The Cool Girl Trope, Explained

[am2m]

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Basicaly the video explores the old "cool girl" trope: created by men for men. But remember that it only works if the cool girl is hot. It points out the Sandra Bullock was "one of the guys" on Miss Congeniality but she only becomes a cool girl after the make over.

Comments

[rhapsodeeinblue]

The Gone Girl monologue is iconic. It explained the trope way too well lol. And unfortunately unlike the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which only exists in fiction, you had real life "I'm not like the other girls" type girls. Luckily I think pop culture has been moving away from that.

[am2m]

It was a game changer imo

[gossipfaux]

I think that's reflected in the cultural phrase "pick mes" and the conversations around "pick me" types of behaviors.... not like other girls etc.

[greenfairy_87]

Sometimes I wonder if the MPDG was created by a man who briefly knew an autistic woman and didn't know, but found her cute and her unexplainable behavioral quirks madly enticing and thought "What if her lacking social skills translated into wanting to fuck me"

[zeysech]

I feel like "Cool Girl" is a very specific subset of "I'm not like the other girls." Cool Girl seems to be centered around how a woman tries to present herself in order to gain male attention, "I'm not like the other girls" comes in all flavors and isn't always centered around men imo. In fact, I would say in in all cases when I saw "I'm not like other girls" behavior IRL (or... ahem displayed it myself), it came from a feeling of not being able to relate to your peers and feeling like you failed to conform to certain gender norms, rather than specifically craving male attention. It was more about masking insecurity.

[winegums]

I've seen both flavours, and idk if it's a cultural thing but where I grew up there were a ton of Cool Girls (in different places and times) who used male attention and 'one of the boys' validation as a form of social currency. Not necessarily sexual attention, mind you, just that even in certain single-sex peer groups/girls' schools, some girls were looked up to or considered 'better' at least in part because they had male friends who were popular/known to the group. And they all had the same interests, liked the same music and books as these boys etc.

I feel like that's the defining feature of Cool Girls, the shaping themselves (whether consciously or unconsciously) into identities that are about putting boys/men at ease. That's different from just having interests that aren't stereotypical for girls. Like, a Cool Girl would never ever admit she's into, idk, kpop (thing with mostly female fans). But would say she's into, for example, anime (plenty of male fans).

[rhapsodeeinblue]

"the shaping themselves (whether consciously or unconsciously) into identities that are about putting boys/men at ease. That's different from just having interests that aren't stereotypical for girls"

+1