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Not Tropeworthy: Slapstick Knows No Gender

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    Original post 
Note: This thread was proposed by nw09.

This trope is defined as "when a female character lacks the usual immunity to slapstick that comes with her sex and is thus regularly on the receiving end of physical comedy in a manner normally reserved for male characters."

This does not seem to be a trope. It's only defined as an aversion to something else, and tropes defined just as an aversion to other trope are usually not tropeworthy (especially when what it's an aversion to is defined as the absence of something.

Furthermore, there's no solid evidence that women are usually immune to slapstick. There are a lot of examples for this trope, and women have been on the receiving end as long as slapstick has existed. The trope description even says that female slapstick victims are becoming more common with time, so it may as well be the same as men being victims.

A wick check of 50 examples has only two examples that provided any sort of context for why this might be noteworthy ("the female character is One of the Boys" and "male characters get it more often"). The rest were written as just a standard Slapstick entry. Zero examples gave any indication that this trope is meant to be a subversion of women being immune to slapstick – it seems that this is just "slapstick but the victim is female".

Proposing a cut.

Wick check:

Slapstick Knows no Gender attempts to be "women are not Immune to Slapstick", which would only be noteworthy if they usually are. The sheer amount of examples for this trope indicates that this is probably not the case. The description even admits that this trope is becoming more and more common with time, so it may as well be no different from men being the victims of slapstick.

50/50

    Just "women receive slapstick" 48/ 50 

    Has additional context 2/ 50 
  • Black Jesus: Due to being One of the Guys, she gets about as many comical beatdowns as the rest of them.
  • Slapstick Knows no Gender: It's more common for the male characters to get hurt, but even the female characters get this from time to time. This includes an episode where Jocelyne is repeatedly hit on the head with a frying pan, while Dominique gets hit on the hand by that same frying pan.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Dec 4th 2022 at 10:41:03 AM

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#26: Nov 8th 2022 at 1:23:49 AM

Yarding is a free action in case anyone wants to add that concept if this gets merged with Slapstick, and there have been previous cases of Yarded ideas coming from concepts that were discussed in TRS threads, but didn't have enough (if any) examples to work with and thus needed to be started from scratch.

A few instances of that I see on the Salvage Yard are the subtypes of Hand Hiding Sleeves and the Psycho Butterfly Knife Psycho Knife Nut subtrope that came from Butterfly Knife's thread.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit MOD Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#27: Nov 10th 2022 at 7:59:58 AM

Calling in favor of merging with Slapstick. Feel free to merge gender-specific information to Analysis.Slapstick; it's not a requirement for this thread to close, but it might be useful.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#28: Nov 12th 2022 at 1:05:21 PM

Okay, got most of the old description sent over to the analysis page. Any tweaks are welcome.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#29: Dec 4th 2022 at 8:40:34 PM

I moved examples to Sandbox.Slapstick Knows No Gender since the description was transplanted to an Analysis page, cut the subpages, and moved the video examples. I'll add a link to the sandbox to the header.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Ayumi-chan low-poly Shinri from Calvard (Apprentice) Relationship Status: Serial head-patter
low-poly Shinri
#30: Dec 11th 2022 at 10:13:50 PM

I've cleared the A-B in the character subfolder

She/Her | Currently cleaning N/A
RandomTroper123 She / Her from I'll let you guess... (Not-So-Newbie) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
She / Her
#31: Dec 18th 2022 at 5:14:10 PM

I've done some binging (though I'm pretty sure others have cleaned some wicks too) and Slapstick Knows no Gender is now down to 1,222 wicks.

Yindee Just stoic wisdom. from New England Since: Jul, 2016
Just stoic wisdom.
Berrenta How sweet it is from Texas Since: Apr, 2015 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
How sweet it is
#33: Feb 22nd 2023 at 6:41:49 PM

Ghost wick busted.

1083 to go.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report
MadAboutLove97 Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#34: Feb 23rd 2023 at 12:10:21 PM

Less than a thousand wicks to go!

KnownUnknown Since: Jan, 2001
#35: Feb 23rd 2023 at 12:32:59 PM

For what it’s worth since a decision has already been made, a point that hadn’t been brought up is that with the relatively recent addition of Immune to Slapstick this trope was superfluous. The two pages were effectively describing the same phenomenon - Knows No Gender attempting to get illustrate it through subversions - and Immune to Slapstick itself is both more comprehensive and notes that the concept was typically historically gender specific.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Feb 23rd 2023 at 12:35:04 PM

"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.
MadAboutLove97 Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#36: Feb 24th 2023 at 1:20:43 PM

Finally below 500 wicks. The Western Animation section is gonna be a doozy but I know I can handle it

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#37: Feb 25th 2023 at 3:24:58 AM

I knocked out some of the folders for on-page examples (which were moved to Sandbox.Slapstick Knows No Gender) and removed them from the sandbox after they had all been accounted for. I'm not sure if anyone else has been working on on-page examples, but fortunately, the examples are mostly alphabetized (but not entirely, but it's mostly the smaller folders that aren't, so it's still not that hard to keep track of them).

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#38: Feb 25th 2023 at 11:01:18 PM

Just two more folders left for on-page examples, and then only the wicks will be left. I can probably finish the on-page examples soon (since I'm only taking a weekend-long break from moderating TRS and not cleanup), but I'm taking a break from cleanup right now.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Feb 25th 2023 at 1:25:00 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
Adept (Holding A Herring) Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#39: Feb 26th 2023 at 7:18:13 PM

Under 300 now. Cleaned up the work pages until Manga/

GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#40: Feb 27th 2023 at 1:09:01 AM

Only the Video Games folder is left for the on-page examples, and then the on-page example sandbox can be cut.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
GastonRabbit Sounds good on paper (he/him) from Robinson, Illinois, USA (General of TV Troops) Relationship Status: I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me
Sounds good on paper (he/him)
#41: Feb 27th 2023 at 2:23:29 AM

The on-page examples are done. Just the wicks are left now, and there aren't too many left (and we only really need to remove all but the word "Slapstick" and put curly brackets around it, so it's more time-consuming than difficult).

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
MadAboutLove97 Since: Jul, 2019 Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
#42: Feb 27th 2023 at 8:58:56 AM

Wick cleaning is done!

Edited by MadAboutLove97 on Feb 27th 2023 at 2:38:09 PM

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three
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Trope Repair Shop: Slapstick Knows No Gender
6th Nov '22 10:51:32 PM

Crown Description:

Concerns have been raised that Slapstick Knows No Gender is The Same But More Specific to Slapstick due to its gender-specific focus compared to Slapstick itself. What should be done with it?

Total posts: 43
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