TV Tropes: Love 'em or Loathe 'em

[Dr.OO7]

17 minutes ago, ganesh said:

And showrunners lack guts. 

Exactly. If soap writers can risk losing viewers when they decide to redeem rapists and/or pair them with their victims, they can damn sure risk it when it comes to tackling the abortion issue.

Here's one that absolutely infuriates me, particularly because I went through it:

"Stalking Is Love"

No, it isn't.

And I'm sick of the double standard that comes with it--if a man relentlessly calls a woman and shows up at her job, home, or interferes in her actual relationship, he's just a guy in love and the girl needs to give him a chance. If a woman calls a man ONCE, she's a pathetic man-hungry bitch who can't get it through her head that he's not interested.

[Jacqs]

I hate the "female teacher that has the hots for her male school student" double standard trope. In real life, if you are a woman who enters teaching or childcare to have easy access to children to sexually assault or abuse just because women are seen as carers and nurturers by default and thus are trusted more around children, i hope you get the book thrown at you.

[Dr.OO7]

On 1/2/2019 at 12:21 PM, Domenicholas said:

I am really tired of slap-slap kiss relationships, where two people bicker before they figure out they like each other. There's nothing bad about those relationships, but media tends to make every relationship like that, regardless of whether or not it fits the personality of the characters. It makes romance boring when as soon as you see two arguing, you're like "they're going to be together." God forbid you have two characters get together by, gasp, being kind to each other and open about their affections. Monroe and Rosalee from Grimm, for example, had a compelling romance without it starting as slap-slap kiss.

I agree. I never watched "The Closer", but I appreciated it when I read that the title character and her boyfriend started their relationship by hitting it off from the get-go, rather than the usual, "I can't stand you somehow means I want to sleep with you".

It's like telling some poor little girl being bullied by a boy, "He likes you!" (Yes, I went through that too).

I can't stand the "Ugly Guy, Hot Wife" trope. Not just because of how unrealistic it is (please spare me the slew of responses about how you're in such a relationship), but again, because of the double standard. The TV tropes page is chock full of examples from all media (there was even a huge real life section that had to be closed). But its counterpart doesn't have even half as many submissions. So apparently, a guy who looks like the Swamp Thing can snag a supermodel, but a woman who dares to be an 8 instead of a 10 has barely any chance with a hunk.

Why is there this bizarre aversion to having BOTH people be good looking?

Edited January 6, 2019 by Camille

[ganesh]

1 hour ago, Camille said:

I can't stand the "Ugly Guy, Hot Wife" trope.

While you are correct that it is stupid and played out, if we want to dig a little deeper, this trope is largely because network sitcoms are still modeled after the Honeymooners. Which is why I said before that showrunners lack guts. 

[selkie]

8 hours ago, aradia22 said:

If they acknowledge abortion as an option it's not something they actually think about. There's no period of considering it. It's unquestioned that they will try to carry the pregnancy to term. I don't remember if it's come up on Degrassi aside from Liberty who kept the baby but that's the only guess I have for a show where a character had an abortion. Juliette had her baby on Nashville (though I don't remember the exact context of that). 

 

Claire on 'Please Like Me'. ( I  actually liked Claire. She had her rough edges but she was a necessary character who kept the plot moving forward and prevented the guys from looping back into too much navel-gazing.)  Okay, it only semi-counts since it's an Australian show that only had a modest cult following in the USA, but it was actually a very well-written episode that managed keep Claire consistent with everything else we'd seen of her character.

Ironic that the showrunner/lead actor/head writer for 'Please Like Me' was a gay man, Josh Thomas who just really liked to do his research on serious topics before working them into his show. 

[biakbiak]

8 hours ago, aradia22 said:

they acknowledge abortion as an option it's not something they actually think about. There's no period of considering it. It's unquestioned that they will try to carry the pregnancy to term. I don't remember if it's come up on Degrassi aside from Liberty who kept the baby but that's the only guess I have for a show where a character had an abortion. Juliette had her baby on Nashville (though I don't remember the exact context of that). 

Friday Night Lights has a good abortion episode that doesn’t fall into any of the tropes. 

[Domenicholas]

One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to abortion is when a woman who decides to have one is either demonized or brutalized by the writers because of it. When Mimi Lockhart from Days of our Lives, for example, had an abortion, she subsequently lost her boyfriend, married someone who settled for her because his ex married someone else, was rendered infertile by the abortion, lost her chance to have a baby by said husband when his sperm was switched (conveniently fertilizing the egg of his ex), and ultimately abandoned by her husband for his ex. Now, I understand the topic of abortion is highly polarizing, but women who have them are not evil and shouldn't be treated as such.

On a slightly related trope, I hate the convenient miscarriage trope, where a woman's pregnancy is used as a plot device and goes away as soon as the plot ends, never to be mentioned again. Unless the woman is established not to have wanted or cared about the baby in the first place, it's jarring to see TV women easily get over an event that takes many women years, if not decades, to move on from. One of the most frustrating ones I remember is Blair's pregnancy from Gossip Girl; you knew it was going to end that way as soon as it happened, and she may have given one ugh when it happened before moving on to something else (although I will concede that Blair probably didn't want the baby in the first place).

[aradia22]

Based on some of the responses to this thread, I have a book recommendation. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41015348-you-play-the-girl?ac=1&from_search=true

Quote

Why is there this bizarre aversion to having BOTH people be good looking?

Not that I'm opposed to that once in a while but I would take the opposite tack and say, why is there a bizarre aversion to having both people be "normal" looking? It's television. I get having glamorous movie couples. But if the show is about ordinary people, they should kind of look the part, don't you think? I think one of the better examples of this was the casting for Roseanne. YMMV on who you find attractive but relatively speaking, they looked like an ordinary family. Again, YMMV but I think (given that almost everyone who makes it in entertainment is more attractive than the average person) Superstore does a good job with casting in general and with pairing couples specifically. Other than maybe Cheyenne and Bo.

[Spartan Girl]

I hate the long suffering wife character trope. It's been overused by shows like The Simpsons to the point that I feel that the female characters just blame the man for everything going wrong in their lives so they can play the saintly victim and never be held accountable for their own shortcomings.

[Luckylyn]

I hate the woman is infertile after having an abortion trope.  

[ABay]

I've been watching a Spanish show, El Enternado, on Netflix and the closed captions are, as usual, spotty. Most of the time it's pretty minor but in this particular show a woman had a miscarriage. It was clearly a miscarriage and was referred to as such for the remainder of that season. Then the next season, the event was referred to several times as an abortion. I'm stumped. Are the words similar in Spanish? Eventually it was referred to as a miscarriage again but the error was jarring. 

[Dr.OO7]

The Spanish term for a miscarriage is "aborto spontaneo". Much like how the official medical term for a miscarriage is "spontaneous abortion".

[Ceindreadh]

4 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

I hate the woman is infertile after having an abortion trope.  

I don't hate it when it's used to highlight the dangers of having to resort to illegal backstreet or self-induced abortions because there's no legal means available.

(IIRC, Call the Midwife used that trope a few times)

[Popples]

The "Cannot Spit It Out" trope. It's one thing if it's a shy person trying to make a declaration of love, but when it's really important information it drives me crazy.

I was watching a woman unknowingly getting married to a conman, and a detective found out and had the chance to tell her before the wedding and instead of just saying, "Don't marry him, he's a con artist" all he says is "You're making a mistake." Since he cleaned out her bank account, a bit of specificity would have been extremely helpful.

[ABay]

@Camille, that would explain the translation problem. Thanks!

[merylinkid]

15 minutes ago, Popples said:

The "Cannot Spit It Out" trope. It's one thing if it's a shy person trying to make a declaration of love, but when it's really important information it drives me crazy.

I was watching a woman unknowingly getting married to a conman, and a detective found out and had the chance to tell her before the wedding and instead of just saying, "Don't marry him, he's a con artist" all he says is "You're making a mistake." Since he cleaned out her bank account, a bit of specificity would have been extremely helpful.

Oh yeah, heaven forbid someone convey needed knowledge in a timely fashion.   'I know who the murderer is, wait at the station for me and I will tell you."   Instead of, you know, laying it out in the phone call where they are saying "I know who it is."   Because the person NEVER makes it to the meeting.   The bad guy ALWAYS gets them.   Or as in the example, the con man cleans out the bank account and takes off first.   I hope to heaven the lady lambasted the detective when she found out how long he knew.

[DrSpaceman73]

I don't like the Hot Wife/Ugly guy trope either.  usually seen in sitcoms.   

But it actually goes beyond the "ugly" husband.  Its usually more an overweight slob of a husband when its done, which is even more annoying, for many reasons. 

But there are some good exceptions :

Phil and Claire on Modern Family. 

Burt and Virginia on Raising Hope

Frankie and Mike on The Middle

Raymond and his wife, I forget her name, on Everybody loves Raymond.  That's two for Patricia Heaton, I guess I just find her average looking. 

I'm sure there are others, but those are recent ones. 

[Jacqs]

Patricia Heaton used a bit of surgical help to maintain her looks even as Ray wasn't aging so gracefully.

[Wiendish Fitch]

20 hours ago, Camille said:

I can't stand the "Ugly Guy, Hot Wife" trope. Not just because of how unrealistic it is (please spare me the slew of responses about how you're in such a relationship), but again, because of the double standard. The TV tropes page is chock full of examples from all media (there was even a huge real life section that had to be closed). But its counterpart doesn't have even half as many submissions. So apparently, a guy who looks like the Swamp Thing can snag a supermodel, but a woman who dares to be an 8 instead of a 10 has barely any chance with a hunk.

Why is there this bizarre aversion to having BOTH people be good looking?

I think it's safe to say an "Ugly Woman, Hot Husband" coupling would be yanked after half an episode. 

[Dr.OO7]

3 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

But there are some good exceptions :

Phil and Claire on Modern Family

Yet there's still a classic example with Jay and Gloria. Paired with May/December romance.

I have mixed feelings on that one. I don't think I mind it so much as I mind the negative way it's almost always portrayed--"gold-digging, airheaded tramp seduces foolish horny old goat."--so it's actually a relief that Jay and Gloria aren't an example of that.

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 minute ago, Camille said:

Yet there's still a classic example with Jay and Gloria. Paired with May/December romance.

I have mixed feelings on that one. I don't think I mind it so much as I mind the negative way it's almost always portrayed--"gold-digging, airheaded tramp seduces foolish horny old goat."--so it's actually a relief that Jay and Gloria aren't an example of that.

May/December romances don't bother me as long as there's genuine chemistry, connection, and there's not such a gaping, distracting, absurd discrepancy between their physical attractiveness. My favorite May/December romance in recent memory that fits this criteria is Bates and Anna on Downton Abbey.

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, Camille said:

Yet there's still a classic example with Jay and Gloria. Paired with May/December romance.

I have mixed feelings on that one. I don't think I mind it so much as I mind the negative way it's almost always portrayed--"gold-digging, airheaded tramp seduces foolish horny old goat."--so it's actually a relief that Jay and Gloria aren't an example of that.

Ironically, it didn't START that way. The show had initially portrayed Gloria as a struggling, abandoned single mother trying to make her way for herself and her son  via honest means who happened to meet Jay and now was grateful to be able to use the free time via his wealth to tend to her  growing son and new husband even if she had the occasional flash of temper.

 Alas, they trashed all that and turned her into a shrill, vindictive snarling caricature of a devious golddigger with no redeeming qualities or ethics  who'd stomped over her own overshadowed  sister to get at Jay's dinero ! This brings me to a trope I loathe, TPTB turning sympathetic, admirable  if flawed characters into crude stereotypes solely due to being able to more easily write  jokes  and punchlines about them! Oh, and this is but one reason I long since bailed on the show! 

Edited January 7, 2019 by Blergh
write for right, etc.

[Dr.OO7]

10 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Ironically, it didn't START that way. The show had initially portrayed Gloria as a struggling, abandoned single mother trying to make her way for herself and her son  via honest means who happened to meet Jay and now was grateful to be able to use the free time via his wealth to tend to her  growing son and new husband even if she had the occasional flash of temper.

 Alas, they trashed all that and turned her into a shrill, vindictive snarling caricature of a devious golddigger with no redeeming qualities or ethics  who'd stomped over her own overshadowed  sister to get at Jay's dinero ! This brings me to a trope I loathe, TPTB turning sympathetic, admirable  if flawed characters into crude stereotypes solely due to being able to more easily write  jokes  and punchlines about them! Oh, and this is but one reason I long since bailed on the show! 

Which brings me to yet another trope I hate--Flanderization. No matter how a character starts out, within a few years, they're a caricature of that. Someone goes from slightly ditzy to so stupid it's a miracle they can walk down the street, from neat freak to downright insanely obsessive compulsive, etc.

[aradia22]

Quote

The "Cannot Spit It Out" trope. It's one thing if it's a shy person trying to make a declaration of love, but when it's really important information it drives me crazy.

I was watching a woman unknowingly getting married to a conman, and a detective found out and had the chance to tell her before the wedding and instead of just saying, "Don't marry him, he's a con artist" all he says is "You're making a mistake." Since he cleaned out her bank account, a bit of specificity would have been extremely helpful.

I think of it more as this one. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoorCommunicationKills 

But yeah, it makes me crazy. It could be in the context of a romantic relationship. It could be a show with a long-term mystery (not that I watch a ton of those). But I have very little patience for it these days. It just feels like lazy writing. There's no tension in lazy writing. It's the difference between a romantic relationship where the lovers are kept apart by incredible circumstances... and one where they're just not getting together because the writers want to keep the will they/won't they going. 

Flanderization kills so many shows for me. I used to be a completionist but I'm getting better about dropping shows because it just gets so exhausting. I'm certain Bones must have been a good show at some point for me to have watched so much of it but after a while I just gave up. 

It's not a trope but my other issue with long-running shows is when it's clear the writers didn't fully think it through. It starts with the promise of a great premise and then at some point you realize they can't cash it out because they didn't work it out. That's fine for really episodic shows which more often than not run into Flanderization. But serialized shows need an endgame. You need to have figured the world out if you're going to be world-building. Maybe I'm just getting cranky but I'm getting into the idea of a limited series if it means a show I'm enjoying will end on a high note (even if I have fewer episodes to watch overall). The one I think of is Being Erica but there are of course others. 

[ganesh]

12 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

It just feels like lazy writing. There's no tension in lazy writing.

I call it 'manufactured drama'. It happened on Bob's Burgers tonight. 

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, aradia22 said:

It's not a trope but my other issue with long-running shows is when it's clear the writers didn't fully think it through. It starts with the promise of a great premise and then at some point you realize they can't cash it out because they didn't work it out. That's fine for really episodic shows which more often than not run into Flanderization. But serialized shows need an endgame. You need to have figured the world out if you're going to be world-building. Maybe I'm just getting cranky but I'm getting into the idea of a limited series if it means a show I'm enjoying will end on a high note (even if I have fewer episodes to watch overall). The one I think of is Being Erica but there are of course others. 

Agreed. I'll see shows out there that have a really cool, interesting premise...but the story isn't really the sort that would sustain itself for multiple seasons, and the mythology within the premise inevitably gets so convoluted and confusing because they have to keep stretching stuff out in order to keep the show going, and it takes away from the initial cool premise.

But I could handle that issue all right if those kinds of shows had characters worth getting invested in and caring about and exploring further....yet a lot of the time, the characterization gets sacrificed for the messy mythology. And since characters are the biggest thing that attract me to a show and keep me watching, well... 

[CooperTV]

Like a recent Timeless survivor, I'd definitely say love triangles. Especially love triangles done in the manner that had been done in the show, when the main Will They, Won't They couple had got together, and immediately (in the very same episode!) the long lost murdered wife of the dude was randomly alive.

Oh, and Timeless also has the thing on what any amateur writer thrives on: the need to put good guy through mud to make their favorite character (the jerk one) look better by comparison. Because they don't know other ways to write believable redemption/character development for their ultimate Creator's Pets, they need to destroy Fan Favorites (see also: The 100 season 3, Vampire Diaries season 2, Dawson Creek season 4, the entire run of Teen Wolf). Timeless was not as bad as The 100 season 3 about it (obviously) but it was still like watching CW teen angst soap, only about 30-somethings.

[Annber03]

Yeah, if a show's going to do a love triangle, they should figure out how to make it so that the viewers can sympathize with the person feeling conflicted over who to choose, and be genuinely curious as to who they might choose in the end. Give both options good and bad qualities and some complexity, and let them have stuff they can do in the meantime as well, other stories going on, so they're not just stuck sitting around waiting for the person in the middle to decide. And figure out how long you want the triangle to last, too, because there's only so long somebody can be undecided about choosing between two people before they come off as wishy-washy and you're sitting there telling everyone involved, "Maybe you should all just move on and each find someone else." 

[merylinkid]

7 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Agreed. I'll see shows out there that have a really cool, interesting premise...but the story isn't really the sort that would sustain itself for multiple seasons, and the mythology within the premise inevitably gets so convoluted and confusing because they have to keep stretching stuff out in order to keep the show going, and it takes away from the initial cool premise.

But I could handle that issue all right if those kinds of shows had characters worth getting invested in and caring about and exploring further....yet a lot of the time, the characterization gets sacrificed for the messy mythology. And since characters are the biggest thing that attract me to a show and keep me watching, well... 

Grimm.   Oh dear god, Grimm.    Really cool premise.    Creature of the week.   All sacrificed to put the Creator's Pet Actress front and center.    When it became about the girlfriend of the Grimm instead of, you know, the Grimm, I was pretty much done.   

[andromeda331]

22 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I hate the long suffering wife character trope. It's been overused by shows like The Simpsons to the point that I feel that the female characters just blame the man for everything going wrong in their lives so they can play the saintly victim and never be held accountable for their own shortcomings.

Its a trope that's driving me crazy on Home Improvement of all places. When Tim makes a mistake or messes up which happens basically all the time he has to apologize and make up for it. Which he should. But when its Jill? Nope, that doesn't happen. There are so many scenes where she does the wrong thing but doesn't apologize or blames him or the show frames it that she isn't in the wrong when she clearly is. She blames him for everything that goes wrong in her life and if she wants something she gets mad when he's not on board but when he wants something she dismisses it completely. This also popped on Everyone Loves Raymond and other sitcoms and other shows in addition to HI where the couple sometimes the wife but it can be the husband (see Bewitched!) where it seems like he or she hates everything the spouse loves. Jill hates sports, tools, cars, and constantly putting down his show (which somehow makes enough money to support their entire family including her college classes and her not having to work the first dozen years they were married and five years during the show) or Debra seemed annoyed by everything Ray does and Darren seems just as annoyed by everything Samantha does which makes you wonder why they married at all or are still together.  

[andromeda331]

16 hours ago, Popples said:

The "Cannot Spit It Out" trope. It's one thing if it's a shy person trying to make a declaration of love, but when it's really important information it drives me crazy.

I was watching a woman unknowingly getting married to a conman, and a detective found out and had the chance to tell her before the wedding and instead of just saying, "Don't marry him, he's a con artist" all he says is "You're making a mistake." Since he cleaned out her bank account, a bit of specificity would have been extremely helpful.

So do I. I hate that they can't just say it. They try to and keep chickening out or keep getting interrupted. Just say it already. Stop wasting episodes dancing around or trying and not saying it. Just say it. And if they don't especially if its something important like the detective not telling her she's marrying a con artist that person should be pissed off at not being told important information they need to know. The flip side of that is I hate when they finally decide to tell the person they are in love with them but its only after that person is dating, engaged or married someone else. I'm sorry at that point that ship has sailed and they only have themselves to blame. Don't dashing off to tell that person who is happy with someone else your in love with them. Move on. They do not need to know on the eve of their wedding or after their wedding you are in love with him or her. Also, they finally decide they have to talk to person but its during a crisis, an emergency or something that now they are going to take waste time from whatever is going onto tell someone. A non-romantic version is Abby on NCIS wants to tell Gibbs its okay he forgot her birthday right after she gave him information regarding a missing woman who was most likely taking by a serial killer. I mean, really, right then is totally okay to stop everything to talk over a problem she's been having the entire episode. 

6 hours ago, Annber03 said:

Yeah, if a show's going to do a love triangle, they should figure out how to make it so that the viewers can sympathize with the person feeling conflicted over who to choose, and be genuinely curious as to who they might choose in the end. Give both options good and bad qualities and some complexity, and let them have stuff they can do in the meantime as well, other stories going on, so they're not just stuck sitting around waiting for the person in the middle to decide. And figure out how long you want the triangle to last, too, because there's only so long somebody can be undecided about choosing between two people before they come off as wishy-washy and you're sitting there telling everyone involved, "Maybe you should all just move on and each find someone else." 

If they did that more often I probably wouldn't hated the love triangle as much as I do. They always seem the same, it always seems obvious who's going to be picked and as time goes by none of them come off looking really good. It would be great to see the actual conflicted and why. Why he or she would be good with each person. Make it more complex and yes figure out how and when its going to end. 

[selkie]

17 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I think it's safe to say an "Ugly Woman, Hot Husband" coupling would be yanked after half an episode. 

We did briefly see a couple of Chris Keller's female exes on "Oz" back in the day, and Chris Meloni was definitely the attractive one with mad sex appeal in those relationships.  But the thing with Keller was that he was a flat out psychopath and I felt like it was written like we were supposed to read all his relationships as an attempt at a predator/prey dynamic rather than some sort of partnership of equals or anything. 

[ChromaKelly]

On 1/5/2019 at 3:52 PM, aradia22 said:

Agreed. I don't really watch soaps anymore. (I was really into All My Children for one summer. I remember Bianca though. That was a whole mess.) I sometimes watch stuff that feels like a primetime soap but they don't really call themselves that. Anyway, I feel like most shows handle unplanned pregnancies the way I've noticed that romance novels do. If they acknowledge abortion as an option it's not something they actually think about. There's no period of considering it. It's unquestioned that they will try to carry the pregnancy to term. I don't remember if it's come up on Degrassi aside from Liberty who kept the baby but that's the only guess I have for a show where a character had an abortion. Juliette had her baby on Nashville (though I don't remember the exact context of that). 

I don't know if it comes from a play to an imagined conservative audience or established rules as much as two things. If there are female characters with any prominence in the show, it's probably assumed to have a partial, if not majority, female audience and the assumption is that women don't want to see that (even though many women use contraception and have abortions). Secondly, I think there's an assumption that it would make the female character the worse thing she could be which is "unlikeable." I read the memoir of the creator of Sabrina recently and she mentioned how she had to fight to not have the mom be dead (because in the show Sabrina lives with her two aunts). The powers that be could not fathom having a female character be alive and not with her daughter so they had to write a convoluted reason for why they were apart. 

I think with the television landscape fracturing into specialized channels and streaming services this might change. Not that every show is even going to have an unplanned pregnancy but if it comes up I think it'll be less of an issue. Imagining more niche audiences, I think higher ups will be less frightened and more diverse writers rooms as well as writers who are trying to write challenging material (again, not that this is out of the ordinary at all) will probably make it happen. I actually think that when shows written for women are actually written BY women, you increase the chance of abortions, miscarriages, and pregnancies being handled with greater nuance instead of just as plot devices or excuses for moralizing. (Of course there are exceptions.)

The only recent show that comes to mind that dealt with abortion was The Affair.  The teen daughter had an abortion when she got pregnant. It wasn't all political or a bunch of hand-wringing about it. It was just, this is the option that makes sense in this situation.

[ganesh]

I can't even remember a plot that dealt with abortion on any shows I've watched in recent memory. Claire had a miscarriage on Outlander. Not the same, but that's all I remember. 

[Aryanna]

On 1/5/2019 at 3:48 PM, Jacqs said:

I hate the "female teacher that has the hots for her male school student" double standard trope. In real life, if you are a woman who enters teaching or childcare to have easy access to children to sexually assault or abuse just because women are seen as carers and nurturers by default and thus are trusted more around children, i hope you get the book thrown at you.

I feel bad for guys as far as this is concerned.

If it's a female teacher with an underage boy it's supposedly ok because it's a hot fantasy. But if it's a male teacher with an underage girl then it's just creepy. Wrong. It's creepy both times.

This is a case where I think movies and TV have shaped the way society views it when it actually happens in the real world. If it's a female teacher society views it as something that probably shouldn't happen but not all that bad. But if it's a male teacher then it's "Execute Him!" I read about these teacher/student crimes at least once a month and often more frequently than that. 9 times out of 10 the news story is about a female teacher and male student.

Edited January 7, 2019 by Aryanna

[DrSpaceman73]

4 hours ago, Aryanna said:

I feel bad for guys as far as this is concerned.

If it's a female teacher with an underage boy it's supposedly ok because it's a hot fantasy. But if it's a male teacher with an underage girl then it's just creepy. Wrong. It's creepy both times.

This is a case where I think movies and TV have shaped the way society views it when it actually happens in the real world. If it's a female teacher society views it as something that probably shouldn't happen but not all that bad. But if it's a male teacher then it's "Execute Him!" I read about these teacher/student crimes at least once a month and often more frequently than that. 9 times out of 10 the news story is about a female teacher and male student.

Its bad either way. 

I don't think its just movies and TVs though that shape this.  I think right or wrong, we view women as more vulnerable and still viewed as the ones being preyed on for their sexuality while men, older or younger, are viewed as the stronger ones who are the aggressors in sexual relationships. 

But it happened at my high school, way back in the early 90s.  Female Biology teacher caught having a sexual relationship with a male underage student.  She was fired and never taught again, but she didn't go to jail.  Today that would probably be different. 

[jhlipton]

My least favorite thing (not sure if it's a trope or not) is assuming that read the text on someone's cellphone.  Nope, sorry, cannot, even on freeze-frame.  Pass the information in some way average viewers can see or hear.

On 1/6/2019 at 10:50 PM, Annber03 said:

Yeah, if a show's going to do a love triangle, they should figure out how to make it so that the viewers can sympathize with the person feeling conflicted over who to choose, and be genuinely curious as to who they might choose in the end. Give both options good and bad qualities and some complexity, and let them have stuff they can do in the meantime as well, other stories going on, so they're not just stuck sitting around waiting for the person in the middle to decide. And figure out how long you want the triangle to last, too, because there's only so long somebody can be undecided about choosing between two people before they come off as wishy-washy and you're sitting there telling everyone involved, "Maybe you should all just move on and each find someone else." 

Brooklyn 9-9 did 2 overlapping love triangles and did them well.  Although we all knew Jake and Amy were OTP, the other people they were involved with weren't just cardboard cutouts meant only to be obstacles.  But pretty much everything on B99 is made of win.

12 hours ago, ganesh said:

I can't even remember a plot that dealt with abortion on any shows I've watched in recent memory. Claire had a miscarriage on Outlander. Not the same, but that's all I remember. 

The typical trope is the woman who goes to the clinic but doesn't have the procedure (usually for dumb reasons) [like Delilah on A Million Little Things], but Gabby on Empire actually followed through.

[andromeda331]

20 hours ago, merylinkid said:

Grimm.   Oh dear god, Grimm.    Really cool premise.    Creature of the week.   All sacrificed to put the Creator's Pet Actress front and center.    When it became about the girlfriend of the Grimm instead of, you know, the Grimm, I was pretty much done.   

Creator's Pet, that is my number one most hated TV Tropes so many great shows were destroyed because of it. 

[Raja]

18 hours ago, ganesh said:

I can't even remember a plot that dealt with abortion on any shows I've watched in recent memory. Claire had a miscarriage on Outlander. Not the same, but that's all I remember. 

The only times that I remember is when a character goes through a pregnancy scare  and the other women on the show become the Greek Chorus with at least one mentioning she had an abortion. 

[Llywela]

In British soap opera Coronation Street, the character Sinead Tinker had an abortion in 2017 - this led to all kinds of drama, of course, it being a soap, but she went through with the procedure.

[GHScorpiosRule]

It's not even recent, but General Hospital had a teenager have an abortion, after a character had sex with the boy she was in love with back in 2005. She got  pregnant due to a defective condom (that was a subplot for a few people). And it was very well done. It was painful, gut-wrenching and that stupid fakakta show hasn't had the guts to do brave things in since, forever. Instead they have their moobster Michael Corleone wannabe populate the whole town with his spawn.

[ursula]

12 hours ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

I don't think its just movies and TVs though that shape this.  I think right or wrong, we view women as more vulnerable and still viewed as the ones being preyed on for their sexuality while men, older or younger, are viewed as the stronger ones who are the aggressors in sexual relationships. 

Art imitates life imitates art. We have movies, books, stand-up comedies that either joke or romanticize it.; news reporting that trivialize it. Our view of this issue is shaped by the media we consume and the media we consume reflects those views back at us. It's a vicious cycle. 

[DearEvette]

On 1/6/2019 at 3:13 PM, Popples said:

The "Cannot Spit It Out" trope. It's one thing if it's a shy person trying to make a declaration of love, but when it's really important information it drives me crazy.

I was watching a woman unknowingly getting married to a conman, and a detective found out and had the chance to tell her before the wedding and instead of just saying, "Don't marry him, he's a con artist" all he says is "You're making a mistake." Since he cleaned out her bank account, a bit of specificity would have been extremely helpful.

In books this is related to what we call the 'Grand Misunderstanding'.  In which two characters go almost the whole plot at cross purposes, despite the fact that one 5 minute conversation could have cleared everything up.  And this is not an exaggeration.  There are whole scenes where they are arguing about their conflict, but somehow neither one of them manages to actually say what they are arguing about.  For instance the kid is his but she never told him but she assumes he knows, he thinks the kid isn't his but has never actually said it.  They argue about the kid but neither one of them mentions their assumptions.  So instead of saying "He's your child why won't you help with child support."  she says "Why won't you help me with him?"  And instead of saying "He's not my kid I know you cheated on me, why would I help pay for it."  He says "Why would I?" 

[ganesh]

This is literally the plot of the latest Outlander episode. 

[Aryanna]

14 hours ago, jhlipton said:

My least favorite thing (not sure if it's a trope or not) is assuming that read the text on someone's cellphone.  Nope, sorry, cannot, even on freeze-frame.  Pass the information in some way average viewers can see or hear.

This is a little old but still interesting...

[AntiBeeSpray]

When the main characters aren't allowed to do much of anything when they're together. But when it's one of them with another person/being, it's alright.

 

Uh no. Just no. I hate when shows do this. X Files was particularly guilty of this one.

[tennisgurl]

I hate when TV dads are all weird and overprotective about their daughters dating, especially when she is an older teen or an adult. A lot of shows seem to think its funny or endearing, but its not. Even shows that have the dads get over it by the end usually play it as more funny than dickish. Its super creepy and paternalistic, and seems to say that woman just cant handle dating, and that they're so stupid and such innocent wilting flowers that they will immediately fall for any obvious asshole who crosses their path, and they need a man to protect their virtue. And when ever the dad gets the entirely reasonable response of "do you not trust me?" they say something like "I was a boy once, I know how it is." or "its them I dont trust" what the hell is that supposed to mean? Do they think that all boys are just going to, like, assault her instantly the second they dont have a chaperone around? Did he used to assault the women he was dating? What does he think these guys will DO? And that all goes under the unspoken assumption that all boys just want sex, and no girl really wants to have sex, which is damaging to both young boys and young girls. It also has this creepy "as the primary man in her life, I cant have another man around challenging me!" that has some super nasty vibes. Especially if she is a grown ass adult!

I mean, I can get a parent being concerned about a kid or teen dating, of either gender, wanting them to make good life choices, or if their kid is dating a clearly crappy person or they are obviously always fighting or something, but this usually gets played as "my little girl cant be defiled by an evil smelly man! Then she has no worth anymore!" and I hate it. I have been trying to think of many "over protective parent" examples with same sex couples, but I cant think of any that arent based in homophobia. 

Edited January 9, 2019 by tennisgurl

[DrSpaceman73]

The text thing on TV shows annoys me to. 

And I also hate the overprotective dad cliché with girls.  Its not funny and agree it is creepy.

[Annber03]

Wholeheartedly agreed on that one, @tennisgurl. When I got my first boyfriend as a teenager, my dad didn't have any issue with it. It was my mom who was a little more concerned, mainly, I think, 'cause I was 15 at the time and that might've seemed a bit young to her? I dunno. But even then, she didn't flip out about it the way some parents on TV do, and my parents liked the guy I was seeing and everything, so it all worked out. 

[Wiendish Fitch]

The hero and the villain have a big, dramatic confrontation. The villain, for any one of a cornucopia of reasons, says to the hero words we're praying they won't say, but say it they do...

"WE'RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I!"

*Wiendish Fitch pinches bridge of nose, heaves a ragged sigh*

Then the allegedly brilliant villain gives some contrived spiel of these allegedly similar traits that the hero shares with them. And we, the now fully aggravated viewer, wish the allegedly sensible hero had the presence of mind to calmly but firmly say,

"We're on opposite sides of the law, dumbass, we couldn't have less in common if we tried!"

But they never do. They never, ever, ever do.

Now, I will grant you, this God-awful trope can be utilized properly once in the greatest of whiles. One example that springs to mind is during the Eccleston years on Doctor Who, in the episode "Dalek". The Doctor is having the mother of heated arguments with the last remaining Dalek (his recurring arch nemesis), which is having quite the existential crisis, since it can't follow orders without any other Daleks around. Without orders to "EX-TERM-INATE!", it's basically nothing. The Doctor, his rage mounting at the thing whose entire race basically destroyed his home planet of Gallifrey, finally has this exchange with the Dalek:

The Doctor: All right then. If you want orders, follow this one.

[pause]

The Doctor: Kill yourself.

Dalek: The Daleks must survive!

The Doctor: The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job, and make the Daleks extinct? Rid the universe of your filth! Why don't you just *die*?

Dalek: [evenly] You would make a good Dalek.

Boom. This stops the Doctor cold, and it's effective emotional gut punch because it forces the him (and, by extension, us) to reexamine his behavior and viewpoints. The Doctor's anger, while understandable, is causing him to act like the thing he hates most. 

Hey, remember when the Doctor was allowed to have flaws? Good times...

Edited January 9, 2019 by Wiendish Fitch