Trope Talk: Lampshading

Favorite lampshade: Scooby Doo and the gang discover that the woman they've been talking to, and her dog, are extraterrestrials. The dog speaks to them and Daphne, shocked, says, "A talking dog!" Fred quietly says, "Imagine that."

I feel like ever since The Incredibles everyone has tried to lampshade the villain monologue, but never did so as well as that scene with Syndrome. Like he lampshaded the whole "villain monologue" thing by realizing he was monologuing and stopping halfway through when the hero was about to take advantage of the lapse in attention, but this was IN CHARACTER as he was a superhero fanboy and knew that, in the superhero world in which he lived, this was a legitimate strategy the heroes used to get the upper hand and was able to address it while keeping the fourth wall intact for the story. The Incredibles has awesome examples of really well done lampshading, "No capes!" being another stand-out example.

Holy shit, Frisk hiding behind a convieniently shaped lamp is actual lampshading

Riiiiiight. The Lampshade. The lampshade for Kuzco. The lampshade specifically intended to kill Kuzco. Kuzco's lampshade. That lampshade right? YES THAT LAMPSHADE.

The crown jewel of lampshading is the Incredibles's iconic "You got me monologuing" scene, where the villain gets so far down his own line of thinking he forgets he should just kill the damn hero instead of talking.

so I take it that this isn't that one trope where a character will attempt to 'hide in plain sight' by putting on a lampshade and pretending to be a lamp?

Favourite lampshading example: In an episode of Phineas and Ferb, Doofenshmirtz is telling Perry how Vanessa got mad at him bc she heard something out of context and then he makes references to idiot plot tropes in sitcoms and hearing things out of context etc etc and Doof says this: “But this isn’t a sitcom, Perry the Platypus, ok? This is real life and- he then looks at in the direction of the audience and seems distracted before continuing “ Love it.

My favourite brand of lampshading is a frequent gag in classic Looney Tunes where a character is flipping out and making a lot of noise only to suddenly stop, look at the camera, and say something like "This is kinda silly, isn't it?" in a completely calm voice before immediately returning to what they were doing as if nothing happened.

In Halo: Reach, when you get attacked within five minutes of launching into space, Jorge says “Is there any place the Covenant isn’t?!” like he’s mad at the developers

A great lampshade is in Avatar the last airbender when Aang just needs a rock to destroy the drill, and then a rock just falls where he needs it, and he's like "Actually, that's exactly what I needed for once". It works because things always seem to go wrong for him all the time, so him acknowledging this makes us sympathize with him. He's done all the painstaking work, one rock falling into place does not seem like a contrivance, even if it technically is.

I think my favorite example of lampshading is in The Owl House of the season 2 episode 19. Eda asks "wouldn't you rather have a beach day?" And Luz replies "I would if we had time for 20 more adventures" being a nudge to Disney cutting the show short and not letting them make another full seasons.

This is why I like the Muppets: they often acknowledge they're puppets, but not once do they show the puppeteers. And they're often singing when they do crazy stuff.

“And I love you, random citizen!” I love this little reference.

And on this week's episode of "Red Osp Uses the MCU as a Punching Bag," she goes straight for the throat for one of its most defining aspects.

I really like the lamp shading in The Incredibles, because it is mostly done by Syndrome - and it makes sense for Syndrome to be totally genre-savvy! He’s lampshading hero movie tropes not because he’s in a superhero movie, but because he’s in a world where superheroes actually exist and he was a huge fan of them. This works really well because The Incredibles is just as much a superhero movie as it is a parody of them. Having the audience stand-in there ready to critique the tropes of superhero movies works, because the movie itself isn’t held up by those tropes. Also, the “no capes!” Bit, which is maybe only barely lampshading, but manages to hide that it is also foreshadowing!

"Apologising for your art preemptively I always a bad idea" is generally good life advice, letting your work speak for itself

My favourite (recent) bit of lampshading is in Rise of the TMNT when Hypno-Potamus says to the turtles, "A good magician never reveals his plans, but a good villain always does. Oh, I'm torn guys. I've gotta be honest."

The way emperor new groove lampshaded itself is honestly one of the reason why I love this movie. They know that their entire world dosnet make sense in the slightest and they take that fact and run with it without a shread of insecurity in their heart. And I just love it.

One bit of lampshading that our D&D group has done from time-to-time that I love is where a character references something that doesn't exist in that world and another character asks "what's X?," for the first character to reply (often distraught) "I don't know!"

"Because knowing the characters know their world doesn't make sense, makes the gag twice as funny" THANK YOU. FINALLY SOMEONE EXPLAINED IT