Overlap between "real life examples" and other examples.

I was trying to crosswick the tropes for the 2013 CBC movie Jack, and couldn't help but notice when I got to It Will Never Catch On that it had sections both for in-universe examples and real-life examples, and I wasn't sure whether to crosswick it to one or the other or both. But then I was thinking, the movie example is a real-life example. And a lot of "in-universe" examples are real-life examples.

There seems to be a sort of blurry distinction between a work's example and a real-life example. Another thing that comes to mind is Large Ham's real life section; it mentions Billy Mays, who could be considered both an advertising example and a real-life example, but it would seem redundant to have him in both.

A lot of things are both real-life examples and examples from a work, often for the same reasons; how do you decide what to consider a real-life example, what to consider a work's example, or both?

edited 17th May '13 6:44:36 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

Real Life examples are examples that don't occur in media. It doesn't matter if that media is fiction or nonfiction. Media examples go in their name space category.

That example is misuse - It Will Never Catch On is not YMMV and using that example as a RL example is wrong. It would be an example of And You Thought It Would Fail, which is about audience reaction.

edited 17th May '13 6:52:34 AM by SeptimusHeap

Actually, I wasn't referring to the movie itself as the example, I was referring to the protagonist's political career, and how often others underestimated how much momentum it would gain. It's a real-life example because the movie is based on a true story.

Is the movie a documentary or a biopic? Biopics are fictionalized and so tropes applying to them would not be Real Life, no matter what.

In general, any trope you see in a piece of media based on real life events should be considered "in-universe" examples, simply because it can become difficult to determine in certain situations how true to life the media is to the real life scenario. Therefore, if you see a trope in a piece of media, it should go into that particular media's subcategory. If that trope also happens to exist in real life and can be vefified, then it should go in the real life category. Basically, treat the media the same way you would any piece of fiction, and treat the real life example as real life. It's not going to harm anything if you have the same example listed in two places, especially since one is a fictional portrayal, and the other is reality, and thus can't really be said to be the same example anyway.

We have a rule that No Real Life Examples Please tropes should not be applied to any Real Life things that appear in documentaries and other purely historical works.

The above notwithstanding, in documentaries (as with other works), YMMV tropes can be applied In-Universe in cases where the work depicts the reaction of someone in the story to something in the story. Just make sure we don't have a distinct trope for the In-Universe version.

Edit: I was checking out the specific case being talked about here, and what others have said is correct. A film (documentary, biopic, or otherwise) is a distinct media category from the Real Life thing it portrays. An example of It Will Never Catch On called out in a biopic is a Film example, not a Real Life example. The actual historical example, of course, would still go in Real Life.

edited 17th May '13 8:24:01 AM by Fighteer

It's considered a biopic, but the trope I was referring to also applies to real life. I take it any NRLEP tropes that apply to the story are still off-limits, then?

EDITED IN: And for the non-NRLEP tropes, would it be worthwhile mentioning the real-life example in the film example's entry and/or vice versa?

edited 17th May '13 10:26:17 AM by HiddenFacedMatt

I think that people can figure out what RL person the movie is based on, don't you?

The distinction is that if the story is substantially fictionalized, then NRLEP doesn't apply. To what degree that applies to a biopic, I can't really say without having watched it.

Hitler can be a Villain in the Wolfenstein series or in a World War II action movie, but he can't be one in a documentary about Nazi Germany.

edited 17th May '13 11:12:33 AM by Fighteer

I agree that people can figure it out, I was just wondering where we draw the line.

In any case, that post made it clear enough anyway.

EDITED IN: And what of mentioning the non-NRLEP tropes' RL example in the fictional examples' entries and/or vice versa?

Also, what about when an example applies both within a work and outside of it? Like if Billy Mays is hammy both in commercials and in some interviews, should the RL entry only mention the interviews?

edited 17th May '13 1:05:42 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

I'm not sure that a person being hammy in Real Life has any relevance to us. We aren't supposed to talk about real people in that way.

Should the RL section be scrapped, then?

RL section of what?

Of Large Ham. (I thought it would be obvious from the word "hammy" and it being the same example I used in the OP.)

Well, technically, a lot of those are speeches, which are written or acted one way or another. TV personalities are the same, like sports commentators. Those are legitimate examples. They might fit better in LargeHam.Other, though.

And a lot of Zero Context Examples.

Yeah, that RL page for Large Ham is a mess. A lot of the examples would go in sports or advertising or the film(s) where they occur. We should probably make or use an existing a cleanup thread for it, though, rather than talking about it here.

edited 17th May '13 1:42:57 PM by Fighteer

Anyway... what of mentioning the non-NRLEP tropes' RL example in the fictional examples' entries and/or vice versa?

Do you mean when a fictional example is based on a Real Life event/person, and then mentioning the RL source in the fictional example? I'd be very careful about that, since you're very close to actually troping the RL example. It depends on how you write it, though, and it's not necessarily relevant for the trope.

edited 20th May '13 7:39:44 AM by AnotherDuck

Film section:

• In Film Featuring Hitler, Adolph Hitler is portrayed as an Armored Closet Gay.

That's all you need to say. No need for RL digressions.

^ That. Perfect.

But when it isn't an NRLEP trope, it's okay to trope the real life example, right? In that case, is a mention of the real life example within the fictional counterpart's entry still frowned upon?

edited 20th May '13 2:43:52 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

If the Real Life example is an example in its own right, it should be written as one in the Real Life section, and not as a sub-point to another example. If it's for some reason necessary for the understanding of the fictional example, you can probably add some information about it.

Yeah, the idea was to add it both to the medium's folder and the RL folder or RL page, if and when a given trope has the latter; I was just making sure that, so long as the trope isn't NRLEP, it is fine to say "see also the entry in the real-life section" or something like that.

That's usually not a good idea, though, since examples are often not permanent, and many "see elsewhere" notes point to something that's not there anymore.

Any given example should only be in one place on the page. In the example Fighteer gave, it's a film example, and there's no need to mention it again in the Real Life section.