"Female" being represented by tertiary sex characteristics added to a default male template

glennmagusharvey

So it seems that at least for a few episodes, the vlog (I guess) show Extra Credits had a different artist than their usual one.  Their usual artist draws the female commentator's body like the male commentators' bodies, but just with boob bumps.  In this one, the special guest artist didn't do that.  And I find the latter more aesthetically satisfying.

But here's what they usually have:

* male character: colored potato = body.

* female character: colored potato + boob bumps = body.

And I'm usually fine with people drawing hair, but sometimes it, too, feels like a cop-out.  Take xkcd for example:

* male lead: stick figure

* female lead: stick figure plus hair in ponytail

You see this "default male"/"female = default plus stuff" pattern all over.  It's basically the entire Tertiary Sexual Characteristics trope, and then some.  That trope page mentions everything from Axis Powers Hetalia to The Far Side to Paper Mario.  And should I point out that this exists in basketball too?

* men - NBA

* women - WNBA

Heck, we have this in restroom signs.

* men's room: basic stick figure

* women's room: basic stick figure with skirt

Yeah, you could see it as starting with the skirt and the men's room symbol losing it, but skirts don't grow on people naturally the way four limbs and a head attached to a torso is the basic structure of a human being.

Now I recognize the need to iconically differentiate between the two sexes in restroom signs.  And I recognize that we're not changing people's spelling of "man" and "woman" anytime soon.  But does it really have to be done that way in creative media when we have a choice to do otherwise?

I mean, I enjoy seeing both men and women drawn as, y'know, people.

Icalasari

To be fair to xkcd, they are stick figures. It's pretty freaking hard to figure out otherwise, to the point where he could use a female stick figure with no hair as the set up for one of the days

Counterclock

I agree objectively with most of what you're saying, but you could stand to clean up some of your points.

Using XCKD as an example, and then having the ending sentence try to invoke the medium of images (XCKD is kind of not recognized for it's artistic detail, in fact you could even say that it's art is flat out terrible. asking for distinct male designs, let alone female ones, might be missing a point.)

I bring up this tangent because it's what my mind turned to upon seeing that contrast.

glennmagusharvey

Yeah I'm aware that what I wrote wasn't the most convincing argument for my point.  Still I wanted to get it out there before I closed this one internet explorer window and headed to bed.

And I agree about xkcd, though considering that they've given every notable character some sort of defining trait, (1) one could argue that the defining trait of the male lead is that he has no such visible trait, or (2) Randall should just give him one too.

Wait...just who is there in the recurring cast anyway?  There's male lead, female lead (with the dark hair ponytail), secondary female (with the light hair ponytail), black hat guy, and...is there anyone else who's recurring?

nohaynicklibre

Bad jokes.

laughingelfman.jpg

Icalasari

^^ White hat guy (the beret dude)

Counterclock

Let's just agree that XDCK's Art sucks and try to refocus on the main point that male is generally accept as the "Default" whereas females are often just "Default +"

Fuschlatz

...is there anyone else who's recurring?

White Hat, Beret Guy and Danish (Black Hat's girlfriend). An argument could also be made for the three members of the Roberts family.

Central Avenue

I always just sorta thought of xkcd's male lead as being bald, since every other character seems to have hair or headwear...

Also, I'm surprised you didn't mention (what I think of as) one of the most obvious examples: Pac-Man + red bow = Ms. Pac-Man.