All-American girl

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The expressions All-American Girl (English for 'exemplary American girl') and Girl Next Door denote the cultural stereotype of the nice “girl next door” in the United States .

Implications and Delimitation

The stereotype of the All-American girl and the “girl next door” marks a type of healthy, undemanding femininity in the cultural discourse of the United States that can be contrasted with other female stereotypes, e.g. B. with the femme fatale , the slut , the valley girl , the girlie or the tomboy . The male counterpart is the " boy next door ".

In American literature , a man's love for a "girl next door" is an archetypal element of the romance novel . Unlike the femme fatale , the “girl next door” has no secret intentions of her own because her character is open and straightforward and because her social, economic and sexual intentions do not need to be concealed. Unlike the Fernidol's social and economic status, hers is hardly higher than that of the male protagonist. The “girl next door” tends to be a person whom the protagonist has known all his life, but was not yet able to recognize as a love object due to his youthful lack of need.

The all-American girl in literature and film

Outstanding examples of next-door figures may appear. a. in Mark Twain's 1876 ​​novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Becky Thatcher, Tom Sawyer) and in Thornton Wilder's 1938 play Our Little Town (Emily Webb, George Gibbs). In the movie Isn't Life Beautiful? Already as schoolgirls Mary Hatch and Violet Bick reveal the role clichés girl-next-door and slut. In the alternative world organized by an angel, Mary Hatch remains unmarried because George Bailey, "her" boy next door, was not born.

The film The Girl Next Door , released in 2004, plays with the stereotype by suggesting over long stretches of the plot that the girl is not sexually innocent, but a porn actress.

The fictional supporting character Mary Jane Watson from the Marvel Comics can also be used as a further example of an “All-American Girl” . Among other things, she appears in various Spider-Man titles as a good friend of the protagonist next door.

See also

literature

  • Frances B. Cogan: All-american girl: The womanhood in mid-nineteenth-century America. 1989
  • Michael Levine: Feeling For Buffy - The Girl Next Door. In: Michael Levine, Steven Schneider: Buffy and Philosophy. Open Court Press, 2003
  • Frank Rich: Journal: The Girl Next Door. New York Times, February 20, 1994
  • Michael Walker: She spits on the girl next door. Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1994
  • Elizabeth Wurtzel: Women: Read my lips: Are you a girl next door or a second wife? The Guardian, December 22, 1998

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