Defenestrate and Berate: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Kevin''': How do you know when a relationship is over?

'''Matt''': Well, all my clothes on the front lawn usually does it for me.|''Two Of A Kind''}}

 

It's a scenario we've all [[Seen It a Million Times|seen a million times]].

 

 

For maximum amusement factor, the window is usually at least on the second story of a building (Tossing stuff out the first floor window isn't funny; tossing stuff out a higher window could be dangerous to passerby, and not just humiliating and inconvenient for the cheating boyfriend). The hapless guy's reaction tends to run:

Note that in Real Life being upset with your significant other does not give you the right to damage their property; Carrie Underwood lyrics to the contrary notwithstanding.<ref>Point of fact, this, as well as a number of other tropes that often appear in romantic comedies, is in fact a crime for which you can be prosecuted. So, technically, you can go ahead and break their shit, as long as it's worth it to you.</ref>

 

 

Surprisingly, this one is often used in commercials. Especially in Mexican commercials, since the phrase "tirar la casa por la ventana" (literally, "defenestrating the house") means "throwing a huge party".

 

Compare: [[It's All Junk]]

 

* There's a Levi's commercial which subverts the trope: the guy is in his underwear and dodging belongings hurled from above. He hurriedly yanks some flowers from a nearby flowerbed. He knocks on the door with the flowers. The girl, touched by the gesture, forgives. While she's going to find a vase for the flowers, he retrieves from a tree his beloved Levis and dons them. Seconds later, he's cheerfully walking away with his jeans on, and the vase and flowers go crashing to the sidewalk.

* There was an Australian TV commercial for the Yellow pages where a guy came home and found all of his stuff on the sidewalk. When he made some remark about how was he supposed to move it, the girl flung the Yellow Pages at him from an upstairs window, smashing his model ship.

* A commercial about an American insurance company had a woman casually asking her friend about her car insurance while staring out the window. The window showed an irate girlfriend throwing her boyfriend's possessions out the window on to the (hopefully) well-insured car. The objects start with clothing, then a TV, then a couch...

 

 

* Done in ''[[It Could Happen To You]]''. Sort-of parodied in that the man's offense is donating money to charity that she would rather he spent on her.

* Seen in flashbacks in ''Exit to Eden'', when a male photojournalist who enjoys being spanked is given the heave-ho by women who are squicked by his desires.

* In ''[[The Mexican]]'' (with Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt)

* In ''[[The War of the Roses]]'' husband and wife ''both'' throw and destroy each other's belongings {{spoiler|including the dog, or so it is implied}}.

* In ''[[The Holiday]]'', Amanda is tossing her ex boyfriend's belongings out of the house while he denies [and eventually admits] he cheated.

* Heavily subverted with one of the couples in ''[[He's Just Not That Into You]]'', when the cool and calculating woman finds out her husband had slept with another she tries to act rational about it by suggesting that before they do anything hasty they should go into counciling. It's not until she finds cigarettes in her husband's things (something she had suspected him of having and that he denied to the point of making her feel guilty about asking) that she realizes she wants him out of her house and after smashing some porcelain in anger, neatly packs up all his belongings and leaves them on the stairs with a note telling him she wants a divorce and that he should get lost.

 

* In ''Divorcing Jack,'' the protagonist cheats on his wife and she melts his prize records in retaliation.

* In ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|Komarr]]'' by [[Lois McMaster Bujold]], this trope is subverted in that Ekaterin Vorsoisson isn't throwing her husband Tien out for infidelity, but leaving him because he's a bribe-taking traitor. And that it's ''him'' throwing the tantrum while she simply stands there quietly clutching her remaining dignity to her, demanding that she stay with him and trying to (entirely irrationally) blame her for his crimes, and pitching her prized bonsai tree (in the family for 70 years!) off a fifth-story balcony at one point to punctuate his childish rant. Her only reaction?

* In ''The Last Days'' by Scott Westerfeld, this is how Moz gets an expensive electric guitar for free, and also how he meets Pearl.

* In one of Carla Kelly's Regency romances, this is done to the heroine because she married well beneath her station.

 

* ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' used this when Lindsay found out that Dean had slept with Rory.

* In an episode of ''[[My Name Is Earl]]'' , This is a step in the [[Bad Boss]]'s [[Humiliation Conga]] : He berates Earl, gets beat up, sent to the hospital, and his wife shows up with his mistress there. She then throws his stuff out the window, and finds the money he laundered.

* Season 1 of ''[[Friends]]'' has Rachel doing this to the [[Romantic False Lead]] (the original, natch).

** In Season 4, Rachel's crush, Joshua, has to buy a lot of new clothes as his ex-wife set all his old clothes on fire. He later reveals he keeps on buying clothes since he likes Rachel.

** The ''CSI'' franchise also uses the divorce variant for both sexes. A couple on ''[[CSI: Miami]]'' destroyed or gave away practically everything they'd owned to keep it from each other, and a man on the Vegas original killed himself and a friend while chain-sawing the furniture he'd just lost to his ex-wife in their divorce settlement.

** One episode of ''[[CSI New York]]'' begins with this. Eventually the man on the balcony throws the dog over, and the horrified woman below is spattered with blood... Fortunately we are then shown that the dog was caught safely, and the blood was being sprayed by a road salter.

* On ''[[Wings (TV series)|Wings]]'' Casey dumps her husband's money out the window of his yacht when she finds out he was lying about being poor. She eventually throws him overboard as well.

* ''[[Keen Eddie]]'': In ''Inciting Incident,'' a woman is sent photo-shopped photos of her husband with another woman and becomes so furious with him, she throws all of his belongings out the window while the police watch and comment. She eventually beans her husband in the head with a suitcase, leaving him with a nasty bump for the rest of the episode.

* ''[[Weeds]]'' season 7 episode "Bags" a classic example involving Shane in Copenhagen.

 

* A Finnish singer Anssi Kela has a couple of lines in his song "1972" that translate roughly into "When I returned home yesterday, my key didn't fit into the lock/My clothes are flying out of the window". It's very likely to be an example of this trope.

* Willie Mabon's R&B song "I'm Mad" (featured in the cartoon ''Sing, Beast, Sing''), has him venting his anger on his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, eventually threatening to pitch her clothes: "Won't be any more washin', or hangin' upside the wall/ I'm throwin' them out the window/ Run out and catch 'em before they fall."

* [[Pet Shop Boys]] ' "The boy who couldn't keep his clothes on" has the girl in the spoken break threaten to do this to her boyfriend due to his [[Ho Yay|extracurricular]] [[Please Put Some Clothes On|activities]].

* The BlackHawk music video "Goodbye Says It All" has a man coming home to find his home trashed with a video showing his ex ruining his possessions. He throws the television in the lake after she says, "And even though I'm leaving you, I still hope we can be friends."

 

* ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' used it in a sketch, with a pair of birds and their nest.

* When ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' realized that Apu and Manjula were having trouble with their sex life (specifically, that he had cheated on her) they throw the Kama Sutra out of the window.

* Happens in ''[[Stoked]]!'' when the staff go on strike and Bummer locks them out of the staff house. The staff not on strike dump their belongings on them from the balcony.

 

 

 

* There are many TV shows and commercials (most recent one I've seen is with an Xmas tree) where frustration leads to something being chucked out the window.

* In the UK a commercial for Harp lager showed a man sitting in his girlfriend's flat (established to be in a high-rise block) while she is getting ready for their date. When her dog appears, he throws a ball for it, which bounces out of the window, and the dog leaps after it. He makes "a sharp exit", as the slogan had it, and is next seen recounting the tale to his friends in the pub. After complaints from viewers, a scene was added at the end showing the dog appearing in the pub as well, unharmed.

** Speaking of Turkeys... ''[[Mad About You]]'' had an episode with a [[Running Gag]] that the couple tried to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving and it kept falling out a window, causing them to have to buy a new turkey.

 

 

* In the Disney film ''[[Candleshoe]]'', Jodie Foster's character gets frustrated while searching for a clue in a book and nearly throws it out the window...only to realize that the clue was referring to the church graveyard she can see from it.

 

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Love Tropes]]

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Advertising Tropes]]

[[Category:Anger Tropes]]