Top Twenty Worst Character Cliches:
I really don't mind most movie cliches. I love a good car chase that completely defies all the laws of physics. Movies would be boring as hell if they were realistic. What I do mind, however, is when the characters act in a completely unnatural manner, doing inexplicable things without even a hint of a motive other than "that's what people do in a movie." So here are my top twenty most irritating movie-and-television cliches to do with character development.
#20 - EXPLORE THE NEW HOUSE - Whenever a person or family moves into a new house, the first thing they do is go around and check out all the rooms, figuring out what rooms are going to be used for what purposes, and trying to figure out why there's a mysterious monster living in the basement. I really don't know anyone who doesn't do this BEFORE they buy the house. Did they just sign the lease without seeing it first? Who does that?
#19 - NO ONE IS ANNOYED BY THE ZANY GUY - You see this in teen comedies, commercials for shampoo, and especially animated Disney movies. There's one character whose idea of being funny is bouncing around and spurting out nonsequiter catch-phrases. Okay, we've seen people like this in real life. What makes these movies unrealistic is that no one punches this guy in the face, or even gives him so much as a puzzled look. They all just act as if he's acting normally. He's not normal. He's an ass.
#18 - BURY THE TREASURE AND HIDE THE MAP - Any time there's a pirate treasure or some ancient mystical artifact, there's always a map showing its location, written in some cryptic way with challenges and riddles. I always have to wonder about the people who hid the treasure and made the map. Why did they bury the treasure instead of just keeping it or spending it? Why did they make the traps so elaborate? And why the fuck did they explain where to find it in the form of riddles? If they wanted you to find it, they'd have told you outright, and if they didn't want you to find it, they wouldn't give you a clue.
#17 - NERDS AND FOREIGNERS TALK IN OPPOSITES - "Hey, chill in!" "You mean chill out?" Seriously, who are these people who *almost* know all of the cool words, but get them slightly wrong? Most of the time, unhip people are going to get the phrases right, but screw up on the context.
#16 - SEX WITH A VIRGIN - Every time a virgin has sex for the first time, they're AMAZING in bed! Usually we see the girl looking over at the boy after sex and saying something like "wow, that was the most incredible sex I've ever had," and actually meaning it! How does this work exactly? How does not having sex make you better at sex? It makes no fucking sense (literally).
#15 - VICTIMS THINK THE KILLER IS A FRIEND PLAYING A JOKE - If I'm ever out in the woods, and I hear leaves rustling around, I'm probably going to assume it's a squirrel or something. You know why? Because woods are full of squirrels. None of my friends would ever try to scare me this way, because it would suck as a joke. In movies, however, when the killer is stalking the victim, the victim always has to give this speech: "I know it's you playing a joke on me, so you can just come on out... Come on, this isn't funny, and I'm not going to get scared." Well, they're right about it not being funny, at least.
#14 - NO ONE IN THE FUTURE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT THE PRESENT - It seems that every sci-fi show set in the future does this. (Star Trek is the reigning champion of this cliche.) The future people encounter some strange thing from our time, such as a car, rock-and-roll or a slang word. They are completely baffled by it at first, then either comically misinterpret its purpose, or have to refer to their computer files on ancient history. Sometimes, they'll even throw in some disparaging comment about how primitive or idiotic this thing is. Yet, if they encounter something from the 22nd century or the 18th century, they immediately know everything about it -- a tribute to the wonderful education system of the future.
#13 - NO ONE PROFITS FROM SUPER TECHNOLOGY - If I ever invented antigravity, invisibility, teleportation, artificial intelligence or a laser gun, I'd probably want to get a patent on this technology, start up a company, and make myself rich. Not movie people, though. Instead, they keep it for their own personal use, either as a superhero or a supervillain. What kind of an idiot invents an invisibility cloak and uses it to rob banks? The cloak is worth more than everything in the bank, and no one is going to thwart your evil plan.
#12 - BAD GUYS ARE TOO HAPPY ABOUT BEING BAD - Some nefarious villain wants to steal
money or take revenge against the hero or rule the world or maybe just get away
with cheating on his fiance. So does he rationalize his position or justify his
actions? Does he feel guilty? Does he feel that he's entitled? Nope. He just
laughs with glee about how evil he is. This is especially noticeable with
hunters. Maybe I think hunting is bad, but hunters don't think hunting is bad,
so why do all the hunters in movies act so evil?
#11 - LOOK OUT, IT'S A PERVERT - This was a popular plot device in the 90s, but we still occasionally see it today. A man wants to talk to a woman about something that is actually important, but she immediately get's this look on her face that says, "Oh, not ANOTHER rapist. Where's my mace? This is getting so mildly annoying." Who are these women?
#10 - RACISM IS ACCEPTED IN SOCIETY - Generally, if you're a racist, you're going to keep your opinions mostly to yourself, or at least, express them in that subtle "I don't want to sound like a racist, but..." sort of way. In movies, however, you can be as blunt and over-the-top as you want about how much we won't tolerate their kind around here. Instead of being met with ostracism from the community, this white-people solidaridy appears, the likes of which have not been seen in the real world since the 50s.
#9 - THE SUPERHUMAN ENCOUNTERS THE FIRST ENEMY - Any superhero, alien, werewolf, or whatever, immediately has a chance encounter with a mugger, a rapist or a gang of rednecks looking to start a fight. This is an improbable, albeit effective way to establish the physical prowess of the main character. What makes this completely ridiculous is the way the first criminal is treated as a minor inconvenience, maybe getting a quick punch in the nose to teach him a lesson. Later, the hero has a battle royalle with some drug dealer or evil sorcerer. That's fine, but whatever happened to the serial rapists? Are their crimes so minor that we can just forget about them? Is a drug-dealer really that much worse of a criminal? Seriously, how can the hero waste his time with cocaine sellers when there's fucking rape gangs wandering the streets?!
#8 - I TRIED TO TELL YOU, BUT YOU WOULDN'T LISTEN - It seems that some characters in movies don't even try to get their message across. They just mumble about some vague cryptic nonsense, leaving out all the actual important information, and somehow, it's the other person's fault for "not listening." Sometimes, for comedic effect, a character will tell a story leaving out vital details to make it sound unrealistic, so that the person listening won't believe the story. To me, that's just a big leap in motovation for such a small gag.
#7 - YOU'RE A GIRL?!!! - This was a running gag throughout much of the 70s, 80s and early 90s, but you still see it occasionally today. A person is seen from the back, wearing a large hat or maybe a motorcycle helmet. It MUST be a man, right? Then she takes the hat off, to reveal long hair! The man is completely shocked by this, as if he'd just seen a unicorn. What were the odds, like 50-50 or something? (Also, keep in mind that during this time period, most of the men had long hair anyway.)
#6 - WOMEN ARE BUZZKILLS - Women have almost always been typecast in the role of straight-man. This is especially true in sketch comedies and sit-coms. When it comes to TV commercials, however, women have advanced beyond simply being the foil for the man's comedy, but to actually being a total bitch with no sense of humor or fun, whose sole purpose in life is to roll their eyes at the stupidity that is men.
#5 - THIS RELATIONSHIP CAN NEVER BE - This is most noticeable in the first two acts of a romantic comedy, or in one of those sit-coms that borders on being a soap opera. Two single and available people clearly have the hots for each other, but for some inexplicable reason, they "can't do this." Don't you think that at some point, one of them would have asked the other one why? Instead, they just drag out the tension to where it becomes absurd.
#4 - THE CORPORATE VILLAIN - It stands to reason that the rich powerful corporate guys are more interested in making a profit for themselves than they are in caring for their fellow man. (Never mind that most billionaires have their own charities.) Often, however, these movie villains seem to do evil things like creating zombie-like monsters or building doomsday weapons with no idea how exactly this is going to turn them a profit. Very often, they'll market some deadly product which is going to kill everyone who uses it, but they try to keep the secret because it would hurt sales. Am I supposed to believe that anyone who at some point in his life took a business course, doesn't know that making a product that ruins peoples lives will actually HURT profits? FDA prosecution, customer refunds, class-action lawsuits, manslaughter charges, crashing stock values, loss of customer confidence, no repeat customers... None of this has occurred to them.
#3 - CHEATING TO WIN - One of the big cliches in teen comedies is the big game between the popular bad guy and the unpopular good guy. How do they win? Both sides cheat. Not only do they cheat, but they don't even hide the fact that they're cheating. Inexplicably, the referees don't do anything but present the trophy at the end, and all these bad guys who didn't play fair this whole time, are willing to honor the terms of the pre-game wager. This is very selective dishonesty.
#2 - THE SCHOOL BULLY - The most popular kid in school has to defend his title, and therefore has to "fix" his rival. Is his rival the second-most popular kid? The third? The fourth? No, it's the social outcast that nobody likes. It's as if the entire pecking order was reduced to just these two people, while every other kid in the school is just there as a prop, ready to cheer on whoever is winning, without ever questioning their own role as humanoid background scenery. This contrived rivalry between most and least popular is also present in sports movies, where the champions somehow form a vicious rivalry with the lowest underdogs, with both sides completely ignoring every other team. Whether it's sports or popularity, it's always the asshole on top versus the nice guy on bottom, and nobody else matters.
#1 - UNNECESSARY SECRETS - Your wife is a witch, your girlfriend is a genie, your daughter is an android, your uncle is a martian, and your horse can talk. Who do you tell? Nobody, according to sit-com logic. I can understand keeping it from the general public, but why keep it from friends, family and wacky neighbors? Movies have their pointless secrets too, but in movies, it's usually the government that wants to cover everything up, regardless of whether or not it's a matter affecting national security in any way. Apparently, governments manufacture cover stories as a sort of involuntary reflex. Another big pet peeve is when police detectives don't want the chief of police to find out that they're doing their jobs. He stumbles onto a vital piece of evidence, and then HIDES the evidence, then talks to the very same person in the crime lab who the evidence would have been sent to anyway, and asks him to, as a personal favor, examine the evidence. The lab tech has to say, "I could get in so much trouble for this." What trouble?! Of course, the worst offenders here are the superheros. If I ever suddenly gained super powers, my first instinct would be to tell someone, post it on Twitter, or maybe go to the doctor, not start making up excuses to cover up my "terrible secret." (Later, when it's time to fight crime, they dress in a silly costume, usually based on an animal. Supposedly, this is to inspire fear, but personally, I'd probably just laugh. To be honest, I find a suit and tie much more indimidating.) Even when the villain finds out the hero's secret identity, he STILL doesn't want to tell his friends, family and love interest, even though they're now in mortal danger for not knowing.
Honorable Mention: PRODUCT PLACEMENT - I realize that product placement is important in helping to pay for all those cool explosions I like to see. I understand that. It just takes me out of the movie when the characters start talking about how great the product is in such an unnatural fashion. Still, this is not a result of lazy writing, just of economics, which is why it only receives an "honorable mention" as opposed to a true writing cliche.
