No Animals Were Harmed tropes two completely different things

The TLDR: This page contains both fictitious parodies of the "no animals were harmed" disclaimer, and trivia regarding real animal cruelty incidents on films. These are depicted side-by-side, when they are really two very different things worthy of their own individual pages.

I was doing an entry pimp for We Eat Our Own, which has an in-universe example of a dog being killed for a film. I was going to add the example to No Animals Were Harmed, but didn't know where to put it, due to how the trope seems to accept two different definitions. Under the section for straight examples, it mainly lists uses of the standard "no animals were harmed" disclaimer you see at the end of movies and shows, such as:

• A disclaimer at the end of Michael Jackson's music video for "Earth Song" says that no animals were harmed during the making of the video, though an unnamed poacher had killed an elephant within a mile of the shot.

It also shows parodies of such disclaimers, such as:

• The music video for Tomboy's "It's OK To Be Gay" ends with the disclaimer "No straight people were harmed during the production of this music video".

However, the real life folder for this section includes two real animal cruelty accusations in sports, which seemingly don't fall under straight disclaimers or their parodies (put in a folder because they're quite long):

• Billy Mays voice* But wait, there's more! As I said, these are all under the section for straight examples. There is a section under that for aversions, which lists real-life examples of animals being killed for films. Here are a few examples from the Film folder-I've put them in a folder here both for space and in case sensitive readers don't want to read such things:

There's more, but you get the idea. I'm pretty sure that most of these films don't feature the disclaimer that the first half of the article discusses, and so their inclusion would only be relevant if such films had the disclaimer in spite of animal cruelty actually happening (and in such a case, might be better suited to a "Real Life" folder rather than a "Film" one).

But, confusingly, the "Aversions" section also lists parodies that don't differ much from the first half's examples! Here's the folder for Video Game examples of "aversions" in its entirety:

All of these not only are clearly fictitious, but differ little from the parody versions of the trope under the straight examples. (Hell, the Pajama Sam one isn't even an in-universe aversion.) Same goes for the Webcomics and Web Original "aversions". Not only do they not belong under that section, but it feels wrong to list them alongside actual examples of animal cruelty, or Played for Drama in-universe aversions.

Personally, I think the trope should be split into a trope and a Trivia item. The Trope would list examples of the "no animals were harmed" disclaimer, parodies of it (including the video game, webcomic, and web original "aversions"), and maybe a Real Life folder for films that lied about keeping their animals safe. To avoid misuse, it should be renamed, either to No Animals Were Harmed Disclaimer, or No Tropes Were Harmed, or some other more specific variation. The Trivia page, meanwhile, would be a subtrope of Fatal Method Acting that, as that page does for human deaths, would mostly list real-life examples (including the horse and greyhound examples currently listed as straight examples-we could add a "Sports" folder), and have a section for in-universe examples of animal cruelty in entertainment (like the We Eat Our Own example I wanted to add).

Bumping this again, I think it's a legit issue.

Maybe Parody Disclaimer could be a separate trope? Also, I don't think trivia can be played with, so the aversions should probably all go.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Jan 1st 2024 at 7:45:40 PM

The trope isn't trivia though; it just weirdly lumps true uses in with the parody stuff.

There's a bit of a problem in that a disclaimer of this sort is not a trope, it's paratext, but when parodied it becomes a comedy trope. So we're actually putting two different things together, despite one deriving from the other.

I would suggest clearing out the aversions (they might go on a separate Trivia article, but don't belong on something that's specifically about the disclaimer and not about animal harm). The straight examples may be worth keeping, but the general ones might go on a Useful Notes about the treatment of animals in productions. The bulk of the examples should be parodies or variants like On Body and Soul.

Yes, exactly as War Jay 77 said, it's supposed to be a comedy trope (the page description even says that it's a form of Credits Gag), but for some reason a large portion of the page is dedicated to listing real instances of animal cruelty, as though it's Trivia instead. I still like the idea of splitting it into two tropes, one the comedy credits gag subtype (ie what the current trope is supposed to be), and then create a Trivia page that the real-life examples currently under "aversions" can be moved to.

In the case of the comedy trope, I think the name should be changed to discourage the addition of straight examples like the "Earth Song" one (which as Reymma said are paratext) and the real-life examples. On the Permanent Red Link Club page, there's a whole folder full of tropes whose names caused them to be misused, prompting renames. That might be necessary here. Maybe we could call it "No Tropes Were Harmed" or something catchier to make it obvious that this is a comedy trope.

Anyway, I agree with Reymma that the aversions should be removed from the page. I can go ahead and do that, and the subsequent Wick Check, if nobody objects.

Using "trope" as a placeholder is a deprecated practice, which is a shame as I'd prefer the comedy trope to have a name close to, but not identical, to the original disclaimer. The trivia entry I'd want to call something like Animal Cruelty In Fiction, but maybe something less dry if possible.

No Animals were harmed Gag, maybe?

...or a trope whose name ends in "In Fiction" because it would imply that it is automatically NRLEP.

Speaking of which, a trope could be made about abusive marine mammal parks, safaris, and zoos. It would have fictional examples, documentary examples, and real-life examples.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 8th 2024 at 1:36:28 PM

I really don't like the idea of troping abusive zoos and marine parks. One, pretty much every example would fall under troping real life. At least the real examples of animal mistreatment in film and Tv are tied to the making of narrative works. Such a trope would also be subject to so many flame wars: a lot of people believe that zoos are inherently bad, and I can see people baselessly adding any public place with captive animals to the list. Plus, the "Other" page for So Bad Its Horrible already includes an abusive real-life zoo exhibit, so any similar examples could just be added to that page.

I like "No Animals Were Harmed Gag", easily establishes it as a comedy trope

Perhaps the abusive marine mammal park and zoo trope could be made NRLEP for being controversial, but examples of fictional abusive marine mammal parks and zoos would be permitted.

Edited by Nen_desharu on Jan 8th 2024 at 5:12:46 AM

Guys, new trope ideas go here. Let's stay on topic.