Complaining (Page Action Crowner 10/19/2012): But It Really Happened

The trope description states that...

"This really is a nasty trope. Writers claiming But It Really Happened put out anything they like, and anyone who criticizes is accused of being naive and wanting to nanny the public, shielding them from the truth. However, telling the truth is not synonymous with dwelling on the graphic details. To paraphrase a reporter at the time of the "House of Horror" case (a revolting serial-killing in England), we don't need to know exactly what was done to whom with which dildo. They could tell us the facts but spare us the gory details, but that wouldn't sell as many books or papers, would it?"

Call me an amoral monster, but this seems a bit puritan to me. It also causes complaining in the examples, what with an entry like "This happens pretty much any time the Lifetime Movie of the Week is Based on a True Story. While it's generally considered in bad taste to insult something you didn't watch, somehow one doubts there was any redeeming value in "The Lorena Bobbit story." "

Also, this, from the discussion page:

• "Is this trope page really necessary? Cause this sounds way too ambiguous and subjective. In fact it just seems like this page was created for people to vent out their anger or displeasure about some stuff. I think this page can be deleted."
• "Second the proposal. It is too hard to determine rather something is simple "titillation" or "just telling the truth" when it actually happened. Also, I don't see why just because it is horrifying that it should be censored. It sounds as if people are going "it's too horrifying! I don't want to hear about it!" and I don't see anyone saying the same thing for more positive things."

edited 14th Aug '12 11:31:05 AM by Fresison

And the name isn't helping, sounds like a stock phrase. Methinks dewhine is needed here. Possibly expand to all over-dramatization,

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

Sounds like complaining about Very Loosely Based on a True Story, and sounds like it belongs there. Sounds like a reaction from the creator to that trope. I might go for "insisting it's Based on a True Story, when it isn't or barely is."

edited 14th Aug '12 2:30:30 PM by spacemarine50

I'm not sure I see a trope in that.

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If we look at it as a creator-justification or -motivation trope (like Follow the Leader, Money, Dear Boy, Merchandise-Driven, So My Kids Can Watch, or possibly Capcom Sequel Stagnation) then it makes more sense. Works Very Loosely Based on a True Story can have any number of motivations, while this is the rather more specific phenomenon of expecting different standards of censorship or self-censorship to apply to "real" stories than to fictional ones.

The name does sound like it's a stock phrase, but one that would be recited by a creator to justify a work (again, like Money, Dear Boy or So My Kids Can Watch) rather than one which would appear within the work. That makes it more of an idiom, and I don't really know if our naming conventions have anything to say about those.

This. I agree the name is bad as it sounds like a stock phrase which is often not this trope.

This might be slightly irrelevant, but I can easily see this being misused in examples sections as yet another variant on the forbidden trope which shall not be named. *

I'm just saying, the potential's there for this to become a Verbal Tic, at least in potholes.

edited 19th Aug '12 12:23:07 AM by AmateurPolymath

I'd be surprised if this hasn't been potholed-abused for 'I think you won't believe that but it really happened'

edited 19th Aug '12 12:39:15 AM by spacemarine50

And how does it compare to Literary Agent Hypothesis?

An Ear Worm is like a Rickroll: It is never going to give you up.

Clocking.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

This trope reads like "Complaining about shows documenting ugly historical facts for shock value." Which is not a trope, it's an Audience Reaction, and we don't need more of those.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

I agree with this.

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

So, is killing it an option? Because I'm all for it.

Belief or disbelief rests with you.

Crowner added.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Complaining and small and too subjective.

Could we keep it as an exampleless definition page? Centred around the feeling one might get that accuracy is an excuse for shock value. We've all felt that at some point.

A blog that gets updated on a geological timescale.

Feel free to add that to the crowner (or I will). The problem is, what is the definition?

edited 25th Oct '12 2:40:20 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

For those in favour of keeping the trope without examples, maybe "the SVU" effect is a step toward what the trope is meant to capture — it's not "do not do this cool thing," it's not just "male gaze," and it's not just a cry from moral guardians about violence and sex, but recounting highly specific details of a crime in a way that is clearly not history, not neutral, etc. An (please let me be right in using this next word) imaginary example would be a recounting of the Columbine shootings to the tune of "Look at all the cool tech," spending all attention on the weapons, how bullets "tear" flesh, the sound of bone and human tissue being broken, etc.

There's clinically presenting the facts of a case (e.g., any sexually motivated serial killer) for the record, for the news, for history, for pathology, etc., and then there's lavishing detail and attention on the most perverted aspects of the crime to an almost myopic extent and in such a way that the work becomes titillating. The excuse is "But It Really Happened (Like That)." A good example of how reasonable people can differ would be the movie "Compliance" — it's factually true, and some reviewers think that watching the whole thing play out shows how much women are trained to accept the word of men; others saw it as misogyny. That wouldn't be this trope — this trope is the defence for emphasizing one set of facts/experiences/details at the cost of the narrative.

Put it another way, a Lifetime Movie is not this trope. If Lifetime runs a movie in which it's 90 minutes of castration that features shots of a woman fetishizing the knife and there's a good 45 minutes of camerawork on the castration attempt... that would be this trope.

I may be biased in wanting to keep this because it's a very frequent defence in write-ups of more famous criminals, particularly sex offenders. It's not that the public needs to be protected from details but that the details in the work are (1) factual; (2) presented in such a way as to titillate or play to baser instincts; and (3) exclude the actual narrative. Claiming "But It Really Happened" is the defence when it's pointed out that accuracy does not mean showing, say, every moment of a woman being raped with almost lustful camerawork and throwing in two lines at the end about how the guy went to jail.

I thought Filia's previous comment about creator motivation/justification was appropriate.

If we do cut this, that should probably go to YKTTW.

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Crowner called. Clean the wicks and Cut List this. If the cut is declined, redirect it.

"If you aren't him, then you apparently got your brain from the same discount retailer, so..." - Fighteer

As of now:

Those 2 articles are Main.But It Really Happened and Laconic.But It Really Happened. Looks like we won't be able to cut it with those inbounds.

Anybody agree on a redirect to Based on a True Story?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird

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Redirect works for me. Make it so and we can call this done.

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