As an art form, movies are an escape from the mundanity or stress we experience in our day-to-day lives.
Nicole Kidman nailed it perfectly when she told AMC audience members that "we need that, all of us, that indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim."
We are prepared to "go somewhere we've never been before," and as moviegoers, we're prepared to suspend our disbelief for the sake of being entertained.
But there are scenes depicted in movies that can jolt us back to reality and make us wonder, are movies really the magical escape they always purport to be?
Curious to find out, Redditor -Weirdo-Ranjan-3725 asked:
"What are some f'ked up things that are normalised by movies?"
How movies portray various protocols in life can be very misleading.
Police And Professionalism
"Cops being allowed to stay on a case involving their relatives or someone they are dating."
– SeriousNep2nian
"Cops saying to their supervisor, 'Then I guess what I do on my time is my own business?' after being told they’re off the case because they’ve gotten too involved in it …"
– SniffleBot
Medical Myths
"Unrealistic expectations in medicine for one."
– Skeptical_Monkie
"Dr. House is both the world's best and worst doctor simultaneously."
– guynamedjames
The Resuscitating Technique
"Most people would be shocked how rarely CPR is effective."
– KoedKevin
"Okay but what if after they call it, you scream at the patient, "Damnit, LIVE!!!!! LIVE you bastard!" And slap them, then get pulled away and rush back to the patient and punch their chest and start compressions again? I heard that works, and they wake right up and say something witty or sweet and definitely do not have broken ribs, if you use that movie-certified technique."
– ImAsking4AFriend
Focusing On The Road
"Facing your passenger for seconds at a time while driving. I still believe some people do this IRL because they've seen it in movies."
– JAMisOVERRATED
"I get so uncomfortable during those scenes. Can't hear the dialogue cos internally I'm screaming 'LOOK AT THE F&*@ING ROAD!'"
– maybebaby83
Cuts So Deep
"Slicing your palm wide open with a knife when needing to give a blood sample. Literally the worst place because the margin of error between a little blood and detached tendons is super thin skin."
– AnEpicBowlOfRamen
"Not to mention this sh*t is going to be the WORST while waiting for it to heal. You move your hand like a billion times a day, but apparently, it's OK to just slice across your entire palm deep enough to draw blood, wrap it in a bandage, and go about your business like nothing happened."
"If you for some reason need to cut yourself to draw blood, why not somewhere that's generally stationary even while doing mundane sh*t like walking around, like your shin or bicep. You can easily draw blood and then bandage it and forget about the wound for a few days while it heals."
– cheeseburgerwaffles
Ending The Call
"Ending a phone call without saying goodbye."
– shikakaaaaaaa
"In the Midwest a goodbye is like an obligatory six sentences long."
– raisinghellwithtrees
"My South Carolina cousins will tell you AT LEAST 4 more stories after you say goodbye."
– jimtown28
These dangerous examples don't apply in real life.
Destablizer
"Tranquilizer darts. It’s basically anesthesia and you can’t shoot different targets with the same loads since they’re generally special formulas. Each dart is created based on the intended targets mass, metabolism, and presence of other medicines it might potentially react with."
– whynotchez
"iirc The Lost World: Jurassic Park actually got this one relatively right ? They talked about how it depended on the size of the Rex. Plus, when they are capturing the dinosaurs, they don't go immediately under, it takes some time."
– medvezhonok96
Head Thwack
"Hitting people on the head with heavy objects to knock them out for a few minutes."
– Mataza89
"In the James Bond universe, you just have to karate chop people in the back of the neck to knock them out for an hour."
OB1KENOBI
"I call it the 'Knockout Button'. I remember laughing at how often it happened in Lost. They’d all be suffering from extreme CTE at least from the amount of times they’d been bludgeoned over the head."
– WhyDiver
It's Gangster
"the mafia. Organized crime is very disturbing and shouldn’t be glamorized at all, yet we have countless movies depicting it differently."
– anon
"perhaps Hollywood scripts are written by Big Mafia."
– cubosh
"The Mafia had effective script approval on The Godfather. If not, the film would not have been made."
"Lenny Montana, the actor who played Luca Brasi ('It's a Sicilian message. Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes') was actually a real life, honest to god mob enforcer who was sent to the set to keep an eye on things. De Coppola spotted him and gave him a part. As a mob enforcer."
– douglarri
These are perceived as romantic for dramatic effect, but in real life, not so much.
Being A Creeper
"Stalking being romantic."
– tourniquet13
"Stalking a girl. In the films, she eventually comes around and they fall in love. IRL don't do this, she's not going to come around and fall for you."
– TheAbyssGazesAlso
"'Falling in love' with someone you’ve never spoken to is NOT romantic."
"Refusing to take 'No' for an answer is NOT romantic."
"Showing up at a girl’s house after she broke up with you with a boom box over your head is NOT romantic."
"Following someone home without their knowledge so you can see where they live is NOT romantic".
"Breaking into their home to watch them sleep is NOT romantic."
"Writing someone a letter a day for a year+ even though you never get a reply is NOT romantic."
"Threatening to harm yourself if someone won’t go on a date with you is NOT romantic."
"People on the receiving end of this behavior tend to call it 'terrifying.'"
– titianqt
I appreciate it when movies poke fun at cinematic tropes.
While the logistics of running upstairs during a home invasion usually don't work in favor of the victim, I applaud the self-awareness the Scream franchise deployed by deliberately staging scenes depicting what not to do.
The brilliance lies in the fact that the slasher franchise normalized horror tropes of parodies while still managing to scare the living daylights out of moviegoers.
There's a reason why a seventh sequel was greenlit with the announcement of Neve Campbell returning to reprise her role as Sydney Prescott.
Fans can't get enough of Scream.
