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"I don't know why everyone loves this show so much, the characters are so sick!"
The writer has a vision. They've created a character who represents everything they loathe, and have placed him in a world that satirizes everything they hate about modern society. Bring on the Moral Guardians and Media Watchdogs; he's not afraid of the controversy his work is going to bring on!
Only… it doesn't quite work like that. Instead of seeing a loathsome, hateful figure, the audience sees a Woobie who only is the way he is because of his daddy issues, and feel sorry for him instead of hating him… or even find him cute. They take the satire the author painstakingly created at face-value. The Crapsack World the writer has created is somewhere they think is pretty awesome. They have, In the writer's view, completely missed the point and avoided the subtext that the writer had thought was obvious, only to see the text-text — and they like the text-text.
They’ve become a Misaimed Fandom. It’s around this point that the writer learns exactly how different they are from their fans… and, often, actively begins to hate them.
There are many paths leading to a Misaimed Fandom, but many of them originate from the idea of the ' Death Of The Author' theory; the idea that the author's position as creator of the text does not mean that the only interpretations of the text with merit are those the author agrees with. No matter how many times Word Of God states their case, there's always going to be a large perspective of the readers who will have their own interpretations which are quite different. And they're always going to be able to find something in the text to help their case, whether the author intended it to be there or not.
In some cases, the fans may genuinely be seeing something that isn't there, or not reading the text close enough. After all, everyone’s got a reading of the text, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've read the text closely; some people just read things at face-value and don’t take on board deeper meanings, or don't realize when they're being mocked. Or, conversely, the reader looks too closely and bases an erroneous interpretation on that; after all, there's no guarantee that the author is going to be aware of all the symbolism that someone is finding, especially if it’s based on something very obscure. Unfortunately, in these cases those involved can stumble a bit too closely to Fan Dumb, especially if they're loudly and stubbornly clinging to an interpretation that just blatantly isn't there.
Often, however, the fans know full well that their interpretation of the text isn't that of the author's, but choose their own interpretation anyway; they may be aware that the author is satirizing them and their views, but they're good sports and can appreciate a well-done jab in the ribs, especially if it's not without affection. Maybe they know that the character is supposed to be evil, but his villainy is is done with such flair that it's impossible not to be impressed. Furthermore, authors, at times, may unwittingly create a character or write a story at odds with their original intention, or include a subtext in the work that they didn’t consciously intend to provide, but their subconscious provided for them; it's not unheard of.
And sometimes the Misaimed Fandom stems from the fact that the author's simply not that good a writer; if no one gets an intended aesop, then the author may simply have communicated that aesop poorly. The audience may have missed the satire because the author didn't clearly establish that it was supposed to be a satire. They may have set up their opponents as a Strawman Political, only to mess it up and make the Strawman’s arguments more logical and valid than their hero's. In these cases, the fandom is misaimed because the author's botched the sights on the rifle. Conversely, even a well-written work can form a Misaimed Fandom unintentionally by making the satire or intended aesop too subtle; many is the writer who met a stumbling block by being a bit too clever-clever or subtle when they could have perhaps been a bit more obvious if they wanted to get their point across more clearly, since despite what some authors seem to think, being Anvilicious is not always a bad thing, especially if the intended aesop is a point that badly needs to be made.
See also Draco In Leather Pants, Ensemble Darkhorse, Finagles Law, Truffaut Was Right and The Strawman Strikes Back. Compare Isnt It Ironic for more musical examples. Misaimed Fandom is also a frequent cause of Creator Backlash and result of Alternate Character Interpretation. Often, the writer can try and force their interpretation by making the character jump off the Moral Event Horizon. Dis Continuity is a weapon frequently used by the Misaimed Fans to keep their preferred interpretation alive and well. And while its certainly not always the case it can be what happens when the idea of Viewers Are Morons is actually true. Contrast with Rooting For The Empire, where the fandom knows that these are bad guys they're rooting for, and still support them anyway.
Examples:
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Anime
- Rei in Neon Genesis Evangelion was intended as a Creepy Emotionless Girl. The fandom reaction? Three words: "ZOMGF TEH REI!!!!11!1". Director Hideaki Anno took personal issue that Rei was fetishized among otaku for that exact reason. Also, the enigmatic single-episode character Kaworu became popular to the surprise of the writers, who admitted they were writing him to be unsettling. It doesn't help that for all their supposed unsettling qualities, they're still the only characters in the series (with the possible exception of Misato) to show genuine respect and affection towards Shinji, or, for that matter towards anyone at all (which only serves to further emphasise how utterly warped the cast of Evangelion are). Also, as shallow as it sounds, the biggest mistake Anno and crew made was that they made Kaworu too "pretty". It sounds awfully callous, but if Kaworu looked older and a lot "uglier," Anno would've most likely accomplished his goal of making Kaworu more unsettling.
- The ending of the Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch manga was supposed to insinuate that love wasn't as important as personal fulfillment: Hanon and Rina know they will eventually have to choose to rule their kingdoms instead of staying on the surface. (This is analogous to the original The Little Mermaid story, except Lucia gets to keep Kaito.) Fans generally ignore this and give them future children with Nagisa and Hamasaki (Masahiro).
- Kujibiki Unbalance was a Show Within A Show in the anime Genshiken made to parody nearly every romance anime by following all of the tropes. Kujibiki Unbalance was too spot on; it became a highly successful spinoff, while Genshiken itself almost didn't get a second season. (It was delayed almost a year.)
- Ouran High School Host Club was intended to make fun of the school romance/bishounen harem genre. It includes many common character and plot tropes; however, many fans don't seem to realize or care that the tropes are not being played straight. Other fangirls are capable of self-deprecation. It's not like Ouran is serious, anyway.
- With Serial Experiments Lain, producer Yasuyuki Ueda hoped to stir a "cultural war" (seriously) between traditional Japanese and American values, due to the latter's perceived negative influence on post-WWII Japan. His hope with Lain was to create a story that would be interpreted differently in the East and West and spark discussions on their cultural differences and perspectives. American fans interpreted the plot the same way as Japanese fans, which suggests that either Lain wasn't enough of a Mind Screw for his purposes, or Americans and Japanese are not that different at all...
- According to series creator Kazuki Takahashi, the main point of Yu-Gi-Oh! was intended to be friendship. Unfortunately, the children's card game (that is almost always one-on-one!) element got out of control and is now the dominant aspect of the franchise. Also, Anzu Mazaki is infamous for her "friendship speeches" in the second series of the anime. She is also the most bashed by the fangirls, even when, technically, she's not the one who makes the most speeches.
- Then we get into Yugioh 5D's and Dark Magical Girl Aki Izayoi. Much of her story has to do with her redeeming herself after being the Black Rose Witch and harming people in duels. Unfortunately she's Hot and angsty. So the fanbase is so in love with her that in their eyes, she's not only already redeemed, but was always a perfect angel in the first place who never hurt anyone. Way to skip the character development, fanbunnies.
- No, those of us who were fans of Aki are annoyed at how what appeared to be a badass lady was derailed into a helpless moe blob who can't think for herself. We liked the badass psycho who killed people, not the inoffensive moe blob who, by all indications, will be spending her time in season 3 tutoring the children while the men folk do all the real work.
- Lest we forget, Seto Kaiba from the original. In spite of his stubbornness and ambivalence, people admire him for his devotion to Mokuba and/or his authoritative traits.
- Rurouni Kenshin fans who complain how much it sucks that Kenshin doesn't kill anyone, despite this being a major, plot-critical character trait.
- Sorry to destroy your fantasies, Mai-HiME fans, but Shizuru's love (if it can be called that) for Natsuki is not the sane, healthy kind of love. Or have you forgotten how she murdered Haruka, Nao's mom, and a lot of people from the First District (not that they didn't deserve it, but heck...) all because she wanted to destroy everything that Natsuki disliked? (Italian fandom did not forget, by the way: many Italian Mai-HiME fans hate Shizuru with a searing passion.) Unfortunately, because Shizuru is such a Draco In Leather Pants, many fans will simply shrug that off as Character Derailment and continue to ship her with Natsuki. The ambiguity with which Word Of God treats the issue does not help. Many fans say they grit their teeth and put up with it because if they didn't, writers would continue using the Psycho Lesbian method to sink the yuri ship.
- While some Mai-Otome fans actively hate Smug Snake Tomoe Marguerite, others consider her a sympathetic character who did evil deeds out of pure love for Shizuru. While it is possible that HiME!Shizuru was "just looking out for Natsuki", that can't be said of Tomoe and Shizuru; Tomoe is shown to be in this solely for herself from day one and goes completely nuts when Shizuru tells her she's not interested.
- While not as bad as Light Yagami, many people don't seem to understand what Lelouch of Code Geass is. They see him as a badass Marty Stu instead of the Byronic Hero he is. Lelouch has several principles he tries to live by, with "the strong must not harm the weak" being tops. Over the course of the series, Lelouch must break these principles for what he sees as the greater good. By episode 20 of R2, he goes past the point of no return, having used his strength to kill or ruin the lives of hundreds of weak people. Fittingly, his final opponent is Nunnally, a small crippled girl; Lelouch, after achieving victory, has also thrown away the principles he lived by, and he becomes a broken man full of self-loathing (even comparing himself to the Devil). Not wanting to be his father, Lelouch then plans to die for not only his sins, but the sins of his family. The fans seem incapable of seeing all that; they cheer the self-destruction of Lelouch. They want to have a sequel where he shows up as a complete badass saving everyone. Apparently, those fans think he's Batman.
- Then there are the people who compare him to Jesus Christ! Word Of God has made it clear that the entire thing was Redemption Equals Death, and Lelouch's own pride made him do what he did; he is not The Messiah. There is also confusion in stating that Lelouch died for the Earth's sins; he set it up so the people would hate him and not each other, thus ending the animosity between the UFN and Britannia. The Earth didn't magically become better (once again from Word Of God); it will only improve through hard work by Nunnaly, Kallen, and Suzaku.
- Despite supposedly being for "protecting the weak," Lelouch has used many people and, when to his advantage, betrayed and disposed of them when they were no longer useful. He says he hates his father but follows his father's ideology - just not as far.
- Cornelia li Britannia has also had her own barbaric tendencies towards non-Britannians overlooked in light of her sibling love. And that was her only redeeming quality in season one, and she still hadn't atoned or suffered for what she did the way Lelouch did.
- Kaleido Star features a deconstruction of the typical Naive Everygirl shoujo heroine with traces of Purity Sue. It makes the main character face rejection and has her fight for her prowess. While it's true that the writing was often uneven and made Sora quite the Butt Monkey at some points, a part of the fandom has decided that both her boss/mentor and her Tsundere rival from the second season are OMG EB0L UNREDEEMABLE PR1CKS who jerk off to the thought of Sora failing, instead of a Stern Teacher and Team Dad who is as hard on Sora and others (yes, even Layla) as he is on himself and a borderline Libby who pays the price for being arrogant and immature. It seems they went overboard and want Sora to be spoon-fed success and fame, or something.
- Wolf's Rain fangirls who sympathize too much with the wolves, claiming that "They don't really want to hurt anyone," even though many killings happen on-screen. The only one who shows any remorse is Toboe. Kiba, the human-intolerant leader, gets squeed over by fangirls as well — but even if he were human, he would still be a messed-up, violent, bad-tempered misanthrope. It's not that he's bad — he does grow into a caring and capable leader — but it's unlikely that a fangirl can use The Power Of Love alone to cure his issues. Especially if she's human. But it's understandable. Their human-looking forms are all Bishounen, after all.
- Gundam SEED/Gundam SEED Destiny fans who think either Blue Cosmos/LOGOS or Well Intentioned Extremist Durandal were right. Word Of God is that Durandal thought what he was doing was right, which some fans have exaggerated into claiming that it outright states that Dullindal/Durandal/whatever translation you use was right in the first place, but the fact that he was going to use a weapon of mass destruction against the countries who were against his Destiny Plan certainly does not play in his favour, and one can't blame the fandom who supports Kira, Lacus and Terminal, when they prove to be the lesser of the three evils. This is one of those cases where Word Of God must be taken with a grain of salt.
- Also? Hello, Gundam 00 fandom. Louise Halevy isn't the second coming of Katejina Loos, thank you. Louise has no in-character reason whatsoever to believe that A-LAWS are bad guys or that the Celestial Beings aren't a bunch of terrorists with Saji being their old accomplice. Because, you know, top brass of A-LAWS are not keen to spread word of their own atrocities, and their information control is stated as top-notch about every second episode. Saji didn't even mention all of the above to her.
- Also, in Char's Counterattack, there are quite a few fans who maintain that Char was the hero. Despite, you know, trying to drop an asteroid on Earth. Char himself considers this act as Necessary Evil, but evil nonetheless.
- Magical Girl anime gets a nasty rash of Misaimed Fandom. Pretty Cure, Tokyo Mew Mew, Shugo Chara and Sailor Moon all had a rather dubious rep for attracting more otakus than kids. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha simply cut itself off from the kids part and catered to the big boys with Super Robot Wars style combat.
- Even with the Genre Shift, a large portion of the Nanoha fanbase have fixated on the shipping war between various characters instead of the often brilliant characterizations and technical elements, which the creators were clever enough to play for everything it was worth in later seasons.
- A large portion of the Naruto fandom wants to see Nagato suffer a brutal Karmic Death at the hands of Naruto, despite the entire point of the character being that revenge leads to hatred and war and Naruto being entrusted with Jiraiya's dream to find a way to end war without violence and through understanding.
- Other people criticize Kishimoto for trying to make Nagato a sympathetic character in spite of all he's done, when he was already revealed to be an orphan and a very different person in the past back in Chapter 372 . Then again, Pain's Moral Event Horizon crossings in Chapters 429(destroying Konoha) and 437(Almost killing Hinata) were shocking enough to make readers forget Nagato's past and want him dead.
- There also seems to be a division among the fandom over Danzo of all people. He's either the most evil human being to ever exist in any reality ever no matter what or he's a misunderstood Well Intentioned Extremist who just needs a hug. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. While he is something of a Well Intentioned Extremist, it's pretty clear that Danzo is not a good person. He's done some pretty awful stuff in the name of defending Konoha, many of which may qualify as severe overreactions.
- To this day, there are a lot of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann fans who refuse to accept that Simon is the main character of the series. These people often cast Kamina as the "real" main character, ignoring the fact that their "real" main character dies 8 episodes into a 27 episode series. Perhaps it has something to do with Kamina being more... boisterous than Simon, or perhaps impetuous?
Comic Books
- The DC Comics character Lobo started as an overt parody of the Nineties Anti Hero. Ironically, he evolved from parody to the real thing and was later be featured in the Marvel/DC crossover book with Wolverine. Considering Lobo was partly based on him, some fans felt he was being taken too seriously; others shouted that he wasn't being taken seriously enough, since Wolverine beat him.
- Considering the crossover's winners were literally decided by fan vote is it any surprise Lobo lost. I seem to remember Lobo being paid to throw the fight as well.
- Rorschach from Watchmen was intended to be a deconstruction of the objectivist superheroes created by Steve Ditko, most notably The Question and Mr. A: the embodiment of all that is repellent about Ditko's worldview and, at the same time, all that is noble about it. Rorschach is intelligent and uncompromising to evil, but a completely Ax Crazy dog kicker as a result. He is delusional and paranoid, but sometimes properly so when no one else is. He is a loner, unfettered by society's restrictions, but an ugly person with disgusting habits and prejudices who constantly rejects those who try to help him, and so on. Far too many readers and creators overlooked his more unsavory aspects and saw him as unambiguously heroic and unambiguously cool (or, most strangely unambiguously ''sexy''... which he is not). As a result, Rorschach (along with the Batman of Dark Knight Returns) became the template for the less nuanced (and far more glorified) Dark Age Nineties Anti Hero. Alan Moore is known to deeply regret this; he never intended for Rorschach to be a role model and is reportedly disgusted when he receives fan-mail containing variations of the sentiment "Our society needs people like Rorschach."
- The comic-book Question had a brief story where he read Watchmen, noted Rorschach's similarity to himself, and decided to give the former's methods a try. It ended with an escaped criminal, a badly bruised Question, and the conclusion that "Rorschach sucks" as a role-model. It's something of a Take That to everyone who missed the point.
- Similarly, a number of 2000AD readers seemed to miss the satire of Judge Dredd and thought that this sort of extreme law enforcement sounded like a good thing. For that matter, so did Sylvester Stallone in interviews concerning The Movie. Clearly, a 6 month — 2 year sentence for littering will solve America's problems.
- This happened to R. Crumb a lot — most notably with his iconic "Keep On Truckin'" character/pose, which was adopted by many rock-loving hippies as their "mascot," as it were. The truth was, Crumb was making fun of rock music lovers, who in his eyes were doing "The Dance of Cultural Death" (as he put it). He even explained it in a comic in The R. Crumb Coffee Table Art Book and told his (probably now disillusioned) hippie fans: "KEEP ON TRUCKIN', SCHMUCKS!". (This was followed by Mr. Natural remarking: "Don't forget, Bob, that it was the compassion, the loving forgiveness, that they found so appealing in your cartoons, that made you so popular, that got you laid, that earned you a living. Keep it in mind!")
- Mr. Natural ended his series in an insane asylum as his former followers commented about how he was impossibly out of touch with the world. What does that tell you about R. Crumb?
- And then there's his satirical race-related comics. (There's a very thin line between parodying racism and being racist.) Crumb's over-the-top satires of American prejudice, "When the N***ers Take Over America" and "When the Goddamn Jews Take Over America," which appeared back-to-back in the last issue of his Weirdo magazine in 1993, subsequently appeared without authorization on hate-group websites.
- Darby Conley's Get Fuzzy has attracted a moderately sized vegan high school and collegiate fanbase due to numerous appearances of PeTA apparel. The catch? Bucky uses PETA as a shield for misbehaving under the guise of a revolt against whatever stick is up his butt during that installment, while Satchel is too dumb to know what they're really all about. This isn't official support from the organization - just many younger members without enough English courses under their belt to recognize the mockery of their hijinks. (And maybe a few who don't care.) Will usually occur in forums, blogs, journals, or news commentary box debates.
- Jhonen Vasquez repeatedly takes pages out of his Johnny The Homicidal Maniac and Squee series to Take That to various people he feels are enjoying his comic for the wrong reasons. One extended story in Johnny The Homicidal Maniac is about a serial-killing fanboy of Johnny's. Since Johnny is a character who goes around murdering the most annoying people in the typical Vasquez Crapsack World, it's not hard to see why some people might get the wrong idea.
- In the infamous Chick Tracts, readers are supposed to agree with everything the protagonists say, but there is a significant "fandom" that finds the over-the-top nature unintentionally hilarious. In addition, on first reading them, many people assume that they are intended as a parody. They are serious.
- The sheer number of times he breaks Godwins Law, such as making parallels between abortion doctors and Nazis killing babies; or has Straw Secularists/Liberals (especially in schools), such as the dystopia in "Last Generation" which has the security and language of Oceania, the religious politics of Left Behind, and the social politics of Straw Liberal states, with a touch of "concentration camps" for parents who discipline their children — it makes it difficult for one to accept them as serious arguments unless one realizes that there are more extreme people out there
 .
- Satirical depictions of politicians are almost inevitably popular with their targets (with the notable exception of Steve Bell's take on former British Prime Minister John Major.) Often, they will contact the cartoonist, or the paper it was published in, to ask for a copy or the original, probably thinking it's better if people are making fun of them than just ignoring them. Ralph Steadman declared he would only depict politician's arses to prevent this.
- Embracing the satirist (or impressionist) is an intelligent tactic that most politicians should at least pretend to embrace. Laugh along with the scorn and you're the fun-loving dude who can laugh at himself. Express distaste, even at an awful, unfunny portrayal, and you're the scowling buzzkill with a stick up your ass.
- The rapid transformation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the sort of Merchandise Driven juggernaut it was originally meant to parody had a lot to do with this. The creators and later licensees seem to have decided to run with the misaimed version instead of trying to fight it.
- Apparently, we were supposed to agree with the Pro-Registration side in Civil War. Joe Quesada stated that the Pro-Regs were right, anyway. Seriously. We were expected to like Cap's side at first (that's why they showed the Pro-Regs as complete bastards), but eventually side with Iron Man. It didn't work. Most writers in Marvel hate Iron Man these days, making him out to be a fascist crazy instead of a troubled man who thought he was doing what had to be done to keep the SHRA from becoming worse.
- Some people read Kingdom Come just because they like the Antiheroes, this is missing the fact that Kingdom Come was writen as a cricism of that kind of character.
- It also doesn't help that many of the characters created for Kingdom Come have found their way into the main DCU continuity through the pages of the JSA. Even Magog, the character created the showcase everything wrong with the Dark Age was reused in Action Comics and even got his own serries recently.
Comedian Characters
- Sacha Baron Cohen relies on this phenomenon when performing in the character of Borat — he presents what can only be described as an over-the-top, wholly unbelievable portrayal of a backwards, anti-Semitic Central Asian reporter, expressing opinions that most people would find intolerable, and in so doing, gets people to agree with those opinions. Perhaps the ultimate example is "In My Country There Is Problem", which starts off innocently enough before launching into the chorus "Throw the Jew down the well/So my country can be free..." which the audience had no reservations at all about singing along to. The video is both hilarious and very, very disturbing.
- Similarly, Baron Cohen's Ali G character was intended as a satire of white guys trying to be black but was ultimately worshiped by the very people it criticized.
- Jamie Kennedy's character B-Rad. B-Rad was a satire of white kids who want to be black along the same lines as Ali G, but those who only saw him in Malibu's Most Wanted might not know how much Jamie Kennedy despised the character. He mocks it in his standup act.
- Harry Enfield's sketch character "Loadsamoney" was intended as a biting parody of smug, narcissistic, possessions-obsessed yuppies. Guess who became the character's biggest fans.
- Sarah Silverman, especially when her fans drool over her looks, demonstrating one of the attitudes she mercilessly satirizes.
"I don't care if you think I'm racist, I just want you to think I'm thin."
- Stephen Colbert's character has been mistaken for real more than once. A fan asked him about this before a taping of The Colbert Report:
Fan: What do you think of conservatives who watch your show and think you're serious about what you say?
Stephen: It just goes to show that we haven't gotten rid of all the lead paint in our houses.
- This extended to the White House, who asked him to address the White House Press Corps dinner. Hilarity Ensued. In fact, a recent study has shown that conservative fans think he 'only pretends to be joking', and that it's the liberals who are being duped. Notably, this line of thought requires you to believe that the fake-liberal Colbert keeps up his act 24/7, backstage and in interviews. Wild Mass Guessing come to life?
- Dutch comedians Kees van Koten en Wim de Bie had it happen to them with their characters Jacobse en van Es. Originally, they were supposed to be smalltime crooks, until, in 1980, they decided to start a political party called de Tegenpartij (the Opposing Party) with the motto "geen gezeik, iedereen rijk" which means "no complaining, everybody rich" ("geen gezeik" is Dutch slang for "no peeing" and by extension "no complaining"). It was supposed to be a spoof on all the extreme right political parties. Unfortunately, said political parties had no sense of satire and openly embraced the Tegenpartij. As a result, on May 10th 1981, Jacobse en van Es were shot to death while staging a coups d'etat in The Hague. Van Koten en de Bie were very sorry to have to retire such favourite characters of theirs, and had them come back from the dead several times.
Close Comedian Characters
Film
- The Joker gets this. ALL THE TIME! Look him up on Deviant Art.com.
- Extreme example: There is a sequence in the movie version of Pink Floyd's The Wall where Pink hallucinates that he is a fascist leader, leading a vicious army of skinheads. This scene is meant as a look at the relationship between a performer and his fans... but a group of Real Life white supremacists didn't get the joke and based themselves off the scene, adopting the crossed-hammers symbol of Pink's army and dubbing themselves the "Hammerskins".
- Even the album it's based on was influenced by misaimed fandom; Roger Waters (Pink Floyd's bassist and leader) once stated this in an interview. During the tour for Animals, members of the audience were so crazed that a mesh fence had to be erected between the stage and the seats, creating a literal wall. (It was not lost on Waters.) In one incident, a fan climbed up the fence; Waters insulted and spat on him... and the fan went nuts. Not mad, but happy. Waters decided that a metaphysical wall existed and started working on the album.
- Gordon Gekko from Wall Street was supposed to represent the worst excesses of the 1980s. Many people took him as a role model, taking his famous "Greed is Good" speech at face value. Michael Douglas did too good a job at making him charming.
- Jarhead [1] includes a scene in which the marines cheer for Apocalypse Now [2]. On the commentary track, it is noted that marines never see anti-war movies as such; the book the movie is based on goes so far as to say that there are no true anti-war movies precisely because this trope will always kick in.
- Case in point: there are tales of Marines cheering the "soldier mutilates an Iraqi corpse" scene in Jarhead.
- Despite the fact that Paul Verhoven is anti-war and anti-fascism (likely from having bombs dropped by fascists in his backyard as a child), people will accuse him from now until judgement day that Starship Troopers glorifies war, fascism, and blind, jingoistic patriotism. To think Paul Verhoven made the mistake of being too subtle.
- People who worship Sarah Connor of Terminator 2 Judgement Day as a paragon of feminist virtue tend to be the ones who ignore the fact she is a cruel, violent, emotionally unstable bad-mother who is actually deconstructing militant feminism rather than celebrating it.
- Leaving Las Vegas was criticized for glamorizing alcoholism. Apparently, these people missed the bit where the protagonist decides he's going to drink himself to death and does. Then again, that summary can translate easily to "alcohol is worth dying for".
- Many, many mobster movies, such as The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino and Scarface?. Far too many people see the big houses, beautiful women, expensive cars, and fancy suits and think of the protagonists as "men of honor". They completely forget that the characters are thieves, murderers, and drug dealers who lose everything and everybody close to them by the end. Worse still in that some of these movies are based on real events. The horrible things that the lead does in Goodfellas have Real Life analogues: Goodfellas was The Movie of a nonfiction book. Henry Hill was a real person.
- Taxi Driver has Robert DeNiro trying to kill a politician. Some guy watched the movie many times, got obsessed with Jodie Foster and, after many attempts to contact her, decided to impress her by shooting President Reagan...
- Taxi Driver scriptwriter Paul Schrader blames Executive Meddling for the intentional toning down of Travis Bickle's racism (he was much more susceptible to muttering about the N-words and W-words, in addition to inciting hate crimes), thus making De Niro's character a complex counterculture icon rather than the paranoid, simpleminded racist the character was intended to be.
- Many of the great Slasher Movie killers (Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, etc) have developed intense fan-bases and have become the protagonists of the movies made about them — this despite their being, to a man, psychotic, depraved and, in many cases, literally demonic serial killers who are almost all very very weird when it comes to sex. Then again, considering the annoying teen stereotypes they butcher, Designated Villain seems more and more fitting by the day.
- As Clive Barker, creator of the Hellraiser series, put it, "You've got Pinhead, who hasn't done a single decent thing in eight movies, and still gets mail from women who want to have his children."
- Rollerball found its biggest success among people who were excited only by the rollerball scenes. Rollerball is a ridiculously violent sport that is the centerpiece of the movie's satire of a society increasingly desensitized to violence (another scene features people at a party blowing off steam by taking a flamethrower to some trees.) Some sports people even asked the filmmakers' permission to create a rollerball league. Almost certainly this is due to the deliberate slowness most of the Author Filibuster scenes are played: The non-sport scenes are either a bit wonderful contrast, or really, ''really'' drag.
- Disaffected youth have long put up posters of Hud in their rooms as a mark of admiration for this iconic counter-culture hero. The story is about Hud trying to get his father falsely declared mentally incompetent and himself power of attorney so he can sell his father's farm and keep the money. And he attempts to rape his love interest.
- Harry Lime from The Third Man is a black marketeer who sells his loyal girlfriend to the Russians and runs a "medical charity" that sells watered-down penicillin that results in mass death and illness. The movie even goes so far as to show a hospital room full of dying children. How does the audience respond? By demanding more adventures of Harry Lime. The result was a radio series chronicling his further adventures...
- Romper Stomper and American History X are quite popular among Neo-Nazi skinheads.
- Director Shusuke Kaneko clearly stated that Godzilla in the film Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack is pure evil and that no one is supposed to root for him. Guess which monster ends up getting the most praise.
- The Japanese live action/anime hybrid film Twilight Of The Cockroaches was quite popular with various minorities, especially Jews who identified with the cockroaches' struggle to survive the humans' callous attempts to exterminate them. One can only imagine what their reaction would be on learning that, according to the director, the whole thing is an allegory for the fall of the Axis Powers.
- A particularly creepy example of this trope: reportedly, teens were cheering in theaters during Schindlers List when Ralph Fiennes' monstrous Nazi officer randomly killed innocent people.
- Debora Kampmeier's film "Hounddog" is meant to depict the horrible consequences of child abuse. Many critics (and viewers) see this differently.
- Howard Beale of Network has quite a bit of quotable dialogue ("I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" for one), but many of his fans forget that he essentially went insane as a result of working in television news for too long, and treat him as some kind of visionary.
- Many people sym sympathize with Colonel "You can't handle the truth!" Jessep of A Few Good Men and his famous courtroom speech in which he admits he ordered the "Code Red" ("You want me on that wall! You need me on that wall!") is admired by many.
Literature
- The Iron Dream, an Alternate History novel by Norman Spinrad, presents itself as a work of literary criticism about a fantasy novel — "Lord of the Swastika" — written by a version of Adolf Hitler who left Germany in 1919. Norman Spinrad's intent was to portray the similarities between fantasy tropes (such as Always Chaotic Evil) and the beliefs that facilitated many Real Life horrors. Ironically, the American Nazi Party put the book on its recommended reading list despite the satirical intent of the work. In Spinrad's own words:
To make damn sure that even the historically naive and entirely unselfaware reader got the point, I appended a phony critical analysis of Lord of the Swastika, in which the psychopathology of Hitler's saga was spelled out by a tendentious pedant in words of one syllable.
Almost everyone got the point...
- Isaac Asimov's short story The Fun They Had was intended it to be ironic; he hated school as a child because the classes were paced for less able students and he did not get along with his teachers. Many people, though, miss the intended irony (having forgotten just how bad school is) and take the story's concluding sentence at face value. It's even appeared in elementary school readers, presumably to get kids to appreciate school...
- The relationship between Almasy and Katherine in The English Patient is a dangerous, destructive obsession that ends up claiming not only both of their lives but also the life of Katherine's husband. Yet it's held up by many as one of the greatest love stories of its time, perhaps due to the film adaptation glorifying the affair more than the book had.
- Junichiro Tanizaki's Naomi (written back in the 1920s) was supposed to be a criticism of Western influences against Japanese tradition. Many women who read it began to emulate the main female character (becoming independent, fashionable, and non-traditional, like the Flappers of the era) instead of understanding the author's intent.
- Upton Sinclair's The Jungle was written as a socialist piece to show the plight of industrial workers. But, due to Sinclair's disturbingly graphic descriptions of what was going into the nation's meat, the government stepped in and created the FDA and passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which requires ingredient listings on all foodstuffs. Sinclair commented on this in later years:
"I aimed for the public's heart, and by mistake, I hit the public's stomach."
- The Secret History's central character, Henry Winter, has had fans gushing about how 'perfect' he is and how he's ideal boyfriend material. We're talking about a man who organises a bacchanal and accidentally kills someone, murders one of his friends, and was planning to kill another of his friends before he decides to commit suicide ... How is this appealing in any way whatsoever? 'Cold blooded psycho' is the description you're looking for.
- Italy's fascist government approved a film version of Ayn Rand's We the Living (without her permission) on the grounds that it was anti-communist. Several months after the film's release, it was pulled when the government realized the story was just as much anti-fascist.
- In 19th century Northern California, author Bret Harte, who opposed racial discrimination, wrote the narrative poem "The Heathen Chinee" to satirize anti-Chinese sentiment, which was widespread at the time. Readers of the poem and the periodicals that reprinted it widely interpreted it as mocking the Chinese. It was often recited by opponents of Chinese immigration, and Harte was thanked by a Senator who held anti-Chinese sentiment. Harte later heavily disparaged the poem, but it still became one of the most popular among the anti-Chinese movement.
- Reportedly, a British Secretary of State for Education once told Muriel Spark they greatly admired the title character of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Since Miss Brodie was a Sadist Teacher who encouraged one of her favourites to fight for the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, Mrs. Spark looked somewhat horrified at the notion.
- A lot of people who are politically on the right cite George Orwell's 1984 as an argument against leftist social programs that are creating what they perceive as a "nanny state". This is ignoring that George Orwell was an outspoken socialist and that Nineteen Eighty Four was written to criticize totalitarianism (specifically Stalinism), not liberalism, which Orwell viewed as not leftist enough. Orwell may have agreed with them to an extent on politically correct language, though, since he was a strong proponent of clarity of speech. Orwell himself directly refuted these claims in his own writings.
- Interestingly, if you want the hyper-left alternative to 1984, you'd want Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
- A Clockwork Orange. Lots of teens (and not so teens) tend to ignore the final chapter of the book where Alex acknowledges his wrongdoings and start dressing up like him and even learning nadsat. It doesn't help that the movie made the message look like the exact opposite.
- The final chapter was left out of the book altogether for many years, even before the film adaptation. The publishers claim that the author didn't give them the 21st chapter and that it was an afterthought of his; the author claims that the publishers tossed out the 21st chapter because fables sell well. Some versions of the book now come with a foreword containing his rant about how, without the 21st chapter, ACO is a fable.
- The final chapter was left out in the US, but was always included in UK publications of the book. Take from that what you will.
- "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost is widely considered a celebration of independence. But Frost, a diehard misanthrope, intended it as a bitterly ironic satire of people who delusionally fancy themselves individualists. Consider that the two roads are "just as fair[;] the passing... had worn them really about the same". "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence" does not describe laudable independence: it portrays self-obsessed, melodramatic braggadocio dredged up again and again over the course of a boring life.
- Similarly, "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors." No more need be said.
- Gullivers Travels was written by Swift as a biting satire. Instead of being recognized for its wit and vicious commentary on the state of man and civilization, it instead became a beloved children's classic. To expedite this, many adaptations only cover Lilliput; almost no adaptations contain any hints of parts three and four. Happily, the 1996 TV miniseries with Ted Danson kept the satire intact.
- A rare example of this trope as a plot element within a work itself is Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum, in which three intellectuals, using a computer program and a smorgasbord of occult, esoteric and conspiracy-theory texts, create a "manifesto" for the fictional secret society "The Tres" as a satire of secret societies and the gullibility and fanaticism surrounding both these societies and their critics. The unintended consequence is the creation of an actual Tres, the members of which turn violently against the manifesto's authors.
- Eco likely based this scenario off the anonymously-published 17th-century Fama Fraternitatis, which claimed to be the manifesto of a centuries-old mystical Christian brotherhood, the Rosiscrucians. The work eventually inspired a number of rival Rosicrucian societies, even though many historians consider the work an elaborate hoax; not only is there no evidence for the existence of such a movement prior to the 18th century, but the Fama was initially published together with an obviously fictional comical story about an absurd, failed utopian "reform."
- Hitler's regime enthusiastically endorsed Nietzsche's writings, particularly his concept of the Overman (übermensch), as a philosophical buttress for Nazism's ideals of "Aryan" supremacy and anti-Semitism. Nietzsche's Overman concept was an ideal for the individual to strive towards and had nothing to do with the pseudo-scientific "Aryan race" doctrines of his time. Furthermore, although Nietzsche wasn't pro-Jewish, he hated German anti-Semitic groups with a passion. The Misaimed Fandom was caused by Nietzsche's sister, who was an active anti-Semite, editing her brother's works to conform to her own views after he was too demented to know about it. Sadly, during and for some time after World War Two, Nietzsche had an undeservedly bad reputation in much of the world as a proto-Nazi — hence the existence of the Nietzsche Wannabe trope.
- Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy from Pride And Prejudice are often cited as the quintessential Slap Slap Kiss couple — passionate dislike is just a mask for passionate love. Elizabeth herself tells her first suitor Mr. Collins (who she legitimately cannot stand) that this is a ridiculous notion and sometimes, No means No; not every girl who claims to dislike a man is in denial (otherwise, she may just as well have feelings for Mr. Collins!). A paragraph comparing Elizabeth's changing feelings for Wickham and Darcy "hints" that the initial conflict between the Official Couple was just supposed to show how feelings can evolve in the real world as opposed to the Fairy Tale Love At First Sight. Dislike can evolve into love; nowhere does anyone imply dislike = love... except Mr. Collins.
- A relationship guide, Dating Mr. Darcy: A Girl's guide to Sensible Romance, missed that the whole point of Pride and Prejudice, (where, if I remember correctly, religion is never mentioned) is that both Elizabeth and Darcy have to re-examine themselves and change in order to be better people, and better for each other. Instead, you get this gem of a book description:
Any girl who has seen Pride and Prejudice or read the Jane Austen novel knows that the much misunderstood Mr. Darcy is the ideal gentleman. But is it possible to find your own Mr. Darcy in today's world of geeks and goons?...Best-selling author Sarah Arthur equips young women to gauge a guy's Darcy Potential (DP) according to his relationships with family, friends, and God.
- It's funny that Machiavelli's The Prince has been almost universally adopted as the bible of of Pragmatic Authoritarianism, considering that at least one undergrad at a fourth tier university believes that the author may have written it as a satire. Of course, if it is a satire, it's so much a Stealth Parody that it isn't at all funny - whether he believed in the opinions or not, the fact that they actually are pretty pragmatic makes a fanbase fairly reasonable.
- Among those who criticize Kurt Vonnegut, it is commonly stated that his novel Slaughterhouse-Five wants us to agree with the Tralfamadorians, a completely apathetic race of alien toilet plungers to whom war and death mean nothing. He's satirizing that pattern of thought in humans; to him, people who think that way are as ridiculous as living plungers.
- Lolita has a tendency to attract its own fandom that believes in the righteousness of Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze's relationship. These fans usually miss out on the overarching idea that all of the characters are screwed up and potentially abusive to one another, as the fandom is likely busy contemplate how their teacher of choice so totally has the hots for them and how they should get together, despite said teacher having a wife, a child, and generations between them. On the flip-side, because of its loud fandom but reticent crowd that enjoyed and understood the novel, those who have never read the book may dismiss it as literary child pornography, which makes two groups of people missing the point.
- Bumper stickers proclaiming "Eve was framed" and the interpretation of Lilith as a feminist heroine would likely be viewed by the writers of The Bible as Misaimed Fandom. Heck, half of the reinterpretations of scripture would probably have the writers crying, "that's not what I meant at all!"
- Or how about the entire Bible is a poorly done compliation with sections specifically removed so as to provide the message the editors/translators wanted. Since you mention Eve and Lilith then how about Tekla...anyone?
- How about the fact that Lilith, as a person, is not even actually in the Bible?
- Some people find Twilight to be a hilarious tongue-in-cheek Stealth Parody of how All Girls Want Bad Boys, star-crossed lovers, and romantic vampire fiction, explaining why vampires sparkle in SUNLIGHT, the POV joke of a "heroine" is neither remarkable nor relateable and shows how idiotic girls get over bad boys, the Mysterious Protector is a flippin' stalker and manic depressive, and the ideal of the main couple's love is so high and pure and un-attainable they can't do ANYTHING about it If You Know What I Mean. Edward's "hunger and his refusal" could be a metaphor for teen sexual frustration, and Bella's "mortality" also a metaphor for virginity. ...If only.
- Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Inferno have been under quite a bit of Misaimed Fandom from literary commentators, who often assume that they're being unfairly punished when, in fact, their dialogue indicates that their relationship was based on lust rather than love and that any love Francesca had for Paolo is gone, replaced by bitterness that he caused her to go to hell. The Pilgrim faints out of pity for the two, but it's implied that over time, he learns to stop feeling sorry for the sinners.
- The Rise of Scourge manga produced a lot of this from the Warrior Cats fandom. Because of Scourge's backstory, a large portion of fans believe that he is not evil, some even going far enough to blame his death on his sister (seriously). Of course, this interpretation completely ignores the author's belief that no one is born evil, and that everyone has a reason for their actions, but that these reasons are in no way an excuse. In fact, in the author's note at the beginning, she says his actions were inexcusable, and that she wasn't trying to make excuses, also saying that "If ever a charcter were purely bad, Scourge is it."
- Also on the subject of bad characters who are seen as good: Ashfur. Just... Ashfur.
- The majority of the people who hate Sol. Of course, it's not a crime to hate Sol; These people are entitled to their own opinions, but most of them either hate him becaue he's "stupid" (which he clearly isn't.) or because he's trying to get get the Clans to stop following StarClan. He does take this too far, but most people seem to be more against his ideals than his methods. They make it seem like StarClan is the most important thing ever, and their word should be followed rigidly, which means that most of them are completely forgetting that StarClan themselves have been telling us for the longest time that they do not hold all the answers, and that the cats are essentially masters of their own destinies. They essentially only exist to watch over them and give out warnings.
- Fans have somehow managed to take the series's message about racial tolerance and acceptance and get "Racism is Good". Seriously.
- J.K. Rowling has frequently bemoaned the vocal fanbases of Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape, and the Harry/Hermione pairing, though most of them happened as a direct result of her characterization.
- Her characterization? Draco Malfoy is nearly always portrayed in the books as an arrogant bigot, and it's been obvious since book 4 that Ron was the one with romantic feelings for Hermione, not Harry. The Misaimed Fandom here was the result of Fan Dumb plain and simple.
- Well, there always was obviously more going on with Snape than we knew about, and how can you not cheer for him now, at least a little bit? Y'know?
- He still did horrible things to Harry over the years that he shouldn't just get a free pass for.
Live Action TV
- Alf Garnett and Archie Bunker often got flak for this. The characters' bigotry was used to demonstrate why prejudice is bad; unfortunately, the people who needed to learn this most didn't understand it. The writers, especially on All In The Family, weren't eager to court controversy by making their main characters genuinely bigoted — and so Archie came across as stubborn and ignorant instead of vicious and hateful, and the audience's sympathies turned against annoying author-proxy Meathead. And even then, Archie himself became more sympathetic in later seasons, since Mike and Gloria both moved on and the show focused solely on Archie and Edith (and eventually, that kid they adopted).
- Essentially the same applies to Al Bundy, with the added bonus of his being a supposedly Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist. A good cause of this is the fact that often, the universe would go out of it's way to screw him over, even when he didn't deserve it.
- Nathan Barley was intended as a satire of surrealism-loving internet trendies, but in the end that was the group that most enjoyed the show. Nathan Barley himself made his debut on TV Go Home as the eponymous star of a fictional series entitled "Cunt".
- The "idiots" embracing Dan Ashcroft as their preacherman: a bit of misaimed fandom within the show.
- Part of the premise of Jimmy MacDonald's Canada was the within-show application of this trope. Between segments, we'd see clips of either 'ordinary Canadians' or Canadian icons like then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, Don Cherry, Joe Clarke, or Paul Henderson discussing how erudite, politically savvy and influential Jimmy was, in keeping with the Mockumentary tone. Then we'd return to the actual show, where Jimmy would be spewing hatred against Automatic Teller Machines, The Beatles, or whatever it was this time.
- An unusual example where the fans praised the writer because they read in too much satiric intent: modern Doctor Who series had two episodes featuring Deadly Game Show versions of Big Brother and The Weakest Link where losing contestants were slaughtered. Many fans lauded these as brilliant parodies that point out the vapidness of such shows. New series producer Russell T Davies likes these shows, and put that in as a tribute to them.
- Played straight with some fans who have latched on to the Master, particularly his John Simm incarnation, especially where the Foe Yay was flowing thick and free; plenty of Fan Fics featuring the Master tend to treat him as a quirky, slightly sarcastic guy who just wants to hook up with the Doctor. Never mind that he's also a vicious psychopath who conquers the world, wipes out a tenth of the population, destroys Japan, enslaves the survivors of the human race, and beats his wife.
- Some fans who recognise how evil the John Simm version was now tend to write the Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley versions as Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains simply because they weren't so glaringly Ax Crazy and sadistic. This, despite, for example, the Delgado version manipulating Earth's two native sentient species into a genocidal war just because the Doctor liked one of them, and the Ainley version once (possibly by mistake) destroying a third of the universe. (Apart from that, the new Master didn't exactly win, either.)
- The Tonight Show with Jay Leno tries to recently subvert this. Jay Leno tries to prove that he is not a "health nut" is that there is a running gag on when he complains on how ridiculously unhealthy certain new specials that many fast food restaurants serve this usually happens...
- Mad Men seems to be susceptible to this. While the show's intent is to lay bare the pervasive sexism, racism, classism, and other social inequities of its era, this troper has encountered numerous people who seem to be so bedazzled by the nifty-looking vintage clothes, cars, furnishings, and music that they actually have a nostalgic longing for those "good old days".
- On The Office, when Charles was first introduced, this Troper enjoyed him calling various other characters on the sheer amount of goofing off and silliness they engaged in. This Troper disagreed with a large swath of the fanbase who hated Charles from the start. Apparently, this Troper disagreed with the writers too, as they very suddenly introduced unlikeable personality traits in Charles later episodes, such as being a his being kiss-ass and a complete asshole, just to make it clear that I was not supposed to like him.
- Inverted with Michael and Dwight: both are supposed to be the bad guys as far incompetent upper management and foil for the cliched "good guy" male lead Jim (and to a lesser extent Ryan). But the show has since made the two more likable and more or less the protagonists of the show, whereas Jim has fallen to the wayside while Ryan was given a full-scale heel turn.
- The extent of the fandom of Vic Mackey, of The Shield, freaked out Shawn Ryan and the rest of the cast. Especially amongst actual police officers, several of whom actually attempted to justify Vic's murder of fellow detective Terry Crowley by claiming that he was a "rat" and as such, deserved his fate. Needless to say, Shawn Ryan's response was to end the series with the Take That to end all Take Thats via having Vic become the dreaded "rat" himself, condemning fan favorite supporting cast member Ronnie Gardocki to living hell of prison when he narced on Ronnie in order to gain full immunity for his own crimes.
Music
Even perfectly intelligent and perceptive people often simply can't make out very many of the words in the music they listen to. They're lucky if they can get the choruses right. So in the music world, Misaimed Fandom is not restricted to Stealth Parodies or Fan Dumb. It can affect anybody at any time.
(If you cue up a song at a wedding without looking up the lyrics, that's still on you.)
- Gangsta. Rap. Music. Some rap musicians and fans endorse the misogyny, the rampant materialism, and the unabashed love of violence and death that the genre depicts. These folks clearly have NO idea that Gangsta Rap was originally created to CONDEMN these sorts of things. It doesn't help that many of the present rappers were part of the misaimed fandom.
- On the topic of "love" songs, people dedicate Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" to their loved ones. Either they realize that the song is about leaving somebody, or they don't. Either way, it makes the annoying wail almost bearable.
- Compare/Contrast Whitney's version with the original sung by Dolly Parton. Dolly sings it as a woman who's resigned to her fate, but will never let the flame die out. Whitney's version comes off a woman desperately trying to keep the man, as if the song will make the man see the error of his ways and come back to her.
- The Jonas Brothers covered Weezer's "My Name Is Jonas" live because of the title alone. Considering how different the lyrics are from their usual boy band bilge....
- This song is not about a cult...
- ...And this song is not about worshiping Satan.
- It's a bloody wedding song.
- R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" appears to be a straightforward love song ("This one goes out to the one I love") but the idea that the one I love is "a simple prop to occupy my time" and is ultimately replaced by "another prop" is usually lost between the choruses.
- Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" is seen by many as a Reagan-era patriotic anthem — that is, by people who only ever listen to the chorus. As the verses make abundantly clear it is about Vietnam veterans who were perceived as unemployable, and the anthemic chorus is meant to be bitter and satirical. The Reagan administration even approached Springsteen to endorse Ronnie in the 1984 elections — Springsteen, a staunch liberal, refused.
- Along the same lines as the above, Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World" is often thought of as a patriotic celebration of life in the free world. However, the lyrics pointedly critique the socioeconomic state of America circa George H. W. Bush's presidency, addressing topics such as homelessness and drug addiction.
- Another similar example: "Democracy" by Leonard Cohen.
- Pearl Jam's "Betterman" is a song about a woman rationalizing her place in an abusive relationship. And yet, at any given concert performance, you can see couples lovingly singing it to one another; on at least one occasion, a man proposed to his girlfriend during the song with the lyrics "She lies and says she's in love with him". That is both horrible and hysterical.
- The de facto Aussie patriotic song, "Down Under" by Men At Work. Apparently, the band sang the song as an attack on the exploitation of the continent. However, people tend to imagine that it's about the world travels of an Australian who is proud of his nationality and attracting the attention of people interested in it.
- The music video clears a few things up, with the last scene being a funeral for the country's natural beauty.
- While we're on misaimed Aussie patriotism, Cold Chisel's "Khe Sanh", about a Vietnam veteran who can't handle returning to civilian life, became a patriotic anthem. The Australian cricket team's adoption of the song may factor into this.
- The Aussie cricket team are indeed known for choosing songs with fairly inappropriate or unrelated lyrics.
- Then again, hating the damn government is considered to be an Australian cultural trait. Therefore, when sung as a song that sympathises with this hard-done-by veteran, it becomes a celebration of Australians (as opposed to Australia) and in an odd way becomes patriotic. That's my reasoning for it, anyway.
- Similarly, even though "Born to Run" is about how badly the main character wants to get out of the New Jersey town he grew up in, lots of rabid Springsteen fans want to make it the official state song... Which could be why it's the perfect choice!
- The Beastie Boys song "Fight For Your Right To Party" was loved by the very people the song was making fun of. The band flat-out refuses to play the song live anymore.
- DD Smash's "Bliss" was a pub-singalong-sounding savaging of the New Zealand drinking culture: "Sink yourself more bliss/Forget about the last one/Have yourself another". But picked up as an anthem by that very same culture. Its author, Dave Dobbyn, was horrified when the requests for it started coming in at concerts.
- Steriogram's "Walkie-Talkie Man" is a favourite among the employees of at least one security firm; probably, however, this is while simultaneously recognising the satire.
- Gwar's War Party was taken to be supportive of the Republican war effort. Did anybody even listen to the lyrics? Perhaps thanks to Gwar's typically pro-war kill-everything-that-moves stage theatrics, the song title and chorus was taken to mean the obvious. "Born in the USA" for the new generation.
- A massive smear campaign by news programs and tv-shows painted a picture of the punk scene (and especially the hardcore punk scene) in the late 70's-early 80's as being filled with violent delinquents who fight at the shows. This campaign ended up inspiring violent delinquents to attend punk concerts and then fight at the shows.
- One specific band, the Dead Kennedys, suffered badly at first, as they were thought to be a neo-Nazi band for their songs "Kill The Poor" and "California Über Alles" (both highly satirical), which drew crowds of Nazi punks to their gigs. Then they made the rather blunt song "Nazi Punks F**k Off".
- The song "Yankee Doodle" was originally a virulent insult flung at the American rebels by British Redcoats that made implications of stupidity, faux-foppishness ("macaroni" referred to a particularly extravagant style of dress), and, according to some sources, homosexuality about its targets. The American soldiers took it up as an anthem and a great big "Fuck You" to the British, basically telling them, "We revel in your insults." Over time, the song has lost a lot of its bite, and it's now thought of as a genuinely patriotic song.
- Not a musical version but the same thing happened when Rommel's men called the Aussie diggers the "Rats of Tobruk"
- This could cover a fair number of these examples. Someone makes fun of you? Just show them how little you care by living up to their every insult. It can be hard to tell sometimes, however.
- The Stone Temple Pilots song "Sex Type Thing" was interpreted as sexy or edgy by some, when it was intended to ironically represent the typical attitude of a rapist.
- Madonna's "Material Girl" was a sarcastic jab at consumerism; but it was interpreted by many as a fun, happy-go-lucky celebration of material luxuries. When Britney Spears covered the song in concert, she was criticized for not understanding that the song was intended to be ironic. Of course, it's another question how serious you can take a singer who became one of the richest women in the world if she condemns consumerism (Madonna, not Britney).
- The video for "Material Girl" is largely to blame for the song's Misaimed Fandom; while the video itself makes a point to stick to the meaning of the song (in terms of showing Madonna's character being in love with a poor slob with a crappy car), the only part most people remember is the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" homage that makes up the bulk of the video.
- One place that uses it right: Elite Beat Agents, where it plays over a pair of Rich Bitch sisters flirting their way around and off a deserted island. If the Hawaiian shirt is any indication, Commander Khan doesn't seem to be that concerned about them.
- Tim Robbins only averted this with the soundtrack to Bob Roberts by declining to release it.
- "The Freshmen", from The Verve Pipe, was a popular (and overplayed) song. Take a listen to the lyrics and be baffled. Bonus: In the introduction of this performance, the lead singer says he wanted to write the most deeply upsetting song possible. Ironically, people loved it because of how twisted it was.
- Some cricket fans have adopted 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday as an anthem because it includes the lyrics "I don't like cricket, oh no / I love it!" — this when, in context, the song's narrator is clearly only saying this in a vain attempt to ingratiate himself with a gang of thugs who are intending to beat him up and mug him on his holidays in Jamaica. It's used on cricket shows regularly now.
- Third Eye Blind's hit single "Semi-Charmed Life" caught on as an anthem for drug-addicted college-folk due to the quick tempo and catchy lyrics even though the song dealt entirely with the negative repercussions of the behavior the main fans of the song were engaging in. This may have been because the verse dealing most explicitly with drugs was cut in most radio versions and the word "crystal meth" was often bleeped. One time the Moral Guardians messed up majorly...
- Austrian singer Falco's (RIP) song "Jeanny" is usually mistaken as a love song. Its lyrics depict the insanity of a serial rapist and killer stalking his soon-to-be next victim.
- Supermarkets have used Tracey Chapman's "Fast Car" as background music — a song about someone having a dead-end job at a supermarket. Thanks a lot!
- The Tom Waits song "Poor Edward" (a song about a a guy with a woman's face on the back of his head that he refers to as his "devil twin"), is usually taken to be an allegory about a marriage falling apart. In reality; it's a song about a guy with a woman's face on the back of his head that he refers to as his "devil twin". I am not making this up, and neither is Tom — Edward Mordrake was the "Poor Edward" in question.
- Anybody who regards Closer by Nine Inch Nails as a love song - It's not. If you've heard it — or better yet, seen the video — you'll know.
- Marks&Spencer had a disturbing Christmas commercial with a children's choir singing "Falling In Love Again" from the film The Blue Angel. Most people don't realize the full implications of the song. The original song is "what Blazing Saddles was parodying with "I'm Tired" - a song sung from the perspective of a jaded seductress about how so many men destroy themselves out of desire for her. (Come to think of it, that sort of song is appropriate for a corporation...)
- Lou Reed, best known as the frontman of the Velvet Underground, has expressed that he was horrified when people told him that they were shooting up to the song 'Heroin'. Of course, it's mostly ambiguous, but...
- Alan Jackson's 1994 hit song Gone Country provided a satirical commentary on the state of country music, describing three pop/folk musicians who, after finding their careers to be waning, decide to feign being country in order to try their hand in the then-booming country music industry. However, most people don't pick up on this (or only listen to the chorus), and interpret the song to be a fun country pride song, to such a point that it has become a strangely popular choice for radio stations to play as their first song after changing to a country format. Ironically, the song's message is equally relevant today, with pop artists such as Jessica Simpson defecting to country.
- Death Cab for Cutie's song "I Will Possess Your Heart" also has the Lyrical Dissonance thing going on; it's got an upbeat, pleasant sound, but it's another Stalker With A Crush song.
- Many of Death Cab's "love songs" have a somewhat stalkerish tone, or at the very least contain examples of things to never, ever tell a significant other.
- Vanessa Carlton's song "Twilight" is not about Edward or Bella or anything that has to do with Stephenie Meyers' books, especially since she wrote the song before those books came out. Don't even bother looking at all the comments. Likewise, neither is anything by Muse.
- The best part about Vanessa Carlton's Twilight is that it's actually about her being severely depressed. This troper once read someone's analysis of how the lyrics were about Meyer's books, then posted a link to where Carlton states it's about depression. Unfortunately, this won't change fan opinions. Then again, proving that the song came out five years before the books doesn't either, as I also encountered someone who said Carlton had gotten an "advance copy".
- Or the song Twilight by Electric Light Orchestra which had been labeled as an 'Otaku Anthem' on the Twilight page at some point by a misguided troper who failed to notice that the song was released over twenty years ago.
- The Lesson here? Don't name your song "Twilight"!
- No, the real lesson is don't name your lackluster novel after a commonly used and cool-sounding word.
- Schools have been known to use the song "Mad World" at the end of segment about drunk drivings. Inappropriate much?
- In a very extreme example, several Neo-Nazi bands have covered the song "Tomorrow Belongs To Me," ostensibly a Nazi anthem about the beauty of their coming master-race run world. The thing is, the song was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb (both of them Jewish) for the musical Cabaret, and it's intended in the show and subsequent film as a chilling example of the rise of Nazism and its terrible pull on the German people. Seems they did their job a little too well.
- Something weird happened with Colombian singer Juanes' hit "La Camisa Negra", which is a break-up song from the point of view of a very resentful man; after a nasty breakup he wears black to mourn the death of his love feelings, as a symbol of his "black soul". But because the title can be translated literally as "The Black Shirt", it was adopted as an hymn of sorts by neo-fascist groups in Italy and other countries. Juanes was not happy about this appropiation.
- Pink Floyd's "Money" sometimes gets used by the Future Business Leaders of America at club fairs. Seeing a bunch of business majors in suits sitting around while it is loudly declared that "Money/It's a crime" is amusing beyond reckoning.
- Musician Volitaire's song So Easy When You're Evil, an obvious satire of Card Carrying Villains, has actually been taken seriously by some people as a song advocating that Evil Is Cool.
- The The's song This is the Day, which has an upbeat tune and a chorus that says "This is the day your life will surely change, this is the day when things fall into place" is often used as an anthem of determination to fix one's bad circumstances. This is in complete ignorance to the verses, which describe someone with a wasted existence, who tells himself every day that his life will change but never actualy does anything about it. Lyrical Dissonance is a common trope of The The songs.
- The Residents' album Duck Stab! was intended to prove to the public that even if they recorded some shorter, "poppier" sounding songs, it would still be unpopular. People loved it. In fact, it's one of the group's most popular recordings.
- A lot of Offspring songs seem to suffer from this or similar. This troper watched the music video for "Cool to Hate" recently and discovered that the overwhelming majority of comments said things like how much the people loved to hate, when, if you listen to the lyrics it's clear that the song's actually making fun of really negative people! The theme actually shows in the fact that most of the song is sung in a way that sounds much less intelligent than most Offspring songs. In lyrics that do sound more intelligent (i.e: "I like to hate stuff cause then I don't have to make a change," "I'd rather tear things down than build them up it's easier that way," etc.) the point seems clearer.
- "Come Out And Play" is easy to misinterpret as just a goofy punk rock song. Hint: if you listen to the Richard Cheese cover, you might actually understood what they had been shouting about.
- Brick by Ben Folds' Five is written like a melancholy love ballad, and most people tend to think of it as such. However, on listening to the lyrics you find out it's a melancholy ballad about taking your girlfriend to get an abortion.
- Nobody seems to realize that Woody Guthrie meant for This Land Is Your Land to be a Communist anthem.
- Many fans in the western side of the world inexplicably fail to realize that Hello Project fandom is meant to include both ninth-grade girls and college-age guys.
- Clay Aiken's first hit single Invisible, is a creepy stalker song. It seems pretty damn obvious with lyrics like "If I was invisible/Then I could just watch you in your room", but...
- Soundgarden's song "Big Dumb Sex" was a Stealth Parody of the glam metal scene at the time, but many hair bands and their fans took a liking to the song without realizing what it was about. Guns N Roses even did a cover of it.
- Carly Simon doesn't seem to know what her own song is about. She addresses a vain lover saying "I bet you think this song is about you, don't you, don't you." ...that's because it IS about him. What the hell is your point? This could make her a Misaimed Artist.
- Uh, the point is that the identity of the lover is left ambiguous (it's not like she's only ever had one lover in her life), and that the person she's talking about would be vain enough to think that she wrote a song about him. Carly Simon herself has kept her lips sealed on whom it's supposed to refer to, but given that the most sensible theory is that it's really an amalgamation of several boyfriends she's had, and that several male celebrities have claimed to be the subject of the song, it's not a bad commentary on that type of narcissistic psyche. So Yeah.
- Australian pub rock band The Angels are now reluctant to play their popular song "Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again". Fans screaming "No way, get f***ed, f*** off!" during the song probably aren't aware that the song is about a friend with a terminal illness.
- Billy Idol's 'White Wedding' gets played at a number of weddings, despite the fact that it is intended to be a protest against his little sister having a shotgun wedding with her babydaddy.
- Apparently some people think that the Screeching Weasel song "The Science Of Myth" is a great Take That to Christianity. It's actually about taking elements from science and from theology and respecting that both fields of study are valuable and important to humanity. Ironically one of the few Screeching Weasel songs that isn't just a Take That of extreme sarcasm, then.
- The Toadies may also have an accidental fandom among Goths & Vamps since several of their songs could be taken to be refer to vampirism. How accidental this is is still a subject of debate but the band itself doesn't present itself as a gothic band.
- Tyler is definitely about a man breaking into a woman's house so he can "be with her tonight", though whether or not he is a blood-drinker or a murderer/rapist may depend upon how you feel about vampires being able to enjoy a beer.
- POSSUM Kingdom, with ITS mention of a "dark secret" is either about a serial killer attacking a woman at a North Texas lake with that name or a vampire revealing himself to a woman violently before offering to make her a vampire as well.
- Away can be taken as being about a vampire's invitation of hospitality to a mortal friend. ("If I'm out hunting - Come right on in, yeah. - And even when I'm gone, -My doors are always open.")
- Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" is very commonly heard at weddings, graduations, and other important ceremonies, likely because of the line "I hope you have the time of your life". But what everyone always seems to forget is that the song was written when Billie Joe Armstrong was breaking up with his girlfriend. So the song is a break-up song, but is used to denote love. You know, in case the TITLE isn't a bit of a clue. Word Of God is that the song was meant to be bittersweet, not sarcastic.
- "Frankie says 'Relax'".
- U2's One is often played at weddings. Edge apparently gets rather pissed off about this.
- Its quite hard to tell if the fact that it was the first song played at Cyclops and Jean Grey's meant Marvel writers were part of the Misaimed Fandom, or were aware enough for a subtle Take That against the relationship.
- Repeat it with me, "I'm On a Boat" is a parody. Observe: over-the-top cursing, simple reptition of lyrics, catchy hook, pointless inclusion of T-Pain, and the fact that it was created by the Lonely Islands and shown on SNL, and the words. "Gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow..." This hasn't stopped people from realizing that it's not actually another rap song about how glamourous life is when you're a rapper. The fact that it was made by the same writers of "Dick in a Box" and "Jizz in My Pants" should be the first clue.
- Like I Will Always Love You and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Every Breath You Take by The Police is often played as a ballad of love, when in fact it's anything but. Sting wrote it after a guy was stalking his wife to show the fine line between love and obsession.
- Merle Haggard's 1969 song Okie from Muskogee became something of an anthem for Middle Americans, people, who were opposed to student protest, hippie lifestyle and such. It was intended as a satire of those views.
- Guns N Roses. Paradise City. Nuff said.
- Korn's Camel Song isn't about camels at all.
- Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good" is actually a satire.
- Where the Wild Roses Grow is apparently a popular choice for slow dancing. *HEADDESK*
- Walking on the Sun by Smash Mouth is often used in commercials for items like cars. Marketers apparently assume that the band really intended to urge people not to delay, and to act now. Hilarious how it's seen as an upbeat anthem to capitalism, no?
- The song Next Best Superstar was actually used in the German edition of Pop Idol.
- The famous 80's anthem "I'm Too Sexy" was meant to be a parody of the vanity found amongst bodybuilders and models. The song subsequently went on to become a very popular song amongst bodybuilders and models, and to this day, is regularly played at gyms and fashion-shows. Whether it's done tongue-in-cheek or seriously is for you to decide.
- The song, "Independence Day" by Martina Mc Bride is a song about domestic violence. The protagonist/battered woman is abused by her husband. To protect her life as well as the life of her child, she kills the husband by burning the house down. Yet, for some odd reason (e.g. not listening at all to the lyrics), the song is played during Fourth of July/Independence Day festivals/activities. Odd!
- This troper's father can pull Christian imagery out of anywhere. Especially where it doesn't exist. The best example so far was Nightwish's version of "Over the Hills and Far Away," because it contained the phrase "in his arms." It's about a man who gets arrested for a crime he didn't commit, and gets convicted because his alibi was that he was sleeping with his best friend's wife at the time and didn't want to reveal the affair.
- (Oddly enough, he also heard their song "The Carpenter" which actually does contain Christian imagery, [Just look at the title, for Christ's sake] and didn't think twice about it.)
- The song "One Night in Bangkok" has nothing to do with prostitution, It's about a chess game!
Professional Wrestling
- Believe it or not, the "Wooo!" sound that accompanies Knife-Edge Chops in Professional Wrestling were also derogatory in nature (at first, anyway). They were made famous by "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, an enemy of "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, ECW mainstay. He would often imitate Ric Flair's famous "Wooo!" after landing a chop, and soon the entire ECW crowd would join in; ECW at that time strongly hated the old style of wrestling companies like NWA and WWF were putting on at the time. Soon, though, the "Wooo!"s from the crowd lost their original meaning, and even Flair himself sees it as a term of endearment.
- A big reason why the cry became more popular was that, while originally it was to praise the face Shane Douglas, when Douglas turned heel the Woos were a way of mocking Douglas. However, since that logically meant fans were cheering for Flair instead, people just started doing it for Flair and anyone else who'd throw a chop.
Close Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- Anytime anyone at all thinks that one of the factions in Warhammer 40000 is "the good guys" (hint: Evil Versus Evil is one of the foundations of the setting). This is almost always directed at the Tau, the Imperium of Man (mostly via the Imperial Guard) and/or the Eldar (and occasionally Da Orks), probably because their most common enemies routinely perform actions several orders of magnitude worse than anything the previous factions could possibly achieve.
- To get a little more specific: some neo-Nazis think that the Imperium is some kind of post-neo-fascist paradise. *shudder*
- The World Of Darkness supplement The Book of Nod was originally a source of stories and a prop for the setting. Imagine the author's surprise when Noddism became a cult. Palm meet face.
Theatre
- Bertolt Brecht: inventor of Epic Theater, staunch hater of Capitalism, and victim of terrible Misaimed Fandom.
- When The Threepenny Opera first premiered in Berlin in 1928, it was a satirical indictment of the bourgeoisie, although it was wildly popular with this particular social class.
- Similarly, it seems strange how "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" (from said opera) transformed from an eerie depiction of a serial killer/rapist/arsonist/thief to a happy-go-lucky jazz standard. The badass lyrics and neat meter are probably responsible (not to mention how many jazzy singers are linked with the Mafia).
- Another example is the song "What Keeps A Man Alive?", which is a lyrical Freudian Excuse about how poverty leads to savagery in order to survive. On the surface, this would seem to be an opinion a communist like Brecht would agree with, and it is often interpreted this way. However, Brecht actually condemned this attitude, as in practice, it meant that the poor would prey on one another rather than organizing and bettering their condition.
- Mother Courage from the play Mother Courage and Her Children. Admired by the audience for her courage, perseverance, and resourcefulness — but Bertolt Brecht wanted her to be a detestable personification of the evils of capitalism. She doesn't give up her business even after her three kids are killed in the war, after all.
- The Threepenny Opera is a remake of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which was as much a victim of Misaimed Fandom as Brecht's version. It was originally meant as a satire of both Italian opera and English society, but was seen by most as just a rollicking good time. Even sixty years later, Boswell and Johnson were debating about what exactly it was supposed to have satirized.
- Even Shakespeare's works have attracted a Misaimed Fandom. Romeo And Juliet is often thought to be nothing but a bittersweet romance whose major tragedy is bad luck; many readers miss the pointed criticisms of early marriage, arranged marriage, and negligent parenting. In Victorian times, Hamlet was thought of as a noble, Too Good For This Sinful Earth victim. Falstaff, a lazy fat drunk whose main purpose in the Henry IV trilogy was to show how dissipated Prince Hal really was, became so popular that Shakespeare was asked by Elizabeth I to write a comedy around him.
Video Games
- Silent Hill 2 shows many misogynistic themes, perfectly summed up in the scene where a large, muscular man-monster is shown raping a creature composed of a pair of sexy legs, with another pair of sexy legs in place of an upper body. This was interpreted by many to mean that sexual objectification is cool and edgy, which was met with either approval or disapproval. It was actually intended as psychological symbolism of the main character's masculinity issues.
- Also, the aforementioned muscular man-monster, Pyramid Head, is seen as a Draco In Leather Pants by his fans despite the fact that he does virtually nothing but violently rape and murder the other inhabitants of Silent Hill. A common term used to describe Pyramid Head by his fans is "sex god", so apparently indiscriminant rape and psychological torture is sexy now. Similarly, there are those that consider the Bubble Head Nurses in the same game to be genuinely attractive despite designed to be something that really, really wasn't, and they are only the most obvious examples. Silent Hill fandom is almost as disturbing as the series itself.
- Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII is a megalomaniacal Big Bad who spends most of the game on a murderous killing spree (including famously and brutally slaying a beloved main character), pausing only to mock and psychologically manipulate the main character, but he does it with such style and is such a Badass White Haired Pretty Boy that fans lap it up and have turned him into a Draco In Leather Pants (see that entry for more). Prequel games portraying him as sympathetic before he went sociopathically insane have not helped.
- Are we thinking of the same beloved main character? In This Tropers experience she is universally hated and considered a pointless drag on your party and source of boring plot lines. I cheered when she got stabbed and I didn't have to listen to her stupid shit anymore.
- The browser game You Have To Burn The Rope is really a mocking parody of the idea that a short game with simple, spoonfed puzzles could become a phenomenon just because it has a quirky song at the end. Thing is, You Have To Burn The Rope ended up becoming a phenomenon because it's short, has a simple, spoonfed puzzle and a quirky song at the end.
- Tales Of Symphonia is about a battle of ideals between The Hero, who believes that people can learn to grow and change and correct their mistakes if given a chance, and the Big Bad, who believes that people cannot change and the only way to make everyone treat each other the same is to make them all identical. Despite the fact that The Hero wins, and examples within the game are overwhelmingly on his side, some fans still insist that the Big Bad was right all along, and that the hero's efforts will fail down the line.
- Not to mention the fact that it's a prequel.
- This might have to do with the fact that... you know.
- The original Leeroy Jenkins video from World Of Warcraft was, despite being a staged over-the-top reconstruction of a real event, more a parody of "nerd guilds" with their excessive and sometimes nonsensical planning than a parody of Leeroy's player archetype.
- Also some quests are clearly meant to be evil but players view these actions as justified. Good examples include the quest "The Broken Front", all Royal Apothecary quests and "It Was The Orcs, Honest!"
- Lezard Valeth from Valkyrie Profile was written to be as repulsive as possible, a sexually deviant stalker and violator of natural laws; like Harry Potter grown up terribly, terribly wrong. Some fans eat his character up, and pair him with the heroine of the first game. The blame/credit probably on the shoulders of his highly talented (and sexy-sounding) English voice actor. In the original Japanese version, he's more of a standard deep-voiced villain.
- In the Orc campaign of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, Admiral Proudmoore, a racist human, attacks the orc lands despite a truce having been made between the humans and orcs previously. He sends away his own daughter when she asks him to even hear out what's happened before he came there and proceeds to start a war which almost unravels the already shaky peace between the races. Some of the fandom think that he was right to do the things he did because they can't accept that the Horde isn't Always Chaotic Evil anymore. This has even show up here, when an editor claimed that Rexxar, the half-orc who lead the Horde against Proudmoore, was Chaotic Evil for "fighting an invasion that's quite justified".
- Similarily, the Alliance campaign has a racist human marshal named Garithos, who sends his own allies on suicide missions because they happen to be elves. There has been at least one case of a fan claiming that Garithos was right in his treatment because the elves were going to betray him, completely disregarding the fact that they (only later) betrayed him because he tried to have them executed for saving their own lives.
- On the other hand, with all the Character Derailment going on in Warcraft, it wouldn't be at all surprising if all of the above would eventually become official canon.
- Reversed by Hideo Kojima, who thought that people were going to love Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2. They didn't.
Web Comics
- Misaimed fandom is the point of this Something Positive comic. For those who don't get the joke, the author had previously used "cat girls" to represent annoying teenage anime fangirls who spout Gratuitous Japanese.
- A rare positive example of this occurred during the fake "ending" in this strip of 8-Bit Theater. As he claimed in the blog post for the following strip, Brian Clevinger made the strip to piss people off and was later astounded to receive several e-mails of people saying how it was a perfect way to end the strip and thanking him for a job well done (even the ones who hated the "ending").
- Someone once posted this Minus strip on a board, without any context nor any link to the comic. Immediately people saw it as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming, an innocent child's dream of saving the world because nobody told her it was impossible, that no one should ever lose hope when faced with a The End Of The World As We Know It, etc. Of course, anybody who has read the comic knows that:
- It's Minus, so there is nothing "impossible" here. She will make a home-run with the meteor.
- Knowing her, she probably summoned it in the first place.
- Richard, the undead warlock of Looking For Group, does nothing so much as play jump rope with the line. He has an entire summer home in audacity. About the only time we ever see him is when he's killing stuff for the hell of it or making kinda Vincenty Price-y jokes. And "stuff" in this context means, well, you name it. Women, children, innocent bystanders, orphanages, whatever. It was well into the story before there was even a hint that he had any purpose or role other than as super-dark comic relief, or any redeeming qualities at all. Go on and guess which character seems to be by far the fandom favorite. Saying things like "I don't like to see evil characters get away with the things Richard gets away with" on the forums isn't quite going to get anyone flamed, but expect plenty of people to leap to defense of their favorite comic mass murderer.
- It's pretty much impossible to claim Misaimed Fandom in Order Of The Stick without getting hit with massive amounts of Internet Backdraft, though the contradictory positions means that someone must have the wrong end of the ten-foot pole. But Word Of God eventually stepped in to confirm the "Belkar is Chaotic Good" claim as nonsense. He's Chaotic Evil, and not exactly subtle about it either.
Web Original
Western Animation
- Reportedly, Cartman of South Park was designed under the idea that you couldn't have an Archie Bunker character on TV now... unless he was a ludicrous little kid cartoon character. Naturally, there's dispute over why Cartman is one of the most popular kids.
- It's easy: he's got a funny voice, and almost everything he says or does, no matter how repulsive and ignorant, is absolutely hilarious.
- Similarly, Beavis And Butthead and King Of The Hill are animated satires of certain subcultures (dimwitted rock and roll loving teenagers and suburban Texans) done by Mike Judge. Both of the groups they target vocally enjoyed the very show that mocked them, and it's hard to claim that all of them are getting the joke. As Patrick Stewart once aptly put it: "Both the very smart and very stupid are fans of Beavis And Butthead, for very different reasons."
- Or as The Onion put it in their Our Dumb Century book: "New MTV Show About Idiots Who Watch MTV Big Hit Among Idiots Who Watch MTV".
- In the series The Maxx, Mr. Gone is often quoted for saying "Of course I have a problem with women. Everybody has a problem with women. Because women taunt, and tease, and are attractive, and punish you for being attracted," which some fans find to be insightful and accurate. In fact, Mr. Gone is a rapist, and this attitude was intended as a representation of how a rapist thinks.
- The Decepticons might as well be called "Transformers: Robots In Leather Pants". It's not quite clear how one can percieve the Autobots as evil and the Decepticons as noble warriors when they're called "the evil Decepticons" in the theme song, but there's a small but vocal fan group that supports this theory. One fan by the name of Raksha (yes, that's her legal name) even became moderately famous within the fandom for it.
- Oddly enough, in Transformers Animated Megatron actively promotes himself as a freedom fighter, seeking to rid Cybertron of Autobot oppression. It's not clear whether he means it or is simply using propaganda, but at least some of the Decepticons seem to sincerely believe in that cause.
- David Slack, writer/producer of the Teen Titans animated series, has said of the character Terra, "....she's just lost. Something inside her hurts so bad, right and wrong don't matter anymore." However, rather than accept that the character was an Anti Villain of the Dark Magical Girl variety, most of the fandom divided into two opposing camps: those who saw Terra as a blameless martyr who deserved a Titan's funeral, and those who saw her as a scheming sociopath who deserved to die. (Admittedly, the latter was how the original comic-book version was portrayed initially; the animated version is a radically different character.) When the series finale revealed that Terra was apparently alive and happily living as a normal schoolgirl with no interest in pursuing her former life, both sides of the fandom imploded, responding by writing either Fix Fic in which Terra chooses to acknowledge her former life and return to the team, or continuing to write Hate Fic featuring Terra dying in brutal fashion.
- An episode of The Powerpuff Girls called "The City of Clipsville" had one segment which was a Take That to PPG fanfiction cliches Craig McCracken hated, including Powerpuff Girls/Rowdyruff Boys shipper fics. The fake Flashback showed the characters as dumb airheaded teenagers. Fandom embraced that scene and even made fanart of it.
- Danny Phantom Fan Fic is sharply divided between the silliness of the later episodes and very serious fan fiction that could rightly belong in novel form. Also, many see Psycho For Hire Dark Danny as sympathetic, in spite of having the honor of being a sadistic sociopath who killed his human self along with
probably thousands millions of others.
- Duckman. In some very strange parts of the internet, Duckman gets hailed as "the greatest philosophical mind of this generation." Really? While his rants are sometimes justified, he's generally a spiteful, selfish, arrogant prick.
- Some interpret Syndrome from The Incredibles as a sympathetic character, accepting at face value Syndrome's accusation that Mr. Incredible is biased against non-supers and his claim that "... when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can have powers. Everyone can be Super!" Anyone who wants to give everyone in the world rocket boots and x-ray goggles is OK in a lot of people's books. Splosions and mayhem and kidnapping a baby don't bother these fans ... Some even go as far as to ship him ... with Violet.
- Chuck Jones created Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner as a parody of popular "chase cartoons" like Tom and Jerry, by picking two unlikely animals in a bizarre setting, making the Coyote his own worst enemy, and making the whole thing as over-the-top as possible. He was surprised when audiences took the first Road Runner short at face value, rather than as a parody, and loved it. Even though it didn't work out as he'd intended, Jones was happy to have a hit and continued using the two characters for years.
- In the Family Guy episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter", there is a scene where Brian, Chris, Peter and Stewie have an ipecac drinking contest. This is shown to be a terrible, terrible idea. And yet, the scene is credited with inspiring a recent upsurge in Ipecac-use among teenage bulimics.
- In Pixar's Cars, the Deliquent Road Hazards who were responsible for Lightning falling out of his transport truck were meant to be a gang of dislikable street punks, to the point that the animators modeled them after tastelessly modified "ricer" cars. Strangely enough, the fandom completely fell in love with them, making enough fan art and fanfiction centering around them to impress even the most hardened internet warrior.
- Also from Pixar: While no one disgrees that AUTO is a villain, they frequently seem to see a lot more to his (lack of) personality then there actually is. Then again, this may just be because Evil Is Cool and as noted, no one thinks he's a good guy.
- The Riley Freeman character from The Boondocks is sometimes seen as a badass kid rather than the mockery of the gangsta rap style that he actually is.
- Then again, rappers do voice some characters on the show. Even Ghostface killa voiced himself in an episode.
Miscellaneous
- Almost all Ho Yay is unintentional. A common reaction when writers find out about it is to freak out and pull the paired characters away from each other, ASAP. *cough* Smallville *cough* Recently, however, writers are becoming more prepared to court slashers.
- Actually, it's not all that uncommon for Ho Yay to be completely intentional. Unfortunately, some individuals (*cough* Fanboys *cough*) are convinced beyond dissuasion that it must be unintentional, because it makes them uncomfortable, dammit, and anything that makes them uncomfortable simply must be the imagination of those craaaaaazy dumb wimmen. See No Yay for the ultimate Fan Boy response to Ho Yay.
- The entire field of Eugenics is one big, smelly Misaimed Fandom of Darwin's theories, using Darwinism to justify a "master race" (yep, Hitler did it, too), and, to a lesser extent, thinking "stupid people" deserve to die. Even worse, the creationist opponents of evolution use eugenics as the ultimate argument against evolution. Exhibit A: Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Not to mention, the whole thing is based on the highly disputable idea that intelligence levels in healthy individuals are genetic. Or that it's even objective.
- A related version, Richard Dawkin's book The Selfish Gene has been used to justify social darwinism, despite it being a largely technical book that views evolution as mainly occurring at a genetic, rather than organism, scale. As Dawkins points out in the 30th anniversary edition's forward it doesn't even make any sense, especially since one of the most successful survival traits is cooperation.
- In the mid-1800s, the people of Northern Italy (who at the time were under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) came to consider Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco (specifically the aria Va Pensiero) as a manifesto in favour of Italian unification. It was nothing of the sort.
- Though most of the games reviewed by the Angry Video Game Nerd are just as bad as he says they are, there are a large number of viewers that didn't realize his first review of Castlevania II: Belmont's Quest was deliberate Accentuate The Negative, and thought the guy who played him genuinely hated that much (James Rolfe stated that the first review was done as a joke and he didn't really think the game was that bad).
- It doesn't help that he frequently brings up Castlevania II when discussing other games' flaws, notably long passwords. His recent Metal Gear review does a better job of what he was aiming for with Castlevania II.
- Many modern perception of the Amazons of Greek mythology. So they're Action Girls out there to kick guys' asses, and to represent the strength of women? Well, yeah, but the original point of their characters was to be beaten by -- and often submit to -- a stronger man, with the (warped) moral that women are weak no matter no matter how strong they get. Fortunately, William M. Marston and DC Comics didn't get the memo...
- For those requiring less subtlety, this is an example of how even Misaimed Fandom can be not necessarily bad.
- Pastafarianism originated out of an open letter to the Kansas Board of Education that parodied the idea of teaching Creationism as a science. However, once it gained notoriety, it developed its own Misaimed Fandom as Atheists came out of the woodwork, praising the open letter's contents as a Take That to religion in general—which grew even more prevalent when Richard Dawkins considered the letter a valid anti-theological argument.
- Ultimately, Pastafarianism's creator subverted this trope: Although he had originally professed that he had nothing against religion, he embraced his atheist fans and catered to their desires. Now that Pastafarianism is a Straw Religion with the message that "Belief Makes You Stupid," it's attracted its fair share of serious followers.
- There are many other parody religions such as the Church of the Subgenius and Discordianism as well.
- Discordianism actually started as a silly but serious religion to parody other parodies of religion, and there are still "serious" Discordian followers out there. Anyone who says otherwise will rot in Thud.
- Rastafarianism originally started as somewhere between a joke religion and a sort of political group for mocking those who were deemed oppressors, but over time has become a serious religion. This is even more amusing when you realize that in Rasatarianism: God is the deceased king of Ethiopia, Heaven is Ethiopia, and Satan is Queen Elizabeth II.
- Even though Haile Selassie actively tried to inform his first worshippers that he wasn't a god, said worshippers immediately concluded his humility was due to him being a god... So Yeah.
- So apparently, the Life Of Brian method of finding a messiah is valid. Who knew?
- KFC attempted a Battlestar Galactica related promotion, the "Frak Pak". Considering what the word "frak" is a substitute for, this got a bit of attention from the fanbase, albeit not for the intended reasons.
- What's worse is what they did when they realised their mistake: they replaced "Frak" with "Can't-Say-That-Word-On-Television". So it became literally a "fuck pak". Way to go, KFC.
- This can be a case with Nintendo's "Seal of Quality". After the NES arrived on the video game scene, Nintendo wanted its consumers to be assured that their games would run properly and that the games they make/publish have met their "standards". So came the "Seal Of Quality" which denoted that games baring the seal had met Nintendo's stringent licensing requirements, specifically, that all companies (with several exceptions) were limited to five game releases a year, a direct reaction to the scores of poorly made games that were one of the reasons for The Great Video Game Crash Of 1983. Certainly, this stopped much of the Shovelware for the system, but also contributed to the system's quotient No Export For You. It made no assurances of play quality, but seemed to satisfy the consumer demand for an assurance that someone had looked over the game before it went out the door (something that was understandable considering the latter years of the Atari 2600). However, the more stringent aspects of the licensing requirements were ditched at around the time developers began defecting to the Sega Genesis, the seal became nothing more than saying "this game will work on the system", and the "quality" aspect of the seal was ditched in 2003. The funny thing is many people today believe by having Nintendo bring back the "Seal of Quality", it would reduce the amount of shovelware the Wii has. They all seem to ignore that some of the worst games of all time have borne the seal, including Superman 64, Deadly Towers, Heroes Of The Lance, Bad Street Brawler, the occasionally-good-but-always-eye-damaging Virtual Boy catalogue...
- Recently LittleKuriboh released a satirical Yu-Gi-Oh! rap video in which he was also firing shots at the various other abridged series makers. However unfortunately there are fans who seem to think he DOES hate the other abridged series makers. (Some also think that he is so arrogant he thinks he invented the parody genre.) However they don't realize that he has either watched or sometimes actually worked with these abridged shows before, such as Naruto and DBZ. So basically if you think he actually does hate people like them congratulations, you just called him a hypocrite. You may not realize it but you do, fortunately not only are there fans who do know this but fortunately none of the abridged series makers actually thought he hates them so far.
- There is an article called Lancelot Lives which is about how to set proper boundaries in relationships with women, not give in to lust and up hold the sanctity of marriage. Because, as we all know, Lancelot is a perfect example of those particular virtues.
- The African-American holiday of Kwanzaa which was born from FBI manipulations meant to discredit similar but legitimate political philosophies.
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