The Spread of Accusatory Tropes

Just something I have been thinking about. A few months ago I did an overhaul to the description of Dawson Casting, where it had gotten so massive it was repeating itself because, I believe, editors were forgetting certain points were already stated (Seriously, it was like a term paper, the current description is only about a third as long). Anyway, one thing I noticed in that trope and many others was the presence of a lot of exclamation points in the examples, where it was almost a challenge to find the most outrageous example ie "actor was 35 playing a high school freshman!" I ended up trimming a lot, putting some in analysis, and including a deliberate comment that the use of the trope is not inherently good or bad, specifically because it isn't some sort of crime if an actor is older than their character.

It got me thinking about how an objective trope like that was being used as though it was an Audience Reaction. It is about how someone responded to the use of a trope rather than just observing that the trope was used. Just the other day I removed an entry in The Big Bang Theory ymmv page of Hypocritical Humor (not a ymmv trope) that basically attacked the show for making a Seasonal Rot joke regarding Heroes. It's a more flagrant example of misuse, but still along the same lines of what I am talking about.

I'm calling it "Accusatory Tropes" because you can find it in any of the sub pages: main, ymmv, trivia, etc. Tropes that are used to attack or criticize a creative decision while hiding behind the banner of an actual trope. And on the surface they may appear legitimate but you can start to see where the example is skewed to accommodate the criticism. Some ARE flagrant misuse but others are more complicated. For example:

• Flanderization: Something of a fine line between "Early character was realistic compared to exaggerated later version," "Early character was bland compared to exaggerated later version" and "Early character was perfectly written while later character is a shade of their former self."
• Informed Attribute and all "Informed" tropes: It tends to follow the line that because the performance on screen doesn't match the eye of an expert that somehow it is "informed" even if their skills are evident. Ie, a character is stated to be an expert marksman and does make some exceptional shots, but an audience member who is a trained sniper complains about their poor form and They Just Didn't Care. Similarly, a character being stated to be pretty does not equal Informed Attractiveness because you think someone else is hotter, it's about being more attractive than everyone else.
• Author Appeal, and a lot of Author-based tropes like Creator's Pet or Author Tract: This falls under an observation I've seen I've dubbed "Depiction Equals Endorsement," where unless something is specified in story as being a horrible, horrible thing it must be something supported by the author or at least they have some sort of agenda there (Nevermind it could just be a neutral example of a real life occurrence). I've seen things like "college students get wasted but skips over the unsavory parts like drunk driving or hangovers, they must be trying to convince people these parties have no side effects."

edited 6th May '14 12:28:20 AM by KJMackley

Honestly, I don't think this is a very new phenomenon. Many trope examples from back the time where I joined were written with opinion-pushing in mind.

Oh, I know that. It's the primary reason we created the ymmv page to begin with, along with all the new sub pages. But there are still a lot of people who think ymmv is a playground for any opinion you want to throw around, rather than being detached observations of audience reactions.

If anything, I think we've seen a huge decline in the acceptability of bashing tropes. (Excuse me, "tropes").

edited 6th May '14 3:23:03 AM by nrjxll