Tropes

Every show/film seems to shoehorn them in. Which ones really irk you?

 

The pronoun game.

"They took him!"

"Who took him!"

Note that the audience already knows who "they" are.

The villain hesitating.

"Before I kill you, I thought you should know what I plan on doing after-"

Someone bursts through an open door and saves the hero.

 

In terms of horror, color correction. Way too many horror movies out there with it and it looks like trash.

 

Person receives unexpected phone call. Says ominous thing. Cut to unrelated scene.

 

Executive meddling

 

Dial tone on cell phone when the call is disconnected. I think this is finally going away.

Not really sure if this is a trope, but it's a typical storytelling device in romantic comedies.

-guy sees new girl and is shy to speak with her.
-speak with her, awkward at first.
-finally asks her out, good date.
-montage showing the relationship progress.
-either one of them cheats on the other, or some type of conflict breaking them up.
-montage of one or maybe both characters being depressed and allowing some time to pass.
-brought back together either by coincidence, or more often than not, the male character fixes what led to the breakup.

 

I will prob describe this confusingly but omg when person A is like "I need to tell you something important" and Person B is like "Okay but first let me interrupt you and tell you something that is coincidentally related to the thing you were going to tell me and now you're gonna feel too guilty to tell me whatever it is. So what were you gonna say?" and Person A is like "Uhh... have a safe trip" like NO and then person b just accepts that as an answer without questioning why person A wanted to have such a serious convo

 

Also how people ignore flagrant warnings from either trustworthy or people who can justifiably give such warning.

 

Another horror trope that's way over played is the plague zombie bit. Fuck that, bring back zombies coming out of the ground or even voodoo zombies. I'll take either over yet another "Oh no, I'm bit! Now I turn into a zombie" movie.

 

Token minority friend in an area that is known for diversity.

Rom/coms always with that win/rescue/win back the main girl, usually caused by a misunderstanding.

 

OH GOD I HATE THIS ONE

 

Another horror one would be how in ALL ghost/haunted house movies, the husband/boyfriend is always super skeptical no matter how insane the haunting actually is.

 

Also this might seem nitpicky but when all women are styled the same on a show I know it's gonna be garbage and I never watch it. It indicates that there is no thought put into their personalities at all.

It's always women with long hair curled to the nines wearing fancy designer clothes and full makeup every day. Bonus points if it's a teen show lol like nobody in hs looks like that. Women do not dress that way every day. Maaaybe one girl out of a friend group will look A+ all the time but it's so distractedly unrealistic when they're all like that.

 

Yes people in romcoms need to learn to talk to each other because they are always getting in fights 2/3 through the movie over misunderstandings or minor disagreements!

 

I don't watch a lot of shows about teen girls but yeah they are never dressed like actual teen girls

 

I think it flies when it's like Gossip Girl or the OC where they are wealthy but I've seen episodes of Pretty Little Liars and Teen Wolf where it's like lol wut is happening here. I know a lot of ppl like the fantasy of it but I wish there were more realistic depictions too, like Boy Meets World or Awkward (which I haven't seen Awkward but their styling looked normal).

 

Try Salem.

Bunch of alabaster skinned women with loads of make up during a time where you'd be lucky to have sanitary water.

 

I think I watched the pilot of that when it came out!

Sounds like the Walking Dead in that there is no sanitation but the women always look fresh and made up lol wearing earrings and jewelry and nonsense. But then the men look like they have been doused in sweat and sewer water

 

True. They TRY to make Maggie look a bit more haggard, but they aren't fooling anyone. Carol kind of looks worn down as she should, but it's not believable. The worst though would be the girl who Abraham was messing around with, can't remember her name, but the really pretty hispanic chick.

 

When someone is sacrificing themselves to distract a killer so others can run and escape, and the others just sit and watch and scream, totally defeating the purpose of the sacrifice

 

Honestly there are so many, and a lot have been covered here already, but the one that's been on my mind recently is when two or more people are hanging out and one of them tells the other about a pretty large event (someone died/someone broke up/someone got fired/etc) as they're getting into a car or heading toward another destination, and then they cut to them arriving home or at said destination seemingly 2 minutes into the conversation and still having the huge breaking news explained to them.

Like.... they told someone something like that and they just spent the whole car ride in silence or talking about other things and then as soon as they pull up to where they were headed they resume talking about it? Like, I get not showing an entire 20 minute conversation, but come on, show them talking about the first few minutes of it right as they learn about it, not later on thinking I'm gonna believe it never got brought up again until that moment.

 

the magical negro trope is the weirdest thing to me.

 

I guess this counts as a trope but suicide or attempted suicide as a plot device is weird to me

 

Pretty much everything every CW show does.