Archived Discussion

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Morgan Wick: I'm having trouble figuring out which examples belong better on Closer to Earth, partly because I'm not sure where the dividing line between the tropes themselves are, except for the fact that this trope more clearly includes groups that aren't female.

Zeta: Pretty much every minority gets the closer to Earth treatment at one point or another, though. Not just women.

Pro-Mole: Doesn't this trope render Closer to Earth useless(or, at least, lumpable)?

Fire Walk: OK, I've tidied this up a bit, and cut some aversions: unless there's blatant examples listed, or good description, I don't believe we keep them. Also someone needs to do something with all the Justifying threads going on here. It may end up being me.

f: I've deleted the Star Wars example with Princess Leia being a perfect markswoman, because she misses loads of times. Make sure the trope example is actually true before you write it down.

Shire Nomad: Some cleanup... Pulled the following entries that were turning into discussion:

From Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri:

Prokor Zakharov, Deidre Skye, Sister Miriam Godwinson, Nwabudike Morgan, Colonel Corazón Santiago, Commissioner Pravin Lal, Chairman Sheng-ji Yang. Of them all I'd say Yang is a psychopath - the rest are more in normal people line. That doesn't stop them from attempting to exterminate you however.
- If you consider completely amoral ex-communist scientists and madly religious midwestern fundamentalists "normal people," then maybe. Most people recognize a stereotype when they see it, though. Also, the mind-worm breeding of the Gaians certainly doesn't help making them particularly sympathetic.

And from Red Dwarf:

Really, I think it should be stressed that the main characters on the show before Kochanski were the two lowest ranking crewmen on a mining ship, a computer senile three million-year-old ship's computer, a thoroughly inbred cat-person (And not one of the better examples of his species either), and a servant android. It only looks like positive discrimination because they threw in a woman, instead of say... anything else.

We also need to clean up the debate for Grand Theft Auto, but I've never played the series and would prefer getting someone who has to streamline the content.

Finally, I need to clean up Lisa Simpson's entry but we need to come to a consensus there first; my personal position is that a female character that's always right in the midst of a bunch of male morons is by definition a case of Positive Discrimination, even if the writers handle it so clumsily that she enters The Wesley status. Of course the Writers Are On Board; they are for all the straight examples of this trope.

Nornagest: Went on a bit of a rampage.

From the Ghost In The Shell example:

**She is good at what she does, because she has been a full cyborg from age 6 or so, and being somewhat older than her physical appearance, it's been awhile. All her abilities stem from cybernetic implants, hardware and software. She's good, but she is supposed to be.

**Considering the profession of the characters, shouldn't they all be good. I mean, she isn't exactly the only cyborg in the setting.

**However, Second Gig shows that she is among the oldest full cyborgs in existence. She was cyberized back when cyborgs had visible joints and clumsy fingers. Her body was physically unable to even fold a paper crane. She was able to work with computers mentally full time since childhood. That's quite an advantage.

From Dilbert:

*** To be fair, a lot if not most of Tina's invective was stereotypically 'feminine' and she was something of a Straw Feminist in a strip where people normally only talk about work-related things. Also 'brittle' is not just any negative trait, it is a negative trait stereotypically applied to women. Antina was in no way non-stereotypical, she was just opposite. Not stereotyping would mean having a female character (like Alice or Carol) whose gimmick/major flaw is not gendered.

*** Considering men are stereotyped as lazy, criminal and dumb just as much, if not more, then women are stereotyped as 'brittle' and 'straw feminist', I think she remains proof of Scott Adam's contention. Men can be flawed, even in very stereotypical ways, women can't, *especially* in stereotypical ways as the above troper's comment illustrates.

From the section discussing commercials:

*** This isn't so much Positive Discrimination as gender stereotyping - women are stereotyped as focused, competent but kind of boring and men are stereotyped as fun and easy going, if a little unrealistic.

*** So even portraying men as losers is dicriminating to women? Whooo boy...

*** Jesus, dude, it's stereotyping both genders.

*** If it were any other combination—for example, white people are focused, competent but kind of boring and black people are easy going, if unrealistic, goofy loosers—we see it for what it is racism against black people. Just like this is sexism against men. Actually, come to think of it, they used to stereotype black people just like that back in the day. I suppose if women are portrayed as superior and men as inferior(which is more the more honest way of describing these commercials), men *and* women are still stereotyped. Shesh.

From Dogma:

** She also appears to be the stenographer, so this scene also contains another trope.

** ...You listened to the litany of vices Loki rattled off, and it's the fact she's a secretary that made you realize they're corrupt?

From Red Dwarf:

** To be fair, the character was in the series from the very first episode and was pretty competent back then, surrounded by other, also very competent, male officers (although she's played by a different actress in series 7). She also has some flaws, almost having a breakdown in one episode due to being trapped on the ship with the other characters. On the other hand, the big joke for much of the series was precisely that only the incompetent losers survived, and Kochanski's arrival broke the pattern for the sake of having the female not look stupid.

From TheSimpsons:

** Lisa is generally rational — if rationality will solve an issue, she's the one to do it. She has certain insecurity issues, and tends to lack a certain level of empathy, but she's rarely out-reasoned; if she loses, it's due to bad luck.

** It was averted in one episode where Bart and Lisa thought they had killed Martin. Bart wanted to turn himself in since he realized his prank went too far this time, but it was Lisa who tried to cover everything up for fear of the consequences.

I'm seeing an awful lot of comments that start with "to be fair" or some variation. These comments are almost always a bad idea.

For the record: just because someone on this list happens to be your favorite character doesn't mean she can't embody the trope. You can be a likeable, well-developed character and still exhibit Positive Discrimination. Hell, Motoko Kusanagi is canned awesome, but the first example on this page is still spot-on accurate — although I doubt it has anything to do with the political sensitivities that give rise to this trope in the West, Japanese gender roles (and Masamune Shirow's treatment of female characters) being what they are.

SenatorJ: For the Dilbert example, Adams tells a story where his colorist once decided to "add diversity" to his early cast by giving one of the characters dark skin. The character was a thieving night-watchman. Would that be... an inversion? Or nothing?

Pulled out "Also ignored by reports of domestic violence. Most studies have found that women commit as much or more domestic violence than men, and are also far more likely to use weapons. Lesbian couples are more violent than heterosexual couples. But the media consistently declare that women are the ones at risk of DV. And women are more likely to physically abuse their children, and more likely to commit infanticide. (Although this may just reflect the fact that a crazy mother is far less likely to have her children taken away than a crazy father.)" I think some links to studies are needed before we take this blanket statement.

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm http://www.mensrights.com.au/dvfac13f.htm

While these aren't studies in their own right, if we're willing to accept that the sources they've cited are acceptable these seem to support the blanket statement, with the exception of the comment about lesbian couples.

If these examples aren't acceptable, is there anyone interested in chasing down some of the works cited?

The Nifty: Cut this natter:

Women receive shorter sentences than men for the same crime pretty much everywhere. (In Spain, the law literally says that domestic violence by women only gets half the punishment.) Even under shari'a law, a woman who renounces Islam is imprisoned until she agrees to become Muslim again; a man who renounces Islam is put to death.
- Um... shari'a law? The one where being raped is a capital offense? I don't think that's such a great example. As for Spain, that's probably an outgrowth of negative discrimination because women aren't seen to be as strong and therefore can't do as much damage.
  - Which matters... why? Whether you build a bomb and blow up a building or build a bomb and try to blow up a building but it turns out to be a dud, you still tried to blow up a building. How successful you are shouldn't have anything to do with your punishment.
  - Though I can't speak for the other troper, I'm not sure the statement itself indicates a support of the reduced penalty, but rather what kind of racism is at play. Both positive and negative discrimination can have all sorts of side effects. Such as being able to phone it in on subjects you're considered predestined to fail at, while having to work double time to meet the impossible standards of a supposed innate talent.
  - On the flip side, women receive LONGER sentences than men for child abuse and neglect because they are supposed to be more 'nuturing'... Law is full of double standards.
  - Where have you heard that? As far as this troper is aware, women who kill their own newborns are considered to have committed a lesser offence, at least in Canada. Though this may have been overturned more recently.
  - In the US a woman who kills her child, is pretty much going to get the death sentence (Or Life in states that don't have it) and is seen as a Complete Monster.
  - *coughAndrea Yatescough*
  - Isn't death penalty/life in prison the penalty for first degree murder? Are you suggesting that a man who kills his own son/daughter would get a less severe sentence?

H. Torrance Griffin: Some points of order.

All two of them.
- Three, actually. Toph, Katara, and Azula. However, Katara's not really that exceptional... she's very good for her age, and she knows a forbidden technique, but any time she faces off against a more experienced Waterbender she gets her ass kicked. Also, while Azula is perhaps the greatest Firebending prodigy of her generation, she's probably far less powerful than either her father or uncle, and it's implied Zuko could have gone equal measure with her by the end of the series. Toph's the only one who's truly the best in several generations, and not only did she have to be blind to do that, King Bumi still makes her look like an amateur.

First and most important point, none of the three mentioned have hit 16 yet and given the example of other high-end benders it is impossible to imagine that they will come close to thier peak for another 20 years. Toph, at age 12, is more than a match for any other earthbender aside from Bumi (who was born a century before she was anyway) and the Avatar. Azula was blowing past most learning curves at age 8 and even after Zuko (who was well past mook level to begin with) found firebending secrets that were lost to his people for gernerations he only managed to hold his own in two inconclusive matches before Azula lost her mind. As for Katara? She faced Pakku, despite having no formal instruction beyond a little tutoring from his youngest student, and managed to force a master who had been doing this since before her father was born to exert himself. By the time she was faced Hama once she forced herself to fight she was dominating the match before the old woman broke out the Bloodbending... and even then the secret technique was countered and Hama could only take the moral victory of forcing Katara to use said skill (which she learned in mid-fight) to save her nakama.

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