Don't forget to read the introduction~! ♡
An oldie but a goodie, this lovely lady spans centuries in literary history. She was also there at the dawn of cinema, the Golden Age of comics, and in many of the earliest character-driven video games. For details on the history of the Damsel in Distress, refer to the sacred storehouse of all factual knowledge and wisdom, Wikipedia.
An oldie but a goodie, this lovely lady spans centuries in literary history. She was also there at the dawn of cinema, the Golden Age of comics, and in many of the earliest character-driven video games. For details on the history of the Damsel in Distress, refer to the sacred storehouse of all factual knowledge and wisdom, Wikipedia.
I won’t even bother to expand
upon this trope myself, as I’m sure you’re more than familiar with it. In
the notes for the video series “Tropes vs Women in Video Games,” Feminist Frequency provides a succinct definition of the character type:
“As a trope the Damsel in Distress is a plot device in which a female character
is placed in a perilous situation from which she cannot escape on her own and
must then be rescued by a male character, usually providing a core incentive or
motivation for the protagonist’s quest.”1
The Damsel in Distress is the
woman-as-plot-device at its most fundamental state. “Male hero needs to save
the helpless lady” constitutes the sole plot of several thousand works of
fiction, an often bland or even anonymous woman in threat providing purpose and
motivation for well-rounded, nuanced, backstory-ed male characters. Disturbingly,
the Damsel is inextricably defined by the violence posed to her wellbeing, be
it anything from physical or sexual torture, to good, old fashioned
being-tied-to-the-railway-tracks.
Mary Jane needs to just stay
inside, all of the time.
Image from UGO ♡
(btw I can't tell whether they're being serious in this article or not help??)
The Damsel in Distress trope has
become so ubiquitous that some writers knowingly play with audience expectations surrounding it, such as
the first scene of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, where the
foreboding high-school-horror-movie atmosphere is subverted when the beautiful,
innocent, submissive damsel reveals her fangs.
Take a look at Feminist Frequency’s
aforementioned discussion of the Damsel in Distress in video games: Part One and Part Two, which also discusses the Woman in Refrigerator (and comes with a
trigger warning for video game violence and violence against women).
This article on Pop Culture is Not Art also gives an overview of the character type.
And here’s a couple of lists of Damsels: a fan-chosen selection of “beautifuldamsels and distress,” and a listof the “hottest damsels in distress in movies.” The conflation of submission and sexual appeal or physical beauty is interesting, but not surprising.
And the TV Tropes page, in case
you’ve got several dozen hours to kill.
Next plot device up: Women in Refrigerators.
Next plot device up: Women in Refrigerators.
1 “Damsels in Distress (Part Two) Tropes Vs Women,” Feminist Frequency, May 28 2013, http://www.feministfrequency.com/2013/05/damsel-in-distress-part-2-tropes-vs-women/
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