History Main / FauxActionGirl

** The first one to have this happen to her was {{Sable}} who had it written into her contract that she couldn't take bumps. In this case she was feuding with Jacqueline Moore who in Real Life could go toe to toe with the men and barely break a sweat. Since Sable wouldn't take bumps Jacqueline had to rely on attacking from behind and using kicks in their matches. Jacqueline won the newly reinstated Women's Championship... when Marc Mero held Sable's feet down for the pin. Sable would only ever do about four moves in total in her match so one Sable Bomb and the supposedly dominant Jacqueline lay limp on the canvas for the 1-2-3. She would recover from this however and become Women's Champion again as well as Cruiserweight Champion while Sable ended up leaving the company.
** Luna Vachon also suffered from this in her feud with, you guessed it, Sable. They were set to compete in a mixed tag match at ''{{Wrestlemania}} XIV'' and in their training for it, Sable refused to learn how to bump and Luna was warned that she would be fired if she damaged or hurt Sable in any way at all in the match. So in the match Luna had to rely on her partner Goldust to do all the work while she acted as Sable's punching bag.
* In 2004, WWE planned to give Stacy Keibler a reign as Women's Champion, as she was arguably the most popular woman in the company. However, Stacy had no wrestling skill, no desire to learn and no credibility, so she was put in a series of matches against Molly Holly, a talented wrestler who refused to have the sex appeal WWE wanted their Divas to have. Stacy pinned Molly three weeks in a row, with the plan being that Stacy would win the 2004 Taboo Tuesday Fulfill Your Fantasy Battle Royal and become Women's Champion. Stacy wound up turning down WWE's offer to be champion, feeling she didn't deserve it, but getting beat so many times by one of the worst women in the company is considered the nail in the coffin of Molly's career.

* Natalya unfortunately went through a rough patch towards the end of 2011. Despite forming the Divas of Doom with BethPhoenix, Natalya was always portrayed as the inferior one and Beth was the one who got all the wins, while Natalya got all the losses. On the one hand you had the commentators putting over the fact that she was a 3rd Generation Diva and the only female graduate of the Hart Family Dungeon but then you have her losing all her matches and Beth being the one that got the pins when she won. However around the middle of 2012 she got a few wins for herself again and is back to being taken more seriously.

* Eren Yeager, from ''AttackOnTitan'' is a rare male example of this trope. He's a HotBlooded {{Determinator}} ranked in the Top 5 of his military class, stated to be the best at hand-to-hand combat, and [[spoiler: has the ability to transform into a [[SuperStrength super-strong]], 15m Titan]]. However, he has a tendency to need rescuing by his [[KnightTemplarBigBrother Knight Templar Foster Sister]] and has a long history of losing fights. He's well aware that Mikasa believes he needs her protection, and resents her need to "baby" him.

* Rosechu in ''{{Sonichu}}'' is a blatant example - while the author constantly insists that she's a true ActionGirl and she's allegedly as powerful as the main character, most of the time she doesn't do anything and gets captured as a DistressedDamsel.

* Brutally deconstructed in ''SidekickGirl.'' Superhero [[DumbBlonde Illumina]] does practically '''''nothing''''' to fight crime and takes all the credit while her sidekicks do all the work. She has gone through several of them before the comic started. One of her former sidekicks got fed up with her and left, [[FaceHeelTurn turning to a life of crime,]] one wound up in a mental hospital, and another died trying to save her. She has been [[HeroWithBadPublicity labeled as a sidekick deathtrap]] due to her track record.
* Zenith from Webcomic/CommanderKitty is often played up by other characters as being exceedingly dangerous to take on alone. In truth, though, she wields an exceedingly impractical weapon that isn't even lethal, displays fairly weak stamina, and is never shown fighting without her army of goons to do all the work for her.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Tasha. She's supposed to be the ''Enterprise'''s tough-as-nails security chief; her main contributions to episode plots include being kidnapped, breaking down in tears, and hesitating just long enough to allow Klingon fugitives to take hostages.

* Wanderer/Wanda from The Host was apparently quite the badass in some of her previous lives. This is somewhat at odds with how she acts once on Earth.

* Film/{{Sheena}}. RogerEbert noted the incongruity of "a jungle woman who has ruled the savage beasts since infancy [being] pulled along by a television anchorman fresh off the plane." This is [[CharacterDerailment out of Sheena's character,]] considering that in the comics she's a {{Badass}} who takes down many savage animals and corrupt poachers.

* ''GundamSeedDestiny'': Lunamaria Hawke is set up to be an AcePilot like her teammates Rey and Shinn. While she's certainly competent at taking out mooks, she suffers from a bad case of OvershadowedByAwesome and is largely there to provide emotional support to the near AxeCrazy Shinn.

* Momiji in ''Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword''. The manual [[InformedAbility suggests that she is a strong ninja]], and the player controls her for the first level, which seems to indicate that she might play a role in the action as a secondary player character. Unfortunately, at the end of the level, she [[HopelessBossFight loses to the first boss]] and gets kidnapped, where she is held for the rest of the game. She manages to outgrow this one and becomes a competent ActionGirl come in ''Sigma 2'' and ''3''... by fighting like a warrior Shrine Maiden instead of a ninja. Perhaps she chose the wrong class earlier.

* Momiji in ''Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword''. The manual [[InformedAbility suggests that she is a strong ninja]], and the player controls her for the first level, which seems to indicate that she might play a role in the action as a secondary player character. Unfortunately, at the end of the level, she [[HopelessBossFight loses to the first boss]] and gets kidnapped, where she is held for the rest of the game. Omitsu is [[InformedAbility a skilled archer]], but Sanji is the one who saves Sakura from Black Spider ninjas with his bow.
** Momiji manages to outgrow this one and becomes a competent ActionGirl come in ''Sigma 2'' and ''3''... by fighting like a warrior Shrine Maiden instead of a ninja. Perhaps she chose the wrong class earlier.
* In the original trilogy, Irene Lew, [[InformedAbility highly-trained CIA agent]] and the LoveInterest of Ryu, suffers from this as she's a DistressedDamsel in the first two games. ''Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom'' ([[WordOfGod which actually is]] [[{{Interquel}} set between the first and second games]]) plays with this, as [[spoiler:[[StuffedIntoTheFridge Irene seemingly dies while performing a covert operation]]]], but Irene saves herself from this trope when she pulls a [[BigDamnHeroes Big Damn Heroine]] moment to save ''Ryu'' of all people. ''Ninja Gaiden II'' for the {{Xbox 360}} features Sonia, who is ''also'' a [[InformedAbility highly-trained CIA operative]]. Her story at first mimics Irene's ([[DistressedDamsel capture]], then [[BigDamnHeroes saving Ryu's bacon]]), but she then gets captured ''again'', causing her to fall right back into this trope. However, it's hard to be of any use [[spoiler:[[BonusLevelOfHell in the Underworld]]]] if you're not a {{Badass}} {{Ninja}} named Ryu Hayabusa. Perhaps a sequel will give Sonia a chance to redeem herself in the vein of Rachel and Momiji. As the original games have apparently been [[RetCon retconned]] to follow the Xbox titles (and by proxy, ''DeadOrAlive''), [[EpilepticTrees there are some theories that Irene and Sonia are one in the same]]. Crazy, right?

Also contrast with {{Chickification}}, in which the [[ExecutiveMeddling producers]] take a character who ''is'' shown to be a legitimate Action Girl and make her incompetent. See also StandardFemaleGrabArea, the standard weakness of a Faux Action Girl.

* ''Film/{{Sheena}}''. RogerEbert noted the incongruity of "a jungle woman who has ruled the savage beasts since infancy [being] pulled along by a television anchorman fresh off the plane." This is [[CharacterDerailment out of Sheena's character,]] considering that in the comics she's a {{Badass}} who takes down many savage animals and corrupt poachers.
* TheAsylum's [[{{MockBuster}} movies]]: Nearly every female lead dresses the part, and we're frequently [[ShowDontTell ''told'']] how awesome they are, but they do literally nothing in the movie besides move from one scene to the next.

* Lampshaded by [[ActionGirl the definite action girl]] of the episodic morality story ''WhatIsThisBlackMagicYouCallScience?''

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in the Dreamcast version of ''{{Record of Lodoss War}}''. The hero finds Deedlit captured by some wimpy goblins and just had to ask, "How can a High Elf be captured by ''mere'' goblins"?

* In the [[Film/ThePhantomMenace Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace]] game, Padmé says she's been trained in self defence shortly before you are to fight through a gauntlet of Tusken Raiders, and proves to be useless, screaming for help and falling on all fours when struck. Strangely, you get to control Padmé as Queen Amidala later in the game and retake the city of Theed with only a few men by your side. The leap from [[DistressedDamsel Distressed Damsel]] to [[ActionGirl Action Girl]] was much needed.
* ''{{Ratchet and Clank}}'':

* ''{{Soldier of Fortune}}'':

* ''Anime/{{Mai-HiME}}'': The very {{Badass}} Natsuki Kuga tended to serve as the ButtMonkey whenever the tone of the show turned comedic. In its {{Elseworld}} spin-off, ''Anime/{{Mai-Otome}}'', that trait was [[{{Flanderization}} exaggerated]] into complete {{Faux Action Girl}}-ness. Despite supposedly being both TheAce and a SupportingLeader, she never once managed to achieve anything without blundering and spent a good chunk of the series depowered. Lampshaded in the manga, where in Natsuki's first (and ''only'') fight, there is a panel of her crying tears of joy that she finally gets to do something.

* ''Disney/{{Mulan}}'': Shang is a male example. He's introduced as a total {{badass}}, manages to fight circles around his recruits, trains them to perfection... and from that point on becomes consistently less competent than Mulan. He is still a good warrior, but his lack of success in using brute force to defeat the Huns shows that the Chinese will have to use guile and cleverness to win.

* In ''{{Night at the Museum}} 2: Battle of the Smithsonean'', Amelia Earhart continually insists she is able to take care of herself, but isn't seen doing anything ''remotely'' {{Badass}} except for flying a plane for about two seconds before handing it to Larry.

Please note that a Faux Action Girl is someone who ''has a reputation'' as a fighter. If she is just a girl captured then she's a DamselInDistress. If she gets rid of the DistressBall, she's just a BadassInDistress. If she has ''just'' started fighting and doesn't have the experience/fame handy still, she's likely SkilledButNaive or a NaiveNewcomer, and there's still room to see if she can grow into a real ActionGirl or not.

* While ''Videogame/FireEmblem'' has tons of legitimately badass females, it also has a few Faux Action Girls. Midia from the Archaneia games, for one. She's supposedly a powerful knight, but when we first meet her, she and her squad are in captivity. And she didn't get better in the sequel, when she led a resistance against an evil Hardin... and gets caught AGAIN.

* ''VRTroopers'': Kaitlin Starr is made of this. She was occasionally used in a real ActionGirl fashion, but unlike her female ''PowerRangers'' counterparts (who at least got the chance to save everyone as much as the rest of the team) she seemed to exist only to beat up {{mooks}} and get in trouble. One episode involved her losing her self-confidence because of the BigBad, and the clips that played to show she wasn't useless were a few examples of fighting {{Mooks}} with not even an ''attempt'' at showing her against the MonsterOfTheWeek. This is mostly a side effect of ''Troopers''' dependence on ''Metal Heroes'' StockFootage. In the series that was adapted, ''Spielban,'' Kaitlin's counterpart Diana Lady was a sidekick who would deal with mooks while her partner would fight the monster.

** Alanna in "Mystery in Space!" The men ({{Batman}}, ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} and her husband AdamStrange) get in trouble early in the episode, but get out of it without her help. Nevertheless she insists on coming along on their next mission, since they obviously can't stay out of trouble without her...and she gets kidnapped by the villain and needs them to save her.

* Isabelle from ''Film/JackTheGiantSlayer'' is brave and adventurous. Despite all this, she is captured by the giants and has to be rescued by Jack all throughout the movie. To her credit, very few of the male characters, apart from Jack, fare any better.

* Whitley from ''{{Wereworld}}'' who is supposed to be training as a ranger and who ''says'' that she can fight faints at the first sight of Drew in his Wolf form and later is thrown of her horse to fall frozen in fear

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': During season six, Ashley Seaver joined the team for a short while. She was supposedly the best at the academy but did absolutely nothing to prove it. [[note]] Season six is a season that most fans [[Discontinuity/LiveActionTV tend to forget about specifically because of her]].[[/note]]

** However, this may be changing (temporarily, at least) with [[spoiler: the events of chapter 631.]]

* ''VRTroopers'': Kaitlin Starr is made of this. She was occasionally used in a real ActionGirl fashion, but unlike her female ''PowerRangers'' counterparts (who at least got the chance to save everyone as much as the rest of the team) she seemed to exist only to beat up {{mooks}} and get in trouble. One episode involved her losing her self-confidence because of the BigBad, and the clips that played to show she wasn't useless were a few examples of fighting {{Mooks}} with not even an ''attempt'' at showing her against the MonsterOfTheWeek.

* Two words: Kelly Kelly.