This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
From YKTTW:
Andyroid: Here's something for ya- bad guys who try to stamp out art, especially music, and especially rock music. The Rhombulans from the game Elite Beat Agents got me to thinking about bad guys like this, who range from the mundane (Moral Guardians like Reverend Moore from the movie Footloose) to the fantastic (fascist organizations like the New Order Nation from the game Revolution X, or aliens like the aforementioned Rhombodians, or Commander Wolfbreath and his men from the Madballs cartoon). I think the only question here is, what do you call this entry?
Looney Toons: Styx's "Kilroy Was Here" album (the one "Mr. Roboto" came from) from 1983 was a little rock-opera-y kind of thing based around this idea. In its backstory, the bad guys were The Majority For Musical Morality, which might make for a good trope name (though it is a bit tightly focussed on music as opposed to art/culture in general). I should also note that many real-world repressive regimes target art and culture in order to eradicate "subversive" or "counterrevolutionary" thought; perhaps Soviet Realism might be a good name, except it might make people seeing it in a show's trope list think that it meant the show was done in the style of Soviet Realism...
Ununnilium: Oh, yes, this was everywhere during the 80s. I remember the movie Rock-A-Doodle, and an episode of Quantum Leap. I recommend some famous song title or lyric with "Rock and Roll" in it.
On a related issue, IMHO, we should have a supertrope for general "censorship of popular culture" plots, but still split this off into its own subtrope.
Scifantasy: Agreed. Rebellion against censorship is big, especially the variety using rock and roll music, and pretty well known. I'm almost tempted—and I've never even seen it—to want to call this one Reverend Moore, because everybody cut—I mean, everybody knows Footloose as a big example of this. Either that, or you could get literary, and name-check Orwell, Bradbury, or Huxley.
The Quantum Leap episode, by the way, was "Good Morning, Peoria," so-called because it mimics Good Morning, Vietnam (which is another example) rather elaborately.
Scifantasy: This one just hit me...or, we could go real-world, and call it the Parents Music Resource Center. Whoops, are my politics showing?
Kendra Kirai: The Society for the Censorship of All Legitimate Entertainment, or SCALE. :)
Looney Toons: Nah, people might think the article was about SAG pay minimums. <grin>
Scifantasy: Plus, there are so many existing examples, in fiction and not, that to make up a whole new one lacks the same punch.
Seth: Xena did an episode where a town had banned dancing, they wanted her to train the kids as soldiers and masked dance as military drills. I like SCALE by the way has that memorable feel to it.
Andyroid: Thanks for the examples and suggestions, folks. I like the name Reverend Moore myself. Also, I recall a cartoon about a dystopian future where the evil "Emperor of the World" banned all music because he could never learn to play music as a child, and the heroes were a bunch of talking musical instruments (including a piano). A lot of the background music was classical music, anyone recall the name of the series?
Seth: Is it wrong that i haven't seen Footloose?
Ununnilium: That "Emperor of the World" one sounds familiar, but I don't recall. And nope, I haven't seen Footloose either. As for the name, my problem with Reverend Moore is that it sounds like a character, and this is a plot. Maybe Everybody Cut Footloose?
Andyroid: Plot? I was aiming to put this in characters, under Villains. Though I suppose it could work under plots, too. Hmm... what do the rest of you think?
Seth: Id put it under both, the situation described is a common plot that revolves around a specific type of villain.
Scifantasy: This was definitely a villain in my mind...the existence of the Culture Cops naturally leads to rebellion against them, so the essential factor is the Reverend Moore.
Andyroid: Hey, Culture Cops, that's a good name. And it covers both individual Media Watchdog and fascist organizations.
Seth: Culture Cops sounds too positive if you want to go in that direction i would go with SCALE for an all encompassing and somewhat clever name, or Reverend Moore for a recognisable title that fits the format we have going with naming character types after famous examples. My vote is for Moore
Scifantasy: Nothing about the phrase "Culture Cops" is positive the way I hear it...the images are all of censorship. Then again, as I indicated above, I'm a First Amendment junkie. Anyway...My problem with SCALE, as I said, is that there's no instant recognition the way Reverend Moore or another existing archetype/phrase would be for many. I feel we should avoid inventing terms out of whole cloth, especially ones which require explanation (such as an acronym's expansion), since we're identifying existing tropes. SCALE is clever, but has no context.
Andyroid: I think I'll go with Culture Police, since the term reminds me of the "Thought Police" of 1984 fame.
Seth: Its your call but id still say Reverend Moore
Ununnilium: I want to add something about how people actually did this back in the 1950s, but I'm not sure how.
Scifantasy: Fifties hell, if we go into real-life examples I'm name-checking the PMRC (above).
Ununnilium: Well, I mean specifically banning rock music and dancing. (Though a ban on dancing, of course, goes much further back. The Baptists used to do that a lot, didn't they?)
YYZ: And then there's the polar opposite of the Culture Police - the bad guys who aren't fighting against music and art, but use them as a means of control, whether control be imposed indirectly (Soviet Russian art) or directly (Space Channel Five). This has to have more examples.
Ununnilium: I'd say it's a subtrope of this; after all, they still tend to try and stamp out any forms of music and art other than their approved version.
Lale: I was adding the entry for Farhenheit 451 when I thought, we have Media Watchdogs, Moral Guardians, and Executive Meddling... Should we add a trope for Book Burners?
Seth: I dont see why not, i can't think of any tropes it encroaches on. (Though there is overlap with.. well this one).
Andyroid: I'm removing the bit about the goons being faceless to dehumanize them and give the good guys an easy disguise, because that applies to any variety of faceless goon, not just the ones working for the Culture Police. In fact, we should probably make Faceless Goons a trope in itself, cross-referenced to Mooks.
Phartman: Done, with gusto.
Artful: Is it worth mentioning the various actual culture police that have existed? There were the censors of Rome (from which the word originates) and the Police of Vice and Virtue in modern day Saudi Arabia.
Antheia: I'm not sure about the pornography mentions. Isn't it part of the definition of pornography that it's not art?
Nornagest: I'm not sure the mentions of religious school policy really apply here. They're certainly trying to manipulate culture locally, but as private, membership-based organizations they arguably have a perfect right to. Their roof, their rules.
Public schools, now...
The Simpsons example is a bit of a wall banger, as, if things actually played out as in the episode, Marge would be -completely justified-... that is, Maggie imitated what she saw on TV, and hurt Homer.. is there a trope related to that? People thinking kids imitate violent media when obviously IRL they don't (but then on the show they do, and yet they still treat these people like the cranks they are in real life?)
