Prisons. Having worked in corrections for several years, they’re way off. But if they portrayed it accurately, it’d be boring as fuck. So it’s ok that they do.
Waking up in the morning. They always look flawless. Hair in place, makeup fresh, breath fresh. They wear perfect nightwear in perfect bedrooms.
I, on the other hand wake up with gritty eyes, hair disheveled, drool stains on my wrinkled t shirt that I wore over faded lounge pants that are too big. My mouth feels like a dragon shit in it and my bedroom I sleep in has the hand me down furniture my in laws gave me.
Something that always bugs me is how movies and TV shows always make mafias either Spanish, Arab, or Russian. Like, apparently those are the only nationalities allowed to be organized criminals in Hollywood. It’s always the same dramatic accents, moody lighting, and some mysterious backstory. Meanwhile, real organized crime is way more diverse and honestly, sometimes way less glamorous. But they still stick to the same recycled stereotypes, like it’s a rule. At this point, if there’s a guy in a leather jacket with a thick accent and some tattoos, I already know what’s coming.
As someone who works in a lab, it drives me crazy when they show scientists making groundbreaking discoveries in like, 10 minutes. Girl, I’ve been running the same experiment for three months, and I still don’t have conclusive results.
People getting shot and or killed by other means and things blowing up.
And the reaction to tragedy.
No one gets blown back by small arms fire, cars almost never actually explode, and people rarely die in 20 seconds from lethal damage that isn’t massive trauma or a perfect hit on something critical.
People who have found out they have lost a family member in tragic ways or some equivalent tragedy tend to erupt into incoherent and inconsolable ugly snot crying for an extended period of time, not shed a few tears and have a monologue.
Crochet and knitting. I’ve seen people ‘knitting’ with crochet hooks and using knitting needles on granny squares (which are a classic crochet technique/pattern).
Getting hit in the head hard enough will only knock someone out and they wake up moments later perfectly fine. In real life, the person would have brain damage.
Horses do not neigh and whinny every five seconds.
My equestrian friends and I went to see Mamma Mia 2 in the cinemas and were cackling the whole way through this dramatic scene with a horse freaking out in the barn, because whoever was in post production had added a load of happy horse whinnies over the clips of a ‘distressed’ horse.
Also, that thing when a horse is freaking out and the girl runs up to it and pets it and goes “wooooahhhhh, woooah there…” almost never works.
Digital files. Everyone pretends data isn’t something you can copy 1,000 times and store anywhere. No, it’s always just one copy in existence and “give us back this CD” (there’s a particularly egregious case in Flash Forward).
Giving birth. You don’t scream your head off. You just push. I didn’t sweat, but mine were born quickly. So maybe some do sweat. But it is way more dramatic in the movies and tv shows.
Anything aircraft related. My favourite are the vast avionics bays or baggage areas like the one on Flightplan. Surprised there was any room for passengers.
Someone breaks into a car, pull the wires out from under the dash, fiddles with them a little and drives away. Modern cars have good enough security it doesn’t work that way anymore.
Alien contact – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZDwLU_TXYU – place an aluminum can the trackpad of your laptop, if the cursor on the screen moves by itself then aliens are remotely controlling your computer and you have made contact –
CPR. It’s an incredibly graphic process, and the point isn’t to revive people. It’s to keep their blood oxygenated and flowing so their organs aren’t damaged before professional help can arrive.
When my wife’s water broke, I started going like “Ok, baby is coming now, hopefully the baby doesn’t pop out of the way to the hospital!” Baby wasn’t born for another 25 hours.
Also, baby doesn’t always come out crying, so when it comes out and is purple and not moving for the first few seconds, that’s kind of alarming.
Labor is always 15 minutes long, babies come out clean as a whistle. When having a baby in a non-traditional setting, which always seems to be a cab or elevator, the umbilical cord never needs to be cut.
How easily people can be knocked unconscious, pistol whipped or have their neck broken. The likelihood of actually losing consciousness from any of those depends highly on the force and where you’re struck. Breaking your neck is absurdly difficult to do on purpose and while you can do it by twisting, it’s not a cool swift motion, it’s awkward, difficult and the victim would be struggling the entire time.
Oh also sleeper holding someone into prolonged unconsciousness. It’s not difficult. It’s scientifically impossible.
It’s the most overused plot device in cinematic history.
How the human body responds to sudden blood loss, particularly muscle movement. Stabbing and shooting victims lose a lot of motor function, where even just walking becomes impossible.
If you take a knock on the head (or get caught in a blast wave) serious enough that you lose consciousness even briefly, you need immediate medical attention, because there’s a high likelihood your brain is bleeding, and there’s nowhere for that pressure to go. If you don’t get it taken care of, the pressure buildup can kill you or cause permanent brain injury.
The exception might be if unconsciousness is due to being choked out (e.g. compression of carotid arteries via rear naked choke), which tends to be brief, doesn’t result from impact, and isn’t likely to be serious unless it’s prolonged or the compression breaks loose a blood clot.
Doctors can always find a diagnosis, and if they can’t, all they need is a motivational talk to suddenly remember some obscure test they’ll order. In reality there are SO MANY diseases and disorders with similar presentations (including in lab work and imaging!) and a lot of times it’s just trial and error. The Grey’s Anatomy effect has caused so many people to lose trust in doctors because they feel that if their diseases wasn’t diagnosed immediately, the doctor just doesn’t care.
Anthrax doesn’t look like that. Stop calling. You are intentionally not shown what it actually looks like so we can differentiate what’s a real threat or just someone being jumpy or confusing it with paper detritus or errant cocaine.
Errant Cocaine is a solid band name, I just realized. CALLED IT
How people wake up from comas. It’s usually a lengthy, little-at-a-time process, not bam, they’re awake all at once with all their complete pre-coma faculties, looking perfect. But I guess that serves the plot.
Also, people being intubated/on ventilators. Very, very rarely is this depicted accurately, and it is so off sometimes it makes me yell at the TV. I want to know where the medical consultants work–a dermatologist’s office? It would be so easy to get correct. In Saltburn, it was so egregious I couldn’t believe it.
My husband makes fun of me sometimes for getting so upset over how the depiction any kind of medical treatment. I am a nurse and even simple things like placing an IV they get wrong every time. One example is that they use huge gauge needles (I know they’re fake and retractable) and try to put a 5 inch long needle straight down into a child’s arm. In reality you’d just stab right through the arm with something like that. You’re not gonna hit a vein that you can use for blood draws or IV meds, you’re gonna hit a friggin bone or come out the other side of the arm. It infuriates me so much that I can’t watch any medical shows. Don’t get me started about the way CPR and birth are depicted. 🤦🏻♀️
Knocking someone completely out cold for several hours with a blow to the head, and them waking up fine a few hours later with no brain damage just when you want them to. Obviously it’s a convenient trope for so many plot reasons, but I can’t believe how many gritty and trying-to-be-serious properties are still pretending this is a thing.
Welding and carpentry. No one is actually doing that without redundant eye protection or sleeves.
Whenever I watch a movie with those I’m always pointing at the screen and telling everyone watching with me what the actor has done wrong.
How most drugs, but especially pills work. You don’t put a pill in your mouth and instantly get high. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour + to kick in depending what it is. Other notable annoyances is when a character takes opiates and they act like they are cracked out or tripping. Or when people take hallucinogenics and the hallucinations are ridiculous, like straight up goofy characters talking to the person tripping. No hallucinogen does that.
Accuracy when shooting with handguns.
Almost all movies and TV shows have people picking off each other from many many yards away using regular handguns.
Go out to a range and take a few shots with a good pistol.
Those things miss ALL the time.
Young people with health issues. We’re not surrounded with this doe eyed hope and whimsy. We’re grouchy. Even if we have good a good prognosis, we’re grouchy and tired, because chronic health issues are draining
How neat and decorated working/lower middle class homes are. Dude, no one working that hard and that much keeps their house that nice all the time. It’s only that nice if someone’s visiting, and maybe even not then.
Malcolm in the Middle had the most accurate portrayal of a real home. Also a great real family atmosphere.
Therapy! I can’t count how many shitty therapists I’ve seen in tv and just thought a responsible therapist would end the sessions as it’s become inappropriate.
Breakfast
There will be a 5 star breakfast with fresh fruits, pancakes and french toast just so they take a sip of OJ and say „gotta leave, I‘m running late! Bye mom!“
Stepping on a landmine and working out ways to get away before it goes off.
You step on a landmine, it explodes – that’s kind of the point of the design. There’s no safety switch – they’re clearly not made with health and safety in mind.
The classic trope is: person sitting cross legged (or worse , in the lotus position) with their hands on their knees making some silly hand position like the OK gesture or “we’re number one” (index fingers extended upwards.)
Real meditation is not very cinematic. For most people it’s just sitting comfortably in a chair with eyes closed. Hence the nonsense described above.
When a fire sprinkler goes off, they go off all of them. It’s not like that. Most fires in a sprinkler equipped building only set off one or two heads. Huge myth the fire sprinkler industry is trying to dispel.
Eating disorders. The only depiction you typically see in media is anorexia and then it’s only teenage white girly girls who are already pretty thin. Eating disorders can happen to an anyone regardless of weight, age, gender, race, sexuality, etc.
Comments
Prisons. Having worked in corrections for several years, they’re way off. But if they portrayed it accurately, it’d be boring as fuck. So it’s ok that they do.
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Weather, manufactured disaster weather stuff.
Waking up in the morning. They always look flawless. Hair in place, makeup fresh, breath fresh. They wear perfect nightwear in perfect bedrooms.
I, on the other hand wake up with gritty eyes, hair disheveled, drool stains on my wrinkled t shirt that I wore over faded lounge pants that are too big. My mouth feels like a dragon shit in it and my bedroom I sleep in has the hand me down furniture my in laws gave me.
Bad guys never hit their targets but good guys one shot lol
Something that always bugs me is how movies and TV shows always make mafias either Spanish, Arab, or Russian. Like, apparently those are the only nationalities allowed to be organized criminals in Hollywood. It’s always the same dramatic accents, moody lighting, and some mysterious backstory. Meanwhile, real organized crime is way more diverse and honestly, sometimes way less glamorous. But they still stick to the same recycled stereotypes, like it’s a rule. At this point, if there’s a guy in a leather jacket with a thick accent and some tattoos, I already know what’s coming.
Drug addiction. Withdrawal from drugs.
CPR
How fragile newborns are……
Any baby in a movie or TV show is this little bundle of joy.
They leave out all the work to keep it that way.
Silencers
People getting endless heavy punches to the head area and still being relatively fine/not dying.
As someone who works in a lab, it drives me crazy when they show scientists making groundbreaking discoveries in like, 10 minutes. Girl, I’ve been running the same experiment for three months, and I still don’t have conclusive results.
“Hacking” is never as glorious or easy as it looks
People getting shot and or killed by other means and things blowing up.
And the reaction to tragedy.
No one gets blown back by small arms fire, cars almost never actually explode, and people rarely die in 20 seconds from lethal damage that isn’t massive trauma or a perfect hit on something critical.
People who have found out they have lost a family member in tragic ways or some equivalent tragedy tend to erupt into incoherent and inconsolable ugly snot crying for an extended period of time, not shed a few tears and have a monologue.
Crochet and knitting. I’ve seen people ‘knitting’ with crochet hooks and using knitting needles on granny squares (which are a classic crochet technique/pattern).
Courtrooms, ERs, fire stations, police stations, car chases, street shootouts, street riots.
Suburban life in the US, urban life in the US, farm life in the US.
Strong female characters. Strong male characters. A dogs life LOL
It’s called entertainment for a reason, not real life. and the unscripted real life shows ARE scripted.
Those HGTV shows? Fake. Wrestling? Fake (but awesome athletes).
CPR. Mostly due to the fact that they’re doing it on other actors and don’t want to break anything.
Mexico is always sepia
Saying schizophrenic is amultiple apersonality disorder and it is not and any who say it is is an idiot
Courtroom scenes.
Getting hit in the head hard enough will only knock someone out and they wake up moments later perfectly fine. In real life, the person would have brain damage.
There’s always parking in front of the place you are going
HORSES.
Horses do not neigh and whinny every five seconds.
My equestrian friends and I went to see Mamma Mia 2 in the cinemas and were cackling the whole way through this dramatic scene with a horse freaking out in the barn, because whoever was in post production had added a load of happy horse whinnies over the clips of a ‘distressed’ horse.
Also, that thing when a horse is freaking out and the girl runs up to it and pets it and goes “wooooahhhhh, woooah there…” almost never works.
Perfect fluorescent straight white teeth in films/TV set in the days before braces, fluoride, whitening, veneers, etc.
Digital files. Everyone pretends data isn’t something you can copy 1,000 times and store anywhere. No, it’s always just one copy in existence and “give us back this CD” (there’s a particularly egregious case in Flash Forward).
Actors and actresses are too good looking. However I wouldn’t change this as most movies wouldn’t be worth watching otherwise.
Autism (or any other mental disabilities for that matter), they are always too stereotypical
Giving birth. You don’t scream your head off. You just push. I didn’t sweat, but mine were born quickly. So maybe some do sweat. But it is way more dramatic in the movies and tv shows.
Yea the A Team van must be all filler by now
Phone conversations almost never include the “bookend” parts of the conversation (the intro and the outro).
Grenades. They don’t cause a firey explosion.
When a person gets hit by a shot gun blast it doesn’t propel them back with enough force to lift them off their feet.
Calls to 911 and essentially everything that comes with that.
Anything aircraft related. My favourite are the vast avionics bays or baggage areas like the one on Flightplan. Surprised there was any room for passengers.
Someone breaks into a car, pull the wires out from under the dash, fiddles with them a little and drives away. Modern cars have good enough security it doesn’t work that way anymore.
The way that apparently crime labs solve crimes with DNA tests and unlimited access to every camera in every building in the city.
Wearing hats and saluting inside in military movies
Defibrillators don’t restart your heart.
Fist fights never last that long.
In the older movies cowboys were depicted as clean shaven with short slicked back hair when in reality they were unshaven and disheveled.
Alien contact – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZDwLU_TXYU – place an aluminum can the trackpad of your laptop, if the cursor on the screen moves by itself then aliens are remotely controlling your computer and you have made contact –
Cardiac resuscitation. We actually rarely get anyone back from asystolic cardiac arrest unless they’ve been in VT.
It sets up awful IRL expectations
CPR. It’s an incredibly graphic process, and the point isn’t to revive people. It’s to keep their blood oxygenated and flowing so their organs aren’t damaged before professional help can arrive.
When my wife’s water broke, I started going like “Ok, baby is coming now, hopefully the baby doesn’t pop out of the way to the hospital!” Baby wasn’t born for another 25 hours.
Also, baby doesn’t always come out crying, so when it comes out and is purple and not moving for the first few seconds, that’s kind of alarming.
Labor is always 15 minutes long, babies come out clean as a whistle. When having a baby in a non-traditional setting, which always seems to be a cab or elevator, the umbilical cord never needs to be cut.
Teachers yelling the instructions of homework right after the bell rings. Never happened to me as a student, nor did I do it as a teacher.
Police always leaving the scene of the crime with their lights and siren on.
Playing an instrument. It’s laughable to someone who actually plays.
Sex
How easily people can be knocked unconscious, pistol whipped or have their neck broken. The likelihood of actually losing consciousness from any of those depends highly on the force and where you’re struck. Breaking your neck is absurdly difficult to do on purpose and while you can do it by twisting, it’s not a cool swift motion, it’s awkward, difficult and the victim would be struggling the entire time.
Oh also sleeper holding someone into prolonged unconsciousness. It’s not difficult. It’s scientifically impossible.
It’s the most overused plot device in cinematic history.
Usually guns
HVAC systems, mainly ductwork. DO NOT CLIMB INTO THE RAZOR SHARP SHEET METAL TUBE FULL OF RANDOM SCREWS
High school, some movies got it right though
Chest compressions during cpr. Them elbows need to be locked. I’m sure this is to not injure the actor, but still a pet peeve of mine.
How the human body responds to sudden blood loss, particularly muscle movement. Stabbing and shooting victims lose a lot of motor function, where even just walking becomes impossible.
The only scifi that seems to have ever gotten exposure to the vacuum of space correct was Event Horizon.
You don’t freeze solid in moments, you don’t inflate like a balloon, and it is survivable if you can be rescued quickly.
Alcohol , no you cant drink like 10 bottles of alcohol and still move around normally running around mind intact,
Ammo count and reloading. It feels like they have infinite ammo cheat codes turned on.
CPR. I know they can’t really do it properly or they’d probably kill the actor but they could at least do it at the right moments
Multi-coated spectacles in period dramas,it looks ridiculous.
Getting knocked out.
If you take a knock on the head (or get caught in a blast wave) serious enough that you lose consciousness even briefly, you need immediate medical attention, because there’s a high likelihood your brain is bleeding, and there’s nowhere for that pressure to go. If you don’t get it taken care of, the pressure buildup can kill you or cause permanent brain injury.
The exception might be if unconsciousness is due to being choked out (e.g. compression of carotid arteries via rear naked choke), which tends to be brief, doesn’t result from impact, and isn’t likely to be serious unless it’s prolonged or the compression breaks loose a blood clot.
Doctors can always find a diagnosis, and if they can’t, all they need is a motivational talk to suddenly remember some obscure test they’ll order. In reality there are SO MANY diseases and disorders with similar presentations (including in lab work and imaging!) and a lot of times it’s just trial and error. The Grey’s Anatomy effect has caused so many people to lose trust in doctors because they feel that if their diseases wasn’t diagnosed immediately, the doctor just doesn’t care.
Rattling pistols
Anthrax doesn’t look like that. Stop calling. You are intentionally not shown what it actually looks like so we can differentiate what’s a real threat or just someone being jumpy or confusing it with paper detritus or errant cocaine.
Errant Cocaine is a solid band name, I just realized. CALLED IT
Actors getting shot to death in a scene but always having enough time left to deliver an entire monologue before dying.
Anything on a computer. They’ll type an entire page’s worth of keystrokes and never hit the space key.
Everyone at home in full clothing and jewelry. Women going to bed and waking up with eye make-up and sleeping with a bra on.
Red colour almost always depicts something bad, blue is good. For different countries different colours represent something else.
Shooting locks off
Hacking. What I watched of Mr. Robot seemed to do a good job though.
How people wake up from comas. It’s usually a lengthy, little-at-a-time process, not bam, they’re awake all at once with all their complete pre-coma faculties, looking perfect. But I guess that serves the plot.
Also, people being intubated/on ventilators. Very, very rarely is this depicted accurately, and it is so off sometimes it makes me yell at the TV. I want to know where the medical consultants work–a dermatologist’s office? It would be so easy to get correct. In Saltburn, it was so egregious I couldn’t believe it.
Gun silencers. They still make a noise around 130 decibels.
For context, a person screaming the loudest they can is around 100 decibels
My husband makes fun of me sometimes for getting so upset over how the depiction any kind of medical treatment. I am a nurse and even simple things like placing an IV they get wrong every time. One example is that they use huge gauge needles (I know they’re fake and retractable) and try to put a 5 inch long needle straight down into a child’s arm. In reality you’d just stab right through the arm with something like that. You’re not gonna hit a vein that you can use for blood draws or IV meds, you’re gonna hit a friggin bone or come out the other side of the arm. It infuriates me so much that I can’t watch any medical shows. Don’t get me started about the way CPR and birth are depicted. 🤦🏻♀️
Knocking someone completely out cold for several hours with a blow to the head, and them waking up fine a few hours later with no brain damage just when you want them to. Obviously it’s a convenient trope for so many plot reasons, but I can’t believe how many gritty and trying-to-be-serious properties are still pretending this is a thing.
Welding and carpentry. No one is actually doing that without redundant eye protection or sleeves.
Whenever I watch a movie with those I’m always pointing at the screen and telling everyone watching with me what the actor has done wrong.
guns that never run out of bullets – especially, machine guns
Laser pointers on sniper rifles. Way to immediately give away your location.
The psychedelic experience
The sound of a paper cup being put down on a table with liquid in it. Drinking from a full paper cup. Holding and walking with a full paper cup.
How most drugs, but especially pills work. You don’t put a pill in your mouth and instantly get high. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour + to kick in depending what it is. Other notable annoyances is when a character takes opiates and they act like they are cracked out or tripping. Or when people take hallucinogenics and the hallucinations are ridiculous, like straight up goofy characters talking to the person tripping. No hallucinogen does that.
Accuracy when shooting with handguns.
Almost all movies and TV shows have people picking off each other from many many yards away using regular handguns.
Go out to a range and take a few shots with a good pistol.
Those things miss ALL the time.
Shooting guns indoors without hearing protection will make you deaf.
Hacking. It’s not just rapidly pressing buttons on a keyboard
People who pop out of a sewer system in the middle of the street by easily pushing aside the manhole cover. Those damn things are heavy.
The sex waddle.
Young people with health issues. We’re not surrounded with this doe eyed hope and whimsy. We’re grouchy. Even if we have good a good prognosis, we’re grouchy and tired, because chronic health issues are draining
How neat and decorated working/lower middle class homes are. Dude, no one working that hard and that much keeps their house that nice all the time. It’s only that nice if someone’s visiting, and maybe even not then.
Malcolm in the Middle had the most accurate portrayal of a real home. Also a great real family atmosphere.
Therapy! I can’t count how many shitty therapists I’ve seen in tv and just thought a responsible therapist would end the sessions as it’s become inappropriate.
Hacking computer networks is far more about social engineering than pounding lines of code into a system.
Breakfast
There will be a 5 star breakfast with fresh fruits, pancakes and french toast just so they take a sip of OJ and say „gotta leave, I‘m running late! Bye mom!“
Cancer
Stepping on a landmine and working out ways to get away before it goes off.
You step on a landmine, it explodes – that’s kind of the point of the design. There’s no safety switch – they’re clearly not made with health and safety in mind.
Indoor gunshots and the ability to hear anything immediately after.
Driving. Look at the road!
That if your life partner, that you’ve lived with for years, tells you that the robot housemaid is a homicidal maniac. You believe them.
Hacking.
The worst offender was NCIS.
Waking up in the morning—no one looks that good or has that much energy straight out of bed
The shooting scenes and the sudden deaths are surely a thing.
Meditation.
The classic trope is: person sitting cross legged (or worse , in the lotus position) with their hands on their knees making some silly hand position like the OK gesture or “we’re number one” (index fingers extended upwards.)
Real meditation is not very cinematic. For most people it’s just sitting comfortably in a chair with eyes closed. Hence the nonsense described above.
Computer screens. When the text on a PC based application appears as if it’s coming over a 300 baud dial-up line. And has teletype noises too!
And for how long they kept up the myth that tracing a landline call took minutes of triangulation, when we all had caller ID.
When a fire sprinkler goes off, they go off all of them. It’s not like that. Most fires in a sprinkler equipped building only set off one or two heads. Huge myth the fire sprinkler industry is trying to dispel.
Everything about the military
How they act like getting a cut stitched is so painful they almost pass out.
Cars exploding. Couches in the middle of the living room.. People hanging up the phone but not saying goodbye.
Eating disorders. The only depiction you typically see in media is anorexia and then it’s only teenage white girly girls who are already pretty thin. Eating disorders can happen to an anyone regardless of weight, age, gender, race, sexuality, etc.
The use of medical imaging equipment and showing the wrong type of corresponding images.
For example talking back and forth with patients during their scans or showing CT images while talking about an MRI.
Vehicle sounds.
4 cylinder sportbike? Sounds like a Harley.
Harley? Sounds like a sportbike.
Miata? Sounds like a big block Chevy.
Minivan speeding away? Same big block.
Automatic? Sounds like a manual
The weight of coffee cups. They normally have a liquid in them.