History Main / CaptainObviousAesop

** One of the many Aesops given out by the Grand Ruler can be summed up as "There are different ways to solve problems."

A staple of {{Glurge}}, AuthorTract, PropagandaPiece, and any time there's a WriterOnBoard. The Aesop is also likely to convince the other characters in an EasyEvangelism moment.

[[folder:Comics]]

* ''Film/TheRoom'': Tommy Wiseau claims the message of the film is "If a lot of people love each other, the world would be a better place to live", which his character Johnny in fact [[{{Anvilicious}} baldly states]] at one point in the film. Doubles as a BrokenAesop; Wiseau claims this lesson is presented through Denny's secret love for Lisa, something that is depicted as bad in the film since both characters are in committed relationships.

-->'''Mr. Mackey:''' DrugsAreBad. [[CircularReasoning Because doing drugs is a bad thing to do.]] If you do drugs, you are a bad person. So don't do drugs. [[CatchPhrase Mmkay?]]

* ''Literature/BathHaus'' includes a passage explaining why it is immoral to make snuff pornography.

* In ''WebAnimation/TheCrystalGemsSayBeAntiRacist'', each short opens with a [[StylisticSuck childishly simple]] anti-racism PSA being shot [[AnimatedActors in-universe]], but when the camera stops rolling the PSA continues with a more deep-dive into the specifics of how society is racist. For example, Pearl's PSA about how black inventor Lewis Latimer was the real father of the light-bulb ends with her going on a rant about how figures of Black history like Latimer are ignored and unknown in the first place because of systemic racism in America's education system.

* ''Film/SuperSizeMe'' is often accused of having the obvious aesop that eating excessive amounts of fast food isn't healthy. Within the film, Spurlock lampshades this reading and stresses that the point is to show just ''how'' bad it is for you, which is depicted as surprising even to his doctors. In addition, the larger message of the film is about how fast food has become such an ingrained aspect of American culture, not just about a guy going on a fast food binge.

%% * ''WesternAnimation/DoubleDragon'' tended to stick to really obvious morals in it's frequent [[VerySpecialEpisode %%Very Special Episodes]], such as "racism is wrong" or "drugs are bad". Worse yet, the show was prone to redundancy; %%the moral of "drugs are bad" gets told ''twice'' within a few episodes.

[[caption-width-right:307:I believe that captions are useful and {{wordcruft}} is bad.]]

* The moral of ''Film/{{The Purge}}'' is that making all crime legal for one day a year is not a good idea.

* In ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'', a salesman tries to sell a customer a T-shirt that reads "Unplug". He painstakingly describes what the shirt means, talking about how real experiences are more important than money. The guy agrees to buy the shirt, if only the salesman is less honest about his business model.

->'''Simon Skinner:''' I'm simply suggesting that young Peter be given a second chance, before he becomes just another crime statistic. I'm sure he's going to learn a valuable lesson.
->'''Sgt. Tony:''' Stealing biscuits is... wrong?

* Happens on ''Series/DoctorPhil'' often. Usually he ends up telling people something that they should already know, like that it's not okay to cheat on your wife, or it's bad to abuse your family, or that child molestation is horrible. But the people on the show will act like he's telling them something radical that they've never considered and will be belligerent to the end.

[[folder:New Media]]
* If you are on Facebook, you've seen your "friends" asking everyone to put in their status that they support things like "Don't abuse animals". After a while, it gets [[{{Anvilicious}} more annoying than thought-provoking]].
** There are also countless pictures going around with this message. The ones of a soldier or a soldier's funeral will say something like "1 LIKE = 1 PRAYER TO THE FAMILY", and the pictures of sick children (usually bald due to cancer, but for some reason children with progeria are also common) saying "Like if you think this kid is the most beautiful child ever!" It gets kind of weird because very few people would say that a soldier deserves to die or that children with terminal illnesses are ugly.
** In short, think of them as {{Glurge}}-tastic new forms of {{chain letter}}s.
** Usually tagged with something like "LIKE and SHARE if you think kitten-burning is a terrible thing!", as if to imply that if you don't immediately hit the "like" and "share" buttons you must necessarily think kitten-burning (bullying, child abuse, name it) is a WONDERFUL thing that everyone should try.
** This trope is actually [[ExploitedTrope exploited]] by the controversial political group Britain First. Their pages have their political views in between such things as infographics decrying animal cruelty, anti-paedophilia memes, support our troops/football team memes, don't leave dogs in hot cars memes, etc, so that many will like/share those and then get sucked in to the political views.
* The ''[[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2008/10/08/false-witnesses-2/ Slacktivist]]'' refers to this as the "Anti Kitten-Burning Coalition", who use it as a means to justify their TautologicalTemplar tendencies.
-->... the weird part: Most of the commenters and letter-writers didn't seem to ''notice'' that they were expressing a unanimous and noncontroversial sentiment. Their comments and letters were contentious and sort of aggressively defensive. Or maybe defensively aggressive.
[[/folder]]

%% [[folder:Professional Wrestling]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* Brought up in [[http://www.syacartoonist.com/comic/quote-unquote this strip of]] ''Webcomic/SoYoureACartoonist'' Andrew says he's thinking of making a comic addressing terrorism or gun control. His friend argues that criticizing something everyone already hates takes no real effort. Andrew thus decides to give himself a challenge and [[FlameWar deliberately unleash a flame war]]... about [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Mario]].
* In ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'', a salesman tries to sell a customer a T-shirt that reads "Unplug". He painstakingly describes what the shirt means, talking about how real experiences are more important than money. The guy agrees to buy the shirt, if only the salesman is less honest about his business model.

* In ''20 Socially Unacceptable Things'' by [[WebVideo/MatthewSantoro Matt Santoro]], Matt tells the audience that it's bad to pick your nose.
* In ''WebAnimation/TheCrystalGemsSayBeAntiRacist'', each short opens with a [[StylisticSuck childishly simple]] anti-racism PSA being shot [[AnimatedActors in-universe]], but when the camera stops rolling the PSA continues with a more deep-dive into the specifics of how society is racist. For example, Pearl's PSA about how black inventor Lewis Latimer was the real father of the light-bulb ends with her going on a rant about how figures of Black history like Latimer are ignored and unknown in the first place because of systemic racism in America's education system.
* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic tends to rip into movies for this. In his review of ''Film/TheCell'', he's rather baffled at what the audience is supposed to take out of the scenes which [[spoiler:show that the serial killer was beaten as a child, by his father]]. The Critic seems to find it a given that most everyone already knows that [[spoiler:child abuse]] is bad, and the people who still do it aren't exactly gonna be swayed by some movie.

* Creator/LindsayEllis' video on [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU1ffHa47YY "Woke Disney"]] argues that most of modern Creator/{{Disney}}'s pretensions towards cultural liberalism ultimately amount to this. Instead of seriously grappling with issues of racial, gender, and economic inequality in ways that might risk framing major corporations (like Disney) and the economic system as a whole as [[InherentInTheSystem fundamentally unjust]] and needing to be heavily reformed, they present only the most cartoonishly obvious manifestations of societal problems in order to boil the solutions down to simple slogans that most people probably already agreed with and which [[RuleAbidingRebel won't actually challenge the status quo]].
* Leon Thomas of ''WebVideo/RenegadeCut'' has argued [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VVYoqaz74A something similar]] with regards to ''Series/DowntonAbbey''. In that case, the show is more up-front about its conservative politics and nostalgia for the aristocracy and UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire (the ShowRunner is a Conservative peer in the House of Lords), and he feels that this extends to its moments of liberalism, which apply mainly to issues like women's rights and gay rights where, in 2010s Britain, the debates were largely settled.

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'': Everyone knows that [[GreenAesop dumping an oil tanker in the ocean is a bad idea,]] yet everyone keeps going on about it. The writers reportedly did this on purpose, since more nuanced villains might have been too close to home--i.e., companies their young viewers' parents worked for, or they might fall squarely into StrawmanHasAPoint if they allowed a realistic portrayal of an oil executive being upset at what his employees were doing.

--->'''Reporter:''' What are your thoughts on world hunger?
--->'''Lois:''' 9/11 was bad.
--->''[The crowd loudly cheers.]''
--->'''Reporter:''' What are your thoughts on gun control?
--->'''Lois:''' 9... 11.
--->''[The crowds cheers again.]''
** They elect her mayor without a second thought.

Obviously there's {{Truth in Television}} here. ValuesDissonance can sometimes result in this, if the Aesop really ''was'' revolutionary and controversial for its time/place. Also, some Aesops are uncontroversial when spoken as a plain statement, but have an implicit, less-widely-agreed-to message, such as "We're not yet doing enough about this." For example, it's easy to say "Bigotry is bad", but programs designed to help disadvantaged minorities, like affirmative action and hate crime legislation, are polarizing political issues with no clear right or wrong answers. "Wars are bad" is an uncontroversial message, but "this particular war is bad and we should stop fighting it" will likely lead to accusations of treason. Not to mention that even the most moral of people can get [[JadedWashout burnt out on idealism]] and start [[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence resenting the people they're still supposed to help as whiners and nuisances]] - and therefore, might have to learn to be compassionate all over again, or at least have their initial altruism reinforced. And, of course, TropesAreNotBad; while no one might be arguing in favor of people getting cancer, a story that points out that cancer is bad is still not wrong to do so, and can still be moving if it effectively shows ''why'' cancer is bad.

Obviously there's {{Truth in Television}} here. ValuesDissonance can sometimes result in this, if the Aesop really ''was'' revolutionary and controversial for its time/place. Also, some Aesops are uncontroversial when spoken as a plain statement, but have an implicit, less-widely-agreed-to message, such as "We're not yet doing enough about this." For example, it's easy to say "Bigotry is bad", but programs designed to help disadvantaged minorities, like affirmative action and hate crime legislation, are polarizing political issues with no clear right or wrong answers. "Wars are bad" is an uncontroversial message, but "this particular war is bad and we should stop fighting it" will likely lead to accusations of treason. Not to mention that even the most moral of people can get [[JadedWashout burnt out on idealism]] and start [[FeelingOppressedByTheirExistence resenting the people they're still supposed to help as whiners and nuisances]] - and therefore, might have to learn to be compassionate all over again, or at least have their initial altruism reinforced.

This trope is PlayedForLaughs quite often, hence why so many of these examples are parodies, but [[UndeadHorseTrope straight examples are still fairly common]]. This may lead to an AnvilOfTheStory.

Compare {{Anvilicious}}, AndThatsTerrible, StockAesops, BrokenAesop, and DrugsAreBad. Contrast HardTruthAesop and SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped. Also contrast with LostAesop, when the story seems forget that it was trying to give a moral. See also WindmillCrusader, where a character takes a stand against a non-existent problem. Can sometimes overlap with CluelessAesop, where a story attempts to give a moral but misunderstands/misapplies it or simply isn't in a good position to give it anyway.

* Happens on ''Series/DoctorPhil'' often. Usually he ends up telling people something that they should already know, like that it's not okay to cheat on your wife, or it's bad to abuse your family, or that child molestation is horrible. But the people on the show will act like he's telling them something radical that they've never considered and will be belligerent to the end. Of course, since he deals with people that actually ''do'' these things, it's a case of SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped.

* ''Literature/RWBYFairyTalesOfRemnant'': The fairy tale "The Man Who Stared at the Sun" has numerous aesops, depending on the version. The earliest version (which is reproduced in the book) is about sacrificing something important to get what you want; the man was blinded by staring at the sun, but pretended he could still see to win their staring contest. Another version is about cunning and trickery, with an already blind man tricking the sun into a staring contest knowing he had nothing to lose. Ozpin mentions another version with a simpler aesop: Don't stare at the sun.

* ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'': The most reductive message of Rey's arc in this movie is "being related to an evil person doesn't guarantee you'll be evil". It's not a bad Aesop exactly but given the context, most viewers hardly expected [[AllLovingHero Rey]] to turn to the Dark Side just because she discovered [[spoiler:her [[LongLostRelative long-lost grandpa]] is the Dark Lord of the Sith]]. The worst things she's done are ''accidentally'' blowing up a transport she ''thought'' contained her friend and angrily stabbing [[spoiler:an unarmed Kylo Ren]] (who had nearly killed her and whom she [[SaveTheVillain immediately heals]]), almost everyone believes her to be a good person and [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre tells her so]] (including those that know her family history), the one person who insists the Dark Side is "in [her] nature" is a villain who is [[PsychologicalProjection heavily projecting]], plus she only learned she was related to [[spoiler:Palpatine]] a few ''hours'' ago.

* ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' argues that even if human emotion causes problems, it's still worth it. So if you were planning on turning all of humanity into emotionless automatons, think again!

* ''WesternAnimation/DoubleDragon'' tended to stick to really obvious morals in it's frequent [[VerySpecialEpisode Very Special Episodes]], such as "racism is wrong" or "drugs are bad". Worse yet, the show was prone to redundancy; the moral of "drugs are bad" gets told ''twice'' within a few episodes.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}}''[='=]s pilot had the aesop "Slavery is bad." Really, there weren't enough plot points or other threads for the moral to be anything else. The "Taunting someone for a skin-blemish" potential moral is never closed. Nope. Slavery is bad.

* ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'': The most reductive message of Rey's arc in this movie is "being related to an evil person doesn't guarantee you'll be evil". It's not a bad Aesop exactly but given the context, most viewers hardly expected [[AllLovingHero Rey]] to turn to the Dark Side just because she discovered [[spoiler:her [[LongLostRelative long-lost grandpa]] is the Dark Lord of the Sith]]. The worst things she's done are ''accidentally'' blowing up a transport she ''thought'' contained her friend and angrily stabbing an unarmed Kylo Ren (who had nearly killed her and whom she [[SaveTheVillain immediately heals]]), almost everyone believes her to be a good person and [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre tells her so]] (including those that know her family history), the one person who insists the Dark Side is "in [her] nature" is a villain who is [[PsychologicalProjection heavily projecting]], plus she only learned she was related to [[spoiler:Palpatine]] a few ''hours'' ago.