Hallmark movies have cookie cutter plots usually involving one of the characters reuniting with someone while visiting their home town and then falling in or rekindling love. The characters tend to be divorced or in an unhappy relationship, and one of the driving forces of tension is the push for them to get with each other before the visiting party has to leave
They also tend to have a focus on “city = bad, small town = good,” framing the original relationship in the city as being bland and out of touch, while the small town relationship is warm and attentive.
I like looking at “cookie-cutter” by its namesake. Cookie-cutters create shaped cookies of identical shapes. For an application, consider cookie-cutter houses. These are typically in neighborhoods where there are only a handful of unique blueprints for houses, and so there are tons of identical houses all “cut out” as if from cookie cutters. The Hallmark movie example refers to a handful of plots (as opposed to blueprints), where each movie is “cut out” of whatever cliché plot they choose from the incredibly small amount of plots Hallmark has.
Hallmark movies have cookie cutter plots usually involving one of the characters reuniting with someone while visiting their home town and then falling in or rekindling love. The characters tend to be divorced or in an unhappy relationship, and one of the driving forces of tension is the push for them to get with each other before the visiting party has to leave
Thanks for the clarification !! much appreciated
for completion and for anyone else confused, cookie-cutter means marked by lack of originality or distinction
They also tend to have a focus on “city = bad, small town = good,” framing the original relationship in the city as being bland and out of touch, while the small town relationship is warm and attentive.
Meanwhile the ‘small town’ has everything bad about cities, but they simply gloss over it.
I like looking at “cookie-cutter” by its namesake. Cookie-cutters create shaped cookies of identical shapes. For an application, consider cookie-cutter houses. These are typically in neighborhoods where there are only a handful of unique blueprints for houses, and so there are tons of identical houses all “cut out” as if from cookie cutters. The Hallmark movie example refers to a handful of plots (as opposed to blueprints), where each movie is “cut out” of whatever cliché plot they choose from the incredibly small amount of plots Hallmark has.
Indeed, I was just picturing the wrong tool. I had those little wheels in mind, the ones used to cut pizza. It made no sense
Thanks for the explanation
Pizza cutter Plots are plots where the story is divided in equal parts between multiple deuteragonist \s
hah !