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-->Bender (on TV): Try this, kids at home!
-->(on-screen subtitles): Don't try this, kids at home.
-->(on-screen subtitles): Don't try this, kids at home.
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** Later, during his speech against himself, Bender gives the following golden lines:
--->'''Bender''': Do smoking and drinking on TV make me look cool? Of course! What about committing crimes and violence? Again, the answer is yes. But do we really want to teach our children these things?
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* ''JohnnyDangerously'' a gangster movie parody pokes fun at this with a deliberate BrokenAesop. The title character uses his life story to convince a young [[ItMakesSenseInContext puppy thief]] that "crime doesn't pay"... and then has him hop in his expensive car with his beautiful gangster's moll wife and confess to the audience "OK, maybe it pays a ''little''."
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* ''JohnnyDangerously'' a gangster movie parody pokes fun at this with a deliberate BrokenAesop. The title character uses his life story to convince a young [[ItMakesSenseInContext puppy thief]] that "crime doesn't pay"... and then has him hop in his expensive car with his beautiful gangster's moll wife and confess to the audience "OK, maybe it pays a ''little''."
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* ''TheSopranos'' was even MORE realistic and de-glamorized than ''Goodfellas''. It {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that mobsters love ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas''. Guess who loved it?? And many viewers who weren't gangsters also missed the point and saw Tony and crew as heroes and anyone who ratted on them as deserving of death.
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* ''TheSopranos'' was even MORE realistic and de-glamorized than ''Goodfellas''. It {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that mobsters love ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas''. Guess who loved it?? And many viewers who weren't gangsters also missed the point and saw Tony and crew as heroes and anyone who ratted on them as deserving of death.
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* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' is another ''Apocalypse Now'' and ''Jarhead'' to some - the marines are very obviously committing war crimes, but that didn't stop some people from enjoying that.
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* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' is another ''Apocalypse Now'' and ''Jarhead'' to some - the marines are very obviously committing war crimes, but that didn't stop some people from enjoying that. It probably doesn't help that the film spends the first hour insulting us for daring to be born Human, into a warlike species that abuses natural resources...then preaches the virtues of the Na'vi, a warlike species that mindrape animals into serving them.
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*** Except at the end of the sequel, when a recruiter calls a newborn male infant "new meat for the grinder."
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*** Except Even at the end of the sequel, when a recruiter calls jokes about a newborn male infant as being "new meat for the grinder."
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** Of course, Kubrick had brutally averted this with his earlier film PathsOfGlory. Don't be fooled by the title, the whole movie is about [[spoiler: a general having three innocent men executed in an effort to get promoted]], and even before that it's established that the generals are complete idiots, one of whom [[spoiler: tried to order his artillery to ''fire on their own men'']]. Then of course before all that we get a few scenes on the battlefield that include a soldier amongst a three-man patrol accidently getting killed by a grenade thrown by ''one of his own comrades'', and then the brutal scene where the soldiers attempt to take the Anthill and get forced to retreat.
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** Of course, Kubrick had brutally averted already tried to avert this with his earlier film PathsOfGlory. Don't be fooled by the title, the whole movie is about [[spoiler: a general having three innocent men executed in an effort to get promoted]], and even before that it's established that the generals are complete idiots, one of whom [[spoiler: tried to order his artillery to ''fire on their own men'']]. Then of course before all that we get a few scenes on the battlefield that include a soldier amongst a three-man patrol accidently getting killed by a grenade thrown by ''one of his own comrades'', and then the brutal scene where the soldiers attempt to take the Anthill and get forced to retreat.
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* ''Jarhead'' starts like this, then focuses on the tedium of life in the Marine Corps, a lot of sitting around and waiting, punctuated with occasional moment of EverythingTryingToKillYou.
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* ''Jarhead'' starts like this, then focuses tries to avert this by focusing on the tedium ''tedium'' of life in the Marine Corps, a lot of sitting around and waiting, punctuated with occasional moment of EverythingTryingToKillYou.
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* On CloneHigh, the Raisin Council invokes this trope by having Johnny Hardcore (Jack Black as an InkSuitActor) tell kids NOT to smoke raisins, or else they will become raisin-addicted cool rock stars like himself. Then they provide The Pusher to sell them raisins. The logical conclusion, of course, is a WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs anvilicious parody of DrugsAreBad episodes.
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* During the ColdWar, several Eastern European [[LaResistance resistance groups]] did this intentionally during the 60's to avoid government censorship. Instead of releasing propaganda directly, they distributed newspapers describing the treasonous publications [[DirtyCommunists their fine leaders]] had put down, refuted, or nipped in the bud. Of course, those publications were described in ''excruciating'' detail.
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* Prohibition. During the 1920's, when alcohol was outlawed in the US, some wineries would sell grape juice in wine bottles, and if you peeled off the label it had instructions on the back that basically said "don't follow these instructions or this grape juice will turn into wine".
** According to some historians, the makers of Vine-Glo (a grape juice concentrate sold during Prohibition) sent demonstrators out to stores to show how easy it was to convert the block into refreshing and legal grape juice. Those demonstrators ''also'' showed exactly what you should not do, lest your grape juice "accidentally" turn into wine.
** According to some historians, the makers of Vine-Glo (a grape juice concentrate sold during Prohibition) sent demonstrators out to stores to show how easy it was to convert the block into refreshing and legal grape juice. Those demonstrators ''also'' showed exactly what you should not do, lest your grape juice "accidentally" turn into wine.
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* David Hume intentionally used this in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.'' The opening and closing say that Cleanthes, the most orthodox proponent of religion, clearly wins the argument. In between those, he loses every point and the skeptical character of Philo carries the day.
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Note that this trope is rarely ever done intentionally, and as such, can't really be averted. It can happen, for example, when a WarIsHell movie accidentally makes war seem awesome. But a WarIsHell movie that's actually, well, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hellish]], is just a WarIsHell movie that's doing a better job getting its message across.
to:
Note that this trope is rarely ever '''never''' done intentionally, and as such, can't really be averted. It can happen, for example, when a WarIsHell movie accidentally makes war seem awesome. But a WarIsHell movie that's actually, well, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hellish]], is just a WarIsHell movie that's doing a better job getting its message across.
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Sometimes this is [[StealthCigaretteCommercial actually done on purpose]], as a way of GettingCrapPastTheRadar. A very common trick in {{picaresque}}s (like ''DonGiovanni'') is to have a flashy VillainProtagonist who is the coolest character in the story, wins at absolutely everything, and who the audience roots for due to {{Rule of Cool}} -- but then they get killed and sent to {{Hell}} in the last two minutes, and the writers say that "See, we're not supposed to root for them."
Similarly, anti-Catholic (or anti-Freemason, anti-Communist, etc.) conspiracy theory pamphlets in 19th Century USA often used this as an excuse to indulge in either torture porn or just plain porn. Step-by-step descriptions of convent orgies (which would normally lead to arrest under obscenity law) are okay when it's [[{{Demonization}} describing what the enemy (supposedly) does]]. The moral is more or less tacked on as a way of getting to show all manner of violence and sleaze.
The modern version of the deliberate case is probably "{{true crime}}" accounts of {{serial killer}}s, where the fan base never goes "oh that's so gross," but "oh that's so gross... I want to hear more!" Also, any news account of [[IfItBleedsItLeads a violent killing spree]], or of the [[YouCanPanicNow DANGEROUS SEXY NEW FAD]] that could be corrupting your daughters! Naturally, one year they had [[HotterAndSexier extensive spring break "footage"]] while all the while decrying these SEXY YOUNG STRUMPETS!
Most likely, this is the ''other'' major factor - besides mere reactance (what ReversePsychology plays upon) - of why the ForbiddenFruit is so tempting.
Similarly, anti-Catholic (or anti-Freemason, anti-Communist, etc.) conspiracy theory pamphlets in 19th Century USA often used this as an excuse to indulge in either torture porn or just plain porn. Step-by-step descriptions of convent orgies (which would normally lead to arrest under obscenity law) are okay when it's [[{{Demonization}} describing what the enemy (supposedly) does]]. The moral is more or less tacked on as a way of getting to show all manner of violence and sleaze.
The modern version of the deliberate case is probably "{{true crime}}" accounts of {{serial killer}}s, where the fan base never goes "oh that's so gross," but "oh that's so gross... I want to hear more!" Also, any news account of [[IfItBleedsItLeads a violent killing spree]], or of the [[YouCanPanicNow DANGEROUS SEXY NEW FAD]] that could be corrupting your daughters! Naturally, one year they had [[HotterAndSexier extensive spring break "footage"]] while all the while decrying these SEXY YOUNG STRUMPETS!
Most likely, this is the ''other'' major factor - besides mere reactance (what ReversePsychology plays upon) - of why the ForbiddenFruit is so tempting.
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See also EvilIsCool, EvilIsSexy, and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything.
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See also EvilIsCool, EvilIsSexy, StealthCigaretteCommercial and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything.
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* Fable III has a morality system like the others. The system completely breaks when you are forced to raise funds to save civilians. The kingdom has 6.5 million people and they can be saved at the cost of one gold each (covenient). So that means if you give 10 gold to a begger it is a morally good act but if you put it into saving 10 lives it is morally netrual. The biggest problem comes when you can choose to build a brothel. The net profit will same 1.5 million people but it is considered immoral. Why is this relevent here? Because every load screen shows you the projected casualtys. Saving a comunity of hippys or 300 000 peoples lives? The whole section teaches that being a tyrant is the way to save your people... well that or buy every property in the kindom and rent them out which could be argued is also a form of ecconomic tyrany.
* In ''Pokémon'', both the games and the anime, treating Pokémon as tools is "wrong". The evil teams and the rivals all lose because they treated their Pokémon bad, you won because you WUUUUUV them. Except the best strategy is to dump all the crappy Pokémon you catch into the PC forever and push the ones you keep in your party to their limits. Sure, they get sad if they faint and they get happy if you use Potions on them...but Happiness is a mostly useless stat and unless you horribly suck as a trainer they will simply be happy enough as time passes. The "best" competitive players even breed new Pokémon to raise as weapons from the day they're hatched.(And throw the parents forever into the PC.)
* In ''Pokémon'', both the games and the anime, treating Pokémon as tools is "wrong". The evil teams and the rivals all lose because they treated their Pokémon bad, you won because you WUUUUUV them. Except the best strategy is to dump all the crappy Pokémon you catch into the PC forever and push the ones you keep in your party to their limits. Sure, they get sad if they faint and they get happy if you use Potions on them...but Happiness is a mostly useless stat and unless you horribly suck as a trainer they will simply be happy enough as time passes. The "best" competitive players even breed new Pokémon to raise as weapons from the day they're hatched.(And throw the parents forever into the PC.)
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* Fable III ''VideoGame/FableIII'' has a morality system like the others. The system completely breaks when you are forced to raise funds to save civilians. The kingdom has 6.5 million people and they can be saved at the cost of one gold each (covenient). So that means if you give 10 gold to a begger it is a morally good act but if you put it into saving 10 lives it is morally netrual. The biggest problem comes when you can choose to build a brothel. The net profit will same 1.5 million people but it is considered immoral. Why is this relevent here? Because every load screen shows you the projected casualtys. Saving a comunity of hippys or 300 000 peoples lives? The whole section teaches that being a tyrant is the way to save your people... well that or buy every property in the kindom and rent them out which could be argued is also a form of ecconomic tyrany.
* In''Pokémon'', ''{{Pokemon}}'', both the games and the anime, treating Pokémon as tools is "wrong". The evil teams and the rivals all lose because they treated their Pokémon bad, you won because you WUUUUUV them. Except the best strategy is to dump all the crappy Pokémon you catch into the PC forever and push the ones you keep in your party to their limits. Sure, they get sad if they faint and they get happy if you use Potions on them...but Happiness is a mostly useless stat and unless you horribly suck as a trainer they will simply be happy enough as time passes. The "best" competitive players even breed new Pokémon to raise as weapons from the day they're hatched.(And throw the parents forever into the PC.)
* In
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* ''TheSopranos'' was even MORE realistic and de-glamorized than ''Goodfellas''. It {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that mobsters love ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas''. Guess who loved it?? And many viewers who weren't gangsters also missed the point and saw Tony and crew as heroes and anyone who ratted on them as deserving of death.
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* ''TheSopranos'' was even MORE realistic and de-glamorized than ''Goodfellas''. It {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that mobsters love ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas''. Guess who loved it?? And many viewers who weren't gangsters also missed the point and saw Tony and crew as heroes and anyone who ratted on them as deserving of death.
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** Honestly, MGS mostly averts it: even if there are plenty of cool weapons to use, the act of killing mooks, even nameless and faceless, is never satisfying and [[GuiltBasedGaming somehow guilt-inspiring]], so the player will tend to avoid it as much as possible.
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** Though it IS helped in that the movie is never anti-HumongousMecha, just using them as guns. Hence the TropeNamer.
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** Lampshaded by Unskipable's commentary on the game.
--> Paul: You know, I know people are dying and stuff, but with these pastel colors and fuzzy frame...I can't help but think everything is going to be okay.
--> Paul: You know, I know people are dying and stuff, but with these pastel colors and fuzzy frame...I can't help but think everything is going to be okay.
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That\'s not pro-war, that\'s pro-equality. And the war they were fighting was essentially for their own freedom., so despite the inevitable accusations caused by casting Mathew Broderick in the lead, the movie is very much ANTI-Mightey Whitey. Nice try, though.
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* ''{{Glory}}'' managed to make most of the fighting unglamorous, save the final film shot of the 54th getting close to the inner sanctum of Fort Wagner. Unfortunately, the movie is ''pro-war.'' The message of the movie is that anyone who wants to fight for their country should be allowed to.
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*** It's literally having the opposite effect on its audience; because of the recent focus on fame and recognition as being the most important value among tweens, there have been instances of young teenagers who want to (or ''did'') get pregnant [[WhatAnIdiot ''because they think they will appear television''.]]
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** To be fair, while the film is clearly anti-war, it does also try to encourage the viewer to understand and respect the soldiers who died during the war.
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** Of course, Kubrick had brutally averted this with his earlier film PathsOfGlory. Don't be fooled by the title, the whole movie is about [[spoiler: a general having three innocent men executed in an effort to get promoted]], and even before that it's established that the generals are complete idiots, one of whom [[spoiler: tried to order his artillery to ''fire on their own men'']]. Then of course before all that we get a few scenes on the battlefield that include a soldier amongst a three-man patrol accidently getting killed by a grenade thrown by ''one of his own comrades'', and then the brutal scene where the soldiers attempt to take the Anthill and get forced to retreat.
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** According to some historians, the makers of Vine-Glo (a grape juice concentrate sold during Prohibition) sent demonstrators out to stores to show how easy it was to convert the block into refreshing and legal grape juice. Those demonstrators ''also'' showed exactly what you should not do, lest your grape juice "accidentally" turn into wine.
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* The original ''AstroBoy'' story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" attempted to have an anti-war message while still being a shonen fighting robots series.
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* The original ''AstroBoy'' ''Manga/AstroBoy'' story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" attempted to have an anti-war message while still being a shonen fighting robots series.
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* {{Slayer}} "Angel of Death" is often called a pro-Holocaust song, but guitarist Kerry King notes that the lyrics are as brutal as they are to reflect the real horror of the Holocaust, not to glorify it. The band is not trying to glorify the Holocaust -- but they're not trying to dispel it, either. [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity They enjoy causing controversy]].
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* {{Slayer}} Music/{{Slayer}} "Angel of Death" is often called a pro-Holocaust song, but guitarist Kerry King notes that the lyrics are as brutal as they are to reflect the real horror of the Holocaust, not to glorify it. The band is not trying to glorify the Holocaust -- but they're not trying to dispel it, either. [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity They enjoy causing controversy]].
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* ContentWarnings can have this affect. They're supposed to serve as warnings to parents about what's appropriate for kids, but it's impossible to stop the kids from seeing them, and all they think is, "If I'm not supposed to be exposed to it then [[ForbiddenFruit it must be totally awesome]]." Indeed, back in TheNineties when the Parental Advisory warning on [=CDs=] was just becoming well-known, TV advertisements for rap albums would proudly flash the "Tipper Sticker" as a point of pride, and GeorgeCarlin even recorded an album '''titled''' ''Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics''.
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* ContentWarnings can have this affect.effect. They're supposed to serve as warnings to parents about what's appropriate for kids, but it's impossible to stop the kids from seeing them, and all they think is, "If I'm not supposed to be exposed to it then [[ForbiddenFruit it must be totally awesome]]." Indeed, back in TheNineties when the Parental Advisory warning on [=CDs=] was just becoming well-known, TV advertisements for rap albums would proudly flash the "Tipper Sticker" as a point of pride, and GeorgeCarlin even recorded an album '''titled''' ''Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics''.
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** There's a major but subtle difference between having a fun anti-war game and a fun pro-war game. ModernWarfare2 is a GREAT example. Sure, it's full of badass moments and fun, but it also ''scares the crap out of you, kills the player and his unit with a nuke, and subjects you to getting burned alive.'' WarIsHell is in FULL effect, but it's still a great and fun game.
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* ''TheCountOfMonteCristo'' (2002). In the final scene Edmund professes that his revenge was not worth the steep moral and physical price he paid to achieve it. On the other hand, we just spent two hours watching him enjoy every minute of his bloody revenge and ''it was awesome.''
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* ''TheCountOfMonteCristo'' ''Film/TheCountOfMonteCristo'' (2002). In the final scene Edmund Edmond professes that his revenge was not worth the steep moral and physical price he paid to achieve it. On the other hand, we just spent two hours watching him enjoy every minute of his bloody revenge and ''it was awesome.''awesome''.
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* On CloneHigh, the Raisin Council invokes this trope by having Johnny Hardcore (Jack Black as an InkSuitActor) tell kids NOT to smoke raisins, or else they will become raisin-addicted cool rock stars like himself. Then they provide The Pusher to sell them raisins. The logical conclusion, of course, is a WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs anvilicious parody of DrugsAreBad episodes.
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* In-universe example in ArrestedDevelopment when George Sr. is invited as a "Scared Straight" speaker to talk teens out of commiting crimes and going to jail. He accidentally picks the wrong Scared Straight tent and ends up talking to a group of gay teens who feel increseaginly hornier at the thought of being locked up in a jail full of bad boys.
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* In-universe example in ArrestedDevelopment when George Sr. is invited as a "Scared Straight" speaker to talk teens out of commiting crimes and going to jail. He accidentally picks the wrong Scared Straight tent and ends up talking to a group of gay teens who feel increseaginly increasingly hornier at the thought of being locked up in a jail full of bad boys.
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* In-universe example in ArrestedDevelopment when George Sr. is invited as a "Scared Straight" speaker to talk teens out of commiting crimes and going to jail. He accidentally picks the wrong Scared Straight tent and ends up talking to a group of gay teens who feel increseaginly hornier at the thought of being locked up in a jail full of bad boys.
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* In ''Pokémon'', both the games and the anime, treating Pokémon as tools is "wrong". The evil teams and the rivals all lose because they treated their Pokémon bad, you won because you WUUUUUV them. Except the best strategy is to dump all the crappy Pokémon you catch into the PC forever and push the ones you keep in your party to their limits. Sure, they get sad if they faint and they get happy if you use Potions on them...but Happiness is a mostly useless stat and unless you horribly suck as a trainer they will simply be happy enough as time passes. The "best" competitive players even breed new Pokémon to raise as weapons from the day they're hatched.(And throw the parents forever into the PC.)
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* There was a series of [=PSAs=] aired by TheBBC in 2007 warning against the dangers of excessive drinking, by showing people being ostracized and called names after getting massively drunk. It accidentally backfired: little did they knew, that telling your friends all the crazy antics you did while drunk makes you look so cool.
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* There was a series of [=PSAs=] aired by TheBBC in 2007 warning against the dangers of excessive drinking, by showing people being ostracized and called names after getting massively drunk. It accidentally backfired: little did they knew, that telling your friends all the crazy antics you did while drunk makes you look so cool.
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Note that this trope is rarely ever done intentionally, and as such, can't really be averted. Truffaut can be right, for example, when a WarIsHell movie accidentally makes war seem awesome. But a WarIsHell movie that's actually, well, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hellish]], is just a WarIsHell movie that's doing a better job getting its message across.
to:
Note that this trope is rarely ever done intentionally, and as such, can't really be averted. Truffaut It can be right, happen, for example, when a WarIsHell movie accidentally makes war seem awesome. But a WarIsHell movie that's actually, well, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hellish]], is just a WarIsHell movie that's doing a better job getting its message across.
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* Assuming ''MyImmortal'' is a StealthParody and the "goffs" are supposed to come off badly, this trope was averted. Throughout the story, the protagonists do drugs, have sex all the time, [[CostumePorn wear heavily-described clothes]], and constantly get away with being huge {{Jerkass}}es. All that, and they ''still'' don't come off as cool. Congratulations, Tara Gilesbie, you succeeded where François Truffaut failed.
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renaming trope
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[[redirect:TruffautWasRight]]
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->''"You are watching '''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}''', the show that does not endorse the '''cool''' crime of robbery!"''
-->-- ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV"
You want to have AnAesop about something that [[ScareEmStraight we should avoid at all costs]]. Trouble is, just by showing it in lavish detail, you end up undermining your message by showing just how damn appealing it is.
The French film director [[FrancoisTruffaut François Truffaut]] once said that '''there is no such thing as an anti-war movie''' because it will invariably look [[InHarmsWay exciting]] up on screen. This phenomenon is often referred to by MoralGuardians or other critical people as "glamorizing" the vice in question.
Sometimes this is [[StealthCigaretteCommercial actually done on purpose]], as a way of GettingCrapPastTheRadar. A very common trick in {{picaresque}}s (like ''DonGiovanni'') is to have a flashy VillainProtagonist who is the coolest character in the story, wins at absolutely everything, and who the audience roots for due to {{Rule of Cool}} -- but then they get killed and sent to {{Hell}} in the last two minutes, and the writers say that "See, we're not supposed to root for them."
Similarly, anti-Catholic (or anti-Freemason, anti-Communist, etc.) conspiracy theory pamphlets in 19th Century USA often used this as an excuse to indulge in either torture porn or just plain porn. Step-by-step descriptions of convent orgies (which would normally lead to arrest under obscenity law) are okay when it's [[{{Demonization}} describing what the enemy (supposedly) does]]. The moral is more or less tacked on as a way of getting to show all manner of violence and sleaze.
The modern version of the deliberate case is probably "{{true crime}}" accounts of {{serial killer}}s, where the fan base never goes "oh that's so gross," but "oh that's so gross... I want to hear more!" Also, any news account of [[IfItBleedsItLeads a violent killing spree]], or of the [[YouCanPanicNow DANGEROUS SEXY NEW FAD]] that could be corrupting your daughters! Naturally, one year they had [[HotterAndSexier extensive spring break "footage"]] while all the while decrying these SEXY YOUNG STRUMPETS!
Most likely, this is the ''other'' major factor - besides mere reactance (what ReversePsychology plays upon) - of why the ForbiddenFruit is so tempting.
This trope is easier to fall into when a piece of media aims for a realistic portrayal of why people get lured into things like smoking, doing drugs, fighting awesome action sequences, etc than it is for a straight up propaganda piece against those things (where-in it would boggle the mind why anyone ever even tries those nasty things). If you gloss over the very real appeal, you end up with a piece that nobody is going to believe when you get to the DOWNSIDES of these things. The trick is finding the balance between getting the audience to understand the appeal and understanding why these things are bad. If the negative aspects don't come across as outweighing the appeal, this trope comes into effect.
A sub-trope of BrokenAesop. Sometimes the result of AccidentalAesop or AlternateAesopInterpretation. Can overlap with CluelessAesop or FamilyUnfriendlyAesop. Sometimes a SpoofAesop may attempt to show this works.
Often leads to a MisaimedFandom, UnfortunateImplications, SympathyForTheDevil, RootingForTheEmpire, NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity, and SpringtimeForHitler.
ButNotTooEvil is sometimes invoked in an attempt to prevent this trope. Also sometimes the result of PoesLaw or StrawmanHasAPoint.
See also EvilIsCool, EvilIsSexy, and ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything.
Note that this trope is rarely ever done intentionally, and as such, can't really be averted. Truffaut can be right, for example, when a WarIsHell movie accidentally makes war seem awesome. But a WarIsHell movie that's actually, well, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel hellish]], is just a WarIsHell movie that's doing a better job getting its message across.
----
!!Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:General]]
* Junk food is one of those things that it is hard to have AnAesop about because of how colorful and tasty it always looks. Any diet commercial will backfire horribly if they show the foods you shouldn't be eating ''and'' say that you shouldn't be eating them.
** British TV chef Jamie Oliver tried to avert this by showing people their weekly intake of junk food all dumped together into a huge unappetizing mess. As CharlieBrooker pointed out, the resulting message was [[BrokenAesop "don't eat your food that way"]].
** Dara O'Briain mocked this one as well, talking about Gillian [=McKeith=]'s tendency to show people a table covered in all the crap they shoveled down their throats over the course of the week - and noted that the looks on their faces tended to be a mixture of pride and lust.
* Ineptly done {{Anti Poopsocking}} features have a high chance of being one of these. In an attempt to limit peoples' gameplay rewards sharply drop after a certain amount of time. The hope is that instead of the player spending four hours a day on a game they only spend two after they realize that the third and fourth hours don't give much of a reward. This leads to some particularly dedicated players increasing gameplay time to SIX (or more) hours in order to keep up.
* Any piece of anti-smoking propaganda where [[StealthCigaretteCommercial the smoker actually]] looks [[SmokingIsGlamorous pretty hot]] with a cigarette in his or her mouth.
* Recently, there has been discontent among some (such as the writer of [[http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=25772 this article]]) that so many historical dramas released utilize the Holocaust as a backdrop (one could cynically suggest because Holocaust films are prime OscarBait). Some have expressed worries that people are being desensitized to the Holocaust, and that one day it would become that somewhat nasty thing that they keep making movies about.
-->'''Manohla Dargis:''' But [''The Reader''] is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it's about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.
* Almost any video game that tries to remind us that violence is wrong. OK, here's your [[{{BFS}} Godslayer Blade]], [[{{BFG}} Shootemup 6000]] and a ridiculously complicated combat system that you must learn in order to see the story. Oh, and don't [[WhatMeasureIsAMook kill people, unlike the villain.]]
* That would be pretty much why a good portion of [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil anti-piracy propaganda]] just doesn't work. As [[SomethingAwful one of the goons]] [[http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/dvd-piracy-posters.php?page=10 have put it...]]
-->'''plastickiwi's submission:''' Wait... so you're telling me people download and burn their own [=DVDs=]... for free?
* TeenPregnancy. Shows like ''Teen Mom'', ''TheSecretLifeOfTheAmericanTeenager'', and ''Series/SixteenAndPregnant'' do little to discourage it. The cameras step into the house of a teenage girl whose life was ended by pregnancy only to find that, somehow, her life goes on. It's harder to fear something with which you've become more familiar. It doesn't help that most of the "struggling teen mothers" portrayed in many of these media are rich white girls who don't have to get jobs or miss out on school or social events to take care of their baby, and can often still get a guy (whether or not he's the father of their child) to go out with them.
** Taking it further, there's almost inevitably- especially in documentary versions- a statement somewhere about how- at least in her own estimation- she's become twice the person she was and how it's really matured her, and how one just doesn't know what love is 'til one is a mother. Yeah, kids, don't do it!
* Anti-consumerism or anti-materialism messages can easily fall into this. The story often has to show all the things that people shouldn't waste their money on or shouldn't define themselves by, and it's extremely difficult to portray these things without them looking cool. This goes double when the message is aimed at kids.
** This happens a lot in Christmas works that try to reinforce the true meaning of the holiday, about family, about giving to the less fortunate, and how it's better to give than to receive, which is then undermined by showing all the awesome presents we shouldn't be so focused on getting.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Advertising]]
* The UK government attempted to steer kids off drugs in TheEighties with a series of TV advertisements featuring emaciated youths in dingy surroundings. The kids in question are reputed to have thought they looked really cool. It doesn't help this was during the second wave of {{Goth}} pop music! If only they had known "heroin chic" was an existing underground fashion trend waiting to break into the mainstream.
* An advertisement to show the danger of anorexia shows a naked, [[http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/1431209367_43f0312255.jpg cadaverous-looking young woman]] (Warning -- a confronting image). However, while non-anorexics might be disgusted by the sight (but it's not like they were going to suddenly become anorexic anyway), young anorexics looked up to this icon as a goal to reach, or blamed themselves "look at her, I couldn't even go as far as she did!" It also gave grounds for denial: "I'm not (my child isn't) anorexic, look, I don't (he/she doesn't) look nearly as bad as that!"
* One of the worst advertisements ever was a magazine ad, "An Unfair Comparison Between the Javelin and the Mustang." And boy, was it unfair: anyone could look at the huge, detailed photos of each car and see the Mustang was more attractive and better designed. Which worked out badly for the makers of the Javelin, who placed the ad.
* There was a series of [=PSAs=] aired by TheBBC in 2007 warning against the dangers of excessive drinking, by showing people being ostracized and called names after getting massively drunk. It accidentally backfired: little did they knew, that telling your friends all the crazy antics you did while drunk makes you look so cool.
* This upbeat commercial for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHmVcYOqGe0 Gofer Cakes]], a fictitious snack cake akin to Ding Dongs. Aimed at children and teens, it is a PSA for The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports; the kids in the ad end up all sloppy and lazy from eating too much junk food. Unfortunately, many ads for real junk food work along similar principles -- the real ones try to say "this food is so tasty that it's worth being anti-social over!" The comments on the PSA confirm that [[PoesLaw the satire element went over most kids' heads,]] and seems to have turned a lot of youngsters '''on''' to [[TheRedStapler Gofer Cakes.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The ''BlackCat'' anime took great pains to try to show the viewers that the way of life of an assassin was wrong, and that people who have pacifist ideals are, in the end, stronger. However, all this effort was undermined when Train was shown to be [[{{Badass}} infinitely cooler and stronger]] when he was working for [[NebulousEvilOrganization Chronos]]. His [[EvilIsSexy sleek black clothes]] complete with an awesome BlackCloak, the way he managed to effortlessly defeat every single person who ever stepped in his way, and the way he [[TheStoic tended to remain calm and collected]] all made him seem like he was much better off before he became a [[TechnicalPacifist pacifist]]. After he becomes a pacifist, he constantly ends up having to be saved by others, {{wangst}}s and throws temper tantrums, and wears clothes that aren't nearly as cool. One can understand why [[InLoveWithYourCarnage Creed]] goes to such lengths to make him go back to being the way he was when he was an assassin...
* Most entries into the ''{{Gundam}}'' metaseries are meant to have an anti-war message - and many, especially those by YoshiyukiTomino do a decent job of depicting how war can utterly ruin people's lives. At the same time, it has beautiful, brightly coloured weapons of mass destruction that move with the grace and artistry of the Bolshoi, plenty of MagnificentBastard villains you can't help but admire, [[ImpossiblyCoolClothes gorgeous]] [[BlingOfWar costumes]] on the forces of dangerous space-fascists, and perhaps worst of all, some of the protagonists actually find some kind of meaning to their lives through the war that they may not have had without it.
* Dan, the protagonist of ''{{Basquash}}'', succeeds at this within the show itself. He wants to destroy the popular sport "Big Foot Basketball" (Basketball... with giant robots!) because of a personal vendetta but also because the sport is really lame (the player robots move sluggishly, use basic moves and tend to fall down; the broadcast has to spice it up with special effects to interest people). Dan manages to obtain a Big Foot and crashes a public game, showing off real moves... then gets arrested and put away in juvie for a year. He's convinced he's "killed" BFB, only to find, on his release, his stunt showed that you can do kickass moves with a robot, thus making the game more popular than ever! He's not happy.
* The original ''AstroBoy'' story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" attempted to have an anti-war message while still being a shonen fighting robots series.
* The original manga of ''GhostInTheShell'' carries often painfully apparent warnings about the consequences of unchecked accumulation power among not just government offices--including Section 9 itself--as well as commercial interests and, thanks to cybernetics, individuals themselves. The television series caries this further, demonstrating what happens when technology advances at a faster pace the law can hope to keep up with. And yet, the Major and her comrades come off as supremely professional and awesome, even as they consciously abuse the powers vested in them by the state.
* The manga of ''DominionTankPolice'' comes right and says it: any society that not just uses tanks to police itself, but feels as though it has no other option, has crossed a line from which there is probably no easy return. Masamune Shirow acknowledged that he made the mini-tank Bonaparte deliberately smaller and cuter than practical as a concession to the misery of having tanks driving around, trying to establish some semblance of order.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Comic Books]]
* Since WordOfGod [[FlipFlopOfGod finally made up their minds]] that the anti-registration side was in the wrong, this means ''Comicbook/CivilWar'' was one of these for the message they were trying to send... [[CluelessAesop whatever the hell that was]].
** The Aesop was something along the lines of [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop "If you aren't doing anything wrong]], [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything you have nothing to hide."]] Not a good aesop to use when your main readers are nerds, and a consist of Liberal kids who love freedom, Conservative kids who distrust the government, and Libertarians who REALLY distrust the government at that.
* ''TheInvisibles'' attempts a subversion--it shows us memorably exciting action sequences, and then gives us equally memorable depictions of the suffering inherent in that flashy violence, most notably a DayInTheLimelight showing us the sad life of one {{Mook}}.
* ''{{Powers}}'' goes for something similar. Many of the characters have rather cavalier attitudes towards violence, indulging in black humor, but on-screen violence can be very uncomfortable and jarring despite (or because of) the cartoony art style. WordOfGod has it that Bendis and Oeming want viewers to be faced with something unpleasant and ugly when characters get violent. Despite all that, the darkness of it can be compelling because ''{{Powers}}'' relies on a [[DarkerAndEdgier grim-and-gritty]], street-level view of supers as its driving premise. If the whole work is DarkerAndEdgier, then showing that the violence is dark and edgy is not necessarily gonna work.
* This was very much the reason for crime comics in the 1950s, particularly ECComics. This got them (and American comics in general) busted and led to the ComicsCode being imposed.
* In ''{{Batman}}'' #1, {{ComicBook/Catwoman}}'s debut, Batman had Robin fight a bunch of unarmed crooks to see how tough they really were without their guns. Robin trounces them with ease, leaving one of the crooks to say "If only I had my gun!" Batman breaks the fourth wall to point out that the readers shouldn't emulate crooks. Sadly, the aesop and the story were probably over shadowed because the comic book ''also'' introduced TheJoker, one of the most popular, and psychotic, comic book characters of all time.
* ''{{Watchmen}}'' has landed in this trope because of MisaimedFandom. Many people thought it was a conventional hero vs. villain story, only DarkerAndEdgier. For instance, Rorschach's violent tendencies were copied by [[TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Dark Age]] "{{antihero}}es" to make them equally badass. Moore and Gibbons made Rorschach a dirt poor homophobe raised with a prostitute for a mother, the Comedian a rapist who can't even connect with his own daughter, and a certain brilliant plan be rejected by a PhysicalGod. Nonetheless, comics to this very day emulate it.
* DCComics' war books were often gritty, dark, and featured tortured protagonists (especially those written by actual veterans, such as Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher). They often ended with the sign-off, "MAKE WAR NO MORE!" But they were and are exciting adventure stories.
* ChickTracts fall into this quite heavily.
** In general, the antics in the tracts often send the unintended message of "God is a dick who will send even good people to hell for not accepting my religion, meanwhile serial killers who do get off with no punishment." "You can kill as many people and steal and burn as many things as you want, if you accept Jesus right before death, you'll be marked as a good person and thus won't have to face any consequences."
** Depending on the tracts, he'll even make the devils funny or sufficiently clever to provide comic relief... until the Big Boring White Guy In The Sky throws them into hell in the last panel
*** The notorious "Dark Dungeons" made roleplaying out to be an exciting life-or-death scenario that introduced real occultism and gave players fabulous supernatural powers that they can use to [[MindControl brainwash]] their parents to... ''gasp''... ''buying them stuff''. More than a few roleplayers love the tract and it has been parodied and affectionately referred to in innumerable ways among the subculture.
*** In his anti-Catholic tracts, he shows very little downside to being one of those dastardly papists, since they seem to have nothing but crazy sex parties, oodles of cash and secretly run the world.
*** ''The Contract'': Feel free to make a deal with the devil; you won't have to hold up your end.
*** ''Wounded Children'': You should do what a demon tells you. No, really. [[spoiler: When some people attack Brian, the demon tells David to help him. Brian dies because he didn't.]].
** ''[[http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv324/immortalpictures/Lisa.jpg Lisa]]'': It's okay to gang rape your children repeatedly as long as you accept Jesus and ask His forgiveness. The trauma will go away, just like the herpes. Children aren't even traumatized unless they're abused for ''more'' than several months. No one will even raise their voice to you when your victims out you as a child molester. It's normal for girls to bee abused by older relatives. ''Also'', a real man provides for his family instead of relying on his woman, and disturbing this natural order is likely to cause resentment, frustration and rape.
** A lot of fundamentalist messages in general can be boiled down to "feel free to indulge your darkest desires because you're probably going to {{Hell}} anyway", especially when Hell is depicted as a place where you can [[AHellOfATime carry on doing this for all eternity.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* ''Fanfic/TiberiumWars'' tends to depict intense, action-packed battles that nonetheless also contains a rather deep-down moral that WarIsHell. Some reviewers picked up on this, while others simply read it for the visceral combat.
* Assuming ''MyImmortal'' is a StealthParody and the "goffs" are supposed to come off badly, this trope was averted. Throughout the story, the protagonists do drugs, have sex all the time, [[CostumePorn wear heavily-described clothes]], and constantly get away with being huge {{Jerkass}}es. All that, and they ''still'' don't come off as cool. Congratulations, Tara Gilesbie, you succeeded where François Truffaut failed.
* ''PokeWars'' depicts the gritty, brutal, {{gor|n}}y and just ''nasty'' side of war and there is a fairly obvious WarIsHell message. Unfortunately, few of the reviewers notice this, instead choosing to focus on the dazzling fight scenes.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film-War]]
* "Anti-war" war films in general tend to have this problem. The old line is, "Soldiers love anti-war movies, but never the way the maker wants". It is possible to for a movie to be anti-war, but it's not likely if it has action scenes that obey the RuleOfDrama.
* At the time ''{{Platoon}}'' came out, RogerEbert opened his print review by mentioning the Truffaut quote and adding that "If Truffaut had lived to see ''Platoon'', the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion." Since this film has encouraged people to recruit, apparently not.
* ''ApocalypseNow.'' FrancisFordCoppola tried to make an anti-war movie. What do people remember? Attack Helicopters coming in over the beach to the sounds of Ride of the Valkyries -- kickass!
** Referenced in the movie {{Jarhead}}.
* The author of the novel ''DasBoot'' complained that the movie, grim as it was, undermined his anti-war perspective by being too engaging.
* ''DrStrangelove'' has a strong anti-war, anti-military message . . . but the scenes of Major Kong and his bomber crew are ''pure awesome.'' [=SAC=] crews (that is, people who fly bombers) were some of the biggest fans of the movie.
* ''{{Glory}}'' managed to make most of the fighting unglamorous, save the final film shot of the 54th getting close to the inner sanctum of Fort Wagner. Unfortunately, the movie is ''pro-war.'' The message of the movie is that anyone who wants to fight for their country should be allowed to.
* ''FullMetalJacket'' drove director StanleyKubrick crazy because of this trope. He wanted to make his idea of an objective anti-war film. He got viewers who enjoyed things like the heli gunner shooting civilians. R. Lee's Ermey's role as [[DrillSergeantNasty Gunnery Sergeant Hartman]] helped shape their opinion.
* ''InglouriousBasterds'' {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this in a subtle, creepy way: there is a scene where Germans are watching a Nazi propaganda movie about a German sniper who killed massive numbers of Allied troops while behind enemy lines. They are laughing and enjoying themselves watching people from our side get slaughtered. While you're laughing and enjoying yourself watching people from their side get slaughtered.
* ''Jarhead'' starts like this, then focuses on the tedium of life in the Marine Corps, a lot of sitting around and waiting, punctuated with occasional moment of EverythingTryingToKillYou.
** It's largely about that and the mindset of the Marine recruits (such as the author) stoked up and eager to [[ARealManIsAKiller lose their battlefield virginity with a kill]]. When they hear that they're about to be sent to the Persian Gulf, they rent a load of war movies to watch the cool battle scenes, including ''ApocalypseNow'', where [[LampshadeHanging the irony of liking anti-war movies for the violence was explicitly pointed out and reveled in]]. This in turn was [[MisaimedFandom misinterpreted by audiences]], who cheered along with the Marines.
* ''SavingPrivateRyan'' falls victim to this trope, partly because of MisaimedFandom who have no personal war experience watching the visceral first 30 minutes [[JustHereForGodzilla for the violence]], but also because of the increasingly {{melodrama}}tic last half of the film, [[spoiler:where the "pacifist" character temporarily freezes up, only to kill the assailant later, and the main characters sacrifice themselves one after another in ''{{Rambo}}'' like fashion to rescue [[NoOneGetsLeftBehind one man]].]]
* ''Film/StarshipTroopers'' The film is antiwar/anti-militarist, intended to be a parody of the fascist elements in our society, but many viewers couldn't see past all the [[BugWar cool bug killing scenes]] or the [[EverybodyRemembersTheStripper co-ed shower scene]]. Even for the viewers who are paying attention, the message is further hampered by PoesLaw. There are obvious spoofs of the Federation propaganda, but the rest of the movie is easy to take seriously because it suggests that the ShowWithinAShow is understating the Federation's case.
** Considering the book's portrayal of the Federation, it's unsurprising. Heinlein intended the book to portray the positives of civic duty, necessities of war and capital punishment, etc. This led Heinlein to be accused of fascism, among other things. The movie's creators decided to remake it as a TakeThat against militarism and fascism, but by even superficially sticking to the book, they made the 'evil, fascist government' look awesome.
*** Except at the end of the sequel, when a recruiter calls a newborn male infant "new meat for the grinder."
* ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' is another ''Apocalypse Now'' and ''Jarhead'' to some - the marines are very obviously committing war crimes, but that didn't stop some people from enjoying that.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film-Gangster]]
History has demonstrated time and time again that this trope could easily be called "Mobsters Love Mob Movies":
* ''TheGodfather'', as stylized and operatic as it was, was meant to be about the horrors of the mob. Instead, it kicked off a new generation of fascination with organized crime and even inspired actual mobsters to model themselves after it.
* ''{{Goodfellas}}'' was intended in a way to be the anti-''Godfather.'' It was based on a true story and portrayed most mobsters as uneducated, crude, petty, sociopathic, and oftentimes downright incompetent and brutal. But it would up having the same cultural effect as ''The Godfather'' anyhow. The gangster that RobertDeNiro's character was based on was reportedly thrilled such a great actor was portraying him, and kept trying to get in touch with [=DeNiro=] from prison to give him pointers. Similarly, the real Henry Hill wrecked his witness protection because he couldn't resist bragging about the movie.
** This one might have been partially because of the weird mixed messages the movie was sending. While the mob characters were usually portrayed as not so bright, unnecessarily violent, what have you, but Henry Hill's own comments at the end of the movie make it very clear that he wishes he was still in the life, and one would go as far as to say that getting caught is the only thing he regrets about being a gangster at all.
* ''{{Scarface}}''. Even though the entire film was set up to show that Tony's destruction was inevitable. Even though he ends up losing or killing everyone and everything he cares about. Even though he ends up floating in his own fountain, it's hard to watch the movie and not want to be him. (Hence the video game in which you ''get'' to be him, and you get to survive and win).
* ''AngelsWithDirtyFaces'', a classic gangster film, suffers from this. It's intended to show gangsters in a negative light, but the lead gangster and one of the two main characters, Rocky Sullivan, steal the show and makes being a 1930s-era gangster look awesome. Even the ending, meant to show that gangsters weren't awesome, failed to do that for parts of the audience because it was also meant to show it InUniverse and the gangster did it for that exact reason, making it a ZeroApprovalGambit and possibly a SenselessSacrifice to the pro-gangster contingent.
* ''Little Caesar'' attempts to show that hard, honest work will lead to success whilst crime does not pay. It makes the gangster cooler, more interesting, and more important than his straight-laced best friend.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Film-Others]]
* ''AmericanBeauty'' is a scathing indictment of suburbia with such gorgeous cinematography that it makes suburbs look, well, ''beautiful''. Someone forgot that BeautyEqualsGoodness.
* ''AmericanHistoryX'': The film's message is "racism is bad," but it portrays the opposite in some ways. Derek is portrayed as physically dominant over his adversaries, fiercely proud, and articulate about his beliefs. Derek and some of the other Nazis manage to make cogent arguments about race issues that are never refuted. With the exception of FatIdiot Seth, the Neo-Nazis are never shown to be weak, stupid, or foolish. The Aryan Brotherhood in prison are villains, but they split with Derek over ''not being racist enough''. There are numerous speeches, but barely any explanation of Derek's unrealistically neat [[HeelFaceTurn 180 degree turn]] in prison. Ultimately the film ends with [[spoiler:Derek's younger brother murdered in cold blood by a black youth]]. It's not hard to imagine neo-Nazis and other racists enjoying this film for unintended reasons.
* [[DrugsAreBad Anti-drug]] Aesop movies tend to do this since many spend the first half detailing just how fabulous the wild and crazy world of drug-fueled parties are; it's hard to take it seriously when they conclude with "DrugsAreBad. You shouldn't do drugs."
** ''Christiane F'' is a sad case. Many youngsters got curious about drugs due to the picture movie.
** ''ReeferMadness'' is a classic example of this backfiring, as the film is [[EverythingsBetterOnDrugs considered better to watch when high]].
** ''RequiemForADream''. Yeah, it ends badly for everyone, but the "Summer" section is a dizzying high.
** ''{{Trainspotting}}''. Renton and his friends have quite a lot of fun and hijinks in the early parts of the film. It's also pretty surprising how easily and cleanly Renton manages to turn his back on the life when he's finally had enough.
* ''BruceAlmighty'' and ''{{Click}}'' try and make it clear that you shouldn't want fantastic solutions to your life's problems like {{God}}'s powers or a magical remote control because [[ThisLoserIsYou you're selfish]] [[ButterflyOfDoom and you'll end up screwing up your life (and everyone else's) even more]]. But let's face it, people walked out of those films thinking "IWishItWereReal" and if they learned anything, it was only [[FantasticAesop what not to do if it were]]. Sure, that's useful...
* ''AClockworkOrange'' features scenes of violence and rape intended to be morally repulsive, but actually inspired some real-life copycat crimes. In fact, one could argue that the movie's popularity rests almost entirely on its sensational aspects.
* ''The Condemned''. The StoneColdSteveAustin star vehicle, revolves around a shady producer who arranges for death row inmates from around the world to be dropped in an island and forced to fight to the death while the "show" is broadcast onto the Net under the name "The Condemned", hence the movie's title. However, {{WWE}} Films made the bizarre decision to turn this into a moralist tale by having several characters berate the brutality and senseless violence of the show... all the while showering ''the audience'' with scene after scene of senseless brutality and sexual violence. To top it all off, it culminates with this quote: "All of us who watch... are ''we'' The Condemned?" (to which several critics replied "Yes. Yes we are.")
** The message becomes even more puzzling when you consider how the WWE chose to market the film. The tagline was "10 people will fight, 9 will die. You get to watch."
*** You could argue that the tagline was just the producers' underhanded way of [[YouBastard making you illustrate their message, thus proving their point]].
* ''ConfessionsOfAShopaholic'' spends so much time lovingly showing off gorgeous, high end fashion that it's a bit hard to take seriously its moral against irresponsible ConspicuousConsumption. A TV promo on TBS said over the end credits of ''SexAndTheCity'' says something like "Can't decide what to wear? Go see ''Confessions of a Shopaholic'', now in theaters!"
** Trying to make compulsive shopping look like the hip thing to do during a ''recession'' didn't help much either. Nor was turning the debt collector into a DesignatedVillain by making him a jerk.
* ''TheCountOfMonteCristo'' (2002). In the final scene Edmund professes that his revenge was not worth the steep moral and physical price he paid to achieve it. On the other hand, we just spent two hours watching him enjoy every minute of his bloody revenge and ''it was awesome.''
* HeathLedger's [[TheJoker Joker]] and his anarchist ideals in ''{{The Dark Knight|Saga}}'' have raised a bigger fandom and acclaim than ChristianBale's Batman.
** That's probably attributable to his line in the hospital, though - it makes his character actually have a concrete purpose.
--> '''TheJoker''': You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!
** Unlike most villains, [[VillainousValour he's also audaciously brave]]. He walks right into a meeting full of gangsters and kills the first person to come near him. Evil, sure, but takes a lot more courage than many of Batman's actions in the film, a lot of which involve hiding in the shadows.
* ''{{Death Sentence}}'' pulls this off, and rather clunkily at that. The film is a beautifully shot ode to violent vigilante justice, that tries to speak against violent vigilante justice. It was made by the director of ''{{Saw}}''. It doesn't come off right.
** The ending makes that point debatable: although the protagonist's RoaringRampageOfRevenge was done in a somewhat glorified fashion, the ending doesn't suggest that he was proud of his actions when all was said and done. Given that the protagonist [[spoiler: lost his wife and almost his youngest son]] after he went after the gang member that killed his oldest son during the movie's opening, he's left looking emotionally defeated, full of sorrow and remorse.
** To say nothing of its SpiritualPredecessor, ''{{Death Wish}}'', which glorified vigilante killing to the point of making several sequels, and turning actor Charles Manson into a cinema action hero icon for decades to come. For better or worse, [author] Brian Garfield absolutely ''loathed'' the movie adaptation of ''{{Death Wish}}'' for this reason, while being relatively satisfied with how ''{{Death Sentence}}'' turned out.
* ''{{District 9}}'' was intended to be an allegory of the South African Apartheid era and a film with an anti-racism message. However, a lot of people seem to remember it mostly for the action scenes and forget that there was a message entirely. It doesn't help that the vast majority of the aliens ''actually are'' unintelligent, dangerously violent brutes.
** It had the same problem as many sci-fi/ fantasy aseops. The situation was one where the xenophobia was justified. All those things, plus being gun runners and being able to out breed humans.
* ''Main/{{Downfall}}'' depicts Hitler as a sadistic, delusional madman. Other top Nazis are just as bad. The war effort is denounced as a pointless waste, as untrained conscripts are being sent to die in a clearly hopeless struggle. Nevertheless, [[MisaimedFandom many neo-Nazis]] praised the film for depicting Hitler in a positive light, and for showing the tenacity and loyalty of the German people.
* ''{{Fahrenheit 451}}''. François Truffaut himself directed a film adaptation of the novel which is about an anti-book {{dystopia}}. The film makes a world without written words look attractive even as our protagonist rebels against it. In fact the book also does this to some extent, aided by an intelligent, charismatic WellIntentionedExtremist villain.
* ''Fatherland'' shows a Europe where Germany won World War II. It is prosperous, clean and green, with posters advertising a concert with "Die Beatles" on the walls. Europe seems to be doing quite well, now without half of its economy ruined by communism. While German rule eventually falls because the American president refuses to sign a peace agreement, so that the strain from the continued war against the remnants of the Soviet Union somehow brings down the whole empire, it certainly doesn't look like a doom-and-gloom world to live in.
** Curious, because the book did a much better job of painting the Nazi Empire as place you could probably live with but would much rather be here - not East Germany, not today's world - but had a different and less black and white ending.
* ''FightClub'': YourMileageMayVary on whether the film was really meant to be an anti-consumerist tirade, or a condemnation of the people holding these views. But if the latter, it sure made their lifestyle seem fun and cool.
* ''GIJane'' tries to make the argument that militaries should be [[GenderIsNoObject completely gender integrated]], including allowing women into spec ops. While it doesn't glorify sexism it does manage to make completely the opposite point and show exactly why militaries are not ready for this during what is arguably the film's most powerful scene; the POW training scene. Lt. O'Neil is being [[WouldHitAGirl brutally beaten up]] by [[DrillSergeantNasty Master Chief Urgayle]] [[ForcedToWatch in front of the other trainees]] to [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique get information]] from them and even starts to cut off her pants as if he's about to [[RapeAsDrama rape her]]. O'Neil bravely refuses to break and demands that her comrades do not either. The problem? During this scene, the other trainees are clearly about to crack and start giving out information, and look at and make comments to Argyle like he's a real prick, yet, as he points out, he is saving their lives. This is just an exercise, so there are great limits as to what Argyle is allowed to do. If this scenario was real, a female spec ops troop would be used in the same way, and there would be no limits as to what her captors would be allowed to do, and they would probably not hesitate to do even more brutal things to her, including raping her, most likely causing the male troops to crack, give out vital info, and subsequently be killed themselves.
* ''{{Heat}}''. The actions of the criminals are proposed as the reason the Bank robbers fought to the death during the North Hollywood Bank Robbery in 1997, rather than escaping.
* ''ISpitOnYourGrave''. All those extended rape sequences, just to say that [[CaptainObviousAesop rape is bad]]? RogerEbert noted to his horror that some of the audience members at the screening he attended actually cheered on the rapists.
* ''JohnnyDangerously'' a gangster movie parody pokes fun at this with a deliberate BrokenAesop. The title character uses his life story to convince a young [[ItMakesSenseInContext puppy thief]] that "crime doesn't pay"... and then has him hop in his expensive car with his beautiful gangster's moll wife and confess to the audience "OK, maybe it pays a ''little''."
* ''JurassicPark''. The novel was intended as a warning about the dangers of playing God and tampering with nature. But let's face it. When it was adapted to film, thanks to improved special effects of the time and an epic score from JohnWilliams, how many people walked out of the theater after seeing it thinking, "Awesome! I wish we could bring dinosaurs back to life! Get cracking, scientists. [[FoxTrot Increase dinosaur DNA research!]]"
* Kidulthood: the scene where Trife and his friends get revenge on school bully Sam is a favorite with fans of the film who often comment how cool what they do is despite their actions leading to [[spoiler: Trifes death]]
* ''NaturalBornKillers'', which has been accused of having inspired enough copycats to have an [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Natural_Born_Killers_copycat_crimes entire Wikipedia page devoted to the subject]].
** That isn't entirely a straight example though, since the aim of the movie was to point out that the media is fascinated with serial killers. That it ended up contributing to said media isn't unexpected.
* The novel of ''TheRunningMan'' was intended as a warning as to what happens when society goes too far in thinking that violence is entertainment. The nation's most popular show is one where contestants compete for their lives and will be killed legally live on television nationwide. Yet, in the film version, it ends up making this evil show look pretty damn cool and entertaining. A show where ArnoldSchwarzenegger takes on gladiators trying to kill him? What's so bad about that?
* ''SaturdayNightFever'' portrays the protagonist's disco lifestyle as shallow, violent and ultimately pointless. It didn't stop millions of new fans from being drawn into disco culture after watching the movie.
* Discussed in the 1934 film ''Search for Beauty'', in which the publishers of a health magazine, realizing that SexSells, starts publishing steamy romance stories with "just enough morals to sneak them through the mails."
* The ''SexAndTheCity'' movie ostensibly had a message about how we shouldn't let labels (both in the designer sense and for relationships) determine how to live life -- Carrie gets married in a label-less vintage dress in the end. But the rest of the movie is a love letter to designer labels and fashions, with a practically orgiastic scene of Carrie trying on designer wedding dresses.
** U.K. Film critic MarkKermode backed up our sentiments in his podcast review of this movie.
---> "The film has the gall to shove handbags down your throat for 120 minutes and then turn around and say "Hey, we aren't just handbags, you know."
* ''SuperSizeMe''. Morgan Spurlock's documentary exposing the evils of junk food ... Mmmm, burgers.
** The first supersized meal was rather unappealing though, between a large hair found in the parfait and Spurlock vomiting spectacularly as he tried to force down the burger.
*** Semi-lampshaded, too: When describing the rules of his experiment (summary: nothing but McDonalds, and always supersized if the cashier asks), he even describes it as "every eight-year-old's dream".
* The ''{{Terminator}}'' series was intended as a warning that technology will eventually destroy humanity. While it does if a good job of showing a future CrapsackWorld, the problem comes with the robots who cause the apocalypse and want to wipe out humanity. They're ''AWESOME''. The T-800's, T-1000's, TX's, HK's, and others; ask someone if they think it would be cool if these existed in real life or if they want their own. What do you think their response will be?
* Some critics believe there's one thing worse than a "torture porn" film - a film that tries to make a ''point'' about torture porn by focusing on long, drawn-out, salacious shots of human suffering, such as ''FunnyGames'' or ''{{Untraceable}}''. "Oh, Jesus, look upon the sensationalization of violence and despair, HERE HAVE A MAN BEING BOILED TO DEATH IN BATTERY ACID."
* [[PinkFloyd Pink Floyd's]] RockOpera TheWall, both in movie and in music form, depicts an unstable rock star named "Pink" who builds a metaphorical wall around himself to defend himself against things that emotionally hurt him. He then becomes insane, delusional, "comfortably numb" and consumed with anger and fear as he gradually cuts himself from society. Onstage, he turns his concert into an almost [[ThoseWackyNazis Neo-Nazi]] rally, leading his "Hammers" to destroy the city and terrorize all those that Pink mistrusts. Although this is meant to show the horrors of shutting yourself off from the world and becoming antisocial and paranoid, many true Neo-Nazi groups were formed around the "Hammers", based on the film TheWall and Gerald Scarfe's DerangedAnimation depicting literal marching hammers smashing things and people to pieces.
** Further MisaimedFandom involves interpretations of Pink's frustrations with women, particularly Pink's unfaithful wife, which is depicted in the animations as shrewish and snake-like.
* Keep your fingers crossed for the upcoming {{Hunger Games}} movies; the books themselves already have a sizeable {{Misaimed Fandom}} of teenagers who think it would be ''so cool'' to fight in the Hunger Games. (And who hated {{Mockingjay}}.) Like an anti-war movie, Suzanne Collins' work carries a message against something that is a dreadful, scarring experience yet deeply visually compelling on-screen. (That's kind of the whole point... but putting it into a visual medium could undermine it ''hard''.) This troper feels the moviemakers' best chance is to lampshade this with repeated images of TV cameras and of viewers watching the deaths from their living rooms.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Literature]]
* ''TheBerenstainBears'' series sometimes falls into this.
** ''The Trouble With Junk Food''. All the candy they learned was bad for you was so colorful!
** ''The Bad Dream'', which was about how being an obsessive fanboy and having a GottaCatchThemAll mentality for all the toys will lead to nightmares...[[SpaceWhaleAesop somehow]]. But damn if those action figures didn't look cool.
** ''Get the Gimmies'', where we all genuinely ''wanted'' those toys, games, and candies that Brother and Sister acted like hellions in public in order to get.
* ''{{Slaughterhouse-Five}}''. Discussed in the early part. Vonnegut's war buddy's wife is pissed that our narrator is writing 'another war book'.
-->"You were just babies then. But you won't write it like that, will you? You'll write it like you were men, and you'll be played by men in the movie, and everyone will think it's wonderful and have more wars and send more babies off to die, like those babies [their children] upstairs."
** It works out OK though. He promises her that it will be called ''Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade'' (which is indeed the full title of the book), and no one reading it gets any idea that war is good.
--> "I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that."
* The scenes of sinful revelry and luxury (like the island of Acrasia) in ''TheFaerieQueene'' are, to many, the most appealing parts of the work. This is largely due to ValuesDissonance.
* The entirety of the [[{{Warhammer40000}} Warhammer 40K]] Black Library manages to both embody and avoid this trope. On the one hand, the wars depicted are brutal and utterly hellish, the enemies often terrifyingly twisted and sadistic, conditions are generally miserable, and the heroes are surrounded by murderers, thieves and other lowlifes - often in the form of a superior officer or the protagonist themself; but on the other hand, every novel has the hero and his band of fellow soldiers being epic [[BadAss BAMFs]] and generally acting like the epitome of what a soldier should be.
** This can even be seen in stories where the protagonists are actually the bad guys in the wider 'verse, such as the Chaos Marines. You find yourself rooting for the protagonist even as the story tells you about the world of innocent humans that their race has invaded, enslaved, tortured or brutally slaughtered.
* One of Disney's kiddie books featured DonaldDuck eating a poorly balanced, junk-filled meal...that the mouth waters just in childhood memory of it.
* JohnMilton's ''ParadiseLost'' has infamously run into this problem with its MisaimedFandom. Satan ''is'' intended to be appealing, but Milton expects his readers will be mature enough to realize that underneath all his charisma, Satan is a small-minded, [[ParentalIncest incestuous]] bully who picks on [[PunyEarthlings people smaller than him]] because he lost the fight against [[KungFuJesus someone bigger than him]]. Sadly, Milton expected too much of his readers, and a lot of them just drool over Satan and think he's TheHero.
* K.J Parker's ''[[TheScavengerTrilogy Scavenger Trilogy]]'' and Parker's work generally. There's just so much detail and vivid fightin' action that the anti-violence message can be obscured at times.
* The first series of ''WarriorCats'' covers the early life of a "kittypet" as he struggles to fit into his Clan, overcoming all of the racism and prejudice he faces because of his background as he grows into a hero. Of course, in order for this to work, the majority of the cast has to express some racist sentiments, meaning a lot of the more popular characters twist this lesson into "[[MisaimedFandom racism is good]]".
** The same could be said for the battles, which, combined with their irrational hatred for a pacifist character, doesn't just inspire reactions of "War is cool and pacifism is for [[IncrediblyLamePun pussies]]", but the occasional "Any book that doesn't contain as many gratuitous fight scenes as possible instantly sucks".
*** The latter lesson can probably be connected to their love of ''The Darkest Hour'', the most violent book in the series. It is indeed one of the best books in the series, but not because it's the most violent.
* ''{{Lolita}}.'' Oh dear lord, ''Lolita.'' The whole book was one big condemnation of pedophilia (even the pedophile can't stand his actions), and yet it's a TropeNamer for [[{{Lolicon}} a fetish for underage girls.]]
** It doesn't help that Humbert comes off as an overall nice guy despite his actions.
*** Well-known author and commentator John Derbyshire, for example, has [[http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2006/05/18/pedophiliac-rape-fantasies-are-the-sign-of-a-cultivated-mind/ written enviously]] about how misunderstood Humbert is, and how reading about him as a young man convinced him that it's only natural for grown men to be attracted to prepubescent girls, and darn the society that chastises them!
** We may have [[MisBlamed made this one up]]. Japan most likely picked up the term from Russell Trainer's ''The Lolita Complex'', and like the word ''[[YouKeepUsingThatWord hentai]]'', it actually has worse connotations in their language. On the other hand [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18568_the-5-greatest-books-with-psychotic-fanbases_p2.html Cracked.com]] knows the idea of [[LiesDamnedLiesAndStatistics millions of pedophiles]] worshiping a book grabs readers.
* In an interview celebrating the launching of his most recent book, ''Imperial Bedrooms'', Bret Easton Ellis recounted how many fans of his work would come up to him and say "You're the guy who wrote ''Literature/LessThanZero'', that's the book that made me want to live in L.A." Anyone who's read the book in question (or indeed anything by Ellis) will appreciate [[MisaimedFandom just how ridiculous this is]].
** One of his aims with ''Imperial Bedrooms'' was to respond to all the readers who perceived Clay as the hero in the first book, by emphasising far more his near-sociopathic narcissism. YMMV on how much it worked, although [[spoiler: Ellis certainly shows him doing some horrific things, but gives him one or two very small PetTheDog moments.]]
* A weird borderline example in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes''. Rincewind describing sticking fireworks up his nose is followed by a footnote saying DontTryThisAtHome ... which goes on to describe official municipal firework displays in a way that makes it clear they're very boring.
** Of course TerryPratchett is on record as saying that if stupidity kills, then it's better if it kills the stupid first[[hottip:*:In the Mappe Of Lancre]]. This could be a stealth joke on that.
* Deliberately invoked by the entire Lesbian Pulp Erotica paperback market of the 1950s and 1960s. It was a cultural requirement that the lesbian characters end badly, either dying, getting imprisoned, or turning straight. However, the ''point'' was to sell lesbian erotica, so the "consequences" are always jammed in the last chapter, with the rest of the book glamorizing things as much as possible.
* Anthony Horvath's book ''Richard Dawkins, Anthony Flew and Mother Theresa Go To Heaven'' is supposed to make Dawkins look like an arrogant JerkAss, while Flew and Theresa are supposed to be viewed as good. However, the way it's written, Theresa comes across as a pathetic sycophant and Flew like a doddering simpleton, while Dawkins sounds downright courageous and noble as he [[DefiantToTheEnd stands in defiance]] of this [[GodIsEvil frankly unsympathetic deity.]] It doesn't help when Heaven is depicted as a place where everyone spends the rest of eternity unable to do anything except praise God, [[EsotericHappyEnding and that's supposed to be desirable.]]
* Happens in-universe to a Nazi spy in ''TheAmazingAdventuresOfKavalierAndClay''. He starts out reporting to his superiors about a dangerous series of American comic books, but his later reports become more or less reviews of his favorite comic book series.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Live Action Television]]
* Then there is the case of ''TwentyFour,'' which might have led to soldiers in {{real life}} being too [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique violent towards prisoners]], especially the earlier seasons. Violence towards prisoners existed before, but the government originally backed this series. But when the hero routinely saves the world using questionable techniques in a glamorous fashion, when those techniques rarely backfired (the one person who lied to him that we know of, he shot), and when the scandals of Guantanamo Bay Delta Camp and Abu Gharib became public during the middle of the series' run, conclusions were drawn.
* Although bigoted, Alf Garnett from ''TillDeathDoUsPart'' was intended to be a figure of fun showing the stupidity of racism. He became a cult hero for misogynists and xenophobes.
** The same goes for the show's loose American remake. ''AllInTheFamily'' was, officially, intended to show that bigotry is bad, but Archie Bunker came across as a fairly fun, likable guy in spite of it. The more progressive "Meathead" often came across as self-righteous.
* ''MadMen'' purports to be about the 'dark side' of social conformism, corporate careerism, and white male privilege. The show demonstrates this by endlessly displaying hot naked women, acts of debauchery, plentiful alcohol, smoking without guilt, fabulous outfits, and snazzy Jet Age decor. Wait, there's a dark side to making tons of money and being able to tell people what to do?
* ''LifeOnMars'', series one. The impression the viewer gets is that the first series of ''Life on Mars'' was written to paint Sam's contemporary attitudes as what the viewer was supposed to sympathise with, but the public response was overwhelmingly in favor of Gene Hunt's GoodOldWays. The second series and all of ''AshesToAshes'' was written accordingly.
* ''BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had a subtle anti-smoking message for the first season or two -- every character who smoked either turned out to be a villain or died soon after they were introduced. But Spike, who started out as a villain, ended up being a regular and a well-liked character... who often smoked cigarettes. Sexily. Faith took up smoking in the last season.
** The fourth season episode "Beer Bad" tried to show that beer was evil by turning anyone who drank it into cavemen. But the transformation ends up mostly positive for Buffy, who finally gets over being dumped after a one night stand because of it. The concept might be seen as parody, but the episode was written as a sincere grab for government anti-alcohol PSA dollars. (It didn't work.)
* The show ''Manswers,'' on SpikeTV, when talking about illicit drug use or other criminal activities or dangerous acts, will include a disclaimer to not do so. But if you do do it, you can laid, according to them.
* {{Fox News|Channel}}, while more fiscally conservative than socially conservative, pays lip service to the MoralGuardians by doing stories on sexual perversion (especially on ''TheOReillyFactor''). But they punctuate these condemnations with lurid video clips and bring on nagging correspondents who are more amused than angry. Thirty years ago, much of what we see on Fox News would have ''never'' been shown on basic cable. No, not even CNN.
* Most daytime {{Talk Show}}s are guilty of this, especially if the episode is about people (mostly attractive young women) scandalized to discover that someone had been secretly recording them. They then have no problem when they SHOW THE VIDEO ON NATIONAL TELEVISION so that you can see the evils that are in the world. As a bonus, you get to see exactly what the pervs next door were so interested in.
** Even if they don't show the video, doing a story on it will guarantee that the number of people looking it up on the internet will skyrocket.
* When {{Comm|ieLand}}unist UsefulNotes/{{Romania}} broadcast ''{{Dallas}}'', the idea was that the people would be disgusted with the pettiness and decadence of capitalism. This was, in fact, part of the reason the series was created in the first place -- you probably are supposed to be vaguely disgusted with the way the Ewings live. It didn't work in either country. What was seen was, "[[DistractedByTheShiny Ooh, shiny]]! I want!" In a few years, communism fell and the USA had a MisaimedFandom for Wall Street.
* ''{{Dollhouse}}'': Turning people into objects is bad! Even when they're hot, attractive objects with [[MindControlEyes blank stares]] and [[FootFocus bare feet]]... oh hey, it's time to show [[spoiler:Sierra]] getting raped again!
** Please note that in both season finales, we find out that [[spoiler:the Dollhouse tech ''destroyed the world''.]] Anyone still on board with it after even that is dumb, in denial, or both.
* Done intentionally on an episode of ''{{Community}}''. The main characters put on an anti-drug show for a group of elementary school children, but they love Pierce's performance as "Drugs" so much it backfires. The situation is ultimately remedied by forcing Pierce to leave and replacing him with Chang. It ends up being a ''more'' effective portrait of addiction as a result, because the children loved drugs then drugs turned on them.
* ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' has come in for some criticism over this. The show focuses on the investigation of and effects of sexual-based crimes such as rape, sexual assault, child abuse, etc. The show usually goes out of its way to point out that these are horrific things with terrible effects, it has been accused of getting plenty of lurid and sensationalist entertainment value out of such offenses.
* Many fans of ''TheWire'' tend to glamorize the gangsters of the show, talking about how cool they are, when the intent of the series is to provide a realistic view of the awful effects of crime and corruption in cities such as Baltimore.
* Similarly, ''BreakingBad'' has the same effect of showcasing the appealing aspects of the drug business, even when the bad parts are [[ParanoiaFuel fueled with endless paranoia]], and by contributing to the business in some form or fashion, you'll hurt so many different people along the way. And oh yeah, DrugsAreBad. But boy is it tough not to reap the rewards of selling pure meth, ain't it?
* ''TheSopranos'' was even MORE realistic and de-glamorized than ''Goodfellas''. It {{lampshade|Hanging}}d that mobsters love ''The Godfather'' and ''Goodfellas''. Guess who loved it?? And many viewers who weren't gangsters also missed the point and saw Tony and crew as heroes and anyone who ratted on them as deserving of death.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Music]]
* Anti-war songs can have this problem. The message of the song may be about the awful aspects of war, but it may have either too subtle of a title or a catchy, positive or cool sounding beat, as well as LyricalDissonance to keep it from getting its message across. This goes double if it's a popular song that many of the listeners only know the chorus too without knowing any other of the lyrics, often leading to cases of IsntItIronic.
* Music/BlackSabbath. Many of their early lyrics dealt with the horrors of things like violence, war, Satan and so on. This has inspired legions of metal bands to write lyrics about how ''awesome'' these same things are.
** Ozzy Osbourne's attempt to clarify this in a 2004 magazine interview didn't really work. He claimed that he and his bandmates "were the last hippie band. We were into peace." Disingenuous, no? After all, if they wanted to be seen as hippies, why didn't they perform "hippie-style" music?
* In fact, a lot of heavy metal bands of note either treat these themes negatively, ironically or with a sort of horrified fascination; while a lot may seem like they glorify violence or death, it's often necessary to tune into the particular subcultural lens of heavy metal to understand them properly. Unfortunately, [[MisaimedFandom some of the fans]] (especially for bands that hit the mainstream) and more than a few of the bands don't seem to get this.
* Music/{{Megadeth}}'s album "Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?" led to a rumor that the band members were Satanists or endorsed Satanism due to nearly half of the album being explicitly about Satanism. But all three songs detail horrific things happening to those who dabble in it. The songs stem from a bad experience that Dave Mustaine had with "black magic", where he put a hex on someone and was convinced it worked, plaguing him with guilt. After that incident, he tried to make songs warning against the dark arts, but they ended up so badass-sounding that the message was ignored.
* {{Slayer}} "Angel of Death" is often called a pro-Holocaust song, but guitarist Kerry King notes that the lyrics are as brutal as they are to reflect the real horror of the Holocaust, not to glorify it. The band is not trying to glorify the Holocaust -- but they're not trying to dispel it, either. [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity They enjoy causing controversy]].
** Okay, this is where things get tricky. We've always been told that "human beings must never forget the Holocaust, lest it happen again." (One, as if there's any chance of anyone forgetting; two, are we actually supposed to believe that [[HumansAreBastards most of the planet's inhabitants harbor such capacity for carnage]]?) But whenever someone tries to incorporate the Holocaust into a work of art or a popular entertainment - in effect, trying to raise awareness about it - those same MoralGuardians criticize the act of making people think about the Holocaust, claiming that it's in "bad taste." (In short: "[[AndThatsTerrible The Holocaust was bad.]] Let's not talk about it more than absolutely necessary. But it's always going to be necessary to do so.")
* BruceSpringsteen's "Born In the USA" is about the issues faced by returning veterans of TheVietnamWar. Because of the refrain, the subtle title, and its being one of the catchiest songs musically The Boss has ever done, it's constantly mistaken for an American patriotic song. It is frequently played at 4th of July events. US President RonaldReagan -- a president who had threatened Mutually Assured Destruction on the Russians -- wanted to use it as his 1984 campaign theme.
** "Born to Run", similarly, was named New Jersey's "Unofficial Youth Rock Anthem" by the New Jersey State Legislature in 1979. [[IsntItIronic A song about leaving New Jersey because of how terrible it is]]. No, seriously:
--> Baby this town rips the bones from your back
--> It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
--> We gotta get out while were young
* CreedenceClearwaterRevival's "Fortunate Son" is about the draft bias of TheVietnamWar -- lower and middle class kids being sent to fight and die while rich kids get to stay home. This doesn't stop it from being extremely catchy, and many listeners don't really get more than the first couplet of the lyrics. It also gets mistaken for a patriotic song, thanks largely to the opening lines of "Some folks were born, made to wave the flag, ooh, the red, white, and blue".
* Edwin Starr's "War". The lyrics denounce the act of war quite {{anvilicious}}ly, but it sounds like a good song to kick ass to. It was used in ''RushHour'', ''SmallSoldiers'', and ''Agent Cody Banks 2''.
** {{Metallica}}, "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Despite being about the futility of war, it's a totally kick ass song that gets your adrenaline pumping.
* AvrilLavigne's "Girlfriend" is a sarcastic song that, if taken ''un''ironically, would send the message, "If you're a girl who follows the RuleOfCool ''and'' likes a taken boy, it's okay to throw yourself at the guy and steal him away because you ''know'' he likes you back, and his girlfriend is 'like, so whatever.'" The video points out it's okay to humiliate said girlfriend because she's [[AcceptableTargets a nerdy girl with glasses]]. Lavigne's WordOfGod points out how it's ''criticizing'' shallow boy-crazy girls who act like that. But the song doesn't make this clear; try telling it to the song's MisaimedFandom.
* The DropkickMurphys cover of the old Irish anti war song "Johnny I hardly knew ya", when viewed on a particular AMV, makes one want to go to war.
** The same tune was reused for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", a song from the American Civil War that ''glorifies'' soldiers returning home from war.
* Gangsta Rap. What was said above re: gangsters in film & television goes double for many gangsta-rap music videos. Even when the lyrics are explicitly about the dangers and harshness of street life, expect the videos to be full of images of diamond studded cars, gold jewelry everywhere, beautiful women, and champagne overflowing.
** MTV and other "music" channels refuse to show any video with gunplay or shooting imagery regardless of context. This was particularly notable in the 1990s during the genre's rise to prominence (since they were airing more videos then).
*** This trope is deliberately invoked in Juvenile's song "Ha". The lyrics are a TakeThat against the glamour of rap excess (the chorus says, "You're a paper chaser, you got your block on fire, remaining a G until the moment you expire"), and in the video itself, the scenes are of poor and near-homeless residents living in housing projects in New Orleans...except during the chorus, when Juvenile and his crew visibly sing in front of expensive cars, stacks of money and visible jewellery.
*** Atmosphere has written a few songs attempting to address this issue too, including "Apple" which has a repeated refrain of "Just cause you're an MC doesn't mean you get to be an asshole" and "National Disgrace" which begins with the following dedication:
--> Peace to Rick James, Anna Nicole Smith, BillClinton and Motley Crue, and anyone else who has ever utilised their 15 minutes of fame to realise their true dreams of being an absolute jerk-off, just to keep the masses entertained. This goes out to learning from the mistakes of others.
* Scavanger. Used for BlackComedy effect in ''[[http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/539623 Assassins of Ankh Morpork]]''. "[[{{Discworld}} Here]] in [[WretchedHive Ankh Morpork]] they’re saint", indeed.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Stand-Up Comedy]]
* Ricky Gervais. In one of his routines, he identifies the Broken Aesop inherent in a version of the children's folk tale ''The Lazy Mouse and the Industrious Mouse'' that he was told by his headmaster, at a school assembly. In the story, the Industrious Mouse labours long and hard to prepare himself for winter, whilst the Lazy Mouse bunks off and has fun. When winter comes, the Lazy Mouse has nothing, so goes to avail himself of the charity of the Industrious Mouse — who, after beginning a lecture about how the Lazy Mouse should have done his own preparing, suddenly turns around and invites him in to share. Gervais notes with exasperation that the moral is mangled from being "work hard and be prepared for the future" into becoming, in his words, "fuck around, do whatever you want and then scrounge off a do-gooder". He also notes that most of the pupils at that assembly took the latter aesop and "kept it up" for the entirety of their academic careers.
** He also points out that, thanks to the Rule Of Three, the moral of the tale of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" is not "never tell a lie", but rather "never tell the same lie twice."
* NormMacDonald pointed out the problem addressed in anti-smoking ads mentioned above under "General" with showing the affect of smoking on organs.
--->'''[=MacDonald=]:''' My doctor tried to scare me out of smoking. He showed me a picture of a smoker's lung. Oh! It was gross and disgusting. Then he showed me a picture of a healthy person's lung. Oh! It was gross and disgusting!
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''{{Warhammer 40000}}''. Orignally intended as a ''parody'' of DarkerAndEdgier, the fans latched onto those aspects with such fervour the creators decided SureWhyNot and magnified those aspects until a new word (GRIMDARK) was invented to describe the result. Then, in typical ''[=WH40K=]'' fashion, ItGotWorse when despite [[EvilVersusEvil all factions being firmly established as thoroughly evil]], the "Good" factions only so in comparison to their even more horrific enemies, there exist genuine supporters of almost everyone due to taking various elements of the fluff (at best heavy on the UnreliableNarrator and more commonly ''in-universe propaganda'') completely seriously.
** The two most glaring examples have to be the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard. To whit: the Space Marines are made up of (depending on the edition) everything from volunteers to inducted ''death row inmates'', go through so much genetic, cybernetic and hypnotic conditioning that it's argued about whether or not they're even still considered human, they're conditioned to be unwaveringly loyal but at even more so to literally not feel fear or ever give up, so if they do something questionable they will ''go rogue and declare war on the entire Imperium'' rather than submit to due process, and for about 98% of the chapters out there, the average Imperial citizens, members of other military branches, hell even members of other Space Marine Chapters, consist at best of an excuse to always be at war and at worse a ''burden, distracting them from killing everything'' to which collateral damage isn't even a statistic to be counted; the [[WeHaveReserves Imperial Guard]] teaches you from day one that not only are you expendable, but you ''will'' die in service and your mission is to make your death ''mean'' something, it's [[HonorBeforeReason better to follow an order and die horribly]] than disobey an order and avert ''utter catastrophe'' (for which more than one hero who has saved an entire planet has been summarily executed) and if you have a choice between saving a dozen wounded squadmates and bringing back one piece of semi-arcane technology you are LEGALLY OBLIGED to leave them to their fates to save the tech.
** Then there's the Tau, an animesque culture whose army is based off of {{BFG}}s and HumongousMecha. Their melee combatants are an allied race of brutal but more-or-less {{NobleSavage}}s. They were introduced ''specifically'' because of an outcry that there were no good factions, only visibly horribly evil and implicitly horribly evil. THEY WERE THE GOOD GUYS. Then the rest of the fandom cried out they were TOO good, so now there's more and more hints that the Ethereals [[MindControl have pheromone-based hypnotic control over the entire Tau culture]], the assimilated human worlds are usually subjected to internment camps and forced sterility, and the fact that they have next-to-no warp signature implies there may be something even ''more'' horrific about them, though we just don't know yet.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Theater]]
* In ''{{Theatre/Wicked}}'', the "Dancing Through Life" song is ''meant'' to paint the singer as having the wrong idea about life in general; but it also seems to go out of its way to make his philosophy sound appealing.
** 'Dancing through Life' can be seen as a song about always and unconditionally being in the moment, rather than thinking about the future.
* This is true of Ben Jonson's plays. Both ''Volpone'' and ''The Alchemist'' make fraud look fun, although in the former play[[spoiler: harsh punishments are dished out to all the "villains" right at the end]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* Many would argue that the idea of an anti-war war game is even more inherently hypocritical than that of an anti-war movie. See, games are generally expected to be fun; if they're not fun, nobody will want to play them, let alone spend money on them. This means that if you make your game well, all the people playing it will find your profound messages about the futility and destruction of war to be significantly diluted by the fact that blowing shit up and killing Nazis/Russians/terrorists/aliens by the dozens is such a clearly enjoyable and gratifying activity. (If you don't make your game well, no one will hear your messages in the first place because no one will play the game.) Multiplayer games are particularly susceptible to this brand of hypocrisy, since there is little to no story to provide context to the action and the entire point of the game is to compete with and kill your opponents (and presumably have fun doing so). The MoralDissonance created by this is cleverly satirized in [[http://www.funnyordie.co.uk/videos/32d666a5cd/call-of-duty-secret-spielberg-level-unlocked?rel=player this video]].
* A more successful example might be ''DefCon''. Almost everyone who has played it [[VideogameCrueltyPotential tends to feel pretty guilty]].
** The conceptually similar ''Balance of Power'', from 1985, also tried hard to portray nuclear armageddon as a bad thing. If the player failed to prevent war, the game ended abruptly with the text "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure."
*** Unfortunately, it didn't reward ''success'', either - your reward for shepherding the world through eight years of brinkmanship was a message stating "You have kept the peace". Maybe the ''real'' message was "Running a power bloc is difficult and unglamorous."
* MaxPayne does a pretty good job of getting its point across well, assuming that it's point is that a RoaringRampageOfRevenge is lots and lots of fun. If it's trying to be anti-violence, not so much.
* ''ValkyriaChronicles'': WarIsHell, everyone suffers, and the bad guys feel pain too. Except it's a strategy war game where [[BeautyEqualsGoodness the good guys are all adorable]], everything is rendered with a soft, unthreatening watercolor filter, and half the fun of playing the game is watching [[VideoGameCaringPotential your squad]]'s Potentials activate and listening to the stuff they say as they turn enemy mooks into greasy stains on their darling cobbled streets.
* {{Inver|tedTrope}}sion: There were ''gamers'' who have gone as far as declare ''[[ModernWarfare Modern Warfare 2]]'' to be horrible just based on ''[[MoralEventHorizon No Russian]]'' alone.
** [[YourMileageMayVary Played straight by other gamers]] who [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential cheerfully laughed while mowing down the civilians]], because it's fun shooting [=NPCs=] who can't defend themselves. Subverted by some players who ''refuse'' to shoot any civilians and "fake" it by shooting over the civilians' heads (or, perhaps, by not shooting at all). Subverted differently by other players who, regardless of how they play the scene, find it a genuinely disturbing way of saying "This is where you're headed when you start believing morality is obsolete in the name of security." Then there's the people who just say "It's a game." and went through the level with some impatience for a challenge. Averted further by people who use any of the game's '''numerous''' opportunities to avoid and skip the level.
** Though it's far, ''far'' less infamous than ''No Russian,'' there are some players who see [[spoiler: General Shepherd]] as a total badass and don't understand why we're not supposed to root for him because of it.
* ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'' tries its damnedest to paint staying in Ivalice as a bad thing and Marche's desire to destroy it and bring back the real world as a good thing. Unfortunately, all the characters from "our world" that we see are better off in Ivalice, and the world itself is portrayed as a wonderland outside of the Jagds. AlternateCharacterInterpretation raised its head, and the result was "Marche the OmnicidalManiac". (Supposedly this was less of a problem in the original Japanese, but even there the trope applies.)
** Even the Jagds themselves could be an example of this. Towns where laws have no effect aren't really a bad thing when the law system is so incredibly anal that you can be arrested for using certain attacks or even dealing damage to monsters. Sure, your characters will be gone forever if you don't revive them by the end of a battle, but is whipping out a few Phoenix Downs before you finish off the enemy really ''that'' difficult?
** FridgeHorror definitely applies. There you are, bleeding and struck down upon the ground, waiting for your party leader to use a Phoenix Down, to save your life. Unfortunately, he forgot to stock up before coming, leaving him no choice but to let you die.
** It's the same debate that took place in ''TheMatrix'' circles, and was implied in the films themselves. One realm is far less "desirable" than another realm whose existence the writers try to vilify, but the former realm is more "real" than the latter. Hence "real CrapsackWorld" versus "imaginary paradise."
* It could be argued that the ''MetalGearSolid'' series (particularly from ''[[MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty MGS2]]'' onward), which is heavy on anti-war messages in the plot, avoids this trope by making it possible (albeit extremely difficult) to complete each game [[TechnicalPacifist without killing anybody]] (intentionally, at least). On the other hand, there's tons of cool-looking, stylized violence in the cutscenes and collectible weapons just begging to be used, and most of the non-{{mook}} characters (a.k.a. characters with names, faces, and distinct voices) talk about how Snake is an honorable warrior and, if they die, do so in glorious, noble and/or bombastic ways. So really, it still has it both ways.
** Given the meta nature of the series, this kind of duality could be entirely deliberate.
** Honestly, MGS mostly averts it: even if there are plenty of cool weapons to use, the act of killing mooks, even nameless and faceless, is never satisfying and [[GuiltBasedGaming somehow guilt-inspiring]], so the player will tend to avoid it as much as possible.
* ''GrandTheftAutoIV'' has plenty of anti-criminal motifs, it shows how crime and lust for money destroys the lives of opportunist gangsters and how it affects their friends and relatives. However, the missions involving murdering, stealing, and in general causing mayhem in the city, are done in such a way that instead of making crime repulsive, actually makes it look attractive and fun. The characters we encounter, though they are criminals, are often comedic and very likable and not like those we are afraid of in real life. And thus the game became very popular, being one of the best selling games of 2008 and it's still played by millions of gamers who seem not to get its anti-crime message.
** ''RedDeadRedemption'' did much the same thing in the same way.
* ''AceCombat'' insists often and firmly that WarIsHell. However, you play as an AcePilot, arguably the most glamorous combat role in existence, your arrival bringing hope to allies and [[TheDreaded sparking fear in enemies]]. Your distance from your targets means you never see in gory detail the aftermath of your passing and as a {{AFGNCAAP}} you are spared the direct effects of deaths in the family. All these combine to dull the effect of the message, not helped by the {{Anvilicious}} BrokenAesop.
* Best explanation for the popularity of [[SoulNomadAndTheWorldEaters Gig]].
* ''HeavyRain'': The story's awesome and dramatic and everything, but the [[DancingBear single most awesome thing in the game]] is ARI - CoolShades that [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual do all kinds of awesome things]] via {{Cyberspace}}; FingerprintingAir, accessing the FBI MagicalDatabase, ''turning a prison cell of an office into SceneryPorn'', and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking letting you bounce a ball off a wall like in a prison flick without a ball or a wall.]] [[spoiler:'''[[CyberneticsEatYourSoul They Eat Your Soul.]]''' The game itself just about crosses the UncannyValley and they're saying ''''' VR EATS YOUR FUCKING SOUL.''''' What, are they saying anything more realistic than HeavyRain are ThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow?]]
* ''{{Iji}}'': A poster on the TVTropesFora stated "I like kicking the bugs to death" (though admittedly the player who said this hadn't gotten very far into the game).
** ''Iji'' is actually much more successful at averting this than most games because it's completely possible to play through the game without killing anyone. Also, if you do kill everything in sight like a normal game, the dialogue will [[YouBastard make you regret it]] unless you're very callous.
** Then there's the [[MSPaintAdventures MS Paint Forum Adventure]] adaptation, which takes a killer run of the game and plays it as BlackComedy mixed with ''GurrenLagann''-inspired awesomeness, complete with quotes and Iji being reinterpreted from a ReluctantWarrior {{Woobie}} to a HotBlooded CaptainErsatz of Simon. And the writer has stated he's played through ''thrice'' before and knows perfectly well it's supposed to be antiwar. To be fair, it was partly intended as a {{Reconstruction}}.
* In a meta example, this is what led to ''DestroyAllHumans'' being made. Matt Harding pitched the idea because he was thoroughly fed up with making typical shoot-em-ups and proposed the exact opposite of the game he would like to make. Naturally, it was approved and Harding effectively sabotaged his career, which led to him quitting his job and making WhereTheHellIsMatt. [[Heartwarming/WhereTheHellIsMatt Not that we're complaining.]]
* ''SaintsRow 2'' perhaps does an end run around this trope by avoiding the moralizing and continually plays up the fun and rewards of violent crime. Then the player character grinds a few rather sympathetic characters into the MoralEventHorizon, to demonstrate that he/she is every bit the vicious bastard the player is encouraged to be. Even some unsympathetic characters get terminated with much more cruelty than necessary. Then the game ends with a DesignatedVillain who has rather noble intentions, a practical plan for achieving his goal, and [[StrawManHasAPoint a good point]].
* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' is what happens when you combine Ryosuke Takahashi with customizable robots, you play as a PsychoForHire who works for all the wrong reasons (money and being the strongest) raven and in the latest installation puts you in a Giant Robot that emits harmful particles that kills the environment and indulge in some wholesome slaughter. Yet for some reason it feels so comfortable blowing up units in a nigh indestructible robot for that next part...
* ''CookingMama, The Unauthorized PETA Edition'' shows Mama brutally killing and gruesomely preparing a turkey with cartoonish graphics. Game developer [[http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/11/26/cooking-mama-the-unauthorized-peta-edition-mama-kills-animals-petaorg/ Raph Koster explains]] that his kids found it gleeful fun.
** Even Nintendo apparently found it amusing, given that their response was to ''have Cooking Mama herself put out a press release complaining about it''. It's like they said to themselves, "Nobody's going to get their message from it, we aren't going to worry."
* ''VideoGame/{{Wings}}'' arguably subverts this; the game DOES use WorldWarOne for entertainment, but is stated to be dedicated to those who died in it, and also calls attention to the foolishness of various aspects of it.
* Fable III has a morality system like the others. The system completely breaks when you are forced to raise funds to save civilians. The kingdom has 6.5 million people and they can be saved at the cost of one gold each (covenient). So that means if you give 10 gold to a begger it is a morally good act but if you put it into saving 10 lives it is morally netrual. The biggest problem comes when you can choose to build a brothel. The net profit will same 1.5 million people but it is considered immoral. Why is this relevent here? Because every load screen shows you the projected casualtys. Saving a comunity of hippys or 300 000 peoples lives? The whole section teaches that being a tyrant is the way to save your people... well that or buy every property in the kindom and rent them out which could be argued is also a form of ecconomic tyrany.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''GunnerkriggCourt'' [[PlayedForLaughs Gleefully]] used. [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=396 Just look]] at those efficiently designed, finely crafted, aesthetically appealing savage tools of destruction... Tea in her fencing suit and wide smile objects to your [[ILikeSwords unhealthy fascination with swords]]! Though it doubles as foreshadowing, as later "enjoy, but don't forget what it's about" became a good plot point.
* ''Quitting Time'' presents: [[http://quitting-time.com/2009/02/04/customer-of-the-week-pure-evil/ Pure Evil]].
* Invoked in [[http://somethingpositive.net/sp08312004.shtml this]] ''SomethingPositive'' with Davan's response to a gang of ''RockyHorror'' fans protesting a stage-play adaptation of ''ShockTreatment''. "Think of every movie or video game someone else protested that you immediately went to check out. Now you're doing that for us."
* Jason Love. "[[http://www.jasonlove.com/cartoons/00003-funny-cartoons-movies.gif Warning]]" from Jason Love's cartoons.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''BeavisAndButthead''. Spoofed in the Season 4 episode, "Safe Driving" The boys watch a grisly driver's-ed film featuring two guys who seem to be grown-up versions of themselves. Naturally, they think it's cool and get into the same accident seconds after taking the wheel.
* ''FamilyGuy'' does this occasionally, usually as a result of trying to balance its message while simultaneously making stereotypical jokes.
** Every single time the show tries to be pro-gay rights. [[BrokenAesop It tries to portray homophobia as bad but ends up doing the opposite.]]
*** "You May Now Kiss the...uh, Guy Who Receives" pushes for gay marriage with Brian's gay cousin, Jasper, and Jasper's boyfriend wanting to tie the knot. The problem? The couple trying to get married is a human and ''a dog.'' Not only that but a dog that acts like every CampGay stereotype you can imagine. Oh, and a deleted scene near the end shows that Jasper's now husband doesn't even speak English and doesn't know what's going on with Stewie commenting in English that he is going to be raped. The episode is supposed to be pro-gay rights but it instead comes off as "Gay people have sex with dogs, forcibly marry other people for their bodies, and WILL RAPE YOU." On top of that, Brian takes Mayor West hostage to keep gay marriage from being outlawed, hence sending the message that gay rights supporters are radicals who will go to violent lengths to push through their agenda. That couldn't have been fucked up more if they ''tried.''
*** "Family Gay" Peter gets experimented on with multiple drugs. One of the drugs makes him homosexual, apparently to convey the pro-gay-rights message that homosexuality is not a choice. Which would work fine, except for the fact that Peter chose to get injected with the drugs that turned him homosexual. Breaking it further, Peter almost instantly divorces Lois -- because, you know, [[ItsAllAboutMe leaving your jobless housewife and three kids]] is TOTALLY okay as long as you're gay. And being gay also makes you want to [[AllGaysArePromiscuous bang ten people at once]]. It's compounded during one scene where Brian sends Peter off to "[[CureYourGays Gay Camp]]" in order to [[IncrediblyLamePun straighten him up]] for Lois' sake. She goes down there and delivers a [[{{Anvilicious}} heavy-handed]] [[AuthorTract writer tract]] about how she can't just make Peter stop being gay. Which is great, except THEY USED DRUGS TO MAKE HIM GAY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
** The same thing happens when the show tries to mock religion. Brian turns just about everything into an anti-theism rant, and gets openly pissed off at anybody who has any religious beliefs (mostly because [[HypocriticalHumor religious people are intolerant]]). He is genuinely meant to be seen as the OnlySaneMan. The problem is, Jesus and God are both characters in the show. Brian has met both of them. Anytime Brian mocks religion [[FlatEarthAtheist he's blindly ignoring what's clearly right in front of him]]
*** This tends to happen a lot with Brian's views. He ends up coming across as arrogant and self-righteous, which in turn portrays others who share his views the same way.
** "420" tries to portray marijuana prohibition as a bad thing, but the episode unsuccessfully tries to juggle the "legalizing weed will have no negative consequences on society" aesop with "stoners are morons" jokes. For example, the scene where Brian states that ever since legalizing weed worker productivity is up over 100% doesn't really fare so well since only a scene a way we get Peter being so stoned all the time that he can't even set up a CutawayGag and instead shows a LongList of all the celebrities he hates.
* ''{{Futurama}}'' spoofed this. Bender did a return-from-commercial gag where he stated the show does not support the "cool crime of robbery."
-->Bender (on TV): Try this, kids at home!
-->(on-screen subtitles): Don't try this, kids at home.
* ''HomeMovies'' Parodied in an episode where Brendon makes an educational video telling kids not to put marbles up their noses. The kids think the idea is cool, so...
** Made even funnier because *everybody* who saw the film immediately tried to put marbles up their nose, even the teacher and Brendon's mom.
** There's a similar situation in ''Little Men'' where Jo tells the children a story about a mother who warned her children not stick beans up their noses, prompting them to do just that. Jo says she stuck pebbles up her nose after hearing the story.
* ''ThePowerpuffGirls'' parodied this in the episode of "Mojo Jonesin'," where the mad genius chimp Mojo tempts a group of children with bootleg Chemical X which grants them superpowers. The first dose was free but to continue their addiction, they have to follow his orders. It's an obvious send-up of a don't-do-drugs episode complete with an ending when the kids decide to give up Chemical X and warn their classmates against "X abuse." Then another kid asks what it was like. "It was AWESOME!"
* ''TheSimpsons'' directly {{spoof|Aesop}}ed this trope: Lisa is shown a short film where rap stars in costume represent tooth decay: they stylishly and violently set about some giant teeth, rapping all the while. Lisa comments that while the film is against tooth decay it also kinda glamorises it.
** Also parodied when Bart's class is shown a sex-ed video. "So now that we've shown you how it's done... ''don't do it''."
** In the episode where Bart is working for the Mafia and leaves at the end: "Sorry Fat Tony, I've learned that crime doesn't pay". Fat Tony replies "Yeah, maybe you're right" and then leaves in an expensive limo filled with women. His henchmen have their own limos.
* ''SouthPark'' Another in-fiction example: In the episode "Pinkeye," when Mrs. Cartman sends her son to school dressed as [[AdolfHitler Hitler]], the principal shows him an educational film to [[ScareEmStraight scare him straight]]. However, the film consists solely of the message "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man," followed by (untranslated) clips of his speeches and goose-stepping, saluting Nazis. There's no mention of anything evil he actually did. Cartman thinks the movie is "cool", to the point of seeing himself in place of Hitler in the video, and asks to see it again.
** However, given [[CompleteMonster Cartman's]] stated Anti-Semitism, he'd probably have thought it was even cooler had it been translated.
** "Major Boobage": "Schoolchildren are often experimenting with dangerous ways to get high, like sniffing glue, or huffing paint, but they're all bad, m'kay...male cats, when they're marking their territory spray a concentrated urine to fend off other male cats, and that can get you really high...like really, really, high...probably shouldn't have told you that just now, m'kay? That was probably bad."
** "Butt Out'' also parodied this but in the opposite way. An overly upbeat anti-smoking group called Butt Out, which incorporates elements of terrible dance and hip-hop into its routine, performs at the school. All the students think it's really lame and disturbing. At the end, Butt Out enthusiastically calls out "If you don't smoke, you can grow up to be [[{{Nerd}} just like us]]!" Directly after they say this, the boys start frantically smoking.
** In "Sexual Healing," some of the kids ask what autoerotic asphyxiation is. The man they ask says he doesn't want to give them any ideas...but then describes it in detail, adding that it supposedly feels "really, ''really'' awesome." Three guesses how [[TheyKilledKenny Kenny died]] in that episode.
** "Kick A Ginger Day" is ''not'' something that should ever have been {{Defictionalized}}!
* ''TheIronGiant'' tries to present the message that the use of weapons of mass destruction is wrong, and in fact, it was the TropeNamer for IAmNotAGun. Problem is, when you represent weapons of mass destruction by a HumongousMecha, it's hard not to make them look cool.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Real Life]]
* There was a case where some cops took some pictures of an accident scene and, without the family's consent, started showing them to kids, apparently wanting to ScareEmStraight. Instead, the kids thought they were cool and posted them on the internet. The family's attempts to get them taken them down have simply invoked the StreisandEffect.
* Abstinence programs tend to fall prey to this as a result of trying to balance out the message of how evil and dirty pre-marital sex is with how great and wonderful sex is once you're married.
** Part of the problem is that the "abstinence until marriage" preaching, when unmarried sex is the norm creates an issue in that teens think "this is BS, everyone has sex" and these programs also refuse to teach safe sex. Abstinence programs are too idealistic in their goals.
* During the ColdWar, several Eastern European [[LaResistance resistance groups]] did this intentionally during the 60's to avoid government censorship. Instead of releasing propaganda directly, they distributed newspapers describing the treasonous publications [[DirtyCommunists their fine leaders]] had put down, refuted, or nipped in the bud. Of course, those publications were described in ''excruciating'' detail.
* ContentWarnings can have this affect. They're supposed to serve as warnings to parents about what's appropriate for kids, but it's impossible to stop the kids from seeing them, and all they think is, "If I'm not supposed to be exposed to it then [[ForbiddenFruit it must be totally awesome]]." Indeed, back in TheNineties when the Parental Advisory warning on [=CDs=] was just becoming well-known, TV advertisements for rap albums would proudly flash the "Tipper Sticker" as a point of pride, and GeorgeCarlin even recorded an album '''titled''' ''Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics''.
* The [[DrugsAreBad DARE anti-drug program]]. Many school kids in the US have probably had to sit through this at some point in their lives. Hilariously, there are multiple studies saying that DARE programs not only fail to decrease the rate of drug and alcohol use among the DARE participants, in some places the rates actually ''increase''. There are different theories as to why this is. One is that it exposes drugs to kids at an earlier age. Another is that it makes drug use seem far more prevalent than it actually is, making kids think it's normal. Then, of course, when the participants get older and find out that ''some'' of the information given to them had been, at the very least, exaggerated in order to ScareEmStraight, they assume that ''[[CryingWolf all]]'' [[CryingWolf of it was]], and decide to try out drugs.
** The fact that their main message, resisting peer pressure, basically boils down to "everyone is doing drugs but you" doesn't exactly help.
** With anti-drug ads, there's also the factor that applies to a StealthCigaretteCommercial. That is, the ads are considered so stupid and lame, that people who watch them will want go use drugs simply out of spite.
*** And of course, you have the new anti-smoking commercial playing up all of the ways that smoking has been made to look cool. Uh...
** There's also how describing the affects of certain drugs to kids doesn't exactly make them unappealing. "Marijuana makes you happy and makes thing funny. LSD and mushrooms makes you see bright colors and patterns. PCP turns you into {{Comicbook/Superman}}."
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meese_Report Meese Report]] on pornography. The commission's conclusions on the harmful effects of porn were transparently determined by the prejudices of Edwin Meese et al. rather than actual analysis, while the report also included plenty of excerpts and juicy descriptions of otherwise hard-to-find material.
* [[AnimalWrongsGroup PETA]] wants to put [[http://blog.peta.org/archives/2008/08/peta_warns_mexi.php a mural on the Mexican border fence]] to "warn" mexicans not to come to the US because they'll get fat from all the junk food and meat. The painting made the USA look like a Carnival-land made of candy and barbecues, turning the ''actual'' message into "Hey, we've got all the awesome delicious food you could ever want!" Yeah, that'll scare 'em away.
** Not to mention that getting fatter is kind of ''a goal'' of most people in third world countries.
* Prohibition. During the 1920's, when alcohol was outlawed in the US, some wineries would sell grape juice in wine bottles, and if you peeled off the label it had instructions on the back that basically said "don't follow these instructions or this grape juice will turn into wine".
* The Westboro Baptist Church. Since they've gone to such horrifying and sickening levels to preach their screed that homosexuality is wrong, they've probably gotten a lot of people who were previously on the fence to support gay rights so they won't be lumped in with them.
* David Hume intentionally used this in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.'' The opening and closing say that Cleanthes, the most orthodox proponent of religion, clearly wins the argument. In between those, he loses every point and the skeptical character of Philo carries the day.
[[/folder]]
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