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{{trope}}
[[File:
'''Brawn Hilda''' is, essentially, a strong, mannish, usually foreign woman. However, she's ''not'' a [[Hot Amazon]], her strength is seen as unattractive, as she usually (purposely or not) emasculates the hero by beating him up or outdoing him in "manly" activities ( such as arm wrestling, boxing, hot dog eating, pretty much anything unfeminine really...) She usually has a stereotypical German or Russian accent, a masculine face, and is often a stereotypical female immigrant (maid, mail-order bride, ''etc''....) or some sort of hardcore Olympic-esque athlete. Basically, the
▲{{quote| ''"It ain't over till the fat lady sings."''}}
▲Brawn Hilda is, essentially, a strong, mannish, usually foreign woman. However, she's ''not'' a [[Hot Amazon]], her strength is seen as unattractive, as she usually (purposely or not) emasculates the hero by beating him up or outdoing him in "manly" activities ( such as arm wrestling, boxing, hot dog eating, pretty much anything unfeminine really...) She usually has a stereotypical German or Russian accent, a masculine face, and is often a stereotypical female immigrant (maid, mail-order bride, ''etc''....) or some sort of hardcore Olympic-esque athlete. Basically, the [[Brawn Hilda]] is the [[Fat Girl]] [[This Is Your Premise On Drugs|on steroids.]] Her personality can vary from motherly but overprotective to gruff and cantankerous -- but the great majority of the time she's just a gag character whose humor stems from being the opposite of a hot exotic chick, often shown as a disappointment when a female ''masseuse'' or cleaner is hoped by a male character to be young and attractive (the ''masseuse'' will cause considerable discomfort when she works).
In more serious contexts, she tends to turn into ''The Rosa Klebb'' version of [[The Baroness]]. Bonus points if she's blonde, wears braided twin tails, and possesses the name Helga, Hilda, or Olga (which is the Russian version of Helga!).
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A common characterisation of [[All Cavemen Were Neanderthals|cave women]].
The [[Trope Namer|trope name]] is a reference to the Icelandic queen Brunhild in the German epic ''[[Nibelungenlied
Contrast with the [[Fat Girl]], who is large, but probably not athletic; with the [[Hot Amazon]], who may be athletic, but not usually large, is never unattractive and is more attractive because of her [[Action Girl]] traits; with [[Amazonian Beauty]], when she is muscular and that may be part of what makes her attractive but she is portrayed to be attractive regardless; with [[The Baroness]], who is the classic East European ''[[Femme Fatale]]''; with the [[Big Beautiful Woman]], whose bulk is considered attractive in of itself, and who is often non-European. Compare [[No Guy Wants an Amazon]], when this keeps her from finding a man; and [[Butch Lesbian]], if she likes the ladies instead.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==▼
* Mari from ''[[Project
▲== Anime ==
* In ''[[
▲* Mari from ''[[Project a Ko]]''. Considering she's Kenshiro of ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' turned into a [[Huge Schoolgirl]] by the most minimal physical alterations (and a uniform).
▲* In ''[[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece]]'' we have Boa Marigold of the Kuja Amazons, who, oddly enough, used to be a skinny and conventionally attractive girl, but bulked up using the same methods used by Sumo wrestlers. As a bonus, her hair looks a bit like a [[Valkyries]]' helmet.
** This trope holds for most of the [[Gonk]] type women among the Kuja, however to they themselves it can be considered as an aversion in universe; in the eyes of the Kuja tribe, strength itself ''is'' beauty. Most outsiders will likely disagree, however, with the exception of Boa Hancock, who just so happens to be beautiful in the conventional sense ''and'' the strongest woman on the island.
* The Alpha Team's housekeeper in ''[[Dinosaur King]]''.
* The manga of ''[[
* In ''[[Fairy Tail]]'', the [[Gonk]] fetishist has a couple of these in his employ, but the summon spirit Virgo takes the cake; she's approximately the size of a minivan, with a face like a pug that hates everyone in the world, alarmingly out-of-place [[Girlish Pigtails]], and such an expansive bosom that [[Absolute Cleavage|her blouse's buttons burst]]. Later, when Lucy makes a contract with her, it turns out she actually can look very attractive if she wants, but she always takes on the form she thinks will please the contract-holder. Contrary to Natsu's observation, [[Muscles Are Meaningless|she's not any less powerful in a more compact form.]]
* Biscuit's real form in ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]''.
== Comic Books ==
* Much to the dismay of the men she saves, Big Bertha of the [[Great Lakes Avengers]] is one of these. (Much to her dismay, [[Deadpool]] is a fan.) But, to be fair, Deadpool is a ''fan'' of her when she is in her Ashley form.
** She only looks like that when she's using her powers. In civilian mode, she looks like [http://www.comicvine.com/big-bertha/29-2490/ashley-crawford/108-5355/big_bertha_nelson02/105-620168/ this.]
* Monstress of the post-''Zero Hour'' ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes (
* The Baker Twins in ''[[Strangers in Paradise]]'' are big, tough and battle-scarred. They tower at least one head height over every other character and are the top enforcers for [[The Syndicate]]. They are never portrayed as "ugly," but are also never portrayed as feminine.
* Bianca Castafiore in the ''[[Tintin
== Film ==
* ''[[Dodgeball]]'' has one straight example, [[Beauty Inversion|played by Missi Pyle]], and a parody in a ''girl scouts team''.
* Coach Balbricker in ''[[
* In ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]'', Maid Marion's lady in waiting is an example.
* ''[[Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]'' parodies Maid Marian's lady in waiting in ''[[Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves]]''; she's even named "Broomhilde." Little John, however, ''definitely'' doesn't see her as unattractive...
* The East German Olympic team (details in the [[Real Life]] section), appear in ''[[Top Secret]].''
* The woman in the opening scenes of [[The Boondock Saints]]
* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'', the government's plan to sneak the hero Korben Dallas onto a galactic cruise ship involves passing off one such agent as his wife. Interestingly, it's not the primary reason he turns them down...
* In ''[[What's New Pussycat?|What's New, Pussycat?]]'', such a woman is married to Viennese psychiatrist Peter Sellers - she tracks him down to a hotel in full Wagnerian dress to stop his philandering, and appears to be a Freudian nightmare to Woody Allen.
* In ''[[Revenge of the Nerds]]'', the homely sorority that teams up with the nerds includes a very large girl who holds her own in the arm-wrestling contest before being (narrowly) defeated by Ogre, who cries after nearly losing to her.
* The Trunchbull from ''[[Matilda]]''.
* One of these appears as a wedding singer in ''[[The Illusionist (
== Literature ==
* Eorache of ''[[Bored of the Rings]]'', as a parody of [[The Lord of the Rings|Eowyn]], a Germanic warrior-maiden.
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In ''[[
** Her
** There's sort of a stereotype in British literature (but sometimes American works, too) of having a female gym instructor be like this
* Honoria Glossop, Cora Bellinger ("Pretty massive. In shape, a bit on the lines of the [
** Wodehouse's description of the Bellinger (in ''Very Good, Jeeves!'') is priceless:
{{quote|
* Louise Erdrich's ''Love Medicine''.
* Brienne from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' is something of a deconstruction of the trope. She's a huge, ugly and tomboyish woman who desperarely wants to be a knight, but who constantly suffers for not fitting society's mold.
* The sci-fi writer [[Poul Anderson]] wrote a comedic short story entitled "Wherever You Are" in which a woman of this type is stranded among Bug-Eyed Monsters along with a milquetoast man. Ends like you'd expect, but manages to subvert most BEM-cliches in the process.
* [[Sadist Teacher|Agatha]] [[Dean Bitterman|Trunchbull]] from ''[[Matilda (
* The protagonist of Fay Weldon's ''The Life and Loves of a She-Devil'' is this trope for most of the novel.
* There was a kid's novel called ''[[Fearsomes Hero|Fearsome's Hero]]'' in which the titular "Fearsome" was a 6th grade girl named Honey who was bigger and stronger than all the boys in her school, and who had been a bully to the main character, Tully, for several years prior. At the start of the novel, Tully kept her out of trouble with some policemen, and she fell in love with him instead, which was even worse than the bullying.
* Though not foreign, Lieutenant Violette Retancourt, a recurring character of Fred Vargas' crime novels, is positively huge, often described as unattractive (and disliked by some of her fellow policemen solely because of her appearance) and physically stronger than any of the men at the Brigade. While she is not portrayed very sympathetically when she is first introduced in ''Have Mercy On Us All'', the main character, [[Cloudcuckoolander|Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg]], eventually develops a [[Vitriolic Best Buds|vitriolic friendship]] with her, and her incredible strength and resilience become essential points in some novels (especially ''This Night's Foul Work'').
* Millicent Bullstrode from ''[[Harry Potter (
== Live Action TV ==
* Honoria Glossop (Liz Kettle) in the ''[[Jeeves and Wooster (TV series)|Jeeves and Wooster]]'' series based on the Wodehouse stories. She doesn't really look the part, but she has the personality down.
* General Burkhalter's shrewish, controlling widowed sister Gertrude Linkmeyer (played by Kathleen Freeman and Alice Ghostley) in ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]''. She's the only recurring female in the show who isn't conventionally attractive and much comedy is gained from Burkhalter's attempts to marry her off (especially when the target is Klink).
* Parodied as Gretel (Dot Jones) in the bowling episode of ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'' .
* Dot Jones later deconstructs this role as the football coach Shannon Beiste ("It's French") from ''[[Glee]]''
** ''Glee'' also gave us [[One-Scene Wonder|Cameo]] (the scary black girl who punched Holly Holiday's lights out) and Lauren the wrestler; however, with the latter the trope is increasingly subverted as it becomes evident that Puck finds her both her physical strength and her breezy self-confidence very sexy indeed.
{{quote|
* Hellga in the reboot of ''[[American Gladiators]]''.
* Brienne in ''[[
== Newspaper Comics ==
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* Sergeant Louise Lugg from ''[[Beetle Bailey]]'' is [[Distaff Counterpart]] to Sergeant Snorkel, so what else could she be? She's not foreign, but is blonde, obese, physically powerful, aggressive, and foul-mouthed (though often also femininely sensitive in some ironic way). The biggest difference between her and Sarge is that she's [[Abhorrent Admirer|sexually aggressive]], whereas he's afraid of women.
▲== Theater ==
* This happens a good deal in opera, particularly with ''Heldensopran'' parts, due to the necessity of finding women with sufficient lung power to outsing a 100-piece orchestra without amplification. This is also sometimes done deliberately for comedy effect, as in the part of the Fairy Queen in [[Gilbert and Sullivan]]'s ''Iolanthe''. Other common examples include:
** A situation similar to the Wagner example in the main description comes up in productions of Puccini's masterpiece ''Turandot''. The eponymous princess is supposedly so beautiful, men will risk beheading for her hand in
* Such a woman is a [[One-Scene Wonder]] in ''[[The Sound of Music]]'', when she wins second place at the concert and won't get off the stage to keep soaking up applause.
* Fruma Sarah, Lazar Wolf's deceased wife in [[Fiddler
== Video Games ==
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* A supernatural version appears in ''[[Ghostbusters the Video Game]].'' And good heavens, her scream ''hurts.''
* The alternate female version of the Vanguard of ''[[Bloodline Champions]]'' is this. The normal one is large, tall, and has [[Stout Strength|a paunch]] while the female version is more or less the same size.
* The first level of [[
* In ''[[
* Meg from ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius
* They appear a lot in [[Nitrome]]'s ''Icebreaker'' series as puzzle elements.
* One of the main antagonists in the original ''[[No One Lives Forever]]''.
* Space Mama from ''[[Rayman]]''.
* Hammer in ''[[
* There exists a mod of [[
* Helga from the ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' series.
** Not to mention an entire army of enemy Valkyries in ''A Crack in Time''.
* In ''[[
* Female super mutants in the [[Fallout]] series are like this, and sound exactly like the males.
* Helga von Bulow in ''[[Return to Castle Wolfenstein]]''.
* Big Bertha is considered the strongest human in all of Almia in ''[[Pokémon Ranger|Shadows of Almia]]''.
== Web Comics ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101123210854/http://humoncomics.com/iron-lady Lady Germany] from ''[[Scandinavia and The World]].'' She has considerable physical power, a no-nonsense attitude, and, apart from her [[Boobs of Steel]], is fairly masculine looking, at least for a chibi.▼
* Quain'tana of ''[[
▲* [http://humoncomics.com/iron-lady Lady Germany] from ''[[Scandinavia and The World]].'' She has considerable physical power, a no-nonsense attitude, and, apart from her [[Boobs of Steel]], is fairly masculine looking, at least for a chibi.
▲* Quain'tana of ''[[Drow Tales]]'' is either this or an [[Amazonian Beauty]] (her character in general is a [[Base Breaker]]), seeing as she's built like a bodybuilder to the point of [[Viewer Gender Confusion]] on the part of many readers.
* Sauerkraut of ''[[Trigger Star]]'', the party's resident [[Genius Bruiser]]. Take the traditional portrayal of [[Conan the Barbarian]]. Now add breasts. Suitably big ones. Add a [[Lantern Jaw of Justice]] and you have Sauerkraut.
== Western Animation ==
* Invoked by Ralph The Guard in an ''[[
** Doctor Scratch-n-Sniff also dates Brawn Hildas.
* In ''[[Courage the Cowardly Dog]]'' Muriel gets mistaken for a [[Valkyries]] by an entire ''race'' of Brünnhilde-esque [[Valkyries]].
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* This trope was parodied in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' when Bart's impression of an East German woman (''See'' [[Real Life]]'', below'') consists of a fake moustache and saying "Kiss me or I crush you!" in a deep voice.
** Also Lisa's gym teacher Brunella Pommelhorst.
* Averted when Bugs Bunny disguised himself as "Bwunhilde" to fool Elmer Fudd (depicted as the hero Siegfried) in "[[What's Opera, Doc?
** The ''horse'' more than makes up for it.
* Eva from ''[[
** ''Revenge of the Island'' brings us Jo, who is the strongest female contestant physically. However, this falls more into [[Informed Attribute]]; and is [[Played for Laughs]]. It's pretty obvious to the viewer that she's female. And pretty much everyone else except Lightning, who doesn't get that she's female until she's eliminated.
* Strika from ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' looks to be a giant robot version of this, from the two or three minutes we saw of her. She's, er, "big-boned" ''even relative to other Cybertronians''.
* In ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (
* In [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBHfvIWRxe4 an] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uktOkpqtL3o episode] from ''[[
* Aunt Figg actually dressed up as one for a few seconds during her [[Villain Song]] from the infamous 1992 animated film ''[[Tom and Jerry: The Movie]]''.
* An episode of ''[[
* The wife of the [[Barbarian Tribe|Odifferan]] leader Prince Uncouthma in an ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' episode; if I recall correctly, she ''was'' named Brawnhilda (everyone in the series had a [[Punny Name]], after all.)
* In the second episode of ''[[Glenn Martin, DDS]]'' ("The Grossest Show On Earth"/"Circus"), [[Hot Mom]] [[Green Eyed Red Head|Jackie Martin]] befriends the circus strongwoman (herself a shining example of this trope and [[Husky Russkie]]) and decides to take up a training regime. Unbeknown to her, the strongwoman slips in a cheat card: steroids. Thus, when Jackie finishes [[Training Montageher|very brief workout]], she immediately [[Clark Kent Outfit|removes her jacket to reveal]] huge guns and chiseled abs. She still retained her beauty in the facial department (and believed herself to very much be an [[Amazonian Beauty]]), but she sported a deepened voice and increased aggressiveness as a result of the roids (at one point, she strips
* Helga, of [[Hey Arnold!]] fame. Physically, she's just a young, scrawny kid, but her attitude and mannerisms ''more'' than make up for it. Extremely competative and cantankerous, she spends much of her time picking on the main character, even though she has a huge crush on him and admires him. She also plays sports (though most of the girls in the show play sports). Her older sister, Olga, is a saccharine opposite. Big Patty also counts as this trope.
* Both Muscle Princess and Susan Strong in ''[[
* Alice from [[
== Real Life ==
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[[Category:Always Female]]
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