Trope and stock character in storytelling
The
damsel in distress
is a
narrative device
in which one or more men must rescue a woman who has been kidnapped or placed in other peril. Kinship, love, lust or a combination of those motivate the male protagonist to initiate the narrative.
[1]
Critics have linked the helplessness of these women to societal views that women as a group need to be taken care of by men and treated nicely.
[1]
Throughout the history of the
trope
, the role of the woman as the victim in need of a male savior has remained constant, but her attackers have changed to suit the tastes and collective fears of the period: "
monsters
,
mad scientists
,
Nazis
,
hippies
,
bikers
,
aliens
..."
[2]
Etymology
[
edit
]
The word "damsel" derives from the French
demoiselle
, meaning "young lady", and the term "damsel in distress" in turn is a translation of the French
demoiselle en detresse
. It is an archaic term not used in modern English except for effect or in expressions such as this. It can be traced back to the
knight-errant
of Medieval songs and tales, who regarded protection of women as an essential part of the
chivalric code
, which includes a notion of
honour
and
nobility
.
[3]
The English term "damsel in distress" itself first seems to have appeared in Richard Ames' 1692 poem "Sylvia’s Complaint of Her Sexes Unhappiness."
[4]
History
[
edit
]
Ancient history
[
edit
]
The damsel in distress theme featured in the stories of the
ancient Greeks
.
Greek mythology
, while featuring a large retinue of competent
goddesses
, also contains helpless
maidens
threatened with
human sacrifice
. For example,
Andromeda
's
mother
offended
Poseidon
, who sent a
beast
to ravage the land. To appease him Andromeda's parents fastened her to a rock in the sea. The hero
Perseus
slew the beast, saving Andromeda.
Andromeda in her plight, chained naked to a rock, became a favorite theme of later painters. This theme of the
princess and dragon
is also pursued in the myth of
Saint George
.
Post-classical history
[
edit
]
European
fairy tales
frequently feature damsels in distress. Evil
witches
trapped
Rapunzel
in a tower, cursed Snow White to die in
Snow White
, and put the princess into a magical sleep in
Sleeping Beauty
. In all of these, a valorous prince comes to the maiden's aid, saves her, and marries her (though Rapunzel is not directly saved by the prince, but instead saves him from
blindness
after her exile)
[
clarification needed
]
.
[6]
The damsel in distress was an archetypal character of medieval romances, where typically she was rescued from imprisonment in a tower of a castle by a
knight-errant
.
Geoffrey Chaucer
's
The Clerk's Tale
of the repeated trials and bizarre torments of patient
Griselda
was drawn from
Petrarch
. The
Emprise de l'Escu vert a la Dame Blanche
(founded 1399) was a
chivalric order
with the express purpose of protecting oppressed ladies.
[7]
The theme also entered the official
hagiography
of the
Catholic Church
? most famously in the story of
Saint George
who saved a princess from being devoured by a
dragon
. A late addition to the official account of this Saint's life, not attested in the several first centuries when he was venerated, it is nowadays the main act for which Saint George is remembered.
Obscure outside Norway is
Hallvard Vebjørnsson
, the Patron Saint of
Oslo
, recognised as a martyr after being killed while valiantly trying to defend a woman ? most likely a
slave
? from three men accusing her of theft.
Modern history
[
edit
]
17th century
[
edit
]
In the 17th century English
ballad
The Spanish Lady
(one of several English and Irish songs with that name), a Spanish lady captured by an English captain falls in love with her captor and begs him not to set her free but to take her with him to England, and in this appeal describes herself as "A lady in distress".
[8]
18th century
[
edit
]
The damsel in distress makes her debut in the modern novel as the title character of
Samuel Richardson
's
Clarissa
(1748), where she is menaced by the wicked
seducer
Lovelace. The phrase "damsel in distress" is found in Richardson's
The History of Sir Charles Grandison
(1753):
[9]
And he is sometimes a mighty Prince ... and I am a damsel in distress
Reprising her medieval role, the damsel in distress is a staple character of
Gothic literature
, where she is typically incarcerated in a castle or monastery and menaced by a
sadistic
nobleman, or members of the religious orders. Early examples in this genre include Matilda in
Horace Walpole
's
The Castle of Otranto
, Emily in
Ann Radcliffe
's
The Mysteries of Udolpho
, and Antonia in
Matthew Lewis
'
The Monk
.
The perils faced by this Gothic heroine were taken to an extreme by the
Marquis de Sade
in
Justine
, who exposed the
erotic
subtext
which lay beneath the damsel-in-distress scenario.
One exploration of the theme of the persecuted maiden is the fate of Gretchen in
Goethe's
Faust
. According to the philosopher
Schopenhauer
:
"The great Goethe has given us a distinct and visible description of this denial of the will, brought about by great misfortune and by the despair of all deliverance, in his immortal masterpiece Faust, in the story of the sufferings of Gretchen. I know of no other description in poetry. It is a perfect specimen of the second path, which leads to the denial of the will not, like the first, through the mere knowledge of the suffering of the whole world which one acquires voluntarily, but through the excessive pain felt in one's own person. It is true that many tragedies bring their violently willing heroes ultimately to this point of complete resignation, and then the will-to-live and its phenomenon usually end at the same time. But no description known to me brings to us the essential point of that conversion so distinctly and so free from everything extraneous as the one mentioned in Faust" (
The World as Will and Representation
, Vol. I, §68)
19th century
[
edit
]
The misadventures of the damsel in distress of the Gothic novel continued in a somewhat
caricatured
form in
Victorian
melodrama
. According to Michael Booth in his classic study
English Melodrama
, the Victorian stage melodrama featured a limited number of stock characters: the hero, the villain, the heroine, an old man, an old woman, a comic man and a comic woman engaged in a
sensational
plot featuring themes of love and murder. Often the good but not very clever hero is duped by a scheming villain, who has eyes on the damsel in distress until
fate
intervenes to ensure the triumph of good over evil.
[10]
Such melodrama influenced the fledgling
film industry
and led to damsels in distress being the subject of many early
silent films
, especially those that were made as multi-episode
serials
. Early examples include
The Adventures of Kathlyn
in 1913 and
The Hazards of Helen
, which ran from 1914 to 1917. The silent film heroines frequently faced new perils provided by the
Industrial Revolution
and catering to the new medium's need for visual spectacle. Here we find the heroine tied to a
railway track
, burning buildings, and
explosions
.
Sawmills
were another stereotypical danger of the Industrial age, as recorded in a popular song from a later era:
... A bad
gunslinger
called Salty Sam was chasin' poor Sweet Sue
He trapped her in the old sawmill and said with an evil laugh,
If you don't give me the deed to your ranch
I'll saw you all in half!
And then he grabbed her (and then)
He tied her up (and then)
He turned on the bandsaw (and then, and then...!) ...
20th century
[
edit
]
During the
First World War
, the imagery of a Damsel in Distress was extensively used in
Allied
propaganda (see illustrations). Particularly, the Imperial German conquest and occupation of Belgium was commonly referred to as
The Rape of Belgium
- effectively transforming Allied soldiers into knights bent on saving that rape victim. This was expressed explicitly in the lyrics of
Keep the Home Fires Burning
mentioning the "boys" as having gone to help a "Nation in Distress".
A form of entertainment in which the damsel-in-distress emerged as a stereotype at this time was
stage magic
. Restraining attractive female assistants and imperiling them with blades and spikes became a staple of 20th century magicians' acts. Noted illusion designer and historian
Jim Steinmeyer
identifies the beginning of this phenomenon as coinciding with the introduction of the "
sawing a woman in half
" illusion. In 1921 magician
P. T. Selbit
became the first to present such an act to the public. Steinmeyer observes that: "Before Selbit's illusion, it was not a cliche that pretty ladies were teased and tortured by magicians. Since the days of
Robert-Houdin
, both men and women were used as the subjects for magic illusions". However, changes in fashion and great social upheavals during the first decades of the 20th century made Selbit's choice of "victim" both practical and popular. The trauma of war had helped to desensitise the public to violence and the emancipation of women had changed attitudes to them. Audiences were tiring of older, more genteel forms of magic. It took something shocking, such as the horrific productions of the
Grand Guignol
theatre, to cause a sensation in this age. Steinmeyer concludes that: "beyond practical concerns, the image of the woman in peril became a specific fashion in entertainment".
[11]
The damsel-in-distress continued as a mainstay of the comics, film, and television industries throughout the 20th century. Imperiled heroines in need of rescue were a frequent occurrence in black-and-white
film serials
made by studios such as
Columbia Pictures
,
Mascot Pictures
,
Republic Pictures
, and
Universal Studios
in the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. These serials sometimes drew inspiration for their characters and plots from adventure novels and comic books. Notable examples include the character
Nyoka the Jungle Girl
, whom
Edgar Rice Burroughs
created for comic books and who was later adapted into a serial heroine in the Republic productions
Jungle Girl
(1941) and its sequel
Perils of Nyoka
(1942).
[
citation needed
]
Additional classic damsels in that mold were
Jane Porter
, in both the novel and movie versions of
Tarzan
, and Ann Darrow, as played by
Fay Wray
in the movie
King Kong
(1933), in one of the most iconic instances. The notorious hoax documentary
Ingagi
(1930) also featured this idea, and Wray's role was repeated by
Jessica Lange
and
Naomi Watts
in remakes. As journalist Andrew Erish has noted: "Gorillas plus sexy women in peril equals enormous profits".
[12]
Small screen iconic portrayals, this time in children's cartoons, are
Underdog
's girlfriend,
Sweet Polly Purebred
and Nell Fenwick, who is often rescued by inept Mountie
Dudley Do-Right
. On the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
TV series, the television newswoman
April O'Neil
was repeatedly held captive by the evil
Shredder
and often needed to be rescued by the titular turtles.
The
James Bond
novels of
Ian Fleming
, originally published in the 1950s and 1960s, would sometimes feature the "
Bond girl
" tied up by a villain and needing to be rescued by Bond, and this theme continued into a number of the films, produced from the early 1960s onward, including
Dr. No
,
The Spy Who Loved Me
,
Octopussy
and
Spectre
, all of which show Bond rescuing the female lead, who has been tied up. In some films, Bond and a female character are tied up together (for example, in
Live and Let Die
and
Moonraker
). In other films, Bond is shown tied up and in peril (examples include
Goldfinger
,
You Only Live Twice
,
The World Is Not Enough
,
Casino Royale
and
Skyfall
) and in some cases is rescued by the female lead (such as in
Licence to Kill
and
Spectre
).
Frequently cited examples of a damsel in distress in comics include
Lois Lane
, who was eternally getting into trouble and needing to be rescued by
Superman
, and
Olive Oyl
, who was in a near-constant state of kidnap, requiring her to be saved by
Popeye
.
Coined by
Gail Simone
in 1999, "
women in refrigerators
" is a
literary trope
where female characters are injured, sexually assaulted, killed, or depowered (an event colloquially known as
fridging
), sometimes to stimulate "protective" traits, and often as a
plot device
intended to move a male character's story arc forward.
[
citation needed
]
The phrase is used to analyze why such plot devices are used disproportionately on female characters.
[13]
It refers to an incident in
Green Lantern
vol. 3 #54 (1994), written by
Ron Marz
, in which
Kyle Rayner
, the title hero, comes home to his apartment to find that the villain
Major Force
had killed his girlfriend,
Alexandra DeWitt
, and stuffed her in a refrigerator.
[14]
[15]
Simone and a number of collaborators created the website
Women in Refrigerators
which hosts a list of works which they believe express the trope.
[15]
Critical and theoretical responses
[
edit
]
Damsels in distress have been cited as an example of differential treatment of genders in literature, film, and works of art. Feminist criticism of art,
film
, and
literature
has often examined gender-oriented characterisation and plot, including the common "damsel in distress" trope, as perpetrating regressive and patronizing myths about women.
[16]
[17]
Many modern writers and directors, such as
Anita Sarkeesian
,
Angela Carter
and
Jane Yolen
, have revisited classic
fairy tales
and "damsel in distress" stories or collected and anthologised stories and
folk tales
that break
[
clarification needed
]
the "damsel in distress" pattern.
[18]
Empowered damsel
[
edit
]
Films featuring an empowered damsel date to the early days of
filmmaking
. One of the films most often associated with the stereotypical damsel in distress,
The Perils of Pauline
(1914), also provides at least a partial counterexample, in that Pauline, played by
Pearl White
, is a strong character who decides against early marriage in favour of seeking adventure and becoming an author. Despite common belief, the film does not feature scenes with Pauline tied to a railroad track and threatened by a buzzsaw, although such scenes were incorporated into later re-creations and were also featured in other films made in the period around 1914. Academic Ben Singer has contested the idea that these "serial-queen melodramas" were male fantasies and has observed that they were marketed heavily at women.
[19]
The first motion picture serial made in the United States,
What Happened to Mary?
(1912), was released to coincide with a serial story of the same name published in McClure's
Ladies' World
magazine.
Empowered damsels were a feature of the serials made in the 1930s and 1940s by studios such as
Republic Pictures
. The "
cliffhanger
" scenes at the end of episodes provide many examples of female heroines bound and helpless and facing fiendish death traps. But those heroines, played by actresses such as
Linda Stirling
and
Kay Aldridge
, were often strong, assertive women who ultimately played an active part in vanquishing the villains.
[
citation needed
]
C. L. Moore
's short story "
Shambleau
" (1933) ? generally acknowledged as epoch-making in the history of
science fiction
? begins in what seems a classical damsel in distress situation: the protagonist, space adventurer
Northwest Smith
, sees a "sweetly-made girl" pursued by a lynch mob intent on killing her and intervenes to save her, but finds her not a girl nor a human being at all, but a disguised alien creature, predatory and highly dangerous. Soon, Smith himself needs rescuing and barely escapes with his life.
These themes have received successive updates in modern-era characters, ranging from 'spy girls' of the 1960s to current film and television heroines. In her book
The Devil with James Bond
(1967) Ann Boyd compared
James Bond
with an updating of the legend of
Saint George
and the "
princess and dragon
" genre, particularly with
Dr. No's
dragon tank. The damsel in distress theme is also very prominent in
The Spy Who Loved Me
, where the story is told in the
first person
by the young woman Vivienne Michel, who is threatened with imminent rape by thugs when Bond kills them and claims her as his reward.
The female spy
Emma Peel
in the 1960s television series
The Avengers
was often seen in "damsel in distress" situations. The character and her reactions, portrayed by actress
Diana Rigg
, differentiated these scenes from other film and television scenarios where women were similarly imperiled as pure victims or pawns in the plot. A scene with Emma Peel bound and threatened with a
death ray
in the episode
From Venus with Love
is a direct parallel to James Bond's confrontation with a laser in the film
Goldfinger
.
[20]
Both are examples of the classic hero's ordeal as described by Campbell and Vogler. The serial heroines and Emma Peel are cited as providing inspiration for the creators of strong heroines in more recent times, ranging from Joan Wilder in
Romancing the Stone
and
Princess Leia
in
Star Wars
to "post feminist" icons such as
Buffy Summers
from
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
,
Xena
and
Gabrielle
from
Xena: Warrior Princess
,
Sydney Bristow
from
Alias
,
Natasha Romanoff
from the
Marvel Cinematic Universe
,
Kim Possible
from the
series of the same name
,
Sarah Connor
from the
Terminator
franchise
, and
Veronica Mars
, also from the
series of the same name
.
[21]
[22]
[23]
Reflecting these changes,
Daphne Blake
of the
Scooby-Doo
cartoon series (who throughout the series is captured dozens of times, falls through trap doors, etc.) is portrayed in the
Scooby-Doo
film
as a wisecracking feminist heroine (quote: "I've had it with this damsel in distress thing!"). The film
Sherlock Holmes
(2009) includes a classical damsel in distress episode, where
Irene Adler
(played by
Rachel McAdams
) is helplessly bound to a conveyor belt in an industrial slaughterhouse, and is saved from being sawn in half by a chainsaw; yet in other episodes of the same film Adler is strong and assertive ? for example, overcoming with contemptuous ease two thugs who sought to rob her (and robbing them instead). In the film's climax, it is Adler who saves the day, dismantling at the last moment a device set to poison the entire membership of Parliament.
In the final scene of the
Walt Disney Pictures
film
Enchanted
(2007) the traditional roles are reversed when male protagonist Robert Philip (
Patrick Dempsey
) is captured by Queen Narissa (
Susan Sarandon
) in her dragon form. In a
King Kong
-like fashion, she carries him to the top of a New York skyscraper, until Robert's beloved Giselle climbs it, sword in hand, to save him.
A similar role reversal is evident in
Stieg Larsson
's
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
, in whose climactic scene the male protagonist is captured by a
serial killer
, locked in an underground torture room, chained, stripped naked, and humiliated when his female partner enters to save him and destroy the villain. Still another example is
Foxglove Summer
, part of
Ben Aaronovitch
's
Rivers of London
series - where the protagonist Peter Grant is bound and taken captive by the Queen of the Faeries, and it is Grant's girlfriend who comes to rescue him, riding a Steel Horse.
Another role reversal is in
Titanic
(1997), written and directed by
James Cameron
. After Jack Dawson is handcuffed to a pipe in the
master-at-arms
' office to drown, Rose DeWitt Bukater leaves her family to rescue him and they head back to the upper deck.
In
Robert J. Harris
'
WWII
spy thriller
The Thirty-One Kings
(2017), the chivalrous protagonist
Richard Hannay
takes time off from his vital intelligence mission to help a beautiful young woman, harassed on a Paris street by two drunken men. She laughingly thanks him though saying she could have dealt with the men by herself. Hannay has no suspicion that she is herself the dangerous Nazi agent he had been sent to apprehend, and that she recognized him and knows his mission. Unsuspectingly he drinks the glass of brandy she offers him - whereupon he loses consciousness and wakes up securely bound. Gloating and jeering, the girl mocks Hannay for his sense of chivalry proving to be his undoing.
[24]
Destined to an ignominious watery death, it is the would be rescuer who is in very big distress; fortunately, his friends show up in the nick of time to save him from the clutches of the
femme fatale
.
Conversely,
Jo Nesbø
revives a classical Damsel in distress trope in his 2007 crime novel
The Snowman
. Nesbø's protagonist
Harry Hole
is faced with his beloved Rakel having been bound and forced to sit on a fast-melting seat of ice; once it has melted she would fall into an infernal device and be torn to pieces. Harry Hole manages to save her, though at the price of suffering some mutilation himself.
In video games
[
edit
]
In computer and video games, female characters are often cast in the role of the damsel in distress, with their rescue being the
objective
of the game.
[25]
[26]
An early example of the damsel archetype in video games is
Pauline
, a
Nintendo
character in the 1981 arcade game
Donkey Kong
. The gameplay involves
Mario
rescuing her from the top of a construction site after she is kidnapped and held captive by a giant ape.
[27]
In the
Dragon's Lair
game series,
Princess Daphne
, the beautiful daughter of King Aethelred, serves as the series' damsel in distress.
[28]
[29]
The first
Dragon's Lair
game, released in 1983, involves the hero Dirk the Daring facing a series of challenges to rescue Daphne from a dragon named Singe.
[30]
Jon M. Gibson of
GameSpy
called her "the epitome" of the trope.
[31]
Princess Peach
throughout much of the
Mario
franchise is also a
paradigmatic
example. She is repeatedly kidnapped across the
Super Mario
series, beginning with her debut in
Super Mario Bros.
in 1985. In most games in the series she is kidnapped and trapped in a castle by the villain
Bowser
and his minions in order for Mario to rescue her.
[32]
Peach has been described as the "quintessential damsel in distress" and her repeated abductions as a running joke and
pop culture
reference by
Time
.
[33]
[34]
Princess Zelda
in the early
The Legend of Zelda
series has been described by Gladys L. Knight in her book
Female Action Heroes
as "perhaps one [of] the most well-known 'damsel in distress' princesses in
video game history
".
[35]
In most games in the series she is given the role of a "princess in peril", requiring the hero,
Link
, to rescue her, although later games, such as
Breath of the Wild
, presented her as a more realised character.
[36]
In 1989, another Nintendo character,
Princess Daisy
, was cast in the role of damsel in distress in
Super Mario Land
.
[37]
In
Prince of Persia
, an imprisoned princess is the game's objective, necessitating the player character to rescue her.
[38]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Sarkeesian, Anita
(March 7, 2013).
"Damsel in Distress (Part 1) Tropes vs Women"
.
Feminist Frequency
.
Archived
from the original on October 30, 2016
. Retrieved
August 9,
2021
.
- ^
Lowbrow, Yeoman (December 28, 2014).
"When Natives Attack! White Damsels and Jungle Savages in Pulp Fiction"
.
Flashbak
. Alum Media.
Archived
from the original on January 2, 2015
. Retrieved
August 9,
2021
.
- ^
Johan Huizinga
remarks in his book
The Waning of the Middle Ages
, "the source of the chivalrous idea, is pride aspiring to beauty, and formalised pride gives rise to a conception of honour, which is the pole of noble life". Huizinga,
The Waning of the Middle Ages
(1919) 1924:58.
- ^
Ames, Richard (1692).
Sylvia's Complaint of Her Sexes Unhappiness : a Poem, Being the Second Part of Sylvia's Revenge, Or, a Satyr Against Man
. London: Richard Baldwin. p. 12.
- ^
"Unga Fakta - Grekisk mytologi"
.
www.ungafakta.se
. Retrieved
2022-05-10
.
- ^
"Chivalry or The Chivalric Code"
.
webpages.uidaho.edu
. Retrieved
2022-05-10
.
- ^
"Spanish Lady"
.
- ^
Richardson, Samuel (1754).
The History of Sir Charles Grandison
. Vol. ii. London: S. Richardson. p. 92.
hdl
:
2027/inu.30000115373627
.
- ^
Booth, Michael (1965).
English Melodrama
. Herbert Jenkins.
- ^
Steinmeyer, Jim (2003).
Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible
. William Heinemann/Random House. pp. 277?295.
ISBN
0-434-01325-0
.
- ^
Erish, Andrew (8 January 2006).
"Illegitimate dad of 'Kong'; One of the Depression's highest-grossing films was an outrageous fabrication, a scandalous and suggestive gorilla epic that set box office records across the country"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Archived from
the original
on 14 March 2013
. Retrieved
5 July
2017
.
- ^
Jones, Ralph.
"How Shrinking perpetuates Hollywood's most sexist cliche"
.
bbc.com
. BBC
. Retrieved
31 March
2023
.
- ^
Condon, Michael (October 2002).
"The Fanzig Challenge"
Archived
2011-07-10 at the
Wayback Machine
. Fanzing. Retrieved January 11, 2006.
- ^
a
b
Prowse-Gany, Brian (August 12, 2015).
"Rise of the Female Superhero"
.
Yahoo! News
.
- ^
"Damsel in Distress (Part 2) Tropes vs Women"
. 28 May 2013.
- ^
See, e.g., Alison Lurie, "Fairy Tale Liberation",
The New York Review of Books
, v. 15, n. 11 (Dec. 17, 1970) (germinal work in the field); Donald Haase, "Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship: A Critical Survey and Bibliography",
Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies
v.14, n.1 (2000).
- ^
See Jane Yolen, "This Book Is For You",
Marvels & Tales
, v. 14, n. 1 (2000) (essay); Yolen,
Not One Damsel in Distress: World folktales for Strong Girls
(anthology); Jack Zipes,
Don't Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Fairy Tales in North America and England
, Routledge: New York, 1986 (anthology).
- ^
Singer, Ben (February 1999). Richard Abel (ed.).
Female Power in the Serial-Queen Melodrama: The Etiology of An Anomaly in Silent Film
. Continuum International Publishing Group - Athlone. pp. 168?177.
ISBN
0-485-30076-1
.
- ^
"
Visitor Reviews: From Venus With Love
"
. The Avengers Forever
. Retrieved
2007-05-11
.
- ^
Jowett, Lorna (2005).
Sex and The Slayer: A Gender Studies Primer for the Buffy Fan
. Wesleyan University Press.
- ^
Graham, Paula (2002).
"Buffy Wars: The Next Generation"
.
Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge
(4, Spring). Bowling Green State University.
- ^
Gough, Kerry (August 2004).
"Active Heroines Study Day - John Moores University, Liverpool (in partnership with The Association for Research in Popular Fiction)"
.
Scope: An Online Journal of Film and Television Studies
. Institute of Film & Television Studies, University of Nottingham.
- ^
Robert J. Harris
,
The Thirty-One Kings
,
Polygon Books
, London 2017, p. 147.
- ^
Kaitlin Tremblay (1 June 2012).
"Intro to Gender Criticism for Gamers: From Princess Peach, to Claire Redfield, to FemSheps"
.
Gamasutra
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
Stephen Totilo (2013-06-20).
"Shigeru Miyamoto and the Damsel In Distress"
.
Kotaku
. Retrieved
8 October
2013
.
- ^
"In Super Mario Odyssey Gaming's Original Damsel In Distress Might Finally Get Her Due"
.
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Bibliography
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edit
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