Follow TV Tropes

Following

Playing With / Playing Doctor

Go To

Basic Trope: Young children looking at each other's genitals, often role-playing a health care scenario as an excuse.

  • Straight: Little Bobby asks Alice if she wants to play doctor, which leads to both of them learning the difference between boys and girls.
  • Exaggerated: Bobby then has Alice lay in an x-ray machine and discovers how different that are on the inside as well.
  • Downplayed: Bobby curiously asks Alice what she has "down there". She tells him without showing him. Satisfied, he leaves.
  • Justified: Bobby is simply curious to know what girls look like without clothes and means no harm by it.
  • Inverted: In a setting where children are always naked, little Bobby wonders what Alice looks like with clothes on so he asks her if she wants to play fashion designer.
  • Subverted:
    • Bobby gives Alice a checkup while both remain fully clothed.
    • They're playing dentist, eye doctor, or some other speciality.
    • What Alice has under her clothes isn't what you'd expect.
  • Double Subverted:
    • Bobby refers Alice to Matt, a classmate who plays gynaecologist.
    • But then they get curious about what each other looks like without clothes.
    • But then she asks Bobby what's under his clothes.
  • Parodied:
    • Bobby asks Alice if she wants to play doctor. She agrees and one Smash Cut later, he is dressed in a lab coat, explaining to her that she has a tumor.
    • Bobby asks Alice if she wants to play doctor. Alice refuses, because Bobby made her be a Dalek last time.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice refuses to play doctor with Bobby so he cuts right to the chase by telling her "I'll show you mine if you show me yours". She agrees and asks him to go first. He shows her but she ends up backing down when it comes to her turn.
  • Averted: Bobby doesn't ask Alice to play doctor.
  • Enforced: The writers want a scene showing childhood innocence and curiosity about the opposite sex in a funny way.
  • Lampshaded: "It was so much easier to get a girl naked when I was a kid. I just had to ask her to play doctor."
  • Invoked: Bobby is not as innocent as he pretends to be and is simply using an excuse to see Alice naked.
  • Exploited: Bobby and Alice's parents know about them playing doctor and let it happen, believing it to be educational for them.
  • Defied:
    • Alice refuses to play doctor or show him anything.
    • Bobby doesn't ask Alice to play doctor in case it's rude.
    • Bobby once saw his dad's Porn Stash under his bed so he knows exactly what a naked girl looks like so he never asks Alice to play doctor.
    • Alternatively, he knows what a naked girl looks like from seeing a naked statue of a woman, walking in on his mother in the bath, or being there when his baby sister was born or seeing his mom change her diaper.
  • Discussed: Alice talks to little Susie about playing doctor with Bobby, only to find out she wasn't his only "patient".
  • Conversed: "Aw, they're playing doctor now. Of course, it'll be interrupted or cut away from somehow, since you can't show that on television."
  • Implied: Bobby asks Alice to play doctor. Alice agrees and lifts up her skirt, but before she pulls her underwear down, we see Charles, the babysitter, looking shocked.
  • Deconstructed: Bobby's parents worry that he is doing something bad.
  • Reconstructed: They go to the pediatrician, who explains that it's normal.
  • Played for Laughs: They play doctor during a Fancy Dinner, resulting in a Spit Take and lots of Cringe Comedy.
  • Played for Drama: This "playing doctor" is a sign of a severe psychological problem with Bobby.

Back to Playing Doctor

Top