"Seriously, lady, let go."
At a respectful invitation from Hadrathus he seated himself on an ivory chair, and motioned Albiona to another, but she preferred to sit on a golden stool at his feet, pressing close against his thigh, as if seeking security in the contact.
A Film Poster Trope that has ties to old pulp comics or adventure book covers. It depicts a muscle-bound man in a dominant pose, with an attractive woman literally clinging to one of his legs. After all, Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty. The man is always a Hunk (handsome and manly), and very often is depicted shirtless (or with his shirt torn open), to reinforce how tough he is, with a cocky expression on his face and a Phallic Weapon on one hand, even maybe stabbing the sky. Very often he's Atop a Mountain of Corpses, or viewed from a low angle atop a throne to make him look even more intimidating than he already is. Meanwhile, the woman is almost always half-naked in a sexualized manner, with a helpless expression and posture that reinforce her submissiveness. The contrast between the male and female characters alludes to the notion that men are defined by their actions and women by their passiveness. The pose was popularised at a time when oral sex was widely known but considered unmentionable, indecent, and grounds for divorce, making it ripe for encoding.
Sometimes it's more than just one woman at the man's feet, invoking A Lady on Each Arm trope.
Given gender double standards about dominance and submissiveness, it is almost always (if not all of the time) a man who's standing tall, and a woman at his feet.
This trope was popularized by the fantasy art of Frank Frazetta [1]
◊ and Boris Vallejo [2]
(Warning: it's even less safe for work than the picture to the right.)
Flashbak has a whole gallery of poses from a variety of mediums here
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Volume 1 of the seinen horror manga Hanako and the Terror of Allegory features some cowering female clinging to the hero's leg.
- The cover of Volume 84 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (Or Volume 4 of) Part 7: Steel Ball Run had a rare double male variant◊ with Johnny Joestar clinging onto Gyro Zeppeli's leg. It at least helps in Johnny's case that he's a paraplegic.
- Urusei Yatsura: Parodied with the cover page for chapter 3, in which Ataru brandishes an umbrella like a sword (complete with the tip glinting), while Lum clings to his leg.
Comedy
- Henry Rollins had a hilarious routine about van paintings like this, with the barbarian holding his sword aloft and "a wench clinging to his leg, staring wantonly at his nutsack, but he has no time for this woman. He needs to bond with the god of thunder!"
Comic Books
- The cover for the first issue of Barack the Barbarian, as fitting for a Conan parody. (No, really, it exists.)
- Just to show that she is The Key/demonslaying queen interdimensional demigoddess Buffy The Vampire Slayer has a gender-flipped version where Dawn is delivering a Curb-Stomp Battle as Xander clings to her leg.
- The final splash page◊ of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! #7 shows Bow-Zar the Barkbarian with a Foxy Vixen clinging to his leg.
- Conan the Barbarian:
- Alex Ross's cover for Thulsa Doom.
- Red Sonja spoofed this in a drawing of the heroine standing over her slain enemies, with a dying mook clutching at her leg.
- ElfQuest: Jink did a gender-reversed take on this one, with a publicity shot of Kullyn clinging to Jink's leg while she wields a laser rifle.
- In one of the stories of Garfield: His 9 Lives, Helga, the female Viking who turns into a bitchy businesswoman, has one of her underlings clinging to her leg when she reverts back to her original Viking form.
- The second Image cover for King City has Anna clinging to Max's leg amidst the xombie apocalypse.
- Marvel Comics:
- Mary Jane Watson, of all people, clings to...wait for it, wait for it...The Punisher in the last issue of Marvel Universe vs. the Punisher.
- In New Mutants this gets a Gender Flip, of a male on a female's leg.
- Dave Cockrum did a parody version◊ of the image to promote his humorous Nightcrawler mini-series.
- Spoofed in All-New, All-Different Avengers, where we can see an illustration◊ for the fanfiction Ms. Marvel and the Teenage Love Triangle from Space featuring Kamala Khan with Spider-Man (Miles Morales) and Nova (Sam Alexander) clinging to her legs.
- In The Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Crisis, after several characters had been pulled out of fiction, Conan is inconvenienced by one of these:
Conan: Ow, by Crom! It's hard enough to fight without this wench hanging off my leg!
Wench: Hey, I'm a leg wench. Do I tell you how to do your job? - Vampirella probably was envious of Red Sonja, now she has a spoof cover too. (Savage Tales, 2018)
Fan Works
- One Fanartist's Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot Avatar: The Last Airbender poster involves Memetic Badass Wang Fire... you know what, you just have to see it.◊
- "Son of Coul" parodies the Army of Darkness poster, Avengers-style, with Phil Coulson as the man with the BFG and Natasha Romanoff doing the clinging.
- Parodied deliciously here, using Doctor Who's "The Last Centurion" as the standing badass.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Join the Equestria Royal Guard Today! Featuring Shining Armor, and Princess Cadance doing the leg cling.
- Once Bon Bon was revealed as "Special Agent Sweetie Drops" in episode "Slice of Life", do you really think fan-artists could resist picturing Lyra clinging to her? Of course not. For starter, there's the illustration for the fanfic Bon-Bond: For Your Hooves Only.
- Deadpool really likes unicorns! So, Rarity obliges.
- Join the Equestria Royal Guard Today!
- Star Wars:
- The song What Cohen Did Next at the end of the Discworld fanvid Troll Bridge:
For Cohen had heroing down to a tee,
He climbed on the pile of their bodies with glee,
As the girl from the spider stall clung to his knee,
He stood there barbarically posing,
Stood there barbarically posing.
Films — Animation
- Boris Vallejo's poster◊ for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters.
- A drawing in "The Art of Monsters vs. Aliens" book shows a muscular President Hathaway with sexy women grabbing onto his legs.
Films — Live-Action
- The Italian◊ poster for The Big Head.
- The final pose of the movie Black Dynamite — see the page image of the article.
- Subverted in Black Snake Moan — Rae does this to Lazarus as he plays the guitar and tells her about his life, but their relationship is decidedly non-sexual and weirdly sweet, even though she Really Gets Around and the plot was promoted as being otherwise.
- Bottoms has the masculine Josie and PJ acting standing up while the feminine Isabel and Brittany cling to them.
- The Burning: After the raft is found and the remaining campers freak out, one of them is shown desperately clinging to another's leg.
- Conan the Barbarian (1982). King Osric has a couple of beautiful women seated at his feet, but they're wrapped in fur and he doesn't pay attention to them, as it's just another sign of a wealth that's become meaningless now his daughter has become member of Thulsa Doom's cult. Said daughter is later shown playing the trope straight, sprawled scantily-clad at her master's feet as he sits on his throne. He doesn't pay any attention to her either though, just transforming into a snake and slithering off.
- The poster for Dolemite features several ladies doing this to our hero. One of them even has her fingers the wrapped around the gun between Dolemite's legs as it discharges. Yup.
- Evil Dead: The Army of Darkness poster◊. The strapping powerful male (also note the low angle "power" shot) with a Damsel in Distress literally clinging to his heel, with a phallic chainsaw for good measure.
- Feeding Frenzy: Played for comedy in its comically Testosterone Poisoning poster◊, which is highly inaccurate to the film.
- Flash Gordon's Parallel Porn Title Flesh Gordon.
- Hell Comes to Frog Town◊
- James Bond 007 in Moonraker◊ is pushing the limit, with A Lady on Each Arm and clinging to each leg.
- The poster◊ for Joe Dirt.
- The poster for Mallrats.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- A deleted scene from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has Ego showing the Guardians a Xandar War Memorial he built, showing Star-Lord "single-handedly saving the galaxy". To the dismay of the other Guardians, Peter Quill is pictured as larger than life, standing triumphantly above Ronan the Accuser, with Drax reduced to a monkey on his shoulder and Gamora clinging submissively to his leg.
- Thor: Ragnarok: As Thor and Loki work their way toward the hangers to commandeer the Grandmaster's ship, they enter a room while wielding large rifle blasters to take down the guards inside. Said guards happen to be standing in front of a statue of the Grandmaster that looks straight out of a Vallejo painting, complete with him holding a massive blaster over his head while a woman clings to his right leg.
- A deleted scene
- National Lampoon:
- Chevy Chase knows what we're talking about◊ in National Lampoon's Vacation.
- Chevy also doesn't know when to quit (in more ways than one) in National Lampoon's European Vacation (although instead of his wife and the girl in a Ferrari, this time the other leg has his son).
- Chevy Chase knows what we're talking about
- Though she doesn't fit in the buxom category, Elizabeth Swann inexplicably did this to Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest while he was attempting to shoot the Kraken.
- Italian action B-movie Rolf◊.
- The poster for Super Capers, painted by Drew Struzan of all people.
- The poster for Yor: The Hunter from the Future.
- In Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 3, Bucky clings to Zed's leg during the "Alien Invasion" musical number after he sees the aliens approaching.
Literature
- Bimbos of the Death Sun: As part of its cover, the eponymous book has a scantily-clad barbarian woman clinging to the leg of a muscular scientist with a clipboard.
- Conan the Barbarian:
- Conan the Barbarian is often depicted with a woman doing this.◊ Plus Conan the Adventurer◊.
- A grateful Damsel in Distress does this at the end of The Vale of Lost Women, to Conan's embarrassment.
- At the start of Xuthal of the Dusk Natala does this — admittedly due to exhaustion rather than Conan's manly allure.
- Conan the Barbarian is often depicted with a woman doing this.
- Discworld:
- Gender Flipped by Paul Kidby for the Discworld Calendar 2012: one picture shows Conina the Barbarian Hairdresser (from Sourcery), striking a pose with Rincewind clinging to her leg.
- Similarly, Marc Simonetti's cover for the French edition of Interesting Times has Rincewind clinging to Cohen's leg.
- In Sourcery, the cover of the in-universe book Inne Juste 7 Dayes I wille make You a Barbearian Hero! shows "a rather poor woodcut of a muscular man. He had arms like two bags full of footballs, and he was standing kneedeep in languorous women and slaughtered victims with a smug expression on his face."
- Several of the Flashman books, including the eponymous debut and Flash for Freedom◊. With Flashman it's arguably a subversion, because the protagonist is a contemptible bully.
- A non-image (and male-male) variant appears in Hurog, when Oreg is summoned to Ward's side and clings to his leg in an attempt to get as close to him as humanly possible, with a Please, Don't Leave Me thrown in for good measure. Justified as Oreg is under a curse that causes agonising pain if he is separated from Ward, and the two have been miles apart for hours.
- Garth Marenghi's TerrorTome: In "The Black Steeple," when Nick's disloyal wife meets the handsome Baron, he's annoyed to note that she increasingly fawns over him. Toward the end, he finds her on the floor, clinging to his leg.
Live-Action TV
- In As Time Goes By, Lionel is going on a promotion of his book, My Life in Kenya (a story about his time as a coffee planter in Kenya), but the publisher, Alistair, wants him to dress in the classic African Explorer outfit, complete with rifle, and to have a scantily-clad young girl clinging to his leg. "Li" is not happy.
- The Korean Drama Best Love: Jae Suk during a drunken confession to Dokko Gin.
- One promotion picture for Doctor Who has Christopher Eccleston in front with Billie Piper doing this.
Music
- Done in the cover of Exciter's Long Live the Loud.
- The cover for Manowar's Gods of War album has the Sons of Odin getting this from nude valkyries◊ (NSFW).
- This ad◊ for the T. Rex single "Solid Gold Easy Action" features Marc Bolan on one knee doing an air version to Mickey Finn's leg. Mickey, back to the camera, props his elbow on the crown of Marc's hat while palming his own buttcheek.
- "Moon Girl"
Myths & Religion
- Older Than Feudalism: It happens in The Iliad.
Video Games
- Deadpool: Unsurprisingly, featured in the video game, with two scantily clad women clinging to Deadpool's legs — as can be seen on Teamheadkick's "Deadpool Rap" video.
- The Duke Nukem Forever promos feature a variant of this with Duke sitting in a throne and two girls at his feet.
- The cover for Kaan: Barbarian's Blade.
- FMV in Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete, shows Luna awakened as the goddess Althena, doing this to Magic Emperor Ghaleon.
- Shao Kahn's victory pose in Mortal Kombat 9 features a slave girl in Go-Go Enslavement gear crawling over and performing a leg cling.
- Featured on the cover art◊ and title screen for an old computer game called Stormlord, with a female character that's oddly smaller than the male character she is clinging to.
Webcomics
- Daughter of the Lilies: Parodied and gender-flipped on one in-universe novel in the cliché-soaked saga of Barbarian Heroine T'Fa'Nii the Clanless, complete with Chainmail Bikini.
- Parodied in Dragon Mango: the door to Sherbert's house has a sign depicting a hero standing triumphantly over a monster's corpse with a leg clinger and has the caption "you must be at least this badass to enter".
- From Drowtales we have this homage to the famous Frazetta painting (requires a Daydream subscription to view) with the minor characters/Relic Hunters RP characters Tur'geis, Min'issya, and Riz'riia. Fits the above description to a tee, save for the not-at-all submissive facial expressions and body language of Min'issya and Riz'riia. Appropriate given that Tur'geis is a near Expy of both Ash Williams and Conan.
- One strip from El Goonish Shive is a parody of the aformentioned Army of Darkness poster.
- Ennui GO!: An all-female example (NSFW) with the opening of the Show Within a Show Sister Slug. (Well, an all-Naughty Nun example to be precise.)
- The cover page of Exiern features a female-on-Gender Bender example, with Peonie clinging on Tiffany's leg.
- Girl Genius: The "flashback" panel of Dr. Hengst von Wyrmhaut (Monster Hunter) escaping Mechanisburg, as told by Hector, features him with a Damsel in Distress clinging to his leg. The actual true story, as told by Franz, is a lot less glamorous.
- Grrl Power: The trope is referenced for comedy purposes when Sydney's lawyer mother reminds her artist father about some work that she landed for him.
Laura: I got you the job doing the movie poster for Krognar, Champion of Intercourse, PA.
Sydney Sr.: Oh, right, yeah! The one with all the ladies clutching onto the hero's leg. - In Impure Blood, Mac while Roan is rescuing her. Given that he is still fighting at this point, and they are still coming for her, one suspect she's trying to hide from those claws between his feet.
- Gender-inverted and parodied with the "poster" for Maggie, the Cat Who Fights Demons: here the buff guy isn't so much clinging to the cat heroine's leg, he's propping her up (the other leg resting on a motorcycle) because she's so short.
- Parodied in Ménage à 3: DiDi and Zii perform one of these for Dillon when he presents them all with tickets to his show.
- Brent Sienna as Iron Thor is the cover to PvP #17◊.
- One of the flashback comics in Sister Claire features a version of this pose with Clementine and Gabi watching the sun rise over Thronum Mare — except Clementine is a scrawny teenage girl with horns and Gabi is her selkie girlfriend.
Web Original
- A "historically accurate" model from Doctor Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory features Steampunk hero Lord Cockswain being clasped this way by a Venusian princess, with the implication that they should actually be the other way round.
Web Videos
- Diamanda Hagan: Another gender-inversed example with the title screen of the Berserker: Hell's Warrior review episode. It's Diamanda as the muscle-bound barbarian warrior, and Filmbrain as the scantily-clad wench between her legs.
- JourneyQuest has Barbarian Hero Karn's wife Starling doing this (or just lounging at his feet) when he's ruling his kingdom. He thinks that it's demeaning and that she should have her own throne, but she prefers it.
- A rare male-to-male example can be found in Freddie Wong's "Huge Guns" video, here.
- In the outtakes for Kickassia, Spoony (who brought a prop lightsaber for the fight) imitates Luke Skywalker for a poster shot while JewWario does the leg cling. Doug Walker put it best:
- The fan film Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness also parodies this, with Gwen Stacy clinging to Ash's legs when they are confronted by several zombiefied Marvel heroes.
Western Animation
- Parodied in the Title Sequence for Adventure Time, in which the clinger holding onto the main character, Finn, is not an attractive woman, but Finn's adopted brother Jake, who's just tired from climbing a mountain.
- The page image for Golan the Insatiable parodies this with Carole Beekler (Dylan's mother) clinging to the leg of the eponymous Golan. They're not Atop a Mountain of Corpses, though, but atop a... pile of furnitures.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", Pinkie Pie's Imagine Spot about Donut Joe destroying her cake with lasers ends with two mares appearing out of nowhere solely to strike this pose.
- On The Simpsons, Otto draws a comic book known as Bus Man, with a beefed-up version of himself as the main character, and a scantily-clad woman clinging to his leg.
- Transformers: The (fairly silly) Beast Wars episode "The Low Road" has a shot of the Maximals making a dramatic entrance, with Airazor doing this to Optimus◊; she's standing normally a moment later.
Variants without the Leg Cling
Anime & Manga
- The cover art for the infamous volume 13 of Berserk offers a variant, with a shirtless, bloodsoaked Guts cradling a naked Casca in his (severed) arm, while he holds a broken sword in the other arm and has sinister smirk on his face. The backdrop of the scene is full of demons, and Guts looks quite manly and victorious in the moment... If only it had actually played out like this in the actual story.
Comic Books
- The cover of the last issue of Johnny Turbo sports a retooling of the Star Wars cover. Notable in that it actually involves two guys.
- Marvel Comics:
- a recreation of the Enchantress◊ in front of Molecule Man's throne in his appearance in Dark Avengers.
- As seen here, Clea is often posing submissively on Doctor Strange covers, no matter how much demonic ass she kicks in the actual story.
- a recreation of the Enchantress
Films — Live-Action
- Conan the Barbarian: While their postures mimic the classic Frazetta pyramid, Action Girl Valeria crouches at Conan's feet doing a Sword Plant while Conan does a Stab the Sky.
- The Gauntlet (1977): The poster◊ for the film has the girl clinging to the hero's torso rather than his leg.
- Star Wars: The poster◊ for A New Hope has the princess is standing on a lower level to our hero, who stands stabbing the sky with his lightsaber so that the two of them otherwise form the classic Frazetta pyramid.
- The Venetian Affair: The poster◊ has the girl sitting at the hero's feet, but her arms are outstretched in a panicked gesture while the hero clutches her upper arm to steady her.
Literature
- Some of the Deathworld (1960) covers show Jason's Action Girlfriend Meta sprawled unarmed and helpless at his feet, despite her being a Pyrran warrior who's saved the hero's hide on several occasions (and, being Pyrran, is never unarmed).
- Space Wars, Worlds & Weapons by Steven Eisler has a picture of a Rebellious Princess turned Space Pirate with her alien pilot seated at her feet. Apparently this trope can be gender-inverted as long as the one in the submissive pose isn't a human male.
Music
- The cover of Tom Jone's CD The Lead and How to Swing It◊
Music Videos
- In the Gorillaz clip for "Feel Good Inc.", once Murdoc Niccals has risen up, he's surrounded by women in this submissive position.
Tabletop Games
- The Magic: The Gathering set Magic Origins will have a Gender Flipped example, it has an art of the necromancer Liliana Vess surrounded by her zombies in a pose like this.
Webcomics
- Quentyn Quinn, Space Ranger gives us an obviously tongue-in-cheek Racoonian version as its cover page.
Western Animation
- In the Chowder episode "Fireheart", during the song montage while Chowder is living with the dragons, there's a still shot of Chowder like this with Panini-Chowder has a stereotypical Conan physique, while Panini, for her part, is wearing a leopardskin bikini, with curves and boobs. Must be seen to be believed.◊
- Not even Blooregard Q. Kazoo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (who doesn't even have legs) is immune to an indulgent fantasy involving this trope.◊
