Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

But even when they're portrayed as equally able to get into danger, something is a little different for the girls. While guys get their clothes messed up a lot or torn, girls tend not to (unless it's [[Fan Service|that kind]] of [[Clothing Damage]]). Guys show visible bruises and cuts from their fights, but girls don't suffer these things. Heck, girls don't even get their hair disheveled most times! It's as if nature itself [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]], not to mention there's often a [[Dirt Forcefield]] (perhaps affected by being [[Stripperific]]--[[Unfortunate Implications|chew on that one for a moment]]).

 

 

Possibly this is because girls are supposed to be beautiful, and the actual [[Scars Are Forever|scars that an adventure would realistically bring]] tend to detract from their beauty. Fierce hand-to-hand fights are cool, [[Cat Fight|even sexy,]] but the broken noses and black eyes they cause are not. Since [[Most Writers Are Male]], they only want to see males getting hurt, whether humorously or through exciting action sequences.

 

 

Still a heroine will (almost) never suffer a ''[[Scars Are Forever|permanent]]'' injury such as the loss of a limb or eye, no matter how much punishment she goes through. It's fairly rare for heroes too, but much, much, much rarer for heroines. In the case of heroes, they usually go from [[Beauty to Beast]]. Several variations of this include [[She Fu]] and [[Waif Fu]].

If a girl regularly averts this and it’s [[Played for Laughs]] she is probably a case of [[Slapstick Knows No Gender]].

 

 

{{examples|Examples of the first (action oriented) kind:}}

* None of the girls in ''[[Love Hina]]'' suffered as much physical abuse as [[Chew Toy|Keitaro]].

* Balsa from ''[[Seirei no Moribito]]'' receives some serious injuries during the series, but none of them leave visible scars. We can assume she ''must'' have a nasty one on her stomach, but her clothes are rather modest and only show her arms and face, which remain untarnished.

** Most of Rumiko Takahashi works has elements of this.

* Played straight in the first season of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', where Nanoha and Fate gets [[Clothing Damage]] at best while Chrono is shown with his face half covered in blood.

* In ''[[Change 123]]'' the female fighters get badly injured, but few scars mar their perfect features. The one time they were shown/drawn was when Gettou explained [[Justified Trope|how hers were closed up so they'd heal and fade]].

* Zig-zagged in the character of Balalaika in ''[[Black Lagoon]]''. The parts of her face that aren't horribly scarred are beautiful. The parts that are scarred look like she's been deep fat fried, hence why some people call her "Fry-Face" (but only to her back).

** When Revy and Roberta have their [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] at the end of Roberta's first arc, they are bruised and bloodied, but suffer no permanent damage

* In ''[[Uzumaki]]'', protagonist Kirie suffers burns that are serious enough to put her in hospital for some time, yet manage to mostly miss her face. Once she leaves the hospital, the ones on her legs are also fully healed without a trace of scarring.

** Same with [[Lady of War|Boa]] [[Hot Amazon|Hancock]]. I don't think she got a single scratch on her throughout the whole Marineford battle.

* Pretty much averted in ''[[Michiko to Hatchin]]'', where the eponymous [[Action Girl]] often gets bruises and black eyes from fighting.

* Averted with a motherfucking ''vengeance'' in the [[Ikki Tousen]] manga. Every time the [[Action Girl|Action Girls]] get into major fights, it's a sure thing that either one or more of the ladies will not just get [[Clothing Damage]] by the wazoo, but she/they will get beaten bloody, [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot|vomit on-screen]], or [[Bring My Brown Pants|wet herself/themselves]]. And at least one of them has been permanently mutilated ( {{spoiler|Manga!Ten'i, who lost an arm}}).

== Fan Fiction ==

 

* [[Ultimate Spider Woman (Fanfic)|Mary Jane Watson]] has been smashed into walls, zapped with electrical bolts, slashed by razor bats, burned with flame, and been punched square in the face, but she's never suffered any permanent scars or blemishes. Her injuries tend to heal rather quickly by themselves once she gets some rest, although she [[Cut Himself Shaving|still sometimes has to explain how she got hurt in the first place.]] She typically claims that she was caught up in a supervillain attack, which is more plausible than you might think because of how many supervillains are causing mayhem in New York at any given time.

 

== Film ==

 

* ''[[Grindhouse]]: Planet Terror'', in which [[Rose McGowan]] gets her leg chopped off, to be [[Rule of Cool|replaced by an assault rifle with an under slung grenade launcher]].

** However, one will notice that all of the major female characters survive the film, with the [[Brain Food|notable exception of Fergie's character]]. [[Her Heart Will Go On|Very few dudes make it out alive]].

** She also gets the tip of her finger cut off. Even Paris Hilton averts this as the killer stabs her in the heel before throwing a pole through her head.

* ''[[The Final]]'' both plays straight and averts the trope. Two female bullies get chemicals smeared all over their face to destroy their good looks forever, and one gets two of her fingers cut off. However far more male bullies are tortured than females despite there being a well developed female bully who never gets tortured. Also, Emily is {{spoiler|shot in the head}} but this isn't shown.

** River bears a quite visible cut across the top of her forehead in the final scene from her battle against the Reavers.

** Inara gets attacked and ''bitten in the '''face''''' by a Reaver, right after Kaylee is shot by the darts, and right before Zoe gives the order to fall back, [http://leavemethewhite.com/caps/displayimage.php?album=73&pos=2414 as seen] [http://leavemethewhite.com/caps/displayimage.php?album=73&pos=2415 here].

** Kaylee however, is incapacitated by a series of poison darts, leaving her skin and face untouched.

** Interestingly this applies to the male characters as well. None of them ever get their face permanently damaged. Presumably "because they're so very pretty."

* Averted, but still present in the live-action ''[[Casper the Friendly Ghost|Casper]]'' movie, which, for the record, was scripted by two women. Kat is exempt from the wackier slapstick stunts, being locked in a closet while her father battles the Ghostly Trio. Also, the Up-And-At-'Em Machine seems to have more exaggerated effects on the villains than her, in fact seeming to effect only the ''male'' villain. However, the villainess doesn't seem to be quite as exempt from physical comedy as Kat and additionally the local [[Alpha Bitch]] gets a slapsticky comeupence.

* Films of [[The Three Stooges]] had a rare exception to their usual standard of not actually hitting a woman. A short featured the Stooges as cavemen courting. Moe and Larry have their mates subdued in stereotypical clubbed-hard style. Shemp's beloved had to bash ''him''. The rival tribe comes along, sees the Stooges hauling the women away, and hurls spears at them, sticking in the usual rear slapstick target. Since Shemp is the one being dragged, though, it's the woman who's hit.

* [[Jumanji]] has Peter getting turned into a monkey and Alan getting all dirty but despite being involved in the same actions, Sarah and Judy don't look that bad. Judy does {{spoiler|get shot in the neck with a barb from a poisonous plant}} but the wound isn't shown on camera much.

* Sci-Fi horror movies, such as ''[[Yeti]]''. Members of both genders survive a horrific plane crash and a battle with a crazy ass monster trying to off them all. Perfect hair.

** When they get to the final battle, this is completely thrown out the window. After one explosion, he's covered in dust, and his hair gets blown out of its pretty little bun, for God's sake. Not to mention that when he {{spoiler|kills Bill}}, he gets blood ''all over himself''. There's also the {{spoiler|limp he receives from Bill after being slashed across the back of the knee. It didn't look like it was going to clear up.}}

** Jenny Everdeanne. She has scars, but placed where almost no one can see them.

* ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers]]'' doesn't go too overboard on this with Megan Fox, but it is really glaring in reference to the robots. The [[Product Placement]] for GM vehicles apparently mandates that all of the Autobots' car modes must be sparkling clean at all times.

** ''[[Revenge of the Fallen]]'' plays this trope noticeably straight. Megan Fox looks as though her (rather overdone) makeup was being touched up every 30 seconds. This is particularly jarring in the final battle, when every other (human) character is covered in filth and blood, Fox still looks perfectly clean and her make up is totally untouched after both her and the main lead get poorly teleported to the other side of the world, run several miles through the hot desert, have several explosions happen basically on top of them, and get thrown into the sand. The main lead is bleeding, grimy, and filthy while she just has her hair a bit rumpled.

* In ''[[Streets of Fire]]'', McCoy and Ellen Aim aren't hurt at all by the gang, while the men get the snot beat out of them.

* [[Heroic Trio]], a Hong Kong movie featuring three beautiful superheroines, lampshades this at one point. The characters narrowly avoid getting blown up. One of the characters turns to the other and quickly asks, "Am I still pretty?". At most, they get bloodied mouths and dirt smeared on their faces, so the answer is yes.

* In ''The Eye'', Jessica Alba's character {{spoiler|is twice blinded by explosions, the first from a firecracker and the second from an exploding tanker sending windshield glass into her eye. Despite getting a face full of high-speed glass, at the end she has perfect skin.}}

* Averted in ''[[Mary Shelley's Frankenstein]]''. {{spoiler|Elizabeth}} gets ''very ugly'' when {{spoiler|she is resurrected}}.

* Faux averted in [[Doomsday]], where the female lead {{spoiler|only had one eye. But she had a robot eye as well, and it was so lifelike it appears as though she's 100% unmaimed.}} This was used as the [[Gadget Watches|Cool James Bond Device]] for the first fifteen minutes of the movie and then forgotten [[Chekhov's Gun|until the end]].

* In [[Versus]], every single character with the exception of the female lead ends up literally coated in blood; and the male lead is implied to lose an eye (although it could be just stuck shut). More than that, her white shirt isn't stained in the least.

* Slightly subverted in the climactic shoot-out in ''Duel in the Sun'': although Pearl's ''face'' is untouched, her clothes and especially her hands are realistically torn and bloody after she crawls up a mountain on her hands and knees--possibly because actress Jennifer Jones really did injure herself in the process.

* ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]] [[Prince Caspian]]'' gives us a [[Rare Male Example]] when the eponymous character hits his face on a tree branch in the opening escape sequence and gets up looking as handsome as ever with nary a scratch on him.

* In the film version of The Avengers, all of the male heroes go through the movie in various states of bodily damage, exhaustion, and fatigue. Black Widow, however, never gets visibly winded and other than small scuffing on her forehead her makeup stays intact through the entire film. Take in mind that this character is introduced in the film {{spoiler|being tortured by Russian terrorists}} and later spends a significant amount of time {{spoiler|fighting the Hulk and having a building fall on her.}}

 

== Literature ==

 

** On a similar note, Cassie is the only character described as being able to make the sometimes horrific-looking process of morphing look beautiful and elegant.

** The Animorphs fight in animal forms, and the morphing process gets rid of injuries (sort of like a DNA-based factory reset... loosely speaking, since it can include clothes and covers changeable features like hairstyle). It really only counts if they get into a fight while human, and returning to human form doesn't always remove clotted blood. A [[What If]] future revolves around Tom noticing Jake's...disheveled appearance and blowing his cover.

* [[Sailor Nothing]] is arguably an exception: Himei pulls her top up to show Aki her scars and her battles with Yamiko leave her with injuries, as well as messing up her uniform.

* Averted ''twice'' with Suzie Shooter of the [[Nightside]] novels, who gets smacked on the cheek with a spiked mace in ''Paths Not Taken''. Half her face is destroyed, but the residue of werewolf blood still in her body from an earlier novel seems to be healing her ... until it runs out of power, leaving her face one-eyed and distorted by scar tissue. Later, John offers to find the means to restore her looks, but she tells him not to bother: as a bounty hunter, she's pleased with how the scars amp up her power to intimidate.

{{quote| ''Taramis was still beautiful, in spite of her rags and the imprisonment and abuse of seven weary months. ''}}

* Averted in the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] with several female Jedi: Tenel Ka loses an arm when she makes a faulty lightsaber, Tahiri Veila receives permanent facial scarring after some Yhuuzan Vong Shapers experiment on her, and Alema Rar (who at one point prided herself excessively on appearance) loses a lekku, most of her foot, and all use of one arm.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

** Justified in-universe, in that (a) anyone with a secret identity ''needs'' to cover up scars they couldn't have gotten in their civilian persona, and (b) with the kind of money and technology that lies beyond a lot of DC heroes, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with makeup that good.

** Claire's beauty is literally incapable of being tarnished. At least, [[Good Thing You Can Heal|not permanently]]. It's been said that Claire is this show's [[Saturday Night Live|Mr. Bill]].

** When exposed to nuclear radiation her skin is burned to the point that her skeleton is shown. And yet her hair remained intact.

* In the season 4 DVDs of ''[[Lost]]'', Evangeline Lilly (Kate) laments that her character never gets to look beat up, no matter what damage she appears to take.

* In the UK science show ''[[Brainiac]]'', there are male and female test subjects (called 'Brainiacs') who are subject to experiments. You will find that for all of the experiments that subject a person to pain (such as electric shock), getting dirty, urinating, or just behaving in an uncivilized manner, female Brainiacs are never chosen. They usually take on the administrative roles and assess the males who perform these kinds of experiments.

* Surprisingly, several [[Disney Channel]] and [[Nickelodeon]] shows aimed at young girls avert this by placing several of the female characters including the protagonists in slapstick situations [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKO0O7SNVZM here are a few examples], it might be expectable because they are the same age as the target demographic

** Noticeable to some extent in the later seasons of Survivor. While both men and women show many of the expected effects of primitive living for a month, the men almost always have visible stubble and clearly grungy hair, while the women almost never have leg stubble and their hair often seems much cleaner.

** There's also a Season 3 episode where a young woman who has been in a coma since the age of eight appears to have spent the entire time lying peacefully in her hospital bed, with perfect hair and a full face of makeup.

* The classic Polish series ''Czterej pancerni i pies'' had a precise rule about this. All the male characters would get dirty and greasy but all the female characters would always be shown with no dirt and clean clothes even though they were supposedly experiencing the same wartime conditions as the men. This was done very deliberately to soften the impact of a [[World War II]] series on a viewing public that lived through the war.

* [[Lampshaded]] on ''[[Breaking In]]'', when, after being caught in a very strong security system, all of the male members of the team sustained bruises or some other sort of minor injury (including one getting his eyebrows burned off), and Melanie does not. She gets called out on it, with people wondering why she doesn't seem to have a scratch on her.

* Occasionally averted in "[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]". Although Buffy usually looks styled and done up with perfect hair while slaying vampires, there have been times when Buffy has looked bruised and battered. Most notable is a large cut and bruise spanning much of her forehead that lasted several episodes in Season 4.

* Played with on ''[[Chuck]]''. Sarah frequently gets into fights with that episode's bad guy or mooks. Usually she comes off without a scratch despite often taking several good hits. Other times she's had bruises and split lips. Some notorious fights (the high school reunion and car fights in Season 2 and Season 4's catwalk fight) ended with her face rather battered and bloody. Nonetheless, by the next episode her face is back in perfect condition (one wonders how no one ever seems to notice). Chuck himself has been in several fights from Season 3 forward, but never shows a sign of having been hit. Casey has sustained several visible injuries over the course of the series, but they seldom carry over into subsequent episodes. Most notoriously, after being shot in the leg in Season Three and needing emergency surgery performed, in the episode set the ''very next day'' he shows no sign that he was ever wounded (the same situation was averted in Season 4, where he was wheelchair-bound the episode after being shot in the leg again).

 

== Tabletop RPG ==

* ''Tales from the Floating Vagabond'' had this as a trainable skill for either gender: 'Look Good at All Times'.

* The "No Visible Damage" perk from ''[[GURPS]]: Supers''.

 

== Video Games ==

** In [[Street Fighter]] 4, several of the [[Ultra Combo]] cutscenes cause cartoonishly exaggerated reactions to getting hit, but only to the male characters.

* All of the male characters in [[Samurai Shodown]] 3 can be bloodily cut in pieces even the cute kid. But all of the female characters are immune.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'': The PC is customizable, and one can give their character scars for either gender. However, males can get real disfiguring scars, but women are limited to small scratches.

** In the sequel, both genders get a set of scars that become more prominent the higher Shepard's [[Karma Meter|Renegade]] stat gets.

** Strangely, in the first game the default female design had a more noticeable scar than the male design, including an additional one near her lip. Both of these are gone in the second game, while the default male scar remains.

* Present and averted in [[Dragon Age]]; male party members get covered in [[Ludicrous Gibs|ridiculous amounts of]] [[Gorn|blood spatters]], but [[Jeanne D Archetype|Leliana]], [[Hot Witch|Morrigan]], and [[Cool Old Lady|Wynne]] come away perfectly clean, however the Warden gets pretty messy regardless of gender. Justified in that this has more to do with combat class than gender, every close-combat fighter gets sprinkled with blood, while all the female companions are archers or mages.

* Seen somewhat in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', near the end of the game, when {{spoiler|Bastila goes over to the Dark Side. For everyone else, including your character, the result of drastic drops into the Dark Side is progressive disfigurement. Bastila remains as good looking as ever.}}

* Played straight in the [[Def Jam Series]], where the women can engage in no holds barred brawls just as brutal as any of the male characters, and yet, not a speck of blood or a bloodied nose results from it.

* [[Tomb Raider|Lara Croft]] can die in fashions most people would see in a Mature rated game, but the worst that comes out of it is blood loss, if any. Starting to be averted with the 2011 reboot, in which the game's trailers have shown Lara getting progressively messier and more injured as the games' plot progresses.

== Web Original ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* Averted in the second episode of [[Scooby Doo Mystery Inc]]. Daphne discovers that the Alligator Skin products are imitation by wrapping a belt around her forearm, causing her "allergy of all synthetic animal skins" to kick in, leaving her with very nasty red pustules along her arm. Granted, she covers them with her sleeve, but we're still given a very good long look at them.

* ''[[My Little Pony]] and Friends'' episode "The Glass Princess" sees three of the ponies [[Important Haircut|get shaved bald]]. It grows back instantly, with a [[Hand Wave]] about it being magical.

 

=== Examples and exceptions of the second (gross-out oriented) kind: ===

== Anime and Manga ==

 

* Averted in ''[[Chrono Crusade]]''. Satella and Azmaria are forced to search through a sewer and emerge... not very clean.

* In the first scene of the [[Black Rock Shooter]] OVA, Black★Rock Shooter gets impaled by Black★Gold Saw. [[Scars Are Forever|She keeps the scar.]] This counts as an aversion because this is the only time in the OVA that someone gets hit with a weapon that could cause such an injury.

== Literature ==

 

* [[Jonathan Swift]] wrote an entire [http://plagiarist.com/poetry/8049/ poem] about a man's horror at discovering that women have gross bodily functions too.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

* German kids' series ''[[Die Pfefferkorner]]'', which centers around a group of kid detectives, tends to treat their interrogated captives differently by gender. Boys are tied up and subjected to silly tortures, like being tickled, forced to smell old socks, or strapped to a rotating wheel. Girls, on the other hand, are just tied up and left alone.

* Body odour and/or halitosis in general seems to be something of an exception as it makes a point [[Take Our Word for It|without detracting from the actresses physical beauty.]] Carla from ''[[Scrubs]]'' was told off in one episode for her bad breath after her regular hummus breaks, while over on ''[[The OC]]'' Summer Roberts became a student activist, and gave up bathing for a while. She didn't ''look'' dirty, but the other characters certainly commented on the smell. Also she stopped shaving her legs, but, slightly conveniently, we didn't see the results.

** Likewise, Kimmy from ''[[Full House]]'' is said to have feet that smell, which is played up for humor. But since we can only see and not smell Kimmy, we have to [[Take Our Word for It|take their word for it]], since she is not ugly or anything.

** Lily Truscott from ''[[Hannah Montana]]'' is also said to have smelly feet, by Hannah/Miley herself.

 

== Video Games ==

 

* Averted in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]: Oracle for Hire'', in which Dejah's ''Slime Geyser'' teleport magic has the side effect of always leaving one person in the transported party covered in slime. That person is ''always'' Luna. It's been explained as Dejah disliking Luna due to her foot-in-mouth syndrome.

* Avoided with regards to Jodie in ''[[Loserz]]''. One comic depicts Ben's mother saying how nice it is to have Jodie as a female influence. Cut to a shot of the two boys recoiling in disgust from Jodie, who's just farted. The boys complain loudly, and Jodie derides them as weak and unmanly.

{{quote| '''Ben:''' Yeah, she's a delicate flower.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

 

** Of course, when [[Dishing Out Dirt|Toph]] joined the cast, that ceased to be an issue - within two episodes she made a joke about having hairy armpits, and there was another gag about her picking her toes. She proceeds to spend most of the series cheerfully coated in filth.

** Though she and Raven did get [[Covered in Gunge|drenched with Mud]] later on.

* "Eat, Pray, Queef" of ''[[South Park]]''. Guess what it involves.