Girl next door

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This article is about the cultural stereotype. For other uses, see Girl Next Door (disambiguation).

"All-American girl" redirects here. For other uses, see All American Girl (disambiguation).

The cultural and sexual stereotype of the girl next door or the All-American girl is invoked in American contexts to indicate wholesome, unassuming femininity, as opposed to the culture's other female stereotypes such as the tomboy, the valley girl, the femme fatale, girly girl, or the slut. The male equivalent is the "boy next door". Both gender examples of the "Next Door" archetype are quintessentially addressed with Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the characters of Emily Webb and George Gibbs or in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer series within the characters of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher.

In the idealised American context, falling in love with the "girl next door" is a classic exemplar of romantic fiction. Unlike the femme fatale, the girl next door does not have hidden plans of her own, because her character and personality are open and straightforward, and because her social, economic, and sexual intentions do not need to be concealed. Unlike the princesse lointaine, she seldom is richer or of a higher social status than the boy protagonist. The girl next door likely is a girl whom the protagonist has known most of his life, but in the past could not appreciate the depth of his feelings for her because of his youth.

The girl next door is always physically in close range, yet simultaneously detached from the male protagonist (she need not literally live next door). She is the sweet-tempered girl he sees daily, a really great 'pal' friend, hence the perfect girl to take home to his parents. Often, she is a sexual virgin, and, because of that, her innocent manner is the façade of many American erotic fantasies portraying her "girl next door" image as the pretense behind which is the true, very sexually aggressive woman. The friction of these contradictions in the archetype is the key story theme in the film The Girl Next Door (2004).

Examples

Betsy Booth (Judy Garland) in Love Finds Andy Hardy, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante, and Life Begins for Andy Hardy
Betty Cooper from Archie Comics
Iris Gaines¹ (Glenn Close) in The Natural
Emily Jones² (Elizabeth Banks) in Definitely, Maybe
Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) on The Wonder Years
Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) in the first several seasons of Smallville
Alice from the well-known Smokie song Living Next Door to Alice
Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) from Spider-Man
Donna Pinciotti (Laura Prepon) from That '70s Show
Joey Potter (Katie Holmes) from Dawson's Creek
Taylor Swift in her song You Belong with Me
Maggie (Joanna Garcia) in the How I Met Your Mother episode "The Window"
Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays) from Glee
Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) from The Office
Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb) from Bridge to Terabithia
Mary Ann Summers (Dawn Wells) from Gilligan's island
Isabella Garcia-Shapiro (Alyson Stoner) from Phineas and Ferb

References

[0] In love with the girl next door, Iris Gaines (Glenn Close), Roy leaves the farm after promising to come back to her in order to pursue a tryout as a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

[1] Is her mother Will's college sweetheart, the dependable girl next-door Emily?

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Girl next door

Examples

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