Making In-Universe and Rename (new crowner 3/28): Garfunkel

Here's a trope that's not thriving: 24 inbounds in 14 months is not good. It is about a character that receives equal billing but is "incidental to the point of irrelevance".

There's two problems with the name here. First, it is debatable whether the trope namer is an example at all. As Simon And Garfunkel points out, Garfunkel had the better voice and Simon and Garfunkel's harmonies were the reason for their unique sound, and Art Garfunkel had a big role in the vocal arrangements. As That Other Wiki notes, Garfunkel's solo career had one top ten hit, three top 20 hits, six top 40 hits, and various other awards. Not exactly irrelevant.

Second, there are several unrelated people named Garfunkel, such as the comedy folk duo Garfunkel And Oates, the mathematician Sol Garfunkel, the photographer Henry Garfunkel, a dozen or so famous people named Garfinkel, and a British restaurant chain. I get eight million google hits on "Garfunkel -Simon -Art", so while this last name is uncommon, it's clearly not limited to the musical duo.

Aside from that, many examples on this page are somewhat controversial. Let's face it, a trope that claims it's a "character that receives equal billing but is incidental to the point of irrelevance" is bound to be taken as an insult by fans of the music. So this trope should be classified YMMV.

I seriously doubt that anyone is going to think of the yeast molecular geneticist.

Still, you make a valid point about it being debatable as to whether or not Simon Garkfunkel is a valid example.

Something that is also a concern is that the page is full of Thread Mode natter and justifying edits.

edited 1st Mar '12 5:16:34 AM by Catbert

I thought we had already renamed this, if only because it is more a "take that!" than a name. Anyway. Mucho support-o rename-o.

edited 1st Mar '12 5:22:38 AM by FastEddie

I thought we had another thread on this trope somewhere... just recently too.

Oh this nvm.

However yes rename Take That! as a name is bad lets see.... names...

edited 1st Mar '12 5:20:24 AM by Raso

Whew. This page is a horrid pile of natter. I'll clean it up; and a rename and YMMV-ifying seem to be indicated.

While I don't share the belief that some apparently have that character named tropes should be an automatic kill, I'm really not keen on naming negative tropes after real people, unless it is something like The Quisling which has become a standard dictionary word.

edited 1st Mar '12 5:39:48 AM by Catbert

OK, I've cleaned up the page a bit, but it was hard to tell the good material apart in the noise.

Also, from the Thread Mode, it seems to me that this is treated like an Audience Reaction by many examples.

In fairness, I don't think it's possible for anyone to argue a character/individual as being "incidental to the point of irrelevance" (especially for someone also receiving top/equal billing) without the example appearing to be opinionated (or generally noting other people's opinions and views).

It's only natural for viewers of anything to be more receptive to certain characters and less so to others, and the less receptive a character is, the less relevant he/she is going to be believed to be. Only problem is different people receive different characters differently.

edited 1st Mar '12 7:27:32 AM by SeanMurrayI

You know, there's a hilarious amount of appropriateness that Garfunkel is not thriving. Isn't part of the trope supposed to be that, outside of the group that made them famous, they won't thrive?

Though upon looking at the trope, I see that actually isn't included. That's a bit odd, because references to Art Garfunkel that I'm familiar with are usually in reference to how his fame petered out after he stopped performing with Paul Simon, while the latter had continued success. In other words, it isn't until after they stop performing together that this trope can come to effect. Otherwise, I think My Friends... and Zoidberg applies.

No, and if it did, this is something that doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with "irrelevance", which is what the trope is based around.

One who struggles to (or simply doesn't) thrive outside of a group that made himself/herself famous could very well have legitimate talent or ability that can be incorporated well into one group—and even be complimented by the skills of other people in that group—but simply can't reach the full potential of their talents when on their own or with other groups. It's something that can even define individual athletes in team sports who can become champions and all-stars with one given team but are not nearly as stellar when they're put to use on another team that has a different style of play than what they are used to.

Personally, I think the kind of thing you're looking at would say more about Group Chemistry and Team Dynamics, more than anything about any lone individual.

edited 1st Mar '12 9:09:19 AM by SeanMurrayI

No, that'd be Failed Solo Career, or something like that. This trope is basically that the group is named "Foo And Bar" but Foo did all the work, and Bar did nothing but gets second billing anyway. Part of the problem is that this is wildly incorrect in the case of Simon And Garfunkel.

And yeah, I agree that naming negative or subjective tropes after real life people is something we should avoid.

Brainstorming for names.... Undeserved Second Billing? Credited For Nothing?

I like Credited For Nothing

Well, the fact that something completely different from the trope comes to mind when I think of the Trope Namer, in addition to the point of it not applying to Art Garfunkel, is more than enough reason for me to support a rename.

"Part of the problem is that this is wildly incorrect in the case of Simon & Garfunkel."

This is overstating the case. Simon wrote all the songs and played guitar. Garfunkel's job was to sing, and Simon did that too. I agree that it is overstating the case to characterize Garfunkel as a hanger-on but is there any doubt that there was a senior and junior partner in that relationship? Remember when they had a reunion album in the 1980s, until Simon mixed Garfunkel out and turned it into a Paul Simon album?

And beyond the degree to which the trope is true in the case of S&G, there is absolutely the perception out there that Garfunkel was riding along with Simon. Look at how Simon remained relevant for many years after Art Garfunkel was firmly in Where Are They Now status. It seems to me that there is a firm basis for naming this trope "Garfunkel". Whether or not the trope is renamed based on the (I think misguided) campaign to eliminate character names is another matter.

So what if some readers and editors don't have this "perception" you speak of? I certainly believe Art Garfunkel was more important to Simon & Garfunkel than what you're making it sound like; you yourself even say that this "perception" is exaggerated and not entirely true about Garfunkel, anyway. You can't defend a name for being based merely on a subjective view of a person, especially a real life person for whom the subjective view being pinned to him doesn't really apply.

No, not at all.

edited 2nd Mar '12 9:48:26 AM by SeanMurrayI

and : that's very good evidence that it's a subjective trope it belongs on the YMMV tab.

Oh yeah.

edited 2nd Mar '12 10:09:39 AM by Spark9

You just say "subjective". Subjective Trope is a contradiction of terms, but yeah.

Personally though, I'm growing more and more unfavorable of subjective pages, especially ones that directly focus on negative qualities or depictions of people and things (in the case of this page, arguing that someone is a "hanger-on" or "not deserving of equal billing with someone else").

It just doesn't feel like something that should be any of our business to discuss on the wiki itself. If someone wants to criticize Art Garfunkel's importance to Simon & Garfunkel, I'm perfectly fine with that person making a thread about it in the Music forum (EDIT: or in the subspace for troper reviews on a work page for Simon And Garfunkel), but on the main wiki?

edited 2nd Mar '12 11:19:55 AM by SeanMurrayI

Welcome to the club. There's a reason a lot of people feel that there's no point in trying to save them.

I agree that this page doesn't seem necessary at all, mostly just complaining and diminishing the importance of certain band members. If it does stay, it definitely merits a rename. If we get rid of it, that's even better.

Perhaps it should stay, but without any examples. It strikes me as a valid fan reaction to claim that out of band X, persons A and B do all the work while C just stands there looking pretty. It also strikes me as something extremely subjective, that the fans of X get into flame wars over.

We're all ready talking about banning new complaining pages. Do we really need yet another complaining page that no one even cares about?

I can support cutting this one on two grounds: It's Complaining- and Natter-bait, and it's incredibly subjective.

If this stays, I question why it needs to be so focused on music.

There is now a page action crowner for this trope here. Feel free to add options as you see fit.

Where's all this supposed complaining? Aside from the zero-content-examples, most of them are pretty objective to me.