History Main / SelfDeprecation

*** You're probably right about the Chicano thing. It's characteristic of people living in a diaspora to make fun of themselves and their culture, partly as a way of defending against the criticism of the local majority culture ("[[NWordPrivileges hey]], ''[[NWordPriveliges we]]'' [[NWordPrivileges get to make fun of us, not you]]), and partly as defense mechanism against total assimilation ("look, I know our culture seems kind of ridiculous, but it's ''our'' culture. And lighten up, alright, Dad?). Diaspora Greeks, Arabs, Persians, Turks, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Koreans, etc., etc., etc., (particularly second-generation ones) have ''much'' better senses of humor about themselves than the people in the "old country." Indeed, this might be why the Jews took up the form: since they were ''all'' in diaspora until about 70-80 years ago, they all got this kind of funnybone, and because the Ashkenazim were the worst off, they got it the most (funny that...).

*** Alternate CMoA during the commentary for Mallrats where he describes himself as desperate and suicidal during the production of the movie, coming home at night with a bag of sleeping pills and preparing to just end it all. It's funnier than it sounds.

** For very good reason -- ''HMS Pinafore'' was a satire of the British upper crust, about which Queen Victoria is said to have famously commented, "We are ''not amused''." ''Penzance'' was an attempt to get back on the Queen's good side by mocking their earlier work, and by sucking up shamelessly at the end. (The pirates immediately surrender when ordered in the name of Queen Victoria, because they're good English boys despite being pirates and all.)

*** "If you're watching this problem regularly -- I'm sorry."

** During the Late Nite Wars "We may suck, but we suck at the same damn time every night!"

* Robert Anson Heinlein takes a shot at himself in ''The Number Of The Beast''. At a point when the four main characters are polling each other on their favourite authors, one asks about Heinlein. Another promply snorts and admits to having read ''Stranger In A Strange Land''. ''My God, the things some writers will do for money!''[[/folder]]

* ''I Am A Cat'', Natsume Soseki's social satire of late Meiji-era Japan, not only features a major character bearing more than a passing resemblance to the author who comes off about as well as any other character in the book (i.e. not at all), but has a passage in which this character and several others directly bash Soseki's other work. (Of course, since none of these characters are at all likeable, it may be that we're supposed to disagree with them, which would make this either a TakeThat at critics or a roundabout form of self-praise. It's hard to tell.)[[/folder]]

This doesn't always work, though. Make these jokes in front of those actually feeling in those aforementioned moods, and they won't see the joke. You may get accused of being "self hating" or even a "traitor". This, of course, means that oppressive regimes are right out, unless those jokes are too ingrained in the culture, [[InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou like in Soviet Russia.]]

* An [[{{Understatement}} extremely]] dark (not to mention [[TearJerker tragic]]) version of this is in ''GraveOfTheFireflies''. The very first scene is of the [[AuthorAvatar protagonist]] ''dying'' in a subway.

[[/folder]]

* {{TheLeagueOfGentlemen}}'s [[TheMovie Apocalypse]] is a TakeThat to the League themselves, displaying them as petty, spiteful and childish. Ironically, [[spoiler: the characters from the actual programme become more developed as they realise their behaviour is based solely on the way they're written and not on themselves as people]].

* Fforde has nothing on [[FarFetchedFiction Robert Rankin]], who constantly [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks the fourth wall]] to self-complain about {{plot hole}}s, stupid {{running gags}}, and absolutely ridiculous plot devices (Elvis with a time-travelling sprout in his head has to kill the Antichrist! Yeah!). At one point he actually inserted himself, writing the novel in a bar, in the novel itself.

* Iain Banks's ''extremely'' controversial first novel ''The Wasp Factory'' went one better, by reprinting ''every'' negative review the book had received, alternated with more positive reviews. Some of the negative reviews were hilariously extreme, with one critic claiming that [[SeriousBusiness the decision to publish the novel showed that civilization had come to an end.]]

* Chaucer does this all the time; many of his dream poems include a moment (or three) where his AuthorAvatar narrator is castigated for being fat, dorky, and a writer of love poetry although he doesn't get any himself, and in ''TheCanterburyTales'' his pilgrim persona, when it's his turn to tell a tale, tells first a mock-romance that's so silly that the Host cuts it off before he can finish, and then a long, boring moral tale. This makes the trope at least OlderThanPrint.
* ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy'' features, as a running plot thread, a dialogue between a book reviewer and his editor about a book full of "conspiracy nonsense" and "gratuitous sex scenes" which seems to ''strongly'' parallel the novel itself.

* ''{{DanBrown}}'' in ''TheLostSymbol''. Robert Langdon refers to a book heavily implied to be ''DigitalFortress'' as a "mediocre thriller".

** In the forward to one of the ''BlackWidowers'' stories, he acknowledged that when he portrayed the character of Manny Rubin as constantly insulting his "friend" Dr Asimov ("Just because I lend him some money, that makes him a friend?") the person he was ''really'' being unfair on wasn't himself but Lester del Rey (who Rubin was based on).

* Robert Goldsborough wrote a number of ''NeroWolfe'' novels after [[AuthorExistenceFailure series creator Rex Stout's death]]. The final one features a victim who had [[{{Continuation}} been writing another authors character]]. At one point, Archie Goodwin slams the victim's writing.

** On that note, ''[[EveOnline CCP Games]]'' knows only one release date: Soon™.

*** And BlizzardEntertainment. It seems that successful game companies that can afford to push back release dates for the sake of quality have come to use Soon™ as a way of mocking both themselves ''and'' their fans.

* Whenever he's not snarking at [[BitingTheHandHumour his producers and the Travel Network]], [[TakeThat Rachel Ray, or mainstream chain restaurants]], celebrity chef and ''NoReservations'' star Anthony Bourdain frequently pokes fun at himself, particularly his wild and crazy past.

* {{HoL}} aka Human Occupied Landfill, is in general a parody of hack-and-slash powergaming. In the "Obligatory Example of Play" section, the example game quickly degenerates into the {{Jerkass}} players insulting and then beating the crap out of each other.

* HoL aka Human Occupied Landfill, is in general a parody of hack-and-slash powergaming. In the "Obligatory Example of Play" section, the example game quickly degenerates into the {{Jerkass}} players insulting and then beating the crap out of each other.

* The ''WerewolfTheApocalypse'' supplement ''Pentex: Subsidiaries'' describes some of the companies under the umbrella of the titular evil MegaCorp. The last one listed is "Black Dog Game Factory", the ''{{World of Darkness}}'' version of Werewolf's own publisher WhiteWolf. The company's fictional games all feature White Wolf's signature traits (DarkerAndEdgier settings, etc.) taken UpToEleven, and the employees are all unflattering parodies of real White Wolf writers, including the writers of the supplement itself.

** On that note, ''[[EveOnline CCP Games]]'' knows only one release date: Soon™.

*** And BlizzardEntertainment. It seems that successful game companies that can afford to push back release dates for the sake of quality have come to use Soon™ as a way of mocking both themselves ''and'' their fans.