# What is extremely common in real life but almost never happens on TV or movies?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-real-life-but-almost-never-happens-on-tv-or-movies/1013143>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** movies\
**Created:** [January 20, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-real-life-but-almost-never-happens-on-tv-or-movies/1013143 "2025-01-20T00:56:43Z")\
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**Showing post:** 14

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**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-real-life-but-almost-never-happens-on-tv-or-movies/1013143/14 "2025-01-20T13:11:47Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> …I suspect that this is going to be a tricky thread without some ground rules. There’s obviously a plethora of totally mundane things rarely shown on TV, and it’s also tempting to give examples that are really talking about TV tropes, but negated.

But…if you leave out mundane stuff and negated tropes, what’s left? When I half-jokingly suggested starting a thread like this in the other, ‘mother’ thread, I used a couple negated tropes:

> [@What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4579):
>
> Hmm, might make for a good spinoff thread… Somebody has a cough— and it’s not a harbinger of death! It’s just a mild cold or minor throat irritation. A young woman of childbearing age throws up— and she’s not pregnant! She just has Norovirus.

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