Rapunzel, Rapunzel, swings in a chair
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, is gaining some air
Rapunzel, Rapunzel demonstrates some Fragonardian flair!
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, is gaining some air
Rapunzel, Rapunzel demonstrates some Fragonardian flair!
Or putting a grown woman (20s to 30s) on a swing and how that's cute and/or hot. Panty Shot optional, but certainly implied.
Even modern examples often imply the woman is reliving her childhood, a good 20 years ago.
As the trope's name comes from the slave spiritual song "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", this is not to be confused with Dirty Harriet, unless it occurs at some very weird strip club...
Also has very little to do with Trauma Swing.
Examples:
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Advertising
- There's an advert for a spa in the UK press with some lady in a low-cut one-piece swimsuit on a swing.
Anime & Manga
- Discussed and illustrated in GA: Geijutsuka Art Design Class. "The Swing" is mentioned... as is the "entertainment" usage of the art, much to Kisaragi's dismay.
Art
- The Swing: The woman is portrayed on a swing dead-center in the picture and is feeling joyous. The reason is that she's being pushed by her husband, with her stretched-out legs being on display to her lover, who is hidden in the bushes. She looks quite pleased with herself because of that. At the time, such a picture was seen as mildly naughty Fanservice.
- Kate Beaton's version
of the picture, where there is no husband, the lady is engrossed in a book and her flying shoe bonks the voyeur on the head.
- Kate Beaton's version
Comic Books
- This cover for Rear Entry #6. (Warning: Mildly NSFW)
Eastern Animation
Films —Animated
- Fantasia has it in the Pastoral Symphony, when the cupids are matchmaking among the Centaurs.
- In Frozen, Anna imitates the pose of The Swing (in front of a copy of the painting, no less) while excitedly bouncing around the castle during "For the First Time in Forever".
- In My Year of Dicks, Pamela briefly imagines herself in a Victorian frilly dress, swinging on a swing, as she attracts the jealousy of her ex-boyfriend Clinton.
Films — Live-Action
- Unsexy variation in 10 Things I Hate About You: Patrick sits Kat down on the swings when she's drunk at the Wild Teen Party and tries to keep her from passing out. She ends up throwing up on him.
- Later, there's a scene where Kat looks down from her bedroom window to see Bianca sitting on a tire swing, dressed in notably little-girlish clothes, and decides to go to the prom so Bianca can, too.
- One of the many Paddleball Shots in Audioscopiks. A curvy woman in a tight swimsuit swings back and forth, approaching the camera on the foreswing.
- The Boob: Amy and Harry, swinging together in a romantic swing, while Peter watches and fumes.
- The first Bring It On movie has a scene where Torrance sits on a swing.
- Charulata: A long scene has Amal and Charulata hanging out in the garden of the estate together, her swinging in a swing while he lounges on the grass. The whole scene dramatically underscores their growing romance as they flirt.
- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Truly Scrumptious part of sings her solo, "Lovely, Lonely Man" while sitting on a garden swing. In this case the swing is more of a bench-style than the usual children's swingset but the imagery is still there.
- Mongryong first sees and, overcome by her beauty, falls in love with Chunhyang as she is on a swing in Im Kwon-Taek's Chunhyang.
- The final flashback in Cries and Whispers has the sisters sitting in a swing they used to play on as children. Extra trope points for the POV character being played by Harriet Andersson.
- A Day in the Country: Rodolphe and Henri gawk at Mme. Dufour and Henriette as they swing in the swing. Rodolphe wishes Henriette would sit in the swing and kick her legs out, rather than stand in it, so he could get a better view.
Rodolphe: Wonderful invention, the swing.
- Django Unchained has a scene where a young slave woman is swinging on a swing very much in the style of this trope, while other slaves are working and being whipped. It's a bit incongruous and unexplained.
- Ann does this at a Lemp family picnic in Four Daughters—in this instance it's more of a symbol of her free spirit than a fanservice-y example.
- Friendly Persuasion: Mattie is swinging in a swing during one scene where Gard is courting her.
- The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, a 1955 film starring Joan Collins and Ray Milland about the Evelyn Nesbit case (see Real Life below).
- A film called Girl On A Swing involves a statue of a Creepy Child on a swing, which is mysteriously connected to the male lead's Love Interest, who is also seen on a swing.
- Hibernatus: When he pretends to court Edmée, Hubert Barrère de Tartas puts her on a swing.
- Jasminum: In the vision Kleofas has of the 16th century pair of Star-Crossed Lovers, she's sitting on a swing (the real swing that's been made for Eugenia by Zdrówko) and he's pushing her.
- In Moulin Rouge, Satine is introduced descending from the ceiling perched on a swing in a cloud of glitter and smoke.
- Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing had Beatrice on a swing after she realizes she loves Benedict.
- In My Brilliant Career, Sybylla is swinging on a tree swing while Harry and his mother, looking on from a distance, discuss her suitability as a life partner.
- Dolores is introduced merrily swinging, as Leporello, Don Juan's valet, asks her to go easy on the whole home-or-prison thing.
- In the film of Nine (Musical), Carla makes use of a swing during "A Call From The Vatican". Given that she's wearing lingerie, Fanservice is most definitely intended.
- In O Quatrilho, eresa swings in a swing on the grounds of the farmhouse, emphasizing her sexual desirability, as opposed to more buttoned-up Pierina.
- Orphans of the Storm: One of the partygoers at the Marquis' bacchanalia is a woman on a swing.
- In Picnic, Madge swings on a swing during a long conversation between the characters in which Hal acts all manly.
- The Private Life of Don Juan: Dolores is introduced merrily swinging, as Leporello, Don Juan's valet, asks her to go easy on the whole home-or-prison thing.
- The River (1951): One scene has Valerie and Harriet swinging on a swing together as they talk about Capt. John.
- Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical: During "The Smell of Rebellion", the Trunchbull seemingly descends completely into madness singing virtually nonsensical lyrics while swinging in a frilly dress and comical make up.
- In La Roue, Sisif becomes attracted to Norma (his adopted daughter) when he sees her doing this.
- Siberiade: Nastya is riding a swing when she rejects her lover Kolya and says she'll marry Phil. This trope is combined with Sexy Soaked Shirt when it starts to rain.
- Played entirely straight in the 1994 erotic drama Sirens. The uptight minister can't help but look at all the gorgeous artist's models as they swing on a swing in the artist's yard.
- The Slipper and the Rose has a Shout-Out to the Fragonard painting: Cinderella sings "I Can't Forget The Melody" while on a swing and wearing a costume almost identical to the one in the painting.
- In Slipstream (1989), Amanda is introduced sitting on a swing in the dining hall of the Museum.
- Sons and Lovers: Miriam's innocence and purity—too innocent and pure for Paul, as it turns out—is emphasized by having her swing on a swing at the family farm.
- In the opening scene of Stella Dallas (1925), Stephen is enjoying the sight of Helen swinging.
- Bell's wife Marty in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.
- In the 1923 silent film Zaza, the title character's can't-miss act seems to consist of her swinging on a swing in front of an audience. (She's supposed to be a singer, but that's hard to dramatize in a silent film.)
Literature
- Kristina, one of the heroines in Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants novels, is fond of swinging and continues to do it in secret even when she's an adult. She first met her husband, Karl Oskar, while recovering from a wounded knee after she fell out of a swing, and interprets it as a sign that God makes bad things happen only so good things can come out of them. The musical adaptation, Kristina från Duvemåla, opens with Kristina on her swing.
- So Big: Paula Arnold is on the "couch-swing" on the front porch of the DeJong farmhouse. Dirk is sweet on her. This sets up the scene immediately afterward where Paula tells Dirk that she won't marry him because he isn't rich enough.
- The Sound and the Fury: The swing in the garden is the site of one of Caddy's first trysts with a boyfriend, and much later, her daughter Quentin also goes there with a boy.
- Subverted in Superwally: The Advanced Wally Manual by Paul Manning, which describes "Wallettes" as sitting on the swings in public playgrounds to gossip, and swearing at small children who want a go. Not cute or hot.
Live-Action TV
- In Alter Ego (2021), Misty Rose begins her finale performance on a swing.
- In the Bones episode "The Girl with the Curl", Hodgins takes Angela swinging for their first date.
- Harry Enfield once did a parody of this trope. He made this Darker and Edgier film titled 'Poppet on a Swing' in one of his sketches.
- The Goodies. Graham Garden falls in love with his computer and tries to push it on a swing, which...doesn't work so well.
- Tilly Evans and Nico Blake both have this as their spot in the opening titles of Hollyoaks.
- It Ain't Half Hot, Mum: In one episode of the show Gloria is desperate to get right a number that involves him playing a beautiful girl on a garden swing. He gets hurt when Sergeant Major pushes him off the swing, and Sergeant Major is forced to take his place!
- Early in The Legend of Zhen Huan Zhen Huan’s servants set up a swing for her outside her palace. It’s while swinging on it that she first properly meets the Emperor, who’s enraptured by her and by her resemblance to his dead first wife.
- The Masked Singer:
- In season 1, Poodle performs "Time After Time" while swinging rather sweetly on a large swing.
- In season 5, Black Swan begins her performance of "In My Blood" on a swing high above the stage and is gradually lowered down.
- One episode of The Muppet Show had special guest Theresa Brewer in a recreation of the Fragonard painting. She attempted to sing "Spinning Wheel" while being pushed by Sweetums, only to repeatedly knock him over on the backswing.
- n Ordeal by Innocence, Phillip watches with a hungry look as Hester swings on a tree swing. Sure enough, he later forcefully kisses her.
- Pushing Daisies has it on the promo pictures.
- 313 in The Prisoner (2009), several times when she's brooding.
- Played for laughs on Snuff Box, in a sketch where Matt Berry is a 19th Century gentleman trying to woo a lady ("Will you christen this swing I have errrrrrrrected?") When he finds out that she's already engaged, he throws her off the swing and calmly announces "Fuck you!"
- In the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Hollow Pursuits", Barclay's holographic version of Beverly Crusher sits in a swing wearing an enormous frock.
- An old episode of The Wild Wild West, with the straitlaced Girl of the Week being hypnotized into this.
Music
- The John Anderson song Swinging:
Little Charlotte she's a darlin'she's the apple of my eyeand when I'm on the swing with hershe makes me almost highCharlotte is my lovershe has been since the springI just can't believe it startedOn her front porch in a swingjust a swingin'
- Catatonia, "Dead From the Waist Down".
- TLC's "No Scrubs" video.
Tabletop Games
- The illustration for the Red Fox species in the Ironclaw rulebook has a female Red Fox in a scene very similar to The Swing.
Theater
- The first act of the dance musical Contact is based on The Swing painting. The Girl and The Servant have no problem making contact.
- For the Elisabeth in Concert productions, the titular character falls off a swing (pushed by Death) instead of a tightrope.
- In Music in the Air The Ingenue Sieglinde takes a ride on a swing at the zoo.
Theme Parks
- Walt Disney World's Country Bear Jamboree has Teddi Barra, who comes down from the theater ceiling on a swing to do her number.
Real Life
- Evelyn Nesbit, the "Girl on the Red Velvet Swing", a film very loosely based on her "relationship" with Stanford White and his murder by her husband Harry Thaw.