"So much of the anime we love is shrouded in dark and nihilistic themes, not to mention crude and sexually explicit content, even ones aimed at kids. [...] Don't get me wrong, I love me a good revenge story or a gruesome battle scene, [...] but does it have to be so depressing all the time?"
— An Angel Studios ad promoting the upcoming show, Gabriel and the Guardians.
"In today's world, in today's media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around. In a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act 'badass' even though we all know they're shitting it inside. In a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we're able to look at and stomach. In a world, I'm reliably told, that's going to the dogs, real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, 'fuck you' positivity and optimism. Violent optimism in the face of all evidence to the contrary is the Alpha form of outrage these days. It really freaks people out."
"To protect them from being abused, my emotions have detached themselves from this animated film."
"I'm sorry, but I gotta make a confession! Your arcs always give me depression!"
—Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers's Fishy Boopkins Lampshading the show's arcs usually putting you through the wringer with emotions.
"Anthony Hopkins gives the performance of a lifetime as an old man refusing help for the dementia that's slowly eating away at his mind, that's such a heartbreaking, torturous, and cruel portrayal of a legend's final days, there's no way you actually watched it."
—Honest Trailers on The Father (or, as they call it, The Downer)
"Hey, do you have any idea how hard it is to drag any humor out of this fucking movie? It's Ordinary People multiplied by Amour. It's like if the beginning of Up and the end of Jurassic Bark had a baby. They're even not supposed to screen it in buildings with more than two stories, just in case the entire audience goes to throw themselves off a roof! This thing is as hard to parody as Deadpool, for completely opposite reasons!"
"And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take"
Because the ending's just too hard to take"
— Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"
June: Is the setting a coal-mine district?
Graham: Uh— yes.
June: And are the people concerned real, earthy, unartificial, down-to-earth characters, speaking and thinking just like you and me? Is it a story of basic economic forces? Are the human characters lifted up and thrown down and whirled around, all at the mercy of the coal mine and mechanized industry of today?
Graham: Uh— yes.
June: I remember distinctly. First, you got drunk and were sick. Then you got better, and told me the first few chapters. Then I got sick.
Graham: Uh— yes.
June: And are the people concerned real, earthy, unartificial, down-to-earth characters, speaking and thinking just like you and me? Is it a story of basic economic forces? Are the human characters lifted up and thrown down and whirled around, all at the mercy of the coal mine and mechanized industry of today?
Graham: Uh— yes.
June: I remember distinctly. First, you got drunk and were sick. Then you got better, and told me the first few chapters. Then I got sick.
— Isaac Asimov, Author! Author!,
James: No, I'm sorry. But you can't just popularize terrible books and make money off of it. You'll ruin the world of literature.
CEO: Oh please, we ruined it a long time ago. How else do you explain widely successful, yet horribly depressing books, like Grapes of Wrath?
CEO: Oh please, we ruined it a long time ago. How else do you explain widely successful, yet horribly depressing books, like Grapes of Wrath?
