The Mischaracterizations of the Bad Boy x Good Girl Trope and Why Its Critics are WRONG
I will defend this trope with my full being!
The first time I actually became aware of the Good Girl and the Bad Boy falling in love trope in entertainment, and knew that I liked it, was when I played the popular video game franchise Tekken as a kid. I’m 25 years old now, and it’s still very precious to me. My favorite character of the franchise is Ling Xiaoyu, a cheerful and bubbly Chinese martial artist who has a massive crush on the series main protagonist Jin Kazama. If anyone knows at least part of the story of Tekken, you know it’s about one of the most dysfunctional families in video game history constantly trying to kill each other, kill other people, and trying to control the powers of the Devil Gene….to put it broadly. The Devil Gene causes main character Jin to do some really terrible things(i.e. start World War 3), even though Jin started off as a character who seemed to be the only one in his evil family that was 100% good-hearted. Xiaoyu was really great friends with Jin before his Devil Gene took over. Jin later disappeared, and during his disappearance two years later when he was still in hiding away from his psychotic family, he sends Xiaoyu an email trying to warn her of the dangers she faced from his family, proving that even in his trauma he still shows he cares for her. Xiaoyu has been trying to find him ever since and save his soul from evil, because she knows who the real Jin is while everyone else understandably hates Jin’s guts. There was always something so interesting to me how someone as kindhearted and happy as Xiaoyu can love someone that seems so opposite of her, or how cute it is for someone as broken and emo as Jin opening up to a person or showing a softer side just to Xiaoyu.
Later on as I got older, I started to realize this good girl/bad boy trope in almost every piece of media I saw. Every Disney Channel and Nickelodeon show had at least one couple or an episode where this trope was shown. Most popular movies had this as well. It’s arguably one of the most popular tropes, but in the most recent decade there has been A LOT of critics who have voiced their concerns and negative opinions about it for various reasons. Some say that it’s toxic, glorifies unhealthy relationships, promotes terrible messages particularly to young women, clings onto the “problematic” damsel-in-distress trope, etc.
But do they have a point? Aren’t these critics right? Well, I wouldn’t be writing this article if they were!
Right now, I would love to give you all a different perspective on this trope that isn’t really common to say in entertainment commentary circles. I truly believe a lot of people do not realize the underlying beauty of reality that this trope (probably unknowingly) projects. The more I start to appreciate the dynamics between men and women, the more I love this trope. Even in the most terribly written movies, I can still find it entertaining.
What is the “Good Girl” and what is the “Bad Boy”?
In order to present my claim that the critics’ claims are wrong, we first have to define what specifically is the trope. I explained it a little bit in my introduction using Tekken as an example, but let’s expand on it further. The Good Girl is the girl who follows all the rules of whatever world she’s living in, or she at least believes that there is or should be a specific order to things. She isn’t used to anything out of the ordinary, in fact, the Good Girl is a very ordinary girl. She might have one or two abnormal or sad things about her that can make her character a little bit more interesting(she only has one parent, or she has a secret of some sort that she can’t tell anyone), but overall she’s an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. The Good Girl is usually innocent, ignorant in social situations, and pure. She’s virtuous and might have a lot of empathy. She’s a character just waiting to reveal her passionate “wild” side that she refused to let any man see…until her bad boy came along.
The Bad Boy is a mystery just waiting to be solved. His mysterious nature makes him very interesting. He’s not the nicest person. He sometimes can be very violent against any man he doesn’t like or verbally abusive to women he doesn’t like….but that isn’t the side he shows the girl that he actually wants to be with. His angry and sometimes violent nature can be proof of how strong he is, and how he can be a girl’s protector and save her whenever she needs it. He’s independent in his thoughts and actions, the world is his and everyone’s just living in it. However, he also has a vulnerable side that comes with having a very tragic backstory that made him this way. He’s never had a chance to show this side….until his good girl brought it out of him. Oh, and he also has abs that can make greek gods jealous, a jawline that’s as sharp as a knife, and hair that flows beautifully in the wind….and he might have a tattoo or two to really sell that bad boy image.
Within the trope, these two seemingly polar opposites fall in love. Usually, the Bad Boy picks the Good Girl out of the crowd. There will be some back and forth of the Bad Boy getting closer but then distancing himself from the Good Girl to show us how he’s afraid of having attachments. The Good Girl will start to question him about his weird behaviors and she won’t really get an answer until he presents probably the worst episode of his mean and/or violent rage. This rage either happens as a result of him protecting her, or from him getting at someone he had a bad history with. He’ll apologize for his behavior then here he will explain his tragic backstory to her. The Good Girl comforts him and encourages him to show this softer side more often. The Good Girl tells her friends and family not to worry about the Bad Boy because he’s different around her. Sometimes in these tropes, the Bad Boy finds out the Good Girl was hiding something big from him and he’ll get upset because how dare the only person he really trusted to open up to lie to him? OR the Bad Boy did something extremely messed up to the Good Girl that lessened her trust and basically confirms all the warnings her loved ones gave her about the Bad Boy. Either way, they end up making up in the end and everything’s fine.
So now that you know the basic components of this trope, let’s talk about its critics.
Is the “Good Girl/Bad Boy” Trope Toxic and Unhealthy for Girls?
There is no doubt that a certain group of movies have given this trope a bad name. The movie series I can think of off the top of my head is Fifty Shades of Grey, After, and The Kissing Booth. In all three of these movie series, they follow the good girl/bad boy trope to the tea, but there is one thing all of these have been criticized for, and that is that all them seemingly promote toxic relationships.
In Fifty Shades of Grey, main character Ana is catapulted into a world of disturbing BDSM when she meets a young billionaire named Christian Grey, who would’ve been seen as the main villain in any other movie he wasn’t rich, attractive, or had abs. His BDSM kink is linked to the disturbing trauma he faced as a kid and admits to Ana that he gets off on punishing women like Ana that look like his mother(very romantic, right?). Christian controls everything Ana does, seems to know where her exact location is at all times, and(at least in the first movie) give her mixed signals because he claims he doesn’t do the whole romance thing….only for him and Ana to get married in the third movie. After sort of follows the same format but without the BDSM and both main characters are in college. Good Girl Tessa meets Bad Boy brit Hardin(and you can tell he’s a bad boy because he has tattoos), and their first interaction isn’t pleasant. He’s laying in her dorm room without her consent and when she request that he leaves so she can get dressed, he doesn’t. In fact he says “don’t flatter yourself, I’m not looking”. And he does all this while reading one of Tessa’s books without her permission. For some odd reason despite Hardin giving all the reasons to not like him, she stares at him constantly. These two have quite a few rocky moments before they actually start dating and Hardin takes her virginity, but turns out Hardin only got with her due to a bet he made with his friends which obviously leaves Tessa heartbroken(but they make up in the next movie, don’t worry). On the other hand in The Kissing Booth, main character Elle is only attracted to Bad Boy Noah simply because he’s hot. Noah is a very violent person and quite controlling. He even threatens another guy to not show up to a date with Elle simply because Noah himself wanted Elle(why does he actually like Elle? This seems to be a common question amongst these films). There are scenes of Noah yelling at Elle, scaring her. However despite Noah’s toxicity, they start dating and seem like they have fun together.
The main problems with most of these stories that I can agree with the critics on is that all of them seem to not answer the why. As in, why would someone as rich and well connected as Christian, as anti-relationship as Hardin, or as mean spirited as Noah fall for basic, plain good girls who seem to have nothing in common with them? Why do these films promote the idea that it’s a woman’s job to fix a man? Why do these Good Girls like the Bad Boys even though they embody everything that they’re morally against? To the credit of After, it is established later on that Tessa’s own father is a drunk similar to Hardin so it makes sense that she’s attracted to toxicity because that is the example of her father she had growing up. But unfortunately this wasn’t really touched on very much in the films. And this is where I think the actual problem lies for critics.
It’s ridiculous to expect every form of entertainment to showcase great role models and admirable personalities all the time, because there is a difference between fiction and reality. Unless a movie is claiming to be educational, the last thing I will critique a movie on is whether or not the main characters are good role models. Movies and the like are mostly made to entertain us, not lecture us. I don’t believe the main issue with these movies are “they promote toxic relationships”, because if that’s the case then every anti-hero film or show would be automatically bad because they promote immoral character. I think the issue here is the way they went about the Good Girl/Bad Boy trope in these films.
On the surface, it can be dangerous to promote the idea to young impressionable women that being blindly in love with a guy no matter how toxic he is, is the definition of “true love”. Seeing this play out in real life has caused women to be in pretty scary predicaments. However, let’s take away defining what actually makes a fictional guy “toxic” for a moment, and focus on why the female protagonist can’t help but be drawn to him. From what I have studied both from good vs terrible depictions of the Bad Boy and Good Girl, the trope is based on a desire a lot of women in real life have, and for this reason alone I do not believe this trope is inherently toxic or unhealthy. And what is this desire, you ask?
Taming the beast.
Coming to Her Feminine Senses
I will get very literal here, but the first example I think about when talking about this is obviously Beauty and the Beast. A tale as old as time. A beautiful woman named Belle is able to tame this hot headed, scary literal beast and make him see the value and beauty of true love which causes his curse to be lifted and reveal that he is actually a very handsome prince underneath it all and he finally comes to his senses, then him and Belle live happily ever after. This story in my opinion is so popular especially among women(and whether they want to admit this or not) because it shows how a woman’s feminine nature and touch can be unlocked to its full potential if the guy plays the cards right. This was Gaston’s problem in the movie. Both Gaston and the beast were set up to be the stereotypical Bad Boy in this story, but the way they were handled exposes a stark contrast of what is actually a “good” Bad Boy and a “bad” Bad Boy. Gaston wasn’t a broken man like the beast, he was already set in his stoic macho ways. There was nothing Belle could have done to “fix” him. She couldn’t have fixed him through any of things she loved, like books. Gaston from the beginning showed absolutely no fascination for Belle and her interests unlike the beast. The beast accepted Belle’s feminine nature of showing kindness and nurture and reciprocated it by being more open about who he is as a person and letting his guard down. Gaston on the other hand had no use for Belle’s femininity other than her beauty and to make babies. The beast saw Belle as a beautiful woman and human being in general while Gaston only saw Belle as a means to an opportunistic end. Women want the former, not the latter.
The whole idea around “taming the beast” isn’t that women desire to be with a man who devalues her as a person and only sees in her what he can use to his advantage. It is about wanting to come into a guy’s world, infiltrating using her feminine nature as a guide and a silencer towards his knee jerk defense mechanisms. Showing him the beauty of positive outcomes and experiences in life, as he begins to understand that maybe life isn’t so bad thanks to the woman who has opened his eyes for the first time and has gotten him out from under the shade.
Women want our femininity to be of use to a man, and to be recognized and received in a healthy manner. This is where Gaston and all the other movie examples I mentioned in the last section lacked in. The Bad Boys in those movies are just psychotic pricks that could be the evil antagonist the female protagonist would stay away from in other movies if they weren’t muscular and rich. Those male characters devalue their women and only want them because they fulfill a selfish need for himself. For example, Christian Grey chose Anastasia because he got off to beating women that look like his mother. Hardin wanted Tessa only because he got dared to take her virginity away and she is so easily manipulated. Noah only wanted Elle to control her. The average woman with a solid upbringing obviously are not attracted to any of this toxicity. However, women are attracted to men who knows how to create his own world and operates only by his rules with no outside perspectives even if it’s done in a not so positive way. Women want to feel special. We want to be the one that has the key to your world and heart. We want our feminine touch to transform you into a better man, into the man we know you can be. We want to be the exception to the rule.
The Good Girl’s desire is based on a romantic willingness to change a Bad Boy’s heart while he treasures her in return. Unfortunately, many depictions of this trope nowadays fail to replicate this wholeheartedly.
So, why can’t the Good Girl just be with the good boy?
Another common criticism of this trope, is that it is really annoying when the Good Girl doesn’t choose(or reluctantly chooses) the good boy. Mostly, nothing is wrong with him. He’s very nice. Easy going. Doesn’t have a “toxic masculine” bone in his body. Wouldn’t this be the perfect guy for the Good Girl?
When people express this confusion, it just reminds me that we live in a culture that does not understand women to a serious degree. The good guy characters we see in movies do not excite a woman. He plays by the rules, but doesn’t create his own. He’s afraid of going against the status quo while the Bad Boy isn’t scared of having people dislike him. The good boy is safe, the Bad Boy is daring. Most women are not attracted to a man that easily bends to the will of women and of the world. This signals to a woman that you cannot be a good protector(because in order to be a good protector one must be willing to take the risk of being on the offense) and that you do not have your own mind. The Bad Boy might not be 100% right in the head(which is fine by the Good Girl because this way she has something to “fix”), but he knows how to use his masculine energy to get his hands dirty if he needs to.
One must understand that the good boy being nice to the Good Girl isn’t enough to get her. The Good Girl loves when the Bad Boy is nice to her, but mostly because the Bad Boy has made her the exception. Since the good boy is nice to everyone, there’s nothing for a woman to feel special about. To clarify, this does not mean a woman wants a man who is an absolute monster to every person he sees that’s not her. We do want a guy, however, to show his more softer and vulnerable side to us only. I also understand that every guy on this planet does not strictly fit into either the good boy or bad boy category. Men are all different and vary in personality. It’s just when it comes to attributes women find the most attractive, these are most often times used to create the dramatization of the Bad Boy character hence why this trope in media is so popular.
It’s Not Her Job to Fix Him, But She Wants To
It is very true that women are not obligated to fix a man simply because she likes him. Obviously, people in general have to fix themselves. It is only within their own actions and thought process that this is possible. But in relation to fictional characters, the Good Girl is usually the one that inspires the Bad Boy to change his ways. He naturally comes to his own conclusion about wanting better for himself, but what helped him see this new vision is the Good Girl. Trust me, I know there are certain behaviors that certain Bad Boy characters do that are just unacceptable and really makes you wonder why the Good Girl puts up with it(he’s a serial cheater, he abuses her, he controls her, etc) but most of the time it isn’t this monstrous level of drama that the Good Girl puts up with. It’s enough to keep her around and “fix” him, while being enough to never put her physical or emotional safety at risk. Yes, the Good Girl wants to have her cake and eat it too. That’s just the way the average woman is and that’s okay. Most women know it is not our job to fix a man, but it is within our feminine nature to inspire a man to be better. The Good Girl character doesn’t do it out of obligation(most of the time), she does it out of love and compassion.
Once again, in real life you cannot put men and women into very strict boxes such as “Good Girl” and “Bad Boy”. That’s what fiction is for. However, as I have explained earlier, this trope is a dramatization of the traits men and women find deeply attractive about each other. As a woman, I of course look at this trope from a female perspective and what makes these stories so appealing to me. Entertainment is meant to appeal to both the male and female fantasy, no matter if it’s done in a beautiful artistic way or in a terrible manner. Art most of the time reflects life. This trope within itself is not the issue. It is the perverted way certain movies portray it that is the issue, as they do not understand the feminine perspective at all.