Casting Couch/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character wants to get a part in a TV show/movie/play and must have sex with a producer or casting director to do so.
- Played Straight: Alice is auditioning for the lead role in a play, and is told she must have sex with the director.
- Exaggerated: If she refuses, not only will she not get the part, she will be blacklisted and basically unable to pursue her acting career.
- Justified: Alice is auditioning for a role in the adult entertainment industry.
- Inverted:
- The director must have sex with Alice if he wants her to be part of the cast.
- If Alice sleeps with the director, she will not get the role she wants (e.g. a Secret Test of Character).
- Subverted: Alice refuses to have sex with the director.
- Double Subverted: Because of her refusal, Alice is cast as an Extra instead of the lead, or cut from the cast entirely.
- Deconstructed: Because this involves Sexual Extortion (i.e. blackmailing someone into sex), this technically counts as rape.
- Reconstructed: Alice goes to find work elsewhere. It may not be easy, but she won't be reduced to what's basically a whitewashed prostitute for it.
- Parodied
- All the female characters form a harem for the director.
- Every place Alice looks for acting work has this as a stipulation.
- Lampshaded: "If you want this role, you must do one thing: sleep with me, right here and now."
- Averted: Sexual favors of any kind do not factor into Alice getting the role
- Enforced:
- Invoked: The director gets a Raging Stiffie for Alice and tells her she'll get the role she wants, in order to make her more willing to sleep with him.
- Defied:
- The director feels this is wrong and doesn't do this.
- Or, Alice refuses and goes looking for acting work elsewhere.
- Discussed: "So, I heard Alice slept with the director to get the role..."
- Conversed: "Ugh, disgusting. Whatever happened to casting people based on their acting talent, rather than their talent in bed?"
- Played For Laughs: Alice is very Hollywood Homely
- Played For Drama: Alice must choose between her dignity and her career.
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