# What is extremely common in TV or movies but almost never happens in real life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 6, 2021, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311 "2021-02-06T04:16:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 114
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2022, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2262 "2022-12-27T00:31:41Z")
Colors were weird on B&W. I watched _Laverne & Shirley_ on B&W for several years, and always thought that Laverne was a redhead. I watched a rerun for some reason a couple of years ago on my 58" flatscreen (color), and it looked weird. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2263 "2022-12-28T17:30:20Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > on my 58" flatscreen (color) just imagine how much you could have saved by getting the 58" flatscreen B&W ---
**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:** [December 31, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2264 "2022-12-31T20:54:35Z")
Here’s an old cliche in an otherwise pretty good horror movie I just watched: something horrible happens to the main character…but then suddenly they wake up gasping in terror— it was all just a bad dream! Not only is this super common horror scene a hoary old trope and a cheap way to create fake out jump scares, it’s a pet peeve of mine because people do not dream that they are watching themselves from out of body, like a normal movie scene- they experience the dream from their point of view, just as if they were awake. But of course the dream scene can’t be filmed that way or it would give the fake out away. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s never happened that people have dreamed that they see themselves from outside their body, but I would guess almost never, as the OP title says. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2022, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2265 "2022-12-31T21:42:05Z")
You just described the whole middle third of **this movie**. The first time I saw it I was confused as hell, and a subsequent viewing didn’t help much: > **[The Chase (1946 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(1946_film))** > > The Chase is a 1946 American film noir directed by Arthur Ripley. The screenplay by Philip Yordan is based on Cornell Woolrich's 1944 novel The Black Path of Fear. It stars Robert Cummings as Chuck Scott, a veteran who suffers from hallucinations. When he returns a lost wallet to violent mobster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), Eddie offers to hire him as a chauffeur. Chuck becomes mixed up in a plot to help Eddie's wife Lorna (Michèle Morgan) run off to Havana to escape her cruel husband. > Chuck S... **Quote:** _This entire absorbing part of the movie is all a PTS hallucination meant to pass screen time likely due to a lack of desire or possibly talent or both on the part of the screenwriter though hamstrung by the Hays Code to make a cohesive inventive script despite having a great cast._ ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2266 "2023-01-01T21:43:16Z")
It’s a long thread, so apologies if this has been covered. The arrest of a suspect in the Idaho college murders reminds us that cases where the guilty party turns out to be someone who’s studied criminology and forensics is apparently quite rare IRL. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2267 "2023-01-01T23:13:58Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > My headcannon Okay, I’ll bite – what’s a “headcannon”? ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2268 "2023-01-01T23:47:57Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Magic Trick women have of removing the bra without taking their shirt off. > **[Watch: Men Try Taking Off Bras Without Removing Shirts](https://www.buzzfeed.com/watch/video/78404)** > > "I should have stretched before this." ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2023, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2269 "2023-01-01T23:59:51Z")
It’s like “head canon” only LOUDER! ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2270 "2023-01-02T06:02:21Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Here’s an old cliche in an otherwise pretty good horror movie I just watched: something horrible happens to the main character…but then suddenly they wake up gasping in terror— it was all just a bad dream! > > Not only is this super common horror scene a hoary old trope and a cheap way to create fake out jump scares, it’s a pet peeve of mine because people do not dream that they are watching themselves from out of body, like a normal movie scene- they experience the dream from their point of view, just as if they were awake. But of course the dream scene can’t be filmed that way or it would give the fake out away. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s never happened that people have dreamed that they see themselves from outside their body, but I would guess almost never, as the OP title says. Unlike novels, where first person is a common form of presentation, movies and TV are almost never shot in true first person, where the camera is supposed to represent what an actual person is seeing. We see a “neutral” view that is not what any one person sees. So I’m okay with the trope being “factual”, it’s showing the dream from a neutral standpoint, not what the person dreaming actually sees, because that’s the default viewpoint of the media. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2271 "2023-01-02T22:05:57Z")
One of my college roommates could do that! She showed me how, and I never figured it out myself. As for using blue liquid in feminine hygiene commercials, I suspect that using red liquid would freak out a lot of people. My new entry, mostly on You Tube: People claiming they saw a pterodactyl. Folks, those were pelicans. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2272 "2023-01-02T22:29:09Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > It happens all the time in bad future speculative fiction or bad alternative histories. That’s largely why they’re “bad” alternative histories. But yeah, if North Korea killed a US diplomat and sent his head back to Biden, I guarantee air strikes would be a virtual certainty. Probably extensive and repeated air strikes. I don’t know that we’d actually invade, but I’d bet a lot of money that the US would bomb the absolute shit out of North Korea for some sort of transgression like that. I shudder to think of what China might do. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2023, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2273 "2023-01-02T22:51:57Z")
Speaking of arrests, and this too may have already have been mentioned in this long thread… on TV the cops always read the suspect their Miranda rights immediately after arresting them. That’s not how it works in real life – they just have to read their rights before asking them any questions. It’s usually done at the police station in the interrogation room. But because we’re so used to seeing it on TV being done at the time of arrest, in this era when everyone has a video camera on their phone and can film the police arresting people, people think they caught the police doing something wrong when they don’t read an arrestee their rights immediately. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2274 "2023-01-03T00:14:34Z")
> [@WildaBeast](#): > > Speaking of arrests, and this too may have already have been mentioned in this long thread… on TV the cops always read the suspect their Miranda rights immediately after arresting them. When I was arrested, I was mirandized in the car shortly after being placed there. So it worked out pretty closely to that in my experience. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2275 "2023-01-03T01:17:01Z")
On _Live PD_ they quite often read a suspect their Miranda rights on the scene. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2276 "2023-01-03T04:59:39Z")
Seriously, **Biden** ordering air strikes? I highly doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2277 "2023-01-03T05:01:28Z")
In the meantime, I saw a maxipad commercial where they poured PINK liquid into a pad. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2278 "2023-01-03T05:35:12Z")
Cite? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2279 "2023-01-03T07:35:10Z")
Ah well, I just read this article and took it at face value, it might be bunk for all I know. [Idaho Murders Suspect Made One Huge Mistake, Expert Says (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/idaho-murders-suspect-made-one-huge-mistake-expert-says/ar-AA15Qnxm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=2f91db03bc0841eca571f66b390c8c0f) > But while one ex-cop and criminology professor who writes textbooks on how to conduct criminal investigations says it’s not inconceivable a student could use that knowledge for the wrong reasons, it’s also exceedingly rare. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2280 "2023-01-03T08:41:23Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > I suppose it must, sometimes, but I still think it belongs in this thread. DIL’s water broke at work. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2023, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/2281 "2023-01-03T08:44:37Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Ah well, I just read this article and took it at face value, it might be bunk for all I know. Consider that they didn’t even get the college right > A first-year Ph.D. student and teaching assistant at the University of Washington in Pullman That would be Washington State University. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311.md?page=113) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311.md?page=115)