Misused: Old Shame

This trope seems to be confused for Creator Backlash a lot of the time, thanks to both tropes being very similar. There was an example for the 1931 Dracula in Old Shame, where it should have been in Creator Backlash. Here's the difference between the tropes:

Creator Backlash is for works that are popular, but the creator doesn't like it anymore, like this:

• A. A. Milne and his Winnie-the-Pooh book series:
  • He grew to loathe it, as it typecast him forever as a "writer of children's books" and he could never go back to writing adult fiction. He even tried to kill off Pooh at the end of the 2nd book. (It didn't work.)

Old Shame is for works that weren't popular or well-liked, and the creator doesn't think much of it either, like this:

• Leonard Part 6 was so bad, Bill Cosby himself told everyone to avoid seeing it, before it even hit theaters.

Possible rewrite of the description to make clear the differences between them?

edited 27th Mar '15 6:05:12 PM by harryhenry

I'm opening this, because the distinction between the two does appear quite blurry, but I don't find a requirement in Old Shame itself that the work had to be bad or unpopular to qualify; that is listed as a criteria for Old Shame on the Creator Backlash page.

It seems to me that the difference between the two is the difference between "Being Ashamed Of" something and "Hating" it. That can be a subtle thing to identify.

The page quote on Old Shame isn't helping matters: "I'll kill you if you quote it!" speaks more of hatred than shame.

edited 27th Mar '15 6:57:30 PM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

The "Work is popular, but creator doesn't like it" definition for Creator Backlash is also listed as the criteria for the trope on the Old Shame page.

edited 27th Mar '15 9:43:13 PM by harryhenry

Huh. So each trope added a requirement to the other one on it's page. Yeah, that's not good.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

That's actually where I got the definitions of the tropes from. Yeah I agree, we should try to do something. I just need some other users for their input on this topic.

edited 28th Mar '15 1:42:46 AM by harryhenry

Merge then?

I personally don't think that Old Shame has to have any popularity requirements though.

I don't think merging would be the best solution. There's a difference between a creator hating a work enough that they'll trash-talk it publicly or try to get it pulled from the market, and being ashamed of it and wishing people wouldn't talk about it.

That may be the key: a "Backlash" is always active and public. Shame isn't.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I'm just gonna say that those differences aren't significant enough that we can make one trope page and then deem those two definitions as Internal Subtropes.

MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWW

Internal subtropes (soft splits) is usually used when the difference is sufficient to be two different tropes, but one of two things has happened: 1) neither one has enough examples to merit its own page, or 2) there are enough examples, bit no-one has proposed actually doing the split yet.

I think the difference between "Geeez, I wish I hadn't done that. Can we not talk about it please?" and "Damn, I hate that work. It's a piece of crap and if I had my way every copy would be destroyed. Don't waste your money on it!" is pretty substantial.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

I'll argue that the difference isn't substantial because it's a subjective reaction by the Creator, which means they don't have the same reaction every time the work is mentioned. Sometimes it's anger, sometimes embarrassment. The common element, which is objective, is that the creator doesn't like talking/hearing about it.

I'll go for Internal Subtrope, but not a soft-split.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

It's a reaction by the creator, yes, but that reaction can be consistent over time. If the reaction is consistently anger, it's Creator Backlash. If it's consistently "embarassment but not anger", it's Old Shame. If it isn't consistent, it's not an example. For instance, someone whose reaction is generally "Y'know, I'd like to forget that movie exists" but who blows up on a talk show where the interviewer just won't let it go and insists on trying to talk about it is Old Shame. The anger isn't about having made the work, it's at the specific circumstance occurring right then.

edited 30th Mar '15 9:12:13 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

We might have room for a supertrope then for the unclear ones.

Sure, that isn't "this work is a Berserk Button", that's just the Creator being provoked. I'm not talking about provocation. I'm talking about sometimes the work is a Berserk Button, and sometimes it isn't, because people aren't all that consistent to begin with.

Grabbing two examples at random from the pages:

• Yoshiyuki Tomino with Gundam:
  • Mobile Suit Gundam has "Episode 15: Kukurus Doan's Island", which wasn't featured on the US broadcast or DVD boxset at the request of Yoshiyuki Tomino, who felt it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the series thanks to horrendously Off Model moments. There's also the reasoning that he and the director for the episode butted heads, with Tomino stating "He knows what he did", when asked what happened. Ironically, some fans would have preferred that they kept "Doan" and instead removed the previous episode "Time, Be Still", which covers the same concept but not as well and also has tortuously slow pacing. The episode is also still present on the Japanese set, released much later.
  • It should be noted that Tomino has something of a love-hate relationship with Gundam in general. Depending on the time and his current mood, he'll either consider it his greatest achievement or he'll think of it in the light of this trope. Some fans theorized this to be the reason behind Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ beginning, which, in complete contrast to its predecessor Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam's bleak and serious storytelling, focused more on comedy, specifically of the So Unfunny, It's Funny variety; the theory runs that Tomino was intentionally trying to sabotage the series so that he wouldn't have to make another sequel. For what it's worth, ZZ's story shifted back to the dark and serious tone of its predecessor in the middle of its run.
  • Tomino is rumored to have despised working on Victory Gundam. In an interview, he outright said that people shouldn't watch it. This hasn't stopped several fans from naming it their favorite Gundam show. He later warmed back up to Gundam though. He loved working on Turn A Gundam and wrote a memoir about it and how it cured him of depression. Just as well for the cast, as characters tend to die messily when Tomino gets depressed.

It isn't clear which is a Berserk Button, and which is just dislike. The second one I've listed is especially unclear, and highlights that people are inconsistent.

• From Doctor Who:
  • Legendary Development Hell episode "Shada", written by Douglas Adams, was originally rushed out by him in four days when his previous script got rejected thanks to Executive Meddling. Some of the script was shot, but then shooting was interrupted with a strike, causing it to be cancelled. Adams, for his part, was happy about this, because he thought "Shada" was not up to much - however, since people love Douglas Adams' writing, fan demand became huge. In 1992, he accidentally signed away rights for the BBC to make a direct-to-video version of it with linking narration by Tom Baker, and was so distressed by this that he declared he would give away every penny of the proceeds he made of it to charity as penance. People who have seen the script say that while it wasn't anywhere near as godawful as the notably perfectionistic Adams thought it was (notably, it contains one of the all-time-brilliant Douglas Adams characters, Professor Chronotis), and gives the Fourth Doctor some of the wittiest, most enjoyable dialogue he was ever given), it is not up to the standard of his usual work, having gaping plotholes, minor characters who never get to come into the limelight, a very boring villain and being mostly a lazy, watered-down, low-budget retread of his previous Who script "City of Death". Both the Big Finish version (which was forced to shoehorn the Eighth Doctor into the role as Tom Baker refused to do radio scripts at the time) and the 2012 novelization by Gareth Brooks (written after his death as Douglas Adams would not allow anyone else to novelize it) were both attempts to fix the problems that Adams himself had identified - not to mention Adams' own Ascended Fanfic of the story, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which replaces the Doctor, Chris and Claire with Expies and rescues Professor Chronotis from oblivion.
  • To the shock of many fans, Douglas Adams viewed the unfinished but legendary Doctor Who story "Shada" as this, publicly stating that he'd only signed the release to allow the 1992 VHS issue of what was made to go ahead because he hadn't noticed that it had been included in a folder with a bunch of other routine paperwork.

Less about being inconsistent, than the example irregularly confirming and defying aspects of the two tropes. Douglas Adams seems mostly upset that he wasn't able to keep a high standard of writing for the "Shada" storyline, and dislikes anyone using less-than-perfect examples of his work, so he'll go to the lengths of Creator Backlash for the emotion of Old Shame.

---

It is clear that both sets are examples of creators not being happy about the work they did, but it's less clear if they're angry or embarrassed, since they aren't consistently showing the same emotion.

edited 30th Mar '15 9:49:41 AM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Now you're misusing Berserk Button. If something sometimes makes someone mad and sometimes doesn't, it's not a Berserk Button. To be a Berserk Button, it has to reliably, consistently, dependably induce rage.

The other thing is, just because a creator has a less-than-positive reaction to one of their works, that doesn't mean it has to fit in either one of these. Not everything must be an example of some trope or another.

edited 30th Mar '15 10:50:29 AM by Madrugada

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

That was my point. I'm glad you agree with me. So they shoukd be merged, then?

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I agree with you that people aren't always consistent.

I do not agree that Creator Backlash and Old Shame should be merged because some examples are poor because the creator isn't consistent in their reaction. Those are simply bad examples and should be removed.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

But even in those examples where the creator's emotion about the thing isn't specified, something is certain: The creator doesn't like their creation.

Which reminds me: there's a ykttw called Creator's Pest.

MAX POWER KILL JEEEEEEEEWWWWW

Wait, you're introducing a new argument here: Creator Backlash and Old Shame must now show the creator has a consistent reaction?

Well, I can accept that as a compromise, but that rule will severely cut down on the number of examples of each trope.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I would certainly expect that the reaction should be consistent, since the trope is "<this creator> feels <this way> about <this work> of theirs. It's not much of an example if they're flip-flopping back and forth over it.

As to requiring consistency resulting in cutting down the number of examples, I don't see that fewer, better examples is a bad thing.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Merge seems appropriate.

I'd support a merge.

Both tropes seem to be about "the creator has grown to dislike his work". I don't think "hate" and "embarrassment" could be easily distinguishable, especially since someone can possibly be both embarrassed by a work and hate it for that reason.

Merge doesn't sound good. Having to fix the innumerable wicks to this page would be bad enough, but one doesn't exactly encompass another. Creator Backlash doesn't encompass comparatively minor embarrassment at a show being brought up...though it could work the other way, I just don't really think a merge is appropriate.

Clarifying it would do better.

The problem is, how does one distinguish "hate" from "embarrassment"?

That said, a possible difference between the tropes could be:

• Old Shame: The creator thinks the work could be done better, and thus doesn't like it.
• Creator Backlash: The creator hates the work for any other reason.

That makes sense to me.

The best defining difference I can think of is that "shame" means the creator never talks of it, while "hate" means they talk of it quite a lot in the most disparaging way.

This would make it relate to the popularity factor: if the work is forgotten, they can pretend it doesn't exist, but if it has a fanbase in spite of them they are obliged to address it.

If they can be quoted speaking out against it or the fans on more than one occasion, it's backlash. If they have avoided talking about it at all, it's old shame.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.