| 1 | [[quoteright:300:[[TabletopGame/FaithAndRedemption https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Faith_Redem_CCG_2883.jpg]]]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:300:Hey, kids! Let's play ''Faith and Redemption,'' the Christian-blessed alternative to ''[[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Magic]]''!]] |
| 3 | |
| 4 | ->''"Can't you see? You're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock n' roll worse."'' |
| 5 | -->-- '''Hank Hill''' on ChristianRock, ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' |
| 6 | |
| 7 | Sometimes, even the MoralGuardians have to accept that TheNewRockAndRoll isn't going away. They can't stop people from watching, reading, playing, or listening to it, and even if they succeed in instituting a CensorshipBureau, it's still not likely to be up to their uncompromising standards. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. If those works aren't up to their standards, they will [[StartMyOwn make works that are]]. And they can even throw in a message about their beliefs and views in these works. Thus they make The Moral Substitute. So now all those children can have their fun, while their responsible parents don't have to worry about that strange new music they didn't grow up on. Everybody wins and nobody loses, right? |
| 10 | |
| 11 | If everything works out, sure. However, almost by definition, creating the Moral Substitute means directly competing with what [[FollowTheLeader it is the substitute of]], while explicitly targeting a more specific demographic. Imagine creating a competitor to Coke and Pepsi but targeting only middle-aged mothers at the expense of appeal to the general population. If that sounds like a troubling investment to you, then you see why production values tend to be lower with many of them having NoBudget. Adding to the complications of course is the need to produce ''absolutely nothing'' even ''mildly'' offensive to the specific demographic you are targeting. Put it all together and the Moral Substitute suffers from a reputation of at best being an [[SoOkayItsAverage overly bland]] case of FollowTheLeader with very obvious BlackAndWhiteMorality, as moral substitutes don't allow room for any moral ambiguity. And those that weren't offended by the original are very unlikely to embrace this product (even if they are technically part of the target demographic). At worst, many of these Moral Substitutes enter the DarthWiki/SoBadItsHorrible territory, regardless if its target demographic likes it or not. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | Of course if you are in the target demographic you just might appreciate something catering to your particular mindset. Cue possibly small but reliable following. Enough of this exists to keep the phenomenon going as new media fads emerge. All too often even some of them feel pandered to, since all too often someone tries to do "the [x] version of [y]" they push the "x" far too hard and don't pay enough attention to what made "y" successful in the first place. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | As one might expect, these works may end up coming across as TotallyRadical and/or a PoorMansSubstitute, and might give the impression that morality is PopularityPower and breed the message that moral acts are worth performing ''only'' if they're "cool". Not only will that make even the most moral people cynical about morality, but kids who have already declared themselves or have been declared by others as uncool [[TheUnfettered will not be deterred]] -- and in fact might even be encouraged -- to do bad things, especially if they wanted to be bad in the first place. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | This trope was [[TropeCodifier codified]] by [[UsefulNotes/AmericanChurches American fundamentalist and conservative evangelical Christians]]. They are often vigilant MoralGuardians, they represent an enormous market, and their sheer doggedness has turned the idea of a "Christian alternative" into an entire subculture with its own music, movies, books (including booksellers), and video games, some of them of genuinely high quality and able to compete with "mainstream" works toe to toe. But it is not limited to them not by any stretch of the imagination. The global spread of American popular culture (just maybe funded by the CIA) forced the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to work very hard at this. They created their own Boy Scouts, their own pop music, their own action movies, [[Film/DEFAWesterns their own Westerns]], even their own chewing gum, in a valiant but unsuccessful attempt to keep out that decadent bourgeois stuff from the West. There are even ''[[ThoseWackyNazis Nazi]] examples'' of this trope, from both [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany the original article]] and from neo-Nazi groups. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | This is a SuperTrope of ChristianRock, but less so than you'd expect, especially as time has gone by. While it ''may'' have been true in the genre's early days, since then ChristianRock has evolved in different directions from the rest of rock and carved out a separate identity, and the genres usually don't match very closely; they have fairly little in common today beyond the name and the use of guitars. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Not to be confused with GoodCounterpart, or MorallySuperiorCopy, which is when a clone or other sort of duplicate proves to be morally superior to their original template. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Compare and contrast ReligiousEdutainment, which similarly aspires to teach morality but doesn't necessarily mimic secular works. See also ReligiousRedub, when a secular show is repackaged to have religious content. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | %% |
| 26 | %% |
| 27 | %%Note: To be this trope, a work or trend ''must'' have a specific "non-moral" counterpart. (This is why ChristianRock doesn't fit the concept very well.) Any example without such a counterpart will be presumed to be [[Administrivia/ComplainingAboutShowsYouDontLike complaints about the groups producing the media]], and will be deleted. |
| 28 | %% |
| 29 | %%Note #2: In order to be a Moral ''Substitute'', it must have been made ''after'' the "non-moral" work; that is, it must be a case of "StartMyOwn" in order to qualify. If the "substitute" in an otherwise acceptable example [[OlderThanTheyThink was made first]], the example should be removed -- or rewritten if the latter work was a MoralSubstitute of the former one. (Remember, anyone can write a MoralSubstitute of a work; it just has to fit better with ''their'' morality, which might make the result look pretty strange from your perspective.) |
| 30 | %% |
| 31 | %%Note #3: A Moral ''Substitute'' must be intentionally made as a reaction to a "non-moral" work by the creator of the "substitute". If it's only viewed as such by [[WordOfDante fans and/or critics]] and not by the [[WordOfGod creators]] (or [[WordOfSaintPaul those who work directly with the creators or are personally related to the creators]]) themselves, then it's simply LighterAndSofter and not this trope. |
| 32 | %% |
| 33 | %% |
| 34 | ---- |
| 35 | !!Examples |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[folder:Asian Animation]] |
| 40 | * This trope is one reason why [[HangukManhwaAenimeisyeon South Korean animation]] grew in the first place during the 1970s and 1980s; it is to provide an alternative to Japanese cultural exports that were nevertheless were imported via bootleg videotapes during the 70s and 80s, and aimed at a Korean audience. Many were knockoffs of Japanese anime at that time; ''Animation/SpaceThunderKids'''s footage were spliced from different South Korean animation films. When the cultural ban against Japanese products were loosened in the nineties, South Korean studios lent their talent to Japanese companies to this day. |
| 41 | * Proving that Administrivia/TropesAreTools, one of the first successful animated movies produced in South Korea, Animation/RobotTaekwonV, owes its origin to this phenomenon. At the time, Japanese cultural exports were strictly forbidden in South Korea as a result of World War II, but many children there were still fans of anime such as ''Anime/MazingerZ''. This inspired Kim Cheong-Gi to create his own animated HumongousMecha movie aimed specifically at a Korean audience, which later spawned theatrical sequels. |
| 42 | [[/folder]] |
| 43 | |
| 44 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 45 | * The ''Eagle'' was launched by an Anglican vicar who saw local children reading adult-oriented American horror comics, and wanted them to read more wholesome material. He made sure to focus on quality, and brought out a very popular and fondly remembered comic which gave us ''ComicStrip/DanDare'' (who was originally created as a sort of military chaplain in space, but changed to a straightforward pilot to better appeal to children). |
| 46 | * ''ComicBook/SpireChristianComics'', a Christian comic book publisher during UsefulNotes/TheSeventies which included a series of comics featuring a version of ''ComicBook/ArchieComics'' featuring the characters as Christians -- yes, red-headed Archie Andrews and his friends appearing in comics with an explicitly overt Christian message, not {{Expy}}s of the Riverdale High bunch.[[note]]part of that might owe to longtime Archie artist and writer Al Hartley becoming a Christian in 1967, eventually working out a deal where the Archie characters were used with permission in Hartley's work with Spire[[/note]]. |
| 47 | * The Jewish ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' clone "Shaloman", who'll help anyone who shouts "[[YiddishAsASecondLanguage Oy vey!]]". |
| 48 | * Author Todd Hignite suggested that ComicBook/ChickTracts were made as a substitute for Tijuana Bibles, which are short, pornographic, UndergroundComics typically featuring unauthorized appearances of copyrighted characters. They both have similar format, writing styles, and try to appeal to similar demographic, with Chick tracts instead focusing on Evangelicalism as opposed to RuleThirtyFour. But in doing so, Jack Chick was TwoDecadesBehind, because by the time he started drawing his tracts in TheSixties, the Tijuana Bibles had largely disappeared (replaced by the countercultural UndergroundComics movement). |
| 49 | ** One interesting exception is the tract "Angels". Its target is Christian rock music. According to Chick, ''all'' rock music stems from Satan, and musicians who give their music Christian themes are playing right into his hands. |
| 50 | * Back during the manga bubble in the mid-2000s, quite a few OEL Christian "[[{{Animesque}} manga]]" were made, most infamously ''Manga/{{Serenity}}''. There were also a manga adaptation of The Bible. |
| 51 | [[/folder]] |
| 52 | |
| 53 | [[folder:ComicStrips]] |
| 54 | * ''ComicStrip/MallardFillmore'' was launched as a conservative counterpart to the left-leaning ''ComicStrip/{{Doonesbury}}''. It's not unusual for newspapers to run both strips side-by-side. |
| 55 | [[/folder]] |
| 56 | |
| 57 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 58 | * The author's stated reason for writing ''Fanfic/HogwartsSchoolOfPrayerAndMiracles'': |
| 59 | -->Do you want your little ones to read books; and they want to read the ''Harry Potter'' Books; but you do not want them to turn into witches? Well-this is the story for you! This story has all the adventure of JKR's books; but will not lead your children astray. |
| 60 | [[/folder]] |
| 61 | |
| 62 | [[folder:Fashion]] |
| 63 | * From its founding in 2000 until 2015, C28, named for the [[Literature/TheBible Bible]] verse [[Literature/BookOfColossians Colossians 2:8]][[note]]"See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ."[[/note]] was the Christian version of secular "alternative" youth clothing brands like Hot Topic and Ecko Unltd. |
| 64 | [[/folder]] |
| 65 | |
| 66 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 67 | * ''Film/{{Gamera}}'' was originally intended be a [[LighterAndSofter more kid-friendly alternative]] to ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'', featuring a relatively non-threatening, FriendToAllChildren giant monster in a series that was lighter on the carnage and senseless death... though ironically was just as gory if not more than the Godzilla series, even after the second film which were relatively less kid-friendly. The '90s reboot trilogy starting with ''Film/GameraGuardianOfTheUniverse'' [[DarkerAndEdgier moved away from this depiction]] to great success and spawned two increasingly darker sequels ''Film/Gamera2AdventOfLegion'' and ''Film/Gamera3AwakeningOfIrys'', but ''Film/GameraTheBrave'' went for a middle ground between the serious and sillier aspects of the franchise without compromising either aspect. |
| 68 | * ''Film/HighSchoolMusical'' is a pretty tame movie series, but there is still a religious alternative: ''Film/SundaySchoolMusical'', released by Creator/TheAsylum under their Faith Films imprint - although in this case, the reduced production values aren't due to this trope so much as due to the M.O. of The Asylum being reduced production values. |
| 69 | * In order to counter the allegedly less-than-flattering portrayal that the 1996 film adaptation of ''Music/{{Evita}}'' gave to Eva Perón, the Argentinian government commissioned ''Eva Perón: The True Story'', a {{dueling movie|s}} released that same year. |
| 70 | * ''Film/TheMarriageChronicles'' has a cover reminiscent of ''Film/LoveActually'' and similarly boasts the concept of following multiple couples and their love lives, but the film comes down heavy on the "saved" aspect of Christianity and it's all married couples. |
| 71 | * ''Film/OldFashioned'' was deliberately positioned as this to the film version of ''Film/FiftyShadesOfGrey'', down to both films being released on the same date (Valentine's Day 2015). |
| 72 | * ''Film/RomperStomper'' is about a gang of skinheads. The director wanted to show them listening to racist music, but he didn't want to give exposure and royalties to the real thing, so he hired politically acceptable local bands to create original racist rock to be played during the film. In this case it is the artists, rather than the art, who are the moral substitute. |
| 73 | * ''Film/AMatterOfFaith'' serves as this for ''Film/GodsNotDead''. The original film argues that evolution is true and compatible with Christianity. This film provides creationists with a film that's similar but advances that perspective. |
| 74 | * This is pretty much the reason why the ''[[http://pistangpelikulangpilipino.ph/ Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino]]'' (lit. Festival of Filipino Films) was established. Appalled by the shameless commercialization through ChristmasRushed films viewed by indie and auteur filmmakers as low-brow trash with no artistic or literary merit, the PPP was conceived as a more intellectual alternative to the NetworkDecay that plagued the Platform/MetroManilaFilmFestival in recent years. |
| 75 | * The producers of the 2017 period musical ''[[Theatre/APortraitOfTheArtistAsFilipino Ang Larawan]]'' cited similar reasons as to why they came up with the film, describing it as an "alternative" to the countless [[RomanticComedy rom-coms]] and horror movies mainstream studios churn out every so often, though they did not necessarily intend to compete toe-to-toe with the big-ticket entries. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Food & Drink]] |
| 79 | * A whole industry of vegetarian products exists to provide replacements for burgers, bacon, and other meat products. Tofu is the best-known meat substitute in the West. There are also turkey bacon and ham for people who ''do'' eat meat but don't eat pork (those who keep kosher or halal dietary laws, for example). |
| 80 | * Non-alcoholic wine, beer -- and [[http://www.arkaybeverages.com/ whiskey]] for some reason. Ariel non-alcoholic wine even managed to win some [[http://www.arielvineyards.com/awards.php awards]]. |
| 81 | * Many soft drinks started out as (or were later marketed as) "temperance beverages", alternatives to intoxicating liquor. Coca-Cola specifically [[http://www.amazon.com/1908-Coca-Cola-Temperance-Beverage-Pricing/dp/B005DGWL80 marketed itself]] as "The Great Temperance Beverage" around the turn of the 20th century -- even though it had begun life as a hangover cure, and its original formula had included cocaine. More recently, they've been rediscovered by the UsefulNotes/StraightEdge movement (itself described in more detail below) for the same reason; former Music/MinorThreat guitarist Brian Baker (later of Music/BadReligion) has a tattoo of the Coca-Cola logo to reflect his love of the non-alcoholic drink, which Wrestling/CMPunk homaged with a Pepsi logo tattoo. |
| 82 | * Coffee is a common substitute for alcohol; the word 'coffee' comes from an Arabic word for "wine", and was originally introduced to the West as "the wine of Arabia". It's popular with religions that forbid alcohol use, such as Islam and some Christian churches -- although Mormonism bans both wine and coffee. ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_tea For a while, the Mormons]] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint drank ephedrines instead.]]) |
| 83 | * Coffee also became a Moral Substitute for ''tea'' during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution, because several tax and trade acts that involved tea really pissed off the Americans. Patriots disavowed tea as a symbol of British injustice, but still needed their caffeine, causing a rise in the popularity of coffee. (It also helped that during that period, 80% of the world's coffee was grown in Haiti, which was (1) fairly close to the Americans and (2) a possession of France, an American ally.) At the same time, tea became the moral substitute to both coffee and chocolate in the British Empire, as it was grown in British colonies rather than its rivals, as chocolate and coffee were. For this reason, [[BritsLoveTea tea drinking was seen as patriotic in England]] the way coffee drinking was in America. |
| 84 | * The Black Rifle Coffee Company is this to Starbucks. While Starbucks, born in UsefulNotes/{{Seattle}}, is rooted in an implicitly urban, liberal {{hipster}} image to the point that "latte liberal" is a well-known American term for BourgeoisBohemian types, Black Rifle Coffee markets itself on down-home Americana, [[RatedMForManly masculinity]], and political conservatism and emphasizes its founders' background as [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks US Army veterans]]. Jason Zengerle, [[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/magazine/black-rifle-coffee-company.html?smid=tw-share writing]] for ''The New York Times'', explicitly called them "the Starbucks of the right". Ironically, they wound up disowned by some of their target audience when, after a number of violent incidents in 2020 and 2021 connected to the far-right, they disavowed the [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic more radical elements of such]], leading to a number of coffee brands with politics expressly positioned to the right of Black Rifle Coffee. |
| 85 | * In regard to cola itself, there are [[EveryoneIsSatanInHell strange, mutually-exclusive]] conspiracy theories that either Coca-Cola, or Pepsi, or both are anti-Muslim or pro-Israel (not that the {{Conspiracy Theorist}}s in question make any distinction between the two). Some fundamentalist Muslims reject cola altogether (which is strange since Muslims first introduced most of the world to the kola nut), while others have created a number of alternatives like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca-Cola Mecca-Cola]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibla_Cola Qibla-Cola]], and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamzam_(soft_drink) Zamzam]] (created when sanctions against Iran prevented importation of Coke or Pepsi). This can only be further complicated by [=SodaStream=], a home soda maker that advertises its [[AllNaturalSnakeOil natural ingredients]], lack of [[UnfortunateIngredients High-Fructose Corn Syrup]], and independence from the big companies, but has a factory in the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict West Bank]]. |
| 86 | * After UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, Coca-Cola became associated with [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld American hegemony]], which resulted in many socialists and Marxists in Western Europe opting for Pepsi instead. For years, Coke was not available in communist Laos, but Pepsi was. |
| 87 | ** How did Pepsi (which, after all, is still an American company) get a distribution deal in the Soviet Bloc? Well at the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Exhibition American National Exhibition]] in the Soviet Union during the Eisenhower presidency (during which the famous Nixon-Khrushchev "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate Kitchen Debate]]" occurred) Pepsi (then associated with the ruling Republicans) was present while Coca Cola refused to attend. The rest, as they say, is history. |
| 88 | * During the postwar, pre-UsefulNotes/{{civil rights|Movement}} era, Pepsi was also the moral substitute for Coca-Cola among African Americans. Walter Mack, the president of Pepsi-Cola during TheForties, was a staunch progressive who noticed that most advertising at the time either ignored black people or [[UncleTomfoolery employed ethnic stereotypes]]. Concluding that the "Negro market" was an untapped well, in 1947 he hired an all-black sales team led by Edward F. Boyd to create aspirational ads that depicted happy, well-off black people drinking Pepsi, hire famous {{jazz}} singers like Music/DukeEllington and Lionel Hampton to endorse the soft drink, and highlight the support that the chairman of Coca-Cola had given to the segregationist Georgia governor Herman Talmadge. When they got threatened by the UsefulNotes/KuKluxKlan for it, they simply used those threats to burnish their anti-racist credentials. While the advertising was cut back after Mack's departure in 1950 out of fear that Pepsi was becoming a "black drink" (a sentiment expressed in [[NWordPrivileges far less polite terms]]) and alienating white consumers, African Americans' affection for Pepsi stuck around through TheFifties; during that time, black people were three times more likely to buy Pepsi than Coke. |
| 89 | * Creator/{{Confucius}} supposedly promoted chopsticks as an alternative to forks and knives, which he equated with violence. It wound up sticking, such that chopsticks are now inextricably associated by Westerners with East Asian cuisine. However, forks were not commonly used as eating utensils anywhere until about 1500 years ''after'' chopsticks gained widespread use in China. |
| 90 | * After Chick-fil-A head Dan Cathy expressed his opposition to same-sex marriage, several liberal activists posted online recipes for "non-homophobic" alternatives to the restaurant's chicken sandwiches, while others advocated patronizing KFC instead. Conversely, Chick-fil-A became the moral substitute for other fast-food places for conservative Christians, especially after Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz expressed support for gay marriage. |
| 91 | * The Chasidic-created [=McDavid's=] chain, which is a little odd since UsefulNotes/McDonalds already operates kosher restaurants in Israel. |
| 92 | * [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Spangled_Ice_Cream Star Spangled Ice Cream]], a defunct brand of ice cream that tried to be the "conservative, patriotic" answer to Ben and Jerry's. Flavors followed similar naming conventions, but had a conservative twist. Flavors included "Smaller Governmint", "Iraqi Road", "Gun Nut", and [[HarsherInHindsight "I Hate the]] [[CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys French Vanilla"]]. |
| 93 | * In the early 19th century, abolitionists in New England attempted to [[http://www.academia.edu/1147323/Salvation_in_Sweetness_Sugar_Beets_in_Antebellum_America cultivate sugar beets]], or "free sugar", as a moral substitute for cane sugar, which were grown with slave labor on plantations in the Caribbean. However, the power of the slaveholding Southern states blocked serious government investment in cultivation to make beet sugar more palatable compared to cane sugar, and beet sugar remained a curiosity until the 20th century. |
| 94 | ** A similar effort was spearheaded by Napoleon in Europe, promoting beet sugar as patriotic against the "English" cane sugar. As there was actually a practical reason (imports of cane sugar from the Caribbeans and the American continent had been almost completely cut off due the concurrency of the Continental System, the Royal Navy blockade of Europe and the Haitian Revolution) this effort was far more successful, with beet sugar cornering the market and remaining the preferred sugar in the entire continent to this day. Interestingly enough in an entirely free sugar market, imported cane sugar would be cheaper in Europe than domestic beet sugar (among other things, beets are more labor and capital intensive and have a lower sugar content, having only been selectively bred for high sugar content in 18th century Prussia), but even with the phaseout of open subsidies for sugar in the late 2010s, the EU sugar market is still far from "entirely free" and thus for various reasons, including those of military strategy (having to rely on food imports during a possible war is a ''bad'' idea), the EU continues to indirectly subsidize the domestic beet sugar industry leading to large production of a good that other countries could make cheaper. |
| 95 | * Nowadays, vegetarians may prefer beet sugar as well, since a lot of white cane sugar is whitened by filtering with animal bone char. Other alternatives include crystallized sugarcane juice and cane sugar that hasn't been completely whitened, such as turbinado. All these alternatives have somewhat different flavors from white cane sugar; turbinado, for instance, contains molasses and is therefore similar to light brown sugar, though usually drier and coarser. |
| 96 | * On a more successful level, this is part of the reason why the northeastern United States has such a large maple syrup industry. While it had been used as a sweetener since before Europeans arrived, abolitionists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries [[http://www.sctimes.com/story/sports/outdoors/2015/03/07/maple-sugar-connection-abolishing-slavery/24437455/ recognized it]] as a high-quality sweetener that didn't require intensive slave labor to harvest. The fact that it was [[MadeInCountryX made in America]], and thus didn't have to be imported from European-owned sugar islands in the Caribbean, also gave it a patriotic appeal. |
| 97 | * In 1977, Anita Bryant, a '60s pop singer and spokesperson for the UsefulNotes/{{Florida}} Citrus Commission, became an [[HeteronormativeCrusader outspoken anti-LGBT activist]], launching the Save Our Children campaign to push for the repeal of anti-discrimination ordinances in UsefulNotes/{{Miami}} and elsewhere. Many LGBT rights supporters responded by boycotting the Florida orange juice that she promoted; [[DidntThinkThisThrough since most of the US' orange production comes from Florida, this meant effectively boycotting orange juice in general unless one could prove it was sourced from elsewhere]]. One consequence of this was that [[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame gay bars]] in the US could no longer serve screwdrivers, which were made from orange juice and vodka, and so instead, they came up with the "Anita Bryant Cocktail", which swapped out the orange juice for apple juice, with proceeds going to support LGBT rights activism. |
| 98 | * Since Catholics are required to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent, they tend to eat a lot of seafood on that day instead, since the rule [[LoopholeAbuse only applies to land animals]]. In fact, it's for this reason that the first non-burger item that UsefulNotes/McDonalds added to its menu was the Filet-O-Fish: it was invented in 1962 by Lou Groen, a [=McDonald's=] franchise operator in a largely Catholic neighborhood in Cincinnati who noticed that sales regularly took a plunge every Friday, so he came up with a fish-burger. Ray Kroc recognized the market as well but didn't like Groen's idea, and invented the Hula burger, a slice of grilled pineapple with cheese on a bun, in response. Kroc was so confident about it that he made a wager with Groen: whichever one sold better in a test market would become a regular menu item. The fish won by a landslide. |
| 99 | -->'''Groen:''' I called in and asked, "How many sandwiches did (Kroc) sell?" They said, "I can't tell you." They asked, "How many did you sell?" I said, "350!" Then, they said, "It's on the menu!" |
| 100 | * Some especially strict churches [[FrothyMugsOfWater use grape juice]] in their Communions so the congregants don't drink any "sinful" alcohol. Of course, if a big part of the ministry involves addiction counselling, and therefore many of the congregants are recovering alcoholics, serving them real wine is probably counter-productive. There's also the issue of giving alcohol to underage members of the congregation, which may or may not be exempted in a given area's law. Since wine ''is'' grape juice[[note]]Prior to pasteurization, the only way to drink grape juice was to freshly press it right from the vineyard - so it is not utterly ridiculous to take grape juice as an acceptable substitute for wine, given that back then most wine was drunk watered down and a lot of it was probably not fully fermented (i.e. weaker than what we today consider "wine" and sometimes basically ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federweisser Federweißer]]'')[[/note]], it's seen as "close enough" and reasoned that the important part is the ritual, rather than its components (it's still a shock to find that a church you're visiting goes with the opposite of the one you were raised on). It's particularly common in Baptist churches, which historically had a lot of teetotallers. |
| 101 | * Bubble gum and sunflower seeds are popular stand-ins among baseball players for chewing tobacco. In fact, Big League Chew is shredded bubble gum packaged in the same manner as chewing tobacco. |
| 102 | * Zevia promotes their range of soft drinks as a healthier alternative to "sugary drinks" like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, with all Zevia products being zero-calorie, sugar-free, gluten-free, vegan, certified kosher and certified by The Non-GMO Project. At one point, they ran billboard ads in support of New York City's attempted soda ban. |
| 103 | * [[OverlyLongName Conservative Dad's Ultra Right 100% Woke Free Beer]] is a conservative substitute for Bud Light, after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Bud_Light_boycott the April 2023 Bud Light Boycott by conservatives]]. This was after Bud Light began a sponsorship campaign the company conducted with actress and [=TikTok=] personality Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender woman. |
| 104 | [[/folder]] |
| 105 | |
| 106 | [[folder:Gamebooks]] |
| 107 | * There are Christian ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure''-type series, like ''Choice Adventures'' and ''What Would You Do?'' One was on the dangers of Satanists, New Agers, and -- for some reason -- [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking environmentalists]].[[note]]Perhaps a misinterpretation of the Gaia Hypothesis as a call to pagan Earth-worship.[[/note]] [[TakeAThirdOption One of the endings for the latter plot involved starting a Christian environmental club.]] |
| 108 | [[/folder]] |
| 109 | |
| 110 | [[folder:Holidays]] |
| 111 | * Several churches, appalled at the pagan influences of [[UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve Halloween]] and the monsters seen in traditional haunted houses, have taken to doing "Halloween alternative" parties like the "March of Saints" as done in Catholic parishes in the Philippines and elsewhere, wherein children [[{{Cosplay}} disguise themselves]] as Biblical figures or [[UsefulNotes/PatronSaints saints]]. Some take this to extremes by setting up "hell houses", in which the attendees are shown scenes meant to portray the decadence of secular culture, finally ending in a room occupied by {{Satan}}, claiming that all of the characters they had seen are now firmly in his grasp. This was parodied in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' (though Flanders runs a "[[GoshDangItToHeck Heck House]]"). In the worst of these, the Hell House is marketed as a normal haunted house, and is thus a BaitAndSwitch, and in some the attendees must either agree to be saved (i.e. become born-again Christians) or must traverse the length of the building in order to get out. The whole concept is parodied in a Webcomic/SomethingPositive sequence starting [[http://somethingpositive.net/sp10042006.shtml here]]. Perhaps more common are the Harvest festivals and parties, which feature game booths, contests, and the requisite candy, typically hosted in whatever part of the church has an open floor and forgoing the ghouls-and-ghosts theme (converting the holiday into Thanksgiving Lite). |
| 112 | ** Alternatively, some who do celebrate Halloween instead made it a point to dress up as fictional characters or celebrities in lieu of the usual ghoulish if not outright demonic costumes, either due to religious concerns or simply because the aforementioned occult or monster costumes can be disturbing to some regardless of beliefs. |
| 113 | ** Lutherans like pointing out that October [=31st=] is ''also'' the day UsefulNotes/MartinLuther published his 95 Theses against Indulgences (whether he actually nailed them to the church door is hotly debated) and people should celebrate ''that'' instead. Even though Luther has a pretty wide fanbase in Germany (including secular people and other non-Lutherans) and even though October [=31st=] is a holiday in a few German states ''only as a commemoration of Luther'' and ''not'' to celebrate Halloween, the German Lutheran church has trouble making much headway against the commercial behemoth that Halloween has become. The situation is even worse in other Lutheran countries where the "patriotic" reference to the German Luther doesn't work and of course non-Lutheran countries could not care less about some German theologian with a weird obsession with hating Jews. |
| 114 | ** The modern Halloween celebration itself, meanwhile, was popularized in the early 20th century as an alternative to what Halloween was before then: a night of mischief, vandalism, and debauchery. Groups like the Boy Scouts and various civil society groups revived the ancient practice of "guising" in the form of trick-or-treating and costume parties as a comparatively family-friendly way to celebrate the holiday without engaging in criminal activity. The new, sanitized version of Halloween came to define the holiday by TheFifties, which in turn led to "Mischief Night" or "Devil's Night" celebrations on October 30 that served as an ''immoral'' substitute, seeking to revive the old traditions that had been swept aside. Devil's Night became especially infamous in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} in TheEighties, where it was widely associated with arson. |
| 115 | * With the growing awareness of Christopher Columbus' genocidal treatment of native tribes and out of acknowledgement that the region was inhabited prior to Colombus' arrival, there's been a movement in the U.S. to replace the observance of Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day or Native American Day, with several cities and states doing so and President UsefulNotes/JoeBiden recognizing the former as a federal holiday nationwide for the first time in 2021. |
| 116 | ** Similarly, some American Indians observe a National Day of Mourning instead of American Thanksgiving, seeing the latter holiday as a reminder of the genocidal treatment and assaults on their culture by European settlers. |
| 117 | * Christmas and Easter even started out as Christian substitutes for pagan celebrations (this is actually sort of debated, though there are certainly pagan influences). Jehovah's Witnesses cite these origins and refuse to celebrate them. Other more devout Christians have complained about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas, so this might be coming full circle. Then again, this could count as an example of Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad, as seeing signs for Christmas shopping a month in advance before Halloween would annoy anyone. |
| 118 | * Easter Bunny alternatives: |
| 119 | ** Easter Lambs and their moulds are marketed to Christian consumers who wish to avoid pagan symbolism and associate the season with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are a reference to Jesus being known as the Lamb of God. |
| 120 | ** The Easter Bilby is a native, conservation-themed equivalent available in Australia, where the rabbit is an [[IntroducedSpeciesCalamity introduced pest]]. |
| 121 | [[/folder]] |
| 122 | |
| 123 | |
| 124 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 125 | * Creator/FrankPeretti is essentially the Christian counterpart to Creator/StephenKing, with his emphasis on horror-related tropes. For the most part it's a bit [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]], as his books can come across as DarkerAndEdgier compared to most Christian fiction. In a more played-straight sense, his ''Cooper Kids'' series is essentially a Christian counterpart to Franchise/IndianaJones. However, unlike many other attempts to tell a Christian version of Indiana Jones, Peretti remembers to keep the stories fun. It helps that they started out as campfire stories. |
| 126 | * ''[=SpineChillers=] Mysteries'', a Christian answer to ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}''. Similar cover font and art design, but all the spooky stuff turns out to be faked (because Satan has no real power), and prayer works coincidental miracles. Strangely enough, there were alternate printings of the books that took out the more overt religious references. |
| 127 | ** There was, curiously, one exception to the rule that all of the hauntings in the series were faked, that being "Attack of the Killer House", where what seems to be a berserk, haywire robot turns out to be... a berserk, haywire robot. |
| 128 | * Kirishin, a Christian publisher in Japan, has held multiple [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2018-09-13/japanese-publisher-prepping-for-2nd-christian-light-novel-competition/.136751 contests]] for Christian [[LightNovel light novels]]. |
| 129 | * The rise of cheesy AirportNovel and techno-thrillers from authors such as Creator/TomClancy and Creator/DanBrown found its moral substitute with the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' series: fundamentalist Christians try to stop the Antichrist with high-tech weaponry. It spawned a lot of imitations; many books like this start out like normal "apocalypse" books (with the usual waking up one day to find something wrong, everybody in a frenzy), but slowly everything starts becoming Jesus-related. |
| 130 | ** ''Literature/ChristianNation'' is a moral substitute to the ''Left Behind'' series, only told from the secularist POV and with the roles reversed. A Christian theocracy takes control of America who brands their enemies as antichrist. The author takes [[TakeThat a few jabs]] at ''Left Behind''. |
| 131 | ** The ''Literature/LastDaysTrilogy'' tells the same story as ''Left Behind'', but preaches a pre-wrath Rapture instead of a pre-Tribulation Rapture. |
| 132 | ** For those who prefer the preterist interpretation of the Literature/BookOfRevelation, ''The Last Disciple'' series by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer has you covered, with its story sticking closer to the latter end of the 1st Century AD. |
| 133 | ** An unintentional example; ''Literature/LordOfTheWorld'' is something of a Catholic counterpart to the Evangelical Protestant ''Left Behind''. What makes it unintentional is that [[OlderThanTheyThink it was written in 1906]], well before ''Left Behind'' came out. |
| 134 | * Creator/CSLewis examples, from both the author himself and writers responding to him: |
| 135 | ** ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'' weren't written as this, although Lewis was very conscious of and open about his inclusion of Christian themes in the books. However, upon the release of TheFilmOfTheBook in 2005, it started to be treated as such against secular kid-lit fantasy lines like ''Literature/HarryPotter''. Still, the ''Narnia'' fanbase isn't entirely composed of Christians (helped by the fact the Christian themes are much subtler than [[{{Anvilicious}} some]] [[AuthorTract examples]]). |
| 136 | ** Lewis' other multi-book morality play, ''Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy'', is a subversion. The books start out as a very upfront religious allegory and then turn out to secretly be ''political'' allegory instead, with the somewhat Christian-unfriendly[[note]]Christian views on war are complicated. For more info, see [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory Just war theory]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_persecution_and_tolerance History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance]] on [[Website/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]].[[/note]] aesop that violence is sometimes necessary to do good (granted, this concept also turns up in the ''Narnia'' novels and was played up in the big-screen adaptations). |
| 137 | ** Creator/PhilipPullman wrote ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' as a substitute for the ''Narnia'' books -- from a decidedly ''anti''-religious viewpoint. In the series, GodIsEvil, portrayed as a brutal tyrant who oppresses humanity through [[ReligionOfEvil the church]] and is slowly going senile, and a figure who needs to be overthrown if the human protagonists are to achieve true salvation. Pullman despises the ''Narnia'' books, which he [[https://www.pressreader.com/canada/toronto-star/20071204/282935265985927 called "evil"]] and accused of "exalt[ing] cruelty and [excluding] anybody who is felt to be inferior," and wrote ''His Dark Materials'' as a book series that would instead exalt human ingenuity and individualism over ideology. |
| 138 | ** Like Pullman before him, Creator/GregEgan also wrote an antitheistic and pro-science counterpart to one of Lewis's stories, in this case ''Literature/TheSpaceTrilogy'' (with ''Narnia'' also getting a few jabs). By the second half of his short story "Literature/{{Oracle}}" the plot has shifted from saving [[NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed an Alan Turing expy]] to a TakeThat against Lewis in general and ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'' in particular. The Lewis expy becomes the antagonist because he assumes, without any evidence, that the Turing expy’s goals are the same as [[HellOnEarth those of the N.I.C.E.]], and the final scene can be considered an antireligious counterpart to Lewis’s belief that [[Literature/TheGreatDivorce all who are in Hell choose it]]. [[spoiler:On his deathbed, the Lewis expy is visited by himself from a parallel universe where the Turing expy successfully enlightened the human race and conquered death, and the alternate Lewis expy gives the current one the chance to be saved, by merging with him, but says this can't be done against his will. The Lewis expy, however, assumes this is TheFinalTemptation and refuses, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything throwing away his only chance at salvation]].]] In fact, the portrayal of people like Lewis is just as negative as the portrayals of atheists and secularists in Lewis's own fiction, excepting a few {{Fox News Liberal}}s, so it has to be intentional. |
| 139 | * Throughout its history, the ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' series by Creator/JKRowling has attracted controversy from all sides despite its success, leading to a number of books being embraced as counterpoints to it. |
| 140 | ** As noted above, this happened to Creator/CSLewis' ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', which many conservative Christian parents embraced as as a more Christian-friendly version of ''Potter''. |
| 141 | ** Anglican vicar G. P. Taylor wrote the ''Literature/{{Shadowmancer}}'' series as a response to both ''Potter'' and ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'', which he considered to be anti-religious propaganda. |
| 142 | ** The ''[[Literature/TheScienceOfWinning Science of Winning]]'' trilogy by ([[PenName allegedly]]) Nikos Zervas, better known by the title of its first book ''Children vs. Wizards'', is a Russian example, written to preach Orthodox Christian religion and morality. The {{kid hero}}es team up with a Russian soldier to infiltrate an occult academy in Scotland, with the villains being [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed thinly-veiled]] [[CaptainErsatz parodies]] of Rowling and the protagonists of the ''Harry Potter'' books (as in, the names are nearly identical with only a few letters changed). For [[https://theworld.org/stories/2016-03-07/lights-camera-propaganda-russias-paranoid-patriotism-gets-cartoon-movie good measure,]] it was also nationalistic, queerphobic, antisemitic propaganda that depicted Russia as a bastion of godly values under siege from the decadent, Satanic West. |
| 143 | ** This happened in the other direction in the late 2010s, as Rowling became an increasingly controversial public figure and her books underwent a more critical reappraisal as a result. This led many [[BrokenPedestal disillusioned former fans]] of her work, looking for a more acceptable substitute for a series of books that they felt [[OvershadowedByControversy they could no longer enjoy or share with their own children]], to go back and gave various other children's and young adult fantasy book series from that time a second look. One of the big beneficiaries of this was ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'' by Creator/RickRiordan, which was not written as a substitute but was embraced as one anyway due to Riordan's more inclusive stories and characters, such that a Creator/DisneyPlus adaptation of ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' was announced in 2022. |
| 144 | ** ''Literature/TheJeremiahSchool'' is a Christian fantasy story that has been inspired by ''Harry Potter'' and is aimed to be its moral substitute, with young people becoming prophets (or "Jeremiahs") instead of wizards and witches that go to a special school for prophets. Its MagicIsEvil message is brought forth in the mention that a competing school, the [[AcademyOfEvil Luciferian Academy]], teaches its students how to dabble in "the unholy arts", and also three of its students are {{Corrupted Character Cop|y}}ies of Harry, Ron, and Hermione from ''Harry Potter''. |
| 145 | * The 2017 book ''The Little Lamb from Bethlehem'' is the Christian counterpart to the 2005 Christmas book ''The Elf on the Shelf''. It even comes with its own [[SweetSheep plush lamb]] and book gift set, just like The Elf on the Shelf, but relating to The Nativity instead. |
| 146 | * The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_novel#Inspirational_romance inspirational romance]] genre is the moral substitute for steamy, bodice-ripping romances. While the above link to the Other Wiki doesn't note it, leading publisher Harlequin has a successful imprint (Steeple Hill) that only turns out books of this kind using the parent company's StrictlyFormula approach. |
| 147 | ** Taking this methodology a step farther, there exists Christian spanking porn. Of course, the makers deny that it's porn at all and prefer the term "Christian domestic discipline romance fiction". They claim it was created for Christian couples to explore what God intended for marriage (i.e. according to the makers, He wants husbands to spank their wives) without having to look at anything icky. |
| 148 | ** Similarly, there's also a significant number of "Amish romance" books for a Christian audience that seem to be intended as a moral substitute for ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey'' style books. Many actual Amish people aren't amused by this, since the authors are typically not themselves Amish and they feel it portrays an inaccurate version of their lifestyle that's actually a mouthpiece for evangelical Christian values, especially around concepts of sexuality and salvation, that they do not share. |
| 149 | * ''The Twelve Candles Club'' is a Christian -- specifically, conservative evangelical -- alternative to what the author saw as filth and immorality found in secular preteen novel series like ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub''. The approach is... odd. Basically, each book starts with a fairly standard BSC-style plotline, the characters make it to the second-to-last chapter without mentioning religion in any way, but then, when all hope seemed lost, one of them would suggest that the group [[ReligionIsMagic pray about their problem]]. They would do so, and [[DeusExMachina the problem would suddenly be solved by some miraculous coincidence]]. |
| 150 | ** Creator/MaraWilson [[http://the-toast.net/2015/03/05/the-b-y-times-jewish-answer-baby-sitters-club/ wrote about an Orthodox Jewish moral substitute book series]] for ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' she was introduced to, called ''The B. Y. Times'', in a 2015 article for ''The Toast''. |
| 151 | * Some reviewers consider ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'' to be the moral substitute for other vampire and romance novels, such as the works of Creator/AnneRice, which are generally less pro-abstinence. More than that, [[http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html this]] series of Livejournal posts makes a pretty solid argument that it's the ''Mormon'' Alternative, especially since Stephenie Meyer is a practicing Mormon. |
| 152 | * The New Basic Readers were a series of grade school primers published in the 1930s through the 1960s, featuring, among other characters, ''Literature/DickAndJane''. They were published for the public school market. A division of this company, the New Cathedral Basic Readers, were the Catholic School equivalent. They kept all the secular stories of the original, but would add a few religious-themed stories (e.g., the kids read a Bible story, or buy a Blessed Mother necklace for their mom, or have a nun for their teacher). |
| 153 | ** There was also a version for Seventh-Day Adventist schools. |
| 154 | * OlderThanRadio: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tom_literature "Anti-Tom" literature]], or plantation literature, was a genre that was popular in the Southern US in the 1850s. Written to counter ''Literature/UncleTomsCabin'' and the damning portrayal it gave of plantation slavery, such books instead sought to "tell the truth" about slavery, romanticizing it as a noble system that [[HappinessInSlavery existed for the good of black people]]. Abolitionists were frequently used as {{straw|Character}}men, presented as either [[SoapboxSadie misguided idealists and do-gooders]] who didn't know what they were talking about, or [[DastardlyWhiplash moustache-twirling]] [[CardCarryingVillain Damn Yankee villains]] who were conspiring to destroy the Southern way of life. In turn, after [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the Civil War]], the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_narrative slave narrative]] emerged as a substitute for the substitute, seeking to portray the harsh realities of the old slavery system. |
| 155 | * ''The Truax'' was written in TheEighties by Terri Birkett, the wife of a hardwood flooring factory owner, and published by the National Oak Flooring Manufacturers' Association as a counter to Creator/DrSeuss' environmentalist tale ''Literature/TheLorax''. |
| 156 | * Jerel Law's series ''Son of Angels'' openly advertises itself as the Christian alternative to the work of Creator/RickRiordan, whose popular young adult-oriented series (''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', ''Literature/TheKaneChronicles'', etc.) draw upon Greek, Egyptian, and Roman mythology for their universes and characters. |
| 157 | * Creator/VoxDay wrote his novel ''A Throne of Bones'' (The start of his ''Literature/TheArtsOfDarkAndLight'' series) as a [[http://www.speculativefaith.com/2013/01/18/on-the-throne-of-bones-a-q-and-a-with-vox-day/ "literary rebuke"]] to the popular fantastic series ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. |
| 158 | * If Creator/DavidEddings is to be believed, Creator/AlfredLordTennyson's ''Literature/IdyllsOfTheKing'' is essentially a moral substitute for the more violent and bawdy ''Literature/LeMorteDArthur''. |
| 159 | * ''Literature/TheBerenstainBears'' started out as a secular series of children's books, but when Stan Berenstain died in 2005, his son Mike took over the series and began incorporating Christian elements, including a Christian-themed spinoff series called ''Living Lights''. [[http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-berenstain-bears-get-an-app-and-find-god Mike has stated]] that this was because of [[PeripheryDemographic the fandom the series had]] among Christian parents; while he and his family were Jewish, and Jan and Stan Berenstain had long insisted that the series be secular so as to keep their appeal as broad as possible (hence why there was never a Hanukkah-themed book), the books' G-rated morality made them a hit among Christians, leading Mike to write new books aimed at them for a Christian publisher. |
| 160 | * ''The Book of a Mujhadeen'' was written by [[UsefulNotes/TheChechnyaWars Chechen terrorist leader Shamil Basayev]] as a radical Islamic version of Brazilian author Creator/PauloCoelho's ''The Manual of the Warrior of Light'', a esoteric Christian book that teaches there is a "warrior of light" inside each of us. Basayev was impressed with it enough that he used it to draw the benefits of becoming a ''mujhadeen'', so he admits in the introduction of rewriting most of it, removing all the excesses and adding Quranic verses, hadiths and stories of the lives of Muhammed's companions, as well as [[BreadEggsMilkSquick sections about guerilla warfare and ambush tactics]]. |
| 161 | * ''Spiritally Correct Bedtime Stories'' serves as this to ''Literature/PoliticallyCorrectBedtimeStories'', with the political correctness of the latter replaced by heavy religious themes. |
| 162 | * ''The Tuttle Twins'' is a kids' book series with pro-capitalistic and libertarian viewpoints. It is marketed as a 'pro-freedom' alternative to basically every other kids' franchise. There's also a crowd-funded [[WesternAnimation/TuttleTwins cartoon series]] based on the books, which is again supposed to be a right-wing alternative to "leftist propaganda" like ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'', ''WesternAnimation/BluesCluesAndYou'', ''Series/SesameStreet'' and ''WesternAnimation/XavierRiddleAndTheSecretMuseum'' (and it borrows '''a lot''' from ''Falls'' and ''Xavier''). |
| 163 | * ''BRAVE Books'' is another right-wing kids' book series. Penned by Republican members of Congress and Fox News alumni, these books starring FunnyAnimals are against transgender people, critical race theory, "cancel culture" and more. |
| 164 | * ''Literature/TheMartian'' received this treatment from its own author Creator/AndyWeir, who [[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/business/andy-weirs-best-seller-the-martian-gets-a-classroom-friendly-makeover.html wrote a "Classroom Edition"]] after he was approached by science teachers who wondered why he had to use [[ClusterFBomb so many cuss words]] in a book that was otherwise perfect for getting kids excited about space. |
| 165 | * ''Literature/JohnnyTheWalrus'' is an anti-transgender children's book created as an alternative to LGBTQ-positive children's books. |
| 166 | * OlderThanSteam: The endlessly controversial poet Creator/LordByron, in his poem ''Don Juan'', claimed his rival poet Bryan Waller Procter was trying to be a cleaned-up version of him (his poem ''Barry Comwall'' was seen by at least one contemporary reviewer as a knockoff of ''Don Juan''): |
| 167 | -->Then there's my gentle Euphues, who, they say,\ |
| 168 | Sets up for being a sort of ''moral me'';\ |
| 169 | He'll find it rather difficult some day\ |
| 170 | To turn out both, or either, it may be. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 174 | * Television UsefulNotes/NewsNetworks: |
| 175 | ** Fox News was created in 1996 as a "fair and balanced" alternative to a mainstream American TV news establishment who its creators (particularly its longtime CEO and chairman Roger Ailes, a former Republican communications consultant) saw as having a left-wing liberal slant to their coverage and commentary. In practice, this translated to a right-wing conservative slant to its own coverage and commentary. For much of the '00s and '10s, its status as the dominant conservative TV news outlet in the US made it not only a ratings leader (as more left-leaning viewers were split between multiple outlets), but also a major player in the Republican Party's own messaging apparatus. |
| 176 | ** In turn, starting in the late '00s MSNBC, until then seen as just the "[[ThePoorMansSubstitute poor man's CNN]]," positioned itself as the left-liberal alternative to Fox News in order to stand out in an increasingly crowded cable news landscape. |
| 177 | ** Fox News has also created two shows that aimed to be the conservative version of ''Series/TheDailyShowWithJonStewart'', whose host was a strident liberal and approached issues from that perspective. The first, ''The ½ Hour News Hour'', was poorly received and lasted only two months in early 2007. The second, ''Series/RedEyeWithGregGutfeld'', worked out better thanks to it having an early-morning (3:00 AM) timeslot where viewers were more accepting of bluer humor than Fox News' normal conservative viewership, and it being more of an imitation of ''Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn'' (which wasn't a left-leaning show anyway) rather than ''The Daily Show''. The success of ''Red Eye'' eventually led to Gutfeld getting [[Series/TheGregGutfeldShow his own eponymous late-night comedy talk show]] in 2015, positioned as a right-wing version of late-night talk shows like ''Series/TheTonightShow'' and ''Series/TheLateShow''. |
| 178 | ** Bringing it full circle, the One America News Network and Newsmax TV are [[https://www.axios.com/fox-news-conservative-cable-tv-newsmax-oann-352677fb-b6ae-4500-9dea-588788ab3a99.html marketed]] to those who believe that Fox News' generally conservative lean (especially in their daytime and weekend news programming, which skews less explicitly partisan than their UsefulNotes/PrimeTime TalkShow hosts) isn't conservative enough. UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump often promoted OAN and Newsmax whenever he felt that Fox News went too hard on his policies, and after the 2020 Presidential election (where Fox News was the first to call the pivotal swing state of Arizona for UsefulNotes/JoeBiden), both networks saw a surge in viewership, with Trump reportedly considering buying Newsmax and turning it into his own personal cable news network. |
| 179 | ** Venezuela created [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telesur teleSUR]] in 2005 as a "Southern" ("Sur" means "South" in Spanish) alternative to the the "Northern" (i.e. United States-based) CNN and other global news networks. While the English-language version presents itself as a "Western" news network and hires Western journalists to that end, albeit one that "talks about stuff the Yankees would never want you to hear", the Spanish-language version is straight-up Venezuelan government propaganda, even carrying several programs from Venezuelan state TV unaltered which are clearly aimed at domestic Venezuelan audiences. The channel was [[WhatCouldHaveBeen supposed to be multinational]], but nowadays only Venezuela and its close allies Cuba and Nicaragua (both financially dependent to some extent on Venezuelan goodwill) contribute to it. |
| 180 | ** Ditto for RT (formerly Russia Today), created in 2005 by the Russian government as part of an effort to improve Russia's image abroad. Like [=teleSUR=], this translated to hiring sympathetic Western journalists (especially those with an "anti-establishment" bent) and presenting itself as an alternative to a global news establishment biased towards the interests of the Western powers. In practice, like [=teleSUR=] for Venezuela, it is mostly a Russian propaganda mouthpiece. Notably, during the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, while RT's Russian feed urged people to wear masks and get vaccinated, its ''international'' feeds spread conspiracy theories about the disease and public health measures. In 2022, the network sided with Russia during its invasion of Ukraine, causing most of its American staff to quit in protest and leading many social media providers and European countries (especially in Eastern Europe) to ban the network. |
| 181 | * All TV channels owned by the Venezuelan government. All of them try, with various grades of success, to promote an "alternative" view to the "imperialist" (read: American) channels, who means that most shows are devoted to how wonderful the government is and how evil the oppressors are. One of the channels was deliberately built as an "socialist" alternative to commercial channels, and even is trying to do "social" {{Soap Opera}}s. It seems that the effort is not working, though; the combined ratings of all government channels are inferior to the least popular of the commercial channels, and even the directors of some of those channels admit that they are not attracting enough viewers. |
| 182 | * The requirements various countries have of a mandated amount of locally produced TV and film. This was famously lampooned by the Canadian SketchComedy show ''Series/{{SCTV}}'', which had to fill Canadian TV's extra two minutes per half-hour with "Required Canadian Content". Miffed at the fact that a Canadian production, with all-Canadian writers, actors, and producers, was not enough in and of itself to meet requirements, they decided to fill those two minutes with all of the most over-the-top [[MooseAndMapleSyrup Canadian stereotypes]] they could possibly cram into two minutes. The result was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_%26_Doug_McKenzie Bob & Doug McKenzie]], who became [[BreakoutCharacter so popular]] that they not only eventually made it into the American feed of the show, but they were the only characters on the series to have their own ''[[TheMovie feature film]]'', in the form of ''Film/StrangeBrew''. |
| 183 | * The PAX television network was intended to be a family-friendly alternative to the major broadcast networks, but ended up being mostly infomercials and reruns, along with at least two notable originals (''Series/SueThomasFBEye'' and Billy Ray Cyrus as ''Doc''). It's since changed its name to Creator/IonTelevision and its programming now consists ''entirely'' of infomercials and reruns, with the occasional movie during prime time hours (including, oddly enough, ''Film/{{Hogfather}}'' during the Christmas season). It later consisted of reruns from CBS primetime shows, including ''Series/GhostWhisperer'', ''Series/{{NCIS}}'', and ''Series/CriminalMinds'', indicators of some definite NetworkDecay. In 2015, ION acquired the American first-run rights to the Canadian drama ''Series/SavingHope'' ([[NetworkToTheRescue picking it up]] from Creator/{{NBC}}), seemingly in an attempt to be this trope applied to series like ''Series/GreysAnatomy'' and ''Series/{{House}}''. |
| 184 | * Creator/{{PBS}}: |
| 185 | ** NET was America's first non-commercial, public service TV network, and was funded by the Ford Foundation and other non-profits starting in 1952 in order to supply educational programming and serve as an alternative to the LowestCommonDenominator fare on the commercial networks. However, it never emerged as a serious competitor to commercial TV, and by 1967 it started to accept government funding in the form of the public Corporation for Public Broadcasting. |
| 186 | ** Two years later, new President UsefulNotes/RichardNixon, a firm opponent of NET's editorial stance, created Creator/{{PBS}}, another non-commercial network, in order to "keep NET in line politically" with the threat of being shut down in favor of PBS. NET management did not listen. In 1970, NET aired a documentary about the deceptive businesses of large US banks, and an infuriated Nixon essentially shut NET down by the fall of that year, with PBS getting the CPB's funding instead. |
| 187 | ** Like the ''Narnia'' example above, many of the children's shows aired on Creator/{{PBS}}' [[Creator/PBSKids children's block]] (''Series/SesameStreet'', ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'', ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'', ''Series/BillNyeTheScienceGuy'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'') weren't intended as Moral Substitutes. However, once {{Saturday morning|Cartoon}}s (and, later, cable networks like Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, Creator/CartoonNetwork, and the Creator/DisneyChannel) became increasingly filled with shows {{Media Watchdog}}s and various [[MoralGuardians parents' and teachers' groups]] considered to [[MerchandiseDriven glamorize consumerism and materialism]], Creator/PBSKids started to be treated as this by a number of parents who wanted their children watching [[EdutainmentShow more educational fare]]. |
| 188 | ** Ironically, ''Sesame Street'' itself is now under fire from some quarters for allegedly being subversive and immoral. |
| 189 | *** And according to the creators of ''Theatre/AvenueQ'', ''Series/SesameStreet'' did have plenty of genuinely subversive elements, though in a good way. The multiracial cast (including BenevolentMonsters), emphasis on learning, literacy, logic, and tolerance, and tackling of serious real-world problems in {{Very Special Episode}}s are exactly the kinds of things MoralGuardians are known for complaining about. |
| 190 | ** PBS may have not meant for ''Series/MisterRogersNeighborhood'' to be a moral alternative, but Fred Rogers himself was another matter. A [[GoodShepherd Presbyterian minister]] with a keen interest in child development, he was repulsed by what he saw on television and sought to put on something more wholesome. He succeeded ''gloriously''. |
| 191 | * ''Dooley and Pals'' was one of many ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' imitators, with the same premise of kids hanging out with a fantasy creature, but a Christian-themed version of it was created alongside the secular version, under the name "The Dooley and Pals Show Children's Ministry". The only change made for the Children's Ministry version is that the "Fun Facts" segment is replaced with "Fun Bible Facts", with Bible quotations relating to the episode's {{A|nAesop}}esop. [[note]] There isn't a "Children's Ministry" version of every episode, but Smile of a Child aired the whole series anyway. [[/note]] Other variants on the ''Barney'' theme include: |
| 192 | ** The songs from the 1990s show ''The Reppies'' were (awkwardly) redubbed to mention God for airing on Christian-oriented channels such as Smile of a Child. |
| 193 | ** ''The Huggabug Club'' aired on both Smile of a Child and PBS. There is a trio of costumed characters, one of which is implied to be Jewish, and references are occasionally made to both Judaism and Christianity. |
| 194 | ** ''Colby's Clubhouse'' is more direct and deliberate, with the titular anthropomorphic computer telling his large troupe of singing, dancing children about God and referring to the Bible. It did have a spinoff called "Colby's Place", a Christian {{KidCom}}. |
| 195 | ** ''The Donut Man'', starring Rob Evans. It gave birth to the Almighty Loaf. |
| 196 | * ''Series/{{Bibleman}}'' is a moral substitute for superheroes/superhero shows in general. Unlike some alternatives however, it is aware of how silly and campy it can get, and [[HamAndCheese the actors are clearly having as good a time as anyone]] while not detracting from the message. |
| 197 | * [[http://www.foxcharlotte.com/news/top-stories/The-Real-Housewives-Of-The-Bible-Hope-To-Relate-To-Modern-Women-125254259.html Evangelist Ty Adams]] created an alternative to ''The Real Housewives'' series, called ''[[http://www.ity.tv/real-housewives#!__real-housewives/videos The Real Housewives of the Bible]]'', which is supposed to profile 12 women from Literature/TheBible. It apparently emphasizes the solution instead of the problem. |
| 198 | * Trinity Broadcasting Network, one of the largest religious broadcasters, has two sister channels targeting children and teens/young adults with inoffensive, usually pro-Christian programming. [[http://www.avclub.com/articles/smile-of-a-child-tv,67136 Smile (formerly Smile of a Child)]] is advertised as an alternative to Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, the Creator/DisneyChannel, and Creator/CartoonNetwork, while JUCE TV (formerly JCTV) was, until it went off the air and moved to [=YouTube=] in 2020, a Christian take on Creator/{{MTV}} and the like for teens and young adults. |
| 199 | ** JUCE TV's ''15th & Park'' is a Christian music showcase analogous to BET's ''106th & Park''. |
| 200 | * In the 1980s, Pat Robertson's [[Creator/ABCFamily Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN)]] offered ''Another Life'', a slickly-produced alternative to secular soap operas. |
| 201 | * In the late-1970s, Westinghouse created the Home Theater Network (HTN), which was intended to be a family-friendly alternative to all other pay networks. The channel bought the rights to current movies that didn't carry an R or X rating. The service never truly took off and was discontinued in 1987. It ultimately became a footnote in American television history because it carried travelogue interstitials branded as "The Travel Channel"; said brand was purchased by the Creator/DiscoveryChannel after HTN closed, and the rest is history. |
| 202 | * In 1987, Creator/{{HBO}} created Festival as a mini-pay service for older conservative audiences who didn't want to subscribe to the younger-appealing channel. Its lineup included newer and classic films, along with a variety of specials. Unlike the similar HTN, Festival did carry R-rated films, but unlike HBO, those films were censored. As the case with HTN, customers weren't interested in Festival and the service was discontinued in a matter of months. HBO would have more success with HBO Family, which simply doesn't feature anything "harder" than PG-13 content; subscribers to Showtime and/or Starz/Encore networks get similar channels. |
| 203 | * ''Series/TheGospelBillShow'' serves as this to other Western series, though it was produced during a period where the genre was not commonly seen outside of reruns. |
| 204 | * The 1987 {{miniseries}} ''Series/{{Amerika}}'', about the United States under the control of the Soviet Union, was made as a right-wing response to the "left-wing" ''Film/TheDayAfter'' (though President UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, a hero to American conservatives, staunchly defended the latter production). While ''The Day After'' was about [[WorldWarIII what would presumably happen]] if nuclear weapons weren't outlawed, ''Amerika'' was intended to portray [[InvadedStatesOfAmerica what would presumably happen]] if they ''were''. Needless to say, when it aired, the United States and the Soviet Union were starting to be on good terms, so the subject of ''Amerika'' became moot and the ratings were dismal. On top of that, ''Amerika'' [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes has never been available on video]], unlike ''The Day After''. |
| 205 | * Creator/{{HBO}}'s miniseries ''Series/{{Chernobyl}}'', a dramatization of the UsefulNotes/{{Chernobyl}} meltdown and its aftermath, came under fire in the Russian press, as they saw it as Western propaganda designed to make the Soviet government look bad. (The fact that an American network made a show about Soviet heroes also felt like a blow to national pride.) This led the Russian TV network NTV to make [[https://news.avclub.com/russia-hates-hbos-chernobyl-vows-to-make-its-own-serie-1835298424 their own TV series]] about the disaster, one based on a conspiracy theory attributing the meltdown to [[FalseFlagOperation an act of sabotage by the CIA]]. |
| 206 | * Televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker would regularly unwind after preaching at revival meetings by watching ''Series/TheTonightShowStarringJohnnyCarson'', and at times they'd wonder why Christian television wasn't as fun to watch. To fix that, in 1974 Jim Bakker created ''The PTL Club'' as a Christian version of ''The Tonight Show'', with the celebrities interviewed being fellow ministers, the musical performances coming from [[ChristianRock contemporary Christian musicians]], and "Uncle Henry" Harrison as the Ed [=McMahon=] to Bakker's Creator/JohnnyCarson. (This wouldn't be the last time that Bakker did this; his theme park Heritage USA is described in more detail below.) |
| 207 | * The Creator/HallmarkChannel, while secular and apolitical, has its roots in a religious cable TV network called the Faith and Values Channel, and as such, it built a large audience of conservative Christians who embraced its Series/HallmarkHallOfFame anthology series of made-for-TV movies as an alternative to the sex, violence, and liberal politics of secular television. This caused a problem in 2019 when they tried to set out and make their brand of down-home family values more inclusive, with more movies and shows featuring same-sex couples. Creator/CandaceCameronBure, one of the network's biggest stars and also a very staunch conservative Christian, walked out and [[StartMyOwn created her own competing cable network]], Great American Family, as a more explicitly Christian version of Hallmark. |
| 208 | * ''Danny Go'' is a Christian version of [=YouTubers=] who produce shows aimed at entertaining and educating children, such as ''Blippi''. |
| 209 | [[/folder]] |
| 210 | |
| 211 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 212 | * The entire genre of white power and neo-Nazi music, which includes rock, metal, ska, and even ''rap'', of all things. As noted above, "moral substitute" is perfectly compatible with BlueAndOrangeMorality. |
| 213 | ** There's also Saga, the neo-Nazis' answer to Madonna. Madonna is a devotee of Jewish mysticism, see. |
| 214 | ** National Alliance leader (and secret author of ''Literature/TheTurnerDiaries'') William Luther Pierce was well aware of the irony. He despised rock music and preferred that young people listen to classical music or opera, but was pragmatic enough to decide that if white youths were immature enough to be into the rock scene, that was what his label Resistance Records was going to give them (provided it could impart a "white power" message, of course). |
| 215 | ** The tween singing duo Prussian Blue began their career as a white-power alternative to Disney's multicultural teen pop stars. They've since [[http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/07/17/071711-news-nazi-twins-1-6/ renounced racism]], though, saying that their mother, who is still active in racist causes, was a StageMom who tried to use them as a mouthpiece for her views (though they remain on decent terms with her). |
| 216 | ** In TheSeventies, the British rock scene saw the rise of the "Rock Against Racism" movement in response to what was seen as racist attitudes in the rock music world, with the catalyst being Music/EricClapton's praise of the controversial right-wing MP Enoch Powell during a 1976 concert. White supremacists in the UK responded with "Rock Against Communism" concerts featuring white-power bands like Skrewdriver, Skullhead, and No Remorse. While both Rock Against Racism and Rock Against Communism eventually faded out by the end of TheEighties, "rock against communism" is still a catch-all term in the British music scene for racist PunkRock and oi! music. |
| 217 | * During the Second World War, Hitler had tried to purge the German airwaves of everything "degenerate" and un-German. Towards the middle of the war, however, his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, had realized that most people didn't want to spend the whole day listening to Wagner, stirring martial music, and Oom-pah-pah traditional tunes (while Allied bombers droned overhead), so he did the logical thing and ''[[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/hitlers-very-own-hot-jazz-band-98745129/ founded a cover band]]''. (Some of its members were Jews who had hidden their parentage.) They proceeded to create what was essentially 1940s {{Music/Weird Al}}, if Weird Al sang about the degeneracy of the Allies and the pure martial virtues of Germany. |
| 218 | ** The Nazis also sponsored concerts of good, wholesome, Aryan music and also exhibitions of ''Entartete Muzik'' ("Degenerate Music") like Jazz (''Negermusik'', guess) and Swing (a lot of swing musicians were Jewish) so audiences could hear for themselves how much superior the Nazi music was. They also had similar exhibitions of Aryan vs. "Entartete" art. It ... didn't work out how they expected. "Real" jazz music was never completely eradicated in Germany and afficionados risked severe sanction if discovered - an extreme case of KeepCirculatingTheTapes. It was still preferred to the officially approved form which was thought to be a pale, watery, insipid imitation and "ersatz" in every sense of the word. Creator/SpikeMilligan, who had cut his performing teeth playing jazz and swing trumpet, sent this up savagely and accurately when he had Hitler, Goering, Himmler and Goebbels start their own Nazi Jazz band. The result is as dire as you could expect. |
| 219 | * Pat Boone made his career out of taking somewhat-racy popular music (especially RockAndRoll) and defanging it, going back to the 1950s when he released [[{{Bowdlerise}} a tamer version]] of Music/LittleRichard's "Tutti Frutti", which had ''itself'' been bowdlerized from Little Richard's original version (which was about the mechanics of gay sex), so in effect Boone defanged something already largely toothless. He rode this to become the second highest-selling artist of TheFifties, with several of his covers, including "Tutti Frutti" and Music/FatsDomino's "Ain't That a Shame", reaching higher positions on the charts than the original recordings (though the originals are today recognized as the FirstAndForemost versions). He's still doing it to this day; ''In a Metal Mood'', an album of Boone converting such songs as Music/{{Metallica}}'s "Enter Sandman", Music/RonnieJamesDio's "Holy Diver" and Music/OzzyOsbourne's "Crazy Train" (which made its way to become the opening theme of ''Series/TheOsbournes''), has earned a SoBadItsGood cult following (amusingly, Boone has since claimed his church threw him out for even ''touching'' metal music). Little Richard recorded "Long Tall Sally" in an effort to produce a song that Pat Boone couldn't cover. Boone gamely tried, but Richard's version ended up beating his out on the charts. |
| 220 | ** There are anecdotes of teenagers hiding their rock music in the sleeves of Pat Boone albums. |
| 221 | * In a curious inversion of the traditional order, atheist activist Michael Newdow (best known for his challenges to the Pledge of Allegiance) released a CD of "[[YouMeanXMas solstice]]" carols with the religious elements removed for the enjoyment of his fellow atheists. [[http://www.factschurch.com/merrysolstice/merrysolsticelyrics.html Lyrics here.]] It's odd. |
| 222 | * During the latter years of the Cold War, the Soviet government promoted the career of Dean Reed, an American expatriate living in East Germany, as an alternative to decadent "rohk" music, which had replaced decadent "jast" music on their hit-list. |
| 223 | ** Similarly during the 60's onward, The Soviet Union would allow state-approved rock bands to form, under the umbrella of "Vocal-Instrument Assembly", or VIA[[note]]The terms like "Rock" or "Rock'n'Roll" were banned by government as "capitalist" and "imperialist"[[/note]], with their main aim to praise the Soviet Union and its people, and to promote Russo-Communism values. With the fall of the USSR in the early 90's, many of these VIA would either disband or reform into more Western-style rock bands. |
| 224 | * Chris Rice parodied the concept of moral substitutes in his "Cartoon Song." He stopped playing it live in 2004 because too many people were [[MisaimedFandom missing the point]] that God wants His believers to do the praising themselves, not through their choices of entertainment. |
| 225 | * Although most Christian rock bands don't really fit here, the band Music/ApologetiX makes blatant use of this trope, as all of their songs are popular secular songs with new Christian lyrics, like a Christian version of Music/WeirdAlYankovic. The most interesting one of their songs is "Spirit Inside." It's a parody of "Spirit in the Sky," which already was a Christian song[[note]]''sort of''; Norman Greenbaum was and still is a practicing Jew who heard a country gospel song and was inspired to do something similar himself, admitting that he knew nothing about gospel music[[/note]] (and got further tweaked into one by DC Talk), but apparently [=ApologetiX=] ''still'' thought a moral substitute was needed! |
| 226 | * There is a movement in Christianity called the Sacred Name or Hebrew Roots movement, which believes that it is incorrect to use translated names of God and Jesus, but instead that only the Hebrew names should be used. They have their own praise and worship music, and they sometimes cover popular contemporary Christian songs, but with all instances of God, Jesus, LORD, ETC. replaced with Yahweh and Yahshua or a variant thereof. |
| 227 | ** The Catholic Church in recent years has gone in the opposite direction—citing Jewish tradition that the name of God is too sacred to be pronounced, liturgical music (hymns used during Mass) has replaced Yahweh with Dominus, which in English translates to Lord. |
| 228 | * The Music/BlackEyedPeas started out as a less violent, [[ConsciousHipHop socially conscious]] alternative to the GangstaRap artists that dominated rap music in TheNineties. This changed once [[MsFanservice Fergie]] joined, with their hit albums ''Elephunk'' and ''Monkey Business'' turning them in a more party-pop-oriented direction. |
| 229 | * For that matter, AlternativeHipHop in general has long been dominated by a streak of resistance against the [[DamnItFeelsGoodToBeAGangster violent subject matter]] of GangstaRap and, later, the [[ConspicuousConsumption flaunting of luxurious lifestyles]] that defined GlamRap. Many rappers who rejected the value sets of those two genres often embraced alternative hip-hop as a substitute for it. Most famously, the TV show ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' had a soundtrack dominated by it, and frequently took [[TakeThat pot shots]] at the hip-hop mainstream for selling what it saw as a self-destructive, materialistic lifestyle to young black people. |
| 230 | * During their teen idol period, Music/TheJonasBrothers were marketed by Disney as this to Music/FallOutBoy, Music/PanicAtTheDisco, and other pop-punk acts that exploded during the TurnOfTheMillennium whose music talked about topics like cheating spouses or notches on bedposts. Some posters and promotional materials for the Jonas Brothers even bordered on making them look like a {{Mockbuster}} of these bands, using similar color schemes and font styles to the other bands' current albums. |
| 231 | * The entire UsefulNotes/StraightEdge music scene and subculture emerged as a backlash against what was perceived as out-of-control violence and drug use within the HardcorePunk scene in TheEighties. Ironically, the [[HolierThanThou militancy]] of [[SmugStraightEdge some straight edge adherents]] led to the perception that the movement was a gang. |
| 232 | ** The "gang" mentality, by the way, was [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] clear into the stratosphere by Wrestling/{{WWE}}'s Wrestling/CMPunk between 2009 and 2011. His "hardcore straight-edge" gimmick, originally heroic, took on a diabolical "cult" flavor, with Punk's followers essentially a group of skinheaded thugs and Punk himself looking disturbingly like Charles Manson (until Wrestling/ReyMysterio shaved him bald). |
| 233 | * "White Metal" or "Unblack Metal" is this to BlackMetal, which is amusing since black metal is one of the few genres that have a notable number of actual Satanists. |
| 234 | * In TheEighties, Creator/{{Televisa}}, then (and still) the most powerful Mexican TV network, was faced with a dilemma. As one of Mexico's self-appointed MoralGuardians, they had to ostracize any music that plays harder than soft rock to prevent the "[[ThinkOfTheChildren family values]]" crowd from viewing them as traitors, but doing so meant losing [[MoneyDearBoy those profitable demographics that enjoyed rock music]]. So they decided to {{Bowdlerise}} rock music, playing [[SpinoffBabies children's bands like Timbiriche]]. |
| 235 | * Creator/WillSmith built a good chunk of his music career in TheNineties on this trope, marketing himself as the less vulgar and violent alternative to the edgy GangstaRap and militant HardcoreHipHop popular at the time. He never used "hard" swear words in his songs, and one of his lines in "Freakin' It" had him challenging gangsta rap artists to "write one verse without a curse" (a reference to Music/{{Eminem}} dissing him over how clean-cut his music was). |
| 236 | * Music/KidzBop was pushed as a more family-friendly, cleaner and less violent alternative to mainstream pop and rap. It didn't go that well due to Bowdlerization and large amounts of TheCoverChangesTheMeaning. |
| 237 | * Music/AvaMax created a song called "Not Your Barbie Girl" which directly samples the Music/{{Aqua}} song "Barbie Girl" in its melody. It was written as a counteraction to the message of "Barbie Girl", but can also be seen as this trope. |
| 238 | * Ditto for Music/MCHammer, who made a point of including a Christian song on every one of his albums, and is today a Pentecostal minister. His attempt to stay relevant and go "gangsta" with the 1994 album ''The Funky Headhunter'' cost him a large chunk of his fanbase, [[CreatorKiller and was one of the factors that set off his rapid decline]]. |
| 239 | * There also exists Christian rap, which tends to be even more niche than Christian rock. Notably, Irish comedian Brendan O'Connor produced a StealthParody of the genre, "Who's In The House?", back in 2000. |
| 240 | * Gospel music is an inversion of this. It has a rich history as a uniquely American music form, based on African call and response and rhythmical patterns. A lot of early secular soul and R&B music was influenced by this tradition. |
| 241 | ** This also applies to much of the history of Christian art/music/literature etc. - it doesn't fall under this trope as it isn't a substitute. (Although it may be substituted ''for'', as noted elsewhere.) |
| 242 | * Indeed, this goes back quite a ways: many standard Christian hymnals began life as pub songs that had been refitted with lyrics suitable for praise and worship, to better engage churchgoers of the time. |
| 243 | ** Not explicitly Christian (the full lyrics are at least Deist if not specifically Christian, but it's rare to hear more than the first verse), but the same thing happened when Francis Scott Key wrote a patriotic poem about a battle in the War of 1812, which was later set to the drinking tune "To Anacreon in Heaven" and became America's national anthem. |
| 244 | * Christian rock band Music/DanielAmos wrote the song "Home Permanent" (from their album ''Music/VoxHumana'')--among other things, it poked pun at the practice of creating Christian alternatives to ''everything'', and turning random merch into evangelistic tools. |
| 245 | -->I gave a toy top to my little brother\ |
| 246 | It says to "Spin from sin", and to my mother\ |
| 247 | I gave a recipe book, it's like no other\ |
| 248 | Now she makes chocolate Bibles--a witness to my unsaved father |
| 249 | * Garage rock is usually the domain of rough, gritty girl put-downs, songs about pretty, sexy girls, and rants against the establishment. Wisconsin band The Rehabilitation Cruise had two songs in the mid-'60s praising the moral majority -- the pro-war, pro-military [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fkVOCBEOrE "I Don't Care What They Say"]], and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY1Qf8nvc7k "Miniskirts"]], which seemingly chides teenage girls for wearing the then-edgy attire. |
| 250 | * Music/{{Cimorelli}}. Combined with Bowdlerization, they function as the "Good girl role models" substitute to mainstream girl groups. It does help that they have a Catholic upbringing. |
| 251 | * A FolkMusic singer named Janet Greene very briefly [[http://www.conelrad.com/greene/index.php gained attention]] by marketing herself as "the conservative Music/JoanBaez". |
| 252 | * Similarly, The Spokesmen's "Dawn of Correction" is a pro-Vietnam War, anti-communist AnswerSong to Barry [=McGuire's=] "Eve of Destruction." |
| 253 | * The Children of God, a communal Christian sect with some rather unusual beliefs, used to exaggerate this. Not only was most secular media banned, so was all other forms of Christian media! Therefore, members of the sect made their own music and videos with messages befitting the group's beliefs, much of which is only made available to members of the group.[[note]]Among their most infamous doctrines [[ItMakesSenseInContext is that when members have sex or masturbate, they should imagine themselves having sex with Jesus (or if they're male, imagine themselves as women having sex with Jesus)]], meaning that many of them take GodIsLoveSongs to the extreme.[[/note]] |
| 254 | * A big part of the success of the song "Whoomp! There It Is" by Tag Team was because it was this to the lurid GangstaRap and hyper-sexualized MiamiBass that dominated HipHop in the early '90s. In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQfLFuEb4E4 the words]] of WebVideo/ToddInTheShadows, who covered the song for ''One-Hit Wonderland'', it was a strip club anthem that one could play outside the strip club, combining the energy of a Music/TwoLiveCrew song with PG-rated lyrics and only a small handful of sex and drug references that were easy enough to censor, helping to turn it into a staple of American sports arenas. One of Tag Team's members, DC Glenn, noted this in an interview. |
| 255 | -->"A rap single with no [[GangstaRap shooting, maiming,]] [[TheDissTrack complaining]], [[ClusterFBomb cussing]], [[PoliticalRap politics]], or [[DirtyRap anything degrading to women]]: [[ItWillNeverCatchOn sounds like a sure flop, doesn't it?]]" |
| 256 | * The ''WOW'' compilation albums act as a [=CCM=] equivalent to the ''Now That's What I Call Music!'' series. |
| 257 | * Plus One were created as the [=CCM=] industry's answer to boy bands like the Music/BackstreetBoys and Music/{{NSYNC}}. However, MisaimedMarketing led to them recording a song for the ''[[Anime/Pokemon2000 Pokémon: The Movie 2000]]'' soundtrack, appearing on secular TV shows such as ''Series/DaysOfOurLives'', and getting Radio/RadioDisney airplay (with "Last Flight Out" showing up on ''Radio Disney Jams, Vol. 4''). |
| 258 | * At the height of their fame, Family Force 5 were often promoted as a Christian alternative to {{crunk}} artists. |
| 259 | * A big part of the viral popularity and success of Music/LilNasX's hit "Old Town Road" is that it, a silly country rap song mostly about life in the country (with sung verses by country legend Music/BillyRayCyrus on the most well-known version), was this to the violent, sexualized and lurid TrapMusic and dark & dreary Soundcloud rap that dominated American hip-hop in the late 2010s, having only a few references to Lean, adultery, and "boobies" that were relatively easy to censor out, turning it from just a meme on [=TikTok=] into a chart-topping global smash hit. |
| 260 | * One of the reasons PostGrunge became big in the late 90s-early 2000s (and then created a BrokenBase as years went on) is that it started out as this to the violent, angsty & lurid NuMetal and raunchy PopPunk that dominated mainstream rock music in that time period. |
| 261 | * The OneHitWonder "Absolutely (Story of a Girl)" by Nine Days became a hit in part for similar reasons to PostGrunge - it was the moral substitute to the NuMetal, AlternativeRock and PopPunk songs that dominated rock music in the early 2000s, combining the subject matter and themes of a early Music/Blink182 song with PG-rated lyrics and an infectious PowerPop structure, helping turn it into a global summer mega-hit. |
| 262 | * Music/TheOutfield patterned themselves as moral substitutes for the big ArenaRock acts of the 1980s, with guitarist John Spinks often mentioning in interviews that the band was "totally into not smoking or doing drugs". |
| 263 | * Bandcamp has emerged as one for streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music for supporting indie artists, as they have low royalty payments. Buying music on [=CDs=] and vinyl is also touted as an alternative to streaming for supporting artists for similar reasons. |
| 264 | * Music/{{Eminem}}, as an enduringly popular musician whose body of work largely consists of VulgarHumor, has had a couple: |
| 265 | ** Music/{{NF}}, a Christian white rapper who makes music with a similar sound to Eminem's ''Recovery'', as well as TearJerker confessionals about his family and childhood, but without swearing, sex references or debauchery (and he is critical of other rappers for doing this). He ''may'' have been [[StealthInsult dissed]] by Eminem on ''Kamikaze'', when he describes "''an effin'[[note]]NF-in'[[/note]] ''Recovery'' clone of me''", but this is unconfirmed. |
| 266 | ** Music/{{Macklemore}} was seen by many as this -- a blond-haired white rapper who became big with a brightly-coloured comedy music video with witty rhymes and some outdated celebrity disses (at a time when Eminem had moved away from that style, wearing his hair dark and putting out serious songs about domestic abuse), followed by "Same Love", a ballad in which he expressed full-throated allyship with the LGBT community -- in total contrast to Eminem's notorious lyrical gaybashings. With album tracks in which he discusses his white privilege, he was held up as a talented white rapper who fit middle-class liberal sensibilities and showered with plaudits and gongs. He fell out of favour after numerous poor political signals that led to his fanbase tiring of him. [[note]] These included: [[OverlyStereotypicalDisguise Showing up to a concert in an antisemitic disguise]]; sending WhiteMansBurden texts to Music/KendrickLamar; making [[FranchiseOriginalSin increasingly]] {{Anvilicious}} songs including a nine-minute song in which he frets over whether he's [[SkewedPriorities speaking over Black people]] by participating in a Black Lives Matter protest; and [[HitlerAteSugar changing his distinctive haircut]] out of anxiety he'd be mistaken as a fascist.[[/note]] While Eminem did not rise to the bait of dissing Macklemore for "Same Love", calling the song and album "dope", he did fling barbs at him for being his percieved good twin - taking the voice of one of his critics to whine at himself "''why can't you be like Macklemore?''" on "Chloraseptic (Remix)". |
| 267 | ** While Music/{{Hopsin}} is cruder and [[InsultComic more insulting]] than both of the above artists, his lyrics often include moralistic lectures against violence, sex, drug use (Hopsin lost a family member to a drug addiction), and hip-hop culture more generally, which he believes is responsible for Black crime rates and social oppression. His fans therefore tend to be people who don't object to Eminem's use of foul language and mockery of his enemies, but to his left-wing politics and LowerClassLout image. |
| 268 | * Norah Jones gained much of her popularity during her ''Come Away with Me'' era for this reason, with many in the music industry seeing her as the "good girl role model" substitute to pop divas like Music/BritneySpears and Music/AvrilLavigne, who sang about cheating lovers, sex and hard partying. |
| 269 | * There were many "anti-Britney" TeenIdol stars in the late 90s and early 2000s, attempting to be substitutes for Music/BritneySpears and Music/ChristinaAguilera but promoting gender roles that were seen at the time as more healthy for teenage girls. They typically didn't engage in sexual clothing or dancing, emphasised their ability to write their own songs or play instruments, and drew their sound from [[RockIsAuthenticPopIsShallow rock and singer-songwriter genres]] rather than R&B and hip-hop. Examples of just a handful of artists who got their start in this niche are Music/AvrilLavigne (whose marketing specifically called her 'the anti-Britney' early on), Music/{{Pink}}, Music/VanessaCarlton, Music/AshleeSimpson, Music/MichelleBranch, Music/NatashaBedingfield, Amy Studt, [=M2M=], and Music/TaylorSwift. Since the reappraisal of the misogyny of the 2000s, several of these artists have since been criticised for reinforcing sexism with their "NotLikeOtherGirls" image and general slut-shaming, with Taylor Swift in particular (who became outspoken about her feminist politics in the 2010s) removing some of her more questionable early lyrics in her re-recorded Taylor's Versions. |
| 270 | [[/folder]] |
| 271 | |
| 272 | [[folder:Print Media]] |
| 273 | * Even pornography is not immune to this trope. Larry Flynt, upon briefly becoming a born-again Christian in 1977, tried to redesign ''Hustler'' magazine into a moral alternative to ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' and ''Penthouse'', mainly by showing married couples and promoting a message of sex-positivity (within marriage, of course). The first issue published after his conversion quoted him as saying "we will no longer hang women up like pieces of meat." This brief period where ''Hustler'' was a Christian skin mag ended the following year when Flynt survived an assassination attempt at the hands of a white supremacist, who was upset over how the magazine featured interracial couples. This left Flynt paralyzed from the waist down, and he renounced Christianity soon after. |
| 274 | * ''Brio'' was published by Focus on the Family as the Christian substitute to teen magazines like ''Seventeen'' and ''Sassy''. [[http://jezebel.com/the-return-of-brio-the-christian-teen-magazine-i-hated-1796677818 This article]] by Stassa Edwards of ''Jezebel'', who was raised in an evangelical household with a subscription to ''Brio'', goes into more depth on how it positioned itself as the alternative to secular teen girl mags, whose politics and messaging often leaned sharply feminist (especially in TheNineties when ''Brio'' was launched, before many of them underwent MagazineDecay). |
| 275 | * ''Investor's Business Daily'' was founded in 1984 by William O'Neil as an alternative to ''The Wall Street Journal'' that pushed O'Neil's two pet interests: his personal investment method (called CANSLIM) and ultraconservative politics. It eventually became popular among readers who felt that the right-leaning WSJ wasn't conservative enough. |
| 276 | * Creator/WilliamFBuckleyJr thought that the conservative movement and media in TheFifties were falling down a far-right rabbit hole, specifically citing how ''The American Mercury'', which he had written for and edited in the early '50s, [[MagazineDecay went]] from a respected upper-class conservative magazine to a clearing house for unreformed neo-Nazis. In response, he created ''National Review'' as an alternative to both the more liberal-leaning magazines like ''Time'' and ''Newsweek'' and the radicals of the extreme right, decreeing from the start that anti-Semites, fascist sympathizers, and overt white supremacists were not welcome. (While he did defend segregation until the late '60s, that was a matter of FairForItsDay, as non-interference in the "internal affairs" of the southern states was the default conservative position until the passage of the Civil Rights Act.) |
| 277 | [[/folder]] |
| 278 | |
| 279 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 280 | * Air America Radio was created as the liberal alternative to conservative talk radio, and managed to pick up such hosts as [[Series/TheJerrySpringerShow Jerry Springer]] and former ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' stars Creator/JaneaneGarofalo and Al Franken (a future senator). It sputtered on for several years on corporate life support (Even Radio/NealBoortz, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness noted for his opposing views, donated money]]) before it got shut down. |
| 281 | * Creator/{{NPR}} has become, like its television counterpart Creator/{{PBS}} is for children's programming, an unintentional one for broadcast news due to the perceived sensationalism of U.S. cable news. |
| 282 | [[/folder]] |
| 283 | |
| 284 | [[folder:Sports]] |
| 285 | * The Soviet Union promoted the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad "Spartakiads"]] from 1928 to 1937 as an alternative to the "bourgeois" UsefulNotes/OlympicGames until UsefulNotes/WorldWarII forced them to put the event on the back burner. After the war, they finally broke down and sent a team to the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, though they continued to hold Spartakiads within the Soviet Union all the way until 1991. They also organized the one-off [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Games Friendship Games]] in 1984 after their boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics that year. |
| 286 | * After the tit-for-tat boycotts by the US and Soviet Olympic teams of the 1980 UsefulNotes/{{Moscow}} and 1984 UsefulNotes/LosAngeles Olympics, UsefulNotes/TedTurner created the Goodwill Games in 1986 as a non-politicized alternative to an event that he saw as having become more about national[=/=]UsefulNotes/ColdWar posturing than sport. |
| 287 | * The creation of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_Athletic_Association Gaelic Athletic Association]] in Ireland was tied in with Irish nationalism, with the idea of promoting traditionally Irish sports. In particular, though, Gaelic football was codified and organized in the late 19th century specifically as an Irish alternative to [[UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion rugby]], which had quickly become a popular sport, but, of course, originated in England. While it was descended from centuries-old games, Gaelic football only had its first formal rules drawn up in 1887, [[NewerThanTheyThink making it younger]] than UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball or UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball. And the GAA was serious about Gaelic football as the only acceptable form of the game for the Irish to play. Until 1971, a player could be banished from the GAA if they were discovered to have played rugby, UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball or UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}}. |
| 288 | [[/folder]] |
| 289 | |
| 290 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 291 | * There have been several attempts at Moral Substitutes for ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' cards, such as ''[[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/808361.stm Christian Power Cards]]'', featuring characters from Literature/TheBible, and ''[[http://www.electricsheepcomix.com/apocamon/ Apocamon]]'', which are creatures from the Book of Revelation Pokémon-style. |
| 292 | %%** Also, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redemption_%28card_game%29 Redemption.]] |
| 293 | * After a number of Christian fundamentalists got it into their heads that {{tabletop RPG}}s (particularly ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'') were Satanic, someone came up with ''TabletopGame/DragonRaid''. [=RPGnet=] actually gave it a [[http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_3828.html favorable review]], with some interesting commentary on the overall "watered-down substitute" phenomenon. Ironically, the game was criticized by the same fundamentalists despite its Christian viewpoint; they figured ''any'' fantastic roleplaying was evil. |
| 294 | ** There were several attempts at Christian tabletop games during that period, including a ''Chutes-and-Ladders'' knockoff called "Revelations", marketed to "mothers worried that your children are into games with Dungeons and Demons and The Occult". |
| 295 | *** Which is kind of ironic, considering the original ''Snakes-and-Ladders'' was an Indian game about virtues and vices quite consistent with Christian moral. |
| 296 | *** Even more ironic when you realize that the works of Creator/JRRTolkien, who himself was a Christian and whom many of faith still respect to this day, was one of the primary inspirations for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' in the first place. |
| 297 | * The [[BoardGames board game]] ''Kosherland'', which is ''TabletopGame/{{Candyland}}'', but with all the candy imagery (and candy-themed cartoon characters) replaced with imagery and cartoon characters about food that orthodox Jews can eat. |
| 298 | * A Catholic version of "Go Fish" has players go "Fishing for Saints". |
| 299 | * Among certain circles that decried standard playing cards as featuring Satanic imagery (or "making fun of the Holy Family" or being used in gambling, or fortune telling, or...), the card game ''Rook'' became popular as it had no imagery whatsoever... aside from the eponymous crow-like bird. Uno and Dutch Blitz are also big hits in such communities. |
| 300 | * The white power alternative RPG ''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar'' (for a rather loose definition of "moral"), which you can find a "review" of [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080112091724/atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]]. |
| 301 | * Going from far-right to far-left politics, there's ''[[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1510/class-struggle Class Struggle]]'', which aims to teach players about Marxist theory. It was actually published by Creator/AvalonHill. |
| 302 | * [[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/83019/faith-and-redemption "Faith and Redemption"]] has been described as the Christian alternative to ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering''. Of course, among the MTG community, a joke has sprung up that basically predicts that Magic will make a set based on the Judeo-Christian mythos...[[http://magiccards.info/query?q=ft%3ABible&v=card&s=cname though they've taken cues from holy texts before.]] |
| 303 | * Inverted by ''TabletopGame/CardsAgainstHumanity'', which is a self-consciously ''immoral'' alternative to the relatively tame ''TabletopGame/ApplesToApples''. Both have Christian alternatives as well. |
| 304 | * {{Subverted}} with ''[[https://www.agameforgoodchristians.com/ A Game for Good Christians]]'', which is basically ''TabletopGame/CardsAgainstHumanity'' with all the material taken from the Bible - specifically all the [[ToiletHumor crude]], [[SexTropes vulgar]], and [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath unsettling]] parts people tend to look over. Cards include "Killing Anyone who Pisses Against the Wall"[[labelnote:Verse]]1 Samuel 25:22[[/labelnote]], "Haman Impaled on a 75-foot Pole"[[labelnote:Verse]]Esther 7:10[[/labelnote]], "Not Checking Out Hot Virgins"[[labelnote:Verse]]Job 31:1[[/labelnote]], and "Jesus Being Pissed Off That You Fell Asleep"[[labelnote:Verse]]Matthew 26:36-46[[/labelnote]]. |
| 305 | * Kickstarter-funded "Farewell To Fear" is a progressive, pro-science alternative to fantasy tabletop RolePlayingGames that in [[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/machineage/farewell-to-fear-a-progressive-post-fantasy-rpg their words]] are full of "all sorts of legacy concepts that are rather disgusting to us; sexism, classism, racism, institutional violence". |
| 306 | * ''TabletopGame/SettlersOfCanaan'' is an [[AvertedTrope aversion]]: the makers are just Christian fans of regular ''TabletopGame/SettlersOfCatan'' who noticed the similarity of "Catan" to "Canaan" and decided--with permission!--that a Bible-themed variant of ''Catan'' set in the ancient Canaan would be fun. |
| 307 | * There's a version of ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'' called Bibleopoly where the goal is to be the first to build a church. |
| 308 | * There's a Christian ''[[https://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Board-Games/dp/B09QH3HC72/ref=asc_df_B09QH3HC72/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=598232346927&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3940571670812677955&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9031543&hvtargid=pla-1708878382954&psc=1 spirit board]]'', of all things. Predictably, the reviews are full of people who bought it as a joke or gag gift, while the Q&A is full of MoralGuardians complaining about it anyway. |
| 309 | [[/folder]] |
| 310 | |
| 311 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 312 | * During its rise in TheNineties, Creator/CirqueDuSoleil and other "contemporary circus" companies were widely embraced by animal rights activists, who pointed to them as examples of how to make an engaging circus with only human performers and no captive wild animals (elephants, bears, big cats), the [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals mistreatment]] of which had become a running scandal by that point. Like the below-mentioned Disneyland, the "contemporary circus" style ultimately won out and drove the traditional circus into the history books, the EndOfAnAge coming in 2017 when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the longtime standard-bearer of the traditional style, closed its doors. |
| 313 | ** The Big Apple Circus has also gained acceptance for its more humane treatment of its circus animals. |
| 314 | [[/folder]] |
| 315 | |
| 316 | [[folder:Theme Parks]] |
| 317 | * Ride/{{Disneyland}} started out as one. Creator/WaltDisney wanted a clean, inviting place that he could take his daughters to that was completely unlike the [[CrappyCarnival dirty, sleazy amusement parks and carnivals]] of the 1950s. His approach was so successful that it [[GenreTurningPoint became the standard in the industry]]; out of necessity, the other parks either had to improve their standards to entice new customers or risk going out of business. |
| 318 | * [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_USA Heritage USA]], part of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's [[FunWithAcronyms PTL]] media empire, was planned as the Christian version of [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney World]], and wound up becoming fairly popular after its opening in 1978. Today, however, the park is best known for playing a role in the scandal that led to [[CorruptChurch Jim Bakker's downfall and subsequent imprisonment]]. The park was closed in 1989, and parts of it have since been redeveloped (mostly by various ministries), while the rest lingers in various states of decay. |
| 319 | * The Holy Land Experience is an Orlando, Florida theme park that uses the production values of the Universal and Ride/DisneyThemeParks (even hiring designers who'd worked on them) to recreate Biblical times and places, primarily focusing on the ministry of Christ. Initially the main draws were live shows (passion plays, etc.) and opportunities to interact with performers who play Christ, his disciples, etc., but as of 2020 these were eliminated in favor of the established walk-through exhibits. |
| 320 | * There are a number of Young Earth Creationist theme parks and museums in the U.S. that intend to counter the accepted scientific theories about evolution and the age of the Earth: |
| 321 | ** The Creation Museum in Kentucky by Answers in Genesis, which intends to be the substitute for mainstream science museums, all while espousing that the story of Genesis is literally true, ScienceIsWrong, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and that dinosaurs existed in Biblical times]]. |
| 322 | ** The short-lived Dinosaur Adventure Land theme park in Pensacola, Florida, by the creationist Kent Hovind. The park was plagued by legal troubles since its inception, from lack of zoning permits to undeclared revenue by Hovind which caused him to be jailed for tax fraud. It was finally closed down and seized by the government in 2012. |
| 323 | [[/folder]] |
| 324 | |
| 325 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 326 | * [[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girl]] examples: |
| 327 | ** The brand was involved in controversy in the early 2000s over conservative claims that the company's charitable contributions supported pro-choice and gay rights groups,[[labelnote:Explanation]]The brain paired with the organization Girls Inc. to sell a set of then-popular rubber writer bracelets. Girls Inc, along with many pro-feminism messages, supports abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights, and this outraged conservative Christians who called them pro-abortion and pro-lesbian.[[/labelnote]] and again in the 2020s over trans youth support.[[labelnote:Explanation again]] Two of their "A Smart Girls' Guide" books, ''A Smart Girl's Guide: Body Image'' and ''A Smart Girl's Guide: Tough Stuff'', included discussions about and offered some mild support for trans children, encouraging children to speak to trusted adults about their feelings and be who they are inside. ''Body Image'' got the most heat from conservative outrage news, saying that American Girl was trying to "encourage" children to sneak behind their parents backs to be trans and get hormones/surgeries. Both books ended up quietly being discontinued.[[/labelnote]] In the aftermath of both controversies, several alternate doll brands popped up promoting themselves as the more moral alternative to the brand--and in some cases all but called out ''American Girl'' by name when criticizing "other" companies in their publicity, sometimes directly. These brands include Beautiful Girlhood by the conservative Vision Forum brand and ''A Life of Faith'' (which used the public domain ''Literature/ElsieDinsmore'' series as their foundation). Since ''American Girl'' remained the leader in brand recognition and marketing, most of these rivals have quietly gone out of business, with new ones popping up regularly and lasting for various lengths of time. |
| 328 | ** ''Toys/MapleleaGirls'' isn't concerned with religion one way or the other; it's concerned with Americanism. The brand is Canadian, and encourages Canadian children to get over their CulturalCringe and leave a brand that wears its Americanness on its sleeves for one that embraces Canadian national identity. This has been moderately successful, but since American Girl items started selling in Canada, most people there blend the lines. This is also true with Australian Girl, but in Australia. |
| 329 | ** ''[[http://www.dollsfromheaven.com Dolls From Heaven]]'', a line made by a Catholic family as a way for children to be closer to God through dolls patterned after saints, wants to encourage a Catholic faith focus rather than Protestant like most other brands. |
| 330 | ** The [[https://salamsisters.com/ Salam Sisters]] brand of dolls are intended to offer a Muslim-focused 18" doll. The dolls come with two styles of headscarves and undercaps so that users can put scarves on as desired; characters are also shown unscarved as well. |
| 331 | ** The American Girl dolls ''themselves'' were conceived as a moral substitute to Barbie, whom series creator Pleasant Rowland [[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/evolution-american-girl-dolls-180977822/ expressed disdain]] for being too sexualised for young girls, and Toys/CabbagePatchKids; she lamented that she couldn't find a companion-style doll for her nieces and the majority of dolls available were either adult aspirations or baby dolls to be cared for. |
| 332 | * ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' examples: |
| 333 | ** ''[[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/24/iran-barbie-doll-crackdown-campaign Dara and Sara]]'', the officially-sanctioned Iranian ''Barbie'' doll substitute after Iran banned Barbies in 2002; they are a set of eight year old fraternal twins. |
| 334 | ** ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulla_(doll) Fulla]]'', a popular attempt at trying to create an Islam-friendly alternative to ''Barbie''. There are also less successful attempts such as ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razanne Razanne]]''. |
| 335 | ** Several alternatives to Barbie try to promote "a more healthy and realistic" body image; the most common complaint these brands have are her body proportions, which don't match with human ones due to the slim waist and large chest. Dolls of this type go back almost as long as Barbie has and include the 1970s [[https://www.modbarbies.com/mod-barbies-blog/1974-dusty-and-skye-dolls-by-kenner Dusty doll]] and the 1990s [[https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/doll-happy-to-be-me/9gGYEptsYW3MHw Happy To Be Me]] doll; at least one variant also has molded nipples (supposedly so young girls didn't think that the fact that their breasts weren't featureless lumps meant there was something wrong with them). The most recent example of an attempt to make a "realistic" fashion doll was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lammily the Lammily doll]] in 2014, meant to be proportioned on the average figure of 19-year-old American women. (A curious optional extra includes [[https://lammily.com/product/lammily-marks/ a set of stick-on body marks]] -- yes, your doll can actually get zits and scratches if you so wish!) The reason the dolls never make near the impact as Barbie or truly last long enough to dethrone the brand is that most of the appeal of Barbie dolls aren't their body shapes but their variety in clothing and design, while most of the "realistic" dolls only have their realism to market themselves. Generally they fade out of interest after children realize they can't buy Barbie's [[UnlimitedWardrobe many glamourous clothes]] for these dolls since they won't fit. |
| 336 | * This is why wooden "Noah's Ark" toy sets became a thing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: because of their biblical inspiration they were considered acceptable things for children to play with on the Sabbath. |
| 337 | * [[https://treechangedolls.tumblr.com/ Tree Change Dolls]] take secondhand fashion dolls -- particularly Toys/{{Bratz}} -- and remove the extreme eye size and makeup and redress them in generally casual clothing to make a more "natural, relatable" style of appearance that is more like a early tween look. While it's just one artist who does this on her own (who has directly stated that she is not making any social statements on her "make-unders"), a lot of parents and adults comment in discussions and comments that the "make-unders" on these styles of doll are an improvment that make the dolls much less "sexualized" as the original ones are "inapproriate." |
| 338 | [[/folder]] |
| 339 | |
| 340 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 341 | * The game developer Color Dreams launched the Wisdom Tree label in 1991, and re-released their old games with new titles and Christian themes slapped on. Some notable games that they made included ''Bible Adventures'', ''Sunday Funday'' (a rebadged version of the old Color Dreams game ''Menace Beach''), and ''VideoGame/SpiritualWarfare'' (a thinly disguised ''Zelda'' clone -- which is actually not half bad, by virtue of picking a ''very'' good game to rip off). These games did not carry the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality, and came with special cartridges that were designed to get around the lockout chips in Nintendo's consoles.\ |
| 342 | It is widely believed that the reason Color Dreams turned into Wisdom Tree was not out of piety, but so that they could get around Nintendo's licensing[[note]]In fact, [[WordOfGod one of the key people]] in the company admitted in an interview that most of the people at Color Dreams were atheists, which definitely lends credibility to this theory; [[http://www.sega-16.com/2006/08/interview-brenda-huff/ an interview with current Wisdom Tree owner Brenda Huff]] however suggested two conflicting accounts over the company's inception, one being Dan Lawton coming up with making Christian games ForTheLulz, and the other with staff member Mike Wilson pitching the idea as he was moonlighting as a Sunday School teacher at the time.[[/note]]. Nintendo's primary pressure tactic was refusing to sell their games to retailers that sold unlicensed games. Christian bookstores were immune to this, as they didn't stock video games in the first place. Seeing an opportunity, the newly-renamed Wisdom Tree convinced the bookstores that their games would bring kids to God, and started selling their games to them. Another theory is that Color Dreams changed their modus operandi after Nintendo sued them for selling unlicensed games -- after all, what sort of evil company (and [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld a Japanese one]], at that) would [[EvenEvilHasStandards hate on a Christian game developer anyway]]? |
| 343 | ** One Wisdom Tree game, ''VideoGame/Super3DNoahsArk'' for the [[Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem Super NES]], is particularly famous among hardcore gamers for being the only unlicensed SNES cartridge released in the US. The game was essentially ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' [[SerialNumbersFiledOff with the guns replaced with food and the Nazis replaced with goats, sheep, llamas or other animals]]. An urban legend claims that id Software actually gave Wisdom Tree the ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' code and SNES lockout codes just to spite Creator/{{Nintendo}} after the SNES port of ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' was {{Bowdlerise}}d. id Software [[{{Jossed}} denies this]], claiming that Wisdom Tree was just another Id Tech 0 engine licensee. |
| 344 | * On a more secular note, ''VideoGame/ChexQuest'' takes the gameplay of ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' to a more family-friendly setting, placating parents who are concerned about their kids playing [[UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 disturbingly violent shooters]] while still being fun to play. ProductPlacement notwithstanding, it was later lauded by critics and ''Doom'' fans alike as a solid if not tongue-in-cheek total conversion, and gained an enduring [[CultClassic cult following]] in recent years, to the point a remake was made for Platform/{{Steam}} decades later. |
| 345 | * ''Dance Praise'' is a Christian equivalent to ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' and ''VideoGame/JustDance'', which features the music of a number of more poppier [=CCM=] acts. |
| 346 | * ''Guitar Praise'', from the same company as ''Dance Praise'', is a ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' clone which includes music from a lot of Christian rock, hard rock and metal groups (and one song from an AmbiguouslyChristian group, Music/{{Flyleaf}}), and even got a Music/{{Stryper}}-centric spinoff in the same vein as ''GH'' and ''VideoGame/RockBand'''s band-based games. |
| 347 | * There's a Catholic-themed clone of ''[=DopeWars=]'' called, yes, ''[[http://www.phatmass.com/more/games/pope_wars/ Pope Wars]]''. It's somewhat tongue-in-cheek. |
| 348 | * There was a PC game spawned by the ''Series/{{Bibleman}}'' video series by a company called Covenant Studios. It played sort of like ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' with jerky controls, sprites that moved at a snail's pace and weapons of a purely defensive nature -- even the character who had a laser gun at the time. Instead, there's a clunky system to destroy enemies with random Bible passages. To top it all off, Bibleman, the character the series is named after, has to be unlocked before players can take control of him. Oddly, despite this winning combination, the purported Platform/PlayStation2 and Platform/GameBoyAdvance versions never materialized. At last check, the developers' site had disappeared off the face of the internet. |
| 349 | * People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has made a number of animal rights-themed [[WebGames Flash parodies]] of popular games. |
| 350 | ** ''[[http://features.peta.org/super-meat-boy-parody/ Super Tofu Boy]]'' was their version of ''[[VideoGame/MeatBoy Super Meat Boy]]''. Funnily enough, Team Meat decided shortly after to [[AscendedFanon add Tofu Boy to the PC version as an actual playable character]]... while [[http://www.supermeatboy.com/65/Super_Meat_Boy_vs_Peta_/#b simultaneously]] [[TakeThat mocking PETA]] and thanking them for the publicity. WordOfGod is that the developers of ''[[VideoGame/MeatBoy Super Meat Boy]]'' trolled PETA by posting messages to PETA sites about their game, precisely in hopes of provoking a response. To add further insult to injury, [[JokeCharacter Tofu Boy is anemic and can't run or jump as well as any other character]], making some levels completely unwinnable with him. |
| 351 | ** PETA also has a version of ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' on their web site called ''[[http://www.peta2.com/superchicksisters/index.asp Super]] [[VideoGame/SuperChickSisters Chick Sisters]]''. The main characters have to save [[Series/{{Baywatch}} Pamela Anderson]] from Colonel Sanders and the evil Kentucky Fried Chicken lair. |
| 352 | ** And now ''[[http://features.peta.org/mario-kills-tanooki/Default.aspx Super]] [[VideoGame/SuperTanookiSkin2D Tanooki Skin 2D]]'', in protest of Mario's Tanooki suit.[[note]]Which, canonically, comes from a leaf. No word yet from [=PETA=] regarding Mario's use of turtle shells as weapons.[[/note]] They later claimed [[ParodyRetcon it was just meant as a joke]] after getting hordes of Nintendo fans on their case. |
| 353 | ** Then there was ''VideoGame/CookingMama: [[http://www.peta.org/cooking-mama/index.asp Mama]] [[VideoGame/CookingMamaMamaKillsAnimals Kills Animals]]'', where a borderline insane and highly sociopathic Mama prepares a Thanksgiving feast in the most brutal and [[{{Gorn}} over-the-top gory fashion]] imaginable. Until the last stage, where she becomes her "normal" persona and makes a tofu feast. It should be noted that the ''Cooking Mama'' games already offer a variety of dishes for all kinds of cooking styles and temperaments (e.g. plenty of vegetarian dishes) as it is. [[http://www.majescoent.com/news/cooking-mama-responds-peta-highlighting-vegetarian-offerings-latest-wii-videogame-release Majesco was very happy for the free publicity, though.]] |
| 354 | ** They later leveled their sights back on Nintendo with ''[[http://features.peta.org/pokemon-black-and-white-parody/ Pokemon]] [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndBlue Black and Blue.]]'' Like their other parodies, this one tends to attract criticism, one of the reasons being that the last "boss" in this game is apparently Ash Ketchum, who's not only ''not'' featured in the games (aside from ''Pokemon Puzzle League'', but [[DolledUpInstallment that doesn't count]]), but is perhaps the most loving and caring trainer towards Pokemon (or at the very least, his Pikachu) of any character in the franchise. |
| 355 | * Similar to the [=PETA=] example above, environmental activist group Greenpeace had a series of flash games on their site that were usually ripoffs of other video game series and all had strong environmentalist propaganda. |
| 356 | * WordOfGod claims that ''VideoGame/UltimaIV'' (the TropeCodifier for the KarmaMeter) was intended to be this to the first 3 games, after hearing the complaints of MoralGuardians. A prime example of Administrivia/TropesAreNotBad since said game revolutionized the RPG genre. |
| 357 | * In TheEighties, home computers were marketed as an educational alternative to video game consoles to anxious parents [[EducationMama fearful of anything that could threaten their children's attempts to get into a good college]]. Commodore in particular [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUKUHjBhb2Q attempted to scare parents away from mind-rotting consoles]] toward their computers. Their ploy seems to have worked, as the Platform/Commodore64 actually had a lot of great videogames and it is considered a factor in MediaNotes/TheGreatVideoGameCrashOf1983. The moral panic surrounding youths' Internet use has made this somewhat HilariousInHindsight. |
| 358 | * {{Edutainment Game}}s, especially in TheEighties and TheNineties. This also plays into the idea of home computers as an educational substitute for consoles mentioned above, as these games were more common on computers than consoles. Some edutainment titles like ''VideoGame/MarioIsMissing'' were ported over to consoles. |
| 359 | * The ''Literature/LeftBehind'' books have an ongoing series of RealTimeStrategy games as well. They generated some controversy over the idea of "kill or convert" approaches to heathens, though the emphasis does lean more towards conversion rather than combat. The first game, at least, has some genuinely interesting ideas and mechanics for urban warfare with a strong "hearts and minds" theme, but is crippled by a lot of amateur mistakes for the genre and its obsessive devotion to ideological purity rather than good gameplay. For example, the main menu shows a CGI rendering of [[[[Art/SistineChapel "The Creation of Adam"]] with [[{{Bowdlerise}} Adam wearing white boxer shorts]], and completing missions unlocks bonus (Christian rock) music and informational documents... like why evolution is wrong and how archaeology proves the Bible. |
| 360 | * Religion aside, this is the reason there exist a market for "kiddie" EdutainmentGame consoles like the V.Smile, [=LeapTV=], and even Sega's Pico console. Many parents don't want their toddlers playing the UltraSuperDeathGoreFestChainsawer3000 games that their older siblings play (or playing this trope straighter, don't want them playing games like these at all, period). Hence they get their kids consoles like these in hopes of placating them without them realizing what they're missing. Of course, the fact that these consoles get a lot of {{Licensed Game}}s as well means that they do have a PeripheryDemographic. |
| 361 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonGo'' was the subject of a [[MediaScaremongering moral panic]] in Russia, with the media and politicians claiming that it was [[https://www.destructoid.com/russia-fears-pokemon-go-is-a-cia-psyop-to-destabilize-country-377738.phtml threatening the morality]] of the nation's citizens and was being used by Western governments to promote youth revolt and potentially spy on top-secret locations. As a result, the Moscow city government started working on their own, {{edutainment|Game}} version of the app called ''[[https://themoscowtimes.com/news/moscow-authorities-to-launch-their-own-version-of-pokemon-go-54716 Know Moscow.Photo]]'', in which people in Moscow would 'catch' historical Russian figures. |
| 362 | * ''Videogame/PlayerunknownsBattlegrounds'' was eventually reskinned in China as "Game for Peace" in May 2019, which turns the premise into a virtual reality PLA training program. Blood is no more, bullet impact is changed into bright green light pulses, and defeated enemies gave their inventory in a crate and then waving before disappearing. |
| 363 | * The short lived "Little Ark" series was this to ''VideoGame/LivingBooks'', with the stories based on ones from The Bible rather than picture books. |
| 364 | * The controversial ''VideoGame/EthnicCleansing''. You play as a Nazi skinhead or a Klansman who goes on a rampage through the ghetto and the subway, murdering black GangBangers (who [[RefugeInAudacity make monkey and ape noises]]), Latinos (who are dressed like {{bandito}}s and say "I need to take a siesta" when shot), and Jews (who are dressed like Hasidim incarnate and shout "oy vey!" when shot). As you can probably guess, it was made by a white supremacist/neo-Nazi group. |
| 365 | * ''Onesimus: A Quest For Freedom'' is a modified version of VideoGame/JillOfTheJungle based on the Literature/EpistleToPhilemon - [[SerialNumbersFiledOff a very slightly modified version]]. Beyond editing Jill into Onesimus, a few reskinned enemies, and dropping Bible verses into the game here and there, it's pretty much exactly the same game, right down to Onesimus [[VocalDissonance using Jill's voice samples]]. |
| 366 | * ''Captain Bible In Dome Of Darkness'' was a Christian education game that copied ''Creator/LucasArts'' and ''Sierra'' Adventure Games of all things. The hero, Captain Bible, would [[PointAndClickGame point and click]] his way towards saving a city covered by the Dome of Darkness by quoting [[AsTheGoodBookSays Bible Passages]]. |
| 367 | * ''Follow JC Go'' is the Catholic counterpart to ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''. Instead of catching {{Mons}}, you collect both Catholicism's ever-updating roster of saints and characters from the Bible. Instead of battling or rival factions, players collect characters by answering Bible trivia questions - if the player answers correctly, the charcters join their Evangelical Team, or "eTeam." "Follow JC Go" also places more emphasis on the pilgrimage-like aspects of walking games, forcing players to trek to random spots on a map to receive a character. Players can revitalise their health by amassing food, water, and "spirituality," the latter being achieved by visiting a church or hospital for a quick prayer. |
| 368 | [[/folder]] |
| 369 | |
| 370 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 371 | * ''Webcomic/FilthyFigments'', the "positive" alternative to ''Slipshine'', for those who object to eroticism with men holding the strings. It's just as smutty as regular porn but it's drawn by women. |
| 372 | * ''[[http://adam4d.com/ Adam4d]]'' is basically the Christian version of webcomics like ''Webcomic/TheOatmeal'' having a somewhat similar format and art style, but all the strips are related to Christian themes. |
| 373 | [[/folder]] |
| 374 | |
| 375 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 376 | * Alt-tech is seen by some as a counter to traditional social network sites, hosting providers and domain registrars. Alt-tech started when groups related to the FLOSS philosophy started to be concerned that traditional social networks were harvesting their users' information for commercial purposes and to collaborate with the US government. This made that alternatives to traditional social networks such as [=GNUSocial=], Quitter and Diaspora made available. Although they focused on decentralization and privacy, they were not as successful and are only being used by free software and FLOSS enthusiasts. However, it was during the UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump administration that alt-tech companies started to be much more known, after both mainstream media and traditional social networks began to establish editorial policies focused on the left side of the political spectrum and social justice. As a result, many hate groups, neo-Nazi associations, and people with controversial or contrary opinions found themselves with their social network accounts, bank accounts, websites, and web domains closed.[[note]]This movement is known as deplatforming.[[/note]] While it's understandable that these social networks strive to keep these groups off their servers, they also affected people with conservative policies and news sites that are not aligned with mainstream media, who accused these companies of censorship. As a result, new alternatives emerged in order to spread their message. Around the same time on the opposite part of the political spectrum, LGBT, feminist and left-wing internet users sought an alternative to social media like Facebook and Twitter due to both aforementioned privacy concerns and poor moderation practices (most common claims involve Twitter's bad handling of online harassment or lack of moderation and Facebook's algorithms promoting right-wing content), leading to the creation and growth of decentralized services such as Mastodon. |
| 377 | ** If you want to know all the privacy and transparency focused alternatives to traditional social network sites, among other tools, the [[https://prism-break.org/en/ Prism-Break.org]] website lists most of them. |
| 378 | ** [[http://duckduckgo.com [=DuckDuckGo=]]] promotes itself as this to Google over privacy concerns because it doesn't track users' search results. Other alternatives to Google are [[http://www.qwant.com Qwant]] and [[http://www.startpage.com Startpage]]. Mozilla Firefox has also become this to people concerned about Google Chrome's privacy issues and those who don't want to use a browser developed by the search giant. [[https://brave.com/ Brave]] is an explicitly privacy-focused alternative to Chrome. |
| 379 | ** [[http://www.gab.com Gab]], [[http://www.minds.com Minds]] and [[http://www.parler.com Parler]] are Twitter/Facebook clones, created as a "free speech alternative" to social networks like Facebook and Twitter which are accused of leaning toward the left and censoring conservative voices. As such, they have been so far mostly embraced by conservatives. |
| 380 | ** [[https://joinmastodon.org/ Mastodon]] is another Twitter clone, more decentralized and managed in a more autonomous way, depending on the instance (server) you are on. Mastodon instances have been very popular in Japan, as several manga artists and fanartists have had problems with Twitter due to the drawings they make. In America and Europe, Mastodon is often seen as the preferred platform for progressive and left-wing activists, but neutral and explicitly conservative instances exist as well. [[https://pleroma.social/ Pleroma]] and [[https://join.misskey.page/en-US/ Misskey]] are similar programs that can work together with Mastodon and each other. Mastodon got a ColbertBump in November of 2022 after Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter was finalized. |
| 381 | ** [[http://www.bitchute.com BitChute]], [[http://rumble.com/ Rumble]], and [[http://lbry.tv LBRY]] are Platform/{{YouTube}} clones also going this way, mainly due to Platform/{{YouTube}}'s policies against videos that are not considered "advertiser-friendly". |
| 382 | ** [[http://www.epik.com Epik]] and [[http://www.bitmitigate.com BitMitigate]] are the alternatives to traditional hosting providers and domains such as [=GoDaddy=] and Cloudflare, respectively. Although their main focus is the buying and selling of domains, Epik made headlines because it publicly announced that it would provide hosting and domain services to Gab, after [=GoDaddy=] and Amazon deplatformed them. Although Epik is in favour of freedom of speech, they do not accept forums and imageboards whose moderation is not effectively implemented, such as 8chan. However, Epik has Gab, Bitchute, Hispachan and Infowars as customers. |
| 383 | ** Another company similar to Epik that accepts sites like 8kun on a free basis is [[http://www.vanwatech.com Vanwatech]]. Created by former 8chan users, they offer much more freedom of speech solution than Epik does. This company has been controversial in hosting Qanon-related sites. |
| 384 | ** Do you want a website and domain in a country where you're sure that your site will not be shut down due to countries where censorship is enforced on copyright grounds? Enter the offshore hosting and domain register business. These companies are not based in the United States, but in countries where privacy laws are tougher such as Iceland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland so reporters and whistleblowers can do their job without legal complications. |
| 385 | ** Due to disagreements over policy changes within Reddit, several users created an alternative platform called Voat.co, where they accepted all kinds of speech until dissolving near the end of 2020. Also, when Reddit deleted the r/The_Donald subreddit, users started a Reddit-like on their own called [[http://www.thedonald.win [=TheDonald.win=]]] and the [[https://communities.win/ Win Network]]. |
| 386 | ** [[http://www.subscribestar.com [=SubscribeStar=]]] is Patreon's moral substitute, due to deplatforming policies towards conservative voices and to remove obscene and adult content from their servers. |
| 387 | * Conservapedia, founded by Andrew Schlafly (son of Christian Right activist Phyllis Schlafly), is the conservative Christian version of Website/{{Wikipedia}}, created to counter what Schlafly saw as a left-wing, anti-American slant on that site. [[PoesLaw Frequently mistaken for satire]] (and, being a wiki, some of it probably ''is''), but intended to be taken seriously. |
| 388 | ** Its editors started the [[http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project Conservative Bible Project]], an attempt to produce a Bible translation free from "liberal bias." Yes, the people behind Conservapedia tried to produce a Moral Substitute for ''Literature/TheBible''. The project seems as though it will remain [[DevelopmentHell perpetually unfinished]], though, given that very few of the people involved with it had any knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Greek, and those few who did found themselves driven out. Even its target audience of conservative Christians (including [[ComicBook/ChickTracts Jack Chick]] and Joseph Farah, owner of the arch-conservative news site ''[=WorldNetDaily=]'') found the whole thing disgusting, if not blasphemous. |
| 389 | ** Conservapedia later spawned its own secularist substitute in the form of Rational Wiki, which was founded after some of Conservapedia's more scientifically-literate editors got fed up with Schlafly's attempts to push a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint in their articles on evolution and other scientific subjects. Initially focused on debunking pseudoscience and religious fundamentalism, and mocking Conservapedia's use of such in their articles, it has since expanded its mission to ripping political extremism and conspiracy theories as well, while dropping many of its associations with Conservapedia (though it still mocks them from time to time). Rational Wiki is also vocally supportive of the pro-feminist, politically liberal Atheism Plus movement, which is itself the moral substitute to the more right-libertarian atheism popularized by "rationalists" and evolutionary psychologists on sites such as [=LessWrong=]. |
| 390 | ** And then there's [[http://liberapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Liberapedia]], which is one part the liberal alternative to Conservapedia, and many parts over-the-top satire. |
| 391 | ** [[http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info A Storehouse of Knowledge]], made by a former Conservapedia administrator who got fed up with the site. |
| 392 | * Infogalactic was created by Creator/VoxDay for much the same reason as Conservapedia, namely his belief that Wikipedia's editors leaned too far left for his liking. Notably, whereas Conservapedia largely takes an American neoconservative and Christian Right view, Infogalactic leans more towards the alt-right. |
| 393 | * There's message boards for Christian [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Furries]]. And for "confurvatives". This is particularly interesting because ''many'' furries are LGBTQ+, BIOPOC, lower income, and/or victims of abuse, all things which extreme conservatives and fundamentalist Christians outright hate, or at least dislike. A lot of these were probably created by those who opted to StartMyOwn after getting pushback on other sites from victims of such hatred. |
| 394 | * [[http://www.mypraize.com/ MyPraize]], a Christian alternative to Website/MySpace. |
| 395 | * There have been a number of attempts at "patriotic" (read: right-wing/conservative/Tea Party American) alternatives to Platform/{{Facebook}} out of a perception that the site's owners hold a left-wing bias and are censoring conservatives[[note]]In real life, Mark Zuckerberg has been identified as [[http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-fwd-us-conservative/ a conservative]] and as [[http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/liberal-billionaires-fundraising-2013-elections-tom-steyer-mark-zuckerberg-michael-bloomberg-99207.html a liberal]] in roughly equal measure, and he gives profusely to both Republican and Democratic candidates.[[/note]], recent examples including [[https://www.teapartycommunity.com/ Tea Party Community]], [[http://www.freedomtorch.com/ FreedomTorch]], and [[http://www.reaganbook.com ReaganBook]] (now re-branded as [=FreedomBook=]). Typically, however, these sites wind up either failing to resonate beyond their niche audience, or crawling with {{troll}}s after a few months before being shut down. |
| 396 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNik8niSrrY This video]] has Seth Andrews lecture about it. |
| 397 | * [=GodTube=], the Christian alternative to Platform/{{YouTube}}. |
| 398 | * Similarly, there is Islamictube, an Islamic alternative. |
| 399 | * Moral alternatives to streaming services: |
| 400 | ** In 2015, Creator/PureFlixEntertainment launched the Pure Flix streaming service as Christian alternative to Creator/{{Netflix}}.[[note]]Pure Flix's former parent company is now called Pinnacle Peak Pictures, having sold the brand and the streaming service to Creator/SonyPictures in 2020. In 2023, Pure Flix entered a joint venture with Great American Media (itself mentioned further up this page in the Live-Action TV section) that saw it renamed Great American Pure Flix.[[/note]] It largely distributes their own films, films from other religious studios (most notably Sony's Affirm Films religious imprint, Creator/AngelStudios, and Great American Family), and TV shows and church services from various Christian networks and ministries. |
| 401 | ** Creator/ButchHartman started a Kickstarter for a "Family Friendly" alternative to Netflix called Oaxis. However, he withheld the information that "family friendly" meant "Christian" from his fans before he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for it. |
| 402 | ** On a grander scale, [[Creator/DisneyPlus Disney+]] is one of these to streaming providers (including Creator/{{Hulu}}, which Disney acquired a 60% ownership in following their purchase of Fox), as it does not carry any R-rated content. It is averted internationally, however, as their Star section features R-rated content. |
| 403 | ** While not necessarily meant as a "madrassa or masjid" i.e. a strictly religiously orientated streaming service, [[https://www.alchemiya.com/ Alchemiya]] was billed by news sources as 'The Muslim Netflix' due to its library of content geared towards Muslims (and those interested in Arab and/or Islamic culture), with Alchemiya's founders expressing their desire to counter stereotypes propagated by mainstream film studios and streaming providers whose works often if not always portray Muslims as terrorists. Alchemiya also stated in their about page that rather than just mount a bitter (if not violent as in the case of highly-controversial works such as the infamous ''Innocence of Muslims'' film) protest, they instead chose to paint Islam in a more wholesome and empowering light by producing and distributing films, series, and documentaries "that celebrate the culture, arts, people, places, ideas and achievements of Muslims past and present". |
| 404 | ** In 2023, The Daily Wire launched a streaming service known as Creator/{{Bentkey}}, which they billed as an "anti-woke" alternative to Disney+ and the like. It was created due to right-wing backlash against Disney supporting the LGBTQ+ community. |
| 405 | * [[http://www.familyfriendlygaming.com/ Family Friendly Gaming]] website and magazine promotes itself as "the first ever Christian video game magazine", specifically a Christian alternative to traditional (or "secular") video game review websites/magazines who "call good evil, and evil good", reviewing video games (and also video on demand) in a "conservative" Christian perspective. It's usually treated as a laughingstock by a few video game fans who find them, for the blatant [[TheFundamentalist Fundamentalism]] and poor reviews. |
| 406 | ** [[https://www.christcenteredgamer.com/ ChristCenteredGamer.com]] is also a video game site that reviews games in a Christian viewpoint, but is more rational than Family Friendly Gaming and also takes a secular viewpoint for its reviews. |
| 407 | * [[http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/ Stuff Christians Like]], compared to Stuff White People Like, though it leans more in the AffectionateParody direction. This is lampshaded by its [[http://www.jonacuff.com/stuffchristianslike/2008/01/1-putting-a-god-spin-on-popular-secular-ideas/ first post]] and in the book article: "Stuff Christians Like: Ignoring all Copyright Laws". |
| 408 | * Spoofed in a Platform/YouTube video starring a troupe of rapping kids promoting the "Christian Side Hug," which avoids the "sinful" crotch contact of the traditional hug. No, as much as [[PoesLaw it might seem to be par for the course]], and as much as you might want it to be, it's not even the tiniest bit real. |
| 409 | ** It seems like the video may not be a parody, and those guys were dead serious. It's supposed to be a parody, yet WordOfGod states that they were serious about keeping physical contact to a minimum. |
| 410 | ** And, of course, the "side hug" is a real thing which is suggested for anyone working with children, in hopes to avoid anyone [[PaedoHunt suggesting that there's intentional crotch contact]]. |
| 411 | * This trope, in conjunction with NewMediaAreEvil, has been cited (especially by the "old media") as a major reason for the [[StrawmanNewsMedia declining quality of news coverage]] in the TurnOfTheMillennium and beyond. The thesis is that, before the rise of the internet and cable news, most places had only a few mass-market newspapers and TV stations that had to moderate their reporting and editorials in order to avoid alienating large sections of the populace and going out of business. Anybody looking for more partisan journalism had to either turn to magazines like ''The Atlantic'' and ''National Review'' (which still tended more towards the "establishment" wings of their respective political viewpoints), or do some serious digging. Today, on the other hand, it is possible to get several news sources that [[PanderingToTheBase conform to a strictly ideological point of view]], while lambasting more moderate sources as biased. The Fox News Channel, MSNBC, and Russia Today all explicitly style themselves as the "honest" alternatives to a "biased" UsefulNotes/MainstreamMedia (from conservative, liberal, and pro-Russian perspectives, respectively), while there exist countless blogs and news websites that do the same, and often take their biases to far greater extremes than the cable news networks. |
| 412 | * While [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil piracy is obviously a moral gray area]] at best, [[http://www.toki-woki.com/pirate-bay-clean-tpbclean-tpb-kickass-torrents-alternative-becoming-highly-popular/ The Pirate Bay Clean (TPBCLEAN)]] bills itself as being a more modest alternative to torrent sites, particularly the original Pirate Bay, as most if not all of them are littered with pornographic content and ads for adult sites. There is an option to turn them off on TPB and the others, but for the most part adult content tends to be enabled by default, hence the initiative for a "family-friendly" alternative, besides the fact that most of the Indian programmers the author hired weren't up to doing work on a site that served smut. |
| 413 | * In the late 2010s, Apple also started doing this, promoting their hardware and software as a more privacy-focused alternative to similar offerings from Platform/{{Facebook}} and Website/{{Google}}. In particular, they emphasize the fact that they do not sell user data to corporations and advertisers, which is a key component of the business models of many other tech companies (Facebook and Google included), leading to [[BigBrotherIsWatching scandals over the misuse and leak of data]]. They also promote their Platform/AppleArcade subscription service as a more ethical, consumer-friendly take on [[MobilePhoneGame mobile gaming]], a field otherwise notorious for its reliance on {{microtransactions}} and advertisements. In 2021, Apple even got into [[https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-vs-apple-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-their-privacy-feud/ a fight with Facebook]] over an update for [=iOS=] 14 adding a new feature that would let users require explicit permission from apps to track them across other apps -- a feature that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw as directly targeting his company's advertiser-driven business model. |
| 414 | * There is a Christian distro of Linux Ubuntu called Ubuntuce or Ubuntu Christian Edition. Along with the standard Ubuntu applications, Ubuntu Christian Edition includes Christian software like Gnome Sword (a Bible study program for the Gnome Desktop), utilizing The Sword Project, Xiphos, [=OpenLP=], and Quelea. It also includes fully integrated web content parental controls by Dansguardian. Its latest version was released in 2012. |
| 415 | * Platform/GOGDotCom is a moral substitute to Platform/{{Steam}} and anything else with UsefulNotes/DigitalRightsManagement included, because it wants users to own the stuff they bought without losing access to the stuff they bought, as they stated in [[https://web.archive.org/web/20201225003258/https://fckdrm.com/ their FCK DRM initiative]] as to why DRM is a terrible idea. |
| 416 | * The Gravel Institute was explicitly created as a left-wing substitute to the right-wing [=PragerU=], itself a moral substitute for secular educational videos. |
| 417 | * Inverted by [[https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/google-vs-bing "Google vs. Bing" memes,]] which present Microsoft's search engine Bing as the ''Immoral'' Substitute to Google. The joke started in 2012 when [[https://jonnovstheinternet.tumblr.com/post/31966432536 a Tumblr user]] noticed that, while Google gave the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline as the first listing in any suicide-related search, Bing offered "how to commit suicide" as an auto-complete item and offered related searches.[[note]]Bing has since changed this, and searching for suicide-related subjects now provides the same result as it does on Google, but the meme lives on.[[/note]] The joke is usually that, while Google searches attempt to dissuade people from violence, self-harm, and dangerous activities, Bing is where you go to find out how to do something illegal or immoral. [[https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/608/639/8ef.jpg A safe-for-work sample:]] while a Google search for "how to earn money" will bring up job listings, a Bing search will tell you to become a criminal. |
| 418 | * In the mid-late 2000s, Platform/YouTube made WebVideo/TheIrateGamer into an early member of its "partner" program and pushed his videos to the front page. Internally, this happened in large part because he was seen as an advertiser-friendly alternative to WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd, who was at the height of his popularity at the time and whose humor (i.e. opening every video with a theme song about eating a dead skunk's asshole) was anything but advertiser-friendly. The Irate Gamer used a largely identical format, but featured significantly less in the way of swearing and shocking imagery, making him seemingly a perfect substitute. |
| 419 | * The "Great Firewall" in UsefulNotes/{{China}} has resulted in many foreign websites getting [[BannedInChina banned]]. As a result, domestic websites have been created as an alternative of the banned sites while still adhering to Chinese law: |
| 420 | ** Baidu for Website/{{Google}} |
| 421 | ** Baidu Maps for Google Maps |
| 422 | ** Baidu Baike for Website/{{Wikipedia}} |
| 423 | ** Bilibili, Youku Tudou and IQIYI for Platform/YouTube and Platform/{{Twitch}} |
| 424 | ** Sina Weibo for Platform/{{Facebook}} and [[Platform/TwitterX Twitter]] |
| 425 | ** Jingdong and Aliexpress for Amazon |
| 426 | ** Taobao for Ebay |
| 427 | ** [=WeChat=] for [=WhatsApp=] |
| 428 | ** Xiaohongshu for Instagram |
| 429 | ** [=DiDi=] for Uber |
| 430 | ** [=WaiMai=] for Uber Eats |
| 431 | ** Alipay for Paypal |
| 432 | ** UC Browser for Google Chrome |
| 433 | ** Kaiheila for Creator/{{Discord}} |
| 434 | * Platform/{{Arkhaven}}, established by the aforementioned Creator/VoxDay, is a conservative-oriented - or "100% SJW-free" in his words - equivalent to webcomic hosts like Platform/{{Webtoon}} and Platform/{{Hiveworks}} with the rule that comics hosted there must include "no sex, no satanism, no social justice". |
| 435 | [[/folder]] |
| 436 | |
| 437 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 438 | * ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'' is a Christian Moral Substitute to (often MerchandiseDriven) {{Saturday morning cartoon}}s. Unlike most examples here (and indeed, contrary to the expectations of those who haven't watched it), it's actually high quality for its genre and is often enjoyed beyond the AnimationAgeGhetto and even beyond its Christian target audience (to wit, the jokes are actually funny and the references are actually clever, and it's wholly independent of the show's religious angle), in addition to having pioneered the use of [[AllCGICartoon 3D in children's animation]]. When it was syndicated for national broadcast, all references to Christianity were removed, and after a CreatorBacklash and protests from MoralGuardians, the references were restored. |
| 439 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThreeTwoOnePenguins'', which was also produced by the company behind ''WesternAnimation/VeggieTales'', is a Christian Moral Substitute to ScienceFiction cartoons, and has even less focus on Christianity and none after the first six episodes. |
| 440 | * There's a Christian edit of ''WesternAnimation/JayJayTheJetPlane'', in which the original voiceover narration and some dialogue is replaced with audio mentioning God and the Bible. |
| 441 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheKingdomChums'' was created as a Christian equivalent to the Franchise/CareBears and other similar cartoons (but featuring only three toys). |
| 442 | * ''WesternAnimation/ChipChilla'' is essentially ''WesternAnimation/{{Bluey}}'' with more conservative / right-leaning values. |
| 443 | * ''WesternAnimation/DaveyAndGoliath'', a stop-motion cartoon from the maker of ''WesternAnimation/{{Gumby}}'', was created as a moral substitute for other children's cartoons of the day. It became one of the more successful examples of this trope, becoming as much of a pop culture cultural phenomenon as ''Gumby'' is. |
| 444 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{JOT}}'' was made as a Moral Substitute for ''Davey and Goliath'', believe it or not. More specifically, it was made to be a Southern Baptist equivalent of the show. |
| 445 | * Gospel Duck is a children's Christian multimedia character that just so happens to have the exact same distinct voice as WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck. |
| 446 | * [=PragerU=] creates cartoons for kids on their website, like ''Leo and Layla'', which has the titular characters traveling back in time to meet conservative figures of the past, e.g. Ronald Reagan. When ''WesternAnimation/BluesCluesAndYou'' debuted a music video featuring a PrideParade, moral panic ensued and [=PragerU=] took this opportunity to promote their cartoons as moral alternatives. |
| 447 | [[/folder]] |
| 448 | |
| 449 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 450 | * Branson, Missouri, in the words of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', is "Vegas if it were run by Ned Flanders." The city offers elaborate hotels, shopping, and tons of live shows, but there's no gambling or "party scene". The shows focus on G-rated entertainment, especially musical revues -- oldies, [[CountryMusic country]], and Broadway are the most frequently appearing genres. Other shows include grand-scale musical adaptations of Bible stories, and "family-friendly" headliners of revues including Yakov Smirnoff, the Oak Ridge Boys, Tony Orlando, and [[Film/RidingWithDeath Jim Stafford.]] |
| 451 | * In Australia, where rabbits are a despised pest, there has been a movement to replace the tradtional "Easter bunny" with an "Easter [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrotis Bilby]]", a type of long-eared bandicoot native which is, unlike rabbits, a native Australian animal. |
| 452 | * There have been alternatives to [[ScoutOut the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts]] from every direction. [[GloriousMotherRussia The Soviet Union]] and the UsefulNotes/WarsawPact, for instance, had the Pioneers, and UsefulNotes/NaziGermany had the infamous Hitler Youth. A number of churches have also created their own "scouting" organizations, such as the Pathfinders (Seventh Day Adventists), the Royal Rangers for boys and Missionettes for girls (Assemblies of God), and Awana (Southern Baptists). More recently, due to the increasingly conservative bent of the Boy Scouts of America[[note]]not surprising, since Lord Baden-Powell came up with the idea during one of Britain's imperial wars of conquest, and "scouts" throughout history have traditionally been connected to the military and was seen as a way to prepare boys for jobs in the army or the colonial services[[/note]], there are also a few scouting organizations that have sprung up with more moderate and non-denominational views on Christian doctrine (such as the Christian Service Brigade), and others with the aim of being more accepting of LGBT+ people and non-Christians. |
| 453 | ** The Boy Scouts themselves were partly inspired by an organization called the Boys' Brigade, which was (and is) an explicitly Christian youth organization. Therefore, the Boy Scouts were the "less moral" substitute (which is [[HilariousInHindsight pretty funny]] when you consider the controversy over their views on religion and homosexuality). Also, as the name suggests, the Boys' Brigade has even ''stronger'' military overtones than the Boy Scouts: humorist Clive James, who was a member of both groups in his youth, commented that the Scouts emphasize "woodsy lore" and the Brigade prefers "parade ground drill." For example, the adult organizers of the Brigade are called Officers (with the ranks of Lieutenant and Captain), and younger members can become Non-Commissioned Officers, with ranks running from Private through Staff Sergeant. |
| 454 | ** After the Scouts recent decision to keep the ban on gay scout leaders, but allow gay young men to participate in scouting, the author of this article [[http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2013/05/r-i-p-boy-scouts-of-america/ R.I.P, Boy Scouts of America]] invokes exactly those words: |
| 455 | --> But here’s the good news. I and dozens more will be convening for a coalition meeting of pro-family leaders next month in Louisville, Ky., to discuss the creation of a '''moral alternative''' to the Boy Scouts. |
| 456 | ** Unfortunately, the backlash somewhat worsened in 2018 when it was announced that, effective the following year, that they would allow girls to join, prompting some conservatives to add "because they're indoctrinating feminism" into the list of reasons why they no longer supported them. Even odder is that it also earned them a lawsuit from the Girl Scouts[[note]]contrary to the popular misconception, the two organizations are not related[[/note]] for [[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/us/girl-scouts-sue-boy-scouts.html poaching potential new recruits]]. |
| 457 | ** On the other side of the controversy, Campfire USA has promoted itself as a more inclusive alternative to Boy Scouts, because they allow all children to join. |
| 458 | ** Ditto for Camp Quest, a summer camp organization founded in 1996 by Edwin Kagin, the head of the Free Inquiry Group of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, and his wife Helen. Since Boy Scout camps did not permit non-religious children to attend, they decided to start their own camp that would be more welcoming of them. |
| 459 | |
| 460 | * Some parents who [[HomeschooledKids school their children at home]] do so because they perceive public school as un-Christian or un-whatever their religion/worldview is. It's also possible for Christian parents to give their children a complete Christian education, all the way from pre-school to Ph.D. Many evangelical Christian schools and their associations market themselves as a moral alternative and a refuge from the cultural influences present in public schools. |
| 461 | * The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by Pat Robertson, is a Christian conservative counterpart to the ACLU that litigates for pro-Evangelical Christian, pro-life issues (even though the ACLU ''[[http://www.aclufightsforchristians.com/ also does work]]'' defending the civil liberties of Christians in regards to the free exercise of their beliefs). The Thomas Moore Law Center is the Catholic alternative to ACLU and ACLJ in turn. |
| 462 | * The 19th century French thinker [[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/ Auguste Comte]] devised a humanist "Religion of Humanity" complete with its own feast days (to commemorate figures in Western history) and clergy. |
| 463 | * UsefulNotes/NaziGermany pushed Nazi-compatible substitutes throughout the arts and sciences. |
| 464 | ** Early on, the Nazis advocated "Deutsche Physik" as an alternative to the physics mainstream. Led by advocates like Philipp Lenard, Rudolf Tomaschek, and Johannes Stark, it was popular among those who felt physics to be too dominated by Jews like UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein and Niels Bohr, and briefly attracted a number of "old guard" physicists who rejected the paradigm shift presented by the theory of relativity. It fell out of favor in the late '30s once the sturdiness of the "Jewish physics" became apparent even to many Nazis, though they only acknowledged this through clenched teeth and refused to give any credit to Jews, instead favoring "Aryan" physicists like Werner Heisenberg (who they had ironically harassed and bashed as a "White Jew" for supporting relativity just a few years prior). Deutsche Physik, as short-lived and often overblown by modern observers as it was, still had a disastrous effect on scientific research in Germany, and the Jewish scientists who found themselves driven out of German universities under the Nuremberg Laws would [[NiceJobFixingItVillain go on to contribute massively]] to the UsefulNotes/NuclearWeapons programs of Germany's enemies. |
| 465 | ** Soon after the Nazis rose to power, they [[BookBurning clamped down]] on "entartete kunst" ([[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art degenerate art]]), a catch-all term that referred to modern art, {{jazz}} music, [[WarisHell anti-war paintings]], and anything else that the Nazi CulturePolice viewed as 'un-German', holding it up as a symbol of the perceived decadence of the [[UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic Weimar era]] and alleging that it had been promoted by Jews and communists in order to degrade the German spirit. As a reaction, they instead pushed art that upheld 'blood and soil' themes of militarism and racial purity, often infused with classical Greek and Roman influence. Hilariously, as ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19840_5-nazi-plans-that-prove-they-were-dumber-than-you-think_p2.html pointed out]], an exhibition of the banned art (the only legal venue for such work) to show the German people how evil and Jew-corrupted it was wound up [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing attracting far more visitors]] than a nearby exhibition of Nazi-sponsored art. |
| 466 | ** Bizarrely (given many of the examples on this page), the Nazis promoted a moral substitute for the Christian faith and churches: [[http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/positive_christianity.htm Positive Christianity]], which threw out the "Jewish" parts of the Bible (including the entire Old Testament and the letters of Paul of Tarsus) and recast Jesus as [[KungFuJesus an Aryan warrior who rebelled against the Jewish authority of his day]], while also demonizing the Catholic Church as a "Judaized" bastardization of the faith and lionizing figures like Martin Luther (the (very much ''liberal'') German theologian who started the Protestant Reformation) who they viewed as having worked to restore the "original" Christianity. Many Nazis (most notably Alfred Rosenberg, who came up with the idea) saw Christianity in its current state as a religion of weakness and submission, unfit for a ProudWarriorRace like they imagined the Germans to be, but at the same time, they realized that they had to make their peace with the churches if they were to hold power for any length of time, and so they came up with a Nazified brand of the faith that was more in line with their warlike ideals. The effort was largely a failure, with the Nazi-backed theology running into stiff opposition from the "Confessing Church" movement that wished to maintain their theological independence, and only a minority of German Protestant churches adopted it before the Nazis quietly sidelined their push for it.\ |
| 467 | Many neo-Nazis and white supremacists, likewise, have developed their own substitutes for mainstream Christianity. Among those who still maintain some sort of Christian faith, you'll find what's known as Christian Identity, which proclaims white people to be the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, Jews to be impostors to the claim (often justified with the idea that they're actually descended from Khazar converts), and non-whites to be subhuman "mud races". A more moderate variation can be found in kinism, which proclaims that race and ethnicity are unbreakable, divinely-created bonds that are just as important as family, which in turn leads to the belief that segregation is mandated by God and that "betraying" one's race (i.e. mixing with other races) is as bad as betraying one's family. For those who think that's still not enough to distance Christianity from its Jewish roots, many follow racialized variants of pagan religions (Myth/NorseMythology and, to a lesser extent, Myth/ClassicalMythology are especially popular here, given the former's "Aryan" cred and the latter's association with [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire the glory of Rome]]) or Satanism (on the grounds that worshiping the enemy of the God of the Jews is a necessary component of rebellion against them). |
| 468 | ** Arguably, fascism itself may count, as its proponents saw it as this towards socialism. It combined many of its economic proposals (broad populism, state control of industry, etc.) and its revolutionary spirit with ultra-nationalism and reactionary social views, in sharp opposition to socialism's international worldview. In ''Mein Kampf'', UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler described both capitalism and socialism as two sides of the same coin, i.e. both controlled by Jews as tools to corrupt and destroy nations with by breeding [[SlobsVersusSnobs class warfare]], and both needing to be expunged from the body politic in favor of an ideology that would unite the nation in a way that transcended class lines. It's not for nothing that the Nazis called themselves the "National Socialists", the "National" part differentiating them from the "subversive" ''international'' (read: Jewish) socialists that they viewed as destroying Germany, and before [[ThePurge the Night of the Long Knives]] there existed a substantial faction in the Nazi party (known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism Strasserites]] after its leaders, the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser) that took the "Socialist" part very seriously -- and viewed Hitler as having sold out the nation and the party to business interests and the elite (which led to them getting purged). [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=3850508&postcount=38 This post]] on Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom[[note]]At least, the first part of it. The second part specifically pertains to the AlternateHistory story it's a part of, which is about Ecuador going fascist in the '30s.[[/note]] goes into detail on how, while socialism was explicitly oriented towards the working class, fascism was a "big tent" ideology that held something for those in all socioeconomic strata. Today, similar ideas can be seen in movements like third positionism, national anarchism, and the European New Right, which co-opt leftist imagery, strategies, and economic proposals in support of vehemently anti-leftist and anti-liberal ideologies. |
| 469 | * [[GloriousMotherRussia The Soviet Union]] also had a long list of communist substitutes for the "decadent, bourgeois" culture of the West. |
| 470 | ** Similar to Nazi Germany's "Deutsche Physik", the USSR under [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] pushed "Michurin Biology" (now better known as Lysenkoism) as a more acceptable alternative to Darwinian evolution and genetics, which they felt was too capitalistic, what with "survival of the fittest" and all that.[[note]]A rather strange reaction, given that Marxism ''also'' has a [[TheSocialDarwinist social Darwinist]] strand, except instead of "the fittest race" or "the fittest firm", it's "the fittest class" that wins out. Friedrich Engels also explicitly, and favourably, compared Creator/KarlMarx to Darwin in his eulogy of Marx in 1883.[[/note]] Lysenkoism, meanwhile, rejected natural selection and held that communism (or "natural cooperation") was the state of nature, and proclaimed that [[LamarckWasRight different species of crop could be turned into other species]]. Over three thousand botanists and biologists who disagreed and advocated mainstream (i.e. real) biology were arrested, one of the most prominent examples being [[http://en.wikipedi.org/wiki/Nikolai_Vavilov Nikolai Vavilov]], who died in TheGulag. Stalin seems to have grown suspicious about toward the end, but once UsefulNotes/NikitaKhrushchev became Premier, he stopped the growing criticism (he found a kindred soul in Lysenko's non-compromising, deaf-to-counterarguments attitude), although he released the imprisoned scientists. Once Khrushchev was removed as well, the mainstream biologists managed to push through some proper inspections of Lysenko's successes, and once none were found, Lysenkoism fell apart. |
| 471 | ** Starting in the Stalinist era, the Soviet Union promoted SocialistRealism as a reaction to abstract art, which was seen as a symbol of Western decadence. Before that, they favored formalism, constructivism, and the avant-garde as seen in the works of Creator/SergeiEisenstein, Maiakovsky, Meyerhold, and others; Stalin's rise to power saw the "traditionalists" within the Soviet art world (who favored realistic, albeit idealized, representations of everyday life) win out over the more abstract "futurists" (who wanted art in the workers' state to be just as revolutionary and radical as its politics). |
| 472 | ** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervision_Song_Contest Intervision Song Contest]] was the Warsaw Pact's short-lived version of the Series/EurovisionSongContest. It ran from 1977 to 1980, before being canceled due to the rise of Solidarity in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} (it was held in the Polish city of Sopot). Surprisingly, it's also managed to become this for a new generation -- in 2014, UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin [[http://eurovoix.com/2014/05/23/russia-intervision-to-return-this-october/ restarted the Intervision Song Contest]] after years of discussing the idea, this time including members of the UsefulNotes/ShanghaiCooperationOrganisation as well (though it's been stuck in DevelopmentHell for a long time). Intervision's predecessor, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopot_International_Song_Festival Sopot International Song Festival]], also deserves mention here. It is still going strong today, though it's no longer a ''contest'' per se, but rather, one of Poland's biggest music festivals. |
| 473 | ** The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast Jewish Autonomous Oblast]] was the Soviet answer to Israel. It was an autonomous republic inside the USSR made for Jews (every nationality in the USSR was supposed to have one) that was rooted in secular Jewish socialism as opposed to Zionism, nationalism, or religion, which were seen as anti-socialist. The official language was Yiddish as opposed to Hebrew, and its monuments contained symbols of Judaism like menorahs. Unofficially, it was also seen as a way of advancing the settlement of the sparsely populated Far East. Soviet authorities invited progressive Jews around the world to help in the construction of the Oblast, but most of them spurned it in favor of Israel, a nation that was itself [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Zionism fairly socialist]] in its early days; the Jewish residents never exceeded a quarter of the population. The fact that it was located in the middle of the Far East along the Chinese border, a place with no cultural meaning for Jews, did little to endear it to them, nor did the opposition of the natives. The Oblast still exists today and is still officially a "Jewish Oblast", but only 0.2% of the population is Jewish. |
| 474 | ** There is a theory that a popular motif of the Soviet art depicting Marx, Lenin, and the current leader of the Soviet Union in a row looking forward grew popular because it acted as a Soviet version of the Christian trinity. Marx takes the spot of god because he was the progenitor of the ideology and has the beard to match the traditional GrandpaGod. Lenin replaced Jesus as the man who made the ideology happen. Insert Current Leader Here is the holy spirit who, especially after Stalin, will set things back on track to realizing the communist utopia. |
| 475 | * The US, in turn, promoted their own alternatives in the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar ideological war against the communists]]. |
| 476 | ** In response to the aforementioned SocialistRealism, the United States intelligence services [[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html promoted abstract modern art]] in the 1950s and '60s. While many such artists held political views that would've been suspect in the stridently anti-communist US, and modern art was frequently mocked in Middle America as a symbol of big-city elitism, the CIA still saw propaganda value in it. It served a dual purpose: as a symbol of American creativity and intellectual freedom versus the Soviet CulturePolice, and as a rebuttal to the idea that America was a cultural wasteland dependent on Europe for all its artistic accomplishments. |
| 477 | ** It has been suggested that part of the reason for the early successes of the UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement was because a good number of pragmatic anti-communists viewed it as a way of challenging [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes the Soviet Union's portrayal of the US as a land of virulent racism]], blunting their egalitarian rhetoric in the Third World. It's uncertain how great a factor this was -- many segregationists viewed civil rights as [[RedScare a communist plot]], and indeed, American communists did play a role in laying the foundation for the movement, going to the South in the '30s and organizing several African American communities. Still, the idea of turning the US into a Moral Substitute to the USSR on race relations definitely gets played up in the [[HollywoodHistory pop-history version]] of the Civil Rights Movement, and anti-communists, even some who had been segregationists at the time, were quick to co-opt its successes once explicit white-power racism had faded into a fringe viewpoint in the '70s.[[note]]Today, it's not uncommon to hear people claiming that Martin Luther King, Jr. would be a conservative Republican by modern standards, even though he had voiced sympathy for democratic socialism and declared that [[http://boingboing.net/2016/01/18/martin-luther-king-socialist.html "capitalism has outlived its usefulness."]][[/note]] |
| 478 | ** Before that, during TheGreatDepression, the New Deal was conceived as an alternative as well, a reform initiative that co-opted the egalitarian rhetoric and class angst of the socialists and reinforced government loyalty via a welfare state, relief efforts, government support for business, and labor and financial regulation. Many left-wing well-wishers, fence-sitters, and fellow travelers saw the government and the capitalist system as responsive to change and open to popular consensus, thus shifting away from radical politics. The American communists knew what was happening, and blasted the New Deal as an attempt to buy the workers' loyalty, destroy their class consciousness, and prevent the revolution, but their efforts quickly proved futile as recruitment dried up. Later generations of liberals saw the "New Deal" as a key reason for America avoiding revolution or uplift, unlike other nations in the '30s, and it became the prototype for the economic system now known as social democracy. During the RedScare of the '50s, however, many conservatives would develop a backlash against the New Deal and liberals who supported it, and today, a system that was created to save capitalism and prevent revolution is now ironically seen as a socialist program. |
| 479 | ** Neoconservatism began life as the capitalist substitute to the idea of the "world socialist revolution". Many of the leading lights of the neoconservative movement were former [[UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky Trotskyists]] and other anti-Soviet leftists who grew disillusioned with the mainstream left in TheSeventies, due to the rise of the counterculture and what they saw as an unwillingness to confront the Soviet Union (which Trotskyists were never a fan of). Even as they migrated to the right, however, they remained committed to the Marxist idea that one economic system served as the endpoint of history, and to Trotsky's idea that the revolution had to be worldwide. They just [[PerspectiveFlip swapped out the nature of that revolution]]: instead of communism, it would be liberal, capitalist democracy that would sweep the world, [[AmericaTakesOverTheWorld backed by the power of the US military]]. |
| 480 | * Before the New Deal, UsefulNotes/OttoVonBismarck, the conservative "Iron Chancellor" of Germany in the late 19th century, built the German welfare state as a substitute for socialism. Seeing how much support the socialists were getting from the working class by appealing to their poor standard of living, in the 1880s Bismarck pushed for universal health insurance, an old-age pension program, disability insurance, and other social programs in order to win the workers' support for traditional sources of authority. |
| 481 | * UsefulNotes/MahatmaGandhi somehow managed to be a substitute for both socialism and fascism: |
| 482 | ** As Creator/GeorgeOrwell and UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky both noted, before Gandhi, colonialist revolt and resistance was seen in the context of global internationalism, socialism, and communism. Gandhi, however, created a mass anti-colonialist movement that essentially combined leftist practices and ideas (protests, sit-ins, boycotts) with fairly traditional and conservative values (family, tradition, vegetarianism). This essentially pushed the centre-left of India's independence movement towards the centre, with socialists and communists not able to get mass support outside of a few major areas of India. Before long, even the secular Nehru, despite his plans for industrializing India, started cloaking himself in traditional Indian habits and customs. |
| 483 | ** Likewise, Gandhi's reinterpretation of Indian tradition to further progressive ideas (the erosion of the caste system, religious tolerance, rights and education for women) also left the right-wing and quasi-fascists in the lurch, since Gandhi was the picture of Indian values in his clothes and was highly religious and HolierThanThou. Gandhi would, in fact, be assassinated by a right-wing Hindu named Nathuram Godse who, at his trial, said that [[NoTrueScotsman Gandhi's ideas of nonviolence were incompatible with Hinduism]]. |
| 484 | ** Gandhi's pacifism and anti-imperialism, moreover, alienated the military-minded such as Subhash Chandra Bose, who created the Indian National Army (the first non-segregated multi-religious Indian army with men and women serving) without any fixed ideological base outside of anti-imperialism (and which led to a tactical EnemyMine with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan that never really did get broad support). |
| 485 | * Similarly, the Catholic Church's 1891 papal encyclical ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum Rerum novarum]]'', critiquing both [[CorruptCorporateExecutive the excesses of contemporary capitalism]] and the [[DirtyCommunists radical socialism]] that had emerged in response to it, became the basis for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism distributism]]. An attempt to codify Catholic social teaching into an economic system, distributism can be summed up with the quote by Creator/GKChesterton (one of the main proponents of distributism) that "the problem with capitalism is not too many capitalists, but not enough capitalists." It had an ideal of a regulated market economy where ownership of private property was widespread and diffuse ("three acres and a cow" was a popular slogan) rather than concentrated in the hands of the elite or the state, ensuring that there would be many small-to-medium farmers, manufacturers, and merchants and few, if any, businesses and banks big enough to thoroughly dominate the economy. They supported the rights of organized labor but opposed contemporary unions for their radicalism and class warfare, instead favoring a modernized guild system as an alternative that encouraged class collaboration.\ |
| 486 | Distributism never took off on the level that socialism did, as its tight wedding to Catholicism limited its appeal to non-Catholics in its original form. Being a Catholic movement also meant that some of its most prominent proponents, in spite of their somewhat-leftist economic views, were quite socially conservative, which, along with their hostility to socialism and communism, which led them to instead align themselves with fascist movements such as Mussolini’s and Naziism, even to the point of sharing in their antisemetic beliefs. Naturally, this caused their popularity to plummet in Allied countries once UsefulNotes/WorldWarII started. \ |
| 487 | However, ideas from distributism did influence anti-trust legislation in the US and the Christian democracy movement in Europe and Latin America, and later entered the secular co-op, credit union, and social credit movements. It would also be rediscovered in TheSeventies by two radically different groups of activists: the nascent environmental and back-to-the-land movements on one hand, who saw it as a 'green' alternative to contemporary capitalism and socialism (influenced by E. F. Schumacher, author of ''Small is Beautiful''), and neo-fascists on the other, who saw it as a model for building a 'racially pure' nation (influenced by A. K. Chesterton, second cousin of G. K. and a co-founder of the National Front in Britain). |
| 488 | * In UsefulNotes/{{Texas}}, the 1824 flag and the famous "Come and Take It" flag are gaining popularity as a non-racist alternative to the use of the Confederate flag to represent Southern pride and other anti-centralist values. |
| 489 | ** The less famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#First_flag:_the_%22Stars_and_Bars%22_(1861–1863) "Stars and Bars"]] is generally preferred over the famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#Battle_flag "battle flag"]] [[note]] Which itself is [[CommonKnowledge commonly mistakenly referred to as the "Stars and Bars"]] [[/note]] by [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar American Civil War]] reenactors, as the battle flag is now heavily associated with white supremacy. Those wishing to pay some respects to history by acknowledging the Confederacy, but not invoking the racism that the Confederacy has been associated with since the Civil War, also generally fly the Stars and Bars. |
| 490 | * The teaching of "Holy Ghost intoxication", or being [[http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d43.html "drunk in the Spirit"]], a spurious claim that comes from misinterpretation of Scriptures (mostly Acts chapter 2 and Ephesians 5:18) that is preached by the likes of Creator/BennyHinn, Rodney Howard Browne, and Kenneth E. Hagin, is often preached in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches as [[ICantBelieveItsNotHeroin an alternative to getting high from real drugs]]. John Crowder even goes so far as to call it "tokin' the Ghost". VICE has a Platform/YouTube video on the subject that can be seen [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_Zj7OJjMcnM here]]. |
| 491 | * While it may be hard to imagine today given the rhetoric surrounding it, the health care reform plan that ultimately became "Obamacare" started out as [[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html a conservative, free-market alternative]] to UsefulNotes/BillClinton's plan (dubbed "Hillarycare" after [[UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton his wife]], the main architect of the plan) in TheNineties, promoted as a way to advance the virtue of personal responsibility by requiring people to buy health insurance. Famously, UsefulNotes/MittRomney implemented such a plan at the state level [[note]] dubbed "Romneycare", predictably [[/note]] when he was governor of UsefulNotes/{{Massachusetts}}. It was only after UsefulNotes/BarackObama, a Democrat, championed the plan at the federal level that it was disowned by Republicans. This left Romney in the awkward position of [[DuckSeasonRabbitSeason having to be against something he favored as governor when he ran against Obama in 2012]] (although he tried declaring it a state's rights issue). |
| 492 | * Labor Day in the U.S. is held the first Monday in September, instead of May 1 like in other countries, because of the association of the latter date with those DirtyCommunists. The American labor movement was itself a moral substitute for Communism, thanks to the influence of the staunchly anti-Communist AFL-CIO under Samuel Gompers eventually squeezing out the more radical Industrial Workers of the World. The early successes of the labor movement meant that workers could gain representation and fair treatment without overthrowing the capitalist system, which partly explains why Communism never became a significant movement in America. |
| 493 | * A private committee in China established the "Confucius Peace Prize" in response to a Chinese dissident receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was proposed as a way "to declare China's view in peace and human rights to the world." |
| 494 | * The Knights of Columbus were founded for two main reasons: a) to sell affordable life insurance to Catholic workers, who often worked in dangerous jobs, and b) to serve as a fraternal organization that Catholics could join in good conscience, since they were prohibited from joining organizations like the Freemasons under pain of excommunication up until Canon 1374. |
| 495 | * In UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia, [[http://noisey.vice.com/blog/russias-hard-bass-scene-is-even-more-ridiculous-than-the-harlem-shake hardbass]] (pump-dancing to hardstyle music in public) emerged in [[TurnOfTheMillennium 2000s]] [[UsefulNotes/TheCityFormerlyKnownAs Saint Petersburg]] to keep young people away from smoking, alcoholism, & drug abuse. Also, they make an assertive political statement. |
| 496 | * Around 2008, a group of college students in Florida found themselves offended by provocative, {{Fanservice}}-laden ads for the likes of Mac lipstick and Calvin Klein. So they made their own sanitized versions and put them on public display alongside their sexy counterparts. A particularly jarring example would be their version of an ad for Viva-Glam lipstick by Mac. In the original version, a medium-sized paragraph appeared at the right side of the page enthusing that all proceeds from the lipstick goes to a fund "to help men, women and children who are living with HIV and AIDS". The sanitized version (rather crudely) enlarges the portion that mentions the fund's cause, and it becomes "to help men, and [[RougeAnglesOfSatin childern]]..." |
| 497 | * Some computer science researchers have proposed using male model Fabio Lanzoni [[note]]Yes, the guy who appeared in the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" commercials in the '90s.[[/note]] to test image processing algorithms as an alternative to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna "Lenna"]], a picture taken from an early '70s ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'' issue (though cropped to remove the nudity), seeing the use of a female pin-up as a sexist relic of the days when programming was a "boys' club" that sends a poor image to women getting involved in the industry (why this example of male {{fanservice}} [[DoubleStandard isn't also considered sexist]] is a salient question). |
| 498 | * A number of [[http://www.rcvsmc.net/id19.html Christian motorcycle clubs and ministries]] have sprung up as an answer to the [[AllBikersAreHellsAngels Hells Angels]] and similar biker gangs, offering the same sense of brotherhood and interest in motorcycles (mostly Harley-Davidsons, though some accept bikers with "metric" or foreign-made bikes), all while serving God and teaching the gospel instead of the usual decadent and sometimes criminal nature common with biker gangs. Some went so far as to adopting the two or three-piece patch, but this didn't occasionally bode well with regular outlaw bikers, as what motorcycle ministries found out the hard way. |
| 499 | * Some countries have a more humane version of Bullfighting in which there's no killing or wounding of the bull. These include Portugal, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Venezuela where both the frequent "matador" individual style (albeit without killing or pinching the bull) and the collective "improvised bullfighting" (when a group of volunteers try to avoid the bull or bulls with more danger for the humans than for the bulls) are common. France also has a similar variant of improvised bullfighting using a cow. Mexico is gradually switching to the most humane versions as the traditional bullfighting is getting more and more unpopular. Many animal rights activists still consider these types of bullfighting cruel as it causes unnecessary stress to the animals, yet by far better than the other option. |
| 500 | ** Dog fights are pretty much illegal all over the world, however in some countries like Russia and Japan there's a legal variant which involve dogs trained to not bite each other, with a veterinarian on site and heavy supervision, where the dog wins by showing dominance and supremacy over the other. Still considered questionable to some people but certainly much more humane. |
| 501 | ** Interestingly, cock fight organizers generally [[EvenEvilHasStandards despise illegal dog fights]] and reject any comparison arguing that their activity is very different, seeing themselves as the moral alternative. Cock fights are illegal in most countries and in those that not are still pretty controversial, however some people may argue that whilst bull and dog fighting may have some more humane variants as the mentioned above there's no way to do the same with cocks. Of course, a lot of people, especially animal rights activists, would consider all of them to be cruel. |
| 502 | * The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement often seeks to create and promote FOSS alternatives to popular proprietary programs. For instance, there is [=LibreOffice=] in place of Microsoft Office, GIMP instead of Adobe Photoshop, Mozilla Firefox first to Internet Explorer, later Google Chrome[[note]]Although most of Chrome's code base is free software developed as part of the Chromium project, which has given rise to numerous other alternative browsers[[/note]], and last but not least, GNU and/or Linux as an alternative to all manner of proprietary operating systems. [[note]]Originally it was meant as a free substitute to commercial Unix in TheEighties, but nowadays is usually pushed as an alternative to Platform/MicrosoftWindows and Platform/MacOS.[[/note]] |
| 503 | * For many years, the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida was ''the'' gathering place for much of South Florida's upper crust, and a popular destination for fundraisers, galas, and charity events. However, upon the election of Mar-a-Lago's owner UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump to the US Presidency in 2016, South Florida notables, charities, and others who either disagreed with Trump's politics or wanted to maintain an apolitical image began to [[http://www.newsweek.com/trumps-mar-lago-has-suddenly-become-haven-white-nationalists-and-far-right-716220 take their business]] to The Breakers, a competing Palm Beach resort, while right-wing activist groups began to book their own events at Mar-a-Lago out of support for Trump. |
| 504 | * The Tap Water Awards were a series of awards given out from 2001 to 2006 by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland for theatre, comedy, dance, storytelling, and Arabic poetry in contrast to the Perrier Awards, named after the brand of mineral water owned by Nestlé, the subject of a long-running boycott over its marketing of infant formula in the developing world. The Tap Water Awards ended after Perrier withdrew its sponsorship from what are now known as the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. |
| 505 | * Multilevel marketing companies have been targeting conservative Christian denominations like evangelicals and Mormons because [[StayInTheKitchen women are discouraged from holding jobs]]. MLM plans claim that women can be entrepreneurs while still being wives and mothers, even if success is a lot more difficult with MLM than the companies advertise (especially with a lot of them being [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_scheme pyramid schemes]] in disguise). |
| 506 | * In general, this is a common feature of many boycott campaigns. If a pressure group sees a business or service as engaged in behavior (mistreatment of employees or animals, environmental destruction, support for controversial political, religious, or social causes) that goes against their values, oftentimes they will point to an alternative company that provides a similar service without the parts that they find objectionable, and recommend that people buy from them or use their service instead. |
| 507 | * The [[YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe Olde English Bulldogge]] and the Retromop pug are intended to be more ethical versions of the English bulldog and pug dog breeds. They're bred to resemble what the breeds originally looked like before they became plagued with various health issues caused by being bred for more and more squished-in faces over the years. |
| 508 | * Creation science was the fundamentalist Christian substitute for the theory of UsefulNotes/{{evolution}} by natural selection. In the postwar era, most American Christians generally accepted evolution and an old age for the Earth, seeing the CreationMyth in the Book of Genesis as metaphorical and natural processes as all part of the master plan of a God who worked InMysteriousWays. However, the rise of the evangelical movement in the '60s and '70s, which took a literal interpretation of Literature/TheBible as a historically factual document as one of its theological cornerstones, led to many attempts to find proof that the events described in Genesis had actually occurred as written. A whole fleet of pseudoscientific ideas emerged from the foundation of creation science, from "flood geology" (a substitute for mainstream geology, claiming that most of Earth's geographical features were carved by TheGreatFlood) to baraminology (a substitute for Linnaean taxonomy, attempting to explain both observed evolution within species and how Noah managed to get so many animals on his ark), all propped up by a belief that the theory of evolution and scientific materialism as a whole had [[ScienceIsBad produced numerous social ills]] (rising crime, loose morals, racism, [[StrawNihilist nihilism]], [[GodwinsLaw totalitarianism]]) and that [[ScienceIsWrong their weaknesses were being covered up]] by a politically-motivated scientific establishment dominated by [[HollywoodAtheist anti-Christian atheists]].\ |
| 509 | In terms of mainstream political acceptance, creation science had its greatest push in the '80s and '90s with the ascent of the [[MoralGuardians Christian Right]] in the United States, only to face backlash (not least of all from actual biologists) as its weaknesses as a scientific hypothesis became apparent and Establishment Clause challenges kept it out of public school classrooms. This, in turn, led to intelligent design in the late '90s and 2000s as a substitute for the substitute, one that scrubbed away the obvious religious references and focused more on [[GravityIsOnlyATheory perceived weaknesses in evolutionary theory]] in order to present itself as a non-denominational alternative to evolution. Given that many of the people promoting intelligent design had been promoting creation science just before, most people saw right through it, and the case of ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District Kitzmiller v. Dover]]'' in 2005 all but ended the push.[[note]]The [[https://ncse.ngo/wedge-document "Wedge Document",]] written in 1998 by the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute and the affiliated Center for Renewal of Science and Culture, lays out the movement's inherently conservative Christian goals. Notably, it was ''not'' intended for public consumption, and its leak in 1999, revealing that intelligent design was in fact motivated by religion and politics rather than the honest pursuit of science that its proponents claimed, ensured that the movement would never gain any academic credibility.[[/note]] |
| 510 | * Similar to the above is Hare Krishna creationism.[[note]]Proponents often call it "Hindu" or "Vedic" creationism. However, the mainstream opinion of most Hindus on biological evolution is that is it not only compatible with their CreationMyth, it actually ''supports'' it. The concept of Dashavatara, the ten avatars of the god Vishnu (starting with a fish, and then a tortoise, a boar, a man-lion, a dwarf, and several increasingly advanced stages of humanity), is seen by many Hindus as a reflection of the mainstream scientific view of how life evolved, starting in the sea and then progressing to reptiles, then mammals, then humanoids, and finally modern humans.[[/note]] Like its Christian counterpart, it purports to be an alternative to evolution by natural selection; unlike such, it goes in the opposite direction, proclaiming that modern humans have actually existed for far ''longer'' than scientists believe (as in, at least a billion years) and that life has been slowly devolving from more advanced {{precursors}}. |
| 511 | * Many [[HeteronormativeCrusaders right-wing Christian organizations]] such as Focus on the Family counterprotest the Day of Silence, an unofficial day meant to focus on homophobic and transphobic bullying in schools, with "Day of Truth" or "Day of Dialogue" events that try to preach against homosexuality under the guise of "promoting respectable discourse". |
| 512 | * Abstinence-only sex education arose in TheNineties from conservative Christian outrage against sex education programs in public schools, which they felt promoted licentiousness and homosexuality. While they felt that sex education should ideally [[TheTalk come strictly from the parents]], most of them recognized that, between the easy availability of pornography and the fact that most states had sex education as a mandatory part of the curriculum, that was never going to realistically happen, and so they pushed for sex ed programs designed to steer young people away from premarital sex. Most studies on sex education have [[https://www.sciencealert.com/abstinence-only-education-is-more-of-a-hindrance-than-a-help-in-the-us concluded]] that abstinence-only programs have, at best, been far less effective (if at all) at preventing TeenPregnancy and the spread of [=STDs=] than comprehensive ones, and at worst can backfire by leaving sexually active teenagers with little knowledge of safe sex. Regardless, it remains popular in many parts of the US for moral reasons. |
| 513 | ** Though it is not at all what abstinence-only proponents supported or taught, but is consistent with practices in some relatively puritanical, traditional, societies, some young people indoctrinated by abstinence-only sex-education have concluded that anal intercourse were the moral alternative to penevaginal sex. |
| 514 | * Due to Autism Speaks' controversial practices, many opposers have requested support for the Autistic Self Advocacy Network ([=ASAN=]) instead. [=ASAN=] is usually the go-to alternative for Autism Speaks amongst autistic persons and a few organizations. |
| 515 | * Lebanese-born Australian fashion designer Aheda Zanetti came up with the [[http://www.burqini.com/ burqini]] (or burkini) in the 2000s as a Muslim-friendly substitute for women's swimwear, combining the comfort and flexibility of a regular swimsuit with the modesty of a burqa. It unsurprisingly attracted controversy, especially in France, where head and body coverings are banned due to laws on secularism in the country where people are expected to abide by a "religiously neutral arena", though said ban was also ridiculed even by Western and liberal Muslim commentators--British Muslim activist Maajid Nawaz provided a [[EqualOpportunityOffender critique]] of both the burqini and the ban, saying "Burkini is sad symbol of Islam today going backwards on gender issues. Banning it is sad symbol of liberalism today going backwards in reply." The burqini has also been [[PeripheryDemographic adopted]] by non-Muslim women such as Orthodox Jews and skin cancer survivors or those with a high risk thereof, as it allows them the flexibility of swimwear and the protection of wearing full clothing regardless of religious beliefs. |
| 516 | * German [[UsefulNotes/TheStudentenverbindung Studentenverbindungen]] (the local equivalent of college fraternities) originally required all members to regularly duel in a controlled environment (the "Mensur"). This did not sit well with Catholic students, due to the violence involved, so non-dueling Catholic Studentenverbindungen were quickly founded. In addition, due to the wide-spread antisemitism at the time, Jews were often barred from either, so they founded their own as well. |
| 517 | * Discussed heavily in the ''New York'' magazine article [[https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/why-is-there-so-much-christian-sonic-the-hedgehog-fan-art.html "The Pious World of Christian Sonic the Hedgehog Fan Art".]] The author, who was raised Christian, discusses both ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog''[='=]s Christian PeripheryDemographic (described in more detail under [[PeripheryDemographic/VideoGames "Video Games"]]) and how miserable and alienated this trope tended to make the kids involved, many of whom were caught between a desire to rebel and a desire to not offend the authority figures in their lives. |
| 518 | -->''To be a Christian youth-group kid is to be in an eternal state of knowing that you are getting the second-hand versions of everything else that’s cool, and you’re often getting it [[TwoDecadesBehind years after everyone has already moved onto the next thing]]. That your parents and your church are constantly handing you the knockoff that’s not nearly as good, not nearly as fun, and [[TotallyRadical certainly not considered "cool"]] by anyone other than the people handing it to you in the first place.'' |
| 519 | * The Unitarian Universalist religion allows its members to share wisdom from various religions and philosophies (such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, pantheism, humanism, etc.) with each other, which to some would make it a ''moral substitute to religion (and atheism) as a whole''. |
| 520 | * The animal welfare movement and its associated organizations (such as the [=ASPCA=]) is often treated as a slightly less-nutty alternative to [=PETA=] and other organizations of the animal rights movement. The former is focused on outright cruelty and doesn't advocate veganism, so animal welfare organizations are seen as more acceptable to the mainstream, even if [=PETA=] is known for their association with (past-their-prime or not) celebrities who are vegans. |
| 521 | * Hemp may be the healthy alternative to tobacco for smokers as well as for those who are trying to kick the habit, as the plant, being a variety of the ''cannabis sativa'' plant species, differs from marijuana in that it contains no more than 0.3 percent THC, so it doesn't give anybody a high, although it does have the non-psychoactive chemical CBD, which reportedly has health benefits and it calms people down, making it also a moral alternative to marijuana. Hemp with Delta 8 THC is currently seen as the healthy alternative to marijuana, which normally has Delta 9 THC, with Delta 8 giving a less potent high (and also more of a "body high") than Delta 9, and it reportedly doesn't give its users feelings of paranoia and anxiety as does Delta 9. However, since Delta 8 is found in low quantities in hemp, companies that specialize in smokable hemp have to extract it from the plant and then find a way to produce it in larger quantities to make it profitable, useable, and yet have it still be legal according to what hemp growers can do with the plant according to the 2018 Farm Bill in the United States. |
| 522 | * With hardline, vocal atheism gradually falling out of favor with the public following the controversial exploits of New Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and various atheist bloggers/[=YouTubers=], agnosticism (the view that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknowable), the Unitarian Universalist movement, and the "spiritual, but not religious" movement are becoming widely seen as alternatives. Meanwhile, the "[=exvangelical=]" movement later arose as an alternative movement for those exiting evangelical Christianity, given that some "[=exvangelicals=]" still identify as Christian in some way. |
| 523 | * The American Israeli advocacy group J Street acts as a moral substitute for two organizations: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which despite nominally being a "big tent" group has been known for its involvement with conservatives, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a far-left pro-[=BDS=] group. Specifically, J Street attracts left/progressive-leaning Jewish persons and others who support the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, but also oppose [=AIPAC=]'s mingling with conservatives and Jewish Voice for Peace's anti-Israel rhetoric and support for [=BDS=]. |
| 524 | * Following the rise of modern Christian fundamentalism and the New Atheism movement in the 2000s, liberal protestant churches (such as the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church, the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Metropolitan Community Church) have gained status as the moral substitutes for more conservative branches of Christianity, due to holding very progressive views on civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights (with the [=MCC=] even revolving around this particular one), women's rights, and abortion. |
| 525 | * Premier Christian Cruises is a vacation package company that operates cruises for Christian groups, which in itself would make it the moral substitute for entertainment-based cruise operators such as Disney Cruise Lines. |
| 526 | * [=FreedomPHONE=] was launched in 2021 by self-proclaimed "Bitcoin millionaire" Erik Finman. Said to be "a free speech and privacy first focused phone", the phone is aimed at conservatives of the UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump variety, who claim to have been censored by mainstream social media and tech companies, and touts that it comes with its own operating system and "uncensorable" app store. Political issues aside, Finman came in for criticism for being extremely vague about the phone's features and specs, with lots of evidence that, rather than building the phone from scratch like he claimed, Finman just took inexpensive Chinese Android phones, rebranded them, and marked up the price by several hundred percent. In a similar vein is Patriot Mobile, which brands itself as "America's ONLY Christian, conservative wireless company." |
| 527 | * One reason Blockbuster Video became such a cultural juggernaut in the VHS era was that they were able to present themselves as the family-friendly alternative to mom-and-pop video stores by refusing to rent porn or NC-17 titles (which helped kill the latter's commercial viability). That didn't stop them from stocking R-rated or unrated movies with mature content, but they designated those "youth restricted viewing" and would not rent them to those under 17, much as a movie theater would. |
| 528 | * The [[https://soulcore.com/ SoulCore]] exercise movement was founded by those who used to practice yoga, but are disillusioned by its perceived effects on their Christian (i.e. Catholic) faith, especially when Pope Francis [[https://www.catholic.org/news/health/story.php?id=59107 cautioned the faithful]] against the (perceived) spiritual dangers of yoga. Similar "Christian asana"/"Christian yoga" movements have sprung up as well, though they have also been criticised as a form of cultural appropriation by Hindu groups. |
| 529 | * There have been a few attempts at Christian pro-wrestling promotions, including Vince Russo's Ring of Glory promotion (which featured appearances by the likes of Wrestling/{{Abyss}} and Wrestling/RonSimmons, and put out its own home video entitled ''The Great Commission'') and the Texas-based Christian Wrestling Federation. |
| 530 | * Debit cards and cash are this for credit cards for those who dislike debt, as it's impossible to spend more than you have with these payment methods. Debit cards have the same convenience as credit cards, as they use the same payment networks (online and in brick-and-mortar stores) while giving cardholders a sense of living within their means. Layaway, where merchandise is set aside by a retailer for a small down payment and released to the customer when it's fully paid for, is another popular alternative, as it allows a consumer to purchase expensive items without interest. |
| 531 | * Pillow company [[https://www.pillow-fight.com/ Pillow Fight]] offers a product named the Good Pillow, which is meant to be a progressive competitor to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Pillow MyPillow,]] whose founder Mike Lindell is an outspoken supporter of conservative causes. |
| 532 | * The Classic Learning Test (CLT) was created in 2015 as a Christian substitute for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), one of the most popular standardized tests in the United States. The CLT's creator Jeremy Tate believed that the American education system had become too utilitarian at the expense of "transcendent, moral, and ethical ideas," and that the College Board, the non-profit organization that develops and publishes the SAT, had a leftist, secularist bias that unfairly dismissed the "Christian-Catholic intellectual tradition" and the classics. It is used chiefly by private Christian schools and homeschooling parents. |
| 533 | * Effective altruism, or EA, began life as the moral substitute for traditional charities. |
| 534 | ** Born from tech entrepreneurs and investors in the late 2000s who were influenced by the ideas of the Australian philosopher Peter Singer (especially his 1972 essay [[https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/en-US/get-involved/videos-books-and-essays/famine-affluence-and-morality-peter-singer "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"]]), it believed that most major charitable organizations had SkewedPriorities and [[WhiteMansBurden paternalistic attitudes]] rooted in the fixations of [[BourgeoisBohemian rich, moralistic Westerners]], and were pursuing work and causes that didn't actually fix the problems in the world and in some cases [[NiceJobBreakingItHero made things worse]]. Instead, the [=EAs=] took a utilitarian approach to charitable giving, using data-driven models to determine how best to reduce suffering and increase happiness in the world, while also calling on the movement's adherents to forego doing charity work themselves and instead focus on pursuing a high-income career so that they could then donate a large share of their wealth, a philosophy that came to be called "earning to give" or "giving what we can". In its early years, popular causes for EA included public health, disease prevention (malaria nets in particular became a popular symbol of the movement), global poverty, and somewhat controversially, animal welfare (on the grounds that [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman they too can experience suffering]]), and its influence pushed many traditional charities to reevaluate their programs and try to make them more effective. |
| 535 | ** By the late 2010s, however, it started to [[https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2023/02/06/ineffective-altruism-ftx-and-the-future-robot-apocalypse/ go off]] in increasingly esoteric directions. The "longtermist" movement was one of its more controversial offshoots, proclaiming that the effects that decisions might have thousands of years into the future should be considered just as much as their effects over the next few years or decades, and through this came a growing focus on preventing the possible extinction of humanity, especially [[AIIsACrapshoot at the hands of AI run amok]]. Fringe social and sexual views also [[https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassment/ entered EA discourse,]] including the promotion of polyamory (or "polycules") as a more enlightened approach to sexual relationships than monogamy (with its issues of jealousy and possessiveness), a defense of pederasty as a form of mentor/student relationship, and [[https://www.truthdig.com/articles/longtermism-and-eugenics-a-primer/ support for eugenics]] as a way to improve the human race. The "earning to give" philosophy, meanwhile, came in for criticism after the disgrace of the cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, a key investor in many effective altruist charities, with many analyses describing him as somebody who used TheNeedsOfTheMany as moral justification for fleecing others out of billions of dollars so that he could donate it to charity. More general criticisms came from those who argued that the effective altruists were themselves guilty of the same SkewedPriorities and paternalism that they criticized, only this time with a fixation on the interests and moralism of Silicon Valley {{Tech Bro}}s, cloaked behind a language of impartiality and data-driven analysis. |
| 536 | ** And in turn, effective accelerationism was born as an offshoot of effective altruism, but one that rejected its focus on AI risk as a potential world-ending threat and took the opposite perspective on the subject. While the effective altruists came to believe that the development of AI must be carefully guided and imbued with a strong moral and ethical code that would prevent it from [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters turning against its masters]] (or, failing that, [[BanOnAI abolished entirely]][[note]]Creator/EliezerYudkowsky, a major figure in the AI community, wrote [[https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/ a 2023 op-ed]] for ''Magazine/TimeMagazine'' that not only argued for a total, worldwide ban on all AI research on the grounds that [[ApocalypseHow/Class6 the extinction of humanity and all life on Earth]] was too much of a risk, but went so far as to say that an acceptable response to any country that violated this ban would be to ''[[NukeEm nuke them]]''.[[/note]]), the effective accelerationists believe that [[JustThinkOfThePotential the potential benefits of AI for humanity are too great]] to worry about such things, and that following that ethos would strangle AI development and leave humanity trapped in darkness and stagnation, bereft of the technology's bounty. As such, they believe in going full speed ahead on AI research without any restrictions or regard for safety in the name of propelling the world into a new golden age. |
| 537 | [[/folder]] |
| 538 | |
| 539 | !!Fictional Examples |
| 540 | |
| 541 | [[folder:ComicBooks]] |
| 542 | * ''ComicBook/{{Viz}}'' magazine's Modern Parents have started their own more progressive versions of the Internet ("[=CareNet=]") and Greenpeace, complete with a motorised inflatable dinghy named the ''Rainbow Peace-Worker''. Readers familiar with the characters can probably guess how successful they were. |
| 543 | * A brief episode in ''ComicBook/{{Persepolis}}'' depicts the Islamic Republic of Iran trying to develop a Disney-style theme park based on their own mythology. They obviously didn't think this through: Iranian myth is full of unveiled women (and pagan gods, being a pre-Islamic mythology), and once they saw the design they realized that they could neither rewrite their mythic characters nor put veils on them, and they called the whole thing off. |
| 544 | [[/folder]] |
| 545 | |
| 546 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 547 | * ''Film/BobRoberts'' parodies this idea by having the title character as the fanatically conservative child of hippies who uses the folksy musical style of '60s protest songs, with their left-wing populist themes, to express his decidedly right-wing ideology. |
| 548 | * ''Film/ReeferMadnessTheMusical'': in the film version, at the end of "Listen To Jesus, Jimmy," Jesus challenges Jimmy to "take a hit of God" and see if he can "handle the high". Jimmy refuses, saying, "I've got a new god now!" |
| 549 | [[/folder]] |
| 550 | |
| 551 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 552 | * ''Literature/TheTalesOfBeedleTheBard'': According to Professor Dumbledore's notes, some of the stories in this collection of children's stories from the same universe as ''Literature/HarryPotter'' attracted the ire of certain members of the wizarding community, leading to the creation of moral substitutes for these stories. |
| 553 | ** "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot" portrays a Muggle-hating wizard being taught a lesson and thereafter using his magic to help the local Muggles. At the time it was first published InUniverse, Muggle persecution of wizards was gathering pace and many wizards were coming to regard those of their kind who associated with Muggles with suspicion. This led to a revised version of the story being written, in which the titular Hopping Pot chases and swallows Muggles who are hunting the wizard, but releases them in exchange for a promise from those that are left that they will leave the wizard to practise magic in peace. |
| 554 | ** As a child, a witch named Beatrix Bloxam was so traumatised by overhearing "The Warlock's Hairy Heart", the darkest story in the collection, being read to her older cousins that she later rewrote several wizarding children's stories, including most of Beedle's, to make them more suited to [[ChildrenAreInnocent children's innocent ears]]. The result was ''The Toadstool Tales'', which were so SickeninglySweet and filled with twee language that they [[DeconstructedTrope made children physically sick on hearing them]]. |
| 555 | [[/folder]] |
| 556 | |
| 557 | [[folder:Newspaper Comics]] |
| 558 | * A week-long arc of ''ComicStrip/{{Foxtrot}}'' strips was about Andy joining the group "Mothers Against Gory Games" (or M.A.G.G.), which apparently takes it upon themselves to make moral substitutes of violent games. Peter (who spends the week playing [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity "Nice City"]] and is appalled to discover titles like [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil "Resident Good"]], [[VideoGame/EternalDarkness "Eternal Lightness"]], and ''[[VideoGame/PacMan "Pacifist-Man"]]'' on the list of approved games) ends up demanding to know if [[TemptingFate she's trying to make him give up video games all together.]] |
| 559 | -->'''Jason:''' Never ask questions like that.\ |
| 560 | '''Peter:''' Did you see the smile on her face?! |
| 561 | [[/folder]] |
| 562 | |
| 563 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 564 | * Parodied in a viral campaign for ''VideoGame/DantesInferno'', which offered a game at the complete opposite end called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMiRFJzIKA Mass: We Pray]]''. And naturally, [[TakeThat it was presented as]] a game using Platform/{{Wii}}-like technology. The punchline was that, whenever you clicked any link on the fake website for the game (which is now dead), you got a message more in the style of the ''real'' game informing you that performing mass without a real Catholic priest [[YouBastard falls under the sin of Heresy]]. |
| 565 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''[='=]s [[Radio/GTARadio fictional TV shows]] include two parodies of this trope: |
| 566 | ** ''Kung Fu Rainbow Lazer Force'' is a kids' animated series that can be described as a Christian version of ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', pushing the morality of conservative American evangelicals. To be exact, it pushes it off a bridge, with an {{anvilicious}} pro-abstinence message, [[IntelligentFalling embarrassingly bad "science"]], and crude attacks on homosexuals by [[ArmouredClosetGay obvious self-hating closet cases]]. It also plays up Americans' tendency to be overly prudish about sex and not nearly prudish ''enough'' about violence; the show's fight scenes are sometimes pretty much {{Gorn}}, despite being meant for children. |
| 567 | ** ''Impotent Rage'' is a similar parody of ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', and of the "limousine liberal" worldview and liberal moralism in general. The attempts made by the eponymous superhero (a mix of [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Bruce Wayne]] and Ted Turner) to improve the world invariably [[NiceJobBreakingItHero make things worse]], such as when his destruction of a factory owned by a CorruptCorporateExecutive ([[SubvertedTrope who wasn't even very corrupt]]) puts the striking workers he was trying to help out of their jobs. |
| 568 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Pardus}}'', stim chips are these to drugs. Naturally, they're less effective. |
| 569 | * In the AlternateHistoryNaziVictory scenario of ''VideoGame/ThousandWeekReich'', it's noted in a blurb about the 1952 UsefulNotes/OlympicGames in Helsinki that the US, the UK, and the other nations of [[TheAlliance the Toronto Accord]] have been boycotting the Olympics since 1940 and hosting their own alternative games out of a belief that the International Olympic Committee is little more than a pawn of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany, especially after it acquiesced to the Nazis' invasion of Switzerland. |
| 570 | [[/folder]] |
| 571 | |
| 572 | [[folder:Web Comics]] |
| 573 | * ''WebComic/DumbingOfAge'': |
| 574 | ** Joyce's favourite childhood show, ''Hymmal the Humming Hymnal'' (a parody of Psalty The Singing Songbook), with messages like "All the good things we do are God working through us". Joyce shows atheist Dorothy one episode of it, and Dorothy admits afterward that she was never going to enjoy it. |
| 575 | ** Another strip uses one of the real versions to illustrate Joyce's upbringing, when she observes that some board game geeks at a party are playing "some kind of secular version of ''Settlers of Canaan''". |
| 576 | [[/folder]] |
| 577 | |
| 578 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 579 | * ''Literature/FearLoathingAndGumboOnTheCampaignTrailSeventyTwo'': In this AlternateHistory story's SequelSeries, the [[OppressiveStatesOfAmerica authoritarian regime that takes over America]] in the '80s promotes ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' as a "pro-American" alternative to Creator/CharlesDickens' ''Literature/AChristmasCarol'', which was seen as anti-capitalist. Furthermore, with the US' relations with the UK (along with just about the rest of the civilized world) pretty well frozen by that point, a quintessentially British story was deeply unpopular with the political classes. ''It's a Wonderful Life'', by contrast, was seen as promoting a conservative message of wholesomeness, the free market, and American values. Of course, this backfires once people start seeing the villainous Henry Potter as representative of the far-right corporate plutocrats running the US; posters of the President's face with "Potterville" written across them start popping up at protests around Christmas. |
| 580 | * ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNZEfafbjSE Creationist Cosmos]]'' is a spoof of this created by ''Creator/FunnyOrDie'', in response to RealLife creationists [[GoldenMeanFallacy complaining of not getting "equal time"]] on ''[[Series/{{Cosmos}} Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey]]''. |
| 581 | [[/folder]] |
| 582 | |
| 583 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 584 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', with its broad satire of American pop culture, has parodied this trope on more than one occasion, often involving the rabidly Christian Ned Flanders. |
| 585 | ** The episode "I'm Goin' to Praiseland" has Ned Flanders opening a theme park called Praiseland, a parody of Heritage USA and the Holy Land Experience. The park quickly becomes a dud, with visitors finding it too focused on Sunday School-style evangelism at the expense of entertainment, until an apparent miracle at the park (actually the result of a dangerous gas leak) causes attendance to skyrocket. Unfortunately, when Homer and Ned discover the gas leak that could turn into a gas explosion that could kill everyone if it comes into contact with a flame, Homer & Ned stop the orphans from lighting candles by pushing them away, which shocks the visitors into leaving Praiseland, which is shut down for good in the midst of the controversy. |
| 586 | ** In "Alone Again, Natura-Diddily", Rod and Todd Flanders are seen playing ''Billy Graham's Bible Blaster'', a parody of Christian video games. |
| 587 | --->'''Rod Flanders:''' No, you just winged him and turned him into a Unitarian! |
| 588 | ** In "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy", Lisa, disgusted by the questionable messages that the Malibu Stacy doll (a parody of Franchise/{{Barbie}}) sends to young girls, creates the Lisa Lionheart doll as a more positive role model. She even gets help in designing the doll from Stacy Lovell, the original designer of Malibu Stacy who was kicked out of the company she created. Unfortunately, Lisa Lionheart flops despite a ton of hype, with everybody distracted by the new Malibu Stacy doll (with new hat!) that came out on the same day. |
| 589 | ** In "Homer's Barbershop Quartet", Ned was offering trading cards similar to baseball cards but based on religious figures. Bart, Milhouse, and Nelson were actually a little intrigued and almost fell for it until Ned told them that "learning about religion can be fun", the boys run away. |
| 590 | ** In "Homer & Ned's Hail Mary Pass", after Homer does a victory dance which Ned catches on video, it becomes a viral sensation, leading to Tom Brady, [=LeBron=] James, Michelle Kwan, Yao Ming, and Warren Sapp asking Homer to show them his victory dance. Later on, when Homer is asked to choreograph the Super Bowl halftime show, he can't think of anything, so he asks Ned Flanders for help, and Ned decides the Super Bowl would be the perfect venue for his halftime show about Noah's Ark. After the halftime show concludes, the Super Bowl audience hates it, accusing Homer & Ned of using the Super Bowl halftime show as a platform for promoting and imposing Christianity on the country with their "blatant display of decency". |
| 591 | ** In "Sex, Pies, and Idiot Scrapes", Ned mentions "[=AD/BC=]": A Christian cover band of AC/DC. One of their hits being "Kindly Deeds Done for Free". |
| 592 | * ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'': |
| 593 | ** The first HalloweenEpisode, "[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS2E4Hilloween Hilloween]]", has a MoralGuardian do her best to ban Halloween in Arlen out of her belief that it's Satanic. As an alternative celebration for the local kids, she sets up a "Hallelujah House", which served mainly to [[{{Anvilicious}} beat them over the head]] with such Christian Aesops as "Premarital sex kills instantly". As conservative as Hank is, he finds the holiday perfectly enjoyable as is and objects to her efforts. |
| 594 | ** In "[[Recap/KingOfTheHillS8E2RebornToBeWild Reborn To Be Wild]]", Bobby gets interested in Christianity due to a group of devout skateboarders and connects to a Christian rock preacher. Hank spends most of the episode looking kind of bad (since he started off wanting Bobby to care more about their faith, but hates the direction he's taking with it), but in the end he explains that he just doesn't want Bobby to treat something that should be important as a mere fad, like his long-forgotten Troll Dolls and Tamagochi. |
| 595 | * Early on in the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Airport '07", Peter embraces a redneck lifestyle and watches ''[[Creator/CarlSagan Carl Sagan's]] [[Series/CosmosAPersonalVoyage Cosmos: Edited for Rednecks]]'' where Sagan's voice is intermittently dubbed over with a hillbilly accent replacing the scientific explanations with young earth creationist ones, before ending on something even dumber. |
| 596 | -->'''Carl Sagan:''' I'm Carl Sagan. Just how old is our planet? Scientists believe it is four bi-'''hundreds and hundreds of years old.''' Scientists have determined that the universe was created by a-'''Gooooooooooooooooooooood'''-ig bang. If you look at the bones of a-'''Jesus'''-asaurus Rex it is clear by the use of carbon dating that-'''[[NonSequitur Mountain Dew is the best soda ever made.]]''' |
| 597 | [[/folder]] |
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