TV Tropes: Love 'em or Loathe 'em

[andromeda331]

4 hours ago, Camille said:

I. HATE. Christmas Creep.

I love Christmas as much as the next person and all the hype that comes with it, but save it for December. I'm sick of all the hoopla starting earlier and earlier every year, to the point that it now begins before Halloween and hate how we're so oversaturated with it that we end up being exhausted before it's even Christmas Day.

And I hate how it's happening with EVERY holiday--you see Valentine's Day merchandise in late December), St. Patrick's Day stuff in February, Easter decorations in March or late February (to be fair, Easter can come in late March), back-to-school/Halloween sales in July, etc.

AARGH.

I used to work in a grocery store and that was annoying. But for me the worse was two months of non-stop Christmas music and any decoration that talked or talked when you hit a button or pulled a string. Sure it was fun the first day or two but every day all day long. I don't know how people who worked in toy stores and other places that had even more talking stuff. 

[Annber03]

5 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

I used to work in a grocery store and that was annoying. But for me the worse was two months of non-stop Christmas music and any decoration that talked or talked when you hit a button or pulled a string. Sure it was fun the first day or two but every day all day long. I don't know how people who worked in toy stores and other places that had even more talking stuff. 

At the bookstore, we had that thing where you could push a button and hear a sample of some music from a CD. Most of the year the sampler was your typical random assortment of CDs, but of course, around the holidays, they'd send us Christmas/holiday CDs and we'd hear snippets from those throughout the workday. 

One year, after the holidays had ended, there was a delay in sending us a new mix of CDs to replace the holiday ones, so as a result, we were stuck listening to those holiday music snippets up through February. Customers would come in and hear them and say, "Hey, did you know you've still got Christmas -" and we'd just be like, "Yes." 

[andromeda331]

6 minutes ago, Annber03 said:

At the bookstore, we had that thing where you could push a button and hear a sample of some music from a CD. Most of the year the sampler was your typical random assortment of CDs, but of course, around the holidays, they'd send us Christmas/holiday CDs and we'd hear snippets from those throughout the workday. 

One year, after the holidays had ended, there was a delay in sending us a new mix of CDs to replace the holiday ones, so as a result, we were stuck listening to those holiday music snippets up through February. Customers would come in and hear them and say, "Hey, did you know you've still got Christmas -" and we'd just be like, "Yes." 

Oh, I am so sorry. It was hard enough to make it all the way to January. I can't imagine having to keep listening to it all the way through February. 

[Annber03]

12 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Oh, I am so sorry. It was hard enough to make it all the way to January. I can't imagine having to keep listening to it all the way through February. 

Sometimes, on days my manager wasn't there, I just shut that thing off after a while :p. If any customers wanted to play it, then it'd be turned on, but otherwise I needed that break. 

[Anela]

When a couple is broken up for ten seconds, and someone is talking to one member of the former couple. At some point, sounding shocked, they say, "You're still in love with her!" 

Or, when a couple has been sleeping together for a couple of months, at least. One of them is talking to a friend, and the friend says, "You're falling for him!" also sounding shocked. 

Yes, I've been watching Grey's Anatomy. The former just happened in an episode I have playing as I do other things. The latter happened in the first season. 

[Glendenning]

A radio station where I am flipped to Christmas music yesterday. Five days before Halloween. So Much Hate...

[CoderLady]

I wonder how much worse it would be if there was a such thing as Thanksgiving music.

Edited October 26, 2019 by CoderLady

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, CoderLady said:

I wonder how much worse it would be if there was a such thing as Thanksgiving music.

"Over the River and Through the Woods (to Grandmother's House We Go)" [the only Thanksgiving song that comes to mind] being played on an endless loop would be less annoying than "Jingle Bells", IMO.

[Dr.OO7]

2 hours ago, Glendenning said:

A radio station where I am flipped to Christmas music yesterday. Five days before Halloween. So Much Hate...

Yes. LiteFM (106.7 in New York) ruined Christmas music for me by blasting it 24/7 from the weekend before Thanksgiving. Jeez, you couldn't wait until after at least?

And I don't know why they thought something was wrong with how they did it before--mix the Christmas music in with the regular stuff and only go 24/7 the week before.

[Glendenning]

Christmas is one of the few times you still hear oldies and American Popular Standards on the radio. Advertisers don't find older people attractive as it takes more impressions to make a sale and younger people are more impulsive and willing to jump on the latest trend. Many old people don't understand that and keep complaining in the media.

[Annber03]

2 hours ago, Glendenning said:

A radio station where I am flipped to Christmas music yesterday. Five days before Halloween. So Much Hate...

For me, that's depressing simply because there's no shortage of cool Halloween-themed music stations could be playing right now. 

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, Glendenning said:

Christmas is one of the few times you still hear oldies and American Popular Standards on the radio.

That's a fair point, and there's some good classics, but the standards are still xmas based. I certainly like our honored crooners, but I don't think I need to hear White Christmas before we've even turned the clocks back.

[SVNBob]

4 hours ago, Blergh said:

"Over the River and Through the Woods (to Grandmother's House We Go)" [the only Thanksgiving song that comes to mind] being played on an endless loop would be less annoying than "Jingle Bells", IMO.

Actually, "Jingle Bells" was reportedly originally a Thanksgiving song.  What made it into a Christmas song was Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

As for Thanksgiving songs, I'm partial to the one Adam Sandler originally wrote during his SNL tenure.

[Lugal]

23 hours ago, Glendenning said:

A radio station where I am flipped to Christmas music yesterday. Five days before Halloween. So Much Hate...

Thus begins the seasonal torture of retail employees...

[kiddo82]

Further, My Favorite Things; Baby, It's Cold Outside; and The Peanuts theme are *not* Christmas songs.

[Glendenning]

My Favorite Things from "The Sound of Music"? I hate Julie Andrews.

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't think I've ever seen the Sound of Music. I mean, I think I could recognize some of the songs.

[Dr.OO7]

On 10/27/2019 at 11:23 PM, kiddo82 said:

Further, My Favorite Things; Baby, It's Cold Outside; and The Peanuts theme are *not* Christmas songs

Thank you! I remember doing a huge Double Take when I heard "Linus & Lucy" on the radio. Same with "My Favorite Things".

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" I cut them some slack on (the date rape undertones aside) because it's still a WINTER song along with several other songs played at Christmas that technically have nothing to do with the holiday--"Winter Wonderland", "Let It Snow", etc.

Speaking of "My Favorite Things", when the hell did "The Sound Of Music" become a Christmas movie? I love it and it's one of my favorites, but I've never understood why it and "The Wizard Of Oz" are always aired during the holidays and Easter. Even them being the type of family-friendly fare that everyone can watch after dinner doesn't really justify it.

[Glendenning]

"Baby, It's Cold Outside"  - here's the real story:

""Hey what’s in this drink” was a stock joke at the time, and the punchline was invariably that there’s actually pretty much nothing in the drink, not even a significant amount of alcohol. 

See, this woman is staying late, unchaperoned, at a dude’s house. In the 1940’s, that’s the kind of thing Good Girls aren’t supposed to do – and she wants people to think she’s a good girl. The woman in the song says outright, multiple times, that what other people will think of her staying is what she’s really concerned about: “the neighbors might think,” “my maiden aunt’s mind is vicious,” “there’s bound to be talk tomorrow.“ But she’s having a really good time, and she wants to stay, and so she is excusing her uncharacteristically bold behavior (either to the guy or to herself) by blaming it on the drink – unaware that the drink is actually really weak, maybe not even alcoholic at all. That’s the joke. That is the standard joke that’s going on when a woman in media from the early-to-mid 20th century says “hey, what’s in this drink?“ It is not a joke about how she’s drunk and about to be raped. It’s a joke about how she’s perfectly sober and about to have awesome consensual sex and use the drink for plausible deniability because she’s living in a society where women aren't supposed to have sexual agency.

Basically, the song only makes sense in the context of a society in which women are expected to reject men’s advances whether they actually want to or not, and therefore it’s normal and expected for a lady’s gentleman companion to pressure her despite her protests, because he knows she would have to say that whether or not she meant it, and if she really wants to stay she won’t be able to justify doing so unless he offers her an excuse other than “I’m staying because I want to.” (That’s the main theme of the man’s lines in the song, suggesting excuses she can use when people ask later why she spent the night at his house: it was so cold out, there were no cabs available, he simply insisted because he was concerned about my safety in such awful weather, it was perfectly innocent and definitely not about sex at all!) In this particular case, he’s pretty clearly right, because unlike in Blurred Lines, the woman actually has a voice, and she’s using it to give all the culturally-understood signals that she actually does want to stay but can’t say so. She states explicitly that she’s resisting because she’s supposedto, not because she wants to: “I ought to say no no no…" She states explicitly that she’s just putting up a token resistance so she’ll be able to claim later that she did what’s expected of a decent woman in this situation: “at least I’m gonna say that I tried.” And at the end of the song they’re singing together, in harmony, because they’re both on the same page and they have been all along.

So it’s not actually a song about rape - in fact it’s a song about a woman finding a way to exercise sexual agency in a patriarchal society designed to stop her from doing so. But it’s also, at the same time, one of the best illustrations of rape culture that pop culture has ever produced. It’s a song about a society where women aren’t allowed to say yes…which happens to mean it’s also a society where women don’t have a clear and unambiguous way to say no."

[Guest]

Let's move the discussion back to TV Tropes, please. 

[Glendenning]

Every young girl in tv land rides her own horse or pony. She will never have to clean out the stables or actually feed the animal.

Not only that, but she rarely, if ever, even has to tack it up or cool it down after a long ride. Usually there is a "stable-hand" to do that kind of stuff. She also often needs help mounting from said stable-hand. Because you know, mounting on a horse is so difficult and all, without a boost up. People also very, very, rarely wear riding helmets. And muss up that perfect 'do? Never! Horses are never balky, only spook unless its a plot contrivence to land the sweet heroine in the hospital with a big cast, and never exhibit annoying tendencies like jerking into a trot from a walk.

For lessons, TV kids are always attired in what would is usually just worn at horse shows - hunt jacket, tie, shiny long boots - instead of what real-life riders wear around the barn: sweatshirts, dirty paddock boots, t-shirts, etc.

Jumping is really easy, even beginners can do it fairly soon.

Young, inexperienced characters can ride stallions. In real life, most riders have/compete on geldings and mares - stallions are usually barred from junior exhibitor classes.

Horses have telepathy and also know right off the bat who the bad guys are and usually dump them in the mud/manure.
 

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, Glendenning said:

Every young girl in tv land rides her own horse or pony. She will never have to clean out the stables or actually feed the animal.

Not only that, but she rarely, if ever, even has to tack it up or cool it down after a long ride. Usually there is a "stable-hand" to do that kind of stuff. She also often needs help mounting from said stable-hand. Because you know, mounting on a horse is so difficult and all, without a boost up. People also very, very, rarely wear riding helmets. And muss up that perfect 'do? Never! Horses are never balky, only spook unless its a plot contrivence to land the sweet heroine in the hospital with a big cast, and never exhibit annoying tendencies like jerking into a trot from a walk.

For lessons, TV kids are always attired in what would is usually just worn at horse shows - hunt jacket, tie, shiny long boots - instead of what real-life riders wear around the barn: sweatshirts, dirty paddock boots, t-shirts, etc.

Jumping is really easy, even beginners can do it fairly soon.

Young, inexperienced characters can ride stallions. In real life, most riders have/compete on geldings and mares - stallions are usually barred from junior exhibitor classes.

Horses have telepathy and also know right off the bat who the bad guys are and usually dump them in the mud/manure.
 

Just once, I want to see a female character (doesn't matter what age) not give a flying crap about horses. Believe it or not, some of us didn't have a billion horse posters, read every damn Marguerite Henry or Saddle Club book, or dream of being Velvet Brown (who'd want to be that little weirdo anyway?!). 

[Glendenning]

I've learned that if I am a youngster in a Disney TV channel movie, my best friend is almost always a) opposite sex, b) different race, or c) both! Bonus points if I'm say, a Caucasian boy who hangs out with an African American girl AND an Asian American girl. Because preteen boys never find the opposite sex "icky" and prefer to hang out with other boys at least in public.

[DoctorAtomic]

I completely believe horses are telepathic and will entertain no objections thank you. 

[Glendenning]

It is possible that you will only occupy the same TV universe as the show from which you spun-off for a few short weeks. Even if you are in the same city, those on the original show won't be aware of big news like an apartment complex being blown up.

I was watching 90210 over the weekend. It's the beginning of season 9 and they have Laura Leighton guest starring for a few eps. And it bugs me that 90210 and Melrose Place supposedly take place in the same universe, at least when the spin-off began, but now they can just cast someone who played Sydney -a major MP character- on 90210 and no one seems to mind. What, is L.A. lacking in young attractive actresses?

Yes, I know- suspension of disbelief.

[DoctorAtomic]

I never knew they were supposed to be in the same universe. 

[biakbiak]

22 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I never knew they were supposed to be in the same universe. 

Melrose was a spin-off Jake dated Kelly briefly on 90210.

Edited November 5, 2019 by biakbiak

[Glendenning]

On the General Hospital spinoff Port Charles. there were vampires, and the undead walked amongst or even were regular characters and it was common, if unusual, knowledge. On GH, no one ever mentioned anything supernatural.

[Glendenning]

Even though I was only planning on going on a 3-hour tour, I have with me my unlimited wardrobe, and enough make-up and haircare products to last for multiple seasons.

BUT, the people who run the tour and own the boat don't have any other clothes on board and are forced to wear the same outfit for years on end.

[Blergh]

16 hours ago, Glendenning said:

On the General Hospital spinoff Port Charles. there were vampires, and the undead walked amongst or even were regular characters and it was common, if unusual, knowledge. On GH, no one ever mentioned anything supernatural.

Well, Fallon was last seen taken by a UFO in her spin off  of The Carringtons but then came back to Dynasty and there's barely any acknowledgement. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

17 minutes ago, Blergh said:

16 hours ago, Glendenning said:

 On GH, no one ever mentioned anything supernatural.

Well, Fallon was last seen taken by a UFO in her spin off  of The Carringtons but then came back to Dynasty and there's barely any acknowledgement. 

Oh yes, there was. Casey, The Alien.

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Oh yes, there was. Casey, The Alien.

I stand corrected.  

[Chaos Theory]

Not sure if this one has been mentioned before but on procedurals the main group (whether FBI, NCIS, or police) is the only one that is functional.  When someone else is brought In they are either incompetent or evil.

i think the only show that avoided this was Criminal Minds but that was largely out of necessity.   They couldn’t have a show about FBI assisting  police having either be stupid.  But it was nice to see FBI and the police BOTH being written as competent.

Edited November 12, 2019 by Chaos Theory

[methodwriter85]

Watched Daybreak and was reminded of this one...

When a guy who looks like this:

Is somehow a high school outcast. (This also applies to the ladies as well.)

Believe me, in my own high school days, a guy who showed up as a new kid who looked like that would have been beating off the girls (and a few guys) off with a stick.

[Bastet]

(I had no idea who that was, but looked up Daybreak and found out it's Colin Ford.)  While I agree he doesn't readily lend himself to outcast status, I equally can't picture him as "beat 'em off with a stick" level of desirability based on that embedded picture; he looks pretty generic to me, so I'd believe him in a variety of roles on the fictional character spectrum, depending on how he was written and portrayed, but the more they drifted toward one pole or the other, the more they'd have to sell it. 

[methodwriter85]

Okay, I should qualify my stance with the fact that I went to a high school that was 66 percent female, so any generically good-looking guy would have had girls throwing themselves at him. The hair and eyes alone would have guaranteed him massive popularity at my high school.

[Blergh]

3 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

Okay, I should qualify my stance with the fact that I went to a high school that was 66 percent female, so any generically good-looking guy would have had girls throwing themselves at him. The hair and eyes alone would have guaranteed him massive popularity at my high school.

Sort of like Dean Cain supposedly being a nerdy Clark Kent SOLELY due to those glasses. Yeah, right.  At least the late George Reeves WAS believable as a nerd but more in a 'big galoot' deal and HIS Supe was much closer to the original intended ideal of an underdog with hidden potential instead of audience heartthrob that all the other characters were preposterously blind to.

[Dr.OO7]

I hate Forgotten Fallen Friend.

I'm not asking for people to be bawling their eyes out years after a character has died but it's pretty tacky and disrespectful for life to be back to normal the day afterwards. 

I hate the non-lethal version too. I know people lose touch when people move far away, but it's still unrealistic to never mention them again.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Camille

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

Sort of like Dean Cain supposedly being a nerdy Clark Kent SOLELY due to those glasses. Yeah, right.  

And Christopher Reeve. Don't forget 6-feet-of-Yummy Christopher Reeve.

I'm sick of the trope of women being mocked for wearing granny panties, and that they should embrace their femininity and sexuality with tight, uncomfortable, impractical lacy thong panties. I wish the woman in question would just say,

"Yeah, my panties are frumpy and butt-ugly, but they're comfy as hell and I don't dig out a wedgie every 10 minutes! Comfortable is the new sexy, bitches!"

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't know. Reeve played Clark really dweeby. He really transformed into Superman when he took off the get up. 

[MaryMitch]

2 hours ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I'm sick of the trope of women being mocked for wearing granny panties, and that they should embrace their femininity and sexuality with tight, uncomfortable, impractical lacy thong panties. I wish the woman in question would just say,

"Yeah, my panties are frumpy and butt-ugly, but they're comfy as hell and I don't dig out a wedgie every 10 minutes! Comfortable is the new sexy, bitches!"

Amen!

[Raja]

I've got to ask is the panty shaming a thing of the reality genre?

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I've got to ask is the panty shaming a thing of the reality genre?

I've seen it in so-called "chick flicks" and That '70s Show had an episode of Donna getting teased for her granny panties.

[Glendenning]

the pressure to wear lingerie is a reflection of society I think. Lingerie should be strictly for the bedroom, I feel. Panties is lingerie and undies is underwear.

[Mabinogia]

9 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't know. Reeve played Clark really dweeby. He really transformed into Superman when he took off the get up. 

He, wardrobe, makeup, did a great job of making a very good looking guy into a dweeb. His Clark Kent came off as weak and feeble. Dean Cain never came off as weak to me. Of course his version was meant to be more sexy than superhero so there is that. 

[Bort]

51 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

He, wardrobe, makeup, did a great job of making a very good looking guy into a dweeb. His Clark Kent came off as weak and feeble. Dean Cain never came off as weak to me. Of course his version was meant to be more sexy than superhero so there is that. 

Yeah, Dean Cain’s Clark was never supposed to be unattractive nerd. He wore glasses but he was still suppose to be hot. 

[DoctorAtomic]

2 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

He, wardrobe, makeup, did a great job of making a very good looking guy into a dweeb. His Clark Kent came off as weak and feeble. Dean Cain never came off as weak to me. Of course his version was meant to be more sexy than superhero so there is that. 

I think Reeves was a superior actor too. The scene were he decides to tell Lois who he really is just about as perfect as you can get.

[GHScorpiosRule]

11 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I think Reeves was a superior actor too. The scene were he decides to tell Lois who he really is just about as perfect as you can get.

Agree. You can see the transformation from Dweeb to Sexy in that hotel room in Canada after Lois sees he didn't burn his hand. AMAZING.

I miss him.

[SVNBob]

On 11/13/2019 at 8:28 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

The scene were he decides to tell Lois who he really is just about as perfect as you can get.

Do you mean this one?

It's the pinnacle example of how well Reeve understood the duality of Clark/Superman, and shows in real time the difference between the two halves.

It's also the pinnacle answer to the question of "How come no one can tell Clark Kent is just Superman wearing glasses?"

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, SVNBob said:

It's also the pinnacle answer to the question of "How come no one can tell Clark Kent is just Superman wearing glasses?"

Yeah, because for Reeves it wasn't just the same guy but with glasses. When he takes them off his entire demeanor changes. He stands taller, he has an air of confidence that the dithering, stumbling Clark doesn't. It really is a full transformation and Reeves didn't just rely on glasses/no glasses to show the difference. He will always be my Superman. And that little smile he shows in that clip...swoon!