Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[SusanM]

3 minutes ago, Blergh said:

Even with Sophia's plea, Dorothy still held onto her grudge against Salvatore for this by saying 'All I know is that  I NEVER got over it'.

This is quite believable to me.  I have a sister who is still holding grudges over things that never happened.  When you present her with irrefutable evidence of this it gets handwaved away by her.  I guess what it comes down to is it doesn't matter - in their mind X happened and they've nursed a grudge ever since and finding out X never happened can't undo the damage.

[Katy M]

20 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

My parents weren't the type to make anything a huge deal like they do on TV. Turning 16 wasn't treated like one of the biggest events of your life. TV and movies in general really make the teen years look a lot more fun and in some ways adult than they are IRL.

I don't even remember turning 16. For some reason I do remember turning 17.

And, yes, I don't know what teen life is like now, but teen life that I see on TV is nothing like I remember it.  Kids never tell their parents when or where they are going, even late at night.  Kids always have their license and their own car by the time their freshmen in high school.  And "I'm an adult and I can do what I want" are pretty much always met by agreement from the parents.

[Mabinogia]

6 hours ago, SusannahM said:

This is quite believable to me.  I have a sister who is still holding grudges over things that never happened.  When you present her with irrefutable evidence of this it gets handwaved away by her.  I guess what it comes down to is it doesn't matter - in their mind X happened and they've nursed a grudge ever since and finding out X never happened can't undo the damage.

As someone who suffers from false memories, it can be hard to repair damage done by something you truly believe happened. I was terrified of lightening storms for most of my life. When I was a child, the house across the street was struck by lightening and burned down killing two people. Every time there was lightening at night I would have nightmares about that event. As an adult I shared that story with my mum. The only part of it that was true was that lightening did hit the house across the street but it didn't cause a fire and no one was hurt. Finding out it was all something that I somehow made up in my head and 100% believed has left me doubting every memory I have. This isn't the only one that turned out to be false. 

Not sure that's at all what happened with your sister, but even "made up" memories can do a number on your psyche. The brain is a weird place. 

Re: first...

I wouldn't be upset if I missed a child's first step. I'd be far more upset if I missed their stepping up to get their diploma, or stepping up to the alter at their wedding, any of the moments that only happen once (hopefully) in a lifetime. With my brain I could probably just convince myself I saw the first step anyway after a while. 

[Danielg342]

Memory is a weird thing and something that is poorly understood. We have this perception that when we recall our memories, they're 100% accurate to what happened at the time when the truth is, as time passes, they get garbled with other memories that we have and the quality of those memories degrade. It's why repetition and practice are so important- so that your brain can encounter the same thing many different times and process it to the point where the memory is as close to perfect as can be.

Also, how two people remember the same event will vary, sometimes wildly. Just as a benign example, my brother and I reminisce all the time about commercials and scenes from TV shows and movies that we love and, even though we saw the same scene at the exact same time, how each of us quotes the scene is different. Then, when we watch the same scene years later, we'll realize that it actually played out differently than what was seared into our heads.

Which, to bring this to the subject of TV, is something TV- and fiction in general- often gets wrong. Fictional characters often have picture perfect memory, even for events that happened years if not decades ago. Part of that is due to the fact that there's an inherent trust built in with the narrator (I mean, it's not like there's another version of the story out there, most of the time), but another part of this is, for works that have multiple parts, that it's easier for writers to look up a previous event and have a character recite what happened verbatim, and/or you'll simply see the previous scene again as a flashback.

This could be seen as lazy, but I think logistics explains why this is more commonplace. It's much easier to re-insert an old scene than re-shoot it with some changes, especially if the actors that were once in that scene are no longer a part of the program.

Plus, if differences in how a character remembers an event to how it actually happened isn't relevant to the story, why do it?

Perhaps TV shows need to do this more often, since it could be fodder for more plots (the Canadian series Student Bodies used how two people remember the same thing differently for the plot of an entire episode), but I also understand why TV characters have better memories than we generally do.

[AgathaC]

The faulty or skewed memory is occasionally used — often to comedic effect as in, for instance, the “Bad Blood” episode of The X-Files. But usually, yes, it seems characters generally have perfect memories. They have to, in a way, because unless it’s recounting something that took place offscreen, we saw exactly what happened. But it could open up interesting storytelling possibilities.

I can recall having this sort of discussion in a college lit class during our unit on Wuthering Heights. My professor used it as an example of the unreliable/biased narrator. Sometimes you have to think about what the character is saying and question it rather than take it at face value. Often, it will reveal even more about the characters than if you were getting the unvarnished truth.

But, again, that may be easier in written form where there’s more open to interpretation than when you’re actually seeing and hearing what happened or is happening.

[Popples]

1 hour ago, AgathaC said:

But usually, yes, it seems characters generally have perfect memories. They have to, in a way, because unless it’s recounting something that took place offscreen, we saw exactly what happened. But it could open up interesting storytelling possibilities.

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect. I just know if I were in this scenario the best I could do is probably hair color, general height and build, maybe eye color and distinguishing marks like moles or warts on their face, if I'm close enough, but the best would probably be describing their clothes, which won't help when they change.

[Katy M]

23 minutes ago, Popples said:

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect. I just know if I were in this scenario the best I could do is probably hair color, general height and build, maybe eye color and distinguishing marks like moles or warts on their face, if I'm close enough, but the best would probably be describing their clothes, which won't help when they change.

But, the cops are so fast at catching crooks on TV they won't have time to change. You're golden.  

I don't even think I could correctly pick anyone out of a line up, tbh.  Not if my witnessing was 5 minutes or less.

[Shannon L.]

34 minutes ago, Popples said:

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect. I just know if I were in this scenario the best I could do is probably hair color, general height and build, maybe eye color and distinguishing marks like moles or warts on their face, if I'm close enough, but the best would probably be describing their clothes, which won't help when they change.

Or they know exactly what they were doing on a particular day a year or two ago. Most of the time, it takes me a few minutes to remember what I did a few days ago.

Edited October 19, 2021 by Shannon L.

[SusanM]

I think I might remember what someone looked like well enough to identify them (maybe) but what I definitely couldn't do is relate so accurately what someone may have said.  This always takes me out of the story when someone can word for word recount a conversation they had with someone.  Can people actually do this?  I know I certainly can't!

[Llywela]

3 hours ago, AgathaC said:

The faulty or skewed memory is occasionally used — often to comedic effect as in, for instance, the “Bad Blood” episode of The X-Files. But usually, yes, it seems characters generally have perfect memories.

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

[SusanM]

6 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

The sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond does this in an episode where two of the main characters recount a story that is essentially the same but differ dramatically in the telling.  It's funny but it's also an interesting way to make the point that each of us is the hero of our own story and no two people will ever remember an incident exactly the same way.

[Popples]

15 minutes ago, Llywela said:

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

"The Rashomon Job" is one of my favorite episodes! I love how Sophie's accent changed depending on who was telling the story; Parker had her spouting unintelligible gibberish.

[AgathaC]

Yes! “The Rashomon Job!” I knew there was another really funny one I’d seen but I was drawing a total blank.

[Katy M]

2 hours ago, SusannahM said:

I think I might remember what someone looked like well enough to identify them (maybe) but what I definitely couldn't do is relate so accurately what someone may have said.  This always takes me out of the story when someone can word for word recount a conversation they had with someone.  Can people actually do this?  I know I certainly can't!

I'm actually pretty good at that.  I have a much better auditory memory than visual.

[Bastet]

4 hours ago, Popples said:

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect.

I saw one where the sketch came out looking like Ted Kaczynski, and every potential witness they did the "Have you ever seen this man?" routine with asked, "Isn't that the Unabomber?"  It cracked me up.

[Lugal]

6 hours ago, Popples said:

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect.

Brooklyn 99 had a fun take on that.  The witness was stoned and the sketches revealed the killer might look like "Seth Meyers, Winona Ryder or Bilbo Baggins."

3 hours ago, Popples said:

"The Rashomon Job" is one of my favorite episodes! I love how Sophie's accent changed depending on who was telling the story; Parker had her spouting unintelligible gibberish.

I remember the writers originally planned for Parker's version to have everything in black and white and valuables to steal would be in color. 

[Mabinogia]

4 hours ago, Llywela said:

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

I loved that episode. It is a fun way to tell a story while also revealing a lot about the characters and their relationships to one another without it feeling like an info dump. 

[MargeGunderson]

1 hour ago, Mabinogia said:

I loved that episode. It is a fun way to tell a story while also revealing a lot about the characters and their relationships to one another without it feeling like an info dump. 

That episode is why we now refer to shrimp as “sea roaches.” It is one of my favorites.

[giovannif7]

7 hours ago, Llywela said:

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

I think my favorite part of the episode (among so many brilliant aspects) was how effectively they used substitute actors for each of the Leverage team to not give away the story twist. During Sophie's first telling, there were other actors playing Dr. Abernathy (Eliot), the art minister (Hardison) and the cater waiter (Parker) - actors with some similarities to their real Leverage counterparts, but not noticeably so. Then, when Eliot starts telling his version, Christian Kane takes over as Dr. Abernathy for the rest of the episode, followed next by Aldis Hodge as the art minister, and then Beth Riesgraf as the waiter as they each weave their tales. I didn't realize just how well-planned and intricate that particular aspect of the episode was until I'd seen it a couple of times - a truly inspired aspect of a great episode of television.

[Danielg342]

14 hours ago, Popples said:

This somewhat annoys me on police procedurals. The witness always gives the description so well that the sketch will look almost exactly like the suspect. I just know if I were in this scenario the best I could do is probably hair color, general height and build, maybe eye color and distinguishing marks like moles or warts on their face, if I'm close enough, but the best would probably be describing their clothes, which won't help when they change.

We could probably write a 1,000-page tome on all the corners police procedurals (and their related cousins, the legal procedurals) cut for their episodes, but I think one of their biggest offences has to be how reliable the witnesses in general tend to be on these programs.

It's not just the "perfect sketch"- often, you'll see the police officers interview a single witness and that witness gives them a picture perfect depiction of the crime scene and the perpetrator in question, and it's that description which the police later use to make an arrest. Now, when the case involves a crime scene that would involve a lot of witnesses (like a terrorist bombing) we could handwave that the authorities interviewed many different witnesses and we only saw the one being conducted, but what about those cases where the incident happened in a back alley and there was just one witness, who may not have even had a clear view of the crime? More often than not, even just the one witness provides a detailed enough depiction to secure or at least provide an important clue that leads to an arrest or conviction.

Perhaps the worst offence I saw in this regard was a Criminal Minds episode where the only witness to the crime was a hopped up drug addict. It would have been bad enough if the addict simply gave a statement and the BAU ran with it. What made it worse was that the BAU conducted a "cognitive interview" with the addict, where they really made him think into the far reaches of his mind and make him extract details he may have missed. We could probably argue for days how accurate CM's cognitive interviews tend to be in general, but how accurate could such an interview be with a drug addict who was messed up at the time of the crime? That's hardly reliable evidence right there.

In closing, I have thought that perhaps it would be great if these shows realized that when someone is recounting an event and they're a little too detailed, they're probably lying. It's a method real investigators use, simply because they know no one's memory is 100% accurate. Plus, I know one sign investigators look for when interviewing multiple subjects is how close their stories are to each other- if they're too close, there's a high possibility they're reciting a story they concocted together, because "truthful" memories would see each individual miss certain details or get some details wrong. I believe The Mentalist used this trick once, but I don't know how many other shows realize this.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Danielg342
Fixed syntax

[andromeda331]

14 hours ago, Llywela said:

Leverage also had a brilliant episode playing on faulty memory in an unreliable narrator - the story of a past heist from five different perspectives, every one of them remembering it very differently. More shows should try it, it makes for storytelling fun!

 

13 hours ago, Popples said:

"The Rashomon Job" is one of my favorite episodes! I love how Sophie's accent changed depending on who was telling the story; Parker had her spouting unintelligible gibberish.

That's my favorite Leverage episode! Its so hilarious! Everyone's version of Sophie's accent, Sophie's reaction to them, size of the knife, and everyone thinking the head of security was a badass except Nate who thought he was bumbling and in love with Sophie. I also love Sophie changing Dr. Abernathy/Eliot from a nice cool guy to a beer guzzling redneck with a pipe after hearing Eliot described her. 

[DrSpaceman73]

News radio did an episode like that too when Catherine leaves.  They don't know why at first and everyone has a different version of what happened.  

[Mabinogia]

18 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

In closing, I have thought that perhaps it would be great if these shows realized that when someone is recounting an event and they're a little too detailed, they're probably lying. It's a method real investigators use, simply because they know no one's memory is 100% accurate. Plus, I know one sign investigators look for when interviewing multiple subjects is how close their stories are to each other- if they're too close, there's a high possibility they're reciting a story they concocted together, because "truthful" memories would see each individual miss certain details or get some details wrong. I believe The Mentalist used this trick once, but I don't know how many other shows realize this.

If I were a cop and someone gave a detailed account of where they were at such and such a time, or what a suspect was wearing or details of what they looked like, I'd think they were guilty. And yeah, if they are telling the exact same story that shit was written and rehearsed. I have seen that used on some shows. 

[SVNBob]

14 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

And yeah, if they are telling the exact same story that shit was written and rehearsed.

Reminds me of an old joke.

Four college guys go off-campus to blow off some steam before finals.  They get so wasted they miss their first one.  They all go to the professor and tell him that they missed the final because they got a flat tire on their way back to campus, and they ask for a make-up test.  The professor agrees, so long as they all take the test in separate rooms.  They all agree readily, thinking they have the professor snowed.

The make-up test starts with one easy question worth 5% of the grade.  The second question is on the back of the page, is worth the remaining 95%, and consists of just two words: "Which tire?"

[Danielg342]

9 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Reminds me of an old joke.

Four college guys go off-campus to blow off some steam before finals.  They get so wasted they miss their first one.  They all go to the professor and tell him that they missed the final because they got a flat tire on their way back to campus, and they ask for a make-up test.  The professor agrees, so long as they all take the test in separate rooms.  They all agree readily, thinking they have the professor snowed.

The make-up test starts with one easy question worth 5% of the grade.  The second question is on the back of the page, is worth the remaining 95%, and consists of just two words: "Which tire?"

I need to work this in one of my stories for an interrogation scene. It's too brilliant.

9 hours ago, Mabinogia said:

If I were a cop and someone gave a detailed account of where they were at such and such a time, or what a suspect was wearing or details of what they looked like, I'd think they were guilty. And yeah, if they are telling the exact same story that shit was written and rehearsed. I have seen that used on some shows. 

I believe on The Mentalist, four teens all had the same story- except they blamed someone else in the group for the eventual murder. So Patrick Jane deduced from that all four of the teens were at fault for the crime in equal proportions.

[DoctorAtomic]

What happens if they thought out which tire before though? 

[Moose135]

12 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

What happens if they thought out which tire before though? 

Then they would ace the test.

[DoctorAtomic]

That's what I meant. It's a dumb thing to do. I would just say no, that's not a valid excuse and give them a 0. 

[Shannon L.]

When a woman with long hair is laying down, her hair is always brushed down beautifully along the crown of her head and flowing along her shoulders. 

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

When a woman with long hair is laying down, her hair is always brushed down beautifully along the crown of her head and flowing along her shoulders. 

I loved in an episode of Who's the Boss? when Angela got in bed, and, as she situated her head on the pillow, Judith Light flipped her hair out from under her neck.  Because that's how I sleep - sometimes I'll pin it up, but I prefer not to have something in my hair while I sleep since I move positions a lot, but in leaving it down I don't want my hair warming my neck or wrapping over my face when I turn.  So I fling it out from under me, and it hangs off the back of the pillow and mostly stays out of my way throughout the night.

It was nice to see a character do the same, especially because that meant an actor was lying there with her hair sticking all about and we don't often see that (unless it's exaggerated for comedic effect).

[Mabinogia]

5 hours ago, Bastet said:

I loved in an episode of Who's the Boss? when Angela got in bed, and, as she situated her head on the pillow, Judith Light flipped her hair out from under her neck.  Because that's how I sleep - sometimes I'll pin it up, but I prefer not to have something in my hair while I sleep since I move positions a lot, but in leaving it down I don't want my hair warming my neck or wrapping over my face when I turn.  So I fling it out from under me, and it hangs off the back of the pillow and mostly stays out of my way throughout the night.

I do that too. I have long hair, nearly to my waist now and while I love it down at night, when I sleep I want it nowhere near me. lol I usually either put it up in a bun (if I want a slight wave to it the next day) or like you, I flip it up over the pillow, I have never seen myself while in this position (no mirrored ceiling lol) but I doubt it ends up perfectly fanned out or anything. More like a hairy snake coming out the top of my head. Or possibly a hairy octopus if it doesn't all stay in one place. 

[JustHereForFood]

The question is, do you all go to sleep in full make-up and sexy nightgown?

[Katy M]

10 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

The question is, do you all go to sleep in full make-up and sexy nightgown?

Well, duh, doesn't everybody?  and I wake up with my make up totally fresh and not a hair out of place.

[SusanM]

17 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Well, duh, doesn't everybody?  and I wake up with my make up totally fresh and not a hair out of place.

I can do you one better - I wake up with toothpaste fresh breath!  

[Katy M]

On 10/22/2021 at 12:44 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

That's what I meant. It's a dumb thing to do. I would just say no, that's not a valid excuse and give them a 0. 

Yeah, plus, presumably if you completely miss a test because of  flat tire it means that either you didn't have a spare or you don't know how to change it.  Otherwise I would think you would only be a few minutes late.  So, you either call AAA and you wait for them to come and change the tire, or you send 2 people to the gas station you just passed and they come and change the tire and the 2 people you send to the gas station have no idea which tire was flat in the first place.  Or, you just leave your car there and hitchhike and nobody knows which tire was flat.

Plus, if they were wasted, they were either still wasted or it was an entirely different day that they asked for the make up which would be utterly ridiculous.  It doesn't take all day to change a tire.

Did I once again put too much thought into something?

Edited November 15, 2021 by Katy M

[Ohiopirate02]

49 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

The question is, do you all go to sleep in full make-up and sexy nightgown?

One thing I liked about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was when we see Midge hiding her beauty routine from her husband.  She would pretend to fall asleep while still being made up until her husband fell asleep.  She then would wash her face and pin up her hair before actually going to sleep.  She also would wake up before her husband in order to take out her curlers and apply some light makeup before he woke.  I appreciate a show that does not hide the amount of work necessary to "wake up like this."

[DoctorAtomic]

26 minutes ago, Katy M said:

Did I once again put too much thought into something?

No, because I've had tons of excuses thrown at me over the years, 99.999999% of which are bogus. Someone legitimately running into a snafu would be absolutely panicked and send a million or so pictures and several videos documenting the incident. 

 

 

[RealHousewife]

1 hour ago, SusannahM said:

I can do you one better - I wake up with toothpaste fresh breath!  

That's what I was doing to say! I use that mouthwash that's supposed to give you fresh breath in the morning, which does indeed help. But still, not morning kiss fresh! Only on TV. 

[JustHereForFood]

22 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

One thing I liked about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel was when we see Midge hiding her beauty routine from her husband.  She would pretend to fall asleep while still being made up until her husband fell asleep.  She then would wash her face and pin up her hair before actually going to sleep.  She also would wake up before her husband in order to take out her curlers and apply some light makeup before he woke.  I appreciate a show that does not hide the amount of work necessary to "wake up like this."

Well I guess it's good that they showed it, but it certainly doesn't look healthy that she was hiding it from her husband.

[DearEvette]

23 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

The question is, do you all go to sleep in full make-up and sexy nightgown?

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

[Ohiopirate02]

3 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

Well I guess it's good that they showed it, but it certainly doesn't look healthy that she was hiding it from her husband.

Well, Midge Maisel is a vain woman, something the show never hides, and her marriage at this point is not in a good place.  Also, it's set in the late 50s-early 60s when the preventive measures employed to maintain a woman's hairstyle between salon visits were decidedly not sexy.  

[Ohiopirate02]

2 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

I do like in Mad Men when we see Betty sitting around the house in her housedress and curlers smoking and drinking coffee.  I know my grandmothers did the same.  

[RealHousewife]

6 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

If you take out high heels, I've done it . . .

[DoctorAtomic]

11 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I do like in Mad Men when we see Betty sitting around the house in her housedress and curlers smoking and drinking coffee.  I know my grandmothers did the same.  

And shooting pigeons. 

[Annber03]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

My mom always laughed at those portrayals on TV, 'cause she said my grandma was never like that. She wore slacks and went to work and ran the household and handled the finances (my grandpa drove a truck and was often gone for weeks at a time, so my mom took care of everything back home as a result). 

They did dress up on occasion - but for family gatherings and church. That was about it. 

[Mabinogia]

3 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

In fairness to TV, my great aunt, who was in her housewife years in the 50s/60s mowed the lawn in her housecoat and heels. 

[Raja]

From the post office scenes in The Hot Zone: Anthrax all the postal workers in letter carrier uniforms. Most of the army of postal workers including those who work in the processing plants don't wear uniforms.

[KittyMom4]

On 11/16/2021 at 2:46 PM, DearEvette said:

Because of tv, I thought every white lady from the 50s and 60s cleaned and vacuumed their homes while wearing dresses, pearls and high heels.

This still happens on modern day shows. Women wearing cashmere sweaters with pastel slacks kneeling in the garden, painting walls with pristine and fresh pressed button up blouses on, or my all-time fav:  cooking huge messy meals while wearing silk shirts and a perfectly matching, and clean, apron. 

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, BexKeps said:

cooking huge messy meals while wearing silk shirts and a perfectly matching, and clean, apron. 

But only really getting themselves messy if they are in a comedy, or are the comic relief in a dramady. 

[Katy M]

Only on TV does the electric company cut your power off after one missed payment (before the next bill is even due) and with no warning.  Because TV power companies know that checks never get lost in the mail.