What Happened to "Girly" Counterpart Characters? - Art Commentary

Mornin'! I've been made aware that my life is a lie and both blue and magenta from blue's clues are girls 😂

I feel like this is, design wise, especially evident in bluey. Most characters are girls, yet there are no visual "indicators" towards that. It got my whole family, honestly. I first thought bluey and bingo were boys, or atleast bluey. Like, she's BLUE, no lashes, no feminine clothing, even the voice feels neutral. The same with my parents and my younger sister. I think its incredibly cool to have lots of female characters, as main characters, ON A KIDS SHOW!!! Like, I can't believe it feels so special, I I even realize how little not "girly girl" female leads existed in kids shows..

I used to HATE girl counterparts in cartoons and games back when I a kid and in middle school because of the internalized misogyny I had constantly heard from my mother, now that I’m older I think very differently. I personally like a lot girl counterparts now. Amy Rose, Minnie, Daisy, Batwoman, Harley Quinn, etc.

Oddly enough, growing up with this trope, I just assumed that EVERY counterpart of a male character was a girl. Examples being: Shadow from Sonic 2 battle, Cub from the Little Bear Movie and Blue and Magenta from Blue's Clues. I was very surprised to learn years later that the first two were guys and quite happy to learn that Blue was a girl (and, for years, it was debated if Magenta was a girl, too or not!). Also, Tails from Sonic, as well. He was cute (my favorite) and always hung around Sonic so I thought he was a girl. I guess I just latched onto that idea since the only female character that was her own and interesting at the time was Sandy from Spongbob. She was not a female sponge, but a squirrel, kinda fitting into how each character is a different species from one another. She also liked to do stuff, like karate, working out and extreme sports. She was also very proud of her texas roots. Not boy crazy or mean, but very caring, nice and had shown her emotions in a way that didn't feel forced. I wish she had gotten more screen time in the beginning.
I hope that all made sense.

Some people are just 1 dimensional.

Lol you hit the nail on the head in the first 30 seconds: they were lazy and derivative comphet "characters"

I remember when Arcee was introduced into Transformers, and while there was no standard model for them up to that point, Arcee was a lot less realistic as a vehicle, since she was some futuristic motorbike, and not some blocky existing vehicle. She was also white and pink, as you covered. I don't recall if her personality was any different than the Others, but I thought it was cool that she was added.
As you stated with the "feminine wiles," I feel like there is a varying degree of representation for various people, depending on the project. Princess Peach has come a long way in her arc, but there are often less-developed minorities, or genders, or other backgrounds in some media. I hope we are moving in the right direction, but recent events have me worried that there are those who prefer to suppress it, and it's just sad to think about.

I never knew Blue from Blue's Clues was a girl to be honest

Never really minded

I'm gonna be honest, this take seems pretty unfair, the point of these characters is that they weren't supposed to be characters, they are idolizations of the male fantasy because a lot of these shows were made more for boys. If you go to female media it's the same objectification and idolization of the "bad boy" or the "good guy with a dark side." Jeez just go to romance sections and just see the objectification on display of male "characters". The only big difference is guys tend not to give a shit about female focused media where women seem a lot more focused on male media because of "the patriarchy" so a lot of the female dirty shit flies under the radar.

"Straight women aren't the ones decking themselves out head-to-toe in pink"
Way to call me out lol

But honestly, with Very Few exceptions, I don't really care for this kind of character, it always made me feel like the people behind the scenes considered the idea of having female characters an afterthought, and/or didn't respect their female audiences...

My favorite inversions of this are the RowdyRuff Boys(goes without saying) and Len Kagamine(ik he's a Vocaloid but still); the former trio is an exaggerated and ridiculed caricature of aggressive hypermasculinity and the latter was literally made as a male counterpart for Rin because Crypton noticed that there weren't that many male Vocaloids and KAITO sold very poorly at the time. It's also interesting and fun to note that Len is only popular in the first place because of his connection to Rin and because middle schoolers want him to be their boyfriend. 🤭

My problem with these characters isn't their designs(usually, when they're not sexualized ofc) or their characters themselves. My problem is that they're peripheral. By their very nature of being female counterparts for men they're automatically in the shadow of those men and aren't their own person, their personalities are rooted in negative female stereotypes of being seductive or caring about their looks or crying or being obsessed with a man or being shallow, they're often heavily sexualized because obviously what purpose would a female character serve outside of that, and they're often just there to be the "female character" by obligation because we need one, they're stereotypical girls first and characters second. And while I love girly female characters who are decked out in pink and frilly dresses, I don't love when they're only like that just because they're "the girl". Ygm? I agree with the last part though, though the fact that they're often not what girls are mainly drawn to speaks volumes on how men(because it's very obvious when these characters are created by men) don't know how/refuse to connect to what girls actually like or want, similar to the Encanto scenario kinda, in that these characters are less there to be relatable to girls(even if they're supposedly there to give girls a female character to relate to!) and more there to be a man's preconcieved, shallow, and backwards notion of what a woman must be. Despite this that doesn't mean these characters should be shit on for it as there si nothing wrong with femininity, what's wrong is treating it as a one size fits all rather than as something diverse. So what I'm saying is I love girly characters, just not when they're girly because they're a peripheral/derivative/counterpart character. I find it interesting how I don't mind them as much when they're amongst lots of female characters such as Encanto and Monster High because suddenly their feminine portrayal is not due to the writers not knowing what else to do with a female character or a stereotype, it's just naturally who they are and that's great! 🤗

Reminded me of an episode of Art Attack when they demonstrated designing a group of characters and started off with the 'main character' (an anthropomorphised male frog iirc), and all the other characters derived from that first one, including a female which was the most proportionally similar to the first character, the others being either bigger, shorter etc ...
Interesting to think that at that level they're each defined by one feature and that being a girl counts as this character's feature.

And besides… Men can wear pink too. And they’re not sissies for doing so.

your passing comment about Blue Clue's reminded me when I was little I remember getting into a HUGE argument with my sperm donor father about Blue being a girl. He told me Blue was a boy because blue and Magenta was a girl because girl. And I got SO MAD because he was just wrong and wouldn't listen to me. later I vented to my mom about it and she was like "wow he's a dumb ass and you are correct" lol

I looked this up and turns out both blue and magenta are female dogs :3 love to see it

Have you seen The Ghost and Molly Mcgee? Molly (MC) love interest is this trope but reversal 😅

You're my favourite podcast -- 💖💕

the female counterpart trope is such lazy design to me cause it feels like character designers back then just slapped femininity on a male character base and were like bam super original design. and because of surrounding culture femininity was accepted as a shorthand for female. instead of getting good designs that could stand on their own the girl counterpart characters were essentially handicapped design-wise because they had to be visually feminine. just my two cents

I want to know what exactly is Amy's character and story that you talked about.
It sounds like you know , and I have insights that nobody cares about.
But most people are so clueless about Amy Rose that they think she is a joke.
And I can't do it without getting flack from head-canon nuts because I'm a guy.

Not gonna lie when I was younger. I did draw girl characters very sexualized because that’s what I saw. I redo some of those. 😂 ah in a more normal and visually appealing way ha tho I now draw boys a girls close I should draw men more….

There's no need. Nowadays you just genderswap

I feel like stuff like thos (along with the lack of representation period) contributed to me feeling alienated

Female conterparts were good in chartoons, you had an Easy to design character and if well made Is also a strong female character who helps the story.

I agree, like whit food you cant eat only one thing all the time, you need some variety and trying New things can expand your world quit a lot

Hey Amy rose is not female counterpart of sonic she her own character

Hopefully they're gone forever. I really don't like the "lol also it's X character for girls" thing.

It got replaced by gender swapped characters.

It went away because people wanted women to be more of a main character.

I've also heard this trope referred to as the "Smurfette Principle", originally in reference to The Smurfs being a colony of males with the token girl.

The only inverse of this I've ever really noticed was from Power Puff Girls, where there are clones of them but they're boys.

Growing up tho, I never even liked the Rowdy Rough Boys. As long as I can remember, I never liked the trope, it always felt unimaginative and lazy to me, even as a kid.

This is a problematic trope. I am glad it is dying out. The female characters don't get to be thier own person. They are just an offshoot of the origional male. It is like how Eve is an offshoot of Adam. The female characters are also heavilly stereotyped in appearence. The main thing is the pink color. There is also skirts, bows, jewlry, flowers, makeup and that sort of thing. It is okay for a male character to have a girlfriend or a wife. This significant other just has to be her own peson. There are examples that come to my mind. There is Ms. Pacman. There is also Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck. I thought of that. Then I swaw Minnie being used in an example in the video. I am a big fan of Anita Sarkeesian. Her videos taught me so much about feminism in the media. My favorite episode is Ms. Male character. That is the trope of having female counterparts to male characters. They have stereotypical feminine appearences. I like this episode because it is something more obscure than other sexist tropes. More prominsnt tropes are things like Smurfete Principle and Damsel in Distress. Digging into the subter forms of sexism helps me create characters that are even more feminist.

This Fionapollo video does make a good point. A long time ago, there was the rubberhose animation style. In order to tell gender at all, one would have to use crude blatent things like bows or even baseball caps. Oddly enough it is really easy to tell the gender of wild ducks. Once color cartoons are established, that could totally work. Going off of natural gender differences isn't sexist at all. I can just imagine that the Disney could be in a seperate universe. Then Donald would be gray with a green head, while Daisy would be brown. Daisy won't even need a bow or dress anymore. One can easily tell Donals is the male due to his bright green head. He can be the pretty guy to woo the lady, not the other way around. That is what birds arenlike in real life. Ducks are just the tipp of the iceburg when it comes to pretty dudes. It would be cool for both Donald and Daisy to have blue patches on thier arms. The patches are a natural part of the plumage. This may not work for rubber hose style, but that would be cool. It is in real life ducks. In modern times, animation has become more realistic. So there can be more subtle and natural ways. For example in the Balto movie, Jenna is a tad more dainty looking than the male dogs. She has a narrower muzzle and smaller paws. My Little Pony Friendship is Magic is heavilly stylized. Yet even that has a subtle dictintion. The ponies look almost entirly the same regardless of gender. Howefer the mares have a more rounded muzzle, while the stallions have a more angular muzzle. I have incorperated subtlties in my own art. I draw my women with thin necks, curved faces and narrow chins. I draw my men with thick necks and a slightly wider chin. I like to go for the more femine side, because I like the elegance and beauty. My male character have more of an androgynous look than a super macho look. This trend also happens in anime. It was nice to see the speedpaint. It is refreshing to see that avatar character when discussing female characters. It is clear that she is female. However she isn't all that overtly girly. She has a plain skirt and that is it. That is nice. A female character doesnt have to be loaded with the girly fru fru stuff.

I haven't seen the light fury in a long time. I only watched that movie once, and it was years ago. As I recall, I don't think the light fury counts. She is more than just Toothless's girlfriend. She is different from the other dragons, because she is wild. That wild nature makes her be a whole seperate character in her own right. This eventually leads to dragons retuning to the wild. Besides black is a feminine color and white is a masculine color. So the light fury looks way more masculine than Toothless even if she is technically female. Black and white are a bit iffy. They are not as associated with gender as pink and blue are. Still I think that if there is an association my idea fits better. It is like the Yin and Yang in Taoim. I is also like in Paganism where the moon is feminine and sun in masculine. Greek mythology even has the sun god, Apollo and the moon goddess Artemis.

I know a lot of these characters. They're a combination of Token Girl Character, Smurfette Syndrone, and Tertinary Sexual Traits tropes, which you can find on TV Tropes quite easily for a rabbit hole of reading.

I have a lot of thoughts from throughout the video. But Magenta and Blue are both girls. There's a lot of analytical discussion about Amy online if you look, especially compared to the other girls in the Sonic cast compared to the boys. It's almost black and white from the casual audience, fans that only look at the characters at face value, and those that actually dig into the characters. I would talk about Amy, but I rather mention Angel.

So Angel is a weird case of that color swap token girlfriend, while also making good use of the trope. Stitch is number 626, meaning Jumba made a whole bunch of experiments with different ideas. In the franchise, all the experiments near Stitch have derivative designs, which shows Jumba having a preferred style he was perfecting instead of switching between a walking volcano or something. They all have that upright koala look by the end. So it works, and it's interesting how Angel's a derivative of Stitch but lore wise came first as exp 624. On top of that, her girly/sexualized traits also makes sense since she's also a siren trope. Singing charms all the other experiments. This happens late enough in the show to turn all the previously reformed experiments back to evil. Definitely a good threat level. It's a girl using her charms trope, but works since it doubles as a fail safe for an "evil genius scientist" to keep his experiments evil. The problem with that is 625 and 626 were made after her, so her charm doesn't work on them. But Stitch was crushing on her, and trying to naturally woo her (while she's going around being a menace mind you, with Lilo demonizing her) instead of only liking her for her spell was enough to have her switch sides in the end and cancel her siren spell to save the day. So Angel has a lot of tropes to her, but I think they're presented in a very successful package. It fits with the show's theme of redemption (and many colorful monsters that take after one main archetype for an episode).

A good example of the change of that on this days is bluey, a lot of people though that bluey the protagonist, was a boy, only because she was blue like her father, and that's because the dogs in that serie doesn't have noticeable difference in there bodys to knows between boys and girls, only the voice call tell in adults, because kids sound like either gender

I tried making a rant about stereotypes and I accidentally made two new characters

for context i was trying to say how nowadays there's so many cowardly, pushover male characters and lead female girlbossy characters, so i began trying to explain how i'd do it so that it fits and isn't just out of nowhere NOW I HAVE TWO CHARACTERS I LIKE WHAT DO I DO WITH THEM??

did she mean to show classic when talking about just different colours, as the Amy she showed when talking about change colour of the male Characters is SA Amy and she's more then different colours to Sonic in that game

I never like SA Amy because I grow up on Fleetway Amy, in the later comics is a badass punk, and this was before SA Amy, Amy is becoming more like Fleetway Amy in the new comics

I love seeing strange girls around. It's a more exciting to watch. As a kid. I have a crush on Blossom because she's smart, with a huge heart and she's a badass when she fights. Classic Powerpuff Girls best show

Also as a woman I don't know if you'd really know that women try to use charm to get things from guys ALL THE TIME. Maybe you're just a decent gal who doesn't exploit men or you did mention you were queer so maybe you aren't even interested in guys? But in any case, I see women using charm to get stuff all the time. Things as little as packs of cigarettes, weed, free meals, paying their phone bills. Then there's the high end stuff like expensive work done on cars and in some cases even a whole ass car. Yes these are all examples I've seen personally. And no... Most of them were not dating. Although a friend of mine is staying with her boyfriend just because he bought her a phone and gives her weed.

😂 now it's just gone the complete opposite way. God forbid you have an attractive female character now. Also veering so far away from woman likes guy has caused characters to change their original personality when there's a remake. Wendy in the new Peter Pan? Doesn't really like Peter, and she saves herself thank you. The Little Mermaid? Her primary motivator to go to the surface is no longer the guy. The statue is now of the crab. And Ariel even kills Ursula herself. King Triton now no longer has a reason to see that humans aren't so bad because Prince Eric had his role stolen.

Least favorite trend

so the main problem I see with animation when i comes to male and female characters is the personality of the one offs in shows. In mostly female based show the males fit in to three styles. the smart one that is unattractive one, the dumble as a box of rocks but good looking, and the not ulgy but not over the top good looking funny one. there are so few shows that don't follow this one note characters. I will say when the mains are male there are even less versions of females, the fat one, the overly sexy bitch and the middle of the road girl next door.

love this video! i think you raise some really good points. one thing i wanna bring up though, is i don’t think it’s quite as straightforward as “was this an intentional plot by the patriarchy?” or “that’s just how things were back then”.

the patriarchy doesn’t mean men sitting down and saying “here’s our plan to make little girls think they can only look or act a certain way with cartoons mwahahaha”. instead it works in a far more insidious way. the fact that women were all but non existent in creative positions of power for decades in animation (and most fields) was the result of hundreds of years of oppression. they’re barred from entry, and men create these one-dimensional stereotypical characters because that’s how they’ve been taught to view women and their value.

so is it intentional? sort of. but not in quite so straightforward way.

Where has this channel been all my life.

When it comes to how to train your dragon and the light fury, I think she looked better in her "beta" concept art! She was more grayish blue and looked kind of aquatic? And the fact they changed her to basically make the ying yang type of couple with Toothless made me sad.
I still think it would've been sooo much better if there actually was a second night fury that was female, not only could they bring back their species but their meeting would've possibly been pretty cute.

I noticed that in this video, you tend to avoid some of the more overtly critical lens into these aspects of pop culture and refrain from assigning moral judgements for a lot of these tropes. In a way, I can see where you're coming from, but this is where I disagree. As we live in a patriarchy, every decision we make cannot exist in a vacuum so it's our actions will hold a certain bias to them. I'm of the belief that these character designs indeed misogynistic and that the people who make them or enjoy them have, at least to some degree, some biases within them. I myself also have these biases so it's a conscious effort on my part to be aware of them and then proceed accordingly. It's good to examine our thought processes for more mindful decisions to be made.

Especially since gender is socially constructed for the most part, so these "rules" are arbitrary. When you have a variety of male characters but only a select few for your female characters (especially when they follow the madonna-whore complex), I think that's bad and should be corrected. It's also bad writing when your characters are one dimensional and lack depth unless you're intentionally writing stock characters.

Actually as a kid grown up in the 80's and 90's I liked the established girl characters of a movie or a show and saw them as characters I can relate to, while I was seldom happy with those newly added female characters. They often just seemed there to be, as you stated, a love interest, a distraction or caused a conflict between two male leads attracted to her. They had either stereotypical feminine attributes or were oversexulized.
Then in the late 90's started that infamous practise of uncreative writers dumbing down male characters to make the female ones appear more competent. At the end of the day this was an insult to both sides.

As a kid I thought for a long time that Tails from Sonic was a girl. Slightly more feminine energy some how. Could have been pretty advanced for the time as Tails was a character in it's own right

I guess they dissappeared as "true" female protagonists started getting more common. I didn't really think much about back then but looking back I can see what you are on about.
I've personally always liked female protagonist, maybe an effect of reading a lot of Tamora Pierce as a young teen (male), so getting them more fleshed out is just great imo, although I've got to agree with yathzee from Zero Punctuation in that being broody, determined and getting the snot kicked out of you is a poor substitute for personalization