This has been circling around my mind for a while now so I thought of getting this out of my stomach for once and all.
Why is it that most mean girls in episode stories are blonde? Or why’s the best friend of the MC usually gay in most episode stories? I mean, what’s the basis?
What’s such about blondes that makes the author think that they’ll suit the role of a mean girl best? I’m confused. Feel free to share your thoughts :))
easily written characters, why bother inventing a new personality, it’s hard to write good characters. just copy already good characters thats easy.
many people rely on cliches and tropes because they can’t be original, I won’t say I dont use them myself because they are hard to avoid actually, it’s not wrong to use a cliche its wrong if it’s not original.
a thing many people struggle with is characters. after all we only have one personality ourself, it’s hard to write diffrent peoples personality. so replying on already existing personalities is a short cut many uses. also in modern tv, for example almost all elves is a copy of LOTR.
many people who write on episode is not experts, and writhing is a skill you build like any other, so newbies often make the clichi and copy paste mistakes.
I look back at a lot of my own old stories, and they are full of clichi and bad writhing where what I write now have very few, and they are used in a way its not really a clichi.
I think it’s because it was seen in a lot of popular stories and then applied to less popular stories and so on and eventually became somewhat of the “norm” a bit like how a lot of mafia stories on the app have the same or similar plot lines, but there’s the fact that there were very popular movies that had such tropes (as the previous poster said) and they could’ve set the benchmark of such stereotypes.
Mean girls are notoriously portrayed as blondes and people are used to it, it’s probably likely a blonde is the first image that pops into their minds when a “mean girl” is mentioned. ‘Blonde’ is also regarded as a popular type liked by many men, I guess that can contribute to most mean girls in stories being attractive/somewhat attractive, especially to male peers despite their personalities (also rare for anyone to make the mean girl ugly by social standards). She’d also lose some or a lot of her power of MC (likely her influence too on other peers) if she was not portrayed as physically beautiful. The flaws of the mean girl become the MC’s biggest strengths, so to me, in a way she also acts as a comparison of why MC is “better.”
The mean girl could be viewed as somewhat of a stereotype template, the character of the blonde mean girl is already widely seen, recognized, predictable and accepted as apart of a college or high school plot.
As for gay best friends… I think the same applies, except in most cases it’s just a false sense of diversity. But the gay best friend is another template-like stereotype – predictable, recognized and (sometimes) accepted as part of the college/school plot, hence an easy add-in that requires little to no character development and effort.
Commonly accepted stereotypes and cliches. That’s it, really. Whether you want to play up to them or not is your choice to make, though I personally don’t see too many problems with them. And I’m naturally blonde as well
Right, another reason which just popped in my brain could be Regina George’s “Mean Girls”
I mean, writing about a mean person doesn’t require much research right? You just make the character do mean things that you won’t personally do.
I do not like this judging of characters based on their looks
This builds up an image in my mind that most blonde people are good looking but mean, which I don’t want to.
This diversity that authors are trying to add to their stories is actually becoming undiverse now
Basically we grew up with stereotypes shoved down our throats so much some people actually believe it. The blonde mean girl, the gay friend and the party girl POC best friend are popular so people know that a lot of people like it so they don’t bother changing it because it is much easier for them to do that. I don’t really know why people don’t try and change it even a little bit. Like I have a character who is over dramatic and is best friends with the MC and I can bet people will assume he is gay. But really he is based off someone I know in my drama class who is extra af. If you want to write the stereotype then change it up or give another pov. Like the mean girl isn’t naturally blonde and it damages her to fit her image. She gets attention from her family but she doesn’t want it but she feels as if that is what she is meant to be. The attention seeking blonde girl. Now that wasn’t so hard for me to think of so maybe people should try it. Stories with twists on cliches are nice since you can’t avoid them but you can make them yours and it will make you much prouder of your work.
Exactly. Cliches are just like beauty standards- people think that you have to fit in them perfectly in order for you to get recognition. Another thing, a lot of girls irl have guy friends too but this is just a rarity to see on Episode. And even if somehow, an episode MC ends up having a guy friend, the LI would have to be jealous everytime they talk or interact. Why don’t people get that this is not a symptom of a healthy relationship. bRuh
