coelasquid:

tmirai:

This is such an interesting dissection of a very common trope in writing female characters that I never really thought about before, but it’s so prevalent and so obvious and so fucking disgusting.

This is a really well put together breakdown of this trope, particularly how the fantasy basically breaks down to “unremarkable men are remarkable to women with no life experience”, but the one thing I might say merits further conversation is the point he tries to make that the trope isn’t typically reversed because women don’t find the idea of naive men sexy. I’m not going to say that women DO want to cow around inexperienced manchildren, but I will say I think he’s making a fairly inequal comparison when he says reversing the trope plays up men’s buffoonish nature. Half of the equation here is that the character is supposed to be heavily sexualized and I would argue that his examples of “born yesterday” men are not. Or if they are supposed to be, they were devised by someone with a very patronizing view of what people who find men attractive are attracted to.

I feel like choosing Blast From the Past as as example of a Sexy Naive Man Played By Brenden Fraiser when George of the Jungle exists goes to show that the guy who made this either has a shaky concept of what constitutes “sexy” when it comes to male characters or was cherrypicking his examples to make his point;

His whole performance in this movie was deliberately constructed to be a direct reversal to the female version of this trope.

Another better example of a 1:1 reversal of this trope would probably be, of all things, Universal Soldier. Jean Claude van Damme’s character is intensely athletic and competent at his designated role as a secret government super soldier, but he’s grossly ignorant to social nuances like when it’s acceptable to wander around naked. He’s not played off as a buffoonish manchild, he just leaves Ally Walker scrambling to protect his decency between bouts of grappling with Dolph Lundgren.

Probably the most iconic, deliberate reversal of this trope that I’m kind of amazed was overlooked is the titular character of the Rocky Horror picture show.

Like… This character exists completely as commentary on this trope. There is no conceit of trying to pretend he exists as anything beyond a sexualized, naive plaything for the amusement of the worldly, experienced character who built him. His verse in the finale number outlines this even more explicitly;

I’m just seven hours old
Truly beautiful to behold
And somebody should be told
My libido hasn’t been controlled
Now the only thing I’ve come to trust
Is an orgasmic rush of lust
Rose tints my world
And keeps me safe from my trouble and pain

His role in the story also works to deconstruct the convention in exactly the way this guy say he’d like to see it handled more often; the conflict is rooted in Rocky choosing to become involved with a similarly sheltered and inexperienced person rather than the seasoned one he was built for, effectively “ruining” his intended purpose as a blank slate for Frank to claim ownership of.

I’m not trying to argue with this guy’s central point or anything because it’s a super important thing to be aware of, just with the idea that staging the same trope with a male character as the inexperienced party doesn’t typically work because inexperience makes men unattractive, when it’s more because the guys making these movies are usually either afraid of or don’t understand what DOES make men sexy.