Girl Show Ghetto: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' was a quintessential girls show, but when it was released for [[Kids WB]] the dub saw heavy edits to turn one of the male characters into a Protagonist along with Sakura, which included having half the episodes (mainly the ones without him) cut. Broadcasts outside the US aired the remaining episodes (save for two in Canada and the U.K.), thus clearly establishing Sakura as the protagonist.

* In ''[[Black Lagoon]]'', while the main character is a male, this doesn't stop all the ladies from stealing the limelight with their guns, swords, and/or freakish strength. In fact, characters like Revy, Roberta, Eda, and Balalaika continue to front the action and receive the most character development then all the male characters combined, all without having to dress like a sexy schoolgirl. And here's the kicker: the primary audience is ''adult Japanese men''.

* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'' originally suffered from a [[Audience-Alienating Premise]] due to this trope by starting off as a mostly normal-looking cutesy [[Magical Girl]] show, causing many people to [[Tastes Like Diabetes|stop watching it in disgust]] before the real, [[Cosmic Horror Story|much darker premise]] took shape. Of course [[Late Arrival Spoiler|once everyone learned what the show was actually about]], fans started flocking to the show.

 

* [[Wonder Woman]] has had this problem. She's supposed to be one of DC's Big Three superheroes next to [[Batman]] and [[Superman]], yet she didn't get a Live Action Film until 2017 (after infamously being in [[Development Hell]] for years.) She hasn't had an animated series yet. ([[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman]] [[The Batman|has]] [[Batman: The Brave And The Bold|had]] plenty in recent years, and [[Superman: The Animated Series|Superman got his own show, too.]]) The last time she'd been out of the comics solo (besides the [[Wonder Woman (animation)|animated film]]) before 2017 was [[Wonder Woman (TV series)|the '70s live action series]]. The closest she's gotten to another franchise was a failed pilot in 2011 that was rather poorly received outside the industry (though no reason has officially been given for why they dropped it). And even within the comics, she's never been on the same level of sales as Batman and Superman.

** The sad irony here is that Wonder Woman ''was'' created for girls, but for the specific purpose of ''having a female action hero who was equal to her male counterparts''. But, apparently, being a literal Amazon still doesn't make you as "manly" as the most [[Badass Normal]] male hero.

 

* Some [[Fan Fiction]] writers hypothesise that [[Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls]] is the reason why 'fanfiction' is considered to be so viscerally disgusting by so many people. It's worth observing that on this wiki, most of the fanfiction included in tropes lists is either adventure-based stuff written by boys (''[[Shinji and Warhammer40K]]''), or relationship-based stuff that's legendarily bad (''[[My Immortal]]'').

** This opinion has even been documented in academic analysis of [[Fanfic]] by ethnographer Camille Bacon-Smith and MIT's Henry Jenkins. Jenkins goes as far to postulate in ''Textual Poachers'' that [[Fanfic]] in general is a reaction on the part of a female audience trying to find their own pleasures in predominantly-male media.

 

* ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'' did okay at the box office for Disney, but not nearly as good as their previous animated films. Disney determined that this trope was the reason and was rumored to [http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/21/entertainment/la-et-1121-tangled-20101121 completely shut down adapting fairy tales into movies.] For the marketing of their "[[Rapunzel]]" adaptation, they completely downplayed the fairy tale-ness of the movie, changed the title to the somewhat more comedic-sounding ''[[Verbed Title|Tangled]]'', [http://articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/09/business/la-fi-ct-disney9-2010mar09 put the male hero character front and center, and marketed it like a Dreamworks comedy film.] The advertising brought a whole lot of backlash, but in the end it paid off; ''Tangled'' went on to become Walt Disney Animation Studios' first movie since ''[[The Lion King]]'' to break the $200 million mark domestically.

** This ignored the fact that alleged "girly" films such as ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' and ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'' were the highest grossing animated films of their times. Clearly there were at least some boys out there watching them. (On the other hand, the [[Disney Princess]] franchise hadn't yet been established, so boys back then probably didn't associate watching both of those movies as being girly.) And ''Princess and the Frog'' was released the week before ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'', with ''[[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]]'' and the ''[[Alvin and the Chipmunks]]'' sequel following on its heels, which could have been the ''real'' reason audiences didn't turn out in huge numbers.

* The original story treatment of ''[[Chicken Little]]'' had a female protagonist, but Michael Eisner suggested a movie about a male Chicken Little would appeal to more people. The final film became a black sheep of the [[Disney Animated Canon]], though it seems hard to tell whether or not the original plan would have fared better.

* Some DVD sets of ''[[The Secret of NIMH]]'' and its direct-to-video sequel, ''Timmy to the Rescue'', have a cover that does not feature Mrs. Brisby, the main character of the older and more beloved of the two movies. Instead, it has her son, Timothy.

* When ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' received a new 2-Disc DVD, fans could choose between two gender-specific covers: the pink "Buttercup Edition" with a cutesy synopsis on the back, or the aquamarine "Dread Pirate Edition" with an action-packed synopsis. Later, the Blu-Ray came with a compromised cover: The bottom half featured Buttercup with Wesley, while the top had Buttercup with the Dread Pirate Roberts.

* [[Warner Bros]]. producer Jeff Robinov declared in 2007 that [http://www.deadline.com/2007/10/warners-robinoff-gets-in-catfight-with-girls/ "we are no longer doing movies with women in the lead."] This was after the poor box office reception of ''[[The Brave One]]'' (starring [[Jodie Foster]]) and ''The Invasion'' (starring [[Nicole Kidman]]). He even reportedly expressed that a male has to be the lead of every script in order to get broader audiences.

* The ghetto, along with the huge popularity of actor [[Johnny Depp]], is probably why the 2010 ''[[Alice in Wonderland (film)|Alice in Wonderland]]'' 1) turned out to be an [[Actionized Sequel]] of sorts to the nonsense stories of its source material, and 2) focused its marketing campaign on Depp's Mad Hatter.

 

* [[Historical Fiction]] author Nancy Rue said at a workshop that the reason all of her protagonists are male is that girls will read "boy books" but boys won't read "girl books".

* This even extends to the authors themselves, as the many women who have used a [[Moustache De Plume]] can attest.

** [[J. K. Rowling]] was told to use initials by her publisher, who worried about this trope. In reality, Joane Rowling doesn't have a middle initial or name (the K is for "Kathleen", after her grandmother), and now her gender is common knowledge.

** The same goes for S.E. Hinton. In one interview, she said that she went by her initials because she thought no one would even want to publish ''The Outsiders'' if they knew it had been written by a woman.

 

* A lot of women watch [[Spike TV]]. In fact, one of the creators of Spike TV [http://www.realitytvworld.com/index/articles/story.php?s=1001705 was FIRED] because ''too many women were watching it''. However, their view has softened as they're now actually [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/spike-tv-sets-sights-women-172228 courting women to watch Spike TV] [[Network Decay|as the channel is shifting from the frat boy demographic.]]

* [[Lifetime Movie of the Week|Lifetime and the Lifetime Movie Network]] are "television for women" that often convince many female and male viewers that female-directed media is lesser.

* This has an interesting effect with shows in syndication. A lot of shows that were very gender-neutral during their original run can be put into reruns on networks that are considered exclusive to women ([[Network Decay]] aside, networks like Lifetime, Oxygen, and We have a long reputation of being solely for women.) A lot of shows that were gender neutral and incredibly popular with men and women, like ''[[Will and Grace]],'' ''[[Frasier]]'', and ''[[Roseanne]]'', now have to overcome a stigma that they're shows for women.

 

* Happens in music quite often. [[Boy Band]]s/[[Teen Idol]]s (usually aimed at girls) [[My Friends and Zoidberg|and]] [[Justin Bieber]] usually end up gaining a huge [[Periphery Hatedom]], with people sometimes literally sending death threats, but a [[Girl Group]] probably won't have as much of a problem, because of all of the [[Fan Service]].

 

* This trope is the reason ''[[Panel de Pon]]'' was brought over to the West as [[Dolled-Up Installment]] ''Tetris Attack'' - Nintendo assumed male gamers wouldn't want to play a [[Kawaisa|cutesy]] game with a primarily female cast of mainly [[Our Fairies Are Different|fairies]]. They seem to have changed their minds on this recently, however, as characters from ''PDP'' have appeared in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl'' in sticker form even in the American and European releases.

* Many gaming review sites/magazines ''refuse to cover'' games that are openly aimed at girls. If you're a parent looking to buy something cute for a young female gamer you can have a difficult time telling the difference between games that truly are terrible and games that are simply dismissed because they are girly.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131003175825/http://sweetupndown.tumblr.com/post/15242399360/dear-customer-who-stuck-up-for-his-little-brother This story] made the rounds in late 2011, in which a young boy was threatened with actual violence by his father for wanting to buy ''[[Mirror's Edge]]''. Entirely because, well, it ''must'' be a girl's game, it has a woman on the cover!

 

* The raison d'etre of [[The Nostalgia Chick]]. [[Distaff Counterpart|Her original function was to review the movies that were too girly for]] [[The Nostalgia Critic]], but she eventually revolted.

** What makes this even better is that she's [[The Ladette]] while the Critic is a [[Sissy Villain]]. ''Obviously'' she was going to revolt at some point.

** Although in a way, she still keeps with this trope—in a blog post she notes that she was hired to bring more female viewers to the site, but women were still watching the boys ([[Estrogen Brigade|for the reasons you might expect]]) and only started coming ''after'' she started doing other subjects. It's worth noting she still does girly topics as well.

 

* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' strives to please both genders, but it's not the case for the toys. In particular, the store owners requested the Princess Celestia toy to be pure pink, since they think it would sell better to little girls than if she stayed white (or actually, very light pink).

** The [[My Little Pony and Friends|other]] [[My Little Pony Tales|series]] [[My Little Pony G 3|count]] too. While the shows typically are quite popular it's almost always toward girls within the 2 to 11 year old age range. The series typically has no merchandise aimed at boys.

 

== Breaking Out of the Ghetto ==

* [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/03/long-lost-fairy-tales.html#ixzz1pTLeGgbl As discussed here,] Fairy Tales as a whole tend to invert this trope hard. Fairy tales with a female protagonist, like Cinderella or Snow White, tend be much more popular and iconic than stories with a male hero.

* Another good way to transcend the ghetto is to create a capable action heroine, but then have her go on all her adventures in the [[Stripperific|skimpiest clothing imaginable]]. Then both women and men will watch, but men (presumably) for all the "wrong" reasons.

 

* [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s frequent use of female protagonists hasn't stopped his movies from earning critical acclaim.

 

* ''[[Bridesmaids]]''' aversion of this trope was a major factor in its success. A lot of the reviews praised it for being a female-centric comedy that wasn't a [[Strictly Formula]] [[Romantic Comedy|rom-com]], and apparently, a lot of female moviegoers agreed.

** Female writers at Slate.com and other sites practically begged readers to buy tickets to convince studio execs to greenlight more female-driven scripts.

* The movie adaptation of ''[[The Hunger Games (film)|The Hunger Games]]'' received good reviews and hefty box office returns. In what the business calls a "four-quadrant" success (meaning it's popular with teen girls, teen boys, adult men and adult women), some 40% of opening-weekend viewers were guys.

 

* ''[[Little House on the Prairie]]''. It doesn't hurt that Laura is the most tomboyish of the three Ingalls daughters.

* ''[[The Hunger Games (novel)|The Hunger Games]]'' is a young adult series with a female lead that sold well and got very positive reviews. However, it has also received significant backlash from the ''[[Twilight]]'' [[Hatedom]] that sees it as a [[Follow the Leader]].

 

* ''[[Clarissa Explains It All]]'' was groundbreaking not only in its content, but because it finally disproved the common (at the time) thinking for children's television—that boys would NOT watch a show starring a girl. [[Nickelodeon]] proved everyone wrong by making Clarissa—a smart, funny, free-thinking girl, who was only a tiny bit [[tomboy]]ish—the lead character and one of the most recognizable characters in that time period. Much of Nickelodeon's future programming, from ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'' to ''[[iCarly]]'', has had similar "girly girls" in the lead roles, and also pushed tons of girls' merchandise in the pink aisles of toy stores—all without sacrificing boy viewers.

** [[Melissa Joan Hart]]'s follow-up series, ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (TV series)|Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]'' was even more succesful in that regard, having smart and funny female leads, running for 7 years and having almost equal popularity in both male and female demographics.

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' is a successful, well-regarded TV show that had a female lead and, for a time, a majority female cast. Its fanbase includes a good mix of males and females.

 

* Despite many ignorant fans claiming that it's impossible for women's wrestling to draw, history provides several examples:

** In 2003 while critics were slating the [[World Wrestling Entertainment|WWE]] product as a whole, the women's division was arguably at its peak and nearly all the women's matches on PPV that year were praised as being the high points of disappointing shows. Both male and female fans have spoken up about how much they enjoyed the feud between [[Trish Stratus]] and Victoria which involved various hardcore matches. Also, [[Lita]] and Trish Stratus's match in the main event of Raw earned a 3.4 in the ratings department, falling in line with the show's average. Trish Stratus's retirement match at ''Unforgiven'' 2006 was also highly received by fans and critics being called match of the night.

** Similarly in [[TNA]], the Knockouts division in 2007 and 2008 proved to be a huge ratings draw for the feud between [[Gail Kim]] and Awesome Kong and the women have main evented quite a few Impacts and drawn plenty of ratings for them.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJtxSbmPlKk Watch this] indie match. Listen to when the male crowd starts chanting "best match ever!".

 

* The ''[[Metroid]]'' series, [[Trope Namer]] for [[Samus Is a Girl]] with its protagonist female bounty hunter Samus Aran.

** However, one should note ''[[Metroid: Other M]]''; this was the first game to show Samus' personality beyond "stoic badass" and, well, [[Real Women Never Wear Dresses|let's just say there were a lot of arguments involving gender politics.]]

* ''[[Portal (series)|Portal]]'', whose only two [[The Ghost|(seen)]] characters are both females, managed to become a huge hit despite it. Its sequel evened out the gender ratio a bit by introducing Wheatley and Cave Johnson but Chell and [[GLaDOS]] have become icons.

 

* ''[[Hakuouki]]'' has a decent-sized male fanbase, despite being an dating sim aimed at young women about [[The Ingenue]] finding love with a [[Cast Full of Pretty Boys|handsome, protective samurai]].

 

* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': Lisa Simpson, at least before she was [[Flanderization|Flanderized]] into a [[Mary Sue]] and then a [[Jerk Sue]]. She managed to be both quirky and vaguely nerdy (jazz music, Beat poetry, etc.) and unabashedly "girly" (her love of ponies and "Malibu Stacy" dolls). A very good example of an animated female character whom boys could not only like, but ''identify with''.

* ''[[Raggedy Ann and Andy A Musical Adventure]]'' has become a cult hit for Generation X-ers and Generation Y-ers of both sexes, despite roughly half the protagonist characters being female (with the male lead mostly reduced to a condescending "sidekick" role) and almost all of the antagonist characters being male. And of course, the basic story is more than a little indebted to ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' and ''[[The Wizard of Oz]]'' - two other tales that have always been popular with both female and male audiences despite having a female lead.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Acceptable Hobby Targets]]

[[Category:Double Standard]]