EXPLAINER: Looking at toxic tropes in women characters and how they are examined

The “I’m not like other girls” stereotype trope implies that women are inferior unless they shed “inherently feminine” attributes. Inherently feminine means whatever that culture defines as feminine, like an interest in make-up, wearing heels, watching reality TV or enjoying pop music. This trope turns internalized misogyny into a character and pits women against one another.

The rise of this trope in the media began when women became a more significant part of public life in the United States, and society divided women into dependent or independent categories. An independent woman will have more masculine qualities because independence is a male-dominated trait. Films in the 90s and 00s modernized this trope.

The “cool girl” is similar to the “I’m not like other girls” woman like in the films “There’s Something About Mary” (1998), “Transformers” (2007) and “Deadpool” (2016). The women in these films are constructed for the male fantasy because they are effortlessly beautiful and have “inherently masculine” traits while still remaining unthreatening. “Gone Girl” (2014) explicitly subverts this trope when “cool girl” Amy rips into her perceived identity.

The difference between showing less represented portrayals of womanhood like Mia from “The Princess Diaries” (2001) and Katniss from “The Hunger Games” (2012) the film explicitly celebrating this trope like Gracie from “Miss Congeniality” (2000) and Andy from “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006). In the latter two films, while this trope is a core element of the three protagonists, each addresses this internalized misogyny as a part of their character’s journey. That cannot be said for every version of the “I’m not like other girls” women.

This trope has its own set of subgenres like the “prostitute with a heart of gold” and “funny fat woman” who is surprisingly horny.” These variants relay the same message as the central trope: people like you are not expected to be this way, and you subvert it. Women of color rarely portray these characters because they are inherently othered and different because they are not white.

The bottom line is that no one is genuinely like other people because everyone is different. When this is applied to someone because they are not a cis-white, middle-class man, it limits how others imagine the character.

This character usually has a strong moral compass, a natural nurturer, talented and endures hardships. She is often asexual, even if she is a mother.

This trope began to combat the common negative stereotypes that trapped Black women into roles like the Mammy, the Jezebel and the Magical Negro. To subvert these tropes, the Strong Black Woman became one that combined all of the other women under the guise of empowerment. This balance can mean a thin line between the character slipping into becoming the Angry Black Woman or Sassy Black Woman or the Sapphire, depending on if this strength advocates for herself or others (especially if they are white).

Films that employ these tropes include “Ghost” (1990), “The Help” (2011) and “The Color Purple” (1985). Black women are more likely to be nominated for individual acting awards for films that embody this version of the trope.

The superhumans and servitude of this trope persist more frequently for darker-skinned Black women. People perceive lighter-skinned women with more European features as more delicate and feminine. The racist trope and its colorist, featurist and texturist variants continue to negatively impact Black women in real life and uphold systemic inequality.

“The Strong Black Woman” trope persists in Black children and young adults in the media too. In the 2017 report “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” the authors write that the “adulitification” of Black girls originates from slavery with the stereotypes of emasculation, anger, hypersexualization, and nurturing.

Films that do not challenge this trope and continue to portray Black women as unbreakable and resilient reinforce the idea that trauma and hardships can be overcome by pulling up one’s bootstraps. This trope does not address structural inequalities that force Black girls to grow up faster and Black women ever to endure. It tells Black women that their success is them not working hard enough.

Like other tropes, films subvert the Strong Black Woman by rounding out their characters and having more nuance. Having these characters be vulnerable like Annalise in “How to Get Away with Murder” and/or morally questionable like Mia in “Little Fires Everywhere” pushes against the trope’s core attributes. However, these characters are found more predominantly in television series.

This trope portrays a woman who is (according to European beauty standards)”extremely attractive” and is also extremely stupid. Characters like Karen from “Mean Girls” (2004) and Madison from “Zombieland: Double Tap” (2019) are all examples of this. The trope also has a masculine counterpart (“The Himbo”).

This trope is one of the “other girls” from the not like other girls trope because she is two-dimensional and only cares about her appearance. In this way, the bimbo is another trope that pits women against one another.

This trope’s common trait is blonde hair and then has the added layer of becoming the “dumb blonde.” Some films have aimed to subvert this, like “Clueless” (1995), “Legally Blonde” (2001) and “The House Bunny” (2008). While some women were able to capitalize on this toxic trope like Marylin Monroe, Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton, others experience hostile environments when others make jokes at their expense because of misrepresentation leading to misogyny.