Trope names with outdated and/or offensive language

Yes, Schizo Tech has been brought up. I've stated before that it's harder to rename than Schizophrenic Difficulty; we should do the latter first.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

I'd like to add a description for Idiot Savant on the sandbox. How's this:

The term has been used in an offensive way, equating autism with idiocy.

For every low there is a high.

We may also want to reevaluate tropes with the word "psycho" in them, such as Psycho Electro, Psycho Knife Nut, and Psycho for Hire, since I hear the term is falling out of favor for those with personality disorders. The trope "Psycho" Strings can stay, since it's named after Hitchcock's film.

I disagree, because the media is slow to catch up and the characters being troped there are classical "psychos" in the stereotypical sense. The tropes aren't meant to be about realistic depictions of personality disorders, they're crazy evil slashers.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Huh, didn’t know that. I’m on the autism spectrum and I use the word “psycho” a lot myself.

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Same here. I generally use the term to refer the horror movie kind.

Which, yeah, is also how the tropes are using it.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Ctrl+F "Psy" at Madness Tropes

"Psychopath" and "Sociopath" are not correct medical terms (We've already been through this for The Sociopath), but the tropes aren't about people with actual disorders.

I don't have a stake in political correctness, but is it "falling out of favor" or people actually get offended villainous characters have "psycho" tropes at them?

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I don't remember if it's been brought up, but Wizards of the Coast have replaced "races" in Dungeons & Dragons with "species" because it's "prejudicial". How much we care in regard to likes of Standard Fantasy Races (Standard Fantasy Spieces)?

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Isn't Psycho just short for Psychopath. Which is what those tropes are meant to be about. As in per Webster: "person having an egocentric and antisocial personality marked by a lack of remorse for one's actions, an absence of empathy for others, and often criminal tendencies"

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

I think I remember concerns of The Sociopath having a super broad and unclear description being brought up somewhere (maybe even this thread, IDK).

Edited by badtothebaritone on Feb 5th 2023 at 3:42:19 AM

It does, but that's neither here nor there (it's been brought up in a lot of places, but it doesn't have anything to do with this discussion because it's not the title that's outdated)

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 5th 2023 at 4:42:51 AM

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I just think we should worry about The Sociopath's name once it gets a TRS thread. It has additional issues, and there's easier fish to fry right now.

I mean... my point is that I don't see any problem with the name that would require changing it. As with the "psycho" tropes, we don't base tropes off of real-world mental health disorders and terminology. There's absolutely no good reason to change the name of The Sociopath.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

It's short for both "psychopath" and "psychotic", despite the fact that those are completely unrelated, because the general public likes flashy new scientific-sounding pejoratives and isn't concerned with what they mean.

(I may as well bring up Reluctant Psycho into this discussion, which I created and named with possibly-misguided sympathetic intent, because the only alternative for "characters who are aware of their mental illness" was The Mad Hatter which was too insultingly cartoonish to cover tragic or dramatic characters.)

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Feb 18th 2023 at 9:32:30 AM

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

I consider the "psycho" slang to be ableist (lowkey ableist, not R-word levels, but still contributing to inaccuracy), but not to the degree that I have a problem with tropes using it in the context of a stereotype that carries the same baggage.

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

Agreed. I wouldn't be comfortable using the word "psycho" to insult a real person, but I don't think it's harmful to use it as a descriptor of an unrealistic violent unsympathetic villain type.

Exactly, that's pretty much how I feel. The word can be offensive but the context of what we're using it is different.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

From what I know, the term can be considered offensive, though I'm unsure about renaming it.

I agree with mewtron. I don't think it's a pressing concern

Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?

In the Troping Works That Promote Bigotry thread on Wiki Talk, Totemic Hero brought up that Sizable Semitic Nose is potentially problematic in the use of the term "Semitic."

Its presence in the trope name is in the archaic sense of "regions where the Semitic languages were historically spoken," since the trope covers how the big nose stereotype plays into depictions of non-Jewish Arabic people as well as Jewish people. However, the term is also a major part of the pseudoscientific racialization of Judaism that serves as a major component of antisemitism (which itself is why spelling "antisemitism" as "anti-Semitism" is highly discouraged by Jewish advocacy groups).

Since the trope more prominently focuses on the "Jewish nose" stereotype than the "Arabic nose" one, the use of "Semitic" in the name may unintentionally invoke this racialization.

Edited by bowserbros on Mar 21st 2023 at 11:15:14 AM

Be kind.

In the original draft you can see it was chosen specifically to cover stereotypes of cultures besides Jewish people.

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

Yeah, I mentioned that the name was picked to include non-Jewish Arabic groups. I'm just wondering if, looking back, the juxtaposition of "Semitic" with a trope that mostly covers Jewish examples accidentally comes off as insensitive (even when accounting for the intended breadth of its scope).

Should we also ping Totemic Hero, since they're the one who brought up the potential issues with the trope name?

Edited by bowserbros on Mar 21st 2023 at 1:25:45 AM

Be kind.

I'll ping them.

~Totemic Hero The above discussion is relevant to comments you had made on another thread.

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Hey, I was (slowly) typing and double-checking this post as the ping went through.

Looking at the handful of Arabic examples on the page...they don't seem to be actual examples of the trope as described ("large nose is visual identifier of ethnic background"), and/or they're not really describing how they're an example. Special mention goes out to the Disney Aladdin example, where the entire cast is presumably Arabic and the example happily rattles off how big noses are instead used to distinguish the characters who are not protagonists.

If anything, I'm now more concerned. I suspect an issue is that some of the people involved with the TLP were not aware of how Facial Profiling (the supertrope) handles the matter, which separates Jewish stereotypes and Arabic stereotypes. And there was apparently no effort to update Facial Profiling to account for the new subtrope, so...

The name is still definitely problematic though, even if it was inadvertently so. (Not the first time accidental issues have come up in the linked bigotry thread - some people aren't fully knowledgeable on these matters.)

Edited by TotemicHero on Mar 21st 2023 at 5:00:57 AM

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad example, but it's missing context that the protagonists are exceptions because Lead You Can Relate To makes it predictable that they're portrayed with fewer markers of being Other relative to a presumed white, western audience (similar to Mukokuseki and But Not Too Foreign).

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable