Hypocrisy Nod - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sideshow Bob: By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out.

— The Simpsons

So, you want to criticize something, and you could be viewed as hypocritical for doing so, since some of the criticism would apply to you, as well. How do you avoid being called a hypocrite? Quite simply, by saying, or implicitly noting, the hypocrisy of what you're saying.

This works on the same principle as a Lampshade Hanging; it dismisses a problem by bringing it to the fore briefly. Whether it works or not depends on exactly how hypocritical you're being.

Examples:

Live Action TV

This may have happened on Tim And Eric Awesome Show Great Job. Tim and Eric recruited David Liebe Hart, a down-on-his-luck California public access TV icon, and they make fun of the acts he takes seriously by putting them in the context of a show on Adult Swim. Later on, during the fake Distant Finale, another actor impersonates David Liebe Hart and makes fun of this very practice.
On Good Eats, Alton will note when the advice he's giving contradicts something that he's said in a previous episode, and explain the reasons for the change. The most notable example is his "STUFFING IS EVIL" stance; he originally decried stuffing as being a horrible cooking method, and since has multiply clarified his views to mean specifically that stuffing turkeys is a bad idea, while it works quite well with some other foods.
- And then he did an entire episode devoted to stuffing turkeys.

Real Life

Occasionally seen in online debates.
This is the whole idea behind the the phrase, "Do as I say, not as I do."
"We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..." The overall consensus among historians is that the Founding Fathers were well aware of just how hypocritical that statement actually was when they used it.
- But since they do not acknowledge it, this looks like a case of plain old hypocrisy.
- Actually, this hypocrisy was supposed to be acknolwedged, and even acted upon. Originally, the Declaration of Independence was supposed to include a section that admitted there were inequaliies even within the states, and it was going to mention the abolition of slavery as a step towards true equality. Political pressure forced Thomas Jefferson to remove that section.
  - Of course, Jefferson himself held slaves, which only adds yet another layer to this whole situation.

Video Games

Played for drama (and technically after the fact) in Fate Stay Night. After berating Shirou the entire route and the two before it for being too soft to kill, Tohsaka realizes she is too as she can't bring herself to stab Sakura and is nearly killed instead. 'I guess I can't get mad at Shirou anymore.'

Web Original

Noted comic book writer/artist Keith Giffen did it in this column:
14) Just because you don't know what to do with a character is no reason to kill the character...
15) ... unless it's Karate Kid.
- And again:
  21) Here's a horrifying thought, retell "Watchmen" using the Charlton characters. The horrifying part is, I'd bet money that something along those lines has already been floated past the powers that be at DC.
  22) Okay... It was me. I'm a whore. Sue me.
Zero Punctuation did it twice, both times in a Credits Gag line amounting to, "I'm aware of the hypocrisy of this."
- One instance was his complaint about death in an Adventure Game (Zack & Wiki) and overzealous dependency on inventory-based puzzles and the items needed to solve them in Adventure Games in general, since he himself had made an adventure game where the player could get killed and puzzles were solved in this exact way.
- The other instance was his critique of webcomics, since he himself has had several series over the years (which "came out of a dark time in his life from which he has determinedly moved on without a backward glance").
Nostalgia Critic has starting doing this almost every third episode, when he complains about something in the reviewed content that his show does constantly, include constant shouting, recording over a blank background, and overly-long running jokes.

Webcomics

VGCats did nod this way at least once.
- Twice. (After a long time with no updates. And on a Tuesday, no less.)
pictures for sad children. Check out the Alt Text.
The last panel of this Shortpacked strip.
This Backward Compatible strip.

Western Animation

The Simpsons: Sideshow Bob: "Yes, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on television in order to decry it, so don't bother pointing that out."
- On a related note, the movie version of Fahrenheit 451 played this up by having an announcer read the opening credits instead of putting them onscreen. In a very stylish moment, at the end when Montag is among the Book People, words appear on the screen for the first time to say The End.
An episode of Brandy And Mr Whiskers has Whiskers obsessed with a portable video game. At the end, he states that he's learned his lesson, that there's better things to do then spend hours after hours staring at a flickering screen. Brandy pauses, looks at the screen, and nervously asks if the moral applies to television. Whiskers, realizing the Broken Aesop, immediately says one can never watch too much television. A cartoon remote then turns them off.
General Wade Eiling in Justice League Unlimited uses a Nazi Super Soldier serum to turn into a Hulk Expy in order to defeat Superman as a show of America's strength. Instead he runs into seven human Leaguers with various trick weapons and completely wipes the floor with them, all the while ranting about how superpowered beings are dangerous. He's eventually called on being the only one present with actual superpowers, and acknowledges that he's become the very thing he seeks to destroy. He then retreats and is never heard from again.

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