Basic Trope: Someone poses as a rich person, usually with accompanying over-the-top behavior.
- Straight: Bob pretends to be a millionaire, then plays the role with overly ostentatious displays of wealth.
- Exaggerated: Bob pretends to be the Emperor Evulz.
- Downplayed: Bob is middle-class, and dresses fancily.
- Justified:
- Bob has to pretend to be Alice's millionaire boyfriend to help her avoid embarrassment.
- Bob is the actor for (the Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense) Johan Lutzofkas and is doing a live performance as him for a publicity event.
- Inverted: King Incognito, Secretly Wealthy.
- Subverted: Bob pretends to be a millionaire who's living within modest means.
- Double Subverted: Bob pretends to be a millionaire who's living within modest means... except for the 200-foot limousine, the gold-plated backscratcher, the 20-room mansion...
- Parodied:
- Bob has to pretend to be the manager at a fast-food restaurant, then shows up in a tuxedo and stretch limousine.
- The Reveal was the Bob wasn't a Millionaire. He was a Billionaire all along.
- Bob convinces everyone he is rich by carrying around bunches of play money
.
- Zig Zagged: Bob pretends to be a millionaire pretending to be a normal person pretending to be a millionaire, etc. as the situation requires.
- Averted: Bob seems overly self-conscious about his wealth and makes an over-the-top show of Conspicuous Consumption, but actually is a millionaire.
- Enforced: The producers don't think audiences will be able to relate to an actual member of the upper class but want to use all the Scenery Porn and Costume Porn an ostentatious show of wealth creates.
- Lampshaded: "Bob's flaunting his wealth so much, I wonder if he's really rich at all."
- Invoked: Bob is recruited as part of The Con because of his penchant for flamboyant behavior.
- Exploited: Bob's brother Dave played alongso that he will be treated highly too.
- Defied:
- Alice chooses someone else to play the millionaire in The Con because she needs Bob's safecracking skills instead.
- Alice needs Bob to pretend to be someone in order to sneak into an exclusive social gathering. He refuses to pretend to be a millionaire because Bob either is disdainful of upper-class snobs or fears he can't believably pull it off and opts to dress up as a servant instead.
- Discussed: "Are you sure Bob is really that wealthy? He seems awfully insecure about the whole thing."
- Conversed: "Can't the characters tell he's obviously faking? No actual rich person would act this over the top."
- Deconstructed:
- Bob pretends to be rich with overly ostentatious displays of wealth, then loses his friends and family from his obnoxious behavior.
- The false displays of wealth causes Bob to be targeted for ransom, and he is forced to confess to his captors that he isn't actually wealthy to save himself.
- Reconstructed: He gets the hint and becomes a faux-Uncle Pennybags.
- Implied: Bob is stated to be a real millionaire, but there are occasional hints he might be lying.
- Played For Drama: Bob has to maintain the facade to please his overbearing parents, who respect only wealth.
- Played For Laughs: Bob ends up in an "Fawlty Towers" Plot where has to keep coming up with increasingly outlandish displays and claims of his supposed wealth, like going from claiming to own an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to owning entire Caribbean islands, and increasingly implausible explanations for his apparent lack of visible wealth.
My solid gold limo's in the shop, so you can take this link back to Mock Millionaire.
