History CondemnedByHistory / Literature

* Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' was a best-seller in 1740. Its psychological analysis was revolutionary for its time and remains important to those studying the history of novels. It was a ''huge'' cult hit in its era, spawning trading cards and seeing [[BabyNameTrendStarter many people name their daughters after the heroine]]. However, its story[[labelnote:In summary...]]Pamela Andrews is a 15-year-old maidservant who repeatedly resists her employer's efforts to seduce or rape her. Said employer repents and eventually marries her, despite their class differences and the whole "AttemptedRape" thing. Pamela then helps reconcile her new husband with his illegitimate daughter from a previous relationship and raises the girl as her own daughter.[[/labelnote]] has not aged well at all, and its once-revolutionary focus on the characters' thoughts and feelings over their actions [[OnceOriginalNowCommon has since become commonplace]]. Many people nowadays take the side of Richardson's rival, Henry Fielding, who never liked the novel and argued that its morally perfect main lead, tale of LoveRedeems, and [[{{Anvilicious}} spouting morals with as much subtlety as a stack of bricks]] made the novel virtually impossible to connect to. Fielding would go on to write a ''vicious'' TakeThat, ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Apology_for_the_Life_of_Mrs._Shamela_Andrews An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews]]'', in which, among other things, the focus of ''Pamela'' on the heroine's "virtue" (read: {{virgin|Tension}}ity) is mocked by having characters obsess over Shamela's "vartue". Richardson's other main novel, ''{{Literature/Clarissa}}'', has fared better; it even holds the record for the longest English language novel.

* ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'' by Creator/StephenieMeyer is an interesting example of this trope. While it ''always'' had a huge horde of haters, it was nonetheless one of the most popular and successful franchises of the 2000s and early '10s, especially amongst its target audience of adolescent and teenage girls thanks to it being a ParanormalRomance featuring two [[PrettyBoy attractive male characters]] (a vampire and werewolf specifically) fighting over a GirlNextDoor who was written in [[VanillaProtagonist such a manner]] that readers could easily step into her shoes. The movies certainly helped the series' popularity by doubling down on the [[BestKnownForTheFanservice fanservice-y parts]] of the books. However, once the big "''Twilight'' craze" finally died down, [[FleetingDemographic its demographic grew up]] and gained a better understanding of how relationships work, and views on topics like consent and sexual harassment became hot-button issues, many fans began to look back at the series and find ''major'' problems with it. The heroine's relationships with both of her love interests came across in hindsight as extremely toxic, uncomfortable, and even creepy to the point of verging on RomanticizedAbuse, arguably setting a bad example for its target demographic. What's more, beyond the budding romance, many former fans came to regard the writing as bland and [[{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious]], resulting in many of them turning on the series and joining the haters. Finally, the series also attracted criticism for its questionable depiction of the Quileute people, an actual UsefulNotes/{{Native American|s}} ethnic group from the state of Washington who were not only [[InjunCountry heavily stereotyped]] in the series but didn't see any profit from the CashCowFranchise. Nowadays, one would be hard-pressed to find many people who will admit in public to openly, unironically liking the series. While the books and films did come in for a minor reappraisal over time out of a belief that [[CriticalBacklash the backlash was overblown]], even many of their defenders will still describe them as SoBadItsGood rather than ''genuinely'' good and admit that their critics had good points. About the most positive thing people are willing to say about the series is that it catered to a female demographic at a time when the entertainment industry was mostly male-dominated and inspired other, better YoungAdultLiterature series such as ''Literature/TheHungerGames''.