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List of clichés
Cliché (from French, imitative) refers to:
- an overused phrase or expression, or the idea expressed by it;
- a situation, theme or characterization which has become common;
- a thing (as a style of clothing) that has become overly familiar or commonplace. (See Cliché.)
Usually the term refers to something which both had (or aimed to have) freshness and forcem but whose freshness and force are lost through overuse. Thus the expression in other words, though often used, is not a cliché; it never had orginality or forceful meaning.
Cliché expressions and their meanings
- Avoid _____ like the plague.
- At the end of the day, ... - In summary, ...
- Can't see your nose in front of your face - It's really hard to see.
- Cat got your tongue? - Why haven't you been talking?
- The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence - Anything someone else has seems better.
- Get to the calf through the cow - The best way to get to the girl is through her mother.
- Give up the ghost - to die, expire or otherwise come to an end
- Killing two birds with one stone - Completing two tasks with one process.
- Let me bounce this off of you... - To present a scenario or idea for the purpose of receiving feedback or critique
- Pot calling the kettle black - When a person criticizes another for behaviours which they themselves exhibit as well
- Putting the cart before the horse - To come to a conclusion without suitably indicative evidence, or also trying to skip steps in a process or task
- Reading between the lines - Inferring information.
- Six of one, half-a-dozen of another - The result is the same in either case.
- What is coming down the pike... (or '...down the pipe') - events or happenings expected to come to pass in the near future.
- What's good for the goose is good for the gander - If something is good for one person, it follows that it's good for everyone.
- What goes around comes around - If you do something good (bad), good (bad) things will happen to you.
- Can't _____ oneself out of a paper bag
- A little bit from column A, a little bit from column B - An answer to an either/or question implying that both answers are correct.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Televised - Originally a song of protest against the perceived "white media" by Gil-Scott Heron, the phrase is now casually bandied about on pundit blogs and MTV .
- The more things change, the more they stay the same.
- This is not your father's ____.
Cliché expressions in résumés/curriculum vitae
Overly-used phrases to describe one's skills to potential employers. Taken from a survey of 160,000 resumes.
[1]
These expressions are criticised for being too vague to be of any use.
- "(I have good) communication skills" - 12.6 percent of surveyed résumés.
- "(I am a) team player" - 7.2 percent
- "(I have good) organizational skills" - 5.5 percent
- This phrase is also used as the title of collections of entries from the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest of prospective opening lines for bad novels. This sentence was also the opening line of Madeleine L'Engle's classic children's fantasy novel, A Wrinkle in Time (1960).
Most clichés are equally applicable to film, television or cartoons. Genres such as sitcoms, children's animated series, Sci-Fi drama, video games and blockbuster Hollywood action movies are a particularly rich source of clichés, while edgier comedy shows like The Simpsons and Monty Python are renowned for knowingly avoiding or satirising cliché.
- Spaceships, enemy bases, etc. have a self-destruct mechanism. This mechanism can sometimes be activated by accident, often by merely pressing a button.
- Spaceships, enemy bases, etc. have potentially harmful automated systems (such as automated doors, elevators etc...) with no safety devices (e.g no circuit breakers, so electrical shorts kill random crew members during attacks; doors crush crew members; etc.).
- Any spaceship can have its control and command usurped from an access panel in an arbitrary hallway
- Any load of china or dishes that falls and shatters will always have one miraculously unbroken plate that rolls away.
- Similarly, any car wreck will have a flaming wheel that bounces out of the explosion
- Any unseen-but-heard crash will begin with screeching tired anend with a little tinkling sound that starts .5 seconds after the rest of the noise ends.
- Time bombs have a large LED readout (almost always in red on black) counting down to detonation, and have colour-coded wire to help the hero defuse them always at the last second.
- Heroes always disarm time bombs one second before they detonate.
- Aliens are fluent in human languages, or easily communicated with via universal translator devices (as seen in Mars Attacks!)
- The various members of an alien race will all wear the same outfit, have the same haircut and speak the same language.
- Car chases will pass through a downtown farmers' market, and will knock over some fruit, and possibly release some chickens.
- This will be followed by driving through an alleyway stacked high with empty cardboard boxes.
- If the chase reaches a motorway, it will always be under construction. At some point a half-finished bridge will have to be leaped.
- The police will be impeded either by workers carrying a pane of glass across the street, by a lorry maneuvering in an alleyway, or by a freight train crossing a road.
- The police chief is very often a Black man, always in a bad mood, but is a good person deep inside; he will always defend the hero who caused a million dollars damage in the nick of time.
- When being pursued by gun-toting villains, the hero's sidekick will be required to take the wheel while the hero shoots at the pursuers. If the sidekick is female she will stereotypically be cast a hesitant and nervous driver, who is unprepared for the challenge and must therefore overcome her ineptitude to assist the hero (this latter was spoofed in A Life Less Ordinary, where Ewan McGregor forces Cameron Diaz to drive for him while he escapes her father's guards, and he discovers she can't drive at all).
- Changing down a gear while flat-out in top gear makes a car accelerate rather than over-revving and blowing the engine.
- Any exotic European sports car will end up being wrecked, blown-up or run-over by a train/bus/tank.
- Japanese cars are rarely seen in American action movies.
- Cars and motorcycles are always fully-fuelled, even ones on garage forecourts or in transit. The exception is when the plot requires them to fail, then they will run dry.
- One car in a car chase will always be a much faster model than the other, but the chase is always evenly matched (Examples: The Rock: Nicolas Cage has a Ferrari F355 and Sean Connery keeps up in a Hummer. GoldenEye: James Bond, driving a 30-year old Aston Martin DB5, races a Russian agent in an F355 all the way down a mountain pass).
- Car crashes involve cars being launched into the air, elaborately pirouetting and exploding rather than just hitting and stopping (In reality this is because the movie special effect teams teams make use of hidden ramps to make crashing cars launch into the air and pyrotechnic devices to make them explode).
- Police officers always crawl out unscathed from beneath their wrecked cruisers.
- Police officers on motorcycles tend to grab onto the back of a car or get covered in mud.
- Police officers are often bad-mouthed and tend to curse more than the average citizen.
- When a sequel is made to a film that turned out to be more successful than first thought, and in the first film a popular character died, there will often be some sleight-of-hand to explain that they didn't really die. (It also cuts both ways, however: for example, Men in Black II and The Klumps have to explain why certain significant characters from their respective predecessors, Men in Black and The Nutty Professor, are not in the sequel.)
- The future in films can either be:
- Post-apocalyptic.
- A seemingly utopian world where everything is not what it seems.
- If the future of a movie is post-apocalyptic, most of the scenes occur in desolated deserts, old crumbly buildings or abandoned working sites/quarries.
- The laws of physics are bunk. Sound travels in space, and lasers beams are visible from the side.
- Spacecraft manage meet the same way-up without any order to align with each other being seen.
- Space fighter dogfights look just like aeroplane dogfights despite the lack of atmosphere to maneuver in.
- All of the main characters will be able to stand close to explosions without being severely burned by the release of radiant heat.
- Great fires in buildings are only harmful because of their flames, never because of the toxic clouds of smoke.
- All main characters can jump or fall through glass windows without sustaining severe lacerations.
- Car windows are broken very easily.
- Housebrick-sized gold bars can be casually thrown around, as if they weighed no more than a piece of wood covered with gold paint.
- The sound of the human voice doesn't seem to travel very far in movie-land. Two characters can stand right next to a third and hold a conversation pertaining to the third character without the third character seemingly hearing anything they said.
- When concocting a plan, a group will huddle and whisper something inaudible between themselves. This has the function of a: keeping the viewer from knowing what the plan is, and b: saving the writers the need to think of what the characters are actually saying. Frequently spoofed (An example from The Young Ones: Mike: "OK guys I've got a plan. Now listen very carefully.. (whispers) ... you all got that?" Neil: " Yeah, we just go 'psh psh psh psh psh', it's brilliant").
- Anything fragile that falls off a table will shatter on the floor in slow motion.
- When a hero runs from a massive explosion he/she will run toward the camera in slow-motion and dive out of the way of the blast-wave at the last moment.
- When an important character is fatally hit/stabbed/shot, the moment will always be in slow-motion.
- When a group of characters looks out over a magnificent view or a post-apocalyptic wasteland, the shot lingers dramatically on their awed reaction before cutting to a reverse-angle that reveals to the viewer what it is they're looking at.
- A mystery character who's identity is yet to be revealed will sit with their face hidden by shadow (sometimes, the back a chair). Eventually, the camera simply cuts its head out of the screen.
- Anybody who has to do "one last mission" before retirement and/or says "what could possibly go wrong?" is dead meat. So are police officers just days from retirement (if they're not the main character, that is), and soldiers who carry a photo of their special someone around.
- No matter how many times the hero is shot, stabbed, etc., he never dies; but whenever a bad guy receives an affliction, he is dead immediately.
- Unless the bad guy is a serial killer or other similar slasher movie character, who will only seem to be dead for just long enough to rear up and attack somebody else before getting finally killed by some definitive method.
- The first victim of a serial killer/slasher movie villain is always a beautiful young woman.
- The more evil a villain is, the more horrible his death will be.
- Grievous wounds that are non-fatal but meant to be scary are always in the shoulder.
- Characters wearing a bullet-proof vest get shot in the chest rather than the head or groin.
- Villains use automatic weapons to shoot at the heroes but never hit them; the heroes meanwhile, can kill a villain at 100 feet with a single shot from a handgun. Until the 1960s, heroes were often shown shooting weapons out of villains' hands.
- The death of secondary villains is never insisted upon, for they are considered expendable. They may have to look ugly or un-human so the spectator cannot relate to them (example: the Imperial Stormtroopers of the Star Wars series, fully clad in a body armor that makes them look like robots).
- If a villain is a Black person, there will have to be a Black person in the good guy side to "counterweight" any racial issues.
- Fat people are humorous people, just like in real life.
- People are almost always shown having perfect health; they don't sneeze, cough, have colds or get bed-ridden by common diseases. If they actually get sick, it must be important to the plot: it will be AIDS, a heart attack, being shot or being punched-out. A personal favorite of American movies is having a main character with asthma; in this case they will inevitably miss their ventoline in a scene (as seen in Signs).
- Dying characters can speak rationally and coherently right up to the moment they slump down dead. Important characters usually have some momentous last words.
- Dying characters always expire just as they are about to mention a crucial access code/name/location. Monty Python and the Holy Grail's 'The Castle Aarrrghh' is a parody of this.
- Cornered villains will hold the hero's love-interest, or an innocent bystander, at gun point and threaten to kill them unless the hero backs down.
- The "I'm taking you with me"/"See you in hell" scenario: Any defeated and dying villain will still be able to activate his doomsday device or self destruct mechanism. This cliche is defendable to some extent as it does seem logical that a villain would make sure that their plan works at any cost. However, a counterpoint to that argument could suggest that any logically-minded hero would realise, and prepare for, this eventuality.
- A hero who delivers a knockout blow to the enemy makes a droll quip as their foe is vanquished. Especially prevalent in James Bond movies and Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
- Despite the number of guns in Hollywood movies, the climactic fight between hero and villain will be a hand-to-hand scuffle. (Except in Westerns of course).
- No matter how futuristic the handweapon is, the hero can usually dispatch his targets with one shot, while villainous henchmen generally can't hit the hero no matter how many shots they fire (and giving the hero numerous opportunities to literally dodge many shots).
- Snipers use a laser sight that projects a red/green dot/ray on their target, thus giving the intended victim time to jump for cover (as seen in the Robert de Niro movie Showtime)
- The undersides of mesh grills and catwalks are completely bullet-proof.
- Laser security grids always leave just enough space for a human to dodge the beams.
- Heroes and villains carry enough ammunition to kill every guard in a base, but they run out as soon as they need the gun to do anything to advance the plot, such as getting into an important area or killing an important character.
- Someone fatally shot by a single bullet will usually demonstrate dramatic body movement, such as flailing arms, taking many steps or leaping through the air, and rolling on the ground, instead of simply collapsing in a heap.
- During a fight scene on a roof top, (on either a building or vehicle), people who fall over the side can grab onto a hand-hold and dangle by their fingertips.
- Martial arts can make a fighter accomplish super-human actions, such as being as hard as rock, breaking steel, moving at lightning-speed, etc. The older the fighter is, the better it works.
- Villains who are just about to kill a good character are always stopped at the very last moment by multiple gunshots fired at them (usually from the back).
- The narrative can get stuck in a corner by placing the hero or the villain in a position where they can simply shoot and kill the other. Thus some kind of contrivance is needed to prolong the story by making sure that they don’t, or can’t, take the opportunity. (The movie Team America: World Police references this, noting that the occasional dumb moment is needed to “make it interesting”).
- A 'good' character who is betraying the heroes, or has been assimilated by an evil force, will exhibit strange behaviour, such as staring blankly ahead or talking in a monotone. The hero characters in the story will not immediately notice the seemingly obvious signs that their ally is now working for their enemy. (This is a dramatic conceit to allow the viewer a sense of anticipation, with the side-effect of making normally intelligent hero-characters momentarily seem incredibly stupid).
- Despite a military base having been a target of several nearly-successful assimilation attempts, no policies or safeguards are established to prevent future incidents. (example: Stargate SG-1)
- Only if the possessing the entity is benevolent, there is a chance that the strange behaviour will get noticed. Even then, the suspicion will not get acted upon until misunderstandings and conflicts arise, and a dramatic and ultimately sad resolve will result.
- A betraying 'good' character can be redeemed by heroically sacrificing themselves to let the heroes surmount an obstacle (example: Titan AE ).
- The bad guys will always be out to take over the world (or a country) or destroy it.
- The villain will kill a henchmen for making one mistake, even though the henchman is still loyal to the villain.
- The villain is full of pride - they can't resist revealing their past, explaining mysterious elements of the plot or the details of their plan to the hero, giving them time to escape. (Kevin Smith's Dogma has a scene that pokes fun at its use in James Bond films, and Jerry Seinfeld has poked fun at it as well. In The Incredibles this is referred to as "monologuing")
- Henchmen or soldiers working for the villain are inevitably very bad shooters. The hero will be able to shoot them at almost every attempt, even with single shots of a light weapon, while dozens of henchmen will unsuccessfully try to kill the hero using heavier weaponry.
- If a villain has framed a hero or has secretly committed a crime important to the plot, he will usually confront the hero and admit that he is indeed the culprit. This will always be followed by the revelation of hidden witnesses (often police officers or other authority figures), or a hidden recording device that captured the whole confession. (see Big Fat Liar)
- Sports coaches are usually:
- Rueful of how an injury cost him/her a pro career (Rodney Dangerfield pokes fun at it in Ladybugs as he kisses up to his boss to get a soccer coaching job), or
- A has-been athlete, usually drunk (e.g. Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own)
- The talented kid who refuses to play will usually have a scene with the coach where they throw a basketball back and forth, speaking only when they have the ball. The athlete will eventually drop the ball and walk away silently (after failing repeatedly or being mocked by his playing mates).
- Underperforming athletes will come up big when it really matters.
- An athlete can easily spot his loved one in a thousand-people crowd.
- The big final game of the season is always decided on the last play, with the clock running out (or in baseball, with two outs in the bottom of the 9th).
- In any kind of racing competition the villain is more focused on attacking the hero than with winning the race.
- Previously silent significant characters speak up towards the film's end, calmly and clearly delivering some profound wisdom (example: Gone In Sixty Seconds , Silent Bob in all of Kevin Smith's movies, exception: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle).
- In a large crowd of people, only one or two of them will speak (to minimise the money that has to be paid to the actors)
- One common story-telling cliche in movies is showing the main character as a kid, for character-establishing purposes (e.g. Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality, Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner, Jodie Foster in Contact, Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act).
- In American Comedies, whenever there's incoming trouble, the background music is a cha-cha.
- Dramatic romance scenes involve violin background music.
- An assassination often occurs while Italian opera music is being played at a loud volume in the victim's home. This refers to a scene in the Alfred Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
- Practical problem-solving skills gained in everyday life (street smarts) are valued higher than knowledge gained through study (book smarts). For example:
- Ordinary people can solve a problem that stumped all scientists, and go on to save everyone.
- People may make efficient advanced tools out of ordinary objects, with no hesitation, trial-and-error, or documentation (see MacGyver series).
- Scientists are presented as earnest, humourless, usually crazed or at least absent-minded individuals out of touch with the world around them (see Cuthbert Calculus, Doc Brown). see mad scientist
- An ‘intelligent’ character is cast as being timid, physically weak, socially inept and lacking in style or sophistication. Males tend to wear glasses and females have frumpy clothing.
- Characters who bring up specialist knowledge will explain how they happen know the said fact(s), and their knowledge is never attributed to reading a book once. This is to avoid making the character seem too ‘geeky’ by implying that they didn’t seek the knowledge, it just came to them through circumstance.
- By the end of the film, the scientist characters will either have been killed off or have rejected science and "converted" to belief in the paranormal [2]
- A jury verdict delivered after a very short deliberation is most often one of Guilty.
- Any emergency on an aeroplane will involve a brief nose-dive before the heroes regain control.
- Anybody can control an aeroplane with help from the control tower or reading a manual (seen in the Airport movies and later spoofed in the Airplane! movies).
- Fictional airlines have geographical-sounding names rather than having made-up brand names.
- When a slide or film projector is used, a character must stand in the beam so the image is projected directly on their body.
- When special fighters/soldiers are setting off to a mission, the camera often goes in front of them to show them walking in slow motion (this was made fun in the movie Monsters Inc.).
- Any time a character switches the TV to a news program, the newsreader will be providing a useful rundown of something relevant to the plot.
- When police are tracing a call from the villain, he/she will hang up late enough to give away their general location, but too soon for a specific address to be traced.
- Mobile 'phones work perfectly until they are needed in an emergency. Then the heroes won't be able to find a signal. Similarly Starship systems, the mobile’s futuristic counterpart, are hit by 'interference' at crucial moments. A well known example of this is the frequent breakdowns that afflicted the transporters and communicators in Star Trek.
- The letter "X" is often used in a title or a name for a context that implies science-fiction and mystery (X-Men, X-Files, Dimension X, Chemical X, Mega Man X, X, xXx, Dr. X...)
- When computers or the Internet are involved:
- People never make typing mistakes, and they almost never use the mouse.
- There is often a teenager able to crack into high-security systems using a home computer and computing and social engineering skills (see War Games).
- Passwords are often guessable and related to the topic (like somebody's maiden name).
- There are never any compatibility problems, nor is there any slowness or network problems when accessing systems, except when it is critical to the plot. People are able to make complex requests, and computers are able to answer them, in a matter of seconds.
- Computer displays don't bear any resemblance to current operating systems. They are far more animated than normal computer displays. For instance, text requested from a database will appear one character at a time, instead of all at once. Photographs will be rendered incrementally. Windows will move into position automatically and with special effects. Characters will be large enough so as to be legible to the audience without having to focus solely on the computer display.
- Indications such as "ACCESS DENIED", "CLASSIFIED" or "CONFIDENTIAL" will appear in enormous, blinking, red characters across the screen. This also is characteristic of computers involving medical processes, which will have completely irrelevant or inaccurate graphs and large blinking letters saying "POSITIVE".
- Close-ups on downloaded/scanned pictures are never blurry and show incredible detail
- Especially in American movies, foreign countries will usually be depicted in the most picturesque way, often with the implication that they are backwards compared to the United States.
- If there is a brief Paris street view, accordion music is heard (even though accordion is seldom heard in the streets of Paris nowadays, except in touristic areas) and the Eiffel Tower is always seen from windows.
- The police in most continental European countries will have wide powers to arrest people, and suspects won't have any legal rights.
- The English show signs of unquestioning loyalty to the Queen as if it were still 1953 in Britain.
- More generally, daily life will be portrayed with characteristics of what it was like at the end of the Second World War, not as it currently takes place.
- In American movies: If there is a global natural disaster, it will never start in the ocean or vast expanses of uninhabited land, but rather it will always strike the most populated cities in Asia or Europe before wreaking havoc in the United States.
- In American movies: if aliens land on earth, they will land in the United States first. (In Japanese movies and anime, Japan; British movies, England; etc.)
- Saving the United States of America from destruction is tantamount to saving the world from destruction.
- In American World War Two movies, the United States armed forces manage to defeat the Axis powers all by themselves (even though it was mostly the Soviet Army that destroyed Hitler's armies, for instance). Mentioned by comedian Eddie Izzard, referring to Saving Private Ryan: "If you could just swing the camera over all the guys on Gold, Juno and Sword would like to give a wave"... "What's the name for us? The Allies, that's it".
- American actors play English characters with a home counties 'posh' accent, (where, for example, 'bath' and 'path' are pronounced 'barth' and 'parth'), rather than any of the other English dialects (Scouse, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Geordie, West Country etc.).
- American actors playing French characters like to express surprise by saying "Sacrebleu!" even though this exclamation word is totally outdated among the French since more than fifty years.
- If most of the characters are American, anyone who speaks with an English or British accent will have a great chance to be a villain.
- An "obviously foreign-looking" character is assumed to not speak the native language, but suddenly reveals total fluency with no accent. In American movies, this is typically someone "oriental".
- When traveling, if any one of the main or secondary characters tries to speak the native language, they usually end up saying something that means something totally different than what they are trying to say originally.
- When looking for a secret base, a hero in spy films is often attacked by sentries, even when s/he is about to give up the search. They are beaten off and the hero now knows that it must be nearby to have it guarded.
- When trying to evade capture in a building or ship, a hero will duck into a side corridor or alcove, and the security guards will walk right past without bothering to investigate such a convenient hiding place. (Spoofed by Monty Python in Life of Brian: A huge crowd instantly stops having a massive brawl when a Roman palace guard strolls past at the end of the corridor. When the guard is gone they pick up the fight right where they left off.)
- While creeping quietly around a darkened building, a character will be startled by a cat (or another stray animal) jumping out of the shadows. This never happens twice though.
- All shopping bags contain at least one baguette that sticks out clearly.
- Italian-American mobsters speak with a heavy Italian accent even if their family has lived in the USA for generations. Those mobsters have usually have two-syllable nicknames formed with a random adjective (Fat Tony, Old Lewis...).
- Were you to look inside a cartoon character's closet or bureau, you would find that he really will have several sets of the exact same clothing.
- All rich people:
- are snotty, wear expensive clothes, and live in elegant mansions.
- speak in a British accent.
- have last names relating to money. (ie. Richie Rich)
- Villains and British characters are connoisseurs of something exotic and 'cultured', such as fine art, classical music, wine, whisky, cigars etc.
- If you and any amount of other people are in a deadly situation, it can be avoided by reciting all of your most unknown secrets.
- Deadly jungle creatures go for women and extras rather than the hero or the native guide.
- Wooden/rope suspension bridges are always decrepit and on the verge of failing.
- It seems that in old antique civilisations, whether Aztec or Egyptian, the builders used all their best technology into sophisticated traps and mechanical devices to be used inside old tombs or temples. Being plentiful (especially in video games), they are easily triggered by a simple switch, key or lighting system and still work after being abandoned for thousands of years. (exemples: Indiana Jones movies, Tomb Raider games and any archeology-based fiction)
- If a villain with a large fortress is defeated, it will automatically collapse/explode (example: the Mega Man games). Same is with confrontations in old antique temples/tombs (see again Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider or archeology-based fiction)
- A villain learning the secret identity of a super-hero will always die or lose his memory.
- Anybody getting an open injury underwater will seep liters of red opaque blood (more liters than a body could actually contain).
- A superhero will always face
- Alien invaders
- A master of disguise
- Mad scientists
- Supervillains whose power is related to an element (fire, ice...)
- Magic users
- An evil double
- And always an identity crisis, where he will wonder if he has to keep on a life of crime-fighting or give it up to live with his soul-mate
- Young women usually have skinny bodies and moderate (or possibly large in adult-oriented TV shows) breasts, and old women are probably fortune tellers, dowagers, or hag
- Heterosexual male heroes never have "deviant" sexual fetishes. They are usually simply attracted to a woman's breasts.
- A homely woman can become a beauty by abandoning her glasses and pulled-back hairdo.
- Any character who arrives on the scene on a motorcycle, wearing a helmet with a tinted visor and a full-covering jumpsuit will be revealed to be a woman through the removal of the helmet and display of long hair.
- Similarly, any hugely skilled 'mystery' opponent who can beat the male hero is revealed to be a woman at the end of the contest. In TV, movies and computer games in general, the very best 'hot-shot' driver, pilot or fighter will be a female.
- Female side-kicks are either completely helpless or capable of beating up heavies who are twice their size with martial arts.
- Caucasian women who live in the wild (à la Tarzan) have clean-shaven bodies, light complexion and well-trimmed hair.
- Women sitting or lying naked on a bed always have the sheets pulled up to their armpits to hide their breasts.
- Shortly into a love scene the shot pans away from the characters and focuses on a roaring fireplace, a set of billowing curtains or the view out of the window.
- All female villains are beautiful, vengeful, and seductive (see Femme fatale).
- The hero will always kiss/sleep with the bad-girl first and the good-girl near the end.
- If the main partner is cheating on his/her partner, it will always be with a bad person who will eventually run away, leaving him/her saddened. Yet, they manage to get forgiven.
- Women always manage to have perfect hair and make-up, even after rain or a heavy dive in water. However, as soon a woman starts crying, her eye shadow will run.
- A male character who has to cross dress (often an undercover cop on a sting operation) will have scenes where they struggle to put on make-up and find walking in high-heeled shoes difficult.
- People who impersonate others by using very realistic latex/rubber masks (à la Mission: Impossible) are always played by the actor who is impersonated. When they unmask, they are brutally switched to the disguising actor (by editing) pulling off latex/rubber and then handling a dummy head.
- Just like in real life, men will gallantly refuse passes from drunken women (such as in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery with perverted Austin).
- Only males are alcoholic.
- The bartenders of movie-land are forever wiping down the tops of their bars (occasionally glasses).
- Dads who make frequent blunders do or say the right things when they really need to.
- Disasters and monsters often kill everything except children and dogs.
- Whales are dangerous animals that eat people.
- All animals have an innate sense of the presence of danger or evil (especially dogs).
- Any family unit (particularly in an American sitcom) will consist of parents, several small children, one much older sibling and a neighbour. The parents set up the problem and then exit until later, when the father's 'wacky' side emerges and he sides with the kids. The smaller children dictate the plot through their adventures. The older sibling, being smarter and more able than their younger brothers and sisters, is the de-facto leader and does the practical work (driving stolen cars, posing as a parent). The neighbour gets roped-in to help. The neighbour is usually a peer of the older sibling, and the older sibling usually has a crush on them, much to the amusement of the younger children.
- Teenagers are remarkably blasé about climbing out of their bedroom windows, and parents never notice their children clambering down the side of the house.
- ‘Troubled’ American teenagers live in a very large house, drive their own car (usually a well-worn TransAm or Firebird), have several cool friends and live next-door to an attractive girl/boy.
- Girls are often "extreme" feminists: they think girls are smarter than boys.
- Children are usually as close to their cousins as they are to their siblings.
- Teenagers, in general:
- Have two friends: those latters will be one girl, annoyed of life, and the other a genius and an artist.
- Think that their little brother/sister is a problem: Always annoying him/her and making funny jokes.
- Face the incoherent, popular girl who is always a cheerleader.
- When a character tries to find a date for the prom absolutely, everyone else, even the school's biggest losers, will already have one.
- Teachers always seem to be in the middle of their lesson when the bell rings.
- Whenever a character goes fishing, he will eventually catch any of the following as result of "error": a can, a boot, or a tire.
- While a hero contemplates a school test they're not prepared for, all of the rest of the class will be eyes-down and getting on with the test.
- At school, the tallest blonde girl will be the bossiest girl.
- People's distant ancestors are usually near duplicates in appearance and behaviour (as they are played by the same actor).
- If a monster captures a good character, he will just stand there and roar until another good character defeats him.
- Nightmares are always vivid and terrifying enough to make the character wake up suddenly in a sweat.
- In television cartoons, a villain will usually pretend to give up and/or turn good in order to lead the good guys into a trap. The heroes will usually be foolish enough to believe him.
- In any cartoon whose main character is a kid, the kid's father is depicted as senile or lacks competence (sometimes both parents).
- Anime male heroes almost always have more or less spikey hair (or at least a very fancy one).
- If an anime character has long white hair, there is very big chance that he/she is a villain (bigger chance if he/she dresses in black).
- Most anime females are teenagers or adults who are younger than thirty.
- In anime, main female characters are almost always lousy cooks while younger females or the male heroes cook much better than them.
- Anime characters all eat Japanese food, even if they live in Middle-Age Europe or are outer-space aliens. Same is with sake.
- Sexual excitement causes rapid nosebleed in anime males.
- If an anime male character wants to sneak/steal at night, his best disguise will be a scarf covering his hair and tied under his nose.
- A crucial moment in an anime battle, for example the punch that wins the fight is shown from three different angles in slow motion before the punch actually connects.
- Westerners and Japanese look alike in anime.
- In anime romance, the male lead will usually end with the grumpiest girl.
- Extras and unfamiliar characters are usually there as cannon fodder, so that the enemy has someone to kill. A classic, and much-referenced, example is the red-shirted extras in the original television series of Star Trek, who were almost sure to die if they were paired with the main characters on a mission to a planet.
- Detectives who have reached a dead end in their case will receive a crucial break purely through coincidence. For example, a nearby television will be broadcasting relevant information, or they drive past a familiar face, word or name purely by chance. This often seemed to happen to Agent Mulder in The X Files.
- Give it a hundred and ten percent
- Take it one game at a time
- Backs against the wall (especially before any elimination games)
- Swing and a miss
- He shoots, - he scores!
- There's no "I" in a team
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