celluloid
1
8.8
- adjective
- /ˈsɛljʊˌlɔɪd/
:
artificial
- The protagonist's personality was a celluloid trope, lacking any real depth or originality.
Examples
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Plain crazy when it came to that one subject, her celluloid self, the great Norma Desmond.
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To learn more about these stereotypes, I refer readers to the film The Celluloid Closet (1995).
Academic text (2014) -
You mean a celluloid legend, surely.
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Most guys I know would mortgage their mother to ride the celluloid trail.
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It's me and you, making our celluloid dreams come true.
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Thank you, Dr. Freud, and I do so appreciate it, coming from the walking illustration of celluloid integrity.
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Heaven forbid that we should base our characters on those printed or celluloid personages others have created.
Academic text (2010) -
He isn't huge, not an overwhelming presence, contrary to the usual celluloid interpretation of Black prisoners.
Fiction book (1999) -
Shadow puppets of the machine age, they embody the existential shallowness of celluloid modernity.
Academic text (2003) -
Except for its rather startling ending, Carter's story has much in common with gothic fiction and its celluloid offspring: the paranoid woman's film and the horror flick.
Academic text (1995)
Synonyms
103
4.4
Made by people to copy something natural or not genuine
1
6.5
Very simple and flat, not believable and without depth
How Stereotypical
Surface Forms
Etymology
Celluloid as an adjective comes from the film material and the simple, dramatic pictures made on it. So when someone or something is called celluloid, it means it feels 'artificial' or 'stereotyped', like a figure from a movie rather than a real, complex person.