walking and talking, as well as what it takes to make a good supercut

I don't normally like supercuts, and I think it will become clear why as I explain why this might be one of the best I've seen in the handful I've bothered to watch.

For one, this one doesn't just assemble the best snippets that happen to fall into a seemingly arbitrary category, as so many supercuts do. Compare the walk-and-talk supercut above to the one below, "160 Greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger Quotes." The Schwarzenegger supercut has some highlights, but it's hard to learn much about how movies work from them. Okay, so maybe you could guess that Schwarzenegger is your go-to man if you want the hero to make a yoke appropriate to the manner in which some creep (or giant crocodile?) is about to die. But even this conclusion is qualified, since half of his quotes aren't even particularly punchy. There's just not much to get or think about here.

A bit of a side note: Even if I like the walk-and-talk supercut better than most, it's not because of what Slacktory supposes it demonstrates. The post that accompanied it suggested that it proves that many shows have "meta-walked-and-talked," but this just abuses the word "meta." Being "meta" isn't just a character talking about what's happening. If that were true, every time someone on TV said, "Look at me, I'm eating a sandwich," before stuffing some baloney in his mouth, it would be a meta-situation.

Clearly it wouldn't. To be truly meta, there has to be some wink to the audience, usually not explicit but obvious enough that it won't completely escape attention. By this criterion, there are only a few meta clips here: a) the House clip, b) the 30 Rock clips (because they take the man who has written so many walk-and-talks in real life, Aaron Sorkin, on a walk-and-talk), and c) the Funny or Die bit. The House clip is the only remarkable one, really, since House is a drama and doesn't tend to make those kinds of jokes. But it's no surprise 30 Rock is meta here, since arguably half the show is a meta-joke (more on that in an upcoming post commemorating 30 Rock's end), and the Funny or Die clip is really just a spoof of The West Wing anyway, and spoofs are almost by definition meta. So "meta-walking-and-talking" is not actually much of a thing, just as meta-anything is not much of a thing.

Walk & Talk - The West Wing Reunion from Martin Sheen

Back to the main point, though: The trope the supercut focuses on is actually worth noticing, unlike so many others. A lot of supercuts use a similar word or phrase, used often between various shows and films. But all they seem to demonstrate is that a lot of films are poorly written or that some phrases are ubiquitous but unremarkable.

But the walk-and-talk is a worthy tool that deserves attention. It's common, but for good reason: It shows characters in action, and scrolling backgrounds are more interesting than static ones. Also, it often implies an intimate situation where two are purposely excluding everyone else, creating a kind of quickie intimacy. They're not just walking — they're walking away from other people. Finally, of course, the walk-and-talk shows that at least one of them is too busy to do only one or the other, and looking purposeful and occupied is attractive in real life and, by no accident, on TV.

The only clips included are ones where people actually mention the walking and the talking. Why's that? Probably just because otherwise it wouldn't be obvious that your attention should be on the walking and talking, since that's such a normal activity. It's not meta, but it's worth noticing.