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 mutual friendship that later often develops into romantic attraction. A similar expression is "boy next door".
CharacteristicsEdit
A girl-next-door character is often seen as natural and unpretentious. A trope that evokes nostalgia, it is associated with small towns and more local or even rural ways of life.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> The girl next door is often portrayed as innocent.<ref name=":0" />
Actress and singer Doris Day, renowned for her rom-com film roles in the 1950s, is described as a pioneering embodiment of the girl-next-door image in film:<ref name=":0"/> regarded as "Hollywood's girl next door".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
A common cliche is when a male protagonist is caught in a love triangle between two women, he will usually choose the "sweet, ordinary, and caring girl next door" he grew up with rather than a more well-off or beautiful woman with less morals.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Other times, this character ignores the hero for another male character, despite being the object of his affections.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Better source
The character Mary Ann Summers from the TV show Gilligan's Island (portrayed by Dawn Wells) had the girl next door allure, in contrast with the more glamorous character Ginger Grant (portrayed by Tina Louise).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Due to the popularity of the show and the two lead female characters, the question "Ginger or Mary Ann?" became shorthand for asking someone whether they preferred a girl-next-door type or a more glamorous type.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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Further readingEdit
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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..."