Basic Trope: Characters are told to 'act natural', as in 'ordinary', but instead they act completely the opposite.
- Straight: Undercover police officers Alice and Bob are trying to track down a criminal. They try to act natural, but instead, they whistle and walk in such an exaggerated way, that everybody around them gets suspicious.
- Exaggerated: Bob and Alice try to act natural, but instead they start to talk gibberish, read a newspaper upside-down and fiddle with their hands. Everybody gets suspicious, obviously.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob try to act natural, and they do it perfectly, except when Alice mentions whether they have acted right or not.
- Alice and Bob seem overly formal for what is supposed to be a casual chat.
- Justified:
- Bob and Alice are not good actors.
- They're impersonating people whose "natural" behaviour is actually wacky.
- Bob and Alice are under significant stress and their behavior is altered by their nervousness.
- Inverted:
- Bob and Alice try to act unnatural, instead they act very natural and normal.
- Bob and Alice are so good at it they manage to take it to Refuge in Audacity levels. They walk right into secure areas and take the prototypes while not even remotely plausibly dressed all while making casual but vague work-related conversation. Fifteen minutes after they have left the veteran special operative guards do a Double Take.
- Subverted: Bob and Alice try to act natural, and they had a little problem at first, until they finally act correctly.
- Double Subverted: Before they began to behave in such an odd way to act natural.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob literally try to act natural, by stripping naked, walking on all fours and chewing grass, like cows.
- Zig-Zagged: Their result of acting natural is filled with 'natural' acts and 'unnatural' acts.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob try to act natural, and do so perfectly.
- No one tries to act natural.
- Enforced: "We need some comedy here, and we always know a good one is when they try to act natural, but never succeeds!"
- Lampshaded: "Gee, that sure is an odd, exaggerated way to act 'natural'!"
- Invoked: Bob and Alice try to act natural (and fail) to make the criminal less careful.
- Exploited:
- The criminal realizes the presence of Bob and Alice, so he tries to run away before they catch him.
- Charles knows the issues Alice and Bob have with 'acting normally' and uses them as the surface con in a Kansas City Shuffle.
- Defied: "Bob, we can't act natural! Everybody knows it's way harder to act natural than be natural!"
- Discussed: "If this is some kind of comedy movie or something, trying to act natural just makes us look outrageously stupid, right?"
- Conversed: "In these kinds of shows, they always fail to act naturally."
- Deconstructed: Alice and Bob fail to catch the criminals, who get everything they want, and they lose their jobs for their failure.
Back to Acting Unnatural. Quick, act natural! He's coming! *everyone stands on a straight line*
