apply.

"I Like Big Butts" ?

The Mass Effect one isn't about "big asses" it's about "nice" ones that's the important thing IMO.

Same way some guys like big breasts, some like small ones, mid sized ones etc some are obsessively picky in look and shape yada.

It's their stated preference and that's what matters. (Which is what I was trying to say in my last post.)

edited 21st Jan '12 4:54:49 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Yeah, that's why the Mass Effect one isn't an example of anything. If you look at it from the pov of the butt, it's just a butt. It you look at it from the pov of the comment, it's People Like Things That They Like. Neither is a trope.

So the argument now is, there is no trope?

Does that mean there's no trope for Shes Got Legs either?

I think that the long pan up the legs is a trope. Show Some Leg is a trope. Legs people think are sexy, not a trope.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Wouldn't that be just a The Same But More Specific of Male Gaze, then?

And I have to disagree with the "not a trope" crowd. It wouldn't be played all over the place in rap videos, invoked in advertising or lampshaded in other media if it weren't a trope.

edited 21st Jan '12 8:31:07 AM by KingZeal

I think it's a trope as long as it's in-universe. I suppose the ass focus in rap videos is if not distinct from Male Gaze at least a significant sub-trope of it. Not sure it needs its own page, maybe just its own folder in Male Gaze or in whatever the ass trope is going to be.

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.

The only way I can see this working is if we split what we're talking about into multiple pages, provided each one is tropeable.

Framing of the backside: Male Gaze

Attractive behind lampshaded: Baby Got Back

Clothing that deliberately focuses on rear: Individual tropes involving Thongs, Writing On Butt, Assless Pants, etc.

Actually yeah, that makes sense and it would work. Would make it easier to manage/police the unnecessary examples and it would allowed specific/defined examples to be correctly placed.

I more or less support this. But I think Baby Got Back is a bad name and encourages misuse. We need to come up with a better option.

edited 22nd Jan '12 10:05:38 AM by Martello

"Did anybody invent this stuff on purpose?" - Phillip Marlowe on tequila, Finger Man by Raymond Chandler.

The main reason I support Baby Got Back (only specifically when talking about in-universe lampshading) is because ever since the Sir Mix A Lot video, that has been a colloquial shorthand for someone who enjoys another person's rear. It's recognizable outside of the wiki as well, and makes a great Google bait.

But it's also a slang term that people use when they're gushing about any rear they like. It encourages just the sort of misuse that got the page cut in the first place.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That's because the trope wasn't in-universe before. Now, it will have to be.

Not to mention that, if we actually try my suggestion, we'll have more appropriate tropes for different types of butt emphasis. Instead of this being a page just about about Ass Fetish in general, it'll be a page specifically about the trope in fiction.

I think that's worth giving the name a shot, personally.

It was In-Universe before. That didn't stop any of the mess or the creepiness. Defining it as In-Universe isn't changing or fixing anything. It's just giving it back the same definition that we know doesn't functionally work as a trope.

edited 22nd Jan '12 11:24:38 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Where can I see an archived version of the page from when it was at its worst?

Nevermind, found it, and actually, the description only proves my point: it's NOT in-universe as written here. What kills the page and invites the "creepiness" (although I don't really see anything creepy here, just a lot of entry pimping) is that the description itself is subjective and completely based on author intent. That means people can add whatever they feel was intended, even if it wasn't. That's the exact opposite of what my proposal is. If the characters do not mention it in-story, it doesn't count here, period. Cameras which focus on the butt will go to Male Gaze or Female Gaze. Costumes which emphasize the butt will go to whatever tropes we assign them to.

edited 22nd Jan '12 12:11:29 PM by KingZeal

That was a full year ago before we did the big clean up on it to make it In-Universe. It's not a recent copy of the page by a long shot. It was In-Universe before the end because I helped with the clean up. The page just wouldn't stay clean. The most recent copy on the archive is from July and is seven months old. They don't show what the page was before it was cut.

edited 22nd Jan '12 12:16:55 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

That's a shame, because it's kind of hard to make any sort of progress without knowing exactly what the problem was. "Creepiness" and "gushing" are a bit too nonspecific.

Sorry. People were going into explicit detail about women's asses and what they thought about them as well as overly specific detail about look, size, shape, and bounciness all "justified" because someone in a work had mentioned their ass once.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Then forgive me for asking, but how is that the name's fault? That just sounds like a reason to have more vigilant editors.

No matter what we name it to, we're going to get those sorts of people.

edited 22nd Jan '12 12:54:49 PM by KingZeal

Yeah - the fault goes beyond the name. If we say Nice Ass is a trope that characters lampshade, you can't blame people for going into detail about the trope. The thing is, an ass isn't a trope. It's an ass. And characters aren't lampshading it. They're just commenting on it. If we make the commenting the trope, that would keep the assy details out.

You know, you could've just gone to the cut article's page, clicked on the "history" button, expanded it to full size, and searched through the recorded entries. I did it, and fortunately digged up the whole description from last June, when a vandal's messing up the page had to be reverted.

edited 22nd Jan '12 1:52:42 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Well put everyone, I say it retool to the trope and rename it but, it was still well-defined, so maybe a clever new name, That whole Perverse Sexual Lust part of the rule was disregarded by most of the posters, I think yall said over 600 deleted entries for that page or from Buxom Is Better.So maybe the PSL drooling kind of entries should be listed under Fanservice. Legitimate examples should still be notable somewhere. A few reasons its worth being brought back.

1. Its almost in the ballpark of Bare Your Midriff. Butts were never really focused on until the past ten years or so. So it is notable when its actually fits the definition of trope.

2. Every so often, writers for TV and Film will make good use of a actresses assets but its only notable if its mentioned or touched, not just looked at. For example, just saying Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) has a nice butt, wouldn't count. But when Miss Patty tells her " With an ass like that, you won't be single forever."

3, More importantly, this is my first post in the TRS and from what I can tell, ( even from my own input) Nice Butts are serious business.

4. I know I said this but what if we say " No Fanservice Examples please"

5. Maybe adding a trope in addition to the new Baby Got Back trope. Call the new trope something like Obligatory Butt Shot and link it in the description. It bet it fills up before the new baby got back. And it wont be just for the "drooling" PSL examples. Stuff like the aforemention Cammy's butt shot can go there. But not scenes and shots when someone with a nice butt is visible. Only when the butt in question is nearly the only thing in the shot for it to be an Obligatory Butt Shot.

I think that would help. But with all this feedback, the trope shouldn't disappear. I also think this discussion may have given birth to a new trope. When a trope is so badly interpreted it has to be cut. Anyone got a name for that occurence.

The other solution would be to let the page have both types of examples. The legitimate baby got back occurences and the drooling examples list on the same page. I sure no one that put in possibly hours of their time into correcting the page would want that.

Ass Appreciation? Butt Appreciation?

If this is to proceed as In-Universe examples only, there's this:

• Firefly - Wash, on Zoe's attributes

"I definitely have to say it was her legs. You can put that down! Her legs, and right where her legs meet her back. That - actually that whole area. That and - and above it."

edited 23rd Jan '12 11:55:19 AM by vynsane