Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. ❤️

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

posted by Jason Kottke  ·  gift link

Born Sexy Yesterday

The most recent video by The Pop Culture Detective Agency explores a trope in TV and movies they call Born Sexy Yesterday.

It’s a science fiction convention in which the mind of a naive, yet highly skilled, girl is written into the body of a mature sexualized woman. Born Sexy Yesterday is about an unbalanced relationship, but it’s also very much connected to masculinity. The subtext of the trope is rooted in a deep seated male insecurity around experienced women and sexuality.

Note that Born Yesterday isn’t meant literally. Born Sexy Yesterday can be written literally but it doesn’t have to be. If media uses a “fish out of water” plot to frame an adult woman as an inexperience child then it fits the trope.

Examples of this trope can be seen in The Fifth Element, Forbidden Planet, Tron: Legacy, Splash, My Stepmother is an Alien, Japanese anime, and just about any episode of Star Trek where Kirk seduces an alien woman.