Baby Got Backstory - A trope creation thread

[Urthman]

 

Essentially I believe the idea is that sexy characters are given excuses to be sexy. The excuses can often be ridiculous (see: MGSV Quiet) but are never just because, they instead conjure an excuse when it's clear that the design came first and the reason later.

 

I'm not gonna go to the mat for the Inara example in particular.  I was just trying to draw the distinction between characters who are sexy because audiences like sexy media vs. characters who have some sort of in-story excuse to for being sexy.  I think this is better, if more subjective.  I think the essence of the trope is when it feels like the creators are defensive and making excuses.

 

 

1) it's an in-lore explanation for why they're sexy and

2) the character itself has no say in the matter.

 

But the characters never really have a say in the matter.  It's the creators who decide what the character "wants," and it seems like there are implausible character motivations that would fall under this trope, such as Power Girl's "I use the boob window to distract my enemies."

[Ben X]

I'm not gonna go to the mat for the Inara example in particular.  I was just trying to draw the distinction between characters who are sexy because audiences like sexy media vs. characters who have some sort of in-story excuse to for being sexy.  I think this is better, if more subjective.  I think the essence of the trope is when it feels like the creators are defensive and making excuses.

 

But the characters never really have a say in the matter.  It's the creators who decide what the character "wants," and it seems like there are implausible character motivations that would fall under this trope, such as Power Girl's "I use the boob window to distract my enemies."

 

The characters not having a say (in-universe, obviously; we all know they're fictional) serves to prevent the trope from broadening to include stuff like Power Girl's thing there. I think that could have its own trope name to be honest, but it's a bit different. "She dresses sexy because she wants to!" and "She dresses sexy because she HAS to because a wizard cast a curse on her ten years ago that blah blah blah" are distinct enough creator arguments that I think it's worth delineating.

[syntheticgerbil]

I'm Bringing SexyBack.

[Gormongous]

The characters not having a say (in-universe, obviously; we all know they're fictional) serves to prevent the trope from broadening to include stuff like Power Girl's thing there. I think that could have its own trope name to be honest, but it's a bit different. "She dresses sexy because she wants to!" and "She dresses sexy because she HAS to because a wizard cast a curse on her ten years ago that blah blah blah" are distinct enough creator arguments that I think it's worth delineating.

 

Yeah, I agree. The creator of a fictional work building an explicit reason into the universe of their work for why a character has to have an amazing body or dress and act sexily (which I see as the core definition for "Baby Got Backstory") is distinct from from the creator of a fictional work simply designing a character who likes being sexy (which is more like faux empowerment or something like that). Both use the same techniques to distance themselves from the objectification of their characters (one, by making it part of the world-building, and another, by making it part of a character's personality), but I agree that they are different in execution and effect.

[Twig]

The characters not having a say (in-universe, obviously; we all know they're fictional) serves to prevent the trope from broadening to include stuff like Power Girl's thing there. I think that could have its own trope name to be honest, but it's a bit different. "She dresses sexy because she wants to!" and "She dresses sexy because she HAS to because a wizard cast a curse on her ten years ago that blah blah blah" are distinct enough creator arguments that I think it's worth delineating.

Yep exactly this.

[Urthman]

Yeah, if we're following the TvTropes model, the thing to do is subdivide the concept into as many distinct tropes as we can identify, rather than lumping as much as possible under a single trope.  So "The Character Happens to Want To Dress The Way The Author/Audience Wants Her To Dress" needs a different pithy name than Baby Got Backstory.

[Cordeos]

[Wooben]

If gameplay mechanics are introduced into the game to support the narrative elements that justify the fanservice, could that be called LEWDo-narrative ASSonance?

[Twig]

wow

 

wow

 

tabacco ban this man

[Nappi]

[Ben X]

Not sure if anyone's linked to this yet:

 

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/games/2015/11/stop-insulting-our-intelligence-pretending-theres-good-reason-naked-women

[twmac]

 

I guess what bothers me about this strip is that Kamitani is sort of being hailed as a hero. After his response to Ben Kuchera over the Dragon's Crown criticism (where he sent him a bunch of half naked dwarves implying that he must be gay if he didn't like the portrayal of women); I find it hard to enjoy the implications.

[SecretAsianMan]

I guess what bothers me about this strip is that Kamitani is sort of being hailed as a hero. After his response to Ben Kuchera over the Dragon's Crown criticism (where he sent him a bunch of half naked dwarves implying that he must be gay if he didn't like the portrayal of women); I find it hard to enjoy the implications.

 

It is kind of a bummer that "he's sexist but hey, at least he's honest" is enough win points.