10+ Traditional Movie Stereotypes That Look So Outdated

Some stereotypes seem to appear in movies over and over again, and can be really irritating. Together with internet users, we decided to recall scenes that we tend to see in movies way too often. Let’s have a look.

Colleagues starting to date

In movies and TV shows, where moviemakers introduce a certain profession to us, we can often see that 2 people working with each other slowly become closer. Do you remember how much we enjoyed watching the development of Mulder and Scully’s relationship?

However, it’s a totally different matter when moviemakers want us to believe that 2 coworkers should always fall in love. The funniest thing is that they don’t even seem to like each other at the beginning of the movie, but toward the end, this couple can’t fathom being apart.

A female character finding about her pregnancy by throwing up

If moviemakers want to let us know that a certain female character is pregnant, they’ll include a scene where she feels nauseous in the movie. This way, witty viewers might figure out that she’s expecting a baby even earlier than the woman herself. Surely, pregnancy can be pretty unexpected. But as a rule, a woman can find out about it much earlier than morning sickness begins by missing her period.

Hair straightening being a necessary part of a character’s transformation

Until recently, if a Hollywood movie told a story of the transformation of an ordinary girl into a stunning beauty, a necessary step in this transformation was the straightening of the heroine’s hair. For some unknown reason, moviemakers wanted to make us believe that a real lady couldn’t have curly hair.

This trick was used in The Princess Diaries, Pretty Woman, and Miss Congeniality. Perhaps they were trying to emphasize the difference between “before” and “after” this way, but we believe that our favorite characters look great with any hair.

A heroine who doesn’t fit the epoch she lives in

In historical movies, there is often a female character who doesn’t seem to fit the epoch she lives in. As a result, we end up watching a film about a modern woman who just wears corsets and crinoline but not a real historical fiction.

Surely in the past, there were real women who challenged social norms. But according to internet users, 21st-century feminism has nothing to do with 19th-century feminism.

Paranormal activities that always grow incrementally

Many horror movies start with a family moving into a new house. But the newcomers are not yet aware that they are not the only residents of this house. However, an evil entity chooses to hide in the beginning, and only later will it start to frighten the hosts by dropping their tableware and revealing itself to their kids. And by the movie finale, it will go all-in and start destroying everything in its path. This happens because moviemakers believe that they should spook the audience gradually and incrementally.

Corsets becoming a symbol of oppression

Screenwriters and costume designers often tend to follow stereotypes about certain periods of time. Corsets, for example, were not actually those “instruments of torture” as they show in movies sometimes. Many of you probably remember the scene from Gone with the Wind where Scarlett had to hold her breath while her corset was being laced to make her waist appear thinner.

Most often, corsets in movies are shown as a symbol of women’s oppression and unfair beauty standards. However, we tend to forget that the concept of an “ideal” body has changed over centuries. Corsets were first used to support the bust and back, and the illusion of a smaller waist was created by large skirts, padding, and the hoop structure of the dress.

A lonely hacker coming to the rescue

In movies where the story revolves around advanced technologies and complicated investigations, there is always an ingenious tech guy. He’s only interested in his work. He wears glasses, often adjusts them on the bridge of his nose, and hacks servers with lightning speed.

A haircut being a sign of traumatic character development

In dramas, female characters sometimes have to go through traumatic experiences. And to illustrate these changes, moviemakers use the same imagery repeatedly — a woman cutting her hair in front of a mirror.

Of course, it’s also possible in real life, but these scenes with scissors appear in movies so often that it’s just annoying.

Characters always sipping their drinks from a mug

Internet users spotted an irritating habit of some movie characters who walk around sipping their drink from a mug. And it doesn’t matter what these characters are busy with — working, checking the mail, or walking someone out — they still hold a mug. Moviemakers usually use this trick to keep an actor’s hands busy during certain scenes.

Children drawing creepy things

If there is a child in a horror movie, it’s quite probable that they will start drawing strange and scary pictures sooner or later. These drawings often include criminal scenes, people, or monsters that can’t be seen by other people but will definitely appear in the next 30 minutes of the movie.

A gorgeous dress being made of anything at hand

If a heroine has an important event but doesn’t have a proper outfit, she quickly solves this problem by making it out of the things that are available at home. She uses drapery, like in Gone with the Wind and Enchanted, or transforms 2 dresses into her iconic pink prom dress, like in Pretty in Pink.

Would you like to know what other things internet users have managed to spot in movies? Then take a peek at this article:

• 10 Movie Clichés That Directors Think Are Cool, but People Wish Would Stop Being So Popular