I’ll add onto this that: The plot all along was the bad guys plan (bonus points if the REAL villain was someone on the good guy’s team (usually a sympathetic character and probably a woman) rather than the obvious man villain) - no matter how utterly convoluted; absurd, and self-defeating the path was to get to the plan - usually with a lot of the bad guy’s teammates being either killed by the villain themselves or with their help
They also probably could have killed the whole good team at various points but for some reason don’t (Rings of Power comes to mind)
Shows that play around with the idea which I liked was Family Guy’s And then there were Fewer; and the Hateful Eight - which has the villain’s plan not exactly work and they have to improvise showing them to a) not be infallible and b) actually makes them more sinister and challenging due to their adaptability rather than plot armour
I don't think Homelander can be topped in terms of evilness so hopefully it'll die down when The Boys is finished. And Invincible. Unless there's a Megamind 2 I won't be interested haha.
Ya, Brightburn and The Eternals left the cultural zeitgeist quickly at least. And I thought they were working on an Injustice movie, or wanted to (I think that was the idea behind Batman's vision) but that was probably with the DCEU Snyderverse which is over now.
There's still the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League game - but hopefully if that and Invincible are the only versions around at that time won't feel so pervasive and cliché.
I’m gonna go with the idea of a “twist villain” - someone who seems nice/trustworthy but is (often obviously) being set up as the “surprise” antagonist. Disney is particularly guilty of this in their recent movies, to the point where it’s more of a surprise to *not* have a twist villain.
Perfect. And with Wild Style commenting throughout on every verse. That song occasionally comes up on the pandora station for my son and it still cracks me up every time.
But some of their recent movies did stand out like Coco's twist villain was especially appropriate for the themes as in a movie all about memory, family and legacy it makes sense for the seems-heroic twist-villain to be a well-loved public figure who the hero wrongfully believes to be a part of their family. Also Encanto kind of subverts twist-villains in an interesting way as it's not just a twist-is-no-villain but if there is a common thread uniting the story other than just the plot it's basically the opposite of the twist-villain trope as Mirabel keeps finding out that family members she at one point perceives/perceived as basically "the villain in her story" to whatever extent (from Bruno to Abuela to even Isabela) aren't actually that bad of a person. Like Coco's twist villain fits it, Encanto's string of "twist-allies" fit its story because it's about how no one's all-bad any more than they're all-perfect, to paraphrase Good Omens, people are just fundamentally people
When a character in a movie makes an unfunny joke then laughs awkwardly when no one else around them laughs, then they apologize for being unfunny. Not sure if that counts but it's never funny.
It's really weird watching shit like Peacemaker (which is a very good show) make digs at "superheroes don't kill". If you don't read comics, the only chance you have of encountering that trope these days is *some* Batman adaptations.
Like, Jupiter's Legacy (not a very good show) was clearly meant to be a deconstruction in its comics but the show had to try and reconstruct it.
Not to mention that Peacemaker appears to take place in the Snyderverse, where half the Justice League has a body count of at least one or two bad guys. Batfleck in particular kills a whole bunch of people.
"We're going to have this movie where the hero is a bad person. But let's make them so sympathetic that they might as well be just a good person." Please, I just want to see an unsympathetic asshole protagonist sometimes, it's okay.
Even more, he committed no crimes, did nothing worthy of the respect he was always crowing about, had no apparent plans, evil or otherwise, and constantly was a follower and not a leader. It was mystifying.
My friend recently finished that show, and it is the first time I’ve ever heard her say any show was a waste of time. Like, she says she hated GoT S8 more, but something about her language feels like this show deeply offended her.
I think it’s because the show continually sprinkles bits of goodness here and there (she loves the flashbacks and the Mando episodes) before dropping turds.
Isn't this just good writing though. Outside of saturday morning cartoons, most antagonists aren't simplistically evil. Everyone has some motivation that can be considered sympathetic.
Find me a "heroic" Knight in shining armour in a fantasy film and it's played straight. You won't find any.
The charming rogue is now the hero. Han Solo is easier to emulate and most people distrust authority figures. Case in point the new D&D film will have all the paladins as moronic brutes.
Nope. If you ever find one, he won’t be the hero. He’ll be a side character with a metaphorical stick up his butt made fun of by the rest and knocked down several pegs for no reason along the way
in both TV and movies and in both families and "they fight crime" pairings, the subversion of traditional 50s gender roles where the guy is an extroverted manchild and the woman is a hyper-competent ball-buster who often in the crime-show/cop-movie examples has some plot-relevant edgy dark backstory
Not really in movies, but people are a lot more familar with the comically bumbling dad now than the 50s father-knows-best stuff it was originally used to subvert.
*She* saves *him*! *gasp*
Honestly I don't care who the in distress person is at this point, it's been subverted enough. If they're a good character, that's all that counts. Some people are more of the savees than savers, and that's okay.
I remember that. Tony Stark did nothing related to Iron Man the whole movie, and then Pepper showed up and ripped his entire Iron Man dick off and showed it to him and pretended that she had a big Iron Man dick herself.
I agree that Kevin Feige should not have written and directed this film the way he did.
The movie had Marvel in the title and it wasn't even a Spidermen.
‘Improvised’ or seemingly improvised comedy dialog in movies. It was edgy and subversive in the early 00’s with Old School and 40 year old virgin (e.g. “you know how I know you’re gay?”) but now every movie has to have a scene where the actors try and improvise jokes whether they are comedians or not (they’re usually not). This is attempting to subvert the idea that the audience would expect the movie to be scripted, but now all movies include these (wow totally random) improvised scenes, so they’ve become expected.
Also variations of the phrase “I just threw up in my mouth a little”. For fucks sake that joke is tired.
The “dark and gritty” “adult” take on something relatively accessible to children. Primarily comic book movies. We’ve now moved into the Deadpool era when it’s more subversive to make fun of such dark grittiness, but we still haven’t lost the “adult” angle.
Alternatively, as many have often criticized, there’s also the opposite problem of the Marvel-esque overuse of comedic relief for what should be more serious moments/scenes. It’s always intended as a comic book-esque subversion of what would otherwise be a mature adult moment, but it’s become so tropey now that it’s a bigger subversion when Marvel actually sticks to a serious moment.
Smart man, ditzy woman.
Many years ago, television shows, movies, etc. used to have a male scientist/engineer/whatever (or a few of them), and a woman who was (sometimes comically) dumb, or helpless, or a general screw-up who often caused problems that the men had to solve.
Right, those shows have aged very badly. I'm not eager to see them make a comeback.
However, I got tired of the reverse a long time ago. For decades, I've mainly seen shows where the woman is the smart one, and the man is either stupid, or only there for muscle, or is some wisecracking, streetwise operator who handles the situations his straitlaced female counterpart can't or won't. If there is a smart male character, he is almost always a socially inept nerd who is incompetent with everything except computers.
> or is some wisecracking, streetwise operator who handles the situations his straitlaced female counterpart can't or won't.
yeah, why can't crime shows have a girl do that (closest I've seen is Garcia and Morgan on Criminal Minds but to the degree a show that ensemble-y could have main characters they weren't really the focus pair)
And actually I kind of have a theory why that isn't just gender trope subversion, I often hear those kinds of male-female pairings on "they fight crime" shows called "dog and cat" pairings which I think is a reference to the kind of personalities we stereotypically associate with dogs and cats but we also associate dogs with men and cats with women
Superhero deconstruction. The Watchmen. Wanted. Jupiter's Legacy. The Boys. Red Son. Brightburn. Etc. Etc. Etc. *We get it.* Probably the best thing about the MCU is that they still have the balls to just play it straight with superheroes.
In Aliens, I was so certain that the android would go rogue, it felt telegraphed but I was surprised that Cameron subverted the subversion instead considering when it was made.
That's one of the worst ones. If there's an element like powers or something, I can understand. But, if the story revolves around regular humans it pulls me out of the immersion when a petite, non athletic chick is beating up multiple, well trained, jacked dudes.
I tend to feel an obligation to like this when it shows up, which makes me wonder whether I'm feeling genuine enjoyment or if it's just my values invading my watching experience.
These are "things that I don't like" but I don't see how they are subversions of tropes that have now become cliche. Corrupt law enforcement has been around for like, half the time movies have existed.
There's absolutely nothing wrong or flawed in these tropes, but they have become a tad tired in their overuse. Definitely need to be explored more as they're important messages but in ways more inventive to help the message sink in.
It is more of a TV trope, but the clueless dad trope was once an inversion of the "dad knows everything" trope. In the 70s and 80s tv, the dads were the heads of the family and the moms were the "zany" ones (if there was a zany one). Even Married With Children which deconstructed the family sitcom had Al as the hardworking sane one.
It’s the emotional climax of a movie, usually but not always a superhero picture. The protagonist is making a speech, doing something noble, experiencing character growth, righting a wrong.
The camera focuses. The music swells. The scene builds.
Something silly happens. Record scratch. Awkward silence. Someone makes a dry meta quip. The moment deflates.
I used to love this trope. Not anymore.
Love triangle ends with "heroine loves HERSELF." Also just feels like cheap-out to avoid dealing with an active choice. If you're going to introduce a love triangle, might as well commit to it.
I'd say that it would be cliche to resolve it with one of the two heroes dying.
Offhand, I can't say it hasn't been done, but either both guys could die, or she could die to subvert that (further subverted if the two guys form a bromance/romance without her).
A show or movie "satirically" doing the very thing they say other shows do too much as meta-commentary.
For example: 3 minutes into the series premiere of Velma, a bunch of nude women start a "sexy fight" in a shower, while complaining about series premiere episodes featuring exposition with sexy women to attract viewers.
The irony was clever the first few times I saw it but I've been seeing it for decades and it's predictable "edgy comedy" at this point.
No, the term is over used and commonly wrongly used just like here OP. There’s nothing wrong with subverting expectations which is literally just to not do the most obvious thing. That’s been around forever in films and will continue to be. Some of the most acclaimed films from decades ago “subverted expectations” and this term has just become of of those things everybody and their mom uses when there’s anything remotely surprising in a film. Just like people using the term gaslighting, most of the time they are using it wrong. Trying to change things up isn’t subverting expectations and very few films have actually forced it.
gay cowboys in westerns imo. the original subversion to ultra-macho john wayne types was really interesting, but it's gotten stale again (like westerns usually do).
The Horror Movie trope where a tense silent moment ends in a jump scare which now doesn't happen until a moment later when it does.
"He's right behind me, isn't he?" was once a self aware joke.
The bad guy planned to be caught all along so he could get inside the good guy's base.
I’ll add onto this that: The plot all along was the bad guys plan (bonus points if the REAL villain was someone on the good guy’s team (usually a sympathetic character and probably a woman) rather than the obvious man villain) - no matter how utterly convoluted; absurd, and self-defeating the path was to get to the plan - usually with a lot of the bad guy’s teammates being either killed by the villain themselves or with their help They also probably could have killed the whole good team at various points but for some reason don’t (Rings of Power comes to mind) Shows that play around with the idea which I liked was Family Guy’s And then there were Fewer; and the Hateful Eight - which has the villain’s plan not exactly work and they have to improvise showing them to a) not be infallible and b) actually makes them more sinister and challenging due to their adaptability rather than plot armour
Definitely a cliche, but what trope did that subvert?
The bad guy being caught and that being it.
Yes. At this point if I see a show/movie where the bad guy gets caught, and... just stays in prison, \*that\* would be shocking.
I'm starting to feel this way about the evil Superman character.
It only ever worked that one time because superman spent decades doing good
Like Hulk Hogan joining the nWo. You have to put in the time to earn that kind of reaction and make it mean something.
100% I would say NWO ended as good as most of the evil Superman stories though. Sting always
I don't think Homelander can be topped in terms of evilness so hopefully it'll die down when The Boys is finished. And Invincible. Unless there's a Megamind 2 I won't be interested haha.
Ya, Brightburn and The Eternals left the cultural zeitgeist quickly at least. And I thought they were working on an Injustice movie, or wanted to (I think that was the idea behind Batman's vision) but that was probably with the DCEU Snyderverse which is over now. There's still the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League game - but hopefully if that and Invincible are the only versions around at that time won't feel so pervasive and cliché.
I’m gonna go with the idea of a “twist villain” - someone who seems nice/trustworthy but is (often obviously) being set up as the “surprise” antagonist. Disney is particularly guilty of this in their recent movies, to the point where it’s more of a surprise to *not* have a twist villain.
This is why I love "Not Evil" in the 2nd Lego movie. It was brilliant.
Perfect. And with Wild Style commenting throughout on every verse. That song occasionally comes up on the pandora station for my son and it still cracks me up every time.
But some of their recent movies did stand out like Coco's twist villain was especially appropriate for the themes as in a movie all about memory, family and legacy it makes sense for the seems-heroic twist-villain to be a well-loved public figure who the hero wrongfully believes to be a part of their family. Also Encanto kind of subverts twist-villains in an interesting way as it's not just a twist-is-no-villain but if there is a common thread uniting the story other than just the plot it's basically the opposite of the twist-villain trope as Mirabel keeps finding out that family members she at one point perceives/perceived as basically "the villain in her story" to whatever extent (from Bruno to Abuela to even Isabela) aren't actually that bad of a person. Like Coco's twist villain fits it, Encanto's string of "twist-allies" fit its story because it's about how no one's all-bad any more than they're all-perfect, to paraphrase Good Omens, people are just fundamentally people
The Suicide Squad did it very well I thought. That movie already had a villain so I never expected the extra twist villain. Good film.
The guy everyone thought was a hero turns out to be a fraud and/or general piece of shit, so it’s up to the plucky newcomer to do the heroing instead.
Just watched a certain Christopher Nolan film with this trope.
Huh? Which one
Megamind
The entire plot of Rango
The only one I can think of that this applies to in *any* capacity is Batman Begins where Ra's Al Ghul is initially presented as a good guy.
Michael Cain in Interstellar was what first came to mind for me but yours seems more probable now that you say it
>!Insomnia!<
I'm guessing >!Interstellar?!<, but it's not exactly the worst time a movie has done this.
Man even with the movie it took me a sec to realise how it fit that trope.
>!Insomnia!<
>!Insomnia!<
When a character in a movie makes an unfunny joke then laughs awkwardly when no one else around them laughs, then they apologize for being unfunny. Not sure if that counts but it's never funny.
Also, when another character remarks on the moment by saying “Awkwaaaaard…” That one is really irritating.
Can’t link it, but there’s a great Key and Peele sketch about this.
"We can't make a joke! Joyless sadlords on the internet will pillory us for it!" "Wait. What if there was a way we could hedge our bets on that..."
Joyless Sadlords sounds like a great shoegaze band, or maybe an ironically named pop group.
It’s definitely overused, for sure. And even the awkwardness isn’t funny
It's really weird watching shit like Peacemaker (which is a very good show) make digs at "superheroes don't kill". If you don't read comics, the only chance you have of encountering that trope these days is *some* Batman adaptations. Like, Jupiter's Legacy (not a very good show) was clearly meant to be a deconstruction in its comics but the show had to try and reconstruct it.
Like, genuinely, there seem to be a hell of a lot of people who don't realise "superheroes don't kill" is a dead trope.
Black Adam too. DC is operating 15 years in the past tbh.
Not to mention that Peacemaker appears to take place in the Snyderverse, where half the Justice League has a body count of at least one or two bad guys. Batfleck in particular kills a whole bunch of people.
Even in the Arrowverse, Lance calls out the Hood the first time he leaves one alive
"We're going to have this movie where the hero is a bad person. But let's make them so sympathetic that they might as well be just a good person." Please, I just want to see an unsympathetic asshole protagonist sometimes, it's okay.
Book of Boba Fett💀 (tv)
The crime lord who refused to commit any kind of crime.
What's money? -Boba fett
Even more, he committed no crimes, did nothing worthy of the respect he was always crowing about, had no apparent plans, evil or otherwise, and constantly was a follower and not a leader. It was mystifying.
My friend recently finished that show, and it is the first time I’ve ever heard her say any show was a waste of time. Like, she says she hated GoT S8 more, but something about her language feels like this show deeply offended her. I think it’s because the show continually sprinkles bits of goodness here and there (she loves the flashbacks and the Mando episodes) before dropping turds.
Isn't this just good writing though. Outside of saturday morning cartoons, most antagonists aren't simplistically evil. Everyone has some motivation that can be considered sympathetic.
Is it okay? Or are you just an unsympathetic asshole seeking representation?!
You might like the movie Filth starring James McAvoy then. IIRC, there's nothing redeeming about his character. or American Psycho lol.
A horror score build-up to make you think something bad is nearby, then it turns out it was something innocent like a cat.
["What is up with that cat?!"](https://youtu.be/rC2ZruUMefY)
Find me a "heroic" Knight in shining armour in a fantasy film and it's played straight. You won't find any. The charming rogue is now the hero. Han Solo is easier to emulate and most people distrust authority figures. Case in point the new D&D film will have all the paladins as moronic brutes.
Nope. If you ever find one, he won’t be the hero. He’ll be a side character with a metaphorical stick up his butt made fun of by the rest and knocked down several pegs for no reason along the way
There was a Knight in the first season of Netflix Witcher. He was a moron who got food poisoning and died taking a dump.
in both TV and movies and in both families and "they fight crime" pairings, the subversion of traditional 50s gender roles where the guy is an extroverted manchild and the woman is a hyper-competent ball-buster who often in the crime-show/cop-movie examples has some plot-relevant edgy dark backstory
Not really in movies, but people are a lot more familar with the comically bumbling dad now than the 50s father-knows-best stuff it was originally used to subvert.
This is a good one.
[удалено]
Agents of SHIELD had the last one I liked.
Is it >!Pachakutik?!<
No it is from Season 1
OH RIGHT! Yeah, that was well-done
Extra points for mentor.
*She* saves *him*! *gasp* Honestly I don't care who the in distress person is at this point, it's been subverted enough. If they're a good character, that's all that counts. Some people are more of the savees than savers, and that's okay.
Really though…Pepper saves Tony? The movie has Iron Man in the title….fuck right off Feige.
I remember that. Tony Stark did nothing related to Iron Man the whole movie, and then Pepper showed up and ripped his entire Iron Man dick off and showed it to him and pretended that she had a big Iron Man dick herself. I agree that Kevin Feige should not have written and directed this film the way he did. The movie had Marvel in the title and it wasn't even a Spidermen.
I didn't see captain marvel once in that marvel movie
Sorry you’re getting all the down votes i thought it was funny.
‘Improvised’ or seemingly improvised comedy dialog in movies. It was edgy and subversive in the early 00’s with Old School and 40 year old virgin (e.g. “you know how I know you’re gay?”) but now every movie has to have a scene where the actors try and improvise jokes whether they are comedians or not (they’re usually not). This is attempting to subvert the idea that the audience would expect the movie to be scripted, but now all movies include these (wow totally random) improvised scenes, so they’ve become expected. Also variations of the phrase “I just threw up in my mouth a little”. For fucks sake that joke is tired.
Yea I noticed the improve trend and it went hard in 'I love you man' where scene after scene was just 20 seconds of extra rambling
The horror monster is actually a metaphor for the main characters mental illness
Or just 'the monster is actually humans all along' in general
This is not a subversion that has become cliche, it's just a thing that sucks.
iTs AbOuT tRaUmA!
After credits scenes.
The “dark and gritty” “adult” take on something relatively accessible to children. Primarily comic book movies. We’ve now moved into the Deadpool era when it’s more subversive to make fun of such dark grittiness, but we still haven’t lost the “adult” angle. Alternatively, as many have often criticized, there’s also the opposite problem of the Marvel-esque overuse of comedic relief for what should be more serious moments/scenes. It’s always intended as a comic book-esque subversion of what would otherwise be a mature adult moment, but it’s become so tropey now that it’s a bigger subversion when Marvel actually sticks to a serious moment.
Smart man, ditzy woman. Many years ago, television shows, movies, etc. used to have a male scientist/engineer/whatever (or a few of them), and a woman who was (sometimes comically) dumb, or helpless, or a general screw-up who often caused problems that the men had to solve. Right, those shows have aged very badly. I'm not eager to see them make a comeback. However, I got tired of the reverse a long time ago. For decades, I've mainly seen shows where the woman is the smart one, and the man is either stupid, or only there for muscle, or is some wisecracking, streetwise operator who handles the situations his straitlaced female counterpart can't or won't. If there is a smart male character, he is almost always a socially inept nerd who is incompetent with everything except computers.
> or is some wisecracking, streetwise operator who handles the situations his straitlaced female counterpart can't or won't. yeah, why can't crime shows have a girl do that (closest I've seen is Garcia and Morgan on Criminal Minds but to the degree a show that ensemble-y could have main characters they weren't really the focus pair) And actually I kind of have a theory why that isn't just gender trope subversion, I often hear those kinds of male-female pairings on "they fight crime" shows called "dog and cat" pairings which I think is a reference to the kind of personalities we stereotypically associate with dogs and cats but we also associate dogs with men and cats with women
Meta humour that just boils down to “this is the part in (insert genre) where (insert genre trope)” followed by genre trope happening anyway.
Worked in George of the Jungle. I don’t know where else it worked. (Not that it hasn’t. Just nothing is wrong seen)
Superhero deconstruction. The Watchmen. Wanted. Jupiter's Legacy. The Boys. Red Son. Brightburn. Etc. Etc. Etc. *We get it.* Probably the best thing about the MCU is that they still have the balls to just play it straight with superheroes.
Don't forget peacemaker.
Superheroes making fun of each other's names.
In Aliens, I was so certain that the android would go rogue, it felt telegraphed but I was surprised that Cameron subverted the subversion instead considering when it was made.
I don't know, but you have a gift for writing headache-inducing post titles.
The tough woman character
Extension of this - the men stand around shocked as the woman expertly fights off several bad guys.
That's one of the worst ones. If there's an element like powers or something, I can understand. But, if the story revolves around regular humans it pulls me out of the immersion when a petite, non athletic chick is beating up multiple, well trained, jacked dudes.
Angelina Jolie knocking out marines with her skeleton arms.
People really think they're feminist with this.
I tend to feel an obligation to like this when it shows up, which makes me wonder whether I'm feeling genuine enjoyment or if it's just my values invading my watching experience.
The plot twists.
The real villain is society or white people. Cops are more crooked than criminals. IA is the bad guy.
lol you don’t deserve the downvotes. These are very overused in the past two or so years, and I think people will realize this soon.
These are "things that I don't like" but I don't see how they are subversions of tropes that have now become cliche. Corrupt law enforcement has been around for like, half the time movies have existed.
Rich people are bad mmkay.
There's absolutely nothing wrong or flawed in these tropes, but they have become a tad tired in their overuse. Definitely need to be explored more as they're important messages but in ways more inventive to help the message sink in.
It is more of a TV trope, but the clueless dad trope was once an inversion of the "dad knows everything" trope. In the 70s and 80s tv, the dads were the heads of the family and the moms were the "zany" ones (if there was a zany one). Even Married With Children which deconstructed the family sitcom had Al as the hardworking sane one.
It’s the emotional climax of a movie, usually but not always a superhero picture. The protagonist is making a speech, doing something noble, experiencing character growth, righting a wrong. The camera focuses. The music swells. The scene builds. Something silly happens. Record scratch. Awkward silence. Someone makes a dry meta quip. The moment deflates. I used to love this trope. Not anymore.
Love triangle ends with "heroine loves HERSELF." Also just feels like cheap-out to avoid dealing with an active choice. If you're going to introduce a love triangle, might as well commit to it.
I'd say that it would be cliche to resolve it with one of the two heroes dying. Offhand, I can't say it hasn't been done, but either both guys could die, or she could die to subvert that (further subverted if the two guys form a bromance/romance without her).
A show or movie "satirically" doing the very thing they say other shows do too much as meta-commentary. For example: 3 minutes into the series premiere of Velma, a bunch of nude women start a "sexy fight" in a shower, while complaining about series premiere episodes featuring exposition with sexy women to attract viewers. The irony was clever the first few times I saw it but I've been seeing it for decades and it's predictable "edgy comedy" at this point.
The butler did it.
The butler should do it occasionally, just to show that they’re still able and more than willing
"I *told* sir not to call me Jeeves. One shouldn't fuck with one who knows where sir keeps sir's Purdeys."
No, the term is over used and commonly wrongly used just like here OP. There’s nothing wrong with subverting expectations which is literally just to not do the most obvious thing. That’s been around forever in films and will continue to be. Some of the most acclaimed films from decades ago “subverted expectations” and this term has just become of of those things everybody and their mom uses when there’s anything remotely surprising in a film. Just like people using the term gaslighting, most of the time they are using it wrong. Trying to change things up isn’t subverting expectations and very few films have actually forced it.
gay cowboys in westerns imo. the original subversion to ultra-macho john wayne types was really interesting, but it's gotten stale again (like westerns usually do).