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.
