Trigger: trope I’m sick of.

[oak]

I’ve very nearly been killed in two car wrecks.

And yet these lazy jerks use car wrecks to advance the plot of their crappy movies.

Lots of people, present company surely excluded, laugh at trigger warnings. I’d say this: having been through it, I hope you never have to understand how triggering the sound of a car wreck is. It could be the last thing a person hears.

Two more tropes I’m sick of, even though they don’t apply to me:

The tow headed moppet in danger.
The dying girl. (Yes, she is dying but she has perfect makeup. And she’s 22 and a size 2.)

[Heatherwantspeace]

I'm gonna correct you here, Oak.
The quietly courageous dying girl


Also, I will throw in here the sexual assault of a woman as character development for her, motivation for her partner.
Cheap use of a life changing event.

[Heatherwantspeace]

It seems to be a thing now to have a car accident in a movie come out of nowhere. It's disturbing to me, I can't imagine how it must feel for you.
Hey screenwriters, spend some time on a second draft, and make us feel with your writing, not a cheap shock gimmick.

[oak]

Ah, well said as always, Heather. As bad as car wrecks are, I had forgotten about sexual assault. Both car wrecks and sexual assaults are frequently done suddenly.

In a bit lighter thought, I had also forgotten that the pretty heroine, usually brunette, are indeed quietly courageous. May I add that they are also quirky, especially if she's a teen?

Maybe she has a beanie, or a stuffed animal that she insists on taking to the (hopeless) treatments. Because not only does she need to be Zoey Deschanel on a good day (to be, you know, quirky), but they need that prop to set by the casket/urn, as if we can't remember the girl in the beanie from the previous 90 minutes is the same dead girl, because they just spent the last 15 minutes talking about the impending death of said quirky girl.

While car crashes can happen to anyone, I realize how gendered the dying girl is.

Just last night I was watching a Netflix movie where the Olympic-hope gymnast (pretty, thin) awoke after an indeterminate time from a coma. Her hair and makeup were perfect; the only concession to this "catastrophic" accident being a faint yellow bruise that was gone by the next scene. She then yells at the kind doctor who says her Oylmpic dreams are over, and that she was lucky to live after the car wreck. Instead of soberly reflecting on that truth, she is petulant until surprise!!!!1! we find her six weeks later right back at gymnastics, but not before finding love. Then I stopped watching.

One more thing, tangentially related:

In any movie that covers a lifetime, and I'm thinking of the Johnny Cash biopic or the 2002 Conte of Monte Cristo, the female lead is the most beautiful woman ever. Perfect. Then, seventy years later, she looks exactly the same, except for the single streak of gray hair to show that, you know, seventy years have passed.

So us normal people age and get into car wrecks. There are no easy pat answers, and no love interest falling out of the sky just because something traumatic happened.

[Heatherwantspeace]

The movies do like to feed our fantasy of being saved by romantic love!
And the quirky girl almost always is the only one who "understands" the brooding man. Sure, he left me here alone in the hospital, but you don't understand his pain!