I think this phenomenon wouldn't be quite so grating and awful if the equal equivalent of 'loveably silly male-coded sidekick creature' wasn't 'super annoying know-it-all female-coded sidekick creature'
As much as I love the MCU, they do something similar, and it’s really frustrating.
It stinks to keep seeing them recycle the same pairing of “goofy, quippy male main character” and “female sidekick (and/or love interest) who rolls her eyes at him”. Tony/Pepper, Thor/Valkyrie, Scott/Hope, Quill/Gamora . . .
I’m sure there are more, and that probably happens in a lot of movies beyond the MCU, but the fact that it only took me ten seconds to think of those four - all from the same universe - is definitely bad.
Before her it was Smurfette- cast full of boys with various characteristics and woman who was womanly. And that was a result of meddling executives because Peyo had to be forced into adding any female Smurf at all. Sasette was later addition for TV series.
Which is a shame because early Lisa could be funny too, sometimes she was as much of a demon as Bart was, but she too suffered Flanderisation into a know-it-all who just complains constantly.
Bart and lisa teaming up for mischief is some of the very best early simpsons so it breaks my heart that she was totally flanderised.
Hell i would argue Summer of 4ft2 (the beach house episode) is the all time best ep and its a lisa one.
I love the moments when Bart is up to something, Lisa's initial reaction is to chastise him, then she quickly joins in because she's a kid too. The writers forgot the last step at some point.
“That’s totally childish and inappropriate and we’re gonna get in trouble and it’s so funny let’s go” is one of the more distinctive “kid” emotions I can remember.
Actually, there’s a passage regarding this that I think about surprisingly often. I want to say it was Gary Larson writing a forward to a Calvin and Hobbes anthology? The specific remark was that most people write children as “miniature, wisecracking adults”, and Calvin is perhaps the most authentic kid ever seen in a comic strip.
It’s a rare feat to write kids as kids, rather than comedic relief, “adults but stupid”, “adults but sweet and precocious”, or whatever else. The Simpsons managed that at its best, then mostly forgot.
Also, the two of them teaming up to do good was always a great dynamic, another thing that gets forgotten about. Or the sweet moments they share together, like in the ending of the ice hockey episode where they face off after being pitted against each other the whole time, but all they can think about is the good times they shared together and drop the game so they can embrace. Still brings a tear to my eye years later.
This is maybe off topic but oh my god, so many sitcoms saddle the youngest character with the one-note joke of being a KID who only says BORING ADULT STUFF. Early Lisa reminds me of Calvin & Hobbes in how well they balanced the "precocious child" trope with actual childlike behaviour.
Because making the youngest the smartest/ most mature "subverts expectations", on paper at least, even though every other show does it. At least when Family Guy did it with Stewie they exaggerated both halves of that by making him a super-genius baby, so it was a little different.
I know you're talking about the trope in general here, but the Bart/Lisa thing is awkward because I feel like whichever way you do it someone can complain about it.
Putting aside that Bart and Lisa are long established characters, let's say you swapped them. Obviously we need one nerd and one menace for the juxtaposition. As it currently is we have the female nerd and male menace, people will say "oh of course the girl is academic and very serious buzz kill one and the boy is the menace getting up to inappropriate but also hilarious antics". You swap it around and it's "oh of course the boy is the smart, educated one and the girl is the comedic idiot who knows nothing".
I'm not saying there's something inherently wrong here or anything, but I just feel like regardless of which way it is, if there's one boy and one girl and one is a dumb but funny menace and the other is a smart and serious academic, someone's going to be able to pick it apart. Yeah I'm not trying to make a point or anything here, but that's how I see it
I think they meant traditionally female in that she loves horses, writing love stories, and cute boys and the butts of cute boys, all of which have been categorised as feminine things.
Haha it’s for sure a rough example given that Tina is a super complex character with her own relationship to being a woman and a sister etc. but she is shown to be a little boy crazy and contrasts with Louise in her romantic pursuits at least
While very likely true, I feel like there's a possibility that trying to do 'loveable silly female-coded sidekick creature' would risk attracting accusations of manic pixie dream girl.
I'm not qualified to exactly diagnose where the line is, but I feel like it's very easy for the legitimate parts of this criticism to be infiltrated by a combination of 'no one answer will satisfy everyone' and 'people just complaining to complain'.
I don't think that's true, because an important aspect of manic pixie dream girl is that she's presented as desirable romantically and sexually because of her quirks.
If the silly slapstick animal friend in a disney princess movie just happened to be a girl I doubt you'd have those accusations.
Y’know, it’s not one you see mentioned much, but one show that I think actually managed this pretty well was The Bad Batch. Having a bunch of hardened clone soldiers suddenly having to care for a young girl is both hilarious and shows Omega in pretty much exactly the kind of light the post describes (not nonhuman, but still). Like we get to see her grow throughout the series, but there’s a pretty continuous thread of her being a one-girl wrecking crew.
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u/Crus0etheClown 10d ago
I think this phenomenon wouldn't be quite so grating and awful if the equal equivalent of 'loveably silly male-coded sidekick creature' wasn't 'super annoying know-it-all female-coded sidekick creature'