Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

I'm not sure if it's overshadowed by controversy, necessarily, but Guilty Gear is kind of overshadowed by Bridget in general. And her existence may not have been actively controversial for most of that time, but she has been... notorious?

Definitely the former. The latter tends to invite misuse to describe any controversy ever. However I think specific installments of a franchise can be overshadowed even if the franchise as a whole isn't overshadowed, so if, going as an outsider, that Q'uran thing overshadowed the OVA but not other JJBA entries, it would still count for the OVA.

Maybe the Bridget thing is more of a Signature Scene then?

Not in a Signature Scene kind of way. I mean that even before Strive came out, if most people knew anything about Guilty Gear it was that it was the series Bridget was from^note I'm counting myself among "most people" here, and that awareness was coloured by... queer issues, fetishism, transphobia, and public ignorance about all of the above. Strive just resolved whatever controversy was still simmering by finally boiling it away.

I am also one of those people whose first exposure to Guilty Gear was through Bridget and the jokes surrounding her gender. Hell, one of the first exposures to this very wiki is when Unsettling Gender-Reveal was still called "Dropped A Bridget On Him".

That still is hardly itself a show of controversy; the historical consensus for her was very much originally "lol tr@ps" to "that cute boy dressed as girl that we like to joke about" to "headcanoning as trans or otherwise LGBTQ" to "more or less beloved trans character."

Bear in mind that this whole evolution happened while Bridget wasn't even in the games — she was a no show in actual Guilty Gear games for 16 years, closer to 20, and values changed pretty gradually and quietly. Also, in her 2002 depiction, while the Unsettling Gender-Reveal was played straight once, her crossdressing/androgyny was kinda just played as just another quirk for a cast of characters loaded with weirdass quirks, so it really wasn’t the game propagating a "controversy" either.

Edited by number9robotic on Sep 3rd 2023 at 10:24:25 AM

Speaking as the one who originally added the point on the OVA, I did write it under the impression that the OVA specifically was overshadowed thanks to the outcry it drew and the effects it had on the franchise, and the last sentence of the point is meant to indicate that ("More than a decade later, the Quran controversy remains one of the biggest points of discussion surrounding the OVAs for anyone who aren't already fans of JoJo or OVA staff member Satoshi Kon."). Admittedly it's a bit on the Wall of Text side in hindsight, so that intention may be a bit muddied by that.

Edited by bowserbros on Sep 3rd 2023 at 10:38:00 AM

While yes, controversies for particular spinoffs can count in principle, I'm not sure it's actually the case. In my experience, it does come up from time to time, but it's far from the most heavily discussed aspect of the OVA, and certainly not enough to overshadow it.

I still see plenty of people bringing up the OVA primarily to discuss its watchability in a general sense, how its handling of the final battle with Dio compares to the 2014 anime version, the different character designs, and various voice actor trivia (such as Charles Martinet's cameo as the senator), before even touching upon the Quran controversy.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 3rd 2023 at 11:46:52 AM

Ah; in that case would it be best to remove the point or is there enough evidence to suggest that it counts as a historical example?

I don't even know that it's historical. The controversy took place in 2008 and by the time the game and anime granted it an uptick in discussion around 2012, people would only mention the Quran thing maybe once in a while.

I remember there having been some baseless conspiracy theories blaming the Quran incident for various things such as why there would never be an anime adaptation ever again (which obviously turned out to be way wrong), for why they never released the Phantom Blood movie outside of theaters, and occasionally some Islamophobic ranting blaming the whole religion for what turned out to be a single pedant's overreaction, but that was it, and even then it was superceded by other more popular Poison Oak Epileptic Trees like "Araki personally burned the copies as revenge for them not including Speedwagon" and so on.

On that note, before anyone unironically parrots the "Araki personally stepped in to prevent its release" line one more time, he is on record as enjoyed the film and historically has been hands-off with any adaptations of his work. The current least-insane theory for why it was never released has something to do with the belief that it was sacrificed as a tax writeoff to appease yakuza debts.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 4th 2023 at 11:41:55 AM

Alright; with that in mind I removed the point, citing this thread.

There's this questionable entry on the film page:

• Bird Box resulted in a huge amount of videos of people trying to do various tasks while blindfolded, often putting themselves and others in a good deal of danger. Netflix was actually driven to make an official statement asking them to stop (and covering their ass legally if any of them do go horribly wrong), and it likely played a big role in YouTube banning all videos of dangerous stunts a few weeks after the film's release. And then there was backlash from a group of French-Canadians who survived the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster after it was revealed that the film used stock footage of said disaster. Even worse was that despite apologizing, they initially kept it in the film (but they did remove it later).

I'm pretty sure that neither of these became the main talking points in discussion about the film.

I mean I would say that I remember the Bird Box Challenge more than the actual movie, even if you didn't watch the movie it was all over the news.

I pretty much agree. I do feel that the Bird Box Challenge had a very big impact, but I doubt that it overshadows the movie.

I don't know if the French rail disaster example counts, but I'd say yes to the Bird Box Challenge. I have no idea what that movie's actually about and I never see it discussed anymore unless someone jokes about the blindfolding challenge.

Edited by mightymewtron on Sep 5th 2023 at 1:15:02 PM

"That still is hardly itself a show of controversy; the historical consensus for her was very much originally "lol tr@ps" to "that cute boy dressed as girl that we like to joke about" to "headcanoning as trans or otherwise LGBTQ" to "more or less beloved trans character."

as much as id like to avoid Instant Killing the already dead horse, there are several writeups on related drama. i do not think it is giving chuds ammo to bring up "lukewarm takes" and such. a lot of people before and after bridget coming out also knew it as 'that game with the boynun'

that said: I agree on using The Last Jedi as a measuring stick for Overshadowed by Controversy because i feel like 'having to clarify you are not a chud if you are critical/supportive of a work' is a good indicator of if a work is piping hot, and dissenting arguments about Bridget can go into Broken Base

Edited by MsOranjeDiscoDancer on Sep 8th 2023 at 4:17:39 AM

Well, this is going to be an interesting topic:

• MarinaVT has been no stranger to controversy, but she earned particular notoriety when she lead an harassment campaign against Pikamee of VOMS Project fame for playing Hogwarts Legacy, an game that was linked to a franchise notorious for the creator's transphobic statements, even though the franchise has been trying to distance themselves from its creator's statments, leading to Pikamee to shut down the stream and extend her hiatus until her graduation. While the harassment campaign was not a factor in her graduation, it still managed to rob her fans to spend more time with her until her graduation, resulting in her becoming known as "the woman who bullied Pikamee off the internet" and becoming one of the most hated VTubers on the internet, something that was made very apparent when an energy drink company called GLYTCH Energy announced they would sponsor her, resulting in multiple criticisms against them and the company hiding their criticisms, which had the side-effect of making it more obvious.

The controversy was six months ago, but the sponsor was just announced yesterday. I know the controversy was already in most people's minds even before the sponsor, but does it still count?

I found this on YMMV.She Hulk Attorney At Law:

• Upon release, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law became another centerpiece of the "culture war" between the USA's radical left and right. The latter regard the show with disdain with its apparent misandrist message for its perceived negative portrayal of its male characters as chauvinistic jerks or emasculated shells of their original portrayals (in the case of Hulk and Daredevil), while the former accuse the political right of deliberately exaggerating their criticisms out of sexism or for the sake of outrage-farming. The result is a highly divisive show where hot-button socio-political issues overshadow discussions of the show's objective quality.

Does this really fit? I'm not super familiar with this trope so I wanted some opinions from those who are more familiar with it

Not really. Plenty of people talk about just normal stuff that happens in it.

So I should cut it?

i think it can be moved to Broken Base due to the culture war stuff not completely blotting it out, though i would put up a weak vote to keep it OBC - I saw lots of agonised chud wailing about She-Hulk (and the usual actually feminist critiques, or neutral critiques of its sense of humour)

lol i forgot they were livid over the twerking

Edited by MsOranjeDiscoDancer on Sep 13th 2023 at 2:22:04 AM

Yeah I haven't watched She-Hulk and only know about it from the critiques. And the twerking.

I agree with moving it to Broken Base.

Broken Base sounds good to me.

I literally don't remember anything about She-Hulk besides the culture war whining and the meta humor, but I never got into the MCU anyway and it's clearly not as big a hype generator as it used to be, so most of these movies/films just stop being discussed if they're not Controversial TM nowadays.

For the MarinaVT/GLYTCH Energy example, the ruling is six months after something becomes controversial, so the part about GLYTCH Energy should be removed until six months have passed, since there's no way yet of knowing if the incident will have a lasting impact on their reputation. If MarinaVT is still mostly known for having harassed Pikamee more than six months ago, then the rest of the example can be kept.