| rdfs:comment | - It seems in most fiction, be it TV, films or literature, a teenage heroine automatically wants to wear provocative clothes, date sleazy guys, do poorly in school and otherwise give her father a reason to be an Overprotective Dad. If she doesn't actually do anything like that, she still secretly wants to. A lot of shows made in recent years will have a secondary character avert this by being a tomboy or otherwise ostensibly uninterested in "girly" things, but even most of them secretly drool over guys, because in writer-land there's no such thing as a girl who isn't obsessed with boys (or very occasionally other girls). If she's not interested in fashion at the start, she usually gets an Unnecessary Makeover and subsequently winds up dating the male lead.
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| abstract | - It seems in most fiction, be it TV, films or literature, a teenage heroine automatically wants to wear provocative clothes, date sleazy guys, do poorly in school and otherwise give her father a reason to be an Overprotective Dad. If she doesn't actually do anything like that, she still secretly wants to. A lot of shows made in recent years will have a secondary character avert this by being a tomboy or otherwise ostensibly uninterested in "girly" things, but even most of them secretly drool over guys, because in writer-land there's no such thing as a girl who isn't obsessed with boys (or very occasionally other girls). If she's not interested in fashion at the start, she usually gets an Unnecessary Makeover and subsequently winds up dating the male lead. A girl is seldom allowed to be realistically uncomfortable with her changing body, or want to maybe stay a child a little longer, especially in things made within the last decade. In Real Life, many young teenage girls have trouble adjusting to their changing bodies and the resultant shift in attention they receive, do not look forward to having a period, and/or are simply disinterested in boys until they reach their later adolescence. In fiction, a 'late bloomer' is almost universally used only if she's going to become interested in boys and clothes, with the Unfortunate Implications that there's something wrong with any girl who doesn't, or that a girl is 'incomplete' without a boy. This is an unfortunate side effect of the concept of Most Writers Are Male, and so simply have little to no understanding about how teenage girls actually work, unless they are both skilled and intelligent. Books by female writers, especially those that are actually aimed at a teenage audience, can actually be better at averting this than adult media that contain a teenage character. Teenage boys almost always fall victim to the 'obsessed with the other sex' trope, which becomes fairly unrealistic when the boy in question is still a preteen. Boys tend to be portrayed as spending much if not all their brain-power on getting/dating/impressing girls, when in Real Life most have hobbies and a life outside of skirt-chasing (especially younger boys, unless they're early bloomers). If the writer is male, though, they typically become better-thought-out actual characters, and some female writers can handle male characters better than male writers with female. (Younger) Sister Trope of All Women Are Lustful and All Men Are Perverts. As with adult characters, there's no such thing as Asexuality, and there are almost always No Bisexuals, especially among teen males. Older female teens will (very rarely) be allowed to be bi, but again that's because Most Writers Are Male. This trope comes from the same sort of mindset as Everybody Has Lots of Sex, since both tropes assume that involvement with the opposite sex is highly important to everyone, but usually not alongside it except in a particularly risqué depiction of the high school setting. Though this is taken to severe extremes in fiction, many adults and even some teenagers (and this DOES vary by community) will agree that this is Truth in Television far too often. Its opposite is Chaste Teens. Examples of Hormone-Addled Teenager include:
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