Paid Harem

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    Supervillains get all the girls...

    Every sufficiently decadent Casanova, criminal and villain will have at least one scantily clad floozy to serve as eye candy, fetch drinks, and slink around seductively. If the villain is sufficiently well funded, they may have an entire harem. This applies to female villains too, with bare chested male mooks at her beck and call.

    As the picture illustrates, the "sultan" in this harem also has a habit of dressing the floozies in a thematically appropriate manner that coincides with their job or even criminal theme. Not surprisingly, their employer doesn't have any real affection or attachment to the harem, and will disrespect or mistreat them; sometimes dumping them on the ground when hearing bad news, ordering the floozy out when he talks shop, or outright using them as human shields/distractions in a firefight.

    And of course, the paid for harem will have only nominal loyalty to their "sultan", being either extremely frisky with the hero or disappearing at the drop of a hat. It's a rare floozy that "stands by her man." The exception is if their employer specifically hires opposite gender bodyguards or domestic servants who just happen to be gorgeous and has them pose as eye candy.

    Might be found in the Den of Iniquity during off-duty hours.

    Compare Gambler Groupies, who might be paid, but if so not by the guy they're hanging on.

    Truth in Television, this is probably a Real Life trope that has been stylized in TV.

    Examples of Paid Harem include:

    Anime and Manga

    Comic Books

    • The Riddler in Batman had Query And Echo; two Gun Bunnies he was somehow able to talk into working for him as muscle and arm candy, after they tried robbing him after he robbed a convenience store.
    • The Penguin often surrounds himself with a bevy of beautiful babes.

    Film

    • Biff's buxom blondes from the alternate 1985, in Back to The Future Part 2.
    • Two-Face in Batman Forever had Sugar and Spice, a pair of attractive women who represented either fluffy goodness[1] or harsh evil[2] in very sexy ways. Although technically they were both evil.
    • With a female villain, Kronk is a borderline example of this to Yzma in The Emperors New Groove
    • Several James Bond villains have them. Valentin Zukovsky from GoldenEye had a Bikini Bar with several floozies.
    • In Repo! The Genetic Opera Rotti Largo has two floozies who double as bodyguards.
      • Amber Sweet also has two male bodyguards in bondage gear.
    • Dr. Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show has Magenta and Columbia.
      • Neither really act for the part, and Frank mainly has eyes for his creation Rocky, anyway. Columbia apparently was Frank's lover for some time, but by the time of the movie she's just a groupie more interested in another of Frank's ex-flames, Eddie.
        • Magenta was just his maid/lab assistant. She was more interested in Riff Raff.
      • At first impression, they do play the part, even willingly. It's not until halfway into the movie that the household troubles reveal themselves.
    • Jabba The Hutt in Star Wars has a harem of humanoid extraterrestrials around his side. Try not to think about it too hard.
      • As far as I can recall, the Expanded Universe mentions that the other Hutts consider this to be very weird, perverted, sexually deviant behavior, but don't say anything to him about it because he's politically powerful on Nal Hutta.
      • Another theory is that he likes humanoids because they are much more lithe than huts are.
    • Lex Luthor in Superman IV.
      • As well as in Superman itself. Miss Teschmacher clearly didn't stay with him out of love...
    • The stewardesses in Tony Stark's private jet double as pole dancers/strippers in Iron Man.
    • Bruce Wayne in both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight does this with glee to keep up his playboy image.
    • Dr. Loveless in the film version of Wild Wild West.
    • In Jesus Christ Superstar (1973 version) Pilate always seems to have a few beautiful women in nice dresses hanging around him, not doing much of anything.
      • King Herod is also surrounded by scantily dressed women... and men.
    • The Octopus has Silken Floss in The Spirit. Despite the implications, she's more of a Punch Clock Villain, who only works for him to pay for her PhD tuition.

    Literature

    • Deconstructed in the Myth Adventures series with Bunny, a character initially foisted off on Skeeve as a moll by the Mob. Turns out she's hiding a phenomenal financial genius behind her Obfuscating Stupidity, and had thought quite a bit about the costs and benefits of embracing this trope beforehand.
    • Subverted in the first Deathlands novel "Pilgrimage to Hell". The Baron of Mocsin, Jordan Teague, has two girls by his side who don't change their bored expressions even when he uses them; not that Teague can do much as he's too fat and doped out to care.

    Live-Action TV

    • In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Seth" (Season 3, Episode 2), the heroes go undercover in a brainwashed cult to a Earth-bound Goa'uld. Major Samantha Carter becomes part of Seth's harem.
    • Star Trek: The Original Series: Harry Mudd's female androids in "I, Mudd".
    • Deep Space Nine. Used in the traditional fashion in the Mirror Universe episodes, and Quark's D'Abo girls probably count too. Played more seriously in "Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night", when Gul Dukat is seen using Bajoran "comfort girls" for this purpose, including Kira's mother whom he manipulates into thinking he's one of the more nicer Cardassian occupiers.
    • Star Trek: Voyager. Mentioned though not seen in the holodeck program The Adventures of Captain Proton!, where Mad Scientist Dr Chaotica has a harem of slave girls which the players are meant to liberate.
    • In the Adam West Batman show, if the villain of the week was male, he would invariably have an attractive female henchman serving alongside the mooks. On rare occasions, they actually served some purpose other than scenery.

    Music Videos

    • This is basically the everyday mansion life of every rapper as portrayed in their songs, with throngs of gorgeous women in bikinis doing little more than strutting sexily in slow motion, dancing, swimming, or making out.

    Theater

    • In Starlight Express, the electric locomotive Electra enjoys an equal-opportunity entourage. Although they never explicitly refer to themselves as his harem, their actions tend to imply it.

    Web Comics

    • In the Web Comic Strange Candy the Evil Overlord has a harem which goes on strike because the metallic bikinis he requires them to wear are really uncomfortable. All of his subsequent actions are attempts to get a replacement harem.
    • Parodied in the early MS Paint Adventures series Bard Quest, in which the king keeps a pair of attractive scantily-clad servants by his throne... But the king is gay, so they're two shirtless muscular men.

    Western Animation

    • The Penguin in The Batman has two women dressed as kabuki styled geishas following him around in his debut episode... who also happen to be ninjas with razor sharp claws.
      • They may also be robots. It's not exactly clear.
      • Judging by their bizarre neck movements, being The Voiceless, never seeing an inch of exposed flesh, along with the Penguin being an expert bird-trainer, they may well be giant trained birds. Perhaps even mutant or genetically-engineered giant birds, really, it's one of the series more amusing Epileptic Trees.
    • Batman the Animated Series, particularly the New Adventures, did this a few times as well, including a villainess with Chippendale-esque henchmen, and disturbingly, Mr. Freeze with women in Stripperiffic parkas.
      • Note also that in live action film, Batman and Robin, Dr. Freeze has a eye-candy woman in what is essentially a Fur Bikini slumming around his lair. However, when she asks him if he's feeling warm he rebukes her and points out that his heart only beats for his wife. So why keep her around then?
        • Or could it be that women going into the henchperson career look for a boss who won't be demanding sexual favors, so he gets a disproportionate number of the available female mooks?
        • This makes sense and even ties into the comics. Apparently The Riddler used to get a large number of female, and generally more intelligent, mooks because he was known for treating them better and not being so quick to sacrifice them. Conversely, the Joker usually got bottom of the rung guys who were desperate for money

    Real Life

    1. ↑ Drew Barrymore!
    2. ↑ Debi Mazar!
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