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Giving clues to a person's personality through the decor of their bedroom, particularly wall posters.
A quick way of giving hints about a person's personality without spending a lot of time on exposition is to show their bedroom. This is particularly true from late childhood to college age, when people tend to have very idiosyncratic decorating tastes. (Before that, the child's parents/guardians tend to choose the decor, and as people mature, many of them feel less compelled to "mark their territory" quite so fiercely. And if a couple is sharing a room, it will tend to blend their tastes to an acceptable medium.)
The posters and other decorations of a bedroom can often convey such information as gender and approximate age, hobbies, religious affiliation, the region the story takes place in, approximately what year the story takes place, and the tolerance level of the parents if any. A change in posters can indicate a similar change in the inhabitant's interests or maturity level. (And whether they're torn down or gently put away tells the audience a lot about the feelings of the character.) If the set designers are careless, they can oversell the clutter effect, or create a false impression by putting all the things that were cool when they were kids on a contemporary teenager's wall.
For a twist, sometimes the posters will reveal the "true face" of a character, such as a burly Jerk Jock's room being plastered with unicorns and rainbows, while the Yamato Nadeshiko Girl Next Door has decorated her room in Frazetta barbarian posters with black curtains and pagan symbols all over the place.
There are a number of poster stereotypes. For example, posters of Einstein, Che or some kind of Monet in a college student's dorm room (for Real Life, add Jim Morrison to the list). In addition, a boy's room will nearly always be rather messy, while a girl's room will nearly always feature a vanity with a mirror and toiletries/cosmetics. On the other hand, expect a Scarface poster in a gangsta-wannabe's room
This trope is usually found in visual media, although print media will sometimes describe a bedroom's decor—and the conclusions the narrator draws from it.
Compare with Environmental Symbolism.
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Examples
Anime & Manga
- Great Teacher Onizuka: Tomoko's room is decked out with Otaku paraphernalia, including posters. (Most, if not all of them are a Shout Out to other Shonen Jump titles.)
- In Kimagure Orange Road, Akane had a poster of Cool Big Sis (from her perspective) Madoka on the ceiling above her bed.
- Ranma ½: Tatewaki Kunō has pictures of Akane and the Pigtailed Girl in his room. For a time he replaced them with Nabiki pictures, then all three of them at once.
- Otaku Surrogate Konata of Lucky Star naturally has a room covered with many an anime and H-Game poster, amongst other miscellaneous anime-related products. This includes various Suzumiya Haruhi merchandise, natch.
- Ohno from Genshiken has posters of bald, muscular, middle-aged men in her bedroom, much to her public embarrassment.
- Futana, the title character's sister from Futaba Kun Change, has a bedroom filled with posters of naked and half-naked women.
Comics
- Hilarious example from Dick Tracy: one storyline introduced a scary-looking "goth" kid. Eventually, we see his room, which has posters of Goths. As in burly bearded men in fur armor wielding axes. Almost certainly intentional, as the storyline was (unusually for Dick Tracy) about not judging by appearances.
Films
- The original The Parent Trap. Susan's bed at camp has photos and magazine clippings of 1960s teen heartthrobs. Sharon isn't so cool, so she has no idea who Ricky Nelson is. "Oh, your boyfriend." Susan gasps in disbelief. "I wish he was! You mean you never heard of him? Where do you come from, outer space?"
- The little brother's room in Just One of the Guys is covered with Playboy centerfolds pinned up. It's hard to tell this when you watch it on TV — the censor blurs obscure essentially the entire room.
- Jesminder's room in Bend it Like Beckham, mostly pictures of David Beckham himself.
- We can tell Ferris Bueller is cool (as if there was ever any doubt), because he has a Cabaret Voltaire poster.
- In Labyrinth, Sarah's room has posters of Broadway musicals, books of fairy tales and girls sent to magical worlds, and something foreshadowing nearly every event in the film.
- The titular character of Juno has one of these rooms. Covered from wall to wall with band posters, toys, etc.
- Not covering all the walls, but hilarious: In The Lost Boys, the first thing Sam does upon moving into their new room is hang up a poster of a shirtless Rob Lowe.
- In Troll 2, Holly's room has posters of Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp. Joshua's room is a veritable treasure trove of Product Placement.
- In Forbidden Kingdom, the teenage protagonist's room is covered in kung fu movie posters and cut-outs. He even has a kung fu movie playing... when he wakes up in the morning.
- In the first Toy Story movie, the Western posters and decor in Andy's room shift to space-themed items after the arrival of Buzz Lightyear, much to Woody's dismay. Even the bedspread changes!
- Kat's bedroom in Ten Things I Hate About You is plastered with posters of alternative girl bands. Her sister Bianca's room is rather juvenile in floral and white.
- In the song "Kickapoo" at the beginning of Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, JB's ultra-religious father, after a vigorous spanking, beings tearing down about a dozen rock and metal band posters from his bedroom walls, forgetting the Dio poster on the door. The poster immediately sings to JB to tell him to go form a band.
- In Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, the babysitter stumbles into the teenage boy's bedroom and reacts in horror at all the heavy metal posters on the walls.
Literature
- Harry Potter: Ron's room is entirely orange due to Chudley Cannons Quidditch posters, bedspread, etc., and even more chaotic than usual because, of course, all the players are moving.
- Similarly, Sirius Black's teenage bedroom was primarily red and gold (for Gryffindor), broken up by muggle pin-up girls on motorcycles. Meanwhile, his brother's room was festooned with Slytherin banners and newspaper clippings for a "Death Eater Youth League" vibe.
- In Isabel Allend's novel The House of the Spirits, Alba Trueba was granted permission to paint the walls of her room as a little girl, and she uses them as a journal of sorts until she is well into teenagehood. The last thing painted is a little heart, meaning that she has fallen in love for the very first time. Given that she eventually is revealed as the writter/narrator of the whole story, this is kind of prophetic.
- In Moving Pictures, Victor discovers that Ginger has decorated her bedroom with posters for the "clicks" she's starred in.
- In other Discworld novels, some characters are conversely described by how neat an impersonal their bedrooms are. Malvolio Bent's room is entirely plain, simple and undecorated except for a closet containing a dark secret, exactly like himself.
- The lodgings of Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker Street had a number of frequently mentioned decorations, including pictures of General Gordon and Henry Ward Beecher, and VR written in bullet holes, which all give clues to the personalities of the residents.
- Don't forget the Reichenbach landscape over the fireplace
- Or the stuck-to-the-mantlepiece-with-a-knife correspondence.
- Or the chemistry set in the corner.
- Or the insane amounts of papers from various cases he has lying everywhere. (At one point, Watson even gets annoyed with this one)
Live Action TV
- This trope was used in a programme on Channel Four (I cannot remember its name, sorry) about puberty, where we see the a boy age from being 8 years to his teens (as though it were time-lapse footage) in his bedroom. When he becomes a teenager, his posters suddenly change to those of girls.
- Max's room in Danis House illustrates that he's a young boy and thus has loads of posters of stuff boys his age would be interested in, such as Duel Masters and Doctor Who.
- Clarissa, from Clarissa Explains It All, was both cool and brainy, as evidenced by her They Might Be Giants poster.
- Doogie Howser was obviously a genius, but was also funny and a bit cynical. He has a Save The Humans poster on his wall.
- Paris Gellar of Gilmore Girls has a poster of Noam Chomsky on her wall, and Rory has a couple of similar smarty-pants posters as well.
- The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "The Freshman", in which vampires were grabbing college students and making it look as though they'd just dropped out. They'd run a sweep to determine whether the poster left behind should be Claude Monet's "Waterlilies" or Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss".
- Played for laughs in a series of sketches on The Fast Show, where the posters plastering a teenage girl's room kept changing to whichever famous person she "really loved" at the moment.
- Also seen in an episode of Charmed when Leo and Paige travel back in time. Paige's room as a teenager reeked of this trope.
- Peyton's room on One Tree Hill is like this, we're told.
- I remember exactly one episode that showed her room, from the first season. It was covered in her own drawings, all of which she ripped off after some random teen drama or something. Her jerkass boyfriend did not notice the difference.
- Also Seth Cohen's room in The OC.
- Jackie's bedroom in That Seventies Show had posters of 1970s bands. Eric's bedroom has Star Wars and Planet of the Apes posters and, most notably, the iconic Farrah Fawcett red swimsuit pin-up.
- Jake on Two and a Half Men decorated his room with pin-ups. This is not what bothers Charlie; what bothers him is that he nailed them on the wall.
- Used as a minor plot point on Skins when Katie, faced with her twin sister Emily's blossoming homosexuality, has a good look at Emily's side of the room comparing it to her own: While Katie's side has posters of hot boys, including Daniel Craig, Emily's side is covered in art and photos of women, including Audrey Hepburn, possibly Fergie, and a particular focus on a Blondie poster. With a wall full of chicks, Katie finally has the physical evidence that yes, Emily's gay. Astute viewers may notice that Emily's posters have actually changed from the first appearance of their room in the first episode, when they was more musical (the most prominent poster was the Plain White Ts).
- Played with on Chuck. All through the series, the Hollywood Nerd main character has a Tron poster on his wall. We get it: he's a nerd, and very, very rarely has women in a position to see his bedroom. Then, in the last few episodes of season two, he takes it down for the first time and we see that on the back of it he's been drawing a web of notes this whole time about the Intersect, Bryce, Fulcrum, etc. He's been taking a proactive role in his life despite appearances to the contrary, he's been prying into the world of espionage he's so scared of, he's been watching the details of everything that goes on around him... and he's been hiding all that in the one place none of the people spying on him would notice, because it's just part of the scenery.
Video Games
- No More Heroes: Travis Touchdown, another Otaku, also has many posters plastering his walls and shelves full of plastic figurines.
- In Metal Gear Solid 2, in one of their many codec conversations, Rose complains to Jack about how bare his bedroom is, there's "not even a poster". Jack had been little more than a tool of his controllers up to that point.
- Not to mention he claims to remember little of his past at that point.
- In Bully, Jimmy's room changes over time, gaining a new wall ornament for each major mission he completes.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- The Simpsons: When Homer re-enrolled in college, he briefly turned his bedroom into a dorm room with the use of cinder block bookshelves and the poster of Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.
- In Daria, Tiffany's room was covered with poster-sized pictures of herself, showing exactly how narcissistic she was.
- Daria, on the other hand, had a poster of Franz Kafka and another that seemingly portrayed a human skeleton protruding from the earth. Perhaps an archeological dig?
- Played straight in Code Lyoko. Jérémie, the computer geek, has the obligatory Einstein poster in his room. Ulrich, the martial art jock, has pencak silat posters on his half of the dorm he shares with Odd. And Sissi, The Libby, has fashion models and girl bands poster in her bedroom — along with the aforementioned vanity with mirror and cosmetics.
- In South Park, Kyle has the classic "Einstein sticking his tongue out" poster. Stan has a poster for Street Warrior, an obvious knock-off of Road Warrior. Cartman's room sometimes has a pin-up of Mel Gibson in his Braveheart costume. Wendy is seen to have a pin-up of Russell Crowe in her bedroom or bathroom.
Real Life
- Truth In Television of course. See Troper Tales for some of the tropers personal accounts.
- The ubiquity of this trope with students is why universities in both the US and the UK hold regular poster sales.
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