Ambiguous Name: Euroshlock

The name of this trope is bad. Schlock means low quality. Lars von Trier, Gaspar Noé and Haneke's movies are very high quality. Innovative, unique and intelligent. The name may also offend European readers.

I agree that the negativity is problematic. It also has poor stats.

Le Film Artistique seems like a better version of the same page; thoughts on merging?

edited 15th Feb '13 6:39:42 PM by troacctid

The sole objective statements from the OP:

That said, I think there may actually be an issue with complaining here - the description is not perhaps as bad as it might have been, but it does seem a little negative. And the setup is weird: if this is describing a type of genre (as it seems to be), what's with the YMMV-riddled trope list?

Also, the usage and inbounds are awfully low, though that might be as much Troper Demographics as a sign of a problem with the page.

Le Film Artistique is a Show Within a Show trope for parodies of "artistic" foreign films. It doesn't really have that much to do with this.

Le Film Artistique is a better name , if that's what you mean. The LFA article is fucked up as it is now btw. Check the discussions page.

I agree that Le Film Artistique needs work, but that should be done in a thread for it, not this one.

Le Film Artistique has a healthy supply of in-universe examples as well as a fair share of examples that would have gone on Euroshlock. It's also generally healthier for tropes to avoid value judgements when possible; the preponderance of neutral, in-universe examples on a trope that can be fairly touchy otherwise should be counted as a point in Le Film Artistique's favor.

The point raised by Xzenu on its discussion about Complaining seems to be a non-issue. If you actually look at the examples on the page, they're overwhelmingly neutral-to-positive in their portrayal of the works in question.

edited 15th Feb '13 6:52:35 PM by troacctid

Euroshlock is not a trope name. It is a pre-existing term for a category of works. We might as well remove B-Movie because it is allegedly makes value judgement about the relative merits of films.

See this Chicago Tribune article from 1992 that uses the term.

edited 16th Feb '13 2:36:31 AM by Catbert

That was my thought too.

Now, how do Le Film Artistique and Euroshlock relate?

There was a guy active in the Content Violations board that said he was really interested in this sort of thing. Anyone remember who it was? Perhaps we can give him a ping and get his feedback.

Now that I see, Le Film Artistique apparently has nothing to do with this.

I also say that these films usually are offensive and thus the name is appropriate. However, a few redirects wouldn't hurt.

As a European, I don't find the name offensive. Just throwing that out.

Neither do I.

Catbert, Sat, 16th Feb '13 2:26:01 AM

Googling "euroschlock" gives a whopping 1360 results... Among those 1360 results the term is probably used with no consistent definition since what is schlock is subjective and the word is disparaging.

Definiton: something of cheap or inferior quality; junk. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schlock

edited 16th Feb '13 11:02:47 AM by egvesel

I got 2000~ non tvtropes links for Euroshlock. Less than I expected since I'm pretty sure I've heard the term outside of here before.

wiktionary schlock

1. Commodity that is shoddy or inferior.
2. Tasteless comedy horror movies or theatre designed to shock people.

The second definition is the one being used here. It is not a quality judgement. It is a description of the content.

I just noticed that the article in Chicago Tribune from 1992 doesn't refer to art films as euroschlock, but to über commercial music like ABBA or Depeche Mode.

Yeah, going by what I see on Google, I'd say we're definitely misusing the term. Yet another case where TV Tropes has ruined my vocabulary! :)

The point here is that this isn't simply about art films, so Le Film Artistique simply does not apply. It's about European—particularly French and Italian—films that attempt to make some particular philosophical point using techniques associated with b-movies and exploitation films: grotesque violence, extreme/bizarre explicit sex, etc. "Euroschlock" encompasses this kind of movie. This is a fairly clearly-delineated genre, even if it doesn't have a well-established name.

Almost anything we call this will either be too broad or a neologism. Again, LFA doesn't cut it, as art films aren't necessarily explicitly sexual or grotesquely violent. Any other name that I think of will have similar problems to "Euroschlock". For instance, "Eurosploitation" (another name plausible on the surface) would seem to indicate that these are exploitation films, and while some "Euroschlock" films might indeed have been made to get the filmmaker's rocks off, most were not, and none were made as a means to extract money from people by presenting "forbidden" content. On the contrary, these movies probably don't make much money at all.

Moreover, the ambiguous nature of the word "schlock" perfectly represents the tone of the article. On one hand, it's clear these films have artistic value. On the other hand, they get that artistic value from the use of low-quality—"schlocky"—tropes, and also they might have too much artistic value for anyone to be interested in them. Also "schlock" recalls "shock" which is another way of thinking about these movies.

Good argument.

I should note again, though, that Le Film Artistique is about Show Within a Show parodies. It's pretty much irrelevant to this.

Evidence for this "clearly delineated genre?" Because I'm beginning to suspect there's no such thing, and that this is just a continuation of the school of art-house/exploitation cinema pioneered by John Waters. In America. In the 1970s.

I have a strong suspicion that what we're seeing here is a case of the recency illusion.

edited 10th Mar '13 10:36:46 PM by Xtifr

I'm going to lock this one. The OP didn't really give a good enough reason and we're now wandering into renaming for the sake of renaming territory.