Needs a dramatic overhaul: GettingCrapPastTheRadar

Side note: There's a heaping dose of implicit YMMV. "Getting Crap Past The Radar" seems to imply approval. If the citing troper disapproves, it's "Unfortunate Implications".

I havee to ask a question here: Does HP have a radar to justify the existence of this page: Harry Potter?

While I'm sure that page is riddled with misuse, it should exist. The series started out as children's books, after all.

I just read through that page, and it really needs a scrubbing. Most of what's on there is innuendo or double entendres. Or people reading way too much into things.

Can I just have at it, or does it need discussion?

Go ahead. I don't think we can fix ... thing without some blunt actions.

Okay, I chopped it down. Someone else should probably look it over to make sure I wasn't over-zealous (considering how I axed most of the page).

@nrjxl: Getting Crap Past the Radar is supposed to mean something that the network censors would not have allowed if they'd noticed it. That's why the crowner's decicion is meaningless: Getting Crap Past the Radar in that sense is so rare that it can never be considered likely, much less "really blatant", unless confirmed by Word of God. Now we have no way to get out of this mess short of admin fiat, and that would alrady have happened if Fast Eddie wished to do so.

'GCPTR' is the trope that annoys me. Too many people use it for every double entendre. I agree it should mean stuff the censors would stop if they saw it, and more than that, the audience shouldn't really spot it most of the time. Think about it: censors know it all, have seen it all. If all 200 people at a recording get the filthy meaning, then the censors damn well would!

Thus Julian and Sandy from Round the Horne using polari IS GCPTR- they were effete, yes, but if you understood the gay slang they were using, then they were absolutely filthy (especially for the 50's).

The way Samantha is talked about in Im sorry I havent a clue ISN'T. Yes the 'other' meaning is very rude, but the double entendre's are very obvious, the whole double entendre is really the joke. I would go as far as saying double entendres played for laughs are not an attempt to GCPTR.

edited 6th Jan '13 4:41:39 PM by LastHussar

I'm not sure I understand your point - while it's quite possible that every single current example on that page is misuse, as a children's and then young adult's series, there is a "radar" for the Harry Potter books to be theoretically be capable of getting "crap" past.

In light of the Curse Of The Golden Flower example, I think the definition should include successfully getting "anything the government habitually censors" past the government radar. These methinks would make much more easily defined than "hiding" sexual innuendo or such in "children's" works.

I mean, it's not like Harry Potter is a kiddie book, and the same probably goes for many other works on the list as well.

As for the specific radar for Harry Potter, it was published in UK and as far as I know they're a bit more relaxed there than in the USA. I personally can't think of a single legit example of GCPTR from Harry Potters...

This is tangentially related, but there is an ongoing radio spot series here in Finland... It features a grown-up son, his lame dad, and dad's new boyfriend. Many of the skits include naughty jokes and puns and one particular one was a hurricane of double entrendes about making food. Wouldn't say this is an example of GCPTR because there is no radar for things like these.

edited 7th Jan '13 4:46:11 AM by peccantis

It's not just kiddie stuff. Back in the fifties and sixties, science fiction writers used to regularly try to get stuff past the editors, who had strict rules about what was and wasn't allowed in the SF magazines. Larry Niven, for example, has publicly stated that he's proud to have gotten in an alien race called the "Tnuctip", in one of his stories. That's not just backwards. It's rather weird even frontwards. But it took something that obscure to get past the eagle eye of an editor like John W. Campbell.

Of course, I have Word of God on that one, and we can't really hope for WOG on every example, so ... I dunno.

Has someone with a better understanding on Double Entendres any idea if this example fits?

• Septimus Heap: In Syren, Septimus is given a Water Gnome, which is basically a Magykal watering can. Beetle notes that it's different from the rude ones he usually sees. At first this can just fly over your head as swearing inanimate objects (God knows Harry Potter has enough of them), but once you take into consideration that it's a watering can, it can easily be interpreted as something far worse. Not a pretty thought when you're watering your plants.

I think that's someone reading far, far too much into something.

That's a common problem with everything unfortunate or censor-baity.

Bumping to ask for a last third-party comment on the example I mentioned previously.

Also, given that Special Efforts is being split, where does this thread go?

Normally, it would be short term, but given that the problem is too widespread, it might be better for long term.

Alternatively, we could throw it in the Morgue and start another TRS for it once the cap is reached, given that the crowner down there hasn't fixed anything.

I would like to take it to TRS again but I thought we're not allowed to open TRS threads to change previous TRS decisions.

That is not quite what is being said there.

Has the Radar.Sonic The Hedgehog page been mentioned yet? A lot of the entries seem to be nothing more than people reading too much into things.

Just got done cleaning up the Radar.Pa Rappa The Rapper page. It was mostly listing Toilet Humor, which doesn't count as the trope. Sunny being turned on by PaRappa's need to take a dump? Yes, that's Getting Crap Past the Radar. But PaRappa needing to take a dump? That's not Getting Crap Past the Radar.

One thing that it says at the bottom of the page is that the crap in question has to be the focus of the scene.

I don't know about you guys, but I think a lot of the best instances of this are well-executed because they are hidden. Not just from the censors' radar, but from the audience's, so that only the few brave souls who actually choose to look in to it can find something]]. Something solid enough to be deliberate, but hidden enough for you to feel like you've found something worth finding. Or something not worth finding, as the case may be.

I mean, Dot misinterpreting "Finger Prince" ^* that is, his anus is all in good fun, (I suppose) but it just feels too... simple.

Of course, we're tropers. Tropers, but nature, look too deep into things. Because of that, I really have absolutely no idea how this post was relevant this lengthy post is to the discussion.

I'm seeing the the explanation doesn't point people to Double Entendre or the supertrope of Parentsl Bonus. Since it looks like most of the problem examples really go in one of those catagories. Do we want to add explicit pointers to those tropes?

We'll have to rewrite the description completely, methinks. I'll try to come up with something tomorrow.

Here's a possible intro starting point:

Sometimes you notice something that is so shockingly, inappropriately out of place, you're left wondering "How did they get away with that?" Surely, someone — be it a producer, an oversight board or other Radar Systems — would have said "You've crossed the line!"

Getting Crap Pastthe Radar refers to instances when a writer, artist or other creator sneak something in that that it is shocking not only to the MediaWatchdogs and MoralGuardians, but to everyone else. Often, what makes it shocking is not the specific content, but that it is out of keeping with its context. As such, most examples are found in materials aimed at children. A lewd joke in South Park is to be expected, but not in The Wiggles.

DoubleEntendres that have a innocent meaning belong under DoubleEntendres. Jokes that go over children's heads go under Parental Bonus. Jokes about literal crap can be found under Toilet Humor. When creators make no attempt to hide the material and basically march back and forth with a large sign that says "Inappropriate material found here!" you have a case of Refuge in Audacity. If the creators include something as a distraction from the potentially objectionable material they actually want to include, that's a Censor Decoy.

edited 17th Apr '13 3:34:18 PM by Terrie