• SaraTonin@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Pop Culture Detective has a video on a trope he calls “born sexy yesterday” about female characters who are extremely naive (often because they’re newly-created, or somehow new to Earth/human society) and how this allows a thoroughly mediocre male character to impress her mightily by having very ordinary knowledge that she doesn’t. A couple of examples given are how the alien in My Stepmother Is An Alien is incredibly impressed by the idea of putting extra cheese on microwave mac & cheese, and how the lead in Alita: Battle Angel is similarly blown away by a guy introducing her to chocolate.

      It’s a way to have the fantasy of an incredibly (physically) attractive woman fall head-over-heels in love with you without you actually having to do anything. Just having the same knowledge that everybody else does is enough, because you’re the first person she met.