Sandbox / Overshadowed By Controversy Wick Check

Here we will be performing a wick check for Overshadowed by Controversy.

Why?: This YMMV item has long been misused for non-controversies and off-mission entries, as mentioned by the OP of a related Trope Talk thread.

Wicks checked: 50/50

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Used to refer to a controversy about the work itself, was controversial during the work's initial popularity (so not Condemned By History) (6/50)

1. Forced Meme: Robin Thicke's video for "Blurred Lines" contained giant flashing red hashtags showing the name of the song (and the album) and the names of the participating musicians. Weirdly enough, "Blurred Lines" did achieve meme status, but not through any activity on the "#THICKE" hashtag. The Overshadowed by Controversy pothole is valid, as "Blurred Lines" itself was controversial for coming off as creepy, but the example is a better fit for #EngineeredHashtag than Forced Meme. The Blurred Lines video is even the page image on EH.
2. YMMV.Ahmed And Salim: You can't talk about Ahmed & Salim without mentioning how offensive it is as well as how much controversy it stirred up on a global scale. Not only did this show get forced into cancellation by YouTube but it was also banned in the UAE for how relentlessly it mocked their people. Definitely seems legit.
3. YMMV.Gotti: The film would have already gone down in infamy as a member of the "0% on Rotten Tomatoes" club, but then the crew made it even worse with their bizarre claims that the savage reviews were actually due to a conspiracy among the critic elite and even rebranding it as "the movie critics don't want you to see", all while never giving the slightest explanation of what the point of such a conspiracy would be, particularly as the film wasn't screened in advance for critics. Given how little people know this movie, this seems legit. Honest Trailers even mentioned it.
4. Trivia.My Hero Academia: Banned in China: The anime and manga were removed in China following the controversy surrounding the doctor's original true name "Maruta".^note The abbreviated version is that in World War II, Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army carried out "Project Maruta" on Chinese prisoners. The project was not entirely unlike the work of Josef Mengele, involving inhumane experimentation on the prisoners, including but not limited to vivisection, weapon testing, and forced pregnancies. "Maruta", meaning "logs" in Japanese, was the name given to the test subjects, as the official cover story for the facility was that it was a lumber mill. Kōhei Horikoshi has stated that he never intended to reference such a horrific moment in China's history and subsequently changed the doctor's name, but the damage was already done. Not aware of My Hero Academia's popularity in China, but if MHA is still banned in China I'd say it counts as OBC, albeit only a regional example.
5. YMMV.Its Not Your Fault: Whenever the comic is brought up, it is more about the fact that spoiler: a drunk Sam lured and raped Lincoln, with this being how Lina was conceived. Plus, Javi's other artwork regarding his One True Pairing portraying them as a happy and loving couple in spite of that seems to imply that spoiler:rape isn't all that harmful. Unfamiliar with this The Loud House fancomic. It sounds like this was intended to be a dark scene (the comic does have a content warning for that section), and given the nature of fanworks and the canon of fanworks, I don't know if the other artworks are intended to be canon to It's Not Your Fault. The artist might just be a general Sam/Lincoln shipper and their other works aren't necessarily supposed to be about the Sam and Lincoln in It's Not Your Fault. That said, if the negative reaction to the scene in the comic was severe enough it's probably correct use. Leaving it here, but I'm not sold on the entire bullet.
6. YMMV.The Vagina Monologues: The vignette "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could" is best known for its highly controversial depiction of an underaged girl's sexual encounter with an adult woman, which has led many theatre groups to alter it to avoid controversy. Some productions change the narrator's age from 13 to 16, some cut the controversial line "If it was rape, it was a good rape", and others elect to cut the segment entirely. Yes, the "Coochie Snorcher" incident continues to affect the play's popularity to this day. It was always meant to be shocking, and "Coochie Snorcher" might not be the only reason the play's somewhat fallen out of fashion, but it's still an issue that all modern productions have to deal with, as mentioned. The earliest complaint about it I could find was from May 2000.

About controversy related to the work's external circumstances (1/50)

1. Film.Manhattan Melodrama: Mostly though, it's remembered because it was the movie the infamous gangster John Dillinger had just seen before he came out of the theater and was gunned down by the FBI. Myrna Loy would later express distaste for how MGM exploited the publicity surrounding Dillinger's murder, and producer William Randolph Hearst had his name taken off the credits. Scenes from this film are included in Michael Mann's film about Dillinger, Public Enemies. This is probably fair, although that's mostly because in 2023 John Dillinger is more of a household name than William Powell or Myrna Loy. That said, since I imagine a good amount of the film's modern fans are people interested in Dillinger who want to see the last film he saw before he died, maybe Dancing Bear is more appropriate?

About controversy about a creator's behavior (8/50)

1. Celebrity Endorsement: Bill Cosby for Jell-O, Eastman Kodak & Coca-Cola. Whether the Cos liked it or not, this was the aspect of his career that seemed to live on longest in popular culture. Keyword: "Seemed".
2. Seasonal Rot: Li'l Abner fell into this pretty hard. For a couple of decades (40s-60s), it was the most popular comic strip in America by a mile, with an estimated daily readership of 70 million in the US alone (back when the country's population was ~180 million.) The strip produced omnipresent merchandise and even a few live-action films. Al Capp was called the modern-day Mark Twain. Characters from the strip, such as Daisy Mae, Sadie Hawkins, and Lena the Hyena were part of the Small Reference Pools. It also spawned an extremely successful spinoff character, the Shmoo, which was a cultural phenomenon in its own right. The main reason it died off in popularity was because of its complete alienation of the baby boomer generation. Al Capp became increasingly conservative in his later years, and the strip started taking regular potshots at the civil rights movement^note Although Capp had a mixed relationship with the movement. On one hand, Capp supported civil rights for African-Americans in 1949 publicly and even protested the National Cartoonists Society disallowing women. His studio also helped create Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. But he didn't necessarily support groups asking him for support, once claiming a group concerned with white violence on black people wasn't doing enough to stop the whole issue., hippies, and anti-war protesters, including an infamous feud with John Lennon. Perhaps even worse, in 1971, Al Capp got caught in multiple near-simultaneous sex scandals that led to many newspapers dropping the strip out of protest. Due to these two factors, the strip's popularity plummeted in the 70s, until it finally ended in 1977 by Capp himself. The Overshadowed by Controversy pothole is valid, but the example as a whole is not. Seasonal Rot is supposed to be for when the actual quality of the work dips. This is just talking about how the comic lost its popularity due to changing social pressures. It says nothing as to whether "Abner" itself dipped in quality.
3. Funny.The Nostalgia Critic 2017 Episodes: The Critic's reaction upon hearing "In the words of the Donald - 'You're fired!'" - - > Critic: (Beat) Yes. Those will be the most memorable words that we ever take away from "The Donald". I suppose when you think about it, there- (whistle) How is he tweeting about me already?! I'm not even done with the joke!
4. HarsherInHindsight.Homestuck: Pretty much any mention of Bill Cosby in the comic becomes this, given real life events. While valid for OBC, this is misuse of Harsher in Hindsight - I've worked with that cleanup thread enough to say that merely namedropping a now-canceled celeb is not in and of itself Harsher in Hindsight.
5. Horrible.Western Animation: (in an entire section about John Kricfalusi): Cans Without Labels is an animated short that was also intended to be Kricfalusi's comeback. Instead, it completely torpedoed what was left of his career (well, that and several sexual assault allegations that were revealed in 2018). The film was announced in 2008 and crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2012 before spending seven years in Development Hell, suggesting it was a labor of love — but it turned out to betray almost everything Kricfalusi preached as an animator. Rather than use his trademark Deranged Animation to advance a story, he pushed it to wild extremes to cover for the paper-thin plot. His notorious perfectionism bore no results; the editing is a mess on all fronts, from the production to the acting to the sound, with one piece of background music noticeably and jarringly ending abruptly. The animation similarly looks incredibly cheap; the camera refuses to stop zooming and panning, and the backgrounds are inconsistent between scenes. He even uses CG — and jarring, ugly CG at that — despite having long decried doing so in 2D animation. note Even worse, the CG models in the short are actually assets which are supposed to be traced. This means that Kricfalusi, a notorious perfectionist, used stock assets in what was supposed to be his magnum opus./note And the main conflict is resolved using a mean-spirited Seltzerberg-esque parody of Donald Duck, presumably as a Take That! to Disney. The Mysterious Mr. Enter elaborates on the short itself here, AniMat suffers through the whole affair here, Daniel Ibbertson goes into detail on what happened with its Kickstarter situation here, and TheGrandMac discusses the short here, as well as the animatic for a planned Ren & Stimpy short to accompany the second SpongeBob movie.
6. Trivia.Scott The Woz: Creator Backlash Pokémon YouTuber Tama Hero has stated she regrets agreeing to cameo in "Borderline Forever" as a result of the episode featuring a cameo from RelaxAlax, in light of allegations against the latter. Scott would eventually edit his cameo out some time after. Since the pothole is about Alax, I'm inclined to call it correct, although Scott and Borderline Forever as a whole are not OBC because of their (former) association with him.
7. YMMV.Austin Powers: Overshadowed by Controversy: Not the films themselves, but one of the characters, Random Task from Man of Mystery. Nowadays, more people associate him with the convictions brought against his actor, Joe Son, rather than him being a simple gag character due to how horrific they are. Also doesn't strongly affect the reputation of Austin Powers.
8. YMMV.Treasure Attic: The series was created by The Family International (TFI), a sect that's infamous for promoting sexual abuse and masturbation in the name of the Lord. Related to the group that made it, not the work itself.

Refers to a flash-in-the-pan controversy that no longer effects the perception of the work - Controversy, but it doesn't Overshadow the work (12/50)

1. BestKnownForTheFanservice.Live Action Films: The Brown Bunny probably had a plot (or not), but is mainly remembered as the film where Chloë Sevigny performs un-simulated fellatio on the writer/director/star. And then the war of words with the director and Roger Ebert. A decade after its release, Sevigny was still being asked questions about the scene, despite the fact she's gone on to greater notoriety in other works. If this bullet point was about the real sex in it, I would count it as OBC, because that does continue to overshadow the movie. But the bullet point is about the feud with Roger Ebert, which no one still thinks about.
2. Creator.Deborah Norville: Career Resurrection: Inside Edition quite obviously became this following her brief but controversial tenure on Today and her stint as radio host for ABC and correspondent for CBS News. Not familiar with this woman, but apparently her career recovered.
3. HollywoodHypeMachine.Too Early To Call: Olivia Wilde appeared in a number of supporting roles on film and TV before she was cast as Thirteen on House. That show's ratings success brought her onto the radar of a larger audience. She received a big push afterwards: via starring roles in such blockbuster films as Year One, The Next Three Days, TRON: Legacy, Cowboys & Aliens, and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Unfortunately, they often underperformed. Hence, Wilde, in 2019, branched into directing instead, which proved to be a far more fruitful endeavor when her debut feature Booksmart garnered extensive critical praise. However, her next directorial effort Don't Worry Darling starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles (whom Wilde started dating) became Overshadowed by Controversy ranging from Shia Labeouf being cast in the film initially (Wilde herself claimed she fired him, but LaBeouf himself says he chose to leave the production) to her allegedly clashing with Pugh on-set (which reportedly motivated Pugh to limit her involvement in promotion). The film premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, where it received negative to mixed reviews. The drama surrounding this film's production is still fairly fresh, but I'm inclined to say the film is being judged on its own merits post-release. I've found some reviews and video essays on it that only mention its tumultuous production in passing. I think that in the future Don't Worry Darling is more likely to be thought of as "Stepford Wives but worse" than "Remember when Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine?"
4. Music.Vanessa Carlton: Overshadowed by Controversy: What little impact "White Houses" had was obliterated when various radio stations that were in her target demographic blacklisted the song due to it including a frank depiction, for a female pop vocalist, of losing her virginity. Aside from how this should not be on her main page, this is no longer a big controversy surrounding Carlton, as she's now more-or-less thought of as a One-Hit Wonder for "A Million Miles".
5. YMMV.All Star Batman And Robin The Boy Wonder: Although each issue is arguably infamous in some way, issue 10 was the only one to get recalled—due to a printing error, the text boxes that blacken out profanity were made see-through, and a certain word that would otherwise have been blocked out was visible. As such, any discussion of the issue will inevitably bring up said scene. Based on what I'm reading from the rest of the page, it seems like this little moment is one of ASBARTBW's lesser controversies (the Schedule Slip, the Arc Fatigue, apparently just generally being seen as bad, according to the Bile Fascination bullet).
6. YMMV.Cinderella Man: Many viewers know more about the film's extremely controversial Historical Villain Upgrade of Max Baer than anything else about it. Don't think it's legit—it doesn't seem to be the first thing people think of when they think of this movie. Therefore, it's a good example of a controversy that doesn't overshadow the work.
7. YMMV.The Dilemma: The film is better known for widespread condemnation by gay rights activist groups for featuring the "Electric cars are gay" line as the introduction for the trailer. This movie as a whole was a bit of a flash-in-the-pan drama magnet, and both the film and this controversy are forgotten.
8. Doctor Who S15 E1 "Horror of Fang Rock": In America, the serial is primarily remembered nowadays for a 1987 re-run in Chicago being hijacked for ninety seconds by a guy in a Max Headroom mask (who had previously hijacked part of a WGN-TV newscast earlier that night). The hijacker was never caught. The incident has become so intertwined with the episode that even the unofficial Doctor Who wiki devotes a lengthy portion of the article on the story to the hijacking. I'm familiar with both the Max Headroom incident and Doctor Who enough to say that the hijacking doesn't overshadow the serial to Whovians. Like, it's a footnote on the serial's Wikipedia page and that's about it.
9. YMMV.Kramer Vs Kramer: Dustin Hoffman’s extremely nasty Method Acting has come in for a lot of criticism, especially after the accusations against him from the Me Too movement. The one that’s especially beyond the pale is his repeatedly insulting Meryl Streep’s recently deceased fiancé John Cazale. I've heard this drama before, but I wouldn't say it overshadows Kramer Vs. Kramer on the whole - immediately beneath this is a Values Resonance bullet commending the film. The last sentence is also written in an inflammatory way.
10. YMMV.Men At Work: Sadly, "Down Under" is also remembered nowadays for the messy lawsuit from Larrikin Music, over the use of melody from the popular Australian children's song "Kookaburra". The court case, which Men at Work lost, ruled that the song's composer, lead vocalist Colin Hay, has to pay royalties to the copyright holder. Hay suggested that the stress from the lawsuit resulted in the death of his father and the suicide of his bandmate Greg Ham. It's another example where it's, like, on the Wikipedia page and is music trivia, but I don't think the average person playing "Down Under" at 80's Night notices or cares about this lawsuit. People don't think of it as "the lawsuit song", they think of it as "the Australia song".
11. YMMV.Terminator Salvation: It's probably not hyperbole to say that the leaked three-and-a-half minute audio clip of Christian Bale flipping out at the DP on set is far more quotable and has had a significantly greater effect on pop culture than anything that happens in the movie itself. Many noted that once the controversy over the Bale incident — and also the reshot ending — passed, opinions on the actual movie started to become a lot more positive (albeit it probably also helped that the even worse-received Terminator Genisys came along at around that time). The Bale freak-out is more or less gone from the public memory by this point. No one's brought it up or made memes out of it since, like, 2011. And from what I've heard from Terminator fans they still think there's only two good movies in the whole franchise.
12. YMMV.XTC: Discussions on the controversy surrounding the overtly pro-atheist content of "Dear God" tend to eclipse any talk regarding the song's artistry, composition, and its status as XTC's one hit in the United States. It's also overshadowed XTC in general for the mainstream US. Bring their name up to the casual American music fan and they'll think "Oh yeah, the guys who did that anti-God song". It doesn't help that a deranged XTC fan held a school faculty hostage while playing the song over its public-address system, indirectly tarnishing the band for many people. '''As an American familiar with their work, I know that the only people in the 2020's who still think about XTC are superfans, who either don't mind or actively like the atheist themes of that song, and Joe Blow on the street probably hasn't heard of them.

OBC only for a specific group, the work is otherwise uncontroversial (1/50)

1. YMMV.Sister Claire: My Little Pony fans first heard of Yamino from the infamous "DerpyGate" scandal, which lead to a lot of demonization of both her and this comic from angry MLP fanboys. Even now, when someone mentions Yamino, the first thing that tends to come to mind for many MLP fans is DerpyGate rather than anything else she's done since. Brony nonsense. Sister Claire is still doing fine. No one who's not a brony even knows about Derpy Gate.

Just a controversy, nothing is being overshadowed (1/50)

1. TearJerker.MLP Analysis (condensed to just context and the relevant quote): In his "Drama" confession video, Zaid Magenta^note previously called MisAnthroPony went on an anger-induced tirade after he found out that one of the writers of the show was given death threats, and this was after he had hope for the fandom. The tirade part can be especially heartbreaking to watch, because his previous confession video is called "Fandom" and he stated he was very proud to be in it: Zaid Magenta: If people were hating her^note [Pinkie Pie] before that episode, oh they were really starting to hate her now, and even with all that in mind, nothing quite prepared me for the horrifying news through this video that I saw months later.
   (cut to a Golden Fox video called "Rant on Amy Keating Roger's Death Threats", the same one in the link above)\\ This is Brony drama I don't follow, but a video that's just death threats us pure controversy, since there is nothing to overshadow.

OBC being used for Stealth Complaining about works (5/50)

1. Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Eminem was not always great at keeping his sitcom beefs non-serious - his beef with his former friends Limp Bizkit started with pranks but led to D12 beating Fred Durst up, and his beef with Moby (intended as this, by Word of God) resulted in a group of people in his Misaimed Fandom assaulting him on the street. His beef with Mariah Carey was probably also intended as satirical, but escalated so disgracefully that various unaffiliated rappers stepped in to tell him to cool it. And as for his beef with Machine Gun Kelly, while Eminem's diss track is goofy in tone and pretty restrained, the track ended up doing serious damage to MGK's reputation and public persona and led to him being better known now as a ridiculous irritant than as a musician. Machine Gun Kelly seems to be a popular target for getting the OBC label, and I suspect it's from a hater - his career is doing fine right now, and people talk about other things about him besides his feud with Eminem.
2. Creator.Ryan Murphy: Overshadowed by Controversy: In recent years, Murphy became the central focus of criticism related to his use of real-life cases and historical figures in his works, seen at best as clumsy or poorly researched, at worst as completely indecent. Started by some later seasons of American Horror Story (the depictions of Anton La Vey in American Horror Story: Apocalypse or of Richard Ramirez in American Horror Story: 1984) and some seasons of American Crime Story (the creative liberties of The Assassination of Gianni Versace), the controversy fully exploded with the release of his highly divisive true-crime show, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. This isn't exactly a "controversy", it's just criticism of his style.
3. SpiritualSuccessor.Live Action Films: Several critics and moviegoers called {National Treasure} a better movie of The Da Vinci Code than its actual film adaptation, which made it to theaters two years after National Treasure did. ^note  The former currently has a 44% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes to the latter's 25%, and a 76% audience rating to The Da Vinci Codes 57%. It might have helped that National Treasure doesn't pretend to be historically accurate, it wasn't dogged by religious controversy, and it overall doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as The Da Vinci Code did. AFAIK the religion controversy for Da Vinci no longer overshadows the work to the point of being the first thing people think of. More importantly, this bullet reads as Stealth Complaining about TDVC.'
4. YMMV.Cowboy Bebop 2021: Reviewer consensus: a series So Okay, It's Average, especially because way too many shows that came between the original anime and this production borrowed freely from it in terms of looks and plot and thus it does not feels any different. Consensus amongst the fans of the original anime: an abomination that made mistakes in all points big and small and needed to die. The solar flare-level firestorm in social media (with the ever present recommendation to just watch the original show) was one of the biggest contributors to the show being Cut Short. Not "overshadowed by controversy", this is just what people think about this show.
5. YMMV.The Prince 2021: The show's negative portrayal of the Royal family, especially with Prince George and Queen Elizabeth II, is probably more known than what goes on in the series itself. Many people found it inappropriate to portray a real life young child and an elderly ruler as self-absorbed jerkasses, so when the trailers for the show were released, the show started gaining criticism for its portrayals of such members, with some people considering it insulting. Aside from the representations, the show is also known for its premiere's delay due to Prince Philip's death on April 2021 at the age of 99, which occurred just as the show was about to broadcast. Not to defend this bad show, but this example is basically worded as "this show is Overshadowed By Controversy because it's bad", which is misuse of the trope. Audience-Alienating Premise, which already has a bullet, is a better fit in this case.

Misuse, as another trope is more accurate (9/50)

1. BoxOfficeBomb.G Through H: The Hunt (2020) - Budget, $14 million. Box office, $5,812,500 (domestic), $6,562,393 (worldwide). The satirical action thriller was originally pulled from its original September 27th, 2019 release after a series of real-life shootings in the US and criticism over its apparent premise of liberals hunting right-wing extremists for sport, especially from US President Donald Trump (despite the film advocating against such violence), and later released on March 13th with the advertising focused on the controversy. Unfortunately, it arrived right as the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US, placing 5th in the worst domestic weekend since 1998. With theaters closing around the country to encourage social distancing, Universal made the bold move to release the film to home video early as a VOD rental only a week after its debut, along with The Invisible Man, Emma, and the then-upcoming Trolls World Tour. This is Audience Alienating Premise.
2. Film.Filly Brown: The somewhat obscure movie sadly provides a case of Overshadowed by Controversy. First, its distribution was handled by a firm called the Indomina Group that ran into financial trouble and got the film passed on to Pantelion after the former company folded. Second, six months after the limited release of Filly Brown both its producers and its distributors got hit with a pair of lawsuits (alleging that production ignored basic contract rules). One of the suits asserted that the filmmakers never even forged a formal acting agreement with a principal cast-member. Third, actress and singer Jenni Rivera tragically died in a plane crash before the movie's major release. Misuse. This is Troubled Production, not OBC.
3. Literature.The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge: The Warren Commission Report [the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy] was criticized for including a tiny collectible shard of JFK’s skull in every edition. This didn't really happen, obviously, this book is satire, but I'm not sure if this is a correct use of OBC even in-universe. Maybe an in-universe example of Dude, Not Funny! is more appropriate?
4. Trivia.Two Distant Strangers: Overshadowed by Controversy: As several people noticed, the basic premise of 'Groundhog Day with a black protagonist who keeps getting shot by the same police officer' was done in 2016 in 'Groundhog Day for a Black Man.' The director of that prior film, Cynthia Kao, implied that 'Two Distant Strangers' used her idea, noting that one of 'Two Distant Strangers'' producers is the company NowThis, which had previously recommended and boosted 'Groundhog Day for a Black Man' and thus was provably aware of Kao's film. This started an online flame war, with some people blasting the 'Two Distant Strangers' crew for stealing Kao's idea, while others argued either that Kao couldn't prove the theft or that Kao, who is Asian, had no right to make a movie about black trauma in the first place. * * The same idea (of a black man stuck in a "Groundhog Day" Loop and being repeatedly killed by a policeman) was also used in an episode of Jordan Peele's The Twilight Zone (2019) , although in that case the director of 'Two Distant Strangers' actually talked to Peele and made sure the new film was different enough to not be a ripoff. However, there's no indication that happened with 'Groundhog Day for a Black Man,' hence the flame war. Firstly, this shouldn't be on the Trivia page, OBC is not trivia. Second, this is closer to They Copied It, So It Sucks!. Third, this is literally the entire Trivia page for this short film.
5. WesternAnimation.The Problem Solverz: The show has been the subject of mass criticism... Flame War-level criticism. Its arrival to Cartoon Network unfortunately coincided with the cancellation of Sym-Bionic Titan, and the series was seen as a vastly inferior replacement, turning it into The Scapegoat. It didn't help that many people accused the show of getting Sym-Bionic Titan canceled. However, the show has a collective fanbase despite the rough patches. This is a better fit for Fandom Rivalry.
6. YMMV.Anne With An E: The show's abrupt cancellation at the end of season three (and CBC's insistence that it would not be Uncancelled or get a Channel Hop) are now probably better known than the content of the show itself. No, the show is still liked on its own merits. Screwed by the Network is a better fit than OBC.
7. YMMV.The Ride On King: Purchinov being a parody of Vladimir Putin always was, for better and for worse, one of the most recognizable trait of the manga, often being colloquially named "Putin Isekai" by people not familiar with it. This surface-level similarity however brought a lot of ire on the series after Russia's universally criticized invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the manga then being accused of retroactively being of poor taste and promoting the controversial Russian leader, some bookstores straight up removing the series from their shelves. All of this despite the fact that Purchinov was a fervent Martial Pacifist from the start (in stark contrast with his real life counterpart), and that his homeland has more in common with a post-USSR country like Ukraine than a Glorious Mother Russia. Shortly after the war began, he even made a suspiciously relevent speech about how the concept of invading neighbouring countries was distasteful. Given the manga addressed the criticisms, it's probably a better fit for Distanced from Current Events.
8. YMMV.Ultimatum: Jeph Loeb's decades-long career was overshadowed by a highly visible Creator Breakdown he underwent in the late 2000s following the sudden death of his son. Not only did the overall quality of his writing take a hit during this period, but his stories would frequently deal with disturbing topics such as incest and display a level of violence unusual for the superhero genre. In particular, he wrote The Ultimates 3, which was not up to the quality of the first two miniseries written by Mark Millar. It was followed by this story, a Crisis Crossover that killed half the cast of the Ultimate Marvel universe, mostly in gruesome ways. He has written several other comics: The Long Halloween (two Eisner Awards), Dark Victory (one Eisner Award), Superman for All Seasons (two Eisner nominations, one Wizard Fan Award), Batman: Hush, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America, etc. He also created the characters X-Man, Red Hulk, Sam Alexander and Jimmy Hudson, all of whom, although divisive, have been fairly prominent at times. And even in the Ultimate line, he also wrote follow-up work such as New Ultimates. Still, for many fans he's the one who ruined the Ultimate line with Ultimatum, and nothing else. Eventually, he decided to work in TV full-time. Creator Breakdown seems like a better fit for much of this entry, and the list of his other accomplishments is a better fit for his creator page, and the end of this bullet is just complaining about this work.
9. YMMV.Vice Ganda: It's hard not to think about Vice without the leagues of critics who are critical of his style of comedy, deriding it as a denigrating form of defamation at the expense of those targeted by Vice's sarcasm. In fairness there has been those far worse than him, but still... "People having detractors" is not OBC. Everyone has people who don't like their work. If that counted as OBC, everything would be OBC because of the handful of haters. Critical Dissonance is a more appropriate trope, which does have a bullet on Ganda's page.

A ZCE (3/50)

1. Awesome.Saturday Night Live: Probably the most awesome thing about SNL is the fact that the show has been on the air for decades and counting, survived many things that would have taken down lesser shows (Executive Meddling, Seasonal Rot, cast and crew changes, weak writing, controversial moments, criticism over racial and gender equality in the cast, fair-weather fans who will drop the show the minute it does something that misfires — even a global pandemic), and, for better or worse, is considered great entertainment, and has adapted to this current era, where people are finding their sketch show fix online and on cable rather than on free-to-air TV. On an E! special about the show's history, Lorne Michaels has stated that the show has lasted for as long as it has because it reinvents itself with talented cast members and writers and always finds a new audience after the ones who used to like the show brush it off. Too vague on what the "controversial" moments are. Some SNL sketches probably are OBC, but the show itself definitely isn't.
2. Picket Fences: Ambulance Chaser Douglas Wambaugh and The Coroner, Carter Pike, are probably the two least liked and respected main cast members (especially in earlier episodes), but are both particularly popular with the fanbase (although neither is universally beloved due to sometimes being on the wrong end of a particularly big Overshadowed by Controversy moment). What's the controversy? This example doesn't say.
3. YMMV.Les Minikeums: Dueling Works: From 1993 to 1997, Les Minikeums came to rival the Club Dorothée on TF1, which also had a cast of goofy hosts (albeit real persons instead of puppets), comedy skits and music videos. The Club Dorothée was dogged by controversy (the kind of thing Les Minikeums managed to completely avoid) and was eventually terminated in 1997, Les Minikeums ended up the biggest French kids show from 1997 to 2000 as a result. That being said, both shows ended up being fondly remembered for people who grew up in The '90s. Doesn't explain what the controversies surrounding "Dorothee" enough for me to put it anywhere else. The last sentence makes me think that the controversies surrounding "Dorothee" no longer overshadow it.

In Universe (4/50)

1. Characters.Coco Ernesto De La Cruz: Overshadowed by Controversy: He attains this status In-Universe at the end according to the creators — and it's going to keep him "alive" in a Land of the Dead that now despises him for a VERY long time. In-universe example and, more importantly, a ZCE. It doesn't mention why he's OBC in universe.
2. Fridge.The Simpsons S 13 E 21 The Frying Game: While the show seemingly portrays Fox as getting away with nearly deliberately executing an innocent person on-air (outside of maybe being forced to give the police officers a producer credit), considering we don't see the show again afterwards, who's to say they got off scot free? For all we know, the show may have been Overshadowed by Controversy, they may have not been the only people fooled by the show, and it's entirely possible that the producers were sued to hell and back by everyone fooled and cancelled as a result- how would they get away with that and not expect anyone to be up in arms?! Legit In-Universe-y fridge pothole.
3. Recap.Monk S 1 E 6 Mr Monk And The Billionaire Mugger: Overshadowed by Controversy: In-universe, the press makes more of a big deal about "Fraidy Cop" than of a billionaire getting murdered, to Stottlemeyer's exasperation. Even for in-universe, this is a misuse, the example is written like Worst News Judgement Ever and not OBC.
4. Series.Earth To Ned: 15 Minutes of Fame: Ned sends Cornelius to the surface to learn about comedy and Cornelius quickly becomes a famous comedian before having a Creator Breakdowninvoked and becoming Overshadowed by Controversy over the course of a weekend. An in-universe example. A bit of a ZCE as well.