23 Wildly Inaccurate "Facts" Movies And TV Shows Tricked Us Into Believing
1.TV shows and movies love to make use of characters flatlining then waking up with the use of a defibrillator...only, this isn't possible. You can't bring someone whose heart has flatlined back through a defibrillator — only with CPR and potentially a shot of adrenaline. But even with those measures, it's extremely rare that heartbeat would resume and the patient would live.
A defibrillator is also basically useless for someone who's gotten in a car accident (like in the OTH example above) or any sort of blunt trauma (unless that then caused them to experience cardiac arrest). It's situations where the heart rhythm has been affected — not when the heart is actually damaged.
2.And adrenaline is not a miracle worker. In Pulp Fiction, there's a scene where Mia is saved from a heroin overdose with adrenaline — adrenaline would do nothing to help her IRL. Also, there's no reason to put it directly in the heart — that would actually be more dangerous.
3.In fact, a ton of medical stuff in movies is just straight up wrong. For example, every time you see a character take another character's pulse using their thumb (like in Clear and Present Danger)...you literally cannot take someone's pulse with your thumb, because your thumb has a pulse as well, and you will just feel that instead.
4.People die WAY too quickly when being suffocated in movies and TV shows (like The Vampire Diaries). It takes on average seven minutes. Also, once the person stops moving, they've simply become unconscious. If the person suffocating them immediately stops suffocating them, they'll later wake up on their own. The person would have to keep suffocating them for over a minute after unconsciousness — and likely over two — to cause irreversible damage.
5.Panic attacks cannot be stopped by holding your breath, as suggested in Teen Wolf.
6.Drowning doesn't look like it does on TV or in movies like Leave Her to Heaven — usually, there are no signs of distress.
20th Century Fox
7.You may have already realized this given Riverdale is not exactly authentic, but...there is no such thing as the serial killer gene.
8.Maybe this is obvious, too, but just to be clear...you cannot survive a nuclear explosion by hiding in a fridge, as Indy does in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Even though George Lucas suggested his odds of survival in the situation would be 50/50.
9.Speaking of Indiana Jones, "dry quicksand," aka a sand pit (featured in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Mummy) likely doesn't actually exist in nature.
10.And "wet" quicksand is not at all like it appears in movies such as Lawrence of Arabia and Prey. It doesn't just swallow you whole. Because people are mostly water, they float even in quicksand — and while you can definitely get stuck, you won't sink to the point where it's pulling your head under. It's still dangerous, though!
11.Contrary to movies like Zombieland, Twinkies are not indestructible snacks that last for decades. In actuality, their shelf life is 45 days. A Maine classroom doing an experiment has kept a Twinkie for decades, and while it hasn't fallen apart, it has turned gray and inedible.
12.Bee Movie confidently asserts that bees should not be able to fly. And if you compare them with an airplane, sure, it doesn't make sense. But bees are not at all like airplanes — they flap their wings back and forth, not up and down, creating small vortices that lift the bees up. So, it makes perfect sense that they can fly.
13.There's no such thing as an "elephant graveyard" (where elephants go to die) like in The Lion King. While skeletons are sometimes found in the same spot, this is likely because there was softer vegetation there for older elephants whose teeth had worn down, so they moved to that area when they were close to death, or because elephants were gathering around one of the last food sources during a drought or famine when they died.
Disney
14.Movies like Lucy state that people use only 10% of their brain. This is incorrect. Every part of the brain has a function, and even simple tasks use far more than 10% of the brain — scientists have confirmed this with PET and fMRI machines mapping brain activity.
15.It's a major point at the start of 21 Jump Street that if you don't read someone their Miranda rights, they can be released. While it's still a major oversight not to be read your rights — and will definitely help your case if you go to trial — it only means that anything you say prior to being read your Miranda rights will not be admissible in court. Police are under no obligation to release you if they have other evidence, which is likely if you were arrested.
16.Movies like Sweet Home Alabama state that lightning won't strike the same place twice — but that's false. It actually strikes the same place often, especially tall things like the Empire State Building.
17.It's highly unlikely for someone to die from a piranha attack like in Piranha 3D. It would take about 300 to 500 piranhas to eat a human, and the only evidence of piranhas eating human flesh come from examples where the person was already dead. Also, many piranhas are omnivores, and some are even vegetarians.
The Weinstein Co.
18.Sharks do not attack humans unprovoked, like in Jaws. Humans are not a part of sharks' natural diet, and they'd prefer to eat something else. Sharks rarely attack humans, and if they do, it may only be because they were curious or confused — studies show that they may mistake humans on surfboards as seals or sea lions.
Universal Pictures
19.Urine is not sterile, as asserted in many movies like Fight Club and Dodgeball — it has bacteria in it. And you should not drink it unless you absolutely have to in order to survive — in which case you should drink it immediately after it leaves your body so it doesn't attract further bacteria.
20.Speaking of pee — peeing on a jellyfish sting doesn't stop the stinging. While it's possible that some parts of urine (like ammonia) may help, others (like sodium) may make it worse. Sea water would be better, though it also has salt.
21.Absinthe does not make you hallucinate, as seen in films like Moulin Rouge! Absinthe is just like any other high-proof drink. It'll get you drunk, but it has no hallucinogenic properties — not even back in the day.
20th Century Fox
The compound thujone was thought to cause the hallucinations — leading to bans on absinthe and regulations about how much thujone bottles can contain — but researchers eventually discovered that no bottle of absinthe had enough thujone to cause those types of effects.
22.Finally, let's end on a couple animal ones. As asserted in basically any film with rats or mice (like Ratatouille), they LOVE cheese. In fact, they like cheese no more than they do any other available food. The myth may come from rats often chewing cheese wheels in people's cupboards and pantries — but this is likely just because it was a large amount of food in one spot that's easy to get to and sneak around in.
23.And similarly...cow's milk is not good for cats. Adult cats are essentially lactose intolerant. Do not feed your cats milk!
