For want of a better word, I will call them signifiers. But in four movies I recently saw there was the moment when a minor symptom telescoped an eventual event and these in particular are used so often as to be cliches. A woman feels queasy: pregnancy; a woman complains of headaches: brain tumor; a man rubs his arm: heart attack.
I bet there are lots of others too. I don't know why writers can't think of a more unique way to foreshadow a coming event if it needs to be foreshadowed.
These are used so much they create no tension and, in fact, elicit groans. What's the problem here?
20 comments:
TV and movies are too afraid the audience won't "get" it. They might as well have the characters hold up signs. "Heart attack in six minutes."
Stuff like this didn't used to bother me. Then I discovered THE WIRE, which explained damn near nothing, and trusted me to figure things out. Now that's my new standard.
Have you tried BREAKING BAD. That's about as good for my money. But after that, huge drop off.
Lazy, lack of imagination? (Going from above comments, perhaps assuming that in audience)?
When I used to watch soap operas once upon a time, they were the kings and queens of 'signifiers'.
It was pretty funny, actually.
But you know, there were always certain sorts of signifiers, for instance: in the fifties - if a married woman had an affair it ended in disaster - either suicide or murder or both. Never mind a married woman, if an unmarried woman had sex - watch out! The 'bad' girl was always punished. This was going on even in the sixties.
Or how about black hats and white hats?
If a girl wore glasses and her hair up, you knew when she removed those glasses and let down her hair...!
But maybe these are not the signifiers you mean, Patti.
They may have changed over time, but I guess we have always had the big HINT that something was awry. But can't they come up with a new one.
I so remember the plain Jane turning into the glamor girl when that hair went down. Even remember the guy asking her to let it down.
Certain signifiers will never change. A red shirt on the away team? Doomed. A guest star on an episode of a crime drama? He/she's the killer. A stranger rides into town? He'll clean it up. An innocuous few lines of dialog early in the show that has nothing to do with the plot until then? The key to the whole thing.
Some signifiers take on a life of their own once they are born. Remember the puddle that began to vibrate in JURASSIC PARK? How many times have you seen that one in the last few years?
We've always noticed those, Patti. Jackie likes medical shows so always has looked for hints. I admit they are usually not very subtle. A *cough* leads to death pretty often.
If you're watching a soap opera or even a drama and one of the characters tells her (usually it's her) spouse that everything is just perfect and she's never been happier or more in love...disaster is around the corner.
A recent development that may have been shocking and effective the first time but has been so overused in the last year or two as to already be a cliche: a couple is riding in a car, talking. (It might be the "I'm so happy" conversation but not always.) Suddenly, out of nowhere an SUV (usually) smashes into them broadside, causing massive damage, terrible injuries and sometimes death. (GREY's ANATOMY was the last one I remember doing this, and I was predicting it before it happened.)
The other one is the one Jerry mentioned, which we notice particularly on CASTLE: the biggest-name guest star is the killer, period. If there are no big name stars, the one person you recognize (most recent example: Arye Gross) is the killer.
Jeff M.
word verification: outushi (not making this up)
The big name guest star is a dead giveaway. They might not be revealed to be the killer to the last ninety seconds, but they always are. What about the blonde or black soldier--they always die.
Good point, Patti. Watched what I believe was the pilot for COLUMBO and don't remember if this was the rule, but you know the guest star (Robert Culp) is the killer because you see him do it. So it's a game of cat and mouse after that. That works for me.
My radar picks up on the SOPHIE'S CHOICE trope, where a child will be in peril. Walked out of that one, and turned off a Swedish movie last night that was headed in the same direction. In that case, I appreciate the foreshadowing.
Good point, signifiers can warn you that it's not for you.
Go with what is easy, I guess. The rush to get out new product, both in fiction and in film is a major driving force behind this kind of cliche shorthand.
That was indeed the (rigid) formula of COLUMBO.
How many movies with multiple deaths kill off the Black guy first?
The rigid formula show drives me crazy. You can almost predict now they will show a scene at home. Now they will find a body. Now we will go to the morgue. Hate it.
Always, Jerry.
Another one in recent years: the hero/ine is having a horrible nightmare, is in terrible danger. S/he wakes up only to be in even more danger but wait...it's another dream and this time they really wake up.
We get it, guys. But it's been done to death (so to speak).
Jeff M.
Oh, boy. I hate the never ending dream scenario. Just saw that one recently. It took three times before you were sure he/she was awake.
That (kill the black guy first) was one of the ways NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD broke molds...(by not doing so...)
I have never seen any of those. Way too scary for me. Phil likes them though.
Is this the same as foreshadowing? The one that jumps out to me is the shot of the sixgun on the peg in HIGH NOON, which was later used by Grace Kelly to kill a bad man.
The gun on the mantle has to go off by the end of the story. So I guess--yes.
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