Malcolm in the middle was always excellent for showing exaggerated examples of realistic family meals. For breakfast the kids are all eating some kind of sugary cereal and maybe some orange juice and dad is running as fast as he can to grab coffee and go burning himself in the process. Or on the occasion they make a nice weekend breakfast, the older boys grab most of the food and there's almost nothing left for Dewey. If that show could manage to come up with a multitude of family meal scenarios over the course of the show, why can't people writing movie scripts write one single semi-realistic scene? This trope bugs me just as much as hanging up without concluding the call.
That one gets me too. Everybody in movies just hang up on each other all day.
I vocally say "Byeeeeee...!" whenever the call is hung up.
I remember seeing somewhere that they would actually eat on All In The Family to make it more realistic, and if you watch scenes of them doing it, it definitely worked.
How hard is it to say goodbye? What the actual fuck?
This is part of a bigger movie trope which is basically "ain't nobody got time for that". You never see them lock the door behind themselves when leaving the house, or fumble to find their keys, or any of these small actions that are actually required in real life just gets skipped over during the editing unless there's a specific reason the audience needs to see it.
Focus groups show that the audience gets confused by the word "goodbye" and think the movie is over and leave.
They kept getting bad reviews about how the movie was only 37 minutes long and had an unsatisfying story arc.
It's outdated shorthand for "look! she's a good mom!"
Ew! Drinking orange juice while eating cereal is gross.
Exactly. Everyone knows you're supposed to pour it into the bowl along with the milk.
It's not the writers. It's the union props team making work for themselves.
I remember when I was a kid in the 80s, they would advertise cereal as being "part of this complete breakfast," which was supposed to be cereal with milk, toast, a glass of juice and a glass of milk. And even as a kid who would eat a meal of practically any size put in front of him, I was like, "who is having all of that at breakfast?!"
Edit: I forgot! Also fruit! There would be like a whole banana next to the cereal bowl!
Yay, marketing. The nutritional value of the cereal is probably next to nothing, but if you ate everything else, you'd get all the nutrients you'd need. 1% of the total is still "a part" of the complete breakfast. Technically not false advertising.
Basically, the more food you see, the less nutritional value in the actual cereal.
See, the neat part was it was a complete breakfast without the cereal too!
The kids who had that kind of breakfast were probably the ones asking to go to the bathroom all the time.
I'm an aging boomer, and I've never witnessed or experienced a family breakfast as seen on camera.
I'm on the older end of millenial. Breakfast was a bowl of corn flakes, and arguing over who gets which part of the newspaper, then everyone munches in silence in different rooms while reading.
As the youngest brother I usually didn't get any part of the newspaper, so I read the back of the corn flakes package for the hundredth time.My two best friends always had breakfast like you see on TV because both of their moms were homemakers. Another friend's grandparents were like that too. I always loved staying at their houses.
I had them.
On Saturdays.
I wondered if there was a TV Tropes page for this, and was surprised to not find one. Maybe I just missed it.
This is the most fitting:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwichWith these being adjacent:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LateForSchool
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ToastOfTardinessOne explanation is that food spoils very quickly in studio lighting (especially after multiple takes), so the food shown are fake inedible props.
The trope's purpose is to show an intact family preparing a hearty breakfast, then giving an excuse for why the actors aren't actually eating it.
Additionally, characters can't drive the story forward through conversation while chewing. Eating isn't relevant to the plot.I've been listening to a lot of TV and movie podcasts. Fake food is often more expensive than real food. Unless there is a good reason, food is more often than not real.
But it's rarely eaten.
Actors have to do several takes and if they eat in the shot, they have to eat in every shot. A lot of young actors who don't know often learn this very early in their career to never eat the food because they will forever be sick of it.
Seems like maybe another trope is a character refusing to eat when they are upset or grieving. This happens in real life, too, of course. But it's kind of a frequent go-to for writers.
Brad Pitt doesn't seem to have any problems eating on film, but you make everything you do look good when you're that charismatic and handsome.
Additionally, characters can't drive the story forward through conversation while chewing.
You will likely not notice this unless you happen to be very hungry when it happens; then it will drive you up the wall.
😅
And how it happens in Wikies, i stumbled across balut. People do/eat weird things to be considered en vogue.
Breakfast in real life: "why did I toast both poptarts?"
Or... Should I finish the box? I ate the five of them, seems weird to just let the sixth one sit here.
Is there any possibility this is done just to make it blindingly obvious to the viewer that Breakfast Is Happening™?
Seems like someone grabbing a couple breakfast bars and a canned beverage might plausibly finish the task quickly enough that a viewer may not notice, particularly if it’s not the foreground of the scene.
Or maybe it’s for the same reason anyone coming back from the grocery store will have a paper bag with celery stalks and a baguette poking out the top? No reason other than that it’s the conventional way of demonstrating the trope.
Could just as easily do like I do for my family:
"You wanted bagel with cream cheese, right?"
"I only have time for half."
"Then take the other half with you, it's hand-held food. The whole point is you can take it to go."
"They don't allow food on the bus."
"Whatever, I'll eat the other half. Have a good day. BOY! DID YOU FINISH YOUR WAFFLE WITH PEANUT BUTTER? I NEED YOU TO SIT ON THE POTTY SO FINISH YOUR BREAKFAST! Oh, hey, did you want toast or english muffin or something, Hon?"
"Nnnnnnhghh.... just coffee..."
"It's already out to cool down, there on the stove. I WILL THROW OUT THAT WAFFLE IF YOU DON'T FINISH IT WE HAVE TO GOOOO!"
I feel like that would get the "breakfast is happening" vibe out there.
"They don't allow food on the bus"? Seriously? Has your family never snuck food into a movie theater before?
Just stick the bagel in a sandwich bag, and hide it under your coat or in your bag. Eat it at your destination. It's not hard to pull off.
to make it blindingly obvious to the viewer that Breakfast Is Happening™?
True, its often used to signal that we have jumped to the next day in the same way they might use a rooster call in a rural setting.
Is there any possibility this is done just to make it blindingly obvious to the viewer that Breakfast Is Happening™?
I think it's either that, or directors for major movies tending to be fabulously wealthy and not knowing what normal people have for breakfast.
make it blindingly obvious to the viewer that Breakfast Is Happening™
In others words "assume the viewer is too stupid to understand up cereal + day light + kitchen + after night time scene = breakfast."
That's one issue I have with a lot of newer shows and movies. Yes the older ones were guilty of it too, but now it feels like we're being spoonfed every detail. "Did you catch the foreshadowing?? Here lets play it 3 times in slow motion, zoom in on it, and have a character say "oh look, that might be important later""
The just leaving it without taking so much as a bite like it's no big deal is as hard for me to believe as the spread itself. On the face of it, it shouldn't be, after all it's entirely plausible and narratively sensible that the character doesn't have time and technically it only reinforces the ludicrousness of the giant meal on a weekday morning but, if I was late in the morning but also someone had cooked me pancakes and bacon and eggs with orange juice and coffee and all these cafe breakfast dishes altogether on the table like that then work is just going to have to wait. I'm not spurning pancakes for anything.
The fact that it's daytime outside always bothered me too. My parents were always rushing us out the door before the sun was up. Maybe in the spring but even then it wasn't full daylight outside like in these scenes.
I once had a manager tell me "If you're late, but you haven't had breakfast, be later"
If you work a taxing job (mentally or physically) you gotta have a calorie store
I can see she is holding 7 flapjacks with a pad of butter. I am going to assume the yellow is a eggs. Glass of milk and OJ on the table. The dad has more flapjacks with bacon and eggs. What is the orange stuff in the kids plate and what are the multi-colored things in the bowl?
The multi-colored stuff is probably cereal.
The yellow could be homefries (cubed potato's), corn flakes, or a big bowl of butter. (I like you egg theory)
The orange goop is probably oatmeal or one of these cereal that's supposed to turn chocolate, but failed.
Ding… dinner’s served
Breakfast isn't a real meal, it was made up by companies selling breakfast foods. Death to breakfast.
I wish I could downvote twice.
However, I regularly make my family breakfast-for-dinner, so it's more my love for all breakfast foods than when it's eaten.
Edit: just kidding on the downvoting, I didn't downvote for real. Just saw you were negative and didn't want you to think I was serious.
Breakfast meals are perfect any time of the day. The only one I have trouble with is pancakes. It eliminates dessert as all that syrup is sweet enough. I understand that's a personal problem for me. I gotta put a cap on that sugar intake.
It's Big Breakfast trying to silence me!
Because she was really hungry.
The amount of food wasted on sets is disgusting.
As far as the food industry goes, Hollywood studio wastage is far, far, down on the list. The hotels and restaurants in Hollywood probably produce more food wastage than the studios. And the groceries more than both of those combined.
they do not use real food unless taking a bite of something is absolutely neccesary
and any food not eaten is most likely given to pigs as theyll eat literally anything and be fine
