Not seeing the trope here: Hot Mom

How is this not just a YMMV list of fictional mothers that people find to be attractive? And, given that Hollywood and Anime and all that almost never cast ugly characters, how is this not just a side effect of Generic Cuteness (for cartoons) and Holywood casting biases for live action?

Either cut the trope, make it YMMV, or change the definition and clean up examples so that only applies to characters where this becomes a major in-universe plot point. Also, clarify the relationship to Stacy's Mom.

The same thing could be said for Hot Dad, BTW.

I suggest making them in-universe only. Making them YMMV wouldn't solve the problem, just isolate it. We don't want anything that amounts to "list of characters tropers find hot", YMMV or otherwise.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:14:47 PM by MyTimingIsOff

Stacy's Mom is a mom being found hot by one of her children's peers. Someone who is quite a bit younger than her. She's acknowledged as being hot In-Universe normally by everyone but her children.

Hot Mom is sort of a supertrope to that. It's moms being portrayed as attractive in media either through In-Universe lampshading, or being Ms. Fanservice.

Common popular conception is that after becoming a mom their body basically falls apart and unattractive... well that isn't always true hence this trope.

Those would be the requirements for being in this trope, yes.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:19:54 PM by Raso

@Shima: That really isn't what the definition of Hot Mom says though. it says there may be in-universe commentary. It doesn't require it. Also, look through the examples and it becomes every attractive person that happens to be a mother, irregardless of whether the combination of the two features has any special importance.

Mm. If we already have a trope for examples of this in an in-universe, narrative-important fashion, I don't see why we need this. It's just a meaningless YMMV fanservice trope that exists so people can say "I thought character X was hot!"

Take it to the Fetish Wiki.

We have a trope for a very narrow subtrope of this in an In-Universe fashion. We do not have supertrope In-Universe trope aside from this one.

Not really Stacy's Mom is a subtrope of Hot Mom its usually a kid's friends going MILF or Stiflers Mom (American Pie) in front of the kid.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:26:36 PM by Raso

I totally didn't follow that statement. I was never good with supertropes/subtropes. Too much variation and complication.

I'm totally a lumper...

Edit: Well, I think the definition should require that the characters in-universe acknowledge the character's attractiveness. Otherwise it's pointless.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:26:57 PM by Flyboy

Basically, one is a plot trope that involves the character. One is the character trope itself.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:26:58 PM by shimaspawn

Under the current definition, There is no requirement that the Hot Mom be considered or treated as such In Universe. If you are saying that there is such a requirement or that there should be, then at minimum the trope definition needs to be rewritten and the examples need a cleanup.

Furthermore, there needs to be some clarification about why the character's maternal status is important to the trope, as opposed to them being just any other attractive woman. Because casting attractive woman is pretty much the default in visual mediums, and people with kids still being attractive isn't really all that unusual enough to be noteworthy.

I mean, the trope is collecting examples like

• "Ripley in Aliens."
• James Kirk's mother in Star Trek is played by Dr Cameron, and Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson, is played by Winona Ryder.
• Kate Mccallister in Home Alone, anyone? Catherine O'Hara was 36 at the time of production.
• Pretty much every sitcom created after 1996 or so qualifies
• Claire Huxtable from The Cosby Show. This was referred to in a Halloween Episode of Homestar Runner. Strong Bad wore a Jambi costume, and Coach Z—dressed as Theo Huxtable—thought SB was dressed as "my hot mom."
• Many Married... with Children fans viewed Peggy Bundy as one of these. Even years after the show ended in 1997, Katey Segal jokes that Peg "still gets lots of letters from guys in prison." She's still got it well over a decade later as Gemma.

Pretty much all of those are about audience reactions, not characterization or narrative devices.

edited 16th Jan '12 7:41:17 PM by Catbert

Yeah, the minimum for the trope should be "character is said to be more attractive than expected in universe and is a mother (optional: of a significant character?)"

I'd go further and say "and this is used as a plot point," but we might already have another subtrope for that.

~goes off on lumper tangent about too many unnecessary subtropes~

"Used as a plot point" would make it too narrow. In-universe only is all it needs.

You know, strangely enough, back when this had an anime-specific name, it also had a description bordering on real trope, combining not only appearance but personality, typical occupations, and some of the ways the character was used. Not that the original description couldn't have been better, but now it is so generic as to be meaningless.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090122025426/https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HotShounenMom

Most shounen series will invariably have a mother (often a Christmas Cake) who is noticeably attractive. In appearance and disposition, she is more often than not either as sweet-cute-and-huggable as her younger counterparts and/or hot enough to give Mrs Robinson a run for her money. This may even be referenced in the show by another character commenting on her "down-to-earth charm" or "earthy good looks". If she's the only recurring female adult, she'll often be popular with the older fandom. As a rule, Hilarity Ensues as she will almost certainly be mistaken for her children's cute big-sister, much to their embarrasment.

Mothers are, of course, seen in other kinds of shows, but have a special significance in shounen, where they usually reflect the relative healthiness of the household without needing to show an extended family. If they're homemakers, they'll be (conveniently) always present at home, and often in the kitchen; if they work outside the house, their jobs will either be "feminine" (nurse, school teacher, waitress, secretary, etc.) or "intelectual" (lawyer, doctor, librarian, etc). They'll be more attractive to the soon-to-be-teenage audience since the Hot Mom is a realistic way to keep the cast predominantly female.

This rule tends to hold most strongly for the lead character, while a side character is more likely to have a bombastic overbearing mother. Lead female characters, especially in Unwanted Harem series, can also have such mothers; if the lead lives with her, it's a general rule. Occasionally the character is an aunt or big sister, but this is rare.

edited 16th Jan '12 8:14:32 PM by Catbert

Both Hot Shounen Mom and Hot Shoujo Dad got renamed to the more generic versions to make them less anime-specific, but at the same time lost context: shounen is full of Male Gaze, so the mom-character gets recruited to the "hot (fanservicey) older women" role, shoujo is full of Female Gaze, so the dad-character gets recruited to the "hot (protective and kind) older man" role.

Although I note that the latter is getting a lot of misuse for "not actually hot, but otherwise highly idealized father-figures", which I think we have other tropes for.

Yeah, this should be in-universe. We've seen plenty of times that any list of "characters with <trait> that some troper finds hot" is, shall we say, impractical.

Agreed. This needs the same kind of action that made Buxom Is Better a valid trope.

We should revert these pages to their actual, original definitions, since those are tropes.

I could live with that.

So, make in-universe?

What would make it different from Stacy's Mom in that case?

The difference is that Stacy's Mom is about younger people having a crush on someone who is older, like a parent of a friend.

Hot Mom would be a mother, who is considerd to be attractive despite being a mother by someone in story. This someone is not necessary younger than the mother and the person who comments on the mothers attractivenes has not necessary a crush on her.

So, basically, every instance in fiction when somebody considers another character hot, and said character just happens to be a mother?

There's enough instances in fiction of calling characters MILFs and mentioning that they're "hot mothers" that we just allow examples where the trope is Invoked and still have a healthy page.

edited 9th Feb '12 9:17:52 AM by shimaspawn