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 find it interesting how many male "Furry" characters often have little to no clothing, yet the female characters are always fully dressed, even when their anatomy is more humanoid specifically to sexualise them for fanservice. I.E: Rouge the Bat

Fun Fact: Until the 19th century, Pink used to be generally considered a masculine color for being passionate, while blue was generally considered a feminine color for being calming. Then somewhere along the line, things 180d

Another example of a female counterpart is Toadette. Toad needed a partner in Mario Kart Double Dash, so Toadette was created. Toadette is also a sweet baby, and I will protect her at all costs.

I think what bothers people is that it's the whole "Adam and Eve" thing in cartoon form, specifically "Eve being Adam's rib," or "only a deviation of him and not her own person," etc.

The girly counterpart character worked best (in my opinion) with Mona Lisa from TMNT. She quickly became a fan favorite character, and her dynamic with Raphael was genuinely cute. It also helped that she was a salamander, so she wasn't just ANOTHER mutant turtle. I really dug the updated version in the 2012 series. They took the initial concept, and reworked her backstory, but it's not too out there. Both versions of the character could fight and still have a sweet side.

I think I ended up finding girl counterparts of characters(non human if we're being specific) odd, because a lot of times with animals, as an example, you don't really see much going on and then the girl counterparts end up having bows, being some feminine color like pink, or even having boobs put on them. But, I have seen instances of female counterparts of non human characters that don't look super pointlessly gendered(such as Tigress from Kung Fu Panda, the love interest in Balto, and Nala in The Lion King) from around the last 30 years.

I do think there is a difference in this kind of design when it comes to non-human characters that are still people, like Lacksadaisy, Sly Cooper, and American Tail then it comes to non-human characters that are animals like Pokemon or dragons in How To Train Your Dragon etc

"Straight girls aren't the ones decking themselves out head to toe in pink" I actually know a girl who makes it a point to wear pink every single day... And she's bi/ace

I think, as you mentioned Amy from sonic, that's a franchise that is a good case study on how female characters have evolved in media, considering how long Sonic has been around and how many types of media the series has spawned. Of course there's Amy herself, going from just sonic but small, pink and weaker to a spunky preteen girl with a crush, but still having personal values and priorities, even standing up to her crush/ hero when she feels the need (see her treatment of E102 Gamma.) Though unfortunately her characterization has been hit and miss depending on the writing, she's great in the comics, but a lot of the sonic cast is hit and miss depending on writers so, it's not a problem exclusive to her. I'll briefly touch on Rouge, who started as that Fem Fatale, but still had her own motivations even upon introduction. I can't deny the sexual edge to her character and design, but they've given her good depth with shadow especially, nice to see a woman care about a male character without it being rooted in romantic tension. Again still kinda depending on the writer. Cream, is kinda just a cute well mannered child and her mom is just a motherly stereotype, so not much to say there honestly. And of course there's Blaze, the first female character in sonic to be legitimately on par with sonic himself in power, and honestly her gender has little to do with the writing other than the irony of the "defrosting ice queen" trope being tied to a fire based character, but still a really cool character imo. I could get into the comics, especially recently with Whisper, Tangle and especially Surge but this comment is already long enough. Point is its interesting to see how a long running series that started in these token tropes not only adapting old characters but changing how new ones are characterized as time goes on.

I’m pretty glad this trend is dying down, not that I feel particularly strongly about the characters specifically, it was just a little annoying as a kid to constantly be told you can either be the hero or the girl. I think that’s why things like Kim Possible, Power puff girls and even Barbie movies were such a breath of fresh air to me, they were allowed to be the heroes and be “girls,” kicking butt and 100% confident in their interests.

I love the idea of making characters nearly identical in design save for color changes to indicate a relationship between them, like Sub Zero and Scorpion from Mortal Kombat.

When rhe light fury was originally shown i remember the back lash she got because people thought she was a female night fury and got even more pissed when they found out that her bata desghn (dark gray and stubby and was noticeably scaily) was scrapped for not looking feminine enough

I would say that having the femswap version of a character isn't a problem. The problem comes when they are representative of being the only lead female in the show, comic, game, or whatever. Tiny Toons both played this straight and completely destroyed it, in that Babs is absolutely Buster's palette swap, but Elmyra is not just little girl Elmer. Elmyra's meant to play Elmer's role as the antagonist, but she's not dim-witted -- instead being a medical genius -- and she has a massive family as opposed to Elmer being a lonely hunter. Codename Kids Next Door actually is a great example with both the femswap and the real girl. Numbah 3, Kuki, is obsessed with everything girly, and actually leads a section of girls only agents in many episodes. Meanwhile Numbah 5, Abigail, is the one who gets the most straight action and is arguably the most competent member of the KND outside of Numbah 362, who's also a girl. Numbah 362, Rachel, is another good example, because she has to play the more traditionally stoic and masculine role of the military general on duty, while also being a girly girl in her off time.

I really like Amy. She’s feminine but tough. Although I always saw Sonic ending up with Sally (read the old comics if you don’t know what she’s like). Also, Amy has always been interested in tarot and fate since her first introduction, and she doesn’t have the same skill set or backstory as Sonic at all..

Im just glad that female characters have like…. A personality now? Like female characters in media were a blank slate in every show they were on.

th entire disney V.S. louisa from Encanto is so funny actually. disney really didn't want to give her big muscles and now she has the best sales from that movie.

very well said! I never really found a problem with these types of characters, but I do think certain topics, such as oversexualization and negative tropes for these girl characters were and are a real issue. Since we have so many more girl characters now, with more varying personalities, I'd love to see more Amy's, who are actually characters but have some similar qualities to these characters! awesome vid and lovely art. Mint rocked that dress!

"straight girls arent the ones decking themselves out in pink" *intensly stares at Mean Girls* 👀

you know this is a trope i never really thought about much before, I assume because it is just not that common nowadays.