Unrealistic Things in Media

In things like TV shows, movies, or even commercials, you notice a lot of things that are illogical and unrealistic. Some of them are little things, but nonetheless, they certainly don't resemble reality.

Paint It Black White

In so many TV commercials, people live in a bleached environment. Everything in their homes is white: the walls, the floor, the cabinets, the counters, the chairs, the tables... And ultimately, the fictional house will also have a hundred billion windows, which all look out onto a sunny day in the middle of Eden during spring.

Realistically, most people don't live in a place that looks like it was done by some fancy-schmancy designer from HGTV. It will not always be perfect, sparkling clean, and free of clutter. There will be mismatched furniture, a dent in the wall from the doorknob hitting it, and a pile of those annoying catalogs that companies insist on sending you. (Even though they claimed "This could be your last catalog" about forty-five issues ago.)

'Gilmore Girls' Syndrome

The mother of a friend was watching the popular TV series 'Gilmore Girls', and commented, "You know, the show jokes about how much the main characters eat, but you don't actually see them eating much. They go to the diner to eat, and leave most of their meals sitting on the plates."

In TV shows and movies, the actors are typically focused on dialogue and such, But even so, the number of times a character says, "I'm so hungry," then leaves an entire hamburger and five hundred fries on their plate, is truly astounding. I mean, the actors don't have to actually eat everything, but at the least, food could be gradually removed between camera shots, to make it look like more than three bites were taken.

Road? What Road?

In TV shows or movies, it's important that the characters look at each other, make eye contact, while they're talking. So much, in fact, that the drivers can't be bothered to pay attention to where they're going. If this was real life, thousands of characters would perish because they were looking at the person in the passenger seat instead of at the road.

Cleaning Products That Magically Make You Competent

If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone using the 'inferior' product like they have no idea what they're doing, then using the 'superior' product like they're masters, I would have a nice chunk of change.

Taking cleaning products, for instance. With the inferior product, you see people lightly rubbing a sponge against the surface. When they use the product they want you to buy, they bear down on the offending spot, really put elbow grease into it.
And it's the same with other stuff. "Are you tired of dull knives?" they ask, then show an actress who acts like she's never used a knife in her life, cutting the tomato clumsily with one hand while the other hand mashes the tomato down so juice goes everywhere. Yeah, cutting is hard when you're doing... whatever it is you're doing.

Biology Does Not Apply Here

Using cheats, you can make it so your Sims' motive bars never go down! They never have to eat, or use the toilet, or shower, or anything like that!

In a similar vein, many fictional characters are the same way. Someone can be kidnapped and tied to a chair for several hours, but it's uncommon for the issue of relieving themselves to come up. You'd think at some point, the protagonist would think, "I hope they untie me soon, I really have to pee."

Besides that, many shows and movies have people getting lost in the wilderness. Weeks pass, and the woman somehow has clean-shaven legs. And many films and books fail to mention the reality of not having a way to properly bathe. "Nothing but murky swamps for days, and our only water source is drops of rain caught by tree leaves. Luckily, this is fiction, so we don't have to deal with the unpleasant reality of B.O." This is especially true of women, because they're expected to always be perfect. You wouldn't want to read the awful truth; she smelled like a thousand armpits.

And speaking of perfect women, why does every movie involving danger have the woman fleeing in high heels? They're not exactly running shoes. Yet they rarely think of taking off those impractical shoes. No, better to wear a miniskirt and stilettos when trying not to be caught by the mutant dinosaur. It won't slow you down, or cause you to twist your ankle and fall down. Such things never happen to the beautiful Hollywood heroine.

Super-Duper Image Enhancement

"Well, we have the criminal caught on security footage, but it's not a clear shot."
"Oh, no worries! We can enhance the image!"

"They're literally four pixels on the screen."

"We can enhance it with perfect clarity! The fact that the bad guy is only a few pixels in a really grainy and unfocused image is irrelevant!"

Then there's hacking. Getting into a system in five minutes for purposes of Saving The World™️ seems really cool. But things like that wouldn't be so simple in real life. Getting into a top-secret, high-security government database isn't going to be a simple task. Yet the character sits down, types for a few seconds, and boom, they're in.

Everything is Really Easy

I saw a commercial for dog food, and the actors were picking up the huge bags of kibble with ease. You could tell the bags were actually empty, because if those those things were real, the poor women would be struggling with the awkward load.

But it's not just little things like that. There's also been a thousand plots where a person moves to a new place, and five seconds later, they have a great job and a bunch of friends. Sometimes things just fall into place for people, and there are some individuals who are good at quickly making new friends. But it happens every time, seemingly with no effort on their parts. There are times when it all seems too simple.

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

The guy is pale as a vampire with albinism, yet he doesn't sunburn. There's snow falling, but our protagonist seems perfectly comfortable in her light jacket.

Then there's the phenomenon of "my hotness keeps me warm". Men stroll around in freezing weather with no shirts, simply because the producers decided their abs would rake in more money from audiences. (This wardrobe choice was probably made by the same people who believe women's armor shouldn't actually cover any vulnerable areas.)

In the 'Twilight' series, this was explained by the shapeshifters having unusually high body temperature, and apparently a supernatural ability to maintain it. But oftentimes, media doesn't even do that much.

Of course, one of my favorites is the inverse: weather affecting people way more than it should. For example, fake rain causes people to instantly become drenched. Unless they're in an absolute downpour, being in the rain for five seconds shouldn't make the actor look like they took a shower with all their clothes on.

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This concludes today's blog post, because I procrastinated finishing it until the last minute again and I miss sleeping. Join me next week, when I write yet another post about who-knows-what four hours before it's due to publish!