Tropescilloscope: Stepford Smiler

Happy on the outside. Unhappy on the inside. (read more at tvtropes.org)

More Tropes Chiaroscuro Reality Has No Subtitles Let's Get Dangerous! Annoying Younger Sibling Screw This, I'm Outta Here! After the End Historical-Domain Character Bare Your Midriff Bland-Name Product The Film of the Book Broken Aesop Nice Guy In the Back Scary Black Man Translation Convention Unspoken Plan Guarantee Running Gag Totally Radical Rule of Three All There in the Manual Only Known by Their Nickname Corpsing Show Within a Show Creative Closing Credits Blackmail Meet Cute Outrun the Fireball Frame-Up Death Seeker N-Word Privileges Ambiguous Ending Truth in Television Animated Credits Opening I Just Shot Marvin in the Face Extremely Short Timespan Police Brutality Super Strength Up to Eleven Drill Sergeant Nasty No Antagonist Punny Name Fantastic Racism Wicked Cultured Evil Laugh I'm a Humanitarian Re-Cut Boom, Headshot! Nice Hat Blood Knight Everyone Has Standards Asshole Victim Politically Incorrect Villain Comically Missing the Point Artistic License – Law Bi the Way Suspiciously Specific Denial Face Death with Dignity Camera Abuse Screw the Rules, I Have Money! Girl-on-Girl Is Hot Exactly What It Says on the Tin Television Movie Index Batman Gambit Black Dude Dies First Laser-Guided Karma A Father to His Men Gainax Ending The Brute Four-Temperament Ensemble I Need a Freaking Drink Disguised in Drag Chekhov's Skill Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep" He Who Fights Monsters Monumental Damage Gold Digger The Vamp Sequel Hook Imagine Spot Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Men Are the Expendable Gender Depraved Bisexual I Want My Beloved to Be Happy Improbable Infant Survival aka: Infant Immortality Red Right Hand Reality Is Unrealistic Sir Swears-a-Lot Amusing Injuries Mind Screw Obviously Evil Storming the Castle Taking the Bullet Star-Crossed Lovers My Beloved Smother Action Genre Adaptational Heroism Sealed Evil in a Can As the Good Book Says... Slasher Movie Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer Lampshade Hanging Eyepatch of Power Demoted to Extra Anguished Declaration of Love Break the Cutie Meaningful Echo Shut Up, Hannibal! Dropped a Bridge on Him Suddenly SHOUTING! Shout-Out Unreliable Narrator Evil-Detecting Dog Double-Meaning Title Be Careful What You Wish For Broken Bird The Cavalry May–December Romance Tranquil Fury Put on a Bus Offscreen Moment of Awesome Meaningful Background Event Humiliation Conga Badass Grandpa Cruel and Unusual Death Mooks Back from the Dead Ironic Echo The Smart Guy Awesome, but Impractical Femme Fatale Anachronic Order As Long as It Sounds Foreign Mistaken for Gay "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue Instant Death Bullet Artistic License – Physics Stylistic Suck Didn't Think This Through The Chessmaster Would Hurt a Child "Well Done, Son!" Guy Sacrificial Lion "Awesome McCool" Name Artistic License – Geography Curse Cut Short Anyone Can Die Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique La Résistance Artistic License – Military Even Evil Has Loved Ones I Did What I Had to Do Bloodless Carnage Scenery Porn Product Placement The Un-Favourite aka: The Un Favorite Better to Die than Be Killed My God, What Have I Done? Daddy's Girl Nothing Is Scarier Mood Whiplash The '60s Horror Comedy Action Prologue Morality Pet Easily Forgiven Famous Last Words Took a Level in Badass Rule of Funny Damsel in Distress Works Set in World War II Italian Films Age Lift Face–Heel Turn Soundtrack Dissonance Stealth Hi/Bye Henpecked Husband Cassandra Truth Artistic License – Biology Dogged Nice Guy Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other Happily Married Smug Snake As You Know Credits Gag No Ending Slap-Slap-Kiss True Companions Guile Hero Hate Sink Breaking the Fourth Wall Time Skip Humans Are Bastards Motor Mouth Death of a Child Affably Evil '80s Hair Dramatic Irony Alas, Poor Villain Australian Movies Brick Joke Gory Discretion Shot Mr. Fanservice Continuity Nod Does This Remind You of Anything? Punctuated! For! Emphasis! Reality Ensues Fiery Redhead Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy Made of Explodium Guns Akimbo Fan Disservice Funny Foreigner Have a Gay Old Time Ghost Fiction Obfuscating Stupidity Redshirt Army A Minor Kidroduction Adaptational Villainy Make It Look Like an Accident Rule of Symbolism Distracted by the Sexy Parental Incest Sole Survivor Implacable Man Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane Moment Killer Chase Scene The Cameo Country Matters No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Dull Surprise Evil Is Hammy Sequel Escalation Friend to All Children The Power of Love No OSHA Compliance Stock Footage Chekhov's Gunman The Great Depression Bolivian Army Ending You Have Failed Me Yandere The Ditz Dark Is Not Evil Woman Scorned Calling the Old Man Out Break the Haughty Almost Kiss Kids Are Cruel Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday Disproportionate Retribution Epic Movie Insult Backfire Tempting Fate Bait-and-Switch NO INDOOR VOICE Leaning on the Fourth Wall Despair Event Horizon Homage Fate Worse than Death Bond One-Liner Mystery and Detective Films Undying Loyalty Red Shirt Spell My Name with an "S" Missing Mom Kick the Dog Epic Fail Grievous Bottley Harm Canon Foreigner Villain Opening Scene Silent Movie The Remake Framing Device Sinister Minister Real Life Mundane Made Awesome Real Life Writes the Plot Bunny-Ears Lawyer Married to the Job Wounded Gazelle Gambit Fat Bastard Heel Realization Jerkass Has a Point Black and Gray Morality Hollywood Darkness Loads and Loads of Characters Fire-Forged Friends Dumb Blonde Heterosexual Life-Partners Only in It for the Money Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right! Riddle for the Ages Authority Equals Asskicking Aluminum Christmas Trees Expository Hairstyle Change Defiant to the End Fatal Flaw Drives Like Crazy Disappeared Dad Fantasy Films Important Haircut She's Got Legs Take a Third Option Stalker with a Crush Training Montage Not So Different Coming-of-Age Story Colour-Coded for Your Convenience aka: Color Coded For Your Convenience Hoist by His Own Petard The Stoner Stuff Blowing Up Narrator Historical Villain Upgrade Pyrrhic Victory Pragmatic Adaptation Shipper on Deck Bilingual Bonus Get Out! Christmas Movies Index Manchild Pretty in Mink For Want of a Nail Developing Doomed Characters Wrong Genre Savvy Cluster F-Bomb Trailers Always Spoil Betty and Veronica The Load Bowdlerise Our Vampires Are Different Smoking Is Cool The Faceless Does Not Like Shoes Paper-Thin Disguise Anti-Villain Military and Warfare Films Badass Boast Race Lift Manly Tears All Men Are Perverts Cat Fight Big Damn Heroes Naked People Are Funny Hero of Another Story Downer Ending Off with His Head! You Have Outlived Your Usefulness Diabolus ex Machina Ugly Guy, Hot Wife Lock and Load Montage Shower Scene Big-Bad Ensemble Amoral Attorney Jump Scare Historical In-Joke From Nobody to Nightmare Unresolved Sexual Tension The Starscream Madness Mantra BFG Rich Bitch Hypocrite Dark Action Girl Evil Is Petty Bound and Gagged My Greatest Failure The Alcoholic All Just a Dream Jitter Cam In Name Only The X of Y Protagonist Title Knife Nut Pragmatic Villainy In Medias Res Belligerent Sexual Tension Defrosting Ice Queen Beta Couple Bullying a Dragon Early Installment Weirdness No Celebrities Were Harmed Bavarian Fire Drill Recycled IN SPACE! Psychological Thriller Hollywood Law Not Quite Dead Grey and Gray Morality Badass Normal Light Is Not Good No-Sell Bald of Evil Cain and Abel Pretty Little Headshots Poor Communication Kills Genre Shift Pay Evil unto Evil Captain Obvious Air-Vent Passageway Hero Antagonist Bottomless Magazines Antagonist Title Bloody Hilarious Award-Bait Song Covers Always Lie Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas Costume Porn Cowboy Cop Foreshadowing Say My Name Abusive Parents Leave the Camera Running Gilligan Cut Pet the Dog Fanservice Animal Motifs Big Applesauce Malevolent Masked Men Wham Shot Large Ham Police are Useless Gone Horribly Right Race Against the Clock Music Stories Slashed Throat Ship Tease Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds Gender Flip Flipping the Bird Mythology Gag Psychopathic Manchild Papa Wolf Plot Hole Drugs Are Bad Brutal Honesty Not So Above It All Manic Pixie Dream Girl Extreme Doormat French Films World of Ham Villainous Breakdown Foil Establishing Character Moment Adapted Out "The Reason You Suck" Speech Funny Background Event Toilet Humour aka: Toilet Humor Villain Song It Will Never Catch On Daylight Horror Neck Snap Laughing Mad Demonic Possession Cool Car Adaptational Attractiveness Bittersweet Ending Loophole Abuse It's All About Me Deconstruction Silence Is Golden Brainless Beauty Faux Affably Evil Kill It with Fire Hong Kong Films Hooker with a Heart of Gold Anti-Hero Retired Badass Affectionate Parody Flashback Those Two Guys Attempted Rape Vitriolic Best Buds Creator Cameo Car Fu Kubrick Stare The Mafia Revenge Beard of Evil Groin Attack An Axe to Grind Drowning My Sorrows Crazy Jealous Guy Advertised Extra Shoot the Shaggy Dog Shown Their Work Evil Counterpart The Musical Crapsack World Heroic BSoD Hair-Trigger Temper Double Entendre No Name Given Did Not Get the Girl Pre-Asskicking One-Liner Well-Intentioned Extremist It's Personal Author Appeal The Quiet One And the Adventure Continues Dressing as the Enemy Ripped from the Headlines All for Nothing Love Triangle Action Girl Overprotective Dad Straight Gay Non-Indicative Name There Is No Kill Like Overkill Heroic Sacrifice Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome Curb-Stomp Battle Good Is Not Nice The Dog Bites Back Ambiguously Gay Stealth Pun Very Loosely Based on a True Story Vampire Fiction The Bully Danny Peary Cult Movies List Ass Shove Dark Reprise Naïve Newcomer Reasonable Authority Figure Children Are Innocent Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? An Arm and a Leg The Casanova Improvised Weapon Love at First Sight Death by Irony Rewatch Bonus Public Domain Feature Films Red Herring Random Events Plot Bar Brawl Adaptational Badass Getting Crap Past the Radar Armor-Piercing Question Action Survivor Exact Words Manipulative Bastard Big Eater Determinator Peek-a-Boo Corpse Once More, with Clarity! Improbable Aiming Skills One-Man Army Genre Savvy Those Two Bad Guys What You Are in the Dark Fourth Date Marriage Dramatic Gun Cock Driven to Suicide Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping Vomit Discretion Shot Agony of the Feet Roger Ebert: Great Movies List Jerk Jock Film Noir Meaningful Name Eiffel Tower Effect Parental Abandonment Abhorrent Admirer Bond Villain Stupidity Roaring Rampage of Revenge Match Cut Author Avatar Older Than They Look Slasher Smile The Bad Guy Wins Only a Flesh Wound Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! Precision F-Strike The Oner Lighter and Softer Brother–Sister Incest Took a Level in Jerkass Romantic False Lead Beauty Is Never Tarnished Impaled with Extreme Prejudice The Lost Lenore Properly Paranoid Cool Old Guy Pre-Mortem One-Liner Leitmotif Jerkass Token Minority Bring My Brown Pants Romantic Comedy Documentary Idiot Ball Chekhov's Gun Death by Sex Fingore Central Theme All There in the Script Pimped-Out Dress Dutch Angle Sci-Fi Horror Market-Based Title The Un-Reveal Deliberate Values Dissonance Alpha Bitch Needs Wiki Magic Love Your Head A-Splode Death by Adaptation Sanity Slippage Offscreen Teleportation Room Full of Crazy Suspiciously Similar Substitute Card-Carrying Villain Adaptation Expansion Plucky Comic Relief Never Found the Body Throwing Your Sword Always Works Cold-Blooded Torture Conspicuous CG Call-Back Spanner in the Works Arch-Enemy Ominous Latin Chanting Overly Long Gag Decoy Protagonist Adaptation Dye-Job Five-Man Band Noodle Incident Hell Is That Noise Really Gets Around Blood from the Mouth Anachronism Stew Karma Houdini Fun with Acronyms Accidental Misnaming Bury Your Gays Rule of Cool Freudian Excuse folderlabel Heel–Face Turn You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! Actor Allusion Scare Chord Adaptation Distillation Evil vs. Evil Composite Character Auto Erotica She Cleans Up Nicely Scenery Gorn Reckless Gun Usage Insistent Terminology Handicapped Badass Bloodier and Gorier Deus ex Machina Toplessness from the Back Arc Words Even Evil Has Standards Mugging the Monster Disney Death Wretched Hive Names to Run Away from Really Fast Half the Man He Used to Be Captain Ersatz Never My Fault Sports Stories Never Trust a Trailer Ragtag Bunch of Misfits Would Hit a Girl Mama Bear Babies Ever After Catch-Phrase The End... Or Is It? Gorn Last-Name Basis Woman in White Novelization A Date with Rosie Palms For the Evulz Dissonant Serenity Ungrateful Bastard The Dreaded Sexy Discretion Shot Black Comedy Not So Stoic Dual Wielding Badass in a Nice Suit Same Language Dub Casting Gag Earn Your Happy Ending Male Frontal Nudity Film Noir Index Russian Films Major Injury Underreaction Deal with the Devil Artistic License – History One-Word Title Stepford Smiler The Hero Dies From Bad to Worse Intrepid Reporter Not Using the "Z" Word I Have Your Wife Wham Line Black Best Friend Closed Circle Irony Destination Defenestration Expy Recap / RiffTrax aka: Riff Trax Movies Becoming the Mask MacGuffin Left the Background Music On Japanese Films Alliterative Name Ambiguous Disorder The '50s Mercy Kill Biopic Animal Title Index Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Blonde, Brunette, Redhead Actually Pretty Funny Male Gaze Death Glare Faking the Dead Spiteful Spit Oh, Crap! Visual Pun The Atoner Villain Ball Self-Deprecation Enemy Mine Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking Killed Mid-Sentence Our Zombies Are Different Dwindling Party Historical Hero Upgrade What Happened to the Mouse? Big "NO!" The Stoic Kill 'em All Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Fanservice Extra Creepy Child Why Did It Have to Be Snakes? Eldritch Abomination Due to the Dead Unusually Uninteresting Sight O.O.C. Is Serious Business Dirty Coward Playing Gertrude The Chick Darkest Hour The Lancer Punch-Clock Villain Cat Scare Cloudcuckoolander Villain Protagonist Hidden Depths Call-Forward Ms. Fanservice Shell-Shocked Veteran It Can Think Man on Fire The Smurfette Principle Neck Lift Vacation Films Your Cheating Heart Badass Bookworm Adult Fear Immune to Bullets Final Girl Blatant Lies timeperiod Victoria's Secret Compartment Character Development The Hero Karmic Death Hypocritical Humor Mad Scientist Failed a Spot Check The Ace Skewed Priorities The '80s Evil Sounds Deep Empathic Environment And I Must Scream Tagline The '70s Darker and Edgier Mexican Standoff The Place Facial Horror And Starring Red Eyes, Take Warning The '90s Too Dumb to Live Those Wacky Nazis As Himself "Shaggy Dog" Story Broken Pedestal Small Name, Big Ego Setting Update Off-into-the-Distance Ending Whole Plot Reference Honor Before Reason No Good Deed Goes Unpunished Spiritual Successor Sassy Black Woman Foregone Conclusion He Knows Too Much Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism British Films Celebrity Paradox Chuck Cunningham Syndrome Berserk Button Psycho for Hire Parental Substitute Apocalypse How Department of Redundancy Department Ax-Crazy Screw the Money, I Have Rules! Dark and Troubled Past Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene Cool Guns Book-Ends Refuge in Audacity Rasputinian Death Cool Old Lady What the Hell, Hero? The Big Guy Camp Gay Dies Wide Open Made of Iron Not Even Bothering with the Accent Taking You with Me 20 Minutes into the Future Eureka Moment Bad "Bad Acting" Science Fiction Films Logo Joke Twist Ending Jerk with a Heart of Gold This Is Gonna Suck Black Comedy Rape Superhero The Mole Every Car Is a Pinto Here We Go Again! Beware the Nice Ones Red Oni, Blue Oni Evil Brit Combat Pragmatist Together in Death How We Got Here Body Horror Retcon Fish out of Water Interrupted Suicide War Is Hell Unwitting Instigator of Doom Villain with Good Publicity All Girls Want Bad Boys Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass Rape as Drama Badass Longcoat Redemption Equals Death Ascended Extra Big Bad Duumvirate Genre Throwback Kick the Son of a Bitch Based on a True Story Evil Cannot Comprehend Good Serial Killer Dying Moment of Awesome Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! Thriller The Dragon Evil Plan Cool Shades Aside Glance Freeze-Frame Bonus Posthumous Character Greater-Scope Villain Heroes Want Redheads Deliberately Monochrome Vomit Indiscretion Shot Serious Business The Stinger Horror Films Butt-Monkey Pun aka: Incredibly Lame Pun Word of God The Alleged Car Obstructive Bureaucrat Big Fancy House Sadistic Choice Dramedy The Reveal Adaptation Name Change Maybe Ever After Disney Villain Death Take That! Artistic License – Gun Safety A God Am I Green-Eyed Monster Adorkable Informed Ability Spared by the Adaptation Eye Scream Rousing Speech Zombie Stories Deadpan Snarker Bad Boss Never Trust a Trailer aka: Trailers Always Lie Big Brother Instinct Parental Neglect Video Credits Early-Bird Cameo Unusual Euphemism German Films Adults Are Useless Rated M for Manly The Sociopath Line-of-Sight Name Knight Templar Martial Arts Movie Dirty Old Man Only Sane Man Chewing the Scenery Big Bad Only One Name Canadian Movies Intergenerational Friendship Corrupt Corporate Executive One Steve Limit Accidental Murder Worthy Opponent Shirtless Scene Arranged Marriage Determinator aka: The Determinator Crazy-Prepared B-Movie Fake Shemp Mighty Whitey Tap on the Head Contrived Coincidence You Killed My Father Film Series An Aesop Index of Film Westerns Eagleland Not What It Looks Like Fatal Family Photo Mr. Exposition Dirty Cop Fainting Title Drop Retirony Hope Spot Soft Glass More Dakka Crucified Hero Shot Insane Troll Logic Domestic Abuse Gratuitous English A.I. Is a Crapshoot The Voiceless Improbable Weapon User The Ghost Catapult Nightmare