Lady Sidekick: 50 Tired Tropes for Women

by Anneka Harry, Laura Dockrill (Illustrator)

We need less censorship of female behaviour. We need more women and we need raw women. We need more Killing Eve's and fewer Women Being Killed in the Opening Credits By Steves. We need to scream alongside them and get down and dirty with them. We need not for our personalities to be depicted by our haircuts or colour... 'Lady Sidekick' scrutinises fifty of the most snore female cookie-cut character archetypes, appropriations and tokens that we are SO over and gives them a 21st-century makeover. Through hilarious breakdowns, comic illustration and tongue-firmly-in-cheek-fuelled study, it slow-roasts each trope, sprinkling them with sarcasm, seasoning them with feminism, infusing them with activism and serving them up for the modern day masses. It's time to shove a stick of dynamite up the arse of the out-of-date and ignite the fresh! This book will light the touch paper.

Genres: Nonfiction

112 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2020

Reviews

[Rax · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a coffee table book so I am trying to review it with that in mind.

The tropes are not that distinct from each other, maybe the number 50 was decided then worked towards it but also leaves out one of the main ones. I guess they were saving that for the audiobook for some reason. Maybe there's just not a cute illustration for the Fridged Women. It started in comics so you can find the illustration of it.

Also, an introduction that says, if you're offended then good you should be, seems more like a way to avoid criticism than anything. Also doesn't really go that far other than, yes those are offensive tropes that exist.

Maybe I would feel warmer to this book if I liked the illustration style better, but it's not mine my favourite style or attempt at this style. The audiobook is better because it's goes into the tropes, so if you're interested in tropes you should consume that. If you can't listen to an audiobook, you're out luck.

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quick, funny read. It goes into types of female characters from "the girlfriend" to "the warrior princess" with a parody example of what a work with them might sound like. I enjoyed the jaded and annoyed tone the author had. I liked the British perspective for tropes like the "pure British girl" (I forgot the exact name they used) and thought it was interesting how their racial stereotypes include Eastern Europeans. Some of the tropes were way too lazy like "crime scene body" but it was still a good read.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anneka Harry's hilariously pointed words and Laura Dockrill's charmingly satirical illustrations combine to skewer the limited and limiting narratives women have been afforded in cinema. Harry's humour and chatty writing style is the dream companion for this trope-by-trope taxonomy of these feminist failings.