What television trope are you tired of ?

[MarieVampSlayer]

Hi all!

So since we know that Buffy was created after the tired trope of the blonde girl dying first, I was wondering what televion or movie trope are you tired of?

The first one that comes to mine is Chubby lazy husband with Hot nagging wife.

What are yours?

 

[thrasherpix]

The gay lover dying needs to die. I say this because it seems to be a thing to where it's shocking when it doesn't happen (if I was surprised when it did happen then it would be completely different). This is not me saying "gay lovers should never be killed in a story" but that it needs to stop happening nearly every single time. I recall how even in a novel series of a gay male protagonist that was very supportive it still had his lover dying to further the plot. Just please stop it.

There's a show I'm watching now in which a woman may choose a man or a woman. Both ships seems just as likely. I know some fans are already braced for one of them to die if she chooses the woman, and at least one said she didn't want the lesbian ship to happen because it would be a death sentence for one of the characters.

That's all I got for now, but many romantic tropes (that are very popular) are also coming to mind.

 

[thetopher]

The 'I know you want it' bad boy/good girl romance trope. I want it to die.

Also the 'idiotic/useless husband paired with the oh-so-clever and long-suffering wife; its like inverse sexism.

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

Useless women. Really cannot stand them in real life or in film/TV any other fiction. I hate 'I'm a helpless victim' characters. Regardless of gender, but in fiction, they are mostly female. Some are helpless to the point of stupidity. Even if they are otherwise genius smart.

One reason I like Criminal Minds so much, is that often the victims partly rescue themselves, and they almost always try. Humans have self-preservation. It's why we are at the top of the food chain, though we aren't the strongest or fastest of the animals out there. I really hate the trope that some people (usually women and children) are 'just' victims and must be rescued. (I love the little girl from season 6 of CM who gets away from one of their worst antagonists (played creepily by a malevolent Tim Curry), and she does it by getting into his head).

Probably why I love Buffy so much. Because she (and the show on the whole) are so much the anti-'being-a-victim' story. We rescue ourselves, help the helpless and save the world.. THAT is my favorite trope. So anything that is opposite that would earn my ire, dismay and annoyance.

A recent second (and related) trope I've come to dislike, and also that just puzzles me: people on the run, who don't try to disguise themselves in any way, except maybe a little hair dye (for the woman). Therefore, they keep being found, over and over. Makes. No. Sense. Been watching the Bourne movies, and cannot understand why none of the protagonists do anything to hide themselves (not even wearing a hat), much less, some attempt to change appearance... Their world is full of surveillance. Their hunters have the most advanced access to that surveillance on the planet. Why would you not change your appearance at all?

I read the original book years ago (when they first came out). Don't remember them being that moronic, even though the world had a lot less 'on camera all the time' reality when they were written, but I was a kid then, maybe I missed the poor trade craft. It's as if they like being caught semi-regularly so they can show off the killer moves of their star... but in martial arts, they taught me that the best way to win a fight was to avoid it. Prepare for the worst fight ever, but also figure out how to prevent it. Only when it becomes unavoidable through no fault of your own, do you resort to plan B: put the enemy down and make them stay down.

It's not hot to be able to fight your way out of any fight, if you don't have the sense to come out of the rain!

Thank goodness, Buffy got called on being naive back in season two of the show (when Angel tricked her). I think Buffy has spoiled us all... even with her mistakes... but she's a teenager, not a trained assassin!!

It is sad when I have better tradecraft than Jason Bourne! Because a real life Jason Bourne would not survive some of the idiot moves. Someone would shoot him! I know I could not survive an hour in a real espionage world with dangerous people on my trail -- a real (successful) assassin/spy cannot be stupider about evading the enemy than me.

 

[Spanky]

More of a cliche than a trope:
The whole "He's standing right behind me, isn't he?" thing whenever someone is talking about another person.
The whole speaking nonsense to prove someone isn't listening.

But honestly, I've no issue with any tropes as long as they are done well.

 

[Fool for Buffy]

It’s both tv and movies, but the “let’s be friends with benefits and it will work for us even though it has never worked before and we will have a big fight but then realize we were in love the whole time” really has gotten old.

 

[SunnydaleGlitz]

The 'wild child' female character who helps the male lead "let go" and have fun, loosen his tie, forget his stuffy responsibilities and walk barefoot in the grass, and somehow magically transforms his life. In other words the manic pixie dream girl trope, where she does all this without ever really seeming like a character. It's constantly recycled in subtle and un-subtle ways.

Romantic endings where crowds watch the couple get engaged/ kiss/ exchange I love you's, and start cheering on spot, and someone makes a cutesy joke. I can only enjoy this in a Disney film, but tired of it everywhere else.

 

[Taake]

Poverty, without real poverty, as a "growing up" mechanism ... e.g. Rachel Green on Friends, Cordelia on Buffy, Paris on Gilmore Girls. Heck even Buffy in season 6.

The 'wild child' female character who helps the male lead "let go" and have fun, loosen his tie, forget his stuffy responsibilities and walk barefoot in the grass, and somehow magically transforms his life. In other words the manic pixie dream girl trope, where she does all this without ever really seeming like a character. It's constantly recycled in subtle and un-subtle ways.

Yes, this!

 

[Spanky]

The 'wild child' female character who helps the male lead "let go" and have fun, loosen his tie, forget his stuffy responsibilities and walk barefoot in the grass, and somehow magically transforms his life. In other words the manic pixie dream girl trope, where she does all this without ever really seeming like a character. It's constantly recycled in subtle and un-subtle ways.

Wait... that doesn't really happen? Dammit. Wasted my life looking for her.

 

[SunnydaleGlitz]

Wait... that doesn't really happen? Dammit. Wasted my life looking for her.

You might still find her in real life though But you'll have to become her manic pixie too at some point.

 

[thetopher]

Really dated tropes that used to annoy me;
Stuffy old people who listen to loud rap/rock music and then inexplicably start dancing to it because its so awesome/they're so hip.
Also little old ladies swearing purely for for 'shock value'; got tired of that one fast.

 

[EarthLogic]

Paris on Gilmore Girls

Paris was poor at one point? I don't remember that. Guess I didn't even notice.

 

[RomanticSoul]

1) The 'bad boy reforms by the love of a good woman' trope. Urgh.
2) The convenient 'non-communication of important facts' just to create conflict/drama. This is used constantly everywhere and I hate it. Or better yet have people not talk at all so no information swapping can occur. Blech.
3) The bad guy walks with a limp while the victim runs at full speed away and in the next frame the bad guy caught the victim.
4) Defying the laws of nature/physics to invoke danger (like Zombies making no noise while walking through the freaking woods).
5) It's an apocalypse and people still find the time to do their eyebrows, shave their legs/armpits/chest, dye their hair, have perfect white teeth even though there are no dentists anymore etc.. Because even in an apocalypse people have to be pretty.
6) The 'wear him/her down until he/she loves me' trope also needs to die.
7) A character lives in poverty and still gets a new 2k dollar outfit every episode. Or can afford to eat out every day. You name it.

 

[EarthLogic]

5) It's an apocalypse and people still find the time to do their eyebrows, shave their legs/armpits/chest, dye their hair, have perfect white teeth even though there are no dentists anymore etc.. Because even in an apocalypse people have to be pretty.

The number of times Buffy's fighting evil and she has her hair down in perfectly set golden curls...Would. Never. Happen.

7) A character lives in poverty and still gets a new 2k dollar outfit every episode. Or can afford to eat out every day. You name it.

Yup. For once I'd like to see a character buying discounted/second-hand clothes in a charity shop.

 

[thrasherpix]

Useless women. Really cannot stand them in real life or in film/TV any other fiction. I hate 'I'm a helpless victim' characters. Regardless of gender, but in fiction, they are mostly female. Some are helpless to the point of stupidity. Even if they are otherwise genius smart.

Heh, I very rarely watch slashers, but even so I recall more than one such movie (so probably common) in which the woman running away from the guy with the knife (or whatever) runs right past a fallen police officer who still has his gun as well as the police radio in the car (at least once the door was open--hell, she probably could've locked herself in and drove away!). Just one type of TSTL (Too Stupid Too Live).

I laughed pretty hard when I saw the original Lost In Space. The men are going off to explore and leave the females behind, and so the father orders the little boy (I think even giving him a laser pistol, but I could be confusing that with another LIS scene) to "watch the women." This would include his mother. Yeah, maybe the father was humoring the boy and hoping it would make him more responsible, but I got the feeling the writers were serious.

But anyway, thought you might like this commercial:

 
I just remembered the one I'm tired of...the little kid running off over and over again to move the story forward. If done right it's fine (from what I recall offhand, using Dawn this way in Buffy worked for me) but as one example I saw the original Battlestar Galactica which had a little boy and some robot dog. They're fleeing for their lives of course, but every chance the robot gets it runs off and the boy runs after him, and then hijinks ensue as Cylons or other dangers present themselves to menace the boy. The first time was okay, but after like the third time I was thinking that's not even a real dog, if the boy can't live without it they sure can reprogram it to be more docile (and just to be on the safe side, put a tracking device on it, and maybe have the boy wear RFID or some such in his clothes as well), and surely it was not intentionally programmed to be that way.

 

[RachM]

• I agree with people regarding the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl trope (unless it's a deconstruction of the trope eg. Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
• Betty&Veronica or, in other words, love triangles, they need to die, like, now
• Fridged Women, I am so sick and tired of Fridged Women
• "All a bad boy needs is the love of a good woman", this one needs to go immediately

 

[ILLYRIAN]

MarieVampSlayer,
You wrote, 'So we know that Buffy was created after the tired trope of the blonde girl dying first, where did you see that and who said it?
I saw an interview that Joss said it was the concept of a little blonde haired girl being brave enough to walk through a dimly lit back alley.
To say the show was based on or about the blonde dying first doesn't make much sense to me.

I'm fed up with the crap that only women were/ are witches. That wicca and witchcraft are different.

 

[RachM]

MarieVampSlayer,
You wrote, 'So we know that Buffy was created after the tired trope of the blonde girl dying first, where did you see that and who said it?
I saw an interview that Joss said it was the concept of a little blonde haired girl being brave enough to walk through a dimly lit back alley.

I'm pretty sure @MarieVampSlayer was right, I remember I quote from Joss which said something along the lines of "I was watching a horror film and felt sorry for the blonde girl who dies first and I thought to myself what if she fought back instead" and thus BtVS was born.

The quite you've supplied pretty much supports Marie's quote so it might just have been Joss paraphrasing his original quote/idea. Either way, it's a pretty similar concept.

-EDIT-

Here's the quote from Joss: "The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of Buffy, the movie, was the little...blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise … genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series."

I'm fed up with the crap that only women were/ are witches. That wicca and witchcraft are different.

Charmed had male witches, as did Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Supernatural and (I'm pretty sure) Witches of East End.

 

[RomanticSoul]

I'm pretty sure @MarieVampSlayer was right, I remember I quote from Joss which said something along the lines of "I was watching a horror film and felt sorry for the blonde girl who dies first and I thought to myself what if she fought back instead" and thus BtVS was born.

The quite you've supplied pretty much supports Marie's quote so it might just have been Joss paraphrasing his original quote/idea. Either way, it's a pretty similar concept.

-EDIT-

Here's the quote from Joss: "The first thing I ever thought of when I thought of Buffy, the movie, was the little...blonde girl who goes into a dark alley and gets killed, in every horror movie. The idea of Buffy was to subvert that idea, that image, and create someone who was a hero where she had always been a victim. That element of surprise … genre-busting is very much at the heart of both the movie and the series."

He also said it here.

 

[WillowFromBuffy]

I hate all tropes, except that one time, when someone did something really interesting with it.