Jessica: You have no idea how hard it is, being a woman
looking the way I do. Eddie: Yeah, well... You have no idea
how hard it is, being a man looking at a woman looking the way you do.
For some men, it's very easy to forget what they are doing when a
gorgeous woman strolls past and lose control, doing things like walking into walls, tripping over themselves, dropping fragile objects, etc. Mostly a comedy trope.
If this induced intentionally by the woman in question when
We Need a Distraction, it falls instead into
Show Some Leg.
Compare
Show Some Leg,
Hello Boys,
Sexy Coat Flashing. Contrast, naturally,
Not Distracted by the Sexy and
Ignore the Fanservice. This may occur after a
Crash Through the Harem. If the viewers are the ones
Distracted by the Sexy, that's
Best Known For The Fanservice. If communication is attempted, it can cause
Gibberish of Love. If a character distracts themselves by noticing their reflection in a mirror, that's
Distracted by My Own Sexy. See
Cuteness Proximity for the non-sexy, non-human variant. Compare also with
Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!.
Example subpages:
Examples
open/close all folders
Advertising
- A Dutch insurance company, known for their slogan "Even Apeldoorn bellen" ("Time to call Apeldoorn", the name of the city where they have their main office) has a number of rather clever TV ads. In one, two roadworkers are digging a rather large hole (the road is at chest level); one of them is wielding a pickaxe. Then a stunning pair of legs walks by (that's roughly what you see, due to the camera crop), the guys look at them approvingly, the pickaxe swings down once more, a metallic "clunk" is heard and a jet of water spouts up. Slogan text blends in.
- 2010 Super Bowl ad
with Megan Fox.
- A 1984 ad for Maaco (auto painting and repair chain) has a Too Dumb to Live guy staring at several women walking by and ends up driving his car right inside a moving van. Uh, oh. Better get Maaco, indeed.
Comedy
- Bill Engvall discusses looking at colleges with his daughter:
Bill Engvall: I'll tell you, it's a real slap in the face when you walk onto a college campus with your daughter and you catch some guy checking her out.
(murmurs of agreement) Yeah. Then I realized it
was a slap in the face; my wife caught me checking out college chicks.
(laughter) "Sorry,
I'm a guy."
- A man is walking with his wife when he sees a young woman in a Dangerously Short Skirt getting into a bus and keeps looking. His wife tells him acidly "I suppose you think I didn't catch you staring at the girl getting in the bus?" "What bus?"
Comic Strips
- In Lil Abner, "Stupefyin' Jones" stunned any male who gazed upon her, except if they were wearing special glasses. In the stage and movie adaptation, she was played by Julie Newmar in a skimpy skintight body suit.
- Once happened to German detective Nick Knatterton (it was a movie poster).
- In this strip◊ by Quino, a man is watching a football match, when he's distracted by the fact that his neighbor forgot to close her window when she went to take a bath. Just then, one of the teams scores a very dramatic goal. He's so enraged at missing it that he throws his drink through the window and hits the neighbor in the head.
Music
- "What Was I Thinkin'" by Dierks Bentley covers this trope pretty well.
- "Baby's Got Her Blue Jeans On" by Mel Mc Daniel is a good example of this.
- "Bettina, zieh dir bitte etwas an" (Bettina, put some clothes on) by Fettes Brot has the chorus "Bettina, wrap up your boobs". The song was inspired by the outfit of the host in a late night, call-in TV game show.
- The singer of "Man On A Mission" in !HERO: The Rock Opera ends the song with "Who's that beautiful girl?", segueing into "Secrets Of The Heart".
Music Videos
- Eric Schwartz's "Kosha Boy", a parody of "Soulja Boy", has the Kosha Boy "try to set an example", but he gets distracted by "the girl [he wants] to schtup in the third row."
- Weezer's video for "If You're Wondering If I Want You To" has this happen to two people: one standing in the street watching said girl, and the other driving a pickup truck, which hits the one standing in the street.
- Trace Adkins' "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" is a video about this trope in action.
- MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" Features a scene where Hammer suddenly stops dancing to admire the backside of the girl dancing in front of him.
Myths & Religion
- If Actaeon had been thinking with the right head at the time, he probably would have realized it was not a good idea to stand around watching the adamantly virginal Artemis bathe. And he might have survived.
- Avoiding this is apparently the reasons certain sects of certain religions insist on their women dressing in a conservative manner.
New Media
Tabletop Games
- In the Mutants And Masterminds supplement about Japanese media Mecha & Manga, there's a feat called "Distracting Looks" that allows your character to provoke this reaction to reduce targets' effectiveness with social skills.
Theater
- As the Man in Chair tells us, the actress in the 1920s musical The Drowsy Chaperone was famous for playing "The Oops Girl", who had this as her entire shtick.
Web Animation
