"Frankly, no such comparable trope exists for an 'improbably' male dominated cast"
...Isn't that essentially what The Smurfette Principle is? That page makes exceptions for situations where there's a plausible reason for the cast being a sausagefest (historical Sub Story, for example) — by implication, every other work on the list is being criticised for having very few women in it where their absence is improbable.
EDIT: I suppose the difference is that to be TSP, there needs to be exactly one woman, making it much easier to avert than this trope. Still, they're essentially equivalent tropes, they just have different barriers to entry. I've edited the description to replace the above with a discussion of how TSP relates to IFC.
Edited by johnnye
This page needs some work. The description states: "An Improbably Female Cast is when a work's cast is dominated by women in a situation where this is incredibly unlikely."
What exactly is an 'unlikely' abundance of females? Does this mean that only shows/films that try to be somewhat realistic can be listed as examples eg. a show about a submarine in the 1920s that's staffed entirely by women?
Most of the examples on this page are fantasy, if the characters exist in a completely made up world where magic or superpowers exist then why would an all female police force or an all female army-unit be 'unlikely'.
I've been going through the examples and a lot of them are just where the story follows a female and her (predominantly) female friends and there's little mention of why their presence is 'improbable' or 'highly unlikely'.
I propose that we change the trope so that it's specifically for works that are heavily influenced by real life and take place in historically male-dominated areas (1900 navy, etc) because as it stands it seems to be implying that any work with more females than males is 'improbable'.
Edited by Clanger00 Hide / Show Replies
This would be a question for the Trope Repair Shop, and I have my doubts that they will see a problem.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Could you explain why they wouldn't see a problem? This discussion page is full of people saying the trope needs work.
Edited by Clanger00
OK I think I've managed to clean up this page considerably. I've gone through all the examples and removed the ones that either explain why there are more females (eg. most men have died leaving only females, takes place in an all-girls school, etc.) or ones that are just about a female main character and her group of female friends.
Should we put some kind of disclaimer (that can be seen whilst editing) that mentions that the trope is only about an unusual abundance of females like a city that only has female civilians and not just any show where female characters outnumber males/males characters aren't deeply involved in the plot?
Edited by Clanger00
Okay, you guys literally discussed about the bad implications of this trope for literally two years now.
Maybe it's time to actually do something? I can't without looking like some kind of saboteur, so...
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... literally?
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What are the issues with the page? And what are your proposed fixes?
Many of the people who have commented on this discussion have done drive by "this page is broken" comments and not actually clarified or explained themselves, which is utterly useless if you want something fixed. Without sufficient explanation, the vast majority of complaints come across as (and possibly are) Political Correctness Gone Mad.
So please, elaborate.
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Yep Lark, it's pretty much just PC whining. It's even gone off TVT...
http://nanashijones.tumblr.com/post/51759224587/improbably-female-cast-what
This page sounds weird, like there's something improbable about girls associating with girls?
Why would anyone consider Almodovar's Volver and All About My Mother to have an "improbably female cast"? or any other film which focuses mainly on women for that matter?
I removed Madoka Magica from the list. It's just silly to me to refer to a magical girls show as having an IMPROBABLE female cast. It has a majority female cast, yeah, but that's completely different.
Is anyone else uncomfortable with the name change to "Improbably Female Cast"? This is a label we're going to use on every female-heavy media, even if it does make sense (like an all girl school, show that observes the life of female characters, etc.), implying that any excess of girls is "improbable" in any story. Can't we change it to "Cast full of Pretty Girls", so it's a little less of a backhanded sting, and that it matches it's spear counterpart?
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The description says it's specifically for when it doesn't make sense—like if you've got an all-woman squad in what was historically an all-male military, or similar. If someone's using it for "every female-heavy media" then it's not an example, and you can just remove it.
The title does read badly when you consider that the equivalent has an entirely different tone to it. Unless an "Improbably Male Cast" becomes it's own category, which it could as there are a number of them, I agree that a name change would be a good idea.
Agreed. It really does have have very uncomfortable connotations to it.
More to the point, by changing the title, the scope of the meaning is actually changed so that, as we see in the examples above this one, properties with majority female casts like Y the Last Man and Strawberry Panic now no longer fit.
Unless there is some kind of an actual reason to do that, I personally vote that it needs to go back to something more plainly descriptive of a majority-female cast, without any implications baked in.
I'd like to point out this article about how there are plenty of examples of women in battle throughout history. http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/ And this site full of such examples. http://www.lothene.org/others/women.html
There have always been stories that exclusively involve women, people just don't tell them as often. The whole premise of this trope is flawed.
^^ The point is, implications of some sort are the entire point of tropes. The point of tropes is that they're used for a reason, as a means to communicate something to the audience. The idea of changing this trope to being about "the cast is mostly female" just pretty People Sit On Chairs-y
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But there are a wide range of implications for stories that are mostly about women, and they're not all just a cast of characters for fetishization or stories for little girls. This trope page is all over the place, lumping together a huge spectrum of different stories all under the umbrella of stories where males aren't prominent. And again, there is no gender reversed equivalent. Skullgirls and My Little Pony aren't any more a part of the same trope than Starfighter and The Sandlot are. This subject should be broken up into several tropes, hopefully with less problematic names.
Edited by 216.99.32.42
I also agree that this trope's premise is flawed and its title is unsettlingly sexist. Where is the line drawn to mark an "improbable" ratio of women in the cast of a story? Why is this nebulous concept of "too many" women something that needs to be called out as a trope?
For that matter, are we next going to create a Sister Trope called Improbably Male Cast and start filling it up with all the stories that didn't bother including any significant female characters in situations that realistically would include at least a few? I call that a Herculean and ultimately pointless task, not to mention dangerously close to a People Sit On Chairs situation - as is this trope.
If smaller, more identifiable tropes can be found within it, break the entries up into those categories, but we really ought to get rid of this vague and awkward category.
Edited by 69.172.221.8
If you ask me, the line should be drawn by statistical or historical fact. Like if you have a WWII-era fighting unit that has a bunch of women in it—it's a time when, historically, the military was entirely male. Or, alternately, if it's taking place in a profession that's known for being mostly male—police, engineering, comic-book writing, etc.
And the reason that there's no male version is because of the omnipresent trope Men Are Generic, Women Are Special. A fighting group comprised entirely of men? Doesn't really have much significance. And yet we have Amazon Brigade because a fighting unit of women actually has meaning.
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If my two cents mean anything, I think this trope should be changed to something alone the lines of "Improbably one-gendered cast" or something similar; its not as if their aren't stories out there that have improbably male casts(like the majority of yaoi stories, which will often have no female anywhere for no reason whatsoever) and this trope should reflect that. Additionally, keeping it female only is rather sexist.
If my two cents mean anything, I think this trope should be changed to something alone the lines of "Improbably one-gendered cast" or something similar; its not as if their aren't stories out there that have improbably male casts(like the majority of yaoi stories, which will often have no female anywhere for no reason whatsoever) and this trope should reflect that. Additionally, keeping it female only is rather sexist.
@Mr Death Except there were all female ww2 era fighting units: see the Night Witches. And there are all female police units: see the examples in India. And all female comic book companies: see CLAMP. And even in professions where there aren't official all female companies, there are still plenty of stories that happen to women and don't involve men in those professions.
Why is this not at least "Unusual Female Cast"? "Improbable" is so damned insulting. And this trope is still a huge mess. "This can range from males being present in the setting but not given screen time or importance to the story, to literally the majority of the people in the main setting are female." So the only criteria for a story about women being "Improbable" is for there to not be a lot of men around. As if it is "improbable" (Adjective; Not likely to be true or to happen. Unexpected and apparently inauthentic) that women could have anything going on in their lives that doesn't revolve around men. Why has nothing changed here?
Edited by 216.99.32.45
How is "improbable" insulting when, if used correctly, it is improbable? Sure, there have been all-female units like you say. There have also been 9 foot tall humans. It would still be improbable if I said that I'm eight feet tall.
Also I really fail to understand how Improbably Female Cast is more insulting than "Unusually Female Cast." That doesn't make a lick of sense.
Though I do agree the page does need some clean up.
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- @Mr Death Except there were all female ww2 era fighting units: see the Night Witches. And there are all female police units: see the examples in India. And all female comic book companies: see CLAMP. And even in professions where there aren't official all female companies, there are still plenty of stories that happen to women and don't involve men in those professions.
Then the trope would not apply to those. The trope would apply to having a bunch of women in a regular WWII fighting unit, like the 82nd Airborne.
And yeah, I don't see how it's insulting. The page needs clean-up, sure, but the word "improbable" isn't insulting at all.
I agree that the problem is not the "Improbably" title, but the content. Just glancing at the page I notice that most examples appear to be works with just a mostly female cast even if it's not actually improbable. And that its counterpart is "Cast Full of Pretty Boys" a completely different thing. I mean, why there isn't a "Improbably Male Cast", where it would be odd or unlikely to have more men than women?
Cast Full of Pretty Boys is a completely different thing. It's unrelated to this trope, hence why this had its name change. If you think there should be an Improbably Male Cast trope, then go ahead and make it.
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I think I'm going to have to agree with the people who pointed out that this trope is kinda sexist, especially since there is no male equivalent trope.
@Larkman Way to use the false equivalence fallacy there.
... could you clarify? It doesn't really help the discussion to just say my name, claim I'm using a fallacy and not, you know, explaining how (or which post you're referring to).
And again, if you want an Improbably Male Cast trope, take it to YKTTW. It's not TV Tropes' job to make tropes you think exist.
Edited by 216.99.32.44 Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
FYI: Someone made an Improbably Male Cast YKTTW... but they did an awful job of it.
If you're that adamant about it, maybe you can help fix it?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/discussion.php?id=3hcuefs96c9ni9d5aav85xaq
Never mind. Just noticed my point was already covered
Edited by 70.33.253.45
Ninjadude853
How is Y The Last Man on here? The premise literally requires virtually all the cast to be female. In a world where almost all the men died, how is it improbable that most of the characters are female?
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Well, I suppose you could argue that it's improbable for all men to die out... but that's a reach. Cutting it.
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Does My Little Pony belong here? I'd argue that the female:male ratio is more of an inversion of the Smurffette Principle, and not an "unlikely situation" in the same vein as a mostly-female military squad or some other normally male-dominated situation.
Now granted, if you have a town/country/whatever where 90+% of the population is only one gender, that IS unlikely, but I didn't think that's what the trope was about.
Strawberry Panic should be removed, that's not improbably female, all girls schools do exist. Imporbably Gay perhaps but not female.
Removed this example because it looks like a setting where a mostly female cast is to be expected.
- In [[Webcomics/Outsider Outsider,]] the alien Loroi are a race of Blue/grey skinned space babes in which only the females are allowed to fight the wars. This is justified because a) Loroi Birthrates are nearly ten-to-one in favor of the females, and b) males are weaker and smaller than the females. Combined with the massive, xenocidal war going on throughout the spiral arm, Loroi males are kept at home for safety and breeding purposes.
I'm going to say they're working on it to make the trope fit non-animes or something
Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Updating the Definition
, started by 20LogRoot10 on Oct 13th 2011 at 10:39:13 PM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman