While this does make an interesting and important point, you forgot a few very popular shows with a female lead that *gasp* WERE animated.

Sailor Moon.

And not only did girls love this show, boys did too. My boyfriend in fact has seen and knows as much about it as I do. And a lot of my friends growing up loved the show, though we wouldn't exactly play it on the playground, what with the majority of the characters being female and the only one with a penis being an amnesiac pedophile. But hey, my best guy friend as a kid didn't even care, I would pretend to be Sailor Moon and he'd pretend to be Sailor Mercury.

Also, Rugrats had several female babies, the most intelligent baby on the show was Suzie, who was not only female but also black. But I guess Lil doesn't really count because shes the female version of Phil... but they're twins so it works?

Oh and hey, lets not forget the Powerpuff Girls. They kicked ass and were girly, but lots of guys liked watching it too. In fact the person who first told me about the show was my best friend in kindergarten, who was a guy.

Not to knock you back, I totally agree that "token" girls is over exploited. And I get the irony of you yourself being a "female version" of the Nostalgia Critic set to appeal to a female demographic.

But lets not forget the slew of male viewers you have

Sailor Moon major Token Dude situation. Mamoru is the cool one while Urawa is the Geeky one. It's just the males are token there.

Sailor Moon was made in Japan; it doesn't count.

LikaLaruku, if that's the case, then anything Hollywood makes doesn't count as a movie because America is only a small part of the world.

We should also point out that Sailor Moon, while dubbed into English for american audiences, was a JAPANESE product and Lindsay's talking about American products.

Thats true, however, we could argue that the transition of a Japanese show to a western audience can also be used to demonstrate the attitudes towards gender roles.

It's clear that shows in the late 80's, early 90's were more often than not targeted towards a male demographic, Sailor Moon was considered to be the very first popular sh?jo title (aimed at a female audience) to air in the U.s.

A prominent example of gender roles in a Japanese anime being altered in it's transition into western media was 'Cardcaptor Sakura'.
Originally intended as a sh?jo title in Japan, when it was first shown in the U.s , several changes were made to alter it's demographic. Specifically the title was changed to 'Cardcaptors' and in it's original run, several early episodes were skipped so that the there could be a greater focus on the male protagonist (ironically more of a rival character in the original story).

So what we have is a show originally intended for a primarily female audience in Japan being altered in the western release for a 'gender neutral' demographic.

The fact is, it's not so much what is made in the U.s, but more what is selected to air that is the greater indication of these demographics. The TV companies have to be selective of what will actually drum up ratings, and these companies are often terrified of breaking the mold.

well the porpuse was the same, 2 make woman have a show of their own and be a role model anny way f it was in the us japan puerto rico cuba or w ever is the same story

well the animated shows of DC Comic characters (Batman, Superman, Justice League)and the power puff girls were an American shows (though ironically most American animated shows have their animation finalized overseas)and they promote strong female characters, whether good or bad, that are more than typical woman; they are strong women that fight for what they believe in.

Well she said she was referring to "gender neutral" shows. And I think Sailor Moon was targeted twords females (sorry Linkara).

actually the Sailor Moon manga and i guess if you want to include the PGSM live action series that was aired in Japan was aimed for girls. However, the anime itself was aimed slightly more for a male audience because at the time it was only males that were focused as major veiwers

Sailor Moon was targeted toward two separate and distinct demographics: adolescent girls and 80-year-old men.

LOL

TWO WORDS:

Sigourney Weaver

in boths Aliens and the Lady and the Death...

but these are movies...though

benzaie you just wanna say her name don't you?

gnsquared wrote:

While this does make an interesting and important point, you forgot a few very popular shows with a female lead that *gasp* WERE animated.

Sailor Moon.

And not only did girls love this show, boys did too. My boyfriend in fact has seen and knows as much about it as I do. And a lot of my friends growing up loved the show, though we wouldn't exactly play it on the playground, what with the majority of the characters being female and the only one with a penis being an amnesiac pedophile. But hey, my best guy friend as a kid didn't even care, I would pretend to be Sailor Moon and he'd pretend to be Sailor Mercury.

Also, Rugrats had several female babies, the most intelligent baby on the show was Suzie, who was not only female but also black. But I guess Lil doesn't really count because shes the female version of Phil... but they're twins so it works?

Oh and hey, lets not forget the Powerpuff Girls. They kicked ass and were girly, but lots of guys liked watching it too. In fact the person who first told me about the show was my best friend in kindergarten, who was a guy.

Not to knock you back, I totally agree that "token" girls is over exploited. And I get the irony of you yourself being a "female version" of the Nostalgia Critic set to appeal to a female demographic.

But lets not forget the slew of male viewers you have

I dunno if I'd count SM, since it seems she's going from Western animation only. (Yes, Transformers is all Western.) Also, yes, technically Sailor Moon is known as a 'Shojo' anime, which translates to 'girl'. It can attract a male audience as well (with skirts that short I'd be stunned if it didn't), but it's designed to attract girls.

As to the others...I don't recall Susie being in the early seasons--in the beginning it was just evil!Angelica and body-double Lil. (This is not counting parents...and a quick check with Wiki says it took two years to introduce Susie. Heh. Susie probably helped save the show from permanent cancellation.)

And Powerpuffs came out in 1998, so for some of us that was out of 'childhood' and into 'preteen' or already into 'high school'. That may be why she forgot to mention it--she looks like she was more between preteen-high school than childhood. (It is, however, a kickass show. I remember watching it and cracking up--Mojo Jojo still lives on in my memory as the funniest.)

But to end...yeah, token girls are annoying...but I do wonder what will happen when WE start writing the scripts. Are we going to continue writing token girls, or are we going to start a new trend?

Yes, female writers are writing "token girls."

I know this is film we're talking about on this comment board here, but the most notable example is probably Harry Potter: not only did publishers snap up the Harry Potter story because it had a male lead and therefore the potential to appeal to BOTH male and female readers, but J.K. Rowling was urged to take on a more "gender neutral" (some would even say more masculine) pen name by using initials instead of her feminine first name just for the belief that "females appeal to females, males appeal to everyone" in entertainment.

Why the leather 60's biker hat?

SAILOR MOON IS AWESOME! funny story. when i was 12 years old the first (girl) i fell inlove with was... you guessed it.. Sailor Moon hahaha.. young (weird) Love .. also you Rock Lindsey!

What about Wonder Woman, she was in several shows from the Super friends shows to her own TV series (live action though, not animated) from 1975-1979. There was more Superheroines in the Justice League series as well as Batman the Animated Series. Even though Superman is my favorite superhero (since I'm a man; not a big surprise on my choice) I also admired Superheroines just as much; and Wonder Woman
is my favorite Superheroine. When I was growing up, I would watch a lot of Superman and Batman programs, but I would also watch the Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman (reruns on syfy of course; cause I was born in 1987)and Xena Warrior Princess. Oh, and beside DBZ I also watched Sailor Moon, a friend of mine watched the show and I got hooked on it. I also watched the Power Puff Girls, one of my favorite cartoon Network original shows of all time (defiantly it would make my top 5).

As a guy who has always been turned on by strong women, I realized I don't like female versions of myself, but rather the opposite.

I'm a shy, reserved person, but always like women with spark, passion, or with an outgoing nature.

This video made me realize the media has always had either a token female or male. These days it is pretty evened out.

This just became the highlight of my day. Awesome.

This was really funny.
it was a nice history lesson too.

an entire episode based on the history of women in cartoons, adveeeeenture ho? there you go NChick, put that college learning to use.

Good Review & You looked very pretty ! haha i was too young for a lot of those shows :[ i watched WB and Nickalodean [ ik i spelled it wrong] T-T

I really like Cats. I watch it every couple months after I got it on VHS. Thundercats also had a younger girl but for Wiley Kit and Wiley Cat gender was ambiguous.

Interesting emphasis on pink. I tend to type in it out of habit from using it in RP on another web site.

And what was wrong with "I remember it because the dudes don't" I know it was kinda basic but well it fits somewhat.

Glad this finally got posted I've been looking for it more or less every day since it appeared in the Blip list. Great Token chick roundup.

Looking good Lindsay! Loving the new look and found your critiques to be humorous and razor sharp as always! Keep it up!

Miss Chick, I do believe your latest video is what is called "Trope Overdosed". Just pointing this out for everyone.

Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious how many people who work on or visit this site are fans of TV Tropes.

Yeah, this was a really interesting article, good one NChick!

PS: God, i'm awesome.

Gordon Freeman maybe??? Maybe not scrawny but he's no where near Marcus Fenix huge. Also Alyx is far less of a sex symbol then many other female characters/leads (ironically I think many guys have a thing for her because of this fact). Elaine from Uncharted could be an example as well.

Also, Peach has said something in every game. Just varying amounts of dialogue. In the original it's just a "thanks for saving me", but no one else had any dialogue either. Then she wrote you letters pretty often in Super Mario 64 and you'd hear her reading them to you. Most recently would be Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story where she actually has some dialogue and helps plan out what you're going to do etc.... Nonetheless she is definitely a "token girl". I was just pointing out that she does actually talk.

Very interesting video. Well thought out an explained. Though I wouldn't call you a token girl. The original idea; definitely, but as far as I can tell, everyone who watches NC also watches your reviews. Including many guys. I would be one of them and I enjoy them even when I occasionally have no idea wtf show your talking about lol. Partially because I'm a 90's kid (I was like "WOOOOH!!!" when Ahhh!! Real Monsters was mentioned).

Keep up the good work.

she is pink
love the review and your look especially your earrings

You're definitely not a vagina-d version of Doug. I imagine such a being would burst into flames upon coming into existence.

Also, looking awesome this episode, even without the bowtie.

I think this is the episode that a lot of us have been hoping for for a while. A clear cut, well thought out and highly poinant analyisis of gender roles in nostalgic media. Seriously, we need more class lectures to be this entertaining.

I guess you could call the split of gender divisions as a taken-for-granted issue amongst our shows of the 80's and 90's. We just accepted male leads as "normal", and the presence of women forces a bit more attention. Though I guess this only applies to leading roles. I.E. Rita and Runt never struck me as anything gender focused, even though Rita seems the leader of the two. It might just be the supporting nature of the two, or the whole animal element that makes it obsolete. Either way, certainly a subject worth your amazing overview.

Yeah, I REALLY loved this entry Lindsey. I always get drawn in by your dry humor and infusion of lesson-like presentation, which is just so much fun to watch. You and Y Ruler of Time are always a blast to watch for these reasons, and it really feels fresh against the more rant-like styles of Doug, Lewis, Lee etc. I'd call this video about as close to perfect as I've ever seen you get. Bravo!

P.S. ELMYRA IS A SPINOFF OF ELMER FUDD!!!!

One thing I find weird is that mainstream critics accused horror movies of being misogynistic when, in fact, the strongest, smartest and most interesting characters were often women.

Lindsay, I love your hat. And the way you pronounce "piiink" is frickin' hilarious.

gnsquared wrote:

While this does make an interesting and important point, you forgot a few very popular shows with a female lead that *gasp* WERE animated.

Sailor Moon.

And not only did girls love this show, boys did too. My boyfriend in fact has seen and knows as much about it as I do. And a lot of my friends growing up loved the show, though we wouldn't exactly play it on the playground, what with the majority of the characters being female and the only one with a penis being an amnesiac pedophile. But hey, my best guy friend as a kid didn't even care, I would pretend to be Sailor Moon and he'd pretend to be Sailor Mercury.

Also, Rugrats had several female babies, the most intelligent baby on the show was Suzie, who was not only female but also black. But I guess Lil doesn't really count because shes the female version of Phil... but they're twins so it works?

Oh and hey, lets not forget the Powerpuff Girls. They kicked ass and were girly, but lots of guys liked watching it too. In fact the person who first told me about the show was my best friend in kindergarten, who was a guy.

Not to knock you back, I totally agree that "token" girls is over exploited. And I get the irony of you yourself being a "female version" of the Nostalgia Critic set to appeal to a female demographic.

But lets not forget the slew of male viewers you have

Sailor Moon is Japanese and if you mention a Japanese show you have to bring up the nudity that permeates the heroine genre in Japan.

That is called fan service that was done specifically to cater to the interests of young boys. The whole transformation sequence common to these shows would include full nudity in the original Japanese version while the US version would have the nudity either edited out or modified so they appeared sparkley instead of as butt naked underage teens.

What about Alvin and the chipmunks? They had the chip-ettes or however you spell it. They were exactly the same as their male counterparts :\

Nostalgia chick makes my day for being herself, not a female Critic.

Um? Chick? Elmyra = female Elmer Fudd. Its actually kind of clever since she loves animals but is a death trap for them anyway.

All and all though yeah, this sort of thing is kind of annoying. Especially since most of the girls on Tiny Toons fell into the Lola Bunny area and were hypersexualized disturbingly often. Why does our culture want to teach little girls that they're expected to swing their hips and bat their eyes?

It's hard to relate to female characters cause... well... most of the writers are men and can't write a female character as a believable entity. She's always a GIRL before a character. Or rather some warped idea of what "GIRL" is.

Actually, I thought Elmyra was the male counter part to the abominable snowman, who was a direct parody of Lennie from "Of Mice and Men", from the early WB cartoons. "I will love him, and squeeze him, and pet him, and call him George". Which kind of works, because she was a counter part to a parody of a an analogy of the innocence, yet sometimes brutal nature of man.

As for why there are so many male dominated shows as compared to female dominated shows. My honest, best guess on this is that when kids are growing up, girls tend to drift away from cartoon shows much earlier than boys. My niece is 9, she barely watches tv anymore and has ventured out into doing different things, while at her age I was vegged out still watching cartoons.

So, the makers of these show probably geared their shows more towards keeping younger boys watching and could inundate us young lads with constant commercials geared toward us running to our parents and yelling: "I want the new G.I. Joe super tank with detachable accessories and other stuff that will never be shown in the cartoon, but still looks cool and I must have it or become a social outcast to my friends".

Also, I'm kind of surprised Voltron wasn't brought into the picture. Princess Alura, while sometimes serving as both the damsel in distress, but also as the sole female pilot of Voltron Force. She wasn't a counter part to anyone, and was a pretty decent example of a strong female character in a show definitely geared towards young boys. (Although I can hear the NC now, "Why is she still a princess? Her father's dead, shouldn't she be the Queen"?)

Haha, well yeah she definitely takes that gag too. But come on. Elmyra Duff = Elmer Fudd. You could also say her male counterpart on the show was Montana Max (obviously the equivalent of Yosemite Sam.)

Now I don't know about that, I'm a grown woman and I still enjoy cartoons. Then again I'm a Cartoonist. My 13 year old cousin also still enjoys cartoons.

I think the reason girls tend to distance themselves from pop culture and video games and the like is because they're being told, sometimes even by this very same media, that their only interests should be FASHION~ and BOYS~ and being really girly and dressing like a whore. I guess.

I also still think the main problem is most male writers have a hard time writing believable female characters, or don't even want to try.

Ah but the question is, how did those few shows that did have female leads perform commercially?

I myself was quite fond of Kim Possible.

Kim Possible WAS a good show, but here's the thing: Kim herself is kind of an unmemorable character. I mean she could kick ass but she didn't have much of a personality. Most of that was delegated to Ron, the male best friend.

Also you had Shego, who was the easily the smartest and most capable villain, but she constantly took a backseat to the more prominent male villains. Kim and Shego both ended up being the eye-rolling female archetypes instead of being funny like the men were.

Kim Possible = Erin Esurance

Thanks for your thoughts. A very interesting video all in all. As for female leads being alienating to a male audience, I think it has to do with the male identification of being not female. I think it has something to do with establishing a separate identity from one's mother... but I'm not really sure. Anyways, thanks for the vid!

I think the point of her outfit and makeup had to go with the topic of the video. A lot of these token females are made to be pretty/cute/hot or sex symbols. =/ Usually with long lashes, maybe lots of makeup, large busts, or curvy bodies, etc. etc. c: IMHO at least.

Huh, I noticed this, but at the same time, I didn't.

One of my favorite main movie characters of all time is Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) from the Alien series. She was smart, tough, feminine, but not girly and shallow, and just an all-around likable character.

Weaver brought back that strong woman role (though not as the central character, but a crucial one, nonetheless) in Avatar as Dr. Grace Augustine. Add my comments about Ripley and add scientist to the mix.

So it's nice to have SOME female leads to look up to.

Yes, but she was talking about gender-neutral shows. Especially in America.
Sailor Moon is Japanese show and is a 'shojo' anime/manga. Literally just made for girls originally. And it also has the 'token male' syndrome. Majority of male characters were evil or love interests. =/
Sure, this did change a bit later. A few big characters, besides Tuxedo Kamen/Mask/Darien/Mamouru (whatever you want to call him who was a love intrest), started to be male. Such as the Sailor Stars (though tbh they were also females at the same time =/ so maybe they don't really count?).

Also, powerpuff girls was more a female oriented show. =/ At least to me that's how it came off.

Also DeeDee was made into a stupid, PAAAANK-loving, girly girl character. =/ She wasn't exactly a great role model for other girls.

Though, I think hopefully more shows are becoming more even. Look at, uhm, iCarly. I think that is a gender-neutral show. And we have both the sweet girly girl AND the touch but still cute chick at the same time. I know a lot of guys who like it as well as girls.

So I do hope that it will start becoming more even. But, crap, it's hard to break bad habits? So who knows. Maybe it will just be, sadly, always like this. :c

Great review and I dont care what anybody says about you... even if you are wearing Paaaannnk. lol Great review

P.S. Since you feel left out... well here it is

HELLLLLLLLOOOOO NURSE!
Take care and keep them coming chica
Shark

I found this very informative, thanks a lot.

Agreed; this has always caught my eye even back then.
While the issue at hand is quite clear, the real question is this:
How do you change it?

Holly shit Johnny Cash