Realm of the InterNutter

It's in every romcom. It sometimes appears when the Action Gal cleans up for some undercover espionage at some high-ticket gala. It's definitely there when the lead female in any procedural drama has a flashy new outfit.

The camera pans from her shoes, lovingly framing her torso, and cuts away within a few seconds of seeing her expression so the viewers can see the extended look of awe/appreciation on the person viewing her¹.

That's just one trick of Pervy Cam. The other, more insidious one, is making certain that boobs, butt, or both wind up in the points of interest whenever a lady is in the frame. This leads to female leads, even initially-unsexy Action Gals not getting "headroom".

"Headroom" is a framing term that means that the character on screen is not at risk of having their head and face drift out of shot. As this tumblr post explains. When men are in frame, the most interesting thing is their face and what they're doing. When women are in frame, the most interesting thing is their bodies.

This post over here begins with an explanation of what the 'sweet spots' are and how they're not used to objectify women in Mad Max. And then this one explains Mad Max de-emphasised nudity.

So it is possible to have a naked woman on the screen and have her NOT be a sexual object. Likewise for fully clothed ones.

People tell me that there was no Pervy Cam in Batman Versus Superman, but I know that they had more than one Pervy Pan, and several butt shots, every time Diana Prince turned up in a slinky outfit.

Pervy Pans on men linger on their expressions so the audience can read their feelings. Pervy Pans on women flick away the instant the breasts move out of the sweet spots. Men get headroom. Women don't.

If the camera objectified men as much as it did women, viewers would find the results unnerving and wouldn't be able to say why. In fact, I challenge directors everywhere to reverse the camera treatment on their male and female leads. See what it does to audiences. See what it does to the movie.

Go on. I double-dog dare you.

Of all the romance tropes that exist, it's the older-guy, twenty-something gal that's the most irritating, and it ties directly to this trope here. Men get old, women get replaced.

It's almost as if all women are worth is how good they look. This is evidenced in all the post-makeover shots where the camera lovingly pans up the beautified girl in question from the tips of her toes... but doesn't always make it all the way to her face.

I call it

We've all seen that movie. Action Guy and Action Gal or Damsel Gal do not get along for the entire firkin movie. Except near the third act when they kiss for no good reason and then suddenly have sex.

Sometimes, they don't even kiss. They just go at each other in a sudden and unexpected display of lust.

It's so far out of left field that it's circumnavigated the globe and come in from the right field.

And it's supremely annoying.

Especially

For those who haven't realised the predominance of dead Tokens, read here first in which the token black guy [and sometimes black gal] gets a target drawn on them the instant the Big Bad is out to get the good guys.

Running along side Bury Your Gays, the audience is pretty much trained to expect anyone not cis, het, and white to bite the big one when the stakes are raised. They apparently deserve it for not being cishet white people.

It's