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Play It as It Lays

113 statements
21 feature instances
1 referencing feature instances

Play It as It Lays	type	TVTItem
Play It as It Lays	label	Play It as It Lays
Play It as It Lays	page	PlayItAsItLays
Play It as It Lays	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })Play It as It Lays is a classic 1970 novel by Joan Didion, centering around a minor Hollywood actress named Maria Wyeth, her feelings (or lack thereof), her complicated family history, and her relationships with the many actors, directors, producers, and other celebrity wannabes who surround her.It opens with three short, first-person monologues, each given its own chapter and showcasing the thoughts and feelings of a different character. These set the tone of the story and the plot that follows. Maria is currently in a Los Angeles neuropsychiatric hospital for reasons that are not quite clear and she apparently thinks that this is fine. Her ex-husband Carter Lang's and her friend Helene's respective chapters reveal that they are both extremely upset and disappointed in her after an incident involving the death of someone named BZ. The book then goes back in time to before all of this, and we slowly learn how the situation played out.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })This is not a happy novel, nor is it a pleasant one. And that's also the point. Reading it sometimes feels like getting heatstroke injected directly into your brain (the desert is, incidentally, a prominent location in the story). Nevertheless, it is also a brilliant dissection of Hollywood in the late '60s.In 1972, it was adapted into a movie of the same name directed by Frank Perry, with a screenplay by Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne. It stars Tuesday Weld as Maria, Anthony Perkins as BZ, Tammy Grimes as Helene, and Adam Roarke as Carter.
Play It as It Lays	fetched	2022-08-19T20:37:57Z
Play It as It Lays	parsed	2022-08-19T20:37:57Z
Play It as It Lays	isPartOf	DBTropes
Play It as It Lays / int_372bc105	type	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism
Play It as It Lays / int_372bc105	comment	Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Very cynical in both tone and content, though the lead's revelation near the end can come off as surprisingly uplifting, depending on how you see it.
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Play It as It Lays / int_3b113b7	type	Character Development
Play It as It Lays / int_3b113b7	comment	Character Development: Most of the characters either continue with their unhealthy habits and artificial lifestyles or get worse, but Maria ends up deciding that she can be happy doing her own thing, even if everyone around her thinks she's gone crazy.
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Play It as It Lays / int_49b1fe0	type	Beige Prose
Play It as It Lays / int_49b1fe0	comment	Beige Prose: Extremely. Very deliberate and well-done however, as the benign and casual descriptions of the often extremely upsetting events that occur end up giving the book a really terrifying tone. Also fits in with much of the cast's extreme apathy.
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Play It as It Lays / int_5313c266	type	Bookends
Play It as It Lays / int_5313c266	comment	Bookends: The book starts with Maria in neuropsychiatry, and ends with Maria in neuropsychiatry... except now the reader's view of her is likely different.
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Play It as It Lays / int_6d332aea	type	Driven to Suicide
Play It as It Lays / int_6d332aea	comment	Driven to Suicide: BZ. It's implied he had been contemplating suicide for a while.
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Play It as It Lays / int_7464705c	type	Arc Words
Play It as It Lays / int_7464705c	comment	Arc Words: "Maria said Nothing". The word "nothing" pops up a lot throughout, especially near the climax of the book where BZ kills himself. The nothingness is even apparent in the book's structure; pages usually have a lot of empty space on them. Exaggerated whenever a chapter consists of nothing more than a single tiny paragraph.
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Play It as It Lays / int_7ad2c23d	type	ShoutOutToShakespeare
Play It as It Lays / int_7ad2c23d	comment	Shout-Out to Shakespeare: The first line of the book is "What makes Iago evil?"
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Play It as It Lays / int_7d89315b	type	"The Reason You Suck" Speech
Play It as It Lays / int_7d89315b	comment	"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Maria ends up on the receiving end of these multiple times, usually because others are frustrated that she's become so emotionless. Carter seems to go back and forth between insulting her and pleading her to open up to him.
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Play It as It Lays / int_a4c37cbe	type	Mood Whiplash
Play It as It Lays / int_a4c37cbe	comment	Mood Whiplash: All over the place.
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Play It as It Lays / int_a76de48b	type	Troubled Production
Play It as It Lays / int_a76de48b	comment	Troubled Production: An In-Universe example occurs during the desert portion of the book. After actress Suzannah Wood gets beaten up in her hotel room the makeup artists have to spend extra time concealing her bruises so they won't be visible on-camera.
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Play It as It Lays / int_ae3d6438	type	Deadpan Snarker
Play It as It Lays / int_ae3d6438	comment	Deadpan Snarker: BZ loves to be this. Unfortunately, it's a coping mechanism. Maria also has her moments.
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Play It as It Lays / int_b9db28ab	type	Emotionless Girl
Play It as It Lays / int_b9db28ab	comment	Emotionless Woman: It's clear that Maria has depression. Despite this, however, she still tries to act like things don't bother her when they clearly do. She stresses and angsts over an abortion she's pushed to have but never at any point does she tell anyone about her feelings.
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Play It as It Lays / int_bb18a227	type	It's All About Me
Play It as It Lays / int_bb18a227	comment	It's All About Me: Most of the characters in the novel care only about their celebrity status. BZ and Maria are the two notable exceptions, though that doesn't mean that they are selfless people, it just means they are more aware of how much it all doesn't matter.
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Play It as It Lays / int_c660bc15	type	Fan Disservice
Play It as It Lays / int_c660bc15	comment	Fan Disservice: Maria winds up in several sexual situations, but all of them are played as unsexy at best and creepy at worst. This is because in most of these she seems not to be interested in the sex at all, making her seem like she's being utilized.
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Play It as It Lays / int_c75df49a	type	Shout-Out
Play It as It Lays / int_c75df49a	comment	Shout-Out: Someone hums "I Get a Kick Out of You" at one point. That point being the car ride on the way to the doctor that would shortly perform Maria's abortion.
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Play It as It Lays / int_cdfe12c3	type	Nothing Is Scarier
Play It as It Lays / int_cdfe12c3	comment	Nothing Is Scarier: Zigzagged. Nothingness seems to symbolize hollowness and meaninglessness for much of the story, but near the end that sort of changes. BZ dies thinking that wanting nothing means he'll never be happy, but Maria figures out that wanting nothing means you're free to do what you like without worrying like your actions need to contribute to some grander purpose.
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Play It as It Lays / int_d55108a1	type	Horrible Hollywood
Play It as It Lays / int_d55108a1	comment	Horrible Hollywood: Oh yes. Much of the book is dedicated to showing how plastic and empty the Hollywood machine of the late 60's was. It's not hard to believe that despite being sentenced to Neuropsychiatric therapy because her ex-husband and ex-friend thought she had let BZ kill himself, Maria was glad to be out of it.
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Play It as It Lays / int_deecc9eb	type	Awful Wedded Life
Play It as It Lays / int_deecc9eb	comment	Awful Wedded Life: BZ and Helene are very much this, to the point of physical violence on BZ's part. BZ's mother, Carlotta, has to give them money to stay married.
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Play It as It Lays / int_e8cfde67	type	Ambiguous Disorder
Play It as It Lays / int_e8cfde67	comment	Ambiguous Disorder: Maria's daughter Kate. The doctors don't seem to know what's wrong with her either.
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Play It as It Lays / int_f511ea9b	type	Product Placement
Play It as It Lays / int_f511ea9b	comment	Product Placement: Numerous brands are namedropped throughout, likely as part of the story's satire of American life.
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Play It as It Lays / int_name	type	ItemName
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Play It as It Lays

hasFeature

American Literature (N to S) / int_5365d9d8

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