Needs Help: Amazonian Beauty

I'm feeling a little bit uncomfortable with part of this trope. According to the article, it has four parts:

1. The character must be muscular. This is fine, it's part of the whole Amazon thing after all. 2. The muscularity must be emphasized. This is to differentiate from just generic Action Girls. The character should be strong and know it. 3. Is the muscle the dominant trait of the bare skin? This seems like just asking "Are you suuuuuuure she's muscular?" but fine. 4. Must be accompanied by fanservice tropes.

Now the last one I have some problems with. It seems like its not enough for a woman to be attractive because she is muscular, it has to be sexualized as well. That smacks of Unfortunate Implications to me. Is it really not enough for a woman to be strong, for characters in universe to find her strength attractive, and for her strength to be emphasized as one of her most positive qualities? Is the trope lessened by avoiding having them turned into a blatant sex object? It seems rather disrespectful to female athletes.

edited 16th Jun '12 12:42:36 AM by nitrokitty

Fixed the tag. Please don't use the tag space for "what to do's"

Fanservice as a requirement is there so the trope doesn't turn into "muscular women tropers think are hot".

edited 16th Jun '12 8:43:19 AM by captainpat

Yeah, the OP is right. If we want this to be in-universe, which is the best way to prevent random salivating, the fourth point should be "4. Is she treated as attractive because of her muscles?"

I think these criteria are still new from a recent TRS discussion, but "is accompanied by fanservice tropes" sounds like it just begs for needless details of the character's fetish appeal. "X absolutely oozes this trope. She is a total badass with HUGE muscles who isn't above showing off some Stocking Filler and sometimes Peeing On The Camera."

That wouldn't fit under Amazon Chaser?

Hmm.. yes. Do we need both pages?

The description of Amazon Chaser refers to a woman who acts like an amazon (i.e. an Action Girl), while Amazonian Beauty refers to a woman who looks like one (a muscular beauty).

I do find that the title of Amazon Chaser refers to the guy who likes them, while the description refers to the actual woman, though. The examples follow the title, mostly, but they're mixed. They are generally well-written, though, and include why those women are liked, if it's about the woman and not the man chasing them.

The examples of Amazonian Beauty are women with visible muscles. That's about it.

Yea, Amazon Chaser still in trs and most of the description is holdover from Hot Amazon. It should be rewritten to be from a male character's prescriptive. I made a note a while back in the discussion for Amazon Beauty that the majority of the example are missing the 4th point in the description and just talking about how muscular a female character is.

If what we're worried about is "muscular women tropers think are hot", wouldn't making fanservice a requirement actually be detrimental to that goal? It sounds like we're playing up Fetish Fuel.

My big complaint is that this is basically implying that a woman can't be buff and beautiful without tarting it up. Why can't we just make an in-universe only requirement?

If exclusion is the issue why not simply expand the trope to include in-universe examples?

How about in-universe or fan service? Both are ways of the creator communicating the character is supposed to be seen as attractive.

That's what it is now. And really? I've felt the page has been doing a good job of averting gushing. The problem is that making it in-universe strictly destroys the female characters who proudly display their muscle as titillation. For example, Vanessa from Virtua Fighter.

Seriously, though, this is a fan service trope. Why do all of those always have to be in-universe?

If there's no problem with gushing as it is, why limit it for the specific purpose of curbing that problem?

And that just adds more confusion as to what this trope is supposed to be. Is this specifically a fanservice trope? Is it about women who are considered both buff and beautiful in universe, out of universe, or both? I feel like theres a lot of contradictions involved, like we want to avoid gushing, but at the same time, we want blatant fanservice to be a part of it. Those seem to be mutually exclusive goals to me. Is it really not possible for a woman in media to be muscular and attractive without being Fetish Fuel? So far, the only answer I've gotten seems to be "no", and I'm really not comfortable with that.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:59:19 AM by nitrokitty

The laconic says this is for someone who's "beautiful AND buff." It has become clearer and clearer through these discussions that "X And Also Y" is an unacceptable definition of a trope, especially when one of the two adjectives is "attractive."

"Buff" in the laconic potholes to "Heroic Build." This suggests that beautiful and "Heroic Build" are separate factors. But, why the presumption that someone with a Heroic Build wouldn't normally be attractive? Nothing in the Heroic Build page says so, least of all the page image. (No Guy Wants an Amazon seems to go this route, but it's about relationships, not beauty, which is why its counterpoint is Amazon Chaser, not Amazonian Beauty.)

Well, we all know how wrong most Laconics are. Heroic Build shouldn't even be used in this case since it only applies to western superheros. This doesn't strike me as case of "X and also X". This seems like a case of "X despite being X" because I think a muscular physique is one of things that's usually seen unattractive on a woman.

edited 17th Jun '12 5:16:38 AM by captainpat

If it's "Attractive, despite being muscular" then yes, it's much more of a trope.

That just brings us back to whether the attractiveness must be in-universe. Everyone seems to say yes?

No, everyone does not seem to say that.

@14: It's very hard to not be Fetish Fuel at all. It's definitely not possible to be attractive and not Fetish Fuel. However, if we were to purge all potential Fetish Fuel, we'd need to cut any and all Fanservice tropes, as well as a lot more tropes.

A female with a Heroic Build is not necessarily muscular, and that would not fit this trope.

edited 17th Jun '12 6:01:50 AM by Feather7603

Then your expectations are not realistic. Any form of attraction is going to be someone's Fetish Fuel, since the definition of "attractive" means sexually desired.

The point to this trope is that it defies a Missing Supertrope, Delicacy Is Beautiful and Brawn Hilda. So far, we've done a decent job of curating the examples to get rid of most gushing, but it is a Fanservice trope. Limiting it to in-universe examples would be beyond the point, because these sorts of characters are not always acknowledged in-universe.

Isn't the Heroic Build trope different for men and women? Like men are built like bodybuilders and women are built like curvy supermodels according to Heroic Build?

A female with Heroic Build is almost never overly musculer - the majority are more waifish other than their Most Common Superpower. And, as mentioned, it only applies to the Western superhero genre. Totally inappropriate for this trope.

The description of Amazon Chaser spent several weeks in a sandbox. If it's still not acceptable, you guys need to head on over to that TRS thread and speak up, because right now that thread is only in "cleaning up wicks" phase, and no further repairs are planned.

edited 17th Jun '12 8:20:20 AM by ccoa

The examples don't currently contain irrelevant gushing, but the problem is that the (new) criteria seem to ask for it. Right now, the definitions says examples must contain other fanservice tropes.

We can't have a page on people who are attractive because of / despite / in addition to X because that definition means nothing but "characters that This Troper finds attractive because of etc." We need something that says the work portrays the character as attractive. Here are some options:

1. Restrict this to characters associated with fanservice tropes. (The current solution.)
2. Restrict this to characters that other characters find attractive.
3. Restrict this to Informed Attractiveness.

Or, restrict it to characters who obey any or all of those.

edited 17th Jun '12 9:11:24 AM by Routerie

If Hot Amazon had any lessons to teach, it's that restricting a trope to "character someone in-universe finds hot because of X" is just asking for misuse.

What new criteria?

"4. Must be accompanied by fanservice tropes."