Filing Their Nails



A classic visual trope -- used primarily with female characters but not exclusive to them -- to indicate boredom with or disinterest in the events around them: rather than do anything productive, they take out an emory board or similar tool and begin Filing Their Nails. (In a common alternative, they can simply study their nails, inspecting the state of their manicure.)

The exact implications can vary from use to use. Often it's just a visual shorthand for for "I'm not impressed". But sometimes it's a characterization point, a device to identify a person who is shallow and far more interested in trivial details of their appearance than in the events of importance around them. And sometimes it's a deliberate insult by the one doing the filing or inspecting, all but explicitly announcing that that an opponent or enemy is not worth even as much attention as the shape of their nails is.

They all boil down to an expression of "I'm bored by what's going on right now", though.

Although almost universally a "female" trope applied to females, males can pantomime the nail-filing motion -- or, rarely and depending on the setting, actually file or trim their nails -- for the same purposes. And of course both genders can inspect their nails.

Although casual nail filing in public is growing ever less likely in the real world (and increasingly seen only in Period Pieces), this trope remains a vital tool for ironic or humorous purposes.

See also I Broke a Nail, Vanity Is Feminine.

Anime and Manga

 * Bubblegum Crisis, episode 4, "Revenge Road": When Priss calls Sylia to ask whether the Knight Sabers can take a job, Sylia is painting her nails. She doesn't stop throughout the phone call. Some fans took Sylia's behaviour as a clue that she wasn't completely human... or, at least, not completely socialized.
 * A Certain Scientific Railgun: Whenever we see the (male) executive in charge of the Level 6 Shift Project in his office, he's trimming his nails to make it clear to his subordinate that he doesn't think Railgun is a threat to the overall project, no matter how many labs she destroys.

Comic Books

 * In issue #200 of the Archie Comics Sonic the Hedgehog title, Sonic ends up studying his nails during a long-winded monologue Eggman delivers before a fight.

Fan Works

 * A Wand for Skitter. When Voldemort finally comes face-to-face with Taylor (who is physically thirteen years old at the time) at the climax of this Worm/Harry Potter crossover, he finds her sitting on a throne of skulls in the middle of Hogwarts' Great Hall, filing her nails and complaining about how long it took him to come after her personally.

Film

 * In the 1940 film My Little Chickadee, Mae West's gorgeous, fancily-dressed character, Flower Belle, is on a train when Indians attack. An arrow lands two feet from her, and she nonchalantly pulls it out of the wall, then goes back to filing her nails. However, when a second arrow hits...
 * After Kuzco fires Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove, he dismisses the stunned, stuttering woman from his mind and instead contemplates his fingernails.
 * In Thor: Ragnarok, when the Einherjar confront Hela, she studies her nails with a bored look before even deigning to address them.
 * Inverted in Legally Blonde where Elle's sorority sisters take her to the nail salon after Warren breaks up with her. Serena converses with her manicurist in Korean about what happened with sympathy and firmness that Warren was a tool, as Elle is unusually disinterested in getting her nails done while waiting at reception. That's what leads her to read a magazine about Warren's brother marrying a lawyer, and Elle gets a Eureka Moment to attend Harvard Law School.

Literature

 * Subverted in This Immortal by Roger Zelazny: when assassin Hasan is forced to fight "the Dead Man", he spends his waiting time filing his nails -- not because he was bored or disinterested, but because he was actually sharpening them before arranging to get poison on them.

Live-Action TV

 * Used as part of a character-defining moment during the first-episode setup of the 2009-2014 Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva: ditzy blonde Deb goes off to her audition to be a model on The Price Is Right, while talking to a friend on her cellphone and filing her nails -- and ends up in a car crash because of her inattention.
 * In The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Brainless Beauty Hilary Banks starts a fire when she drops her oven mitts on the range top so she can file her nails. When she notices the fire, she makes a token effort to beat it out with a frying pan before returning to filing her nails while smoke continues to rise.  When Geoffrey enters the kitchen she tells him that something might be wrong with the stove before going back to her nails again.
 * Santana from Glee was frequently seen filing her nails when she apparently felt events (or the people around her) were beneath her notice,
 * One of the defining characteristics of Miss Nance of the Humanidyne Institute, secretary to the titular team from NBC's short-lived series Misfits of Science, although in her case it's misleading -- despite her apparent disinterest in her own job, she is in fact the person who keeps everything running and cares about everything, to the point that she says "good night" to the rabbits in their cages before turning off the lights every evening.

Music

 * In the video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's 1985 song "Like a Surgeon" (parodying Madonna's hit "Like a Virgin") a nurse dressed like the very early Madonna sits in one corner of the operating room unconcerned with the medical procedures taking place, blowing bubblegum and filing her nails.

Newspaper Comics

 * The comic adaptation of the special Garfield Gets a Life shows a secretary filing, painting, and drying her nails while directing where Jon and Garfield should go to a life seminar.

Video Games

 * Mortal Kombat:
 * In Mortal Kombat X, Tanya's brutality ends with her checking her nails and making a dismissive comment about her opponent.
 * Mortal Kombat 11:
 * For one of her taunts, Jade leans on her staff and studies her nails while insulting her opponent.
 * Mileena gets two: In one of her attacks she pauses to inspect her nails in the middle of stabbing her opponent in the face.  In another, as a salvo of sais turn her opponent into a pincushion, she turns her back on them and checks out her nails.
 * Loki can be seen checking his nails as he tells Black Panther he's accomplished his goals in Wakanda, just before he vanishes from the Marvel Battlegrounds playset in Disney Infinity.

Web Original

 * When Jaune's attempt to catch a falling Weiss in V1E8 of RWBY results in both of them plunging to the ground, she lands on his back and sarcastically says, "my hero" while studying her nails.

Western Animation

 * As seen in the page image, one of Shego's signature traits in Kim Possible is filing her nails whenever she's bored and/or unimpressed. Given that she usually does this while wearing gloves (and considering her personality), she is almost certainly being deliberately mocking.
 * In the second season episode "The Blind Bandit" of Avatar: The Last Airbender, when the Gaang attend Earth Rumble VI to find an earthbending teacher for Aang, Katara sighs and mutters "This is just gonna be a bunch of guys chucking rocks at each other, isn't it?" while checking out her nails.
 * Ruth files her nails in the middle of a date with Arnold in the episode "Arnold's Valentine" of Hey Arnold!.
 * Mrs. Krabappel files her nails and hums while a visibly ill Bart begs to go to the nurse's office in the episode "Round Springfield" of The Simpsons 
 * In an episode of Arthur, aptly titled "Francine's Stolen Bike," Catherine Frensky paints her nails while hearing her sister's cock and bull story about how her dad's old bike, which she had to use to go to school, was "stolen". She points out how unlikely it is while blowing on the polish.
 * Liz does this in The Magic School Bus when Dr. Carmina Skeledon explains that dinosaurs were not lizards, but they are reptiles. Namely that while Liz isn't related to a dinosaur, they are from similar families. Liz shows off her nails to demonstrate.

Real Life

 * In a nail salon, you get more than a nail file during a manicure or pedicure. Your nails also get buffed and shaped, with cuticles removed. Some stylists are happy to engage in conversation, while others focus on the task at hand.
 * Inverted if you cut your cat's nails. More likely than not, you have to ensure the cat is not too stimulated or alarmed when you trim the murder mittens.