This index is for tropes and categories that follow the Hollywood X naming scheme.
Note that despite being called "Hollywood", those tropes are definitely not restricted to American big-budget cinema, and not necessarily coming from it; Hollywood movies being among the most accessible works of fiction in our modern world, it is only fair that people would believe most tropes (rightfully or not) come from here.
See also Artistic License, which many tropes under this index fit various forms of. Compare to Anime Reality.
Sub-categories:
Also see:
- Hollywood Atlas: Stereotypical portrayals of geographical regions.
- Hollywood Economics: A character's finances are stable unless the plot needs it to change.
- Hollywood History: Deeply embedded perceptions and misconceptions of certain events, time periods, and societies.
- Hollywood Science: In fiction, drama defines the law of physics.
The following tropes do not fit under any of the sub-categories:
- Hollywood Acid: Acid is always depicted as dissolving whatever it comes into contact with.
- Hollywood Apocrypha: Biblical verses are misused or made up.
- Hollywood Atheist: The stereotype that atheists are condescending douchebags to everyone who has religious beliefs or are like that because they've concluded that the suffering and injustice they and/or others endure is proof that there isn't a God.
- Hollywood Autism: The stereotypical portrayal of autism, almost always male, unemotional, lacking empathy, with their autism being portrayed as a tragedy to them and others.
- Hollywood Beauty Standards: In general, Hollywood having its own beauty standards, having attractive characters be so in the same ways, "plain" characters actually being beautiful, etc.
- Hollywood Blanks: Firearms blanks are harmless In-Universe.
- Hollywood Board Games: Board Game-based characterization.
- Hollywood California: California only has four places, according to Hollywood. These places are South Central, Hollywood/Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Orange Valley.
- Hollywood CB: Two-way radios are used exactly like telephones.
- Hollywood Chameleons: Chameleons have an unlimited color-changing ability and can even mimic patterns to become invisible in their surroundings.
- Hollywood Costuming: Clothing, hairstyles, and makeup don't fit in with the time period of the work.
- Hollywood Darkness: Even though it's dark, blueish light allows the audience to see and characters not to bump into anything.
- Hollywood Density: Objects don't weigh the same as they do in real life.
- Hollywood Dreamtime: People in the West don't even know what the Dreamtime even is, so of course Hollywood is just gonna throw darts onto a board to decide what it is supposed to be.
- Hollywood Drowning: Drowning people are portrayed as screaming and violently splashing for several minutes as opposed to quietly and quickly sinking.
- Hollywood Encryption: Computer encryption is portrayed with many inaccuracies and/or as very easy.
- Hollywood Exorcism: The typical depiction of a demonic exorcism includes calling on a deity, chanting, using holy symbols, and a whole lot of nightmarish behavior from the possessed.
- Hollywood Fire: Fire is portrayed as not having as much heat or smoke as it would in Real Life.
- Hollywood Game Design: Creating a video game (let alone a very successful one) is portrayed as a simple process that only includes a bit of coding and creating 3D models.
- Hollywood Giftwrap: The typical gift in Hollywood is a box and a lid, each wrapped individually, with nothing securing the lid to the box, with a very elaborate bow on top.
- Hollywood Glasscutter: With the help of a device, a diamond ring, or even incredibly sharp nails, cutting out a perfect shape from glass is as easy as cutting paper.
- Hollywood Hacking: Hacking in Real Life is a pretty boring process, so it's often portrayed as Rapid-Fire Typing coupled with flashing images, 3D models, and a lot of made-up techno talk.
- Hollywood Healing: No matter how serious the wound, the character will heal quickly and without permanent damage.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Heart attacks are portrayed as more dramatic than they are in real life.
- Hollywood Homely: In-universe, a character is treated as hideous at worst and unattractive at best. To the audience, the character seems perfectly average, if not beautiful.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: When Hollywood chooses one specific actor to turn into the "Next Big Thing", slapping them on every tabloid and gossip magazine.
- Hollywood Jehovah's Witness: The stereotypical depiction of Jehovah's Witnesses in media, cult-like, invasive, and only having one or two of their beliefs presented.
- Hollywood Kiss: Two characters kiss in the both dramatic, romantic way possible, with some combination of the wind blowing, the sun setting, the rain falling, the birds flying, and the camera spinning.
- Hollywood Law: A legal situation with no resemblance to how it would be handled in the real world.
- Hollywood Magnetism: Magnets can work at any distance, with only the object being pulled to the magnet and not both at once, and can work with any vaguely metallic substance.
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: In Real Life, a mid-life crisis can be a very distressing experience and don't just affect men. In Hollywood, only men go through mid-life crises, and after a brief period of being adventurous, the problem is solved.
- Hollywood Mirage: Mirages shown as full-out hallucinations of lush green foliage and glittering blue water.
- Hollywood Natives: "Natives" being scantily clad, dirty, and overall unintelligent savages wildly inferior to the "civilized" group.
- Hollywood New England: New England is distilled to its stereotypes and portrayed as a coastal town with a big lobster or fish fishery where every one is a Ivy Leaguer.
- Hollywood Nuns: Nuns always wear their habits, and are either very old or very young, very strict or very nurturing.
- Hollywood Old: An actor of a much younger age portraying an older character.
- Hollywood Police Driving Academy: Policemen drive like maniacs on the road so long as they are pursuing a criminal.
- Hollywood Provincialism: If it takes place in the USA, expect the setting to look like southern California.
- Hollywood Psych: Psychology, including psychological disorders, is treated with a lot of liberty in Hollywood. Most commonly, anxiety, paranoia, etc. are treated as things that characters can willingly get over.
- Hollywood Pudgy: Being even slightly overweight automatically makes a character fat.
- Hollywood Restraining Order: A restraining order portrayed as forbidding someone from getting too close to the person who issued the restraining order.
- Hollywood Satanism: Satanism is portrayed as an evil cult, complete with dark robes and lit candles.
- Hollywood Silencer: Silencers can completely mute a gunshot and are available to any gun owner.
- Hollywood Skydiving: You can skydive whenever, wherever, and as long as you open your parachute before you hit the ground, you're good.
- Hollywood Spelling: Characters know how to spell something correctly even when they shouldn't.
- Hollywood Tactics: Liberties taken with military tactics.
- Hollywood Thin: When the only "attractive" body type is thin and petite, even when someone is worryingly underweight.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Bad singers sing with a ridiculously nasally and unnatural voice.
- Hollywood Torches: Torches can be made from anything, can burn forever, and produce no smoke.
- Hollywood Tourette's: Tourettes Syndrome is stereotyped as the person habitually swearing.
- Hollywood Voodoo: When it comes to voodoo in Hollywood, it rarely gets any deeper than voodoo dolls and tarot cards.
- Hollywood Web Cam: Video calls do not work that way.
- Things Are More Effective in Hollywood
