Swing Low, Sweet Harriet
Or putting a grown woman (20s to 30s) on a swing and how that's cute and/or hot. Panty Shot optional, but certainly implied.
Even modern examples often imply the woman is reliving her childhood, a good 20 years ago.
As the trope's name comes from the slave spiritual song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", this is not to be confused with Dirty Harriet, unless it occurs at some very weird strip club...
Also has very little to do with Trauma Swing.
Examples of Swing Low, Sweet Harriet include:
Art
- Older Than Radio — and in fact seen as mildly naughty Fan Service in the early modern era. Hint: Imagine how antiquated undergarments would work on a swing.
Film
- A film called "Girl on a Swing" involves a statue of a Creepy Child on a swing, which is mysteriously connected to the male lead's Love Interest, who is also seen on a swing.
- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
- Played straight in "The Saddest Music in the World": Narcissa sings "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" while sitting on an elaborately decorated swing
- Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing had Beatrice on a swing.
- Unsexy variation in 10 Things I Hate About You: Patrick sits Kat down on the swings when she's drunk at the Wild Teen Party and tries to keep her from passing out. They have a little bit of a "moment," and then she pukes on his shoes.
- Later, there's a scene where Kat looks down from her bedroom window to see Bianca sitting on a tire swing, dressed in notably little-girlish clothes, and decides to go to the prom so Bianca can, too.
- The first Bring It On movie has a scene where Torrance sits on a swing.
- Fantasia has it in the Pastoral Symphony, when the cupids are matchmaking among the Centaurs.
- Played entirely straight in the 1993 erotic drama Sirens.
Literature
- The Sound and the Fury: The swing in the garden is the site of one of Caddy's first trysts with a boyfriend, and much later, her daughter Quentin also goes there with a boy.
- Kristina, one of the heroines in Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants novels, is fond of swinging and continues to do it in secret even when she's an adult. She first met her husband, Karl Oskar, while recovering from a wounded knee after she fell out of a swing, and interprets it as a sign that God makes bad things happen only so good things can come out of them. The musical adaptation, Kristina från Duvemåla, opens with Kristina on her swing.
- Subverted in Superwally: The Advanced Wally Manual by Paul Manning, which describes "Wallettes" as sitting on the swings in public playgrounds to gossip, and swearing at small children who want a go. Not cute or hot.
Live-Action TV
- Pushing Daisies has it on the promo pictures.
- Harry Enfield once did a parody of this trope. He made this Darker and Edgier film titled 'Poppet on a Swing' in one of his sketches.
- There's an advert for a spa in the UK press with some lady in a low-cut one-piece swimsuit on a swing.
- An old episode of Wild Wild West, with the straitlaced Girl of the Week being hypnotized into this.
- 313 in the 2009 version of The Prisoner, several times when she's brooding.
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hollow Pursuits", Barclay's holographic version of Beverly Crusher sits in a swing wearing an enormous frock.
- In the Bones episode The Girl with the Curl, Hodgins takes Angela swinging for their first date.
Music Videos
- Must have occurred in a Gwen Stefani video.
- Catatonia, "Dead From the Waist Down".
- TLC's "No Scrubs" video.
- The John Anderson song Swinging:
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Little Charlotte she's a darlin' |
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Puppet Shows
- One episode of The Muppet Show had special guest Theresa Brewer in a recreation of the Fragonard painting. She attempted to sing "Spinning Wheel" while being pushed by Sweetums.
Theater
- The first act of the dance musical "Contact" is based on The Swing painting. The Girl and The Servant have no problem making contact.
Real Life
- Evelyn Nesbit, the "Girl on the Red Velvet Swing".