Web Video / The Take

"Here's our take on..."

The Take (previously called Screenprism) is a YouTube channel that makes video essays, analyses, and explanations about multiple movies, tropes, series, etc.

The channel started in 2016 and has been growing ever since, even creating web video series like Take 2, in collaboration with Netflix, and The Takeaway, in collaboration with Amazon Prime, in their respective channels.

Not to be confused with the trope The Take.

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Tropes Examined

• Action Girl: Discussed in "The Tough Girl Trope, Explained".
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Discussed in "The Bad Boy Trope, Explained". The video argues that bad boys are considered so attractive because women find it thrilling to engage with the type of man society says they shouldn't want. Bad boys are given redeeming qualities and sad backstories to keep them from being too unlikeable or unsympathetic.
• Alpha Bitch: Discussed in "The Mean Girl Trope, Explained". The video discussed how girls channel their negative emotions through relational aggression (spreading rumors, manipulating people, etc.) because it's not socially acceptable for them to express their anger and pain overtly as boys do.
• Applicabilityinvoked: According to "Mean Girls: Regina George, The Psychology of a Dictator", Regina and the social structure of North Shore High is similar to a dictatorship. The movie supports this by having Regina being compared to Julius Caesar (the plot of the film also being remarkably similar to that of the Shakespeare play) and having Janis call Regina an "evil dictator" with three key pillars (with academic research to support it): Legitimacy (her boyfriend Aaron Samuels and conventional beauty and physique), Co-Optation/Co-Option (inviting challengers like the sexually attractive Karen, wealthy and gossipy Gretchen, and physically attractive and naive Cady), and Repression (keeping the Burn Book of secrets and insults about the student body, using Gretchen as her Secret Police, using swift punishment like the phony Planned Parenthood call, silly rules like wearing pink on Wednesdays). Though most likely a coincidence, the only date mentioned in the movie is October 3rd, which becomes the unofficial Mean Girls Day among the fans, happens to be the mentioned date of the birthday and death day of Cassius, a prominent character in Julius Caesar.
• Asian and Nerdy: Discussed "The Model Minority Trope, Explained" as one aspect of the common portrayal of Asian Americans as "model minorities" and how much pressure that places on real Asian students to be great at math and science, even if they have interests outside those subjects.
• Blackface: This is usually brought up in videos discussing the historical portrayal of black people on screen and on stage.
• Big Fun: Discussed in "The Funny Fat Girl Trope, Explained", which specifically deals with how comedic fat women are shifting from objects of ridicule to self-assertive and confident characters.
• Book Smart: Discussed in "The Smart Girl Trope, Explained", specifically the portrayal of book smart girls. They are often ambitious, perceptive, and self-aware, but overthinking, insecure, and self-conscious.
• Brainless Beauty: Discussed in "The Bimbo Trope, Explained — Reclaiming the Label".
• Bury Your Gays: Discussed in "The Bury Your Gays Trope, Explained".
• The Casanova: Discussed in "The Ladies' Man Trope, Explained".
• Child Prodigy: Discussed in "The Child Prodigy Trope, Explained".
• Creepy Loner Girl: Discussed in "The Weird Girl Trope, Explained", which examines five different variations of this trope: the Goth, the Smartass, the Basket Case, the Space Cadet, and the Awkward Misfit. The portrayal of these characters reflects society's discomfort with women who are difficult to understand.
• Delicate and Sickly: Discussed in "The Sick Girl Trope, Explained".
• Dogged Nice Guy: Discussed in "The Nice Guy Trope, Explained". Historically, the concept of infatuated men pining after women who weren't interested was portrayed as lovable, endearing, and romantic. But in recent times, this is increasingly being seen as creepy and entitled.
• Dragon Lady: Discussed in "The Dragon Lady Trope - Reclaiming Her Power". The video does acknowledge the stereotypes existing in the archetype but also points out there are some positive elements to be gleaned from it.
• Dumb Blonde: Discussed in "Legally Blonde and the History of the Dumb Blonde". Blonde women have been historically portrayed as incredibly attractive and therefore unintelligent on the sexist assumption that women can't be both beautiful and smart. This is further exemplified by the fact that the Dumb Blonde often has a Brainy Brunette rival.
• Dumb Jock: Discussed in "The Dumb Jock Trope, Explained".
• Eat the Rich: Discussed in "Eat the Rich! Stories About the Wealthy, Explained".
• Femme Fatale: Discussed in "The Femme Fatale Trope, Explained". This archetype has been linked to men's anxieties about women's sexuality, independence, and place in the workforce.
• Final Girl: Discussed in "The Final Girl Trope, Explained".
• Flawless Token: In "The Model Minority Trope, Explained" and "The Strong Black Woman Trope, Explained", it's explained how these portrayals set unrealistically high standards for real Asian people and Black women to live up to while erasing their flaws, struggles, and need for support.
• Gaslighting: Gaslighting, Explained | What Does It Meme? analyzes the trope, the history which the term has in pop culture, starting with the play Gaslight and it's movie adaptations, as well as examples like Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) and Dangerous Crossing (1953), which establish the form of abuse as a very intimate one, often signalized by its domestic or limited settings, and how it often shifts into a fantastical version of it in media like Westworld, Jessica Jones (2015), and arguably even The Matrix.
  • The video also goes into the political use of this, how journalists have accused then-president Trump's insistence on provably false information as a form of gaslighting the public, a technique used in Russia of giving contradicting information to the media to feed a sense of public confusion, and examples of entire groups being gaslight by authorities, like rape victims in Unbelievable, pedophilia victims in Spotlight, black people in Small Axe, and poor people in Dark Waters.
• Gay Best Friend: Discussed in "The Gay Best Friend — How It Became a Stereotype".
• Girlboss Feminist: The Take has done three videos on this.
  • "The #Girlboss Trope, Explained", which explained what the Girlboss is.
  • "The Girlboss Villain is Everywhere, It's Enough Now", which criticized the increased use of the trope as potentially sexist.
  • "Why the Bad Female Leader is Everywhere Onscreen" mentions the girlboss archetype as a subgroup.
• Girl Next Door: Discussed in "The Girl Next Door Trope, Explained". It explains that the GND has long been portrayed as an idealized symbol of domestic femininity, but more recent portrayals have given this type of character more complexity and nuance than just being an ideal woman for the male protagonist.
• Gold Digger: Discussed in "The Gold Digger Trope, Explained".
• Hysterical Woman: There are multiple videos that examine how anger and mental illness are demonized in women.
• Ice Queen/Defrosting the Ice Queen: Jointly discussed in "The Ice Queen Trope, Explained — Why She Always Defrosts".
• I Reject Your Reality: Gaslighting, Explained | What Does It Meme? argues that this is the goal of a gaslighter: muddy the waters to such a point that the existence of provable, objective reality is impossible, and everyone gets to form their own version of reality. Media that puts gaslighters as villains often paint the existence and the victory of objective truth against their lies.
• Jewish American Princess: Discussed in "The Jewish American Princess — Beyond the Stereotype", which examines the intersection of gender, class, and Jewish-American identity.
• Junior Counterpart: The Becky to the Karen in "The Becky Trope, Explained". While it's explained that what makes a Becky different than a Karen isn't just their age, the components are connected with the former's youth and the latter's lack of it. While both are upper-class white women whose privilege and casual racism allow them to hurt others and be free of consequences, Becky usually does so out of genuine naivete and ignorance, rather than Karen's malice and attempt to hold whatever authority she has on the social hierarchy. Becky's youth usually gives her a chance of learning from it and changing in order to not become a Karen in the future, whereas Karens are usually portrayed as already doomed characters whose nasty ways are too ingrained to change as easily as Becky's.
• Love Freak: Discussed in "The Romance Addict Trope, Explained — Why Love Isn't All You Need."
• Lower-Class Lout: Discussed in "The 'White Trash' Trope and its Real Hidden Agenda". Negative depictions of working-class White people have often been used to reinforce classist attitudes and elevate middle- and upper-class White people by comparison. In many cases, poor White people are antagonists in White Savior narratives where wealthier White characters save Black characters from racism. This ignores the issue of racism and elitism among wealthy White people and uses Black people as pawns to demonstrate how great wealthy White people are.
• Madonna-Whore Complex: Mentioned by name in "The Girl Next Door Trope, Explained", highlighting famous examples of the Girl Next Door being contrasted with The Vamp. Discussed in "How the Madonna-Whore Complex Still Reigns", which explains the negative implications this trope has for both the "Madonna" and the "Whore".
• Makeover Montage: Discussed in "Why Women in Movies Get Makeovers".
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Discussed in "The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, Explained". The video argues that MPDG's defining trait is the impact she has on the male protagonist and that it would be incorrect to label every quirky, eccentric female character as an MPDG. "Why We Need the Manic Pixie Dream Boy" explains how this trope is portrayed differently when the genders are inverted.
• Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow: Discussed in "The Lotus Blossom Stereotype — Dangers of the Asian Fetish", which traces the history of this trope and the negative consequences it has on real Asian women.
• Ms. Fanservice: Discussed in "The Bombshell Trope, Explained", which explains how sexy women are simultaneously idealized and infantilized in media.
• No Bisexuals: Conversed in the "Bisexuality Stories Onscreen" video, where if bisexual people aren't villainized, they're treated as nonexistent or a stepping stone to becoming straight or gay, and even the characters attracted to multiple genders often refuse to label themselves. Despite more complex modern depictions of sexuality, such as in Brokeback Mountain and Moonlight (2016), depicting men who love men while still having a legitimate attraction to women, they're often treated strictly as homosexual by audiences.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird: Discussed in "The Childfree Woman Trope Needs a SERIOUS Update", which examines how women who don't want children have been portrayed as unlovable, tragic, irresponsible, or too career focused.
• Obnoxious Entitled Housewife: Discussed in "The Karen Trope, Explained". It explains how this character deals with feelings of powerlessness, insecurity, and fear by taking it out on people she considers lesser, usually working-class people and people of color, and gets away with it by using society's idealization of white womanhood to frame herself as the victim. The video also highlights how public perceptions of this character are influenced by sexism and ageism without justifying her actions.
• One of the Boys: Discussed in "The Cool Girl Trope, Explained", specifically how conventionally attractive women with traditionally masculine interests and attitudes are often written be to a fantasy for the presumed straight male audience. The problem isn't that she's a tomboy, but that she is still expected to conform to rigid beauty standards and male expectations.
• Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: Discussed in "The 'Crazy' Ex-Girlfriend - A Manufactured Trope". This trope traces its origins to historic sexist marriage laws that gave husbands complete control over their wives and made it difficult for women to obtain a divorce. Women who lashed out at this oppressive system were labeled insane, thus invoking the stigma against mental illness as an insult. Since then, the ex-girlfriend has been portrayed as a specter haunting the man's current relationship rather than a fully fleshed-out character. She's often framed as purely villainous, even if the man mistreated her during the relationship. However, more recent media treats these characters with more sympathy and nuance. It's worth noting that in real life, ex-boyfriends are statistically more likely to harm their ex-girlfriends, rather than the other way around.
• Romanticized Abuse: "Toxic Takeaways: How Not to Love, Actually" mentions how stalker-like behavior is a staple of the romance genre, especially in the case of Mark, whose obsession with a woman is portrayed as romantic limerence rather than an off-putting trait. Even the actor playing it had doubts about the role, questioning the director's choices and thinking he was coming off as stalker-ish, and in the years since the movie's release, it has become a point of contention among critics.
• Sassy Black Woman: Discussed in "A History of Black Stereotypes Onscreen" as one of the most pervasive images of Black women.
• Serial Killer: Discussed in "The Serial Killer Trope | Empathy for the Devil", mostly focusing on why audiences are drawn to empathize and sympathize with these characters.
• The Slacker: Discussed in "Bart Simpson and the Decline of the Slacker".
• Southern Belle: Discussed in "The Southern Woman Trope, Explained".
• Spicy Latina: "The Spicy Latina Trope, Explained" outlines the history of the trope and how it reduces Latina women to a sexual fetish and/or race-specific version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl for white men.
• Straw Feminist: Discussed in "The Feminist Trope, Explained".
• Stuffed into the Fridge: Discussed in "The Women in Refrigerators Trope, Explained".
• Teen Pregnancy: "The Teen Mom Trope | Tragic, Heroic, or Glam?" examines society's changing views of teenage mothers.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Several videos discuss the various ways masculine women and feminine women are pitted against each other on-screen (often for a man's attention or for social acceptance), which implies that women are naturally antagonistic toward each other and that there's only one correct way to be a woman.
• Unfortunate Implicationsinvoked: One of their series, "Toxic Takeaways," is dedicated to discussing the poor messages in films. Videos subjects include Love Actually romanticizing limerence, stalking, repression, and unhealthy power dynamics, and how Ross Geller is rewarded for his toxic masculinity.
• Vampires Are Sex Gods: Discussed in "The Sexy Vampire Trope, Explained".
• Wet Blanket Wife: Discussed in "The Nag Trope - It's Time to Write It Out", which typically frames women as unreasonable and insufferable regardless of how justified their frustrations are. She's often characterized as materialistic, overachieving, and unfaithful. The Nag is often the most hated character in a piece of media because she makes a convenient scapegoat for her husband's failures, misdeeds, and inadequacies.
• White Man's Burden: Discussed in "The White Savior Trope, Explained". The video explains how this trope undermines its own message about racial equality by portraying characters of color as passive, helpless victims who can't escape or overcome oppression without help from a white person. It also reduces racism to individuals who behave badly, while ignoring institutional racism.
• Wicked Stepmother: Discussed in "The Wicked Stepmother Trope, Explained", which explains how a combination of sexism and anxiety around maternal death, divorce, and blended families lead to the demonization of stepmothers in media. It also briefly touches on negative portrayals of stepfathers, which aren't as common or ingrained in pop culture.

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