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for ongoing cleanup projects.
- My original post to the Scrappy cleanup thread
. No responses yet.
- Post to Reality TV cleanup thread, with a couple of responses but no consensus.
- Post to the NRLEP criteria thread, with one troper responding.
I don't think you're overthinking it. While contestants can be The Scrappy based on how they are portrayed in the show itself, their social media presence and other out-of-show appearances are often a factor in the opinions of fans, and producers can't account for that.
I think it's possible for the producers to edit footage to try to show a positive narrative for a contestant, and for whatever reason the audience doesn't like them.
Allowing the person's activity off the show, unrelated to the show, to factor into Scrappiness seems to me akin to a film character considered The Scrappy because people don't like the actor's offscreen behavior.
Edited by Tabs
^ And that's a scenario The Scrappy intro specifically calls out as the X-Pac Heat trope, so not really TheScrappy?
(As per the "If the character is hated because people hate the actor portraying the character" scenario explained under TheScrappy's "Hated for narrative reasons" bullet)
The precedent that comes to mind is that Game Shows were deemed Real Life such What an Idiot! was deemed not allowed for them. Not sure how much that applies.
I'd personally say such should should be disallowed because how much is narrative (editing) or RL is overly speculative (and oft overlaps with Elimination Houdini) and the line here is too subjective even for YMMV. But this should be taken to The Scrappy Cleanup to ask about.
Like I said in the Reality TV discussion here, a problem I see is that several examples are for contestants that were not portrayed in a positive light, so that automatically fails the unintentional requirement.
As to the issue in the whole, I'm also of the mind to disallow Reality TV due to how difficult it would be to separate post-show appearances and social media with the actual show appearance and because it seems to be a hot button issue — people get sucked into the drama that is played up in reality tv and want to make sure the contestant they dislike gets an entry on The Scrappy, regardless of if they fit the criteria or not.
Edited by Hello83433 CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors
i feel like i recall discussion saying that on drag race the performers are considered characters when they're in drag so they draw a clear line between the actual person and their character (not sure if it was resolved but there was even talk to remove any mentions of their actual names for privacy). i think that might make a bit different from most other game shows because everyone is explicitly in-character, like with pro wrestling. that kind of raises the question of whether it should be allowed for pro wrestling too, though, since ultimately it's still troping about hating people in real life for how they're depicted in a fictional context...
Edited by NoUsername
I still stand by my posts on the actual thread (where this discussion should ideally take place, as ATT can't exactly just change the rules) — that as long as the examples focus on the "character" as portrayed on the show (and not outside of it) and otherwise fit the criteria (which means that yes, intentional Hate Sink editing shouldn't count), they aren't breaking the rules... and I don't think it's as difficult to judge the line as people are saying.
Everything kept on a published reality show is part of the story the producers want to tell. Even raw, realistic, serious moments are kept in, edited, and portrayed to fit a certain agenda — even that agenda is just to make the audience feel something.
And note that I am specifically talking about Reality TV, not Game Shows (which are much less likely to be given a narrative other than "person or people play a wacky game").
Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Thanks for all the feedback.
I agree that threads like the Scrappy cleanup and Reality TV show cleanup are where this should ideally be progressed (IMO, it sits across both of those) - that's where it started and links to both are in the first comment.
They're quiet threads, though, so that didn't seem to build a consensus when first attempted (e.g. still no replies on the Scrappy one).
I'll go back to them to bump the original posts and include a link to this ATT. It'd be great if more tropers were able to join the conversation there.
Edited by Mrph1
Since the question is "How does Scrappy relate to reality TV", a scope question that involves two rather thorny topics, it may be wiser to start a separate Trope Talk thread so people are not bouncing between the two.
^ Thank you - will take that approach.
I'll post a thread link here once it's created.
(After that, this can probably be locked?)
Edited by Mrph1
Finally launched that Trope Talk thread, so I think this can be locked.
(If it ends up with a crowner, that probably warrants an ATT post of its own, not a comment on this one)
Bringing this over to ATT because the relevant threads have been pretty quiet and I'd value more feedback (and possibly a mod opinion) - apologies, as it's a long one.
The Scrappy is a YMMV trope for fictional characters who are unintentionally but consistently hated by most fans of the work, and that hate must be due to narrative reasons within the work. It's a No Real Life trope and the trope description reinforces this with a direct "real people do not count" statement.
Which brings us to Reality TV... we consider reality shows tropeable if they have a narrative created by judicious editing. And we will, within certain limits, trope contestants as if they are fictional characters.
(In terms of those limits - I understand that we won't use tropes like Spicy Latina or The Twink based purely on audience perception of the contestant's 'character', only if they are discussed or otherwise used/invoked within the work)
We currently have numerous examples where contestants in shows like Big Brother and RuPaul's Drag Race are troped as TheScrappy. Drag Race even has its own subpage for them.
(We even have some examples where reality show judges and presenters are TheScrappy - although that one feels like clear misuse to me, as they're no more "in character" than a comedian, gameshow host or talkshow host... and I'm reasonably sure we wouldn't trope those examples due to NRLEP?)
In some cases, the Scrappy example text is explicitly drawing on things outside the work (e.g. news coverage, the contestant's social media posts, political views or appearances at conventions and in other, unrelated works).
However, even if we clean them up and remove all direct mention of those outside factors from examples, we know that they're relevant to some fans and are still contributing to whether or not someone is seen as TheScrappy - which is not a consideration for a true fictional character with no existence beyond the work.
In a similar vein, the audience reaction in many of these cases doesn't stop at the boundaries of the show. Drag Race contestants who become TheScrappy don't suddenly shake off that negative audience reaction because they're performing outside Drag Race, for example.
A couple of Drag Race Scrappy examples mention queens quitting drag entirely as a consequence of this sort of backlash. Others mention queens being Rescued from the Scrappy Heap due to winning back fans on social media, activity outside the boundaries of the show.
Adding to all that, we say we can trope Reality TV contestants as characters because there's a constructed narrative... but the whole point of TheScrappy is that although it's based on events in the work, it's unintentional hate, not deliberately shaped by the creators.
To me, that sounds very much like there's no clear dividing line and 'The Scrappy' is bleeding into Real Life.
...and we already have a specific trope for cases where an audience reaction extends past the character and the work into hate for the performer - X-Pac Heat.
However, X-Pac Heat is specifically limited to Professional Wrestling examples because, to quote the page "It's too contentious. Listing any other examples would invite bashing of Real Life people"
...and my concern is that this is exactly what we're doing by troping real people who appear in reality shows as The Scrappy and its related tropes.
Am I overthinking this?
Edited by Mrph1