History Main / AllIssuesArePoliticalIssues

* Hermione Granger is prone to this in HarryPotter. Most memorably, there was a long-running subplot of her being a twit about the issue of sentient-rights for [[SlaveRace house-elves]]; because she was the only one who cared and Rowling wrote her treating the issue idiotically, the fandom for the most part concluded that it was not a real issue.
** The moral question with house-elves was apparently not whether the system was okay but that people oughtn't to abuse it, since it was cruel to take advantage of absolute loyalty and submission.

This trope occurs when a character starts a political discussion on an issue which the other characters don't feel to be political at all. ('Political' here is used as an umbrella term for 'political, philosophical, economic, cultural...' - in short, everything people can get into a more or less intellectual argument about).

For example, AliceAndBob are on vacation in France, and go to visit the Palace of Versailles. Bob marvels at the regal splendour of the centuries-old palace, when suddenly, Alice exclaims: 'Just think of all the misery and oppression the French people were put through so a small elite could live in such luxury! No wonder they [[TheFrenchRevolution revolted]].' Bob (and every other visitor in earshot who happens to speak Alice's language) stares at her dumbfounded, then mutters something along the lines of 'I hadn't looked at it from ''that'' angle before.'

A few weeks later, back home, Alice and Bob are out shopping when they come across a seemingly innocent billboard for a certain line of women's clothing. Alice makes a remark about how the ad is degrading to women, leading Bob to ask, 'What do you mean, degrading to women?' Alice then goes off on a long tract about the ad's supposed misogynistic tendencies.

In both cases, Alice has employed this trope: she has called attention to the political side of something of which Bob, and most other people in their [[TheVerse Verse]], were hardly aware that it ''has'' a political side.

Of course, this can be PlayedForLaughs if the issue in question is silly enough.

Please bear in mind that, for non-RealLife examples, whether something fits this trope or not is determined by '''the reactions of ''other characters''''', not the reactions of the audience. Thus, if one character does this with an issue the audience would also feel to be political, it can still fit this trope if the other characters don't see it that way; and if most or all of the characters in a given setting see the political side of an issue which the audience considers non-political, it doesn't fit this trope. In other words, the disagreement "is this political or not" needs to occur between one character and the rest, not between the characters and the audience.

Not to be confused with WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical, which is about the audience seeing a political message in a ''work'' which wasn't intended to convey one. Supertrope of EverythingIsRacist. Related to WindmillPolitical.

!!Examples:

[[AC:{{Advertising}}]]
* Inverted and deliberately invoked in a [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zruGBWLk9s8 series of adverts]] for the UK's Electoral Commission (aimed at increasing voter turnout) which had a man who "didn't do politics" having to give up all conversations since everything, no matter how mundane, has a political connection somewhere.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

* In ''{{Zwartboek}}'', there is a scene in which a group of Dutch [[LaResistance resistance fighters]] drinks to the Queen; one of them refuses to drink to her, because he is a Communist (and thus opposed to the monarchy). The others don't quite see what the big deal is. This scene was probably meant to symbolise the considerable tensions that arose within the RealLife Dutch resistance movement due to ideological differences.

[[AC:LiveActionTelevision]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* Bernard Marx from ''Literature/BraveNewWorld'' does this constantly. He is very much on the positive side of the sliding scale (i.e. the OnlySaneMan variety).
* Similarly, Guy Montag from ''{{Fahrenheit 451}}''.
* Hermione Granger is prone to this in HarryPotter. Most memorably, there was a long-running subplot of her being a twit about the issue of sentient-rights for [[SlaveRace house-elves]]; because she was the only one who cared and Rowling wrote her treating the issue idiotically, the fandom for the most part concluded that it was not a real issue.

[[AC:{{Theatre}}]]
* ''FiddlerOnTheRoof'' has [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qHcZIlMSt8 "A political question - the question of marriage"]] and "Everything is political."

[[AC:{{Webcomics}}]]
* In ''[[MenageA3 Ménage à 3]]'', this trope is parodied in a FlashBack in which [[{{Tsundere}} Yuki]] calls a banana flambé 'oppressive' and the waiter who is trying to serve her this dessert a 'patriarchal phallocrat.' It's parody because she does this out of her "phallophobia", not out of any genuine feminist conviction.
* [[GranolaGirl Tajel]] from ''{{PHD}}'' often does this.
* Played for laughs in ''SluggyFreelance'' [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20020106 here]].
--> '''Gwynn''': Anyone want to split an order of buffalo fingers?
--> '''[[CloudCuckoolander Torg]]''': You know, the Native American Indians used to use every part of the buffalo. Nothing went to waste. Then the white man came and killed off whole herds of buffalo for only their fingers!
--> '''Gwynn''': I'll have the spinach quiche.
--> '''Riff''': Don't get Torg started on the sociological ramifications of wimpy egg-products!

[[AC:RealLife]]
* GeorgeOrwell - [[TropeNamer from whom this trope's name is a direct quote]] - was truly notorious for this. His friend Cyril Connolly once said about him that he 'couldn't blow his nose without moralizing on conditions in the handkerchief industry.'
** Case in point: Orwell managed to end an essay about ''toads'' on a political note.
* In the "science wars" of TheEighties and TheNineties, the supposed neutrality and objectivity of the exact sciences was called into question; in other words, the assumption that the exact sciences were "non-political" was challenged.
* Any country in a period of heavy political polarisation tends to do this, from the point of view of other countries. The current "culture wars" in the U.S., in which hardly ''any'' issue gets left out of the big "Liberal" vs. "Conservative" conflict, are a particularly [[{{Egregious}} egregious]] example.

** An oft-quoted feminist slogan is "the personal is political."

There is a sliding scale as to how sympathetically this is portrayed. On the negative extreme, Alice is an annoying pedant, making SeriousBusiness out of a trivial matter; on the positive extreme, she's the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the setting, and everyone around her is shallow and/or uncaring. Can lead to [[GoodIsBoring Good Is Boring]], as having a political opinion [[YourMileageMayVary might]] look [[RuleOfCool less cool]] than [[TheSlacker not caring]].

* In the "science wars" of TheEighties and TheNineties, the supposed neutrality and objectivity of the exact sciences was called into question; in other words, the assumption that the exact sciences were "non-political" was challenged. YourMileageMayVary on whether this was right or not.

* In ''ReservoirDogs'', Mr. Pink gets an infamous EstablishingCharacterMoment when he explains the political philosophy behind tipping, something the other characters had always done unquestioningly.

* Marxism and the various theories and ideologies that have derived from it tend to adopt this approach; according to these perspectives, nothing can be truly apolitical since everything is informed by politics to some degree or other. According to this viewpoint, to be apolitical is essentially the same as tacitly condoning the status quo, since even if you disagree with it by not speaking up in the name of 'neutrality' or being 'apolitical' it simply means that nothing's going to change about it. As such, many Marxist thinkers tend to disdain the supposedly 'apolitical' even more than they disdain their opponents, since their opponents are at least taking a position on things.

* Marxism and the various theories and ideologies that have derived from it tend to adopt this approach; according to these perspectives, nothing can be truly apolitical since everything is informed by politics to some degree or other. According to this viewpoint, to be apolitical is essentially the same as tacitly condoning the status quo; even if you disagree with the status quo, by not speaking up against it in the name of 'neutrality' or being 'apolitical' it simply means that nothing's going to change about it. As such, many Marxist thinkers tend to disdain the supposedly 'apolitical' even more than they disdain their opponents, since their opponents are at least taking a position on things.

There is a sliding scale as to how sympathetically this is portrayed. On the negative extreme, Alice is an annoying pedant, making SeriousBusiness out of a trivial matter; on the positive extreme, she's the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the setting, and everyone around her is shallow and/or uncaring. Can lead to [[GoodIsBoring Good Is Boring]], as having a political opinion [[YourMileageMayVary might]] be seen [[RuleOfCool less cool]] than [[TheSlacker not caring]].

There is a sliding scale as to how sympathetically this is portrayed. On the negative extreme, Alice is an annoying pedant, making SeriousBusiness out of a trivial matter; on the positive extreme, she's the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the setting, and everyone around her is shallow and/or uncaring. Can lead to [[GoodIsBoring Good Is Boring]].

There is a sliding scale as to how sympathetically this is portrayed. On the negative extreme, Alice is an annoying pedant, making SeriousBusiness out of a trivial matter; on the positive extreme, she's the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the setting, and everyone around her is shallow and/or uncaring. Can lead to ''GoodIsBoring''.

There is a sliding scale as to how sympathetically this is portrayed. On the negative extreme, Alice is an annoying pedant, making SeriousBusiness out of a trivial matter; on the positive extreme, she's the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] of the setting, and everyone around her is shallow and/or uncaring.

* Inverted by the Penguin in the [[Series/{{Batman}} 1960s]] ''[[Series/{{Batman}} Batman]]'' [[Series/{{Batman}} television series]], when he runs for Mayor of Gotham City; his campaign features 'plenty of girls and bands and slogans and lots of hoopla, but remember, no politics. Issues confuse people.'

* Hermione Granger is prone to this in HarryPotter. Most memorably, there was a long-running subplot of her being a twit about the issue of sentient-rights for house-elves; because she was the only one who cared and Rowling wrote her treating the issue idiotically, the fandom for the most part concluded that it was not a real issue. The moral question with house-elves was apparently not whether the system was okay but that people oughtn't to abuse it, since it was cruel to take advantage of absolute loyalty and submission.

* Other branches of social justice activism tend to verge into this territory quite a bit - e.g. disability rights activists complaining about aversions of DisabledCharacterDisabledActor. Those who don't think seriously about disability rights will most likely not think about the issue from that angle and will therefore not conceive of the idea that there's anything wrong with having a person who is nondisabled play someone who is impaired in a certain way. The social justice blogosphere refers to this as 'privilege'.
** Keep in mind that (most) disability rights activists don't think you're automaticaly ableist if you're able-bodied and play a character in a wheelchair. It's just pointing out the issue of disabled actors often not being allowed into the film industry.
** Which is ironic, as the requirement that someone has to be disabled to play a disabled role can lead to UnfortunateImplications.

* Feminism has a tendency to do this. The most well-known example is calling attention to the use of male pronouns when referring to human beings in general; decades ago, everybody did this without much thought, but then feminists pointed out that it wasn't very fair towards women.
* Like feminism, other branches of social justice activism tend to verge into this territory quite a bit - e.g. disability rights activists complaining about aversions of DisabledCharacterDisabledActor. Those who don't think seriously about disability rights will most likely not think about the issue from that angle and will therefore not conceive of the idea that there's anything wrong with having a person who is nondisabled play someone who is impaired in a certain way. The social justice blogosphere refers to this as 'privilege'.

* Bernard Marx from ''BraveNewWorld'' does this constantly. He is very much on the positive side of the sliding scale (i.e. the OnlySaneMan variety).

Not to be confused with WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical, which is about the audience seeing a political message in a ''work'' which wasn't intended to convey one. Related to WindmillPolitical.

* Like feminism, other branches of social justice activism tend to verge into this territory quite a bit - e.g. disability rights activists complaining about aversions of DisabledCharacterDisabledActor. Those who don't think seriously about disability rights will most likely not think about the issue from that angle and will therefore not conceive of the idea that there's anything wrong with having a person who is nondisabled play someone who is impaired in a certain way.

** Presumably disabled people think seriously about disability rights? And yet that is one thing I have never in my entire life dreamed of grumbling about.

!Examples: