[ SECRET POST #6112 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6112 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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[Remnant: From the Ashes]



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #874.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[meadowphoenix]

so tropes aren't really about correlation. like "mean dumb boyfriend" is also a narrative trope and "perfect boyfriend" tropes often require the guy be firing on all attractive cylinders, including intelligence. secondly, there are at least two narrative versions of the himbo. there's the "first" one where the himbo where the himbo is the slub boyfriend but hot, so the inference is that the non-himbo is long-suffering but the attractiveness makes up for it. then there's the "second" version where the himbo's specific social attractiveness imo is that he's a good boyfriend despite not being the sharpest, i.e. the non-himbo partner is couched as someone who is giving something up (a partnership that is mutually guided) for something better (someone who is kind and well-intentioned).

i think you can criticize this trope (there are some counter-narrative versions where part of the non-himbo's growth is realizing that they are in some way emotionally taking advantage of their partner because they assume a lack of comprehension means a lack of depth or emotional need), but i don't think your interpretation gets at why it's popular in either its shallow version of arm-candy or its more nuanced version of "he's dumb but he's good".

side-note: I would not consider hercules a himbo, just naive about relationships.

[(Anonymous)]

I do think that there is a sense with the second category (which IMO is the more archetypal of the two) that the lack of intelligence is a token of the himbo being kind and well-intentioned. It's not attractive in itself but it is a guarantee of the qualities which are.

[meadowphoenix]

i completely disagree with the second being "more" archetypel, I'd argue that you can actually see the second as a development of the first, where the comedy was either that he got left for someone more well-rounded OR he was so hot any other lack was worth it, and then someone was like...well what if he was worth it beyond that.

for the idea of sense, the second himbo trope is very much similar to and interacts with the "chill/beach bum/zen bf" trope to a similar effect. i think both are playing on audience expectations of emotional labor more than they connecting the value of the bf with his lack of skill. Like most of the time, even in the 3 examples I recognize in the pic, the point is an indictment of the assumption that dumbness/shallowness means burdensome bf. I could see how this is a fine line, and probably depends on how they depict rival love interests or the protagonist themself.

The Munsters sorta plays with it in an edifying way as an in-between, in that Herman is sort of a himbo, in that other monster characters do think Herman is hot, but it's very clear that his lack of intelligence quite regularly harms the family and also that they put up with it because he's extremely well-intentioned.