Movie Stereotypes

I was watching some genre flick yesterday, and I find myself once again marveling at Americans and their specific interpretation of cinema, their portrayal of life, and the various human situations they depict, which ought to be realistic, yet aren't.

For instance, in these films, every child under the age of ten is depicted as being somewhat simple-minded, perpetually awestruck by everything around them, essentially perfect little children who always obey their parents without question. However, the moment they hit ten, they transform into juvenile delinquents.

Furthermore, every single family is portrayed as blissfully happy, with everyone constantly embracing and kissing—though, frankly, who actually hugs like that at home these days? I remember personally trying to force my parents to stop coddling me back when I was in preschool.

Then there is the matter of morality; anyone who has committed a transgression realizes their error by the end of the movie, offers a public repentance, and emerges from the entire ordeal as an improved human being.

Moreover, all the villains seem to talk far too much (one only needs to look at Last Action Hero 😁) and they almost exclusively wear black clothing.

It seems every gay character is depicted as being feminized.

Every female attorney is a total bombshell, while every doctor is presented as a flawless specimen of manhood.

And honestly, there is still so much more to it than that...

Don't forget that Americans have a totally different vibe, culturally speaking.
Especially with all the hugging—they seriously hug way more than Europeans or anyone else back home. If you're even halfway friendly with someone, they might just go in for a hug instead of a handshake. I'm not making this up, I've felt it firsthand traveling through several parts of the US...

Alright then, side-hugging, even if I find the whole concept rather absurd.

I am speaking broadly about those cinematic tropes that are peddled to us by various screenwriters, directors, and other mediocre talents.

Let’s take some examples: every German is portrayed as rigid, blond, and stiffly formal. Every Frenchman is depicted as a romantic, consummate lover. Britons are mere hooligans, while American employers are all one way or another. Every Black person in these films apparently possesses innate mastery of rap and dance. And a butler is invariably destined to be a murderer.

The protagonist never seems to run out of ammunition. If they are targeted by a machine gun with a burst of fewer than ten rounds, they remain entirely unscathed; anything exceeding ten rounds merely grazes them. This fellow, unlike any ordinary human being, must possess twenty liters of blood in his veins, for how else could one explain his ability to hike from the base to the summit of a mountain with a wounded leg?

Hackers somehow crack complex encryptions in a mere ten seconds, seemingly relying on nothing more than pure guesswork. In reality, a legitimate breach would require several minutes at most. Furthermore, every operating system is visually represented as a collection of skyscrapers, where one navigates toward a specific file by flying between buildings and clicking on a particular window.

There are certainly more instances that come to mind...

You can find it at http://www.moviecliches.com/.
There's a long list of clichés listed there.

Someone posted this exact thread on a different forum once, so I just grabbed the most common tropes they listed:

* A cough is always a sign of some terminal illness.
* A detective can only actually solve the case if they’ve been suspended from the force.
* A guy won't show any signs of pain while taking brutal hits, but he'll start shaking the second a woman tries to patch him up.
* One single match is enough to light up a room of any size.
* Even though we can hit targets far beyond our sight today, people in the 23rd century will somehow lose that tech.
* Every single phone number in the USA starts with a 5.
* You can pick any lock in a second using a credit card or a paperclip—unless, of course, the door leads to a building engulfed in flames with a kid trapped inside.
* It’s totally unnecessary to say "hello" or "goodbye" when you start or end a phone call.
* You can see the Eiffel Tower from literally any window in Paris.
* One guy shooting at twenty people has a better chance of killing them than twenty people shooting at one guy.
* TV news always seems to have a story that hits you personally at that exact moment. And obviously, we can't forget that the second you turn on the TV, THAT specific channel with the news will be on the screen—God forbid you flip through a couple of channels trying to find it.
* *Whenever there's a crime scene with blood up to the knees, there's always some cop standing there eating something... usually a donut.
* In the last fifteen minutes of a movie, a helicopter almost always shows up to save the good guys.
* The most common phrase used in USA movies is: "Take it easy."
* That movie trope where it's perfectly safe to "run through" a glass wall? I tested that myself by shoving my right hand through one, and I ended up in reconstructive surgery with the phenomenal Dr. Aginčić.
* When the leading man is having sex, the partner is guaranteed to experience some triple-digit cosmic orgasm never before seen by mankind...
* After a husband dies suddenly, there’s always sex. A depressed widow... a shoulder to cry on... then she wakes up the next morning thinking, "Well, gotta keep moving."
* Leading characters HAVE to sleep together at the end even if they couldn't stand each other at the start.
* The lead actress always goes to bed with full makeup and perfect hair, and then she wakes up looking exactly the same. And when she does wake up (assuming it's a movie rated for all ages), she wraps herself in the same blanket she was sleeping under and just wanders around the house, even if she's totally alone in the apartment or whatever.
* In movies, they always toss their guns aside once the magazine is empty. 😁 MAN, GUNS ARE EXPENSIVE!
* Every flipped car or truck explodes. Does everyone in the world run on gasoline?
* In cartoons, the main characters (animals) are never dressed. But when they hop out of the shower, they're always wearing bathrobes or towels around their hips.
* Seven-year-olds can crack the toughest computer codes from the CIA and FBI in just three attempts!
* Computer experts can talk and type 2,000 words per second simultaneously while using their favorite line:
"How long will it take you to crack the code?" - "About two hours, Sergeant."

neonsailor12 said:Look, I mean, all Germans are just stiff, blue-blooded, and uptight. Every Frenchman is some romantic, amazing lover. Britons are basically hooligans, and American employers? Well, you know. All Black people have rhythm and can dance. And the butler is always the killer.
...

And Asians in movies? They're always playing doctors, scientists, experts, chefs, crazies, or criminals. There's just no such thing as a normal role for them.

Bradley Gonzalez said:It seems Asians in Hollywood are perpetually relegated to playing doctors, scientists, experts, chefs, lunatics, or criminals. They rarely ever get cast in roles that are actually grounded or normal.

Furthermore, it seems every Asian person is expected to be a master of martial arts. 😬

One of my favorite little clichés is the way the weather seems to bend itself to suit the protagonist's mood or the general vibe of the plot. In horror movies, you constantly see that classic setup of "a dark and stormy night." This trope goes so far that even in the movie Event Horizon—where the story takes place on a haunted spaceship discovered drifting in deep space—we still end up with a thunderstorm, despite all logic.

Another solid example would be this movie. Striking Distance With Bruce Willis. After he spends the whole time practically convincing a suicidal man to step off a bridge, the guy jumps anyway and dies. Bruce drops to his knees, lets out a massive "NOOOOOOOOoooooOOOOOO!!!!", and right on cue—as if scripted—it starts pouring rain while he weeps bitterly.

The film is essentially just a walking collection of clichés. You have Bruce Willis playing the typical "tough as nails" cop who’s constantly at odds with his superiors because they can't stand the fact that he refuses to follow orders. He also clings to some wild theory about a serial killer that makes zero sense to anyone but him—though, obviously, we all know he's actually right. To top it off, Bruce carries around this dark past that he's reluctant to discuss, which explains the alcoholism. Eventually, he gets paired with a new, attractive partner; after a predictably nasty argument, they hook up, and she somehow guides him toward the right path.

The mass murderer follows that classic trope seen in *When the Lamb Falls Silent*: he's a brilliant mastermind spinning these ultra-complex schemes for consciousness and murder that, in reality, would never actually work. To round out the experience, the film’s soundtrack consists entirely of electric guitars and soft jazz saxophone, depending on the mood.

The only truly original element of that film was Bruce Willis playing a cop... in short pants !!! If you consider that the peak of originality, then you clearly have no idea what time it is. 😬

neonsailor12 said:All these operating systems feel like skyscrapers—you’re basically flying between them before finally clicking on some specific window.

Also, I honestly didn't see this coming. I mean, have they seriously never heard of the command line? Every single damn backdoor is just some high-end animation now... wtf. 😕

Bradley Gonzalez said:The detective can only actually solve the case if he's been suspended from duty first.

It's a total classic—honestly, I almost expect him to get kicked off the force just so he can go roam the streets and cause chaos without any oversight. 🙂

The Police Chief is always going way overboard, constantly tearing into his own officers and calling them total incompetents. It’s honestly ridiculous.
It’s always the same story, isn't it? The main guy uncovers some massive conspiracy against the President or whoever else is running the show, and what happens? Nobody believes him. Not a single soul. Everyone just laughs in his face like he’s some kind of lunatic. It's a total joke.

You know, there was this one specific stereotype that kept popping up in The X-Files, episode after episode, and honestly? It’s exactly why I eventually got sick of the show.
Agent Mulder would spot some freakish paranormal power or realize someone isn't even from this planet, and then you’ve got Scully standing there insisting he's dead wrong, claiming it's totally impossible for aliens to be walking around our world. Hmmm... I mean, if they've already run into at least 30 different alien beings since the series started, what exactly is the director thinking? Does Scully really need to repeat like a parrot every single time they encounter a new extraterrestrial that "aliens don't exist"? Even an animal would figure out they're real after seeing thirty of them, but Agent Scully just can't wrap her head around it. She just starts singing the same old song every time: "It's impossible for it to be an alien because they aren't real." Like, seriously, who exactly did you catch in the last episode then?

Haha, you know that trope where the cops always taste the white powder they find on some criminal just to check if it's coke... it never occurs to anyone that the stuff could actually be cyanide 😁

Ethan Perez97 said:Haha, and then you have those movies where the cops always taste the cocaine they find on the bad guys—it never occurs to anyone that the white powder might actually be cyanide.😁

😂

* A cough is basically a death sentence.
* A detective can only crack a case if they've been suspended from the force.
* You can pick any lock in seconds with a credit card or a paperclip—unless you're trying to get into a burning building with a kid trapped inside.
* There's absolutely no need to say "hello" or "goodbye" when you start or end a phone call.
* You can see the Eiffel Tower from almost any window in Paris.
* One guy shooting at twenty people has a better shot than twenty people shooting at one guy.
* Local news always manages to air a story that hits you personally right when you turn it on. And of course, heaven forbid you flip through a few channels; it’ll always land on the exact station showing that specific news report.

....good 👍...😁😁...
...🤣...now that I think about it, I don't recall anyone in movies actually using a KEY to open anything or enter a room...!!!!....

Cinema Mania had a whole list of clichés in there

just off the top of my head, I guess

Hey Jimmy klišey: That situation where the villain tells a story to the hero or some random victim, and the conversation ends with an exclamation of "hey Jimmy !....." followed by "I lied," and then he just kills them.

The Raygun cliché: When the hero charges into a room or a building in their car, they always somehow know exactly where everyone is standing so they never accidentally run over the person they’re actually trying to save.

The Wait For Me cliché: Every single time the hero tells the heroine, "wait for me here," she'll end up leaving a few minutes later to go find him, only to get caught in some major danger.

Negative Inertia cliché: In those old Westerns, if you’re aiming at someone standing on a balcony, the bullet will always somehow pull the victim forward toward the gun.

The Magic Gear Shift cliché: In movies where people are racing cars down the road, you can usually tell by the sound of the gear shifts that the cars have more than ten gears.

The Because It's There cliché: In a movie where a guy climbs a mountain or swims across a lake or whatever, when people ask him why he's doing it, he just says, "Because it's there..." accompanied by an epic soundtrack.

trganje clothing: When the hero and heroine are running through a forest or a jungle, she'll always stop for a second, and then he'll just rip her heels off or tear her skirt so she can run faster.

and so on...

I don't think I can do any more of these😛

After they’ve left behind a literal mountain of bodies and spent all that energy trying to take them out, the killer—be it a man or a woman—finally slips into a house or an apartment and just starts wandering through the rooms, refusing to turn on a single light.
It’s such a classic trope, especially in those horror movies we love so much!

The lighting in The X-Files and C.S.I. always bugs me. It seems like they constantly rely on flashlights whenever they enter a crime scene. I mean, if someone has passed away, does that automatically mean the power was cut too? Does some other light source besides a flashlight actually destroy key evidence?

- You ever notice how when people pay for an Uber or a cab at the end of a ride, they never actually look at the fare? They just grab the first twenty-dollar bill they find in their wallet, shove it at the driver, and call it a day. And the driver? Yeah, you can bet they aren't handing back any change.

- Or like when someone jumps into a car and yells, "Hey, follow that sedan!" The driver always gets this weirdly excited look on their face and just guns it, shouting something like, "Don't worry, I won't let him get away!"

- Then there’s the morgue scene. A medical examiner finishes up an autopsy, stares down at the body, and immediately goes, "Man, I am starving. I need to grab some lunch."

- And don't even get me started on movies. If the hero learns some random martial arts move or a little trick early on, just because it was convenient, I guarantee you that's the exact thing they'll use to take down the villain in the final showdown.

- characters rarely ever need to use the restroom

- there are really only two categories of wounds: a minor scratch, or a fatal gunshot wound that allows for a slow death accompanied by overly dramatic, pathetic dialogue

- villains never aim for the protagonist's head; instead, they always target the torso, which is conveniently protected by a hidden bulletproof vest

- furthermore, villains never bother to check if a character is actually dead before simply walking away

Ashley Nguyen5 said:After a pile of corpses and an attempt on their lives, the killer enters the house or apartment and wanders through the rooms without turning on a single light.
It’s a staple in horror movies.

I have already touched upon this on my blog, but it warrants a mention here as well. I find those "Wait, you thought he was the killer!" scenes in teen slashers quite amusing. You have this dangerous mass murderer or monster terrorizing the city, leaving a bloody trail behind. Then, predictably, we get that scene where a protagonist finds themselves isolated. We realize someone is creeping up behind them, placing a hand on their shoulder—only to discover it isn't the killer at all! It turns out to be Mirko Mirkic from accounting, just looking to check on a bill. Ho ho ho, what a twist by the screenwriters! That trope wasn't particularly effective in the sequel to "to know how to work last summer" or in "urban legend."

Personally, I believe anyone who attempts such a prank in a city already teetering on the edge of hysteria deserves whatever comes their way. At best, they should receive a knee to the groin. If they follow that up by claiming it was "just a joke," then a punch to the stomach is certainly earned.

A few entries from Ebert's Little Movie Glossary:

MacGraw's Disease
A cinematic illness where the sole symptom is that the sufferer actually becomes more Beautiful as death approaches. (This particular affliction has taken quite a few stars, and Greta Garbo was often among them.)

As Long As You're Up, Get Me a 2 x 4
Whenever a brawl kicks off in a local American pub, almost every single person in the building suddenly joins the fray, completely spontaneously and without any real reason—they'll even start swinging at the person they were just sharing a drink with moments before.

Bathroom Rule no
Nobody ever actually uses a movie theater restroom for its intended purpose. Instead, characters always head in there to deal with illegal drugs, attempt suicide, hook up, smoke, get murdered, swap cash, or make a quick escape through a bathroom window.

But Is It Today's?
In those classic time travel flicks, the hero always figures out exactly what day it is by spotting a discarded newspaper sitting in a trash can.

Chinese Chase Rule in Any Asian City , or Any City with a Chinatown
In any Asian city, or any American city with a Chinatown, every single chase scene seems destined to happen during the Lunar New Year, inevitably leading the action right through the middle of a parade.

Disconnection Any character Who says
Any character Who says, "I can't tell you over the phone..." isn't going to be around much longer, and they'll meet their end at the meetup: either (a) totally silent, (b) muttering a total distraction, or (c) dropping some incredibly cryptic clue.

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