From Rapunzel trapped up in her tower to legions of scream queens hitting high decibels, the damsel in distress trope is long rooted in sweet, helpless characters incapable of staying out of trouble.

Layann Basileh is an Arab-American writer based in Southern California, currently nursing an iced coffee addiction. The 'damsel in distress' trope is a common female character archetype, in which a ...

In my earliest memories of Princess Peach, she is less a video game character than an elusive goal. I must have been 5 or 6 when my parents got my siblings and me a Nintendo for Christmas: old enough ...