Girl next door
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The girl next door is a young female stock character who is often used in romantic stories. She is named so because she often lives next door to the protagonist or is a childhood friend. They start out with a friendship that later often develops into romantic attraction. A similar expression is "boy next door".
Characteristics
A girl-next-door character is often portrayed as natural, innocent, and unpretentious. Evoking nostalgia, she is associated with small towns and local or even rural ways of life.[1] For example, the actress and singer Doris Day, "Hollywood's girl next door," renowned for her rom-com film roles in the 1950s, pioneered the type in film.[1][2] On television, the sitcom Gilligan's Island offered the character of Mary Ann Summers (portrayed by Dawn Wells), with her girl-next-door allure in contrast with the glamorous movie star character Ginger Grant (Tina Louise).[3] The show's long popularity led to the question "Ginger or Mary Ann?," a shorthand way to ask someone whether they preferred a girl-next-door type or a glamorous type.[4]
The love triangle is a common trope in fiction and often involves a male protagonist caught between his desire for two women, one of them the "sweet, ordinary, and caring girl next door" he grew up with, the other a more well-off or beautiful woman of lower morals. The male may pass over the latter for the girl next door,[5] or may himself be ignored by the beautiful woman as she pursues a more desirable man.[6]Template:Better source
See also
References
Further reading
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- From a review: "To Michal Levine and Steven Jay Schneider ... Buffy is just another unconscious Freudian reality tale starring the proverbial girl next door." in: Joss Whedon: The Complete Companion: The TV Series, the Movies, the Comic Books, and More
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- The article criticizes Sports Illustrated for their misuse of term "girl next door": "Otherwise the magazine is still pushing what Ms. Brinkley repeatedly described as the "natural beauty" of "what readers long for – the girl next door". Who is the girl next door? Her fake name keeps changing but she is still the same empty-headed, smiling, air-brushed mannequin who appeared in Playboy in the 1950s and early 60s..."