Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

Since Anne Rice died yesterday I'd like to bring attention this Real Life entry. I can't seem to find news outlets discussing these (let alone the meme), so I'm tempted to believe these aren't controversies.

• Anne Rice, known for her gothic, religious, and erotic fiction, such as Interview with the Vampire and its sequels, is just as famous for her inability to take criticism of any kind and frequent Dear Negative Reader screeds, one of which spawned the popular internet meme "You are interrogating the text from the wrong perspective." She is also notable and/or notorious as one of the few authors of fiction to have completely banned Fan Works for her books.

@ The Living Drawing

Whether they're intentional or not is an endless debate but at any rate most people would still agree they're still there, even as a result of Unintentionally (Un)Sympathetic and Rooting for the Empire.

I’ve personally not heard of her, but as a OBC is a relative trope, that’s not a disqualification. And the example as written sounds like a plausible example if true.

x3 Even if those are controversies, I don't think she's completely overshadowed by them. I don't think the average person is going to hear about her and think "Oh, that author who banned fanfics based on her works?" I think most people are just going to think about her as "That author who wrote The Vampire Chronicles?"

I'd say it's legit. I've never read any of her vampire books but I am very familiar with her infamy in fandom circles. Pretty much everyone I've come across who shared that news also mused about her relationship with copyright and fanfiction issues.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 12th 2021 at 12:12:07 PM

I know Rice was very infamous for her reactions to negative criticism. Still, I'm not sure it overshadows her writings.

I did genuinely hear of her from the fandom drama before the popularity of her actual books, but still not sure if it's big enough for "overshadowed".

I don't think it overshadows the books.

Their too influential for that. They basically helped codify the modern vampire.

It might be a Harry Potter situation, where the author as a person is overshadowed but the actual books aren't.

I think Anne Rice's two big controversies were negative criticism and her attitude towards fanfiction and copyright. I don't believe either of those overshadow her books, however. Her name was very well known in fanfiction circles even among people who didn't engage in her works or fandoms because so many sites were forced to carry warnings forbidding the uploading of fanfiction based on her works just to protect themselves.

I think if this had been 15-20 years ago, it would have been an OBC situation - it was huge back then. These days, however? No, I don't think so.

I think War Jay's probably captured it best — the author is overshadowed, but her works are not.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Dec 12th 2021 at 10:34:17 AM

magnumtropus: I'm talking about Kotetsu-Toys-TAKA, who due to being a well-known reseller of Toei's Tokusatsu items, has become a major target whenever Toei gets involved in a major controversy (See: Subaru Kimura, who is controversial due to Hypnosis Mic, getting cast as Vice in Kamen Rider Revice, resulting in major uproar for a while and Taka being slammed on).

I personally think Anne Rice is overshadowed. In the book community circles I move in, whenever she comes up it's always in the context of "InTERRogaTINg tHE TexT frOM tHE wrONg PerSPEcTive" and the fanworks shit. I suppose "Anne Rice is overshadowed, the Vampire Chronicles aren't" is a fair assessment

From YMMV.Sausage Party.

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Twice over.
  • The leaked script left a sour taste in a lot of people’s mouths. Even when the movie turned out better than expected, the initial bad impression made a lot of people ignore the movie anyway.
  • The controversy of the mistreated animators would result in more people skipping the movie and judging it more harshly.

I think we can keep the latter, since it's very difficult to bring this film up without bringing up what happened to the animators. I'm not sure about the former example.

The former I recall some mockery on Tumblr and Twitter, but I'd need to scour social media. The latter at least has news articles about it.

The first one sounds more like "overshadowed by the fact that it was bad." The leaked script was worse than the final project, yes, but I believe most of the people who clowned on it were the same people who clowned on the final project and basically the entire concept of the film.

Edit: Here are some examples previously agreed to be cut, but were restored, first from Sonic Chronicles:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Ken Penders, a writer for the original Sonic the Hedgehog comic series, filed a lawsuit due to the game's usage of many elements from the comics in slightly altered forms. Given Penders' general infamy with Sonic fans, this lawsuit is more well-known than the game itself.

I cut a similar listing a while back

I've also discovered that these were restored to Mein Kampf and The Turner Diaries respectively:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Given this autobiography was written by none other than Adolf Hitler and exposits his political ideology, this was inevitable. It is worth mentioning that this autobiography was first published in 1925, eight years before Hitler became Führer, and would not have been taken nearly as seriously in the 1920s as it is now.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: This book is probably best known for its association with Oklahoma City Bomber Timothy McVeigh and several other acts of terrorism carried out by Neo-Nazis.

were

previously

If we re-cut, they will like require a comment to avoid another relisting.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on Dec 12th 2021 at 9:51:17 AM

Whats' the "waiting period" on bloggers, youtube channels and journalists? I have one I think might be an example of this.

Pretty sure it's six months, like with other media.

In that case, would some journalists that once had progressive or left leaning worldviews but embraced hard right viewpoints in retaliation against the democrats and the "liberal" left like Glenn Greenwald be an example of this? He was seen as a progressive advocate for civil liberties in the past, but he increasingly drew more controversy for adapting right-wing talking points.

Unrelated to the above, would the 80s cartoon Robotech be an example of OBC? The controversy surrounding Harmony Gold and Macross has completly overshadowed any discussion of Robotech whenever Robotech is mentioned

Edited by xie323 on Dec 14th 2021 at 11:47:03 AM

Someone changing their political leanings, even if it's a drastic change, is only OBC under specific circumstances. Someone's political beliefs can be a controversy (see JKR), but the controversy needs to be something unrelated to their actual work and career to qualify- hence why it would "overshadow" the person at all.

I wouldn't say Sonic Chronicles is overshadowed by the lawsuit. Discussion of the game happens just fine without mentioning it, it's just that it's often asked why the plot was Left Hanging or why elements from that game never show up anywhere later in the franchise, and, well, the lawsuit is directly responsible for that.

While I utterly loathe Greenwald (and similar journalists like Matt Taibbi, Krystal Ball, Max Blumenthal, etc.), the controversy is limited to a single political group, so I don't know if it counts.

There are some examples under the Real Life page that I think could be removed, but I wanted to check in with this thread first:

Henry Ford was and remains an iconic engineer, industrialist, and philanthropist, founding the automaker that bears his name and being the chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production, which converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into an accessible conveyance that profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century. But his promotion of anti-Semitism (to the point of buying his own newspaper to publish his views)^note Though if one source is to be believed, Ford was reportedly so horrified by the atrocities of the Nazi regime that he collapsed with a stroke after being shown newsreel footage of the aftermath of The Holocaust. Even more ironic was that he was a Freemason, a secretive fraternal society often if not always alleged to have been plotting for a New World Order amongst other conspiracies, with which the Jewish elite are recurring subjects of such canards. and his staunch opposition against labor unions has left a dark stain on his legacy that's very hard to ignore.

Because the entry says that Henry Ford remains well known for things besides his Anti-Semitism, I don't think it fits this trope. (That said, is there another trope this entry could be moved to?)

I feel like she's still better known for her acting career.

I was thinking that this could be cut for the same reasons as The Turner Diaries being removed. (Link)

Edit: And on the Literature page, an entry on Mein Kampf has been added, though the text of it is different from the original entry. I'm assuming it can be cut?

Edited by nova92 on Dec 15th 2021 at 1:19:51 AM

Found this on YMMV.Warrior Cats:

"Overshadowed by Controversy: The novella Spottedleaf's Heart will forever be remembered for Thistleclaw sexually grooming Spottedleaf and how it completely derails both characters."

What it's stating here is factually true- this novella is loathed by the fandom for it's poor handling of grooming and how both Thistleclaw and Spottedleaf were acting OOC- but I'm pretty sure it's another "work overshadows itself" thing. Just bringing it here to get consensus before I cut it. Note that being a novella the story is only a few chapters long, and from what I know it's primarily focused on the Thistleclaw stuff. It's a controversial story, but it doesn't have anything to overshadow... I mean, maybe it overshadows the two characters as characters, but I'm not sure how true that is.

Funny, I mentioned the Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf just barely on this page, but yes, both should be cut, and with a comment saying so to preempt future relistings.

As for the other stuff, They’re all safe cuts except for Henry Ford, whose extreme anti-semitism that served as a literal inspiration for Hitler comes up at least as much as his invention of car.