History Main / UnderminedByReality

* MisaimedMarketing: Tie-in products at odds with a work's message.

* OvershadowedByControversy: The unintentional controversy is at best deeply associated with these works , and at worst is the only thing people remember about them.

* OvershadowedByControversy: The unintentional controversy is deeply associated with these works at best, and at worst is the only thing people remember about them.

* DontShootTheMessage: Audiences want to agree with the works message, but can't due to poor handling or out-of-work happenings.

* CluelessAesop: AnAesop about a controversial subject isn't handled with enough nuance.

* DontShootTheMessage: Audiences want to agree with the works message but can't due to poor handling out out of work happenings.

* OvershadowedByControversy: The controversy is deeply associated with these works at best, and at worst is the only thing people remember about them.

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[[WMG:[[center:[[AC:This trope is [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1651941845009682400 under discussion]] in the Administrivia/TropeRepairShop.]]]]]]

* DontShootTheMessage: Audiences want to agree with the works message but can't due to in or out of work happenings.

->''"This episode was produced before certain facts about Justin were known. Had they been known, the tributes would not have been done. It remains online, with the original ruminations in place, for historical purposes as an episode of this show and as a reminder that I made this terrible mistake, but it has been demonetized and comments disabled."''
-->-- '''Creator/LewisLovhaug''' on his [[InMemoriam tribute]] in ''WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall'' to [[WebVideo/YouCanPlayThis Justin Carmical]], ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YPvlPFj5bc Gameboy #3]]''

Life can be a bit of a tightrope walk for some actors, especially those appearing on children's television. Some fans have the unfortunate habit of mixing up the fictional entity with the real person who plays the fictional entity, and can get rather disappointed—[[FanDisillusionment rightly]] or [[FanDumb wrongly]]--when their idols fall off of the pedestal. The companies producing the shows are aware of this, and sometimes hold their actors to nigh-impossible moral standards, [[ContractualPurity punishing them for "crimes" such as trying to live a normal, adult life.]]

However, there's a flip side to the coin. Sometimes, the premise of a television program, book or song really ''can'' be undermined by the actions of the presenters, or even by the actions of those who work behind the scenes.

When a show is actively preaching to its viewers, it is not unreasonable to expect the people doing the preaching to uphold the standards that they are promoting. If they ''don't''... well, then you have got the real-life version of HolierThanThou, but with more air time. If the talk show marriage counselor verbally abuses his wife, or the professional dog trainer ends up in court after his Rottweiler attacks a child, it is easy to understand why viewers might decide that they are better off ''not'' taking advice from these people.

The trope also applies to figures such as presenters when they themselves are being held up as role models, rather than a character that they portray. Those who front children's television shows have to be particularly careful about their real-life conduct—there will be red faces all round if it turns out that [[DepravedKidsShowHost the woman sternly warning children against the dangers of drugs is using some less-than-legal substances.]] It is not particularly fair that other entertainers, such as rock stars and soap actors, [[ControversyProofImage can get away with these things]] (and far more) while others are pilloried for it... but it is TruthInTelevision. If a builder or window cleaner gets into a violent brawl while off the job, their employers won't care as long as they can still do their jobs. If a teacher or doctor is found in the middle of a fight, however, their career could be on the line.

It's worth noting that occasionally it's not actually the actors'/production team's fault that things go wrong. [[CosmicPlaything Sometimes, life has just decided that it's not going to be their week.]] This is especially true on shows that involve people from the wider public with the actual members of the show who could say or do anything they like on or off-camera. The program isn't really responsible, but they will be held to account regardless.

Mainly, it's non-fiction shows, or songs, that qualify for being Undermined by Reality. Fictional shows only really merit the trope if the actor does something that's actually illegal, or at least morally reprehensible enough that it's not just [[MoralGuardians the usual suspects]] who are up in arms over their off-screen behavior. If the actors are being held to ransom over normal, fairly innocuous behavior simply because said behavior doesn't mesh with their fantasy persona, then that's ContractualPurity.

See also: HarsherInHindsight (where the irony of a situation is particularly cruel but affects the actor rather than the production), HolierThanThou (for the fictional equivalent), and ArtistDisillusionment[=/=]FanDisillusionment (for the likely results of this trope). For the advertising variant, see WeCare. If the marketing causes the undermining of a work, this can overlap with MisaimedMarketing. See RoleEndingMisdemeanor. One reason for PosthumousPopularityPotential.

For when the message of a story is undermined by behavior within the story itself, see BrokenAesop.

'''This page is not an excuse to be Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike. And please don't add internet drama.'''

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!!Examples:
[[index]]
* ''UnderminedByReality/TotalDivas''
[[/index]]

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Advertising]]
* After the movie ''Film/ThreeHundred'' was released, almost every fitness and weight loss company used it as a piece of their marketing strategy toward men. ("Look like the men of ''300''!") However, when you look at the TrainingFromHell they endure and the fact that Creator/GerardButler developed a problem with painkillers from the abuse his body took and even had to check into rehab (although it wasn't just the training, there was also the typical abuse any actor in an action film must endure), maybe ''300'' isn't the best movie to reference. (It's telling that most of the companies have switched over to Captain America and Thor from ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}''.)
* UsefulNotes/SuperBowl 52 featured a [[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUsz51Ep39U Dodge commercial]] using UsefulNotes/MartinLutherKingJr's famous Drum Major speech. However, later in the same speech, he talks about how advertisers use persuasion to trick people into buying things and specifically mentions car companies by name.
* Toys/TeddyRuxpin, during TheEighties, was chosen to be "Official Spokesbear" for National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and included TooSmartForStrangers lessons in his storybooks. This partnership ended when it was revealed the Teddy Ruxpin toys were manufactured by child labor. Oops.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The message of ''Anime/DigimonAdventureLastEvolutionKizuna'' is learning to let go of your childhood and move on to your future life as an adult. But the advertising was specifically geared towards nostalgic fans of [[Anime/DigimonAdventure the original series]], and Creator/{{Bandai Namco|Entertainment}} and Creator/ToeiAnimation were milking nostalgic ''Digimon Adventure'' fans with a ContinuityReboot [[Anime/DigimonAdventure2020 being revealed]] less than two months later. ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02''[='=]s DistantFinale also clearly shows the adult Digidestined still having their Digimon with them, and WordOfGod says that it's still canon.
* This could happen to ''Anime/PrettyCure'', a franchise known for its progressive attitudes towards gender and the LGBTQ community, amid reports that producer Creator/ToeiAnimation [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-01-27/toei-animation-refuses-labor-negotiations-with-lgbt-union-member/.168819 displayed signs of transphobia in response to a good faith attempt at labor negotiation]].
%%* One of the themes of ''Manga/RecoveryOfAnMMOJunkie'' is that people's reasons for playing games online is to escape the world around them for a bit to find something that gives them joy. One of the two leads, Yuta Sakurai, did so because he is half-British, and was bullied due to his past heritage. Not long after the anime came out, director Kazuyoshi Yaginuma was discovered by western fans to be a vocal neo-Nazi (and that's not an exaggeration-- most of his posts and liked Tweets since joining WebSite/{{Twitter}} in 2011 explicitly espouse antisemitic and pro-Hitler beliefs) and denier/downplayer of Japanese war crimes, causing it to undermine the series' own points, motivating Signal.MD to fire Yaginuma, and resulting in the series becoming OvershadowedByControversy over Yaginuma's openly fascist rhetoric.
* The main moral of ''Anime/BangDream''[='=]s second season is that artistic integrity is important -- soulless, paint-by-numbers corporate music, as exemplified by [=CHU2=], is wrong, and artists must be allowed to make the kind of music they want to create instead of doing what someone else tells them to. However, the franchise is a multimedia project created by a [[Creator/{{Bushiroad}} media giant]] [[MerchandiseDriven designed to sell as much music, merchandise and mobile game microtransactions as possible]], and whose songs are written by people who have no relation to the performers -- effectively the same type of corporate music the series railed against. ''VideoGame/EnsembleStars'', a male idol series, and the second season of the main story campaign of ''VideoGame/LoveLiveSchoolIdolFestivalAllStars'' also have roughly the same moral and suffer from the same dissonance.
* Pretty much all ''Franchise/YuGIOh'' anime series have stories about how no card is truly useless, and it takes a truly skilled duelist to bring out their potential. Usually, these cards will play a crucial part in giving one of the main characters a victory they would have otherwise not achieved. In [[TabletopGame/YuGiOh the real-life trading card game]], there are many truly useless cards, cards that are power crept, and cards that are otherwise unusable because they, or other cards that facilitate them, are banned. With the cards the anime touts in these episodes, even a skilled duelist will struggle to compete against someone with a decent meta deck. In fact, many of these underdog cards get their effects buffed when printed in real life because they'd otherwise be useless.
* The main premise of ''Manga/{{Arte}}''--a PluckyGirl [[YouGoGirl working hard to rise up the ranks in the all-male and openly misogynistic world of Italian Renaissance art and proving her detractors wrong with her work ethic and determination]]--is called into question by the fact that quite a few female artists in Renaissance Italy existed, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofonisba_Anguissola Sofonisba Anguissola]], who later became court painter to Philip II of Spain. All of Anguissola's extant writings and correspondences suggest that she was treated with respect in the art world from a young age not only because of her talent but also because professional artists, who largely came from the merchant and laborer classes, would not dare speak ill of a noblewoman. The manga's portrayal of the Renaissance art world as not only exclusively male but openly hostile to women trying to enter it seems to be much more exaggerated than it actually was--since Arte is of noble birth, in reality, there would be little to no chance that she would have been mocked to her face for trying to become an artist like in the series.
* One prominent moral of ''Manga/KeepYourHandsOffEizouken'' is being able to recognize, own up to, and improve upon your mistakes and shortcomings as both a person and a creator. Several months after the anime adaptation ended, author Sumito Ōwara was discovered to be following photorealistic child pornography artists on WebSite/{{Pixiv}}, and when fans took him to task on this, he responded with a series of Tweets expressing his indifference on the matter and attempting to shift blame on his fans for calling him out in the first place, rather than taking accountability for his actions. While he did unfollow the artists, the tone of his response -- which read more like him getting irritated at people's reactions -- felt hugely dissonant to ''Eizouken''[='s=] emphasis on acknowledging and learning from your faults and errors.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comedy]]
* Comedian Creator/JimmyCarr performed a sketch on ''Series/TenOClockLive'' that satirized the tax avoidance of Barclays Banks. A few months later, it emerged that Carr was himself party to a K2 tax avoidance scheme.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The Team Achilles spin-off of ''ComicBook/{{Stormwatch}}'' was cancelled after writer Micah Ian Wright was discovered to have grossly exaggerated his claimed military experience. The controversy was especially severe due to Wright's anti-Iraq-War activism, which he had used his alleged past to give greater weight to.
* Many of the works of Creator/GeoffJohns, particularly ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'' and anything involving ComicBook/SuperboyPrime, focus on the idea that the NostalgiaFilter is wrong, and fans shouldn't idealize the past and reject the present and future. This ends up going counter to a lot of Geoff Johns's career, which is largely fueled by [[ArmedWithCanon attempts to revert the DCU's status quo]] back to what it was when he was a kid, often through CosmicRetcon or getting rid of current {{Legacy Character}}s in favor of the old ones. For instance, the storyline ''ComicBook/LegionOfThreeWorlds'' has Superboy-Prime as the villain and tries to establish that the other versions of the Legion are equally important... and yet its main impact on ''Legion'' was pushing the franchise back to an altered version of its 1988 status quo that ignored the other versions and even a chunk of its original continuity, which is exactly the sort of thing that Prime would approve of. Many of his stories also end on the suggestion that from now on, the world will resolve to be nobler and kinder, which gets undermined by the fact that Johns ''himself'' is a big fan of BloodierAndGorier action and killing off the CListFodder in droves (which, considering how LighterAndSofter the Silver Age he grew up with was, is especially hypocritical). You can jump from the hopeful ending of ''ComicBook/BlackestNight''[[note]]which, in line with the above note, had the primary effects of killing off a scad of characters introduced in the 1990s and 2000s, and bringing back a bunch of characters who were active in the 1970s and 1980s[[/note]] talking about a new dawn, to the first issue of [[ComicBook/BrightestDay its immediate sequel]] featuring a Silver Age villain murdering three civilians with a fillet knife on-panel.
* Modern comic books focusing on the ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica tend to focus on their status as the "first superheroes" and the inspiration for all who came after (including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman) as a reason for why the team and its members are still important. However, in real life, the vast majority of the JSA were also-rans during UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks, and if anything, they were usually attempts to FollowTheLeader of Superman's explosive popularity. Many members of the team, such as Wildcat and Doctor Mid-Nite, were on the team because their solo efforts ended up being quickly cancelled. And on top of all that, the reason for why the JSA, in-universe, are treated as older than Superman and company is because their books were cancelled, which allowed DC to lock their adventures in the 1940s while Superman got the benefit of the SlidingTimescale. Essentially, the JSA are allowed to be the first superheroes because their books were all demonstrably less successful than those of the ''actual'' first superheroes.
* Similarly, Franchise/XMen comics tend to treat the Original Five and their era with a certain degree of reverence, especially in TheNewTens. Even creators who hate certain members will depict them as instrumental to the X-Men's history. However, FirstInstallmentWins doesn't apply to the O5's era in real life: the [[ComicBook/UncannyXMen original run]] of comics in TheSixties generally sold poorly, brought in [[TheSixthRanger Sixth Rangers]] Havok and Polaris to try to give the series a shot in the arm (something Marvel generally ignores when telling the InUniverse history of the group), and was unceremoniously cancelled in 1970 and reduced to just reprinting old stories. The X-Men didn't begin their journey to major mainstream pop culture success and company tentpole until ''Giant Size X-Men'' after a five year hiatus, where the O5[[note]]Apart from Cyclops, who stayed on the team while the other four members left[[/note]] were disbanded and replaced. Prior to that point, it was basically just seen as a second-rate copy of ''ComicBook/FantasticFour''.
* One of the main reasons for the mixed reception of ''ComicBook/TheFlash: Rebirth'' is its attempts at CharacterShilling for Barry Allen, declaring that, for instance, Wally idolized Barry even before he knew he was the Flash and Jay Garrick came out of retirement because he was inspired by Barry. The thing is, in the actual Silver Age Flash comics, neither of these things were true; Wally, at that point unaware Barry was Flash, thought Barry was a buttoned-down dork and wanted Iris to date the Flash instead, and Jay openly claims he was about to come out of retirement (going so far as to keep his costume in good condition) and Barry just fasttracked his plans. While it's far from abnormal for a book to retcon character backstories, the problem is that DC was trying to bring back Barry specifically because of his historical importance in jumpstarting the Silver Age of Comics--if Barry were as important as DC claimed, then surely such retcons would have been unnecessary.
* While promoting ''ComicBook/{{Spawn}}'' when the series started, Creator/ToddMcFarlane [[https://popcultureaffidavit.com/2012/02/08/superman-and-the-image-problem/ expressed the belief that creators should own their own works and characters]], backed up by an issue written by ''ComicBook/CerebusTheAardvark'' creator Dave Sim which had the same message. This is also the same Todd [=McFarlane=] whose toy company would make figures based on the IP of others and got sued over the rights of characters he had questionable ties to the creation of (like Angela and Cogliostro) and didn't even own at all (as had been ruled to be the case for ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureauTheChatoverse'' author Chatoyance openly states that her version of Equestria, the Princesses, and the ponies is "more in line with Lauren Faust's original vision" than that of the show. However:
** This version of Celestia is basically the omnipotent god empress of Equestria despite Faust herself directly stating that Celestia is not actually a goddess.
** The show's pilot, written by Faust to set up their vision for the series, had Princess Luna [[FallenHero become Nightmare Moon]] and bring about TheNightThatNeverEnds, which Faust stated would have ultimately killed all life on the planet, out of [[GreenEyedMonster jealousy]]. While Chatoyance {{handwave}}s other antagonistic ponies as [[VillainousLineage descended from a ponified human]], they portray Luna as an infallible BigGood without any acknowledgment of Nightmare Moon which would invalidate the point of their work to portray ponies as morally superior if one as great as Luna could fall and commit such evildoing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films — Animation]]
* The numerous corporate tie-ins to the GreenAesop film ''WesternAnimation/TheLorax'', many of which made no effort to be ecologically friendly. The Mazda tie-in is probably the worst offender, as even though Mazda ''claimed'' to be ecologically friendly, it turned out that their cars actually scored worse than their competitors when it came to emissions. Just to drive home the hypocrisy this was actually a thing the ''villain'' does in the movie itself!
-->'''[[Radio/WaitWaitDontTellMe Peter Sagal]]:''' I am the Lorax. I speak for a fee!
* As noted in [[http://www.lawrence.com/news/2006/may/19/hedge_looks_familiar_creature/ the Associated Press' review]] of ''WesternAnimation/OverTheHedge'', a film that satirizes commercialism and suburban people who keep buying stuff, it had tie-ins with major commercially-driven brands such as UsefulNotes/{{Walmart}} and Wendy's.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheEmojiMovie'' teaches you to BeYourself despite being a [[ClicheStorm by the numbers]] [[TheyCopiedItSoItSucks mish-mash]] of other, much better films such as ''WesternAnimation/WreckItRalph'', ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie'' to the point that it [[{{Irony}} lacks its own identity]]. There's also the fact that it's [[MoneyDearBoy a blatant cash grab]] of a popular trend.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBugsBunnyRoadRunnerMovie'' features one scene in which WesternAnimation/BugsBunny shows that he has many "fathers," displaying a wall decorated with the directors responsible for his cartoons. A nice tribute, until you realize that someone crucial to Bugs' development is missing. The reason is that the movie's director, Creator/ChuckJones, held a massive grudge toward Creator/BobClampett, who was not only his polar opposite in directing style but had also recently claimed sole credit for the creation of Bugs, so he is the only famous Bugs director not on the wall.[[note]]Creator/FrankTashlin isn't either, but he only directed two Bugs cartoons.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/{{Dreamgirls}}'', Effie White is the lead singer and most talented member of the Dreams, but their corrupt manager Curtis demotes her to backup singer in favor of Deena Jones, who is more marketable. This is unambiguously presented as a {{Jerkass}} move on Curtis' part, and it ruins Effie's life. Then, in the movie version, Music/JenniferHudson played Effie, the lead character of the movie, but the studio designated her a "supporting actress" and gave top billing to Music/{{Beyonce}} Knowles (playing Deena), who is more famous. Then again, Hudson won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for her performance (for Best Supporting Actress; had she been nominated for Lead Actress, she likely would have been blown out by Creator/HelenMirren), while Knowles only got a UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobe nomination that most people assumed her manager father bought for her, so perhaps it averages out.
* ''Film/AtlasShrugged'', being an Objectivist treatise, is all about how the markets will inevitably select the most skilled and deserving people. Despite this, the creators kept working to make the films despite each one flopping horribly in the box office, thereby ignoring the markets. As if that wasn't bad enough, they turned to Kickstarter to get the last one funded, breaking one of the central tenets of Objectivism by asking others for help instead of doing things themselves.
* Derek Savage's actions towards his critics make the anti-bullying message of his film ''Film/CoolCatSavesTheKids'' very ironic.
* The 2008 documentary ''Film/BiggerStrongerFaster'' saw its director Chris Bell challenge the "conventional wisdom" about the health risks of anabolic steroids, questioning doctors and lawmakers about the real health risks and grilling a father whose son committed suicide over whether steroids really were to blame. The film heavily featured Bell and his two brothers Mike and Mark, both of whom were active steroid users. Within less than a year, Mike Bell (a former WWE jobber) had committed suicide, and both were shown to be at a significantly elevated risk for heart disease due to their steroid use.
* ''Film/VivaKnievel'' presents UsefulNotes/EvelKnievel as gentle and long-suffering. But mere months after the film's release, Knievel attacked a former promoter with an aluminum baseball bat for writing an unflattering biography of him. Knievel spent six months in prison and lost most of his corporate sponsors, leading to his bankruptcy in the early eighties.[[note]][[HilariousInHindsight Ironically]], the incident retroactively makes the character of Ben Andrews -- a double-crossing, murderous, vaguely Yiddish promoter -- seem like a vicious TakeThat at Shelly Saltman, the guy he assaulted, even though it was never intended.[[/note]]
** The film also has to pretend Knievel's wife and children don't exist so he can have a romantic subplot with Lauren Hutton.
* ''Film/KillBill'' is a movie about female empowerment, produced by Harvey Weinstein. No points for guessing what he was exposed for nearly 15 years later. Making things worse was how he had physically mistreated leading lady Creator/UmaThurman herself, who was ''very pissed'' at him following the incident.
* The main reason ''Film/UnitedPassions'' bombed so badly was that it was a film about the greatness and morally uplifting nature of FIFA as an institution (with particular focus placed on its executives, [[AudienceAlienatingPremise of all people]])... released right in the middle of a massive corruption scandal with the organization at its center. Special mention goes to Sepp Blatter, whom the film goes out of its way to present as a heroic figure despite his corruption being well-known by practically everyone.
* One of the broader aesops of ''Film/Mulan2020'' is that repressive governments and societies should be resisted against, especially those that would oppress women. However, this is undermined due to [[https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1162263666927915008 Mulan's actress speaking in favor of the police force in Hong Kong]], leading to the creation of the hashtag [=#BoycottMulan=]. This got worse when barely even a day after the the film was released, viewers discovered that Creator/{{Disney}} directly credited [[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/sep/07/disney-remake-of-mulan-criticised-for-filming-in-xinjiang several Chinese agencies directly involved in alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims]]. However, it's worth noting that the more nationalistic Chinese defended Liu's statements and argued that the original folk tale was less about feminism and more about defending one's country from foreign invaders.
* An odd case with ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', which is about the evils of... well, intolerance. Except the entire reason this movie was made to begin with was that people called Creator/DWGriffith out on his vehemently racist (even for the 1910s) prior film, ''Film/{{The Birth of a Nation|1915}}'', and he refused to accept that it was, in fact, racist and therefore massively intolerant.
* ''Film/{{Tess}}'', the 1979 film adaptation of ''Literature/TessOfTheDUrbervilles'' starring Creator/NastassjaKinski, retains the anti-rape [[AnAesop Aesop]] of the source material, which is undermined not only by the film being directed by convicted rapist Creator/RomanPolanski, but also being the first film he made after his conviction and flight from the United States.
* ''Film/Music2021'' has an underlying message about accepting autistic people for who they are, which has been largely undermined by the casting of the neurotypical Maddie Ziegler in the title role and Music/{{Sia}} responding poorly to criticism from the autism community.
* ''Film/{{Cuties}}'' is supposed to be a film about how young French girls are being exposed to more sexual material at a younger age through social media, and the way this can affect someone as young as around eleven, framing it as a bad thing. The director themselves even stated it was purposely made to critique the idea that children can handle that kind of stuff at such a young age. One of the reasons the film ended up being OvershadowedByControversy was that the film uses actual young girls as the main cast rather than using DawsonCasting.[[note]]For reference: the actress who played the lead character was eleven when she was cast, and the film auditioned around 650 girls.[[/note]] This completely undermines the message of the film, because not only is it doing the very same thing that the film says is bad (exposing children to sexual material), but the film also goes so overboard in said attempt to present the girls as "sexy" in an effort to make the viewers uncomfortable that it veers into DoNotDoThisCoolThing territory.
* During the release of the live-action ''Film/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'', quite a few products emerged based on the movie, which were at odds with [[Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas the original story]]'s Aesop warning against the commercialization of Christmas. [[WesternAnimation/TheGrinch2018 The 2018 animated adaptation]] suffered from the same problem.
* ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'' has a message about how CelebrityIsOverrated in a movie that does little more than celebrate Music/MichaelJackson.
* ''Film/TheHobbit'' trilogy as a whole, but especially ''Film/TheHobbitTheBattleOfTheFiveArmies,'' has the message that greed is bad to the point where it's {{Anvilicious}}. However, the whole movie wouldn't even exist if it weren't for greed, as it was originally planned for there to only be two movies before ExecutiveMeddling. Moreover, New Zealand even changed its labor laws to favor Warner Bros after it was feared they might film in Eastern Europe instead.
* ''Franchise/JurassicPark'': The [[Film/JurassicPark first movie]] had Ian Malcolm criticizing John Hammond's project believing that he is disrespecting the natural order and that "''You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you wanna sell it, sell it, SELL IT!''", which is ironically applicable to the sequels, which are often criticized [[{{Sequelitis}} for not living up to the original]] or adding anything more meaningful to its message. Malcolm's quotes are also often used by the detractors of the newer ''Film/JurassicWorld'' films for cashing in on the nostalgia of the original movie and treating the IP recklessly like how Hammond did with his park for the sake of [[CashCowFranchise keeping the franchise alive]], even if the scripts [[IdiotPlot leave a lot to be desired]]. Overall, just doing what the original movie preached against because they "wanna sell it".
* ''Film/RichardJewell'' is a {{Biopic}} about how the titular security guard had to deal with the American media falsely accusing him of planting a bomb during the 1996 Olympics and showing the dangers of the media spreading false information about individuals. However, the movie itself falsely portrays real life journalist Kathy Scruggs as an ImmoralJournalist who actively seduces and sleeps with FBI agents for information, something there is absolutely zero evidence for in reality. Pretty much every critic noted that this severely undermines the intended message.
* The first ''Film/SexAndTheCity'' film was released in 2008 and in spite of shaky characterizations and a CriticalDissonance, the film did very well with fans who still loved the fabulous foursome at the box office and its success prompted a sequel. By the time sequel came out two years later however, news that costars Creator/SarahJessicaParker and Creator/KimCattrall did not get along, which was a rumor floating around for years, became magnified and it all but killed the aura of the women being HeterosexualLifePartners both on- and offscreen.
* ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}''[='=]s main ScrewDestiny message is repeatedly undercut by the fact that, as a big-name media franchise, studios feel compelled to [[FranchiseZombie continue churning out sequels for as long as they think the series will make money]], which inevitably requires [[StrictlyFormula rehashing the same formula over and over again]]. The result is being told "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves" by a film that involves people trying to stop an apocalyptic event that had already been stopped approximately half a dozen times, only for another cause to arbitrarily come into existence [[DistinctionWithoutADifference because "Judgment Day is inevitable"]].
* ''Film/SuperSizeMe'' is a documentary-style film where the relatively-healthy director Morgan Spurlock eats UsefulNotes/McDonalds for thirty days straight. The goal of the film was to watch the effects the all-[=McDonald's=] diet had on Spurlock, with the end goal being to show how negatively the fast food industry affects people's health; by the end of the movie, he's gained 24 lb of weight, developed health problems, and suffered issues like addiction because of it.\\\
While the film got the reactions it aimed for, Spurlock later explained that prior to producing the film, he was a vegan and had been dealing with alcoholism. It was pointed out that the movie shows Spurlock eating more food than recommended[[note]]At some points, Spurlock throws up and ''forces himself'' to keep eating anyway[[/note]], and that he refused to list all the food he ate during his experiment, making it impossible to truly know what all he ate. The film became heavily criticized for undermining its own point, since Spurlock not only entered the experiment from an extreme diet choice not done by the average person, but he also didn't eat an amount of food that would be considered "normal" for one man, not helped by some evidence suggesting he was drinking alcohol during the filming. The movie's flawed premise and manipulative nature were subsequently addressed by a separate film called ''Film/FatHead'', and other similar experiments quickly poked holes in the films message.
* One of the most beloved movies of all time, ''Film/TheWizardOfOz'', had [[TroubledProduction an incredibly troubled and sad production]] that completely undermines much of the movie's themes. The main cast of characters (Tin Man, Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy) are good buddies who work together to help find the traits within themselves they don't know they had, and defeat the Wicked Witch of the West in order for Dorothy to go home. Unfortunately, actress Judy Garland was repeatedly mistreated by staff, production, and even the other actors. In particular, the trio of characters Dorothy went on her journey with were less than friendly behind the scenes, with Garland often being insulted or demeaned for being younger and less experienced. Ultimately, it was the Wicked Witch Actress, Margaret Hamilton, who ended up being one of the few people who treated Garland nicely. Despite the vibrant color exuded by the world they lived in and its hopeful attitude to keep moving forward, work together, and realize you often have the great traits you pine for; the filming was marred by some horrific production that left many of the cast ill and cantankerous, and most wanted nothing to do with one another. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4q3og9NP9E EmperorLemon]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLyXxB0bgNg Facts Verse]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTO0mreb8wk Explore With Us]] have all taken a deeper look into what went on behind the scenes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jokes]]
* InUniverse: A man starts imparting a seminar titled "How to raise your children", after he got kids of his own he renamed it as "Suggestions for raising your children", and when his kids became teens he canceled the seminar.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* The first ''Literature/{{Arthur}}'' book, titled "Arthur's Nose" was about the titular aardvark not liking his nose and wanting to get plastic surgery to change it, before deciding he's proud of his appearance. This didn't stop author Marc Brown from eventually [[ArtEvolution redesigning him]] so that his nose shrinks to the point where he no [[InformedSpecies longer resembles an aardvark]].
* The ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series is about the romance between OrdinaryHighSchoolStudent Bella Swan and a brooding, hundred-year-old vampire named Edward Cullen. While it wasn't written as a religious story, it attracted a large fandom among conservative Christians due to the chaste nature of the series, with Bella waiting until marriage before sleeping with Edward -- though only because he forced her to -- and choosing to give birth to their dhampir baby even in the face of it possibly killing her, and attempts by her husband, doctor, and best friend trying to force her to abort the child (the author, not coincidentally, is a devout Mormon, who admitted in at least one interview that her religious values shaped some of her writing whether she intended it or not). It is still unknown how the final film in the series, ''Breaking Dawn Part 2'', was affected by the revelation that Creator/KristenStewart (who played Bella) cheated on her then-fiance Creator/RobertPattinson (who played Edward) with the director of her film ''Film/SnowWhiteAndTheHuntsman''.
* The bestselling book ''Literature/RichDadPoorDad'' claims it contains all the secrets for becoming rich and it's full of financial advice on real estate investment. However, a few years after the book was published, its author Robert Kiyosaki declared bankruptcy, and it turned out that all his financial advice was sound... in 2007, before the 2008 real estate bubble burst and took down the world's economy with it. And that's ignoring the parts of his advice that were outright ''illegal''.
* The various [[AnAesop aesops]] in the work of Creator/AynRand rather suffered from Rand herself cheerfully making proclamations about what was and was not morally right that tended to contradict them. Collective action is wrong and you should never force decisions on others... unless Rand is telling you to vote for a specific Presidential candidate, in which case, everybody vote for that person. It's wrong to enrich one group at the expense of others... but the colonization of the Americas was totally okay in every respect because they weren't capitalists. When a tycoon leverages a situation to maximize their earnings, it's the free market at work. When laborers do the same, it's parasitism. And so on. Bonus marks come from her condemnation of Medicaid and Social Security, while relying on both later in life.
* The ''Literature/{{Darkover}}'' series has been retrospectively tainted by the posthumous accusations of child abuse and incest against Creator/MarionZimmerBradley, especially due to the allegations casting a darker light of some of the depictions of incest, and sexual activity involving very young characters, in the novels. ''Literature/TheMistsOfAvalon'' got it even worse, considering it’s an AuthorTract and glorifies both incest and rape. Taking the above revelation into account, why should anybody believe or do ''anything'' Bradley says? Not helping this was that her husband Walter Breen had been convicted of molesting boys.
* ''Literature/TheColdEquations'' exists to show sometimes there isn't a solution that can get a desirable outcome. However, the writer ''did'' come up with several such solutions that the editor refused to publish because it would contradict the point of the story. As a result, the story leans so heavily on ContrivedCoincidence that it's obvious the mission should have never made it that far.
* A minor but still important theme in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series is that your genes, family, or even history don't make you better than anyone and that regardless of birth or family lineage, people are capable of great things regardless. Hermione, for example, is a skilled Wizard despite being a MageBornOfMuggles, and one of the ''many'' reasons why the BigBad Voldemort is evil is because of his belief in the idea of "pure-blooded" Wizards and desire to exterminate any that aren't. However, the series writer, Creator/JKRowling, has done many things to undermine this:
** Firstly, Rowling placed a large importance on the heritage of her characters in ExpandedUniverse material. Much information on her official websites became devoted to the TangledFamilyTree that explained characters in the context of their bloodline, and many stories hinged on a character's family heritage. Most infamously, ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' devoted a major subplot to Credence Barebone's heritage, making it a major plot twist that he was not a Lestrange and instead a [[spoiler: Dumbledore]]. This seemed to imply that heritage did matter, after all, considering how much importance the plots placed on it. In the end, it seems the profitability of heritage plot twists was more important than thematic consistency.
** Later, Rowling expressed controversial views about gender and gender-expression, even going so far as to treat transgender people as being wrong about themselves (especially in the case of trans autistic people), declaring that transgender women aren't women on social media, and giving donations to groups that have similar viewpoints. This is very inconsistent with the message of her novels, since it comes across as saying your birth doesn't define you, except in regards to your gender.
* The medieval novel ''Hayy ibn Yaqzan'' refutes its own premise. It sets out to prove that Aristotelian physics is true by having the eponymous character, who [[RaisedByWolves never met another human]], derive its laws from first principles, independently of any other thinker. Of course, the ElephantInTheRoom is that Aristotelian physics is just wrong, which was only discovered with the aid of devices that didn’t exist in his time, meaning that one can’t derive the truth from first principles when it’s dependent on information one doesn’t and can’t know about. [[ScienceMarchesOn The book was written before any of this was known]], which unfortunately led to a PlotHole centuries later.
* Neil Strauss in ''Literature/TheGame'' teaches that pick-up artistry is ultimately emotionally and physically unfulfilling. He ends the book with taking up a monogamous lifestyle with Lisa Leverage. Instead, the man ended his relationship with Lisa soon after the book was published and later sponsored later books as well as the Stylelife Academy to make money from teaching men about pick up artistry.
* ''Literature/{{Lucky}}'' is a harrowing autobiographical book about author Alice Sebold's recovery from a horribly traumatic rape and her pursuit of justice... except that it later turned out that Sebold had been coached by prosecutors into misidentifying her rapist, resulting in an innocent man spending 16 years in jail and having his reputation ruined because he rightfully protested his innocence. He'd been denied parole five times because he wouldn't admit any guilt before being released, and placed on the sex offender registry. Sebold publicly apologized for what happened (Anthony Broadwater, the man convicted, didn't blame her) and the book's publication was stopped until its contents could be revised.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
!!!'''In General:'''
* Life is hard for straight actors who play gay roles. Every interviewer will insist on asking them if the love scenes (or more often, kissing scenes) were difficult to play. If they say yes, they risk undermining the role, and the interview will attempt to frame this as homophobia. If they say no, this may be inferred as coming out, and will certainly start (or fuel) rumors. If they try to TakeAThirdOption it may be seen as a cop-out. At any rate, reading such interviews can spoil a viewer's enjoyment of an otherwise immersive romantic scene.
* There's a reverse problem for gay actors. They no longer have to hide their sexuality to work — but it can be difficult or impossible for them to secure non-homosexual roles. Of course, some {{Straight Gay}}s can have the problem of people insisting that they're "not gay enough" for certain roles, as is the case for Creator/JohnBarrowman when he tried to get a main part in ''Series/WillAndGrace''.

!!!'''By Creator:'''
* Creator/EllenDeGeneres has received awards for her talk shows advocating acceptance of others, kindness, and so on... which became a bit harder to swallow when, in 2020, multiple accusations of racism, mistreatment of employees, and overall toxic conduct within the workplace and such hit her show. Further details emerged, revealing that said accusations were not directly against Ellen but rather [[AccompliceByInaction her inaction regarding several problematic senior production staff]]. Ellen took responsibility for allowing said situation set in, expressing regret for what seems to have been the product of allowing herself to become distanced from the operations of her show, and taking steps to clean house and create a culture more in line with her message.
* The posthumous revelations of Creator/JimmySavile's crimes as one of the U.K.'s most prolific sex criminals has ruined the reputations of all the shows he helped present — ''Series/TopOfThePops'', ''Clunk Click'', and ''Jim'll Fix It'' were all aimed at children or teens, and he used them to find victims. The scope of his crimes, which he was never tried for in his lifetime, effectively undermined the ''entire BBC'' (particularly the revelation that many people knew about it there, but didn't act as he was so popular then).
* Creator/JossWhedon won acclaim in the 1990s and early 2000s for the themes of female empowerment that carried into most of his shows, including the Franchise/{{Buffyverse}} and ''Series/{{Firefly}}''. However, in the late 2010s and early 2020s, many of the women behind his shows accused him of being rather terrible to women himself, including serial adultery, harassment, creating a generally miserable environment, and pressuring and eventually firing Creator/CharismaCarpenter for being pregnant.

!!!'''By Series:'''
* ''Series/AmericasNextTopModel'' Cycle 10 contestant Whitney Thompson was a confident plus-sized model who had her main platform be that "girls need a role model" (i.e., someone who wasn't HollywoodThin), which the judges apparently agreed with by praising her to the moon and back, [[ManipulativeEditing portraying her as being much more assertive and competent than the previous heavier models of cycles past]] and declaring her the winner of that cycle. Unfortunately for Thompson, her unique body type [[BlessedWithSuck where she was too heavy for your average runway fashions but too light for traditional plus-sized modeling]] (coupled with [[{{Irony}} diminished credibility for appearing on the show in the first place)]] allowed for limited opportunities in the fashion world to the point where she had to ''lose weight'' in order to receive more work.
* Even the most venerable of children's shows can fall victim to this, as ''Series/BluePeter'' found out when presenter Richard Bacon was caught taking cocaine in 1999.
* ''Series/TheBoldType'' was a series that preached the value of authenticity and risk-taking, ostensibly being the story about how protagonist Jane rises through the ranks at ''Scarlet'' magazine through hard work, honesty, and a willingness to speak her mind. Behind the scenes was a different story; when Kat Edison, the openly-queer and outspoken TokenBlackFriend, became the show's most popular character, actress Aisha Dee tried to leverage her popularity to get more input into her character's development, and instead the writers punished her with increasingly contrived storylines, culminating in a much-hated story arc where a conservative lesbian gets Kat fired from her job, and somehow Kat ends up in a relationship with the woman.
* ''Series/TheBoys2019'' is, per WordOfGod, supposed to be about blue-collar stiffs banding together and using grit and gumption to take on the PowersThatBe and a scathing countercultural critique of corporate underhandedness like [[ComicBook/TheBoys the original comic]], but the show is produced by [[Creator/{{Amazon}} one of America's most infamous megacorps]], making it [[TheManIsStickingItToTheMan the very thing the source material once parodied]].
* ''Series/ExtremeMakeoverHomeEdition'':
** Often, the renovations made on the featured houses bumped up their value, resulting in higher insurance rates and taxes for the families. Occasionally, these became unaffordable, resulting in the homes being sold.
** The show ran into a snag when two cohabiting families for whom they had built a massive house began fighting, causing the larger, adopted family to move out. ABC legally washed its hands of any responsibility.
** One of the more special houses they had built was later almost foreclosed on. It wasn't directly the show's fault, but they paid the mortgage on that one, and they will probably tone down future makeover houses just a little so that the people moving into them can afford to maintain them.
** In a Thanksgiving special, they built a house for a family that runs a soup kitchen, complete with a commercial-grade kitchen and a cafeteria area for serving. Months later, the local government denied the zoning request that would have allowed them to actually use that kitchen and cafeteria to serve food.
** One makeover program involved building a ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones''-themed bedroom, complete with fake rock walls and a straw floor. Needless to say, when it came time to revisit the house a while later, the room was in the process of being redecorated after the inhabitants tired of the decor and of having to clean a straw floor.
* This is believed to be a big reason for the failure of the Netflix series ''Series/{{Girlboss}}''. The series revolves around Sophia Amoruso, founder of the Nasty Gal fashion company, and was designed to portray her as rebellious and unconventional but ultimately talented and the intention was to show her as an unlikely business success story. However, in the months before the show premiered, the company filed for bankruptcy and went from being an inspiring success story to a huge failure, largely due to Amoruso's mismanagement. In addition, Amoruso was hit by multiple lawsuits for actions such as firing women who got pregnant, undermining the show's feminist aspirations, as well as claims that the work environment was toxic. Without Amoruso's success to justify her behavior, the show was ultimately stuck revolving around a selfish, rude, immature, and overall unlikable character and ended up being cancelled after a single season.
* Late in its run, ''Series/HomeImprovement'' was going to do AVerySpecialEpisode centered around drunk driving. During the writing stage Creator/TimAllen was arrested for DUI and the creative team realized it would be hypocritical of them to do the episode so it was scrapped. The seventh season episode "What a Drag", which focuses on marijuana, averts this somewhat by acknowledging that both parents had engaged in excessive substance use in their younger years.
* Much of ''Series/KungFu'' deals with the folly of racism and the importance of the wisdom of the east, which gets undermined a fair bit by the fact that the producers went the {{Yellowface}} route when choosing their lead star and cast the lily-white Creator/DavidCarradine, who did not actually know martial arts, as [[FakeMixedRace a supposedly half-Chinese martial arts expert]]. What's more, it's generally believed that they passed up Creator/BruceLee for the role, despite him being one of the best martial artists of his generation, one of the main figures behind the show, and actually mixed Chinese-American. When the show was [[Series/KungFu2021 rebooted in 2021]], the creators understandably brought in an actual Asian-American cast, since using Yellowface again would have been not only insensitive but downright provocative, considering the heightened anti-Asian racism as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
* One of the main recurring themes of ''Series/MadMen'' is the casual sexism of the '60s, criticizing the sexualization of the workplace, harassment, and other abuses women had to suffer through back then. However several years after the series concluded, its creator Matthew Weiner was accused of sexually harassing a female writer on the show.
* In the film (1970) and first seasons of ''Series/{{MASH}}'' (1972-73), UsefulNotes/TheKoreanWar was, of course, a metaphor for UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. After the USA lost the war in 1975, with the annexation of the south by the north, the series stopped pushing the metaphor quite so hard. However, today it's risible to even imagine taking the early seasons' face-value message that U.S. intervention in the Korean War accomplished nothing and North Korea wasn't really that bad anyway seriously. Granted, no one could have known the two Koreas would turn out that way at the time the show was made, to say nothing of when the war actually took place--in the 1970s, ''both'' Koreas were poverty-stricken dictatorships, and if anything, the North was doing considerably better. South Korea didn't become a democratic state until the late '80s, and North Korea took some major hard knocks in the mid-'90s due to flooding and famine that created much of its current reputation.
* Notably averted by Creator/FredRogers of ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'', who really was as wholesome and benevolent as the show made him out to be. No matter what the internet would have you believe. He really was. The closest thing to a real controversy regarding Fred Rogers was his having told Francois Clemmons to keep his being gay a secret, but that was due to concern about Clemmons's job as coming out as gay while working on a kids' show at that time would have [[CreatorKiller destroyed his career]]. Privately, Mr. Rogers was very supportive of Clemmons.
* One of Creator/FrankieBoyle's jokes on ''Series/MockTheWeek'' had him talking about how he'd heard that the women in government were there to be window dressing. He then said "where on Earth would those women be considered window dressing? The London Dungeon?" Anyone who's ever been to the London Dungeon and met the women normally employed there... that joke could be taken as a compliment now.
* An article in TV Guide once followed up on some of the ''Series/PimpMyRide'''s more memorable cases. They found that quite a few of the kids were encountering serious financial problems thanks to it. The kids are often driving these old, beat-up cars because they are broke and that's all they can afford. [[DidntThinkThisThrough They found that their insurance rates went through the roof]] after Xzibit and Co. got a hold of them. Possibly adding to it, all of the extra things they added into the car had to have ruined their gas mileage as well.
* The original ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'' featured an episode about racism, and the short-lived 2018 revival included an episode condemning Islamophobia -- both of which became this as the tweet by Creator/RoseanneBarr that caused the latter to be short-lived (and subsequently retooled into ''Series/TheConners'') was itself racist and Islamophobic. Indeed, part of the point of the revival was to present a sympathetic, positive portrayal of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump-era Republicans, only for Barr's offscreen behavior to reinforce the worst stereotypes of them.
* ''Series/SesameStreet'' is well known for treating their characters outside of the show as actually what they are and not as puppets...unless it involves dealing with something controversial. After gay marriage was legalized in California, someone posted a petition online suggesting they have Bert & Ernie get married to teach tolerance about same-sex marriage. Sesame Workshop refused, citing that Bert & Ernie are only puppets, and therefore, have no gender.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'': One of the morals on "[[Recap/SmallvilleS04E11Unsafe Unsafe]]" was that your first sexual experience is to be approached carefully, and even Allison Mack was used to promote it (her character Chloe said it in-universe as well). This moral loses credibility when Allison Mack was accused of being involved with sex trafficking for the cult NXIVM and in April 2018 [[https://www.cbr.com/smallville-star-allison-mack-arrested-in-sex-cult-case/ arrested for that.]] Her mentor Keith Raniere, who led NXIVM, was accused of raping children. She ultimately pleaded down to racketeering and is expected to testify against Raniere, who didn’t take a plea deal.
* Creator/GeneRoddenberry's vision of a future moneyless utopia in the later incarnations of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (which was [[NewerThanTheyThink never part of the original series]])[[note]]The episodes with Harry Mudd and Cyrano Jones make it very clear that money ''does'' exist. The, "We don't use money in the future," idea first appears decades later in a throwaway line in ''Film/StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome,'' and frankly seems to just come out of the blue. It would be ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' that made it a central aspect of the setting, at least when it came to the Federation, as money ''outside'' the Federation (such as latinum) was also in use.[[/note]] falls rather flat when you learn that the man himself was a quite ruthless businessman, pulling shady moves like writing completely irrelevant lyrics to the show's theme song that were never intended to be used just so he could steal part of the composer's paycheck and making unauthorized use of the actors' likenesses on merchandise (something Leonard Nimoy often had to fight him on). The franchise reputation as a [[CashCowFranchise cash cow]] over the decades also strikes against its anticapitalist sensibilities.
* Creator/AaronSorkin's show ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip'' was essentially a season-long TakeThat at modern network TV, arguing that the American people don't really want to watch poorly-written schlock and trashy reality TV and that all the networks would need to win their affection would be to give them quality product and stop dumbing everything down for them. Specific examples of what networks ought to do were provided by a screenwriter character who was clearly an AuthorAvatar for Sorkin and an in-universe proposal to do a TV series set at the U.N. that bore many similarities to Sorkin's previous show ''Series/TheWestWing''. The counter-argument? Well, ''Studio 60'' ended up getting cancelled two-thirds of the way through its first season. Why? Horrible, ''horrible'' ratings.
* ''Joy Junction''[='=]s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obiDOc2kM5Q attempt]] to warn kids off of looking at "dirty pictures", already suffering from the usual '90s problem of children's television being allowed and even encouraged to warn against these sorts of things [[CluelessAesop but forbidden from actually telling kids what these terrible things are]], was later made worse with [[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ronald-brown-child-porn_n_3676727 the revelation that the puppeteer in question]] was arrested for having child pornography in his possession, alongside openly conspiring to [[ImAHumanitarian do even worse things to a child]].
* Early ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' as a highly idealistic series that promoted acceptance of other cultures, environmentalism, and the like is somewhat undermined by its TroubledProduction and HostilityOnTheSet, particularly with Creator/DavidYost (Billy) being bullied by the production crew for being gay and apparently at one point told by the producers that a gay man didn't deserve to play a heroic character, several of the original cast members walking off the set because they said they were paid "less than fast food workers", Creator/SarahBrown (Heather) saying she was abused by her fiancé who was also a co-creator of the show, and Creator/JasonDavidFrank (Tommy) and Austin St. John (Jason) having their infamous feud. Fortunately, the series has gotten a lot less exploitative since then.
* ''Series/SeventhHeaven'' was infamous for its {{Anvilicious}} moralizing. So it was quite a shock when in 2014, [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/10/07/beverley-mitchell-fans-react-stephen-collins-molestation/16852575/ Stephen Collins (Reverend Eric Camden on the show) was revealed to have molested three underage girls in the past]]. Collins's career is over after that.
* A weird one with ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen''. Instead of the actor engaging in depravity, one actor has become a Christian and denounced the show. In November 2012, a newly Christian Angus T. Jones urged viewers not to watch his show because it was full of "filth". On other occasions, he has told the Seventh Day Adventist church that he no longer feels comfortable on his show because it does not promote God.
* The TV Land series ''Series/{{Younger}}'' is about a forty-year-old woman lying about her age and pretending to be in her twenties to find a job. As such, the show has made a few digs at the fact that modern society favors younger employees over older, more experienced ones. Noble intentions, but the problem is, the show's publicity push spent as much time (if not more) trumpeting the fact that the show was twenty-something Hilary Duff's return to TV as it did focusing on the actual star, forty-year-old two-time Tony winner Sutton Foster.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Music]]
* Music/BrianMay of Music/{{Queen}} felt uncomfortable about the closeted Music/FreddieMercury writing a gay anthem like "Body Language" from ''Music/HotSpace'' in 1982, not so much due to Freddie's sexuality as fearing it would alienate the straight Queen fans.
* Music/MichaelJackson's reputation as a true eccentric was seen for years as just a funny bunch of quirks that his genuine talent and extensive charity work, especially with children, balanced out. Then he was accused of molesting a young, male friend in 1993. He settled a civil suit out-of-court and supporters claim the evidence against him was [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZxNDb2PVcoM sketchy]] all along, but his career was never quite the same; a second round of child molestation accusations that resulted in a court trial came along in 2003. While he was declared not guilty in 2005, his career never even approached his former heights until he passed away, at which time his popularity again rose and it became risky to say anything about his checkered past. However, the release of the 2019 documentary ''Leaving Neverland'' brought the child molestation accusations back into the spotlight and again his reputation took a hit. Though once again supporters called out the [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=CXOfz1YkWeA inconsistencies]] of the allegations in the documentary. Additionally, the DrugsAreBad theme in his film ''Film/{{Moonwalker}}'' was made bittersweet by the revelation that he was addicted to prescription drugs for decades, as that was how he died.
* A much darker example. "Pack Up Your Troubles" ("in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile") is known as one of the most optimistic songs ever written. Its writer George Henry Powell later committed suicide. The context of the song and the suicide, however, are different. He wrote the song in 1915 when he was 35 years old with the explicit intent to raise morale for the British troops during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. And it worked. Powell may have committed suicide in 1951 when he was 71 years old and a mostly forgotten relic from another era, though his cause of death is disputed. His brother Felix Powell, the one who wrote the music for the song, actually did commit suicide in 1942, by shooting himself in the heart with a military rifle. Felix was supposedly enthusiastic during his service in World War I but was much less enthusiastic when serving in the Home Guard during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
* Russian girl-group Music/{{Tatu}} became famous for the supposed love affair between singers Lena Katina and Yulia Volkova. Not only were the two a fake couple guided by a manager who relied on producing scandals for publicity, but they ditched the manager and the lesbian gimmick within two years of achieving fame, have both since married men, and Volkova has made comments condemning male homosexuality.
* Music/GaryGlitter's image as campy rock n' roller that the whole family could enjoy was destroyed forever in 1997 when he was convicted of possessing child pornography.
* "Coming Home" by Music/KeithUrban celebrates the joys of escaping city life for the simple pleasures of the countryside...over very urban-sounding synthetic drum beats.
* The Music/{{Pink}} song "U + Ur Hand" tells off sleazy men who harass women and treat them as existing solely for men's entertainment. One of the writers on that song is Dr. Luke, whom Music/{{Kesha}} accused of, among other things, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesha_v._Dr._Luke misogyny and rape]].
* The ''Music/SClub7'' TV shows would showcase or imply that the British septet were TrueCompanions who made it big in America and were living fun, squeaky clean lives. Unfortunately, between the stress of the band flying back and forth between their home country and the States, the added stress of dealing with both British ''and'' American record producers[[note]]with the former being seen as [[ThereAreNoGoodExecutives the average producer/exec]] (namely having the same management/producers who made Music/TheSpiceGirls into stars...and subsequently helped to bring them down after they overexposed them) and the latter barely promoting them due to being overshadowed by more popular artists and bands at the time[[/note]], [[CreativeDifferences reports of band infighting]] and the boys being busted for cannabis possession in 2001, the public saw a different side of the group and as well as band member Paul Cattermole quitting to join a Nu Metal band, their popularity died, leading to their breakup in 2003.
* Music/{{Eminem}}: In a rare version of this where a musician with a villainous image was undermined by turning out to be a pretty good person, much of the backlash Eminem has received is based on the concept that his well-known CreatorRecovery meant his Slim Shady persona now [[TheSeriesHasLeftReality ceased to represent anything about his real life]]. There was a time when Slim represented Eminem's own self-destructive substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, poverty and misanthropy; after Eminem patched things up with his family, got sober, got his temper under control and became well known as an elder statesman of hip-hop, critics began to find Shady defanged at best, and a tasteless mechanism for VulgarHumor at worst.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Professional Wrestling]]
* Professional Wrestling is very vulnerable to this phenomenon. In the past, when {{Kayfabe}} was maintained, heels and faces wouldn't be allowed to be seen out in the real world together, and popular wrestlers were required to live their gimmick (not so bad if you like beer and play a beer-swilling redneck, but think of poor GorgeousGeorge...). In the modern age, despite the finishes and certain spots' predetermination being acknowledged, there are still many situations where RealLifeWritesThePlot after faces are caught doing something they shouldn't, and a quick Face-Heel Turn occurs (Wrestling/{{Edge}} and Wrestling/{{Lita}} springs to mind — after the two were caught having an affair, Lita had a FaceHeelTurn and was paired with Edge (already a heel), whose gimmick changed from "bitter asshole" to "sleazy man-whore").
** Even worse, as the years go by, pro wrestling's role as fun escapist entertainment has been near-fatally undermined by what wrestlers call "the sickness" — the scores of performer deaths due to abuse of performance-enhancing and recreational drugs, with Wrestling/ChrisBenoit's murder of his family and subsequent suicide (Benoit's autopsy revealed one of the highest testosterone ratios known to man and post-concussion syndromes similar to Alzheimer's) as a horrific capstone. In addition, unlike most TV shows or real sports, financial abuse is fairly common; Wrestling/{{TNA}} (a wrestling promotion owned by a $1 billion level energy company and airing on TV every week for millions in rights fees) kicked up a shitstorm when Jesse Neal tweeted about qualifying ''for food stamps'', and one of [[Wrestling/TaylorWilde their champions]] was outed working a minimum wage mall kiosk job on the side to make ends meet.
* WWE has frequently recycled the Wrestling/VinceMcMahon vs Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin feud in order to make a wrestler look like an anti-authoritarian rebel... the problem being that the wrestlers cast in this role are ones the company ''likes'' and wants to push. See the Wrestling/MontrealScrewjob for what happens to a wrestler who ''actually'' gets on Vince's bad side. Wrestling/CMPunk was a unique case in that he started off with a strong push more akin to Austin, but wound up getting treated more like Wrestling/BretHart did during the Montreal Screwjob in his later years due to lack of draw value, leading to his decision to quit WWE.
* The WWE Divas being touted as "Smart, Sexy and Powerful" gets undermined when you hear stories from many former Divas about how much pressure they were under to maintain their good looks 24/7 (Krissy Vaine got addicted to botox injections, Kristal Marshall became dangerously underweight), perfectly healthy women being told to lose weight (Wrestling/RosaMendes, Wrestling/MariaKanellis) and being hugely restricted by management in various areas — Wrestling/GailKim claimed that one week they were told "no punching" and the next "no kicking". The knowledge of this makes the ones currently in the company seem like living {{Stepford Smiler}}s.
** In a curious flip side to the above point, it's something of a fun hobby for many fans to hate the so-called "model Divas" who were not trained on the indies and were offered WWE developmental contracts as they are assumed to be break-a-nail types that don't care about wrestling and only want a stepping stone to other forms of entertainment. This gets undermined when you hear the horror stories of vicious bullying many of these women received from other members of the roster — Amy Weber quit because Wrestling/RandyOrton found flyers from when she used to work at a strip club and posted them up all around the backstage area, Bobbi Billard was released after getting injured in developmental because the women training her (Wrestling/{{Ivory}} and Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}}) were deliberately going too hard on them. Add that to the knowledge above and the knowledge that a good portion of the girls were actually wrestling fans which is why they agreed to become wrestlers and people might feel a tad guilty for abusing them.
** ''Website/{{WrestleCrap}}'' brought up another one; when interviewed on Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin's podcast, Wrestling/TripleH was asked why Wrestling/{{Chyna}} has never been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, despite being a big part of the Attitude Era, with him replying it was due to her being a porn actress and WWE not wishing to be associated with that. However, as the writer pointed out, [[Wrestling/TammyLynnSytch Sunny]] is in the Hall of Fame and she did/has done porn, and Wrestling/JimmySnuka (possibly) murdered someone, so he comes off looking like a hypocrite. In Hunter's defense, most of the Internet believe that he was lying — the generally accepted real reason as to why she had not been inducted into the Hall of Fame yet is because she couldn't be trusted with a live microphone while she was alive; she was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019 as part of Wrestling/DGenerationX's group induction.
* Wrestling/WWEToughEnough has a lot fewer success stories because of this trope. The premise of the show was having ordinary people off the street train to become wrestlers in a span of two months or so. In reality, it takes most of the year to get decent enough to wrestle on TV, and this if you are a once in a generation prodigy. It usually takes two or four years, as opposed to a matter of weeks. Most successful wrestlers also spend years on several different shows, in front of several different kinds of crowds, facing hundreds of different opponents across the nation/continent/planet before they hit their stride. As such, any winners of the show would be too green to get any kind of meaningful push. Even given time, there is only so much they can learn from WWE alone and it is not exactly famous for letting its "independent contractors" actually operate independently of it. The only people from ''Tough Enough'' to have any WWE success were in the company for several years by then, long after momentum from the show had dissipated. It's to the point that people forget that Wrestling/JohnMorrison, the most successful winner (and the second most successful alumnus of TE, after Wrestling/TheMiz), was even on the show to begin with, let alone a winner, and even wrestlers with entirely non-WWE success like Kenny King weren't remembered for ''Tough Enough'' by the time they made headlines.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/BendyAndTheInkMachine'' is not shy to condemn poor working conditions and abuse of employees, with [[BadBoss Joey Drew]]'s poor business sense and treatment of his workers causing several of them to become {{Humanoid Abomination}}s and the whole plot of the game happening as a result of his incompetence. [[https://www.videogamer.com/news/bendy-and-the-ink-machine-developer-allegedly-fires-almost-50-employees/ Then came accusations from ex-Kindly Beast employees suddenly let go]] that the heads tended to ignore the concerns of more experienced workers, were not upfront about the unclear future of the company, and had long periods of time where no work was done due to the board being difficult to contact - in short indulging in the same toxic workplace culture than ''Bendy'' criticizes.
* Creator/BlizzardEntertainment:
** A central theme in the games is doing the right thing, even if it costs you (e.g. Jim Raynor fought against the dictatorial government to put a better one in place in ''VideoGame/StarCraftIIWingsOfLiberty''; Saurfang's entire arc in the ''Battle For Azeroth'' expansion for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' is him realizing that the Horde has been rotten from its inception, ultimately sacrificing his life to change it for the better; ''Videogame/{{Overwatch}}'' is about heroes returning to defend the world, despite it being illegal to do so). All this became more glaring that [[https://www.vg247.com/2019/10/08/blizzard-suspends-hearthstone-pro-blitzchung-supporting-hong-kong-protests/ less than a month after Saurfang's arc ended]], Blizzard banned a ''VideoGame/{{Hearthstone|HeroesOfWarcraft}}'' champion for supporting the pro-Hong Kong protests, took his prize money, cancelled the launch event for the Switch port of ''Overwatch'' and fired the casters of an interview where said champion voiced support for the protests. The harsh response to the champion showed that, like most corporations, Blizzard cares more about the money it can get from cooperating with the Chinese government than about human rights.
** One of Blizzard's core principles is "Every Voice Matters". While Blizzard has tried to adhere to this ideal with a diverse cast in many of its games, a [[https://deadline.com/2021/07/activision-blizzard-sued-california-agency-frat-boy-workplace-culture-1234798024/ lawsuit]] alleges that studio failed to create an inclusive environment and instead silences and browbeats its employees into submission. Female employees, in particular, have experienced the worst of Blizzard's work culture with women being sexually harassed by drunken employees, denied promotions, and fired for speaking out. This was highlighted in a lawsuit laid at Activision Blizzard in 2021 after an investigation from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing which stated [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/07/22/activision-blizzard-lawsuit-alleges-horrific-mistreatment-of-women/?sh=8dbb65166c19 the company had sexually harassed a woman to the point she committed suicide.]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'':
** Many players and even [[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-18/cyberpunk-game-maker-faces-hostile-staff-after-failed-launch working staff]] have found it hard to take the anti-corporate and anti-capitalist themes of the game seriously after it was revealed that Creator/CDProjekt [[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-29/cyberpunk-2077-publisher-orders-6-day-weeks-ahead-of-game-debut ordered a blistering six-day-a-week crunch period in the months prior to release]], [[https://www.polygon.com/2020/12/4/21575914/cyberpunk-2077-release-crunch-labor-delays-cd-projekt-red after having previously promised]] that [[LyingCreator they would never do this]].
** The game has several missions with an anti-censorship theme, which lost a lot of its bite when CD Projekt wound up delisting the Taiwanese horror game ''{{VideoGame/Devotion}}'', which had come under Chinese political fire due to a placeholder asset mocking Xi Jinping getting it BannedInChina, from Website/GOGDotCom mere hours after its launch was announced. Their justification for having done so[[note]]stating that it was in response to [[https://twitter.com/GOGcom/status/1339227388438306817 "many messages from gamers"]], which was widely mocked for its insincerity[[/note]] left many people believing it was a transparent move to [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-12-16-cd-projekt-under-fire-for-dramatic-u-turn-on-devotion-gog-release censor their own platform to ensure it doesn't get pulled from the Chinese market]].
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' 's GreenAesop was later undermined in 2021 when Creator/SquareEnix started pushing blockchain and [=NFTs=], which are notorious for their reputation of being bad for the environment.
* Creator/NetherrealmStudios made quite a big deal about taking the ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' series in a more progressive direction with ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11''. This included TamerAndChaster redesigns for the female characters for which they received both [[BrokenBase praise and criticism]]. However, [=NetherRealm's=] efforts at being progressive received scrutiny in light of [[https://variety.com/2019/gaming/features/netherrealm-studio-warner-bros-games-toxic-1203204728/ reports concerning terrible working conditions for their employees such as low pay despite extreme overtime, as well as allegations of sexism and transphobia]]. Their decision to cast Ronda Rousey as the voice of Sonya Blade in ''11'' also received criticism due to [[https://kotaku.com/ronda-rousey-being-in-mortal-kombat-11-is-bullshit-1834446709 Rousey's comments about transgender MMA fighter Fallon Fox and her re-tweeting conspiracy videos about the Sandy Hook school shooting]]. To say nothing of the fact that Kung Jin from ''VideoGame/MortalKombatX'', the franchise's first gay character, was conspicuously missing from ''11''[='=]s roster or the game's retconning of Sindel from a loving mother and benevolent queen into a [[TheVamp vampish]] GoldDigger who constantly speaks in sexual innuendos and now has a move in which she [[AssKicksYou breaks the opponent's face with her ass]].
* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'':
** As part of its GenreDeconstruction, [[WhatTheHellPlayer the game repeatedly calls players out for continuing to play so they can "feel like a hero"]], even once it's clear they're only making things worse. However, the game originally included [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the option to stop]] but it was removed after too many playtesters chose it. The developers did everything in their power to [[BlamedForBeingRailroaded take choice away from their players after they demonstrated they were just fine with stopping]].
** Another case was [[ExecutiveMeddling forced on the game by its publisher]], who decided, against the developers' wishes, that it would have a multiplayer mode to fruitlessly chase the coattails of the exact modern military shooters the single player campaign rips apart.
* Creator/{{Ubisoft}} examples:
** The ''Franchise/WatchDogs'' series, notably ''VideoGame/WatchDogsLegion'' has recurring themes of speaking out against corrupt authority figures and corporate cover-ups; which are now largely undermined by [[https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-22-french-union-preparing-collective-lawsuit-against-ubisoft-amid-abuse-allegations Ubisoft's history of creating a toxic and abusive workplace coming to light]].
** ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' has a main plot of dealing with a conspiracy being exposed by the player character. Creator/MichelAncel, the game's director, ended up leaving the sequel and the games industry entirely right before [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-09-25-new-report-says-michel-ancel-left-ubisoft-amid-investigation-into-his-toxic-behaviour he himself was implicated in Ubisoft's above-mentioned workplace controversies]], Ancel's response not helping matters.
* One of [[AnAesop the major themes]] of the ''VideoGame/YIIKAPostModernRPG'' is personal responsibility. Andrew Allanson, one of the co-creators, took to Podcast/TheDickShow sometime after release to [[DearNegativeReader complain about the people]] who didn't like the game, stating that people who play video games can't handle complex themes and that video games are little more than toys, which many people considered an attempt to dodge the blame for the shortcomings of the game. Irony abound as a creator of a game is unable to grasp his game's theme. Compounding this is that Andrew claimed that the main character, Alex, was [[HateSink written to be intentionally unlikeable]] - only to then complain about how players didn't like the main character.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/VeganArtbook'' preaches a lot about compassion and nonviolence -- both of which the author, Yerdian, sees veganism as the pinnacle of -- and condemns omnivores for allegedly being violent and callous. This falls flat when it also endorses Gary Yourofsky, a man who's infamous for unabashedly [[https://archive.is/StNLj advocating violence]] (including rape as punishment for wearing fur) against everyone who's not vegan.
* The infamous "Troll Arc" of ''Webcomic/ZenPencils'' was basically about how bad "trolls" and critics are. The problem is that it attempts to use Creator/HayaoMiyazaki as an avatar of art and creation produced without criticism. Miyazaki is well-known in the anime community for his dislike and critique of the modern anime industry, and even gave a rather poor appraisal of ''Anime/TalesFromEarthsea'', which was directed by his son.
* Andrew Dobson's comics in ''Webcomic/SoYoureACartoonist'' about how awful women and LGBT people being harassed in real life are can feel insincere when, as documented on [[https://hypocrisyofandrewdobson.tumblr.com/ Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson]], Dobson has attacked women and LGBT people because they don't agree with his viewpoints, including calling a trans girl a nazi.
* Tatsuya Ishida's ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' universally portrays male feminists as being secretly misogynists or brainless zombies and an extension of "toxic male entitlement". The irony has not been lost on many readers that Ishida is a self-proclaimed male feminist relying on self-insert female mouthpieces to spout his radical feminist opinions on how women should be, opinions which have widely been considered extremely bigoted in numerous respects.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* Many Website/ChannelAwesome videos were struck by this after [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WZFkR__B3Mk9EYQglvislMUx9HWvWhOaBP820UBa4dA/preview# #ChangeTheChannel]], showing the upper management was very inadequate and at times incompetent. Of particular note is the crossover film ''Webvideo/ToBoldlyFlee'', documented as a [[TroubledProduction hellish production]] where Creator/DougWalker and his brother mistreated everyone (not to mention the film being an end to Webvideo/TheNostalgiaCritic when he came back a few months later [[StatusQuoIsGod with all that "wanting to be good" stuff forgotten]]), and all the tributes to [[Webvideo/YouCanPlayThis Justin "JewWario" Carmical]] - at first it was just an homage to a friend who tragically killed himself, but then said friend turned out to have been a sexual predator and [[CreatorBacklash everyone regretted it]].
** The climactic scene and resolution of ''To Boldly Flee'' is the Nostalgia Critic choosing to make a HeroicSacrifice as a way to save everyone, with this being treated as the endpoint of his character arc and a sign that he's become a truly good and selfless person despite being created as nothing more than a shallow jerk. Though already a bit of a self-aggrandizing moment, it becomes very difficult to take seriously when one learns that, in real life, Doug had abruptly chosen to retire the site's main draw in favor of gambling everything on [[WebVideo/DemoReel a show that would ultimately bomb]], and everyone present immediately realized that this would have knock-on effects on their careers, as many people would stop coming to the site (not helped by the film repeatedly bringing up the idea of this being an EndOfAnEra). Essentially, what was treated in the film as giving up his life to save his friends was seen by those same friends in real life as him throwing them under the bus for the sake of what they viewed as a VanityProject.
** Similarly, a major theme of ''Webvideo/DemoReel'' was Doug learning that mocking those who create things was a miserable way to live and making a vow to become more understanding and sympathetic to creators. However, it's been regularly pointed out that Doug is now, if anything, ''worse'' than before and far more mean-spirited in his reviews, likely a reflection of his resentment at being stuck with a character he feels he is unable to move on from.
* During ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd''[='=]s review of ''Lightspan Adventures'', he points this out when criticizing using [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamity_Jane Calamity Jane]] as a role model in an educational game for kids that teaches math, reading, and grammar:
--> '''Nerd:''' Calamity Jane? According to common history knowledge, she was an illiterate alcoholic prostitute. Really great role-model you dug up there, Lightspan!
* WebVideo/FreshyKanal's ''Rap Battle'': Used in-universe a diss in "Squid Game vs [=MrBeast=]", where [=MrBeast=] accuses ''Squid Game'', "a critique on greed", of selling out.
* ''WebAnimation/OverlySarcasticProductions'': At the end of the episode on "The Book of Invasions", Red concludes with "...and that was the last time Ireland got invaded!", before cutting to shots of Wikipedia pages on all the times Ireland got invaded.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** The 2009 episode "The Great [=MacGrady=]" became this when it was revealed the guest star, Lance Armstrong, had taken steroids in his Tour de France runs. Worse yet, this was a VerySpecialEpisode about cancer and the fear of losing Mrs. [=MacGrady=] when she was diagnosed with it. The episode was pulled from reruns after the scandal broke, then remade in 2021 with Lance replaced with an original character, a pro wrestler named Uncle Slam Wilson.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E26TheCutieRemarkPart2 The Cutie Re-Mark]]" has AnAesop that you should not allow circumstances to get in the way of your friendships, as seen in Starlight Glimmer's StartOfDarkness when her friend got his cutie mark and moved away, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom which had near-disastrous consequences]]. However, the same thing happened between [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E12CallOfTheCutie Twist and Apple Bloom]] earlier in the series. Twist's voice actress moved away from Vancouver (where the series was produced), meaning they have been unable to interact as friends ever since Twist got her cutie mark, which has gone without consequence. In the same season where Starlight Glimmer was introduced, when the similarly demoted-to-background character Babs Seed got her cutie mark, Apple Bloom went out of her way to prove she still considers her a friend, yet the writers have done nothing to suggest that Apple Bloom and Twist are still friends, even offscreen.
** Diamond Tiara's HeelFaceTurn in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E19CrusadersOfTheLostMark Crusaders of the Lost Mark]]" was intended to show that [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre you can be more than just a bully and become a better person if you wanted]]. But despite the writers wanting to give her and [[BetaBitch Silver Spoon]] more episodes showing off this CharacterDevelopment, [[ExecutiveVeto the higher ups turned the idea down]], believing their story to be "over". Thus, they [[DemotedToExtra had no plot relevance afterward]] as the writers were not permitted to depict them as anything other than bullies.
** The episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E14FameAndMisfortune Fame and Misfortune]]" teaches that while some people will miss the point of and unfairly criticize your work, the most important thing is that others will get and appreciate it. But the episode's "writer", M.A. Larson, [[CreatorBacklash denounced the episode]], feeling that the criticisms the [[AudienceSurrogate background ponies]] brought up were valid (notably, all the complaints lampooned in the episode actually ''were'' addressed in the show, meaning the writers [[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong agreed they were issues but called the complainers out anyways]]), and that audiences would miss the moral entirely due to the episode's allegorical nature and DearNegativeReader undertones. He tried to rewrite the episode to fix this, [[ExecutiveVeto but the higher ups wouldn't let him do it any other way]], prioritizing their desired story over audiences getting and appreciating it.
** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E26ShadowPlayPart2 Shadow Play]]" has the lesson that you should not assume the worst of others and should get both sides of the story before treating them as irredeemable. This is undermined by the next major villain, [[EnfantTerrible Cozy Glow]], who the characters and narrative would treat as [[BeyondRedemption unquestionably evil]] despite [[MysteriousPast making no attempts to explain or figure out why/how a child could turn out so evil]].
* ''WesternAnimation/RainbowRangers'' is a show about protecting the environment. However, Creator/GeniusBrandsInternational, who made the series, has invested in [=NFTs=], which are very harmful for the environment because of the unnecessarily massive power expenditure required to produce and transmit them. This makes the show's {{Green Aesop}}s seem less meaningful.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E5LisaTheVegetarian Lisa the Vegetarian]]" where Lisa became a vegetarian ended with Lisa learning not to force her beliefs on others. The episode featured a brief guest appearance by [[Music/PaulMcCartney Paul]] and Linda [=McCartney=], but they insisted that they would only do the episode if Lisa's vegetarianism was made permanent rather than the show's usual StatusQuoIsGod approach.
* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'':
** Parodied in the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS8E2UpTheDownSteroid Up the Down Steroid]]", where Jimmy participates in the Special Olympics while using steroids, with the medals given out by athletes known to have done so in reality. Jimmy then makes a speech where he comes clean about using steroids, with the camera focusing on said athletes [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-POqsIvMW8 as he says steroids are for pussies]].
** The moral of [[Recap/SouthParkS12E4CanadaOnStrike "Canada on Strike"]], a metaphor for the 2007 WGA Strike, is that it's unfair for writers to expect a massive profit from streaming services given how new Internet distribution was at the time. Thing is, Creator/TreyParkerAndMattStone had already negotiated with Creator/{{Viacom}} to receive royalties from streamed episodes of ''South Park,'' resulting in massive profits. In fact, the ''South Park'' deal is what inspired many people to participate in the strike, as it supported their point that writers ''could'' profit off of new media.
** The satire of pay-to-win smartphone games, microtransactions and gaming addiction in "[[Recap/SouthParkS18E6FreemiumIsntFree Freemium Isn't Free]]" rings hollow ever since three years after it the show launched its own mobile game, ''VideoGame/SouthParkPhoneDestroyer''. Of course the game lampshades this, but still, it doesn't make it any less of an AllegedlyFreeGame.
* Creator/CartoonNetwork used ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' as a progressivist mouthpiece for years, airing multiple AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle shorts featuring its characters surrounding concepts like body positivity and racial equity in an attempt to make themselves look good by association. However, after the show's conclusion it was revealed that Creator/RebeccaSugar had been fighting the network for years in order to be allowed to make the gay wedding episode, and as a direct result was ScrewedByTheNetwork by being forced to wrap up the series soon after its airing.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Other]]
* The well-known phrase "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" was coined by popular supermodel Kate Moss and has motivated plenty of people to use it in their weight loss aspirations. Turns out that several factors undercut this comment deeply: in addition to Moss looking [[NothingButSkinAndBones dangerously thin]] (even for a model) in her heyday to the point of inspiring the once-popular "heroin chic" look, it's made ''much'' worse by the fact that her weight was mostly maintained [[HarsherInHindsight through a nasty drug habit.]] Furthermore, the phrase itself has been taken to heart [[MisaimedFandom as an anthem for the eating disorder subculture.]] Needless to say, Moss has gone on the record of regretting the statement.
[[/folder]]
----

* ''Series/AmericasNextTopModel'' Cycle 10 contestant Whitney Thompson was a confident plus-sized model who had her main platform be that "girls need a role model" (i.e., someone who wasn't HollywoodThin), which the judges apparently agreed with by praising her to the moon and back, [[ManipulativeEditing portraying her as being much more assertive and competent than the previous heavier models of cycles past]] and declaring her the winner of that cycle. Unfortunately for Thompson, her body type (coupled with [[{{Irony}} diminished credibility for appearing on the show in the first place)]] allowed for limited opportunities in the fashion world to the point where she had to ''lose weight'' in order to receive more work.

* One of the main reasons for the mixed reception of ''ComicBook/TheFlash: Rebirth'' is its attempts at CharacterShilling for Barry Allen, declaring that, for instance, Wally idolized Barry even before he knew he was the Flash and Jay Garrick came out of retirement because he was inspired by Barry. The thing is, in the actual Silver Age Flash comics, neither of these things were true; Wally thought Barry was a buttoned-down dork and wanted Iris to date the Flash instead, and Jay openly claims he was about to come out of retirement (going so far as to keep his costume in good condition) and Barry just fasttracked his plans. While it's far from abnormal for a book to retcon character backstories, the problem is that DC was trying to bring back Barry specifically because of his historical importance--if Barry were as important as DC claimed, then surely such retcons would have been unnecessary.