# 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:** 246
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4929 "2025-05-07T03:43:11Z")
Sort of. He’s unlikely to be a boss or owner. He is likely to have a record that includes assault and he’ll be doing serious time if he does it again. He doesn’t have to say anything to his minions because shit-for-brains losing control is going to bite them in the ass. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4930 "2025-05-07T03:53:27Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > That would work nowadays, but a few decades ago, not so much. Taxis have long had [trouble lights](https://iamavig.com/2015/07/30/tlc-emergency-lights-education-fixnyc/) as silent alarms that alert passing police cars ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4931 "2025-05-07T04:04:48Z")
That makes sense. I’m talking about, for instance, a carload of people on a social evening out, and one of them is just plain old acting weird and won’t get out of the car. I encountered this a few times as a teenager, that’s for sure. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2025, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4932 "2025-05-07T07:20:21Z")
A cop showing up at someone’s house and the person inside IMMEDIATELY assuming it’s a stripper because they’re showing up on their birthday/bachelor party. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4933 "2025-05-08T05:45:06Z")
Do reporters always smoke and play cards around a table in a “press room” when they’re waiting for a big story to break? ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4934 "2025-05-08T12:49:16Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > A cop showing up at someone’s house and the person inside IMMEDIATELY assuming it’s a stripper because they’re showing up on their birthday/bachelor party. It’s like the Rolling Stones said back in the day– _Just as every cop is a Chippendale…_ ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4935 "2025-05-08T13:35:10Z")
My SO was examining a blouse at TJ Maxx yesterday when an uncouth fellow shopper snatched it out of her hand. That reminded me of the trope of women battling in the basement of Gimbel’s in old movies ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4936 "2025-05-08T15:20:40Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Or the ever-present zombies who can only be stopped by shooting them in the head; any other organ shot that would stop a living in its tracks doesn’t faze them a bit. That part doesn’t bother me. We’re already into Sci-fi biology when we re-animate dead bodies, so who knows what organs they actually need? What bothers me is when no one bothers to remember that physics isn’t so easy to overcome. I don’t care how undead you are, you ain’t chasing me if you don’t have legs, or your leg bones are broken or smashed. You might be able to slither about a bit like a zombie octopus, but I can just walk away from that. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4937 "2025-05-08T15:58:35Z")
To me the biology and the physics of zombies is all of a piece. Zombies shouldn’t be able to chase you if their leg bones are broken or smashed, sure. But even with intact leg bones, how do their leg muscles work when they’re rotting meat? Bottom line, I think zombies as a concept is just dumb, period. Dead zombies at least. Live zombies, like the ‘28 Days Later’ zombies, I can grant a bit more suspension of belief. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4938 "2025-05-08T16:35:28Z")
> [@solost](#): > > I can grant a bit more suspension of belief. \*disbelief (missed edit window) ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4939 "2025-05-08T16:48:15Z")
You mean [like this?](https://youtu.be/B0on0wxcS7A?si=6x20Wl0N1GOVflEN) ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4940 "2025-05-08T17:08:56Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Zombies shouldn’t be able to chase you if their leg bones are broken or smashed, sure. But even with intact leg bones, how do their leg muscles work when they’re rotting meat? I now kind of want to see a movie where the after-death phenomenon in the first two acts is a poltergeist, and to kick off Act Three the occult expert delivering exposition mentions having needed to burn down a ‘haunted house,’ because the poltergeist (a) that couldn’t roam _beyond_ that house (b) could spookily move stuff within it, and, hey, who knows how long it’d be until that ghost went from creaking floorboards and books falling off shelves to, like, making a knife jump around? No, destroying that house — it had to be done. From what my mentor said, II probably just needed to destroy one key part of it, a thing in the attic or the bedroom or something, but I didn’t know and so erred on the side of caution. Where was I? Oh, right. So, what you’ve got here is a poltergeist; it happens to be haunting a corpse; it can’t roam _beyond_ that corpse, but it can move that rotting meat around. Yes, even if the leg bones are broken. But if that ghost is housed in a specific body part, like the brain, then destroying _that_ will make it stop marionetting the corpse… ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4941 "2025-05-08T19:21:37Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > That part doesn’t bother me. We’re already into Sci-fi biology when we re-animate dead bodies, so who knows what organs they actually need? > > What bothers me is when no one bothers to remember that physics isn’t so easy to overcome. I don’t care how undead you are, you ain’t chasing me if you don’t have legs, or your leg bones are broken or smashed. You might be able to slither about a bit like a zombie octopus, but I can just walk away from that. Really the only scenario that makes any sense is if some mysterious external force is literally animating corpses like they’re puppets, as long as there’s most of an articulated body to serve as a locus. **ETA** : ninja’d ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4942 "2025-05-08T19:30:33Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Where was I? Oh, right. So, what you’ve got here is a poltergeist; it happens to be haunting a corpse; it can’t roam _beyond_ that corpse, but it can move that rotting meat around. Yes, even if the leg bones are broken. But if that ghost is housed in a specific body part, like the brain, then destroying _that_ will make it stop marionetting the corpse… But then, that would be a very different movie. Poltergeists aren’t infectious, and that’s the big danger of zombies. They don’t just kill people, they make more of themselves every time they kill people. It’s an inherently losing proposition for us. It takes us years to replace human losses, but it takes only minutes or hours to replace zombie losses. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4943 "2025-05-08T20:04:13Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Really the only scenario that makes any sense is if some mysterious external force is literally animating corpses like they’re puppets, as long as there’s most of an articulated body to serve as a locus. Many, many years ago I read an essay in a science fiction magazine that speculated that Frankenstein’s monster wasn’t a re-animated corpse but was actually a giant colony of bacteria driving the corpse. I thought the piece did a pretty decent job of semi-scientific speculation and it would be interesting if that was applied to zombies. It is similar to _Last of Us_ where humans are infected with from a fungal outbreak. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4944 "2025-05-08T21:26:36Z")
That’s basically what happens in I Am Legend (the novella, not the multiple barely faithful movies. Except bacterial vampires instead of zombies. ---
**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:** [May 8, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4945 "2025-05-08T21:32:35Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Poltergeists aren’t infectious Well, I, uh, defer to your experience. So where do they come from? ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4946 "2025-05-08T21:41:17Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > So where do they come from? Cuesta Verde, CA ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4947 "2025-05-08T23:55:23Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Bottom line, I think zombies as a concept is just dumb, period. And that’s what I like about them. Authentic OG-style zombies are slow, brain-dead corpses shuffling after you. Stay in shape (practice sprinting), and get yourself some good weaponry (chainsaws… ooh, or the tree-trimming versions on long poles!), and you’ll be okay. Reminds me of a t-shirt I saw that said: … The only difficult thing about …the zombie apocalypse …is pretending I’m not …looking forward to it. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2025, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-extremely-common-in-tv-or-movies-but-almost-never-happens-in-real-life/932311/4948 "2025-05-09T05:14:59Z")
Then there’s this now-classic. [![](https://i.imgflip.com/2ku122.jpg) ](https://i.imgflip.com/2ku122.jpg) [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=245) [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=247)