# The Language of Cinema Cliche: This is how you know that ...
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 19, 2005, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317 "2005-03-19T15:10:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 9
### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/161 "2005-03-29T14:56:58Z")
> [@Jet Jaguar](#):
>
> Any movie that uses “O Fortuna” in the trailer will suck.
This seems true, as long as you note that Neon Genesis Evangelions’ ending sucked, not just the rest. It should be noted that the use of the tradition pleading for a tunafish sandwich song, “Oh, for tuna” in the **soundtrack** of a movies does not necessary mean that the movie will suck. For example:
Natural Born Killers, The Doors, and, to a lesser extent, Detroit Rock City.
P.S. Jet Jaguar, I loved your performance in “Spiderman” as the Green Goblin.
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### Author:  [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/162 "2005-03-29T17:31:31Z")
> [@Theobroma](#):
>
> [nitpick]I have never seen this in a movie. I happen to have a stupid goiter, and a massive choker would hugely emphasize it on anyone. I think massive chokers are for cross-dressers hiding an adam’s apple, or females from The Flinstones. [/nitpick]
Regretfully, the only example I can think of is a movised (televised?, forgive me if my memory fails) version of an Agatha Christie novel where an older woman used a choker to hide a goiter, or perhaps it was just the scar from it. I can’t recall the title, but I think it was _Murder by Invitation_. I can’t find an imdb entry for the movie I am thinking of, so let’s just scratch “old woman in choker” off the list of movie clichés.
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/163 "2005-03-29T18:32:59Z")
> [@Dooku](#):
>
> If a character happens to posses a unique skill, and time is taken early in the movie to display the character performing that skill, it is a 100% certainty that skill will become necessary at a crucial point late in the movie.
In a similar vein, in Science-Fiction, if a new and wonderful piece of technology is available to the crew of a spaceship, it will be pulled out at the last minute to provide a solution to some horrendous problem the crew face.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/164 "2005-03-29T18:40:25Z")
Am I wrong, or did every one of the '60s/Vietnam cliches listed in this thread appear in _Forrest Gump_?
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/165 "2005-03-29T18:53:02Z")
If you start seeing teasers for the movie more than 60 days before its release, it’s gonna suck.
If they are more than 6 months before the release, it’s gonna suck pondwater.
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### Author:  [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/166 "2005-03-29T19:27:46Z")
> [@The Devil's Grandmother](#):
>
> Regretfully, the only example I can think of is a movised (televised?, forgive me if my memory fails) version of an Agatha Christie novel where an older woman used a choker to hide a goiter, or perhaps it was just the scar from it. I can’t recall the title, but I think it was _Murder by Invitation_. I can’t find an imdb entry for the movie I am thinking of, so let’s just scratch “old woman in choker” off the list of movie clichés.
It’s “A Murder is Announced.” Coincidentally, I just saw it this past weekend. She was hiding a scar…
To conceal the fact that she was really Charlotte Blacklock, who had had a goiter removed, not her sister Letitia, who had died some years earlier but was expected to come into a large inheritance one day.
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### Author:  [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/167 "2005-03-29T20:35:43Z")
Then there was the dear auntie in _Arsenic and Old Lace_ who always wore high collars to hide the marks where Grandfather’s acid burned her.
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### Author:  [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/168 "2005-03-29T20:52:14Z")
> [@Clothahump](#):
>
> If you start seeing teasers for the movie more than 60 days before its release, it’s gonna suck.
>
> If they are more than 6 months before the release, it’s gonna suck pondwater.
Disproved by every Pixar teaser ever released. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/169 "2005-03-29T21:09:34Z")
Anyone have a time machine I can use to show this theory is/will be true of Pixar’s film “Cars”?
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/170 "2005-03-29T21:19:46Z")
> [@Jet Jaguar](#):
>
> Anyone driving an older car in a car chase will crash.
Unless they’re the Blues Brothers! 🙂
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/171 "2005-03-30T17:04:29Z")
Black people usually have nothing better to do than to offer warm, humane and wise advice to clueless and confused white people. Very often these black sidekicks and advisors have magical powers that they use to help their white friends. See, black people are so spiritual and strong due to all the suffering their people have gone through, therefore they usually spend their time helping their white friends instead of other black people. The wise mentoring black friend’s role is to personally absolve the white lead character, writer, director, and audience of any role in the racial oppression of black people.
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### Author:  [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/172 "2005-03-30T18:53:29Z")
> [@RikWriter](#):
>
> No replicants? Whaddya call Pamela Anderson then? 😃
She’s a Fem-bot.
Okay, I guess you’re right.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [March 30, 2005, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/173 "2005-03-30T21:37:37Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> Black people usually have nothing better to do than to offer warm, humane and wise advice to clueless and confused white people.
The poorer, the better.
Sometimes old people are like this too. And people from both groups are often crusty. Because being old or non-white makes you very embittered, and it’s only through the eyes of the young, white and attractive that people can realize how great the world is.
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/174 "2005-04-01T16:41:33Z")
If a background character announces that he or she is going to tool up and chase after the monster/beastie that’s stalking the group, said character will be very quickly disposed of, all alone, at the hands of the monster/beastie 😛
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/175 "2005-04-01T17:51:09Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> Black people usually have nothing better to do than to offer warm, humane and wise advice to clueless and confused white people. Very often these black sidekicks and advisors have magical powers that they use to help their white friends. See, black people are so spiritual and strong due to all the suffering their people have gone through, therefore they usually spend their time helping their white friends instead of other black people. The wise mentoring black friend’s role is to personally absolve the white lead character, writer, director, and audience of any role in the racial oppression of black people.
The disabled often fill this role as well. If they are mentally disabled, it is practically obligatory.
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### Author:  [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/176 "2005-04-01T18:23:55Z")
> [@MinniePurl](#):
>
> Iconic City Structures, used at the beginning to establish the city the movie or show is set in, or if it is set in more than one city, to tell you where the action has moved.
San Francisco: that spire-y type building isn;t that some sort of insurance or bank building or something?
Seattle: Rain, The space needle, flanneled people drinking coffee
Florida - Swamps or people in Miami-Vice style bikinis, Flamingos
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/177 "2005-04-01T18:38:05Z")
> [@BurnMeUp](#):
>
> San Francisco: that spire-y type building isn;t that some sort of insurance or bank building or something?
The Trans-America building?
> [@](#):
>
> Florida - Swamps or people in Miami-Vice style bikinis,
… strutting and sunbathing on Miami Beach … powerboats …
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### Author:  [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/178 "2005-04-01T18:55:23Z")
> [@acsenray](#):
>
> The Trans-America building?
>
> … strutting and sunbathing on Miami Beach … powerboats …
That’s the one.
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### Author:  [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/179 "2005-04-01T19:28:06Z")
> [@look!ninjas](#):
>
> If a female character in a period film (pre-20th century, anyway) is coughing at the beginning of the movie, she will die of consumption by the end.
Actually, while being a cinematic cliche, the Cough is a pretty varied one. A cough in any movie always represents one of the following -
1. A character is mortally ill, but is usually keeping it a secret. (seen to affect both genders in any time period according to medical experts)
2. The character(s) is/are smoking pot. (The Kumar Imperative)
3. The character is ripping a page out of a book. (The Gittes Maneuver)
4. The character(s) is/are surreptitiously casting insults upon some deserving person by way of coughing to cover words like “blowjob” or “asshole” (The Belushi Stratagem)
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### Author:  [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-language-of-cinema-cliche-this-is-how-you-know-that/295317/180 "2005-04-01T19:35:42Z")
Also, the first “jump-out-of-your-seat” moment in a horror movie may safely be attributed to a cat.
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