Badass Israeli: should this still be a thing?

We don't get rid of legit tropes just because they're controversial. A lot of tropes have issues. They're still tropes.

We have far more controversial tropes than this (Blackface-Style Caricature, Eurabia, Asian Buck Teeth). It's entirely possible that Badass Israeli suffers from misuse like many of the Badass tropes (and using a RL example for the page image is probably not the best choice), but legitimate tropes aren't rendered invalid solely due to offensiveness.

I could see it needing to be rewritten to make it less masturbatory about the real-world IDF, but we can't cut it for its implications alone

I agree that the description should be cleaned up to be less like that. We have a thread for description cleanups.

Agreed, we have lots of controversial tropes but the central bit of this article going on and on about the real life IDF even it turns around and mildly deconstructs the perception afterwards is a bit awkward in the current climate. I also note that it says NRLEP in the last couple of sentences but isn't on the NRLEP index. Was that line added unilaterally?

Edited by GracieLizzy on Jan 25th 2024 at 9:15:30 AM

It was apparently decided on the discussion page, which is the wrong place to discuss these things.

For the record I actually agree it should be NRLEP but it should go through the official process. I seem to be unable to find the appropriate thread though.

It's here.

But I don't even know if there was ever a real life example section. If not, we're not actually allowed to put it on a crowner since there's no evidence that it was or will be a problem.

Edit: I re-read the discussion because I skimmed it before and yeah there were examples, so if we can dig those up a case can be made.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jan 25th 2024 at 6:02:35 AM

Looks like it was cut on Dec 19th 2022 following on from the posts on the discussion page you linked:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Main.BadassIsraeli&page=16#edit35394454

Okay, I saw that edit but my eyes kind of glaze over the history when there's that much text so I didn't realize that I was looking at. Yeah, those examples can be brought to the thread.

Done

So back to the description issues. Should we hash those out here before taking them to the description improvement thread? Or just go straight to the thread.

You can go ahead and bring it up in the thread.

It might be relevant to note that badass doesn't mean morally good. If you look at both definitions from Webster, you will notice that they are both described as negative. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/badass

Of course, there has been a semantic shift and TV tropes definition probably reflects more current usage. I still think the term retains much of its original negative connotations, in that it is more often applied to antiheros and characters who use violence, than other characters.

On TV Tropes though the term "Badass" leans positive for the most part.

...yeah I've never heard of it being described in the negative. The tropes reflect that the characters are action stars who can handle conflict and don't crumble easily. Yes, violence is often involved but that's not an inherently bad thing.

I've heard it described as negative...once. I actually found myself questioning why the writers chose badass in that context

I've posted in the Description Improvement thread about the trope:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13164954120A97000100&page=213#comment-5313

Edited by GracieLizzy on Jan 26th 2024 at 7:40:28 PM

Badass, at least on this site, has never had to do with morality. It's more about being tough/cool. Even when applied to anti-heroes, I don't think Badass is meant as a negative. A lot of people find Anti-heroes cool.

Of course people find anti-heroes cool, and think the shift is usage is related to the spread of popularity of anti-heroes. Villains can be badass too. Badass implies a take no prisoner attitude, a certain rebelliousness and aggressiveness. It certainly doesn't mean being nice nor polite, following rules or submitting to authority.

Badasses aren't saints. Being cool isn't the same as being morally good.

Edited by ry4n on Jan 26th 2024 at 2:16:38 AM

Nobody is saying it does, but there's a vast difference between "played negatively" and "not necessarily heroic". You're conflating morality with portrayal whereas a majority of badass tropes and characters are meant to be liked, if not for their morals, for their asskicking abilities. That's just the way it is. You may not think they're great people but they have the virtues of courage, strength, and skill.

It's really not much different than something like Mother Russia Makes You Strong, it's an association of culture and character types.

As for the original question, general policy is to be descriptive of media trends and not try to enforce certain viewpoints. Anyone can claim that "X" trope is offensive now but removing it means absolutely nothing with regards to improving cultural relations. In many cases a relatively neutral description may come across as positive simply because it's not expressly negative. Tropes do get renamed, redefined or fine-tuned according to internal concerns of usage or tone, but it's a process involving wick checks and clean-up efforts.

Here's my two cents - Badass Israeli shouldn't exist, but that's because no nationality/ethnicity/demographic should have their own special Badass trope. Badass Israeli strikes me as closer to the now defunct tropes like Badass Gay or Badass Grandpa than anything else. Badass + a demographic should not a trope make. Badass Israeli makes about as much sense to me as "Badass Lithuanian" or "Badass Zimbabwean" (and to get into arguments over which countries/ethnicities "deserve" one more would just be a hotbed of Misplaced Nationalism). For a while now there's been an agreement that most of the current "Badass" tropes are Chairs and have no reason to exist (hence the disambiguation of the aforementioned Gay and Grandpa variants), I see no reason why Israeli shouldn't be headed towards the same fate. (It also might not be a bad idea to look through that Russian one too to see if that has the same problems).

Edited by MissConduct on Jan 28th 2024 at 11:03:09 AM

For me, it's in the same category as Awesome Aussie, Mother Russia Makes You Strong and Brave Scot. And, on the flip side, Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys.

It exists, as do most of the National Stereotypes, because people keep using it as shorthand in media. It's a trope, so we trope it.

I personally think there's a strong argument that none of these should allow RL examples, but that's already up for voting on Badass Israeli.

Would I support a Badass Zimbabwean TLP proposal if that became a recurring trope in media? Probably, yeah.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 28th 2024 at 4:15:34 PM