Petite Pride

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
The latter-day "status symbol" herself.
"Then, this line from a game said that a flat chest is a status symbol! A rarity! And when you think about it, there's a demand right? So, word for word, I'M VALUABLE!"
—Konata, Lucky Star

A girl who sees her lack of assets as a plus. Flat chests are usually associated with the young, and a girl with Petite Pride will play this up as much as she can, usually to make herself seem cute and innocent, and to appeal to guys that like that.

Contrast A-Cup Angst and type 4 of Big Breasts, Big Deal (pride). Anime fanspeak calls this sort of character Pettanko.

Examples of Petite Pride include:

Anime and Manga

Konata: A flat chest is a status symbol! Extremely rare and valuable!
Tsukasa: I guess I'm all right too.

  • In the above quote, Konata is referencing the flat-chested Mayumi from the dating-sim game, SHUFFLE! Mayumi is proud of her "lack of endowment", but Rin and his friends like to make fun of her for it.
  • The same quote later makes its way into Genshiken. Also, Sue was making the comment in regards to Ogiue's chest while the group was at a hot springs, leaving Ogiue a little freaked out between the personal nature of the comment and the fact Sue had been stalking her all day...
  • Minor character Chichigami from Negima isn't much of an example herself; however, her reaction to one of the main characters being embarrassed of her flat chest is notable.

Chichigami: Large breasts may be fabulous, but tiny breasts, too, are wonderful!

"There aren't many boys who can resist little girls..."

Fan Works

Aeka: More than a handful is a tongue-sprainer.

  • Sister Marie, one of the superheroines in The Teraverse. Despite being a superheroine, her physique has been repeatedly compared to Audrey Hepburn's (except that she's much taller). She has to round up to a B cup, and barely has enough cleavage to hide a cross necklace down her top. Considering that she's asexual and a Catholic nun, she sees the lack of endowment as a positive, because it discourages people from sexualizing her image.

Film

  • The perfect rationale for why many women prefer to have smaller boobs came in Some Like It Hot. Sugar remarked that she admired "Daphne"'s flat-chested appearance: "Clothes hang better on you."

Live-Action TV

Music

Objection: "Next to her cheap silicon I look minimal / That's why in front of your eyes I'm invisible / But you gotta know small things also count"

  • In the video, she plays a girl who is cheated on by her boyfriend. When she confronts the "other woman", she pokes her Gag Boobs and they deflate.
  • Whenever, Wherever: "Lucky for my breasts they're small and humble / So you don't confuse them with mountains"
  • And (the same line meaning the same thing) in the Spanish version of the song (Suerte): "Suerte que mis pechos sean pequeños / Y no los confundas con montañas"
  • Also Pink in Stupid Girls.

Baby if I act like that / flipping my blond hair back / Push up my bra like that / I don't wanna be a stupid girl

  • Patty Loveless has often shown her Petite Pride by showing her cleavage in her music videos and on her album covers and also does so by wearing a see-through blouse in the video for "That's The Kind Of Mood I'm In".

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

  • Maria Bamford occasionally draws attention to her (lack of) assets in the chesty department. For example, she notes with more than a little sarcasm that men can't get enough of "these 32 AA's", describes them as "perfect, rare, delicate miniatures". More generally, as part of a larger bit on body issues she noted that she somehow managed to master being thin, but then they start laying the expectations.
    • "Skinny is in, I've got that covered. But now you have to have muscle tone too! I'm already hungry and tired; now I gotta go work out?!"

Video Games

  • Rita in Tales of Vesperia comments that she's glad she has a flat chest, because boobs the size of Judith's would bounce around too much and make it difficult for her to concentrate.
  • Suika Ibuki from Touhou. In fact, there's an entire song titled Tsurupettan, complete with a video (warning: very addictive!), which is essentially a high-spirited hymn to pettankos all around the world. In case you are interested in the origins of the song and video, refer to this post.
  • Archers in the Disgaea series are proud of their (lack of) assets, in stark contrast to most other Pettanko characters. (Fridge Brilliance: Of course they would be, boobs get in the way of shooting properly!)

Web Comics

  • Twice Blessed has Pella, who definitely can work the petite look.
  • Played for laughs in Misfile when resident Pettanko Missi immediately switches from A-Cup Angst to Petite Pride because Ash accidently gave her the impression that she prefers small-breasted women. Missi instantly goes from angsting over her flat chest (her Imagine Spot is the page image for I Have Boobs - You Must Obey!) to trying to capitalize on it.
  • Mistress of Oglaf is very flat-chested but given the kind of clothes she wears, it's probably safe to say she's not self-conscious about it.

Other Media

  • There have been any number of T-shirts made that read "itty bitty titty committee".

Real Life

  • The bulk of supermodels through The Sixties and The Nineties. The perceived attractiveness of this is apparently a Cyclic Trope. Like Twiggy, Milla Jovovich (until her pregnancy), or Kate Moss.
    • Actually, Twiggy was one of the only supermodels of her period to have a boyish figure. Prior to her modelling career (and indeed afterwards, when the 'Perfect Size 6' occurred in the 70s and 80s), models were normally voluptuous. A boyish, flat-chested physique didn't become truly in vogue until the 'heroin chic' look of the 90s.
  • Director Billy Wilder said of Audrey Hepburn, "This girl, singlehanded, may make bosoms a thing of the past." He was, arguably, not far off target.
  • So popular in The Roaring Twenties that there was underwear produced to flatten the chest. The "washboard" look was meant to stick it to the man in the early days of feminism, the same as wearing too much makeup and cussing was. In other words, it was all about projecting an un-ladylike image.
  • Though everything else about Paris Hilton may be fake, she insists that she will never get a boob job because she likes her "tiny chest" and thinks it looks better in the couture designs she wears constantly.
  • Debra Messing. She was the butt of more than a few flat-chested jokes on Will and Grace, but has said that she doesn't subscribe to that standard of beauty, and is happy with what God gave her.
  • Rachael Ray, whose Pettankotude is almost as notorious as her extreme perkiness, has had necklines steadily trending lower as she has become more famous.
  • Keira Knightley:
    • Despite being flat as a board, posters for King Arthur were doctored to make her look like a C-cup. Keira Knightley was unhappy with her posters being photoshopped to make her look bigger.
    • In Domino, a girl in her boarding school makes a snark about her adolescent boy physique, prompting a beatdown.
    • While her makeup in Pirates of the Caribbean was designed to create the illusion of cleavage, she is proud of her small chest. Captain Jack couldn't resist taking a shot, though:

Sparrow: "So unless you've got a rudder and a lot of sails hidden in that bodice--" (scans her briefly) "-- unlikely..."

  • She's also been described as "Sunken Chest and No Booty".
  • Unlike North America, where breast augmentation is the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure; in Brazil, that distinction goes to breast reduction. Of course, unlike North America and Europe, beauty standards in Brazil tend to focus on a different part of the anatomy.
  • Former (maybe) porn star Brianna Love, chest-wise might as well have never hit puberty even while being pregnant, but like the above statement puts focus on something else.
  • Though she's not spoken about it much, Rooney Mara's nude scenes in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo resulted in a lot of press about whether or not it was again fashionable for women to be modestly endowed.
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