# Titles with misleading connotations **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 11, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769 "2010-12-11T07:40:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/1 "2010-12-11T07:40:08Z")
Let’s discuss books, movies, songs, etc., whose titles give the impression of something totally different than what the work is really about. My nomination: \*On the Beach, \*which is not about a nice day at the seashore, but about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The end of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/2 "2010-12-11T17:41:45Z")
If you heard of a movie called **Sorceror** , would you think it’s about……four desperate outcasts in Central America hired to drive truckloads of unstable dynamite through the jungle to put out a forest fire? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/3 "2010-12-11T17:57:38Z")
_Fried Green Tomatoes_ Worse yet, the tagline, "The secret’s in the sauce."One main character barbecues her lover’s husband & secretly feeds him to the town. Yep, that secret. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/4 "2010-12-11T18:58:51Z")
If you saw the classic “Curse of Bigfoot” in the late 1970s, would you think it was really about an American Indian mummy awakes–with quite an attitude-- from its millennial slumber by some hapless college students Or that the planets Abbott and Costello land on visit in “Abbott and Costello Go to Mars” are actually Venus and. . . New Orleans during Mardi Gras? ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/5 "2010-12-11T20:33:39Z")
Ooh, an “art film” from Europe playing in “art theaters” called _The Nasty Girl_? The pretty and young lead girl is _so_ nasty that she [spoiler]pisses off her little German town by investigating and digging up the truth regarding the town’s collaboration with the Third Reich, rather than the resistance that town elders claim occurred. My then-wife thought I was buying softcore porn when I came home from the laserdisc shop with that one.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/6 "2010-12-11T23:23:14Z")
The song “Wichita Lineman” is not about a college football player. ---
**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:** [December 11, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/7 "2010-12-11T23:29:00Z")
The Nutcracker had zero physical comedy. And, and, with a name like the Nutcracker, I thought, oh, this would be worth a few yucks. But no…that title wrote a check those queers on stage refused to cash. ---
**Author:** ![hlanelee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@hlanelee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlanelee)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/8 "2010-12-12T00:25:39Z")
Bare Naked Ladies are not… ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/9 "2010-12-12T00:34:05Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > _Fried Green Tomatoes_ > > Worse yet, the tagline, "The secret’s in the sauce."One main character barbecues her lover’s husband & secretly feeds him to the town. Yep, that secret. I thought it was about some monsters that were giant green tomatoes when I was a kid, and that sounded lame even then. I’m glad I never thought as an adult to watch it for the lulz. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/10 "2010-12-12T00:49:35Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > My then-wife thought I was buying softcore porn when I came home from the laserdisc shop with that one. My wife thought I’d picked up hardcore porn when I brought home a film marked XXX; instead, of course, Vin Diesel plays a wisecracking snowboarder turned secret agent, who, uh, drinks cranberry juice, and, er, is good at parachuting. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/11 "2010-12-12T01:07:33Z")
_Fiddler on the Roof_ doesn’t actually have a character called The Fiddler (aside from a few visions of him by the protagonist). ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/12 "2010-12-12T22:40:08Z")
In the immortal words of The Simpson’s Nelson Muntz about the movie _Naked Lunch_: “I can think of at least two things wrong with that title!” ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/13 "2010-12-13T20:07:14Z")
I remember a guy I knew in college said that he had gotting a Talking To by his father over a receipt for “Dirty Pair” and “Dirty Pair Flash”, both SF animes. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/14 "2010-12-13T20:40:45Z")
**The Last King of Scotland** Who’d a thunk it was a movie about Idi Amin with a title like that? > **[The Last King of Scotland (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_King_of_Scotland_%28film%29)** > > The Last King of Scotland is a 2006 historical drama film directed by Kevin Macdonald from a screenplay by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock. Based on Giles Foden's 1998 novel, its plot depicts the dictatorship of Ugandan President Idi Amin through the perspective of Nicholas Garrigan, a fictional Scottish doctor. The film stars Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, and Gillian Anderson. The title of the film refers to Amin's spurious claim of being the King of Scotland. > ... > [@](#): > > The title comes from a reporter in a press conference who wishes to verify whether Amin declared himself the King of Scotland. Amin was known to invent fancy imperial-sounding titles for himself, a practice he learned during British colonial rule. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/15 "2010-12-13T20:59:55Z")
> [@hlanelee](#): > > Bare Naked Ladies are not… There was an rap group in the 90’s called [Young Black Teenagers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Black_Teenagers) comprised entirely of white kids. It’s incredible they weren’t completely laughed off the stage at every show. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/16 "2010-12-13T21:47:04Z")
In other news, the Presidents of the United States of America never actually lived in the White House. ---
**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:** [December 13, 2010, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/17 "2010-12-13T22:19:48Z")
“Serenity” is not about someone meditating with Buddhist monks. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/18 "2010-12-13T23:01:28Z")
I don’t know about their attitudes, but the **Violent Femmes** are (or were) all guys. ---
**Author:** ![Ura-Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Ura-Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ura-Maru)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/19 "2010-12-13T23:42:09Z")
Blade Runner was a great title for a book about black-market medical supplies being run past the Nazis. It’s kind of arbitrary for a movie about hunting down androids in the rain. It’s non-union Japanese equivalent, Bubble Gum Crisis, had NOTHING to do with the crippling candy and snack food shortages of the early 1930’s. In fact, it was about girls of ambiguously sexuality hunting down androids. In powered armor. And the androids have ORBITAL PARTICLE BEAMS. It’s cool. Actually a lot of 80’s anime had really random titles . . . I’m not sure what you would expect a show titled Genesis Climber Mospeda to be about, but unless you guessed a gurilla war against aliens across the exotic USA, you’re wrong. – No, Blade Runner doesn’t get a spoiler. If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the internet. Now. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/20 "2010-12-13T23:59:37Z")
I’ll never forget that day I listened to an album with a [lightning bolt skull](http://www.orbitcast.com/archives/grateful-dead.gif) on it, and ‘dead’ in the band’s name. I was disappointed. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769.md?page=2)