39,327
edits
Can't Get in Trouble For Nuthin': Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 4:
{{quote|''"On a crowded street, I could drain a flower vendor of all his blood, and not get caught! People would scream and vomit, and yet, somehow, I would walk away unscathed. I could do that!... Oh, wait... I ''did'' do that!"''|'''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'''}}
A combo inversion of [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']] and [[Selective Enforcement]] where the character actually wants to get in trouble, either for their own reasons ([[Mischief for Punishment|such as enjoying the punishment]] or to [[Get Into Jail Free|get access to a prison]]) or to [[Frame-Up|frame someone else]].
The first form of this trope is often found in [[Doppelganger]], shapeshifting, and body-switcher stories. A character looks, for whatever reason, exactly like their archenemy or rival. Instead of moping or trying to revert, they immediately [[Frame-Up|plan to ruin that enemy's life by getting into all sorts of trouble for which the original will be punished.]] May also occur in a non-fantastic situation, where the character is never seen, but (unsuccessfully) tries to frame the other.
Line 25:
* Not a mystical or lookalike version, but often in ''Baby [[Looney Tunes]]'' and similar spinoffs, one character (usually Sylvester or Daffy) would try to frame another character (Bugs or Tweety Bird, respectively) without being seen. Usually, this would be seen as a misguided yet heartfelt attempt at kindness, such as planting a tree in the middle of the living room rug on what just happened to be Arbor Day.
* Happened on the [[Freaky Friday]] episode of ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]''. Jimmy and Cindy failed each other's tests and then tried to damage each other's reputations.
* One episode of ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' featured Jake and his sister Haley swapping bodies. While waiting for a chance to undo it, Jake tried to destroy her good reputation while she tried to ''build'' him a good reputation he'd not like.
----
Line 35:
== [[Film]] ==
* The protagonist of ''[[Cemetery Man]]'' has a job that involves shooting zombies in the head when they rise from the graveyard where he works. By accident, one day he kills someone who wasn't already dead. Nobody believes him when he tries to come clean to the cops. {{spoiler|The entire last act of the movie is him performing more and more depraved acts in a desperate existential attempt to write his own destiny. The denials from the authorities as to his guilt get more and more bizarre.}}
* ''[[American Psycho]]'', both the book and the movie. Patrick Bateman commits a series of heinous crimes including chasing a hooker with a chainsaw, going on a shooting spree, blowing up several police cruisers, and hiding in his office as a helicopter searches for the perp. While hiding, he phones his lawyer and confesses to everything, but later on, nothing has come of this. He meets his lawyer, who laughs the whole thing off and mistakes him for someone else. Bateman becomes angry, (who had just called "Bateman" spineless, after all, Patrick Bateman couldn't pull off a murder, let alone about 20), informs the lawyer that he IS Bateman, and insists the crimes actually happened. He is apparently saved again when the lawyer informs him he had dinner with someone he supposedly killed just a few weeks ago , tells Bateman he no longer finds this funny, and leaves. Bateman slinks down in his chair and delivers a speech about how there are no more barriers to cross, etc.
** In both the book and the movie, Bateman is shown to suffer from hallucinations and other psychotic (duh) episodes. It is left unclear whether he really does embody this trope, or whether he imagined the whole thing.
*** While some events in the story ''are'' too insane to be true, Identity Confusion plays such a significant part in the story (the yuppie culture is presented as being so conformist and cookie-cutter that everyone, Patrick included, is ''constantly'' mistaking one person for someone else), that at least ''some'' of the things Patrick claims to have done must be real or else all the attention placed on everyone being so alike everyone else and so interchangeable with one another would be entirely pointless. Moreover, if indeed the confusion of identity motif isn't supposed to be thrown out entirely for an "it's all in his mind" explanation, [[Can't Get in Trouble For Nuthin'|this trope]] would indeed apply to some degree.
Line 89:
** In another remake of the original plot, Popeye ended up being ejected from the hospital because it was for dogs and cats. Bluto started barking while Popeye made cat sounds. The two of them were taken to an animal shelter.
* This happened in a episode of [[Angela Anaconda]], where Angela forgets to wear green on St. Patrick's Day. She tries to get detention so that she can avoid getting pinched during recess, and fails each time. She manages to escape this fate when she turns her jacket inside out to green.
* One episode of [[Detention]] centered around the kids who normally got detention trying ''not to,'' and Shelley Kelley, a [[Teacher's Pet]] who never got it, was ''trying'' to get it. Everything the poor girl did only resulted in praise...deflate all the basketballs? Great, now they'll fit through the baskets easier. Flood the gym? "We've been meaning to clean that. Thanks!"
* In ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Homer tries to get himself disabled so he can work at home, but he doesn't get hurt. At one point, he walks around a hardhat area with no helmet and falling stuff keeps missing him. A wheelbarrow full of bricks falls on someone else, prompting Homer to quip "Probably better that ''didn't'' hit me".
** In another episode, Bart, who is known to cause trouble 24/7, tries to cause mischief but every single attempt backfires with him winding up doing good deeds.
| |||