39,327
edits
City of Weirdos: Difference between revisions
update links
m (→Comic Books: clean up, replaced: [[Judge Dredd| → [[Judge Dredd (comics)|) |
(update links) |
||
Line 21:
** One particular variation is invoked ''extremely'' often in [[Marvel Comics]], particularly those written by [[Stan Lee]]: bystanders who exclaim "Ah, must be some publicity stunt!" or "They must be filming some nutty new sci-fi movie!" Curiously, in this variant, the populace seems to think the city is overflowing with publicists and filmmakers, not superheroes. Based on the sheer number of appearances, this might be [[Stan Lee]]'s favorite trope.
** It didn't start with Stan, though. The "just a publicity stunt" trope, almost exactly like Stan used it, turns up in a 1942 ''[[Wonder Woman]]'' story.
** This exchange from [[Fantastic Four]] describes the Marvel New York perfectly:
{{quote|'''Thing:''' You, with the hair! [[It Makes Sense in Context|Ain't you never seen a five hundred pound bungee jumper fall from the sky before?]]
'''Bystander:''' Uh...I'm new.
'''Thing:''' Ah. }}
** In [[Doctor Strange]] stories, Doc can wander the streets of New York openly, in costume, because everyone takes him for a harmless quack. But when things get out of hand, characters will comment that they need to stop the [magical whatsit] soon, because even Greenwich Village is going to notice the [flaming headed monster/enormous dragon/giant rabbit].
Line 61:
** To be fair they do get moving when a giant worm starts eating the car...
{{quote|"That's the problem with all y'all New Yorkers. 'Oh, we seen it all.' 'Oh no! A 600 ft. worm! Save us, Mr. Black Man!'"}}
* In ''[[The Matrix]]'', every place inside the Matrix system is inhabited by [[
* ''[[Jumper (novel)|Jumper]]''. During the jumper duel, nobody really notices the two men that appeared out of nowhere, and are wrestling in the street.
** Bit of [[Truth in Television]] there, according to the commentary they really did film on location in New York with the actors wrestling in a busy street. Passersby just ignore them.
Line 67:
* Averted in the film ''[[Who]]'', where an agent returns from behind the [[Iron Curtain]] with his face in a grotesque mask following an accident—or is it an impostor? Anyway, the filmmakers took the actor onto the street (forget which city) and filmed genuine startled reactions of passersby to his mask.
* A running gag in ''[[The Muppets Take Manhattan]]'' is Miss Piggy, spying on Kermit and enraged by what she sees, taking her frustrations out on nearby architecture. Kermit looks round in surprise (without seeing her), but whoever he's talking to just says "Eh, New York."
** In ''[[The Great Muppet Caper]]'', Kermit and Miss Piggy go for a bike ride in London. A surprised girl exclaims that a bear is riding a bycicle (a [[Running Gag]] has Fozzy and Kermit being identical twins), but her father just nonchalantly corrects her that Kermit is a frog because "bears wear hats."
* A rare rural example: in ''[[The Rocketeer (film)|The Rocketeer]]'', Cliff fails to control his rocket pack properly and ends up plowing through a field at high speed, leaving a wake of soil. The response of the farmers who watched him go by? "Big gopher." "Yup."
* In ''[[Enchanted]]'', a Disney Princess (complete with singing animal friends, a big poofy ball-gown and an obsession with True Love's Kiss) is transported from her animated world of trolls and wicked stepmothers into the middle of Times Square. The reactions of Manhattanites fall into two categories: they either believe that she is some sort of performance artist or assume she is severely psychotic. This is especially evident in her first Real World interaction (for example, when a little person on the street curtly tells her to move out of the way, she mistakes him for Grumpy from Snow White; later that day she has her crown stolen by a homeless person).
Line 91:
* This is a recurring motif in [[Spider Robinson]]'s fiction: in the novel ''Night of Power'', the hero is surprised that he and his wife—he white and covered in blood, she black and completely bald—actually attract stares in a [[New York City]] video arcade. The two characters in the short story "Half an Oaf" attract absolutely ''no'' attention in Times Square at midnight, even though one is a twelve-year-old boy with a fake mustache and the other is the upper half of an extremely fat man.
** Mike Callahan of ''[[Callahan's Crosstime Saloon|Callahans Crosstime Saloon]]'' tells the story of waking up after an epic week-long bender naked in Central Park, fleeing on a stolen police horse. He gets all the way to Brooklyn by wrapping himself in a plaid horse blanket and yelling "Attack of the Horseclans! Coming soon from United Artists" as necessary.
* Subverted in the ''[[Enchanted Inc.]]'' series. Small town Texas girl Katie moves to NYC and thinks it's common to spot people wandering around wearing wings and the like, especially since nobody else seems fazed by it. Turns out she just is immune to magic and sees things as they really are.
* Alan Dean Foster's ''Quozl'' features a group of rabbit like aliens who have colonized earth. A few humans know about them, and one even had a cartoon show made about them. When the aliens decide to gradually reveal themselves to humanity, their human friends take them to Disney Land, where they can walk around and talk to people and be completely ignored. Eventually they ''are'' nabbed by security...but only because Quozl are not licensed Disney characters.
* In Kresley Cole's "Immortals After Dark" series, the immortals live by this trope in New Orleans. Any odd, nonhuman features just get handwaved as being costumes. One group of demons are shown to regularly go out among humans with no attempt to hide their horns, and they get away with it because one of them wears a shirt claiming that they're a special effects company.
Line 127:
== Video Games ==
* ''[[City of Heroes]]'' and its [[Evil Counterpart]], ''[[City of Villains]]'', are pretty good examples of this trope, but most MMORPGs are jam-packed with weirdoes of [[This Loser Is You|all kinds]].
* The crowd that gathers at the end of ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' seem awfully calm despite a huge mobile fortress crashed into Federal Hall as well as the body of the former President of the United States wearing an exoskeleton suit with metal tentacles and a selection of swords lying nearby. They also seem to not notice the oddly dressed and armed Snake and Raiden. However, this [[Gainax Ending|may not be meant to be taken literally]].
** The weirdly dressed guys wouldn't really bother me much (it's [[New York City]], two guys dressed in weird outfits aren't a completely uncommon sight). It's the former president smashed on the steps of Federal Hall and the giant crony machine that crashed through the city.
* In the ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' series, you can generally walk around brandishing any weapon you want without drawing attention to yourself. In ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' this continues to be true with one exception, the strip clubs. For some reason if you pull a gun there (and only there), the place goes nuts.
Line 137:
* In ''[[Prototype (video game)|Prototype]]'', the reaction many [[Semper Fi|Marines]] (and not a few [[Armies Are Evil|Blackwatch]]) will have to the sight of wanted fugitive Alex Mercer effortlessly sprinting up vertical walls and smashing holes in the pavement with every landing is "Fuckin' New York!" and nothing else.
* [[Persona 2|Sumaru City]]. Dear God, Sumaru City. It does not get any worse than a city where rumors ''become'' reality.
* The nameless isolated town in ''[[Pathologic]]'' has some pretty quirky and secretive inhabitants. This counts even without that whole, well, you know... [[Sarcasm Mode|minor distraction]] in the form of that mysterious [[Just Before the End|apocalyptic]] [[Incurable Cough of Death|plague crisis that's going on]].
Line 145:
* Happens regularly in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]''. The residents of Cumberland, Maryland don't particularly care when the mayor installs a citywide anti-zombie system, and a rampaging Paul Bunyan is treated by the police as ordinary policework, not worthy of exceptional notice.
* In ''[[Peter Is the Wolf]],'' Jean, a werewolf, is caught out in public partially transformed. Passers-by just think she's a furry and ignore her.
* In [[MSF High]], this is rather obviously in effect. Even moreso with the forum game, where a few students fighting to the death during the middle of the class can, at times, be completely ignored. Sometimes averted, however. At which point, it becomes a group activity.
* Definite evidence of this in ''[[Voodoo Walrus]]''. There's a local finance manager who's a coffee powered cyberpunk/steampunk cyborg in a suit, three mute and odd looking brothers who run a variety of stores and shops, and the devil himself manages to work at the art store and the coffee shop simultaneously.
** Not to mention the mad scientists, superheroes, possibly demonic comic publishers, and the magic girl who might be from a completely different dimension who thinks lobsters are baby humans.
* Mechanicsburg from ''[[Girl Genius]]''. Lampshaded when one of the inhabited asked if growing up there made them weird.
Line 157:
== Western Animation ==
* While not a large city, [[The Simpsons (animation)|Springfield]] definitely applies.
* In ''[[Freakazoid!]],'' the creepy, giggling Weylon Jeepers and [[Eldritch Abomination|Vorn the Unspeakable]] are able to blend in perfectly in Venice Beach.
{{quote|'''Freakazoid:''' A couple of weirdos like Jeepers and Vorn should be pretty easy to spot around here!
'''Cosgrove:''' I don't think so.
Line 182:
** This extends in the strangest ways to even places like the British Museum, where its entirely possible for a large group of people walking around in trenchcoats and waistcoats and not even raise an eyebrow... not even from foreign tourists, who'd be more likely to spot the bizarreness of said apparel.
** In a specific case, on the DVD commentary for "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail" John Cleese mentions that he had to do a post shot near Hampstead Heath. The camera and all of the crew were on one side of the field while him in his full Lancelot costume was all the way on the other side, and he had to wait around for a man to wave a flag to signal him to run towards the camera. And no bystanders paid any attention to the six foot tall man in full medieval armor standing quietly by himself.
* Even were it not in the [[Deep South]], [[New Orleans]] would qualify. For one thing, it is quite literally [[It's Always Mardi Gras in New Orleans|Always Mardi Gras In New Orleans]], as residents of the French Quarter are famous for staging impromptu parades at any time of the year for the amusement of ever-present tourists. In addition, and because of those same tourists, the streets of the Quarter and adjacent areas are home to sundry drifters and con artists who, being too classy to pick your pocket, will instead opt to [[Street Performer|perform a spontaneous old soft-shoe/doo-wop act right there on the street]] and then hit you up for money when the singing and dancing is over. And then there's Bourbon Street after dark, where hot-dog vendors dress up like antebellum Southerners, strip-club workers act like turn-of-the-century carnival barkers, and random women will lift up their dresses and [[Panty Shot|flash their panties]] at you for no reason.
* [[Las Vegas]], not only for the Elvis impersonators, but people dressed in costume for birthdays, bachelor parties, etc. don't even faze locals. Even most tourists ignore them.
** The same kind of effect happens with celebrities, at least with those that work in casinos. Once you've seen the star of some angsty teenage ''[[Dawson's Creek]]'' ripoff puking in a trash can, celebrities get kinda "meh."
Line 188:
** Art schools, as well, are their own strange microcosm.
** This troper was captain of his college's fencing team, and for four years, rarely walked around campus without a sword or four on my back. The only response I ever got was from people asking for the class times and professors asking to borrow one because their laser pointers were out of batteries.
* Similarly, during various sci-fi, Renaissance Festivals or role-playing conventions shop clerks can be remarkably blase about people armed to the teeth with swords and realistic-looking airsoft guns walking in all day. Of course after the first time it stops being surprising.
** A friend and I once stopped by Target on the way home from a working at Renaissance Fair. It was cold (summer in San Fran) so we were wearing a mix of period and modern garb, which probably looked even weirder, but the only person that paid us any mind was the fellow shopper with the parrot, who was clearly disappointed to not be the strangest thing in the store.
** Subverted in the case of Berkeley's naked guy: The city quickly passed an anti-nudity ordinance.
Line 198:
* There are so many subculture conventions in and around the city of [[Seattle]], as well as a highly active arts scene, and numerous socio-political protests, that a full-blown [[Alien Invasion]] would only make the news if they happened to cause a major inconvenience to the citizenry (like disrupting the already-problematic traffic, or [[Must Have Caffeine|blowing up a Starbucks]]).
* Any city hosting a gaming convention will rapidly become this. Within about a mile radius of the convention center, even a tall buxom woman in a chainmail bikini doesn't draw a second glance, let alone the people with swords, wheeled crates full of miniatures, and/or [[BattleTech|dicebags the size of a gallon jug tied to their belts]].
* Any city that has a large film and television industry will have the people get very blase about bizarre things. Between location shooting, and many actors not wanting to take off heavy makeup and prosthetic pieces for short breaks, you could see just about anything, especially if they have a reputation for Sci-Fi/Fantasy filming (like New Zealand and Vancouver.)
* As noted in the ''[[Freakazoid!]]'' example above, Venice Beach in Southern California is prone to this. Leather-clad lesbians sprouting neon pink mohawks and more piercings than [[Hellraiser|Pinhead]] rollerblading down the beach will barely get a glance.
{{reflist}}
| |||