Actually, aren't cops a heavy part of Manly Gay iconography? We have the term "gay cop mustache", after all.
I suspect that Lesbian Cop could still be analyzed as a trope if considered "historically"; i.e. as a facet of the the developing pop-cultural image of lesbians.
Twenty or thirty years ago, lesbians in the popular imagination were mainly or exclusively tough, independent, physically fit, "manly" women, wearing their hair short ("butch", in a nutshell). Cops are expected to be tough, physically fit, unemotional. Cop is "a man's job". Female cop? Probably a lesbian! Hence, Lesbian Cop.
Unfortunately tropers gravitate towards very literal interpretations of character type tropes. Just like a Dumb Blonde to tropers is just any blonde person who is less intelligent than The Smart Guy, so Lesbian Cop is just any lesbian working in law enforcement. Lesbian Cop
even came out of TLP with a description saying "A female police officer who is a lesbian", complete with a "Exactly What It Says on the Tin" sinkhole that is symptomatic of bad trope descriptions. It was never actually defined or described as a trope in the first place.
Edited by LordGro on Sep 19th 2021 at 12:07:49 PM
The only thing I can think of is some technical tropes that were revolutionary when first developed but are useless when brought up today. Color film was once a novelty, but now Deliberately Monochrome is the anomaly. Same with sound.
There are other tropes like Protagonist and Antagonist that are still tropes but so broad they do help much when it comes to describing the work.
Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.Straight Gay would be this. It was launched back in 2007 and definitely wouldn't be launched now, at least not without a more tropeworthy definition.
I honestly don't know. It sounds like a trope that could have existed. If somebody told me with a straight face that this used to be a thing, I'd probably believe it.
I think where OP makes a false presumption is the idea that things are tropes because they are "rare" or "unheard of" in fiction. Lesbians, or gays, or online dating have never been tropes; being portrayed a certain way, or figuring in certain plots, or serving a certain function, these are the factors that make "just things" into tropes. In other words, I don't actually think that time can turn tropes into "chairs" (or vice versa).
Edited by LordGro on Sep 19th 2021 at 9:40:34 PM
Tropes cannot become Chairs over time. If they are Chairs now, they were to begin with and we didn't notice. This idea is behind a number of our Projects threads, particularly the one for appearance tropes.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Those aren't tropes though. Tropes have meaning. These are trivia at best.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThey are tropes - technical means to convey information about the story are tropes by our very own definition of it. Despite what people keep claiming, "meaning" is not in fact a requirement for something to be a trope, it's just a shorthand for identifying People Sit on Chairs situations.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe point was that they are still tropes, just becoming so omnipresent it isn't worth mentioning.
People Sit on Chairs was developed because people were assuming that a pattern indicates a purpose, and if the wiki hadn't catalogued that exact pattern then it must be a new trope. Thus we were having problems with dozens of tropes being launched on minute appearance options like Side Boob and single lines of dialogue like Present Company Excluded, which lead to a No New Stock Phrases policy. The name "people sit on chairs" was chosen because the discovery of such a pattern is incidental to a narrative work, not descriptive of the story or characters.
A trope needs to be a pattern but also a flexible pattern that can serve multiple purposes, but it has to be said that figuring out the "meaning" behind any trope is just a guess, as it is trying to mind read the authorial intent or project your own interpretation. Sometimes a Cool Car is just a Cool Car.
Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures.The operative distinction for Trivia is that it arises externally to the work itself. It may concern:
- Aspects of production that are not visible in the finished product.
- Things that happened with the cast and crew that don't directly impact the finished product.
- Contextual information that relies on knowledge of other works or of society itself.
- Critical reception, awards, box office receipts, and other metadata.
Indeed, many Trivia items are not tropes by our definition, as they neither occur in the work nor have any particular narrative design or significance.
Edited by Fighteer on Sep 20th 2021 at 12:16:44 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Agreed on Straight Gay; it kinda assumes that Camp Gay is the “default” for gay people. So does Camp Straight, I think.
It's the default option in media for gay people. That's something people always need to keep in mind: tropes don't describe reality, but fiction.
But is that really still true? Like, when you watch a tv show that has a gay character, are you surprised if he isn't camp? Straight Gay is only a trope is you assume the overwhelming majority of portrayals are Camp Gay, to the point where not doing it is always a conscious choice that's subverts expectations, but that hasn't been true for a while.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 20th 2021 at 1:29:16 PM
No, but again, the trope was created to subvert expectations. Like Action Girl. People don't watch movies now being shocked when the female lead kicks ass, but when the trope originated it did go against the common stereotype.
A trope can't suddenly stop being a trope. It can however fall out of favor or become so common that it's no longer notable.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallThis is correct. When a trope goes out of favor or melds into the cultural background, it can become a Forgotten Trope, a Dead Horse Trope, a Discredited Trope, and so on. It doesn't retroactively stop having been a trope.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The question is, was Lesbian Cop a trope to begin with? If it was, then instead of cutting it, maybe we should've moved it under Discredited Trope or Forgotten Trope.
Old TRS
for Lesbian Cop. Tomboyish Career Path
discussion around it spawned.
That seems to be the more tropeworthy one to replace Lesbian Cop. Though I wonder why Lesbian Jock remained?
x5 But if we acknowledge that it's not something noteworthy now, what do we do with it? Straight Gay isn't Forgotten, Discredited or a. Dead Horse, because in those cases the trope get's used less. It's problem is that it's now used too much, and it being meaningful depended on it being rare.
That's an established, pretty widely known stereotype.
Edited by TheMountainKing on Sep 20th 2021 at 6:41:46 AM
I don't think we have a specific Trope Trope for "was rare, is now common", but Evolving Trope might cover it.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

This got me thinking since some tropes like Lesbian Cop is no longer a trope, but I guess back in the 2000s or earlier, having a LGBT character who is a cop was rare or unheard of.
I do think back in the '90s, online dating and their stories, antics, and pitfalls, was tropeworthy, but now, it's just a common thing.
And I get the bittersweet feeling that being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender is not tropeworthy and has to be incorporated to other related tropes.
What do you think are chairs now but considered tropes back then? Do you think time and the novelty wearing off turns a trope into a chair?
UPDATE: I put this in the wrong section. Needs to be moved to Trope Talk.
Edited by alnair20aug93 on Sep 17th 2021 at 3:47:04 AM
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