In real life, if somebody has a cough (at least in pre-Covid times) 99% of the time it’s nothing serious. In movies and TV if somebody has a cough it will turn out to be a symptom of a very serious or terminal illness. I’m sure there’s a named trope for that. probably called the “Cough of Death” or similar (Ok, I checked-- it’s actually Incurable Cough of Death. Close!).
Likewise, if a young woman throws up on TV or in a movie it always means she’s pregnant, unless it’s clearly shown to be a consequence of drinking too much. Stomach bugs don’t exist.
One thing I noticed in the original Law & Order often when raiding an apartment there would be a SWAT squad in full body armor and the two lead detectives in their regular business suits. A member of the SWAT would bash the apartment door open and the two lead detectives in their regular clothing would lead ther way in followed by the full armored SWAT squad—which makes no sense to me. Shouldn’t the lead be fully armored as well?
It’s also pretty common in action movies. The SWAT or Special Forces squad members would all being helmets and face shields but the main characters in charge wouldn’t. Not going to pay some A List actor millions of dollars to be in film and then cover his face I guess.
I thought this was a real thing. I thought the idea is that a regular mine that goes off instantly will generally only kill the soldier who steps on it. But if you have a mine that explodes when you step off of it, the first soldier steps on it, realizes what happened, and then other soldiers will go to him and attempt to help him. So when the mine goes off, it kills several soldiers instead of just one.
No that’s an urban myth or Hollywood legend. Many antipersonnel mines are low powered and designed more to maim then kill which takes out the soldier and forces others to help. There was only one WWII mine type that exploded when released. All others explode when you put pressure down. If someone puts a mine down they want it to explode when you step on it.
We see a head-on view of two people driving down the street and talking while they do it. The driver waggles the wheel from side to side periodically, in a way which, in real life, would have him swerving all over the road.
Way back in the '60s, Laura (Donna Mills) in Love Is a Many Splendored Thing had amnesia for months as a result of the shock she got when she learned her husband (David Birney) had been cheating on her.
You see that in people flying airplanes, too, on screen. Or worse yet, they’re using the yoke like you would a steering wheel on a car which is not how it’s done if you know what you’re doing.
They also don’t show the mother throwing up all over the place and peeing on the doctor, which is what my wife did for my first child. (One more reason against home birth.) For our second she told them this while being admitted, and she got a room right away even when it was crowded.
TV births are so clean!
Kidnappers who use chloroform to subdue their victims, by holding a cloth over their face for a few seconds. In reality it takes at least 5 minutes of breathing chloroform vapors to induce unconsciousness. I’ve encountered people who flatly refuse to believe this; they’ve seen it happen on so many TV shows, they are positive it works that way.
What, you’ve never had the police role up to you while you were chilling in a nightclub with your homies to ask you a bunch of questions? Do police ever go from bar to bar at 2am looking for someone on the chance they might be hanging out there that night? As opposed to just showing up at the person’s home at 6am?
My second son, born 14 months after his older brother, just popped out onto the table while the doctor was putting on his gloves, no assistance needed. At least he hit the table and didn’t fall on the floor, it was a very easy birth.
As soon as the baby was cleaned up my wife asked when we could go home. They made us wait I think a full 12 hours, but she was ready to be back home in only an hour or so.
