Misused: True Art Is Angsty

The trope, as I understand it, refers to the idea that works which are dark, bleak and depressing tend to be considered more "worthy" or whatever than more cheerful works, and hence are more likely to receive critical acclaim. However, the page is full of examples of works which are angsty, with no mention of whether they were well-received or not. The examples need significant cleanup.

This one never got opened.

One big problem, I think, is that tropers tend to use this as a chance to argue over whether a particular work is artsy or not, whether a particular work is dark or not, and whether that's a good thing or not. I just massively cleaned up the Final Fantasy examples (which looked like a number of tropes had been going over them sniping back and forth about their favorite installments, various fan-theories, etc.)

Another problem is that, like a lot of fan-reaction tropes, what you end up getting is a bunch of tropers coming onto the page to gripe about whatever was happening on the particular forum about this work that they happened to visit five years ago (or whenever the work was current), which results in a bunch of examples that don't really say anything about anything. A huge number of the entries read like tropers aiming a Take That! at the other side in some ongoing fandom argument. (This is common with Audience Reaction tropes, since they give tropers a chance to talk about how people [like / dislike] their [favorite / least favorite] work for [wrong / invalid / stupid] reasons, but this one seems to have it particularly bad.)

I mean... it's a YMMV trope, but do we really need a list of examples for works that have "artistic merit" and "angst", both of which are totally subjective? Half the page reads like Crowning Moment of Angst (if for works rather than moments), and the other half is tropers complaining about fanbases that like the wrong works or like them for the wrong reasons.

I think it might be best to replace the examples with purely in-universe examples of this trope (situations where a character expresses the trope's premise, like in the page image; or situations where an in-universe work is clearly embraced as art because of its angsty nature.) I just don't see the purpose to having a list of examples that amounts to "works that were both angsty and well-received", especially since I don't think there's any way to keep it from devolving into either "works that a troper thought were angsty and liked" or "works a troper saw people on a forum somewhere liking for the wrong reasons."

(Or sometimes just "works a troper speculates that certain people may like for the wrong reasons.")

edited 26th Aug '14 7:04:25 PM by Aquillion

Yes, perhaps limiting it to in-universe examples might be a good idea. Or if we're going to use works as examples, I think the criteria need to be a lot more stringent.

I think a big problem at the moment is that, while the actual description of the trope is fine, most of the examples are founded upon an obvious Non Sequitur: Work X is dark, cynical and depressing; Work X was well-received; ergo, Work X was well-received because it is dark, cynical and depressing. This obviously does not follow because there are sundry reasons why a work might have been well-received, its tone and worldview being only one of several.

Ergo, I suggest that if we are to retain works as examples, there needs to be clear, unambiguous evidence that the work was well-received because it was dark and edgy. This could include quotes from critics to that effect, or, in the case of ongoing works, evidence that critical acclaim improved in tandem with the work's increasing darkness. For example, each season of Breaking Bad was better received than the one that came before it, and each season has been darker, bleaker and less humorous than the previous one, moving from the satirical Black Comedy of the first season to the brutal, violent tragedy of the final season.

edited 30th Aug '14 5:54:00 AM by Folamh3

The notion of "True Art Is Angsty" also is a bit of a Take That! from people who are ticked off that a work with more gravity might be better received than a silly comedy. Something that's actually pretty hard to quantify, to be honest. Hence why the examples get so out of hand - I wrote a lot of the older Final Fantasy entries based on arguments that happened on this site, for example, and while they definitely needed to get pruned, the trope's current state really invites this kind of sniping because it's basic premise is "people who like darker and more cynical media are stupid."

I think this would work better as an exampless page.

Skimming the examples a bit, there's way too much "This work is angsty/non-angsty and I think it is good." In Universe Examples Only would probably improve the quality significantly.

edited 1st Sep '14 2:02:38 AM by troacctid

I am pretty much always on board with making something In-Universe only.

I agree that In-Universe only would work well. I know I've seen In-Universe examples.

Searching for "True Art Is Angsty: In-universe" brings up quite a few examples. Of course, they'll probably need a bit of screening beforehand.

I'm good with making it In-Universe only.

Ditto.

Then again... it is a truism in real life (the real life of some film and TV critics, anyway) that "ïf there's no angst, if it has a happy ending, if it's popular, if it's comprehensible, if George Lucas had a hand in it, if it's not Serious Business, then it's not really art." Yes, this trope can be misused by tropers complaining about critics reacting to the things they like. But does that mean the trope has to be redefined? Or can we just add a caution on what examples to list?

It's an opinion (the thing you called a truism). That's why these pages are YMMV.

Also, this is not a redefinition: this is a restriction on what examples are allowed. As usual, I support cutting out real life Serious Business from trope pages.

Made Sandbox.True Art Is Angsty with a list of In-Universe examples. Some of them may use rewrites.

Also, I would recommend to apply this treatment to the on-page examples only; 700+ wicks are hard to fix.

Sounds fairly reasonable.

I agree with the on-page in-universe limit, but allowing it to exist as a YMMV reaction off-page.

So, do we agree to restricting the on-page examples to In-Universe examples only?

I'm all for it. Let's make it happen.

Did the on-page example switch. Now the only discussion is whether to apply it to the entire trope, rather than just its on-page examples.

I'm seeing more In-universe examples from a google search—The Life of Émile Zola, Twelfth Night, Spaced, others. Gonna add those to the page. It seems that there are plenty in-universe examples to make this a viable trope.

It already has a respectable number of examples. Shall we close this discussion so?

Seems like. The discussion was on on-page examples, so I feel like we are done here.

Locking up.