Markup View

Author: jkbeta

Aug 27th 2012 at 4:54:12 PM

From what I got from Eddie's statement, FiveManBand is (supposed to be) a pre-established term that covers that one single pre-established group of four guys and a girl who fills the Chick role. I haven't done any research on this, so it's pure guesswork, but the fact that the only female member will always fill the same role, which happens to be TheChick, seems to imply that the SmurfettePrinciple is at work here, couple with something like WomenAreWiser or some such. Re-distributing genders over the roles keeps the same group dynamics, but will usually not imply the same gender roles anymore. Admittedly, this may be a thing for an analysis page, though.

About the mis-use: Can we actually deal with that in any way except completely cutting the trope? People will always look for some dumping ground where they can put up "large cast", and the way FiveManBand allowed for {{SixthRanger}}s and so on made it a prime target. Unless we create and seriously entry pimp some generic "large cast that does not fit any categories" trope, I don't think the shoehorning will stop.