The Origins Of Some Of Media’s Biggest Cultural Tropes

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After a hundred years of television and countless movies in the meantime, we’ve seen entertainment media often get stuck with certain ideas. It’s common, particularly for other countries around the world, for some version of a culture to be adopted by Hollywood which sticks around, long after the reason is gone. Below are some of the biggest cultural tropes we still see in media and where they all came from.

The Luck Of The Irish

Between leprechauns and four-leaf clovers, the Irish have a lot of lucky connotations behind them both on the screen and now beyond it. Even in other entertainment like online casinos, luck is seen as a fundamental part of the culture. It’s why at those casinos you’ll find long lists of games like Irish slots including entire series of 10 or 20 games, as well as whole casinos that are Irish-themed.

This trope actually has a historical origin going back to gold miners in North America. Around the 19th Century, some of the most successful miners across the continent were either Irish or came from Irish backgrounds. Over time, that got tied into Irish folklore like leprechauns and their pots of gold as well as lucky clovers, and suddenly the Irish were the luckiest people on Earth.

The Yellow Air Of Mexico

If you’ve ever watched any TV show or movie with scenes set in Mexico, you may wonder why everything has a distinctly yellow tinge to it. The landscapes, the people and even the sky itself will look different, and that goes from old Western movies right through to the most infamous case recently, Breaking Bad, which went overboard even by the standards of other shows.

In general, any hot, humid, or tropical environment get the yellow treatment, as the filter gives everything a hot feeling that tries to simulate the heat in the air. This movie trick dates back to the early days of color cinema when it was used to differentiate between northern environments, which were generally given a cold blue tint.

London Is 99% of Britain

While the last few years have seen Hollywood put a few toes outside the capital, most of us think of Britain as being almost entirely London. For the longest time, films set in Britain always centered around the capital and any characters seen in other countries had either Cockney or upper-class London accents. Some recent shows like Game of Thrones have dug deeper into the barrel of British regions but even those characters aren’t actually British.

This comes less from American perceptions but from the British themselves in a way. Foreign relations coming out of England are always focused on London, and if we ever hear any political news, it always comes from there. Even within the UK, regions outside of London just don’t get that much attention, although it’s a situation that has started to change recently.

There are plenty more that we could mention, such as the music behind every scene in China or Japan, and when you’re aware that they’re there, you’ll be amazed at just how many cultural tropes are out there.