Hollywood Tropes and Real Life Wisdom

Life imitating art or art imitating life?

I watch a lot of movies. I used to watch a lot of television. And I seem to notice things that most others don’t. My tendency to critically question everything ensures that many people close to me, especially my female loved ones, leave the room when I’m watching something. The males, however, appreciate my running commentary.

At one point, I wanted to write a script for a prospective sitcom or film comedy, which incorporated all the common tropes seen onscreen. But where would I send it? Hollywood doesn’t take unsolicited screenplays or manuscripts. Half the restaurant servers in Tinseltown are peddling them. And they can’t get someone to read their work, except perhaps if they wait on the right big shot who finds them physically attractive enough to invite them to the casting couch. I’ve never been in a position to wait on anyone who’d be willing to consider my work in return for sexual favors. I probably wouldn’t be their type, anyways. And now I’m way too old for any of them.

Maybe those unseen screenplays from waiters and waitresses yearning to break into show business contain some valuable and entertaining stuff. Some of them might be original thinkers, who shake their heads at the same tropes and propaganda I do. If they’re pushing something fresh and original, then they are out of luck, even if they say yes to all the bald headed film moguls in the city. Every script must spin a modern “Woke” leftist message. Black characters must be wildly overrepresented, and must all be strong and positive. Females must all be physically tough, and ready to verbally abuse or physically overpower any White male character. Their great strength and confidence often wilts in the presence of nonwhite males for some reason.

Leading ladies can still be quite pretty, but have to all wear that resting bitch face. They need to look pissed off all the time, especially in the presence of White males. When nonwhite males enter the picture, their resting bitch expressions visibly soften. White male characters can never be alpha. They are weak, submissive, and usually the butt of jokes from White females and nonwhites of all genders. Mixed race couples are always encouraged. Characters will usually reside either in a New York apartment, or an upscale home in the suburbs. You won’t see any primary characters living in a lower middle class townhouse, for instance. If the film is about “the hood,” then of course the Black characters will be mired in poverty. But glamorous poverty.

The plots must be either redundant of something that has been done countless times before (jewel “heists,” hackneyed bullies in high school, all romantic comedies- or “romcoms,” as they call them now), or a compelling concept, which is then never developed. These types of films invariably are also never resolved. They just end, and you wind up saying, “that’s it?” Well, at least I do. When they hint at something conspiratorial, it always winds up being the work of some secret private company, run by a startlingly non-diverse group of evil White men. Never the government. And the evildoers are never “diverse,” like the multicultural heroes always are.

I notice tropes that don’t even make sense in any propagandistic fashion. Watch how often characters, going back decades, leave their car doors open when jumping out. Guess Hollywood vehicles have special batteries or something. Whenever anything weird is afoot, or if some character is about to contract a deadly illness, they have a little blood leaking from one nostril. The old falling down when running from danger thing isn’t as popular as it used to be. But characters still wait far too long to react to danger. They tend to stare irrationally, and then start to slowly back away, instead of instantly moving as fast as they can. I guess that’s for dramatic effect.

Some of the old tropes no longer are useful. For instance, the old writing to a pen pal, and exaggerating your own accomplishments, then finding out the pen pal was doing the same thing. This was done in countless old television shows. The classic main character serving on a jury, and being the lone holdout against conviction, is no longer wanted. Our corrupt state doesn’t desire to advance the notion that there should ever be holdouts against conviction. It’s the modern jury’s job to convict, and they do a really good job of that. Also, they have dropped the old washing machine being loaded with way too much soap and overflowing routine. It’s too America 1.0.

Because there are no more alpha males onscreen, well at least not White ones, the main tropes from the action films that made the likes of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger stars are being slowly weeded out. I haven’t seen any of Vin Diesel’s work, or that of former WWE star “The Rock,” so they may still have these tropes in their derivative movies. You can’t make action films, after all, without action. But neither Diesel or “The Rock” are White. So that explains that. So I guess they still have the inane, impossibly long car chases. The vehicles exploding into massive fireballs upon impact. The main characters still being a lot harder to shoot than the secondary characters. It’s a Batman thing, you wouldn’t understand.

The superhero genre still makes the most money for what’s left of Hollywood. For several years, superhero movies and their fan base’s insatiable appetite for them, was all that kept Hollywood afloat. Now the superhero movies are failing, too, because they’ve been converted into more “Woke” propaganda. Mostly female and nonwhite heroes. Still mostly White villains, but the occasional “super” Black bad guy will pop up now. The recent failure of The Marvels exemplifies how even the loyal comic book audience may finally have had enough of “Woke” revisionism. So all these tropes may be coming to an end. You can’t trope if no one is buying your product.

In real life, offscreen, there are also many tropes. Some of them just as baffling as the ones dreamed up by script writers. Most people will mindlessly nod when someone says, “The exception proves the rule.” As Ambrose Bierce pointed out, this is the opposite of the truth. The exception challenges or disproves the rule. Why do we call someone in their 50s “middle age?” Even before life expectancy in our Banana Republic started plunging down, this was inaccurate. Why are some occupations referred to as “professional?” Why can’t retail clerks, or construction workers, or the remaining housewives in this country be considered “professional” too? Doesn’t such a designation mean that the rest of us are unprofessional?

The real life trope goes that, if you confiscated all the money in the world, and then divided it up equally between everyone, that pretty soon all the wealth would be back in the same One Percent hands. The ones who were born wealthy. Started on third base and thought they hit a home run. I don’t know, I’d like to see that trope proven. Try it out, just for a laugh. This goes along with the trope, “Nobody ever gave me anything.” Well, actually most of those peddling this trope phrase it, “Nobody ever gave me nothing.” They are the ones who basically have nothing, but are terrified some redistributionist is going to take it away from them. It’s usually coupled with, “I worked hard for what I have.” Which is, again, essentially nothing. You did work.

As a long time licensed Realtor, I hate the trope that goes, “you don’t mix business with family.” Right. So you pay some stranger big commissions, if you’re selling a property, and cause another seller to pay some stranger, if you’re buying a property, instead of someone you know and supposedly love. For doing the exact same thing. I’ve been stabbed in the back by this trope by too many family members and allegedly close friends to even keep track. The trope makes no sense. Why would a family member screw you over- and in the case of Realtors it’s not easy to do that- when they will have to see you for the rest of their lives, so you can remind them again and again? If anything, a family member would work harder for you, just so they don’t have to be nagged about it.

There is an unspoken trope, that runs throughout the business world. This trope compels management to punish all employees for the action or actions of one. Instead of confronting and addressing the behavior of the problematic worker, a memo goes out that takes some former perk away from all. No more personal phone calls. No surfing non-business related internet sites. If the worker in question seriously abused sick leave, then now all employees must present a doctor’s note when calling out. If they were arriving at work 30 minutes late on a regular basis, then even the most punctual workers must be monitored more closely. Truth be told, this trope is tied to the fact that an undue percentage of the workers abusing company policies happen to be Black. So the White cucked management dreamed this up.

On a personal level, I’d like to have a dollar for every old friend or long lost family member who told me, “We have to do this again real soon.” It’s similar to the trope we all sometimes employ by telling those who’ve gone through some tribulation, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Maybe someone, somewhere, has actually let someone who said this know about something they could do, but I doubt it. It’s a polite trope, though. Like greeting someone by saying, “How you doing?” or “How’s it going?” We don’t expect a reply that details how things are going in their life. As Ambrose Bierce defined it, politeness is the most acceptable form of hypocrisy.

A trope that I’ve heard from members of my own family, which is obviously shared by most Americans, is that “relatives living with each other causes problems.” This trope is often cited by the typical adult American child who wants to avoid caring for their elderly parents at all costs. And it makes no sense. Obviously, the same parents lived with their young children for at least eighteen years. While caring for them. Changing their diapers. Tucking them in at night. Reading bedtime stories to them. Comforting or encouraging them when they needed it. But when it comes time for them to switch roles, from the cared to the caregiver, adult children often cite this self-serving trope.

Tropes can change with the times. Currently, “destination weddings” are all the rage. At least for those from families that can afford it. This goes along with the trope that a bride can get married pretty much anywhere except in a church. For a while, vineyard weddings were popular. Then barn weddings. These wedding tropes all have one thing in common; to make the ceremony more expensive for the bride’s family. And, of course, we’ll wind up paying, because we want the best for our children. Since weddings are rarely performed in churches now, no need for a minister or a priest. The trend is for friends to preside over the ceremony, with their mail order reverend credentials. This is especially desired for same-sex weddings.

Many Hollywood tropes became real life tropes. Thanks to films and television, countless young girls chose the “bad boy” over the boring nice guy next door. This alone contributed to the family dysfunction which now is the norm in America 2.0. Nice guys don’t get very far, onscreen, or in real life. Unless they can get tough, which some of them can. Nice guys finish last and all that. Nice guys, of course, can only finish last in a system run by non-nice guys. A society that doesn’t value niceness. It’s pretty obvious that this describes our crumbling civilization perfectly. American females have been indoctrinated in the belief that nothing is worse than “boredom.” Drama queens onscreen lead to drama queens in real life. The selfie culture.

In every Hollywood low-class “comedy,” there must now be at least one obligatory vomiting scene. They have to show the vomit. And male nudity. Male butts dominate potty comedies. And increasingly penises as well. The roles have been completely reversed from the 1970s. It’s almost all male nudity now. Tough talking, ass kicking females. Soft, low testosterone males. Often naked. There is no variation. You will not find a film or television show with a meek, wallflower female character. All females onscreen are utterly fearless. Risk takers. And you won’t find a White male character who confidently stands up to any female. The alpha White male is nowhere to be found onscreen, and is becoming extinct in real life.

I don’t care for most tropes. Not from Hollywood, and not those which have become thoughtlessly ingrained in our culture. Make your own tropes. You can have self-esteem without becoming unbearable. You can be strong and gentle at the same time. You don’t have to be a bully or a victim. Politeness may sometimes be hypocritical, but it is the most acceptable kind. Be loyal to your family members who are trying to earn a living. Care for your aging parents, like they cared for you. If you’re a 100 lb. female, don’t try to fight a 200 pound man. You will only win on film. Be cutting edge- get married in a church. In your community, so people don’t have to pay for a “destination.” When you get out of your car, close the door behind you.