# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/21 "2010-12-14T01:11:12Z")
Ohh, Anime. OK, I have a couple of my own. [Appleseed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleseed_%28film%29) is not about John Chapman. [Now and Then, Here and There](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now_and_Then,_Here_and_There) - With a title like that you’d never think that it’s a brutal, depressing, and uncomfortable anime that doesn’t seem to have any bright spots until you start getting to the end. ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/22 "2010-12-14T02:00:18Z")
_The Longest Most Meaningless Movie In The World_ is only the fourth longest movie in the world (although it must be pointed out that it once was the very longest). ---
**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 14, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/23 "2010-12-14T02:17:52Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. “Bladerunner” was the title of a completely different science fiction novel by physician Alan E. Nourse. It’s very good, and I highly recommend it, but it has nothing to do with dangerous killer androids or the people who “retire” them. William S. Burroughs did a treatment for it as a film, which Ridley Scott apparently looked through. He wasn’t interested in Nourse’s book (about black-market doctors in the future, and the men who provide medical supplies for them, including scalpels – hence, “Bladerunners”), but he liked the title a lot more than “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, so he purchased the rights. If you pay close attention to the closing credits, Scott thanks Nourse and Burroughs for the use of the title. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/24 "2010-12-14T02:44:43Z")
[Hijack] I thought the **Fringe** episode “Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?” sounded familiar. :smack: [/hijack] ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/25 "2010-12-14T03:41:25Z")
> [@Student\_Driver](#): > > 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] The problem with that one is a bad translation. The German title didn’t carry those connotations. It was more like The Horrible Young Lady. Which is still a weird title for the film, but not as weird as the English title. ---
**Author:** ![sco3tt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sco3tt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sco3tt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/26 "2010-12-14T05:51:13Z")
_Prick Up Your Ears_. At least, on first hearing it, not after seeing it spelled out. ---
**Author:** ![Cicero](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cicero/32/3594_2.png) [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/27 "2010-12-14T11:46:15Z")
I always thought “The Happy Hooker” was about a fisherman. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/28 "2010-12-14T13:14:01Z")
> [@whitetho](#): > > 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!” Yeah! And that TV show _The Naked Archeologist_! He never appears other than fully clothed. (Thankfully.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/29 "2010-12-14T13:16:16Z")
> [@sco3tt](#): > > _Prick Up Your Ears_. > > At least, on first hearing it, not after seeing it spelled out. 😕 Isn’t the _double entendre_ intended with that one? (Or did you think it was about Mr Spock, or elves or something?) ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/30 "2010-12-14T13:18:29Z")
Rush Music by Eric Clapton ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/31 "2010-12-14T14:53:31Z")
Silence of the Lambs is not about lambs (or Hal Briston!) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/32 "2010-12-14T15:24:43Z")
Harlan Ellison’s “A Boy and His Dog” is hardly what it sounds like it would be. I wonder how many parents took their kids to a matinee of the movie made from it, and got quite the surprise… I also knew some people who were disappointed that _Ghost World_ wasn’t a horror story. For that matter, _The Ring_ is neither about boxing nor an engagement. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/33 "2010-12-14T15:27:57Z")
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” has no horses or other animals, so the ASPCA and PETA have no need to picket. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/34 "2010-12-14T15:32:08Z")
_The Color Purple._ WTF?! All these people are **brown,** man! ---
**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 14, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/35 "2010-12-14T16:01:57Z")
> [@](#): > > The Color Purple. This one is also a victim of the “Explanation for the Title Given in the movie isn’t the whole story” syndrome. They realize that they have to give a reason for the title, so near the end they throw in Whoopi saying “I think God gets pissed off when people don’t appreciate The Color Purple”, whereas the symbolism of Purple runs much deeper in the book: > [@](#): > > The Color Purple > > The title of the book is a very important symbol. Celie goes through life having a hard time noticing the beautiful aspects and appreciating them. She had a difficult life and was abused as an adolescent. The color purple is continually equated with suffering and pain. Sofia’s swollen, beaten face is described as the color of “eggplant”. : the site of her sexual violation.[4] However, later Shug points out to her that you have to enjoy life. When they were in a field of purple flowers, Shug tells Celie to look at the flowers and embrace their beauty. “You must look at all the good and acknowledge them because God placed them all on earth”. After learning this, Celie has a better respect for life and everything it has to offer. > **[The Color Purple](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Color_Purple)** > > The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction.\[a\] > The novel has been the target of censors numerous times, and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2010 at number seventeen because of the sometimes explicit content, particularly in terms of violence. In 2003, the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the... For something similar, see the movie version of Stephen King’s **Hearts in Atlantis** (another good example for this thread), where the movie throws in some card-playing as a weak excuse for the title. > [@](#): > > In addition, all the references to the Dark Tower were removed and the final destinies of the characters, revealed in the latter stories of the original novel, are not included. A further consequence of the changes is that the title of the film is completely impenetrable to those not familiar with the novel; a snatch of dialogue attempts to remedy this. > **[Hearts in Atlantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts_in_Atlantis)** > > Hearts in Atlantis (1999) is a collection of three novellas and two short stories by Stephen King, all connected to one another by recurring characters and taking place in roughly chronological order. The stories are loosely autobiographical; in an author's note, King writes that while the places in the book are fictionalized, "Although it is difficult to believe, the sixties are not fictional; they actually happened." > In the first and longest work in the book, the year is 1960. A young boy na... ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/36 "2010-12-14T16:53:05Z")
> [@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. What? _That’s_ what it’s about? I always thought it was about a group of quirky but lovable middle-aged Southern ladies who loved to cook. ---
**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 14, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/37 "2010-12-14T17:22:49Z")
**Gone with the Wind** is another example of the Obscure Title that Has a Simplistic Interpretation in the Movie that Might Not Be What the Author Intended. The title is so familiar that a lot of folks probably haven’t considered how ambiguous and uninformative it is to the uninitiated. Had I not been immersed in a culture filled with references to this flick, I never would’ve guessed it was about the Civil War. As for the meaning of the title, the movie opens with the explanation that it refers to the antebellum way of life, gone forever with the wind. But AFAIK, there’s no evidence that Mitchell saw it that way: > [@](#): > > The title is taken from the first line of the third stanza of the poem Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae[2] by Ernest Dowson: “I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind.” The novel’s protagonist, Scarlett O’Hara, also uses the title phrase in a line in the book: when her home area is overtaken by the Yankees, she wonders to herself if her home, a plantation called Tara, is still standing, or if it was “also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia.” More generally, the title has been interpreted as referring to the entire way of life of the antebellum South as having “Gone with the Wind.” The prologue of the movie refers to the old way of life in the South as “gone with the wind….” > The title for the novel was a problem for Mitchell. She initially titled the book “Pansy,” the original name for the character of Scarlett O’Hara. Although never seriously considered, the title “Pansy” was dropped once MacMillan persuaded Mitchell to rename the main character. Other proposed titles included “Tote the Weary Load” and “Tomorrow is Another Day,” the latter taken from the last line in the book; however, the publisher noted that there were several books close to the same title at the time, so Mitchell was asked to find another title. She chose “Gone with the Wind.” > **[Gone with the Wind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind)** > > Gone with the Wind most often refers to: > Gone with the Wind may also refer to: ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/38 "2010-12-14T17:29:01Z")
“Burn Notice” and “The Wire” are misleading to me. Burn notice sounds like you’re notifying someone that you will be doing a controlled burn somewhere. The Wire sounds like a show about a newswire service. Or a guy that makes stuff out of chicken wire. ---
**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 14, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/39 "2010-12-14T18:43:10Z")
_The NeverEnding Story_ isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769/40 "2010-12-14T18:44:56Z")
> [@control-z](#): > > “Burn Notice” and “The Wire” are misleading to me. Burn notice sounds like you’re notifying someone that you will be doing a controlled burn somewhere. The Wire sounds like a show about a newswire service. Or a guy that makes stuff out of chicken wire. I still have no idea what “Burn Notice” is about, though a lot of people seem to like it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/titles-with-misleading-connotations/563769.md?page=3)