# Outdated Dramatic Cliches **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 14, 2010, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765 "2010-09-14T19:57:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/41 "2010-09-16T20:04:54Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > > > You omit Sisko, who is basically Kirk with more religious overtones but minus the commitment issues and gay subtext, and Janeway, who is Kirk without morals. > > I take issue with Janeway. It’s not that she’s _without_ morals; she _has_ a strong moral code, it’s just that \*\*it’s compatible \*\*with her society, the organization she has a career in, or sentient life in general. In her own head, it works _mostly_ fine and without _mostly_ contradiction. 😃 I’m guessing you meant _incompatible_ here. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/42 "2010-09-16T20:07:32Z")
> [@leftfield6](#): > > > [@Zsofia](#): > > > > Also, crazy people no longer think they’re Napoleon. > > What’s that you say? Who here is NOT Napoleon? \*\* I \*\*certainly am! I’m not, but my wife is. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/43 "2010-09-16T20:16:17Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > > [@lisacurl](#): > > > > I’d like to bring that one back if we can. 😃 > > I like to think _The Producers_ killed this one. [In this scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERAV57bqaU), Gene Wilder gets hysterical and Zero Mostel throws water on him (which was the other way they used to deal with this situation in old movies). Wilder pauses for a minute and then starts yelling “I’m wet! I’m wet! I’m hysterical and I’m wet!” So Mostel slaps him. Then there’s another pause, and he says “I’m in pain! And I’m wet! AND I’M STILL HYSTERICAL!” I personally attribute its lapse to the scene in Airplane!. You know the one. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/44 "2010-09-16T20:39:08Z")
I’m sure there’s a name for it but I call this cliche the “Oppressed-Minority Childhood-Trauma Memory Buzzkill Soliloquy”. It can be performed by black, gay, Jewish, American Indian, Vietnamese or any other minority and can happen in a dramatic movie but is worse when it’s in a comedy. They’ve been joking around with their mainstream WASP best friend and the atmosphere is kind of lighthearted until the subject of intolerance towards their particular minority status comes up with WASP Best Friend clearly making light of or not understanding the gravity of prejudice. That’s when the Minority Character says “Yeah… I know… I used to think it was no big deal” and then tells the story (at it’s worst sad music is playing) about how they lost their innocence as a child when they were beaten/set on fire/saw their mother beheaded/pelted with rocks and garbage/forced to eat their own child or whatever (something traumatic) and usually while somebody they thought was a (white) friend looked on or participated. “And that’s when I realized… it does matter…”. I’m not saying that minorities don’t have bad memories of childhood or haven’t encountered prejudice in their past and maybe even had to grow up quicker or witness/experience violence, BUT the cliche is usually unfunny camp in its overplayed earnesty and “here it comes” paint by the numbers delivery and like as not by a screenwriter who probably has encountered no such thing in their own life and are, consciously or sub-, copying the other times it’s been used. And of course it always makes their friends see them- and themselves- in a new light. Sound familiar? ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/45 "2010-09-16T20:50:11Z")
I can think of once when the above (minority soliloqy) was actually parodied. It was in an episode of _Barney Miller_ where Harris (Ron Glass’s character) is drunk, furious, and newly bankrupt after being sued for libel by an ambulance chaser who claims he was maligned by a character in Harris’s unsuccessful novel. He’s wallowing in self pity and when Barney says “we’re you’re friends and understand” he tells them they might work together but they don’t know a think about who he is or what he’s been through. Harris tells Barney about how he’s fought all of his life, about how his daddy used to fight illness and injustice every day going into the coal mines until the day they carried him away in a coffin, and how “mama had to take in white folks washing to put a little somethin’ on the table for seven _hongry_ children…” and how it made him want to leave the coal mines and all the white kids used to pass him by and call him names having no idea how horrible it was, etc… Barney is moved and surprised and says, almost tearfully, “I had no idea about any of that…”. Harris admits “I made it up! It’s from a script I’m sending into _Palmerstown_! My folks owned a liquor store in Cleveland, Barney. Damn, you really don’t listen to a thing I say about myself!” \*Short lived Alex Haley produced Waltons-like drama about two families- one black and one white- in the Depression era south. Mainly remembered, if at all, for being Michael J. Fox’s first major Hollywood job. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/46 "2010-09-16T22:51:59Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And people don’t slap someone’s face, to stop them from being emotional. : pushes up glasses: “I…had to stop her from…screaming!” ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/47 "2010-09-17T03:45:25Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > > [@BigT](#): > > > > Nah–the cell phone usually can’t get any service in those situations. > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIZVcRccCx0) > > I’d also like to go back in time and do a study to find out just how common it was for women to faint back then. It must have happened more then than it does now in order for it to have become a believable plot point, but surely it can’t have been as common as it was portrayed in fiction. What time period are you referring to? In the days when women wore corsets, heavy skirts, and layers of clothing, they most certainly did keel over all the time, seeing as how they couldn’t even draw a deep breath and must have been in agonies in hot weather. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/48 "2010-09-17T23:20:42Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m guessing you meant _incompatible_ here. I did. Janeway let those two letters get killed to satisfy her own self-righteous posturing. (That, and I’m typing with a busted finger. Can I blame Janeway for that, too?) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/49 "2010-09-17T23:33:55Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > There was also the tragic mulatto stereotype (from Donald Bogle’s classic history of Blacks in cinema, **Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, and Bucks** ): A Black man or woman (usually woman) passing as black who ends up in tragedy because she is caught between the two worlds. Showed up in the third or fourth season of _Angel_, but it was during a flashback episode set in the 1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/50 "2010-09-18T02:01:21Z")
It’s not just a cliche of a plot twist but of the entire scene: A young adult (or older) and his mother are fighting over a man both have known for many years. Young Adult: I hate him! I hate him and I’m going to kill him! Mom: No! You can’t do that… Young Adult: WHY NOT!? Mom (blurts it out): BECAUSE HE’S YOUR FATHER!!! {_turns around, has a mini-breakdown, then says with tears and sobbing_} Be-cause he’s… your… [sniff] father… Young Adult: But… when…bhow…wha… Mom: It was [_short synopsis of when and how and what_]… I always wanted to tell you, but I was waiting for sweeps week… Young Adult looks into space speechless, then calls his mother a whore or some other curse word and leaves, slamming the door on the way out of course. Mother breaks into hysterical sobs. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/51 "2010-09-18T05:45:27Z")
In science ficition, you rarely have the Man of the Cloth or the Ivory Tower scientist slowly approach the aliens saying, “I come in peace!” only to be wiped out immediately by a death beam. ---
**Author:** ![williambaskerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f14d63/32.png) [@williambaskerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williambaskerville)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/52 "2010-09-18T07:54:14Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > > [@Marley23](#): > > > > I like to think _The Producers_ killed this one. [In this scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ERAV57bqaU), Gene Wilder gets hysterical and Zero Mostel throws water on him (which was the other way they used to deal with this situation in old movies). Wilder pauses for a minute and then starts yelling “I’m wet! I’m wet! I’m hysterical and I’m wet!” So Mostel slaps him. Then there’s another pause, and he says “I’m in pain! And I’m wet! AND I’M STILL HYSTERICAL!” > > I personally attribute its lapse to the scene in Airplane!. You know the one. Similarly, stressful situations no longer cause ex-smokers to resume their habit, thanks to Airplane. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/53 "2010-09-18T08:18:05Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > In science ficition, you rarely have the Man of the Cloth or the Ivory Tower scientist slowly approach the aliens saying, “I come in peace!” only to be wiped out immediately by a death beam. It happened in _Mars Attacks_ though. Saying that, that film was pretty good for subverting the B movie scif-fi genre in general. Usually aliens either say they come in peace _or_ they ruthlessly start gunning people down, not both simultaneously. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/54 "2010-09-18T12:43:59Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > There was also the tragic mulatto stereotype (from Donald Bogle’s classic history of Blacks in cinema, **Toms, Coons, Mulattos, Mammies, and Bucks** ): A Black man or woman (usually woman) passing as black who ends up in tragedy because she is caught between the two worlds. _Law & Order_ did this one a couple of years ago. Actually quite a good episode. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/55 "2010-09-18T13:08:06Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > > > In science ficition, you rarely have the Man of the Cloth or the Ivory Tower scientist slowly approach the aliens saying, “I come in peace!” only to be wiped out immediately by a death beam. > > It happened in _Mars Attacks_ though. Saying that, that film was pretty good for subverting the B movie scif-fi genre in general. Usually aliens either say they come in peace _or_ they ruthlessly start gunning people down, not both simultaneously. Mars Attacks was a parody, it undoubtedly included the scene for parodic effect, not a genuine attempt at drama. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/56 "2010-09-18T13:10:06Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > > > In science ficition, you rarely have the Man of the Cloth or the Ivory Tower scientist slowly approach the aliens saying, “I come in peace!” only to be wiped out immediately by a death beam. > > It happened in _Mars Attacks_ though. Saying that, that film was pretty good for subverting the B movie scif-fi genre in general. Usually aliens either say they come in peace _or_ they ruthlessly start gunning people down, not both simultaneously. They, or rather he did both in the movie _I Come in Peace_\*. Well, he also chopped people up and injected them with stuff. - If you never heard of it that’s because it was really forgettable (not to mention stupid) except for a fairly cool alien gun. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/57 "2010-09-18T13:10:33Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > > [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > > > It happened in _Mars Attacks_ though. Saying that, that film was pretty good for subverting the B movie scif-fi genre in general. Usually aliens either say they come in peace _or_ they ruthlessly start gunning people down, not both simultaneously. > > Mars Attacks was a parody, it undoubtedly included the scene for parodic effect, not a genuine attempt at drama. That’s true - I forgot it was essentially a spoof (ages since I saw it). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/58 "2010-09-18T13:17:19Z")
Pedophilia as humor seems to have died out recently. Q.v. jokes in Alan Bennett’s _Forty Years On_ and _Four Weddings and a Funeral_. There are probably many others, especially from the 1960s and 70s. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/59 "2010-09-18T13:56:06Z")
> [@williambaskerville](#): > > Similarly, stressful situations no longer cause ex-smokers to resume their habit, thanks to Airplane. Just wait 'til the first movie about Obama comes out. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765/60 "2010-09-19T03:21:11Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Do people get knocked unconscious any more? I mean to put them out of action for a few minutes, but they’re good as new as soon as they wake up. Unfortunately this is still happening all the time. > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > You omit Sisko, who is basically Kirk with more religious overtones but minus the commitment issues and gay subtext, and Janeway, who is Kirk without morals. This had me LOL except I don’t quite get it. If anything, Janeway was prone to _over_moralizing to the detriment of getting home. > [@jjimm](#): > > Pedophilia as humor seems to have died out recently. Q.v. jokes in Alan Bennett’s _Forty Years On_ and _Four Weddings and a Funeral_.. I don’t remember the jokes involving pedophilia in 4WaaF. Were they actually about pedophilia or was it more along the lines of ‘robbing the cradle’? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/outdated-dramatic-cliches/553765.md?page=4)