Are You Kidding Me?

          Let me set the scene.

          A woman, incapacitated by a broken ankle and on crutches, is attacked at the top of the stairs by the family’s psycho Nanny.  The woman, a delicate looking blonde, tries to defend herself as best she can, but Psycho Nanny is younger and stronger, plus she has the advantage of not being hampered by a couple of wooden poles jammed under her arms.  After beating each other around the head for several minutes, causing some serious damage to the Delicate Looking Woman, Psycho Nanny ends the altercation by pushing the woman head first down the stairs.  There she lies, beaten to a pulp, barely breathing.

          Enter handsome husband who at first is oblivious to the mayhem being caused in his home and proceeds straight to the kitchen to greet his little woman.  There he is confronted by Psycho Nanny complete with a cast iron frying pan which she smartly wraps around Handsome Husband’s head.

          Now we have two people lying on the floor doing some critical bleeding while Psycho Nanny walks between them muttering to herself. 

          Handsome Husband raises his head barely inches off the floor and peers across the room to where his Delicate Looking wife lies battered, bruised and bleeding, and says:

          ‘Are you all right?’

       Now I ask you?  Really?  Could not the screenwriters have come up with another question…another phrase, anything but what appears to me to be the most idiotic line ever written?

          Just what is Delicate Looking wife supposed to say to that? 

          ‘Well duh…can you not see the red ooze puddling around my body?  But apart from that, I’m great.  Oh and, how’s yourself?  Doing okay?’

          And this dumb line is not just the standard for murderous home rampages.  It is used with increasing frequency in any and all situations in which someone gets hurt or is in some sort of danger. 

          Hanging from a cliff edge with only eight fingers between life and certain death, or stuck in a wrecked car with fire about to ignite the fumes and gas dripping from the fuel tank, you can bet your bifocals that the immortal, ‘are you all right?’ will spout from the mouths of rescuers.

          I’ve only once been in a situation that could be termed ‘life or death’ and believe me, my rescuer was more concerned with getting me to safety than to ask obviously ridiculous questions.  But that is a post for another time.

          In this meantime, perhaps we could send suggestions to the screenwriters of the various movie studios and give them creative and different examples of suitable lines to be used in dangerous situations.  Lines that won’t leave viewers rolling their eyes and gritting their teeth in frustration.  Well, it’s a thought anyway.