History Main / IssueDrift

* Darryl Worley's first album was dominated by polished ballads. But after having a monster hit in 2003 with the post-9/11 anthem "Have You Forgotten?", he began inserting patriotic/military themes into songs on his next albums. This includes "Awful, Beautiful Life", which despite being an otherwise SliceOfLife song, shoehorns in a reference to "Cousin Michael in Iraqu", and the self-explanatory "I Just Came Back from a War" in late 2006-early 2007.
* More emphatically than that is Music/TobyKeith, who, after the aggressively jingoistic "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" in 2002, began inserting political themes into his later material. His next album (unsubtly titled ''Shock'n Y'all'' as a {{pun}} on the term "shock and awe", which was popularized during UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror) contained the hit single "American Soldier" (which was at least more subtle in its patriotism, and built it up with a TwistEnding) and the self-explanatory "Taliban Song". And while he backed off for a while, he returned to the patriotism well in 2009 with "American Ride", and again in 2011 with "Made in America".

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129478 This]] MegaCrossover began as a work of StylisticSuck that mocked the author's OldShame fanfiction, but gradually becomes more and more about bitterly criticizing the YaoiGenre, [[YaoiFangirl its fans]], and Creator/JKRowling.

[[folder:Comic Books]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* [[https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129478 This]] MegaCrossover began as a work of StylisticSuck that mocked the author's OldShame fanfiction, but gradually becomes more and more about bitterly criticizing the YaoiGenre, [[YaoiFangirl its fans]], and Creator/JKRowling.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Averted in ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia,'' which portrays politics simply as background to the Nations themselves. Though the closest moments reaching this trope happens to be a strip that laments Japan's loss of his more traditional culture as well as scenes set around the 2008 financial crisis.
* Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}} got sidetracked by this during the 2008 election, and after that occasionally drifted into an oddly political area.

[[folder:FanFiction]]

* ''Series/{{MASH}}''

* ''Inverted'' to some degree in ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad''. At first nearly every episode was some sort of criticism of the George W. Bush administration -- particularly its anti-terrorism policies -- with [[JerkAss Stan]] serving as a StrawmanPolitical. However, after the first season or so, political episodes have become rarer to the point that they're only a handful of episodes a season. Meanwhile Stan more often was shown in a sympathetic light (achieving, dare we say it, some degree of CharacterDevelopment), with his faults falling more under general ComedicSociopathy. All of this is generally considered [[GrowingTheBeard for the better]].

* More emphatically than that is Music/TobyKeith, who, after the aggressively jingoistic "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" in 2002, began inserting political themes into his later material. His next album (unsubtly titled ''Shock'n Y'all'' as a {{pun}} on the term "shock and awe", which was popularized during TheWarOnTerror) contained the hit single "American Soldier" (which was at least more subtle in its patriotism, and built it up with a TwistEnding) and the self-explanatory "Taliban Song". And while he backed off for a while, he returned to the patriotism well in 2009 with "American Ride", and again in 2011 with "Made in America".

If we're lucky, the distraction is brief, or even [[TropesAreTools refreshes the work if the topic resonates with the audience]]. In a worst-case scenario, our beloved entertainment has been sent spinning off into the dark recesses of punditry towards a DorkAge, never to return.

* One show which was [[TropesAreTools helped by this trope]] was ''Series/TheDailyShow''. Under Craig Kilborn, the show mostly made fun of apolitical topics like celebrities and small-town weirdos, but under Creator/JonStewart, the show became more about serious news satire while also taking a more overtly liberal point of view. As a result, it became a seriously respected talk show that real politicians, pundits, and newsmakers would show up on, with Stewart viewed as the 'voice of a generation' (much to his chagrin, as he always felt that people shouldn't take a comedy show seriously as a news outlet).

Think of it as a political {{Flanderization}}. See also CerebusSyndrome. See FilibusterFreefall for when it happens to a writer's overall body of work instead of just a single series. See NetworkDecay and MagazineDecay, for when this happens to TV channels, radio stations, and print media. Compare WhatDoYouMeanItsNotDidactic

* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' went fully political for a while in the run-up to the 2008 US election, much to its detriment. It had largely gotten back to normal since the election, until it was eventually consumed by storylines about gender politics, societal misogyny and radical feminism.

* Inverted on WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks. While the first season had most of its episodes dedicated to social issues, like the episode where a bank robbery is an allegory for the Iraq War or the episode where Martin Luther King Jr. comes out of a coma and chews out all the black people, the second season had more general stories, like Riley joining the basketball team or Robert going on a date with a crazy lady he met online. That isn't to say they didn't go after social issues, but they didn't do it as frequently or as overtly. Perhaps, if the Bush Administration hijacked the comic, the end of same sort of ''un''-hijacked the show.

* Used, possibly subverted, in an episode of ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' where a wounded soldier serving in Iraq is brought into the hospital. Almost everybody gets involved in the political debate (except for JD who spends the entire episode reading "The Iraq War for Dummies" and the spineless Ted who takes a neutral stance). It ends with Dr. Kelso cutting off the employee discount at the hospital coffee shop to stop everybody's constant arguing about politics and get angry at him instead. The episode is very deliberate to not take any side and to treat the subject with some humour.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Literature/TheFinalWarning'' was essentially a 272-page AuthorFilibuster about global warming.

[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/2129478 This]] MegaCrossover (most prominently was originally just a work of StylisticSuck that mocked the author's OldShame fanfiction, but gradually becomes more and more about bitterly criticizing the YaoiGenre, [[YaoiFangirl its fans]], and Creator/JKRowling.

* From about ''I Should've Married My Father-in-Law'' onward, singer-comedian Creator/TimWilson started to insert his right-wing Libertarian views into more of his work, such as "Brady Bill, Gunfighter Without a Gun".
* Darryl Worley, after having a monster hit in 2003 with the post-9/11 anthem "Have You Forgotten?", began inserting patriotic/military themes into songs on his next albums. "Awful, Beautiful Life", despite being a SliceOfLife song, goes out of its way to mention "cousin Michael in Iraq", and the self-explanatory "I Just Came Back from a War" in late 2006-early 2007. But after that, he started to back away from the patriotism again.
* More emphatically than that is Music/TobyKeith, who, after the aggressively jingoistic "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" in 2002, began inserting political themes into his later material. His next album (unsubtly titled ''Shock'n Y'all'' as a {{pun}} on the war term "shock and awe", which was popularized during TheWarOnTerror) contained the hit single "American Soldier" (which was at least more subtle in its patriotism) and the self-explanatory "Taliban Song". And while he backed off for a while, he returned to the patriotism well in 2009 with "American Ride", and again in 2011 with "Made in America".

[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''Literature/TheFinalWarning'' was essentially a 272 page AuthorFilibuster about global warming.

[[folder: Comics ]]

[[folder: Live Action Television ]]

[[folder: Music ]]

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Collin Raye had a similar drift starting with his 1994 album ''Extremes'', most notably in the song "Little Rock" (about a brokenhearted recovering alcoholic). Later songs had him tackling the NotSoDifferent trope ("Not That Different"), general societal wrongs ("I Think About You", "What If Jesus Comes Back Like That"), etc. He kinda moved away from it after his 1997 GreatestHitsAlbum (except for the anti-child abuse anthem "The Eleventh Commandment", although unlike the other songs, it was never a single), but swung back toward it in the mid-2000s after he converted to Roman Catholicism, with songs such as the politically-charged "Never Gonna Stand for This".

* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' went fully political for a while in the run-up to the 2008 US election, much to its detriment. It has largely gotten back to normal since the election, until it has eventually gotten consumed by storylines about gender politics, societal misogyny and radical feminism.

* The 1970s TV show ''Series/{{Quincy}}'' started off as a straightforward forensic-pathology whodunit. By the end of its run, every single episode was a left-wing soapbox rant about some political or social issue.

If we're lucky, the distraction is brief. In a worst-case scenario, our beloved entertainment has been sent spinning off into the dark recesses of punditry, never to return. But hey, maybe you're into that sort of thing.