Secret Girlfriend is an American television series, which premiered on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 on Comedy Central. It features the viewer as the "star" of a dating satire, with all the actors addressing the camera as if it were the lead. Think "The Family" from Fahrenheit 451, but somehow more depressingly horrible.
This show uses the following tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Invoked by Chad, the current boyfriend of Jessica, the titular character. His Jerkass behavior turns out to be just pretending to be a jerk, but he thinks he needs to because of this trope. Apparently, it's working, or at least not hurting—he's been Jessica's boyfriend for two years, and may have lasted longer if not for the protagonist's arrival, relegating him to Romantic False Lead status.
- Heroic Mime: "You" never talk on-screen.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers implied that the show would primarily be about two pervy slacker guys trying to get women to perform activities of a sexual or suggestive nature, completely ignoring the fact that the viewer is experiencing the actual protagonist's experiences (kind of like Being John Malkovich) and is about the nameless protagonist's attempts to deal with a psycho near-ex-girlfriend who won't stay broken up, a cute girl he likes but wants to protect from the first woman, and the zany antics of his two best friends (the aforementioned slackers).
- Male Gaze: The camera is at all times the POV of the main (male) character, a Heroic Mime who is "played" by the (presumably male) viewer, in a form of second-person television. Since pretty much the whole show runs on Fanservice, this is pretty ubiquitous.
- Self-Insert Fic: This is the basic gimmick. The main protagonist is you. He's never referred to by name and never says anything out loud, but all of his friends adore "you." All of the jokes (which you're basically supposed to insert) are hilarious. All of the girls want you and you end up with most of them. You would probably feel awesome if not for your two friends being total idiots and your ex-girlfriend being a Yandere.
