Needs Help: Fan Disservice

We talked about this during the lewdness cleanup. Fan Disservice has become a mixup of "Ew, I saw that hot actress have sex with this unattractive dude!" and personal anecdotes with major overreactions. It's also quite lewd.

As such, the proposition was to make Fan Disservice in-universe. Thoughts?

edited 4th Jun '12 8:41:07 AM by lu127

Wouldn't be opposed, given a look at the subpages.

Providing that the image stays, of course.

I'd third making it in-universe. The main page even notes there's a lot of Male Gaze about the trope.

Wait. In-universe is usually good for clarifying things, but this is specifically about startling the audience with unattractive nudity. So, if a character sees off-screen nudity and is repulsed, that's not an example. If a character sees on-screen nudity that is not objectively repulsive but is repulsed - that too is not an example. If a nude sympathetic character is covered in blood and scars from torture and another character is turned on by this, it is an example, regardless of the aroused character's reaction.

A better solution would be to define the trope more narrowly. Perhaps give a all-inclusive list of the things that qualify. Nudity + blood, nudity + gore, nudity + torture. Old naked people. Overweight naked people (yeah, yeah, double standard, stereotypical beauty standard etc, but it's still a method of fan disservice.) People made-up with comically extra body hair.

This can stay objective without being in-universe.

Agreed with Routerie. We should just cut the overreactions and that stuff, and keep the examples where the authors intentionally portray something that is usually fanservice in a squicky way to startle the audience.

Showing a decaying female zombie in a swimsuit, for example.

That said, between making it in universe and keeping the page as is, I would support in-universe.

edited 4th Jun '12 5:09:18 PM by Anfauglith

I agree with the above.

I don't think this needs to be in-universe only. This can be an objective trope about things intended to startle the audience. The page image looks like a solid example of this.

In-Universe means that the characters within the story are repulsed by the disservice, which is probably not what is meant as the trope is about provoking an audience reaction. But there are clear signs when the trope is in use just like fanservice, a character with a well toned body is contrasted with another character who is overweight with gross, matted chest hair.

For some people they may think that just having an unattractive individual would be fan disservice, so it's a matter of looking at the context of the examples. Just being Ugly Guy, Hot Wife is not grounds for the trope.

A Single Prop crowner for an example cut was just hooked - announcing it and bumping for votes.

I'm also seeing a lot of Selective Squick.

I would say that Fan Disservice has to be obviously intentional. There is a big difference between a makeout scene involving someone you consider unattractive and a partially dismembered corpse making sexual advances toward someone.

This page should be marked YMMV. There's a lot of subjectivity in what people consider disservice or not, and we generally don't have Word of God on whether it's intentional.

The "I think it's disservice" parts are covered by Fetish Retardant.

Why? Fanservice isn't YMMV and the same arguments apply there. In fact, that article seems to be playing with fanservice and not really its own trope.

Is it worth starting off with a split? I'm sure that something that would be sexy if not for the gore can be defined more effectively. Witness Still Life, a video game featuring a large number of shapely women stark naked and dead with deep abdominal wounds that you can see inside. Not all in a single scene either, the killer seems to be based on Jack The Ripper. Unsexy.

edited 11th Jun '12 7:32:51 AM by Michael

Splitting may well help things. Fanservice has about 200 subtropes; why not give Fan Disservice two or three?

What subtropes could we split off? Fanservice Ruined By Gore I could see. Maybe name it Broken Fanservice? Any others?

Bloody Naked? Obese Nude? Stripped And Tortured? Weeping Orgasm?

Any other subtropes? Those seem to mostly be the idea of fanservice being ruined by violence. Obese Nude is definite YMMV territory.

edited 11th Jun '12 4:41:45 PM by Michael

Calling crowner: not making this in-Universe.

I agree with the subtropes idea. I like "Bloody Naked" and "Stripped and Tortured", though I think the latter doesn't necessarily have to be fan disservice to be a trope, since there are nonsexual examples of the concept — I'd like to suggest "Unsafe, Insane, and Nonconsensual" (countering Safe, Sane, and Consensual) for torture scenes involving sexual(ized) elements. I'd also like to suggest "Dead Sexy" for examples involving corpses/the undead/decomposing bodies.

I'd also like to mention that far too many examples amount to "there was a Fanservice shot/moment given to a MAN!" Less of them than before, but still, they persist. Can we just cut all of the examples that don't provide any other context beyond "character X is male and has a Shower Scene" and such?

"I would say that Fan Disservice has to be obviously intentional. There is a big difference between a makeout scene involving someone you consider unattractive and a partially dismembered corpse making sexual advances toward someone." Agreed.

I would say base it on the author's intent. As stated above, there's a pretty big difference between Selective Squick, which (when Fanservice) is intended to titillate someone else, and Fan Disservice, which is deliberately messed-up to everybody (or most). Make it clearer that it's not based on your opinion, but the author's perceived intent.

And let's remove male entries in the absence of any other elements of Fan Disservice. I would propose a guilty until proven innocent policy on entries complaining about Fanservice from males.

I'm not sure we really need a large-scale split, and all those subcategories, but I'd say Dead Sexy at least is common enough to be its own trope. I also like the idea of Unsafe Insane And Nonconsensual to lot in all the examples made creepy by violence. Although I wouldn't want to see it being delved into too far, so I kind of oppose the suggestion to split Fan Disservice into many different tropes, especially violence-related ones.

edited 12th Jul '12 8:43:20 PM by MicoolTNT

Unintentional Fan Disservice is Fetish Retardant, for the record.

And I also agree that this needs splitting. Dead Sexy?

Clocking due to lack of activity.

Locking.