100 Illogical TV and Movie Tropes: Hollywood and the Willing Suspension of Disbelief

There’s an unwritten compact between Hollywood writers and audiences – that, in return for being entertained, we viewers will agree to forgive certain logical inconsistencies, scientific improbabilities, and narrative contortions, a process known as ‘willing suspension of disbelief.’  Some of these logical liberties are arguably justified: omissions of tedious detail in the cause of creating a more efficient entertainment experience (we're all grateful to skip the small talk); esthetic enhancements in the cause of creating a more attractive version of reality (no one wants to see what those actresses really look like when they wake up). But many of them are, frankly, lazy shortcuts that we've allowed the writers to get away with for so long now, we've simply stopped processing how absurd they are.  

I thought it might be fun to call out some of the more obvious examples. Imagine my surprise when I started counting and realized I was up to 100! I'm not sure whether to interpret this as evidence that we viewers are extremely charitable, or extremely gullible.

"MY TV LIFE" TROPES

1. When female characters wake up in the morning with perfect hair and makeup – not an eye booger or face crease in sight.
2. When the lovers wake up the next morning wearing PJs. We’re supposed to believe that, after a night of hot love-making, they decided to get redressed?
3. When the female MC steps into the shower and tilts her face into the water. As if any human being would willingly invite pelting water to gush into their eyes, noses, and ears.
4. When the MC hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. So rude!
5. When the mom fixes a full breakfast *on a weekday* and no one bothers to eat it – disregarding the fact that no mom has time to make a full breakfast on a workday, and that any mom worth the name would let her family get away with that kind of disrespect!
6. When the MCs agree to meet at a restaurant, order their food, then finish their conversation and walk away, their plates untouched.
7. When the MC is able to flag down a taxi without having to wait. Even funnier if it’s raining!
8. When the MC is driving through a busy city during rush hour, but still manages to find a parking spot right in front of their destination.
9. When the person driving the car barely looks at the road because they’re so engaged in conversation with their passenger.
10. When the MC shows up with a hangover, but the symptoms barely last no longer than the mandatory hangover joke.
11. When every bag of groceries includes either a loaf of French bread or a bouquet of fresh flowers peaking out the top.
12. When the room is filled with candles (in either a creepy or romantic way) – as if anyone would take the time to light 100 candles, and half of them wouldn’t be immediately extinguished by  random drafts. 
13. When characters live in apartments or houses that they couldn’t possibly afford
14. When the MC suddenly reveals that they are able to tango like a house dancer straight off the set of Dancing With the Stars.
15. When the MC has a child but never seems to have to worry about child care.

NARRATIVE CONVENIENCE TROPES

1. When everyone’s at home all day because, besides the MC, no one else actually seems to have a job.
2. When the MC is carrying a suitcase, briefcase, or cup of coffee that is – judging by the way the object reacts to gravity - clearly empty. (Corollary: when the baddies make off with bags of gold bars, seemingly unbothered by the fact that each one weighs 25lbs.)
3. When the MC suddenly reveals that they conveniently speak some exotic language – Arabic, Russian, or sign language.
4. When the MC turns on the TV just in time to catch the precise news story they need to see. (Alternatively, they walk into the restaurant just as the TV over the bar is airing the relevant news story.)
5. When someone throws a punch in a bar and suddenly everyone in the bar decides to engage in the brawl. Fistfights, unlike yawning, aren’t actually contagious. 
6. When people hide things under the floorboards. First of all, where’s the carpeting? Second of all, floorboards not attached to underlying trusses would squeak like a mother, giving their presence away
7. When the intelligence officers with top secret clearances discuss their cases over drinks at the public bar. Holy Security Breach, Batman!
8. When the MC dives into a lake or pond and has no trouble seeing through the water.
9. When people on the brink of death use their final breaths to answer the detective’s questions rather than, you know, asking them to tell their moms that they loved them.
10. When the bomb is diffused with one second remaining. Enough said.  (Honorable mention: when the bomb can only be defused by cutting ONE wire, but not the others. In the real world, cutting ALL the wires is by far he most reliable way to stop a bomb from detonating!
11. When the MC, though vastly outnumbered, manages to win the fight because the villains inexplicably decided to attack them one at a time.
12. When the female MCs emerge from the fray (pursuit, struggle, field hospital, etc.) with her makeup and hair immaculate.
13. When the MCs in the romance comedy are divided by a rift that could be have been mended by a single conversation.
14. When characters insist “there’s no time to explain!” when there’s clearly enough time to explain.
15. When the villain’s henchmen burst into the room and start shooting, giving absolutely no thought to their own safety. Even evil henchman are not immune from the imperative for self-preservation.

CRIME SHOW TROPES

1. When the forensic computers make DNA or facial matches within the first minute of searching.
2. When the forensic IT guy enhances the blurry photo to create a crystal-clear image. Computers are good, but they can’t “enhance” data that doesn’t exist.  
3. When the psychotic killer decorates their room in photos, newspaper articles, and random ephemera, all connected by bits of string. Is there some sort of standard home decorating manual that all psychotic killers are required to consult?
4. When the detectives walk up to the house they can’t legally enter, only to find the door conveniently ajar.
5. When people pop open doors by taking a running start and hitting them with their shoulder. Real doors laugh at us for believing this would work.
6. When the detectives decide to explore that empty warehouse or suspicious apartment using their flashlights, choosing to ignore the conveniently-located light switches by the door
7. Practically everything the movies tell us about knocking people unconscious! The process is unreliable (just hitting someone on the head doesn’t guarantee they’ll drop unconscious), inefficient (even boxers are rarely knocked unconscious for more than 10 seconds), and incredibly harmful …. If an actual person were to be hit on the head as many times as your average fictional detective, they’d be suffering from CTE and dementia by the end of the first season. 
8. When people who have just been informed that their loved ones are dead proceed to calmly answer the detective’s questions. Grief = instantly processed and disposed of!  
9. When the television news shows feature parents begging for help returning their missing loved ones. News programs don’t have that kind of time (unless you’re some sort of celebrity).
10. When the bad guys dig holes for burying their loot or bodies. First of all, it’s incredibly grueling work and takes forever. Second of all, no roots and rocks – seriously?
11. When female detectives show up wearing low-cut blouses, tight skirts, and high heels. Like any actual female detective wants to be worrying about whether their boobs are going to pop out of the top of their tank top during a pursuit.
12. When the person being tortured for information refuses to answer even the questions that, frankly, aren’t that important. 
13. When the detective avoids asking questions that could actually, you know, help solve the crime - because if he/she did, the show would end too soon.
14. When the character has an earpiece in their ear so that they can parrot what they’re being told to say by another character. Can you imagine how awkward an actual conversation conducted in this fashion would hit? 
15. When characters meant to be “inconspicuous” wear earpieces with clearly visible cords – and then spend the entire scene whispering to the people who are listening in, as if that’s not going to immediately arouse suspicion.
16. When the MCs evade being shot by hiding behind car doors. As the Mythbusters have memorably proved, doors can slow bullets, but they don’t stop them
17. When the bad guys shoot into cars or houses, but always waist-high so that the MCs can evade the bullets by simply hugging the floor
18. When the baddies reach up and rip off their face, disclosing that they’ve been wearing a mask the whole time. This one has to amuse the Hollywood makeup artists who spend hours applying prosthetics – “you mean, all we had to do was just create a mask?”  
19. When one character is dabbing at the wound of another without actually touching the “blood,” so that the makeup people don’t have to reapply it in the event of another take.
20. When the mystery is solved by the villain accidentally revealing that they know something about the crime that wasn’t disclosed. Truly the laziest of all plot devices.
21. When a minor characters announces that they know who the murderer is, but they’re going to wait until later to reveal what they know, leaving plenty of time for the murderer to bump them off
22. When the detective gathers all the suspects at the scene of the crime to reveal the villain. Can you imagine a detective attempting this in real life?
23. When the prosecutor in the trial goads the defendant into confessing his guilt while on the witness stand, as the defendant’s attorney does nothing to intercede.

PURSUIT TROPES

1. When the investigators shout “FBI!” from across the road, giving their quarry time to flee.  You know what might work better? Waiting until you’re within arm’s reach before identifying yourselves.
2. When the investigators commandeer a car for the big chase scene, and the car owners willingly step aside with nothing more than a mildly irritated “hey …!” Pretty sure 99.9% of actual car owners would immediately roll up their window, give you the finger, and drive away.
3. When the protagonist flees into the woods but is immediately tracked down by the villain, because apparently all villains possess the tracking skills of aboriginals.
4. When the MC, despite fleeing at top speed, is unable to outrun the villain/monster that is pursuing them at a slow amble
5. When the protagonist insists on fleeing the villain along well-paved roads rather than darting off into the surrounding buildings or woods.
6. When it doesn’t occur to folks fleeing trains to just, you know, step off the side of the tracks.
7. When the MC realizes they’re being followed by a strange car and they decide the best strategy is to drive faster – versus, say, driving straight to the nearest heavily populated area or police station.
8. High speed car chases – especially the ones where the cops place their vehicles in the path of the oncoming villains. No police budget extends to replacing that many cars!
9. When the car runs into a telephone pole and explodes. Hollywood vastly overrepresents the risk of cars exploding on impact.
10. When the MC travels through roomy, clean air ducts. Have you ever seen an actual air duct? Think narrow, filthy, and entirely incapable of supporting the weight of a human. (Plus, you’d make a tremendous amount of noise moving through them – they creak when AIR passes them, for goodness’ sake!)
11. When dudes dressed in full suits pursue their suspects across town in blazing hot weather without breaking a sweat. (We’re talking about you, Miami Vice!) 
12. When people plummet from upper story windows, only to fall into convenient dumpsters or trash trucks. And forget canopies breaking anyone’s fall – those weathered strips of fabric supported by flimsy metal rails wouldn’t break a cat’s fall
13. When the couple holds hands as they flee from danger.  A romantic notion, spoiled by the fact that it’s virtually impossible to gain any sort of speed without pumping your arms as you run, so basically they’re just holding each other back.
14. When folks jump into water from staggering heights and survive the fall. In real life, water molecules can’t displace that quickly, so the impact is similar to hitting concrete.

HORROR TROPES

1. When the MC begins to suspect they’re sharing a house with a malevolent spirit yet they decide to stay. One word: “hotel.”
2. When the MC hears a sound downstairs and creeps down to check it out instead of calling the police, as any sensible person would do.
3. When the monster, moving at a slow ramble, manages to overtake the MC who is fleeing at top speed
4. When the thunderstorm in the background is generating lightning at a rate that would make a Tesla coil blush.
5. When there’s an unknown murderer on the loose, but that one guys decides to split off from the rest of the group because “they can take care of themselves.” Humans are zebras – we instinctively gather in herds when danger approaches, in hopes that the murderer ends up picking someone else to prey on.

SCI-FI TROPES

1. When sound travels through space, undaunted by the fact that sound waves can’t actually move through a vacuum.
2. Also at the risk of stating the obvious – when spaceships travel faster than the speed of light. Unless we’re grossly misunderstanding the way the universe works, this remains a physical impossible.
3. Dogfights in space! This one kills my dad, an engineer who understands (as every middle schooler ought likewise to do) that there is no gravity or friction in space, and therefore no need for banking or other aerodynamic maneuvers.
4. When explosions in space are accompanied by lingering fireballs or smoke, undaunted by the reality that there’s no oxygen in space. In reality, an explosion in space would appear as a split-second flash of light following by an almost instantaneous dispersion of debris.
5. When the aliens have huge eyes (an adaptation for low lighting), but emerge from spaceships that are bathed in brilliant light.
6. When spaceships dodge asteroids in space – asteroids that are, in actuality, separated by tens of thousands of miles.

MEDICAL TROPES

1. When characters with bullet wounds say “I’m okay – it’s just a flesh wound” before picking up where they left off. Are you freaking kidding me? The only acceptable response to being hit by a bullet is screaming in pain and demanding an ambulance.
2. When people slash their palms or arms to draw blood. For one thing, who slashes their arm when all they need are a few drops? Also, a perturbed wince doesn’t ever begin to reflect the amount of pain that such a slash would cause
3. When patients in the hospital dramatically rip out their IV lines and start getting dressed. Those IV lines don’t come out with a fight … and a whole lot of pain. 
4. When the main symptom of the MC’s terminal illness is an inconvenient cough.
5. When people burst through panes of glass with just a few scratches. Reality: most glass windows require tremendous force to break, and anyone bursting through them would immediately begin gushing blood from various slashed aortas
6. When the person treating the MC’s cuts dabs the area around the cut but not the cut itself, leaving the makeup undisturbed for potential retakes.
7. When people have in-depth discussions while out on a jog. No one actually talks when they’re jogging.
8. When the character rips the IV out of their arm without so much as a wince. Most people can’t rip tape off their hairy arm without crying out, much less ripping a needle out of their flesh at the same time.  
9. When the protagonist is wounded and having their wound cleaned – but the person delivering the first aid is merely dabbing at the periphery of the cut so as not to disturb the makeup
10. TV CPR performed at a glacially slow pace in order to allow for dialog. As anyone with first aid training will confirm, effective CPR is rapid and energetic, allowing little scope for anything but breathing heavily and grunting.
11. When the MC spends the previous scene downing drinks like a football player guzzling Gatorade, only to show up in the next scene completely sober.
12. When the MC pushes someone in a dispute, causing them to hit their head on something and instantly die. If skulls were that fragile, few of us would survive our childhoods.
13. When the person being treated for cancer has lost all their hair but still has their eyebrows and eyelashes

SCIENCE & TECH TROPES

1. When the IT specialist hacks into some super-secure network with just a few keystrokes.
2. When the MCs press a button that causes the elevator to abruptly halt. Has anyone ever actually encountered one of these buttons?
3. When the facial recognition technology is able to miraculously transform a pixelated blur into a crisp image.
4. When opening a file launches an avalanche of documents and photos that flash up on the screen all at once – all very dramatic, but can we all agree that’s not how opening a file works?
5. When the detectives find a cellphone at the scene of the crime and immediately start scrolling through the contents – because on TV, cellphone batteries apparently last forever
6. When the scientists invent or distill a vaccine/serum/cure in just a few days. If Covid taught us nothing, it taught us that shit like that takes months.
7. When there’s a thunderstorm raging outside the window and there’s a new flash of lightning every 2 seconds. Unquestionably dramatic, but meteorologically questionable.
8. When the MC is able to successfully land the plane/helicopter based solely on verbal directions relayed from the tower. Anyone who’s ever played a flight simulator game understands how laughable this is. 

ANACHRONISMS

1. When historical characters show up with clean hair and dazzling white teeth. Reality: bathing and teeth whitening weren’t big priorities back in the past.
2. When the “students” in the classroom or wandering about campus (high school, college) are clearly in their 20s or 30s
3. When the teacher is writing something on the chalkboard. Someone needs to update Hollywood writers that teachers stopped using blackboards at least a couple decades ago
4. When the teacher/professor dismisses the students by shouting out the homework as they leave.  (Honorable mention: When the teacher/professor dismisses the students by shouting out the homework as they leave, as if we live in a world without syllabuses.)