Tron: Legacy, Disney's neon infused sequel to the 1982 classic, includes a particularly egregious example of a trope that has bothered me for years. QUORRA: "I'm Quorra!" It's a gendered convention that will be instantly familiar to science fiction fans. The convention shows up over and over again in speculative media, but it didn't have a name,
so I gave it one. I call it Born Sexy Yesterday. SAM: "She's an ISO." The character of Quorra is
an isomorphic algorithm, or ISO. Basically she's a sentient computer program
in the shape of a woman. KEVIN: "She's the miracle, man. Everything I ever worked for. A digital frontier to reshape the human condition." As the last of the ISOs, Quorra is described this way: KEVIN (voiceover): "Profoundly naive, unimaginably wise" If that sounds vaguely like something someone might say about a child, it's no accident. Because that's exactly how Tron: Legacy portrays Quorra, QUORRA: "But, between you and me, Jules Verne is my favorite. Do you know Jules Verne?" SAM: "Sure." QUORRA: "What's he like?" She has the mind of a naive yet highly skilled child, but in the body of a mature, sexualized woman. She also serves as our hero's love interest. 'Profoundly naive yet unimaginably wise'
captures the essence of this trope. 'Born yesterday' is the idiom meaning extremely naive, inexperienced, or ignorant. BILLIE: "He thinks I'm too stupid, huh?" PAUL: "No"
BILLIE: "He's right. I'm stupid and I like it." PAUL: "You do?"
BILLIE: "Sure! I'm happy! I got everything I want. Two mink coats.
Everything." As a media trope, 'Born Sexy Yesterday' has both a figurative
and, in many cases, a literal meaning. The 1997 Sci-Fi cult classic The Fifth Element is probably the most quintessential example of Born Sexy Yesterday. MACTILBURGH: "I told you ... perfect!" Like Quorra, Leeloo is whimsical and naive, but she's also deliberately framed in a sexualized way. DAVID: "They really make her..."
CORNELIUS: "Perfect. I know." The female characters that this trope is built around are defined by their innocence of, and inexperience with, worldly things. MADISON: "Pretty!" Especially when it comes to sex, romance, or basic social interaction. STEVEN: "Would you mind if I kissed you?" CELESTE: "Does it hurt?" Through the use of science fiction conventions, they're brought into the human world
already fully formed; the mind of a child manifest in a mature female body. She may be an android, a computer program, a mermaid, an alien, a magical being, or otherwise raised in an environment isolated from the rest of human society. Many of these female characters
have one very specific thing in common They're all deliberately written
to be completely unaware of their own sex appeal. This then provides filmmakers with an excuse to include at least one scene in which she disrobes in front of men, and because she's so naive,
she doesn't understand the implications of this action. ALTA: "Good morning. Come on in!" JOHN: "Didn't bring my bathing suit." ALTA: "What's a bathing suit?" JOHN: "Oh, murder." As you might imagine, there's quite a bit of overlap here with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope GISELLE: "This is a magical room! Where does the water come from?" ROBERT: "Well, the water comes from the pipes." GISELLE: "Where do the pipes get it?" Although characters who are Born Sexy Yesterday are often highly skilled at something that men will respect. Frequently, that thing is combat. Now so far, we've only focused on the female characters associated with this trope, but it isn't really about them. ALAN: "That doorway spins." Like most things in Hollywood, Born Sexy Yesterday is written for men, and ultimately it's a relationship trope. KORBEN: "5'9", blue eyes, long legs,
great skin... you know, perfect." So that means we need to talk about the other side of the equation: the male heroes. Typically, he's a straight, red-blooded man who has, for a variety of reasons, found himself alone or unsatisfied in love. He finds himself disenfranchised,
or otherwise directionless. He either can't find, or doesn't want,
a woman from his own world. A woman who might be his equal
in matters of love and sexuality. He does have one thing going for him, though: he knows all about living life as a normal human being. STEVEN: "It's too bad you don't eat food. Might find it could be quite pleasurable" CELESTE: "You get pleasure out of food?" STEVEN: "Here."
CELESTE: "No, thank you." STEVEN: "If you want my secrets, you'll eat my sandwich." Of course so does every other guy on Earth, which should make him unremarkable. STEVEN: "Chew! Chew!" Except to a woman born yesterday. Because she's presumably never known another man, he would seem like the smartest, most amazing guy in the entire universe. CELESTE: "This is fun! What is it?" STEVEN: "Ham and cheese on rye with mayo." And here's where we start to see how the trope is constructed as a male fantasy. It's precisely her naivety and her innocence that allows her to see something special in him, something that other less innocent, or more experienced women, cannot. MACHINE: "Systems normal. Estimated resuscitation times: 600 seconds. Commencing countdown." Now, we don't have time to go into it here, but Born Sexy Yesterday is
absolutely everywhere in Japanese anime. Now, I should note that Born Sexy Yesterday is not a modern trope. In fact, It's been a fixture of classic Hollywood science fiction films since the beginning of the genre. GEORGE (voiceover): "This was intriguing I wonder just how far women would permit this to go?" JOHN: "It's nothing really personal, just a kiss." ALTA: "Why should people want to kiss each other?" JOHN: "It's an old custom. All of the really high civilizations go in for it." ALTA: "But it's so silly." JOHN: "But it's good for you, though. It stimulates the whole system. As a matter of fact you can't be in tip-top health without it." ALTA: "Really? I didn't know that." JOHN: "I'd be only too happy to show you." ALTA: "Well, thank you very much, Lieutenant." JOHN: "No trouble at all." Forbidden planet in 1956 is one example; The Time Machine in 1960 is another. ALEXANDER: "Well, what's your name?" GIRL: "Weena."
ALEXANDER: "Weena? How do you spell it?" GIRL: "Spell?" ALEXANDER: "Spell, write. Can't you write?" Then there's the character of Nova from the original Planet of The Apes TAYLOR: "Look at that, I taught you to smile." who is the protagonist's love interest,
despite not understanding the concept of the language. The trope usually involves white women but Born Sexy Yesterday is an offshoot of a much older media convention, one in which white adventurers discover indigenous women. Although in this case science fiction replaces colonialism as the mechanism driving that narrative. LEELOO: [unintelligible ancient language] LEELOO: "Boom!"
ZORBEN: "Yeah, big bada boom." LEELOO: "Bada boom!"
ZORBEN: "Big, boom, big bada boom!" Still sometimes it's a little of both. Born Sexy Yesterday fetishizes the stark power imbalance between a wiser, more experienced man and a naive, inexperienced woman. It's the ultimate teacher-student dynamic. KIRK: "It's the custom of my people to help one another when we're in trouble." Star Trek is famous for making frequent use of this trope. Perhaps infamous is a better word because the trope shows up in the original series and then in every other series afterwards. ALIEN: "And this, is this also helping?" KIRK: "You could call it that." ALIEN: "Please help me once again." DOCTOR: "Let's start by doing something different with your hair." Seven of Nine's relationship with the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager is a prominent example. Especially as depicted in the episode Someone to Watch Over. DOCTOR: "Try shaking your head a little bit." SEVEN: "Is this more appropriate?" Fans of that series will remember that the doctors own social naivety is never framed by the show as something sexy. SEVEN: "How should I choose?"
DOCTOR: "I think you'd look very nice in this one." SEVEN: "I am uncertain how to wear such a garment. Assist me." DOCTOR: "I'm sure you'll manage. I'll go prepare the holiday. Remember, the idea is to have fun tonight. I'll expect a full report in the morning." Although Born Sexy Yesterday was a major part of Seven's character, at least to begin with, she is ultimately made much more than that. And outside of a handful of rather cringe-worthy episodes Seven's story is largely one of self-realization and self-discovery which manages to transcend the constraints of the trope. To a large degree this is also true of a character like Sonmi 451 from Cloud Atlas. Like Seven, her romantic relationship is downplayed while her character development is made central. SOMNI: "Knowledge is a mirror.
And for the first time in my life, I was allowed to see who I was and who I might become." Which brings me to this point: The problem with this trope is not necessarily with the female characters themselves; if these were simply stories involving naive, extraterrestrial women who learned about love and humanity, then that wouldn't be an issue. Likewise, if the male hero was also inexperienced and our two protagonists could discover love and sex together then that would avoid most of the troubling power dynamic issues. JOHN: "What's going on?" CAMERON: "You need to understand how it works." JOHN: "What?" CAMERON: "This chip. This body." So, for example, Cameron from the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show fits the trope, but her relationship with the young John Connor
is framed as much more of a mutual exploration. Since Born Sexy Yesterday hinges
on a lopsided power dynamic, it's almost never portrayed the other way around. It's extremely rare for a more experienced female character to teach a naive man about sex. SKIP: "I think I'd better go home now, Mary Sue." MARY SUE: "Why?" SKIP: "I think I might be... ill. Something's happening to me." MARY SUE: "That's supposed to happen." SKIP: "It is?" MARY SUE: "Yeah, trust me." JENNY: "What, wait, no, no, no! That's your dessert. You eat that with a fork." Perhaps that's because most grown women don't find the idea of dating an inexperienced adolescent boy all that appealing. JENNY: No, no, but, uh.
You eat that last. Sandwich first, dessert last." On the rare occasion when the genders are reversed, male ineptitude then becomes the butt of the joke. EVA: "Hi! This is the woman for the baseball card store, remember me?" ADAM: "Oh, yes, hi! Hello, hot diggity dog! Thanks for calling me on the telephone!" She may even end up falling for him, but she falls for him despite his inexperience, not because of it. ZORBEN: "Oh, so sorry, forgot about the autowash." 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 sex and sexuality. The crux of the trope is a fixation on male superiority, a fixation with holding power over an innocent girl. But in order to make that socially acceptable science fiction is employed to put the mind of that girl into a sexualized adult woman's body. It's a fantasy based on fear. Fear of women who are men's equal in sexual experience and romantic history, and fear of losing the intellectual upper hand to women. In Woody Allen's 1973 comedy Sleeper, the protagonist is frozen and, when he wakes up in the future, he's suddenly and very conveniently the only man left on Earth who still remembers how to have sex. That same exact thing happens to Stallone's character in Demolition Man. HUXLEY: "Oh, my! Are all fluid transfer activities like this?" SPARTAN: "Better."
HUXLEY: "Better?" So born sexy yesterday is a science-fiction trope
that's designed specifically so male heroes get to automatically be the most extraordinary man in a woman's life. Again, because they're basically
the only man to have ever been in her life. As such the trope rests on some troubling patriarchal ideas about female purity and virginity By definition characters Born Sexy Yesterday have no past lovers and no previous sexual experiences. She is framed as pure and innocent,
sexually and romantically, unchanged and uncorrupted
by the attention of other men. The male hero therefore avoids even the possibility of being compared, of being judged, of not measuring up. At the end of the day, this is a male fantasy
about escaping the humiliation of rejection. Since he's the first and only man in this woman's life,
he gets to be the best by default. Which means he doesn't even have to try to be a better partner, a better boyfriend, or a better lover. PEABODY: "That's what we call a kiss." Of course the reality is that life experience is a plus and not a minus in relationships. And we need more media to reflect that. We need media where men
enthusiastically embrace women who are their equals. Equals in everything, including in matters of love and sex. So to all you would-be science fiction writers out there. I'll leave you with this:
innocence is not sexy. Knowledge and experience, on the other hand, now that, that's extremely sexy. If you'd like to see more videos related to media and manhood, just hop on over to my Patreon page and help fund the Pop Culture Detective Agency.
I seriously think he does a great job at explaining these ideas in an extremely objective way, with no pretension. He seems to try his best not to patronise or be condescending, and I come away sincerely convinced by many things he says.
This helps to explain why the movie "Her" is so great. It takes this trope and at first plays it straight like so many of these other movies do, but unlike the others, the movie lets the trope play out. Eventually Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) gains more experience and outgrows Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix).
Thanks for this. Now watching the Abduction as Romance video.
Thank you for posting this! I saw it a long time ago and think about it from time to time but could never remember the channels name! He's very insightful.
That channel's got two really good videos on the casual misogyny in TV shows. It specifically about the Big Bang Theory, but it references other shows as well.
https://youtu.be/X3-hOigoxHs
https://youtu.be/7L7NRONADJ4
Can’t believe he never said “Pygmalion.” Talking about this trope as if Hollywood invented it, and ignoring the fact that it’s centuries old.
If you find this interesting I would highly recommend the Future Thinkers podcast on archetypes. They have multiple episodes on both feminine and masculine archetypes.
Sometimes it's frustrating to look back at the media that shaped my life.
This was really good. Thanks for posting.
Edit: The end bit stung but he's not wrong in explaining it. "The men are the best by default and therefore don't have to try to be a better partner, lover, etc." Ouch.