Reality Is Unrealistic: Difference between revisions
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** Really BIG guns (cannons, artillery) can be really loud, however. Even so, firing anything with modern propellants makes a brief crack sound. Black powder makes more of a thump than a crack, but even then, you don't get the movie-style "rolling thunder". What does make an extended, rolling, sound is a salvo (a group of guns firing together, like a battery of artillery).
** It is possible to get something similar to rolling thunder if you fire in a wide-open space with clouds above. The echo can extend the sound of both the gunshot itself and, provided you use a supersonic round, the sonic boom to levels normally heard in Hollywood. The specific requirements to get specific sounds out of firearms is pretty astounding if you fire even the same round in a lot of different settings.
* [[Hollywood Silencer|Silencers]] are ''way'' more effective in movies or television than in real life. Although, again, caliber can mean a lot. The best silencer on a .45 is still as loud as a young man slamming a door ''for effect''. But a quality silencer on a .22, or a .17? An integral silencer, with the designer not worried about weight or bulk? Like someone dropped a dictionary. ''In the next room''.<br />** The other problem with keeping a silenced shot quiet is that impacting the target and the brass ejecting and hitting walls and other hard
** Though the manually operated part is more to do with less powerful ammunition being unable to operate the slide or bolt, due to the lack of either recoil or gas.<br />A significant part of the noise of a firearm isn't the discharge itself, but rather the supersonic bullet's wake collapsing behind it. This is why bullets "Snap!" if one passes by. Suppressed weapons using supersonic ammunition are not going to deliver the lack of sound you expect. In the real world, really, really, quiet weapons use subsonic rounds, either cartridges purpose designed be subsonic or by slowing the bullet from a standard cartridge down (typically by bleeding gas out of the bore before the bullet is fully accelerated). .22LR is readily available in subsonic loadings (for target shooting), this is one reason why it's a favorite cartridge to suppress. Fiction tends to ignore this facet of the technology.
** Depending on the load and barrel length, most .45 caliber pistol rounds actually ''are'' subsonic by standard. It doesn't help though that military and police usually use stronger loads to prevent failure, and, of course, increase power.
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*** Though, curiously, for some reason, when the Marine in question kicks the door, it explodes. Not like Shower of splinters explodes, but Fireball-and-loud-noise explodes.
** The designers must have stopped smoking whatever they were while making ''[[Call of Duty]] 3''. In it, not only do soldiers break down doors by charging at them with their shoulder, ''it also reduces the door to splinters''. To be fair, 3 was developed not by Infinity Ward (1/2/4/6) but by Treyarch (3/5/7).
** Likewise ''SWAT 4''
** There's an even more practical reason for kicking a door as opposed to a shoulder charge: Even if one did manage to bust the door open with their shoulder, they'd be careening into the room off-balance and in no position to engage targets. By kicking in the door, the one can either immediately plant their foot and be in a position to engage, or retreat and let the rest of the team rush in (which is more the case with soldiers and SWAT.
** ''[[Burn Notice]]'': Sam has to break down a hotel room door. {{spoiler|He fails utterly.}}
*** The premiere episode of the show featured Michael breaking into a room by removing the exterior siding beforehand and then kicking his way through the drywall rather than trying to bash down a door (not to mention the guy with the gun on the other side of the door). This technique is sometimes used by firefighters in emergencies: you can spend time fooling around trying to force an interior security door in a steel frame open, or you can punch a hole in the wall, reach in and unlock the door.
** Demonstrated in ''[[Chuck]]''
** Jamie Hyneman breaks through three of the four locks on the "test door" when [[Myth Busters]] tried this, and probably would have gotten the fourth had the build team used the attachment screws that came with the lock. But there's a reason everyone else on the show talks about him being unusually strong, and according to fan sites Jamie ''did'' hurt his shoulder in the process.
** In ''[[Brothers in Arms]]: Hell's Highway'', squad member Paddock tries kicking open a church door, yelping in pain. He then frustratedly shoots the lock and humbly pushes the door open.
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** On a DVD of News Bloopers, a woman reporter was doing a piece on how easy it was for people to force their way in through a locked door, then turning and kicking it by the door handle, and completely failing to do anything. Followed by a second, and then a third take, all with the same results. The final piece had the reporter speaking off camera while a man at least a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier easily kicked the door in.
** Lampshaded in the Season one opening theme for ''[[Reno 911]]'', where Jones tried this very thing and only succeeded in hurting himself.
* Perhaps the greatest example of this trope are [[
** The traditional ninja garb is taken from the dress of stagehands in kabuki theatre. They'd dress in all black and the audience would, by convention, pretend not to see them. A ninja character dressed as stagehand used this convention to emulate a character striking from the shadows, since the audience would be surprised to see a "stagehand" suddenly interact with the real actors.
*** Tangentially related, but even the "stealth" justification, that wearing all black would be effective camouflage at night, rings hollow. Black is terrible camo unless your surroundings match (i.e. it's genuinely pitch dark out), otherwise the contrast makes the color stand out. Dark blue is the color of choice.
** The notion of ninjas existing outside of fiction (whether of the literary or theatrical variety) is questionable at best. No non-literary record of them exists, almost all of the ninja "tricks" were well known to the samurai, samurai had little or no problem mixing with other classes for the sake of subterfuge (the class structure in Sengoku-period Japan was very fluid before the reforms of Totoyomi Hideyoshi), and the hill clans typically associated with ninjutsu supplied far too many men for them all to be super-secret shadow warriors.
** For that matter, the [[James Bond
*** This is also mentioned in the non-canon movie ''[[Never Say Never Again]]''. Bond mentions at one point early on that he's lately been spending the majority of his time teaching, rather than out in the field.
** The Western equivalent of the "ninjas in kabuki black" could be how the [[Knight in Shining Armor]] trope has usurped the King Arthur myth. Plate armor hadn't been invented at the time the King Arthur legend is set, yet plenty of people wouldn't even recognize an Arthur who wore chainmail or Roman-style banded armor. Medieval artists invariably painted Arthur and his knights decked out in whatever the knights of the painters' own era would wear.
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* There are people of Hispanic ethnicity who have light skin tone and blond hair. The majority do have dark hair and tan skin like [[Antonio Banderas]] (who is Spanish, not Hispanic) and [[Jennifer Lopez]], but try to find an actor or actress portraying a light-skinned Hispanic. This definitely crosses over with [[The Coconut Effect]]. Ricardo Montalban played many roles in brown face because he was seen as too fair to play characters of his own ethnicity.
** The U.S. Department of Transportation defines "Hispanic" as, "persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, Central or South American, or others Spanish or Portuguese culture or origin, regardless of race". Even ignoring this, the term "Hispanic" could be said to be more a matter of culture and language than race. Which [[You Keep Using That Word|begs the question]] why they think all Latin Americans are "otherwise Spanish or Portuguese in culture and origin", or even, that Spanish people are of "Hispanic race". Most Latin Americans are Indian and a mix of European immigrants, but people assume only descendants of Spanish colonists live in, say, Mexico, ''or vice versa''. This like calling US Citizens "other persons of British culture and origin".
*** There are plenty of actors playing light-skinned Hispanic... In Latin American media of course! In [[
**** One high-profile exception: Hurley on ''[[Lost]]'', who like his actor Jorge Garcia is so light-skinned that despite his being apparently the only male Latino among the Losties Sawyer still couldn't tell who the "Hugo Reyes" who sent one of the messages in the bottle might have been.
** Not to mention, there are some hispanic people who can be considered "white". [[Guillermo del Toro]] is mexican-born but doesn't look very "hispanic" at all.
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*** The justification was actually that, in the book, Michael is described as not looking like the rest of the family (and during his time in Sicily, he is actually mistaken for a northern Italian). Justifications aside, the ''real'' reason behind the attempted casting switch was that none of the actors signed at the time were thought to be capable of "opening" the film (screen legend he is today, Brando was actually at the nadir of his career before accepting the role of Don Corleone; character actor Richard Castellano (Clemenza) was actually the highest-paid member of the cast) and that a well-known actor would be needed.
*** Also, although most Sicilian-''Americans'' are dark-eyed and olive-skinned, many Sicilians ''in Sicily'' are blond and blue-eyed (or even red-haired and green-eyed). To a Sicilian, Robert Redford looks more like a Sicilian than Marlon Brando.
** Most of Lou Diamond Phillips' early roles were Mexican-American characters (''La Bamba'', ''Stand and Deliver'', ''Young Guns''), but his ancestry is quite mixed <ref>
** This is done right for once in ''[[Michiko to Hatchin]]'', where Hatchin is depicted as a very fair-skinned Hispanic girl, in contrast with the more stereotypically dark-skinned Michiko.
** Even if the movie is supposedly set in Brazil, you won't see any black (not mixed race) or asian people.
* In the nonfiction book ''Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets'' (later made into the popular TV series ''[[Homicide]]'') it's mentioned that fingerprint experts are routinely called to testify in trials where no fingerprints where found at a crime scene... in order to explain to jurors that, contrary to television, fingerprints aren't found at most crime scenes.
** A "professional" television or film burglar will often be shown using a cloth to carefully remove fingerprints from a doorknob. In fact, most fingerprinting experts won't bother dusting a doorknob at all, as it will almost invariably reveal a mottled pattern of overlaid prints from which no useful information can be gathered.
* Many people think that, as portrayed by virtually every Rome-related work of fiction ever, [[Gladiator Games|gladiatorial matches]] were nearly always to the death. In reality, being killed during a match did occur, but it was somewhat rare. Also, they were not no-holds-barred
** Most gladiators did indeed die in the ring, but they could easily have a dozen matches behind them before they kicked the dust, with months or even years of recuperating time between each. Also, the gladiators weren't muscle-bound bodybuilders they're usually depicted as, but [[Stout Strength|muscled and obese]], like light-end sumo wrestlers; the fat layer allowed them to take relatively large, bleeding wounds without damage to their internal organs, allowing them to fight in the aforementioned multiple matches. Their carb-heavy vegetarian diet was deliberately constructed to this end. The Romans even realized that this diet was lacking in calcium, and had them drink milk mixed with crushed animal bones to counter it.
** Arena games were actually quite bloody, but most of the blood shed consisted of noxii (condemned criminals) or those condemned to the beasts. These were effectively the opening act to gladiator matches, but the participants are often confused for gladiators.
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*** Something to keep in mind is that this experiment was done on ground level and did not recreate true conditions of a plane in flight. Thus it is technically inconclusive.
** To "spice up" the field test on Ford Explorer rollovers, ''Dateline'' relied on this fact for cover as they rigged the trucks to explode. When they were found out, they issued an apology.
** Dateline pulled this with GM too. In both cases it went beyond
** There's also the widely-held belief that if a tire (especially a front tire) blows out the car will inevitably roll. ''Car and Driver'', investigating the rolling Explorers, ''deliberately tried'' to roll one by rigging the tires to blow out on their test track. They couldn't get it to flip. It's the driver, stupid.
** The ''actual'' Ford Pinto that formed the basis of [[Every Car Is a Pinto]] isn't nearly as ready to explode as the popular image of the car suggests, let alone cars in most visually-based fiction.
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** A variant would be extreme ideological and bigoted behavior as well. Many portrayals in films of real life actions or even just statements by the more extreme racists, supremacists, or any other highly-charged hate groups often elicit eye-rolls from many in the audience and often accusations of being [[Anvilicious]]. Even the extent of how deeply things like racism were once accepted in casual society falls into this. For example, the commercials in the [[Faux Documentary]] ''CSA: The Confederate States of America'' which featured products with over-the-top-sounding racist names (such as [[wikipedia:Darlie|Darkie Toothpaste]] and [[wikipedia:Coon Chicken Inn|Coon Chicken Inn]]). These often get the aforementioned disbelieving eye-rolling from viewers until the end credits of the film show that such products were, in fact, ''real products'' in the past. True, the Darkie toothpaste was Asian made, but it was introduced to some Western markets, where few whites batted an eye at its racist name at the time, decades before its Western acquisition and subsequent name change to Darlie in 1985.
* [[Boom! Headshot!]] isn't anything like true in real life; while people overwhelmingly believe that "[[Instant Death Bullet|shot in the head = death]]", people have survived ''multiple'' headshots, and in some cases even continued fighting with severe gunshot-related head injuries with little degradation in their abilities. There are also numerous accounts of people surviving head injuries from masonry nails, large tool blades and even ''scaffolding poles'' with little or no long-term effect on their mental performance.
** For that matter, neither is [[Pretty Little Headshots]]. Although headshots are not as lethal as they're widely portrayed, most of them are ''very messy'', since there's a comparatively large amount of fluid and soft tissue packed into a fairly small
*** Note that such neat little gunshot wounds ''do'' actually occur sometimes, but they're much more rare than in
** As world-renowned forensic anthropologist Dr. William R. Maples explains in his book ''Dead Men Do Tell Tales'', it is also possible for a suicide victim to shoot themselves multiple times in the head (this is in response to many investigators assuming a particular case is a homicide because the victim has two or more bullet wounds in their head). In fact, the author tells of a case where a man had to shoot himself in the head ''five times'' before he would die.
** The assumption that headshot + no gun = homicide can also lead police astray. It's not that unusual for a thief to liberate a gun from a suicide scene.
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* Nature is a particularly rough subject for this trope. Scenes of nature portrayed in film are usually pretty much backwards. Scenes showing wonder or scenery will show the characters interacting with surprisingly tame prey animals (deer, rabbits, etc.) and having lovely interactions with brightly colored plants and their fruit. Scenes showing danger will show the hero being chased by predators. Cue long lines at the first aid lodge for people who have been poisoned by brightly colored plants and attacked by prey animals and many kids wondering why bears and coyotes tend to just ignore them (predators are pretty lazy unless they're really hungry and tend to go after lone, injured animals for easy kills).
** In the case of predators losing their fear of humans (there is a very good reason you ''don't'' want to feed a wolf/bear/coyote long enough for it to get used to you), [[Tear Jerker|some people don't even make it to first aid]].
** For that matter, scenes where the heroes are chased by noisy predators are also unrealistic. [[If I Wanted You Dead...|First, a healthy predator wouldn't NEED to chase you down]]. Second, people may have confused hunting with [[Mama Bear|parental]] [[Papa Wolf|displays]]
** The most dangerous animal in Africa is generally considered not the lion, not the leopard, or even the Nile Crocodile (though all three can be downright scary in their own right) but the hippo, which is an herbivore.
*** Hippos are actually quite terrifying. Yeah, they're goofy-looking creatures, all chubby with big eyes - but they are incredibly territorial and have been known to be cannibalistic. [[Lightning Bruiser|They can also easily outrun a human in spite of their short legs.]]
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* Used extensively, and influentially, throughout ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' and ''[[Band of Brothers]]'', with realistically low-key bullet impacts and deaths as well as explosions that are more concussive than fiery. Furthermore, several of the acts perpetrated by Allied soldiers were deliberately un-Hollywood, such as shooting enemy soldiers [[In the Back]], and killing soldiers who were in the process of surrendering, although this tendency also dates back to revisionist war films of the 1950s and 1960s, such as ''The Dirty Dozen'', ''Kelly's Heroes'', and Robert Aldrich's ''Attack''. On the other hand, ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' also suffered from [[Painting the Fourth Wall]], with its jerky cinematography and desaturated color palette (despite being set in the middle of summer in Northern France).
* And another war movie example: In ''[[The Big Red One]]'' the soldiers hide from a group of German soldiers. After the Germans have passed by the American soldiers get up and want to walk on, but find one of their comrades is dead. Upon finding his body in the hole he was hiding in, a soldier comments that he had not even heard a shot being fired. The experienced squad leader just explains that the dead guy is not the first soldier to die from a heart attack in the middle of a war and won't be the last.
* [[Christopher Lee]] has told a story (in ''The Films of Christopher Lee'') that when he tried to perform a scene of his being shot the way he'd seen people shot in WWII -- "I put an expression of slight surprise on my face and slowly sank to the floor with great dignity"
** For those who didn't see the DVD extras, Christopher Lee served with the Special Operations Executive in [[World War II]]. The SOE's job was to perform sabotage across Europe. While the actions of all SOE agents are still classified, during filming of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Christopher Lee told [[Peter Jackson]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84i82QxNk74 exactly what kind of sound] Saruman would make on being fatally stabbed in the back.
** Lee was also turned down for a role in ''[[The Longest Day]]''... for not looking like a military man.
* In ''[[Milk]]'', a number of reviewers complained that a scene involving a boy being unable to flee his abusive parents because he's in a wheelchair -- {{spoiler|and then turning up safe and sound in Los Angeles at Milk's moment of triumph}}
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049470/trivia IMDb's trivia page] for ''[[The Man Who Knew Too Much]]'' includes this titbit:
{{quote|The plot calls for a man (Daniel Gélin in the role of Louis Bernard) to be discovered as "not Moroccan" because he was wearing black makeup. The makeup artists couldn't find a black substance that would come off easily, and so they painted the fingers of the other man (Jimmy Stewart) white, so that he would leave pale streaks on the other man's skin (according to Patricia Hitchcock, this idea was suggested by Daniel Gélin).}}
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* When ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'' was released, there was a widespread rumor/misconception that the twins were completely computer-generated characters. Many people said that, while looking pretty decent, they still didn't look all that convincing. In actuality they were portrayed by real actors (when not in their "ghost" form).
* Critics of ''[[Unstoppable]]'' complained that the way control was lost over [[Runaway Train|the train]] was too contrived. Not only was the film inspired by a true story (the [[wikipedia:CSX 8888 incident|"Crazy Eights" incident]]), but the train in real life became a runaway through an even more improbable set of circumstances.
* The original plan in ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' was to have ''Discovery'' fly to Saturn. To that end, Kubrick's special effects team tried to create a model of Saturn that was as realistic as possible. However, the more realistic they made it, the faker it looked! The rings looked like a flat band of metal foil held up by plexiglass. Thus, the trip to Saturn was scrapped in favor of a trip to Jupiter. Flash forward a decade-and-a-half, when Voyager 1 sent back close-up [[Real Life]] photos of Saturn and its
** Also, the ''Discovery'' was originally designed with large radiator fins, which is indeed realistic because spacecraft need a way to dissipate excess heat from the engines, life support, electronics, etc. However the production team chose to omit the fins because they looked too much like wings, and they didn't want audience members to think that the ''Discovery'' was intended for atmospheric flight.
* Stop and think: how many libraries have you seen whose books are not mostly standing straight, one against another like bricks? And yet for some reason movie set designers, such as the one in ''[[Ghostbusters]]'', have often insisted on making bookshelves look more "realistic" by having the books be stacked messily and lean crazily against each other on both sides, unlike virtually any real bookshelves.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* In an episode of ''[[Babylon 5]]'', Centauri women (a type of almost [[Human Aliens|Human Alien]]) were depicted as being completely bald or bald except for a ponytail. They were played by actresses who wore latex caps, except for one extra who actually was bald. Supposedly, one of the production crew commented that her cap looked fake.
** This criticism was also aimed at Mira Furlan, who played Delenn using her native Yugoslavian/Croatian accent, leading detractors of the show to complain that the character's accent sounded "fake". Similarly with the new Earth Alliance president late in season 4; like Furlan, the actress used her real accent (Polish) and many viewers complained that it sounded fake. With the new president, though, viewers did at least have one point in their favor; the actress was supposed to be portraying a ''Russian''
** This was picked up on in ''[[Lost]]'', when fans asked why the French woman trapped on the Island by herself for 16 years is speaking with a Croatian accent. The producers regularly discuss this on their podcasts for Rosseau-heavy episodes, pondering if her traumatic experiences are responsible for the accent shift.
** In yet another episode, many complained about a villain's "fake" scar. In fact, the actor had gotten that scar while trying to stop a mugging, and as a consequence he'd been out of work for years until B5.
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* The [[Laugh Track|laughter track]] on the pilot episode of ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'' is actually a quieter version of the laughter heard on the day. However, the audience who attended felt the laughter track was too much on the filmed episode, despite it being their laughter.
* British TV show ''[[Cardiac Arrest]]'' was written by a practicing doctor in a hospital about his experiences as a junior doctor. It was slammed as an unrealistic portrayal of life in a hospital by critics who had never been in one.
* A frequent knock on the TV show ''[[Survivorman]]'' is that the number of times he stumbles onto a useful piece of trash or a food source seems set up. Les Stroud often states, on air, that human refuse is simply a fact of life, no matter where you go. He [[
{{quote|'''Les''': Now, I know what you're thinking: "Ah, come on! That looks set up!"}}
* Invoked in ''[[Burn Notice]]'' when Fiona's brother shows up to help Fiona survive an old foe come back to kill her. Long story short, the brother thinks Michael is Irish from an old operation and Fiona encourages him to maintain the illusion. At a certain point they need to do some recon work and are left to wonder how an Irishman will blend into an American crew. At that point Michael drops his accent and says he's done undercover work in America before. Fiona's brother remarks that Michael's American accent could use some work.<ref>This is also a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on the fact that Michael has his actor's Massachusetts accent, despite growing up in South Florida, which is not all that unlikely either.</ref>
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* Tim Minear remarks in an audio comment for [[Dollhouse]] that they brought in a blind woman as an expert, so Eliza Dushku could portray blindness realistically. But it turned out that when she behaved like a blind person actually would, then it looked fake on screen. So they went with more stereotypical "blind" behaviour.
* [[Mark Sheppard]] - Badger in [[Firefly]] has been criticised for his "atrocious British accent". Perhaps a borderline case - Sheppard is British, but he was laying that accent on rather thick.
* The game show ''[[QI]]'' (hosted by the genius [[Stephen Fry]]) lives and ''breathes'' this trope. For example: Jesus probably wasn't born December
* The character of [[Magnificent Bastard|Tywin Lannister]] in ''[[Game of Thrones]]'' was introduced skinning a stag. Viewers heartily criticised the silly fake stag and ridiculed the scene. It was a real carcass and the actor was actually skinning it.
* Arguably, every episode of every 'ghost hunting' show ever - except for England's [[Most Haunted]], which was revealed to be a fabrication. (Cast and crew members of shows such as [[Ghost Hunters]], [[Paranormal State]] and [[Ghost Adventures]] absolutely insist that no fakery is involved.)
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* Players and reviewers of ''[[D20 Modern]]'' often complained about how unrealistic it was that wielding a weapon with a burst fire setting doesn't give you the effects of the game's Burst Fire feat. As the game's designers have pointed out, the point of the burst fire setting on guns is to ensure you only fire the three to five rounds in an automatic burst that have any realistic chance of actually hitting the target. If you don't know how to effectively fire an accurate burst with an automatic weapon, this setting won't make it any easier.
** [[D20 Modern]] got this in a lot of respects. Many players and reviewers compained about how a submachine gun could easily kill a character in the early levels of the game (where the median hitpoints could be around 7 or 8 at first level and a submachine gun could deal 2d6 (2-12)). The logic on why this was bad? Because SMGs shoot 'little pistol bullets' and everyone knows from movies those only wound you, not kill you.
* [[Dragon (magazine)]] article "[http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?articleid=13023 Illusions of Grandeur]" proposed Spectral Farce spell weaponizing this. It makes things in the affected area to be perceived as less believable, whether they are real or not. Of course, in this case Illusion/Phantasm magic aura actually ''helps'' the effect if detected. The whole point is that a harmless spell becomes ridiculously lethal once the victims disregard as "fake and tacky" something like a swooping
* House rules are the bread & butter of [[Tabletop RPG
{{quote|The ''Combat & Tactics'' book is a compromise that adds some detail to combat -- not to make it more ''realistic'', but to make combat more ''believable''.}}
** Of course, [[Running the Asylum]] gradually made it a moot point, what with Bear Lore et al.
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*** This, despite that a minor celebrity in the U.S. is [http://www.101lifestyle.com/images/celebs/julie_chen/DCELEB-julie-chen-pics-001.jpg Julie Chen], a former newsanchor, host of ''[[Big Brother]]'' and a talk-show host in the off-season.
** Lest we not forget, the world's youngest recorded mother was ''[http://www.snopes.com/pregnant/medina.asp five years old]'' well before such chemical exposures were likely to have happened; individual differences in this regard are, and have always been, huge. And in any case, minor breast growth can happen even before the puberty kicks in with full force.
** It's also not uncommon for precocious puberty to be a temporary thing, environmentally or otherwise, such as in an Italian school in the 1970s where boys and girls started [http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2879%2990304-0/abstract growing breasts]
** Plus, babies have been known to grow breast buds and secrete [[wikipedia:Galactorrhea|"witch's milk"]], i.e. infant lactation, due to exposure of estrogen and other hormones from their mother's womb or breast milk.
* A common complaint about driving games is that a speeding car can easily yank a metal lamp post out of the ground with little loss of speed, while being stopped dead by a humble tree, which makes no sense to most people. In reality, modern lamp posts are intentionally designed to buckle in the event of a car crash as to not harm the passengers, while trees are rooted in the ground and require much more force to uproot. This complaint still has some merit though if a game depicts something like a fast semi truck or tank being unable to damage a thin palm tree.
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* On the forums of the ''America's Army'' game, a game created by the U.S. Army, people often complain that certain aspects about the game are less realistic than other games. The actual case is inevitably that ''America's Army'' is the first game to get that particular aspect right and the people aren't used to that. Common examples of what uninformed posters complain about are what weapons the Army uses (specifically the lack of [[Good Guns, Bad Guns|expected weapons]]), the slow speed of the reloading animations, the [[Heroic RROD|dramatic stun effects]] of flashbangs, the frequency of weapon jams, the slow movement and gameplay speed, the lack of some [[Guns Akimbo|ridiculous practices]], and other things commonly misrepresented by other games. You know a media-caused misconception is ingrained firmly when people [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All|think they understand]] something about combat better than the actual Army.
** Though to be fair to critics, the more frequent than expected weapons jams in America's Army's current weapon of choice are frustrating professionals in [http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-usas-m4-carbine-controversy-03289/ real life as well].
** On the subject of the M16, most people would express absolute disbelief at any report or video that the M4/M16 can indeed take quite a bit of abuse like sand and dust due to the ingrained belief that the tiniest bit of debris will jam it. It ''was'' less reliable compared to AK-
*** Today, there are still two remaining issues with the M16 series. One, the army still uses the original Direct Impingement system that can be replaced with a $60 drop in piston available on the open market. Two, the M16 is a well made gun. Lower tolerances and minimized head space makes for a quality arm, but also for a less dirt-tolerant one. Anyone doubting the M16's durability in regards to physical pounding should see what happens when you run one over with a tank, then do the same to an AK-47. The AK's sheet steel construction folds like a deck of cards. But the M16's gets cracked plastic and a bent barrel, easy fixes.
* ''[[Halo]]'' pulls an interesting version of this - only Spartans can go [[Guns Akimbo]]. Lampshaded by a [[Space Marine|marine]]:
{{quote|"I've seen a Spartan use two SMGs at once, tearing the crap out of the little ones; sending the big ones down in bloody heaps. But I guess that's what ya gotta be to pull it off: an action-movie hero or a seven-foot-tall walking tank..."}}
** Fittingly, bitter [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks]] Halo 1 pistol fanboys complained that the SMGs in question shouldn't be able to force the Chief's aim up the way it does. (They neglected to consider that the Halo 1 Magnum had an even bigger kick per-bullet.<ref>This is because the M6 pistol series uses larger, more powerful bullets than the SMG. Despite the recoil being much more violent, it is somehow able to remain held on target by Spartans and Elites</ref>
* People have complained that Vanille's Australian accent in the dub of ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' is fake sounding and doesn't sound Australian. Her voice actress, Georgia Van Cuylenburg, is actually ''from Australia''. To Australians, though, she sounds like a surfer chick.
** Similarly, Leiliana from ''[[Dragon Age]]'' gets flak because her <s> French</s> Orlesian accent sounds fake. Her voice actress is, of course, French. Marjolanne, another character with an Orlesian accent, actually is voiced by [[Kath Soucie]] who is ''not'' French.
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* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', [http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00599.html a lecture on the importance of doing things right, and the effects it can have.]
* ''[[Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff]]'' in all its [[Stylistic Suck]] glory is clearly something of a parody of crude [[MS Paint]] comics, rife with rock-bottom-quality art and JPEG artifacts, and are instantly recognisable as such. The kicker? MS Paint alone is incapable of that level of pure shittiness. Even using Photoshop to save a JPEG at the lowest quality possible isn't enough to reach ''SBAHJ'''s echelon of suck. [[Andrew Hussie]] [http://www.formspring.me/mspadventures/q/172636277718411101 has described his techniques] for pulling it off, and they are surprisingly involved and detailed, infinitely moreso than anything [[Poe's Law|the theoretical poor "artist" persona]] could actually do.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' amorphs [http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2009-05-21 had a problem] because repeating what Sergeant Schlock does on the TV is impossible and no one is impressed by ''their'' tricks now. Schlock can't
{{quote|'''Schlock''': The TV-me is putting me-me out of a job. [...] Maybe we can kill another TV network. Is there still money in that?}}
== Web Originals ==
* When [http://apocaluck.com/ Nuclear Apocaluck] was
* Almost any photography blog (or any blog where someone puts up scenic photos in general) will immediately attract a flood of commenters complaining that the image is 'obviously Photoshopped'. Of course, a talented photographer is perfectly capable of capturing an impressive shot without resorting to Photoshop software to touch it up, but try telling them that. In many cases, comments of these nature indicate that the commenter is either a [[Troll]] just trying to stir up trouble or just unfamiliar with professional grade SLR cameras. Point-and-shoot cameras have about as much in common with these SLRs as, say, a butter knife has with a chainsaw. Many effects you can get with an expensive manually controlled camera really are impossible with a point-and-shoot. Moreover, many commenters are unaware that effects have [[Older Than They Think|long]] been added to traditional film photos in the development process.
* [http://squid314.livejournal.com/275614.html This] "review" of the History Channel's "World War II Show" provides a hilarious example. The author denounces the show for being a [[Cliché Storm]] full of lazy writing, and calls out The Bomb for being an [[Ass Pull]] with no [[Foreshadowing]], which then became [[Forgotten Phlebotinum]] as the writers never used it again despite the numerous subsequent wars.
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* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] on ''[[Futurama]]'', where Zapp Brannigan tells Kiff to make an image larger and goes "Why is it still blurry?" When Kiff explains that just because it's larger, that doesn't make the resolution clearer, Zapp responds "Well, it does on ''[[CSI: Miami]]''!"
** As seen [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjuV7kRpFQ here].
* Seems to be coming up as fandom reacts to the latest ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'' trailer, which shows skyscrapers, cars, and a
** Not to mention that the timeline - 75 years after the original show, where the world had just begun a technological evolution - corresponds to our own Industrial Revolution, which is generally considered to have taken around
** The most amazing criticism of the post-time-skip world is how quickly such a massive city with huge skyscrapers and complex infrastructure could be built in such a short time without extant power tools and massive construction equipment. Nevermind the fact that [[Applied Phlebotinum|Earth-benders working in construction]] in this world tend to be far more precise and efficient than nearly any mechanical piece of construction equipment, the critics apparently never realized that most of the larger stone constructions of the [[Real Life]] ancient world were made in ''less'' time than what's depicted as having passed here, they were just more spread out chronologically, and cities have frequently gone from populations of a few hundred to tens of thousands in as little as a decade. Becoming the capital city of a not-insignificant percentage of the ''known world'' will do that.
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Cartoon Wars: Part 2" Cartman and Kyle, the two friends yet designated archenemies of the series, are each trying to persuade the Fox Corporation executives to air/pull off an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' featuring Mohamed. The tension builds up gradually leading to a ''"final battle"'' scene with dramatic music score and all. Instead of seeing a fight of epic proportion, we are shown a rather lame brawl between two kids, EXACTLY as the fight involving 4 graders would look like in real life.
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** One of the members of [[Dragon Force (video game)]] tried to play his song "Through the Fire and Flames" in [[Guitar Hero]], [[I Don't Know Mortal Kombat|and failed at 2%]].
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlnP-LJBzUc Here's] a video showing Scott Ian of Anthrax failing his own band's song on Easy mode.
* The ending of Bridge to Teribithia is reasonably plausible. However, it was based on his eight year old son's friend, who was struck by lightning and killed. [[Real Life Writes the Plot]] and two [[Tear Jerker
* One claim made by those who believe the Apollo moon landings were faked is that there is no visible star field in the photos, as one frequently sees in movies. In reality, those photos were taken during the lunar ''daytime'',<ref>Actually, morning, which is important in debunking another of conspiracy theorists claims, but the lighting was already bright enough to drown all the stars except when they specifically shot the sky at the longer exposures</ref>
** When the Apollo lunar modules lifted off the Moon's surface on live television, they just went straight up, with no visible flames or smoke coming out, completely unlike anything ever seen in a sci-fi movie. This helped fuel speculation that the landings were faked. The reality is that while it's perfectly possible to make fire in space (you just have to mix the fuel and oxidizer together before igniting them), flames and billowing smoke are the result of the contents of your fuel (see ''2061'') and the interference of an atmosphere, and the moon's atmosphere has a total mass of 104
** It is also claimed that the landing was a hoax because the flags the astronauts placed are not limp (as normal flags would be in an airless environment). However, this was because the supports inside them, to hold them out in the airless environment of the moon, ironically so you could see the whole flag, but they didn't quite deploy all the way.
** One reason why the photos look fake is that the horizon is unnaturally close. On Earth, on relatively flat land, the horizon is about 3 miles (5
*** Not only that, but the lack of an atmosphere on the moon means that, unlike on Earth, distant objects are not desaturated and faint and hence seem to be much closer and much smaller.
** Amusingly, given the limitations of 1960s technology it would have been ''more'' expensive to design and build a vacuum-sealed sound stage and sets capable of filming a mock-up of the entire Moon landing sequence in vacuum than it actually cost to design and build the Apollo spacecraft.
* [[John Barrowman]], who is openly gay, tried out for the role of Will from ''[[Will and Grace]]''. According to the producers, ''[http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/interviews/article.html?in_article_id=23649&in_page_id=11 he wasn't gay enough]''. They then proceeded to hire Eric McCormack, who is straight.
* How do you tell a [[Transsexualism]] amongst a group of [[
* About fifteen years ago, there was a foiled bank robbery where one of the robbers had a submachine gun, and fired a couple bursts at the guards, with video shown on the news. There were accusations that the video was faked because none of the guards were hit, let alone shredded to pieces as they would have expected. This objection eventually was raised as the story developed, with a clip of a gun expert basically explaining that submachine guns aren't known for their fantastic accuracy, especially when you're ''holding it wrong'', not even really trying to aim or keep it under control.
** ''[[The Dark Tower]]: The Drawing of the Three''. Near the end of the first segment, a [[Mook]] opens fire with an M-16 assault rifle, which [[I Call It Vera|he calls]] "The Wonderful [[Rambo]] Machine". He promptly cuts one of his own allies in half. The narrative then pauses to point out that with a weapon like the M-16, [[More Dakka]] will send you off target after about four or five shots. It describes the look of amazement on Eddie's face as the bullets miss him by a mile. The idiot in question is screaming "I got him!", "unable to distinguish between the script in his head and reality" when he is shot.
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** The Eiffel Tower is actually painted three different shades of brown-gray so that it appears as one color to observers on the ground.
** The mat in some framed art is wider at the bottom to make the matting appear equal on all sides of the work.
*** It is called a "weighted border". This is also done because a person's eye is typically
** Letters are set up this way. Take the letter B, if you look at it even here, pixel by pixel, the top bow is smaller then the bottom bow. This is used in typography to make the letter look equally spaced, or "standing upright".
* [[Real Life]] example: The platypus.
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* The "smell of the sea", familiar to billions, isn't the aroma of salt water. It's the smell of rotting seaweed and other beach residue. Makers of water-additives for home saltwater aquaria have to add organic compounds as well as minerals to their mixtures, otherwise people complain that it can't be right for their fish.
* On the gruesome side there's the amount of blood one can spill, depending on the wound. Upon seeing the disturbing video of Budd Dwyer's suicide, at the part where blood gushes from his nose like a waterfall, there was a brief moment of 'like in [[Dead Alive]]'.
** The head has a surprisingly high blood volume for its size. It is also well-supplied with many arteries. Some of these are very superficial. Head wounds will bleed significantly, even if relatively minor. Professional wrestlers take advantage of this when they need something to look
** If we're talking disturbing medical facts, Hollywood consistently shows characters 'passing out from pain' after being injured in car accidents etc. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way in real life. As any paramedic will tell you, people can be in truly horrific accidents and be suffering extreme pain but remain conscious throughout, provided their head is relatively uninjured and they have a decent oxygen supply to the brain.
* [[Arnold Schwarzenegger|Ah-nuld's]] Austrian accent, would be almost gone by now if he didn't make regular visits to a dialect coach (since it's such a big part of his character). That's right; he goes to a dialect coach so he doesn't sound too American.
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** Similar to this is the idea that someone wearing full plate body armor couldn't move quickly, or mount a horse, or whatever. This might be true for some specialized tournament armors, but people wearing armor in battle had to have nearly the same mobility and agility as an unarmoured opponent. Contemporary records of armor fittings hint that a standard test of proper fit and weight was for the purchaser to put the full ensemble on and then do some ''gymnastics'' like rolls, cartwheels and dancing with a lady-friend. Of course this does require the person to be accustom to the armor's weight.
** There are reports of final knighthood tests that involved mounting a horse, dressed in full battlefield kit, without using anything except the normal saddle to do so. Some reports imply that the knight had to do it without even using the stirrups.
** Thinking about this would quickly make a person realize how stupid the idea is: a full plate suit of armour could weigh (depending on style and material) between 30 and 70 pounds. Aside from soldiers, who routinely go into the field with
* Actual freshly-severed heads tend to take on a latex-like appearance (thanks to blood drain and post-mortem bloating) that makes them look remarkably like Hollywood-style fake heads.
** How do you know that....
* After Osama bin Laden's death was declared on May
** Not to mention that the body itself doesn't have to be present for the DNA test. A blood and/or tissue sample is quite enough.
** If a movie had used the account of how Osama went down as a plot point, some internet nerds surely would have complained. "Oh, let me get this straight, a super secret squad of soldiers came in over international borders and through a residential area, next to a military installation, in a helicopter, and got in without arising suspicion? What did they have, like a STEALTH HELICOPTER or something?Of course, in reality, military helicopters flying about weren't exactly common in the area to begin with, and as the famous tweets reveal, it ''was'' noticed.
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** Humans have a small amount of innate ability to do this, for instance being able to know where walls are despite a room being pitch black, even in unfamiliar environments.
* [[Adolf Hitler]] embodied so many [[Villain Ball]] [[Contrived Stupidity Tropes]] that [[World War Two]] would never have passed muster as a fiction series. Just the fact that he escaped some 40-plus assassination attempts is probably enough to kill the series. (Even though most of the assassination attempts failed because they were abandoned, or the assassins got cold feet, or a [[Body Double]] was killed, not because of anything Hitler did.)
* Speaking of, the folk lyrics to the [[Colonel Bogey March]] tune is
* Quantum Mechanics and all its bizarre but true descriptions of phenomena. At one point it was revolutionary enough to belong here. [[wikipedia:
** [[wikipedia:Quantum tunnelling|Quantum Tunnelling]] is very significant at the scale at which electronics has shrunk to today. Heck, even the sun and stars wouldn't glow if it weren't truly possible. And that means...
* If [[wikipedia:String theory|string theory]] and [[wikipedia:Higher dimensions|higher dimensions]] can actually be verified, than our picture of reality would turn out to be a [[Mind Screw|lot weirder]].
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* [http://www.cracked.com/article_19442_8-simple-questions-you-wont-believe-science-cant-answer_p2.html Gravity makes no sense].
** [http://www.cracked.com/article_19668_6-scientific-discoveries-that-laugh-in-face-physics_p2.html Radiation knows we're watching and likes trolling us].
*
* It is not always the case that "successful" suicides are obviously unhappy in the last few days or weeks of their lives. Some people who are suffering enough that they're considering taking their own lives actively try to hide their inner turmoil. A lot of times, they are so successful that their loved ones recall that they last time they saw their dead friend or relative alive, [[Stepford Smiler|they seemed happy]].
** There's also the real possibility that these people were actually happy due to the thought that their pain would soon be over. Often, the inner turmoil lies in the earlier self-debate ("To be, or not to be"); once they have made the decision, they can be remarkably calm, methodical and at peace in the planning and execution of the act.
*** In the military, they trained us on what to watch for re: signs your squadmate might be committing suicide. The one thing that was considered the ''most'' alarming symptom of them all? If your buddy was suddenly calm and happy for no visible reason after a period of prolonged depression or stress. That was flagged as "holy shit, call the medics NOW, and don't leave him alone with his rifle".
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAupJzH31tc Brinicles], which are icicles formed underwater from extremely cold salt water, look a whole lot like a special effect even at regular speed. This is actually the first time a brinicle has been filmed in action, back in 2011 for the BBC's ''Frozen Planet'' documentary.
* Part of the reason that so many conspiracy theories exist about the 9/11 attacks. People believe that the towers should have fallen over like cut trees instead of collapsing, causing many people to conclude that the destruction was caused by controlled demolition. In real life skyscrapers are designed to collapse inwards if the main supports give out ''precisely because'' they don't want a collapsing skyscraper to take out neighboring buildings if possible. This is why 'controlled demolition' works in the first
** In addition, many people have concluded that because the temperature of burning jet fuel is lower than the melting point of steel, any theory that has the burning jet fuel being responsible for the collapse of the World Trade Center's structural supports is a pack of lies and therefore it must have been a conspiracy. What these people are overlooking is that steel begins to soften well before it finishes melting, and that at the temperatures typical for burning jet fuel the average steel bar will have been heated enough to lose approximately 50% of its structural strength. And, of course, if the main supports holding up your skyscraper suddenly become able to hold up only half as much weight as they normally would... yeah, at that point your building is ''not'' going to stay standing.
** Another 9/11 conspiracy theory is that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, because there was no readily identifiable plane wreckage at the crash site. Two things they're overlooking: first off, due to weight limitations airplanes are some of the flimsiest objects known to modern industry. The average airplane is built just sturdy enough to not fall apart under its own weight or the stresses that can be reasonably expected during flight conditions or normal turbulence, and not an ounce sturdier. Second, the Pentagon is not a normal
* Many from the West who see portrayals (or even actual recordings) of Soviet people invoking God's name or the like as expletives or in prayer often call it out as unrealistic, mostly because the USSR has always been said to be anti-religious to the point of suppressing any and all things even remotely related to religion. The reality was far more complex. Active relgious practice was allowed in the Soviet Union, and while suppression or support tended to vary depending on the current leadership and sociopolitical atmosphere, there was never any real attempt to completely eradicate it. "Opium of the people" or not, centuries of influence from the Russian Orthodox Church<ref>and to varying degrees, other Christian sects, as well as Buddhism and Islam in the Asian parts of the USSR</ref> isn't going to disappear just like that.
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[[Category:Omnipresent Tropes]]
[[Category:Common Fan Fallacies]]
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[[Category:Reality Is Unrealistic]]
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