Discussion Main / ActIOnGirl

Once someone can get a good screenshot of the 10 heroine rally (Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Okoye, Shuri, Valkyrie, the Wasp, Rescue, Gamora, Nebula and Mantis) from the climax of Avengers: Endgame I'd suggest using that instead.

Eh, I don't see it.

Also, please try and write better.

Lightning Bruisers are just people who are faster, stronger, and tougher than almost everyone else. So, yes, it's possible. Let's say, a large, athletic woman who was born with all the right genes, who trains herself competently. If the end result is someone who is faster/more agile than most of their competition, stronger/harder hitting than most of their competition, and better at rolling with hits/just plain tougher than most of their competition, their a Lightning Bruiser.

shhh....! don't say the P-word out loud...

What? Porn?

WTF ? ? ?

You have such a narrow definition of the term.

Agreed. It's way too broad. Anytime a female character does anything remotely combat related, she is classified as an Action Girl. We don't have an Action Boy trope do we?

Maybe it should be restricted to women who kick ass on a regular basis, or a character who's had extensive combat training even if she never needs to use it. In Star Trek The Next Generation, for example, Tasha Yar would be an Action Girl because because she's been fighting pretty much since she was a kid and up until her death she was head of security, meaning it was her job to take on bad guys, get in shootouts, and throw down in hand-to-hand combat if need be. Troi, by contrast, would not qualify as an Action Girl just because she kicked that one guy's ass that one time.

The trope is fine as it is,period.

I really think this has undergone some Trope Decay. I'm noticing quite a few cases where female characters are labeled an Action Girl simply because they do something awesome one or two times. This trope isn't supposed to be that. This trope is supposed to be the Distaff Counterpart of an Action Hero.

If that wasn't bad enough, these non-action girls get labeled as a Faux Action Girl when they revert back to their normal selves and don't do anymore asskicking. It's almost like there's the expectation that Real Women Never Wear Dresses.

I really think this has undergone some Trope Decay. I'm noticing quite a few cases where female characters are labeled an Action Girl simply because they do something awesome one or two times. This trope isn't supposed to be that. This trope is supposed to be the Distaff Counterpart of an Action Hero.

If that wasn't bad enough, these non-action girls get labeled as a Faux Action Girl when they revert back to their normal selves and don't do anymore asskicking. It's almost like there's the expectation that Real Women Never Wear Dresses.

With the Tasha Yar example above, I think she would run and hide rather than fight the rape gangs. There's a quick flashback in Where No One Had Gone Before that suggests she had not yet Took a Level in Badass.

@Red Viking: From the Action Hero trope page: "An Action Hero is, perhaps obviously, The Hero of a Summer Blockbuster Action Adventure Movie".

If Action Girl really is the Distaff Counterpart of the Action Hero, then it should only be applied to female protagonists in action-genre works who actively participate in the ass-kicking. That doesn't come up in the description of the trope. Maybe it ought to, though? It would certainly narrow things down quite a bit.

As repeatedly suggested above, I'm in favor for abolishing this trope. As it stands, "female character who does some kind of fighting, be it physical or magical" is very broad and falls into People Sit On Chairs category. (Not to mention it somehow gives the impression that it's somehow unusual or unrealistic.)

I guess I'm having trouble seeing how this is exactly a trope. There doesn't seem to be an Action Guy trope or anything of the sort, so why does a character's gender matter when describing something like "A character renowned for their athletic and combat-oriented prowess." At that point we might as well just include Action Black Guy and Action Brunette as tropes too.

Gender-specific tropes tend to involve things related to associations or stereotypes with the gender, or with aspects that are mutually exclusive to each gender such as body type or, you know, other obvious things that make each gender different from one another. Having an Action Girl trope is basically saying "Females showing aptitude in physical fitness and in a combat environment is something that is notable and set apart from the norm of female roles." We even dismiss the role they play. They aren't women, they're "girls."

The whole thing just screams Dead Horse to me, like why does a character's gender matter in describing their role as a protagonist/adept human being? Can we get an Action Midget trope page started to describe all the short people that happen to fight other characters/monsters?

It's because the vast majority of Action Girls also happen to be in Stripperific outfits. That's just how it is.

If you want, you can always pick a new image. There's a lot to choose from.

Also — Lara Croft happens to be one of the first well-known Action Girls in video gaming, which was previously dominated by an overwhelming majority of male protagonists. In fact you could argue that she paved the way for other female protagonists, fanservicey and otherwise. I'd be just as fine with Samus Aran, but since her gender is rather difficult to discern when she's wearing her armor, I'd say there's nothing wrong with Ms. Croft remaining.

Whatever floats your boat, broski. I'm fine with it either way.

It's a subtrope, so IDK. As far as I'm concerned, Ty Lee isn't ever Dark, though, and Mai compensates by staying Dark even after her Heel–Face Turn.

@Calamity Jane: Unfortunately, many an Action Girl is also put in the role of Ms. Fanservice, for reasons I can't fathom.

@gfrequency: In the mind of the public (or, at least, the movie industry) a female action hero is still a novelty and an anomaly. Also, a female action hero is usually portrayed differently as compared to a male action hero (being stuck as a Faux Action Girl, for example, or Ms. Fanservice.)

...At least, that's what I think.

If an action-oriented woman were still an anomaly, I think we'd see far fewer examples here in which most of the women are as physically capable of the men. There's certainly a vocal subset of any fandom that will say some incredibly nasty things about a woman who can take care of herself in a fight, but it's just not as rare as it once was. (And, although certain mindsets die hard, some guys actually do find physically capable women attractive — hence the frequent fanservice angle.)

I'm not advocating the dissolution of the trope or anything like that — but as Dolescrounger said below, we don't have an Action Boy trope. Instead we have the Badass page, which is overwhelmingly male, and no one seems to feel the need to point out that a character is kicking ass even though he's a guy, OMG. Sticking the women who would qualify for said page in their own little special corner, separate from the "proper" badasses, just seems vaguely condescending.

Maybe a useful distinction would be to have the Action Girl trope reserved for female asskickers who have Fanservice as an integral, defining, constant or nearly constant part of the character, whereas those who have it only as a rare, incidental characteristic should be lumped with the men in Bad Ass and Action Hero where they belong (IMHO). Forex, under this distinction, Katara from Avatar The Last Air Bender remains an Action Girl, whereas Toph would not be considered one, making only one abortive attempt to pretty herself up in Tales of Ba Sing Se.

It would also address the complaint that it's too broad. Though, unfortunately, it would only shave off a small number of examples, and if I could get off my fat arse and actually finish stories (and make them remotely enjoyable) that would change a bit.