Hindsight Cleanup

This was just added to DuckTales (2017):

• In "The 87 Cent Solution!", Scrooge's mental state deteriorates from an untreated disease, his nephews all start wearing medical masks and keep a wide-berth while they try in-vein to make him listen to reason. Half a year after the episode comes out, the world is hit with the COVID-19 Pandemic and President Donald Trump tries to play off the pandemic as a hoax by his political enemies, only to test positive for the disease on October 2. The fact that Gold Fever is revealed to be fake and that the crazed billionaire is proven right that his supposed illness was nothing more than a plot against him only creates Unfortunate Implications when viewed from this perspective.

I... umm... wow. I've seen stretches, but to paint that as a connection to conspiracy mongering, it's practically troping with an agenda.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha no.

I feel like that episode has been listed multiple times for supposed COVID connections.

Combination COVID shoehorn and ROCEJ violation? Get that crap outta here.

Anyway, sorry for this, but here's another example from Family Guy that I missed earlier:

• In "E. Peterbus Unum", when at the I.R.S. and learning that he is going to be audited, Peter cries out over the agent trying to tell him the bad news, first over the cancellation of Party of Five and then over the actual news, with him then asking, "What the hell is Party of Five?" It's not quite as funny anymore since the original 90s version has fallen out of popularity and is rarely seen in syndication; with the 2019 reboot being canceled after one season due to lackluster ratings.

Wouldn't the fact the show has become more obscure over the years make the joke funnier, not harsher?

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 12th 2020 at 6:22:47 AM

Removed the "87 Cent Solution" example, found this on the same page, also under Harsher in Hindsight:

• In "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!", Huey gets upset and has a breakdown over how Dewey "faked it till he made it" to get a promotion when Huey did a lot of hard work, and then says he's "Chillin' Like a Villain", which was the name of a song in Descendants 2. This ends up being prescient of what happens in Descendants 3, where Princess Audrey accuses Mal of taking shortcuts to become future queen which she worked hard and waited patiently for, and then turns evil and goes on a quest for vengeance over it.

Saw this added to YMMV.The Good Doctor:

• Harsher in Hindsight: The two-part premiere of Season 4 was focused on the characters dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same week that the second episode aired, it was announced that Richard Schiff (Dr. Aaron Glassman) and Sheila Kelley (Debbie Wexler), who are also a couple in real life, were diagnosed with coronavirus.

I actually think it might be a good example, but the stance is that these are removed on policy, right?

Re: The Bee Movie police example, it may work considering that it's both a police chokehold in addition to the words "I can't breathe" over a relatively minor crime, but otherwise that's only 2 or 3 for pretty much everything else being different (like Mewtron suggested, the lady not being black for one thing). Plus, someone saying "I can't breathe" in response to being put in a chokehold is a pretty logical progression of such a situation, so that might actually be a pretty narrow connection after all.

Aside from basically begging to be cut, the "87 cent Solution" entry also had a link to Unfortunate Implications, which I'm pretty sure needs a citation even if it's just a pothole and not the main entry on the page.

That might actually work, given that there are two distinct similarities mentioned. The only thing that may be an issue is the fact that, as far as I'm aware, Huey never actually attempts any sort of vengeance against Dewey.

May actually be valid, but given that COVID examples are more often than not zapped on sight, I think I'd wait for others' input first.

Edited by PacificGreen on Nov 12th 2020 at 5:36:11 AM

The example's not about COVID in general making things harsh, but a specific event related to COVID - specific people getting diagnosed with the disease. We delete COVID examples on principle because of the No Recent Examples rule, but this specific event has already happened.

Examples I found on Harsher In Hindsight.Marvel Cinematic Universe. Feel free to weigh in.

And YMMV.Foster The People:

Which seems like a general "mass shooting which has happened lots of times before", unless the lyrics eerily mirror the circumstances leading up to a specific mass shooting, which I haven't heard of.

On a related note, since there are so many examples of them, should there be a note on the HIH/FAM pages regarding commonly occurring events not being examples unless there is more to the connection between the work and real life? I know there are the COVID-related notes, but it might be helpful to address other misuses, especially what seem to be the biggest offenders: natural disasters, police brutality, mass shootings, other disease outbreaks, etc.

Edited by PacificGreen on Nov 12th 2020 at 8:44:32 AM

The Chadwick Boseman example is valid (quite a few heartbroken fans saw the connection and quoted those lines in the wake of the news, so it's definitely not a shoehorn). But it's misclassified as it's already redundant with a better version on the YMMV page for Civil War which is listed under the more appropriate Heartwarming in Hindsight.

I could go either way on the War Machine example, but I don't think the Agent Carter example is a good one, as Peggy's death in Civil War was a Foregone Conclusion considering she was already on her deathbed in her previous film appearance.

Is a large number of people referencing the line online in light of his death the only thing qualifying this example? Like, I kind of get it, but I feel that otherwise, any character in any work saying something philosophical about death would eventually count once their actor dies.

Well, the YMMV page is for audience reactions after all. If a significant number of said audience does indeed react in a particular fashion then it qualifies due to its nature. So for your example, if a lot of people are doing that with a certain quote, then sure.

The issue with misuse and flimsy examples is that many of them are the result of a single troper engaging in blatant Fan Myopia. If the connection is self-evident enouggh that a lot of people were able to recognize it without much effort then it's a pretty strong example.

Hence another reason why I think the Peggy example should be cut. While we can debate the technical merits of the Rhodey example, I have seen a few people noticing the irony of comics Rhodey dying right around when Civil War Rhodey was crippled (with some people expecting him to die in the movie as well, although ultimately he was only injured instead). Meanwhile I don't think I've seen anyone make the same comparisons between Peggy's fate in the movies and the cancellation of her show, and I'm someone who traffics in the parts of fandoms where Peggy receives a lot of focus.

This is on Babylon Bee:

• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment: This January 2020 article, "Democrats Warn That American People May Tamper With Next Election" takes on an extremely sinister tone in light of the numerous documented voting irregularities and electoral fraud litigation filed against the Democrats in the wake of the controversial Presidential election that November.

Yet another person, Susan Mar 192, added a COVID shoehorn to the Avengers: Endgame page. I gave them a strongly worded message about not doing that, but I'm thinking we should add a disclaimer to that page because it's what, the fifth person who's tried to do that?

I don't agree. By that line of thought any tenuous "this actor's character did something related to death, and then the actor died" connection becomes a legitimate example so long as enough people bring it up.

Cut, obviously, but also I feel like the only people who would characterize those allegations as making anything seem "extremely sinister" are people who are very, very likely to cause bigger problems for this site. So I'd also check on the other edits from that person.

Edited by nrjxll on Nov 13th 2020 at 2:36:15 PM

Well if it's really that tenuous then by that nature people would not be bringing it up to such a wide extent, nor would people be able to point out a specific relevance between the work and the actor's deaths.

In the case of the Boseman example as pointed out on Civil War page, the reason it's significant is less that Boseman died after saying something profound about death, because not that many people would've cared if that was all there was to it, and more that this specific quote gained some additional significance because it was an extremely popular line in fan memorials to the late actor. It's that bit of added context that makes it a stronger example than most, because there's a reason it got that popular. In this case, it was the wide pop culture perception of it as an accidental self-eulogy.

Edited by AlleyOop on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:26:21 AM

Babylon Bee is a right-leaning News Parody website, if that helps contextualize the entry. Still, can't allow ROCEJ violating stuff (especially when there hasn't been any proven voter fraud from Dems, only speculation and conspiracy) even on politically themed pages.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 13th 2020 at 4:23:39 AM

x6
I suppose I can see the reasoning behind listing commonly cited examples by a significant portion of the audience. Though my concern is, does that mean the examples with things like "Many YouTube videos had comments saying 'Corona brought me here'" are also valid (as was the case with a music example that was on the Funny Aneurysm Moment.Music subpage)? Is there a significant difference between that and people quoting T'Challa on Twitter after Chadwick Boseman's death (aside from the latter being assigned to Heartwarming In Hindsight)?

I guess you could argue that the examples in the former still had flimsy connections, which would disqualify them anyway. One of the examples was pretty much "The band was from Italy, which was one of the hardest-hit countries, and their song featured rhythmic coughing".

Edited by PacificGreen on Nov 13th 2020 at 1:35:30 AM

We don't allow COVID examples on principle (at least not those where the pandemic is the moment as opposed to specific incidents within the pandemic, like celebrity diagnoses) because COVID is still ongoing so the "moment" isn't over. Boseman's death has already happened so it can be listed if the entry fits.

Yes. See also my earlier stance on the example for The Good Doctor.

Edited by mightymewtron on Nov 13th 2020 at 6:23:48 AM

So if Boseman's death had been from COVID, it would have been a "specific instance"?

If the thing that makes the moment harsher (or theoretically hilarious/FAM) is "someone dies from COVID-19", the event in question is the person's death, not COVID existing. As the death of a person is by definition not an ongoing event, examples would not be blocked under that rule. (They may, however, still be removed if they violate ROCEJ, are a shoehorn, or are simply a bad example.)

Ok, so it was mostly a COVID shoehorn issue. And IIRC the only reason a waiting period for Hindsight tropes was even put in place was because people were using them to shoehorn weak connections to recent events like COVID-19, George Floyd's murder, Trump, etc., no doubt because these events evoke strong emotional reactions by their nature.
I mean, one of the FAM examples on this thread was literally a character in a movie saying the word "pandemic", as if pandemics haven't existed until now.

Edited by PacificGreen on Nov 13th 2020 at 8:23:18 AM

This is from YMMV.Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle:

• "Funny Aneurysm" Moment/Harsher in Hindsight: Harold getting robbed by the racist cop stops being funny when you learn about "civil forfeiture". General. Cut that.
  • The police's treatment of black people in this movie was already political satire back in 2004, but a decade later it becomes an even bigger hot-button issue. For a specific example, see below.
  • When the police come back from the station, they completely ignore Harold and Kumar (the ones actually committing a crime), and immediately attack the unarmed black man who was sharing Harold's cell, accusing him of trying to escape and misidentifying the book he was reading as a gun. In 2016 in Charlotte, North Carolina, police that were serving an arrest warrant for an unrelated case started attacking an unarmed black man that was sitting in his truck waiting for his son, accusing him of possessing marijuana and misidentifying the book he was reading as a gun. The big difference is that the latter resulted in said unarmed black man being shot to death. Were one East Asian and one South Asian involved?
  • As he and Harold are escaping in the car they stole from them, Kumar leans out the window and flips off the racist bullies they'd encountered and throws their "Thank you, come again!" insult back at them. As it turned out, this wasn't just some throwaway joke: in his interview for Hari Kondabolu's 2018 documentary The Problem With Apu, Kal Penn admitted to being one of several American actors of South Asian decent who despises Apu, the Simpsons character being quoted, and the racism he enables, which has made it increasingly hard for actors like him to get roles which aren't similarly stereotypical or degrading (going so far as to accuse Kondabolu of hating himself for otherwise liking The Simpsons). I watched this documentary, and I don't remember Kal Penn specifically mentioning his role as Kumar. Maybe it could go under Undermined By Reality? Old Shame?
  • The aforementioned racist bullies. In 2004, rowdy, tough white young men bullying two people of color and making racist remarks at them was seen as annoying at worst. A little over ten years later, with white nationalism and hate crimes at an all time high in America, you'll most likely be genuinely afraid for Harold and Kumar's lives during their scene. Just some Fridge Horror.
  • Not to mention Harold's co-workers Billy and JD, a couple of assholes who push their work onto Harold to go have fun, before Harold tells them off and cock-blocks them in the process. These dude-bros have come into an increasingly harsh light thanks to people like them being seemingly omnipresent, especially in the finance industry (and perhaps more notably the tech industry), and their repulsive actions. Cut that?