It's only natural that movies and TV shows would offer a much more dramatic and romanticized version of what someone's job is actually like in reality. After all, action movies wouldn't be very exciting if they showed an FBI agent completing mountains of paperwork instead of chasing down criminals over scenic European rooftops. And anyone who watches Grey's Anatomy would be disappointed to find that the on-call rooms are used for some much-needed shut-eye rather than steamy sex between fellow surgeons.
Still, the way professions are portrayed on-screen often heavily influence our perception of them in real life, which is perhaps why the newest meme of 2019 enables people to poke fun at the ways in movie tropes differ from reality as regards to jobs.
It all started last week, when Rory Turnbull, an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at University of Hawaii at Mānoa, posted a tweet saying, "Hello, I'm a professor in a movie, I only reach the main point of my lecture right as class is ending. Then I yell at students about the reading / homework as they leave."
The tweet went massively viral, and inspired other people to write about their own professions with the same delivery. Like writers, who seem to be able to afford a stunning two-bedroom apartment in NYC with a walk-in wardrobe and never have to actually pitch stories.
Or computer programmers, who are always "white, male, and conspicuously nerdy," and who you know is well-versed in technology because he types really, really fast. Also, he does not need to Google error messages, ever.
Hello, I'm an programmer in a movie. I'm white, male, and conspicuously nerdy, and everything I code works on the first try. I'm the Best Coder because I'm a fast typist, and I type extra fast in programming emergencies. I never Google error messages. There are no error messages. https://t.co/uQiKv18zkc
— Ana Mardoll (@AnaMardoll) January 3, 2019
Then there are doctors, who apparently often tear their hair out listening to the procedures their movie counterparts are inflicting on patients and are also a bit concerned about all the intimacy happening between the heads of staff and their employees.
Hello, I'm a doctor in a movie. I use defib on a flatlined patient instead of adrenaline, despite knowing that a flatline is the goal of defibrillation. I also do CPR compressions wrong. I use my position of authority to pressure an underling into a romantic relationship. https://t.co/5dPwFiZifJ
— Be More Kind (@ChrisMartinPr) January 3, 2019
Journalists are always portrayed as functional alcoholics who somehow manage to ooze out a Pulitzer-prize winner story in between episodes of binge drinking.
Hello, I'm a journalist in a movie. I drink whole bottles of vodka while reporting in the field but somehow churn out prose my editor deems worthy of a Pulitzer. https://t.co/UfDntj2wh1
— Oriana Schwindt (@Schwindter) January 3, 2019
Side note: even though the journalistic landscape has change enormously with the advent of technology, there's never any acknowledgment of the emphasis on numbers. Apparently, being a journalist means you can just write whatever you want while chronically wasted.
Lawyers definitely don't need to deal with endless phone calls and pouring over boring legal documents. They just make rousing speeches in court and come up with a brilliant idea to win the case at the last minute.
Hello, I'm a lawyer in a movie. Every case is a lengthy jury trial where I'm totally outmatched & losing the entire time. Then, at the final possible moment I have a stroke of genius that no one ever thought of & win the case hands down. https://t.co/JjvS7Aa42O
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) January 3, 2019
And why do so many horror movies feature college-age serial killers?
The meme soon extended beyond professions to other common tropes, like those who are hearing impaired and apparently have the superhuman ability to read lips in any scenario.
It goes without saying that people who are autistic can count cards really well and have no human feelings.
Hello, I'm an autistic person in a movie. I'm really good at counting cards and literally nothing else. I'm a guy, the actor who plays me totally met an autistic person once, and I don't have feelings. https://t.co/Jjmo1T1ueV
— Sara Luterman (@slooterman) January 3, 2019
And the only purpose of someone who is medically overweight is to provide cheerful emotional support to the conventionally attractive heroine.
Hello, I'm a fat girl in a movie. I exist to be the butt of everyone's jokes. I'm either relentlessly sunny or totally unlikeable. I'm allowed to be funny, but no one can ever be attracted to me unless they are pathetic or scorned for it. I dress badly & can't groom myself. https://t.co/Xv0JjKxzVf
— Mari Brighe (@MariBrighe) January 3, 2019
For more clichés we'd definitely be wise to drop, check out 40 Hilariously Impractical Things That Always Happen in Movies.
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