One thing you're missing with some of these tropes is that they're kind of dated. As media becomes more egalitarian, it's becoming more common to avoid the sort of gender roles that lead to gendered tropes - but that doesn't mean that the tropes never existed. Action Girl and The Chick are both good examples of that.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
To start with your first example, a female The Heart would not always be The Chick, but there is a strong correlation there.
For Stargate, Daniel and Sam share some of the traits of The Heart, and may take that role in different episodes. What makes Daniel The Chick instead, is his Non-Action Guy status, reinforced during early episodes by him hiding his head when the guns/blasters are firing.
If a trope is Always Female or Always Male, it is supposed to mean 90% of the time, this character is gendered by the media. When a trope has a Spear Counterpart, then both tropes are expected to possess some specific gendered traits that set them apart, or a Double Standard in their execution.
That said, some tropes are gendered due to a mistake on our part, where the pattern was noticed in one gender, but not compared to the other. If you feel a trope has been misused that way, please bring it (with a properly constructed OP similar to this one) to the TRS forum. Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Kaosubaloo
@nrjxll
Were we to use this explanation, and it does not seem an unreasonable one, it would still call for changing a number of tropes to reflect them as Dead Horse/Undead Horse tropes.
@crazysamaritan
There are two problems with this interpretation. First of all, the trope specifically states that it usually applies only to women. Second of all, the trope does *not* state any significant differences from The Heart it. All meaningful differences exist in subtext, they are mostly negative, and they can mostly be attributed to gender stereotypes existing as a consequence of problem #1.
Again, the Chick is clearly a broken Trope. I'm definitely going to make a TRS for it once this discussion has been concluded. But because it's obviously broken it's also a good example of what I view as a larger issue.
Basically what I hope to come from this discussion is a list of similar but less obvious tropes to fix that are more narrowly defined than my extremely broad opening definition and a set of methods methods which are reasonable to use in fixing them. That plus also, if I'm going to open TR Ss on dozens of pages, I should probably make sure that other people are on the same page as me first.
Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
The first "problem" isn't one. The Chick is Always Female. Please read Gender-Inverted Trope for why males can be The Chick.
edited 21st Jun '15 5:35:41 PM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Gender-Inverted Trope page explicitly said that not all tropes can be gender inverted. A lot of Five-Man Band examples have been cut on the grounds that role of The Chick is not held by a female...
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
That's right; for Five-Man Band, The Chick must be female. That's a requirement in the Five-Man Band trope, beyond the Always Female aspect of The Chick.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Five-Man Band is another example of a trope that isn't really seen much anymore. (The broader team-of-five concept is, yes, but not the really stereotypical version that the trope is meant to cover).
In general I feel like the site's kind of had a historic problem with people trying to "update" older tropes rather than leave them be and create a new page for the evolved version.
edited 21st Jun '15 7:20:14 PM by nrjxll
The Unknown
@crazy
The Chick says nothing about being a Non-Action Guy, just that they're the emotional center of the group.
@Thread
There may be an potential issue here, but not with The Chick. Its Always Female because Fast Eddie said so due to its historic usage as a female-only role.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Lost in Space
It should be noted that TV Tropes' mission is to document the use of tropes in media. We aren't telling people how they should use tropes; we are describing how they have used tropes and are using tropes.
Every now and then someone will see this and get all excited, because they believe that our site should be a vehicle for prescriptive language: that we should make sure to let people know that it's bad to use gender, sexual, racial, and cultural stereotypes. Unfortunately, you can't ignore the past. These tropes were used, and in many cases still are used, and our job is to document that.
There are other places you can go to engage in prescriptive discussions. Heck, our forums are a great place for that. But leave the wiki neutral. Tropes Are Tools.
edited 21st Jun '15 8:57:00 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
The Unknown
Your Daniel example mentioned that he was The Chick partially becaue he was a Non-Action Guy.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?
Kaosubaloo
At this point I am beginning feel that my use of The Chick was a poor choice. It is broken in that it's use and definition differ and that in either case there is some redundancy between it and other tropes. I initially attributed this to it being gendered and, while this may still be the case, it is not obviously so.
So instead, with particular attention to @Fightee's comment, I will explain using other examples the issue as I see it.
First of all, what it is not is me trying to get rid of sexist tropes because they are sexist. Whatever I may think of such tropes, they still exist and it is the purpose of this website to document them.
However, there are many tropes which are redundant but for their inclusion of a gender which serves to create no real distinction. Laura Croft has more in common with Indiana Jones as an action hero than she does with Buffy, yet the women are singled out as Action Girls. All three of them are Action Heroes, but there is not Action Boys trope because it would be redundant. There is already a Action Hero super trope. Just like Action Boys is redundant, so too is Action Girls, because whether the gender of the character contributes to other facets of that character, it does not contribute to what makes that character an action hero.
Similarly, there is no meaningful difference between Mystique and Sabertooth in the X-Men films that can be attributed to their respective genders. Both have superpowers. Both are are action-oriented and for the most part minions of big bad Magneto. Only Mystique is a Dark Action Girl while Sabertooth is an Action Villain (something which doesn't even have a page but probably should.) They clearly have the same Action trope driving them, but the current definitions muddle the issue with a non-relevant distinction.
There are many other tropes that fit a similar mold. A sub trope or distaff counterpart which seeks to find differences where there are none. At best, they are redundant. At worst, they lead to misuse and distract from more meaningful tropes like Action Villain.
edited 22nd Jun '15 12:39:48 AM by Kaosubaloo
Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Yeah; that's part of the definition to Non-Action Guy.
Bring up one trope at a time; there's lots of descriptive reasons why the tropes are formulated the way they are, and you're making proscriptive arguments against them. Would you like to start with Action Girl?
edited 22nd Jun '15 12:42:30 AM by crazysamaritan
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
I guess that they are saying that the link between the gender of a Action Girl and her "action" aspect is so big when the link between the gender of a male The Heart and his status as The Heart.
Kaosubaloo
@crazysamaritan
The reason I have being trying to make a more general argument is because I do not have a complete list of tropes. I was hoping to as a result of this topic generate such a list. Having said that, I see no reason I cannot address Action Girl specifically since I have singled it out.
The crux of my argument is as follows: Being a woman does not contribute to making the Action Girl trope distinct from Action Hero in any significant manner. They are in use literally the same trope. I have tried to prove this using example of characters who are listed to have the trope.
As the description is written right now, it places emphasis on the gender of the hero being a woman but does not elaborate on it much. The one place it does do so is by mentioning the double standard that exists in Men Act, Women Are. However, that is a bad distinction for two reasons. First of all, it's not really applicable to many of the characters who fill the overflowing examples list of the trope. Second of all, it is already it's own trope. An action hero who is female may sometimes subvert another trope, but it does not always do so and in any case that subversion does not make it a completely new trope.
Should this assertion be challenged, I would like to see an descriptive explanation as to why my stance is faulty. As I brought up this issue it is reasonable for the onus of proof to fall upon me, but I feel that I have adequately provided that proof, while many (but not all) of the arguments against my stance thus far have amounted to dismissal based upon the current status quo. That it currently is listed as a trope in this wiki is not sufficient counter-argument in the debate of whether or not it belongs here. When challenging that an idea exists, to formulate a good counter-argument, one must justify why it exists.
edited 22nd Jun '15 9:55:45 AM by Kaosubaloo
Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!
@13: I agree with that concern. Sometimes, we have a couple of tropes that are split into two pages, even though only real difference between the two is the gender involved, but otherwise says pretty much the same thing. The most egregious example I can think of is Blondes Are Evil vs. Blond Guys Are Evil. The trope distinction between the two seem arbitrary at best.
re Action Girl: If I recall a previous discussion about the trope correctly, Action Girl is basically created as an aversion to the passive, non-fighting roles (in a setting that requires a lot of action) that female characters are usually given in the olden days, just as Non-Action Guy is an aversion to Action Hero. Yes, it is very broad, and the definition of the trope does get a little murky now that the trend of female passiveness are declining. It might seem a little odd to you that Lara and Buffy should be classified under the same banner, but I suppose that's what the subtropes are for.
A list of pages where the difference between them is gender: Distaff Counterpart.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
@16 — I can't make general statements because some of those gendered tropes are legitimately different due to unfortunate social implications. Some of those implications are still around, and a few have become Dead Horse Trope (like Five-Man Band; the original trope is nearly extinct). However, some of those tropes are pointless gender discrimination that our site should not engage in.
There's no point to discussing the tropes generally, because some are good and some are wrong. Action Girl is one of those tropes where the Action Hero being feminine is a subversion of general Action Hero expectations, just like Guile Hero is. It is becoming more traditional, but you can hardly say it was the same trope as Action Hero in the 1970s.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Actually, now that I think about it, I seem to vaguely recall a TRS for Action Girl that made a rule that it should only have examples for works where it's portrayed as somewhat unusual to have female characters in action roles, in order to avoid the problem of it being meaningless in works that don't have that difference.
edited 22nd Jun '15 6:01:34 PM by nrjxll
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
That sounds old, but it would be a valid way to make the distinction and show the trope's historical progress.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Yep, many gender and sexuality tropes are heteronormative. That reflects cultural attitudes, stuff found in works of fiction, which is often wrongheaded in some way to a progressive. It does not reflect TV Tropes's opinion. This site catalogs tropes. Some tropes are old-fashioned.
Some of those articles should probably be merged, as described in the OP. I think each should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, though, because the rationale for their existence varies wildly. For example, for better or for worse, most Action Heroes are male, and a female hero (Action Girl) is notable enough to warrant its own article, the implications are often different. Maybe in 20 years the hero's gender won't matter at all, but for works produced 20 years ago, a female hero is remarkable.
edited 26th Jun '15 5:50:31 PM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
To be fair, I do think there are some cases, where heteronormativity can make it harder to determine whether a trope applies, that sort of fall in a fuzzy spot between it being a reflection of fiction and it being something TV Tropes does. To use an example I've seen come up in the past, are two gay characters who are platonic friends Platonic Life-Partners or Heterosexual Life-Partners in trope terms?
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
IMO; Heterosexual Life-Partners should be a subtrope to Platonic Life-Partners where another character incorrectly assumes a homosexual relationship. Platonic shouldn't assume any gender or orientation, which makes HLP the same thing, with something extra.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Assumed homosexual relationship is covered by Mistaken for Gay.
Problem Overview: There are a lot of identical and mislabeled tropes where the only difference between them is the gender of the character.
Explanation: For a while I have felt somewhat uncomfortable with certain tropes. After a conversation on twitter with a friend I actually went through a lot of them, and I think there are some real issues with how many tropes are split along gender lines.
Consider The Chick. This trope specifically says it applies to women and states that the masculine equivalent is The Heart. It also references The Heart as a component of the trope. I have also seen characters like Daniel Jackson from Stargate referenced to as The Chick. What's more, when I was searching for similar topics before posting this the closest match I found was a topic that discussed The Chick, some of the wild misconceptions about it, and what it's actually supposed to mean.
The issue as I see it is that it should not actually exist. The trope describes itself as The Heart for women when The Heart is gender neutral enough to apply to anyone. It definitely has a number of negative connotations associated with it (to the point that I thought it meant something much closer to The Load until I read its description in detail) and that people have used it to describe men shows that it is actively misused.
If it was just The Chick I'd post about it in Troper Repair and be done with it, but it's just one of the most obvious culprits. Action Girl is a trope that actually is in trope repair right now because it's examples have become too vague. What it describes is an action hero who is a woman. It is clearly the distaff counterpart to Action Hero (implying that women are not heroes?) but there is no equivalent trope for men. Only the Action Hero super trope that is in general use apparently sufficient for everyone who is not a woman. Once again, this is a trope that should probably not exist.
Dark Action Girl reads as "Action Hero Villain who is a woman". Emotionless Girl reads "emotionless person described with female pronouns". Dominatrix is inexplicably gender specific and the description of Evil Diva just sort of assumes it's object will be a woman.
Moving over to the men's side, Absent-Minded Professor makes a point of stating that it usually only applies to men, Bastard Boy/Girlfriend *definitely* describe the same thing with pronouns swapped and contrary to what the Gentlemen Fantasy Job tropes would have you believe, being male is a prerequisite for being neither an aristocrat nor a scholar.
Just read down Always Male and Always Female and you will see dozens of tropes that either should be consolidated or are overly narrow in who they apply to. The heteronormativy present in the sexuality tropes alone is pretty terrible.
These tropes are problematic for 2 reasons. First of all, as I think I have shown, they lead to misuse. Second of all, they create meaningless distinctions along gender lines where for the actual use of the trope gender is irrelevant.
Suggestions: While I'm sure that people will disagree on the severity of the issue, I hope that I've made it fairly clear that there is one. I think it is worth saying that I am not calling for the complete abolishment of gendered tropes. There are cases where having a gender distinction makes sense. Bishōnen, for instance, is something that really only applies to male characters, while Most Common Super Power is unlikely to ever feature many men.
Having said that, what I would like to see in a perfect world would be an overhaul of many of the tropes on those two indexes I posted earlier. Many should be combines together. Others should be reworded for broader inclusion. Others still should be removed entirely. It's a lot of work.
Which brings me to why this is here and not in Troper Repair Shop. Because the scope of the problem is not yet well defined, and because it potentially effects hundreds of tropes, I wanted to bring it up here first to get a discussion going and drum up some awareness and discussion of the issue with these tropes.
edited 21st Jun '15 12:12:43 AM by Kaosubaloo
Guess who, it's Kaosubaloo!