Merge with Inter Class Romance ykttw and Possibly Rename: Uptown Girl

Hope I'm doing this right. :)

The consensus on the ykttw Inter Class Romance is that the description and examples there should be merged with Uptown Girl.

Uptown Girl is a fine trope on its own as far as I'm aware, but the way it's written is both gender and class specific enough that is doesn't allow for/encourage examples of romance between different classes that aren't poor guy-rich girl. Since this is such a common trope/story premise in romantic fiction of all types, and because these stories tend to follow the same patterns whatever the gender or class permutations are, this proposal is to re-write the article to accomodate a greater range of examples.

If it is made neutral in regards to gender and class, however, it will also require a rename to reflect this. In that event, Uptown Girl is probably still good as a redirect.

As far as I know, this is the right place and I agree with you too. Even if Uptown Girl may in its description allowed for different setups (i.e. a rich boy/poor girl situation), I think its name probably attracts many more rich girl/poor (or average wealth) boy type examples. I have not checked its use though so I might be wrong there.

I also think that Inter-Class Romance is a much more descriptive name since to me Uptown Girl sounds more like a rich female character than a type of romantic relationship.

edited 29th Apr '11 7:27:17 PM by LouieW

I've seen the rich girl/poor guy combination ten or twelve times as often as I've seen the other way around, though.

My objection to the name is that its the name of a work.

edited 29th Apr '11 7:34:17 PM by Worldmaker

You have two main options. 1) merge and rename or 2)launch Inter-Class Romance as a supertrope. Which depends on numbers.

Wait, Up Town Girl is a work? It's not just a song is it (I'm pretty sure there's a song by that name).

The work is Uptown Girls.

It's also a Billy Joel song.

Okay, so the plural is the work, the singular is the song. Song titles are fair game IIRC.

I was thinking of the song. I didn't know song titles were fair game.

Song titles are fair game because they don't get their own pages, they go on the musicians page (as if they were episodes to the musicians series). The main exceptions being things like Carmina Burana which is background music or large Operas. We also operate on a First Come First Serve basis, if the trope was named by popular culture and then somebody named a work after it, the trope keeps the name.

@Deboss: Which numbers are you referring to? Number of examples or number of supporters?

Right now the ykttw has a majority vote for merging, but would it be better to start a crowner here? I rarely get involved with the TRS so I'm not entirely sure of how to proceed.

@Louie W: I hadn't initially thought of that, but you do have a good point of it sounding like a character trope rather than a romance trope. I haven't checked wicks either though.

Numbers of examples.

I did not see any reason why making one would cause any problems, so I made a page action crowner here.

Feel free to edit it as you see fit and please tell me if I made any mistakes on it.

I also took a look at some of the uses of Uptown Girl.

Airborn: The trope is used correctly in the traditional way.

Ashes To Ashes Spoilers: The examples say the trope was used in a music video of the original Trope Namer. I am not really sure about this.

Beauty Is Bad: There does not seem to be misuse here from what I can tell.

Billy Joel: I think the trope is being used correctly here, but the way that a person's name is potholed to Uptown Girl kind of makes the use of the trope here confusing in my opinion.

Your Highness: The trope is used correctly, mentions an inversion of the standard relationship as described in the trope's description.

Victorian Romance Emma: The trope is used correctly, mentions an inversion of the standard relationship.

Ultimate Spider-Woman: The trope is used correctly, mentions an inversion of the standard relationship.

This Is Your Song: The trope seems to be used correctly, mentions the standard relationship though again a character's name is mentioned in the context of being an "Uptown Girl" girlfriend which I think makes the situation a bit confusing.

The Karate Kid: The trope is used in the standard way.

I guess the decently large proportions of inversions of the standard poor boy/rich girl relationship could mean a few different things. I think that it could indicate that the the trope itself is not being used by a lot of people who would use it in the traditional way if they were aware of it. On the other hand, I guess it could mean that people do understand the trope despite its name.

Still, I think that given the uses of the inverse relationship, the trope description should at least be changed. I would argue that changing the name to be more consistent with the content of the trope (i.e. that it is not gender specific) could be a good idea too. At this point I do not believe the trope has enough use that its current usage restricts whether or not one should merge Inter-Class Romance with it, but I could be wrong about that.

edited 30th Apr '11 12:57:08 PM by LouieW

I tried doing a count and here's what I got:

39 out of 50 examples on Uptown Girl are rich girl/poor guy.

9 out of 44 examples on Inter-Class Romance are rich girl/poor guy (excluding examples that didn't specify, examples that would be duplicate entries, and examples that seemed incorrect to begin with).

That would mean if they were combined there would be 94 entries on one page (I'm not sure if that's too many or not) only about half of which (48) currently follow the Uptown Girl description of rich girl/poor guy.

edited 6th May '11 1:38:06 PM by whereismytea

I'm wondering why there's a crowner... meaning why not just add the examples to the already existing page. Could someone explain that to me, please?

Basically, if we just add the examples, we've got a page with a gender-biased title and trope description which nearly half of the examples don't reflect. In general, that's not a good thing. The description is easily fixed, but renaming is sometimes a touchy issue from what I've seen.

Hence the crowner which is basically: do we want to rename this, fix the description, and then add the examples, or do we want to find some other place for the (50+) examples that don't match the current description? (Although exactly what would happen to them in that case is still unclear. This crowner isn't getting a lot of votes either way. )

edited 7th May '11 12:50:06 AM by whereismytea

Bump?

Gender biased?

There's an old saying in criminal investigation: if you scrutinize any random person long enough for evidence they were involved in the crime you're investigating, you're going to find it. I think you see gender bias because you want to see gender bias, and not from there actually being any gender bias involved.

The trope is named after a song in which one person is rich, the other poor. The fact that the woman is the rich one isn't "Gender bias", and neither is the use of the song title as the trope name. It was used, most likely, because its recognizable and gets the idea across.

Lighten up and get over it.

Oh, and your crowner? As written, its not about rewriting, its not about renaming... its about whether or not the examples from the YKTTW should be added. Which is precisely what I suggested.

edited 12th May '11 9:48:38 PM by Worldmaker

Crowner says merge.

Crowner does not say to rename though.

To reiterate Worldmaker, the article is called Uptown Girl. If/when it merges, half of the examples will not contain an "uptown girl" in them. That makes it a pretty poor primary title.

This isn't a gender crusade for its own sake. It's just saying: we have examples, male and female, gay and straight, and the trope itself is written in a way that only favours one iteration of the same phenomena, and, all examples being equal, why not rewrite it to clearly accomodate all iterations right off the bat? It's simply done as long as there is consensus to do it. It may prevent confusion (considering how many examples the ykttw has attracted that the page doesn't have, it suggests there must be some. Ykttws rarley gain that many examples before launching, especially if the page already exists)

I don't have anything against Billy Joel nor is this huge Serious Business to me. Inter-Class Romance isn't even my original ykttw, I just took over once it was abandoned and am interested in seeing the questions it brought up resolved, through whatever decision the tropers participating in the discussion/crowner come to. No need to target me.

I will add a rename option to the crowner now that there's consensus to not leave Uptown Girl as it is.

I think you're misinterpreting the phrase "gender bias". No one is saying that Uptown Girl is somehow sexist, they're saying that if the trope is to be broadened, calling it Uptown Girl is misleading because that specifically implies the "rich girl, poor boy" setup when a lot of the examples don't fit that.

Speaking of which, I'm for the rename.

Its an unnecessary rename. Oh my, there are actually examples where its the male whose rich and the female whose poor. Oh my... let us rename the trope, because its not sufficient to merely mention the fact that this trope isn't restricted to "rich woman/poor man" in the description", because Viewers Are Morons.

Seriously. Just add the new examples. That's all that needs be done.

No, I'm not. I'm saying that you're looking for gender bias (not sexism), and because you are looking for it, you're finding it. Not because its there, but because you expect to see it there, and so you do.

edited 13th May '11 5:07:59 AM by Worldmaker

I'm sorry for making assumptions, then, but in that case I'm curious as to what you mean by gender bias. I had thought that the current title was gender-biased by definition on account of, you know, having "girl" in it.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. The reason the title has the word "Girl" in it is because the song title it is named after just happens to have the word "Girl" in it. There is no gender bias there. The trope is named after an example of itself. That is all.

Or do you intend to rename every possible trope whose name indicates one gender but is applicable to both? In that case, I wish you luck... you should be finished with this project sometime in the next four to five years.

Just add the examples from the YKTTW and assume the readers of the wiki are smart enough to realize that just because the word "girl" is in the title doesn't necessarily mean you can't have boys be the rich ones. An alternative I once again point out is mentioned in the trope description.

May I point out this index to you: Unisex Tropes.

Can we drop the "gender bias" thing now and get back to the topic?