Dealbreakers

I've been thinking a lot about what makes a plot untenable for me - those elements the presence of which makes a book unreadable, a show unwatchable (or a person unbearable). Everyone's got them. My sister-in-law, for example, couldn't deal with watching Trainspotting after she had children due to the creepy dead baby scene. Me, I can jive with creepy dead babies, but there are a few things that will send me walking right out of a theatre.

The first, of course, is violence against dogs. Go ahead and chop a guy's head off, eat someone's face, but shank Fido and you're dead to me. Not only is it virtually impossible for me to process on a purely personal level (because, you know, PUPPY!) but I also think it's a cheap trick. Killing a dog is a guaranteed way to tweak your audience's emotions without having to do any work. Conversely, killing off a sympathetic human character means you have to go through the hassle of actually creating a sympathetic character first. Dogs come all pre-symphathized. Much to my chagrin, otherwise decent movies and books fall into this trap all too often - I mean, did Johnny Depp really need to nail his own dog to the door in Secret Window?** Blech.

My second dealbreaker is unnecessary jingoism. Granted, you expect a certain amount of patriotic rah-rahing in, say, Saving Private Ryan. But when it shows up randomly in some romantic comedy or a comic book adaptation geared toward filterless kiddies, it officially enters the Land of Lame. The most recent offender I've seen was Transformers. There I sat, happily watching a beloved childhood cartoon made CGI-flesh, when all of the sudden I was bombarded with a slew on non-plot-enhancing pro-military mumbo jumbo. Oh! And Spiderman 3? With the gratuitous American flag cameo? Why? It pulls me out of the plot and annoys me to no end. If I wanted an earful about how fabulous the good old U. S. of A. is, I'd turn on FOX News.

My third and final dealbreaker is the presence of one Teddy Dunn of Veronica Mars fame. Or rather, "fame." This one is highly subjective, involving my deep aversion to talentless hacks. Moving on.

So what are your dealbreakers? (Nobody say spaceships or I'll cry.)

** And now your moment of Zen:

An imdb search in quest of Secret Window's title revealed that Johnny Depp's trademark is apparently "highly defined cheekbones." Huh.