alt title(s): Sexy Schoolwoman
"Catholic school girls. The uniform's what does it for me."
"Catholic Girls Taste Better"
My little catholic girl
In a little white dress
Catholic girls
They never confess
Catholic girls
I got one for a cousin
I love how they go
So send me a dozen
— Frank Zappa, "Catholic Girls"
You've
Seen It A Million Times. The widely held belief that Roman Catholic school girls are sexy and/or promiscuous by their very nature. (After all, how else do you end up with all those
Naughty Nuns?) This perception is, of course, explicitly the child of an overlap between
Fetish Fuel and
Innocence Virgin On Stupidity. Any accurate resemblance to reality is purely accidental.
As Roman Catholicism teaches that sex is to be strictly reserved for marriage, it is easy for non-Catholics to
assume that Roman Catholic children are almost never taught about sexuality in a way that promotes an informed understanding of themselves and their world. This feeds into an idea that since they supposedly know nothing of these things, seducing them would be a lot easier than seducing more 'enlightened' girls who 'know better'.
Alternatively, those who know differently may feel that a Catholic girl striving to be innocent is a
desirable virgin, who is a greater challenge to seduce, and thus a "greater prize" if she
caves under pressure. Or else there's the notion (sometimes
Truth In Television but more often wishful thinking, given the fetish-fantasy nature of the trope) that a seemingly chaste schoolgirl may actually be a plain old-fashioned
hypocrite, only going through the
motions of chastity and religiosity for the benefit of parents and teachers, similarly to
another trope somewhere around here, and who is just itching for a chance to reveal her less-than-religious side the moment no one's looking.
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, the Trope has led to the fetishization of the standard "school girl uniform", Catholic or otherwise. This outfit usually consists of a button-up shirt, sometimes worn with a tie (in more exploitive media, the shirt is worn
without a bra, and knotted so high up that the girl in question is simultaneously baring her midriff completely and showing off a
lot of cleavage and maybe even some
Reverse Cleavage); usually a blazer or jacket of some kind, frequently a couple sizes too tight; a short, pleated skirt that may or may not be in some kind of plaid;
knee-high socks or stockings; and often
pigtails. Expect
panty shots to be a frequent occurence. The uniform will sometimes be depicted as being worn
even outside of school.
When this outfit shows up in films and TV shows, it's almost always done through
Dawson Casting... but not always. Likewise, when it's done by
fully-grown women, it's almost always a case of
Fan Service in action.
The very rough male equivalent would be Mormon Missionaries.
In Britain, where the trope is not associated with Roman Catholicism to the same extent, this look is known as the "St. Trinian's Girl", after a bunch of
Boarding School movies by that name. Related, but not identical, to the sailor-suited Japanese schoolgirl fetish,
Joshikousei.
Examples:
Advertising
- Hayden Panettiere shot a photo spread for Candie's. First she dressed as a cheerleader, then a Roman Catholic schoolgirl. All she needs to do now is play a hooker and she'll have the trifecta.
- Well she did play a high school student selling blowjobs for clothing on Law And Order SVU, if that counts.
- Proving that you can mix two fetishes in one, see this promo for the appropriately named programming block Lollipop from Animax
which showcases sexy girls in both sailor-collared and catholic girl uniforms (warning: not very safe for work).
Film
- This trope is the entire point of the title of the parody sexploitation film Catholic High School Girls in Trouble from The Kentucky Fried Movie, though the clothing doesn't actually make an appearance. That is because there is very little clothing perod.
- It's also the entire point of the movie D.E.B.S..
- Both Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon did the Catholic Schoolgirl thing in Cruel Intentions, but only Gellar counts because of the whole manipulative bitch/whore/cokehead angle.
- Pamela Anderson & Jenny McCarthy in Scary Movie 3.
- Not the first time the series had it; about halfway through the original, Shannon Elizabeth's character gets this for no apparent reason.
- Chiaki Kurayama as Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill really was the perfect naughty Asian schoolgirl (although dressed in the Catholic attire rather that the more appropriate seifuku). It's a shame she had to get stabbed in the brain with two nails.
- As mentioned above, many movies based in British Boarding Schools for young ladies, like the St Trinians series
- Referenced in A Life Apart: Hasidism in America when one Hasidic woman says that the Hasidic school uniform skirts extend at least four inches below the knee and claims that the longest Catholic school skirts are five inches above the knee.
- She clearly Did Not Do The Research: even the most liberal Catholic dress codes are generally 1 or 2 inches above the knee at most; the girls just roll them up higher. Some Catholic schools in this troper's city have required tights or done away with skirts entirely (girls wearing slacks like the boys) as a result.
- And they think adding tights will make it better?
- ...yes.
- This troper's friend was an actual Catholic schoolgirl, and her skirt was knee-length and dark blue. Rather like Usagi's in Sailor Moon when she's not the titular hero.
- Diane, in Trainspotting. (Of course, when she initially meets the protagonist and takes him home for sex, she's in clubwear mufti.)
- Tricia Jones, the 15-year-old sex researcher in Mallrats, dons a schoolgirl uniform.
- Elizabeth Hurley's Devil in the 2000 version of Bedazzled wears a schoolgirl outfit, as one of a whole series of Fanservice-type costumes.
- The SyFy original movie 5ive Girls (yes, the number "5" is part of the title) revolves around "sinners" who are sent to a Catholic reform school and are forced to wear naughty schoolgirl outfits. The events of the movie turn two of them into lesbians for some reason.
- The female Hogwarts uniforms in the films are pretty much Catholic school girl outfits; Inverted, though, as they seem to be properly sized (i.e. blouses that aren't too tight, skirts that aren't too short).
- That's just typical strict school uniform code in the United Kingdom, which often don't differentiate between boys and girls at all.
Literature
- In Simon R Green's Hex and the City, a Nightside novel, John Taylor sees the succubus Pretty Poison dressed in a girl's school uniform. As succubi appear differently to each individual, as fits their personal sexual fantasies, John Lampshades this trope by musing that he must've seen too many St. Trinian's films as an adolescent.
- In the Kate Daniels novel Magic Strikes, Kate asks Raphael if he has a costume kink: nurse, French Maid, et cetera. He responds instantly with "Catholic schoolgirl". He then starts imagining his crush wearing a Catholic school uniform and tunes out of the conversation with Kate.
Live Action TV
- Jennifer Garner dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl in an episode of Alias. And she did it after marrying Ben Affleck and having a baby.
- Mischa Barton did it in The OC. Not surprisingly, it was Sweeps Week.
- On ''The Office'" (USA), Michael comments on the hot picture of a Catholic schoolgirl hanging near Stanley's desk.
Stanley: "That's my daughter. She goes to private school and I'm taking the picture down right now."
- Mostly averted, though probably not too surprisingly in British BBC kids' drama Grange Hill, in an episode in which the school teaching staff held a sponsored "dress in your old uniform" day to raise a little extra money for essential equipment. Two of the three female teachers wore their old school uniforms, of which one actually looked too little girl and cutesy to count for this trope, but the second was practically was a textbook definition of the trope. (The third female teacher came in her old-fashioned "cap and gown" teaching attire from when she started in an old Grammar School.)
- In the House episode "House's Head," House has a hallucination in a sensory deprivation tank of Cuddy in a schoolgirl outfit. She isn't in it for long though.
- On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Darla, a vampire who's at least four hundred years old, dresses as a Catholic schoolgirl because she is taunting Angel for being in love with teenage Buffy, despite the fact that Sunnydale High doesn't require uniforms.
- Darla's wearing that outfit to get boys. As in 'to get dinner'. Check out the opening sequence of the pilot episode, when she's wearing that same outfit to lure a leather-jacket-clad tough guy into a place where she can bite him. It's a great take on the usual Death By Sex scene in slasher films. If you don't know Darla's a vamp, it's got a huge HSQ.
- Similarly, in its spin-off series Angel, Lilah dresses as a schoolgirl to jointly seduce Wesley and mock him for being in love with the bookish geek girl, Fred.
- Doctor Who had Time Lady companion Romana wearing a very St Trinians style uniform in the "City of Death" serial. Lalla Ward, judging by interviews, came up with the idea and had no concept it was a fetish. You may choose to believe that or not.
- The female co-host of Game Show Network's Lingo wore this once.
- In That 70's Show, Donna goes to a Catholic high school and has to wear the uniform for perfectly legitimate reasons. Doesn't stop the boys from going crazy over it.
DONNA: Man, what is with you guys and this uniform?
FEZ: It makes us want to corrupt you.
- In NCIS, Kate states that she spent twelve years at Catholic school. Tony asks her if she still has the pleated skirt.
- She's also wearing it when Dinozzo imagines her, post-death. Imaginary-Kate is annoyed.
- Largely averted by Molly Shannon's "Mary Katherine Gallagher" character from Saturday Night Live. Mary Katherine is a Catholic schoolgirl, all right, and wears the standard uniform, but though she may at times imagine herself to be hot, the other characters (and the viewers) certainly don't.
- Although Hogwarts, of the Harry Potter franchise, is obviously not a Catholic school, one memorable SNL sketch spoofing the Potter series featured guest host Lindsay Lohan as Hermione and was pretty much all over the uniform-fetish part of the trope.
- That sketch would've worked as Fan Service, if not for the fact Lindsay was sporting a dark tan, and looked less like Hermione, and more like a burnt Barbie doll...
- Alexei Sayle, in his show 'Stuff' once said that his Jewish secondary school was next door to a catholic girl's school 'Or, as we called it, the Virgin Megastore'
- Kids In The Hall once had a sketch where a diner was next door to a Catholic high school, and the two guys working there were always ogling the girls who came in, that is, until one of them, played by a pre-fame Neve Campbell, is arrested for killing her teacher...for ogling her.
Music
- "Catholic Schoolgirls Rule" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers is the Trope Namer.
- Billy Joel's song Only the Good Die Young is a partial subversion, in that Roman Catholicism could be seen as a stumbling block to the singer getting the goods. But only partially, because that stumbling block only makes the girl more attractive to the singer.
- Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler first appear in Roman Catholic schoolgirl uniforms in the video for Aerosmith's Crazy. Later in the video, they appear in less.
- Given that Aerosmith is led by Liv Tyler's father, Steven Tyler, and given what he's singing about, and the fact that in the video Liv Tyler stripteases out of her schoolgirl uniform, there's a huge dollop of Squick in there somewhere...
- There was indeed some squick involved — but only because Papa Tyler thought some scenes (and some which didn't make the cut) were too close to something else.
- Every female human being under the age of 22 (or at least, supposedly under the age of 22) is dressed in a Roman Catholic schoolgirl uniform at the beginning of the video for Britney Spears' Baby, One More Time....
- Additionally, every female human being of any age had an automatic Halloween costume that year. Thanks, Britney!
- Frank Zappa's Catholic Girls
Professional Wrestling
- Stacy Kiebler showed up on the runway wearing a Roman Catholic schoolgirl uniform. Her appearance was the height of hotness. The reactions from the middle-age-or-older men around the runway were the height of Nightmare Fuel.
- WWE has put on several "schoolgirl" matches, which give their female wrestlers an excuse to dress like this and beat each other with school-themed weapons like yardsticks to the delight of the audience.
Real Life
- The "Naughty Schoolgirl" costume is always one of the biggest sellers for women every Halloween.
- "School Disco" parties at universities are an exercise in this trope. The School Disco albums, a series of compilations containing the kind of music usually played at such functions (and indeed all student parties in the UK, and for that matter actual school discos) have women dressed in this way on the covers.
- The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic nation where school uniforms are standard for all schools (Catholic or not).
- Also the case with Ireland.
- Kristen Bell has said that she is saving the uniform from her Catholic school for her wedding night.
- This Troper did a production of Princess Ida in which all of the students at the women's college had to wear these. The director admitted freely that it was because he had "a thing for the uniform."
Toys
Webcomics
- The Bad Catholic Girls, of John Kricfalusi's Goddamn George Liquor Program.
- An exchange from El Goonish Shive...
Nanase: As far as my mother is concerned, Ellen, you are a heterosexual whom attends Catholic school.
Ellen: A naughty Catholic schoolgirl?
Nanase: No.
- Order of the Stick has Roy Greenhilt's sexy sister Julia. The trope is invoked to a far greater extent by Sabine, however, who decides that killing Roy while dressed as a schoolgirl will be a major turn-on for Nale.
- In Shortpacked, Robin tries to seduce Ethan ... unsuccessfully.
- The private school version rules in Eerie Cuties.
Western Animation
- Fruity of MTV's Downtown dated a Catholic schoolgirl who turned out to be utterly psycho.
