Audience-Alienating Premise is "interesting" because it can be used to either complain about shows you don't like ("Work X is a failure because it's about X, which is stupid) or gush about shows you like ("Work Y is a great work, but unfortunately many people were scared away because it's about Y, leading people to miss out on its greatness"). This, naturally, leads to lots of shoehorning.
As far as I know, the major criteria for AAP are:
- The work is a commercial failure, which requires the work to have been released for a sufficient amount of time and be for-profit.
- The failure is because the work's premise scared the audience off or made them lose interest.
But "the premise scared people off" is highly subjective, and "is a commercial failure" is a relatively recent addition (if it even is an official criterion - it's not currently in the trope description, although it's been used as an edit reason for some example removals), leading to many non-examples being Grandfather Claused in. So I think it could use a cleanup.
Angry babby
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I saw and disliked Tootsie, but eight months is actually a pretty decent run for a Broadway show (lasting more than a year or two seems to be an abnormality these days), and it won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, meaning people specifically enjoyed its story despite the premise. It was met with Unfortunate Implications (which I described on the UI page) but overall was not a failure, especially not with its target audience who had nostalgia from the movie (younger audiences disliked the premise more).
Not sure about the movies you listed but I'm not sure if Cats counts. People didn't hate the premise of a live action Cats movie - they hated the specific way it was done, with horrible CGI as opposed to something like theater-grade costumes (or even just more catlike CGI).
Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 16th 2021 at 10:20:48 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Thank you for clarifying this. However, I think I covered the "Tootsie did well with critics despite the Values Dissonance" during the proposed statement. It may well be that dropping key characters wasn't a problem for many fans of the original film, but then I personally feel that Tootsie fans cared more about the cast than the characters - No offense to Santino Fontana (who I personally really like), but the number of people who would see something just for him is FAR smaller than the number of people who would see a film for Dustin Hoffman, Bill Murray and/or Jessica Lange...
Eight Months personally seems a bit small by my standards (I only really got into Broadway in early 2018, which was a very thin year, so I'm not sufficiently used to runs under 12 months), but it is worth noting that 1. The last production to win Best Actor in a Musical at the Tony Awards without winning either of the Best Musical categories was Catch Me If You can in 2011, and that ran for just five months and 2. the less problematic The Cher Show also had an eight-month run (November 2018 -August 2019) despite winning Best Actress...
Angry babby
But Tootsie had fans. I never heard of people who liked the original movie and outright hated the musical. I know my mother loved it, and people in her social circle liked it too? (Plus, people seeing musicals just for certain actors is very common and I'm pretty sure that's how Tootsie got its younger audience members, who liked Santino.) And even if they cared more about the cast, the fact that it wasn't a flop and people went to see it for the cast suggests the premise didn't alienate them. I don't really know what you're trying to prove by citing other Tony Award winners either.
Edited by mightymewtron on Jan 17th 2021 at 5:41:04 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
I think I was trying to prove your argument correct by saying that Tootsie's Broadway performance certainly wasn't unique, but I think I lost track of that argument in the quest to cite Broadway trivia.
Compared to the short runs mentioned in the Audience Alienating Premise section for theatre, eight months is pretty solid...
This was recently added to Fate: The Winx Saga:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: It makes enough changes to the setting to turn off fans of the original Winx Club series, while there's nothing distinguishing it enough from the average YA fantasy series to attract new fans.
Not familiar with the work, but from the description we're looking at something closer to Uncertain Audience.
- Audience-Alienating Premise:
- The focus on Mater was seen as this by many, usurping the focus from Lightning and the rest of the gang.
- The film's dominating spy thriller theme also left many baffled as to how it tied in with the events and characters of the previous film.
Isn't Cars 2 Critic-Proof? It was a financial success regardless of its critical reception.
Edited by PlasmaPower on Jan 28th 2021 at 3:36:19 PM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
Bringing up the following example from Inchon:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The Unification Church was extremely unpopular and widely viewed as a cult in the '70s and early '80s, though their reputation has improved a bit since then (largely amongst conservatives, thanks to the church's ties with The Washington Times). Selling people on a propaganda vehicle for the Church would have been an uphill battle no matter the quality.
That's mostly fine, but the parenthetical can probably be removed as unnecessary.
The Values Dissonance example, on the other hand, is complete crap.
do you wanna have a bad time?
I'd say cut. The focus on Mater is more a Base-Breaking Premise. The spy movie part, while a bizarre choice, isn't especially alienating by itself.
This is on Disney Channel:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The sitcoms had this very bad since the debut of Hannah Montana. Having the protagonist always be a 16-year-old Girly Girl and Hormone-Addled Teenager, increasingly unrealistic settings, and trying to be relevant to ongoing teen cultures has pretty much driven away everyone who wasn't a female born between 1989 and 2001.
Angry babby
General example, also a ton of those sitcoms were both successful and beloved by their target demographic (who still fondly remember them today).
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Boooo~~
Is this entry on Reborn! (2004) valid?
- Audience-Alienating Premise: In the first episode, a baby in a suit has a shape-shifting chameleon and shoots Magic Bullets to an ordinary teenage kid, killing him. Then the kid reawakens in a Berserker Rage, running around in his underpants to fix anything he regrets? Did you say the baby is also a part of the mafia? There is a reason why the newcomers are recommended to skip the Daily Life Arc by the fans as the Cringe Comedy and nonsensical plots will push new viewers away.
Lucas the Dreamer
I think this entry for Yo Mama should be cut.
Angry babby
That entry doesn't even explain how it's alienating. Kids who like Your Mom jokes also tend to like animated vulgar humor.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Lucas the Dreamer
Gonna go for the cut.
Lucas the Dreamer
Also I’m a grown adult and I still find the videos funny so it’s not just kids.
Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?
x5 If the audience is limited or is otherwise a tiny niche, it can stay.
Bringing up the following example from Malcolm & Marie:
- Audience-Alienating Premise: The entire movie is basically one long argument scene. For many, this is a major turnoff.
Lucas the Dreamer
Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Feb 12th 2021 at 9:19:21 AM
Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?
I have never heard of the series. But do what you will.
Angry babby
I used to watch it when I was like, 13. I still see people supporting the creator and I saw people of all ages upset when the series was ending.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Bringing up the following example from Bombshell (2019):
- Audience-Alienating Premise: Some
reviewers have believe that no matter how well made and well acted this movie is, it's irresponsible to glamorize conservative white women by keeping the, shall we say, problematic issues that plague the movement in the background. The mini-series Mrs. America, which aired the Spring after this came out, also faced similar criticisms, despite a lot of reviewers admitting that it was a good show. Some have even compared this movie to it in a negative manner.
Angry babby
That sounds like a wayward Unfortunate Implications entry, especially since viewers admit that they liked the movie itself and it did well. Also very concerning in terms of ROCEJ. What movement do they mean to call "problematoc" - conservatism or Me Too?
I'm curious about Audience Alienating productions based on a successful source material, such as the film of The Golden Compass, Cats and Baywatch. I would personally include the 2019 Broadway version of Tootsie on this list as well. It failed to win over those who found the cross-dressing premise problematic - making only a few tokenistic references to trans rights near the end - but made too many changes to the source material (including cutting characters and replacing the Daytime Soap setting with a more generic theatre one) which alienated fans of the original. Despite getting mostly positive critical reviews and winning two Tony Awards, it closed after an underwhelming eight month run...