Girls Need Role Models/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Creators intentionally write strong and interesting female characters into their show.

  • Straight: Alice puts strong female characters in her TV show.
  • Exaggerated: Alice only puts strong female characters in her TV show.
  • Downplayed: Alice writes one strong female character in her TV show.
  • Justified: Alice grew up with boys' TV shows because there were no TV shows with girls that she liked.
  • Inverted:
    • Alice puts strong male characters in her TV show.
    • Alice puts weak, flawed female characters into her TV show.
  • Subverted: Alice puts in Betty and Cindy, two girls with Elemental Powers (Betty has Air, Cindy has Fire.) Betty's a bit of a Jerkass, while Cindy is an Extreme Doormat.
  • Double Subverted: These flaws are fixed by the next episode.
  • Parodied: Poking fun at feminists Danny creates a Butch Lesbian Straw Feminist, who makes a Show Within a Show where every character is her Author Avatar. There are no males.
  • Deconstructed: The attempt to create a strong female character results in a Mary Sue. Due to this character's lack of eccentricities/quirks/flaws and the unlikelihood of the character failing or facing genuine challenge, the character is boring and becomes The Scrappy.
    • Alternatively, the attempt to create a strong female character results in an Action Girl Straw Feminist God Mode Sue who is so competent she makes the audience wonder why she is part of an Ensemble Cast full of incompetent losers.
    • Alternatively, the attempt to create a strong female character results in reinforcing Men Are Generic, Women Are Special.
    • Alternatively, the strong female characters become examples of Creator's Pet and any fans who dislike the characters are dismissed with accusations of sexism.
  • Reconstructed: The strong female character is an Escapist Character rather than a Mary Sue.
  • Zig Zagged: The author write characters that has characteristics of being strong female characters , but under close examination they tend to be Faux Action Girls whose competence fluctuates whenever they are carrying the Idiot Ball or become Badass Damsel in Distress with distressing frequency, making difficult to believe if they are actually intended to be good role models or not.
  • Averted: the author write whatever characters they want, whenever they are male or female, without a care on whatever they could be a role model. Alternatively, they deliberately write characters that, while interesting, shouldn't be hailed as role model for anyone.
  • Enforced: The creators want the show to appeal to a female audience.
  • Lampshaded: "Betty and Cindy are much cooler than then other female characters!"
  • Invoked: To impress her feminist friend Ellie, Alice changes the TV show she was writing so it could have strong female characters.
  • Exploited: in true troll spirit, an author decides to write a story specially geared to be an specific female role model to get groups despising that type of character riled or to make some radical feminist step out. Alternatively, an author decides to write "strong female characters" just for the money certain demographics pay for such a product.
  • Defied: "I am a strong proud modern woman but I will not put strong female characters into my show for anyone other than me, but especially not because guys don't need role models!"
  • Discussed: "Man, sure there are not enough characters girls can identify with!"
  • Conversed: ???

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