History Main / ShatteredGlass

* IncrediblyLamePun / ActorAllusion: How is it possible that no one here noticed that Christensen was involved in the downfall of both the Old and the New Republic?

* DawsonCasting: Subverted slightly with Hayden Christensen playing 26 year-old Stephen Glass. He was 22 when the film came out and 17 when the New Republic scandal broke in 1998.

--> '''Glass''': I didn't do anything wrong, Chuck!
--> '''Lane''': I really wish you'd ''stop saying that''!

* DawsonCasting: Suverted slightly with Hayden Christensen playing 26 year-old Stephen Glass. He was 22 when the film came out and 17 when the New Republic scandal broke in 1998.

* DawsonsCasting: Suverted slightly with Hayden Christensen playing 26 year-old Stephen Glass. He was 22 when the film came out and 17 when the New Republic scandal broke in 1998.

* PlayingGertrude: Inverted slightly with Hayden Christensen playing 26 year-old Stephen Glass. He was 22 when the film came out and 17 when the New Republic scandal broke in 1998.

* HeroWithBadPublicity / VillainWithGoodPublicity: Glass is well-liked, self-effacing and charming, making it easy for people get get on his side against Lane, who is more distant and formal, and viewed as more of a distrusted interloper after he got the job previous held by a popular editor.

* EnforcedMethodActing: When the Young Republicans harass and chase a woman down a hallway, the horrified look on the actress's face is made more real because the director isntructed the actors to glare at her silently before filming and not respond to her attempts at conversation.

* PrecisionFStrike: "Do you have any idea how much shit we're going to have to eat?"

* SmugSnake: Glass initially comes off as a humble, self-effacing person, but the longer he keeps it up the more we begin to see what a slimy, phony weasel he actually is. Note also how subtly smug he is when his co-workers find themselves unable to compete with his story pitches.

* {{Irony}}: Many of the reporters at the ''New Republic'' express a strongly-held (and slightly snobby) opposition to the idea of including photos in the magazine, citing their integrity as a news magazine versus those publications which do provide them. At the end, however, a secretary bitterly notes that what Glass did would be a lot harder if he'd had to include photographs of the people involved in his stories.

* VillainProtagonist: Glass, obviously.

* ActorAllusion / IncrediblyLamePun: How is it possible that no one here noticed that Christensen was involved in the downfall of both the Old and the New Republic?

* OhCrap: Glass when he realizes he gave a fake phone number with the wrong area code. And again when he learns that the building where the hacker conference purportedly took place is closed on the day it purportedly took place.

* {{Irony}}: Many of the reporters at the ''New Republic'' express a strongly-held (and slightly snobby) opposition to the idea of including photos in the magazine, citing their integrity as a news magazine versus those publications which do provide them. At the end, however, one of them bitterly notes that what Glass did would be a lot harder if he'd had to include photographs of the people involved in his stories.

* CompositeCharacter: Glass's editors Lane and Kelly were real people (as is Martin Peretz, a smaller part in the film) but his fellow journalists at ''The New Republic'' are all composites.

--> '''Lane''': I really wish you'd ''stop saying that''!

* PrecisionFstrike: "Do you have any idea how much shit we're going to have to eat?"

* SmugSnake: Glass initially comes off as a humble, self-effacing person, but the longer he keeps it up the more we begin to see what a slimy, phony weasel he actually is. Note also how subtly pleased with himself he is when his co-workers find themselves unable to compete with his story pitches.

* ConsummateLiar

* SmugSnake: Glass initially comes off as a humble, self-effacing person, but the longer he keeps it up the more we begin to see what a slimy phony he actually is. Note also how subtly pleased with himself he is when his co-workers find themselves unable to compete with his story pitches.

* SmugSnake: Glass initially comes off as a humble, self-effacing person, but the longer he keeps it up the more we begin to see what a slimy phony he actually is.

* DaydreamSurprise: Throughout the movie, we see snippets of the various stories Glass has researched and submitted -- all of which, as we learn the extent of his fakery, are heavily implied to be just his imagination. [[spoiler: The high school class Glass addresses as a FramingDevice turns out to be one of these, as it's revealed that he's just daydreaming while in a meeting to determine precisely the extent of his fraud.]]