YMMV or no?: Dull Surprise

Right now the trope seems to be an avenue for complaints about Bad Acting. And there are alot of flat out hatred coming from some of the entries.

"This face intentionally left blank."

—Rifftrax on Keanu Reeves in The Matrix

• Kira in Gundam Seed Destiny sports this when Meer Campbell dies and everyone is crying and he just looks like he just smoked a bunch of pot. Considering that Kira's cry is notorious for sounding like a dying horse, the viewers got off lucky.
• Harrison Ford's terrible narration in the theatrical cut of Blade Runner. It was added due to Executive Meddling, and it really shows, since the rest of his acting is fine.

It's been a troubling phenomenon to me that despite the wiki's overall attitude of friendliness and humor that there are still quite a few mainline tropes (so, not Darthwiki) that are thinly veiled fronts for complaining about and ridiculing works and people. I've had this one on my to do list for a while; thus my seeing the notice for this topic.

That the trope is YMMV is beyond question; one person's Dull Surprise is another's nuance or avoidance of overacting. The question to me is whether the negativity is inherent, or if by changing the wording and deleting some examples the article can be made less negatively critical.

edited 7th Mar '11 7:23:58 AM by Westrim

Well, the tendency of understating emotions in acting in the present day and age is quite undeniable. Large Hams are becoming increasingly rare even in comedies. And the popularity of Keanu Reeves really isn't helping. That being said, we need to make it known that this page is not the place to complain about it.

Nearly every time I see this trope listed, it's with the distinct undertone of "This person can't act worth a damn," "This person can't direct worth a damn," or "This person can't draw worth a damn." Usually because the underreaction is grossly exaggerated (if that makes sense). I.e., if someone isn't screaming in reaction to something, apparently it must be Dull Surprise.

This discussion should not die with just four posts. I agree that the page needs to be cleaned up, but I am not completely sure about moving it to YMMV.

It was my impression that Dull Surprise is supposed to refer to the specific facial expression - wide-eyed and slack-jawed - shown in the trope image, and its use as an all-purpose reaction shot; not to a broader lack of emotion in acting. Is that wrong?

I'd say given the entire "supposed to" clause, yes, you are mistaken. It shows that it's an expression meant to convey strong emotion, but does not. Remember that the context of the Trope Namer is a sketch pointing out bad acting.

edited 10th Apr '11 2:57:11 PM by Leaper

^^ I wouldn't say that's wrong at all.

In my honest opinion, I believe that at this page's very core, its essential components make a concept that is entirely objective. The problem lies in the page examples where tropers add their thoughts on how it's apparently a bad thing or something they don't like, which is something that's just unnecessary.

To compare, Stay in the Kitchen is an objective trope. If anyone criticizes its use or appearance in any examples as being sexist or inappropriate or anything else, the trope doesn't stop being objective... but the personal opinion being included is irrelevant and doesn't belong on the main wiki. It would be fine for something like a Just Bugs Me tab or something though.

edited 10th Apr '11 2:53:09 PM by SeanMurrayI

We lose more actually legit tropes by way people using them to complain in non-legit ways that way...

edited 11th Apr '11 9:59:50 AM by KnownUnknown

None of which contradicts what I said. Dull Surprise is a specific expression which is frequently used in an attempt to display strong emotion, usually with an element of shock, but comes off as...well, dull. Possibly tranquilized. This is bad acting/art, depending on the medium. But it's a specific instance of bad acting or art. It is not "a character reacts blandly in a situation where he/she should be shocked." That's too broad.

For instance, there's an entry for Harrison Ford's voiceover in Blade Runner. A voiceover. For a trope that describes a facial expression.

That's just stupid.

edited 11th Apr '11 10:28:11 AM by Shale

Granted, people could be using it describe reaction in general, not just facial.

For example: Troll 2's infamous scene is arguably an example of both facial and vocal Dull Surprise.

In which case a supertrope for general non-emotive surprise might be in order while we keep this one for the specific facial expression, should that be necessary.

In theory the trope should be about the extremes, a moment of "great shock and intensity" is reduced to the "slack jawed and dumbfounded" expression. The problem is people are ignoring the circumstances of the moment and basically putting in any moment where someone is subdued. Someone tried listing Michael Weston of Burn Notice under Dull Surprise, and I removed it simply because Michael is supposed to represent the mild-mannered middle ground to the Large Ham-type persona's he adopts.

Even famously commented upon examples, such as many actors in the Star Wars prequels, are not entirely fitting the dull surprise as often they show a bit of range, just never quite as charismatic a performance.

Perhaps we ought to make this about moments, scenes, and actual performances where emotion is stilted, rather than allowing people who wholesale say "this actor is this."

Crowning Moment Of Dullness?

Not sure that would go over too well, amusing as it is.

^^ I think we would be better off avoiding any more creations of "Crowning Moment of (X)" tropes.

The problem is that half of the time this is used as an accusation of bad acting, and half the time its clearly intentional, similar to This Is Gonna Suck. Should they be two different tropes?

Hmm... good question. Maybe we should soft-split between intentional blankly stilted expressions and unintentional / bad performances.

edited 18th May '11 2:29:49 PM by KnownUnknown

For the drawn version... I know it's not at all related to Only Six Faces (given that someone could draw plenty of different faces but still rely on this trope)... maybe a new trope would be appropriate... Only One Expression or the like.

Should we get a crowner all up in this place to get the discussion moving again?

I am all for the split.

edited 2nd Jul '11 6:31:41 PM by Chytus

One one hand, the page image is obviously showing something objective. On the other hand, if its just about facial expressions, then I don't call that a story telling device I call that Breathing Oxygen. Dumb Struck is a trope. Dumb struck expression, not really, that just comes with it.

Maybe it could be made objective by limiting it to examples where the same expression is used on a variety of emotion, such as in animation like the page image and in universe examples that are mocking bad acting. Get rid of all the real life and possible subjective examples.

edited 2nd Jul '11 8:19:03 PM by Cider

died again

Attaching a clock to this one.

The discussion has died a couple of times and one clock has expired. Moving to the morgue. If someone wants to revive the discussion please do more than ask "Why was this thread closed?".