Like the way toothpaste ads show them squirting 3x as much paste as you actually need onto the toothbrush

That's just like how shampoo companies advise you to "lather, rinse, repeat". It's a great way to boost sales, but besides being unnecessary it's terrible for your hair, your water bill, fish living downstream, and your wallet.

Personally, I've had much better results with repeating, but I haven't bothered to experiment enough to see if it's from "rinse, lather, rinse" or the full "lather, rinse, lather, rinse".

> That's just like how shampoo companies advise you to "lather, rinse, repeat". It's a great way to boost sales.

It’s no accident that they code a loop with no termination condition (except the implicit emptying of the bottle). Really boosts sales!

I do occasionally repeat and it does make a difference, but you only need 1/10th as much shampoo the second time.

I’m curious. What does the second iteration accomplish? Is it dirt and grease that is embedded in your skin? What kind of job do you have if you feel comfortable answering?

It's not usually needed, but if I'm really sweaty and sticky the first washing removs dirt, and the second washing adds "squeak" is the best way I can put it.

It just feels cleaner. I assume it's because the additives in the shampoo become overloaded on the first use, and are active on the second.

I like the squeak too. I recently moved to a place with hard water and so everyone has water softeners. With this super soft water I can't get the squeak ever. It just feels slimy to me.

Where the protagonist is supposed to be a rough person, I think it serves to reinforce the idea that they're hurting from the ass whipping they just dealt/received, and don't have time for a hospital or inclination to read the dosage instructions.

Normal people in the States that I know don't typically numb pain with a handful of opioids. Of course, that's not to say they (and their over-prescription) haven't been an issue for people with chronic pain.

It's a dramatic trope. I'm an american, born and raised as they say, and I've never seen that. It probably happens sometimes in places I'm not familiar with, but ... come on, it's absurd, anyone would be incapacitated by that many pills.

I was thinking about this when watching The Shape of Water, Michael Shannon's character is in his car, arms shaking, pouring the whole pill bottle on his face ...

It's a dramatic trope.

I wonder how much these tropes and storytelling techniques shifts the baselines of cultural norms. For example, a sitcom would often find it convenient to have friends meet daily in a bar and somehow drinking almost daily is perceived to be a normal thing to do.

Haha no offense, but I don't think that's as abnormal as you're imagining.

For this particular example, if anything I think drinking frequently with friends and family was much more frequent in times prior to television. But agree that television has this effect in general, shaping perception around social norms. I suspect it is used this way intentionally in some cases.

In the 80s there was a show called Cheers centered around the same people being at a bar every day. I don't think it is a new phenomenon and it has actually been going the other way - it used to be typical to hit the bar after work every day (and still is in a lot of places) and was generally more about winding down/socializing than consuming alcohol.

It's a "problem" nearly as old as America. One of the scapegoats much touted in handbills and pamphlets of the "ills of society" that led to Prohibition in the US was that "fathers spend too much time in the pubs drinking alcohol after work rather than at home raising children".

It was the source of many jokes in sitcoms in the 1960s, too, not just the 80s, including notably what we think of today as a "kid's show" (despite being a primetime show when aired) in that it was a recurring thing in The Flintstones.

I think this can be one of several subvariants.

A version of the drug habit/self abuse trope that used to be demonstrated with late nights alone with booze bottles in some depressing living room.

A blazing modern signal that the protagonist is hurt but continues anyway, to distinguish him from some impervious Superman or unfeeling Terminator clone.

The writers are mildly concerned about the plot discontinuity and rushing him to the next scene. See also the bullet wound self-care with improvised extraction and bandage from ripped clothing, which leads to miraculous physical rebound. No debilitating blood loss, nerve damage, or torn connective tissue in this plot!

I think it's video game logic imported into films. Pills are a common health pack symbol so more pills = more health regained = more return to normal stats.

Hmm, well I wouldn't recommend taking a whole handful of ibuprofen, but it probably shouldn't kill you (unlike a handful of acetaminophen/paracetamol, or opioids), it would be hell on your stomach, but I suppose fast-paced drama doesn't have time for realism.

Great way to get kidney failure.

I think chronic over-usage is a more serious concern. Taking even handful of pills is not that likely to result in permanent damage (unlike paracetamol). Up to 100 mg/kg shouldn't be that risky (so 20 400mg pills for somebody who weighs 80kg)

With the toxin they put in Tylenol (to prevent abuse), you'd blow out your liver if you did that.

In books, you get "chewing asprin without the water." So yes, it's dramatic, but not realistic. It's just a way of conveying through action "Ouch, that really freaking hurts."

> With the toxin they put in Tylenol (to prevent abuse)

...acetaminophen itself is what kills your liver in an overdose, there is no "toxin they put in tylenol"

Got it upside down. Acetaminophen is added to opioids to prevent rec use and abuse.

The confusion here is that "tylenol" in the US basically means just Acetaminophen - technically tylenol 3s have opiods, but most americans know tylenol as the over the counter tylenols, which are just acetaminophen.

In other places tylenol must mean what we think of as tylenol 3

That explains...a lot actually.

Some studies out there linking acetaminophen to reduced empathy.

The relevant tvtropes.org page seems to be "Bottled Heroic Resolve": https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BottledHeroicRes...

This does not logically make sense. It's TV. On TV, a guy can shoot an automatic and not reload for a full ten minutes. He can get shot at by 20 people with rifles and they all miss, while he kllls them all with a handgun that holds 10 bullets.

That is not sponsorship by gun companies. It is TV.

it's still advertisment though

I'm sorry - you actually think the movies with a lot of shooting is an advertisement for guns, and when someone chugs pills out of the bottle is an ad for big pharma?

if I may ask - and this is very much on topic - who won the 2020 election, and do covid vaccines contain nanobots?

It’s definitely a trope, but it’s not product placement. It’s just old fashioned over-embellishment by Hollywood for the sake of drama. They do it for everything else, why wouldn’t they for self-medication?

Is this true? I can’t actually think of any examples of this off the top of my head. I can think of examples of popping anxiety pills to show weakness and lack of resolve, pills that suppress their acuity in some way, or some sort of amphetamine because they need energy.

But pain pills don’t ring a bell. The classic move is strongly taking a swig of hard alcohol and then pouring it over a wound and wincing.

In my opinion, people shown to be taking pills are usually portrayed as weak or digging themselves into a hole.

Perhaps with some exceptions to people shown taking pills which I interpreted as a display of competence and experience more than anything.

Dr. House takes vicodin. But that is the only example that comes to my mind.

Ehhh but that’s just Sherlock Holmes’ drug addiction manifesting.