The Smurfette Principle: Difference between revisions

** Later, another female Smurf, the younger and more tomboyish Sassette, was created by similar means as Smurfette. The final season added Nanny Smurf, who confusingly seems to have been a natural female Smurf.

** Although, as noted in ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', as a creation of Gargamel Smufette wasn't a true Smurf. Originally, the Smurfs were all male (or possibly asexual).

* ''[[Bloom County]]'''s cast had a series of strips dealing with the necessity of introducing a female character after the Supreme Court declared male-only clubs unconstitutional. ("Nothing's more 'male-only' than Bloom County! We've GOT to introduce a WOMAN!") Before, the comic strip had several notable reoccurring female characters including the feminist schoolteacher Ms. Harlow, who actually ''did'' [[Does Not Like Men|like men]]. Eventually, Ronald-Ann was created as a regular, who subverted the trope by ''not'' being [[The Chick]]. {{spoiler|Rosebud the Basselope}} was also revealed to be female, much to the surprise of the cast. Unfortunately, it looks like this was [[Retcon|retconned]] to oblivion.

** Even more directly addressed in the not-a-sequel-series-I-swear, ''Outland''. In the strip, a woman asked why all the well-known animal characters in comics and animation are all male; any female animal characters were just [[Distaff Counterpart|The Girlfriend]]. Opus announced that the strip was just about to hire the first major female animal character star to join the main cast, Hazel the Hedgehog. In a brilliant sequence that ran for ''weeks'', she lampshaded ''why'' most animal characters are male. (Are we asking girls to identify with a "little pig-rodent"? Can she participate in a slapstick pie fight if depicting violence against females is taboo? Is she still her own distinct character if we ''have'' to [[Put a Bow On Her Head]]?)

*** Averted during the "Sisterhood of Evil" era, when the three female members of the team carried on in the absence of the then incarcerated male members.

* When ''[[The Avengers (Comic Book)|The Avengers]]'' started in 1963, [[The Wasp]] was the only female member, and the weakest. Then all the original members left in 1965, but there was still only one female, the Scarlet Witch, who was the weakest...[[A God Am I|at the time]].

** The Wasp herself eventually became a badass hero in her own right and she even led the Avengers.

* When the ''[[Justice League of America]]'' started in 1960, [[Wonder Woman]] was the only female member, and though not ''necessarily'' the weakest, was certainly the most resembling. At least the early Gardner Fox stories treated her like the other members, and not like [[The Chick]]. Though she soon became the secretary at the JLA's meetings, taking minutes and so on. It took almost a decade before [[Black Canary]] became the second female member (and that was only after Wonder Woman had resigned; it would take several more years before there was more than one woman on the team).

*** ...and surfers, snowboarders and cavewomen.

** LEGO themes in general get this pretty badly - compared to most, BIONICLE actually had it downright ''good'' -, to the point that the fanbase [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|tends to get excited by]] the female minifigs of the Minifigures series so that they can actually have a slightly more feasible number of females in their city setup or whatever. Hell, the theme which had the best ratio was probably the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' licence, and even it downplayed every female except Hermione (with the next-most important female character, Ginny, only appearing in three sets across the decade of the line's existence; anyone else is lucky to get more than one). When [[Star Wars: The Clone Wars|The Clone Wars]] animated series came along, LEGO's ''[[Star Wars]]'' licence also started doing a better job with more frequently occurring female minifigs; before that, any female minifig besides Leia was something of a rarity, and even Leia was an uncommon occurrence. In fact, Padme only popped up in her handmaiden disguise until a minifigure of her in her queenly garb appeared in a 2012 set.

* [[Transformers]] series' toy lines. All of them. [[Fridge Logic|Though one could argue why alien robots conform to human genders in the first place]].

* Most action toy lines in general follow this trope, generally on the basis that boys won't buy action figures of female characters. This was the reason Katara from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' never got an action figure despite being an [[Action Girl]] on the main cast, while a male character, Jet, who only appeared in a few episodes, managed to get one.

* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series has played with this trope throughout its entries:

** Of the six character classes in ''Final Fantasy I'', only the [[White Mage]] looks female (and the original White Wizard [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110109223549/finalfantasy/images/b/bc/White_Wizard_%28Final_Fantasy%29.png graphic] confirms White mage as a male [[Bishonen]]). It's possible to see all of the characters as androgynous to be female and the remakes give most classes both male and female names.

** The original version of ''[[Final Fantasy III]]'' stars the all-male Onion Knights; the remake for the DS make one of them a girl.

** Notably, every game since ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' has had exactly three female characters in the playable cast, regardless of the total cast size. This is explicitly referred to as the [[Rule of Three|Three Females Rule]] in Squaresoft fan circles. This even extends to entries that don't follow The Smurfette Principle, like ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' (three women, two men) and '' [[Final Fantasy X]]-2'' (an all-female party of three). Note that more recent games have gravitated toward a total playable cast size of 6, thus equalizing the gender balance while still following the rule.

** And that is before getting into their [http://www.wowpedia.org/images/thumb/7/7e/Sylvanasstatuee.jpg/180px-Sylvanasstatuee.jpg outfits.]

* Contrast ''[[Ever Quest]]'', where female characters seem to outnumber male ones. Both ''Everquest'' and ''Everquest 2'''s main characters, Firiona Vie and Antonia Bayle respectively, were female. Firiona's nemesis, Lanys Ty'Val, was female as well.

** The [[Vaporware|unreleased]] ''Star Fox 2'', however, would have added two female characters to the roster - [[Genki Girl]] Fay and [[Action Girl]] Miyu.

** And in ''Command'', there are a solid 4 females: Krystal, Kat, and newcomers Lucy (Peppy's daughter) and [[The Scrappy|Amanda]], Slippy's ''female'' love interest. There is even an all-girl mission.

* ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' has Marzipan as its only female character. The fact that it uses such a [[Minimalist Cast]] makes her ''the only female character in the universe''. She [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this fact in the page quote, found [http://www.homestarrunner.com/whosaidwhat.html here]. The creators of have repeatedly tried to add another female to the cast, but have never been satisfied that they've found a good enough concept to justify it, aside from the sake of adding another girl. This was spoofed in a special feature on the "Everything Else vol. 2" DVD, ''Why Come Only One Girl?''.

** The commentary to ''Why Come Only One Girl?'' points out that Teen Girl Squad eventually became their "new female outlet".

* In ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'', Tex is very much aware that she's the only girl, until another is introduced in the fifth season. She also gets notably huffy when Donut is mistaken for a girl because of his [[The European Carry All|new pink armor]], and her teammates imply that she's not a "real" girl. She's also, undoubtedly, the biggest [[Badass]] of the show.

* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] talks about this in a video titled "[http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thedudette/nostalgia-chick/16616-the-smurfette-principle The Smurfette Principle]". At that point, she was also an example of it, though two other women joined the site at the same time, and [[That Guy With The Glasses]], as a site, has gone on to build a larger female cast.

** Petunia Pig is Porky's girlfriend, but she had a ''much'' more prominent role in the ''Looney Tunes'' comic books and merchandise than she ever did on screen, having only ever appeared in a handful of animated shorts.

** Then there's Mama Bear in [[Chuck Jones]]' "Three Bears" series (there pretty much had to be.) She's passive and deadpan (compared to her violent husband and idiot son), but that's what makes her hilarious.

*** A first season episode of ''Tiny Toons'', "Fields of Honey", actually revolved around Babs trying to find a female Looney Toon who could serve as her mentor. It turned out to be a black-and-white era character, Honey, whose comic schtick was not unlike hers; she had simply been forgotten. But note that in [[Real Life]], Honey existed -- and she was merely [[Shallow Love Interest|Bosko's girlfriend]] and was ''nothing'' like the one portrayed here.

** Still around, though not really successful: Lola Bunny, introduced in ''[[Space Jam]]''. Most classic ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' fans have a lot of not-so-nice things to say about her, mostly because her addition into the otherwise all-male Looney Tunes roster feels so forced. ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'' [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap|has improved this]].

** On a smaller scale, ''[[Transformers Animated|Animated]]'' Starscream's female clone (named Slipstream, according to [[Word of God]]) is the only female in a flock of five. No, they won't tell us why.

** The [[All There in the Manual|Allspark Almanacs]] have added a few more girls, but they also include the Omega Sentinel roster - out of twelve "Greek-letter-Supremes", only one confirmed female, and she was assigned to a rearguard action for most of her lifespan.

** However, the ''GI Joe Reloaded'' comic series did have a black woman -- which they achieved by taking one of the few black characters, Doc, and [[Gender Flip|making him into a her]], bringing the total of the female characters in the series to four. Nice [[Twofer Token Minority|conservation of minority slots]], Devil's Due.

** Devil's Due's ''G.I. Joe: Declassified'' series also (sort of) added a black female member to the Joe team. One of the early Marvel G.I. Joe comics showed someone looking at a list of team members on a computer, including the never-seen "Shooter" (an in joke based on the name of Marvel's then editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter). Over 20 years later, the ''Declassified'' series [[Retcon|revealed]] that Shooter was actually a black woman, who was the original G.I. Joe team's sniper. Her presence on the team was so top secret that even the other Joes didn't know about her...and consequently didn't realize they were leaving her behind as they fled an about-to-explode Cobra base at the end of their first mission. (She got shot moments before the base exploded, so the Joes weren't directly responsible for her death.)

== Real Life ==

* Reversed in Federal Civil Service, with some agencies like the Forest Service being 70% or more female due to Affirmative Action. Ironically due to executive meddling of another kind in 1993, qualifications were waived for the typical middle and high level manager in most agencies, resulting in more than half of Federal Civil Service not meeting the educational requirements and/or time in grade required in 2011. The typical situation under the Clinton Administration was to give National Forests, BLM Districts, Field Offices and similar high level positions to secretaries and aides, raising them as many as 11 paygrades overnight. It's not uncommon for entire offices to be women and to have them composed of "scientists", "engineers" and so on that do not have a degree in the field they represent.

 

{{reflist}}