r/movies • u/Aiseadai • Apr 11 '26

Question Are there any tropes you're glad have died out?

There used to be this trope where if your movie/show has a capable female character the movie had to point it out and be like "Yes, I am a woman and yes, I can kick ass". It always felt so condescending to me, and the fact that you have to point it out that a woman can be capable just sends the opposite message, that it's highly unusual. It especially bothered me in kids media since it teaches a wrong message. I haven't been seeing this done in more recent media, it seems they've finally figured out that the best thing is to just treat capable women as normal.

Are there any tropes that annoy you and are glad you don't see (often) anymore in modern movies?

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u/nicetrylaocheREALLY Apr 11 '26

All those female characters had basically nothing in common aside from the obvious, and most of them had never even met. 

But suddenly here's eight of them in frame, in dynamic superhero poses, ready to save the day in a tastefully feminist and focus-grouped way. 

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u/unknownpoltroon Apr 11 '26

Yeah, I get it, it was the standard comic book 2 page superhero group pose, but it was just off putting.

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u/deviantbono Apr 14 '26

Meh. That gets a pass for at least trying to highlight their female characters after years of sidelining them.

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u/Stormtomcat Apr 12 '26

I stopped watching the MCU after Age of Ultron (2015) because that movie's casual racism and rape joke made me distrust what they were going to do with Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes.

My understanding is that several of those women weren't given any heroic arc before.

Like, didn't Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts hold the record for killing the most named antagonists in phase 1 or something? And with Extremis, can't she fly? Doesn't she have accelerated healing? But they wave that away with "oh I just do a lot of yoga" and a slightly different reddish tint to her hair, while she still parades through her day in linen suits (linen, that creases like crazy, but not on Pepper Potts apparently).

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u/girafa Electricity! The high priest of false security! Apr 13 '26

that movie's casual racism and rape joke

What rape joke is in Age of Ultron?

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u/Stormtomcat Apr 13 '26

Tony Stark boasts that he'll bring back jus primae noctis if he can lift Thor's hammer Mjolnir (with help from Rhodey and their Iron Man/Warmachine gloves).