# Story Memes or Themes You Just Can't Stand **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 1, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808 "2012-06-01T19:13:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/161 "2012-06-27T18:32:14Z")
Oh - and also every time someone’s loved one is wheeled into an OR or some other hospital setting, and have to be told repeatedly to leave the OR and please stop clinging to the dying person because we can’t operate on them if you’re on top of them. I mean, I’m sure that happens but why can’t they ever just show someone who holds on to a shred of composure and says ‘I understand, please do everything in your power to save my little Bobby’? I hope that just once they’d show OR personnel pushing a red ‘security’ button after which some goons come in and quietly carry off the hysterical person. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/162 "2012-06-27T18:34:06Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Oh - and also every time someone’s loved one is wheeled into an OR or some other hospital setting, and have to be told repeatedly to leave the OR and please stop clinging to the dying person because we can’t operate on them if you’re on top of them. I mean, I’m sure that happens but why can’t they ever just show someone who holds on to a shred of composure and says ‘I understand, please do everything in your power to save my little Bobby’? I hope that just once they’d show OR personnel pushing a red ‘security’ button after which some goons come in and quietly carry off the hysterical person. Agreed. This goes with the hysteria thing I mentioned before. GTFO of the way, and let the professionals help. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/163 "2012-06-27T18:39:54Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#): > > Oh - and also every time someone’s loved one is wheeled into an OR or some other hospital setting, and have to be told repeatedly to leave the OR and please stop clinging to the dying person because we can’t operate on them if you’re on top of them. I mean, I’m sure that happens but why can’t they ever just show someone who holds on to a shred of composure and says ‘I understand, please do everything in your power to save my little Bobby’? I hope that just once they’d show OR personnel pushing a red ‘security’ button after which some goons come in and quietly carry off the hysterical person. I’m picturing a skit where the patients in the ER are created by the hospital security staff. A couple of hysterical relatives of one patient show up and get a beat down and are sent to the ER, and then some of _their_ hysterical relatives show up and get a beat down, and then … Eventually there’s a city-wide riot. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/164 "2012-06-27T18:46:58Z")
The “secret monster reveal”. You know, after a herculean effort to locate/capture/kill a legendary, elusive creature, as soon as the last person gives up, turns their back, and walks away, the creature is revealed to the audience, fade to black. See: [The X-Files, Quagmire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quagmire_(The_X-Files)). ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/165 "2012-06-27T18:52:50Z")
Chosen Ones. Reluctant Heroes. Chosen Ones who are Reluctant Heroes. I love **Carnivale** but Ben Hawkins was my least favorite character for this reason. Passive protagonists are really tough to write, and really tough for the audience to give a shit about. On a cop show/mystery novel/anything with an interrogator as a main character: the suspect turns the interrogation around on the main character, getting really personal, laying bare the main character’s personality flaws and character arcs and plot struggles conveniently for the audience to get to know the main character better. I love **Spooks** / **MI-5** but they almost lost me with (IIRC) their first episode with the abortion-clinic-bomber conveniently expositing about the amorality of a spy deceiving others as part of his job, so that we could understand our heroes’ central character dilemma. That reminds me: the criminal who is obsessed with the main character investigator and conducts an elaborate crime spree not motivated by their own demons but just to get under the hero protagonist’s skin. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/166 "2012-06-27T18:54:21Z")
How it happens in every movie… _Ring Ring_ “Hello” “Jerry, Jerry, are you watching this?” “Watching what?” “Dude, turn on your TV!” Jerry fumbles with remote, but eventually turns on TV, it is of course already tuned to the news. “…In summary, a plane carrying executives of MacGuffinCorp crashed over the Rockies today, killing all on board. This comes days after reports of corruption that threatened the highest levels of government was uncovered. More after the break…” “Holy shit! I was supposed to be on that plane!” “I know, it’s crazy. Dude you better be careful!” “Thanks, I’ll call you later.” _Hangs up_ How it would really happen… _Ring Ring_ “Helo” "Jerry, that flight you were supposed to be on just crashed!’ “Huh, what do you mean.” “I just saw it on the news, Dude you are so lucky!” “Just a second…” Fumbles with remote, turns on TV, _SportsCenter_ comes on… “Shit, CNN?” “Yeah” Hits Guide, searched, searches, finally finds it. “…with the President of Mexico. President Obama is expected…” “There’s nothing here. Oh wait the scroll at the bottom…OK, I’ll call you back.” ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/167 "2012-06-27T18:56:12Z")
Gallows fodder - agree with your examples. But the woman in The Closer is the exception to your interrogator rule. No one got the better of her ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/168 "2012-06-27T19:13:40Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Where the protagonist’s job consists of “giving a big presentation to a big client”. That’s how it works in show business–you pitch your script, or audition for the part, and your success depends on the pitch. But 99% of regular jobs aren’t like this. That’s not entirely true. One portion of big business is sales - convincing a client that your product/team is the one to select. We see this play out in _Celebrity Apprentice_ with advertising campaigns. Which isn’t necessarily how advertising campaign hiring goes, but shows the importance of a good presentation to the sales pitch. Donald Trump: “Make up a 4 page magazine ad layout and present it to the customer.” Contestant A from Team 1: “We made this spectacular 4 page layout. See?” Customer: “Team 1 had a really good set of pictures, good ad copy, really seemed to get the product. But their presentation was lackluster. I was expecting more from Contestant A in particular.” But yes, in general, sales jobs like this are still a small percentage of jobs. A big presentation for me, for instance, would be to summarize some problem we’re having and ask for direction/approval on the approach to a solution. Or just describe what we found and what we did about it. That’s not a big component of my job, but I do make presentations from time to time. ---
**Author:** ![Klytus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Klytus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Klytus)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/169 "2012-06-27T19:49:24Z")
There is a bull-headed, obnoxious, arrogant, Man In Charge of Something Really Important, and he is moving things forward exactly as he feels is best because he knows he can “make it work the way it should.” However, everyone around him, including the main character, is constantly warning him that what he is doing is wrong and/or dangerous, and will most surely lead to a disaster. They even show him evidence of this. But Man in Charge brushes their concerns away as weak-minded, overly conservative, etc. and goes right on doing things His Way, and no one can do anything about it because he’s the Man in Charge. Then, like clockwork, much to the Man in Charge’s surprise, the warned-about disaster happens, and it is up to the main character to fix it. The reason this trope bugs me so much is because almost **every episode** of the Jon Pertwee years of Doctor Who used this framework. It got old the second time I saw it. After the tenth time, I figured they mustn’t have been able to afford good writers, so they just kept re-using the same script and changing the names of the characters and the disaster to make it look different. ---
**Author:** ![senpai71](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7993a0/32.png) [@senpai71](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senpai71)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/170 "2012-06-27T19:52:56Z")
Attractive woman is made to look unattractive by the simple expedient of having her hair tied back and wearing unfashionable glasses. Although we, the audience know she’s hot, no-one else seems to. She lets her hair down and takes off the glasses and her boss (or whoever) says “Mis Jones! You’re…you’re beautiful”… ---
**Author:** ![Weeping\_Wyvern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@Weeping\_Wyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weeping_Wyvern)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/171 "2012-06-27T20:59:17Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I disagree with that one a bit. Humanizing the big bad guy is far worse. Sometimes you need a villain that is just plain evil. _The Lord of the Rings_ would suck if Sauron wasn’t the embodiment of pure evil. > > Those types of stories, if done well, work. It allows the reader, or audience, to focus on what the heroes have to overcome. Umm… Sauron was definitely NOT “the embodiment of pure evil”. If anything, that honour would go to his old master Morgoth/Melkor, the primeval Dark Lord of the First Age. And anyhow we are specifically told in LOTR that Sauron was not evil at the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![listedmia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e0b2c6/32.png) [@listedmia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/listedmia)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 9:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/172 "2012-06-28T09:38:48Z")
Kids’ movies where the mom dies, usually right at the beginning. I’m looking at, I don’t know, every Disney movie ever. It makes children who have lost a parent feel like crap. ---
**Author:** ![And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/and_his_buzzer_goes/32/377_2.png) [@And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/And_his_buzzer_goes)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/173 "2012-06-28T13:51:35Z")
The villain has the hero completely pinned down and can kill him in an instant but then decides to a-start ranting about himself/his plans/everything else so the hero has time to regroup and kill him first or b-straps him to an automated “death” machine with a long enough timer for the hero to escape. I will tolerate it in a sixties James Bond movie, but at this day and age it is tiresome. Most of the other stuff has been mentioned already. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/174 "2012-06-28T14:07:36Z")
Books in which a kid is bored with (and maybe is foolish enough to complain about) parents or having to learn about history. Then, whammo! The kid goes back in time to suffer: being in a death camp in the Holocaust (in _The Devil’s Arithmetic_) racism in 1920’s (in _Tune in Yesterday_) the horrors of slavery (several books, although I can’t remember any specific titles). assorted other evils. (Lots of other books.) Then the kid returns to the present day, having learned his or her lesson. Grrr. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/175 "2012-06-28T16:04:34Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Books in which a kid is bored with (and maybe is foolish enough to complain about) parents or having to learn about history. Then, whammo! The kid goes back in time to suffer: > > being in a death camp in the Holocaust (in _The Devil’s Arithmetic_) > racism in 1920’s (in _Tune in Yesterday_) > the horrors of slavery (several books, although I can’t remember any specific titles). > assorted other evils. (Lots of other books.) > > Then the kid returns to the present day, having learned his or her lesson. Grrr. I hate those books where it’s just the alphabet (the ALPHABET!) but all the writer does is change what cute animal is represented by the letter. I swear “A is for alligator” is just the same thing as “A is for antelope.” It’s just window dressing for the same old story. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/176 "2012-06-28T17:23:42Z")
Any TV show whose title ends in “zilla” or "ista"or “whisperer”, or starts with “my big fat” anything. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/177 "2012-06-28T17:26:29Z")
> [@Weeping\_Wyvern](#): > > Umm… Sauron was definitely NOT “the embodiment of pure evil”. If anything, that honour would go to his old master Morgoth/Melkor, the primeval Dark Lord of the First Age. And anyhow we are specifically told in LOTR that Sauron was not evil at the beginning. Uh…yeah. He also didn’t have a ‘body’ in the films. > [@senpai71](#): > > Attractive woman is made to look unattractive by the simple expedient of having her hair tied back and wearing unfashionable glasses. Although we, the audience know she’s hot, no-one else seems to. She lets her hair down and takes off the glasses and her boss (or whoever) says “Mis Jones! You’re…you’re beautiful”… What are you talking about? Women look disgusting with glasses and their hair in a bun! ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/178 "2012-06-28T17:36:28Z")
> [@And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](#): > > The villain has the hero completely pinned down and can kill him in an instant but then decides to > a-start ranting about himself/his plans/everything else so the hero has time to regroup and kill him first or > b-straps him to an automated “death” machine with a long enough timer for the hero to escape. > > I will tolerate it in a sixties James Bond movie, but at this day and age it is tiresome. Have you seen “The Incredibles”? It’s called monologuing. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/179 "2012-06-28T18:00:25Z")
Seriously though. I’m getting sick of the ‘Christoph Waltz’ style super-charismatic villain. Do you really need to talk my ear off for 20 minutes before you kill me? > [@Lemur866](#): > > Where the protagonist’s job consists of “giving a big presentation to a big client”. That’s how it works in show business–you pitch your script, or audition for the part, and your success depends on the pitch. But 99% of regular jobs aren’t like this. Clearly you never worked for a consulting firm.😉 But yeah. In reality, it’s rare that any single Powerpoint presentation is going to make or break the company or someone’s career. ---
**Author:** ![And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/and_his_buzzer_goes/32/377_2.png) [@And\_his\_buzzer\_goes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/And_his_buzzer_goes)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808/180 "2012-06-28T19:01:30Z")
Another I thought of : in the situation “don’t do it, it will make you as evil as him”, they generally break down and hand over whatever weapon they’re holding. Why not take out a limb as a bit of revenge if you’re not the killer type ? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/story-memes-or-themes-you-just-cant-stand/623808.md?page=10)