r/TopCharacterTropes • u/KalzK • Sep 06 '26

miscellaneous Tropes that became problematic

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The Persistent Suitor: A guy who is after the girl and just wont take no for an answer. Nowadays we just call stalking and harassment, but it used to be romantic. Example: The Notebook (2004), Noah asks Allie out while she's on a date with another man. She refuses, but he threatens to let go and fall unless she agrees to go out with him.

Comedic Woman On Man Violence: Mostly seen in anime, recently it has decreased a lot but years back every show had a woman hitting a guy and showed it as funny. Example: Toradora!, where the quintessential tsundere, Taiga, beats up the MC regularly.

Kid Bags Adult Baddie: I remember a few of these, sometimes it was to show how cool and awesome a kid was because an adult woman fell for him, now it's just seen as problematic shit. Example: Blank Check, the woman likes the kid and kisses him telling him to look for her in 10 years.

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u/Altayrmcneto Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

It can be polemic, but “Women which are Mean, but Competent Bosses”, precisely the ones like Miranda Priestly, which was stronger last decade.

Why? Because they appear to be progressive, but it only reinforces the patriarchal structure by giving for some women key positions from where they can absorve most of the criticism while doing the same like men in her position.

The system is bad? No, the boss that is mean, but look how cool is to have such empowered woman as leadership!

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u/Yes_Im_Positive Sep 06 '26

Similar to the 90's trope, "women can be strong, but that means they have to be aggressive and violent like a strong man."

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u/Toadsted Sep 06 '26

Coincidentally, the same parallel happens with black success, and being criticized as being too white now. Like you can only be successful if you act white.

You can only be rich of you're cruel.

You can only be attractive if you're vain.

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u/thefailtrain08 Sep 06 '26

Well, if we're honest, the second one is pretty realistic. You just don't get to the point of being a billionaire if things like other people's well-being are at any point more important than your bank account having another 0 at the end.

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u/Toadsted Sep 07 '26

You certainly can, it just takes longer.

Billionaires are, after all, just 1,000 millionares worth of wealth at the bare minimum. You can be an entirely ethical millionaire without spending your entire life to achieve it in this day and age. 50 years ago? Not so much. So it's all about relative economics.

We're at the point of trillionaires now. Now you're talking something that has to be backed by a country level movement, or absolutely entirely unethical behaviors.

People don't talk poorly about the ceo / founder for costco who still fights for cheap hotdogs, or the the guy who still has 99¢ on his cans of tea. Or the guy who has an online prescription / drug service that is cheap. They nitpick the other points about them.

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u/thefailtrain08 Sep 07 '26

If it takes a couple years to become a millionaire entirely ethically... then wouldn't it take more than a lifetime to become a billionaire that way, since they're "merely" 1000x the wealth, hmm?

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u/Toadsted Sep 07 '26

A millionaire can be anything between 1,000,000 and 999,999,999

But yes, you can also be a millionaire from generational wealth, or other collaborative means. All ethically.

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u/Swagalyst Sep 06 '26

I think it's part of Hollywood's belief that "strong woman" = "asshole". When they try to make a strong woman, they invariably make an egoistical asshole who treat everyone around her like shit. Case in point: Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

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u/Vertrant Sep 06 '26

Are you talking about a more recent Tomb Raider? The movie from the early 00s that i remember didn't really have Lara be an asshole as far as i remember?

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u/BlatantConservative Sep 06 '26

I take the opposite view. The men written into similar positions in hollywood ALSO treat everyone like shit. You just notice it more when it's a woman.

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u/AgathysAllAlong Sep 06 '26

There's a line from Jenny Nicholson that goes along the lines of "At least when women are Mary Sues they're still decent people instead of assholes."

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u/AreYouThereSagan Sep 06 '26

Tbf that's hardly exclusive to Hollywood. Society in general often tends to equate "strong" with "being an asshole who treats other people like shit."

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u/thefailtrain08 Sep 06 '26

Yeah, and men are just... kind allowed to with no pushback because it's "manly" to act that way, but if a woman does it, she's "bitchy" or whatever.

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u/_Svankensen_ Sep 07 '26

Compare and contrast Ghibli heroines (and villainesses!).

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u/Clean-Elderberry8835 Sep 07 '26

As a long time Tomb Raider fan I have to disagree there, while the reboot Lara is definetly not the case, original wasn't either. She was a one-liner dropper badass? Yes, but she was hardly an asshole to people just doing their job; the people she was figthing were straight up evil.

In LAU series and oddities like TR: Angel of Darkness, she does change to a more serious character who's often neck-height covered in shit and troubles but even so, she's not an asshole, simply stops being that snarky one-liner dropper to a "I will fuck you up, buddy", to people who are actively against her, not innocents or neutrals.

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u/Francytj Sep 06 '26

I don't know if Miranda is the best example. I remember a scene making a small comment on it, the one where she's dealing with the aftermath of her husband leaving and she says something along the lines of "[quotes newspaper headline] Snow Queen drives another one away. If I were a man, no one would bat an eye."

She wasn't really an attempt at progressiveness, she was a parody/critique of Anna Wintour

I completely agree with your point, though! I just wanted to defend Devil Wears Prada lol

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u/ZeronicX Sep 06 '26

Meryl Streep also got some advice to never yell during the film making because it shows a loss of power and is stereotypical of male bosses.

Miranda never raises her voice and does care deeply about the magazine. The belt scene comes to mind.

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u/peachplumpea Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 07 '26

I agree that Miranda is not a good example of this. She's not supposed to be this cool empowered woman? She's mean and cold and she herself knows and talks about it a couple times in the movie.

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u/Altayrmcneto Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

The problem is that normalizes and make us complacent with a system in wich toxic people do have more advantage. Like, yes she is like this, but why the industry should be made in a way where people like this became a role model as bosses?

I have no problem in existing people like her, my problem is that she is a success model that reach that point of carreer because she fits in the patriarchal model.

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u/Throwawaygarbageboi Sep 06 '26

Irrelevant but that's part of the reason I like Shrek 4. Both Fiona and the oppressed Ogres are genuinely really nice.

Fiona eventually gets mean with Shrek, but like yeah. In her universe it's 100% understandable because she's essentially being treated the exact same as the main Fiona without ANY of the history between them leading up to that, meaning Shrek's advances are completely unfounded to her.

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u/PeasantLich Sep 06 '26

To me that feels like one form of "there is actually nothing wrong with societal structures and patriarchal culture, we just need more POCs and women in the top 1% of that culture" thinking that gets to be superficially progressive but does not actually address any societal issues, and women and minorities just get to be the ruthless capitalists and selfish arrogant leaders now.

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u/AmoralLimbo Sep 06 '26

👏More👏female👏war👏criminals👏

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u/BackgroundSummer5171 Sep 06 '26

We already have that.

We had the thread of OMG Native Americans for congress!

Only to find out one was in support of ICE and all that garbage.

They exist. Just people kind of get way too quickly caught up on identity and forget to look at policy. Happens all the time. That is a both sides thing.

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u/AmoralLimbo Sep 06 '26

"Imagine that you are paid the minimum wage, you work long hours, are treated like shit, they change your schedule the day before...but the person doing it, it is a woman! #GoQueen #Bossbabe"

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u/Scott_Liberation Sep 06 '26

This reminds me of a Korean TV show I watched years ago that subverted this trope and I thought it was awesome.

This guy freaks out because he gets a new woman boss who has a reputation around the company as being a terrible tyrant. Then it turns out she just has that reputation because she doesn't put up with bullshit plus sexism.

I think when I watched it, it was on Amazon and called My Horrible Boss or something like that, but then months or years later when browsing a streaming site, I saw the name localized to something completely different.

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u/patentsarebroken Sep 07 '26

Similarly I liked Cat Grant in the Supergirl TV show and enjoyed her episode her statement of a male CEO can throw a chair at an employee and I'll still be the mean one for raising my voice.

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u/DrowAboveground Sep 06 '26

Miranda Priestly is also based on a very real woman, Anna Wintour, the longtime editor for Vogue. Wintour is a famously terrible person who the author of the book worked for. This trope applies but it’s not quite that shallow as it’s based in reality.

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u/Violet_Octopus Sep 09 '26

That's why I love Rose from 'Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter is Dead'

She's an effective executive, a competent manager, and a good mentor.

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u/pinkypipe420 Sep 06 '26

Woman in charge? Lol, she must be a bitch.

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u/Altayrmcneto Sep 06 '26 edited Sep 06 '26

Honestly, no, is more like “look, this is what woman in charge should be like! You as a woman should see this as good thing, and either desire to either be like her or obbey quietly a man! In any of those cases, you should not question the patriarchy, only the individual personality of people, and mostly important, those woman!”

You can see it also because de debate goes to a path of “Women should be like this to survive in any patriarchal structure” instead of actually asking if women (and men also) should just be complacent amd accept a system in wich the toxic people are the ones with more advantage to have success.

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u/pinkypipe420 Sep 06 '26

Should I have added a /s?

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u/Altayrmcneto Sep 06 '26

I’m struggling trying to translate by myself while training my english, the implicit “/s” passed over me 😅😅😅

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u/Wiinterfang Sep 06 '26

To be honest, every boss has to become an asshole sometimes. It's part of the job.

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u/Business-Channel6211 Sep 06 '26

Curious where the break is in this trope from hyper competent genius [male] asshole, like Dr. House or Rick from rick and morty, or jeff from community. Arguably this fits under that broader umbrella of problematic trope, but its interesting that it's not seen as a power fantasy when its a woman, not a man.

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u/meteorflan Sep 06 '26

At least that movie has Andy directly call it out that no one would call Miranda a cold villain if she were a man.

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u/Altayrmcneto Sep 06 '26

To me that is the point: many people heard this and got the message that she shouldn’t be called a cold villain by her acts because men who acts the same way are not called “cold villains”, and not that neither of them should act like that with anyone who works for them.

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u/Karatechoppingaction Sep 06 '26

Now the trope is instead of being an asshole strong woman means you're gay. Which is slightly better but I'm not sure is a great thing to teach little girls in a time where younger people are becoming obsessed with traditional gender roles. Could easily turn into strong woman means you're actually a man. Full circle and all that.