Dead Horse Trope: Difference between revisions
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Chris Lang (talk | contribs) (Moved the Deader Than Disco reference to the 'Seinfeld is Unfunny' paragraph, as it fits in better there than it does in the paragraph referencing other Trope Tropes.) |
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* [[Non-Ironic Clown]] - For some reason, every clown in these days tends to be [[Monster Clown|scary]] or [[Sad Clown|sad]]. Portraying a clown as a genuinely friendly cheerful jester seems to be the subversion these days.
* Likewise, most fictional priests nowdays tend to be either [[Sinister Minister|evil]] or [[Pedophile Priest|a child molester]], to the point where seeing a genuine [[Good Shepherd]] is seen as a subversion. ''[[Frontline]]'' Deconstructed the [[Unfortunate Implications]] of this [[Driven to Suicide|HARD.]]
* Nuns beating students at Catholic school. At least in the United States, nuns stopped doing this a long time ago (and also a good many Catholic schoolteachers are lay people), and yet Hollywood and TV shows constantly act like it's still standard procedure, as sitcom parents often threaten their rebellious teen with a transfer to a school run by nuns, implying that they will be beaten.
* The hillbilly [[Party Line Telephone]] with every country farmhouse physically wired to the same line used to be a comedy staple, with widespread gossip and [[Exact Eavesdropping|eavesdropping on calls]] running rampant. Eventually, [[Technology Marches On]].
* [[Prince Charming]]. Time was, every fairytale had a character whose main function was to be a) physically attractive and b) a socially advantageous marriage prospect for [[The Hero]]/heroine, by virtue of being wealthy and/or a member of the aristocracy. Information about this character's actual ''personality'' tended to be sketchy at best. Remained popular through the early [[Disney Animated Canon]]. Nowadays often subverted as being clueless and vain, if not downright evil. See...
** [[Prince Charmless]], which is the current form nowadays. See what we meant by the spoof becoming a trope?
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* Because many drama series deal with touchy real life subjects these days as a matter of course, the [[Very Special Episode]] is more often parodied than played straight these days.
* [[Vampire Vords]]
* [[Working on the Chain Gang]]: The punishment was once very commonplace in [[American Prisons|Southern US states]] up until the mid-1950s. Today only a single county in Arizona remains as the one place that still makes use of chain gangs, although inmates serving on these ones aren't shackled together anymore. Nowadays, chain gangs mostly just exist in period pieces in media that involve prisoners in the early half of the 20th Century. Replaced with "community service" nowadays; usually a crew of guys filling potholes on the highway or picking up litter in the park, but these activities aren't gritty or sexy enough for Hollywood so they rarely show up in media.
* Early settings for ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' and derivatives used to feature gods of death as undead loving always evil assholes. Newer settings and updates to older settings went to subvert it by making gods of death neutral agents of a natural part of the cycle of life that hate undead. Now the second is far more common and undead making gods are more minor gods of ''un''death specifically rather than having a portfolio over death in general.
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