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30 Trivia Tidbits About TV and Movie Tropes

Tried and true (and trite)

30 Trivia Tidbits About TV and Movie Tropes

June 12, 2024

Today, we’re focusing on our love-hate relationship with pop-culture tropes. They do a lot of the heavy lifting in storytelling, but do we appreciate their efforts? No. We only love them when we don’t even know they’re there. The glaring ones are labeled cliches and judged harshly. It’s honestly like one big game of Whac-A-Mole. Grab your mallet. Let’s play!

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30

Tired Rom-Com Tropes (That Still Make Us Swoon) Raunchy humor Rom-coms can be all sweet and brainy and classy, but there's always room for a poop joke or two. Our favorite contemporary examples include Bridesmaids (of course), but also Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and, well, the classic Judd Apatow entries, mainly Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. CRACKED.COM — Source

29

Tired Rom-Com Tropes (That Still Make Us Swoon) The player falls in love Players need not be hurtful douchebags, but they do cause distrust in their partners - right before they actually fall madly in love. Hitch was a below average rom-com trying to pull this trope off, but Crazy, Stupid, Love actually did it. CRACKED.COM — Source

28

Tired Rom-Com Tropes (That Still Make Us Swoon) Romance can be secondary A smart rom-com can still have its explicit romance play second fiddle to the movie's actual emotional core, like in / Love You, Man. In Bridesmaids we're rooting for Kristen Wiig and Chris O'Dowd, but the driving dramatic force is her friendship with Maya Rudolph. (That and the dangers of food poisoning.) CRACKED.COM — Source

27

Tired Rom-Com Tropes (That Still Make Us Swoon) Multiple intertwining stories We love rom-coms that manage to juggle several stories at the same time - it's like getting multiple movies for the price of one. Love Actually totally pulled this off-it might have aged badly, but it's still miles better than American knock-offs. An even better example? Crazy, Stupid, Love. CRACKED.COM MERRY — Source

26

Tired Rom-Com Tropes (That Still Make Us Swoon) 40 The meet cute Meet cutes are a structural pillar of the rom-com, like the final fight in action movies. The meet cute scene in Trainwreck had a few good jokes, but the one between Silver Linings Playbook's two highly imperfect characters was just perfect. Who knew comparing psychiatric meds could be romantic? - - CRACKED.COM — Source

25

Tired MCU Tropes celebrity pandering Most celebrity cameos in the MCU are fun, like Sam Neill in Thor: Ragnarok - but others are just laaaame. The bottom of the barrel is Iron Man 3, with Bill Maher and especially Elon Musk. History is quickly judging that one with an ooh boy. CRACKED COM — Source

24

Tired MCU Tropes superhero landing When Iron Man did it in his first movie, it was awesome. When non-MCU Deadpool turned it into a joke, we giggled and said, I understood that reference. But by the time it was the butt of even more jokes in Black Widow, we knew it was dead. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

Tired MCU Tropes Mirror-image villains A clown complementing a man dressed as a bat requires some abstract thought. Instead of that, MCU villains tend to be like the heroes, but evil. Starting with the first Iron Man, examples also include Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Shang-Chi, and WandaVision. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

Tired MCU Tropes Misleading trailers We get it: Marvel wants to avoid spoilers and subvert expectations. But sometimes, trailer scenes are much more interesting than those in the actual movies. This has happened with Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Infinity War, the Spider-Man movies, and especially with Iron Man 3's (fake) Mandarin. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

Tired MCU Tropes villains created by Tony stark OK, we get Iron-Man and Avengers villains being connected to Stark somehow. But is this really necessary for Spider-Man villains? Well, except for No Way Home-since its villains were from other Spider-Men. Can Spidey fight his own baddies already? CRACKED.COM — Source

20

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) The Holy Mountain (1973) IT WAS ALL A DREAM By now, this twist only works as a joke. Still, some movies like Jacob's Ladder have managed to pull it off-but we're going with the Alejandro Jodorowsky classic that twisted it into a fully self- abolishing version, by showing us it was all a movie. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) Audition (1999) FEMME FATALE One of the oldest tropes in the book just rocks in Takashi Miike's classic rom-com. Well, it starts like a rom-com. Seriously guys, respect women or they'll put you in a bag and cut off your tongue and fingers. CRACKED COM — Source

18

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) LIQUID NITROGEN DEATH Demolition Man, Timecop, Goldeneye, Jason X- death by liquid nitrogen was all the rage for some time. But the movie that turned it into an iconic thing was this, the last Terminator ever made. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

Tired Tropes - (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) 4210 1/2 GRA Bea delles - - - - - - II Office Space (1999) WORKPLACE MISERY We could write an entire piece on how peak-'90s neoliberalism movies depict offices as the place where the human spirit goes to die. But Office Space focused on its specifically absurdist, Kafkaesque angle, making for a particularly smart example. Swingline CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) A Fistful of Dollars (1964) DISCARDING THE PROTECTION We have mixed feelings about this Sergio Leone classic: On the one hand, Clint Eastwood's character could have really used more bulletproof protection, but on the other, the scene where he drops his improvised armor plate is absolutely awesome. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) The Matrix (1999) FADE TO EDGY THEME SONG The Simpsons lampooned this action movie cliché with the (historically accurate) Zorro rap. But we have to give it to The Matrix: ending a subversive action movie with Rage Against the Machine kicking in is art. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) GETTING CAUGHT WAS THE PLAN ALL ALONG This was already tiring when Star Trek Into Darkness and Skyfall did it. In The Avengers it was kinda- sorta interesting, but nothing really compares to the Joker being captured as part of his overall plan (which he totally doesn't have, pinky swear). The Dark Knight (2008) CRACKED.COM — Source

13

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) Face/Off(1997) MEXICAN STANDOFF You know a trope has gotten lame when friggin' Transformers movies reference it. But Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino have given us quality standoffs, and Face/Off (John Woo's best American actioner) is an entire movie made up of those. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) FAIR PLAY GOONS Overwhelm the hero with sheer numbers? No, no, that would be unsportmanslike: everyone must patiently wait for their turn to fight (and be dispatched). Yes, it's not exactly a sound tactic, but damn if it doesn't make for amazing fight scenes in Kill Bill. CRACKED.COM — Source

11

Tired Tropes (And The Movies That Pulled Them Off) JUMP SCARES Even horror movies pushing for quality and originality often ruin their surprises with the cheap trick of loud noises. But the videocam scene in this masterpiece is just an earned and clever jump scare. The Descent (2005) CRACKED.COM — Source

10

Masterfully Subverted Tropes The big heist scene scene Movies centered around a heist usually show the careful planning, the setting into motion, the ensuing hiccups, the whole deal. Reservoir Dogs goes the other way, and is instead a heistless heist film. It shows the gang discussing Madonna and the ethics of tipping, and then it jumps to the bloody aftermath. This Tarantino guy knows his stuff. Reservoir Dogs CRACKED.COM — Source

9

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Hot Tub Time Machine 2 The unrepentant jerk Rob Corddry's Lou Dorchen is even worse here than in the first movie. He's annoyingly selfish, cruel, and aggressive, and we have to assume that's his shtick. Surprisingly, though, after Clark Duke's Jacob tries to jump from a building, he wholeheartedly apologizes and becomes much mellower from then on. Not bad for a widely disliked comedy. CRACKED.COM — Source

8

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Colossal The nice guy love interest When the Colossal trailers came out, we were too busy theorizing about the kaiju to see that Jason Sudeikis' casting was a set up. Не seemed like a nice guy, a predictable love interest among the mayhem. But against character, the comedian actually plays an alcoholic abuser. It's a clever bait-and-switch that Promising Young Woman would later echo. CRACKED.COM — Source

7

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Burn After Reading No third-act resolution After all the misunderstandings and murders - nothing. The movie does have a third act, but its peculiarity is in the same banality the Coens put in A Serious Man a year later, only bureaucratic instead of existential. No climax, no comeuppance, no final exposition-just the CIA shrugging at the dumb developments and deciding to ignore them. CRACKED.COM — Source

6

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Big Little Lies Mean rich lady During the first season, Laura Dern's Renata is an uptight, snobbish rich lady, particularly focusing her classist scorn on Shailene Woodley's Jane. By the end of the season, however, she realizes she was wrong, apologizes, and offers friendship like an actually fallible human being. We were not ready for such emotional maturity, to be honest. CRACKED.COM — Source

5

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Scream The famous actor survives That Scream subverts tropes is nothing new, but it must be stressed over and over how groundbreaking that opening scene was. Drew Barrymore was the movie's biggest star, so she's obviously the final girl, right? Nope, she chose to play the opening kill, and all the bets were off. Wes Craven obviously handled it like a genius. CRACKED.COM — Source

4

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Looper The marvel of time travel Most time travel movies try to put a novel spin on it, while also treating it like a big deal. Looper's own novel spin, however, is dismissing the importance and details of its mechanics and instead focusing on its effects. The film removes the coolness from Bruce Willis' time-shenanigans by rather showing the crushing weight of his child-killing spree. CRACKED.COM — Source

3

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Why don't they just leave? The moment we see walls bleeding, we're gone. But Nope twists the usual stubborness of horror movie protagonists by giving emotional weight as to why they stay. They could just take the money and let someone else deal with the unidentified aerial phenomena, but family history prevents it. Nope CRACKED.COM — Source

2

Masterfully Subverted Tropes The uptight principal Two years after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert Downey Jr. continued the trope subversion by playing Principal Gardner in this teen dramedy. Unlike, say, Dean Rooney in Ferris Bueller, Gardner is not a bitter villain, but a nuanced principal clearly going through some stuff. And indeed, RDJ gives this kind of character an unusual depth. Charlie Bartlett CO d CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Masterfully Subverted Tropes Stranger Things Madman in the asylum Stranger Things has subverted its fair share of tropes, but adding Robert Englund to the cast set up a wonderful case. At first, he's obviously a baddie. He's believed to have murdered his family, he's in an asylum, he's played by Robert Englund- but he's soon revealed as the victim of the actual baddie. Nice rug pull there, show. CRACKED.COM — Source

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