Tropes in Naratives

“Glasses character… The boy Lolita… the stoic type… the book worm…the prince (or Hero) type… (Twincest?)” ; It has been a common element in prose since the dawn of literature for characters to have tropes, or be defined by their stereotypical traits. An element that usually slips by undetected (but was helpfully pointed out by Kirimi Nekozawa in “Ouran highschool Host Club” as quoted) but if analysed, can be used to break down many stories into very common themes with reoccuring archetypes. This has been studied by anthropologists and psychologists since the early 19^th centuary, but was compended in the 1920’s by Vladimir Propp into a very simple list:

Antagonist, Donor, Hero, Princess, Dispatcher, Protagonist and False Hero.

It is interesting to note the lack of female characters required for Propp’s analysed stories, and we see this as a recurring element throughout narratives, often there is only one female, and she is seen as a “reward” or incentive for the hero to complete his quest, else she is a damsel in hopeless distress in need of a hero, for example Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy (“Help me Obi wan Kenobi, You’re my only hope!” Her kidnapping, however political it’s supposed to be, really only severs as a kickstarter for Luke to go do hero things as illustrated by the lack of other consequences from the action.)  Arwen in the second and third Lord of the Rings movies (when she becomes a stay at home elf and sits around waiting for Aragon to finish his quest), Kairi in the Kingdom Hearts series( although to be fair, in Kingdom hearts 2 she does try fight back) , Ann Darrow in King Kong, Princess Peach from the Mario video games, Kim from Taken and the list goes on. This is trumped however by the shocking amount of women who have been killed purely as plot devices or to spur their male counterparts into some form of action. For instance the infamous “women in the refrigerator” trope, as popularized by the Green Lantern Comic strip from 1994, when he returns home to find his girlfriend has been killed and shoved into the fridge.

Gwen Stacey from the spiderman comics, when she is thrown off a building by the green goblin, and in an attempt to rescue her, Spidey catches her with a string of web, waiting until after the battle to pull her back up to safety,  only to realise that her neck snapped and she died. This serves to provide a fuel to spiderman’s ongoing angst issues and spurs his desire for justice.  This situation is echoed in Chris Nolan’s “the Dark night” in which the death of Rachel serves to destroy not just one male protagonist, but two! Not only does it spur batman into completing his quest (catching the joker) but it also prompts Harvey Dent’s descent into madness, murder and mayhem. This was also shown in the death of Bruce Wayne’s mother, who although dies along with his father, is characterized an awful lot less than Thomas Wayne [he is described as a traditional good citizen, doctor, builds things for the people ect.] whereas the she is not spoken about at all. In Batman begins especially, the only hint of a “personality” we see is a close up of a string of pearls shattering on the floor symbolizing the loss of beauty or some other degrading, objectifying nonsense. This showcases her as a character who’s main purpose is to die.

Death of Martha Wayne

The ridiculous tradition of writing extremely one dimensional female characters into narratives was illustrated in  Alison Bechdel’s comic “Dykes to watch out for” , and quickly became known as the bechdel test. The main points of the test being 1, there must be more than one female character,  2 they must have a conversation, and 3, it must be about something other than men. Athough not everything that passes this test can be considered a feminist movie ( and vice versa) for instance, Sucker Punch, as wonderful and beautiful  a movie as it is, it is mostly an excuse for panty shots.

It’s not all doom and gloom however; there’s hope to be had in the form of Penelton Ward and his gender progressive cartoons. For instance, take Adventure time in all of it’s surreal dystopian glory, a show that has well over half of it’s characters as strong independent female ,  genderfluid representitives (BMO is referred to by a variety of pronouns and doesn’t really conform to any gender binary) and charcters who promote positive body image (Lumpy Space Princess).  The princess’s are shown to be mature well rounded characters with personalities who are more than capable of looking after themselves and don’t serve to be solely love intrests. For example, in the episode Fiona and Cake, Fiona explicitly states that she doesn’t need a boyfriend and doesn’t “need to feel like (she’s) waiting in line to be noticed” while Princess Bubblegum spends the entirety of The Suitor, trying to rebuff an admirers advances politely so she can continue to focus on her science work which she so clearly loves. This proves that it is more than possible to create a variety of female characters that do not gravitate around males, and can provide positive role models for people of any age and any gender.

Alison Bechdel’s “Dykes to watch out for” : http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/dtwof

Sources:

“Social Justice Feminist”. Cartoons are more than just entertainment

http://socialjusticefeminist.blogspot.co.uk/2008/05/cartoons-are-more-than-just.html (22/05/08)

Mlawski, S. The Female Character Flowchart

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/ (11/10/10)

Wilson, K. Propp’s Analysis of Folk Tales

http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon.php?pageID=propp (8/11/13)