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.
If I can tag on here–
It’s less that gender-reversed instances of this trope don’t work or don’t exist, than it is that there are very few instances where the trope is played straight, as it were. Both George of the Jungle and Rocky Horror, I would argue, are intentional subversions of the trope, meant to poke fun at / comment on the usual portrayals of innocent sexualized women. ‘Innocent-sexy-man’ doesn’t really exist as a trope in-itself because it is inherently subversive of western patriarchal values.
Whereas, ‘buffoonish man needs taking care of’ is definitely a trope, and it’s allowed to be a trope because it assigns women to ‘acceptable’ roles as nurturers and care-givers of men. It’s still a male fantasy– rather than sexualizing innocence, it says, ‘hey dudes, don’t you hate making responsible choices and being a functional adult? Find yourself a Competent Woman and you won’t have to! Let her do all the work and you can laze around being a shithead! Call her a shrew when she asks you to complete basic tasks!’ It’s the still shitty flip-side of the ‘innocent-sexy-woman’– it’s the ‘every-woman-can-be-your-mother’ trope. (the ‘marry-your-mother’ trope, if you will, as opposed to the ‘marry-a-literal-or-metaphorical-child’ trope)
If we’re looking for actual female fantasies, George of the Jungle is definitely it; but even George of the Jungle isn’t a straight reversal of the ‘innocent-sexy’ trope. ‘Innocent-sexy-woman’ is, at heart, about a sexualized power-balance. If anything, I would argue that George of the Jungle acts as the Ultimate female fantasy because it’s one of the few movie relationships where there is no power imbalance. George has no concept of patriarchal norms, no toxic masculinity, no need to establish himself as master and protector, which makes him the perfect female romantic fantasy.
tl;dr: the male ‘innocence’ fantasy is about showing a naive young woman ‘the ways of the world’ and making her dependent on you; the female innocence fantasy is about finding a naive young man and mutually noping the fuck out of toxic western social structures.
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