Fainting: Difference between revisions

 

* '''The Corset Faint''' - One of the oldest forms of the trope hanging around from the late unlamented days of [[Of Corsets Sexy|the corset]], when women were a deep-inhalation away from being cut in twain.

* '''Girly Man Faint''' - Occurs when a male character—usually the most cowardly member of the cast—is confronted with a nameless horror which causes him to faint dead away, sometimes letting out a [[Screams Like a Little Girl|little girly scream]]. Almost exclusively played for comedy.

* '''Anemia Faint''' - An affliction which seems to strike a very high proportion of Japanese ''shoujo'' heroines, causing them to black out at inopportune times and thus, give their love interests a convenient excuse to hold them and act all manly and protective. This is also true for people who have recently been [[Kiss of the Vampire|Kissed by a vampire]].

** [[Truth in Television]] to an extent. This is why you get an iron test when you give blood and the necessary threshold is set above what counts as anemic - you can faint while giving even if your iron is only slightly down. It's also one of the reasons why the nice folks at the donation center tell you not to do any heavy exercise for the next 12 hours.

* '''Hypotension''': - Blood may be healthy and sufficient, but if the rest of circulatory system fails to deliver enough of it to the brain, the result is much the same: hypoxia and fainting (syncope). Often this does not reach full unconsciousness, but stops at temporary dizziness and/or darkened vision, however.

** Pregnancy Faint - A slightly more dramatic way than morning sickness to indicate that a female character is now expecting. In real life, fainting while pregnant, as the baby is taking the blood that the pregnant person's brain needs. It is also very rare, dizziness is more common.

** Orthostatic hypotension - When the body is standing up, it requires higher blood pressure to compensate for greater height (brain to legs), and people who take certain drugs or just aren't quite healthy often find out that heart and blood vessels catch up a little too slowly. Dizziness of this sort is a fairly common side effect of anything that can lower blood pressure, and as long as it goes away in a second or two, rarely becomes a serious problem (compared to risk of stroke or aneurysm from high pressure).

* '''Fake Faint''' - A character pretends to lose consciousness in order to create a distraction. Tends to overlap with '''Corset Faint''' above, although it can be done by anyone in just about any time period.

* '''Emotional Faint''' - When done well, this one can be thoroughly justified - in times of extreme high emotion, people do faint. However, such extreme levels of emotion that would make it realistic are actually fairly rare. This is also the reason that [[Breaking Bad News Gently]] involves the phrase "You better sit down".

** '''The Monster Faint''' - Refers to a special subset of fainting that is rarely played straight these days, but was a big staple of '50's era monster/alien movies. A young, nubile heroine sees a hideous monster (or alien or gorilla) coming towards her and she faints, usually into the approaching monster/alien/gorilla's arms. Whereas in real life, faints last only a few seconds, the '''Monster Faint''' can last several minutes, or even several ''hours'', if the plot dictates it. The "monster carrying an unconscious girl" motif was so popular during the '50's pulp movie era that [[Touch of the Monster|movie posters would frequently feature a monstrous creature carrying a girl]], even if ''no such scene appeared in the movie''.

* Captain Spaulding does this in ''[[Marx Brothers|Animal Crackers]]'' as Mrs. Rittenhouse is hailing him for fearlessly journeying through [[Darkest Africa]].

 

* Frank from ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' had been known to do this.

* In the ''[[X Files]]'' episode "The Unnatural", Dales faints away upon seeing Exley's true alien form, and then faints again (and again, and again) when the alien revives him.

* Gilligan in [[Gilligan's Island]].

 

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

* Vernon from ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]''.

* [[Scooby-Doo (animation)|Shaggy and Scooby]], frequently.

 

 

* This happens a few times in [[Mahou Sensei Negima]], usually to [[Shrinking Violet|Nodoka]], although once she was let in on [[The Masquerade]],<ref>and now has an explanation for stuff like seeing [[Me's a Crowd|five of your teacher]] or getting attacked by a vampire</ref> she [[Took a Level in Badass|got much better about this.]]

* In [[Magical X Miracle]], [[Shrinking Violet|Merleawe]], as the shojo heroine, faints; [[The Big Guy|Vaith]], as the [[Love Interest]], catches her; and [[The Smart Guy|Yue]] lampshades it.

 

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* Yoko Tsuno Faints all the time in comic books, usually after being struck on the neck.

 

* Kimberly of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]'' has done this a time or two.

* Scully in [[The X-Files]] episode "Redux" faints in a meeting with Skinner and other FBI higher-ups after her cancer progresses to a dangerous point. She was about to tell the board who the mole was working in the FBI, and as Skinner catches her before she hits the floor, she whispers "You", implying that she believes he is the mole.

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]''. When the effects of a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] causes members of the crew to start passing out, Kirk orders them given booster shots. McCoy is later shown injecting a line of Starfleet personnel -- [[Unfortunate Implications|who are all female]]. Presumably tough spacemen are not in the habit of swooning. Or maybe they're just in a separate line being injected by Nurse Chapel?

* In ''[[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'', Jasmine's briefly fainting and being caught by Umeko (not a love interest... [[Ho Yay|theoretically]]) replaces the usual [[Psychic Nosebleed]].

 

=== [[Web Comics]] ===

* Miho from ''[[Megatokyo]]'' has this shortly after being introduced.

 

=== [[Video Games]] ===

=== [[Comic Books]] ===

* Yoko Tsuno the Japanese action girl frequently faints after being subjected to a neck chop, L'or du Rhin being one example.

 

=== [[Film]] ===

* Zira fainting in the movie ''Escape from the [[Planet of the Apes]]''.

 

* Happens several times in ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "Requiem", which ends with Scully's pregnancy being revealed.

* Chloe from ''[[24]]'' discovered her pregnancy this way.

* Sissi must be the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|mother]] of this trope

* Phoebe in [[Charmed]] fainted twice because of demonic pregnancy.

 

=== [[Theatre]] ===

* Rosabella in ''The Most Happy Fella''.

* Lorraine Hainsberry's ''A Raisin in the Sun'' has Ruth fainting at the very end of the first act for this exact reason.

 

=== [[Video Games]] ===

* In ''[[Dragon Quest V]]'', your wife faints on the trip to Gotha. Eventually, it's revealed to be this trope when she faints again while meeting King Albert.

 

=== [[Web Comics]] ===

* Even more painful in ''Uncanny X-Men'' issue 11, where after ''The Stranger'' walks on air and through a wall, someone utters these gentlemanish words:

{{quote|Someone get a '''doctor!''' Women are faintin' like '''flies''' over here!!}}

 

=== [[Film]] ===

* Done by Janet Weiss [[Audience Participation|(SLUT!)]] when she sees Frank N. Furter for the first time in ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show''.

 

=== [[Literature]] ===

* In ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'', we get a nice [[Gender Flip]] with ''Jonathan Harker'' pulling one of these fairly early on. Just as equally an emotional faint, however, as he had just been [[Fetish Fuel|overtly harassed by three beautiful vampire-ladies]] ''and'' [[Ho Yay|apparently his own host.]]

 

* This phenomenon popped up in several ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' movies, like ''[[Eegah]]'', ''[[The Phantom Planet]]'' and ''[[The Blood Waters of Dr. Z (Film)|The Blood Waters of Dr. Z]],'' which contains probably the most egregious example of this trope, with the kidnapped heroine managing to remain unconscious while being roughly carried through a hot, noisy, fetid swamp for ''several miles.''

{{quote|'''Crow:''' Apparently women are devoid of the "fight-or-flight" reflex.}}

* ''[[The X-Files]]''. Although Agent Scully is hardly the frail heroine, even she keels over when a ghost removes his hat to reveal a large shotgun hole through his head. Also played for laughs in "The Unnatural" when the cop protagonist in 1947 Roswell sees a Grey alien (who's been posing as a Negro baseball player) for the first time. The alien keeps trying to wake him up to explain things, but as soon as the cop does so he passes out again.

 

 

* In nearly every version of ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', April O'Neil does this on her first sight of the turtles, whereupon they pick her up and take her home. In a possible [[Running Gag]], Michelangelo asks "Can we keep her?" in both the first movie and the second series just after she faints.

** In the first movie, April did not faint upon seeing the Turtles for the first time—her unconsciousness was due to being attacked by the Foot Clan before they got their ever-loving asses kicked by Raph. When she woke up in the sewer den, she freaked out instead, which ended up freaking the Turtles out as well.

{{quote|'''Donatello:''' You sure have a strange effect on people, don't you, Master?

'''Splinter:''' Hmmmm...out cold. }}

 

 

=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===

* ''[[From Eroica with Love]]'': Caesar Gabriel does this [[Once an Episode|twice a chapter]]. (Yes, he was only around for two chapters, but still.)

* Emma of ''[[Victorian Romance Emma]]'' faints at a ball, partly due to the fact that her corset is laced too tightly and from seeing William with Eleanor.

* Albert of ''[[Gankutsuou]]'' faints from when he accidentally drank water that was laced with poison.

* In ''[[Tsukigasa]]'', Azuma faints when Kuroe kills the robbers and it brings up trauma from when he hurt Kuroe.

* Barnaby in [[Tiger and Bunny]] faints in episode 19. With good reason, as because he's been plagued by recurring nightmares about his parents' death (which he thought he'd begun to put behind him after {{spoiler|seemingly finding their killer}}), and as a result has barely eaten or slept recently. When trying to discuss his fears with Kotetsu, Barnaby breaks down in tears and then passes out.

 

=== [[Fan Works]] ===

'''Marty:''' I know, Doc, but I'm back. I'm back ''from'' the future.

'''Doc:''' ''[[Catch Phrase|Great... Scott!]]'' [faints dead away] }}

 

=== [[Literature]] ===

* Parodied mercilessly by Jane Austen in ''[http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfo/lovfrnd1.html Love and Freindship]'' [sic], from which the opening quote is taken.

 

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' has featured this version in a couple of episodes: Rimmer does it in "Psirens" after viewing a graphic demonstration of how and what the eponymous monsters eat, while in "Nanarchy" The Cat freezes up and keels over after seeing Kokanski apparently chop off her own arm. (Amusingly, in the latter case, he's just left lying on the floor, incredulous index finger still extended.)

* Olive does this in the fifth episode of ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' when it seems a dead horse jockey's ghost is out to kill all the other jockey's from that race, which includes her. Justified-ish in that Pushing Daisies never pretended to be realistic medically or otherwise - {{spoiler|later the "dead," jockey shows up really tall, because he was paralyzed so the doctors cut off his dead horse's legs and put them on him.}}

** In "Communication Problems", Basil is robbed of his gambling winnings by Mrs Richards, then she's complaining it was "ten pounds short". When a man enters the hotel carrying a vase she bought the previous day and asks Basil if he knows her. He is so immensely frustrated that even the ''mention of her name'' makes him faint. (He does get straight back up though).

** At the end of "Basil the Rat", he also faints from the pressure.

 

=== [[Theatre]] ===

=== [[Web Original]] ===

* The highly girly [[The Nostalgia Critic|Nostalgia Critic]] does this in his review of ''[[Judge Dredd]]''. He even does the hand to the forehead thing.

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Body Language]]

[[Category:Women Are Delicate]]