Troping Works That Promote Bigotry

I kinda worry that if we start to apply certain rules to works based on how bigoted they are, it could lead to a messy slippery slope.

Most people will agree that The Birth of a Nation (1915) and The Turner Diaries are bad, true. But not all works are so easy to declare hateful. If a page for a controversial work ends up keeping its spoiler tags, then in that context it could come across as TV Tropes endorsing it as not bigoted.

I suggest adding Webcomic.Get Schooled to the sandbox list. It's a webcomic on the Webtoon service about a group of school enforcers who conduct "corporal punishment" by beating the crap out of school bullies. It quickly drew criticisms for its reliance on graphical violence and shock value drama, playing tropes like Violence Really Is the Answer, Straw Feminist, Beauty Equals Goodness, and others straight without irony.

The straw that broke the camel's back was what's now dubbed "Racism Arc" that began in September 2023, which touched on the racism in Korea by claiming that mixed-race Koreans are discriminating the "pure Korean" (I checked the thing and this is the actual term it uses, not just a translation flub). This is tone-deaf on multiple levels, as South Korea has some racism problem, but the most problematic scene was when an adult enforcer, who happens to be half-white, calls mixed Korean student the N-word (the word is used as is in the manhwa). Although this chapter was only available in Korean website at the time and only had unofficial English translation, the backlash was immediate, which led to the webcomic getting pulled off from English Webtoon permanently and one of its authors issuing apology in English on Instagram (you can find its image here).

It enjoys great popularity in its home country though, and its Korean release still gets supportive comments that argue black people are oppressing Asian. You can spot a few people dropping the N-word with a hard R if you go back to the date when this controversy took off. On TV Tropes page, there are some things that raise eyebrows, like No Such Thing as Bad Publicity entry that downplays the incident. For this reason, I say this page needs to be on watch.

Edited by SpaceKABOOM on Feb 4th 2024 at 7:10:04 AM

So WebVideo.Overlord DVD seems a bit too sanitized for my liking. His culture war against the woke agenda is barely mentioned, except as being framed as being against "greedy corporations" and it's really remiss to not mention the fact that most of his fame comes from making wildly inaccurate news claims that never turn out to be true.

Like, the page is written like it's about a pretty interesting skit show and not, some guy making stuff up about Kathleen Kennedy getting fired for hating all men. It just seems like it's grossly misrepresenting the "show."

Just look at the titles of his videos. Yes, he does have a persona and wear a mask, but the videos by-and-large are (mostly made up) news that has a hint of political bias.

Edited by Larkmarn on Mar 5th 2024 at 12:23:11 PM

Really don't know enough about this reviewer to be able to make an input, and his page is super sanitised, but it does set off warning bells. Just really not in the mood for watching his stuff.

... oh, the last entry lists famously apolitical and anti-progress Star Trek among franchises that have been "altered to preach a message or values." Yeahhhh.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Feb 23rd 2024 at 11:04:32 AM

I looked at it and "went insane upon seeing Star Trek: Discovery" is certainly a choice that feels super sanitised in the page.

Trying to think of a better tagline for Literature.The Turner Diaries, because it's a bit too complainy, but I clearly don't support the work. Anyone think of one or does it need to be removed?

Edited by Siegfried1337 on Mar 5th 2024 at 7:26:48 AM

There's also the fact that even with the "masked villain" persona, the great majority of his content is making up rumours and fake scoops about the entertainment industry, and spreading fabricated "news" about popular franchises. All to further his aforementioned agenda.

EDIT: The aforementioned "skits" and in-character "lore" make less than 10% of the actual content.

I honestly don't think the page is worth keeping.

Edited by matruz on Mar 8th 2024 at 1:55:08 PM

Looking back at the discusion to PRLC it and its subpages, UsefulNotes.Conspiracy Theories was not useful (besides maybe a brief definition of the term?) because virtually every single one listed was too fringe or bigoted (the white genocide, Holocaust denial, "Jews control the world") to comply with the Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement. Besides, we have tropes for common conspiracy theories that actually are useful (Who Shot JFK?, the Bermuda Triangle, the Reptilians, among others), and there's always Wikipedia if one wants to see how accurate the more fringe ones are.

Any reason you're supporting the opinion now, given that I haven't really seen any debates on whether to bring it back or not?

Honestly, given that we've nuked the pages on Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, I don't see why we're keeping the ones on Lady Ballers and Johnny the Walrus without at least leaning into the "these works are bigoted garbage" angle the way we did with Victoria and the Turner Diaries

We nuked the pages for the creators because they were just discussing their real-life, non-creative careers as public figures. Not because they're bigots.

Both pages already make it clear they are bigoted garbage I think. They keep a neutral tone but don't shy away from discussing the works messages. The Lady Ballers one could go on more detail in general, but that's because the page is pretty short.

I don't think it's bad to have pages about these kinds of works, I feel it's good to have an open discussion about their contents. I also feel it's easier to do it with these kinds of things that are very open about their message and intention than with things that pretend they aren't bigoted.

The problem with pages for Ben Shaprio and the like wasn't that they have distasteful opinions, but that most of their stuff didn't really count as tropable, mainly just being talking politics. Ballers and Jt W, while having opinions that most of the people on this site likely strongly disagree with, do have a tropable story.

Yeah, I've brought up the Overlord DVD page before, since even ignoring his politics I've always questioned how his content is tropable when it's just generic "anti SJW pop culture news", that's not really something with a narrative. I guess there technically there are characters but they're not really developed or have stories. Other similar channels like The Quartering or Geeks and Gamers don't have pages (nor should they, their content is not tropeable) so IDK why DVD does.

perhaps Overlord DVD should be brought again to the discussion for the chopping block.

I meant to bring this up a while ago after talking about it on ATT, but something off about a movie page I noticed.

I was looking at A Time to Kill about 3 weeks ago, and aside from obvious whataboutism, the page was written by a former troper who was unusually sympathetic to the white supremacist characters while coming off as sarcastic and snarky with Carl and the other protagonists...almost to the point of Complaining About Shows You Don't Like.

I'm not sure if this is the right page to come to, but I think a cleanup is definitely necessary for that page.

Edited by Stardust5099 on May 3rd 2024 at 12:57:14 PM

That page looks mostly okay to me, I'd mainly question the 'Designated Hero' entry on YMMV. It feels very forced on the topic of a film where the whole narrative is based around someone in-universe doing a bad thing - in the eyes of the law, at least - for a very understandable and sympathetic reason. It's possible for a protagonist to be good but do bad things without being a 'designated hero'. I'm not sure about the rest of the page coming off as 'sympathetic to white supremacists' though. Hmm. Except maybe also the Black And Gray Morality bit concerning the KKK Grand Dragon being killed by a molotov cocktail. Calling the guy who threw it a 'Karma Houdini' feels a little... ehhhhhh.

I'd cut the Designated Hero entry having watched the film. Their definetly at least meant to be moral ambiguoty if this was the right decision or not.

I still say that A Time to Kill could use some cleanup as a lot of it raises my eyebrows a bit. Either way, Designated Hero should definitely be removed.

I agree, the troper might have not gotten away with a lot of overt apologism to white supremacy because TV Tropes moderation did its job thankfully, but I do agree there is some awful stuff we should be removing still.

EDIT:

Strawman Has a Point:

• You need not be a racist or a member of the Klan to think that what Carl Lee did was wrong. He openly killed two suspects in a courthouse, before they even had a chance to go to trial, and shot a guard in the leg (albeit unintentionally), resulting in him needing it amputated. If you wanted to, you could argue that this film winds up (whether intentionally or not) advocating vigilantism and mob rule.

Edited by AegisP on May 3rd 2024 at 11:26:52 AM

Yeah, that's another one where it's pretty clear that the film does not consider it a strawman position or portray it as such, and 'You don't need to be a racist to think X' makes it sound kind of like every character in the film who does think X is also explicitly a racist. I'm totally willing to buy that it was just bad phrasing on the troper's part.

I'm not, but the troper already stopped editing so this is as easy as just removing it. Can I?