Too Bleak, Stopped Caring

Since I previously mentioned The Breakfast Club, here's one from the John Hughes YMMV page:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Though his films aren't as oppressively dark as others that fall victim to this trope due to his sense of humor, more jaded viewers are prone to look at them this way. The young protagonists are usually anti-heroes at best or straight Villain Protagonists at worst, and more often than not driven by selfish motivations. The adult characters fare little better, ranging from ludicrously ineffectual to straight-up antagonists in their own right. To some, it can be hard to root for anyone in Hughes's films for this reason.

That sort of example is explicitly forbidden in Creator pages. I'd nuke it even if it was factually accurate.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Another cartoon comedy example from YMMV.The Fairly Odd Parents:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The darker and mean-spirited jokes and immoral themes in the later seasons can be off-putting to say the least for some viewers.
  • Timmy is poorly-treated by almost everyone he knows, like being neglected by his parents, his friends betraying, making fun of, and/or ignoring him at times, being babysat by a Jerkass Ax-Crazy teenager and even his fairy godparents treating him bad sometimes; doesn't help that all of these are part of the show's Rule of Funny, even if it goes too far. There are times where viewers lose sympathy towards Timmy since can be a lazy, selfish Jerkass at times. All these make some fans find the show too harsh to enjoy and difficult for them on exactly who to sympathsize.
  • The infamous episode "It's a Wishful Life" reached this on the disturbing level.
  • This even happens to Cosmo and Wanda often, especially when the former keeps making constant marriage jokes, to the point where some fans wonder if they'll get a divorce.
  • While Vicky's atrocities are meant to be Played for Laughs, some thought her later actions were going too far, as she went from a petty bully to the reincarnation of all of history's worst villains.

These veer more into Seasonal Rot.

Edited by costanton11 on Sep 30th 2020 at 8:10:07 AM

That could use a rewrite for Seasonal Rot.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Bringing up the following example from Mutant X:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: It's a Darker and Edgier version of the Marvel Universe, where anti-mutant sentiment is even more prevalent and almost everyone Took a Level in Jerkass. It's a bit of a hard sell.

That seems more like an Audience-Alienating Premise, if anything

The series already has its own Seasonal Rot page.

Edited by costanton11 on Oct 2nd 2020 at 5:04:02 AM

...honestly, this whole "kick 'em when they're down" phenomenon is one of the most obnoxious things to deal with when cleaning up negativity.

Bringing up the following example from The Hunt (2020):

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Both sides - liberal and conservative - are portrayed as sadistic, bigoted assholes and hypocrites. This is why the politics of the main character, Crystal, are never actually revealed.

The example lacks detail about the setting and story, and doesn't say anything about turning off audiences.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Remove if you haven't already m

Jawbreakers on sale for 99¢

Bringing up the following example from Utopia (US):

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The British series was already dark enough, with an excess of violence that sounded gratuitous at some moments, and with almost all the characters morally ambiguous, but the American remake managed to increase these aspects even more than they already were, including the fate of the Canon Foreigner Sam and the Adaptational Villainy of Jessica Hyde. In addition to the poor timing of showing the series in the middle of a pandemic, it is not difficult to understand why so many professional critics and viewers were uncomfortable with the project.

From The Proud Family:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: The show is pretty mean-spirited despite its message about family. From Penny's so-called "friends" backstabbing her to their poor treatment of Oscar. Only a limited number of characters are remotely likable, like Penny, Sticky, Zoey, and Trudy most of the time, but even they have the occasional Jerkass Ball that makes them just as bad as the others.

Yet another cartoon comedy.

What is it with these people?

I know part of it with this trope, specifically, is the overly broad name, but still, it's bizarre to see how virulently some tropers react to comedy they consider overly mean-spirited. I mean, I myself don't care much for the whole family of Cringe Comedy - Kafka Komedy - Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist et cetera, but if I see a work with them I just... move on?

From YMMV.Wizards Of Waverly Place

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Many of the jokes on the series is surprisingly dark and mean-spirited for a Disney sitcom. From Max telling a joke in the most inappropriate times to Stevie's death...all Played for Laughs. It also doesn't help it when Alex isn't exactly a good role model for the young viewers thanks to her attitude and behavior.
  • The entire way the world of Magic is, especially the whole "Family Wizard Competition", which only shows families being destroyed and ruined because only one of them can be the Family Wizard. It was shown in a few episodes where it's revealed Jerry and Kelbow aren't close to their sister who resents them for losing her magic in the Wizard competition (considering as well that Jerry won the competition but gave up his magic to Kelbow to be with Teresa) and even in the finale when it seems Alex, Justin, and Max lost the competition, they begin to fall apart because of it.

Another comedy show.

Some of these read like Moral Guardians who think having characters do bad things or having dark jokes in a kids' show is inherently bad for children and makes the show irredeemable.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

From YMMV.Logan:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Given that the movie has a very bleak, harsh tone already, the fact that it establishes that mutants have stopped being born, rendering any progress of the past movies largely pointless, can be quite stinging. Not to mention that most of the cast of the past movies are nowhere to be seen and presumed dead in some cases, making their character development seem equally pointless, AND Xavier and Logan, already living miserable lives, are suffering from terminal illnesses and years of extreme injury. All in all, once the film's done, it's quite easy for one to see the franchise as one big "Shaggy Dog" Story with some Yank the Dog's Chain given how it subverts the optimistic vision of X-Men: Days of Future Past, especially with the deaths of Professor Xavier and Wolverine (and every other named character aside from the X-23 children, with a predictably similar situation to the family getting killed in X-Men Origins: Wolverine occurring). Not only that, the fact that Logan's healing factor began failing at the worst time, along with Xavier's powers failing, in a way that conveniently makes the already dying mutant race's situation even worse, can strain believability. However, the survival of the X-23 children and their possible safe haven in Canada does give the audience a slight ray of hope that the mutant race may yet survive.

Example even says there's a "Ray of Hope" Ending and while Logan can be a jerk, he is still a hero.

Edited by costanton11 on Oct 17th 2020 at 12:06:49 PM

Isn't logan the most popular of the xmen films. That seems like misuse to me.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

I don't like it, mainly because everything the X-Men tried to do throughout the entire series has been All for Nothing.

"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and kills

I feel like a lot of people enjoy it on its own but prefer to think of it in a separate context from the other X-Men movies.

The general consensus I've found is that people find Logan a compelling, moving, and genuinely great film. It's just if you take it as the finale to the series, it's a particularly sad note to leave out on.

Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy is about people not caring about a conflict because it's either too dark or both sides of the conflict are terrible. That's not really the case in Logan, which is that people do care about the characters, but find what they have to go through to be almost too much for what's been expected in the franchise.

I think the Angst Aversion entry is more what this is entry is trying to go for.

I think Word of God confirmed that it's set in a different continuity than the other X-Men movies.

Bringing up the following example from Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog:

• Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: This mostly took place before the reboot, but it was a big problem towards this series regarding with how it portrays some of its heroes as well as its villains when it comes to their moments of cruelty and how they deal with their flaws. Sally in particular whenever she is harshly criticizing or dumping on members like Sonic for his reckless actions and how she will resort to similar actions as well as emotional based actions like when she slapped Sonic and berated him for being selfish because he refused to marry her really steers her into Unintentionally Unsympathetic territory most of the time. Sonic himself can be this when it comes to his reckless actions that he refuses to accept as his fault despite his worst actions showing to have creating long-term and appalling consequences, it really tends to make Sonic look so much like a Jerkass that it has taken other characters that are even bigger jerkasses than him in order to steer him into sympathetic light. Some of the villains that are meant to be seen as sympathetic like Fiona Fox got hit with this pretty badly due to their mean-spirited actions that make them way too needlessly cruel to sympathize with that it makes their actions make them look like Hate Sinks instead of woobies. When it comes to the actions of some of these characters, it is really difficult to find charm and sympathy in them because of how cruel they are written out to be, and it can really make this series seem way too cynical and mean-spirited as a result.

Any additional thoughts on the Logan example?

I have this example from YMMV.Diary Of A Wimpy Kid:

• While it's a stretch to call it outright darkness, the sheer amount of unlikable characters (for instance, the main character Greg already suffers from an unrealistic number of glaring flaws he hardly notices) and sheer amounts of What An Idiot from all characters moments can really be a bother when trying to find something to root for and keep going. Despite being sold as realistic fiction, the story is set in a cynical world of incompetence where bad things happen to good people, although this world is interpreted from Greg's obvious Protagonist-Centered Morality. It becomes even worse in later books when the humor just revolves around the Heffleys having bad luck. The movies, however, attempt to fix this by giving the characters better personalities and lessening some of the What An Idiot moments, even having Greg and Rodrick reconcile after their biggest schism in the Rodrick Rules movie, as they now treat each other much better. It even carries over into Dog Days, where Greg is horrified at thinking Rodrick was being loaded into a garbage truck, and upon seeing his brother is okay, hugging him tightly, to which Rodrick is obviously touched.

The thing is, the books are obviously a comedy, and calling every single character unlikable is somewhat of a stretch to me.