History Main / HollywoodDrowning

* Probably the greatest single danger for toddlers. It takes them just a moment unobserved to climb 5-foot pool ladders, fall in and drown. Even a puddle all of one inch deep can be enough. There was recently an education campaign on Australian TV to this effect, consisting of [[NothingIsScarier a still shot angled above/near a pool, bath or dam, an offscreen splash,]] [[AdultFear and an on-screen timer showing exactly how short 20 seconds really is.]]
-->''20 seconds is all it takes for a toddler to drown. ''NEVER'' take your eyes off children around water.''

* In ''VideoGame/AnotherWorld'', if Lester gets caught by the GiantWallOfWateryDoom or runs out of air during the swimming sequence, the game immediately displays a realistic facial shot of him drowning.

The splashing-and-screaming reaction -- "aquatic distress" -- ''does'' happen, and is also ''not'' to be ignored, but it's rare, often occurring when encountering strong currents, and almost never happens in a place like a pool. Kids in particular are noisy swimmers, and it's more worrying if they're quiet. This is especially true for very young children who still have a diving reflex: a small child who falls into water will simply hold their breath and sink. Toddlers have drowned in public pools with crowds of people around them.

* Drowning does not end after a person is rescued from the water. A drowning person may seem to be fully conscious, with their eyes lolling around and their mouth open; an untrained person might assume that now that they're safe, they're fine and breathing and will recover on their own. However, if they aren't actually coughing, they are unconscious and near death regardless of whether their eyes are open, and they require ''immediate'' life-saving intervention from a trained professional. Unless a lifeguard is available, they will likely suffer brain damage and/or die within the next few minutes.

* This is [[ImpliedTrope apparently]] how [[VideoGame/MegaMan11 Torch Man]] [[GoneHorriblyWrong failed]] his attempt at MeditatingUnderAWaterfall. The poor guy had to wait ''[[ThirteenIsUnlucky 13 friggin weeks]]'' to come back!
** This is rather absurd since Torch Man probably was on a rock and not in a pool of water.

* In ''Manga/DetectiveConan'': a woman seems to be drowning in the "flailing and bobbing" manner which everyone can see from across the beach and rescue her from. [[spoiler:It turns out she wasn't drowning ''at all''; she was faking to see if her fiancée would try and rescue her even though he couldn't swim (which her friend, the only one she told beforehand, takes as a chance to try to kill her without suspicion).]]

* Defied in ''Manga/SpyXFamily'': A child undergoing physical therapy falls into a pool when his guardians is looking away, sinks like a rock, and starts drowning in near silence. Anya only notices thanks to her {{Telepathy}}, which she passes off as seeing the air bubbles. Loid has to explain to the other adults how disturbingly quiet the whole process can be.

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'', Peppermint Patty flunks an English test and describes and re-enacts a dramatic drowning in grammar, complete with [[LastGraspAtLife going down three times]] (and sputtering commas).

* It's done in-universe in the second ''Addams Family'' movie, ''Film/AddamsFamilyValues''. Campers are learning lifeguarding techniques. The AlphaBitch, a "great actress", jumps in to pretend to drown with a display of worried shouts and flailing arms. Also an inversion, as when the LargeHam gets into genuine distress in the water, she just goes under without ceremony.

* Common in ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'', particularly when Wile E. Coyote is drowning. Complete with the hand coming up with fingers enumerating "one... two... three..."
* In ''WesternAnimation/BeetleJuice'', Jacques almost drowns with the same gag as as Wile E. Coyote above.

See also LastGraspAtLife, SuperDrowningSkills.

* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings: The Fellowship of the Ring'', Sam's near-drowning occurs without much flailing or noise. Frodo knows he's drowning because he knows Sam ''can't swim''.

-->-- '''[[http://mariovittone.com/2010/05/154/ Mario Vittone]]''', water survival expert

* In one ''Franchise/ArchieComics'' comic, Veronica wants to invoke a RescueRomance with a cute fisherman she sees while she and Betty are canoeing down a river. She overturns the canoe and starts flailing and screaming for help, which gets the fisherman to dive in and save her. As he pulls Veronica to shore he calls for Betty to hold on while he comes for her, only for Betty to snarkily note that the river is only waist-deep and she can easily walk out of it.

The splashing-and-screaming reaction - "aquatic distress" - ''does'' happen, and is also ''not'' to be ignored, but it's rare, often occurring when encountering strong currents, and almost never happens in a place like a pool. Kids in particular are noisy swimmers, and it's more worrying if they're quiet. This is especially true for very young children who still have a diving reflex: a small child who falls into water will simply hold their breath and sink. Toddlers have drowned in public pools with crowds of people around them.

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians'', [[spoiler: Jack Frost]] drops through thin ice and only flails for half a second, as the combination of freezing water and lack of air gets the better of him very quickly.

* ''{{Film/Titanic|1997}}'' is an aversion. Rose nearly gets dragged under by another swimmer trying to use her as a flotation device, and most of the victims actually die of hypothermia rather than drowning (most were wearing life vests that kept their heads above water, even in death). A deleted scene shows a man who is quick-witted enough to use a crate as a raft to get himself mostly out of the water and survives until he is rescued by fifth officer Lowe's lifeboat as a result.

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Photopia}}'', a work-at-home mom hears a splash, and when she looks outside, her daughter is floating face down in the pool. The game notes the mother's restraint in taking the stairs five at a time instead of throwing herself down the staircase.
[[/folder]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Creator/RoyLichtenstein http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a5b7dc2a3992b752a2c1b3c0ca3d1274.png]]]]

This article should be limited to aversions and {{egregious}} examples: tropers cannot be asked to tell if [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn4dUhX_E_k&t=2m40s King Graham's drowning animation]] is realistic enough, unless the process is depicted in detail and gotten wrong.

* ''Film/{{Titanic}}'' is an aversion. Rose nearly gets dragged under by another swimmer trying to use her as a flotation device, and most of the victims actually die of hypothermia rather than drowning (most were wearing life vests that kept their heads above water, even in death). A deleted scene shows a man who is quick-witted enough to use a crate as a raft to get himself mostly out of the water and survives until he is rescued by fifth officer Lowe's lifeboat as a result.

* In ''Film/RiseOfTheGuardians'', [[spoiler: Jack Frost]] drops through thin ice and only flails for half a second, as the combination of freezing water and lack of air gets the better of him very quickly.

->''"Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that [[TelevisionIsTryingToKillUs dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for]] is rarely seen in real life."''

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* In a short story by Bjorn Bjornsterne, called "The Father," a young man drowns after falling out of a boat. He struggles quietly for a few seconds, then rolls over on his back. As the body sinks to the ground and the bubbles stop rising his father realizes that his son has drowned.