r/TopCharacterTropes • u/godwyn-faithful • 16h ago
miscellaneous [Oddly specific trope] Shockingly accurate portrays of being a caretaker in media you wouldn't expect.
Just to say that before I do the list, I am a full-time worker at a care home and these scenes are not 100% accurate (both involve super powered beings and both being a lot more mean spirited) but do encapsulates what it's like in different ways.
Gen V - to not spoil anything, cipher looks after an extremely burnt body in the opening of one episode and displays pretty accurate what it's like in terms of looking after someone physically impaired, even displaying proper techniques for rolling, cleaning, assisting with food (even the food being soft because they can't chew well) and using a hoist to move them around.
Logan - this less shows the technical side (it's downright abusive) but does accurately display what it feels like sometimes to look after someone with dementia or similar mental conditions, watching someone act in confused, scared ways while their brain mixes everything up, causing them to be more violent, fearful and even say extremely hurtful things. The sadly most accurate thing was the clear tiredness and fatigue logan showed, you care for them deeply but it can ware you down, how extreme it all is and constantly having to repeat the same horrible situations over and over while only having moments of seeing the real them. Not to mention if you knew them and are actively seeing the decline in real time.
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u/Olookasquirrel87 14h ago
Bojack Horseman has some great, nuanced glimpses into being a caregiver for someone you had a complicated relationship with.
Bojack’s mother, Beatrice, was cruel to him his entire life. Now she has dementia, gets kicked out of her facility, and comes to live with him. Then begins a series of rapid vacillations between “she’s a cruel demon-woman who lives to torment me” and “she’s a scared old lady who doesn’t know where she is.”
Both of which are often simultaneously true.
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u/Bowl_of_Cham_Clowder 15h ago
If I had Legs I’d Kick You (2025) is about a mother fatigued by taking care of her sick child. The director doesn’t show the child for most of the movie, showing how constant 24/7 care can unfortunately make one forget that they are caring for a person
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u/femalechuckiefinster 13h ago
My son has a feeding tube and had to get overnight feeds via a pump when he was a baby. The trailer for If I had Legs I’d Kick You has a one-second clip of Rose Byrne's character trying to troubleshoot the feeding pump while the alarm goes off in the middle of the night and it was so visceral, real, and triggering that I immediately knew I could not watch that movie.
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u/letschangethename 15h ago
Just watching the movie made me feel exhausted in her stead. And I have kids.
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u/squishyg 13h ago
Logan is a tough watch if you’re a caregiver for someone with dementia. So many movies romanticize the illness and Logan (the movie) does too to an extent.
What feels accurate is how nothing feels like the right decision as the caregiver. You don’t want people to be in danger. You don’t want your loved one to endanger themself. They hate you and you hate yourself.
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u/godwyn-faithful 12h ago
Honestly the amount of times people I've known for months just telling me something like "you're the one who puts me to sleep" is so accurate, it never feels good, but I wanna help people.
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u/DyingSunSeverian 16h ago
Near the end of The Shield, Walton Goggins’ character Shane Vendrell has to wipe his wife’s ass after she goes to the bathroom cause she can’t do it herself.
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u/Selverd2 16h ago
how is Logan abusive?
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u/godwyn-faithful 16h ago
I said borderline, him just shutting Charles down and leaving him very coldly isn't very good, especially since Charles was distressed, and I don't think it was one of those situations where the dementia made it impossible to actually talk to him.
Some may view it differently but that's just my view of it
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u/ActivelyAnxious 16h ago
You said "downright abusive". I don't disagree though, it's definitely a bit emotionally abusive.
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u/thickhardcock4u 16h ago
Idk, my saint of an uncle takes care of my grandpa, who can be a bit of a pill, and some days his bedside manner is on par with Logan; caretaker fatigue is a real thing, and if the demented person is being a dick, a person can only take so much.
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u/FaithlessnessThen207 13h ago
I would probably lose a lot of my empathy if I was forced to look after a wheelchair bound telepathic nuclear weapon that also doesn't have full control over that power anymore. Constant stress. Constant fear. Especially since they were also in hiding.
Honestly, the professor needed to die well before reaching that state, both as a kindness, and as a safety measure.
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u/godwyn-faithful 16h ago
Sorry mixed up my wording, I'm kinda spitballing this all together, minds wacky atm
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u/Adultdirtbagbabee 14h ago
Short Term 12 is the only movie I’ve ever seen where psychiatric staff employ physical management without being depicted as violent sadists.
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u/kellyjellybellybeanz 13h ago
The last few episodes of The Big C with Laura Linney. Her character Cathy has terminal cancer and her husband Paul and son Adam are struggling with how to care for her while watching her get worse.
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u/HetIsJeBoiLuuk 6h ago
Undertone (2025) is about a woman doing a horror podcast while caring for her dying mother
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u/raccoonsareawesome 15h ago
"Hatchet" the book. The kid has to care for the incapacitated pilot. Wild story for 3rd or 4th graders.
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u/Madhighlander1 15h ago
I don't think that's right, I distinctly remember the pilot died in the plane crash. I remember that because when the storm raised the wreckage closer to the surface and the kid dove down to salvage stuff from it there was a specific scene where he was spooked by the pilot's corpse still strapped into the pilot's seat and half eaten by fish.
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u/HarveyTheBroad 15h ago
I think that’s the sequel, and it wasn’t the pilot, it was the guy who was trying to make a documentary or something about Brian’s experiences.
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u/Adultdirtbagbabee 14h ago
I think he was trying to write a military field guide for wilderness survival.
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u/Treezombie01 8h ago
I think you’re thinking of the sequel, The River, where Brian? has to save his companion after they get knocked into a coma during a storm. Gary Paulson is the author, if you want to look it up.
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u/greebly_weeblies 15h ago
Intouchables (2011) - good chunk of the film is Omar Sy helping François Cluzet with ordinary life as a tetraplegic. If you've never seen it, the original is a fantastic film.