Award Snub: The film was one of the most-discussed foreign films of 2014 and was expected to be a contender in the Best Foreign Language Film category (where it'd compete with twoother bleak portraits of life in Eastern Europe). Ukraine ended up submitting The Guide instead, which was considered safer material but a weaker and little-known film, a surprise decision that drew considerable criticism from those who argued that The Tribe would have been a better submission, especially after The Guide ended up missing the nomination.
He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Scout Tafoya of RogerEbert.com slammed the film, arguing that it was empty violence for shock value and that the use of deaf actors was an exploitative gimmick, as the characters involved are overwhelmingly negative and without a positive representation. This caused a backlash from fans of the film, who argued that the film was about disenfranchised youth rather than deaf children, and that the challenging material of the film should not be discounted because it made him uncomfortable. note For what it's worth, Roger Ebert himself argued that characters, regardless of who they are, should be allowed to represent whatever they want without their creators fearing backlash that they're being bad representatives for the rest of their group.
Moral Event Horizon: Though they do plenty of other terrible deeds throughout the film, the gang leaders try to sell the girls as sex slaves in Italy and beat Sergey up after he saves Anya.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It's hard enough for even interested parties to watch given the level of bleak cynicism and brutal violence that occurs onscreen. Nearly all of the characters seem to be either violent sociopaths or passive accomplices, the teachers are either crooked or ineffective, and even the protagonist isn't above raping the object of his affection.
Ebony. While she was't a main character at first, she eventually stuck around for all seasons of the show.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Both Jay/Ebony and Jay/Trudy were more popular than the designated endgame couple Jay/Amber. Most of the Fandom seems to actually quite dislike that pairing for various reasons.
In Sweden the show was broadcast in the afternoon "after school" slots, and became a big hit. Some kids even took to wearing show-inspired facepaint.
Finland. It likely helped that the series started as a part of a popular TV -show called Summeri, aimed as a morning show for schoolchildren on their summer vacation.
It was very successful in Germany too.
It was also popular in Britain (after all, they helped fund it, so it had better be), where it aired as part of Channel 5's Sunday morning "Milkshake" programs for kids/teens/young adults.
Heartwarming Moments: Ryan giving Ebony his $10,000 savings (all his money in the world) in order to save Dal from slavery in S1e28, especially considering that she laughed and burnt it in his face. For someone who hadn't really interacted with Dal beforehand it really seems like a crowning moment of friendship on his behalf. Infact, the riot that breaks out at the 'festival' breaks into the tearjerker category considering, after all they had been through over the past 28 episodes, The Mallrats are willing to fight to the end for each other, in order to make sure that they're all safe.
Les Yay: May seems to spend a fair bit of time and effort taking care of Salene after she joins the Mallrats, even while she's playing The Mole against the rest of the group...okay, if we ignore the fact that she sought to have her taken out of the picture so that she could be with Pride, she did.
The Scrappy: Luke in many parts of fandom for breaking up the Jack/Ellie ship, suffering incredible bastardization even though all canon evidence points towards him being a genuinely nice, remorseful guy.
Strangled by the Red String: Happened a few times due to the show's tendency of not making it clear exactly how much time has passed between certain episodes. Lex and Siva are an example, as are Ved and Cloe.
Bray's memories of his father's death bed as the man was dying from the effects of the virus. It's a lot more tragic because Bray promises his father that he will look after Martin, when it's already established that Bray failed utterly at that, considering what his brother became.
Trudy reliving the last time she saw her parents, dreaming back to the day she had to leave them during the Evacuation. She didn't want to, but her parents, knowing that they were doomed, only wanted her to be safe. Having to send their daughter away was clearly as heartbreaking for them, too.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Some themes over the course of the series clearly went beyond the usual parameters of a pre-teen show, like alcoholism, prostitution, rape, starvation, bulimia, or the clash between different political systems like democracy, dictatorships and anarchy. It took almost a season for parents to complain about the series not being suitable when it started running on ABC 3 in Australia, apparently living in a world without adults along with underage sex and teenage pregnancy didn't tip them off. For those wondering the scene that did was Top Hat attempting to rape Zandra which is the second instance of attempted rape for the record (the first being Lex attempting to rape Zandra; he later MARRIED her.
, arguing that it was empty violence for shock value and that the use of deaf actors was an exploitative gimmick, as the characters involved are overwhelmingly negative and without a positive representation. This caused a backlash from fans of the film, who argued that the film was about disenfranchised youth rather than deaf children, and that the challenging material of the film should not be discounted because it made him uncomfortable. note 