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Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

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Overshadowed by Controversy has several examples, particularly under the Fan Works, Webcomics, and Web Original folders, that don't fit the trope as described. The controversy is supposed to overshadow the work, so if it doesn't do that it shouldn't count as a valid example.

The media folders, such as Anime or Western Animation, could also use a look, as some entries deal with shows, while others deal with actors, fans, or creators. Additionally, some of the entries are not controversial anymore or are not known enough to overshadow the show completely, and others seem closer to Never Live It Down.

Some examples even point out that the controversy was debunked or died down eventually, which doesn't fit the trope, as well as examples saying things like "time will tell if [x] can recover." I originally tried the Real-Life cleanup section, and then a TRS thread, but I hope this is the right section to help us clean up this trope's examples. ^^

MOD NOTE: For something to be overshadowed by controversy; it has to have a significant, arguably overwhelming impact on that work/creator/thing that’s provable by pointing to actual evidence beyond social media likes or a news report. The controversy has to be bigger than the thing for it to overshadow the thing.

For a work, did it bomb directly due to the controversy? Was it pulled from shelves or streaming services? Nothing like this? Then it most likely doesn’t count.

For a creator, did they lose their job/get banned or lose all of their sponsorships or are unable to get any work directly due to the controversy? Did they at least retire directly because of the controversy? Nothing like this? Then it most likely doesn’t count.

Valid examples would be people like Gina Carano or Louie CK. As they were both fired and black listed for their controversies. Or Johnny Depp and Amber Heard are now more known for those controversies than their actual careers. Clearly being overshadowed by it.

If only chronically online people like us are going to be aware of something, it definitely doesn’t count. The controversy has to be so big that even people who are rarely online or know very little about something, would still have heard of the controversy.

Edited by kory on Oct 4th 2025 at 10:21:54 AM

number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4026: Sep 1st 2023 at 11:27:58 AM

At most, that would end up being a Broken Base matter, and I'm not even sure it's that. Putting aside the transphobic rumors by fringe assholes, the most contention I end up seeing on places like Reddit and Twitter such are actually do to with her gameplay being kinda annoying to fight against — I have to really look hard to find actual debates about the decisions regarding Bridget's transition that aren't just transparently "arcsys is woke trash bridget should always be a boy because change is bad". Perhaps it is my own Fan Myopia and disinterest in engaging with this kinda "discourse", but unless there's a really compelling argument for it, I don't know if this is actually that substantial a schism even taking in Bridget's popularity.

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
BocchiTheRock Since: Feb, 2023
#4027: Sep 1st 2023 at 11:35:25 AM

Yeah most of the people who are complaining about Bridget being trans aren't even Guilty Gear fans nor even played the game. Bridget is still quite popular as she gets a lot more merchandise than all the other GG characters. I wouldn't even call it a broken base since her detractors aren't in the base to begin with.

Edited by BocchiTheRock on Sep 1st 2023 at 2:35:51 PM

MsOranjeDiscoDancer 2much2furious from the Saja Boys' last performance! Since: Aug, 2022 Relationship Status: Will you go out with me to the End?
2much2furious
#4028: Sep 1st 2023 at 11:45:46 AM

[up]ive seen plenty of ex-fans make their flounce from the fandom permanent because Bridget is trans, but then again, i inhabit areas invaded by chuds. the FGC as a whole is getting better but you still have turds who flip out at anything vaguely "woke" too

i think it is also important to note there are trans people who dont like how the game handles the depiction at all for a variety of reasons. the most common one i see is that bridget was initially insistent on being masculine and that her design and endings were often "ha, ha! he hit on a boy!!!/ha! ha! that player is actually gay for this nun who is a boy!!" joke + a concern that "being forced to be feminine = eventual dysphoria" or that liking "feminine things = trans" is bad optics

(Let me very clear: I do NOT support either TER Fs or the opinion that Bridget is bad trans rep because her assigned gender was played for laughs in previous games/that she's trans because some people view her coming out/dysphoria is cliche. Trans rights are human rights, mm'kay.)

Edited by MsOranjeDiscoDancer on Sep 1st 2023 at 12:02:59 PM

i may be dead inside but at least i have Mystery :,)
worldwidewoomy (Plucky Ensign) Relationship Status: I miss my wife, Tails
#4029: Sep 1st 2023 at 4:01:46 PM

i don't have much knowledge of Guilty Gear myself so feel free to take my post with a grain of salt, but i wanted to add in my two cents and say that at least on my end, most of the residual Bridget "discourse" i've seen today mostly boils down to bad faith actors mad that a WoKe (tm) trans character is in their fighting game or that they don't have a femboy to slobber over anymore or etc.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#4030: Sep 1st 2023 at 4:06:17 PM

However, when it comes to audience reactions it never actually matters if the audience is reacting in good faith or not. If a genuine controversy among players exists because of Bridget, and if it overshadows the rest of the game, it's not our job to ignore that fact just because we don't like the people making the argument. Transphobic audience members are still audience members and mentioning that their opinion exists doesn't legitimize said opinion.

Like, I'm still fairly certain this example doesn't qualify as OBC anyway since it self-admits it's not overshadowing, so it's probably moot. But I don't want us to keep falling into the trap of thinking that reactions we find wrong are invalid for the purposes of YMMV, even when it involves people being bigoted.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4031: Sep 1st 2023 at 4:12:23 PM

I'm not trying to argue that honest discourse doesn't happen, I'm just of the opinion that it's nowhere near enough of a thing(tm) to be documenting. Once again: every character and every aspect of the game has some level of discourse over matters, and I don't see the topic being "vicious" or skewing beyond a Vocal Minority vs. Silent Majority ratio (which Broken Base requires for documentation), so unless someone can make a really compelling case for it, I don't think this is something that needs to be documented on the wiki.

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#4032: Sep 1st 2023 at 4:13:50 PM

Yeah, like I said that's where I am. I just disagree with the idea of discounting it for being a bigoted opinion, which has never been how we handle YMMV.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#4033: Sep 1st 2023 at 4:24:48 PM

In addition to what [up][up][up][up] described regarding good-faith discourse from trans folks on Bridget, there's also a portion of transmasculine folks who identified with Bridget's old struggle ("raised female, but wanted to be acknowledged as male") and don't want that taken away when those stories were exceedingly rare back then.

But they are hardly prominent and even so the negative opinions from trans folks are more nuanced than that, usually being that the upset at about how the representation was mishandled is counterbalanced by overall happiness that it exists at all.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 1st 2023 at 4:29:43 AM

badtothebaritone (Life not ruined yet) Relationship Status: Snooping as usual
#4034: Sep 1st 2023 at 5:46:25 PM

If there is an otherwise non-controversial work that is genuinely embroiled in bigoted backlash such that it overshadows anything else about the work, then that would be the kind of thing the trope is looking for. Bridget is not that, however. The backlash doesn't overshadow Strive at all, or even Bridget herself. There's plenty of other stuff about both that's still talked about.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Sep 1st 2023 at 7:46:49 AM

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#4035: Sep 1st 2023 at 9:08:11 PM

[up][up][up]I actually would be on board with that, FWIW - not just because these people are bigots but also because, like has been mentioned, their complaints are kind of a cut-and-paste thing that doesn't really have that much to do with any individual work.

But that's a topic for a broader policy discussion.

mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#4036: Sep 1st 2023 at 9:28:53 PM

FWIW literally all I know about Guilty Gear is Bridget not being trans before and now being canonically trans. Like I didn't even know the name of the series she was from, I just knew it was the game with Bridget and anime nerds freaking out about woke culture or whatever ruining their precious "tr*p" memes. IDK if I'm alone but I tend to see "the general public only knows of the controversy" as a point in OBC's favor, even if the controversy is due to transphobic losers. Sure, other trans characters get backlash for just existing, but I literally only know this franchise because its fandom clung so hard to a particular transphobic meme and then freaked out when said meme was retconned. It opened broader discussions about the trope Bridget used to represent and how it's slowly being discredited.

Also I really disagree with disallowing any bigoted audience reactions, because A) we could get people misusing that to claim certain examples should be discredited by claiming they stem from bigotry even when the entry is written objectively and thus arguing over what "counts" as bigoted which is a ROCEJ nightmare, and B) it's unfortunate that certain works attract shitstorms from bigots, but I'd feel wrong if we ignored discussing these controversies even objectively, as it sugarcoats the toxic nature of fandoms and could keep us from discrediting certain opinions that explain how the bigotry usually lacks any basis in the actual work's text.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4037: Sep 1st 2023 at 11:05:44 PM

IDK if I'm alone but I tend to see "the general public only knows of the controversy" as a point in OBC's favor, even if the controversy is due to transphobic losers.

My retort for this is that the matter in question of Bridget being trans, among the fandom, is barely treated as scandalous, let alone a substantial controversy. As mentioned a few times now, this isn't a case of the fandom getting argumentative over the fundamental nature of this character and her new story that Strive provides; at worst the talking points are to do with more holistic matters of the nature of Bridget as queer/gender non-conforming representation, but they still fundamentally accept the "Bridget accepts herself as a trans woman" as being a truth of the text; agreeing or disagreeing with the execution, but otherwise accepting that as part of the fiction. This actually also applies to her pre-Strive depiction too — understanding it a very questionable part of her character, but a definitive part of her nevertheless.

Conversely, bigots treat it entirely as something that must be rejected and discredited on principle for transphobic reasons, hence why they try and do disinformation campaigns in attempts to shove the story entirely out of the fiction despite being objectively false. These are two very different kinds of dissent that I think are being mistakenly conflated alongside one another, and they should not be collectively understood as a "negative" opinion that would make the subject a "controversy". Make no mistake, that specific matter that Bridget is being explicitly written as transgender, is itself the problem for bigots, not how she's being written as transgender or how that reflects on her character, Strive, or Guilty Gear as a whole, no matter how much they may try to convince you by stealing from more legitimate and honest critical talking points for an ultimately bad-faith, hateful endgoal.

This is important a distinction for me because it ties in to another matter:

I'd feel wrong if we ignored discussing these controversies even objectively, as it sugarcoats the toxic nature of fandoms and could keep us from discrediting certain opinions that explain how the bigotry usually lacks any basis in the actual work's text.

I disagree with the idea that having an absence of negativity "sugarcoats" anything, because this wiki is not meant to be a place to comprehensively document this kind of audience negativity to begin with. We don't owe it to anyone to acknowledge that a transgender character is the subject of real-world bigotry, especially since those kinds of hateful actors are demonstrably not part of the media's "audience" considering their fundamental disrespect towards what happens in the fiction itself. What are we as tropers and readers actually to gain critically from adding text saying "transphobes irrationally hate transgender people for being transgender people"?

Also something I just think is being really greatly understated here that I think is crucial for this discussion but perhaps isn't being acknowledged: a lot of people like Bridget and don't really have anything negative to say about her. Not literally everyone, but enough people like her story in a narrative sense, or see her as a positive trans/GNC icon without fuss, to reasonably assume that actual general audience perception of her is largely positive, and as also mentioned, that can coexist reasonably well with individual qualms — I myself am part of a large community of queer artists who have more or less embraced Bridget's depiction as a transfem character, but are not without further comment or critique. That's not "controversy", that's just being reasonably nuanced.

Now, the whole "I hear this is the reaction" is anecdotal and should be recognized as such for and against the assessment on whether the discussion on Bridget leans either which way (the plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence"), but on a base level: do I think that there is dissent towards her? Yes. Is the negativity towards her done in good faith? Not always. Does that alone warrant discussion as resulting in controversy? On a strictly literal level, maybe? But does it count as an undoubtedly overwhelming kind of negativity that must be documented for readers of this wiki to see and understand as part of the media and additional audience reactions? Considering the hate is being made by a disrespectful, highly abrasive, but also very aimless and supremely generalist Vocal Minority, no, I do not.

Once again, unless someone can actually make a case where the back-and-forth arguments for and against Bridget's story is tangibly looming over the game as a problem beyond "I heard some nasty fringe comments and some lukewarm takes", I don't really see this as ever honestly qualifying for OBC.

Edited by number9robotic on Sep 2nd 2023 at 1:32:54 AM

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
TotemGenitor Bye Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Bye
#4038: Sep 2nd 2023 at 1:10:16 AM

[up] I agree. Overshadowed by Controversy requires the work to be, well, overshadowed. I can easily talk about Strive without having to mention the controversy. Hell, I can talk about Bridget without having to deal with transphobic assholes. I don"t think either of them are truly overshadowed.

mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#4039: Sep 2nd 2023 at 1:51:26 AM

I was under the impression, again as an outsider, Bridget was a character who had long been reclaimed by the trans community despite being tied to a lot of transphobic jokes that seem related to particular anime tropes (even our old trope name for Unsettling Gender-Reveal relied on her name to explain that trope). Literally all I know about Guilty Gear is the Bridget situation, both from before she came out in the text and after. Am I not correct in my assumption that the Bridget situation led to more people discussing and discrediting the Unsettling Gender-Reveal trope in the anime fandom? Because that's why I assumed it went beyond your bog standard "transphobe being transphobe" thing — there were fandom memes normalizing the transphobia, and some assholes used those as an extra excuse to take this whole thing personally.

If it's not as big a deal as I remember and I just followed a few posts about it for a week and then forgot the game exists entirely until I literally only saw it come up in the context of TV Tropes discussions on trans characters, then I'll concede. I just wanna clarify I'm not arguing for "we should validate all fringe repetitive transphobic opinions forever." It was more that if a work is mostly discussed in the context of defending it against those transphobic opinions, that's still OBC to me. That's presumably not the case with Guilty Gear though. And honestly I'm not sure if I can think of any good examples of what I meant right now...

Oh I got it, sort of like if a work gets censored or banned for having a queer character or something and people primarily know of it because of all the justified backlash about why that's awful?

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 2nd 2023 at 4:54:11 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4040: Sep 2nd 2023 at 1:59:11 AM

Bridget and her popularity were not the impetus for why those tropes were being discredited, in large part because for she'd been Put on a Bus (her last appearance in a game prior to Strive was in a few spinoffs in 2006, her last appearance in a canon game was Guilty Gear XX in 2002). All that conversation and reevaluation of Bridget in specific and the tropes as a whole happened very gradually on their own largely due to other media and general social evolution over the decades. Contrary to belief, the topic was not a primary axiom in which Bridget was strongly associated with except for immature internet memes for a time, and those were discredited naturally as the perception of GNC/queer characters have evolved.

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
Someoneman Since: Nov, 2011
#4041: Sep 2nd 2023 at 9:02:15 AM

If anything, Bridget coming out as trans is a case of Broken Base or Base-Breaking Character. I remember there being lots of arguing over it at first. Apart from the expected transphobes going "there's a trans character which makes me angry", there were some accusations of Unfortunate Implications due to her backstory (she was born as a boy alongside a twin brother, but forced to present as female due to a belief that twins of the same gender were cursed, so some fans thought that she was gaslit or groomed into thinking of herself as a girl), and also the misconception that the ending where she explicitly comes out was non-canon.

Most of the arguing I saw calmed down significantly after additional Word of God clarified things, so it might not even count as Broken Base or Base-Breaking Character due to the requirement for long-lasting controversy. Whenever I see talk about Bridget nowadays, it tends to be in a more positive, such as Ensemble Dark Horse, Just Here for Godzilla, or Watched It for the Representation.

However, I don't follow fandoms super-closely even when I'm interested in the work, so there might still be large or vocal groups of people on Twitter or Facebook or whatever who are still violently criticizing or defending Bridget, and I wouldn't know about them.

number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4042: Sep 2nd 2023 at 9:23:42 AM

Most of the arguing I saw calmed down significantly after additional Word of God clarified things...

Yes, and bear in mind, that happened like... a few days after Bridget was released. The disinformation regarding the truth of Bridget's in-game story concluding with her accepting herself as trans was not around for long; one can hardly consider that period an impactful one.

Thanks for playing King's Quest V!
Remulus (Troper in training)
#4043: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:21:18 PM

I honestly fail to see how Strive is not OBC, as someone that isn't familiar with the game and whose only knowledge about it comes precisely from the controversy. And in case you are concerned about giving a "voice" to transphobes on the internet... acknowledging a game as OBC is not gonna do that.

It can be simply written off as

  • Overshadowed by Controversy: Bridget's storyline in the game originated massive complaints from conservative sectors on the Internet, which between misinterpretation, bad-faith acting and the spread of outright lies, led to Strive becoming more known for the outrage it originated from these sectors in-between the more general gaming community.

There's dozens of articles that acknowledge the controversy, so it feels like something is amiss with the YMMV page if it doesn't. Wikipedia and Kotaku have info detailing it.

Edited by Remulus on Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:22:45 AM

number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4044: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:30:09 PM

I don't want to have to keep reiterating about this, but the period in which transphobes were actively pursuing the topic was not as remarkable as outsiders seem to think it was, and to say that it's the sole matter that the game is being identified with as a persistent topic feels hamfisted and dishonest. Again, Bridget was always popular character to talk about among non-GG fans even way before she came out as trans — actual "controversy" about her is not as big as y’all are making it out to be.

Edited by number9robotic on Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:34:16 AM

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AlleyOop Since: Oct, 2010
#4045: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:35:12 PM

Yeah, as someone who doesn't play Guilty Gear actively, the scope is far closer to Broken Base than OBC. The whole reason this thread exists is because too many people confuse intense versions of the the former for the latter.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:50:26 AM

Remulus (Troper in training)
#4046: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:36:11 PM

[up][up] The controversy is not about Bridget, but rather about the reaction that she originated in these sectors.

There's something similar to be said about The Last Jedi being the poster boy for toxic fandoms after the debates it originated on the internet, in which the entries for OBC don't blame the characters, but rather place emphasis on the discourse and harassment that originated from the aforementioned toxic fandom.

Edited by Remulus on Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:39:25 AM

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#4047: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:36:36 PM

For the record, I've also been saying that I'm not sure it's actual OBC. I just had concerns that the other arguments against it (the whole "it's transphobic" thing) were flawed and inaccurate.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
mightymewtron Word Up from New New York Since: Oct, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Word Up
#4048: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:42:25 PM

[up][up] Yeah, I'd say TLJ is a good example of OBC, because it feels like you can't talk about it without affirming your stance on the weird fandom harassment. Same for Ghostbusters 2016. It's not that the reactions were justified, but they undoubtedly affected how people discuss the movie — if you like it you feel inclined to shut down the sexists, and if you dislike it you feel inclined to distance yourself from them. Though compared to those examples, Guilty Gear is really not even close to that level. Broken Base feels more likely as it's mostly fights from within the fandom, assuming they still persist substantially.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 2nd 2023 at 10:42:49 AM

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Remulus (Troper in training)
#4049: Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:49:33 PM

[up][up] [up]

I'm inclined to agree with this take, although now I'm wondering what's precisely the "scale" that a controversy has to achieve for the work to be considered OBC. The main page definition doesn't provide an answer, and in-between checking all the entries in the page it seems they run the gamut from "massive controversy that every tabloid chimed in" (Star Wars) to "fringe subsets of the internet complained about it and as a result the staff in charge of the work made some changes" (Jojo and Dio reading the Q'uran in the OVA).

Edited by Remulus on Sep 2nd 2023 at 7:50:10 AM

number9robotic (Experienced Trainee)
#4050: Sep 2nd 2023 at 8:06:28 PM

[up] I'm of the opinion of limiting it on the former, the latter sounds very much like an internal audience conflict more befitting of Broken Base at the most. Just on a face-value judgement of the term, I’d hardly describe those latter examples as being "overshadowed by controversy", they’re just some brief drama that you don't really "need" to have a say on. You can go "oh yeah, that happened" and move on without further comment and no one will really call you out on not taking a stance on it like with something as big and provoking very strong feelings as Star Wars and The Last Jedi (again, the topic of Bridget's gender feels on the "easier to ignore" end). Perhaps that qualifier should be added to the main description?

Edited by number9robotic on Sep 2nd 2023 at 8:13:28 AM

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