Needs Help: Sweater Girl

I remain astonished at the contention that the name is unclear. We have dozens of anime fanspeak trope names that are known to a tiny, tiny fraction of the populace, and those are okey doke, but this trope that was in common use before World War II somehow has an unclear name.

'The fact that 40% of the wick check was some form of misuse as "girl in sweater"'

Not misuse. That's what the trope is; girls in tight sweaters. Sometimes it's lampshaded, sometimes it isn't.

"And again, the preexisting term is for the actresses in the 40s and 50s who wore sweaters publicly in real life. It is not for the fanservice media trope."

This isn't true either. This is a chicken-and-egg kind of thing, but the trope is what it's defined as, and it's defined on TV Tropes as actresses wearing tight sweaters for fanservice. It was popularized in the 1930s, and it's still in use today. Nor did it apply exclusively to a real life fashion trend; sweater girls were fanservice in movies, as seen with original sweater girl Lana Turner, who made that debut in a movie.

If you're going to cut this trope then you do it because there are too many fanservice tropes. And that should be part of a larger discussion about fanservice tropes. IOW if this trope gets cut then everything in Fanservice Costumes should go with it.

First, you say the trope is about girls in sweaters. Then you say that it's actresses and about fanservice. Could I ask what you think the trope is?

Anime Fan Speak has terms that mean what they mean in the native language. And what if they aren't? Those cases are different. While an unfamiliar user would not know what a Kuudere is from looking at the title alone, they could incorrectly guess the meaning of a Sweater Girl.

" girls in tight sweaters " is not a trope. It is just girls. In tight sweaters.

A trope is something that has a storytelling purpose. What is the storytelling purpose here, beyond fanservice?

I think we finally need to iron all this out. I think this one is just another fetish trope, like the several hundred we kicked out last year.

edited 6th Oct '13 6:57:28 PM by FastEddie

"First, you say the trope is about girls in sweaters. Then you say that it's actresses and about fanservice. Could I ask what you think the trope is?"

Actresses in tight sweaters, for fanservice. There's really no mystery or ambiguity here. And regarding the name, I think it's legitimate to compare a term like Sweater Girl that's decades old and understood by virtually everyone to all of our anime fanspeak terms that are unintelligible to 99.999% of the population. Hell, Fanservice is a far worse name than Sweater Girl.

All I'm saying is that the trope has a proper name, and is properly and clearly defined. It could have some examples deleted and be deemed No Real Life Examples Please to exclude instances of women in tight sweaters that aren't fanservice within a work. It is no different than Black Bra and Panties or Absolute Cleavage or any other of the dozens of Fanservice tropes we have on this wiki. Either they're all OK, as fanservice (man, I hate using that word) and its many permutations are something that we should document on the wiki, or they are all bad, as sexy women being presented sexily is not a trope, and they should all be cut.

Black Bra and Panties? That page exists?

Not everyone grew up in the 40's or 50's. If someone handed me a quiz five days earlier that had a question asking me what a "sweater girl" is, I would have written, "girl wearing a sweater." That seems to be what's happening with the title based on the wick check that was made a few pages back.

Sweater Girl is a highly vague preexisting term in English. Anime Fan Speak are accurate in the native language and are correctly defined as such in English. They are apples and oranges.

edited 6th Oct '13 7:13:39 PM by MikuruFan

I agree. They should all be cut. Or the majority, anyway. They aren't tropes.

edited 6th Oct '13 7:12:54 PM by FastEddie

It sure does. Seriously, go look down the Fanservice Costumes list. Underboobs, Bedlah Babe, Thigh High Boots, this goofy anime trope that should be cut yesterday, etc. Lots and lots of these tropes. Personally I think the wiki would be better served with a discussion, hopefully one that brought in more than the few people who post on this forum, about whether we should take an axe to them all.

edited 6th Oct '13 7:17:57 PM by gallium

I know those exist, but I do not see the purpose of someone wearing a black bra and panties.

I disagree that they aren't tropes. I suggest that by simply lumping them as "Fanservice" and not looking any further than that, we're treating them as non-tropes. (And that may well be a reflection of the age of many of our editors and contributors — they're largely young, and in the throes of "everything is about sex" that comes with late-teen/early twenties for a lot of people)

But the way a creator chooses to dress his characters often says a great deal about how he wants the audience to perceive that character. Sure Sweater Girl (A girl wears tight sweaters) and Absolute Cleavage (A woman's dress is cut all the way to her belly in front) are both titillating, but really, that's all they have in common — they aren't interchangeable in what they say about the character, in what they tend to make the audience see her as.

They're conscious choices, made by the author, to have a particular effect on the way the audience reacts to the character. A Sweater Girl is at least outwardly a Good Girl, maybe the Girl Next Door. There's sexuality there, but it's discreet. A woman wearing a dress with Absolute Cleavage? There's nothing discreet about her; her sexuality is right out front there for everyone to see. (heh).

They are tropes. But we aren't treating them as tropes. That's what needs to be fixed. We need to stop allowing the adolescent "Ooooooh, boobies!" attitude to turn everything into "fanservice and nothing more".

edited 6th Oct '13 7:24:39 PM by Madrugada

Fast Eddie: It's not like tropes are the only thing we do here. Just look at trivia. At worst, this documents the same type of phenomenon so far as I'm concerned even if fan service/costume tropes aren't a thing.

Not the first argument I would make regarding this kind of thing, but Madrugada said my primary position much better than I would have. Or have been doing.

edited 6th Oct '13 7:34:42 PM by Arha

...I had not seen them like that.

Yet, how would the example writer know this? Can there be regulation for these tropes so they are objective, possibly Characterization Tropes, and not just "here there be boobies?"

While gallium's posts about this name seem like textbook Fan Myopia from where I'm standing, s/he has a point about Fanservice Costumes. We really need to address the whole thing once and for all, because this isn't the first time I've seen this kind of debate recently.

Then lets make another thread where we can deal with the rest. We should focus on Sweater Girl in this thread.

Arha, I don't care about stuff like Trivia, YMMV, Crowning Moments etc.. All those things are on separate pages to keep them away from the tropes, the things I do care about.

Maddy's point is good, that a writer or director puts a girl in a sweater for a reason. If we could wrench these things back toward descriptions like "Sweater girl is shorthand for a virginal-but-sexy "good" girl," rather than just "hur-hur, sweater puppies!" we'd be in a great place.

Mikuru, just like we're doing with the other Appearance Tropes like the Eye Color tropes. Rewrite the definition to make it clear that there's a character-type or personality-type firmly connected to the appearance; that if there's no evidence of that type present, it's not an example. It's going to take a good bit of work to straighten them all out, and in some cases, the wiki and (the existing trope, if there really is one) may well be better served by being cleared out completely and started over from scratch, with a new, clear, concise definition, and possibly even with a new name.

Thanks, I was afraid that I was waxing eloquent at the expense of my point.

edited 6th Oct '13 7:59:15 PM by Madrugada

That could work.

So, would this be covered by the appearance trope cleanup?

I could work with that.

edited 6th Oct '13 8:01:23 PM by captainpat

If we can save this trope, it's better. I just could not see how it could be done without making the page overly specific before.

We could lump it into the Appearance Trope Cleanup, I suppose, but that's a huge job already and adding the costume tropes list to it would make it even huger. I personally would prefer to make a separate Long-Term Projects thread for the Fanservice Costume tropes.

Maybe on fanservice in general?

Fast Eddie: Well, never mind then. Wasn't exactly sold on that line of defense either.

Another projects thread for fanservice or costume tropes does sound like a good idea. I do know that when I'm doing cleanup and trying to get rid of ZCE and stuff that I have no idea what to say about costume stuff other than that they wore it. Boring.

I think we'd do better keeping it narrowed down from "Fanservice in general".

@nrjxll, I don't regard myself as a fan of women in tight sweaters, and it isn't something I think about, well, ever, outside of this discussion thread. What I object to is claims that the trope is poorly defined, the name is unclear, or the trope is too rare or a Forgotten Trope, all of which are objectively false. All I'm saying is that if you cut this trope you should cut all of these tropes and, really, everything here.

No one said anything about cutting those tropes until it was brought up by you. I feel like we are losing our focus, and for now look at Sweater Girl the trope and see how we can resolve that, or complete the other discussion first somewhere else.