Yea, Green Puppy was the only boy dog. Steve so referred to Blue and Magenta as "she" multiple times. And Green Puppy is an example of it goin the other way, where the male character was made just to have a foil to the main character
Another example of a female counterpart is Toadette. Toad needed a partner in Mario Kart Double Dash, so Toadette was created. Toadette is also a sweet baby, and I will protect her at all costs.
Fun fact: the term female doesn’t actually apply to Toadette correctly According to the producer of the ‘Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’ game, Koichi Hayashida The toad species is sexless, even though they can have a gendered appearance
I find it interesting how many male "Furry" characters often have little to no clothing, yet the female characters are always fully dressed, even when their anatomy is more humanoid specifically to sexualise them for fanservice. I.E: Rouge the Bat
@@despinasgarden.4100 Yeah, she didn't have anything like the pink heart-shaped breast plate and the flirt nature Rogue had. She didn't even have the heeled boots. ...At least she had a princess's vest, though.
Fun Fact: Until the 19th century, Pink used to be generally considered a masculine color for being passionate, while blue was generally considered a feminine color for being calming. Then somewhere along the line, things 180d
CW - Discussions of WW2, Nazi’s, Genocide It wasn’t just “somewhere”, it was during WW2 in Nazi Germany. In an attempt to eradicate everybody who was not “aryan”, queer people (particularly gay men) got labelled with a pink triangle. Queer equalled feminine to the Nazis, and therefore Pink now equalled feminine. It’s a shame that the colour pink not only has painted women in a negative light, but also has blood on its name from all of the queer folk we lost.
The girly counterpart character worked best (in my opinion) with Mona Lisa from TMNT. She quickly became a fan favorite character, and her dynamic with Raphael was genuinely cute. It also helped that she was a salamander, so she wasn't just ANOTHER mutant turtle. I really dug the updated version in the 2012 series. They took the initial concept, and reworked her backstory, but it's not too out there. Both versions of the character could fight and still have a sweet side.
@Despina's garden. Ya misspelled it bud (de milo), I think your autocorrect has a preference with its characters lmao But also its a little weird considering Venus was a sister to the turtles, so why would the writers try to ship her with Leo??
I think what bothers people is that it's the whole "Adam and Eve" thing in cartoon form, specifically "Eve being Adam's rib," or "only a deviation of him and not her own person," etc.
Except for the fact that women being "less than" do to being from Adam's rib is a common misunderstanding and the verse gets removed from context a lot. Though I understand why the rib can be uncomfortable if people hold that interpretation, a lot of people seem to not understand what the original intent was. I never thought of this trope through the limbs of this biblical debate though. Interesting theory.
@@EllePhoenixMC Well, what was the original context then? Because I’ll I’ve ever heard about that line, it stemmed from the belief that women were just an “underdeveloped” version of men
I do think there is a difference in this kind of design when it comes to non-human characters that are still people, like Lacksadaisy, Sly Cooper, and American Tail then it comes to non-human characters that are animals like Pokemon or dragons in How To Train Your Dragon etc
I’m pretty glad this trend is dying down, not that I feel particularly strongly about the characters specifically, it was just a little annoying as a kid to constantly be told you can either be the hero or the girl. I think that’s why things like Kim Possible, Power puff girls and even Barbie movies were such a breath of fresh air to me, they were allowed to be the heroes and be “girls,” kicking butt and 100% confident in their interests.
I think I ended up finding girl counterparts of characters(non human if we're being specific) odd, because a lot of times with animals, as an example, you don't really see much going on and then the girl counterparts end up having bows, being some feminine color like pink, or even having boobs put on them. But, I have seen instances of female counterparts of non human characters that don't look super pointlessly gendered(such as Tigress from Kung Fu Panda, the love interest in Balto, and Nala in The Lion King) from around the last 30 years.
I really like Amy. She’s feminine but tough. Although I always saw Sonic ending up with Sally (read the old comics if you don’t know what she’s like). Also, Amy has always been interested in tarot and fate since her first introduction, and she doesn’t have the same skill set or backstory as Sonic at all..
Every character from the Sonic series has been progressively downgraded in a lot of the media. I heard some videos talking about this. how after 06 it has pretty much been a downward spiral for all the characters. even Sonic Heroes while the gameplay was great. there was very little regard to actually developing the characters in the game. Amy actually got messed with pretty hard in this regard. She was not a major character in Sonic Adventure 2 and 06 which did develop her character most people disregard. Though again for modern Sonic media that seems to have hardly mattered. Look at Knuckle's character arc in Adventure 2 and compare that to how he is portrayed now. I do not know a lot about the comics though I heard some of the comics have worked to develop the characters. I have also heard the comics are a special form of chaotic mess so I don't know if it just varies on the writers.
@@phantom-ri2tg It got pretty bad during the 2010s, but it's generally agreed that characterisation has been on an upswing recently with the movies, IDW, and Frontiers. As far as I'm aware, Shadow is the only one really lagging behind, but he'll likely catch up for the 3rd movie
@@phantom-ri2tg It depends on what your individual bar for Sonic characters are since the tones of thee stories specifically during the mid 00s shifted so wildly. For me, the Adventures, Rush, the first 2 Riders and Unleashed are the perfect sweet spot of tone and characterizations in the series. I think Shadow and 06 are trying way too fucking hard and are more comical than anything in the bad way, and the 2010s era that ppl rag on for being too light hearted I think is fine enough minus a few characters but definitely aren't my preferred obviously. But there are ppl that will stand by shadow and 06 for some reason, and I'm sure in a few years you'll be seeing "Frontiers was peak sonic story telling" from some one who had it as their first but finally is able to form coherent opinions online, like i see for shadow and 06 these days lol.
@@cillianstewart9441 I will say i hope Amy's frontiers characterization isn't the norm for her. Ian can get her down pat in the current comics perfectly fine, idk why she feels so off in Frontiers. In general though, I think a lot of the fandom lost the plot with Amy and wanna see a change that doesn't need to happen. But that's a whole other long winded discussion
Amy's my favourite Sonic character, she's got a really cute design (both Modern & Classic) and she's got a nice arc in the first 2 Adventure games. Her compassion and empathy shine through and are what turn characters like Gamma and Shadow into allies. I think that gets overlooked because Amy really was the unsung hero in both games. It's a shame she tends to get written off as a shallow love interest for Sonic and her more immature traits get exaggerated by the writers to make her come off as annoying.
I think, as you mentioned Amy from sonic, that's a franchise that is a good case study on how female characters have evolved in media, considering how long Sonic has been around and how many types of media the series has spawned. Of course there's Amy herself, going from just sonic but small, pink and weaker to a spunky preteen girl with a crush, but still having personal values and priorities, even standing up to her crush/ hero when she feels the need (see her treatment of E102 Gamma.) Though unfortunately her characterization has been hit and miss depending on the writing, she's great in the comics, but a lot of the sonic cast is hit and miss depending on writers so, it's not a problem exclusive to her. I'll briefly touch on Rouge, who started as that Fem Fatale, but still had her own motivations even upon introduction. I can't deny the sexual edge to her character and design, but they've given her good depth with shadow especially, nice to see a woman care about a male character without it being rooted in romantic tension. Again still kinda depending on the writer. Cream, is kinda just a cute well mannered child and her mom is just a motherly stereotype, so not much to say there honestly. And of course there's Blaze, the first female character in sonic to be legitimately on par with sonic himself in power, and honestly her gender has little to do with the writing other than the irony of the "defrosting ice queen" trope being tied to a fire based character, but still a really cool character imo. I could get into the comics, especially recently with Whisper, Tangle and especially Surge but this comment is already long enough. Point is its interesting to see how a long running series that started in these token tropes not only adapting old characters but changing how new ones are characterized as time goes on.
Something with Rogue. her relationship with Knuckles actually was a big thing in his character arc in Adventure 2. You can hear his arc in the rap songs and one talks about Rogue. In it he laments that he is attracted to her but can not pursue her do to his responsibility to the Master Emerald. and unlike in a lot of media lately with shipping he is never said to be wrong. Also interestingly the game never actually touches much on what Rogue's sexual preference is. in Sonic X people even suspected she was a lesbian. Thinking on it neither has Shadow displayed sexual interest. and the last member of their friend group is Omega who is a robot. I do not know a lot about later media but from the games I saw it can be argued their whole friend group is ace people hanging out. and it would fit too as the main thing they have in common is that they do not fit into society with others.
@@phantom-ri2tg That's a good read to identify with, but they are Team Dark, a group of reformed villains who work as an independent faction. And Sega for a bit even hated writing them together for ages, which meses that hanging out friends part in anything that's not the comics.
@@amandaslough125 I meant more of it would make sense for a head-canon. I highly doubt Sega would ever do that. though with writers doing all sorts of stuff I would not consider much canon.
I would say that having the femswap version of a character isn't a problem. The problem comes when they are representative of being the only lead female in the show, comic, game, or whatever. Tiny Toons both played this straight and completely destroyed it, in that Babs is absolutely Buster's palette swap, but Elmyra is not just little girl Elmer. Elmyra's meant to play Elmer's role as the antagonist, but she's not dim-witted -- instead being a medical genius -- and she has a massive family as opposed to Elmer being a lonely hunter. Codename Kids Next Door actually is a great example with both the femswap and the real girl. Numbah 3, Kuki, is obsessed with everything girly, and actually leads a section of girls only agents in many episodes. Meanwhile Numbah 5, Abigail, is the one who gets the most straight action and is arguably the most competent member of the KND outside of Numbah 362, who's also a girl. Numbah 362, Rachel, is another good example, because she has to play the more traditionally stoic and masculine role of the military general on duty, while also being a girly girl in her off time.
Good points though 362 is the most qualified leader rather than being the overall most competent. Numbah 1 I would say is more competent than Numbah 5. she however is more consistent. I believe it is a relationship with Numbah 1 is the leader as he is more outgoing and Numbah 5 is the subleader to keep the team in balance. Really all the main 5 have their strengths and weaknesses. rare example of a show where they are actually solidly portrayed as a team. That dynamic also fits in with 362 as she became the leader during an unstable period of the KND and it is later shown that no one wants to actually handle the responsibilities of being the head leader. Before her Chad was the leader. well he did not seem that competent as a villain it is revealed around the end he was holding back.
When rhe light fury was originally shown i remember the back lash she got because people thought she was a female night fury and got even more pissed when they found out that her bata desghn (dark gray and stubby and was noticeably scaily) was scrapped for not looking feminine enough
Interesting designs getting scrapped for not being “feminine” enough always drives me up the wall. It’s so frustrating to see, and it’s tiring to see female characters being boxed into very specifically appearances.
It's even worse because you have Astrid's dragon Stormfly, who's canonically female and looked the same as all the other dragons of her own species, same for Fishleg's dragon, Meatlug. There was literally no excuse for Light Fury's design.
Yeahh the design was literally just made to be marketable, not to create a good character design or to even fit the universe (Cause it doesn't, it was more than established that male and female dragons look pretty much the same and there has never been a species that looked THIS feminine). Kind of sad when creativity gets pushed aside by marketing.
@@helion_ut I was going to say that; compared to the original design, the one finally choosen is more friendly and marketable (in exchange to be a copy/paste of toothless but with white skin). The original design looks pretty cool, and love the tail design they gave her... but I guess it could have been complicated to get the attention of children to buy all the merchandising of that design and preferred to stick with the one that worked (toothless). Edit: I felt very strange that the light fury was literally a copy past of the night fury, now that I see what the actual designs was meant to look like is kind of... cheap now, like that is just being lazy.
"Straight girls aren't the ones decking themselves out head to toe in pink" I actually know a girl who makes it a point to wear pink every single day... And she's bi/ace
I love the idea of making characters nearly identical in design save for color changes to indicate a relationship between them, like Sub Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 yeah, but im talking about “deep” characters, idk how to explain it but female characters now seem to have more of an porpoise and meaning. It’s pretty cool if you ask me.
very well said! I never really found a problem with these types of characters, but I do think certain topics, such as oversexualization and negative tropes for these girl characters were and are a real issue. Since we have so many more girl characters now, with more varying personalities, I'd love to see more Amy's, who are actually characters but have some similar qualities to these characters! awesome vid and lovely art. Mint rocked that dress!
I always love a good history lesson on why some things were done the way they were. The trope one it’s own without this context was a lot more black and white for me before this. Now with a more nuanced perspective it’s a more complex as a topic. That said it’s been a pleasure to learn and I wish you all a pleasant day. Sincerely -The Void
th entire disney V.S. louisa from Encanto is so funny actually. disney really didn't want to give her big muscles and now she has the best sales from that movie.
true! Luisa was my absolute favorite of the family for being undeniably strong, feminine, and sensitive. when the movie came out, I was so focused on looking for a doll of her because of how pretty she was!
Super awesome video!!! Amazing job with the drawing as well!!! Yeah while I do love characters such as Angel and Robotgirl, I do also have my own issues and criticisms with the trope, and I'm super happy we're getting a lot more diverse female characters in media nowadays! I'm also happy to see some of these characters be developed and become much more, such as with Amy and Lola like you mentioned!
Betty Boop used to be a poodle as counterpart to some weird dog character. Her flop ears later got converted into earrings and was turned into the human design we know today.
She was also Black in the earliest cartoon she starred in as a human and was inspired by a Black jazz singer named Baby Esther, but a white woman co-opted her style and Betty Boop got sadly whitewashed.
I have to wonder what's going on with 'counterparts' and femininity these past couple of years. For example in a recent Adam Warlock comic, it showed his female counterpart by the name of Eve. The way she was drawn from the neck down a person would think she was hitting the steroids kind of hard. And it's not the first time I've heard complaints about this kind of thing - Teela from a recent Master of the Universe cartoon. She-Hulk in the Avengers comics in the 2018-2023 series. I think way too many people nowadays don't truly understand femininity or masculinity. They are more than just physical looks. Some of it is the 'presence' a person gives off. That 'air' about a person that others sense on some mental level. Fio said there are many body types. Femininity and masculinity do not always equal sexy.
Personally I just really like pallet swapping so I will pretty much always have a base level positive reaction! But I can see why people might not like them, too, and it is usually pretty lazy.
A theme that goes hand in hand with the "girly counterpart" is the Smurfette Principle Aside from Smurfette being exactly the poster child of what you said, it also is something that happens a LOT on movies to this day: having a token girl on an otherwise male-dominated cast Also, I clearly remember some big names of the Adventure Time era like Rebecca Sugar (sorry if I can't quite find the tweets from years ago x.x) clearly pointing both themes as a problem on animation, which kinda fits the time they started to die down as a trend (on animation at least
I’m a little over twenty and I fondly remember watching those twenties and thirties cartoons as a kid and they got me inspired to draw in that over the top vibe.
Slight correction: There's a part of the video at 6:19 that many shows received tv adaptations to sell toys, and Power Rangers was one of the shows mentioned. Power Rangers didn't start with a toy line. It started with an adaptation of Toei's Super Sentai series. Specifically, Zyuranger. (The season that was airing at the time) In Super Sentai's case, the different rangers on a team were made with a specific theme. (Ie, Dynaman with Baseball, Bioman with technology, Liveman with animals, Jetman with birds, etc) So in that case, the different rangers on the team were different variations of each other with different colors (Red, Blue, Black, Pink, etc) and other visual differences such as the shape of the visor on their helmet. Also, every Sentai season up until that point (With the exception of Sun Vulcan) had female members of the team. With Bioman being the first to have more than one female member. No hard feelings. I get that these 80s and 90s shows can often be jumbled together. I just wanted to make that correction as a fan of Power Rangers myself.
Huh, I guess I never thought about how you don't see this trope as much anymore. In my opinion, I was kinda indifferent to it. Especially because when I watched or played these games, I never really got hugly into the Fandoms until I was a bit older. For instance, I never knew the just loves sonic, in a green dress, amy rose. I grew up knowing the Sonic X hammer weilding, hot-headed, but still head over heels for sonic Amy rose. But then again I also grw up watching things like Titan AE or treasure planet, which didn't really have too many "helpless" characters designated to one gender imo.
As a male who has plenty of female Sonic ocs in his roster, I feels as though there is a bit more to it aside from it being what worked so many decades ago. I believe the scarcity of the female counterpart is more of a case of Intention vs. Impact. The intention of female counterparts was to distinguish male from female (attire notwithstanding) so that it wasn't just all men all the time. It allows more people to appreciate what is presented depending on the target demographic. However, the impact of this made it sound like less like an actual character, and more like a deviation. Something that exists outside the norm for the sake of doing something new or intriguing. On top of this, the mass production of such a stereotype has lead to oversaturation, cringe, and just feels..too easy. Furthermore, it became a template that is so inaccurate in most instances, that it is more or less a product of its time Sure, we have rule 63 nowadays. But that is something irrelevant to the topic. Full Stop
omg i didn't know what r63 was off the top of my head and now I wanna make a sonic oc that's just genderbent version of the main sonic cast i blame you lol /lighthearted
Yeahh I disagree. There are plenty of people who can make female characters. Now some people are good with making one gender of character and bad at making the other. but it remains there are people who can make good female characters and these shows had entire staff of people working on them. So if it is not being said that the companies constricted their writers to making female characters behave in certain ways. than it is saying companies only hired writers who could only make male characters. which in my opinion implies even worse things about the companies than the former.
@@cyberprime9355 I did hear another comment say some comic book writers tried to break the trend but they did not sell well. so it can be argued that it took time before people got their footing to actually know what people wanted in this regard.
I feel like another reason why this trend went away because of the growth of “masculine” girls and “feminine” guys. There’s isn’t only one body type and builds.
Bosco and Honey, Cooler (Dog) and Brighteyes (Dogs) of Pound Puppies, and a few others the stories changed Brighteyes. Then look at the Care Bears, Love-a-Lot (two hearts) and Tender Heart (one heart). The issues changed over time, this changed our the Care Bears was drawn
amy rose drove me absolutely bonkers as a character in the early days, I remember finding her obsesion with sonic to be both irritating and creepy; amy's still not a favorite for me but I like her character a lot more now with the nuance a lot of writers have given her over the years
Actually in the older games that was not what Amy was like. Sonic 06 had even developed her character quite a bit. Then Sonic Heroes and after degraded her character into just chase Sonic.
Its really not an issue of early Amy more of mid 2000's Amy Really early Amy was still 8 and so she was just being childish with her love. Early 2000's Amy was still clearly in love with Sonic but had more going for her. A love for adventure, a hate for boredom, full commitment to her friends, the want to help others in need and the willingness to go even against Sonic if he would hurt someone she cares about. It was mostly powered by Sonic X and Sonic battle in the name of comedy that Amy for a number of appearances in the mid 2000's become obsessed with Sonic and even than did games like shadow the hedgehog and Sonic Riders still keep a fairly well written Amy going. In recent years did insane Amy get absolved by boring generic "girl" Amy mostly thanks to Sonic Boom. With The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog having in my opinion the best writing for Amy in over a decade.
@@phantom-ri2tg I think my biggest issue with Boom really isn't Boom it self but rather how the positive reception of that Amy and the dumbing down of that Shadow has infected other parts of the franchise.
to be fair in the show Angel was experiment 624 and Stich was experiment 626 meaning in Lilo and Stitch's universe Angel was created before Stitch though in real life the movie came before the show and Stich was made before Angel and other experiments
Also amongst all the expiriments where tons of girls, none pink. But Angel is remembered better than any of them for being the best character. And back then, Disney knew how to capitalize on popularity...
Imo I like how they did it in Regular Show, I mean heck Eileen is my favourite character 😂 albeit, she’s slightly less of Rigby’s female counterpart than Margaret is Mordecai’s haha. I really like Margaret though 🤷♀️
When it comes to how to train your dragon and the light fury, I think she looked better in her "beta" concept art! She was more grayish blue and looked kind of aquatic? And the fact they changed her to basically make the ying yang type of couple with Toothless made me sad. I still think it would've been sooo much better if there actually was a second night fury that was female, not only could they bring back their species but their meeting would've possibly been pretty cute.
Wait, I thought BOTH Blue and Magenta were girls? And what about Green Puppy? The character’s bark is noticeably deeper & a bit raspier and the they play A LOT rougher than ether Blue or Magenta do in one of the episodes… don’t remember the title of it which makes me THINK he’s a boy but I’m not sure…. If I remember correctly (from before the year 2000 so if I mis remember, blame the fact that it’s been more than 23 years) Steve addressed Green Puppy with HE / HIM pronouns while he (Steve) addressed Magenta with SHE / HER pronouns…. I’m confused & just trying to figure out if I’m mis remembering it, or if there’s 2 girls and 1 boy among these characters…
I'm pretty sure all the dogs in Blue's Clues were girls. I initially thought Magenta and Green Puppy were boys too, but I recently was looking up the characters and found that they're all female. Periwinkle the cat is definitely still male though
@@themightypancake5695 Even the new rainbow one? Singular rainbow puppy i think. I remember a white with colored spots one but now there's one with rainbow stripes puked over the fur.
Another awesome video :) I liked the discussion in this video, it was fun feeling nostalgic for a lot of old characters, while also unpacking the design choices and potential issues behind them, to see how these trends changed over time!
The "female" transformer's character design always bothered me. I never understood (and still don't) why the token girlbot has to look DRAMATICALLY different from all the others.
Yeahhh, transformers is a franchise that encouraged this too in the past, but in the recent years they learned from their mistakes and got pretty inclusive and diverse, girls characters now are pretty diverse in design and personality, and they got gay and trans rep too on their comics and recent shows
Hehe, TRANSformers Seriously, I don't see any point at all in female characters in a franchise where everything revolves around robots alone, okay if we were talking about anime, where robots are often controlled by people, but no, we're talking about a franchise where robots have their own consciousness and take the shape they need, so why would they need a robot female? It doesn't make sense, in theory, even male robots shouldn't exist (although in some languages a robot has a masculine gender, so it won't work to address it in "it", especially nowadays, because authors can be muddied for allegedly homophobia)
@@user-zg1wm7fj9t Actually that would be a point if favor for female transformers having more feminine designs. because if they don't actually have male and female genders that just means it is a choice of appearance for them. that does bring into question why their society would have those designs. however then yo0u would have to ask why they have humanoid designs in general.
@@phantom-ri2tg yeah in general, what's the transformers lore? They're robots but i don't think I've ever heard of any inventor, they're usually depicted as aliens off my memory. So they're, biological beings then? So maybe they do gotta reproduce which is why there are dudes and lady formers. But even if not, your point stands that we would need to question why they're human shaped at all. And why man made automobiles (and animals that one time) are what they turn into. And I'm willing to take a stab at guessing that it really was never thought about that much and they just made designs to market it. The girl formers being made also for increased appeal i figure.
I view the difference in male cartoon characters and female characters as a reverse bird aesthetic. The males are brightly colored while the females have dull appearances so they can hide with the eggs. In the case of cartoons, however, the female characters get the flashy and colorful appearances with emphasis on their looks. And this never bothered me. Art is subjective. Its a style that you can like or dislike. But to say its an inherently bad thing or problematic, I don't agree with personally.
Yeah that is odd. Birds make a lot of sense because they are so natural. Natural things are utilitarian. Camouflage is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. When some animal is flashy, that is the exception not the rule. Often the creature is one of two things. One is that it is a toxic animal that is giving warnings. The other is a male bird that is showing off. Birds are specialized in flying. They need to be light in order to be airborne. However the downside is that they are more frail. Male animals are competitive, and they fight over mates. Plenty of male animals get into physical combat. Birds can't do this very well, because they can easily be crippled or even killed. So instead they show off as a safer form of competition. That is where the fancy and showy plumage comes in. There is also singing and dancing. It varies depending on the species. There is even one kind called a bower bird. It really gets into interior decorating. That is birds. When humans it is difficult to tell. Sports and war are considered masculine. That is taking the competitive nature of male animals and highly exaggerating it. It is difficult to rationalize why women are the ones to show off in fancy clothes. It is not an exaggeration of anything remotely feminin. It can only be justified as a cultural tradition. Female animals are the one to lay eggs or give live birth. Mammals and birds have the mother take good care of her babies. Childcare and housekeeping are considered feminine. This is taking the caregiving of femal mammals an birds and highly exaggerating it. Exaggerations for masculine and feminine roles become so far away from reality. Men and women are a lot more flexible and versatile then rigid roles suggest. In the olden days, sewing and textiles was part of housework. So it was traditionally done by women. So maybe that that changed into fancy clothes along with accessories. So maybe that is how fashion became associated with the feminine. I am not sure. Fashion is a confusing one. This is my best guess.
@@sylviadailey9126 You've clearly wanted to get that off your chest for a long time, so I won't even make an r/IAmVerySmart reference and let you have this even though nothing of what you said related to the main point of my comment.
I really like this video but i would love even more seeing you espanding on some things you said in this video like, the visual language in character design, like how female characters tend to have smaller nose bigger eyes always eyelashes or, like you said, a more whiter skin tone for example, and im talking about both non human and human characters
I've also heard this trope referred to as the "Smurfette Principle", originally in reference to The Smurfs being a colony of males with the token girl. The only inverse of this I've ever really noticed was from Power Puff Girls, where there are clones of them but they're boys. Growing up tho, I never even liked the Rowdy Rough Boys. As long as I can remember, I never liked the trope, it always felt unimaginative and lazy to me, even as a kid.
I just discovered your channel and I gotta say you do AMAZING content! I like your voice a lot too, I could listen you talking for hours! Keep up the good work!
The newest example of this kind of trope that I've seen was in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (the video game, from 2021), which introduced female counterparts for both Rathet and Clank that they meet through rifts to other dimensions or whatever that was. From a design standpoint they were quite great, without anything "girly" (but still recognizably female) and from the story/lore perspective they were both given a lot of depth, even more than Ratchet and Clank themselves (which is quite understandable given it's an old franchise at this point). It was also somewhat interesting that Rivet's character was on several occasions portrayed as much stronger and more confident than Ratchet's, which at times seemed to be more of an inversion of the steretypically traditional gender dynamics, rather than an effort to make them more equal (which is context-dependent and not a bad thing in itself in just one work of art, of course, only can be concerning if it becomes dominant across media).
i don’t wanna type a lot but heres my sum to my opinion: a lot of animals are from cartoons and its hard to resemble a girl as in real shows you can usually tell.
Another great video, lovely art as well. I remember as a kid allways looking more at the behaviour of the characters, for example amy and lola or sakura, or the female cats in tom n jerry, they were allways just boring or all over the guys so me and the girls just disliked them for the oick me behaviour. Im really glad characters are moving away from that, encato was a joy to watch cuz of the diversity and i related way more. Good topic :)
When it comes to power rangers it wasn't up to sapan really 😅 since it's originally a Japanese show, and on that note the female ranger isn't necessarily pink it depends on the season and the writers and there's a whole other franchise by the same studio that does sentai (Toei) Dedicated to girls (precure) 🙂 I know that's a whole other can of worms but I thought it may be helpful
Great video analyses! I'd never thought about the inpact of more serialized cartoon series, so that's a really interesting point! For on ongoing series, you definitely need more depth to your characters
Actually as a kid grown up in the 80's and 90's I liked the established girl characters of a movie or a show and saw them as characters I can relate to, while I was seldom happy with those newly added female characters. They often just seemed there to be, as you stated, a love interest, a distraction or caused a conflict between two male leads attracted to her. They had either stereotypical feminine attributes or were oversexulized. Then in the late 90's started that infamous practise of uncreative writers dumbing down male characters to make the female ones appear more competent. At the end of the day this was an insult to both sides.
A good example of the change of that on this days is bluey, a lot of people though that bluey the protagonist, was a boy, only because she was blue like her father, and that's because the dogs in that serie doesn't have noticeable difference in there bodys to knows between boys and girls, only the voice call tell in adults, because kids sound like either gender
When I was in preschool, I thought that girls had to have pink as their favorite color because all the cartoon girl counterparts were like pink. Then I discovered the almighty sea green crayon in a crayon box and I completely abandoned that thought process lol.
I know a lot of these characters. They're a combination of Token Girl Character, Smurfette Syndrone, and Tertinary Sexual Traits tropes, which you can find on TV Tropes quite easily for a rabbit hole of reading. I have a lot of thoughts from throughout the video. But Magenta and Blue are both girls. There's a lot of analytical discussion about Amy online if you look, especially compared to the other girls in the Sonic cast compared to the boys. It's almost black and white from the casual audience, fans that only look at the characters at face value, and those that actually dig into the characters. I would talk about Amy, but I rather mention Angel. So Angel is a weird case of that color swap token girlfriend, while also making good use of the trope. Stitch is number 626, meaning Jumba made a whole bunch of experiments with different ideas. In the franchise, all the experiments near Stitch have derivative designs, which shows Jumba having a preferred style he was perfecting instead of switching between a walking volcano or something. They all have that upright koala look by the end. So it works, and it's interesting how Angel's a derivative of Stitch but lore wise came first as exp 624. On top of that, her girly/sexualized traits also makes sense since she's also a siren trope. Singing charms all the other experiments. This happens late enough in the show to turn all the previously reformed experiments back to evil. Definitely a good threat level. It's a girl using her charms trope, but works since it doubles as a fail safe for an "evil genius scientist" to keep his experiments evil. The problem with that is 625 and 626 were made after her, so her charm doesn't work on them. But Stitch was crushing on her, and trying to naturally woo her (while she's going around being a menace mind you, with Lilo demonizing her) instead of only liking her for her spell was enough to have her switch sides in the end and cancel her siren spell to save the day. So Angel has a lot of tropes to her, but I think they're presented in a very successful package. It fits with the show's theme of redemption (and many colorful monsters that take after one main archetype for an episode).
Oddly enough, growing up with this trope, I just assumed that EVERY counterpart of a male character was a girl. Examples being: Shadow from Sonic 2 battle, Cub from the Little Bear Movie and Blue and Magenta from Blue's Clues. I was very surprised to learn years later that the first two were guys and quite happy to learn that Blue was a girl (and, for years, it was debated if Magenta was a girl, too or not!). Also, Tails from Sonic, as well. He was cute (my favorite) and always hung around Sonic so I thought he was a girl. I guess I just latched onto that idea since the only female character that was her own and interesting at the time was Sandy from Spongbob. She was not a female sponge, but a squirrel, kinda fitting into how each character is a different species from one another. She also liked to do stuff, like karate, working out and extreme sports. She was also very proud of her texas roots. Not boy crazy or mean, but very caring, nice and had shown her emotions in a way that didn't feel forced. I wish she had gotten more screen time in the beginning. I hope that all made sense.
A funny reverse example of this trope are the Rowdyruff Boys, the brutish male counterparts to the Powerpuff Girls. Personally, the trope had a tendeyto rely on stereotyping to crrate a female design. Stuff like, they have to be pink, lightly colored, sparkly, and it can be off putting to see what sime creators think femininity is sometimes. That's why it's all around a good thing that this trope has been phased out. I will defend Amy whenever I can tho, she's precious.
Personally I felt like seeing mostly these types of characters while growing up did give me a bit of a confused and a bit damaging view of what womanhood was as well as the fact that it made me feel very confused and ashamed of my sexuality because I felt like as a girl I should have been more feminine and attracted to boys and when I started developing attraction to other girls it felt really wrong and unnatural. Not saying it was just those characters or even mostly them, it was kinda just growing up in a more heteronormative society that made me like this, but I kinda wish I had seen less feminine girl characters and seen less heterosexuality on TV. They really shoved heterosexuality down your throat back then and it wasn't good at all.
I mean like it or not but with over 90% of people being Heterosexual is it far from surprising that most media would be made to appeal to these 90+% as this really is a question of financial interest.
@@rynobehnke8289 I mean, thats no excuse not to show non hetero people existing as solid strong characters. In fact, thats actually MORE reason to show strong competent marginalized individuals, because as much as it may seem weird, representation DOES matter, and if all people see are regressive stereotypes? Yeah, thats gonna influence somebody.
I have a feeling my whole archive of children shows influenced my personality now days. Loud ((literally every cartoon, keeps the kids attention)), obsessed with music/musicals((highschool musical, little Einsteins, Phineas and Ferb (which is classified as a musical as well), and more)), Queer ((give me one example where the main character didnt give you queer vibes)), and so much more. Its surprising just how much what we watch growing up can influence us.
My favorite inversions of this are the RowdyRuff Boys(goes without saying) and Len Kagamine(ik he's a Vocaloid but still); the former trio is an exaggerated and ridiculed caricature of aggressive hypermasculinity and the latter was literally made as a male counterpart for Rin because Crypton noticed that there weren't that many male Vocaloids and KAITO sold very poorly at the time. It's also interesting and fun to note that Len is only popular in the first place because of his connection to Rin and because middle schoolers want him to be their boyfriend. 🤭
The blue = boy thing is ingrained in me, and I’m having a hard time not assuming that a blue cartoon character is automatically male. I thought that Bluey was a boy before I watched the show, and as a kid I thought that Rainbow Dash and Blue (from Blue’s Clues) were male.
Another set examples was Digimon Angemon was introduce as a man with full body suit but later angewomon introduce with skin exposure of arm, belly and thigh. Devimon is just some devil in black but LADYdevimon appear as a humanoid lady in torn tight outfit . Lastly, we have Beelzemon and he's al full of jackets and belts but afterward introduce Beelestarmon with tight leather pants and underboobs.
I used to HATE girl counterparts in cartoons and games back when I a kid and in middle school because of the internalized misogyny I had constantly heard from my mother, now that I’m older I think very differently. I personally like a lot girl counterparts now. Amy Rose, Minnie, Daisy, Batwoman, Harley Quinn, etc.
Blue is a girl, but Magenta isn't a boy. She's a girl too. The real subversion with the other side is Periwinkle who is a purple kitten. Since a lot of media often have a male dog and a female cat, Blue's Clues did it the other way around with Blue and Magenta being girls and Periwinkle being a boy.
Reminded me of an episode of Art Attack when they demonstrated designing a group of characters and started off with the 'main character' (an anthropomorphised male frog iirc), and all the other characters derived from that first one, including a female which was the most proportionally similar to the first character, the others being either bigger, shorter etc ... Interesting to think that at that level they're each defined by one feature and that being a girl counts as this character's feature.
Hey! I just stumbled upon your channel recently, and decided to leave a comment. First of all, your characters are very interesting, especially Mint, I love the use of colours!! As a young writer and artist, I’m always looking to critique my work and improve and though I haven’t known your channel for long, you’ve already really helped me gain more of a sense of what I’m doing. It’s always great to hear another person’s opinion on the goings on in the world of media. I must applaud you for your creativity and helping guide me towards creating interesting and unique works. Hats off to you! 💚🖤
Ah, this is something that I never thought about growing up, but now that I'm older I see things from a different perspective. Crazy how when we're young our "normal" becomes what is introduced and taught to us. But that doesn't always mean that your normal is someone else's normal. Don't know if that makes any sense, jaja! 😅 This is one of those topics that we could go into a big ol' rabbit hole on. 🙏😵💫 Overall, I do agree and I also love that there is far more diversity in media nowadays (both in personalities and visual design). It makes it much more fun when characters feel like actual people versus just a stereotype of "what a boy or girl should be". ♥
As a kid I thought for a long time that Tails from Sonic was a girl. Slightly more feminine energy some how. Could have been pretty advanced for the time as Tails was a character in it's own right
Honestly i don't see a problem with the Tom and Jerry female cats since they probably have bows because their owners gave them bows. They are usually shown as pets after all despite looking somewhat humanoid.
I blame Feminism and lazy writing for the disappearance of "Distaff Counterparts" in western media. Feminism sold the idea that these female offshoot characters were misogynistic and perpetuated the idea that women were seen by society as inferior accessories to men. That all they could ever be was an accessory to a man and not a person in their own right. I think "girly" counterpart characters CAN work, so long as they have a personality that goes beyond superficial "feminine" traits. Sadly many of the older examples were that and nothing more. But really the problem is western society coming to see Femininity as weak and inferior. This is why the "Girlboss" archetype became popular (look as any Live-Action Disney remake for a Girlboss protagonist), while it seems like an empowering concept, it really isn't. Since Girlbosses are defined by their lack of feminine traits - they just adopt traditionally masculine traits while discarding what makes them feminine. This actually carries the sexist implication that - if women want to succeed or be taken seriously - they have to behave like men. You shouldn't have to use the prefix "Girl" if women behaving in a "Boss" manner should be the norm. Because you're sending the message that the fact they can be "Bosses" is the exception to the rule.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but I don't think Feminism itself is the problem: the core value of Feminism is believing that men and women are equal (while still acknowledging differences and accomodating them), but the name causes people to think feminists are just man-haters when that's not the case.
@@Fionapollo Thanks, I do agree with the core concepts of Feminism - but they rarely shine through because many who claim to advocate for Feminism don't embrace Femininity as a virtue for women. We need more Feminists who actually want equality between the sexes and are willing to embrace Femininity as a virtue. It's the vocal "man-haters" who give actual Feminists a bad name. Plus you have 2nd Wave and 3rd Wave Femininsts who disagree on what Feminism is, or how it should be advocated for. As a man I like female characters in fiction to have strong, traditional feminine traits and personalities, such as compassion, empathy, kindness, and emotional openness - but I understand when they're not handled well they can come across as sexist stereotypes. I think what a "strong female character" is, is a female character who embraces their Femininity, but is also given real agency in the story. Courage, determination, self-sacrifice and conviction don't have to be traits only male characters, or girlboss characters can enjoy. Sadly many writers are still struggling with that. Femininity doesn't have to equate to weakness or a lack of agency.
I feel like this is, design wise, especially evident in bluey. Most characters are girls, yet there are no visual "indicators" towards that. It got my whole family, honestly. I first thought bluey and bingo were boys, or atleast bluey. Like, she's BLUE, no lashes, no feminine clothing, even the voice feels neutral. The same with my parents and my younger sister. I think its incredibly cool to have lots of female characters, as main characters, ON A KIDS SHOW!!! Like, I can't believe it feels so special, I I even realize how little not "girly girl" female leads existed in kids shows..
As a kid I didn't think much about tropes in anime and cartoons, but now as an adult I slightly understand tropes, this token female character was also present in Power Rangers and super sentai, this trope isn't limited to animation, tokustatsu shows also have token female character like Kat from Power Rangers SPD
I think even in the ending of the movie Anastasia, the comedic relief bat that helps the bad guy gets with a pink bat girl that looks like him but feminine
I love seeing strange girls around. It's a more exciting to watch. As a kid. I have a crush on Blossom because she's smart, with a huge heart and she's a badass when she fights. Classic Powerpuff Girls best show
I tried making a rant about stereotypes and I accidentally made two new characters for context i was trying to say how nowadays there's so many cowardly, pushover male characters and lead female girlbossy characters, so i began trying to explain how i'd do it so that it fits and isn't just out of nowhere NOW I HAVE TWO CHARACTERS I LIKE WHAT DO I DO WITH THEM??
When mentioning "female counterparts" Elita-1 from Transformers is a good (although rarely seen) example in Gen1, but it could in some cases reflect the intended demographics of the cartoon. Some likely lean more towards a very specific design style while others could go for a specific shorthand
Mornin'! I've been made aware that my life is a lie and both blue and magenta from blue's clues are girls 😂
That is some epic trolling.
@Quirky Vanom because i watched blues clues when i was like 2 & didn't feel the need to watch it again growing up?
Yea, Green Puppy was the only boy dog. Steve so referred to Blue and Magenta as "she" multiple times. And Green Puppy is an example of it goin the other way, where the male character was made just to have a foil to the main character
@Ashema Bahumat the green dog is also a girl
Yeah so uh I i figured it out quite quickly
Another example of a female counterpart is Toadette. Toad needed a partner in Mario Kart Double Dash, so Toadette was created. Toadette is also a sweet baby, and I will protect her at all costs.
Fun fact: the term female doesn’t actually apply to Toadette correctly
According to the producer of the ‘Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker’ game, Koichi Hayashida
The toad species is sexless, even though they can have a gendered appearance
Toadette is my baby and we protect her at all costs WE MUST PROTECT THE SHROOM BABY
@@katherineclawson3494 What about the first two Paper Mario games?
@@thepiratepeter4630 Nintendo wants you to forget about those. Which is unfortunate.
@@katherineclawson3494 Makes sense, mushrooms are a type of fungus after all.
I find it interesting how many male "Furry" characters often have little to no clothing, yet the female characters are always fully dressed, even when their anatomy is more humanoid specifically to sexualise them for fanservice. I.E: Rouge the Bat
Maybe it's partially because they clothed them that designers took the liberty to sexualize them.
@@birthdayfruitecake8158 kinda weird, Sally Acorn originaly didn't wear clothes either, like Sonic. She wasn't really sexualised either.
@@despinasgarden.4100 Yeah, she didn't have anything like the pink heart-shaped breast plate and the flirt nature Rogue had. She didn't even have the heeled boots. ...At least she had a princess's vest, though.
@@birthdayfruitecake8158 Could be. Though it's not universal.
@@birthdayfruitecake8158 i think she did had heeled boots? But other than that nothing else.
Fun Fact: Until the 19th century, Pink used to be generally considered a masculine color for being passionate, while blue was generally considered a feminine color for being calming. Then somewhere along the line, things 180d
It happened around World War 2 if I'm not mistaken.
CW - Discussions of WW2, Nazi’s, Genocide
It wasn’t just “somewhere”, it was during WW2 in Nazi Germany. In an attempt to eradicate everybody who was not “aryan”, queer people (particularly gay men) got labelled with a pink triangle. Queer equalled feminine to the Nazis, and therefore Pink now equalled feminine. It’s a shame that the colour pink not only has painted women in a negative light, but also has blood on its name from all of the queer folk we lost.
Mamie Eisenhower started wearing pink in the 50's, popularizing the color to be associated with girls.
H-tler started using pink triangles to identify gay people in camps, so pink became girly iirc.
So you’re telling me that Funny Valentine wearing all pink is historically accurate??
The girly counterpart character worked best (in my opinion) with Mona Lisa from TMNT. She quickly became a fan favorite character, and her dynamic with Raphael was genuinely cute. It also helped that she was a salamander, so she wasn't just ANOTHER mutant turtle.
I really dug the updated version in the 2012 series. They took the initial concept, and reworked her backstory, but it's not too out there. Both versions of the character could fight and still have a sweet side.
I guess that a better example of a female version of a character like the TMNT would be Venus de Nile, she was a female turtle.
@Despina's garden. Ya misspelled it bud (de milo), I think your autocorrect has a preference with its characters lmao
But also its a little weird considering Venus was a sister to the turtles, so why would the writers try to ship her with Leo??
For some reason I've always fucking hated Mona, I'm not sure why tbh.
@@kikiscribbles wait, they shipped Venus with Leo too? Holy shit what is it with these writers and incest?? First Karai and now Venus??
@@callmesummon there's a weird history of incest surrounding TMNT unfortunately
I think what bothers people is that it's the whole "Adam and Eve" thing in cartoon form, specifically "Eve being Adam's rib," or "only a deviation of him and not her own person," etc.
I never really considered it from a biblical standpoint, that's actually really interesting!
Except for the fact that women being "less than" do to being from Adam's rib is a common misunderstanding and the verse gets removed from context a lot. Though I understand why the rib can be uncomfortable if people hold that interpretation, a lot of people seem to not understand what the original intent was.
I never thought of this trope through the limbs of this biblical debate though. Interesting theory.
@@EllePhoenixMC Well, what was the original context then? Because I’ll I’ve ever heard about that line, it stemmed from the belief that women were just an “underdeveloped” version of men
@@starstorm1267 On it. I am looking up the versus now.
THIS
I do think there is a difference in this kind of design when it comes to non-human characters that are still people, like Lacksadaisy, Sly Cooper, and American Tail then it comes to non-human characters that are animals like Pokemon or dragons in How To Train Your Dragon etc
I’m pretty glad this trend is dying down, not that I feel particularly strongly about the characters specifically, it was just a little annoying as a kid to constantly be told you can either be the hero or the girl. I think that’s why things like Kim Possible, Power puff girls and even Barbie movies were such a breath of fresh air to me, they were allowed to be the heroes and be “girls,” kicking butt and 100% confident in their interests.
I think I ended up finding girl counterparts of characters(non human if we're being specific) odd, because a lot of times with animals, as an example, you don't really see much going on and then the girl counterparts end up having bows, being some feminine color like pink, or even having boobs put on them.
But, I have seen instances of female counterparts of non human characters that don't look super pointlessly gendered(such as Tigress from Kung Fu Panda, the love interest in Balto, and Nala in The Lion King) from around the last 30 years.
I really like Amy. She’s feminine but tough. Although I always saw Sonic ending up with Sally (read the old comics if you don’t know what she’s like). Also, Amy has always been interested in tarot and fate since her first introduction, and she doesn’t have the same skill set or backstory as Sonic at all..
Every character from the Sonic series has been progressively downgraded in a lot of the media. I heard some videos talking about this. how after 06 it has pretty much been a downward spiral for all the characters. even Sonic Heroes while the gameplay was great. there was very little regard to actually developing the characters in the game.
Amy actually got messed with pretty hard in this regard. She was not a major character in Sonic Adventure 2 and 06 which did develop her character most people disregard.
Though again for modern Sonic media that seems to have hardly mattered. Look at Knuckle's character arc in Adventure 2 and compare that to how he is portrayed now.
I do not know a lot about the comics though I heard some of the comics have worked to develop the characters. I have also heard the comics are a special form of chaotic mess so I don't know if it just varies on the writers.
@@phantom-ri2tg It got pretty bad during the 2010s, but it's generally agreed that characterisation has been on an upswing recently with the movies, IDW, and Frontiers.
As far as I'm aware, Shadow is the only one really lagging behind, but he'll likely catch up for the 3rd movie
@@phantom-ri2tg It depends on what your individual bar for Sonic characters are since the tones of thee stories specifically during the mid 00s shifted so wildly. For me, the Adventures, Rush, the first 2 Riders and Unleashed are the perfect sweet spot of tone and characterizations in the series. I think Shadow and 06 are trying way too fucking hard and are more comical than anything in the bad way, and the 2010s era that ppl rag on for being too light hearted I think is fine enough minus a few characters but definitely aren't my preferred obviously. But there are ppl that will stand by shadow and 06 for some reason, and I'm sure in a few years you'll be seeing "Frontiers was peak sonic story telling" from some one who had it as their first but finally is able to form coherent opinions online, like i see for shadow and 06 these days lol.
@@cillianstewart9441 I will say i hope Amy's frontiers characterization isn't the norm for her. Ian can get her down pat in the current comics perfectly fine, idk why she feels so off in Frontiers. In general though, I think a lot of the fandom lost the plot with Amy and wanna see a change that doesn't need to happen. But that's a whole other long winded discussion
Amy's my favourite Sonic character, she's got a really cute design (both Modern & Classic) and she's got a nice arc in the first 2 Adventure games. Her compassion and empathy shine through and are what turn characters like Gamma and Shadow into allies. I think that gets overlooked because Amy really was the unsung hero in both games.
It's a shame she tends to get written off as a shallow love interest for Sonic and her more immature traits get exaggerated by the writers to make her come off as annoying.
I think, as you mentioned Amy from sonic, that's a franchise that is a good case study on how female characters have evolved in media, considering how long Sonic has been around and how many types of media the series has spawned.
Of course there's Amy herself, going from just sonic but small, pink and weaker to a spunky preteen girl with a crush, but still having personal values and priorities, even standing up to her crush/ hero when she feels the need (see her treatment of E102 Gamma.)
Though unfortunately her characterization has been hit and miss depending on the writing, she's great in the comics, but a lot of the sonic cast is hit and miss depending on writers so, it's not a problem exclusive to her.
I'll briefly touch on Rouge, who started as that Fem Fatale, but still had her own motivations even upon introduction. I can't deny the sexual edge to her character and design, but they've given her good depth with shadow especially, nice to see a woman care about a male character without it being rooted in romantic tension. Again still kinda depending on the writer.
Cream, is kinda just a cute well mannered child and her mom is just a motherly stereotype, so not much to say there honestly.
And of course there's Blaze, the first female character in sonic to be legitimately on par with sonic himself in power, and honestly her gender has little to do with the writing other than the irony of the "defrosting ice queen" trope being tied to a fire based character, but still a really cool character imo.
I could get into the comics, especially recently with Whisper, Tangle and especially Surge but this comment is already long enough.
Point is its interesting to see how a long running series that started in these token tropes not only adapting old characters but changing how new ones are characterized as time goes on.
Something with Rogue. her relationship with Knuckles actually was a big thing in his character arc in Adventure 2. You can hear his arc in the rap songs and one talks about Rogue. In it he laments that he is attracted to her but can not pursue her do to his responsibility to the Master Emerald. and unlike in a lot of media lately with shipping he is never said to be wrong.
Also interestingly the game never actually touches much on what Rogue's sexual preference is. in Sonic X people even suspected she was a lesbian. Thinking on it neither has Shadow displayed sexual interest. and the last member of their friend group is Omega who is a robot. I do not know a lot about later media but from the games I saw it can be argued their whole friend group is ace people hanging out. and it would fit too as the main thing they have in common is that they do not fit into society with others.
@@phantom-ri2tg That's a good read to identify with, but they are Team Dark, a group of reformed villains who work as an independent faction. And Sega for a bit even hated writing them together for ages, which meses that hanging out friends part in anything that's not the comics.
@@amandaslough125 I meant more of it would make sense for a head-canon. I highly doubt Sega would ever do that. though with writers doing all sorts of stuff I would not consider much canon.
I would say that having the femswap version of a character isn't a problem. The problem comes when they are representative of being the only lead female in the show, comic, game, or whatever. Tiny Toons both played this straight and completely destroyed it, in that Babs is absolutely Buster's palette swap, but Elmyra is not just little girl Elmer. Elmyra's meant to play Elmer's role as the antagonist, but she's not dim-witted -- instead being a medical genius -- and she has a massive family as opposed to Elmer being a lonely hunter.
Codename Kids Next Door actually is a great example with both the femswap and the real girl. Numbah 3, Kuki, is obsessed with everything girly, and actually leads a section of girls only agents in many episodes. Meanwhile Numbah 5, Abigail, is the one who gets the most straight action and is arguably the most competent member of the KND outside of Numbah 362, who's also a girl. Numbah 362, Rachel, is another good example, because she has to play the more traditionally stoic and masculine role of the military general on duty, while also being a girly girl in her off time.
Good points though 362 is the most qualified leader rather than being the overall most competent.
Numbah 1 I would say is more competent than Numbah 5. she however is more consistent. I believe it is a relationship with Numbah 1 is the leader as he is more outgoing and Numbah 5 is the subleader to keep the team in balance.
Really all the main 5 have their strengths and weaknesses. rare example of a show where they are actually solidly portrayed as a team.
That dynamic also fits in with 362 as she became the leader during an unstable period of the KND and it is later shown that no one wants to actually handle the responsibilities of being the head leader. Before her Chad was the leader. well he did not seem that competent as a villain it is revealed around the end he was holding back.
When rhe light fury was originally shown i remember the back lash she got because people thought she was a female night fury and got even more pissed when they found out that her bata desghn (dark gray and stubby and was noticeably scaily) was scrapped for not looking feminine enough
Interesting designs getting scrapped for not being “feminine” enough always drives me up the wall. It’s so frustrating to see, and it’s tiring to see female characters being boxed into very specifically appearances.
It's even worse because you have Astrid's dragon Stormfly, who's canonically female and looked the same as all the other dragons of her own species, same for Fishleg's dragon, Meatlug. There was literally no excuse for Light Fury's design.
Yeahh the design was literally just made to be marketable, not to create a good character design or to even fit the universe (Cause it doesn't, it was more than established that male and female dragons look pretty much the same and there has never been a species that looked THIS feminine).
Kind of sad when creativity gets pushed aside by marketing.
@@helion_ut I was going to say that; compared to the original design, the one finally choosen is more friendly and marketable (in exchange to be a copy/paste of toothless but with white skin). The original design looks pretty cool, and love the tail design they gave her... but I guess it could have been complicated to get the attention of children to buy all the merchandising of that design and preferred to stick with the one that worked (toothless).
Edit: I felt very strange that the light fury was literally a copy past of the night fury, now that I see what the actual designs was meant to look like is kind of... cheap now, like that is just being lazy.
@@biancatak5125 i would have enjoyed more if we got to see that male light furies look like that
"Straight girls aren't the ones decking themselves out head to toe in pink"
I actually know a girl who makes it a point to wear pink every single day... And she's bi/ace
Based and pinkpilled
But she isn’t straight so that point still stands right
Why is the short version of Asexual "Ace"
Like there's no C
@@ConvenientlyShapedUsername How many pills are there?
@@tirramasu7948 My guess for why the shorthand isn't "ase" is because ace was already a preexisting word.
@@alyssumowo aro isn't either
I love the idea of making characters nearly identical in design save for color changes to indicate a relationship between them, like Sub Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.
Yes
Im just glad that female characters have like…. A personality now? Like female characters in media were a blank slate in every show they were on.
Female characters had personality for like 50 years now, at least.
@@quangamershyguyyz7166 yeah, but im talking about “deep” characters, idk how to explain it but female characters now seem to have more of an porpoise and meaning. It’s pretty cool if you ask me.
very well said! I never really found a problem with these types of characters, but I do think certain topics, such as oversexualization and negative tropes for these girl characters were and are a real issue. Since we have so many more girl characters now, with more varying personalities, I'd love to see more Amy's, who are actually characters but have some similar qualities to these characters! awesome vid and lovely art. Mint rocked that dress!
you know this is a trope i never really thought about much before, I assume because it is just not that common nowadays.
Can we get more Kitty Softpaws type counterparts specifically fr though
I always love a good history lesson on why some things were done the way they were. The trope one it’s own without this context was a lot more black and white for me before this. Now with a more nuanced perspective it’s a more complex as a topic. That said it’s been a pleasure to learn and I wish you all a pleasant day.
Sincerely
-The Void
th entire disney V.S. louisa from Encanto is so funny actually. disney really didn't want to give her big muscles and now she has the best sales from that movie.
true! Luisa was my absolute favorite of the family for being undeniably strong, feminine, and sensitive. when the movie came out, I was so focused on looking for a doll of her because of how pretty she was!
Isabela is my favorite but I love Luisa too! 🤗🌸💪🏿
I remember Robot Chicken did a skit on something like this, Michael Moore (the model of him) was doing the narrative commentary.
Super awesome video!!! Amazing job with the drawing as well!!!
Yeah while I do love characters such as Angel and Robotgirl, I do also have my own issues and criticisms with the trope, and I'm super happy we're getting a lot more diverse female characters in media nowadays! I'm also happy to see some of these characters be developed and become much more, such as with Amy and Lola like you mentioned!
Betty Boop used to be a poodle as counterpart to some weird dog character. Her flop ears later got converted into earrings and was turned into the human design we know today.
She was also Black in the earliest cartoon she starred in as a human and was inspired by a Black jazz singer named Baby Esther, but a white woman co-opted her style and Betty Boop got sadly whitewashed.
I have to wonder what's going on with 'counterparts' and femininity these past couple of years. For example in a recent Adam Warlock comic, it showed his female counterpart by the name of Eve. The way she was drawn from the neck down a person would think she was hitting the steroids kind of hard. And it's not the first time I've heard complaints about this kind of thing - Teela from a recent Master of the Universe cartoon. She-Hulk in the Avengers comics in the 2018-2023 series.
I think way too many people nowadays don't truly understand femininity or masculinity. They are more than just physical looks. Some of it is the 'presence' a person gives off. That 'air' about a person that others sense on some mental level. Fio said there are many body types. Femininity and masculinity do not always equal sexy.
Agreed! It is barely understood what feminity and masculinity mean. I sure hope it's not that big of a deal
Personally I just really like pallet swapping so I will pretty much always have a base level positive reaction! But I can see why people might not like them, too, and it is usually pretty lazy.
A theme that goes hand in hand with the "girly counterpart" is the Smurfette Principle
Aside from Smurfette being exactly the poster child of what you said, it also is something that happens a LOT on movies to this day: having a token girl on an otherwise male-dominated cast
Also, I clearly remember some big names of the Adventure Time era like Rebecca Sugar (sorry if I can't quite find the tweets from years ago x.x) clearly pointing both themes as a problem on animation, which kinda fits the time they started to die down as a trend (on animation at least
Rebecca Sugar wrote Steven Universe, but I see what you mean.
@@imthebossmermaid3648That’s why she made Steven the only Boy character is a feminine-genderless species 😊
I’m a little over twenty and I fondly remember watching those twenties and thirties cartoons as a kid and they got me inspired to draw in that over the top vibe.
I always loved this character design. The pink female characters were always my favourite growing up lol
Dang two of my favorites in the same thumbnail, Amy rose and Light Fury.
Slight correction: There's a part of the video at 6:19 that many shows received tv adaptations to sell toys, and Power Rangers was one of the shows mentioned. Power Rangers didn't start with a toy line. It started with an adaptation of Toei's Super Sentai series. Specifically, Zyuranger. (The season that was airing at the time) In Super Sentai's case, the different rangers on a team were made with a specific theme. (Ie, Dynaman with Baseball, Bioman with technology, Liveman with animals, Jetman with birds, etc) So in that case, the different rangers on the team were different variations of each other with different colors (Red, Blue, Black, Pink, etc) and other visual differences such as the shape of the visor on their helmet. Also, every Sentai season up until that point (With the exception of Sun Vulcan) had female members of the team. With Bioman being the first to have more than one female member.
No hard feelings. I get that these 80s and 90s shows can often be jumbled together. I just wanted to make that correction as a fan of Power Rangers myself.
Huh, I guess I never thought about how you don't see this trope as much anymore. In my opinion, I was kinda indifferent to it. Especially because when I watched or played these games, I never really got hugly into the Fandoms until I was a bit older. For instance, I never knew the just loves sonic, in a green dress, amy rose. I grew up knowing the Sonic X hammer weilding, hot-headed, but still head over heels for sonic Amy rose. But then again I also grw up watching things like Titan AE or treasure planet, which didn't really have too many "helpless" characters designated to one gender imo.
As a male who has plenty of female Sonic ocs in his roster, I feels as though there is a bit more to it aside from it being what worked so many decades ago.
I believe the scarcity of the female counterpart is more of a case of Intention vs. Impact.
The intention of female counterparts was to distinguish male from female (attire notwithstanding) so that it wasn't just all men all the time. It allows more people to appreciate what is presented depending on the target demographic.
However, the impact of this made it sound like less like an actual character, and more like a deviation. Something that exists outside the norm for the sake of doing something new or intriguing. On top of this, the mass production of such a stereotype has lead to oversaturation, cringe, and just feels..too easy. Furthermore, it became a template that is so inaccurate in most instances, that it is more or less a product of its time
Sure, we have rule 63 nowadays. But that is something irrelevant to the topic. Full Stop
omg i didn't know what r63 was off the top of my head and now I wanna make a sonic oc that's just genderbent version of the main sonic cast
i blame you lol /lighthearted
Yeahh I disagree. There are plenty of people who can make female characters. Now some people are good with making one gender of character and bad at making the other. but it remains there are people who can make good female characters and these shows had entire staff of people working on them.
So if it is not being said that the companies constricted their writers to making female characters behave in certain ways. than it is saying companies only hired writers who could only make male characters. which in my opinion implies even worse things about the companies than the former.
@@phantom-ri2tg fair points.
@@cyberprime9355 I did hear another comment say some comic book writers tried to break the trend but they did not sell well. so it can be argued that it took time before people got their footing to actually know what people wanted in this regard.
@@phantom-ri2tg Trying to create supply when their wasn't demand....a bit risky. But respectful
"straight girls arent the ones decking themselves out in pink" **intensly stares at Mean Girls** 👀
Come on, we all know Regina George is a lesbian.
I feel like another reason why this trend went away because of the growth of “masculine” girls and “feminine” guys. There’s isn’t only one body type and builds.
I miss those characters alot, they were always my favourite as a kid
heard she-ra and immediately flinched 😭 want a s6 so bad but its not gonna happen, ur vids are always so relaxing!!
Bosco and Honey, Cooler (Dog) and Brighteyes (Dogs) of Pound Puppies, and a few others the stories changed Brighteyes. Then look at the Care Bears, Love-a-Lot (two hearts) and Tender Heart (one heart). The issues changed over time, this changed our the Care Bears was drawn
amy rose drove me absolutely bonkers as a character in the early days, I remember finding her obsesion with sonic to be both irritating and creepy; amy's still not a favorite for me but I like her character a lot more now with the nuance a lot of writers have given her over the years
Actually in the older games that was not what Amy was like. Sonic 06 had even developed her character quite a bit. Then Sonic Heroes and after degraded her character into just chase Sonic.
@@phantom-ri2tg Honestly, Any being completely obsessed with sonic is a bit exaggerated by even at her worst
Its really not an issue of early Amy more of mid 2000's Amy
Really early Amy was still 8 and so she was just being childish with her love.
Early 2000's Amy was still clearly in love with Sonic but had more going for her. A love for adventure, a hate for boredom, full commitment to her friends, the want to help others in need and the willingness to go even against Sonic if he would hurt someone she cares about.
It was mostly powered by Sonic X and Sonic battle in the name of comedy that Amy for a number of appearances in the mid 2000's become obsessed with Sonic and even than did games like shadow the hedgehog and Sonic Riders still keep a fairly well written Amy going.
In recent years did insane Amy get absolved by boring generic "girl" Amy mostly thanks to Sonic Boom.
With The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog having in my opinion the best writing for Amy in over a decade.
@@rynobehnke8289 As amusing as Sonic Boom show is it really did the characters bad regarding stereotypes.
@@phantom-ri2tg
I think my biggest issue with Boom really isn't Boom it self but rather how the positive reception of that Amy and the dumbing down of that Shadow has infected other parts of the franchise.
I know about Amy Rose’s a little stereotypical origins, but I do love imitating her personality and being a little girly in general.
My guess is why Light Fury is so similar is because she's supposed to be a subspecies of a Night Fury.
It’s confirmed that the Light Fury is subspecies of a Night Fury
to be fair in the show Angel was experiment 624 and Stich was experiment 626 meaning in Lilo and Stitch's universe Angel was created before Stitch
though in real life the movie came before the show and Stich was made before Angel and other experiments
Also amongst all the expiriments where tons of girls, none pink.
But Angel is remembered better than any of them for being the best character.
And back then, Disney knew how to capitalize on popularity...
Imo I like how they did it in Regular Show, I mean heck Eileen is my favourite character 😂 albeit, she’s slightly less of Rigby’s female counterpart than Margaret is Mordecai’s haha. I really like Margaret though 🤷♀️
When it comes to how to train your dragon and the light fury, I think she looked better in her "beta" concept art! She was more grayish blue and looked kind of aquatic? And the fact they changed her to basically make the ying yang type of couple with Toothless made me sad.
I still think it would've been sooo much better if there actually was a second night fury that was female, not only could they bring back their species but their meeting would've possibly been pretty cute.
Wait, I thought BOTH Blue and Magenta were girls? And what about Green Puppy? The character’s bark is noticeably deeper & a bit raspier and the they play A LOT rougher than ether Blue or Magenta do in one of the episodes… don’t remember the title of it which makes me THINK he’s a boy but I’m not sure…. If I remember correctly (from before the year 2000 so if I mis remember, blame the fact that it’s been more than 23 years) Steve addressed Green Puppy with HE / HIM pronouns while he (Steve) addressed Magenta with SHE / HER pronouns…. I’m confused & just trying to figure out if I’m mis remembering it, or if there’s 2 girls and 1 boy among these characters…
I'm pretty sure all the dogs in Blue's Clues were girls. I initially thought Magenta and Green Puppy were boys too, but I recently was looking up the characters and found that they're all female. Periwinkle the cat is definitely still male though
Funny you mentioned green puppy. Apparently green puppy used to be a boy but is now a girl. I remember reading that somewhere
@@themightypancake5695 Even the new rainbow one? Singular rainbow puppy i think. I remember a white with colored spots one but now there's one with rainbow stripes puked over the fur.
Another awesome video :) I liked the discussion in this video, it was fun feeling nostalgic for a lot of old characters, while also unpacking the design choices and potential issues behind them, to see how these trends changed over time!
So, Magenta is actually a girl as well.
That's one of them there Mandela effects.
The "female" transformer's character design always bothered me. I never understood (and still don't) why the token girlbot has to look DRAMATICALLY different from all the others.
Fanfact in lore female transformers used to apparently not exist, canonical they're trans
Yeahhh, transformers is a franchise that encouraged this too in the past, but in the recent years they learned from their mistakes and got pretty inclusive and diverse, girls characters now are pretty diverse in design and personality, and they got gay and trans rep too on their comics and recent shows
Hehe, TRANSformers
Seriously, I don't see any point at all in female characters in a franchise where everything revolves around robots alone, okay if we were talking about anime, where robots are often controlled by people, but no, we're talking about a franchise where robots have their own consciousness and take the shape they need, so why would they need a robot female? It doesn't make sense, in theory, even male robots shouldn't exist (although in some languages a robot has a masculine gender, so it won't work to address it in "it", especially nowadays, because authors can be muddied for allegedly homophobia)
@@user-zg1wm7fj9t Actually that would be a point if favor for female transformers having more feminine designs. because if they don't actually have male and female genders that just means it is a choice of appearance for them. that does bring into question why their society would have those designs. however then yo0u would have to ask why they have humanoid designs in general.
@@phantom-ri2tg yeah in general, what's the transformers lore? They're robots but i don't think I've ever heard of any inventor, they're usually depicted as aliens off my memory. So they're, biological beings then? So maybe they do gotta reproduce which is why there are dudes and lady formers. But even if not, your point stands that we would need to question why they're human shaped at all. And why man made automobiles (and animals that one time) are what they turn into. And I'm willing to take a stab at guessing that it really was never thought about that much and they just made designs to market it. The girl formers being made also for increased appeal i figure.
A lot of characters like that aren't that great but as a girly little girl I adored most of them:)
mhm me too
I view the difference in male cartoon characters and female characters as a reverse bird aesthetic. The males are brightly colored while the females have dull appearances so they can hide with the eggs.
In the case of cartoons, however, the female characters get the flashy and colorful appearances with emphasis on their looks. And this never bothered me. Art is subjective. Its a style that you can like or dislike. But to say its an inherently bad thing or problematic, I don't agree with personally.
Yeah that is odd. Birds make a lot of sense because they are so natural. Natural things are utilitarian. Camouflage is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom. When some animal is flashy, that is the exception not the rule. Often the creature is one of two things. One is that it is a toxic animal that is giving warnings. The other is a male bird that is showing off. Birds are specialized in flying. They need to be light in order to be airborne. However the downside is that they are more frail. Male animals are competitive, and they fight over mates. Plenty of male animals get into physical combat. Birds can't do this very well, because they can easily be crippled or even killed. So instead they show off as a safer form of competition. That is where the fancy and showy plumage comes in. There is also singing and dancing. It varies depending on the species. There is even one kind called a bower bird. It really gets into interior decorating.
That is birds. When humans it is difficult to tell. Sports and war are considered masculine. That is taking the competitive nature of male animals and highly exaggerating it. It is difficult to rationalize why women are the ones to show off in fancy clothes. It is not an exaggeration of anything remotely feminin. It can only be justified as a cultural tradition. Female animals are the one to lay eggs or give live birth. Mammals and birds have the mother take good care of her babies. Childcare and housekeeping are considered feminine. This is taking the caregiving of femal mammals an birds and highly exaggerating it. Exaggerations for masculine and feminine roles become so far away from reality. Men and women are a lot more flexible and versatile then rigid roles suggest. In the olden days, sewing and textiles was part of housework. So it was traditionally done by women. So maybe that that changed into fancy clothes along with accessories. So maybe that is how fashion became associated with the feminine. I am not sure. Fashion is a confusing one. This is my best guess.
@@sylviadailey9126 this was interesting to read 😊
@@sylviadailey9126 You've clearly wanted to get that off your chest for a long time, so I won't even make an r/IAmVerySmart reference and let you have this even though nothing of what you said related to the main point of my comment.
the part about no straight woman decking herself out in pink actually made me chuckle out loud
I really like this video but i would love even more seeing you espanding on some things you said in this video like, the visual language in character design, like how female characters tend to have smaller nose bigger eyes always eyelashes or, like you said, a more whiter skin tone for example, and im talking about both non human and human characters
I love the cat meowing in the background.
I didn’t here a cat
I've also heard this trope referred to as the "Smurfette Principle", originally in reference to The Smurfs being a colony of males with the token girl.
The only inverse of this I've ever really noticed was from Power Puff Girls, where there are clones of them but they're boys.
Growing up tho, I never even liked the Rowdy Rough Boys. As long as I can remember, I never liked the trope, it always felt unimaginative and lazy to me, even as a kid.
I just discovered your channel and I gotta say you do AMAZING content! I like your voice a lot too, I could listen you talking for hours! Keep up the good work!
Thanks for another great video! I totally agree with you and it was cool to have community engagement before this came out as well :)
The newest example of this kind of trope that I've seen was in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (the video game, from 2021), which introduced female counterparts for both Rathet and Clank that they meet through rifts to other dimensions or whatever that was.
From a design standpoint they were quite great, without anything "girly" (but still recognizably female) and from the story/lore perspective they were both given a lot of depth, even more than Ratchet and Clank themselves (which is quite understandable given it's an old franchise at this point).
It was also somewhat interesting that Rivet's character was on several occasions portrayed as much stronger and more confident than Ratchet's, which at times seemed to be more of an inversion of the steretypically traditional gender dynamics, rather than an effort to make them more equal (which is context-dependent and not a bad thing in itself in just one work of art, of course, only can be concerning if it becomes dominant across media).
Magenta is actually a girl too, but Blue is still a girl. So if people ship them it's a lesbian ship :)
I'm so tired of people assuming since Blue is a girl that Magenta has to be a boy 😢
Didn't the show shipped them?
"they were just besties" /s
@@luisostasuc8135 I lived a lie ally life
i don’t wanna type a lot but heres my sum to my opinion: a lot of animals are from cartoons and its hard to resemble a girl as in real shows you can usually tell.
Another great video, lovely art as well. I remember as a kid allways looking more at the behaviour of the characters, for example amy and lola or sakura, or the female cats in tom n jerry, they were allways just boring or all over the guys so me and the girls just disliked them for the oick me behaviour. Im really glad characters are moving away from that, encato was a joy to watch cuz of the diversity and i related way more. Good topic :)
When it comes to power rangers it wasn't up to sapan really 😅 since it's originally a Japanese show, and on that note the female ranger isn't necessarily pink it depends on the season and the writers and there's a whole other franchise by the same studio that does sentai (Toei) Dedicated to girls (precure) 🙂 I know that's a whole other can of worms but I thought it may be helpful
Great video analyses! I'd never thought about the inpact of more serialized cartoon series, so that's a really interesting point! For on ongoing series, you definitely need more depth to your characters
Actually as a kid grown up in the 80's and 90's I liked the established girl characters of a movie or a show and saw them as characters I can relate to, while I was seldom happy with those newly added female characters. They often just seemed there to be, as you stated, a love interest, a distraction or caused a conflict between two male leads attracted to her. They had either stereotypical feminine attributes or were oversexulized.
Then in the late 90's started that infamous practise of uncreative writers dumbing down male characters to make the female ones appear more competent. At the end of the day this was an insult to both sides.
A good example of the change of that on this days is bluey, a lot of people though that bluey the protagonist, was a boy, only because she was blue like her father, and that's because the dogs in that serie doesn't have noticeable difference in there bodys to knows between boys and girls, only the voice call tell in adults, because kids sound like either gender
the most recent example i can think of this is when in the second croods movie where the sloth was pink again and it was weird i think.
When I was in preschool, I thought that girls had to have pink as their favorite color because all the cartoon girl counterparts were like pink. Then I discovered the almighty sea green crayon in a crayon box and I completely abandoned that thought process lol.
I know a lot of these characters. They're a combination of Token Girl Character, Smurfette Syndrone, and Tertinary Sexual Traits tropes, which you can find on TV Tropes quite easily for a rabbit hole of reading.
I have a lot of thoughts from throughout the video. But Magenta and Blue are both girls. There's a lot of analytical discussion about Amy online if you look, especially compared to the other girls in the Sonic cast compared to the boys. It's almost black and white from the casual audience, fans that only look at the characters at face value, and those that actually dig into the characters. I would talk about Amy, but I rather mention Angel.
So Angel is a weird case of that color swap token girlfriend, while also making good use of the trope. Stitch is number 626, meaning Jumba made a whole bunch of experiments with different ideas. In the franchise, all the experiments near Stitch have derivative designs, which shows Jumba having a preferred style he was perfecting instead of switching between a walking volcano or something. They all have that upright koala look by the end. So it works, and it's interesting how Angel's a derivative of Stitch but lore wise came first as exp 624. On top of that, her girly/sexualized traits also makes sense since she's also a siren trope. Singing charms all the other experiments. This happens late enough in the show to turn all the previously reformed experiments back to evil. Definitely a good threat level. It's a girl using her charms trope, but works since it doubles as a fail safe for an "evil genius scientist" to keep his experiments evil. The problem with that is 625 and 626 were made after her, so her charm doesn't work on them. But Stitch was crushing on her, and trying to naturally woo her (while she's going around being a menace mind you, with Lilo demonizing her) instead of only liking her for her spell was enough to have her switch sides in the end and cancel her siren spell to save the day. So Angel has a lot of tropes to her, but I think they're presented in a very successful package. It fits with the show's theme of redemption (and many colorful monsters that take after one main archetype for an episode).
Oddly enough, growing up with this trope, I just assumed that EVERY counterpart of a male character was a girl. Examples being: Shadow from Sonic 2 battle, Cub from the Little Bear Movie and Blue and Magenta from Blue's Clues. I was very surprised to learn years later that the first two were guys and quite happy to learn that Blue was a girl (and, for years, it was debated if Magenta was a girl, too or not!). Also, Tails from Sonic, as well. He was cute (my favorite) and always hung around Sonic so I thought he was a girl. I guess I just latched onto that idea since the only female character that was her own and interesting at the time was Sandy from Spongbob. She was not a female sponge, but a squirrel, kinda fitting into how each character is a different species from one another. She also liked to do stuff, like karate, working out and extreme sports. She was also very proud of her texas roots. Not boy crazy or mean, but very caring, nice and had shown her emotions in a way that didn't feel forced. I wish she had gotten more screen time in the beginning.
I hope that all made sense.
A funny reverse example of this trope are the Rowdyruff Boys, the brutish male counterparts to the Powerpuff Girls.
Personally, the trope had a tendeyto rely on stereotyping to crrate a female design. Stuff like, they have to be pink, lightly colored, sparkly, and it can be off putting to see what sime creators think femininity is sometimes. That's why it's all around a good thing that this trope has been phased out. I will defend Amy whenever I can tho, she's precious.
It sucks and it’s awful that this tripe is being phased out because it just shows how people are too sensitive now.
Personally I felt like seeing mostly these types of characters while growing up did give me a bit of a confused and a bit damaging view of what womanhood was as well as the fact that it made me feel very confused and ashamed of my sexuality because I felt like as a girl I should have been more feminine and attracted to boys and when I started developing attraction to other girls it felt really wrong and unnatural. Not saying it was just those characters or even mostly them, it was kinda just growing up in a more heteronormative society that made me like this, but I kinda wish I had seen less feminine girl characters and seen less heterosexuality on TV. They really shoved heterosexuality down your throat back then and it wasn't good at all.
Heterosexuality being shoved down our throats then, is better than homosexuality being shoved down our throats now.
I mean like it or not but with over 90% of people being Heterosexual is it far from surprising that most media would be made to appeal to these 90+% as this really is a question of financial interest.
@@rynobehnke8289 I mean, thats no excuse not to show non hetero people existing as solid strong characters. In fact, thats actually MORE reason to show strong competent marginalized individuals, because as much as it may seem weird, representation DOES matter, and if all people see are regressive stereotypes? Yeah, thats gonna influence somebody.
I have a feeling my whole archive of children shows influenced my personality now days. Loud ((literally every cartoon, keeps the kids attention)), obsessed with music/musicals((highschool musical, little Einsteins, Phineas and Ferb (which is classified as a musical as well), and more)), Queer ((give me one example where the main character didnt give you queer vibes)), and so much more. Its surprising just how much what we watch growing up can influence us.
My favorite inversions of this are the RowdyRuff Boys(goes without saying) and Len Kagamine(ik he's a Vocaloid but still); the former trio is an exaggerated and ridiculed caricature of aggressive hypermasculinity and the latter was literally made as a male counterpart for Rin because Crypton noticed that there weren't that many male Vocaloids and KAITO sold very poorly at the time. It's also interesting and fun to note that Len is only popular in the first place because of his connection to Rin and because middle schoolers want him to be their boyfriend. 🤭
The blue = boy thing is ingrained in me, and I’m having a hard time not assuming that a blue cartoon character is automatically male. I thought that Bluey was a boy before I watched the show, and as a kid I thought that Rainbow Dash and Blue (from Blue’s Clues) were male.
OMG (fi)Ona your art for this video is amazing! I wish I could shade like that❤
Another set examples was Digimon
Angemon was introduce as a man with full body suit but later angewomon introduce with skin exposure of arm, belly and thigh.
Devimon is just some devil in black but LADYdevimon appear as a humanoid lady in torn tight outfit .
Lastly, we have Beelzemon and he's al full of jackets and belts but afterward introduce Beelestarmon with tight leather pants and underboobs.
What's interesting about digimon is that Angewomon and LadyDevimon are actually one evolution level higher than their male counterparts.
@@EpicEverz You're right, they're perfect level lmao
Cuz enough people complained and called foul then demanded that they be more than that, even if they're not supposed to be a deep character by design.
The best pink counterpart to any main character is Dan Hibiki.
I used to HATE girl counterparts in cartoons and games back when I a kid and in middle school because of the internalized misogyny I had constantly heard from my mother, now that I’m older I think very differently. I personally like a lot girl counterparts now. Amy Rose, Minnie, Daisy, Batwoman, Harley Quinn, etc.
Blue is a girl, but Magenta isn't a boy. She's a girl too. The real subversion with the other side is Periwinkle who is a purple kitten. Since a lot of media often have a male dog and a female cat, Blue's Clues did it the other way around with Blue and Magenta being girls and Periwinkle being a boy.
>Mentions Magenta from Blue's Clues
Does she know?
Reminded me of an episode of Art Attack when they demonstrated designing a group of characters and started off with the 'main character' (an anthropomorphised male frog iirc), and all the other characters derived from that first one, including a female which was the most proportionally similar to the first character, the others being either bigger, shorter etc ...
Interesting to think that at that level they're each defined by one feature and that being a girl counts as this character's feature.
Yeah as if girls are just peripherals of boys, the generic "default".
Hey! I just stumbled upon your channel recently, and decided to leave a comment. First of all, your characters are very interesting, especially Mint, I love the use of colours!! As a young writer and artist, I’m always looking to critique my work and improve and though I haven’t known your channel for long, you’ve already really helped me gain more of a sense of what I’m doing. It’s always great to hear another person’s opinion on the goings on in the world of media. I must applaud you for your creativity and helping guide me towards creating interesting and unique works. Hats off to you! 💚🖤
I like tomboy characters for these reasons bc it’s something new but now that’s overdue
tomboy character are more common than before
Ah, this is something that I never thought about growing up, but now that I'm older I see things from a different perspective. Crazy how when we're young our "normal" becomes what is introduced and taught to us. But that doesn't always mean that your normal is someone else's normal. Don't know if that makes any sense, jaja! 😅 This is one of those topics that we could go into a big ol' rabbit hole on. 🙏😵💫
Overall, I do agree and I also love that there is far more diversity in media nowadays (both in personalities and visual design). It makes it much more fun when characters feel like actual people versus just a stereotype of "what a boy or girl should be". ♥
I have a a small but dumb nitpick both Blue and Magenta are girls.
As a kid I thought for a long time that Tails from Sonic was a girl. Slightly more feminine energy some how. Could have been pretty advanced for the time as Tails was a character in it's own right
Just found your channel thru YT recommended; what a pleasant surprise with a new upload 👏👏
Honestly i don't see a problem with the Tom and Jerry female cats since they probably have bows because their owners gave them bows. They are usually shown as pets after all despite looking somewhat humanoid.
I blame Feminism and lazy writing for the disappearance of "Distaff Counterparts" in western media. Feminism sold the idea that these female offshoot characters were misogynistic and perpetuated the idea that women were seen by society as inferior accessories to men. That all they could ever be was an accessory to a man and not a person in their own right.
I think "girly" counterpart characters CAN work, so long as they have a personality that goes beyond superficial "feminine" traits. Sadly many of the older examples were that and nothing more.
But really the problem is western society coming to see Femininity as weak and inferior. This is why the "Girlboss" archetype became popular (look as any Live-Action Disney remake for a Girlboss protagonist), while it seems like an empowering concept, it really isn't. Since Girlbosses are defined by their lack of feminine traits - they just adopt traditionally masculine traits while discarding what makes them feminine. This actually carries the sexist implication that - if women want to succeed or be taken seriously - they have to behave like men.
You shouldn't have to use the prefix "Girl" if women behaving in a "Boss" manner should be the norm. Because you're sending the message that the fact they can be "Bosses" is the exception to the rule.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying but I don't think Feminism itself is the problem: the core value of Feminism is believing that men and women are equal (while still acknowledging differences and accomodating them), but the name causes people to think feminists are just man-haters when that's not the case.
@@Fionapollo Thanks, I do agree with the core concepts of Feminism - but they rarely shine through because many who claim to advocate for Feminism don't embrace Femininity as a virtue for women. We need more Feminists who actually want equality between the sexes and are willing to embrace Femininity as a virtue.
It's the vocal "man-haters" who give actual Feminists a bad name. Plus you have 2nd Wave and 3rd Wave Femininsts who disagree on what Feminism is, or how it should be advocated for.
As a man I like female characters in fiction to have strong, traditional feminine traits and personalities, such as compassion, empathy, kindness, and emotional openness - but I understand when they're not handled well they can come across as sexist stereotypes. I think what a "strong female character" is, is a female character who embraces their Femininity, but is also given real agency in the story. Courage, determination, self-sacrifice and conviction don't have to be traits only male characters, or girlboss characters can enjoy.
Sadly many writers are still struggling with that. Femininity doesn't have to equate to weakness or a lack of agency.
@@Fionapollo They sound like a troll in all honesty.
I feel like this is, design wise, especially evident in bluey. Most characters are girls, yet there are no visual "indicators" towards that. It got my whole family, honestly. I first thought bluey and bingo were boys, or atleast bluey. Like, she's BLUE, no lashes, no feminine clothing, even the voice feels neutral. The same with my parents and my younger sister. I think its incredibly cool to have lots of female characters, as main characters, ON A KIDS SHOW!!! Like, I can't believe it feels so special, I I even realize how little not "girly girl" female leads existed in kids shows..
As a kid I didn't think much about tropes in anime and cartoons, but now as an adult I slightly understand tropes, this token female character was also present in Power Rangers and super sentai, this trope isn't limited to animation, tokustatsu shows also have token female character like Kat from Power Rangers SPD
I think even in the ending of the movie Anastasia, the comedic relief bat that helps the bad guy gets with a pink bat girl that looks like him but feminine
16:09-16:13 You learn something new everyday.
not true. they are both girls
Where has this channel been all my life.
It would be interesting to see a character reflection of the main character.
I love seeing strange girls around. It's a more exciting to watch. As a kid. I have a crush on Blossom because she's smart, with a huge heart and she's a badass when she fights. Classic Powerpuff Girls best show
I tried making a rant about stereotypes and I accidentally made two new characters
for context i was trying to say how nowadays there's so many cowardly, pushover male characters and lead female girlbossy characters, so i began trying to explain how i'd do it so that it fits and isn't just out of nowhere NOW I HAVE TWO CHARACTERS I LIKE WHAT DO I DO WITH THEM??
Write them down. Let them sit for a while. Then figure out what story or media they should be used for.
Ive been actually seeing more male counterparts to other males and honestly?,, ive been loving it 😭. Lego monkie kid legit just handled it so well
When mentioning "female counterparts" Elita-1 from Transformers is a good (although rarely seen) example in Gen1, but it could in some cases reflect the intended demographics of the cartoon. Some likely lean more towards a very specific design style while others could go for a specific shorthand
Great video as usual, but you misspelt characters in the title.
Woops, thank youuuu