Over-the-Shoulder Pose

• Main
• All Subpages
• Create New

"...The only 'strong' in many 'strong female comic book characters' are the oblique muscles required to point their ass and boobs in the same direction." —Cracked, on this very trope

Often in fiction, writers seem to think every Ms. Fanservice is skilled at contortionism. Case in point, the phenomenon where a character or model poses with their back to the audience, but twisted round to look at the viewers so that their torso is almost pointing backwards. If the fanservice is more blatant, they'll probably be sticking their butt out and curving their spine vertically rather than merely twisting sideways. Probably used for a few reasons:

1. Lets you see the character's face. Having them look at the audience is more engaging.
2. Can be used to give a coy impression ("Oh, what are you doing back there?") or to make the character look mysterious.
3. Tends to enforce a sidelong glance from the character, intending to invoke a submissive or vulnerable image.
4. Shows the character is supple and limber.
5. As the alternative name suggests, lets you see the character's butt and chest at the same time, so both Ass and Tit fans get what they want. If it's trying to be anatomically realistic, the "tit" part will usually be restricted to Sideboob.

Popular with glamor models and anime characters. Naturally characters not portrayed by real life actors can pull this off more effectively, since they can twist in ways that would snap a real person's spine or at least be darn uncomfortable.

At least one glamor model has blamed their back problems on having to repeatedly pose in this way. Not that glamor models don't have other causes of back pain.

Compare Coy Girlish Flirt Pose. Not to be confused with Over-the-Shoulder Carry.

---

Examples of Over-the-Shoulder Pose include:

Anime and Manga

• Sailor Moon has Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter often doing this on The Merch.
  • The commercial bumpers for the first season of the original manga do this with all the original five senshi.
• Tiger and Bunny demonstrates that the T&A pose is no longer just for women.

Art

• Judith by Jan Sanders van Hemessen, circa 1540CE, may be Ur Example. A nude in the "spine twisting exercise" pose and holding a sword overhead, all right. That being Renaissance, however, she doesn't look gutted and with broken spine. In fact, she got enough of muscles that Willing Suspension of Disbelief is not needed to see she can lift that sword in one hand without falling over and even decapitate something significantly bigger and tougher than a chicken.
• "Erotic fantasy" artist Boris Vallejo tends to emphasize the woman's bottom in many paintings of females, and does this in many works, such as the current page image.

Comic Books

• Rob Liefeld is an artist well known for drawing busty women posing in such a way that you can see their ass and breasts at the same time. As they use to say on the late lamented ScansDaily, "anatomy doesn't work that way".
• As shown above, Psylocke does this in almost every panel she appears in. Seriously, look her up in Google Images and you'll find several shots in this position. The page picture in particular shows off the impossible extremes of this trope. What freaky Body Horror is going on with her spine?
  • There's actually a worse pose out there now.
• Ms. Marvel on occasion.

Film

• Frequently used in film posters and promotional material:
• Scarlett Johansson strikes this pose in the Iron Man 2 posters. Have a lookie.... and try not to melt.
• Scarlett Johansson did it again in a promotional photo and a poster for The Avengers. The second pic was even on IMDB's mainpage to advertise Superbowl trailer, but it was replaced by something else.
  • This poster had all the men in heroic posses and black widow in brokeback pose again. This deviant art images suggests an alternative.
• At the beginning of Sixteen Candles, Sam tries to strike a pose like that in front of her mirror, but she's unsatisfied with the results.

Live Action TV

• Played with on 3rd Rock from the Sun when Harry teaches Sally how to pose. His explanation is that men like women who look "sleepy and paranoid".
• Several of the promotional pics for The Sarah Connor Chronicles have used this to show off Summer Glau's fantastic rear end.
• Six from Battlestar Galactica.

Tabletop Games

• The picture for the Dragonmarked Heir prestige class in the Eberron book shows a half-elven woman in a backless dress posing like this.
• Lady Ninja Yae in Yu-Gi-Oh! looks like her picture was taken in this pose mid-leap while about to kick someone.

Video Games

• Taki and Ivy Valentine from Soul Calibur
• Jade, on the cover of Beyond Good and Evil
• Ashley Riot does something similar on the cover of Vagrant Story, though it's a bit more spine-breaking than normal.
  • Ashley is the man in the ass-less shorts to the left, by the way. Not that Callo Merlose looks like she'll escape without spinal injuries after that image either.
• Hilariously done with the Master Chief as seen here. ^{[dead link]}
  • Which is a parody of this here image from Super Smash Bros.. Brawl with Zero Suit Samus.

Web Original

• In this clip, the English version of Caramel Dansen, one of the dancers must have a spine made of rubber to do some of the moves on the video.
• "This needs to stop... and let me tell you why!"—an article by a martial artist and a contortionist from childhood, has examples of these and attempts to repeat. Next to some a pair of photographed poses he can do.
• Escher Girls is a tumblr dedicated to warped female anatomy in comic books, and this pose is a common one there. Even the blog's favicon depicts a girl (Amy Rose?) twisted like this.
• Kevin Bolk (Trigger Star and I'm My Own Mascot) brings us the ultimate in Comic Book Chicks (and cites Escher Girls).

Web Comics

• Girl Genius:
  • Agatha.
  • Zeetha, Daughter of Chump.
• Mocked in Super Stupor with the Snow Owl, who has Green's Disease ("It's where all your joints are ball joints and you spasm into poses.") In one pose she manages to rotate her torso a complete 180.

Lady Diamondback: That pose offends me both as a woman and someone who knows how spines work.

• Commissioned Comic -- "Tits, ass and lens flare! ^{[dead link]}"
• Tasteful Comics has a superheroine called "Boobs And Butt Always Visible Lass". Three guesses at her superpower?..

Western Animation

• Much of the Disney Princess merchandise has some of the girls doing this, especially Aurora and Cinderella.

Real Life

• UK glamor model Jo Guest
• Betty Grable was famous for this pose. It was the favorite of American soldiers in World War II.
• Rita Hayworth
• Paul Manship's (the guy who sculpted the Prometheus statue in Rockefeller Plaza) nude bronze Diana the Huntress not only twists around so her face, breasts and buttocks are all visible from the same side, she even does it while she's running full tilt so she can shoot an arrow at something (or someone) behind her. And she's running away from her quarry? What's that about?!
  • Perhaps she's hunting a Bullfight Boss beast or one of those other creatures that have to be tricked into charging. Plus, you have to get some distance to properly use a bow, so perhaps she's just getting to the optimal range.
• Male sculpture example: Henri Peinte: Orphée endormant Cerbère
• Lena/Lenna, the most common face photograph used in image analysis and computer vision is the top part of this pose from the centerfold of November 1972 Playboy.
• The artist Luis Royo sometimes does this in his ^{[dead link]} works ^{[dead link]}. Note that all of these are probably NSFW.
• A recent^[when?] photo project involved pictures of men in masculine clothes, but posed like female pin-up models, complete with several in over-the-shoulder poses and some with coy, dippy smiles. As should surprise no one, they looked entirely silly.
• Kim Kardashian.