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Question on Gender Flip...

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Leaper Since: May, 2009
#1: Feb 13th 2011 at 6:57:05 PM

The trope Gender Flip seems to be entirely about reversing the genders of existing stories a'la Distaff Counterparts. But I've also seen it used to refer to any flipping of "usual" genders in generalized plotlines and tropes (e.g. the woman rescuing the distressed prince).

Is this a misuse or not? I can't quite tell from the description.

suedenim Teutonic Tomboy T-Girl from Jet Dream HQ Since: Oct, 2009
Teutonic Tomboy T-Girl
#2: Feb 13th 2011 at 8:01:42 PM

I'd say "Heroic woman rescuing the distressed prince" type stuff is some other trope, though I'm not sure precisely what trope it would be. I thought (when curating the Gender Flip trope) that Pink Boy, Blue Girl covered that kind of scenario, but some said that wasn't the case.

In any case, the way I look at it, Gender Flip is about literal "roles" (in the "parts in a play" sense), not so much "societal roles." There's a bit of wiggle room in that not every Gender Flip is as cut-and-dried as, e.g., Starbuck (character with the same name, function, etc. - basically everything the same but sex.) Sometimes it's a little more nebulous, like "Role written for a man ends up being played by a woman."

Distaff Counterpart is really something else altogether, in that it's usually a different character. If Battlestar Galactica did Distaff Counterpart instead of Gender Flip, it would be something like "Young male Lt. Starbuck, it turns out, has a sister who's a lot like him."

edited 13th Feb '11 8:02:40 PM by suedenim

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