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Were you here when Selective Squick was a thing? A lot of older trope descriptions I think are written by straight dudes, though I feel like it's got better. (I don't have much to say on the rest though sorry)
It might be better to think of it less as though the tropewriters were trying to make a statement on the intention of the writers, and more that they were just discussing the existent patterns they'd noticed- which are the tropes. These patterns may have social connotations and implications, but that doesn't mean the tropewriters are sexist, racist, etc more than that they're just trying to catalogue media trends... Warts and All.
Of course, trends change and the pages can be written to reflect these changes if they're significant. If a small portion of male belly-dancers aren't played as gross, but the majority are, then the trope is that male belly-dancers are played as gross but notable exceptions can be noted.
Tropes Are Tools. They are just patterns, and the patterns may have social implications, but we can't just pretend these implication and patterns don't exist if they do.
Edited by WarJay77 Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
^ That doesn't address my point, though.
My point is that there is no distinctly different pattern between Woman In White and Man In White, and that the pages themselves admit that, but there are still separate pages based on gender.
I'm talking about when one trope is split into two pages based on gender for no reason.
See also the quote from the page that I put in the first post, which basically flat out says "there isn't really a trope here".
Edited by lavendermintrose
My bad, then. I got too wrapped up in other things you said, I guess.
Yeah, that would be worth a merge, but I'm also not sure it's necessary because they've both a lot of examples, so typically a split is useful even just to make things a little less cluttered.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
^ The "Man" page itself admits that most of those examples probably aren't actually examples of anything.
Maybe separate it into "Showing that the character is mystical or ethereal" (like Mystical White Hair) vs. "other reasons"?
I don't know. This would be a discussion for the TRS or Trope Talk, honestly.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Both of these tropes have serious problems, but they are not the same. Please join the TRS thread for
Woman In White!
Woman In White is a woman with ambiguous motivations who is symbolically associated with death. Whether this should be Always Female has been subject to discussion in the TRS thread.
Man In White is a subtrope of Light Is Not Good about villains who wear white; the description is a mess though. This tends to be male; I could see female examples but it would be harder to differentiate from other "woman wears white" tropes.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
I forgot about the current Woman In White thread... blame it on my exhaustion, I guess.
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I've been meaning to TRS Man In White, maybe it's time to do it, unless OP wants to.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
^^ Ahh I'm sorry, I made a new thread. Feel free to delete mine, or add it to the discussion.
So yeah, because neither of the trope descriptions make those clear at all. (e.g. the male character I'm thinking of fits your description of the Woman In White). Still doesn't make sense to separate them on gender lines. Will go to that thread.
Why are Woman In White and Man In White separate tropes?
There isn't anything specifically gender connected about either trope, aside from the assumption that all writers adhere to Men Act, Women Are, which, we do agree, is outdated, right?
(or "Men Are Generic, Women Are Special" - e.g. wearing all white is mystical, and there's something awe-inspiring when a woman does it, but when a man does it, it's just creepy).
Anyway, there are a lot of tropes that claim to be gendered based on the assumption that all writers ever adhere to those ideas, such as the Belly Dancer trope page claiming that all male belly dancers are meant to gross you out. As someone who reads, watches, and writes mostly bishounen-centered stories about male characters doing "traditionally feminine" things, I feel like the writing of trope pages based on the assumption that all writers are sexist (or homophobic) reinforces those ideas...
Anyway, I can think of quite a few examples that are just the same ethereal look as the "woman in white", but on a male character.
"Compared to its Distaff Counterpart, the Woman In White, the Man In White is a much younger trope and not nearly as well established; as such, you'll find a broad range of characters and characterizations under the examples. All it really takes to be a Man in White is to wear white: all the added symbolism described above is just bonus."
. . . . . . how did this not get rejected?
Edited by lavendermintrose