Photos Lie: Difference between revisions
→[[Played for Drama]]: Replaced redirects
(update links) |
(→[[Played for Drama]]: Replaced redirects) |
||
| (3 intermediate revisions by one other user not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|''"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know."''|'''
Family portraits generally all look the same. The family all standing together, smiling and happy, hugging each other and wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. However, the photo doesn't show what happens before and after you take it, which is sometimes the most important part. Usually comes in two varieties.
Line 9:
{{examples}}
* In ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'', everybody's arguing as usual. As soon as Lois counts to 3, they instantly stop and strike a perfect pose. Once the picture's taken, it's back to Shouty Town.
* Averted on ''[[Soap]]'', where the camera [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSaNWYHmUvI#t=0m54s catches them in mid-anarchy.]
* ''[[3rd Rock from the Sun]]'' did the arguing family version. Everyone was posed smiling, but then Dick, no longer able to tolerate the shallowness, let off a [[Big No]] the split the second the camera went off, ruining the picture.
* There's a [[Microsoft]] ad showing a mom taking family pictures, and there's not a single picture with all of the members behaving at once. So she uses the advertised tool to
* When the baby is born on ''[[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]]'', the whole family crowds around the hospital bed to argue about what to name him. When the doctor offers to take a photo, they all stop and smile, then immediately start to argue again after.
* On ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Lily goes out of her way to keep Ted's date out of her birthday photo. Ted later calls her out on how forced and faked her birthday photos are.
Line 19:
{{quote|'''Surma:''' I bet it looks stupid! I always look so serious in photos! I bet I had on me serious face!}}
* On an episode of ''[[Burn Notice]]'', Madelyn gets out an old Christmas photo from Michael's childhood. It seems happy enough at first, but then she points out Michael's black eye and how he got it.
* Zig-zagged in an episode of ''[[Royal Pains]]''. Hank's father gives Hank a picture of himself with Hank and Evan when they were young kids, and Evan remembers what a good day that was. Hank disagrees, and flashbacks reveal that the photo was taken after their father used his sons to help him steal back a tractor that had been repossessed. As more flashbacks are shown, though, it turns out that Hank learned [[MacGyvering|some of his valuable present-day skills]] from that experience, and the three of them bonded over the whole thing: it actually ''was'' a good day.
* In
* In ''[[Sandra and Woo]]'', when Cloud asks his mother about her childhood in Burma, she [http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2010/04/08/0153-overall-score/ looks through her old diary and comments] that, while her childhood was apparently quite bad, the pictures she's got from back then gives a much more positive impression.
* ''[[Judge Dredd (film)|Judge Dredd]]'': A close inspection of Dredd's childhood photo reveals that {{spoiler|the only real part of the photo was Dredd, everything else was composited in because he [[Designer Babies|had no parents]].}}
* In ''[[Dexter]]'', Dexter has a lot of typical happy-looking family photos with his adoptive family. However, flashbacks show that Dexter hated posing since he didn't feel anything, and was persuaded by his adoptive father Harry to "play the game" and pretend to be a normal person. So, all of his smiles are totally fake in those pictures.
* Another episode of ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' uses this trope again. Future Ted shows his kids a photo of brunch with the gang and Ted's family, but reveals that just after that picture was taken, Ted had to confront his dad about him "cheating" on his mom because his parents never told him they were divorced, Robin was irrationally upset at Ted's mom, and Lily and Marshall were trying to seduce each other out of spite. [[It Makes Sense in Context]].
Line 30:
{{quote|In our family portrait, we look pretty happy
Let's play pretend, act like it goes naturally }}
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' Season 5 takes this trope just a bit more literally {{spoiler|with the photos that have Dawn in them.}}
* Selim Bradley of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' has several family photos where he stands smiling with his parents. The only thing is, {{spoiler|he has a different family in each one, because some of the photos are decades old.}}
* Discussed in ''[[Criminal Minds]]''. Rossi tells Hotch that it's easy to pretend to be happy for a few seconds, and he has plenty of happy pictures with his ex-wives. Since they're looking at the happy family photo of an abusive husband and the wife who finally snapped and killed him...
*
{{reflist}}
| |||