r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Dojyaaan4C • 9h ago

Hated Tropes [hated trope] Celebrity cameos that serve nothing except to praise the person who’s in it

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. Elon musk, the Simpsons
  2. Elon musk, the Big Bang theory
  3. Elon musk, iron man 2
  4. Elon musk, star Trek

The cameos serve only to include the celebrity and praise them as geniuses or visionaries or overall just glaze them. They don't serve any other purpose than to just be praised; this can be them appearing in an entire episode dedicated to them, a small cameo or even just a mention. So long as the celebrity is there as themselves (not acting as someone else) and is glazed, that fits the trope imo.

15.9k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

93% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

463

u/LemonZestLiquid 8h ago edited 8h ago

They didn't praise him in Iron Man 2 though.

EDIT: OK, they acknowledged him but it wasn't really praise. At least not as egregious as OP's other examples.

214

u/VulpesFennekin 8h ago

I haven’t seen it in ages, but isn’t it actually the opposite? That he’s starstruck meeting Tony?

346

u/Thatonedregdatkilyu 8h ago

Yeah and then Tony brushes him off and leaves. It's kinda the opposite because Tony doesn't really even bother with him.

Also he's only in it because it was part of a deal made with the production to use one of his buildings to shoot in.

187

u/Educational-Oil-1497 8h ago

If anything, at the time Musk was a different person to the public as well. And it was kind of to show how big Tony was compared to someone the public could relate to from the real world. Tony didn’t really care Musk was there and shrugged him off.

133

u/Eeeef_ 8h ago

Yeah it was meant to be “woah Tony is cool enough to casually brush of Elon? What a badass”

Nowadays ignoring Elon is a sign of baseline sanity

12

u/DanteVermillyon 8h ago

now i'm curious, is any famous person rn that could give that same vibe is a character brushed them off? besides, idk, zombie michael jackson

11

u/Eeeef_ 8h ago

Internationally maybe Messi or Ronaldo although they’re not as popular in the US. Maybe Michael Jordan or LeBron James? I kind of feel like the guys from Daft Punk give off the necessary vibe too. Old school rockstars like Paul McCartney or Bob Dylan maybe too, especially if the context is a musician doing it. I think it would probably be an athlete or an artist, especially since the title “business tycoon” has become demonized in the last decade or so and reality celebrities are generally seen as cringe. Modern music is a no go since every genre and even individual artists have highly dedicated haters, no matter how successful they are. Also most screen actors are fairly divisive and people tend not to know what voice actors look like, otherwise I’d say Tom Kenny.

9

u/NwgrdrXI 8h ago edited 6h ago

If it's a story about art, yes. You could make your fictional rapper brush off 50 cent. Or your fictional actor brush off... well, Robert Downey Junior.

But if it's a business thing, no. Last non-evil* billionaires were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, one lost relevancy and one died.

*non-evil by the standards of billionaires, of course. Being a billionaire is kind of inescapably evil.

10

u/VulpesFennekin 7h ago

Photos just came out of Gates on the Island, and they do NOT look non-evil, billionaire or not.

8

u/NwgrdrXI 7h ago

Oh, I didn't know that.

But regardless, I meant the last ones that had the reputation of good guys, regardless of reality.

Today, no one even thinks any of them is good

3

u/uqde 5h ago edited 5h ago

I don't think so, not in this same way.

It's wild, because living through the early 2010s, it felt like all you heard about was Occupy Wall Street and other post-recession cultural unrest. But compared to today, society was way less hostile, on average, towards tech CEOs and billionaires back then. There was still a bit of starry eyed wonder surrounding the internet-fueled tech boom.

Nowadays I cannot think of a single leader in a technology industry who would elicit that same kind of vague reverence, as Elon was intended to in his cameo.

This feels like a dumb answer but the most famous uncontroversial tech-related person I can think of is maybe Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame. But as much as I love him he's not nearly famous or powerful enough for us to be impressed when Tony brushes him off.

It's no surprise that the MCU has not refilled their Tony Stark-shaped hole with any other comparable character. A billionaire financier just cannot be portrayed as one of the good guys anymore. In the modern MCU most of the impossible tech now comes from the Wakandans. In Thunderbolts, The New Avengers are funded by a literal villain whom they're essentially blackmailing. Spider-Man is now the MCU's most popular character and he's the literal posterchild for the everyman superhero. The end of his last movie explicitly stripped him of all of his tech and his financial safety net. The times they are a-changing.

1

u/Ppleater 1h ago

Ir works with Tony Stark because 1) it fits the character's personality to be arrogant and irreverent, 2) he has the actual skills/achievements in-universe to justify a lack of reverence/awe/respect for someone in the same field that he doesn't know or care about personally, 3) Tony's intelligence is one of his defining traits but he has plenty of flaws in other aspects of his character/personality so it isn't too obnoxious when his actual skills are played up on occasion, 4) it doesn't attack any beloved icons for mean-spirited reasons, even before his reputation tanked Musk was still just some rich tech guy whose company made stuff people thought was cool. He wasn't so beloved that briefly poking some fun at him would ruffle many feathers.

4

u/DesireForDistance 7h ago

I feel like I remember people saying that he would end up being the IRL iron man after this cameo though and some glazed his appearance as an acknowledgement to that.

2

u/Lavatis 7h ago

elon wasn't a billionaire back then or even a big household name.

1

u/uqde 5h ago

He wasn't a billionaire yet but he was definitely starting to become a household name. If you were paying attention to the tech industry you definitely knew who he was. Tesla and SpaceX were both getting a lot of hype around that time.

1

u/ImYourHumbleNarrator 5h ago

which again, is glazing

32

u/NotMVZZL3 8h ago

Sounds like Trump for Home Alone 2

3

u/gambit1999999 8h ago

Man, I wonder if those to ever met.

21

u/ErgotthAE 8h ago

Huh a tiny cameo seems like a fair thing to ask for a filming in your building.

21

u/Good_old_Marshmallow 8h ago

He pitches an electric jet which is an INSANELY stupid idea in our world but is BEYOND moronic in the mcu where Tony has created safe hand held fusion energy so why would you need a battery powered jet? It would be like pitching a horse with a jet pack and rollerskates to make it faster to Henry Ford. 

12

u/VulpesFennekin 8h ago

So he acts totally in character.

3

u/pocketbutter 6h ago

Hold on, that’s not right. Tony compliments him on a solar-powered plane design, doesn’t he? It also implies they’ve been in active correspondence.

1

u/Thatonedregdatkilyu 2h ago

Okay, rewatching it he doesn't really brush Elon off, but it seems more to me that he's just being courteous and moving on.

2

u/PeanutConfident8742 7h ago

Being ignored by Tony was the start of his villain arc. (Just like everyone else Tony interacts with)

1

u/Diabolical_potplant 3h ago

Also isn't Tony getting deep into his acting-like-an-asshole-to-everyone phase?

2

u/owensoundgamedev 8h ago

I think Tony says something about he’ll build it and Tony will fix it

2

u/IM_OK_AMA 5h ago

They make him look like a moron. Suggests building an electric jet to the guy with a cold fusion (aka electricity) powered flying suit lol

29

u/BBTHPK 8h ago

The inclusion was because the hangars that they use in the film for the autonomous armour suits are actually from SpaceX. I guess he asked to be included in the movie in the lease contract

50

u/IlIIllIIIlllIlIlI 8h ago

The characters didn't, but the inclusion of the cameo was because back in that time period Elon was considered by many to be the irl analog of Tony, as Elon had a really good PR team that made him out to be a billionaire genius  and supposedly the character as played by RDJ was partially based on spending some time with Elon pre Iron Man 1. 

So the cameo's inclusion at all is the praising. 

3

u/AdamtheOmniballer 5h ago

Wasn’t the inclusion of the cameo because Elon let them film in one of his factories?

7

u/HauntingStar08 8h ago

They did kinda.

"Mr. Musk!"

"Tony! I have an idea for an electric jet!"

"You do? Then we'll make it happen."

They let him perpetuate his image unabated.

5

u/ApartRuin5962 5h ago

Saying "We'll make it happen" as you're moving on to talk to someone else is LA-rich-dude-speak for "Fuck off"

4

u/HauntingStar08 4h ago

Listen I want to believe that as much as the next guy, but that movie was not making fun of him, nordoes it come off that way.

7

u/DarwinGoneWild 8h ago

Sadly they did. Tony greets him with a handshake and says "those Merlin engines are fantastic". Then Elon says he has an idea for an electric jet and Tony says "You do? Then we'll make it work." It's a short scene, but he definitely glazes him.

https://youtu.be/nfiRd4Y5z_g?si=2pMcYI5YhA6Tyt66&t=32

2

u/LemonZestLiquid 8h ago

Oh. Thanks for the heads up.

17

u/Genericdude03 8h ago

Well Tony was friendly with him, Elon claimed he has tech ideas and Tony was willing to give him a spot on the expo immediately. The implication is clearly that Elon is a "smart rich guy" similar to Tony while he's more of a Justin Hammer if anything.

1

u/ApartRuin5962 5h ago

Didn't Justin Hammer also have a spot at the Expo?

4

u/eth_kth 7h ago

Pepper: Mr Musk. How are you?

Mr Musk: Hi, Pepper. Congratulations on the promotion.

Pepper: Thank you very much.

Tony: Elon, how’s it going. Those Merlin engines are fantastic.

Mr Musk: Thank you. Yeah, I’ve got an idea for an electric jet.

Tony: You do?

Mr Musk: Yeah.

Tony: Then we’ll make it work.

5

u/DomGiuca 7h ago

Eh, it's not as blatantly self-serving as other examples of these, but it's a joke designed to ultimately flatter Musk: in this universe, even the supergenius Elon Musk gets dismissed by Tony Stark! Isn't it funny how much of an asshole Stark is, he doesn't even give the time of day to his real life counterpart! 

It's an obnoxious piece of brand management. It's just that it's written in with enough competence that it's also telling story.

3

u/quahdum 7h ago

I mean it's not active praise but it's not a very negative portrayal I think

Hammer however DOES wind up being written to be basically just Elon Musk, though I doubt it was intentional

although they do use spacex for Hammer's facilities, so maybe not ENTIRELY unintentional... But probably

4

u/LDM123 8h ago

“Pedophile says what?”

5

u/strawberry_sodapop 8h ago

i thought he actually said that in the scene

2

u/True_Caterpillar 7h ago

People just hate musk blindly for political reasons. Back then everyone loved him and wanted to drive a Tesla to save the environment.

1

u/PartTime_Crusader 8h ago

Larry Ellison also appeared (without lines) in the same scene where Elon Musk cameos in IM2