Overshadowed By Controversy Cleanup

I feel like the 4chan mention can stay (though without the EEHS pothole), as the fact that even the notoriously controversial website had to ban discussions of it lends to the film being very controversial.

Is it even a rule? I can't find it listed on the official rules for 4chan. They actually have stricter rules about posting stuff about My Little Pony than Cuties.

I was just going by the above posts, if there's no actual evidence that discussion was banned than the mention can go.

There is a possibility that they at least restricted/banned discussion of the film when it had first come out, but not as much now that it's been nearly 4 years since its release.

Really, that sounds like a very 4chan thing: they don't have enough moderators to police discussion so they blanket ban certain words. Moderation there is usually light but can be heavy-handed when they do get involved. I don't think it's worth mentioning, 4chan may seem like an unmoderated free-for-all but moderation is there, it just doesn't operate the way we're used to today.

There may be a trend in the entertainment industry worth noting to potentially cover. Remember how valid criticism of Ghostbusters (2016) led to Sony allegedly slandering and removing criticism by claiming that the critics were being racist and sexist? Other studios have started copying Sony's strategy and applying it in the defense of other works, not just in films, but in TV series and video games as well.

I'm not commentating on whether it counts since I regretably used to be on the "anti-SJW" (misogynist) side bashing the film back in 2016. I mostly remember the controversy when I think of the film, alongside it apparently being terrible (haven't seen it), but I was one of the people bashing it because anti-feminists (misogynists) told me to. I don't know if it applies to normal people.

Yeaaah, I'm not sure how much of that criticism I would label as "valid".

I mean, some of it was (a lot of people found it unfunny, sexist towards the male assistant, and racist) but it was definitely also being targeted by misogynists.

I don't see the point of adding that to the trope's description anyway

Okay, that was uncalled for.

I’m pretty sure we can discuss such things with civility and with nuance without going off on angry rants.

Edited by PlasmaPower on May 12th 2024 at 4:55:17 AM

That's more Dear Negative Reader than this. Doesn't seem worth adding to an already beefy description, at least as opposed to something more broad about companies responding to controversies because they get too big to ignore.

In all honesty I missed the first part of the conversation and thought we were discussing this as a potential example for the movie, not as something for the description. I agree it has no place there, it's asking for trouble regardless of how valid or not the criticisms actually are.

All politics aside, I don't think such allegations fall under this trope unless they're particularly notable or infamous. This trope is called "Overshadowed by Controversy", not "Controversy Happens".

I do think Ghostbusters 2016 was overshadowed by how it became a major culture war target at the time for anti-feminists. It doesn’t really matter how much of it was valid or not, though obviously much of it wasn’t.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on May 13th 2024 at 10:12:52 AM

Yeah, but we're not discussing if the movie is an example or not right now.

The topic of the movie came up when 6f5e4d proposed to include a mention of that controversy on the trope's description as an example of "a trend started by Sony" of "allegedly slandering and removing criticism by claiming that the critics were being racist and sexist".

Which I think it's a bad idea and doesn't even have anything to do with this trope.

That I do agree with.

Does anyone think that SiIvaGunner might merit an entry for the "Puzzle Room" incident (as described on ScreamerPrank.Web Original)? It provoked a remarkable backlash in the channel's (relatively) early history, but its lingering relevance over the years seems to be due to the channel embracing the controversy over it.

I don't know. It's definitely a controversy, and even unedited versions of the music have people associating it with the rip, but I'm pretty sure you can talk about the channel without bringing it up.

Edited by KingofNightmares on May 15th 2024 at 12:47:47 PM

I don't know why THIS comment prompted me to think of a potential unrelated example for this trope so thank you .

Speaking of "would this count since you can still talk about the show without bringing up the actual controversy," I have two examples for Aussie tropers - would the Jackson Jive incident from Hey Hey Its Saturday and the turkey slap incident from Big Brother AU 2006 fit the bill? (I recall that the former did overshadow the rest of the revival for Hey Hey and may have played a role in its cancellation (the other factors being that it had not aged well in general and production costs) while the latter led to the cancellation of a companion show that was airing at the time)

I've heard of Silva Gunner but not the Screamer Prank. Sounds more like No Such Thing as Bad Publicity, so I'm leaning no.

Edited by DDRMASTERM on May 15th 2024 at 11:01:03 AM

I associate Silva Gunner with Nutshack memes and the like. I've heard of the "Puzzle Room" thing but I knew about other stuff first; it's not even the main controversy I know about the channel (I think of the Caillou thing first).

I am asking about this entry I added to Jane the Killer: The Real Story:

• Overshadowed by Controversy: Jane Arkansaw has gotten infamous by Jane Richardson author MrAngryDog accusing Arkansaw's Pastastalker64 of plagarism. It doesn't help that the DeviantArt user who apologized to MrAngryDog turned out to be an imposter, as Pastastalker64 wants to avoid the spotlight.

I found this on YMMV.Atelier Meruru The Apprentice Of Arland which I'm unsure of:

• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • If you've heard about the game upwards of five years since its release, it's hard to not also hear about the infamous controversy regarding Rorona being de-aged into an 8-year-old because both Astrid and the developers agreed that nobody would want to see her as an Old Maid. Since the original release didn't include any ending that actually fixed her situation and conversely included two that indulged the Ephebophile stance even further, it resulted in so much fan backlash that Gust had to visibly overcompensate to make up for the mistake. With Lulua having no problem showing off Rorona in her thirties as a mom, Meruru's association with what's now considered to be an embarrassingly low point of misogyny on Gust's part was a large factor in it being Condemned by History.
  • In Japan, the game ended up attracting a lot of negative press when the high amount of Fanservice got the CERO ratings board to mandate a re-rating, temporarily suspending shipments and getting Gust reprimanded for not sending enough materials when submitting it for its initial rating. In the end, the re-rating only brought it up from A (all ages) to B (12+), something that was hardly that big of a deal since some of the previous games had also gotten a B (let alone the fact that future rereleased versions and mainline games would end up getting Bs or even Cs as the CERO got more stringent over time)... but the fact the incident happened at all remained associated with the game in Japanese public memory, which didn't help the franchise's reputation for being skeevier than it actually is.