Needs Help (Page Action Crowner): Film.Zapruder Film

I really don't think this page needs examples. It should just be a Useful Notes page and leave it at that.

Opening.

edited 15th Jun '18 3:01:26 AM by SeptimusHeap

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

Some of the tropes given are very inappropriate given that this deals with real life events. In particular, Boom, Headshot! and Pink Mist are offensive for reasons that I would say are fairly obvious.

Optimism is a duty.

awalk88 removed all examples with no edit reason, even tropes that simply refer to how it was recorded and not what was recorded.

Edit: I should note that the first paragraph of this post is meant to discuss an Example Sectionectomy that was done without permission and isn't meant to have any bearing on whether consensus in this thread decides that there should be a Sectionectomy. I do, however, agree with what was mentioned in the post above mine.

Edit: I checked and awalk88 didn't participate in the original ATT discussion, and this isn't the first removal, so this is now an edit war.

Edit: I should probably state now that I'm in favor of an Example Sectionectomy if the examples are kept as they were before they were removed, because it's hard to read an article that talks about a real-life assassination like it's something from a slasher film.

edited 15th Jun '18 5:07:10 AM by GastonRabbit

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Suspended that account for edit warring. However, I agree with the gist of the argument being made: that this film documents a real-life event and should therefore not have tropes about that event.

edited 15th Jun '18 5:20:45 AM by Fighteer

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

Seconded, troping a real life murder (regardless of who that was) is a very bad and tasteless idea, and gives TV Tropes a bad name.

For context, the reason this was brought up at all was that Todd In The Shadows posted about this on Twitter, causing some upheaval about why this page even exists.

I think this particular work should be handled much more carefully than it has been until now. Removing all tropes seems a good idea; any relevant information should be given in the main text, not spread out over a bulletted list. Giving the impression that this real life event is being troped like just another fictional event is a bad idea.

I also think the title should be changed. At the very least, I'd change the name to Zapruder Recording. Calling it a film gives the impression of being a constructed work and implies some amount of editing. This is not the case here, as it is raw footage. Another option would be to make it a Useful Notes page.

On the main text, it should be looked over to make sure it is abundantly clear what this work is and is not.

There was also an argument elsewhere on this Wiki whether or not this work should have a page at all. From what I understand, the main reason seems to be that it has been added to the Library of Congress because of its historical significance. Is this enough of a reason to include it? I think we need to think about why we want a works page about this in the first place. Wikipedia already has an extensive article on it, and seems a far more appropriate place for what is essentially a historical document rather than a work of fiction or art.

The question then is: is TV Tropes in the business of describing and troping historical documents?

Optimism is a duty.

Describing for sure, especially when it's a document that's either used in many fictional work, or recreated. It's definitely worth describing.

Everywhere else calls it the Zapruder Film. Wikipedia does it, the warren comission calls it that. I don't see why us calling it that is suddenly implying things.

edited 15th Jun '18 7:50:58 AM by Ghilz

We are not. We only care about these things to the extent that they are referenced in creative media, which is why the Useful Notes namespace exists. Let Wikipedia document the actual recording.

I strongly favor a cut.

edited 15th Jun '18 7:50:47 AM by Fighteer

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

I do think it should be moved to Useful Notes.

Is the Zapruder film frequently referenced by creative works, to the extent that someone looking to represent it accurately could benefit from an article on our site?

Again, we are not Wikipedia. Our mission is not to have articles for everything ever committed to paper or film, every famous person, and every historical event.

edited 15th Jun '18 7:56:40 AM by Fighteer

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

It is used as footage by documentaries about the event, but I do not feel that is enough to warrant a page.

Optimism is a duty.

I wouldn't object to a cut if a move to Useful Notes isn't an option.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

It's not just Documentaries. Fictional works will reference that specific work. For example, the opening of Watchmen. It's not just recreating the event, but the specific recording of the events.

I'm not saying the page should have tropes. I'm arguing for a useful notes page. And frankly you're going to argue that a piece of film that features in countless work is less worthy of a useful notes page (Especially for non American readers who might not have the same familiarity with the history of the even) than SD Card ? Or IQ Testing? Or Law School Admissions Test?

Yeah, it's a film where someone dies. But it's also something that has a huge influence on fiction and is how the event is most often depicted in fiction. From THAT angle, from THAT point of view.

edited 15th Jun '18 8:14:08 AM by Ghilz

I'm asking a question, not making a statement. I should also point out that Useful Notes are not tropes, so you wouldn't list it as a trope in the work's article regardless of whether we keep it, just like you wouldn't use World War II as a trope. Do we have a variant of Historical Domain Character for this? I'm having trouble finding it if so.

edited 15th Jun '18 8:32:00 AM by Fighteer

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

No need to get defensive. And I would question why those three other topics you mention need a useful notes page, too, but that is not the point of the discussion here.

What can TV Tropes add to this subject that Wikipedia does not already cover? If it comes up in a work, then why not refer to the Wikipedia article, as is done with plenty of other things?

Optimism is a duty.

I had suggested Stock Footage for when a work uses video from the Zapruder Film.

That is discouraged by Weblinks Are Not Examples:

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I created this page, and so I don't see anything wrong with it. I also have no idea who "Todd in the Shadows" is and why his opinion is relevant.

Oh, now I see that he is "a former member of Channel Awesome who spends his time snarking on pop music" so that mystery is solved.

Regarding the assertion above that we are not Wikipedia: yes we are. That's what Useful Notes is. We absolutely are Wikipedia. That decision was made however long ago that someone decided to make Useful Notes a thing, and it was reinforced by the other someone who made a decision to strip tropes from Useful Notes pages—thereby taking them away from this wiki's original mission—and make them Wikipedia articles, if shorter and breezier in tone.

So we absolutely are Wikipedia and it is not constructive to say otherwise.

To repeat my argument in ATT for the retention of this article: Abraham Zapruder set out with his camera to make a movie, and he did. It has a title, it has a copyright, and it has been entered into the National Film Registry. If it isn't a work, then Roundhay Garden Scene isn't a work, and no one seems to have a problem with that one.

But if the decision is made to make the article Useful Notes, it will be easy enough to make a listing of uses of the Zapruder Film in fiction. The Wikipedia article has just such a list. (Zapruder appears as a character in Parkland, played by Paul Giamatti.)

edited 15th Jun '18 8:58:34 AM by jamespolk

He did not set out to create a historical document about the assassination of Kennedy, though. Your reasoning implies that there was a prior intent to film an assassination, which of course there could not have been. I think to qualify as an actual film, there needs to be some sort of artistic or documentary intent, which there was not in this case.

As for TV Tropes being Wikipedia, I would disagree. We do not source articles here, after all. Pretending that we are Wikipedia would imply we are the lesser, poorly researched, poor mans version of Wikipedia.

edited 15th Jun '18 9:01:42 AM by Redmess

Optimism is a duty.

Chill out. Most of what you said is dead wrong, and it worries me that you misunderstand our policies so thoroughly.

This work article is getting cut, full stop. It is grotesquely inappropriate to treat it like a work of fiction and list tropes. The only question is whether there's any value in having a Useful Notes article on it. That would depend entirely on whether we can find examples where the film is referenced or incorporated within fictional media.

edited 15th Jun '18 9:09:19 AM by Fighteer

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

, I don't really see how anyone can argue with the assertion that Useful Notes pages are Wikipedia. They are. Just for a random sampling, here's the article about Bangladesh. It's a shorter and less formal Wikipedia article about the nation of Bangladesh. Useful Notes pages are the lesser, more poorly researched form of Wikipedia.

It wouldn't be hard at all to put together a list of uses of the Zapruder film in fiction as Fighteer suggests, since the link in my post above does just that.

edited 15th Jun '18 9:17:30 AM by jamespolk

Useful Notes exists for a very specific purpose: to provide information about topics that are frequently referenced in media, so that writers can portray them accurately. It's definitely gotten a lot of cruft in it, but a cleanup project would be massive in scope and not something to treat lightly.

We do not want to be Wikipedia-lite. Our approach is, "Hey, here's some info so you can write accurately about X."

edited 15th Jun '18 9:19:38 AM by Fighteer

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

I would still argue against a useful notes page on the grounds that Wikipedia is far more suited to handle this particular work appropriately. No matter how well we wrote it, it would always be perceived of making light of the tragedy in some way. I undersand the rule about no linking to outside the site, but this is a case where an argument for an exception can be made.

Optimism is a duty.

We can vote on that. Are those the two options: transplant to Useful Notes or cut?

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

I think those are the only two remotely viable options, yes.

Optimism is a duty.

Crowner made, hooked.

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