This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Solandra: There was a bit on the Vindicated by History YKTTW about splitting the Forgotten By History counterexample into its own entry. I'm not sure how common or recognized this one is; if enough examples are given of it, I can make the separate entry.
Fast Eddie: This ...
- A generation , and the rest is history.
Solandra: Whoops! <quickly changes it>
Yoshi348: The second paragraph seems rather cynical. More importantly it seems to be giving the impression that all of the examples are just popular because critics are finding a way to congratulate themselves and that there's no examples of movies that actually were overlooked but were quite good.
Lale: Yeah, why the rant?
Solandra: That was just me getting a little too much into the cynical critic's shoes. My imagination tends to run before my fingers at times... Anyway, I rewrote that to make it more balanced.
Later: Now that I look at it, that entire middle paragraph reads as a separate trope: The more hyped-up a work becomes, the greater the ensuing backlash or negativity becomes, out of sheer frustration or resentment from those who just see it as "good" or "mediocre." I remember reading a critic's column about how The Blair Witch Project received almost unanimous praise when it was only in a handful of theaters; only when it went mainstream did the backlash become intense. It's not the same as Hype Aversion, which is about hype causing indifference, not backlash. Do we have a trope about popularity-induced backlash?
Still later: Aaaand just made the Hype Backlash entry.
Black Drazon: The entry on The Hobbit's publication history seems to be contradicted by a cited point in Wikipedia (here
) that says it sold out in its first printing! Any thoughts?
Scud East: Good catch. I've added that link to the entry.
Charred Knight: I changed the Lord Of The Ring entry to note that its talking about non English speaking countries. It was the founding foundation of the entire English fantasy genre.
Nobodymuch: As the saying goes it's an honor just to be nominated. It's not that The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane weren't respected at the time. It's just that "How Green Was My Valley" was discredited by history.
Scud East: Deleted the following, at least until history gets a bit longer:
- The first Harry Potter book had a print run of a few hundred. They're now disappearing from the school libraries they were sold to.
- Harry Potter isn't vindicated by history though, and in twenty years, it will be forgotten, by and large. It shows all the signs of passing popularity.
- Then again, that's what they said about Pokemon 10 years ago.
- Hell, that's what they said about television in it's infancy.
- Calm down. It hasnt been vindicated by history or completly forgotten yet, and by the nature of this trope it's rather hard to tell which way it will go.
- Harry Potter isn't vindicated by history though, and in twenty years, it will be forgotten, by and large. It shows all the signs of passing popularity.
Zeke: Okay, this is yet another page that shouldn't have Real Life examples, but I'm going to settle for removing the most blatantly asinine:
- Many Republican talk show hosts/listeners will use this argument to defend George W. Bush's legacy. They have yet to admit the same applies to people they bash, though.
- It's amusing when you realize that Bush hasn't been mentioned by anyone but these Republican talk show host/listeners since Obama was elected. It's almost as if he's been forgotten. And, if you take the Buchanan example from above into account, attempting to invoke this trope means an automatic failure.
- A few of the nuttiest of the wingnuts try this with Joseph Mccarthy.
The Bush items deserve no comment, but as for McCarthy, this trope both applies and doesn't. McCarthy's accusations have been somewhat vindicated — the fact is, there were Russian spies among the people he investigated. We've known that for years now. But McCarthy was such a bastard that he himself will never be vindicated.
zhirzzh That's because he investigated so goddamn MANY.
