Movies can be a mirage, portraying life as more glamorous and exciting than reality. Things are often more complex and nuanced than they appear on screen.
A user took the forum and asked, What isn’t like it is in the movies? Here are the top responses.
DIGGING A GRAVE
“Digging a grave. Soil is much harder than what movies pretend!”
“It’s always so perfectly rectangle, with straight sides…dug by hand.”
AIR CONDITIONER
“Air conditioning vents silently and easily can be removed or put in.”
“The Spy Museum in DC has an air vent you can crawl through to show you how ridiculous it is. One of the loudest, most awkward, and most uncomfortable modes of nonvehicular travel ever.”
UNCONSCIOUS PERSON
“Carrying an unconscious person. Found out the hard way when my wife was sick and fainted. An unconscious body is surprisingly limp and slippery.
Try to lift them by the armpits. Nope, that makes the arms flail, and they’ll slip right through your fingers.
Try to lift them from under the knees and around the back. Nope, their back won’t stay stiff enough, and their glutes will just sink to the floor. Not to mention their head is rolling around the whole time.”
SUPPRESSORS AND HAND GRENADES
“Suppressors (silencers) in movies are WAY too quiet and sound like a staple gun going off. In reality, they make a gun quieter, but they still sound like a gun, and anyone around will still hear it.
Grenades in movies always make a giant explosion with a fireball that makes bad guys fly through a window or rag-doll across a field. In real life, they make a loud bang and a puff of smoke. They just throw shrapnel everywhere and make people bleed profusely.”
ACCIDENTS
“Car accidents. People don’t just lightly bleed from their heads and then die; they are some of the goriest, most traumatic deaths I’ve seen outside of combat footage.”
9 TO 5 JOB
“Working in an office. I really question whether a screenwriter or director has worked a regular 9-5 office job a day in their lives.
Going through the glass. That is dangerous. Potential major lacerations every time. Speaking from my experience as well as two others.”
DEATH
“Death. We’re much more brittle than you’d think, yet in the moments before death, you might last long enough to tell your family you love them on a stranger’s phone.”
WOUNDS
“Treating wounds. If you get stabbed in the abdomen, you’re not all better just because someone stitches up your skin. Same with gunshots.
Movies act like nothing important is under the skin.”
DRIVING
“Driving. Unlike in the movies, you really have to pay attention to the road. Parking too. It’s very rare to get a space just outside where you need to be.”
BREAKFAST
“For breakfast in America, the mom makes a big spread with pancakes, bacon, eggs, all that stuff. Just for someone to pick up a slice of toast and rush off, I’d be super angry. “
GETTING HIT IN THE HEAD
“Getting hit in the head. No, John, you won’t wake up with a minor headache 10 minutes later; you’ll wake up a decade later with a wheelchair.”
STREET FIGHTS
“Street fights are deadly. It is never worth the risk over stupid pride unless your life is in danger.”
WAKING UP
“Waking up. You do not wake up fully refreshed, dressed, hair done, and the blankets still neat on the bed.”
HACKING
“Hacking doesn’t involve furious typing. It’s more like running an antivirus scan to check for what the department forgot to lock down. Or sending a phishing email.
Either way, it involves more waiting than typing.”
TASTING WEDDING CAKES
“Wedding cake tasting. My fiancée and I recently went, and she expected it, like in the movies where we would get a bunch of different slices to try.
Instead, we got a taste of the pastry for the vanilla cake and little plastic cups of what the layers could be, and we had to mix and match everything ourselves to pick what we wanted. The whole time she kept telling me that this wasn’t what she was promised by the rom-com.”
FAMILY
“Okay, scrolled long enough and haven’t seen anyone bring up family dynamics.
I personally spent way too much of my life longing for a family life like those in the movies. Where everyone has their quirks and dysfunctions but still manages to be a family unit and have each other’s backs when things get tough, and they have that unconditional love.
Reality is nothing like the movies. And, uh, not all mothers are as loving and doting on their daughters as I nearly always see in movies; I can promise my birth giver was my nemesis from early on.”
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This article was originally published on Mrs. Daaku Studio.