Soapbox Sadie: Difference between revisions

[[File:SamwithSign.jpg|link=Danny Phantom|frame|What exactly is she protesting? It doesn't really matter.]]

 

 

A child or teenager, almost [[Always Female]], who cares deeply about all worthy causes. She wants to protect the environment from polluters, prove that women can be [[You Go, Girl!|as good as men]], and [[Free the Frogs]]. She is often the main character of the show, and spends a lot of time struggling with her idealism and whether it is too unrealistic.

 

Compare [[Granola Girl]], [[Straw Feminist]], [[Strawman Political]], [[Author Tract]].

{{examples}}

* Fumu/Tiff from ''[[Kirby: Right Back at Ya!]]''. In fact, [[The Scrappy|she is a major contributing factor]] as to why some fans of the Kirby game series tend to [[Fanon Discontinuity|ignore the anime all together]].

* A male example is [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Lin/Lynn]] Kaifun of ''[[Super Dimension Fortress Macross]]''. No sooner does he make his first appearance (during a [[Breather Episode]] in which his cousin Minmay is visiting home) than he gets on her escort, [[Humongous Mecha]] pilot [[The Hero|Hikaru Ichijou]]'s case for being in the military. He eventually accompanies them back to the titular [[Transforming Mecha|spaceship/robot]] in order to watch out for Minmei at the request of her parents, spreading anti-military sentiment along the way. Throughout the entirety of the series, most of his time is spent either chiding the soldiers and military staff for fighting the [[Alien Invasion]] threatening Earth instead of trying to talk things out (despite the fact that most of the aliens do NOT have any intention of talking), or preaching to the civilians who call the ship home about how war and the military are bad. ...Despite the fact that the army is only fighting the aliens in the first place ''because'' they've been proven to be hostile.

*** Actually, {{spoiler|that assassin was really just a random bystander. The real killer was Hodi Jones, a fishman supremacist}}.

 

* One of the many one-dimensional characters in the old British comic ''[[Cheeky]]'' was Do-Good Dora, who always carried a placard with her latest cause written on it.

* ''[[Animal Man]]'' is a rare male example of the trope, due to his ability to communicate with animals. At one point, [[Grant Morrison]], the writer who made him that way, actually directly interacts with the character. Among other things, Morrison admits that he was using Animal Man as a mouthpiece for his own beliefs on animal cruelty and vegetarianism.

* Gert from [[Runaways]].

 

* The namesake for this trope is the character of Sadie Lowenstein, who had this nickname in the musical TV film ''Mrs. Santa Claus''. Sadie was a young suffragette in 1910 Manhattan who literally got up on her soapbox (that is, she made her speeches atop a box marked "SOAP").

* The main character's girlfriend in ''[[Orange County]]'' is a pretty cute use of this trope - she's always getting sentimental about baby seals, while the rest of the class try not to roll their eyes.

* If you want to see a good pre-1960s example, look no further than the [[Marilyn Monroe]] classic ''[[The Seven Year Itch]]'' (1955). The main character, Richard Sherman (Tom Ewell) is spending the summer at home while his family goes on vacation. His doctor informs him that eating a lot of meat isn't healthy in such hot weather, so Richard has dinner one night at a vegetarian restaurant. His waitress turns out to be an elderly radical who tries to convert him to the cause of nudism, claiming that if the entire human race was unclothed, everyone would look alike - "all brothers together" - and there would be no more war. This offhand reference to nudity obviously serves as a [[Foreshadowing]] of [[Fan Service|what is to come]], but otherwise it's something of a [[Non Sequitur Scene]]. However, it does fit the trope.

 

* In ''[[Harry Potter]]'', Hermione's pet project is bringing attention to the ill-treatment of House Elves after seeing the potential for nastier wizards to abuse them. Apparently, most of the wizards (and most of the actual House Elves, with the notable exception of Dobby) consider it an aberration and generally aren't interested in her cause; the ones who ''do'' show interest do so in exactly that: stopping the abuse of house elves. It's the other aspect she preaches (universal emancipation and applying human labor standards like wages and holidays) that even the house elves themselves don't like.

** The thing she misses with regard to their emancipation is that for most, Dobby being the standout exception, they either cannot or will not make the distinction between being freed and being sacked in disgrace; most of the other elves consider Dobby to be at least a bit insane due to his insistence on being paid, having vacations (both extremely minimal) and actually wearing regular clothes.

* In ''[[In the Time of The Butterflies]]'', Minerva Mirabal (a real person) is this. A lot of what she does also counts as [[Values Dissonance]], since the things she wants to do (such as going to college, waiting to get married, and wearing pants) aren't a big deal at all today.

 

* ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'':

** Emma Nelson in the first three seasons is the prime example. She mostly lost this afterwards, though she did climb back on the soapbox every now and then, most notably in the sixth-season episode "Love My Way." Her stepfather Snake, who is also her teacher, catches her buying birth control and gives her a hard time over it. In response, she gives a class presentation over how men are hostile toward female sexuality, which amazingly wins him over instead of making him angry.

* Some early episodes of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' have Elaine as one, though it seems that she just uses it as an excuse to argue with people.

 

* "The Angry Young Man" by Billy Joel is about an older, male version of these:

 

* To a point, Alissa White-Gluz of [[The Agonist]]. She's a straight-edge vegan animal rights activist who writes songs about [[Humans Are the Real Monsters|humans being bastards]] who need to show more respect for each other and the environment.

* "Angry Young Man" by [[Styx]] is basically a request for this sort of character to calm down a little. "Why must you be such an angry young man?/Your future looks quite bright to me."

 

 

 

* Edna Strickland from the 2010 ''[[Back to The Future]]'' game is an odd deconstruction. In 1931 she's a crusader for moral and social causes, opposing the speakeasy run by Kid Tannen both because of the alcohol and the sultry singer. {{spoiler|She even burned down the first speakeasy. Thanks to Marty's alterations to the timeline, Edna falls for a young Doc Brown and, by 1986, she's used his scientific advances to turn Hill Valley into an Orwellian state where "bad behavior" is controlled via brainwashing.}}

 

* Millie from ''[[Ozy and Millie]]'' often seems to aspire to Soapbox-Sadiedom, but lacks the attention span to truly pull it off.

* In ''[[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella]]'', Wonderella [http://nonadventures.com/2007/02/10/mother-ella/ used to be one], but she grew out of it.

* Yehuda Moon of ''[[Yehuda Moon and The Kickstand Cyclery]]'' is this way about cycling activism.

 

* Jennie from ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'', charity worker and feminist. She started to irritate fans during series 3, and the writers attempted to [[Rescued from the Scrappy Heap|redeem the character]] by demonstrating that she wasn't all talk. For the most part, this seems to have been successful.

* [[Laci Green]], feminist and sexual futurist, whatever that is. Actually, she started out as an atheist who branched into sex politics.

* [http://fuckyeahsocialjusticesally.tumblr.com/ Social Justice Sally], who is also a [[Straw Hypocrite]] who pretends to care about social issues but actually [[Blood Knight|just loves having an excuse to bully people and fight them]].

 

* Lisa Simpson of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' is probably the best-known example.

** In one episode, her soapbox was deflated, as she tried to join the pee-wee football team. ''"That's right, a girl wants to join the team."'' After it was revealed that there were ''four'' girls already on the team, she tries to raise a fuss about the fact that footballs are made from pigskin. She then learns that the balls are synthetic and with each purchase, money is donated to Amnesty International... She cries when she finds this out. She is later seen reading a book about football injuries.

* Skye Blue from ''[[Carl Squared]]''.

* Alyssa from ''[[My Dad the Rock Star]]'' fits the trope in that she campaigns for nature and individuality, but mostly not to an obnoxious level.

* Courtney from ''[[Total Drama Island]]'' qualifies: she does genuinely try to be a polite girl, and thanks to some character development in the first half of season 3 she does come across as genuinely nice at times. At the same time, she's overly preachy, blindly follows the rules, and tends to be rather condescending; Duncan also shows her that being evil is also kind of fun. Hell she's even written a BOOK SERIES on how to be a successful teen.

* Miss Grotke from ''[[Recess]]'' can be this in her lessons at times, and a rare example of ''not'' being a teenager/child, as she's roughly in her thirties somewhere.

* Jean from ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' could tip into this, what with her speeches on mutant pride and mutant/human equality. It was even lampshaded at one point, in which she gears herself up for a lecture: "And I for one, am very proud of the fact..." only to be yanked off-screen by Scott.

* Wendy Testaburger from ''[[South Park]]''. Sometimes [[Played for Laughs]] (unsurprising, given the nature of the show) but there have been frequent moments where Matt & Trey have used her for delivering legitimate liberal [[Aesop]]s and [[Author Tract]]s.

 

{{reflist}}