Trope names with outdated and/or offensive language

And the Nomenclature part of that article states it's offensive and a racial slur.

Edited by Synchronicity on Oct 1st 2020 at 4:20:00 AM

Another thing: We have a trope called Idiot Savant that's basically an outdated name for what we at TV Tropes call The Rain Man.

Edited by ccorb on Oct 2nd 2020 at 9:55:23 AM

Yeah, Rain Man caused a lot of bad stuff for people in real life with autism. Fuck Dustin Hoffman

Edited by DebbieOppenheimer on Oct 2nd 2020 at 12:36:57 AM

Does Idiot Savant doesn't exclusively refer to characters with explicit mental disabilities, or can it refer to any character who just isn't bright except for one department? (And as an autistic person, I don't have an issue with The Rain Man existing as a page or anything, since it's just documenting a phenomenon, not glorifying it.)

Don't we have Genius Ditz?

Genius Ditz is when The Ditz is basically subverted and is shown to actually be capable of being The Smart Guy. Idiot Savant applies to characters with an Ambiguous Disorder (a pretty misused trope), according to the description. Maybe The Rain Man is The Same, but More Specific? The only way I could see The Rain Man working is if it's a Fountain of Expies trope.

Edited by ccorb on Oct 2nd 2020 at 9:54:53 AM

It is a well-established trend on TV Tropes that a broader trope will get partially overlapped by a more specific trope derived from a Trope Namer. This is why Trope-Namer Syndrome is recognized and admonished against.

If The Rain Man is wholly subsumed by a larger trope without adding any useful detail (other than that it's an expy of Dustin Hoffman's character), it should be merged into that larger trope.

Edited by Fighteer on Oct 2nd 2020 at 10:04:01 AM

I'll add The Rain Man to Tropes Needing TRS. Maybe someone can do a wick check to see how many examples also apply to Idiot Savant.

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 2nd 2020 at 3:54:46 PM

Looked through Idiot Savant and several on-page examples also fit in The Rain Man.

Started a wick check, and so far there are:

• Examples that overlap with Idiot Savant (maybe if we merge it should be renamed Savant Syndrome or Savantism?)
• Examples referring to the Trope Namer
• Potholes referring to the autism spectrum in general (including a parenthetical in Eyeless Face's description that I would remove on the spot because as an autistic person, I feel it generalizes us too much.)

From the description: More importantly, we as human beings normally use eye contact to connect with others on an emotional level (with a few exceptions).

Edited by ccorb on Oct 2nd 2020 at 6:49:03 AM

Reminds me of a TLP draft about "averting eye contact" where people commented that doing so is normal in some cultures.

Maybe it's because I'm far too used to ableist logic mocking autistic people for not making eye contact, but that pothole sounds pretty judgmental on top of being misuse.

Anyway, The Rain Man's problems seem outside the scope of this thread - the name isn't offensive or anything, just bad Trope Namer Syndrome. Work it out on a TRS thread if we must.

While we're on the subject, Split Personality is also not the preferred nomenclature, though tbh the terminology is the least of the problems with how media depicts multiplicity so it's really more of a "remember this for later when things are different" thing.

Yeah the only show I can think of that actually has a character diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a now-obscure Showtime original called United States of Tara.

Since the trope isn't only about characters with accurate symptoms of DID (since the trope is watered down so much as the description notes), I assume there's not an urgent need for renaming. We could made Dissociative Identity Disorder a redirect since a derivative of the old name for the disorder, Multiple Personality, is a redirect. (Unless we'd rather save that name for a Useful Notes page.) Since the page notes a lot of the inaccuracies in media portrayal, it could also note that "split personality" isn't entirely accurate or at least that many systems don't agree with the nomenclature nowadays.

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 3rd 2020 at 7:57:18 AM

(ignore, wrong thread)

Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 3rd 2020 at 7:53:18 AM

I wouldn't mind renaming Eskimos Aren't Real and Everybody Wants the Hermaphrodite, but I'm opposed to renaming the tropes with "queer" in the title as the term is widely used in academia. I also think Split Personality should stay where it is, since "Dissociative Identity Disorder" violates all three parts of Clear, Concise, Witty, and many examples in fiction aren't accurate protrayals of DID.

I suspect that most singlets using the split-personality trope are not even trying to base it off real-world DID, OSDD, or any other kind of plurality, so much as... well, the split-personality trope itself.

Yeah, the title reflects the faulty/nonexistent science behind the trope. A UN page on DID (if none exists yet) would be awesome, but renaming Split Personality to it would miss the entire point of the trope.

I think Idiot Savant should be renamed not just due to the outdated term, but to avoid confusion with Genius Ditz. It is a We Are Not Alone Index trope, and Wikipedia calls it savant syndrome. The problem with that name, however, is that it removes the context for the unfamiliar word savant.

The TRS thread to rename Eskimos Aren't Real got declined.

Because the OP lacked evidence...

That's a major problem with TRS, really. Wanting to change Eskimos Aren't Real because the word "Eskimo" should be avoided is not something that you can provide evidence for with a wick check.

The OP cited things like offensiveness and vandalism and there was no evidence provided for either. Septimus wasn't looking for a wick check, just proof of the issue beyond a two-sentence post.

That's why it took forever to rename Transgender despite multiple concerns about its previous name.

I do think Eskimos Aren't Real could be renamed if only because it's so easy to substitute something else in for "Eskimos."

It was only cited as a "possible" concern, but how frequently do tropes with offensive terminology actually get vandalized for that reason? The Fag Hag incident that prompted this thread is literally the only time I can remember this happening.