Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

Does the same occur with male love interest in movies where the main character is a woman?

edited 3rd Jun '18 1:40:32 PM by Gabo352

What movies?

Princess Diaries had a similar issue. The narration says the love interest from the first movie is "just her friend" in the second movie.

Dunno if it's comparable but, yay data points?

Being a Love Interest sucks regardless of gender, but is worse for woman because they usually end up as a Love Interest more than males.

edited 3rd Jun '18 4:19:26 PM by KazuyaProta

That and the fact that the moment a competitor steps up, the viewers will inevitably start taking sides, and thus hate your guts because of your being one of multiple Love Interests

edited 3rd Jun '18 4:42:35 PM by MorningStar1337

Because most main protagonists are male. Although I wouldn't say "worse" as much as "more common". Probably splitting hairs, though.

Although, if anything, while I'm not an expert on the area, the ratio of female title characters in comic book based films seems a lot higher than it is in actual comics. Is that just my impression, or actually true? Might have to do with comics being a more male-centred interest, while films are a little more gender neutral (even if we're talking about primarily action flicks).

edited 3rd Jun '18 4:48:21 PM by AnotherDuck

I was thinking about the Male Might, Female Finesse trope and how you rarely see any inversions of the trope. There are only two inversions I know of:

• The first is Mr Miracle and Big Barda of Jack Kirby's New Gods. The former is an acrobat and escape artist who rarely ever fights, while the latter is a super strong warrior who doesn't care much for finesse or subtlety.

• The second comes from, all places, Ninga Gaiden Sigma with Ryu and Rachel. Ryu uses a fighting style focused on speed, agility and precision while Rachel is a superstrong berserker.

Is a very gendered trope, that is why is hard to see inversions.

I sort of want to invert it, but the Female fighter is still pretty "fine"...but the male is a Squishy Wizard while her partner is Made of Iron.

That would count as a inversion? Both are mean to be "fine" in some way.

Also, nice to see that this thread is alive again.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 28th 2018 at 10:49:31 AM

Streets of Rage is the weirdest example of it being played straight that I've ever seen in any media. The first game features three playable characters: Axel Stone (male), Adam Hunter (male) and Blaze Fielding (female). In the first game, Axel is the Jack of All Stats, Adam is the Mighty Glacier and Blaze is the Fragile Speedster.

Now this may seem inoffensive if not cliche. However, consider what their fighting styles are supposed to be. Axel fights using a blend of karate and street fighting techniques, Adam is a boxer and Blaze is a practitioner of judo and sambo, two martial arts that are grapple focused. Yet she's the one focusing on speed the most and is the lowest in strength in the first game . Admittedly, she's upgraded to Jack of All Stats from the second game onwards but even then she still keeps the She-Fu fighting style.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 28th 2018 at 9:30:13 AM

Yeah, her fighting style is one that actually involves a lot of contact.

Adam being a Mighty Glacier is also odd when you consider how much of boxing is focused on balancing strength and speed. If anything he should be a Jack of All Stats with leanings towards Lightning Bruiser.

Its one of the few gendered tropes there is an actual basis for in reality, given that men have 10% greater muscle volume by body mass, and on average are 50% stronger....

Even body building websites run by women for women, will flat out tell you you cant match men◊, you can get better then most men and that's what you should aim for instead.

I would still like to see inversions in media though, and it is strange that it stays even in settings in sci-fi or where humans modify themselfs in other methods....

Laura in Street Fighter V is a Mighty Glacier but she's also the most fanservice-esque character they've yet done.

Yeah. Albeit most of them go to nothing when fictional powers are involved.

I don't mind women being faster fighters while men are relatively tankier in more mundane settings but when we're talking about fantasy or science fiction then I have no tolerance for the trope, it's unnecessary and ceases to be biology and just becomes sexism then.

I disliked the fact they didn't make Noble-Six to be a canonically female Spartan in Halo: Reach.

Mind you, they heavily promoted Sarah Palmer in Spartan Ops but the fans never warmed to her the way they did Fem Shep.

Sadly, all of the female Spartans in Halo 5 seem disposable but no one has much of personality save Buck and that's because of Nathan Fillion's natural charisma.

I am wonder how it look when both the male and the female are meant to be fine. Also, I like the idea of having more woman being The Brute in action stories.

When males or females can be either trope then I have no problem.

It's just when a work typecasts them as one or the other when in-story abilities/technologies should allow for more variation.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 28th 2018 at 7:52:45 AM

Indeed, I very much would like to see more ladies in big bulky power suits in scifi for instance.

Panzer Vor!

Edited by Imca on Aug 28th 2018 at 5:14:08 AM

It's not quite the same with Samus in a catsuit instead of a Power Suit.

https://www.childhoodremastered.com/2018/06/07/episode-91-captain-n-game-master/

Valiant comics knew it best.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 28th 2018 at 6:07:09 AM

I'm reminded of the Elder Scrolls titles where, depending on race, female characters usually start with a higher Agility while male characters have a higher Strength.

But it's a fairly minor benefit that's utterly negligible at higher levels.

To expand further on Blaze in Streets of Rage, it should be noted that she can't suplex fat characters in SOR 1 and 3 as they are too heavy. In fact, her trying to suplex such characters will cause them to fall on her and do damage to her.

Think about that. This woman practices a martial art that revolves around using your opponent's weight against them, yet has no such advantage in two of the games she appears in.

One thing I like about games such as Pillars of Eternity Deadfire is that male and female characters have the same stats. You instead get stat bonuses depending on the race and homeland of your character.

Speaking of fighting, what about the reverse?

What do you mean?