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{{quote|''"[[Dawson Casting|I'm sixteen]]. Looking at linoleum makes me think about sex."''|'''Xander''', ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''}}
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 [[Depending on the Writer|be better at averting this]] than adult media that contain a teenage character.
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* The ''[[Bratz]]'' movie is a particularly [[Egregious]] offender on the fashion-obsession front, but that movie is an [[Egregious]] offender against humanity.
* ''[[13 Going on 30|Thirteen Going On Thirty]]'', though not so much on the dating front. Definitely fits the fashion-obsession angle, though.
* Amy Dolenz's character in the Tony Danza film ''She's Out of Control''.
* Male example in the film adaptation of ''[[The Dark Is Rising]]''. In the books, Will is a thoughtful eleven-year-old who's described as 'wise for his years'. In the movie, he's a fourteen-year-old [[Jerkass]] who immediately wants to use his newfound powers to get a girl.
* The daughter in ''[[Legion]]'' before all heaven breaks loose.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* Played straight in [[Dean Koontz]]'s ''[[Phantoms]]'', where it's specifically said that the fourteen-year-old girl is 'at that stage where most girls were obsessively concerned with boys, boys above all else' and opens the book with her arguing with her older sister about dating. She gains more personality as the story goes on, however.
* Played extremely straight in ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]''; all Bella does is obsess over Edward and how perfect he is. Most of the other female characters aren't much better. Edward is just as bad (if not worse, given his stalker-ish tendencies), and practically every other male thinks about little besides [[Mary Sue|Bella.]]
** One of the harshest criticisms leveled against ''[[Twilight (novel)|New Moon]]'' is Bella's reaction to Edward leaving her, which includes pages left ''blank'' for the first four months he's gone, implying that without him her life is literally nothing.
* ''[[Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.]]''. In all fairness, it was written in 1970, when discussing things like periods and puberty outside of health class was still somewhat taboo. [[Judy Blume]] was somewhat notorious for tropes like this, which gave a coronary to the [[Moral Guardians]] of the day, but back then the intent was to show girls that was all OKAY.
* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Daenerys suddenly starts acting very hormonal in ''A Dance with Dragons''.
* Used heartbreakingly in the Lois Lowry YA book ''A Summer to Die''—Molly, the elder sister, is obsessed with boys and the idea of getting married, to the severe annoyance of her younger sister Meg (who is secretly jealous of Molly's boyfriends and good looks). Molly gets sick and Meg at first resents that all her parents' attention is paid to her sister, until she realizes Molly's illness is something serious (it turns out to be leukemia) and she's going to die. Thoughts of boys and weddings help Molly keep some semblance of an idea that she's still a person, not just a terminal patient.
* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' "witches" plotline, both Magrat and Verence fall under this trope. As in many of the Discworld books, it's [[Played for Laughs]] (and Verence and Magrat are both presumably out of their teens, if not by much.)
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' ([[Trope Overdosed|of course]]): Molly Carpenter is a [[Perky Goth]] version of this. When she first becomes important to the story, she's dropped out of school, gotten a bunch of tattoos and piercings, started hanging around with the wrong crowd, and dresses like, in the protagonist's words, "Frankenhooker." She avoids going home whenever possible because any conversation she has with her mother turns into a shouting match inside of ten seconds, and develops a bit of a crush on Harry mostly because [[All Girls Want Bad Boys|her mother hates him]]. {{spoiler|She also started using [[Black Magic]]; this, naturally, does ''not'' go well. On the plus side, when she ends up as Harry's apprentice, she has to follow his rules moderating the worst of her behavior.}}
* In ''[[The Red Tent]]'', Dinah looks forward to having her first period (and thus becoming a full-fledged member of the Red Tent's inner circle with her mom and aunts), and undergoing the [[Women's Mysteries|mysterious]] [[Rite of Passage|Ritual of Opening]] so that she is considered a woman and not a little girl. When that finally does happen, she actually looks forward to getting her period every month and the New Moon rituals in the tent done at that time.
* Played ''painfully'' straight in ''Carter Finally Gets It'', which is a book about a [[Captain Ersatz|suspiciously]] [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Xander]][[Expy|-like]] boy who's absolutely obsessed with '''[[Buxom Is Better|BOOBS]]''', as are [[All Men Are Perverts|all his male friends]]. This would be mostly acceptable, except that the title character is ''[[Squick|fourteen]]''.
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* ''[[Full House]]'', with DJ in particular. Also her friend [[Butt Monkey|Kimmy]].
* Ashley in the execrable and short-lived sitcom ''[[Two of a Kind]]''.
* Samantha on ''[[
* ''[[Gossip Girl]]''.
* ''[[Dawson's Creek]]''.
* Tiffany Malloy of ''[[Unhappily Ever After]]'' is a subversion; while she nearly always dresses skankily, she remains a virgin by choice throughout the series.
* Kelly Bundy of ''[[Married... with Children]]'' is the [[Trope Codifier]], if not the [[Ur Example]].
** Satire.
* ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' is an example of this trope regularly. However, a teacher in the series mentions this trope by name (in an example of [[Alternate Character Interpretation]]) talking about ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' should get an honorary mention.
* Xander, from ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', provides the page quote for a reason. Cordelia is also a textbook example. Buffy herself averts it, at first only because her responsibilities as [[Chosen One|Slayer]] prevent it despite her best efforts, but she grows up as the series goes on.
* In Season 3 of [[Outnumbered]], a BBC sitcom about a pretty realistic, rather-dysfunctional family, all Jake's storylines involve his new tendency to stare at women, making him pretty lecherous for a 14-year-old.
** This is probably an attempt to add attributes and plotlines to an otherwise fairly uninteresting character, who is constantly upstaged by the other children on the show.
* Half the cast of ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'', especially Zack, Lisa, and Screech. Jessi, being the [[Soapbox Sadie]], is the biggest aversion.
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== [[Music]] ==
* Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun".
== [[Toys]] ==
* [[Barbie]] took a lot of flak for this for years, especially in one of her 'talking' iterations, where her phrases included things like "Let's go shopping!" and "Math is hard!" A group called Barbie Liberation [http://sniggle.net/barbie.php took matters into their own hands] to rectify that, swapping out Barbie's voice boxes with ones from [[G.I. Joe]], so Barbie instead said things like [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"Vengeance is mine!"]]. [[Girls Need Role Models]] indeed.
{{quote|[[The Simpsons (animation)|Don't ask me, I'm just a girl.]]}}
** Barbie eventually grew out of this with her and her friends gaining personalities and mainly focusing on their goals. (Barbie has acting, Teresa has fashion design, Grace has sports, Summer has writing and so on.)
* Likewise, the [[Bratz]] dolls advocated shopping and fashion as a cure for all of life's woes. To say nothing of their actual appearance and, uh, taste in fashion.
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Steve Smith of ''[[American Dad]]''.
* Roberta Tubbs of ''[[The Cleveland Show]]''.
* Meg Griffin of ''[[Family Guy]]'', at least in the earlier seasons before [[Flanderization]] set in and the writers took "don't know how to write for a teen girl" to a disturbing new level and decided to [[Butt Monkey|just flat-out abuse her]].
** Also, her brother, [[Cloudcuckoolander|Chris]], who seems to spend a lot of time [[A Date with Rosie Palms|masturbating]].
* Many, many [[Disney Animated Canon]] movies, though a lot of them are based on [[Fairy Tales]].
* [[Beavis and Butthead]] may be the male epitome of this.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]
[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]
[[Category:Double Standard]]
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