Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

So there seems to be quite the shitstorm brewing with Katsura Hashino, creator of Persona 3 through 5. I haven't played it yet, but apparently the new best ending of his just-released most recent game, an Updated Re-release of his standalone game Catherine, involves a transgender woman being turned "back" into a man by time travel magic, with this being treated as a happy ending for her. The controversy's only a few days old but from what I understand both sides of the Pacific are steamed at him, and keep in mind the fact that his games contain iffy gender and sexual politics was always a common criticism of them, and this situation is making them be seen in a more disturbing light still. Should this be added, or is it too early?

I would wait like 6 months or so (like Broken Base) to make sure it's not a knee-jerk use of the trope and get a clearer picture of the issue, as I've also heard other articles say that the initial controversy is due to a misinterpretation of that ending.

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 17th 2019 at 1:41:24 AM

Some say t's better with context, others that it's worse. I think it's worth this thread keeping an eye on, at least.

Point stands is that it's too soon to tell if it's actually overshadowed yet.

Edited by Albert3105 on Feb 17th 2019 at 11:05:04 AM

This was just added to Overshadowed By Controversy.Live Action Films:

• Captain Marvel was the victim of a massive review-bombing campaign thanks to both misconceptions and outright lies that Brie Larson had said she hates white men and doesn't want them watching her movies (what she actually said is that advance screenings for critics invite a hugely disproportionate number of white men, especially when the film isn't primarily aimed at them, and that should change). It was so obviously a bad faith effort even above similar campaigns against the likes of Black Panther and The Last Jedi that Rotten Tomatoes was driven to end their "Are you interested?" pre-release section entirely to prevent any more from happening.

The movie isn't out yet and this isn't the first time someone added an Overshadowed by Controversy example for this movie before it was released. Should I remove it since the movie isn't out? Overshadowed by Controversy in general has a problem with people adding examples of works that have anything even remotely controversial attached to it, even if it isn't actually overshadowing the work.

Edited by ADrago on Feb 26th 2019 at 6:55:38 AM

Yes, remove it. It's impossible to tell if the movie is overshadowed considering that nobody can watch the movie yet.

YMMV.Coco has this:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Hugely averted. While the news of Pixar head John Lasseter's history of sexual misconduct and mistreatment of female and minority employees had the bad fortune to break just barely a week before the movie was released, it still became a smash hit and debuted at #1 at the box office. Helped in no small part by animation fans practically begging people not to let one person's association with the film take away from the countless talented artists who worked so hard to make it happen.

I'm cutting it since YMMV only permits straight examples.

On a related note, I found this entry that I cut for Deadpool 2 that claims to be an aversion. Really, the whole T.J. Miller thing was more of a Role-Ending Misdemeanor, as the film was wildly successful and received plenty of praise. At best, you could say the character of Weasel was tainted by Miller's actions, but I don't think it overshadowed the whole film:

Any thoughts?

The Star Wars entry on OvershadowedByControversy.Live Action Films, while likely valid (was the prequel backlash known enough to overshadow everything else at the time, and have the toxic elements overshadowed everything about the franchise as a whole?), definitely has issues.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 5th 2019 at 9:29:58 AM

Katsura Hashino situation update: still blooming. Notably, the voice actress who portrays the "de-transgendered" character in English has publicly condemned the scene and implied it will be changed somehow in the English version, and a player who is well known for his skill at the game's original version has announced he's boycotting the remake.

Maybe want to wait a bit, the YMMV page's history has a 'this was a knee-jerk reaction' edit but with no source attached. We might need to wait for word from the developers/other news sources.

If we agree that pre-release doesn't count, should we add something like "Note: Do not add this trope until a work has been released." on the main page?

Since actual creators have now commented on the issue, would you say it is alright to add now?

Another one from an unreleased film

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Besides the casting of Emile Hirsch, the film has come under fire given Tarantino's ties to the disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, who was outed in 2017 as a sexual predator.

@lalalei2001: I'm actually going to say cut that altogether. The awfulness of Star Wars fans is certainly notorious, but given how much of a massive cultural phenomenon it is it really does not seem accurate to say that said awfulness is better known than anything else about it - which is what Overshadowed by Controversy should require.

Honestly, it really seems like most people think this page is just Controversy Exists.

Edited by nrjxll on Mar 5th 2019 at 10:03:21 AM

I agree, Star Wars is too big of a cultural phenomenon for the infamous actions of its fandom to overshadow it. Overshadowed by Controversy is for when the controversy is what the work or creator is best known for, not for any work or creator that has something controversial attached to it/them.

Edited by ADrago on Mar 5th 2019 at 11:45:15 AM

OvershadowedByControversy.Real Life

• Tara Strong is a fairly respected voice actress who has done many voice roles in various cartoons and video games. She has experienced a minor popularity loss in early 2019 when she posted a video on Twitter involving her and fellow 24 actress Rena Sofer verbally harassed and argued with an immigrant Uber driver over the driver's political support of the Republican Party. While Tara herself isn't afraid to get political, some of her fans thought she was going too far, and she would later take down her tweet as a result while defending her and Sofer's actions.

Per this, I deleted this because it says it's only "minor" as opposed to overshadowing.

I agree with banning this trope pre-release. How long does the controversy have to last since it releases to count?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Mar 5th 2019 at 11:39:03 AM

For other tropes that have a wait period on them (Broken Base, Base-Breaking Character), it's about six months. That's enough time for the work to be released, have its discussion, and then for fans to move on to something else. If there's still heated discussion that long after it's been out, then it counts.

So applying those standards, if the controversy is still being talked about half-a-year after the initial release and it overshadows the rest of the work, then it would count as an example.

Agreed on the Tara Strong example.

That sounds reasonable. I don't know that it's necessary for the controversy to still be ongoing and heated after six months, but it does still have to overshadow the work. That can happen either because the controversy is still ongoing and heated, or because the work itself made so little impact that the controversy is still the most interesting thing about it, or both.

Edited by HighCrate on Mar 6th 2019 at 2:07:12 AM

to the six-month cooldown idea for this trope.

I agree with the six-month cooldown period since similar to Base-Breaking Character and Broken Base, this is often used for knee-jerk reactions. We'll know if a work has been Overshadowed by Controversy either if it's still ongoing after that long or if the work left such a small impact that the controversy is still the most notable thing about it. Another way to tell if a work has been Overshadowed by Controversy is if it ends up flopping as a result.

Edited by ADrago on Mar 6th 2019 at 10:43:02 AM

I saw this in the Webcomic folder and am scratching my head.

"Lightbringer would've been just another in the seemingly endless parade of terrible amateur webcomics, were it not for the fact that it came out years later that it was created by Lewis Lovhaug, later to be known as famous online comics critic Linkara. Lovhaug today considers the story an Old Shame, but it's not entirely uncommon to find people labeling him a hypocrite for having become a comics critic when he created a bad comic himself."

I've never even HEARD of this comic, so I don't think it could overshadow Linkara.

Mea culpa there. I wasn't talking about Linkara's own career, but the fact that the comic itself is notorious for being a really bad comic created by a future comic critic. Maybe I phrased it badly.

Is it really that bad? Our Lightbringer trope page has a Heartwarming page and pretty positive YMMV page.

Edited by lalalei2001 on Mar 7th 2019 at 12:42:42 PM

Really? Everywhere else I've seen calls it horrendous. Pull it if you want; not losing any sleep.