Im not an American but watching Hollywood movies and TV shows for many years. So I see some things in many movies. For ex a big roasted Turkey at the center of table during thanksgiving which I guess does happen in many households. There may be many such small regular things that are common in real life as well. But is there something that is portrayed as American but in reality not that regular there?
What American thing is not that common but shown in many Hollywood movies/TV shows ?
That's one of those things that has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with what makes more sense on set. The ol' "lift the lid off the present" exists because they can shoot it as many times as they like and it doesn't take any time to reset.
Similarly, it drives me crazy that they rarely put liquid in coffee cups and the actors just carry them empty. You can always tell by the way they're holding it. Also, if there's a scene in a car with the driver talking to someone in the back seat, they almost always remove the headrests on the seats.
A couple of years ago I wrapped boxes like that for all the gifts I gave. Family did not find it as funny as I did.
Leaving a bunch of beer bottles or shot glasses on the bar so we know that they're drunk. In real life, the bartenders take away the emptys.
Also the whole “leave the bottle” thing. You can probably technically buy a whole bottle at some bars but 90% of bars would not allow customers to pour their own drinks and only a terrible bartender would allow a single person to have their own bottle of liquor. It would be wildly irresponsible and probably illegal. Hell, in some states you can’t even pour your own drinks in bottle service.
That actually happened to me once! I was at an airline lounge in some airport pretty late at night. The only other people there were the few people sleeping in the lounge chairs and a bartender doing end of day inventory. I asked the bartender if it was too late to order a drink and they said it wasn’t. I asked for a bourbon on the rocks and that whatever was in the well (ie: free) was fine. When I saw the bottle was near the bottom (like 2-3 pours left) I said semi-jokingly “you can just leave the bottle”. Bar tender eyeballed how much was left, shrugged, marked their clipboard, and just left the bottle for me.
Felt like such a badass.
My small town bar we had one bartender (Bob) and a couple hundred people sometimes, we either threw our emptys away behind the bar, or they just sat on the table. We also kept an eye on things for him, because he has one eye and legally blind. If he was busy we'd walk around the bar and leave money on the register and grab a beer out the cooler.
Same here in my village. At every village gathering (save for the really big ones, where outsiders would visit too) there is a fridge and a box to put the money in.
In the past the owner of the bar in our village would just toss the keys to one regular, so the bartenders could end their shift, but the people from the village could stay longer and just pay their tab next time. They often stayed until the next morning.
This worked for years, but eventually folks from the nearby town caught wind of it and they regularily came in at 3am, drank there and never payed afterwards. This enraged regulars which ended in violence. Since then this policy was discontinued, unfortunately.
Twenty something women living in a beautiful New York City apartment with a glamorous job as a magazine editor etc
I mean it happens but it’s not as common as it is in every 2000s rom com
I just watched 13 Going on 30 with my sister because her 30th birthday is coming up and it was insane how Jenna was 30 living in a huge fancy apartment in NYC working as second/third in command to the chief editor of a big magazine (and being offered chief editor at another big magazine). When I was a kid I didn't realize how ludicrous that was. I guess in that movie part of the point was that she was living the dream life but still.
Right? Assuming she went to college, she would have at most seven years experience, and most of that experience would be more entry level.
When growing up our Norwegian exchange student asked us where our swimming pool was. Apparently he said everyone in America has one. I wish!
Australian here. We had a German exchange student when I was in high school. Didn’t pack any warm clothes for winter because she thought it’s always hot here.
TBH that's on the parents. How can you send your kid off to the other side of the world without checking what they've packed along?
My Dad (from the UK) laughed at me for packing jeans and trousers for my time in Melbourne, August-November. Little did he know how similar the weather is there to the UK during that time.
I live just outside Melbourne and our outside thermometer says it’s 1 degree right now. That’s about as cold as it gets. Not quite UK cold but not shorts and tshirt weather either.
I did the same thing, going from Texas to Massachusetts for the summer. I knew the weather was cooler, I didn't realize it was cold.
Empty parking spaces on city streets.
Especially right in front of the place you’re going.
Oh goodness this annoys me for some reason. Be it a pumping nightclub or some government building, park is available right there at the front door.
While I'm here whinging about parking, conversely so many people in movies park a fair bit away from where they're heading. They'll turn up, park randomly then walk a fair bit whether carrying something heavy or not, sometimes an injured person for instance. This is usually in a country type situation, farm or remote shed type of thing.
Another one is getaway vehicles, they do that often, but also they don't reverse in so they have the extra issue of reversing out, in a hurry. Lol, sorry that went on a lot more than I initially intended.
William Goldman wrote about this - you have a choice of easily finding parking or showing the character looking for a space, not finding it, driving around the block, parking in a garage, walking back. One is unrealistic, one is dull as life itself.
This is the same reason the protagonist never calls 911 themselves, they always yell for somebody else to do it. If the call is on camera it would be too boring
The one that makes me laugh is how high speed chases NEVER encounter traffic jams or clogged lanes. If there are other cars on the street, there’s always plenty of room to drive around them.
Classes last longer than for the teacher to say something pithy, ask someone a question, and then hear the bell ring.
School busses don't honk for your lollygagging ass. If the bus stop is empty they keep driving.
Jesus Christ this. Every time there is a class sequence the teacher always ask some absolutely batshit crazy thing in front of a class of quiet higschoolers.
"So today's word of the day is Dogma. Does anybody have an example of a dogma? " " It's when the fourteenth century assassin's turned on the pope for his unprecedented policy on poor people."
*Bell rings "Okay class as your homework write something on the topic on assassin's vs popes, give me three examples of each side having their own dogma. Chester? Come here for a second"
Everyone just leaves.
Yep, my teachers would say “The bell doesn’t dismiss you, I do.”
Schools that apparently have no classes at all. Everyone loiters in the hallways having plot conversations until a bell rings.
moms making huge breakfasts and no one eats .
We grabbed a pop tart on the way to the school bus.
This is the one. Every time, I’m like, what time are these kids getting up? What time does school start?
What time are these kids getting up?
Made me laugh out loud bc I’ve always wondered the same thing!! They are always totally put together too, even if they act like they aren’t
And wearing brand new clothes. Nobody has an acne or even a runny nose. Kids always have runny noses!
If they happen to, they specifically call it out as if it’s out of the ordinary.
A kid with a zit is often an entire subplot
My face could launch a cinematic universe
This is why (the depiction of) America was so great in my younger years: friendly people in sunny suburbs, giant lawns and driveways, sprinklers in the grass waking up the neighborhood, people jogging before breakfast (what time is it?), giant and smooth moving cars, crazy toys I'd never seen and never since... Even Poltergeist is this way, I'd take the haunting for granted.
That might have been part of the point in poltergeist, the houses/land were cheap but in a good location because they put the whole neighborhood on a sacred burial ground.
I know, right? Who even has time during the week to make a breakfast like that and/or sit down to eat one that big? Maybe on weekends here or there, or for special occasions, but it's never been an everyday thing.
This is why breakfast for dinner is big in our house. Love breakfast food, but I am not waking up early to make it.
We enjoy a big breakfast with all the trimmings, as Sunday brunch. Two eggs, small steak, toasted homemade bread with butter and preserves, hash browns, and coffee? Who could eat that much and want more than a snack later? If we spend $20 on one meal we will definitely eat it
I notice that on TV no one has screens on their windows. Where I live the bugs would carry you away.
This one drives my husband crazy. He always comments on this when someone opens a window and sticks their head out or throws something out. Could not do that where I live.
This was probably one of the biggest culture shocks for me when I lived in New Zealand. Nowhere I lived, or anyone I knew (in Christchurch anyway) had screens on their windows and regularly left the doors wide open. But it was mostly fine? The only bugs that really came inside and bothered me were crane flies. Fuck those horrible things. But at least they don't bite or sting like the bugs I was worried about coming in.
the reason we have screen doors is because of those nasty bugs that loves to come in groups and suck at leaving in groups. so yes they will eat you alive for that.
😯 we have window screens!!! I like near Washington DC, lots of bugs, bats, and snakes, oh my!
The houses and apartments shown do not represent the living conditions of most folks.
One of the reasons Spielberg films from 80s/90s were so believable was that he insisted on houses looking lived in. The Goonies and ET both showed messy houses, single parents, scruffy kids etc.
Those kids all had nice bikes.
When I was a kid in the 80s, your bike was your ultimate status symbol, your ride. Every kid had a bike, and it had to be the best Santa could afford. We lived on our bikes. We cherished our bikes more than anything else.
If you didn't have a bike, you were nobody.
Came here to co-sign this lol I am an over 50f in the US and I have the plastic number plate from the handlebars of my pink huffy on my refrigerator right now. My dad sent it with my little brother last time he visited. We didn’t have much back then and having that bike meant the world to me.
I recently found my old bike chain. It’s covered in blue sparkly plastic, that in the last 50+ years hadn’t gone brittle. Biggest accomplishment with the chain? I still remember the combo and it works!
When I was a kid we would take apart different bikes and change them around, my grandfather would buy and sell machinery so he ended up with a nice collection. I rode bikes from the 40’s when I was 10 in the late 90’s
Single parent household, mom works as a waitress and they have a whole house in the suburbs
Well but if you watch the reality housing shows you’ll see it’s something like “I’m a part-time kindergarten teacher. My husband works as Grimace at McDonalds. We have a mortgage approval of $2 million to buy our house” 😄
I’ve had two different friends do those shows.
One was offered the show after they had bought the house.
The other was flown over to Europe to pretend they were in the market for a castle.
The first one I had heard it’s the usual method.
The second one is hilarious
A former boyfriend co-owns a real estate company with a friend. The friend was contacted by a certain show on HGTV to act as the realtor for a couple in our town that had just purchased a home. They requested that he tour that home and two others for the show. He declined the offer, but it was interesting to know how it was actually filmed bc my sister and I loved that show and laughed about the job titles vs approved budget
Man, I would love to pretend I’m buying a castle in Europe for TV.
I'm dying
"Works as Grimace"
There was a time, before housing crash, that you could get pretty much any loan you wanted. Ninja loans - no income, no job, and no assets. Also, back then, there were interest only loans - as long as you can pay interest, don't worry about the principal. Since houses only go up, the principal doesn't matter, I was offered that loan when I was buying a house, they looked at my 60k salary and said I can easily get a 700k house, and can look for more expensive ones. (I did not, and got a 300k house, which still was expensive for me, but lowest in price range in area)
And that my friend is the 2008 housing/financial crash in a nutshell. NINJA loans that went bad.
Or a non-rent controlled, 1000 Sq Ft 2 bedroom apartment in the middle of Manhattan.
Are you telling me that a student or a coffee shop worker can't afford an enormous apartment right in the middle of New York !? Haha.
Totally agree. Most people have outdated furniture and their houses are in some kind of disarray.
The Middle is one of the few shows that shows a realistic middle class household - torn upholstery, dated decor, broken appliances, etc
Yeah, I remember when they were filming that movie... The Stephanie Plum series about the bounty huter. I wasn't a fan but a colleague played her in the local tours and reenactments of the series as it was set in our town. The neighborhoods used in that movie are NOTHING like the actual neighborhoods.
Back alleys in Manhattan. Afaik, there's about half a dozen, but only one, Cortlandt Alley, ever appears in films.
Worth mentioning that New York famously doesn't have alleys in it's design. It's why during sanitation strike there are so many pictures of mounds of trash on the streets.
It's also why NYC is seen as dirtier than say Chicago. Chicago has alley's to hide dumpsters. New York piles trash up on the street for sanitation to take away a few times a week.
A breakfast spread covering a 14 seat dining table and someone in a rush runs down stairs, grabs and apple; kisses someone, then heads out of the door because they’re running late.
"I've been cooking for three hours. You will sit down, you will eat it and you will like it... Punk."
A frustrated and overworked mom yelling, "If you're hungry, there's cereal in the cabinet!!" would be the most accurate breakfast for most families lol
The lifestyles are super exaggerated. The houses, cars, clothes, free time, etc are romanticized and idealized versions of reality that only truly exist in Hollywood, or perhaps the 1%. Most people have jobs, messy homes, car payments, and don’t dress to the nines every single day.
The unexplained ability of characters being able to afford houses or apartment way out of their league.
Reminds me of the House Hunters gag. "I am a goldfish wrangler, and my wife works 2 hours a week teaching basket weaving. Our budget is $1.8 million."
"I'm a part-time oil rig technician, and my wife is a stay-at-home astronaut. We're looking in the $1.9m price range."
edit: i'm getting a bit of blowback on the oil rig thing, so at the very least, i want to point out that i was referring to 1. offshore rigs and 2. the fact that they're out in the middle of the ocean and therefore can't really be (at least as far as i know) part-time jobs.
“I’m a single executive assistant with no roommates who lives in a two bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown New York…”
Every attic does not have a mannequin, giant mirror and old bird cage.
If we see ourselves discussed on television, we don’t turn off the TV before they are done talking.
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19d
We can’t traverses buildings through duct work. Just ain’t gonna happen.
Being able to park right in front of the big building you’re headed to during business hours in a major US city. There usually isn’t parking there because most places zone those as passenger drop off areas.
At schools, teachers give assignments like normal people and don't shout it at the class as they're departing after the bell rings.
Abrupt endings to conversations or phone calls without saying bye.
Also this type of scene: person A is sitting at their desk, on the phone with someone. Person B storms in angrily. Person A just says into the phone "I'll call you back" and hangs up.
A friend of mine once said, "Just imagine what this scene is like for the person on the other end of the phone. They're having a nice, normal conversation, they're in the middle of explaining something, presumably work-related. Then, completely out of nowhere, the person on the other end interrupts them, says, 'I'll call you back' and slams down the phone!"
Omg, thank you. Seriously wondered if people actually did this.
Yes, but not too many people. Lawyers, especially when we speak with each other, end conservations abruptly. Also, some executives and some types of finance people do so.
This is because if you say goodbye but they end up having a bad bye they can literally sue you
I have a job were I take constant phone calls all day. Being polite at the end of the call is not something anyone really cares about in a hospital. The best you get is a "thanks".
Most calls are pretty much...
"I have this information for you, please do something".
"Please clarify this information for me".
"Clarification"
"I will do this thing now" - Hang up.
In Australia you’d at least get a thanks at the end. I’ve never had a job where we got away with being rude on the phone. The thanks and bye is like saying “copy that. Over”. At least you know the conversation is over
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19d
I’m pretty sure if someone actually “spiked the punch” there would be some severe legal consequences
High school proms are way less glamorous in reality, just saying.
I think that depends on the school. I know we had our high school prom at a five-star hotel. I'm not bragging, either. The majority of the kids there were super wealthy (16 year-olds driving BMWs, Mercedes, Lexus, etc) and very entitled.
I went to public school and we still had our prom in a five-star hotel. It was one of those things that you do a lot of fundraising for throughout the school year, and even so I think tickets were like $100 which was a lot for high school students in the early 00s.
Honestly, speaking of high school proms, high school parties. The level of party that happens in movies always cracked me up. "How?" gets asked in so many shots/scenes at a high school house party. They are always at an 11 when in real life, there are a third of the people and the energy is at a 6 maybe a 7 if something wild happens.
On Law and Order, when the police come and people keep doing their drone jobs. Sorry, but the most exciting thing in my day is a visit by the police, so I’m stopping everything, offering coffee, asking lots of questions, and ratting out my neighbors on unrelated things!
"Excuse me, have you seen this little girl? She was turned inside out and hung from the Brooklyn Bridge by a rope composed of human teeth."
"LISTEN BUDDY THIS LAUNDRY ISN'T GOING TO SORT ITSELF"
And then they're really glib with the cops. "Hey, I have to load these boxes".
“How often do you get questioned by the murder police about murder that you just find it mildly inconvenient?”
The other thing with Law and Order and other cop shows is that people always act annoyed toward the cops. IRL the vast majority of people are not going to act that way. I’ve had a couple of cop visits and I was always shocked and kind of nervous and there was no way I would have acted like they were getting on my nerves!
Being able to talk and have a conversation in a loud bar with music playing
Nobody ever has to ask someone to repeat themselves in a movie.
I probably say "what?" about 60 times a day
This is one of my favorite things about the show Firefly. In the last episode, a character asks the bad guy "are you alliance?", and the bad guy thinks he says "are you a lion?" So he responds "I never thought of myself as a lion, but I guess I do have a mighty roar."
The character looks at him confused and clarifies what he said, and the bad guy goes "I thought you said... nevermind."
I thinks it's the first and only time I ever heard a blatant miscommunication in any show or movie.
There was a whole SNL skit back in the 80’s where the main character misunderstood everything. They would ask her to discuss the state of the union and she would talk about how she finds it boring to stare at her bunion. It was stupid, but funny, because it does happen in real life!
DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN "WHAT?"
People in a bar ordering a “beer”. In real life, the server would be likely exasperated and ask about brand/kind and quantity.
Alistair McGowan made a joke of this in his (British) impressions show - he'd go into the pub and order "A pint of unspecific".
It's for legal/licensing reasons. Way easier to have a guy sit down and ask for a beer than ask for a PBR, Guinness, Heineken, whatever, without feeling like an ad and without being an ad. You can write a comedy based in Ireland and have every character ask for a Guinness, but you're also going to have the Guinness people nitpicking every thing every character does and determining if they want to be associated with that.
Add to that: “just give me the bottle”
No one keeps their car keys in the sun visor, yet in movies that’s the first place everyone looks.
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19d
Is the leaving house doors unlocked thing common in rural places too? Because I knew a guy that never locked his front door. Because that’s absolutely crazy to me and where I’m from some crackhead or tweaker would just walk in and take everything
I live in Canada on a First Nations reservation mobile home park and we all leave our doors unlocked !
I had a friend who never locked his doors. His theory was this...
"What are the chances that someone tries my door, at a time when it's not locked, at a time when I'm not home?"
Turns out the chances were quite high. I lost my iPod touch when he got robbed
"Well if you remove the most controllable part of that, the chances don't stay low"
There’s a rural town in Alaska I believe where they leave their car doors unlocked and the keys above the visor. It’s because polar bears will hunt you and they don’t like peeling open the can so they’ll wait for hours watching you.
All I can picture is some guy running to a SUV while being chased and the truck is locked. Fucking tourists he mumbles.
You are thinking of Churchill, MB where it's illegal to lock your vehicle doors because of polar bears.
It's not illegal, just customary. But keep in mind, there are no roads to Churchill, so it's not like you could take the vehicle anywhere.
Every woman seems to be constantly wearing high heels, wedges, stilettos, court shoes. Even teenagers on teen shows. I always wondered if was this normal in American society
This is kind of the opposite. In media set in the US people always seem to live in small towns, with town squares and historic homes, or big cities, with tall buildings and condos. The reality is that much of America is a copy-pasted suburb that has some chain restaurants, big box stores, Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and 2-3 chain grocery stores. There’s some regional differences and likely a few local shops renting space in the same plaza as the chain stores.
That’s not every city, but if you pick a US city at random, that’s most likely what you’ll see on Google maps.
But… Gilmore girls was my fave…
I cannot even fully describe the disappointment I felt when I found out GG was filmed on the WB backlot and not a quaint little town I could go visit 🫠
It supposed to be based on Washington Depot in Connecticut, which is in fact a super cute quaint town worth a visit!
There are a bunch of quaint towns in New England you can visit. You might not get the gazebo in the town square but there are plenty of quaint places that look pretty in the fall
My son and I visited California in 2019. We went for a one-day trip from LA to the Sequoia Park. Somewhere northeast of Bakersfield we drove through the most US town ever. Wendy’s, McDonald, trucks, water tower, town hall and… ads! « Welcome to xxx gun fair where the fun begins », « Jesus loves you - donate xxx-xxx », « you had an accident while working? We will sue your boss together! »
It looked like that North Korean town shown to tourists that they tried to make it look real.
Every American cliche was in this town
Everyone has a bottle of booze in their desk drawer & they sit at their desk and drink. Even cops! People would just get fired for that kind of behavior at work. I have had occasion to go for a margarita at lunch time, very occasionally but rarely, because after one drink I’m like “Hell with work. I’m going home!”
This is an example of something that *was* true but which hasn't been for decades. Shows like Mad Men somewhat exaggerated it, but the "three martini lunch" was a real thing among businesspeople and it was considered fine to drink at work (a desk job not operating heavy machinery or anything) assuming you still got your work done.
In the 90s, my old boss had a discreet liquor cabinet in his office. Occasionally, he'd call me in late in the afternoon to "chat," which really was because he didn't want to drink alone. Going back to work after a couple doubles was often a drag.
Shoes on the bed
No, we do not have glasses of orange juice and stacks of pancakes left on the table as we head out for the day. We grab a snack bar or a piece of fruit and rush out the door.
Level of attractiveness is an obvious one.
One thing I live about British television is that the actors look more like someone you might actually pass on the street.
And do other countries have teens in media who are obviously adults? Like not even passing for actual teens.
I recently watched that new Nightmare On Elm street from some years ago and there was this blond grown ass woman who looked like she had a starter mortgage and car payments playing a teenager. Like why is this junior sale rep for a pharmaceutical company playing someone 16?
A black van is ALWAYS a FBI mobile unit.
A white van is wether used by a lone sexual predator and serial killer or by two degenerate racist hillbillies brothers
Vans do not exist in any other colour
I think most Americans are much, much poorer than we are portrayed to be on tv. 🤷🏻♀️
I'd say 99% are. You ever watch reality shows like 90 Day Finance? It is a couple with 1 US based person with another from outside North America. Most are surprised everyone isn't extremely rich, and everyone doesn't live in huge cities like NYC.
"I'm so disappointed that my husband lives in some rundown suburb in West Virginia and not Los Angeles!"
I'm not American, but one trope I always wonder about:- Are newborn babies, born in hospital really put in a room with other newborns, so that the father / relative needs the baby pointing out to them? I get that this might have happened in the 60s, does it still happen today? In the UK this seems really odd, but is a media US thing.
I don’t think it’s common now but when I worked as a nurse and got pulled to postpartum back in the early 2000s there were nurseries like that. I think it’s another example of tv/movies just not catching up with the times.
I think it also gives the filmmakers the opportunity to show a new baby without people getting wrapped up in the condition of the mom. If the scene was in the mom's hospital room they would have to show/acknowledge her and that's very often not the point of the scene.
Maybe it depends on the hospital? All I know is that neither of my kids (both born in the 90s) were. They stayed in the room with mom most of the time. Only taken out for certain scan's/checks they couldn't do in the room and even then only briefly.
This is weird because the larger hospital in my area has a huge nursery where the babies go to have blood work and everything done (this is aside from the NICU). One kid, they did all that in the room, but the others were while they were away. Our nursery even had a large window at one point where you could see them all, but when they did a huge, modern update on the ward, they took the window out for privacy. But mothers were encouraged to send the babies to the nursery so they could get some sleep. They'd change the diapers and call and wake you up when it was feeding time. I think it's because they had a policy that the moms shouldn't co-sleep in the hospital beds after being so exhausted, so they tried to let the mom recuperate from birth. Then by the time you go home, you're slightly better rested and ready for 24/7 care.
Mine were brought to my room and slept in a bassinet there. The only time the baby was removed was for specific medical reasons that didn't take long (like being weighed, check-ups, etc.)
The amount of lighting, props, fancy backgrounds, costumes and talented kids in the school plays😆.
25 year-olds in High School.
Most families I know do in fact have a big turkey on Thanksgiving. That said, what doesn't happen is the mom getting up early everyday and making a huge breakfast spread for the family, only to have the dad late for work and the kids late for the bus only grabbing a piece of toast.
We've never had the turkey on the table... we usually carve it first then have buffet style
Actually you are right. We have the turkey on the table with everyone for a photo of the group celebrating together, then it gets taken away to carve. Guess I didn't think of it that way.
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19d
Good one! Or likewise - making plans to meet up later but not saying when or where!
Haha I’m British. We’ll say “see you later” to people we most definitely will not be seeing later.
In movies or TV programs, whenever there is some kind of costume party or Halloween shown, the quality of costumes is usually way better than what you'll see in real life.
Fruit stands that speeding cars crash in to.
When I was working in China, my colleague couldn’t believe that I had never seen someone shot and killed by a gun. Her response was, “but the movies show it happening all the time.”
Someone probably wrote this already, but classrooms on tv/movies often show only about fifteen kids. In reality, it's often twice that.
Two people find that they like eachother. Next shows them eating eachother's face off while running into and slamming their bodies into the hotel corridor wall because OH BOY they are horny, and they have to kiss while they are removing their keys and their shoes and tie, because there is only one single way to film a sex scene and goddamnit they're gonna stick to it.
Then the guy lifts the girl and carries her to the bed, no awkwardness just smooth till the morning. Then after they finish one of them sneaks off while the other one is sleeping without waking them up.
Knocking over lamps, pictures, and vases (something always crashes) then waking up in the morning looking just the perfect amount of sexy, messy hair and full makeup
Americans actually do say “goodbye” before ending a phone call. So many movies portray us as simply hanging up with no polite “Bye”.
High school students having tons of time before class starts in the morning. Look at TV shows or some films and you see these kids going all around town, stopping in at a place to eat, or doing whatever before the first class of the day.
In my experience (where class started at 7:40 AM in high school) you barely had enough time to quickly eat a small breakfast, get ready in the morning, and then drive to school and hopefully get a decent parking spot.
Oh, and high school kids always have some sort of "meeting spot" (which could be anything from a diner to a coffee shop to an arcade to whatever the hell a "juice bar" is supposed to be because I've never seen one of those), when in reality that rarely, if ever, happens.
And while we're on the subject of food... high school students are actually allowed off-campus for lunch. Now maybe this is something left up to individual schools, but again, in my experience the staff wouldn't even allow us out of the cafeteria, let alone go off the campus somewhere to eat.
All of these things happened in the 80s when I was at school. There was even a dedicated smoking area, and my school was grades 7-12. It was not unusual to see 7th graders and seniors smoking together. Also, we could leave for lunch. Times have obviously changed.
I graduated from high school in between when you and the person you are replying to did. I saw the student smoking lounge, on-campus smoking, off-campus lunch, and leaving early for the day for all disappear in the five years between eighth grade and senior year. Feels like a big cultural shift may have happened in the US.
Pre cellphone and internet messaging era having meeting spots was typical otherwise you would just show up to someone's house and knock on the door hoping they were there. Even if you planned to do something else you had to coordinate to meet up somewhere first, most of the times you didn't have plans so you just picked a regular place to hangout together.
And at least where I went to school we were free to come and go. Many people had spare periods so when it coincided with their lunch break they would leave to eat or hangout at the mall, or if it was at the end of the day they could just go home early.
I graduate in 2011 and we were allowed to leave campus. We did have a meeting spot for a few years. Not a juice bar: too expensive for us. Taco John's was the place to meet because it was fairly central, usually empty despite busyness at the drive through, and they wouldn't kick us out for doing dumb shit like singing irish pub songs in a taco restaurant.
where class started at 7:40 AM in high school
What the Geneva convention is wrong with you people? Starting before 8 is a human rights violation
People are not that good looking or that well dressed or that fit.
I know this is dated, but there’s no way Al Bundy could afford a big house in a nice Chicago suburb and support a wife and two kids just selling shoes at the mall, even at that time.
That was part of the gag. It was an inverse of everything from The Honeymooners to All In The Family where a single income of moderate at best means ended up supporting either huge homes or a dozen people. Practically every episode of Married with Children mocks Al for being broke or shows them being unable to afford a very basic thing.
They don't have food, the car is a complete junk heap, they can't buy a couch, go on vacation, etc. All of it feeds back into how ridiculous it is to expect that as normal in America. Ditto with The Simpsons. Roseanne was the big hit that didn't make a joke out of the lifestyle. They were flirting with poverty pretty constantly and they'd joke but it also provided real serious moments.
Anything on American television related to lifestyle and income is always really tone deaf.
Characters always have much nicer accommodations or a weird roommate situation.
Example: New Girl has three friends living in a New York City giant ass apartment and they have dubious employment while never skipping any expense like drinks out, etc. Same for Friends, Seinfeld, etc.
A more realistic version of these shows is a normal sized apartment and everyone never wants to do much because they all work all the time to afford it.
Maybe I’m just fat, but one pizza for say, a family of 5 (which usually includes teens). Bring 1 pizza into our house and things would quickly spiral into the Hunger Games.
Gun suppressors (“silencers”) depicted on TV and in movies make gunshots WAY quieter than in real life.
The foil swans for take-out leftovers. (It's apparently a thing one SoCal chain did that spread around Hollywood, but isn't done outside of there.)
EDITED to add:
I think a lot of the places elsewhere around the country started doing this after seeing it done as far back as the Dick Van Dyke show.
Aliens blowing up the white House. It happens all the time in movies, but rarely happens irl.
Those Christmas rom-coms are a treasure trove for this post:
The protagonist is always a twenty-something female who has her own upscale home or upscale apartment.
She works downtown of an unnamed town that is always busy, busy, busy.
She has her own corner office in a busy, busy skyscraper, where her job is to always be busy, busy, busy.
The big boss comes tell her she has until Christmas to get to a small business the company owns and either save it from going bankrupt or to personally go shut the business down for good. (It’s ALWAYS one or the other).
The small business in question is always a Christmas themed resort/hotel/restaurant/bakery/maybe all of the above.
The town she is sent to is always something you’d see in a Norman Rockwell painting. Everyone knows everyone, as you ride thru town children are in every yard sledding or building snowmen, every couple you pass are smiling as they walk arm-in-arm, etc.
7.The protagonist is very soon introduced to the town’s handyman or car mechanic (who just happens to own a farm and house that exceeds what any handyman or mechanic can afford on his own).
She falls in love with handyman/mechanic boy. They save the Christmas-themed hotel/resort/bakery/whatever just in time for Christmas.
She quits her busy-busy job in the busy-busy city, moves to Rockwellville and marries mechanic boy.
Even though they’re now living on his salary alone, they buy the hotel/restaurant/whatever and live happily ever after.
Everyone’s clothing looks brand new, fresh off the rack, perfectly ironed / no wrinkles or signs of wear
Someone coming home with groceries that are in a brown paper bag with a loaf of French bread and a bouquet of flowers sticking out of the top of the bag.
That weird clique shit that everyone is trapped in and group of like 3 popular people the school worships. Istg gen x script writers went through it and literally would not stop writing highschool shows like that. Now you can see it tapering down as the newer gen gets in the room and is able to give more references
I'm glad that's not just me! I always wondered if my school was bizarre because it wasn't very clique-y. Generally speaking, the athletes were also decent students, there wasn't a defined "popular" group, and, as far as I saw at least, there was no overtly bullied group.
People just being home when somebody shows up. It could be an FBI agent and they happen to be home, oh and no prior phone call to say they're coming, just out of the blue there they are.
Men being clean shaven no matter the situation. Stuck in a jungle for two weeks, clean shaven. Panicking on a stricken ship, space station, oil rig, clean shaven.
Women waking up with perfect hair, full make up and supposedly fresh breath.
People having a steamy night of passion then just getting out of bed, dressing and heading to work or wherever.
People getting an urgent call and saying they'll be there in ten minutes. Could be the other side of a major City but they get there in ten minutes.
I am not an American but if my missus makes me eggs , bacon and pancakes for breakfast i am not going to just take a piece of toast and run out of the door .. i am eating every scrap, have a coffee and damn the work if i am late.
People having time to go do shit after work. Like in friends they are always lounging at the coffee house, Seinfeld was always at the diner….i have like 28 minutes between commute, dinner, clean up, kids baths and bedtime and it’s not all in a row.
Food fights. Nobody does that in real life.
People are always overdressed in movies. If I wore a suit on a regular Tuesday every person I encountered would be like “What’s with the suit?”
summer camps being the norm. I don't know anyone who spent a whole summer at camp
Non-American here, but I've heard from a lot of friends that the trope of having this huge breakfast on the table, which no one touches before heading out, it's complete bull.
Also, not locking your cars.
In real life predominantly black neighborhoods don't have hip hop music playing faintly in the background to let you know you're in "the hood"
People leaving a front door wide open when entering a home. I see it on sitcoms all the time. Like AC/Heat or bugs don’t exist.
Also, people using windows to sneak in and out of habitually.
EDIT: I understand. I get it. A bunch of you snuck out windows. I was just responding with what’s not common in my personal world. Your telling me your tale doesn’t change that.
How about the red plastic cups that Americans always seem to use in teenage party scenes. Are they widely used in real life in the states?
Yes. College is filled with Solo cups. Every college, every campus, every party. It’s so common and a cultural institution that people prefer to buy the red cups.
I didn't realize until recently that red Solo cups are not a thing in the rest of the world. They definitely are a thing in the US. They're very very common.
Inclusivity and diversity.
Not every group of friends or employers are made up of the perfect mix of LGBT, male/female, mixed races. Most groups are very much made up of similar people.
Presents where the box lid is wrapped separately from the rest of the box.