# What is a plot or genre you hate for personal reasons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 6, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988 "2015-04-06T20:14:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/41 "2015-04-07T13:58:41Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Most of us have had to worry, on a daily basis, about maintaining a steady income all our adult lives. Groceries, rent/mortgage, employer-dependent healthcare and pension. I have no sympathy for characters who are somehow able to dispense with those concerns while overwhelmed with other problems. > > I was told in a college mass media class that we the audience want to escape from our daily worries with stories where money doesn’t matter. Money effects everything, goddammit. For all their other faults, Dickens, Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis never forgot this. Bollywood stories are kind of like this - full of romantic love and exotic scenery, neither of which the peasants get much of. It’s gotten to the point that there are two kinds of stories: movies designed to appeal to the masses, who need some escapism, and stories about India designed to appeal to NRIs (non resident Indians) who are feeling nostalgia. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/42 "2015-04-07T14:01:12Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I always think of the movies they made during the depression, with Carole Lombard and Fred and Ginger. Screwball comedies, where they lived in a fantasy land of white Art Deco mansions with enormous flower arrangements in every room (sometimes more), cool cars, the women dressed in chiffon and slinky gowns, sitting at little tables in nightclubs watching Busby Berkely numbers. I am told people scraped together a few pennies every week to go sit in a movie theater, ‘forgetting their troubles’, and enjoying the shennanigans of their Betters. I would have been eaten away with resentment, leaving the theater to go back to my cold humble flat and make toast and tea. You do get a bit of a flavour for this just by watching TV today. I often note that the folks in TV shows appear to live lives of unrealistic wealth - for example, living in huge and richly-furnished houses and appartments in major cities, while apparently not having occupations that would actually generate that kind of cash. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/43 "2015-04-07T14:06:18Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > It’s getting harder and harder for me to stomach even casual racism and misogyny in movies. I wonder how I ever found them funny. It really makes me lose respect for everyone involved. Whatever you do, don’t watch early James Bond movies. 😉 We saw one recently, late-night with nothing better to do, and the outright misogyny made my jaw drop. My wife’s reaction: “that guy is an asshole and I hope the bad guys get him”. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/44 "2015-04-07T14:06:28Z")
anything with a happy ending. [LG]i hate happy endings[/LG]. exception is made for if the happy ending is due to lots of gunfire, fights, explosions and chase scenes. then the action factor overcomes the happy ending factor, e.g. Die Hard. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/45 "2015-04-07T14:10:10Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Well, humiliation is a wide and varied field. Personally, what I really can’t stand, specifically, is humor generated by the tricking and subsequent embarrassment of unwitting victims. In other words, Candid Camera stuff. There is nothing less funny. I always feel for the poor people being fooled, and I just want to punch the “comedians” behind the set-ups. If you ever pull a Candid Camera stunt on me, I’m coming after your ass. I wonder if producers have to get such people to sign a waiver afterwards in order to avoid getting sued. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/46 "2015-04-07T14:21:26Z")
the dufus who gains a skill or quality in accelerated movie/tv time frame. like that of kung fu movies where the guy is unable to chew gum and walk at the same time and ends up killing a dozen people in a fight where that person is on the verge of death a few times and springs back. Brace up. Brace up. exception is made for kung fu and samurai movies, especially asian, because (you know) fights, killing and stuff. you just ignore/laugh at/skip the early stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/47 "2015-04-07T14:32:54Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Whatever you do, don’t watch early James Bond movies. 😉 > > We saw one recently, late-night with nothing better to do, and the outright misogyny made my jaw drop. My wife’s reaction: “that guy is an asshole and I hope the bad guys get him”. No, I don’t watch them. 🙂 I also HATE-HATE-HATE the whole shtick where the white guy comes in and saves the fucking day and everybody loves him. Atlantis was a cool movie except the natives literally do nothing as their princess is being kidnapped, just stand around and stare, while the white guy rushes in to save the day. Just once I want to see the movie where the white guy tries to get the beautiful princess and instead she kicks his stupid ass and goes with the guy she’s known since childhood who is after all a perfectly decent guy, or even better, pulls a _Brave_ decides she needs something more than just a husband. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/48 "2015-04-07T14:41:09Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > No, I don’t watch them. 🙂 > > I also HATE-HATE-HATE the whole shtick where the white guy comes in and saves the fucking day and everybody loves him. Atlantis was a cool movie except the natives literally do nothing as their princess is being kidnapped, just stand around and stare, while the white guy rushes in to save the day. > > Just once I want to see the movie where the white guy tries to get the beautiful princess and instead she kicks his stupid ass and goes with the guy she’s known since childhood who is after all a perfectly decent guy, or even better, pulls a _Brave_ decides she needs something more than just a husband. Weren’t the Atlantians shown to be sort of suffering from mental effects from the immortality? I mean they had forgotten how to read their own language script, some sort of dementia or something. To make clear they aren’t like descendants who forgot, they are the exact same people. ---
**Author:** ![Gothic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Gothic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gothic)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/49 "2015-04-07T14:43:41Z")
Kidnapping and cringe worthy Larry David material. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/50 "2015-04-07T14:46:11Z")
> [@grude](#): > > Weren’t the Atlantians shown to be sort of suffering from mental effects from the immortality? I mean they had forgotten how to read their own language script, some sort of dementia or something. > > To make clear they aren’t like descendants who forgot, they are the exact same people. Oh, I missed the dementia angle, which would make it slightly better but not that much because the Princess was still pretty sharp (although fairly useless too). I thought they just forgot to read their stuff because it was so long ago. It was kind of a confusing movie. They didn’t really clarify much. I just liked Ivanova (Claudia Christian) as Helga. I adore her. ---
**Author:** ![Lemmytheseal2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/82dd89/32.png) [@Lemmytheseal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemmytheseal2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/51 "2015-04-07T14:55:11Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > … it’s about as much fun for me as a **sheet lightning enema**. Band name. > [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > I’m the opposite here: ugly family dramas like **Long Day’s Journey Into Night** and **Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf** give me encouragement that somebody is taking the trouble to write about this stuff, instead of zombies and superheroes. There’s no reason that (perhaps) zombies and (especially) superheroes can’t deal with all of that stuff. The best stories are all about that sort of thing. Do you want some recommendations? ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/52 "2015-04-07T14:59:24Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Oh, I missed the dementia angle, which would make it slightly better but not that much because the Princess was still pretty sharp (although fairly useless too). I thought they just forgot to read their stuff because it was so long ago. > > It was kind of a confusing movie. They didn’t really clarify much. I just liked Ivanova (Claudia Christian) as Helga. I adore her. You’re right in that it was badly written or edited, I remember several moments where I was like huh how did that happen? I might be remembering wrong but I remember them establishing the princess was alive when Atlantis sank and saw it, so for her to forget her native language is bizarre unless something was going on. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/53 "2015-04-07T15:10:55Z")
I’ve lost my tolerance for gun movies. Judging by the promos on the tube, that’s just about every action/adventure movie made. They have very limited time in commercials to sell the story, but if there’s someone in the movie shooting a gun, by god it’s in the commercial. The strange thing is, viewers are so inured to shootings in movies that no one bats an eye when people get shot. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/54 "2015-04-07T15:12:16Z")
Humiliation humor. Anything that’s like Fawlty Towers where a combination of offensive/awkward on purpose carries the humor, too. I just want to hide my face and cringe until it’s over. Movies where a person is involuntarily committed through a mistaken belief that they are insane/incapable. Bonus points for electroshock therapy or force feeding. In general, superhero movies have lost their charm for me and I find most a slog to get through these days. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/55 "2015-04-07T15:23:41Z")
Grim, violent dystopian or post-apocolypic movies (and books). Just don’t want to go there. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/56 "2015-04-07T15:31:16Z")
In a grim, distopian future, an evil government forces dorky Asian contestants to battle against each other in an arena where they humiliate each other with racist and sexist humour. All appears lost … until a plucky White guy appears to save the day! ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/57 "2015-04-07T15:45:51Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Humour that is generated by humiliation of someone. > [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > Especially when the character is clearly headed for a huge humiliation or embarrassment and only the audience realizes it. Every single thing they do for half the movie just makes the situation worse and they remain blissfully unaware of it until the shit hits the fan. > [@Macca26](#): > > Humiliation humor. Anything that’s like Fawlty Towers where a combination of offensive/awkward on purpose carries the humor, too. I just want to hide my face and cringe until it’s over. Me too. Essentially, humor where we’re given the choice of laughing in contempt at some clueless ridiculous specimen or else cringing and wincing in empathy as the trainwreck progresses. e.g., _The Office_ (Michael Scott). Can’t stay in the same room. Zillions of sitcoms, watching Darren Stevens or Granny Clampett or Lucy embrace some spectacularly bad idea or stumble through awkward lies and pretenses in lieu of just being honest or whatever, making an incredible mess of things while we, I suppose, are expected to watch, smugly superior, as they dig themselves in deeper. No thanks. But by far the worst ones are the ones where the character seems to exist _only for this purpose_. Frankly, it makes me a poor audience for a significant percent of British comedy, as well as much of the kind of skits that Saturday Night Live is famous for. One or more people doing a deadpan portrayal of someone acting awkwardly, socially cluelessly, pathetically, in a way that invites ridicule and would make identification with the character painful. I had enough of being made fun of and feeling socially awkward & clueless; I’m not inclined to make fun of others for their dorkiness. Positioning them as people who hold repellent political beliefs or who do horrid things to people doesn’t make it “OK” or more comfortable, by the way. You can ridicule people for what they believe without ridiculing their personality and behavioral nuances and vulnerabilities. And yes, I suppose it makes me ponderously serious and a complete lack of fun at parties. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2015, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/58 "2015-04-07T16:26:26Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In a grim, distopian future, an evil government forces dorky Asian contestants to battle against each other in an arena where they humiliate each other with racist and sexist humour. > > All appears lost … until a plucky White guy appears to save the day! I would so watch that movie, and laugh my ass off throughout. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/59 "2015-04-07T16:47:04Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > In a grim, distopian future, an evil government forces dorky Asian contestants to battle against each other in an arena where they humiliate each other with racist and sexist humour. > > All appears lost … until a plucky White guy appears to save the day! Great now my coworkers are wondering why I am snorting and chuckling with laugher. ---
**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:** [April 7, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988/60 "2015-04-07T16:49:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > - Mob fiction where the mobsters are portrayed sympathetically. _Godfather_, _Goodfellas_, _Scarface_ etc. I’m in complete agreement here, and thought about posting the same thing, but I decided not to because I didn’t think it was personal reason. That is, I’ve never had any personal relationship or dealing with gangsters. I just have enough common sense to know that people who commit murder and sell drugs wholesale, etc., are not people worthy of sympathy. The notion that they are is ridiculous to me, not for personal reasons but is just a matter of reason and common sense. Idolizing thugs is idiocy. So I didn’t post it. I feel that several other entries in this thread fail the “personal” test as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-plot-or-genre-you-hate-for-personal-reasons/716988.md?page=4)