| 1 | [[quoteright:350:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BF7IWpaZoU https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2018_08_18_at_45421_pm.png]]]] |
| 2 | |
| 3 | [[VerbalTic So...]] Jenny Nicholson a WebVideo creator, once known for heading ''WebVideo/FriendshipIsWitchcraft'', then running her own Website/YouTube channel. After posting infrequent miscellaneous videos from as early as 2011, she started gaining traction around 2016 after she began making videos talking about mainstream film and TV show franchises, such as ''Franchise/TheAvengers'', ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', and ''Franchise/StarWars'', all with a unique sense of deadpan humor and often with her cosplaying as a character in whatever the video is about. |
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| 5 | Her videos vary on whatever she feels like doing, with her subjects and style alternating frequently. In addition to directly [[{{Review}} discussing]] films or shows -- either recent ones she just saw or older ones she has a deeper thinkpiece on -- she also does skits as characters acting out humorous takes of their respective works, riffs on fanfiction or other obscure literature, and more. |
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| 7 | See the channel [[https://www.youtube.com/user/JennyENicholson/feed here]]. Her Patreon can be found [[https://www.patreon.com/JennyNicholson here]]. |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | !!Tropes displayed by Jenny Nicholson, (not) arranged as a numbered list: |
| 11 | |
| 12 | * AbortedArc: Her series on Ride/StarWarsGalaxysEdge got as far as the prologue about the land's backstory and how she got her footage, but the videos about the actual attractions have yet to materialize, largely due to some of them having yet to open and shutdowns due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. |
| 13 | * ActuallyAGoodIdea[[invoked]]: |
| 14 | ** In her video on ''Black Moon Rising'', Jenny genuinely compliments the climax of the novel for being much better-paced and exciting than everything preceding it, thinking the author had a lot of potential that was marred by her requiring to re-explain the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe in order to justify her [[ImplausibleDeniability not]]-[[SerialNumbersFiledOff fanfic]]. |
| 15 | ** While her opinion of the ''Film/DearEvanHansen'' movie is overall low, she says that "Sincerely, Me" is actually a really good song with fun choreography and interesting editing, and that had the movie leaned into the black-comedy tone and the more straightforwardly self-serving and manipulative aspects of Evan the song shows, it would've been much better. |
| 16 | * AffectionateParody: Many people took her video on ''Film/AChristmasPrince'' as this towards Video Essay channels. It features her theories that the movie is set in a dystopian world and is the set-up for a cinematic universe. |
| 17 | * AnalogyBackfire[[invoked]]: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMgMr0JcYJ4 In her video on the book]] ''Literature/TriggerWarning'', Jenny breaks down the protagonist/AuthorAvatar's reverence of Creator/AudieMurphy for being an unmoving and unflinching war hero by simply pointing out how [[ShellShockedVeteran Murphy suffered from dangerously severe PTSD throughout most of his life]], and spent his later years advocating for PTSD research and mental health sensitivity, something ''Trigger Warning'' [[MisaimedFandom vehemently rejects]]. |
| 18 | -->'''Jenny''': [[AccidentallyCorrectWriting I guess it's literally and depressingly true to say "his safe space was behind a gun"]]... [[RightForTheWrongReasons because he actually felt unsafe for many years falling asleep]] [[PillowPistol without keeping a gun under his pillow]], which was not included in his biography as a cool, triumphant thing. |
| 19 | * AnimalMotif: Jenny very much likes horses and spiders. Her bedroom is decked out in horse merchandise and she's a long-time ''My Little Pony'' fan, and she's also a huge fan of spiders, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngC6qE8MkKo going through several decorative spider reviews on Amazon]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CRXUeTmNtE traveling to Arizona to purchase a gigantic spider plushie.]] In the latter video she says she wanted to be an enteomologist as a child because she loved spiders so much. She also tends to get very excited about snakes, owning a snake plushie, perking up whenever a story mentions snakes, pondering whether snakes exist in the ''Star Wars'' canon, and selling a T-shirt based on the "There make be snakes" meme stemming from the "Trapped in a island with John Hutchinson" video. She really wants one of those snake racks they have in gift shops, but to date hasn't been able to get one. |
| 20 | * ArchEnemy: She refers to ''Film/EscapeFromTomorrow'' director Randy Moore, who she finds extremely pretentious, as her "mortal enemy." She notes that she usually refrains from personal attacks in her reviews, but in researching him, she went from hating the movie to hating Moore himself. She even has a Patreon tier exclusively for him. |
| 21 | * AsianSpeekeeEngrish: In The Church Play Cinematic Universe video, a white pastor is doing this in an Easter parody of ''Film/{{Tombstone}}'', despite the original film not having any Asian characters. This leads her to the wince-inducing conclusion that the pastor just really wanted to do the accent. |
| 22 | * AuthorAppeal: Jenny notes the many times in ''Trigger Warning'' that characters and the narrator mention how "big" the protagonist is. |
| 23 | * AuthorFilibuster: Her review of ''Trigger Warning'' notes many times how the entire book is one long diatribe against liberals, anti-gun advocates, antifa and the academic community in general. |
| 24 | * AuthorVocabularyCalendar: Jenny's quick to pick up on oddly-repeated words she finds in the books she reviews. In ''Troll'', she notices how much the author describes the male lead's muscles as "bulging", and in ''Trigger Warning'', she finds amusement with how its protagonist is described [[BeigeProse merely as "big".]] |
| 25 | * BaitAndSwitch: |
| 26 | ** In her video on ''Film/EscapeFromTomorrow'', she mentions that the movie has been criticized for misogyny and says that she thinks it’s actually really progressive how many of the prominent roles are women, then lists all of their roles in detail, making it increasingly clear how lazy, uncomfortable and downright creepy the depiction of the female characters is. |
| 27 | ** In "15 Very Dumb Things in Fantastic Beasts 2"; after not mentioning Johnny Depp's casting controversy through the entire video, she gives us this in TheStinger: |
| 28 | -->'''Jenny''': Finally I have to say that I think it's morally reprehensible to have Johnny Depp in this movie. I mean, it's bad enough to dig up a corpse, but to slather makeup on it so it looks vaguely human, and then poke it with a stick so that it shambles around attempting to deliver dialogue, it's just inhumane. |
| 29 | * BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: |
| 30 | ** In her "Fantastic Beasts 2" video, Jenny explains that she feels like her wish for JK Rowling to write more, and the fandom at large's wish for more diverse characters, have been answered in a [[Literature/TheMonkeysPaw monkey's paw]] kind of way. The story includes, among others, a biracial woman that is killed off, a black woman that is hypnotized, kidnapped, raped and then commits suicide, an Asian woman that becomes [[BigBad Voldemort's]] most loyal companion and [[{{Animorphism}} literal pet]], and a Jewish woman that joins the Nazi-coded enemy faction. |
| 31 | ** In her review of ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', she jokingly laments about her sarcastic suggestions in earlier videos that while Rey shouldn't be related to anyone, it would be funniest if she were related to [[spoiler:Emperor Palpatine]] because of how stupid it would be. When that exact thing ended up happening, she didn't enjoy it very much. |
| 32 | --->'''Jenny:''' I dug my own grave. With my funnies. |
| 33 | * BestialityIsDepraved: Played for BlackComedy in "Westworld Sales Pitch". After the executive pitching Westworld says that they're using robots instead of actors because guests want to have sex with the robots, the investor backtracks in a moment of sudden horror and asks why all the ''horses'' are robots too. The Westworld executive quickly clarifies that the horses are robots to prevent riding accidents. |
| 34 | -->'''Executive:''' Although if [guests] wanted to-- |
| 35 | -->'''Investor:''' Gonna move on now. |
| 36 | * BreadEggsMilkSquick: In her ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'' video, she brings up the idea of changing the doll line to one of only new and original characters as a potential fix for its various problems. This would also allow to keep making short webisodes for the characters, with very simple premises such as: |
| 37 | -->'''Jenny''': Kelsi is afraid she won't pass her Jedi trials! Layla likes a boy but doesn't know how tell him! Megan found a Sith holocron and is drawn to the dark side and the power it brings! |
| 38 | * BreakoutVillain: [[invoked]]In her video on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' (where she cites the villains as being her favorite part of the show), she [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] a particularity of the trope in what she calls a "Franchise/MyLittlePony solution" in how some franchises make their villains so likeable that rather than having them killed off once their arc ended, they merely have them "defeated," opening a possibility for them to stick around in the future, [[HeelFaceTurn sometimes to reform and join the good guys]]. |
| 39 | * BrickJoke: She can't find her "racism" post-it on her StringTheory board in ''THE Vampire Diaries Video''. Over an hour later, it turns up under the "Bonnie" post-it. |
| 40 | * BrokenAesop: She criticizes ''WesternAnimation/FindingDory'' for this--the lesson is supposed to be that having a disability doesn't have to mean you can't do things, but she says that in practice, Dory doesn't find ways to ''accommodate'' her disability, she just unrealistically powers through it and remembers anyway, so the lesson comes off as more "if you're disabled, you just need to try harder to not be disabled". |
| 41 | * ButtMonkey: In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yw6z9G7p1g Rating. Every. Porg.]]", Jenny reviews a small one named "Hugo" as such: |
| 42 | -->'''Jenny''': Hugo is a miserable excuse for a porg that fails in every conceivable way. Hugo is a walking avocado with the face only a mother could love. His dream is to play the trombone one day in a marching band, which is a foolish dream. Porgs can't play the trombone; their mouths and flippers just aren't built for it. Hugo couldn't porg his way out of a paper bag. 0/10. |
| 43 | * CallBack: |
| 44 | ** In one [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDK5U95w9v4 review]], Jenny mentions that the mom died of sadness, and ladies do that sometimes. This is a reference to TheStinger of the "If Rey is a Skywalker" video. |
| 45 | ** When running down the list of things you can buy from The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in her video on Disney's Pandora, she includes $30 plastic wands as a reference to her review of ''Escape from Tomorrowland''. |
| 46 | * TheCameo: In "An Excruciatingly Deep Dive into the ''Avatar'' Theme Park", Dan Olson of WebVideo/FoldingIdeas briefly appears in some of Jenny's footage from her trip to the park, apparently as part of her group. |
| 47 | * CanonDefilement[[invoked]]: In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3PKipRZKv0 Is Forces of Destiny good?]]", she [[DiscussedTrope discusses]] Disney's concern for "brand integrity" and "character integrity," with Disney refusing to put its respected properties in anything that could be considered demeaning or out of character. Jenny finds the practice sensible, but also a killjoy that factored into the doll line's refusal to have [[CanonForeigner new characters]] or even ''outfits'' not already established as canon, hindering its appeal and being [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot a waste of a perfectly good universe]] to boot (she also digresses to theorize brand integrity as being what killed [[WhatCouldHaveBeen the more comedic]] [[Creator/PhilLordAndChrisMiller Lord and Miller]] [[WhatCouldHaveBeen version of]] ''Film/{{Solo}}''). |
| 48 | * CatchPhrase: |
| 49 | ** Jenny tends to begin her videos with "So..." |
| 50 | ** When she makes long videos wherein she discusses certain aspects of whatever she's reviewing she'll say "So I've made a numbered list" and variations thereof. |
| 51 | ** "It's so subtle, but it's there", often said about something that is [[SarcasmMode decidedly not very subtle]]. |
| 52 | * CluelessAesop: |
| 53 | ** She repeatedly slams the reality show ''Opposite Worlds'' for trying to frame itself as a scientific study based around a CavemenVsAstronautsDebate. This fundamentally broke down since not only are the "past" and "future" represented in [[HollywoodHistory a very shallow way]] (for one, they couldn't exactly depict the future that wasn't just a high-tech present), the "past" team lived in utter squalor objectively worse than the "future" team, and nearly all challenges were obstacle courses which could only be won by those in top physical condition, resulting in both an [[UnstableEquilibrium unfairly unstable competition]] and a completely moot experiment. |
| 54 | ** She spends a portion of her video on ''Film/{{Beastly}}'' discussing how the "beast's" flaw he's being punished for is [[ItsAllAboutMe vanity]] rather than [[RichJerk cruel snobbery]], which is irrelevant to his arc of becoming a kinder person[[note]]This is incidentally in sharp contrast to the original novel, where Kyle really ''is'' a cruel snob[[/note]]. She also points out a scene where the blind tutor gives him a lesson about accepting himself through his looks, except Kyle never properly does, [[BrokenAesop effectively snapping the aesop in half]]. |
| 55 | ** She also discusses this in terms of ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'', believing the film's attempt to tackle topics like fascism and the Holocaust to be poorly placed in a film about magical wizards. Worse, she notes that the track the film eventually takes (the Holocaust happened in the Harry Potter universe because stopping it was the objective of the ''villain'') ends up making the characters unlikable. |
| 56 | ** In "A needlessly thorough roast of Dear Evan Hansen (2021)", Jenny concludes this as being a big problem of [[Film/DearEvanHansen the film]] ''and'' [[Theatre/DearEvanHansen the original Broadway musical]], that while it's ''about'' heavy topics like mental health, grief, and suicide (which she believes is the reason the musical won so many Tony awards), it doesn't have any willingness to engage with such topics on a moral level, leaving it thematically confused in a way where characters (and thus, the audience) ultimately learn very little and don't change. |
| 57 | * TheComicallySerious: She generally keeps to a neutral, deadpan voice with little emoting regardless of what she's saying, which makes her [[DeadpanSnarker constant snarking]] even funnier. |
| 58 | * ComicSutra: During "This Is DEFINITELY Not A Published Reylo Fanfic Novel", Jenny consciously skips over the various sex scenes, [[NothingIsFunnier with the closest she gets to describing one being a brief mention halfway through the book]]. |
| 59 | -->'''Jenny''': Okay... this is not what The Force is for, you guys... |
| 60 | * ComicallyMissingThePoint: |
| 61 | ** Jenny herself ends up falling into this during "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74KAGEe-IdU One Direction during The Purge]]", where one fic tagged with "[[Music/OneDirection Larry and Niam]]" throws her off and gets her confusedly asking "Which one is Larry?"[[labelnote:explanation]][[invoked]]It's not the name of an individual member, but a PortmanteauCoupleName [[ActorShipping between Louis and Harry]].[[/labelnote]] |
| 62 | ** Jenny also is more startled that Randy caused GrievousBottleyHarm on Jeff the Killer with a vodka bottle he seemingly found at an eight-year-old's birthday party than the fact that they are having a violent fight in the child's backyard to begin with. |
| 63 | * CompassionateCritic: Jenny's video essay style usually hinges around being this. She's [[BrutalHonesty quick and direct to call out problems]] in whatever she talks about, but she also has no qualms in admitting anything she sincerely enjoys or respects, which is why she generally avoids using "SoBadItsGood"[[invoked]] as a descriptor, as stuff she enjoys and stuff she thinks are good aren't mutually exclusive. Even when talking about things she genuinely dislikes and thinks are failures, her condemnation has less to do with rage of their incompetence and more [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot disappointment that they squandered their potential so badly]], often providing suggestions for how things actually could have worked. |
| 64 | * CoolButInefficient: She has a good time pointing out the holes in the plot of ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' relating to this trope. In particular, their attempt to weaponize the Indoraptor, which she points out seems to be on about the same scale as a rifle (it involves pointing a large gun-like contraption at the target at fairly short range as it makes a loud noise) but you have to carry around a crazed genetically-engineered predator. |
| 65 | * {{Cosplay}}: Jenny often dresses up as something relevant for whatever she's talking about, like as a witch for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv0v0VCVgJ4 her video on magic]], as a nondescript superhero (with a Wonder Woman-style tiara made out of masking tape) when reviewing ''Film/JusticeLeague2017'', or wearing a casual AdventurerOutfit for her video on ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsHT1fYouYU Her video on]] ''Film/AChristmasPrince'' features a dead-on recreation of one of the protagonist's outfits in the sequel. |
| 66 | * ContrivedCoincidence: While reviewing ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' comments on the unlikelihood of two famous wizarding families traveling to America with a baby on the same boat at the same time by complete coincidence. |
| 67 | * CursedWithAwesome: "[[WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}} Elsa Has It All Figured Out]]" explores what could've happened had Elsa [[DidntThinkThisThrough properly thought out]] her "[[AnIcePerson curse]]." Anna not only suggests creating valuable ice [[MundaneUtility for refrigeration that could do wonders for the kingdom's wealth]], but also that since she's proven to be extraordinarily powerful ''by accident'', they could probably TakeOverTheWorld [[CurbStompBattle with no military force daring to oppose them]]. |
| 68 | * CutShort[[invoked]]: Jenny's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjOozxG8b5c Endgame video]] suddenly changes format halfway though. She explains that during editing the file became corrupted and she lost the latter half of the video, but decided not to re-film it because she decided she didn't like it. The rest of the video (up to this point she had been analyzing plots and characters) has her discussing how she didn't really feel motivated to do an ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' video but felt obligated to, especially since her take on the film was overall positive while she's known for reviewing SoBadItsGood media. |
| 69 | -->'''Jenny:''' Usually when I do a video about a movie it's because I really hated it and I'm really fired up about it, or I thought of something funny I wanted to share, or I don't think anyone even knows about this movie and I'm excited to tell people about it. [...] But anyway I was caught in this trap of dragging my feet making my ''Endgame'' video and not really being happy with my ''Endgame'' video because I didn't really have anything to say about it, and also realizing as it hit like a full month after ''Endgame'''s release as it became increasingly asinine to even to contemplate making an ''Endgame'' video. [...] Anyways I'd been sitting in this angst for a few days and having laryngitis I think you can tell that I'm not going to proceed with the ''Endgame'' review. Although it would be really funny if I did at this point, and this was some sort of bizarre interlude. |
| 70 | * DaddyHadAGoodReasonForAbandoningYou: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjHEHuNyvME If Rey is a Skywalker]]" (a video released way before ''Film/TheLastJedi'') portrays Luke Skywalker and Rey after the events of ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', playing up a hypothetical conversation based on the [[WildMassGuessing popular fan theory]] that [[LukeIAmYourFather Luke was Rey's father]]. Luke starts off with this trope to explain why he left Rey on Jakku, but she doesn't buy it and [[CallingTheOldManOut calls out all the holes in his poor judgement]] (as well as all the flaws in the theory). |
| 71 | * DamnedByFaintPraise: From her ranking of all the ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' movies: |
| 72 | --> '''Jenny:''' The main reason it's ranked so high is just that I find Moe cute...which I hope demonstrates how low my standards are even at this high point on the list. |
| 73 | * DeadPersonImpersonation: The last section of her video on ''Trigger Warning'' (a novel released in 2018) discusses how its credited author, William W. Johnstone, has been dead since 2004. Jenny unpacks how his estate, most notably his niece, Jo Johnstone, appears to have been using his identity to write and publish majority of his supposed bibliography. |
| 74 | * DeadpanSnarker: Jenny has a penchant for very dry, continuous humor in her many videos. |
| 75 | * DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: From "Top 10 Worst Reasons You Liked Rogue One": |
| 76 | -->'''Jenny''': They could have just had anyone do that, like Bodhi who had nothing to do as a character. Speaking of Bodhi, he had nothing to do as a character. |
| 77 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: |
| 78 | ** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMNFaAUs2mo Suicide Squad Sales Pitch]]" thoroughly deconstructs the entire basis of [[Film/SuicideSquad2016 the movie]] through a hypothetical conversation between Amanda Waller and the unnamed person she's pitching the titular squad to, resulting in this at the end: |
| 79 | --->'''Jenny''': Okay, if you can get on the squad by being a good fighter, then why are there any [[BoxedCrook villains on the squad]]?\ |
| 80 | '''Jenny (as Waller)''': What do you mean?\ |
| 81 | '''Jenny''': Well, there are all these incredibly famous people running around with superpowers, and you even said earlier you were in contact with Franchise/{{Batman}}... so... why don't you just put together a team of good guys who are powerful and also not dangerous criminals?\ |
| 82 | ''(long beat)''\ |
| 83 | '''Jenny (as Waller)''': ...[[OhCrap oh my g]]--\ |
| 84 | '''Trailer''': [[SmashCut Suicide Squad, rated PG-13, experience it in IMAX 3D]]! |
| 85 | ** "If Rey is a Skywalker" fully deconstructs the [[spoiler:now-jossed]] "Rey is Luke's daughter" theory by calling out how no matter how you slice it, there is no valid excuse or sensible plan to justify Luke dumping Rey off alone at a young age on ''[[DeathWorld Jakku]]''. |
| 86 | --->'''Luke''': I had to keep you safe!\ |
| 87 | '''Rey''': ...from what!?\ |
| 88 | '''Luke''': You have really strong force powers-- a lot of people want you dead, or evil, or both.\ |
| 89 | '''Rey''': And Jakku was the safest place you could find? I was alone there, I was six!\ |
| 90 | '''Luke''': Look, Jakku was off the grid and we knew no one would look for you there...\ |
| 91 | '''Rey''': My first week in Jakku, [[EverythingIsTryingToKillYou I almost got eaten by a bird]]. It just picked me up and carried me away.\ |
| 92 | '''Luke''': ...was it really big?\ |
| 93 | '''Rey''': [[DeadpanSnarker Nope, you know what? It wasn't, it was just really hungry]]. |
| 94 | ** "Elsa Has It All Figured Out" does the same thing between [[WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}} Elsa and Anna]], deconstructing Elsa's decision to have kept her ice powers secret as well as her self-exile after she froze her entire kingdom. Unlike the previous two examples, her properly thinking things out [[CursedWithAwesome would be an]] ''[[CursedWithAwesome awesome]]'' [[CursedWithAwesome thing]]. |
| 95 | ** She points out in her video on ''Paranormal Home Inspectors'' that the show's high concept -- a ghost-hunting show that debunks hauntings with mundane explanations -- sounds exciting... until you realize that it doesn't actually lend itself to compelling entertainment. |
| 96 | ** Her review of [[Ride/PandoraTheWorldOfAvatar Disney's Pandora]] points out the disconnect of the lore (that the Alpha Centauri Expeditions company are cohabiting with the Na'vi) and that there ''are no Na'vi'' walking around their own homeworld. |
| 97 | ** In her ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' video, Jenny is agog that the town council's plan to suss out who the vampires are involves holding a party during the daytime and investigate whoever doesn't come--and they hold the party ''at one of their houses''. That is to say, their plan includes inviting as many people as possible into a council member's home, when they're dealing with creatures against whom MustBeInvited is one of the few reliable protections. And they do, in fact, end up personally inviting Damon (a vampire) in. (To be fair, they don't know that daywalking rings are a thing, but they also don't know they're ''not'' a thing.) |
| 98 | ** In her review of ''Film/DearEvanHansen'', she questions the students taking out their phones to film Evan flubbing his tribute speech to Connor, wondering how they could've expected anyone to find it funny that a boy couldn't make it through a speech about his only friend committing ''suicide.'' [[note]]Connor wasn't really his friend, but the students in the audience didn't know it at the time.[[/note]] |
| 99 | ---> "So instead they all jeeringly take out their phones to film Evan when he drops his notecards, like they think that this is good content. [[SarcasmMode Yeah, guys, that's really funny. I'm sure that's gonna perform well on TikTok.]] Send it in to America's Funniest Home Videos: 'Flustered Child Makes Fool of Himself After Friend Dies By Suicide'." |
| 100 | ** Her video on Ride/EvermorePark explains this to be a recurring problem with the theme park, both with individual concepts and much broader fundamentals. The idea of an open-world theme park heavily built around role-playing and immersion within the fantasy world and its characters sounds exciting on paper, but combined with logistical and financial issues [[ObviousBeta leaving the potential significantly unreached]][[invoked]], there was so many major oversights in safety (both for visitors and cast members) and overall infrastructural integrity that the concept turned into an intense liability with ever-increasing tolls. |
| 101 | *** The whole {{LARP}} aspect sounds charming in concept, but only if one considers that everyone involved would be on their absolute best behavior. Jenny notes how despite it being a core draw, very little care was taken in moderating or setting up guidelines to ensure that the roleplay would be respectful and within the lines of consent, which ended up creating an environment that was unsafe for cast members as they had to deal with potentially rowdy roleplayers, emotionally taxing stories, and unhealthy parasocial relationships for the sake of immersion, and whereas other theme parks with roaming cast members tend to be structured and scripted in ways to handle visitor exchanges more easily, Evermore pointedly lacked such structure. Jenny additionally notes that even a cursory Google search will net you millions of commonly-held standards held by LARP communities to prevent these issues from happening, so the lack of care from a corporate-run theme park towards the mental and physical well-being of its participants is an especially bad look. |
| 102 | *** In terms of the highly-touted roleplaying and overarching plotlines, Jenny highlights that the park didn't have a firm grasp on how structured it was meant to be for guests, flip-flopping between being too open-ended ([[GuideDangIt confusing newcomers who didn't know how to progress]][[invoked]]) or too simplified (boring them with {{Railroading}}). Their pursuit of more prestige elements such as "epics" (bigger story arrangements for larger groups) and continually-maintained continuity additionally sandwiched guests with conflicts of agency (making stories for the overall group experience dampened the influence of the individual participants) and ContinuityLockout (some quests requiring "gold" to join poses a challenge for newcomers who have none and may struggle to find any from other quest-givers). |
| 103 | *** She points out that park management didn't appear to have considered how strongly a particular story event, in which cast members would suddenly panic and urge guests to flee because someone dangerous is coming, evokes a mass shooting. Moreover, she adds that the in-universe {{Foreshadowing}} for this beat, which would have made clearer that it ''is'' just a story, is spread out over several days, but most people only come for a day or two and so would never see it. |
| 104 | *** Later in the same video, Jenny finds it ridiculous that [[FrivolousLawsuit Evermore decided to file a lawsuit against Taylor Swift]] for allegedly infringing on their brand with her album ''Music/{{Evermore|2020}}'', even though they had illegally been using Swift's songs in the park--as if that wasn't going to immediately shoot their case in the metaphorical foot? Swift's record management company had heretofore played nice regarding the unauthorized dwarf band covers, but immediately filed suit about it when Evermore couldn't be induced to back off. Both sides dropped their lawsuits eventually, but the whole thing cost Evermore a lot of money and public goodwill that it could ill afford to lose. |
| 105 | * DudeNotFunny: |
| 106 | ** Although most of the fanfictions and bad novel readings are done comedically, there have been a few times where Jenny had to stop and point out that the material was pretty disturbing and probably shouldn't be joked about. |
| 107 | *** In her Jeff the Killer fanfiction reading where the author's SelfInsert has no reaction to the murder of her parents and then goes off to join other CreepyPasta monsters like Slenderman, something she compares to the motivations of the girls in the real life Slenderman stabbings. |
| 108 | *** In her reading of ''Trigger Warning'', she stops to point out how terribly the author seems to misinterpret the tragic life of Creator/AudieMurphy, ignoring his horrible struggle with PTSD and instead focusing on his military background. |
| 109 | ** More joked about in her ''Beastly'' review, when Kyle begs Lindy not to open his letter to her as she takes the train back to see her recently-overdosed father. It's ''supposed'' to be a LoveLetter, but based on [[DullSurprise his understated acting]], Jenny theorizes that it was actually a draft of a standup routine with a lot of drug addict jokes that would just hit way too close to home for her. |
| 110 | * EpilepticTrees[[invoked]]: |
| 111 | ** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt3ZtY9pIKo 25 Knights of Ren Theories]]" has Jenny share a bunch of crazy fan theories regarding [[Franchise/StarWars the Knights of Ren]], [[TheGhost all based on incredibly minute concrete info about them]]. |
| 112 | --->'''Jenny''': We know that they exist, and that Kylo is the master of them. That's literally nothing to go on, so... it's not even worth trying to speculate who they are. ([[{{beat}} long pause]]) [[ImmediateSelfContradiction ...so today, I'm going to go over my top 25 Knights of Ren theories]]! |
| 113 | ** In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsHT1fYouYU The Grim Dystopia of A Christmas Prince]]", Jenny gets a ton of mileage out of interpreting [[Film/AChristmasPrince the film and its sequel]], taking various elements throughout as evidence that -- among other things -- the series takes place in a {{Crapsaccharine|World}} AlternateUniverse stuck in a time loop where it's always Christmas. |
| 114 | * EsotericHappyEnding[[invoked]]: She finds the WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue of ''Film/BroniesTheExtremelyUnexpectedAdultFansOfMyLittlePony'' to be unintentionally upsetting. It shows that Lyle, a young brony who spent much of the documentary scared of his very conservative father learning he liked a show for girls, later went to boarding school where he found lots of people to whom he could talk about ''My Little Pony.'' However, Jenny thought the resolution to Lyle's story was somewhat ambiguous, and noted how that boarding school has [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors very negative connotations]] to American fans, so she felt that the ending implied that Lyle was [[OffToBoardingSchool shipped away]] because his interests were shameful to his family. |
| 115 | * EvilChancellor: She jokes that Ride/EvermorePark's public relations manager must be one of those "weaselly" chief advisers who [[ObviouslyEvil always wears black and purple]] because of how bad the advertising is (not on the more popular platforms, inaccurate images, website not finished, onslaught of angry Taylor Swift fans after lawsuit debacle, etc). |
| 116 | -->'''Jenny:''' Your Grace, he means you harm! |
| 117 | * ExactWords: One of her "Knights Of Ren" theories is that "The Knights Of Ren" is an [[WordSaladTitle oddly named]] FantasticFightingStyle that Kylo Ren has mastered. |
| 118 | * FailedASpotCheck: Jenny finds great amusement at how in ''Ride/StarWarsGalaxysEdge'', Kylo Ren and the First Order never find the Resistance that they're looking for despite both parties operating out of ''the exact same outpost.'' |
| 119 | -->'''Jenny''': So you have Kylo Ren's big ship, and periodically he will stomp out of it and he's like: "Where's the Resistance!?" And Rey is straight up doing photo-op meet-and-greets like a block away. [[HandWave But that's Kylo Ren's problem: he's too focused on his work]]. If he went around the corner to get himself a hot dog wrap, he'd see the Millennium Falcon. It's parked in the middle of the street. |
| 120 | * FetishRetardant[[invoked]]: |
| 121 | ** She describes the many sex scenes in ''Fifty Shades Freed'' as "grotesque," to a point where "it just starts to feel like meat. You're just looking at meat, like you forget that it's attached to humans." |
| 122 | ** In "I did it. I found the Worst Book.", a lampooning of a self-published romance novel called ''Troll'', Jenny's repeatedly turned off by the [[QuestionableConsent very creepy and dubious]] behavior of the male lead, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking as well as the use of the word "tummy" in a sexual context]]. |
| 123 | --->'''Jenny:''' Is there any word less attractive than "tummy"? |
| 124 | * FirstInstallmentWins[[invoked]]: {{Defied|Trope}} in "I'm on lockdown so I watched all 14 [[WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime Land Before Times]]", where the first movie only ranks #3 in her worst-to-best list, with her having found it not aged as well as its reputation suggests. [[DiscussedTrope She takes a moment to digress about this phenomenon]] and how it's largely driven by [[NostalgiaFilter nostalgic biases]] than judgments of actual quality. |
| 125 | -->'''Jenny:''' [...]I think a lot of the positive associations people have with it are based on nostalgia, [[CreatorWorship the knowledge that it was made by]] Creator/DonBluth, and age. Not the age of the people--well, that too, I guess-- but the age of the movie. It's old, and it came from the era of hand-drawn animation which gets it instant clout. Imagine if this movie was CGI and they released it now; an extremely literal coming-of-age dinosaur movie with dark atmosphere and beautiful backgrounds, but frankly ugly dinosaurs, with a very basic story which skews to a very young audience despite the dark tone, despite the fact that it comes from a studio which historically has made deeper stuff. ''Oh wait'', all of that stuff I just said did happen! It was called ''WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur'' and it got mediocre reviews and lost a lot of money. |
| 126 | * FranchiseOriginalSin[[invoked]]: Discussed briefly in her ''Film/DearEvanHansen'' review, where she touches upon some often-mentioned flaws that are exclusive to the film, but also mentions that several big issues people ''believe'' were new problems with the adaptation [[OlderThanTheyThink really were there with the stage musical all along.]] |
| 127 | -->'''Jenny''': I've heard a lot of people say "The movie gets ["You Will Be Found"] all wrong! This song is meant to be a sort of VillainSong, [[LyricalDissonance it's supposed to feel schmaltzy and disingenuous and sinister because it's in-universe propaganda from Evan!]] That's the point!" I disagree with that -- I think the Broadway show does characterize Evan differently [...] but I still believe that [[SincerityMode this song is intended to be fully earnest in the stage show]]. You might ask, "How can that be? How can they make Evan [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic behave so selfishly but still expect us to be so moved]] by [[AwardBaitSong his cheesy empowering pop song with extremely generic lyrics?]]" And the answer is... [[BrutalHonesty because it's not a very good play, you guys.]] I think that a lot of the nuance that the viewers were seeing in this play were just wishful thinking and projection on their part, because I think this play just fails to examine a lot of the complexities of its own premise. |
| 128 | * FunetikAksent: In her video on Creepypastas, Jenny lambasts certain types for having these in the narration as part of her larger point about how many Creepypastas fail at creating suspension of disbelief. As she points out, a mainstay of the genre is that the stories are all, in-universe, real internet posts that are really made by the main character. So by those rules, any post with a phonetic accent in the narration has to have been typed that way by the main character, meaning they saw a scary monster, decided to tell the internet about it, and then also decided to type out ''their own accent''...for atmosphere? |
| 129 | * GagCensor: Does this in ''Escape from Tomorrow'', covering up a scene where a nude woman is awkwardly projected over ''Soarin'' with some text blocks: |
| 130 | --> ''this film was accepted into the Sundance film festival'' |
| 131 | --> ''this film had a theatrical release'' |
| 132 | --> ''[[RuleOfThree this film won 6 oscars]]'' |
| 133 | --> ''ok that one's not true'' |
| 134 | * GirlShowGhetto[[invoked]]: |
| 135 | ** Jenny satirized this in "Literature/ReadyPlayerOne for Girls", essentially showcasing the book had its ReferenceOverdosed nature be "translated for girls," referencing a ton of media that itself falls victim to this and are present on the trope's page. |
| 136 | ** [[invoked]]She also addresses this in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3PKipRZKv0 her video on]] ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'' in regards to both the internet's general reaction to it, as well as the lack of creative thought that went into it as a toyline. |
| 137 | ** In "The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy", Jenny discusses at length the strange fandom dissonance at play regarding ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', a show that was largely intended for little girls and their parents, but ended up finding [[PeripheryDemographic an equally massive (if not even larger) audience with bronies]][[invoked]]. Jenny found that [[SeasonalRot later seasons of the show suffered]] from [[PanderingToTheBase pandering towards this demographic]], part of which led to [[TestosteroneBrigade a significant influx of adult male fans]] feeling they were "entitled" to the show and prone to gatekeeping. This in turn led to animosity against actual longtime female fans, trying to pull the [[NoTrueScotsman "you're not a 'true' fan"]] and [[{{Hypocrite}} "you only became fans after it was cool"]] cards and splintering the fandom even further. |
| 138 | ** At the conclusion of "[[Series/TheVampireDiaries THE Vampire Diaries]] Video", Jenny laments how in the face of the series' many legitimate ups and downs, a vast bulk of critical discussion surrounding the show is rarely interested in them, in large part because they're by people who themselves have no interest in a romance series targeted to teenage girls beyond making fun of it. |
| 139 | * GoneHorriblyRight: Jenny theorizes that the initially underwhelming debut of ''Ride/StarWarsGalaxysEdge'' is in part due to Disney fearing DemandOverload[[invoked]] and taking overly-cautious measures to dissuade people from coming in large crowds, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor which is exactly what happened]]. |
| 140 | * GoodIsBoring: In "Series/THEVampireDiaries Video", after introducing Stefan as "[[NiceGuy the good boy vampire]]" in the [[TheGentlemanOrTheScoundrel good guy/bad boy dynamic]] the series' LoveTriangle hinges around, Jenny ''immediately'' rips into how boring he is, lacking the nuance or drama of his more entertaining brother, Damon ([[AllGirlsWantBadBoys who would naturally become a fan-favorite and the eventual victor]]). However, Jenny later emphasizes that he's still a ''good'', supportive guy, [[{{Reconstruction}} managing to be charismatic and likeable despite how bland he is]]. As she argues, "Damon is the guy you want to watch a TV show about, but Stefan is the guy you would actually want to date." |
| 141 | * {{Gorn}}: {{Discussed|Trope}} in her video on the subject of bad {{creepypasta}}s, where she cites excessive gore as a sign of bad writing in the such stories, with ''The Russian Sleep Experiment'' being especially criticized for this. |
| 142 | * HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday[[invoked]]: "The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy" detailed this as one of the nastier sides of bronies becoming more of a thing. With the increased attention towards adult male fans of [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic a show]] [[GirlShowGhetto primarily marketed towards little girls]], many of them felt the need to reassert their (heteronormative) masculinity, in part by constantly and vehemently denying they were gay, which after many years ended up developing into a rhetoric that [[HeteronormativeCrusader being gay is the worst possible thing that could happen to them.]] That being said, she also noted her amusement that despite the idea still being around in the online fandom, the actual last con was so overwhelmingly crowded with gay fans (and fans in fursuits which she insists are almost all gay) that nobody even made the attempt. |
| 143 | * {{Hypocrite}}: She points out the hypocrisy in ''Insanity'' about how Mallory is the [[AlphaBitch preppy villain]] who looks down on the EmoTeen protagonist and that's a bad thing, but our protagonists frequently mock the bully Troy for his weight and it's supposed to be funny. |
| 144 | -->'''Jenny:''' These emo fantasy stories are always very holier-than-thou about how preps are the meanest, and they're bullies, and they call the main character ugly, but they're not ugly. But then they'll write in a mean bully character who's like, a fat kid, and then it's open season. |
| 145 | * HypocriticalHumor: Lampshaded in her ''Opposite Worlds'' video, where she finds it funny that one contestant's career is listed as "Professional Gamer," but acknowledges that it's not much sillier than her own career as a [=YouTuber=]. |
| 146 | * ICanChangeMyBeloved: |
| 147 | ** Briefly lampooned in "[[WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}} Elsa Has It All Figured Out]]" when Anna considers marrying Hans after all. |
| 148 | --->'''Elsa''': Hans seems evil.\ |
| 149 | '''Anna''': ''(dreamily)'' I know. ''I can change him.'' |
| 150 | ** In her video on ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'', she notes how every deluxe doll comes with a bonus companion for the character to nurture or protect: |
| 151 | --->'''Jenny:''' Leia comes with an ewok, Luke comes with Yoda, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and Rey]] [[FanPreferredCouple comes with Kylo Ren]][[invoked]]! |
| 152 | * IdiotBall: |
| 153 | ** While reviewing ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'', Jenny points out several uses of this. |
| 154 | ** Although the characters in the "Christmas Prince" movies appear to be juggling a whole set of Idiot Balls between them, Jenny is gobsmacked that the royal family would merely ''hide'' a file full of paperwork proving that the title character was adopted, "instead of keeping it in...[[DeadpanSnarker the fire]]." She is later equally confused that they [[spoiler: hid the royal decree declaring that adopted children can succeed to the throne inside an ornament]] instead of making it publicly. |
| 155 | * IncrediblyLameFun: Jenny often takes a fascinated enjoyment in entertainment that is acknowledged to be lacking in thrills or polish that would make it appealing to a general audience. "Top 10 Lame Things To Do at Disney World" is a spotlight on the park's least exciting, yet still present, available activities, and in her "SPIDERQUEST" video, one section is devoted to Jenny being fully delighted by the chance to explore the remains of a derelict ''[[WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones Flintstones]]'' theme park, itself already pretty lowkey and kitschy before it closed. |
| 156 | * InsistentTerminology: Throughout her review of the fanfic "Trapped in a Island with Josh Hutcherson", she dutifully uses the phrasing "in a island" wherever appropriate, even when not quoting from the story. |
| 157 | * InvincibleVillain: {{Discussed|Trope}} as one of the reasons she doesn't like [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse Thanos]]. Because he has such nebulously-defined "powers" and thus no {{Logical Weakness}}es [[OutsideTheBoxTactic that could be used to outsmart him]], [[StrongAsTheyNeedToBe he's essentially as powerful and unstoppable as the plot demands it]], and ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' ''[[VillainProtagonist really]]'' [[TheBadGuyWins demanded it]]. |
| 158 | * {{Irony}}: In her "The Last Bronycon" video, she remarks on bronies treating her and other female fans like "fake fans" who only got into the show for attention, despite her having been a fan of the ''My Little Pony'' franchise years before the brony fandom existed. |
| 159 | * JerkWithAHeartOfGold[[invoked]]: As explained in her "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjOozxG8b5c Endgame video]]", she's not a fan of the archetype, with her example being Tony Stark. While she likes [[Film/IronMan his films]] and respects his general role in the MCU, she finds his constant rudeness annoying [[JerkSue and]] WishFulfillment-y, as it uses [[FreudianExcuse daddy issues]] and riches as [[JerkJustifications flimsy justifications for it]]. Compare this to Rocket, who she similarly didn't like at first until [[CharacterDevelopment he properly developed and became a team player]]. |
| 160 | * JukeboxMusical: The plays discussed in "The Church Play Cinematic Universe" all have songs in them; usually they're just pre-existing pop songs, sometimes with edited lyrics to appeal to the sensibilities of the audience watching them. |
| 161 | * LethalChef: In her video on the Hallmark movie [=YouTube=] channel, Jenny points out that their first Halloween cocktail "recipe" (which she also says is barely a recipe, since it only has two ingredients) is this, consisting of "any punch" and ''dry ice'' (not a food-grade item--it ''probably'' won't kill you, but that doesn't make putting it in your drink a good idea, no matter how cool and spooky the smoke effect is). She finds it both amusing and baffling that one, the hosts visibly wince upon drinking their own concoction, and two, the editors didn't ask for another take after that. |
| 162 | * MisaimedMarketing[[invoked]]: |
| 163 | ** She calls Disney out for doing this in their initial announcement of ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'' -- a doll line for girls -- at [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Celebration Star Wars Celebration]] to a crowd of mostly adult male fans, pretty much ensuring they would all become betrayed and furious when they discover 1) it wasn't made for them, and 2) [[GirlShowGhetto it was made for little girls]]. |
| 164 | ** In the VPD video, a section is dedicated to the aggressive marketing of ''Series/ChinaBeach'' in the CW on-demand service. She points out how odd it is to market this show to people watching a modern, somber, and sexy teen vampire show. The ads don't even talk much about ''China Beach'', and seem to be hoping the people watching are nostalgic enough about it to buy the first season with extra features. |
| 165 | --->'''Jenny:''' Like, hey, you know what tweens watching a sexy vampire show wanna buy, a DVD box set of a show from 1988 about the Vietnam War. [[SarcasmMode The juxtaposition is just so good.]] |
| 166 | * MoonLogicPuzzle: Discussed regarding the Vampire Diaries videogame. She picked up something that she assumed was an African mask, only for it to have actually been a giant statue that should be used to cross over a trap door. She says she would never have gotten it if she hadn't consulted a walkthrough. |
| 167 | * MoustacheDePlume: The second half of Jenny's review of ''Trigger Warning'' investigates how the book's co-author, J.A. Johnstone, has gone to great lengths to obfuscate the fact that she's a woman, scrupulously avoiding gendered words in all of her biographies. This is presumably because her subjects are intended to appeal to men. She also hides the fact that her co-author, William W. Johnstone, has been dead for over a decade, and she's been slapping his name onto her books for her whole career. |
| 168 | * MusicalWorldHypotheses: During her ''Dear Evan Hansen'' review, she gets a ton of mileage out of the movie messing these up for the "Words Fail" number. Evan is singing out his heart out as he [[LiarRevealed confesses to the Murphys of the lie he pushed]], but the Murphys themselves react solely through normal spoken word, unintentionally framing Evan's singing as being diagetic. Combined with how the Murphys are reacting to him with shock and bewilderment, this accidentally transforms the scene into absurd CringeComedy where Evan appears to be literally singing his BSODSong out of nowhere to a grieving family. |
| 169 | * NWordPrivileges: Analyzed in her video about ''Dear Evan Hansen''. The play had some homophobic jokes where Jared made comments about how the picture of Evan and Connor's friendship the former tries to paint really makes it sound like they were gay lovers. The movie adaptation seemed to realize that those jokes might not go over well with a broader audience, but instead of removing the jokes, they simply made Jared, the source of those jokes, gay. She argues that this was an attempt to make the gay jokes toothless by coming from a gay man, but that it doesn't really make them any less offensive. |
| 170 | * NeutralInNameOnly: In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aanyjLmB1Bs "I read the terrible Episode IX pitch where Rey is a robot"]], one of the criticisms Jenny has against the treatment is how the "neutral" alien race very much sides with the heroes, to the point of joining together to fight the bad guys for their neutrality. |
| 171 | -->'''Jenny:''' This is not neutral. This thing they're doing of joining forces with one side to fight the other side and also supporting them financially and harboring them against the other ones--none of this is neutral. |
| 172 | * NeverLearnedToRead: Called out in "[[Film/TheForceAwakens If Rey is a Skywalker]]" as one of the many "[[SarcasmMode perks]]" she got from growing up alone and on [[CrapsackWorld Jakku]]. She also points out she never learned how to count past 20. |
| 173 | -->'''Jenny (as Rey)''': [[CallBack I was offered]] [[Film/TheForceAwakens 60 portions for a droid the other day]], and to be frank, I didn't even know if that was a real number! |
| 174 | * NoOSHACompliance: |
| 175 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKFgn6tNU6w Her video on the reality game show]] ''Opposite Worlds'' is filled to the brim with this, not just featuring the "past" team living in miserable conditions over the course of the series, but clearly-untested challenges that resulted in countless contestant injuries, some severe. How bad was it? In the ''very first'' episode, during a "push each other off a platform" challenge, the safety cushions were so poorly positioned that when one of the contestants were predictably tackled off, he completely missed and broke his leg in two places. |
| 176 | ** While she says the pyrotechnic effects used by some of the Evermore characters are cool, she criticizes the fact that they apparently keep the components on them at all times and don't have pyrotechnics licenses (different states have different rules, but generally it's a good idea to have one). Jenny points out that always carrying objects meant to make dramatic fireballs, as opposed to getting them only for specific setpieces, increases the chance of injury to both performers and guests (and, indeed, at least one actress is on record as having accidentally set her own costume on fire). |
| 177 | * NoYay: [[invoked]] She has ''many'' issues with the romance between Evan and Zoe in ''Film/DearEvanHansen'', to the point she says that if she could change one thing, she would cut out Evan having a crush on her. While she argues that having Zoe crushing on him would add a layer of compelling drama to the SnowballLie Evan finds himself in, Evan returning the favor adds vaguely predatory manipulation that only makes him [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic more unsympathetic]], since he's using the lies he tells Zoe -- that her dead brother loved her very much despite their surface animosity -- as a means to feel loved in return, knowing full well that she's in an emotionally complicated state of grief. Worse, Jenny says that the examples of him relaying the nice things her brother supposedly said about her -- disguising the nice things he himself admires of her as her crush -- still sound like things someone who has a crush on her would think, retroactively adding a layer of IncestSubtext to a relationship that was fraught at best and semi-abusive at worst. |
| 178 | * ObscurePopularity[[invoked]]: During her review of ''Ride/PandoraTheWorldOfAvatar'', Jenny repeatingly mentions the flash-in-the-pan relevance of ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' and the subsequent consequences of making a theme park based on it. Despite admiring the park for the most part, she notes that the disconnect audiences have with ''Avatar'' -- aware of it, but otherwise unengaged with it -- may end up costing the park greatly as it ages and feels even less relevant over time. |
| 179 | -->'''Jenny''': It's kind of a shame because the designers did go so deep into the lore, but most of the general public won't remember ''Avatar'' enough to understand or appreciate most of it, and unless you happen to ask the right cast member who really remembers their ''Pandora'' training day, you're not likely to pick up on a lot of it by word of mouth unless you watch all the making-of promo videos and imagineer interviews you can find on [=YouTube=] before your visit... like I did. |
| 180 | * ObviousBeta: [[invoked]] One of her criticisms of Ride/EvermorePark. While she praises the ideas behind it, she says that when she went, three years after the park opened, it was surprisingly unfinished--many buildings were standing empty and dark, or looked like attractions but upon closer exploration were locked and contained nothing, with some areas simply being obvious half-finished construction sites, one right next to the entrance to the park. |
| 181 | * OddlySmallOrganization: In "25 Knights of Ren Theories", she jokes in one theory that as a mysterious plural entity, it would be funny if the "Knights of Ren" only had the barest minimum of two members. |
| 182 | * OncePerEpisode: In "The Church Play Cinematic Universe", while discussing the titular Easter plays, Jenny notes that there's things that always tend to happen in each play: the pastor always plays a side character, the hero always gets crucified (obviously, since each play is based on the crucifixion of Jesus), and someone always sings a song after the crucifixion (which she dubs the "Post-Crucifixion Lament"). |
| 183 | * OneTrueLove: She discusses the topic briefly in the Vampire Diaries movie. She mentions how this is common in media aimed at teenagers because teenagers have a very limited and romanticized view of love, that you are only allowed to love one person your whole life, meet them in high school, and have never loved anyone before or after them even if they're dead. She mentions this is probably why Damien was not allowed to date anyone, especially not Bonnie, after Elena was written off the show, even if they'd serve the exact role as an EscapistCharacter for the audience to project on. |
| 184 | * OnlyOneFemaleMold: In her ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'' video, Jenny finds it "literally insane" that for a doll line, 3/4ths of its initial lineup ([[Film/RogueOne Jyn Erso]], [[Film/TheForceAwakens Rey]], [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Leia]]) are white girls with brown hair, which she assures us would all look identical to a child who can't identify nuances in design. She also points out the wasted potential in a post-''Toys/MonsterHigh'' world where [[invoked]][[UglyCute unorthodox]] and plentifully [[NonstandardCharacterDesign unique character designs]] have been more accepted by children that ''Forces of Destiny'' has no [[CuteMonsterGirl characters of alien species]], preexisting or original. |
| 185 | * OrphanedEtymology: |
| 186 | ** In "Top 10 Worst Reasons You Hated Film/TheLastJedi", she admits to have been distracted by the fact Rey and Rose --two characters from completely different cultures and ''planets''-- both use "snake" as a term of villainy, leading Jenny to wonder if snakes exist in the Star Wars universe[[note]][[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Snake They do]], but are rarely called so, and Jenny speculates that [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack the one seen at Dagobah]] might've just been an alien creature with a different name[[/note]] and if there are cultures who instead refer them with positive connotations. |
| 187 | --->'''Jenny''': Maybe snakes are ''not'' a creature in the Star Wars universe; [[FutureSlang maybe the word "snake" is just an extremely vulgar cuss word]] [[PardonMyKlingon and those insults that Rose and Rey were saying were actually a lot stronger than we thought they were]]. |
| 188 | ** In "This Is DEFINITELY Not A Published Reylo Fanfic Novel", Jenny is taken aback by the generic usage of the term "cliff notes" in the novel and takes it to its logical conclusion: that Clifton Hillegass, the namesake of his company [=CliffNotes=], exists in the ''Black Moon Rising'' universe. |
| 189 | * PeripheryDemographic[[invoked]]: "The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy" discusses at great length what is arguably the biggest instance of this: bronies for ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''. Throughout it, Jenny examines how they came to be, how they caught momentum, their legacies left behind (for better and for worse) in the show and cultures they were part of, to their eventual decline. |
| 190 | * PerverseSexualLust: Discussed and deconstructed in a portion of "The Last Bronycon: a fandom autopsy", examining the odd phenomenon of bronies who became demonstrably attracted sexually to [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic ponies]], highlighting how it originated in a means parallel to the formulation of brony fandom in general (the speculated impetus being Website/FourChan users doing it "ironically"). Jenny holds back on deriding this phenomenon, but she expresses concern of [[HarmfulToMinors its visibility relative to children that are the show's primary demographic]] (not helped by how the sexualization extends to ''underage'' ponies), as well as the somewhat misogynist implications to be derived from adult male fans sexually pursuing non-sexualized female characters. |
| 191 | -->'''Jenny:''' I think a lot of people began watching the show and were initially drawn to it because it was funny and well-paced, and yeah, the art style is appealing -- it's not "sexy", it's just appealing and the characters are well-designed and they're endearing -- and I speculate that maybe, in a broad, general sense, men are not socialized to recognize uncomplicated, unsexual fondness for a female character. So they liked the ponies for a little while, and then their brains started going "But can I have sex with it?" |
| 192 | * PhonyPsychic: In her video on ''Paranormal Home Inspectors'', she reserves a section to discuss this phenomenon based around how the show handles its psychic. Jenny points out that TV psychics in general aren't very interesting to watch because everyone already assumes that they're phony and that [[ManipulativeEditing it's all rigged]], so the hurdles on whether or not they end up compelling is a matter of individual showmanship and acting ability. |
| 193 | -->'''Jenny''': Where I'm at with psychics is that they fall into two categories for me: One is [[HippieTeacher "sweet, well-intentioned yoga instructor psychic"]], and maybe with these ones, you don't believe what they're telling you, but you believe ''they'' believe what they're telling you and their hearts are in the right place. Category two is "carnival huckster psychic", [[ConMan and they just want your money]]. |
| 194 | * PoesLaw: Jenny has a hard time deciding whether the novel ''Trigger Warning'' is mean to be intentionally bad or not, finding it bad and tasteless enough to seem like it wouldn't be a sincere effort, but also a lot less extreme than it could've been if it were intended simply for political shock value. Considering the reclusive and mysterious background behind its alleged authors, it's unlikely we'll ever find an answer. |
| 195 | * PrettyFlyForAWhiteGuy[[invoked]]: In her "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrIxGWterYA Excruciatingly Deep Dive into the Avatar Theme Park]]", Jenny is very repeatedly amused by the consequences of an [[Film/{{Avatar}} Pandora]]-[[Ride/PandoraTheWorldOfAvatar themed theme park]] where the Na'vi are conspicuously absent, and the [[UnfortunateImplications dubiousness]] of the human cast members highlighting the culture of what are essentially [[SpaceJews American natives in space]] on their behalf. |
| 196 | * TheProblemWithLicensedGames[[invoked]]: In a couple of instances of covering a work, Jenny also made the effort to make fun of any licensed games made about them. |
| 197 | ** In her video on ''Film/{{Beastly}}'', she comments on its Wii game specifically to highlight its use of scenes from the movie overdubbed with its in-game stock music, [[SoundtrackDissonance making them much funnier than in their original context.]] |
| 198 | ** During her video on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', she examined the 1996 point-and-click adventure game and her failed attempt to complete it due to how [[{{Padding}} padded]] and [[GuideDangIt needlessly obtuse]][[invoked]] it was. Even when she caved and searched up a walkthrough, a GameBreakingBug softlocked her and forced her to simply look up its ending on [=YouTube=]. |
| 199 | * QuestionableCasting[[invoked]]: |
| 200 | ** She goes hard into this during her ''Film/DearEvanHansen'' video regarding the infamous [[RoleReprise reprisal]] of Creator/BenPlatt. She notes that Platt is a talented singer and ''stage'' actor, but none of his strengths or performance idiosyncrasies translate well into a grounded, realistic medium like film, the most prominent failing being [[PassFail how he simply can't pass for a teenager]] and [[UnintentionalUncannyValley looks unnatural as a result]]. Jenny also points out how the film and Platt's casting was effectively a case of {{nepotism}} as it was produced by his father, with a claim that had Ben not been cast, the movie wouldn't have been made, which Jenny sees as less of an excuse and more of just the whole project setting itself up for failure. |
| 201 | ** It's also discussed during "The Church Play Cinematic Universe"; she occasionally comments on the odd choice of characters picked to represent Jesus Christ in each play, often solely on the basis that they're the main character (with Captain Jack Sparrow and Tony Stark being stand-outs). |
| 202 | * ReclusiveArtist[[invoked]]: Jenny's analysis on ''Trigger Warning'' points out how beyond its credited author ([[DeadPersonImpersonation who has been dead for over a decade before the novel's publication]]), its actual writer appears to have been a woman [[MoustacheDePlume under a gender-ambiguous pen name]], a fact which seems to be [[GenderConcealingWriting deliberately obfuscated at every opportunity]]. Given [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic the novel's material and demographic]], Jenny speculates this secrecy may have been done for her own safety. |
| 203 | * RedemptionQuest: Regularly {{discussed|Trope}} as it pertains to [[Film/TheForceAwakens Kylo]] [[Film/TheLastJedi Ren]], almost to the point of a RunningGag. In many instances, including [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONTdp_pnWuI a dedicated video]], Jenny made the case that [[HeelFaceTurn he would undergo one of these in]] ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', believing it to be thematically important for the trilogy. She was correct, but like much of that film, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools she was unimpressed with the execution.]] |
| 204 | * RidiculouslyCuteCritter: She has a very clear fondness for [[Film/TheLastJedi porgs]], and to a lesser extent [[Film/TheForceAwakens BB-8]], with plushies of them often in the background of her videos ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTnEhlvb6jI including an enormous one that takes up most of her bed]]). She has a video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yw6z9G7p1g reviewing every porg she owns]], and she owns ''a lot''. |
| 205 | * RunningGag: |
| 206 | ** Near the beginning of her longer thinkpiece videos, Jenny will almost invariably announce that "I have organized my thoughts... ({{Beat}}) into a numbered list!" |
| 207 | ** In ''THE Vampire Diaries Video'', clips of the show often end with the commercial for ''Series/ChinaBeach'', referring to Jenny saying how much this particular commercial showed up during the show's on-demand, and how jarring is the difference between aimed audiences of both shows. |
| 208 | ** Also in ''THE Vampire Diaries Video'', there will occasionally be a WrittenSoundEffect for certain actions, like the grunts the brothers make when they hug (ungh), or when Jenny places her hand on her chest (thump). |
| 209 | * SarcasmMode: Jenny is very fond of deadpan humor, frequently making the transition between sincere commentary and insane hilarity seamless. An example from "[[Film/FiftyShadesOfGrey Fifty Shades Darker]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzVNYdmS8s8 Script Doctor]]", where she pinpoints faults and offers [[BlatantLies small changes]] she would make to the movie to improve them: |
| 210 | -->'''Jenny''': So we've got all these minor villains crowding the story, and I think what we need to fix it is just [[BigBad one really forceful personality to structure the plot around]]. I propose ''[[Film/TheDarkKnightRises Bane]]''. He's not as iconic as the Joker, but I think he's got a really strong presence and he can lend himself well to the universe of this story. |
| 211 | ** At the end of her review of ''Trigger Warning'', an absolutely terrible and very right-wing action thriller which Jenny works out has been written by the niece of its nominal but deceased-since-2004 author, Jenny notes that the book's author is less versatile and less exploratory as a writer than her late uncle: |
| 212 | --->'''Jenny''': That's why William dabbled in horror, and Jo never does, she just expands on her late uncle's most popular topics again and again. I think J.A. Johnstone is very afraid of the idea of change, and the unfamiliar. I think it intimidates her. It's definitely some pretty heavy baggage, but [[BlatantLies fortunately she doesn't allow it to affect the themes of her writing at all]]. |
| 213 | * SeasonalRot[[invoked]]: |
| 214 | ** She remarks in "The Last Bronycon" that ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' got worse in later seasons, partly because of how [[PanderingToTheBase it included more]] [[FandomNod brony in-jokes]]. |
| 215 | ** Discussed in "THE Vampire Diaries Video". She says that the series could have had a solid five seasons of content if that had been the set amount from the start (not seasons 1-5 as they are, just five seasons in general). But, because the run time was instead "as long as it keeps making enough money to justify renewal", [[invoked]][[TheChrisCarterEffect no plot point was ever fully resolved]] (leading to previously satisfying conclusions being undermined), and there were pointless, weak arcs and villains because the writers didn't have enough good ideas, leading to worse seasons over time. |
| 216 | * SelfInsertFic: Several of Jenny's videos have her cover and riff on these. |
| 217 | ** ''Trapped in a Island with Josh Hutcherson'' has an especially bizarre case. It follows a thinly-veiled self-insert named Kate meeting Josh Hutcherson, but the third act introduces Kaitlin, a more direct ''second'' self-insert who is not only portrayed as the gorgeous romantic rival and villain, but ends up the ''winner'' of the romantic conflict, with the story completely turning on Kate, the original self-insert and protagonist. |
| 218 | ** ''Insanity'' (which --among other things-- ends with the self-insert [[UnholyMatrimony hooking up with and committing murders with him).]] |
| 219 | * SequelHook: At the end of her video on ''Insanity'', after being enamored with the ending {{cliffhanger}} featuring Literature/JeffTheKiller and Naomi [[spoiler:arriving at a mansion [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover inhabited by all sorts of characters of famous]] {{Creepypasta}}]], Jenny demands to know what happens after it... and then pulls out a copy of the fanfic's direct sequel, ''Welcome to the Mansion''.[[note]]Unfortunately, Jenny later announced that she would not be reviewing the book due to the harassment made towards its author after her video was made.[[/note]] |
| 220 | * ServantRace: She discusses the ethics surrounding this trope in her video on ''Film/{{Solo}}''. Her stance is that it's ultimately okay and [[MST3KMantra dismissable]][[invoked]] if the servitude is consensual (using house elves from ''Franchise/HarryPotter'' as a mostly positive example), but she finds the existence of L3 in ''Solo'' and her gimmick as a [[InhumanableAlienRights pro-droid rights]] SoapBoxSadie paired with the film's prominent [[SlaveryIsASpecialKindOfEvil anti-slavery moral]] as raising all sorts of FridgeHorror on the autonomy and [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman treatment of service droids]] throughout the entire ''Star Wars'' franchise, not helped by the fact that [[MoralMyopia she herself is effectively a slave to one of the protagonists]] and her spiel is dismissively PlayedForLaughs. |
| 221 | * SerialNumbersFiledOff[[invoked]]: Throughout [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJGm8Sj7Qn8 her video on the self-published novel "Black Moon Rising"]], she addresses that the book is essentially a novel-length [[{{Shipping}} Rey/Kylo Ren fanfic]] taking place in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' universe in everything but name. |
| 222 | * SexyWhateverOutfit: Jenny in "The Halloween Costumes Nobody Wanted" reviews several clearance Halloween costumes, and she predictably comes across a few of these. She's surprisingly enamored with the Purple People Eater and "scandalous" penguin costumes (finding the former like a rave outfit and the latter an adorable "good execution of a poor concept"), but is unnerved by the ''[[AgeInappropriateDress tween-sized]]'' [[AgeInappropriateDress "sexy" teddy bear costume]] and the "sexy" [[Film/TheLoneRanger Johnny Depp!Tonto]] outfit. |
| 223 | * ShapedLikeItself: In the "Real Magic" video she's a bit confused that the spell for "something relaxing like a bath" involves taking a bath. |
| 224 | * SkewedPriorities: She has a "Priorities" section in her Evermore video to discuss their purchase of things like antique furniture, stained glass for a church that was never completed to the point it could installed, and a "real" ''[[CreepyDoll haunted doll]],'' while failing to allocate the money needed to make many areas of the park function on a basic level. |
| 225 | ---> '''Jenny:''' Making them in house would be faster, much cheaper, and ''better'', because if you make your own gravestones you can fill them with jokes, meta-references, perhaps even clues on a quest. But instead they're just real gravestones because the CEO wanted ghosts. |
| 226 | * SoOkayItsAverage[[invoked]]: While reviewing ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'', Jenny presented a "compliment sandwich", in which she said one good thing about the movie followed by one bad thing, and so on. |
| 227 | * SoundtrackDissonance: In her video on ''Film/{{Beastly}}'' and when discussing its licensed video game, she brings up how likely due to soundtrack licensing issues, the film's footage used is instead scored with one of three royalty-free tracks, none of which fit at all and makes the scenes hilarious to watch. This culminates in her mention of the film's original ending used in the game where Kyle is shot, scored with goofy pop jazz sitcom music[[note]][[SubvertedTrope Tragically]], [[ManipulativeEditing she admits through a caption she edited this particular moment]][[/note]][[invoked]]. |
| 228 | * SpaceWhaleAesop: In her video on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', Jenny comments how [[InformedAttribute despite her narration during the ending]], Elena never really found anything introspective to back her claim of [[CharacterDevelopment personal growth]], with the only external factor beyond the narrative reaching its end was that the BigBad was killed (and not even by her own participation as she was PutOnABus). Jenny attempts to extract the relevant moral to the audience, but the only instruction she can come up with is "Take naps, kill the devil, get a boyfriend." |
| 229 | * StealthInsult: Close to three hours into her video on Evermore, after detailing many of the park's shortcomings, Jenny shows a drink menu at Vanders Keep, a park-affiliated restaurant, noting that one of the drinks is named after the park's CEO before sarcastically asking the audience if they can tell which it is. The obvious answer is a drink called "Ken You Feel It," a reference to CEO Ken Bretschneider, but another drink just two places above on the same page is called "The Con Artist". |
| 230 | * TheStoic: Jenny (mostly) plays this persona up in her talking-to-the-camera videos, coupled with DeadpanSnarker and DullSurprise. Her videos are generally quite low-key, which makes it even funnier when she actually cracks a joke. |
| 231 | ** Extremely averted in the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTnEhlvb6jI video]] of her going with friends on a road trip to a Target in San Diego to pick up a giant porg that she's bought, in which she's almost squeeing with excitement. When she finally gets it, it's almost as large as she is. |
| 232 | -->'''Jenny''': I'm like, crying. I'm so glad I have my sunglasses on. |
| 233 | * StringTheory: For her ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'' video, she has a giant pinboard covered with lines of red string and post-its behind her, which she occasionally refers to with a pointer. |
| 234 | * SuspectIsHatless: Notes while reviewing ''Paranormal Home Inspectors'' that the medium's constant readings of difficulty breathing is of limited use as a manifestation when looking for reasons for a haunting, given that the reasons for it showing up include drowning, hanging, strangulation, trauma to the head or chest, being buried alive, most terminal illnesses, and being unable to breathe due to being dead[[note]]She missed what in retrospect is the most likely Doylist reason, "the medium has lung cancer".[[/note]]. |
| 235 | * SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: At the end of Rating. Every. Porg. |
| 236 | -->"I'd like to thank the Los Angeles Porg Archives, for loaning me all these Porgs for my video. I don't own them all myself; that would be excessive. And sad." |
| 237 | * TheStinger: She tends to have a scene at the end of her videos following the ending credits of Patreon sponsors. |
| 238 | * TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter[[invoked]]: In her video on ''Film/DearEvanHansen'', she says that the movie's AdaptationalHeroism to make the characters more sympathetic actually just makes them less interesting, while also not really making them more sympathetic. For instance, dropping the plotline where Jared attempts to write himself into the Evan and Connor narrative makes him pointless except for some bad jokes, while having Evan be pressured into doing things that he actively chooses to do in the stage show means he has effectively no agency in a movie ''named after him''. |
| 239 | * TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot[[invoked]]: |
| 240 | ** Jenny is especially disappointed by ''{{Film/Tomorrowland}}'' due to the rich storytelling potential of the original [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland attractions]] that the film functionally discards after the first 10 minutes. |
| 241 | --->'''Jenny''': Later in the film you get very brief glimpses and flashbacks of Tomorrowland in its heyday, like all these smart little children running around in these 1960's space cadet uniforms that look like little tennis outfits; running around this dazzling futuristic landscape, making adventures, and making friends and it's like this [[RetroUniverse retro-futuristic Hogwarts]]. [[SincerityMode That's a really cool movie]]! It's cool and cheesy and timeless; it sounds like it has franchise potential to me. But that's not the movie that we got. We got like... ''Film/NationalTreasure'', [[CluelessAesop but less]] [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct focused]]. |
| 242 | ** In her video of ''WebAnimation/StarWarsForcesOfDestiny'' (primarily the doll line, not the webisodes used to promote them), Jenny finds there's nothing inherently bad about a ''Franchise/StarWars''-themed doll line targeted for girls, but is greatly marred by a lack of creativity and [[GirlShowGhetto foresight about what its audience wants]]. She admits by the end of the video she actually wants the line to succeed, and suggests several ways it could be improved.[[invoked]] |
| 243 | ** [[https://youtu.be/38BiNsFFzcs?t=2519 In her video on]] ''Film/EscapeFromTomorrow'', Jenny notices that writer/director Randy Moore in several interviews inadvertently draws a parallel of his disillusioned relationship to Disney World to that of his divorced father, a concept she thinks could've been very interesting had he decided to focus on that instead of the confused and [[{{Padding}} padded-out]] plot it went with. She even argues it could've keep the supernatural horror elements[[invoked]]. |
| 244 | --->'''Jenny''': Like, maybe this is the summer after the son graduated high school and he was gonna go to college and wasn't gonna see his dad anymore, and it's like their last big "hurrah" together, but then they go to the theme park and nothing's the same, and creepy things are happening and they have to get out of this together and confront truths about themselves, I dunno... |
| 245 | ** While she's unimpressed with the [[SpaceWhaleAesop somewhat moot ethical debate]] in ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' of "Should man-made dinosaurs have the same rights as endangered species and should we save them?", Jenny sees a lot of potential groundwork with the discussion of cloning (especially regarding [[spoiler:[[ArtificialHuman Maisie]]]]) for the movie to have instead been about "[[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman Is life precious and worth saving]] [[ClonesArePeopleToo even when you can just make copies of things whenever we want]]?", and comes up with an idea for a plot with this debate in mind. |
| 246 | ** She's of the camp that wishes that ''Film/{{Solo}}'' [[WhatCouldHaveBeen remained a screwball comedy]][[invoked]], and spends a lot of her review of the movie identifying [[TheArtifact odd script anomalies]] that were clearly setup for jokes or zany ideas, but were squandered in order to make it more dramatic. |
| 247 | ** She ultimately enjoyed ''Ride/PandoraTheWorldOfAvatar'' for what it was, but she also agreed that for the entire premise of [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disney making a theme park that could occupy Animal Kingdom]] and compete with the franchise-based popularity of ''Ride/TheWizardingWorldOfHarryPotter'', ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' was a very odd choice. Her alternate suggestion? ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}''. |
| 248 | ** In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN3Myxrpvw her video on]] ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'', while she generally likes the film, she sums up the story as having "a lot of really good bones, but unfortunately no skeletons," calling attention to the film's lack of interest in capitalizing on its newly-introduced story elements and potential for franchise building, resulting in a greatly unfocused plot. Once again, she spends a good chunk of the video sharing what she would've done and suggesting where it could've gone instead. |
| 249 | --->'''Jenny''': Anyway, all of this was useless because the movie's out, so it's too late, but I ''will'' implement all of my changes [[DeadpanSnarker when Disney puts me in charge of the Frozen II live-action adaptation, premiering on Disney+ in 2025.]] |
| 250 | ** Her ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' [[https://youtu.be/GErIPKjwuDg review]] criticizes the movie for (among other things) failing to really deal with some of the themes it brings up, like Rey's struggle with her darker impulses and desire for a found family, Kylo Ren's [[spoiler: journey of redemption]], or Finn wanting a relationship and [[spoiler: being Force sensitive]], instead just rushing through them to get to empty action scenes. She sums up her review by saying that she feels like she was handed a bullet-pointed list of plot beats in lieu of a movie. |
| 251 | ** In "Series/THEVampireDiaries Video", she ends up splitting this into two segments: |
| 252 | *** "The Elena Problem" has her discuss one of her biggest issues of the show, that being how it had no grip of what to do CharacterDevelopment-wise with Elena -- the ''protagonist'' -- despite having plenty of material to work with. In her exploration of Elena's basic setup (a girl who [[BreakTheCutie "used to be fun"]] trying to recover from the loss of her loved ones while dealing with increasingly supernatural happenings), Jenny finds ''five'' lengthy potential routes for her to be developed with that the series failed to take, resulting in her ending the show [[FlatCharacter undefined and unevolved]]. |
| 253 | *** "The Bonnie Problem" followed once Elena was PutOnABus, ascending Bonnie (Elena's best friend and longtime supporting character) to protagonist status. While she overall found Bonnie to be more fun, Jenny notes how the series remained uninterested in committing her into any lasting or significant relationships, [[TheNotLoveInterest or merely teasing her and Damon but insisting that the two were still "just friends".]] Jenny also sees lost potential using a Bonnie/Damon romance to explore the philosophies of vampire lovelifes, what with [[MayflyDecemberRomance the differences in lifespans]] and [[SecondLove inferred moving-on when a lover eventually dies]] (or PutOnABus). |
| 254 | *** Near the end of the video, she also highlights a few miscellaneous missed opportunites she personally wanted to see happen: among them are committing to make [[FinalBoss Arcadius]] ''the actual'' Devil instead of just ''[[SatanicArchetype like]]'' the Devil, and/or even giving him a [[RedemptionQuest redemption arc]] (since the sheer audacity of making ''The Devil'' the final villain [[RefugeInAudacity is what makes it work]]), doing more {{crossover}}s and {{transplant}}s with other related source material, like the works of Creator/LJSmith to Literature/{{Dracula}}. |
| 255 | * ThisIsGoingToBeHuge: She's repeatedly amused by the fact that ''Film/{{Beastly}}'' clearly wanted to be a phenomenon on par with ''Literature/TheTwilightSaga'', then ended up with a mediocre performance at best. During TheStinger, she claims still finding tons of unsold ''Beastly'' merchandise at Toys "R" Us, theorizing they might still be around even after they shut down in the US. |
| 256 | * TotallyRadical: One of her [[SoBadItsGood favorite things]] about ''Film/{{Beastly}}'' is its incredibly tacky dialogue. On top of making conversations awkward [[{{Anvilicious}} and as subtle as a flying anvil]], since everyone speaks like "the writer's version of 'cool person,'" it makes every character sound interchangeable, making interactions devoid of chemistry.[[invoked]] |
| 257 | * TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: Regarding "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRD-CX9Uzwo Insanity: A Jeff the Killer Fanfiction]]", while Jenny is ultimately accepting of children indulging themselves in writing whatever they think is cool, she is pretty disturbed by how this particular fanfic features a surprising amount of graphic violence and murder, some of which is done by [[SelfInsertFic the self]]-[[AuthorAvatar insert character]]. |
| 258 | -->'''Jenny''': Well, [[SarcasmMode thank god]] [[WouldHurtAChild the child murder got the most detail]]. (''tapping the book cover'') Neesha, girl. Do your parents know about this book? |
| 259 | * UnintentionalUncannyValley: Invoked in her video on ''Film/DearEvanHansen'', which is her main criticism of the costuming--she describes the heavy makeup used in an attempt to make Ben Platt look a teenager as exactly this. |
| 260 | -->'''Jenny:''' You know [Ben Platt's] a normal-looking man. But in this film there is something twisted and unnatural about him, like you're looking at a Mission-Impossible-style mask of his face. |
| 261 | * TheUnsolvedMystery: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu5bR_89W7U WHERE’S BUZZY? Disney World’s Stolen Animatronic]]" has her detail the history and mysterious disappearance of the titular animatronic, going over the various theories of how it could've just disappeared and where it might be. Just about every one of them, even the OccamsRazor route that Disney quietly archived him have significant holes in them, [[MindScrew making his absence all the more mysterious]]. |
| 262 | ** As of mid-2020, [[https://wdwnt.com/2020/02/patrick-spikes-pleads-no-contest-to-selling-stolen-walt-disney-world-property-avoids-jail-time/ several holes have since been filled]], [[TakeAThirdOption largely a synthesis of Jenny's various theories.]] Several of Buzzy's clothes were indeed stolen by a former Disney employee, but [[https://insidethemagic.net/2020/04/disney-thief-breaks-silence-sp1/ the thief claims didn't even attempt to take the actual animatronic]]. However, Buzzy's current location still remains unidentified, with Disney saying nothing to confirm or deny whether or not he was archived. |
| 263 | * UnfortunateImplications: |
| 264 | ** Invoked several times in in her video on ''Series/TheVampireDiaries''. |
| 265 | *** She points out that it was not a good idea to have Caroline's gay father (one of the very few gay characters on the show) inflict a very unsubtle conversion therapy allegory on her. Jenny says it's not exactly progressive that this makes the very much straight Caroline metaphorically gay, and her ''actually'' gay father metaphorically homophobic, while also having the only representation of his sexuality be Caroline using it as a zinger against her mother or people just talking about it. |
| 266 | *** She also has several sections on the show's poor handling of race, such as complete lack of critical engagement with Mystic Falls's slaveholding past (like how it might make Bonnie feel to have all these holidays celebrating people who owned her ancestors); the [[MagicalRomani Travelers]], who are shown as a MageSpecies packed with [[RoguishRomani anti-Romani stereotypes]]; and how Bonnie was blatantly dis-favored by the writers. |
| 267 | --->'''Jenny, poking around on her StringTheory board:''' Weird, there's something hidden under The Bonnie Problem. [beat] Oh my god, I found my racism post-it! |
| 268 | *** She mentions the poor handling of Elena's transformation into a vampire, which should be the culmination of her survivor's guilt trait, feels like it ends up justifying it. Elena lost her parents in a car accident that resulted in her being the only one saved from a drowning car; when the situation repeats with Elena in a drowning car with someone else, she elects to save the other passenger, being brought back as a vampire. Jenny mentions she dislikes this because it feels like the story is justifying survivor's guilt, in that it was indeed a failure of Elena to not have saved her parents or died with them, and this chance of a do-over where she dies to save someone else is how it was supposed to go. |
| 269 | ** Jenny believes the story of ''Ride/PandoraTheWorldOfAvatar'' can come across as this. While the gist of the story is that humans and Na'vi have settled their differences and now coexist in peace, there are no Na'vi available for meet-and-greets. This is understandable due to how tricky it would be to have ten-foot-tall characters stroll around the park, but still can give off vibes of humans taking control and speaking over the Na'vi (including an image of Na'vi and humans at a ''groundbreaking'' ceremony) and selling their culture. What really makes this uncomfortable is how Na'vi are analogous in the movie to Native Americans. |
| 270 | * TheUntwist[[invoked]]: In her review of ''Film/Joker2019'', Jenny says she wasn't surprised by TheReveal that [[spoiler: the main character's supposed romance with his neighbor was imaginary]], and jokes that "every woman in that theatre knew" because going to see someone do standup comedy as an open mic requires years of goodwill and isn't first date material. |
| 271 | * UrbanFantasy: Jenny slams ''Film/{{Beastly}}'' for doing this poorly. She acknowledges that modernized fairy tales are a thing and can be interesting, but the modernization of ''Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast'' is inconsistent in a way where the rules for the WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief make no sense, taking place in a normal New York high school, but inexplicably featuring a real witch and magic [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight that nobody seems to question or properly acknowledge]]. The witch is even a student at the school while casually living in a normal apartment. |
| 272 | * VerbalTic: Jenny tends to begin most of her videos with "So..." right before getting into her main topics. |
| 273 | * VocalEvolution: She spoke in a very deadpan manner in her earlier videos, speaking with a voice as though someone else was in the room and she didn't want to wake them. Her later videos are much more animated. |
| 274 | * WeaksauceWeakness: In her video informing viewers about [[Film/It2017 Pennywise]] she ends with: |
| 275 | --> '''Jenny:''' Pennywise has one weakness! Physical trauma. |
| 276 | * WellThisIsNotThatTrope: During the ''WesternAnimation/Incredibles2'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDK5U95w9v4 review]], Jenny mentions that she spends most of her videos just harping about themes...and this video will be one of those videos. |
| 277 | * WhamLine: During her review of ''Trigger Warning'', Jenny pointedly saves discussion of the book's author, William Johnstone, for the end of the review, as the story behind the book's publication is "a doozy". True to her word, she finishes the book and discusses Johnstone's biography, describing him as a genuinely successful and prolific writer since the 70's, having published over 400 books by 2019, 21 coming out in that year alone. |
| 278 | -->'''Jenny''': William is also... [[MoodWhiplash dead]]. ''(beat)'' He's dead, [[LampshadeHanging I told you there would be twists]]! [[DeadAllAlong He's been dead since 2004]]. |
| 279 | * WritersCannotDoMath: One of her criticisms of ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' is that if you actually run the numbers on the "auction the dinosaurs" scheme, the villain is ''losing'' money. 28 million might sound like a big number, but for a billion-dollar company doing highly advanced genetic engineering, accepting such a sum for its newest, most cutting-edge prototype is a ridiculous lowball. |
| 280 | * WrongGenreSavvy: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcLtyRLpr8k But what if Peter hadn't been Spiderman]]" spoofs the scene from ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'' where [[spoiler:Toomes]] [[AwesomenessByAnalysis assesses that Peter Parker is Spider-Man]] and confronts him about it, [[CringeComedy playing out his resulting spiel if it turned out he was completely wrong]]. |
| 281 | * WTHCostumingDepartment[[invoked]]: Partway into her review of ''[[Film/FiftyShadesOfGrey Fifty Shades Freed]]'', Jenny takes a moment to digress about Ana's distractingly unflattering lipstick, which she describes as being applied in a way that it makes Ana's lips resemble a narrow football. Naturally, Jenny incorporates this as part of her {{cosplay}} during the video itself. |
| 282 | * YouTuberApologyParody: "tyrion" is a parody of a then-recent James Charles apology video but done in-character as [[Series/GameOfThrones Daenerys Targaryen]], who apologies for [[spoiler:burning down King's Landing with her dragon]] referencing events of the also then-recent episode "[[Recap/GameOfThronesS8E5TheBells The Bells]]". |
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