The Ingenue Trope: Innocent, Naive and On Her Way Out

WATCH MORE: The pretty girl trope speaks to a sense of "pretty privilege", but how can that actaully be disadvantageous? Here's our TAKE: https://youtu.be/aIBv2necbhU

Disney's Rapunzel was a typical Ingenue. She grew up locked away from the world with Gothel's lies and her own rich imagination. And she helped the leading man to findhimself and grow. It's nice she was allowed to grow herself in the story and following TV show

The ingenue is Hollywood’s original manic pixie dream girl.

Sandy from "Grease" starts off as your typical ingenue, innocent and easily led, prior to her dramatic makeover. It was obviously supposed to be a spin on "Bad Bay changes thanks to the love of a good woman" trope prevalent in 50's teen movies, but hasn't really held up as well in modern years.

I don’t want this trope to be completely out of fashion. Like me, there are people that are naive and innocent, but agree that it is not their whole character. I wish what was explored more was why they are this way. My mom eased me into stuff. She waited until I was ready and mature to talk about certain topics. However, my dad wanted me to remain innocent, but the more my parents did not talk to me about stuff, the more naive I was. By the way, my parents are not bad parents. They just worry about me. And my mom understands more now about what to tell me and what not to. It wasn’t just them. My peers and classmates were like that too. They were always afraid to swear in front of me or talk about sex and other touchy topics. This is what makes people naive, especially women at times. I also look young for my age which adds to this. While and these characters don’t need to be experts at everything, we shouldn’t be unknowledgeable either. I also hate when naivete is played off as a joke when it is sad at times. It also should not be seen as being unintelligent either. There is a difference.

Whenever I think of this trope I always think of Cher from clueless. Obviously she was naive in a different way because financially she didn’t have to think about certain things but she always had such a childlike feel to her. Idk maybe it’s just me and how I remembered the movie.

The Ingenue is the reason we pile hate on female characters in general. Middle aged ingenues seem to be stereotypical Midwestern housewives. Kamala from Never Have I Ever, imo, is a good example of an ingenue who grows, matures, and gains more knowledge and backbone.

I feel like the concept is still kicking around out there in Hollywood, actresses like Sydney Sweeney come to mind. When you mentioned Scarlett Johansson was just 17 years old in Lost in Translation, I actually had to rewind and do a quick Google search. That was a horrifying realization. It recontextualizes my view of the entire film, especially the opening scene with her in her underwear.

The Ingenue Trope is prevalent in the East in modern times. you can see it in some of their media. Anime, K-pop other forms of media still has this trope.

This is something I've always been, I feel, and I always will be, externally and internally, I love people who seem/are childlike/youthful, no matter their age, gender, etc.

Dear gawd. Miley Cyrus going from Disney child star into her musical career embodies this so hard.

I’m a musical theatre performer and I regularly play Ingenue characters. There can be so much depth to them depending on the roll. It also depends on the interpretation of the character. I agree that some exist to just look pretty, but others truly are the main character of their story and go through as much or sometimes even more change than their male counterparts. A prime example of this is Cinderella in “Into The Woods”

I consider the ingenue the maiden archetype of the femenine: young, naive, beautiful, inexperienced and sometimes unaware of her own beauty. Think about Persephone. I'm honestly the perfect personification of this trope

In describing the ingenue of classic Hollywood, this video keeps showing clips of Scarlett O'Hara. As anyone who has actually seen Gone With the Wind knows, she is anything BUT an ingenue. Shots of Olivia deHavilland's Melanie would have been more on point. When an ingenue is well-written, she grows beyond her early naivete rather than being frozen there. She enters or gets thrown into situations where she must show bravery and resourcefulness and proves up to the task. A look at Mary Pickford's best film, Sparrows (1926), shows this in spades; while she fits the ingenue trope by being young and innocent, she's also a hero, a rescuer, as she leads a band of orphans in their escape from a work farm. There is some value in characters like these, even today. But they lose me when Innocence crosses the line into Ignorance and when "not very bright, I guess" is coded as part of a woman's appeal.

Thing of it is, the naive aspect can be a good character flaw for the character to either suffer consequences from for drama OR that s/he has to outgrow for character development. That would be a lot more meaningful to the character than the Ingenue who is only "special" because "high standard men" are attracted to her/love her and would destroy people for her sake (which, yeah, it's what makes characters like Elena Gilbert unbearable and I cheered when she finally died). Want to have a naive everyman? That can work for either sex for different reasons and gives the character a real flaw. The Ingenue? Only works if there's at least one "high status man" (AKA handsome, powerful, and/or rich) who is attracted to them.

I can thank Rachel from Glee for introducing me to this archetype in the very first episode. Although she may compare herself to an ingenue, she's far from the type herself.

It seems that historically, the ingenue (currently equal parts lover and maiden), was simplified down to virginal maiden. Marilyn Monroe integrated both the innocence of the maiden with the sex appeal of the lover, informing most ever ingenue to follow.

I do a little bit of amateur musical theatre. And as a young-ish soprano, I am always only considered for ingenue roles. This trope is still very much alive and well in musical theatre. No musical with a romance plot/subplot is complete without an ingenue that sings really pretty but often has the personality of a crisp bread...often because she isn't given the space in the show to display more depth, eg Cosette in Les Miserables, who has like 3 scenes in the whole 3 hour show.

I actually like ingenues as characters, and I like some rather old-fashioned ideals. Let girls be soft, virginal, innocent and sweet.

I had no idea there was a word for this. This has been my identity the majority of my life. Very interesting.