Trope (cinema)

In cinema, a trope is a type of stereotypical situation or mannerism of a character that is commonly used in its setting or genre.

[1] A common thematic trope is the rise and fall of a mobster in a classic gangster film.

The film genre also often features the sartorial trope of a rising gangster buying new clothes.

[4] The use of the term in relation to cinema may be more common in American English than in other dialects.

Bluestone said, "[A literary trope] is a way... of packed symbolic thinking which is specific to imaginative rather than to visual activity... [when] converted into a literal image, the metaphor would seem absurd.