A character stands jauntily with one arm perched on their hip, and the other raised and bent, causing them to resemble a teapot; the raised arm vaguely resembles the pouring spout of a teapot while the lowered arm resembles its handle. Curving or bending the hips and legs is optional.
This pose is a more feminine, "limp-wristed" version of the Dynamic Akimbo pose. It's typically used to indicate that a character is either sassy, rude, sarcastic, effeminate, or feminine. As such, it's quite often the default pose of the Valley Girl, any camp person, the Sassy Black Woman, and The Ojou.
Whenever it's used for a sassy character, expect it to be paired with a Finger Wag or Talk to the Hand. Compare Coy, Girlish Flirt Pose, which is also typically used for feminine or effeminate characters. Also compare Head-and-Hip Pose, where the difference is that the hand not on the hip is to the side of the head.
Examples:
- This pose appears among the five "mouse" dancers in a 2018 commercial for Mouse Computers
. If one counts the non-akimbo arm pointing down, the pose appears in the dance of every character in the commercial (except the cat, natch): the engineer, the scientist and the phone operator. It's reflective of a small start-up company daring to enter the laptop market, competing against large corporations such as Dell and Acer, for which the black cat is an allegory.
- Upin & Ipin: Abang Salleh (or Sally, as he calls himself), the resident effeminate male of the village, often has one arm raised and bent, which he gestures with while talking. This is occasionally paired with his other arm propped at the back of his hip.
- One of the very first images the public got of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt had Panty◊ with one arm bent at her waist and the other raised with the hand facing outward. Very befitting of her rude, sarcastic personality.
- In Sailor Moon, the boyish Sailor Uranus finishes her Stock Footage Transformation Sequence with a variant of this — one arm's bent at her side, while the other is straight and lowered.
- One of the promotional images for My Little Pony: Equestria Girls has Rarity and Twilight◊ with one of their hands at their hip and the other one raised in the air. Rarity is an exuberant fashionista, so poses like this are par for the course. It seems a bit stranger with Twilight Sparkle, until you remember that she has a tendency to take charge of situations and lecture people.
- In The Goodies, Tim Brooke-Taylor, usually the trio's high-camp member, does this in times of crisis. He puts one hand on his hip and another above his head while shrieking "I'm a teapot!", indicating that his sanity is vanishing.
- In Just Shoot Me!, Nina asks Elliot to shoot a picture of her to show that she can still look great as a fashion model. Elliot instructs her to put one hand on her hip and the other up high. Then he says, "Now repeat after me: I'm a little teapot, short and stout..."
- Valentina from Super Mario RPG, the Big Bad of Nibmus Land, has a battle sprite depicting her putting her left hand on her hip and her right hand high while holding a martini glass.
- Doki Doki Literature Club! has one of Monika's poses be her facing directly at the player, with one hand at her hip and the other raised and pointing. None of the other girls have a pose like this, indicating that something's off about her.
- In Niels, the new guy who was hired into Niels' crime syndicate has some very set mental representations on what a gay person should look and act like. He knows that Neils is bisexual; that is enough for him to see him as a male stripper: that is, have him wear a skimpy, pink outfit, along with makeup, jewelry, and one hand at his hip and the other raised and limp-wristed. When he finds out that the guy who hired him sleeps with Neils, his mental image of him instantly shifts into a variation of the same stereotype.
- The Brain does this involuntarily in the Animaniacs episode "Pavlov's Mice", thanks to Pavlov conditioning him to sing "I'm a little teapot" and pose like a teapot (one hand at his hip like the handle, and the other raised like the spout) when he hears the sound of a bell.
- The Simpsons has Ned Flanders frequently take this pose, in the form of placing one hand on his hip while waving with the other.
