Basic Trope: Someone needs clothing, so they take some from a clothesline or somewhere similar.
- Straight: Alice winds up underclothed, so she takes some from a nearby clothesline.
- Exaggerated: Alice needs several outfits, so she steals clothing from all the clotheslines in town.
- Downplayed: Alice borrows one garment from the clothesline but gives it back when she's done.
- Justified:
- Alice got stuck outside naked somehow (e.g., she was tricked into going outside naked and got locked outside of her house, she changed into a form that she could no longer wear clothes in, someone stole her clothes, etc.) and is doing this to avoid flashing everyone.
- Alice isn't naked, but her current clothing would be inappropriate for the circumstance for any number of reasons, so she's just finding clothing from wherever is convenient.
- Alice had just committed a robbery and needs new clothing to prevent herself from being spotted.
- Inverted: Alice finds an empty clothesline, and for some reason strips naked and puts all her clothing on the clothesline.
- Subverted:
- Alice needs (different) clothing, and she sees what she needs on a nearby clothesline, but she doesn't take it.
- It's Alice's own clothesline.
- Double Subverted:
- Instead, she takes some from another clothesline.
- But her housemate's clothing.
- Parodied:
- Alice attempts to go into someone's house and steal from the dryer.
- Alice steals clotheslines.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice takes clothing from some clotheslines and puts it on others.
- Alice takes a garment from every other clothesline she passes.
- Averted:
- Alice doesn't steal from a clothesline.
- There are no clotheslines.
- Enforced: It's a Biopic of Alice and she really did steal clothes from clotheslines after winding up naked outside on the day depicted. It wasn't the most noteworthy thing she did that day by any stretch of the imagination, but it did have an impact on such.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: Bob takes Alice out, then absconds with her clothes in the middle of a residential neighbourhood with clotheslines everywhere.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Bob spots Alice stealing clothing and puts a stop to it.
- Alice sees a clothesline and is about to steal from it, but later decides to get clothing from another source instead.
- Carol spots a naked Alice stealing clothes off a clothesline. She stops her and either chases her off or gives her some clothes or a Modesty Towel to wear.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Alice is naked in an unfamiliar part of town in one scene, and the movie cuts away from her. Then, in her next appearance, she's home and wearing mismatched, mostly ill-fitting clothes that nobody in her household has been shown to own.
Back to Clothesline Stealing
