Has anyone realized that in media we rarely see a friendship between an unpopular and plain girl amd a popular attractive boy?

Cause the reverse is so much more common like Kim Possible for example, but the reverse is pretty much unheard of. It might happen from time to time, but it's sexist.

Maybe Harry Potter's friendship with Luna and Hermione might count, but it's still less common.

Yes, people have realized it and pointed it out, but thus far not much has been done with it, to my knowledge.

Some might see Velma's friendship with Fred (from Scooby Doo, though not from Velma) as this, though it's not canonical anywhere that Velma is unpopular, or that Fred is popular (she's canonically unpopular in Velma, but she and Fred aren't friends there).

I know I've seen this dynamic in manga, but I can't think specifically of where.

As mentioned in the trope talk version of this thread, I don't find it sexist, I find it natural. A steroids unpopular girl or boy probably won't have much in common with a stereotypical popular girl or boy. It's harder to make them friends because there's less common ground.

Derp, ignore

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 16th 2023 at 1:19:06 PM

Wrong thread?

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 15th 2023 at 9:36:27 PM

Yes

Howl's Moving Castle and Spirited Away both feature a plain or average-looking girl whose personality, character, and deeds attract the (romantic or platonic) attention of a handsome, alluring wizard guy. In Howl, the girl is even cursed to have the appearance of her "true self", and spends like half the movie with the body of an elderly woman in her seventies or eighties.

You might find more instances of the "plain/unpopular girl with popular attractive guy" pairing in feminist or female-centric media. (Of course, a work being feminist or aimed at girls or women isn't necessarily a guarantee that you won't find the reverse, as you saw with Kim Possible.) When you think about it, especially when the work is from the guy's perspective, the unpopular/plain/average guy attracting the hot girl is kinda a male fantasy.

Well, yeah. They're exactly the same fantasy, just from different points of view.

I know I've seen movies where the situation is the popular jock guy takes a bet to date the unattractive girl, and then discovers he likes her. There's the movie "She's All That'' where a popular guy bets that he can make any girl popular, and so falls in love with the nerdy girl he's endeavoring to make popular (these scenarios have also been done where the genders are flipped). What's different about these, I suppose, is that we're generally getting the story from the popular/attractive character's perspective.

In The Breakfast Club, the popular jock ends up attracted to the unpopular weird girl.

It's implied it won't last though.

Edit

I think some Jane Austen books might also count, like Northanger Abbey with the female and male leads there.

I think that TV and movies are still male dominated industries and that is where I would expect to see the unpopular male/popular female pairings, rather than say books.

Edited by editerguy on Feb 19th 2023 at 5:13:08 AM

Hello, this is like 60% of Shoujo anime and mangas. Popular, conventionally attractive boys are friends and love interests of the unpopular Plain Jane. This is also a cliche in many western high school Rom Coms, see The Duff and check out this list for more examples (though they all end up in romance than just pure platonic friendship).

Granted Shoujo media, like other works of Japanese origin, has a Generic Cuteness thing going on that makes the plain Jane in question come off as Hollywood Homely.