Line #21 Main/ZippingUpTheBodybag


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3	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Take care to put your example in its proper place in accordance with Administrivia/HowToAlphabetizeThings!
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7	%% Image selected via crowner in the Image Suggestion thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions80
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10	[[quoteright:325:[[ComicBook/TwoThousandAD https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_mvghbudfx91qf427ko8_500.png]]]]
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12	->'''Rhino:''' You put a lotta our buddies in the slammer, Bat-fink! Only way you're gettin' outta here is in a black plastic bag with a zipper up the front.\
13	'''Cat Burglar:''' A body bag!\
14	'''Rhino:''' ''He knows what it is!''
15	-->-- ''WesternAnimation/BatmanAndHarleyQuinn''
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17	How do you show for certain that a character has been KilledOffForReal and hasn't [[OnlyAFleshWound just been wounded]] or [[HesJustHiding crawled away to take cover until the end of the fight]]? Show a close-up shot of the police zipping him up in a bodybag. Pulling a blanket over their heads serves a similar purpose. DiesWideOpen will also often be invoked. Just the sound of the zipper on the bodybag can have the same sort of finality as a nail being put into a coffin. That character is dead. Deceased. No more. He is an [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus ex-parrot.]]
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19	Unless, of course, it's just a setup for a BodybagTrick or WakingUpAtTheMorgue, both of which this trope is obviously related to. Can easily be used as a MeaningfulBackgroundEvent. See also IdentifyingTheBody. Happens about OnceAnEpisode on any given PoliceProcedural or ForensicDrama.
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21	SubTrope of HesDeadJim.
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23	!!As this is a {{Death Trope\|s}}, [[Administrivia/SpoilersOff unmarked spoilers abound]]. [[Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned Beware]].
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25	!!Examples:
26	[[foldercontrol]]
27	[[folder:Comic Books]]
28	* When Sam dies before being recruited into the ''ComicBook/DeathVigil'', the thing that most got to him was the noise of his body bag being zipped up.
29	* A very common way of introducing ComicBook/TheJoker's victims from the 1980's on (starting, probably, from ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns''). The victims are almost always RedShirt civilians, but the trademark grin lets you know good and clear who's on the scene.
30	[[/folder]]
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32	[[folder:Fan Works]]
33	* ''Film/{{Grayson}}'': [[spoiler:Batman]] at the start of this short FanFilm.
34	[[/folder]]
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36	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
37	* ''Film/AllThatJazz'' ends with a long, drawn-out set of musical numbers, regaling Joe and celebrating his life... and then smash-cut to the EMT zipping the body bag closed. Cue the credits.
38	* Inverted in ''Film/TheBatman2022''. [[ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} Selina Kyle]] spends half the movie looking for her missing friend Annika. While RobbingTheMobBank she unzips a large bag stashed in the trunk of a mobster's car and finds a pile of money. She unzips a second bag...and finds the corpse of her friend.
39	* ''Film/CosmicSin'' (2021). Commander Bleck sees a fellow soldier about to be zipped up and stops it. He removes a [[TragicKeepsake crucifix from around the dead man's neck]] and [[DueToTheDead says a prayer for him]], before leaving him to be zipped up.
40	* ''Film/FightingMad1976'': After [[spoiler:Jeff Hunter]] is killed by an explosion, Tom pulls a burlap bag over his face.
41	* ''Film/Godzilla2014'': The last time that we see [[Characters/MonsterVerseFamilies Joe Brodu]] alive, he's heavily injured and going into atrial fibrillation as medical staff try to treat him. The next and last time that we see him, it's as his body is being zipped up in a body-bag as a bereaved Ford looks on, confirming Joe's death.
42	* ''Film/TheHuntForRedOctober'': Early in the film, we see Political Officer Putin being zipped up as Captain Ramius expresses his regret over the unfortunate death from [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch slipping on some spilled tea]].
43	* Subverted in ''Film/Leviathan1989''. After two people are [[NotQuiteDead apparently killed]] by the [[BodyHorror turn-you-into-a-horrible-monster serum]], Doc and Beck put the corpses into bodybags to hide this from the crew and order them thrown out the airlock, [[PoorCommunicationKills telling everyone else that they died of infection]]. So when the bodybags start twitching, the crew naturally want to open them thinking someone is still alive...
44	* ''Film/LoadedWeapon1''. Played with, since [[SubvertedTrope the guy isn't even dead yet.]]
45	* TheMovie of ''Film/MasterAndCommander'' uses this trope in the old fashioned way, stitching up the dead bodies up in their hammocks before [[BurialAtSea dropping them over the side]].
46	* In ''Film/MrRicco'', paramedics pull a blanket over [[spoiler:Katherine]]'s face after she is shot.
47	* In ''Film/MovingViolation'', a deputy pulls a sheet over [[spoiler:Warren]]'s face after he's gunned down.
48	* In ''Film/TheOddWayHome'', Maya throws a sheet over Duncan's grandma as she sits on the couch, where she died while watching TV.
49	* ''Film/Smile2022'': One of the promotional posters shows the deceased's disturbing smile peeking out through the bag's open zipper.
50	* ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'': Midshipman Peter Preston
51	* ''Film/TheTerminator'': [[spoiler:Kyle Reese, watched by a distraught Sarah Connor as she's carted off on an ambulance stretcher.]]
52	* ''Film/TerrorAtBlackFalls'': After [[spoiler:Johnny]] kills [[spoiler:Quito]], Juan lays his body on the bar and pulls a blanket over it.
53	[[/folder]]
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55	[[folder:Literature]]
56	* In ''Literature/TheBoyFromAleppoWhoPaintedTheWar'', Adam and Yasmine go to the hospital to visit [[spoiler:Isa]], who has been shot. Not long after they arrive, a nurse pulls a white cloth over him. Adam, not realizing he's dead and thinking he must be uncomfortable with his face covered, tries to pull the cloth away, but Yasmine yells at him not to touch the body.
57	* In ''Literature/TheMoonAndTheSun'', Yves captures two sea folk, one alive and one dead, and dissects the dead one. After Marie-Josèphe convinces him that the sea folk are not dumb beasts but intelligent beings with souls, Yves, full of remorse, drapes a cloth over the dissected sea man's face and wraps him in a shroud.
58	* ''Literature/SirenNovels'': After [[spoiler:Colin]] drowns in ''Dark Water'', Vanessa drapes her jacket over his eyes.
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61	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
62	* PlayedForLaughs in the ''Series/BroadCity'' episode "2016," where someone drops dead while [[RightOnQueue waiting in line at the DMV]].
63	* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
64	** Buffy's mother is zipped up in this way, eyes still wide open. So is Ted after Buffy accidentally kills him, but in that case he's NotQuiteDead.
65	** Oz is shot with a TranquilizerDart by the Initiative and shoved in a bodybag so he can be smuggled out of the college. As emotions are high among the Initiative commandos because one of their own has been killed by a similar creature, this has nasty implications; Oz barely avoids being terminated by Riley Finn.
66	* ''Series/DawsonsCreek'', in the episode ''The Perfect Wedding''; this serves mostly as a discretion shot so we know Abby didn't survive her fall off the pier without them actually having to show her drowning.
67	* In the ''Series/{{Decoy}}'' episode "Fiesta at Midnight," a woman is shot in a hold-up and later dies in the hopsital. A doctor pulls a blanket over her head.
68	* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' episode "The One After the Superbowl, Part 2", Joey becomes an extra on a stretcher in ''Film/{{Outbreak}} 2: The Virus Takes Manhattan''. His BadBadActing keeps ruining Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme's line "Can't you see what's going on here? This man is dying!", until the line is changed to "Can't you see what's going on here? This man is dead!" and zipping Joey up.
69	* Shown in the AnimatedCreditsOpening of ''Series/{{Harrow}}'', in which the title character is a forensic pathologist.
70	* One of the ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' TV films featured a scene similar to the ''Film/MasterAndCommander'' example above (produced several years earlier), with a character snarking about another sailor taking such care that you'd think he was sending a gift home to his wife. The character doing the careful stitching insisted that he just wanted to [[DueToTheDead make sure it was done right.]]
71	* Seen plenty of times on ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent''. One particularly poignant moment from "Frame" has Goren learning of the body of a junkie who had fallen out of a window. To his horror and heartbreak, he discovers that it's [[spoiler:his older brother. He]] is then being seen zipped up in bodybag as Goren is interviewed by police.
72	* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Secret Santa," this kind of shot is used when Det. Terry Chasen's body is being wheeled out after he drinks a bottle of port that has been poisoned with strychnine.
73	%%* Done in many ''Series/MiamiVice'' episodes.
74	* In the ''Series/MidnightCaller'' episode "The Language Barrier," a Chinese man is killed in a hate crime. A cop pulls a sheet over his head before his body is carried away.
75	%%* ''Series/{{NCIS}}'': Ends up happening to [[spoiler:Mike Franks. Showing him die was bad enough.]]
76	* This is seen ''a lot'' in ''Series/{{Oz}}'', especially during season four.
77	* ''Series/{{Westworld}}'': Dr Ford is introduced talking with one of his earlier model androids. He tells the android to shut itself down, so it lies on a shelf and zips up its own bodybag.
78	* ''Series/TheWire'', we see [[spoiler:Omar]]'s body bag being zipped up in the morgue at the end of an episode. Furthermore, in this scene, it's shown that there was a mistake with the ID tags, which the ME has to correct, which further emphasize the point: he's no longer a character, just a statistic.
79	[[/folder]]
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81	[[folder:Video Games]]
82	* A live version in ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'' when Mama has to couriered in a backpack-type bodybag that protects her from Timefall. She asks the protagonist to ZipMeUp as she suffers from agrophobia from having been inside her bunker for years.
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85	[[folder:Western Animation]]
86	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
87	** In "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E17MaximumHomerdrive Maximum Homerdrive]]", after Red Barclay dies from beef poisoning during a steak eating contest with Homer, the coroners zip up the body bag on Red. For extra BlackComedy points, the bag even has printed on it: "I died at the Slaughterhouse!" (the name of the restaurant). They also give an extra one to Marge just in case, because Homer doesn't look so good either.
88	** In the "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E1TreehouseOfHorrorXI Treehouse of Horror XI]]" story "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad", Homer dies from eating a piece of broccoli, with Dr. Hibbert and medical attendants arriving at the Simpson home.
89	--->'''Medical Attendant:''' Sure is easy when they're stiff like this... ''[sees that Bart and Lisa are upset]'' [[VerbalBackspace and very sad]].
90	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / ZippingUpTheBodybag