Opening and clocking.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI've aways thought this was Whovian Fan Myopia.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.Bowties appear on odd kind of outfits which might be a thing such as Emizel◊ in Disgaea 4 with a bowtie and hoodie. Wearing a bowtie in a tux and such would be more about a Tuxedoed Up trope. And Bowties and other ribbons are a Magical Girl costume trope.
Other than those three a bowtie is just not a thing.
I think the Bowties Are Actually Cool flavor does have value as a trope.
Traditionally, bowties have been seen as geeky and are part of the standard uniform of the Hollywood Nerd. You know, the geeky guys with the thick glasses, pocket protectors, suspenders, and bowties, something of a Dead Horse Trope now. But in this context bowties signifying coolness are a subversion of this trope, or a deliberate invocation of Nerds Are Sexy.
With this in mind, I think this trope is workable if both the trope description and examples are more specific about what is cool, in-universe about both the character and the bowtie. Possible flavors that I think are legitimate:
- Bob is never seen without his bowtie and is The Casanova, Big Man on Campus, etc.
- Bob is a Badass in a Nice Suit who wears bowties as part of his tuxedo
- Bob wears bowties as part of a deliberate and discussed attempt to "look cool", regardless of what other characters may think about bowties.
edited 6th Jan '17 3:28:15 PM by naturalironist
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"This. As long as it can be used to mean something, and not just "people wearing a bowtie", then this is easily salvageable.
Seems like such things would be better suited to a more general trope, rather than one specific to bow ties. Because then we'll need a trope for each of the other dozens of articles of clothing that might be used in a similar manner.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.Cut. I don't how this is "salvageable" when all the examples on the page are pretty much just "this character wears a bowtie".
This entry has some insight:
- When ties became regarded as uncool in the 60s, bowties were the first to go (neckties were saved by getting larger). In the 80s, the bowtie had a resurgence among "yuppies", but they became Deader Than Disco once again by the 90s. In the early 2010's, they came back in fashion again; with everyone from high school students to dads to celebrities are rocking them.
There is something of a Cyclic Trope here:
- 1930's (ish): Bowties are fashionable. Depictions from this era associated with the Tuxedo and Martini/ Sharp Dressed Man tropes. Later works alluding to this era may use bow ties for Awesome Anachronistic Apparel.
- 1960's: Bowties are uncool, and associated with HollywoodNerds. Most examples from or inspired by this era are Not An Example of Bowties Are Cool.
- The New '10s: Bowties become cool again due to the growing popularity of "nerdy" things in general. Many examples from this era subvert Hollywood Nerd wardrobe tropes or use Nerds Are Sexy.
I would argue that the combination of Hollywood Nerd, Badass in a Nice Suit, and Awesome Anachronistic Apparel is unique to bowties, and thus is worth a trope. While there are plenty of examples here that are just "character wears a bowtie" or are actually examples of nerdy characters that Report Siht happened to like (e.g. Bill Nye, FoxTrot), I think there are also a fair number of examples (Bruce Wayne, the Homestuck examples, some of the music examples) that probably count and just need to be reworked to explain the context.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"Not seeing how Bruce Wayne is an example. Nerds wear bowties but I don't think it's the bowtie itself that's nerdy.
edited 6th Jan '17 6:57:30 PM by captainpat
While People Sit On Chairs shoehorning is a major problem, we should also consider the description. I tried to do a wick check, but I realized it was pointless because I pretty much defined "valid example" as "anything where the bowtie has any significance whatsoever" even though what it signifies varies wildly between the examples. It needs to have one specific focus. Personally, I think we should either change this to Bowtie Of Nerdiness or cut it. Maybe there should be a crowner?
Appearance Trope with Chairs issues = not worth our time or salvageable = kill it.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?I can get behind a cut.
she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope ReportToo many inbounds for a cut. We'll probably need an appropriate redirect target. Most likely, something about making the nerdy look cool, or possibly something about Cool Outfit.
And of course, we'll want to make sure we have the various tropes (plural) that the examples should be moved to.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.I see something with this trope. Bowties do tend to represent the nerdyness/stuffyness/age of characters. I think that might be a trope. But as an "X is cool" trope, no.
I vote cut, regardless of inbounds. What about redirecting to Awesome Anachronistic Apparel, or Nerd.
From reading the page's description, I think bowties are much like Nice Hat - being something iconic to the wearer. Them being nerdy, cool, outdated etc are simple descriptions that are affected with the era and are ultimately inconsequential.
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.We could always try something like Our Bowties Are Different. That would at least cut down on the ZCE problem.
(I don't think this is a serious suggestion, but having made it, I suddenly can't decide.) :)
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.Any "Our X Are Different" format is way too vague for a Chairs-inclined appearance trope.
Has someone done a thorough wick check? It can be very informative in such situations. My sense is that the page should be cut or disambiguated, though, and people send actual tropes into TLP.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanPretty much just being used to point out characters that wear bowties. Really leaning towards a cut.
Wick check results (25 wicks out of 589 total):
Zero context (2)
"Wears a bowtie" (20)
- Characters.Academy Of Merlin Sideplot Characters
- Characters.Academy Of Merlin Students
- Characters.Ace Attorney Witnesses And Other Characters Manga
- Characters.Adventure Time Main
- Characters.Aero Fighters
- Characters.A Hell Of My Own
- All Superheroes Must Die
- Characters.Alvin And The Chipmunks Animated Film
- Characters.Animal House
- Characters.Arcana Heart
- Characters.Archer Main Characters
- Characters.Arthur
- A Song Is Born
- Awful Hospital
- Axe Cop
- Anime.Bannertail
- Characters.Batman Film Series
- Batman Forever
- Batwoman
- Characters.Bee And Puppycat
wears bowtie and is cool (1)
period appropriate attire (2)
Here are some more:
Bowtie Of Nerdiness/Tackiness: (3)
Bowties Actually Are Cool: (4)
People Sit On Chairs: (7)
- Animal House
- Gravity Falls S1 E7 "Double Dipper"
- The Huckleberry Hound Show
- Sesame Street
- Aero Fighters
- Batwoman
- Friendship Is Magic: Jerks and Bullies
ZCE: (4)
Just A Doctor Who Reference: (6)
Other (1):
- Pokémon S19E12 "Party Dancecapades!": Just characters wearing bowties is not an example, but the briefly-mentioned "bowtie motif" might be.
Chairs usage is over 50%. Good enough reason to burn the entire thing.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?Sorted examples from this page. Text are my (brief) justifications for the categorization, not the actual example text, which is almost uniformly unhelpful.
Character wears a Bowtie: 68
Actually Cool: 33
Nerdy or Anachronistic: 16
Mixed/Other: 13
Uncategorized: 32. I didn't get to the Web Original, Western Animation, or Real Life sections. Most of the Real Life examples lean heavily towards Chairs.
- Orville Redenbacher
- Ranma from Ranma ½
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX: Sho
- Hanson and Sanson from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water
- Transformers: Super-God Masterforce: Minerva
- Jonathan Joestar wore bowties a few times throughout his time as protagonist in Jojos Bizarre Adventure.
- Zatanna: bowtie part of magician shtick, doesn't relate to other bowtie-related tropes
- Cyclops of X-Men
- Tony from the Johnny Turbo magazine ads.
- The Flash: Barry Allen
- Richie Rich
- ''Jommeke: Choco the chimpansee
- Sunnyville Stories: Matthew Talbot
- Archie Comics Archie
- Rasmus Klump: Pingu
- Nero
- What's New? with Phil and Dixie: Dixie
- Bloom County: Opus the Penguin
- Dagwood in Blondie.
- Tapper Smurf, Empath: The Luckiest Smurf.
- King Candy from ''Wreck It Ralph'
- Milo from Atlantis The Lost Empire
- In My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games, the girls from the Shadowbolts team
- Where the Truth Lies: seems meaningful, but not enough context to say how.
- Harvey
- Hobart Frisbee wears one in A Song Is Born.
- Laurel and Hardy: Stan
- Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot.
- The Cat in the Hat title character
- Robert "Scotty" Bennett and Don Crutchfield in James Ellroy's Blood's A Rover.
- Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas: seems plausible, ZCE
- On The Andy Griffith Show: Barney Fife
- Tim Wonnacott of Bargain Hunt.
- Quiz show Fifteen to One had contestant Michael Penrice
- Gilmore Girls: Richard Gilmore
- " In a Saturday Night Live Presidential Debate sketch then performer Al Franken played then Senator Paul Simon. All the moderator would ask Senator Simon about was his bow tie."
- Probably meaningless, maybe hints of Bowties are Nerdy
- Game show host Bud Collyer
- Days of Our Lives: during the '80s, Eugene Bradford (played by John de Lancie). Could be either, I can't tell.
- One of boyband JLS wore a pink and white bow tie when they appeared on the Graham Norton Show on 25th Nov 2011
- PSY is seen sporting one in the video for Gangnam Style.
- Pharrell Williams sports a bow-tie in the "Happy" music video.
- Bob Backlund
- Bow ties were part of the standard uniform for a WCW referee.
- Johnny Ego or Juan Francisco de Coronado as he came to be known in Chikara
- David Otunga
- Bow ties and tiny tilted top hats are the calling cards of Daffney's All-Star Squad.
- Professional snooker
- Dave Bolland
- Mike Hawthorne
- Rocket Age: Mr Festil
- Weiss from Arcana Heart
- BlazBlue: Carl Clover
- Emizel in Disgaea 4
- Jeff from Earth Bound.
- Hurdy from Final Fantasy Tactics A2
- Mario wears one in Punch-Out!!
- Nowi in Fire Emblem: Awakening
- Dr. Gilbert Buford from Legend of the Crystal Skull- some elements of Outdated Outfit, but doesn't seem important given the setting and the practical aspect (character is a doctor)
- There are a few different colored bow-ties for your monsters to wear in Final Fantasy XIII-2.
- In the Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, when Liara's holographic assistant "Glyph" decides to change into a more festive outfit for Shepard's house party, he returns sporting a very large holographic bow-tie.
- Five Nights at Freddy's
- Bowties are one of your enemies in Activision's Atari 2600 game Megamania.
- Supernormal Step
- Bobwhite. This guy.
- Maybe some hints of the cool aspect, but hard to tell.
- Sam & Fuzzy: Fuzzy. ZCE
- Martin from Ignition Zero
- Baccano villainous Evil Is Cool Badass in a Nice Suit variety
- Shizuo Heiwajima from Durarara!!: Sharp-Dressed Man
- Sailor Moon: Tuxedo Mask - mysterious love interest
- Bruce Wayne of Batman: rich playboy, Byronic Hero, is Batman. May not be especially notable as many other characters in setting also do.
- Snoopy dons one of these (along with a bowler hat) when he's in his "World Famous Attorney" persona.
- The Baron from The Cat Returns: bowtie accentuates Cool Cat characterization
- Christopher Walken as Max Shreckin ''Batman Returns'
- Mr. Blue in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
- James Bond: classic Tuxedo and Martini
- Gaff from Blade Runner
- In The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, the Devil (played by Tom Waits) makes a red bow tie look cool.
- Tendo Choi sports a red one in Pacific Rim.
- Doctor Who. The Matt Smith example is definitely the Nerds Are Sexy/ Nerds are cool variant.
- Leverage: Discussed example
- Brother Mouzone from The Wire
- Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass
- Glee's Kurt Hummel and Artie Abrams: Nerds Are Sexy/Cool variant
- Alton Brown cited this trope by name as a reason he selected a contestant for his team on Next Food Network Star.
- Cuthbert Sinclair on Supernatural.
- Stromae.
- Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick typically dons one of these on stage.
- Dr. John rocks a bow-tie (pink, no less) at The Band's Last Waltz concert.
- Avenged Sevenfold's rhythm guitarist, Zacky Vengeance, frequently rocks a bow-tie.
- Janelle Monae
- David Byrne, notably in Talking Heads'
- Jade Thirlwall from Little Mix has a bow tie as her ident and is often seen wearing one. In the music video for Wings, which has over 60 million views, she is seen in a room full of them.
- "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase
- Jiggle-O James Johnson tends to go shirtless with a bow tie for entrance attire. Rhett Titus would later go for a similar look while in his Casanova Wannabe stage.
- La Aristocrata of Bolivia's New Xtreme Order
- White bow ties are the accessory of choice for the World Wrestling League's Gentlemen's Club.
- A bow tie is Ricky Ruffin's official symbol.
- Homestuck
- Johnny Thunder of the Justice Society of America.
- Jon Arbuckle from Garfield
- FoxTrot: invoked by Jason to appear smarter
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman: Mr. Peabody, a classic Insufferable Genius
- Max in Rushmore, either this or meaningless Wes Anderson styling.
- In Sabrina, Harrison Ford. Anachronistic Outdated Outfit flavor.
- Pee-wee's Big Adventure: more like Anachronistic
- Pee-wee's Playhouse: ditto
- The Nutty Professor
- Bill Nye the Science Guy: classic nerdy scientist attire
- Lex the bookworm from Bookworm
- Walkyverse: Jason Chesterfield
- Hark! A Vagrant: Soon-to-be Canadian PM Lester Pearson accepts the nickname "Mike" on the terms that he be allowed to continue wearing his bow-tie.
- Nerdy variant
- Questionable Content: Hannelore's dad
- Dr. Phage from Awful Hospital, sorta?
- Detective Conan's Kudo Shinichi - bowtie makes nerdy character less nerdy?
- [C] - The Money and Soul of Possibility: Masakaki maybe counts? Though seems more like Bowtie of Eccentricity
- Superman. Clark Kent: Geeky everyman, but also Superman.
- Mortadelo y Filemón: Subversion of Tuxedo And Mask- dorky loser is a spy
- Indiana Jones. Set in the 30's, when bowties were standard, but made much later. Indy definitely subverts dorky scientist stereotypes.
- Sunset, Cheryl. As part of an attempt to invoke Mistaken for Gay.
- Dewey Finn (Jack Black) in School of Rock. Equal mix of Cool and Dorky within single character.
- Buckaroo Banzai from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension: bonafide Nerds Are Sexy/ Cool Nerd example
- NCIS, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard somehow combines 3 variants: Actually Cool, Nerdy/Anachronistic, and normal/practical (for a medical examiner)
- Dr Bashir and Garak in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Bond spoof episode "Our Man Bashir": Actually Cool, parody example
- Late 1980s/early '90s ring announcer Mike McGuirk was often seen in a white tuxedo with a bow-tie. Maybe this was to emphasize that she (yes, despite the name, McGuirk was a woman) was a female performing a traditionally male job.
- Dudley from Street Fighter: Page image for Cultured Badass. Not cool exactly, but something like it.
- The Spy and The Medic in Team Fortress 2 have the "Doctor Whoa", a randomly droppable, user-submitted, team-colored bow-tie that's a direct Shout-Out to Doctor Who's Eleventh Doctor. It was even released on one of the yearly anniversaries of the creation of Doctor Who.
Most of the examples that are "actually cool" aren't playing around with Hollywood Nerd stereotypes, though some do. This seems like a fairly new take that needs more time to develop. More often, bowties are used as a visual shorthand for (or are actually part of) a tuxedo. So most of the good examples could probably be folded into Tuxedo and Martini, Sharp-Dressed Man, or Badass in a Nice Suit.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"Again, what about bowties as an iconic part of a character? That is tropable too, right?
We don't need justice when we can forgive. We don't need tolerance when we can love.
Almost all of those examples are characters that wear suits and other formal attire for which bowties are a common accessory for so the best we can do is move the good examples to those pages and cut this.
Crown Description:
What to do with Bowties Are Cool? Current wicks: 589 Current inbounds: 1589
I'd put this as Not Tropeworthy, but it might be salvageable.
This trope doesn't seem to know what it's about. The majority of examples are "bowties exist', with the occasional "Memetic Badass wears a bowtie even if it doesn't have anything to do with their Badassness". Even ignoring the misuse, the trope seems to have two definitions: Bowties as an Outdated Outfit (which is just The Same But More Specific of that trope), and Bowties are Actually Cool (of which The Eleventh Doctor seems to be the only example. In fact, it's practically his pet trope to Sinkhole the meme to).
edited 25th Aug '16 9:43:41 PM by CamelCase
ME!? You want ME to be the director of your Christmas play?!