http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MasculineGirlFeminineBoy



It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world" The Kinks, "Lola" , "Lola" "Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls,It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world"

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Basically, a couple consisting of a very feminine-looking/acting boy and a very masculine-looking/acting girl. Often comes from pairing the Action Girl with the Non-Action Guy and with doses of Crossdresser, Bifauxnen, Ambiguous Gender, Attractive Bent-Gender, Unsettling Gender Reveal, Viewer Gender Confusion, Dude Looks Like a Lady, Even the Guys Want Him and Even the Girls Want Her. Common in Gender Bender and "Freaky Friday" Flip series. Occasionally, House Husbands and their wives will fall under this trope.

Compare to Understanding Boyfriend, Pitbull Dates Puppy, and Violently Protective Girlfriend. Sensitive Guy and Manly Man, Tomboy and Girly Girl, and MasculineFeminine Gay Couple work on a similar principle, but with two characters of the same gender. The Useless Boyfriend trope can be the result of this, but not always. Most likely are Cultural Rebels. Subtrope of Stereotype Flip.

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Important Note: While this is usually a straightforward trope, examples can still get subjective in regards to whether or not the woman is masculine enough or if the man is feminine enough. Keep a few points in mind when editing:

Physical fitness and combat abilities relative to each other is irrelevant; what matters here is their comparative enthusiasm for these things. If the boy is immature, it needs to be in a feminine way, and if the girl is mature, it needs to be in a masculine way. The girl does not have to be a tomboy, and the boy does not have to be a sensitive guy. A Dark Feminine female and a Noble Male can also invoke this trope. Being ambiguously gay or ambiguously lesbian is not a requirement for the boy and the girl in question to fit this dynamic. If the only context is that the boy is a wimp while the girl is action-oriented, it is not enough. The girl and the boy in question do not have to be in a romantic or sexual relationship. All that is needed for them to qualify is that they know each other to some degree, and have personalities opposite to their respective genders' expectations.

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Examples:

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Advertising

It is quite possible to spot this when the guy has a pink product, while the girl has the same one in blue.

Anime & Manga

Comic Books

Comic Strips

Peanuts in general pretty much runs on this trope. Initially, Patty and Violet's aggressiveness (both when they liked him and when they didn't) was meant as a foil for Charlie Brown's nature as a loser and a doormat. But then Shermy, who was also mean to Charlie Brown, was displaced by Linus and Schroeder, who are largely sensitive and introverted, while the girls' side gained the often ill-tempered and violence-prone Lucy and full-on Tomboy Peppermint Patty. Even Charlie Brown's own little sister Sally turned out to be an outspoken, in-your-face type. Of note is that of the four unrequited crushes in the strip, three are a girl pursuing a boy (with varying degrees of aggressiveness), and the fourth involves a character who's never even seen because frankly, that's the only level below being Charlie Brown.

Films — Animation

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

HoneyWorks: Downplayed in "Nakimushi Kareshi". Len is the sensitive crybaby who is always crying over simple stuffs, but while Miku is not shown to be a tomboy, Len describes her as "the strong one", as she's always the one to comfort him when he cries. Koyuki Ayase and his Second Love Ryou Ogino from the Confession Executive Committee ~Love Series~ . The latter is a Tomboyish Statuesque Stunner who is adored by many female underclassmen due to her cool personality. The former is a Bishōnen Shrinking Violet who used to be teased by his classmates for being too feminine.

Androgynous, by The Replacements and also covered by Crash Test Dummies, is a rather sweet song about a couple who like to dress as the opposite sex.

Molly by Carrie is about a man being feminised by his more assertive partner. One line in particular counts as Getting Crap Past the Radar: Passiveness turns her on, when she's strapped on.

Dar Williams' "When I Was A Boy" is a heartwarming take on this. The narrator is a woman who, as a child, thought she was a boy because she didn't conform to gender roles. Her parents discouraged her from climbing trees, not wearing a shirt, and going out by herself, constantly telling her that she needed to find a "nice boy." In the final verse, she tells the man she's on a date with that she knows all his tricks and submits to his superiority, only for the man to admit that he was into feminine things as a child and was similarly forced to be more masculine.

"Just Give Me a Reason" is a duet between Pink ◊ and Nate Ruess ◊ of the band fun.

and Nate Ruess of the band fun. Martha's "Sleeping Beauty" is about a brother and sister with this dynamic, who are nonetheless expected to conform to their parents' expectations. Your football boots,

My football knees,

I hate the shoes they bought for me,

Inside gets boring but when I showed I had an interest in rugby,

They laughed at me.

Myths & Religion

Classical Mythology: The twins Apollo and Artemis might be considered such, but only by modern standards. Apollo is sometimes thought of as a bishounen (as the god of "beardless youth") and He is the god of, among other things, music and art. He also spends a lot of time with the Muses. To classical Greeks, however, he was all man. Artemis, meanwhile, is a wild Action Girl who spends most of her time hunting in the wilderness with her Amazon Brigade. Hercules and Queen Omphale. He was ordered to serve her for a year as punishment for a crime. She ordered him to wear women's clothes and spin cloth while she had fun strutting around in his lionskin and waving his club.



Pro Wrestling

Radio

In A Prairie Home Companion: Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

Roleplay

In Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues, this is the dynamic that Zia has with two of her male friends, Ivan and Ciro. Zia is athletic, cheerfully crass, and isn't afraid to throw down either physically or verbally. By contrast, Ivan is quiet, thoughtful, and physically unfit, whilst Ciro is kind-hearted, reluctant to fight, and has various feminine hobbies like cooking and cleaning.

Theatre

William Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet by their time's standards. Romeo is the one with emotional reactions for better or worse, whereas Juliet is more practical and stages their doomed escape. In fact, Romeo's Hot-Blooded nature puts both of them into HUGE trouble when he kills her cousin, Tybalt, to avenge the death of Mercutio , and Juliet is the one who, with the help of a local priest, tries to brew a plan to get both of them out of it. Romeo kills himself with poison, which is considered a feminine way to commit suicide, whereas Juliet uses Romeo's dagger, which was a weapon used typically by men. This applies to some degree to many of the lead couples in Shakespeare's comedies; the woman is typically wittier and more practical, and the guy is emotional in different ways (Hot-Blooded, brooding, etc.) Played with in Macbeth, with Lady Macbeth being the more aggressive and ambitious of the two. In fact, as soon as she finds out about the witches' prophecy she immediately begins formulating how to kill Duncan. While Macbeth is torn with internal guilt about his feelings, she's the one that goads him into doing it by questioning his manhood and saying he has no courage. Of course, after the murder, they "switch back" with Macbeth turning into a kill-crazy tyrant and Lady Macbeth so wracked with guilt that she goes insane.

Commander Up and Lieutenant Taz in Team Starkid's musical Starship.

A case can be made for Elphaba and Fiyero in the stage version of Wicked. He's a Fun Personified, foppish slacker who previously existed primarily to be Glinda's arm candy, and she's a practicing witch, rebel, and active civil rights activist.

Franz Klinemann and Regina Koontz from Rock of Ages (only in the original musical; both characters are cut from the film)

Tabletop Games

In chess, the queen represents the most powerful piece in terms of moving around the board and capturing opposing pieces while the king is largely ineffectual and must be protected.

Video Games

Visual Novels

Web Animation

Web Comics

Web Original

In the original fiction[1] version of Keit-Ai, Tomoyuki the "Cherry Boy" is an asthmatic and oftentimes bullied effeminate boy whose earliest childhood memory was him crossdressing. Meanwhile, (either version of) the super-athletic "Amazon Queen" Seiko is the captain of her sports club (in Tomoyuki's universe, it's the Karate Club and in AU Seiko's universe, it's the Judo Club).

Web Videos

Western Animation

Real Life