Hormone-Addled Teenager: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[She's All That]]'' turns the female lead partly into this, complete with [[Unnecessary Makeover]]. It still possesses a good [[Aesop]] about staying true to who you are, though, even if it's slightly undermined by the implication that you still need to look like everyone else.

* The ''[[Bratz]]'' movie is a particularly [[Egregious]] offender on the fashion-obsession front, but that movie is an [[Egregious]] offender against humanity.

* 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.

== [[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.

* 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.

* Pick a [[Disney Channel]] show. ''Any'' Disney Channel show.

** ''[[Hannah Montana]]''.

** The female guest stars on ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]'', which also makes the titular twins interested in girls even before they've hit puberty.

* ''[[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 ''[[Whos the Boss]]''. This really was something of a staple of 1980s/1990s sitcoms. Of course, this invokes the [[Overprotective Dad]] trope.

* ''[[Gossip Girl]]''.

* Tiffany Malloy of ''[[Unhappily Ever After]]'' is a subversion; while she nearly always dresses skankily, she remains a virgin by choice throughout the series.

** 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.

* 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.

* ''[[Blossom]]'' tended to feature this, though [[You Are Number Six|Six]] was an example of this to a larger degree than Blossom herself.

* Discussed on ''[[The West Wing]]'':

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* 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]].

* 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.