Cut Himself Shaving: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|'''Michael''': Alex didn't really kill himself. He cut himself shaving. He had really hairy wrists.

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'', after Killua fought Rammot, he said his injuries were from training and that nothing interesting happened.

* In the anime ''[[Bleach]]'', the character Uryu Ishida once explains his injuries from a fight with hollows to a classroom by this. To hang a lampshade on this, the class believes he's lying.

* In ''[[Daily Life with Monster Girl]]'' Miia attacks someone being rude to her. The Protagonist jumps in the way, because if she hurt someone it would reck havoc on some treaty (he got hurt in the process though, which would still reck havoc on said treaty). When asked about it, he said he fell down.

 

* ''[[Batman]]'' is quite fond of this. For example, in the comics, Bruce Wayne was once in the hospital and the doctor notes that for a supposed lazy [[Millionaire Playboy]], he has considerable scarring (which is from his work as [[Batman]], [[Batman: The Animated Series]], and [[Batman Beyond]]). Wayne responded with:

{{quote|'''Wayne''': I fell from a tree.

* An arc of ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' had a [[Running Gag]]/subplot of Peter Parker attempting to explain to his boss his injuries from battling super villains the night before. His excuses included a pot exploding in the microwave, to falling into the gorilla cage at the zoo.

 

* ''[[Chinatown]]''- when asked about his cut nose, the lead character gives a reply that would fit into the ''[[Chasing Amy]]'' scar comparison scene:

{{quote|Your wife got excited. She crossed her legs a little too quick.}}

* In ''100 Feet'', [[Famke Janssen]]'s character didn't cover for her abusive husband back when he was alive, but when she's under house arrest and getting beaten up by his ghost, she has to resort to these sorts of excuses, since the truth wouldn't be plausible.

 

* In ''[[Keepers Chronicles|Summon the Keeper]]'' by [[Tanya Huff]], the ''Dudley Do Right'' character meets a badly bruised woman who claims she walked into a door. In a subversion, this is, in fact, true and she is pathetically clumsy.

* Heavily parodied in the book ''[[How To Be A Superhero]]'', in which a sidekick explains away rope burns from a supervillain hostage situation to his teacher as him and his adopted father "getting into some really rough stuff." Naturally, this doesn't help the situation.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' short story ''The Warrior'', Harry saves a girl from being hit by a hybrid car (its near-silent engine meant she didn't hear it coming), and when her mother comes to see what happened, Harry spots a bruise on the girl and asks if he gave it to her when he pulled her out of the car's path. The girl says no, she was bruised when she fell off her bike. Harry then asks how that happened without her scraping her hands. The mother's eyes go wide with realization and she marches the girl promptly back home. Later in the story, Harry learns that the father had been hitting her, and Harry mentioning it meant that the mother was finally going to leave him with her daughter, and that one act saved the girl from a childhood of continued abuse.

* In ''[[The Wasp Factory]]'', Frank mentions a relative who moved to South Africa and died when he walked past a police station and was crushed under a black suspect who had fallen out the window and somehow managed to yank all his fingernails out on the way.

 

* An episode of ''[[The Middle]]'' found Frankie and the family quickly gathering up garbage for the once every two week garbage pick up. Frankie tossed an empty bottle to Sue which accidentally hit Brick in the head. Later at school when asked about the injury, Brick innocently said "My Mom hit me with a beer bottle", not intending it to sound the way it did.

* Happens quite frequently on ''[[Law & Order|Law and Order]]'' (such as in the episode "Family Friend") and its spinoffs.

'''Defense Lawyer:''' Bull.

'''Alex Cabot:''' The only injuries I see are Mr. Gardner's torn knuckles from punching Detective Benson in the face, so unless you want to add the assault of a police officer to the list of charges, I suggest you move on. }}

* ''[[Full House]]'', episode "Silent is Not Golden" has the abused child version.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]]: In the ''[[Foyle's War]]'' episode "Bleak Midwinter," the detective's offsider is framed for a murder. When he's informed that a search of his house turned up a shirt with blood spattered on the cuff, his response is: "[[This Is the Part Where|Is this the bit where]] I'm supposed to say I cut myself shaving?"

* B. J. Hunnicut used ''the exact phrase'' in "The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan" episode of ''[[M*A*S*H (television)|M*A*S*H]]'' to explain away a suspicious leg wound. However, he says this to annoy [[Crazy Prepared|Col.]] [[Crazy Survivalist|Flagg]], and does not particularly care if he is believed or not. Frank had actually accidentally shot him.

* In Orange Is The New Black Poussey gets beat up by Suzanne and in a support group Suzanne is present and Poussey states that she got the bruise because she slipped and fell.

 

* [[Suzanne Vega]]'s "Luka," a song very obviously about child abuse, runs with the "walked into the door again" approach in amidst claims of being clumsy and recommendations not to ask.

** Complete with [[Lyrical Dissonance]], since the song is very upbeat and happy sounding until you hear the lyrics.

* "Hell Is For Children" by [[Pat Benatar]], a song about [[Abusive Parents]], has the line "Tell grandma you fell off the swing".

 

* In ''[[Descendant of a Demon Lord]]'', after Celes killed a boy cook in front of all the other cooks, prompting screams of fear, a soldier came in and asked what happened. One of the cooks said her co-worker stumbled (which may have been technically true) and hit a table (which was technically true, hard enough to knock the table and a shelf over in fact). The place(s) the boy was bleeding, and if the table had blood on it isn't specified (he was struck after he was on the ground). After lightly visually scrutinizing the girl that spoke up, he believed her, despite the fear in the body language of all the cooks, how long it took for one of the cooks to speak up, and that the cooks looked not only at the soldier, but towards where Celes was hiding.

 

* In an April Fool's issue of the D&D magazine ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]'', they showed off the Wandering Damage Tables (since the whole purpose of wandering monsters is to inflict damage points on player characters anyway, why not just eliminate the middleman!). One entry read: "You cut yourself shaving. Roll on the Limb Loss subtable."

 

* In Büchner's play ''[[Woyzeck]]'' ([[Older Than Radio]]), Woyzeck goes to the tavern after stabbing Marie to death. When blood is spotted on his hand, he claims to have cut himself there. Then how did it get on his elbow? He lamely tries to explain, but the crowd has caught on.

 

* The prologue of ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' features tutors of the character coming up to the character shortly after assassination attempts. The player can choose to be frightened and honest, or dismissive and evasive.

{{quote|"It's nothing, Parda. A--cat didn't like me petting it, is all."}}

* [[Ace Attorney|Detective Gumshoe]] always has a bandage on his jaw, possibly a shaving cut.

* In the adventure ''[[The Black Mirror|Black Mirror]] 2'', the protagonist notices a waitress with bruises on her face. When he asks her about it she says "she fell down the stairs". Darren [[Deadpan Snarker|being who he is]] responds with "And your husband was waiting at the end of the staircase with a baseball bat?"

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Bob and George]]'', this is used after a plot device revives dead characters in the Rockman Universe. Bob tells Rock and Dr. Light that they fell down. Rock then questions if Roll fell ''up'', as she's tied to the ceiling. Bob responses that he put her up there to prevent her from falling down.

 

* ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'':

{{quote|Sprained wrist. It's a good thing my powers aren't based on some kind of heart moon wand or something, but it does make it hard to write on school quizzes. Getting my clothes on in the morning also poses some problems, since I can't completely close my hand without shooting pain up my arm. I've taken to taping it tightly, and that helps a bit. I told mom it was a fashionable thing at school now to tape your left hand. She bought it. It's for the best that she bought it.}}

* In ''[[The Joker Blogs]]'', {{spoiler|Batman is wounded by Harleen's shotgun blast. He escapes and the next day, it's mentioned on the news that Bruce Wayne was in a nasty hunting accident.}}

 

* On ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'', Rose claimed to have sprained her ankle at the family reunion she had supposedly been at that weekend. In reality, she was injured while fighting Jake in her alter ego as Huntsgirl. (You'd think Jake would have noticed the coincidence...)

* In the ''[[Family Guy]]'' episode "Wasted Talent," Stewie tries to watch television, but is distracted by the [[Alliteration|poor piano playing]] of one of Lois's students. When Lois leaves the room briefly, Stewie sweeps in and [[Offscreen Crash|beats up the student]]. When Lois returns and sees all of the injuries of the piano student, he tells her, at Stewie's prompting, that "I fell?"

* Subverted in [[The Amazing World of Gumball]] Tina the T-Rex is chasing Gumball down a hallway, seemingly trying to attack him. Gumball avoids her for a while, but then runs into a door when he wasn't paying attention. Later at the dinner table, he is shown wearing huge sunglasses to cover his eyes, and is ordered to take them off. He nervously says "I-uh, ran into a door?" [[Gilligan Cut]] to his mother angrily driving him to talk to Tina's parents, while he is trying to convince her that he really ''did'' run into a door.

 

* Dr. [[Richard Feynman]] - top theoretical physicist, safe cracker and bongo player - loved to frequent nightclubs in the rougher end of town. One night, he had an altercation with a drunk in the toilets at one such club, and gained a black eye in the encounter. The next day his colleagues asked how he got it. "[[Sarcastic Confession|I had a fight in a nightclub washroom]]," he replied, to which they laughed and said "Oh Feynman, you're such a kidder..." (Apparently he started his first lecture by glaring up one-eyed at the students, and snarling "Any questions...?")

* People who like BDSM (or just rough sex) run into difficulties with this; it's hard to explain away ("say, these look like whip marks"), and the truth can be very embarrassing. Families and friends can end up conflicted as well.

* People in the [[Society for Creative Anachronism]] engage in sport fights; they wear armor and use padded sticks rather than metal weapons, but it's quite possible to get bruises and even broken bones. So, note: if you're a female SCA fighter and your doctor asks where you got the marks, do ''not'' offhandedly say, "Oh, my husband and I were fighting..."

** Even sport fencers get this sort of thing ''all'' the time. Foil and epeé leave strange little round bruises, saber cuts can look like whip marks, and sometimes it's possible to draw blood despite the protective equipment. We're all very tired of explaining.

* Sufferers of CIPA injure themselves in all sorts of ways, especially when they're too young to know better, because the disease prevents them from feeling pain. Early on, it leads to false accusations of abuse. Later, shaving is one of many activities in which they have to take extreme care.

* Martial artists, due to the very nature of their sport, are quite likely to get injuries during sparring even if they wear protective clothing. Younger martial artists who haven't learned proper control yet are especially likely to walk away from a training session with bruises from their peers, and it can look like they got a serious beating from an abuser.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]