Television Is Trying To Kill Us

I don't think there's anything wrong with Boomerang Bigot entry, and I agree with your other points. If anything the UGR entry could be less wall-of-texty, but otherwise it's fine.

I'm going to disagree with deleting STD Immunity. I work in healthcare, and misinformation/lack of information regarding ST Ds is a major health concern, especially amongst younger and vulnerable populations. The tendency of media to treat ST Ds like an improbability, a punchline, or simply No Big Deal isn't wholly responsible for this problem, but it certainly contributes to it.

That said, the existing entry for STD Immunity isn't very good — its tone is overly bossy, and it contains inaccuracies even if the overall message is sound.

I propose after week or so of more discussion, we create a crowner where we list all the entries currently on Television Is Trying to Kill Us, and we downvote the entries we want to delete and upvote the entries we keep.

On a tangential note, there seems to be clear consensus here of removing Honest John's Dealership from the list pronto.

Edited by Albert3105 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 11:59:13 AM

I'm going to run through all the examples I didn't comment on and give my thoughts:

• Honest John's Dealership: Aye, delete this.
• Hollywood Pudgy: Yeah, the last sentence is a bit off, but the rest of it is correct and should stay.
• Hysterical Woman: Another "trope is bad" example. Cut.
• Gayngst-Induced Suicide: Yeah, we've been moving away from posting things like suicide-prevention tips as a general rule; and while there are concerns about suicide being romanticized in a work and giving suicidal people that last push to do it- this example isn't that.
• Hollywood Homely: This one feels a little less necessary than Hollywood Pudgy, partially because IDK if people in real life go around thinking people are hideous just because they aren't as attractive as everyone on TV.
• Hollywood Personality Disorders: I think we can keep this one, if what it's saying is true.
• Hollywood Thin: Keep, this is a similar issue to Hollywood Pudgy.
• Honor-Related Abuse: "Bad trope is bad". Cut.
• Boomerang Bigot: Errrr, what? Do people actually think like this? "Oh yeah, all those KKK members? Definitely all just black people with internalized racism, I know this because the dude in the movie was a black person who hated other black people". Cut- I know you wrote it, Bisected, but I'm just not sure it's actually fitting for this page- it's not something people are likely to get the wrong idea from is all.
• Cure Your Gays: Hmmm, people are now realizing that these things don't actually work, but if they're in works aimed at kids the kids may not know enough to know that Conversion Therapy is bullshit... on the fence.
• Defiled Forever: AFAIK, this is usually portrayed negatively, right? If it's already bad in the work, we don't need to be told it's also bad IRL. But if I'm wrong, and works portray this as a correct mindset...
• Disposable Sex Worker: So the example isn't saying anything wrong here, but how many people are going to go murder a prostitute just because they saw it happen on TV?
• Entitled to Have You: This is a character flaw- one given to villains like Gaston. Nobody will want to go and emulate the clearly evil character.
• You Can Panic Now: HMHC brings up a good point, so I'll just say I agree with their take.
• Women Are Delicate: I mean, sure; a lot of people expect women to be these delicate beings, and a lot of people think other people want women to be these delicate beings (I see both the "MRAs think like this" AND the "Straw Feminist think like this" side as I've heard way too much from both sides). But I doubt the TV really contributes to any of it, moreso than culture, the general personality differences between men and women (for example, women are more likely to be soft and nurturing than men are, statistically speaking, even if not all women are like that), and the way these misogynists are raised. It's way more complicated than the example makes it sound is all.
• Virgin-Shaming: A real issue for sure, especially for guys; but is this really the fault of the media, or just people being assholes, and is this another "bad trope is bad" case?
• Vigilante Man: Agree with your take; I also wouldn't necessarily call the lynchings "vigilantism", even if they technically fit the definition, it just feels like a shoehorned in addition.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Inclined to agree with Bisected here; while this example could stand to be shortened a little, the actual sentiment is valid I feel.

The problem there is it doesn't leave any room for "could be here, but needs fixing".

Personally, I think we should just go through each entry one at a time and discuss if it needs repairing, removing or can stay (there's not much point in kicking the can down the road and saying "remove with the possibility a better version can be added").

I mainly wrote the BB entry with the "all homophobes are secretly gay" subtrope in mind. Which is indeed a bit of an issue.

Edited by Bisected8 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 9:00:48 AM

Isn't Unsettling Gender-Reveal more "unfortunate implication" than just "they do this thing in the movies but you'll suffer if you do it in real life"? Aren't we just aiming to remove all those examples? I doubt anyone is going to kill a cross dresser or a trans person because of what was shown to them.

It is a bit of an issue, but is it a mindset that comes from people watching a movie with a homophobic gay character in it, or...?

I want to say that I don't disagree with what you wrote, I just don't think the example makes sense being on this page, as this is about the media giving people the wrong impression about things.

You'd be surprised... but I think it's more saying that transpeople will suffer from these things, not the bigots.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 4:04:51 AM

There's actual laws on the books in Western nations allowing someone to argue that the trope was in effect as a defence for murdering a trans person. They aren't residual (there's resistance to abolishing them).

If media is constantly portraying LGBTQ+-phobes as being closeted LGBTQ+ folk, then yes. It just leads to homophobes being ignored with jokes about them secretly being gay, so LGBTQ+ folk have to deal with their abuse, "allies" using being gay as something to mock them for, and said abuse not being properly confronted.

Edited by Bisected8 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 9:09:26 AM

Oh Bisected, I forgot to address what you said back there.

"the idea gets transferred to trans people anyway (someone who considers a trans woman a "man in a dress" is hardly going to make the distinction between trans women and crossdressing men, after all)."

So because some people think cross dressers and transgender people are the same thing, and when this trope is shown, those are the ones that take action on it, it's inherently a bad trope?

"There's actual laws on the books in Western nations allowing someone to argue that the trope was in effect as a defence for murdering a trans person. They aren't residual (there's resistance to abolishing them)."

I'm not sure what this has to do with me saying it's more of an unfortunate implication than a "don't try this at home" sort of thing. What's the difference between Unsettling Gender-Reveal and something like Bury Your Gays? Aren't both just "unfortunate implication"

oof, I didn't think you'd reply that quickly while I was editing my post to reply to your reply on this page.

And yes, I'll watch when I get back to my hotel room.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 2nd 2020 at 5:44:01 AM

Basically, yes. Trans Equals Gay and other tropes mean the lines are blurred enough that you can't strip the issues away. That's without the fact that many "crossdressers" act a lot more like trans people.

I'd recommend watching the video I linked a few posts ago, if you have time.

Edited by Bisected8 on Mar 2nd 2020 at 9:20:52 AM

Honestly, the main concern I have about keeping Unsettling Gender-Reveal is that it could end up clashing with the rest of the article when all is said and done. Considering that this is a sensitive topic and all that. That and the whole Just for Fun thing. But if the rest of you want to keep it on the page, I can't stop you from doing that.

It seems there's a disagreement about what this index is and that's leading to disagreement over what belongs here. The two basic perspectives seem to be:

• Media portraying harmful attitudes or failing to provide education about reality perpetuates harm in reality
• Media portraying harmful actions as positive/funny/awesome without showing they're harmful in reality leads to people believing Reality Is Unrealistic and causing harm doing them in reality

IMO, these are very separate things in different spirits, not part of one Television Is Trying To Kill Us as defined. For instance, yes, media failing to depict safer sex practices or risk factors for ST Is isn't helping people learn about those things, but that in the same spirit of "pranking someone with laxatives is actually not funny and very dangerous and illegal"?

The index, as far as I am aware, is the second one; the "people will emulate this behavior and get into trouble or cause harm to people or otherwise create a problem" thing. A lot of the "bad attitudes" one still can count in this version if the work portrays this attitude positively or as the correct way to see the world, which can influence how people think.

I would say STD Immunity fits too, as it might trick people into having unsafe sex assuming they won't get any STDs.

Basically, if the work would portray something in such a way that it'd lead to others emulating this behavior...

(FYI— many of the things I listed or think should be deleted are things I very much agree with as far as the points made, just don't think they fit this index as it's been defined. But who wants me listing my professional and political stuff )

I follow that and Heavy Metal Hermit Crab 's argument about STD Immunity. Y'all've convinced me— kinda like the CPR one, then, gets people thinking "I can do this thing consequence-free!" The way it's currently written had me thinking like "wait, we're relying on TV to provide sex education and not fixing bullshit abstinence-only education?"

Yeah, we'd need to rewrite it, but it's a valid idea.

Maybe we start at a consensus on defining so we can evaluate the specific tropes based on that? I took a pass at it last night.

For the description, here is the current version:

And my proposal for revisions:

Wait, so which criteria does Unsettling Gender-Reveal fit in?

at the proposed edits.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 2nd 2020 at 11:06:19 AM

... Hmmm. What I'm seeing with UGR is that the media portrays unrealistic harms going in the wrong direction— acting like the harm is towards people who are shocked/disgusted by the "reveal," when in reality it's people freaking out about trans people causing harm to trans people. I think I'd need to see a major rewrite before I can vote on it fitting or not.

Basically, I tend to be a ruthless deleter— if something doesn't quite fit as written, I chop it unless I feel strongly enough about it to edit it. So anything I propose deleting, feel VERY free to say "wait, no, this can work!"

x a lot to Albert 3105 suggesting we have a crowner to vote on entries. I think that's a much more organized and less confusing way of doing this than what we've been doing— great idea. Maybe the ones that have a close vote, we take back to discussion here; the ones that are a clear consensus, we can go ahead and act on. Whatever the threshold is for that. Like, if it's a fairly even split it definitely needs discussion.

Crowner

Yea, I tend to be the same way about deleting things. I tend to delete things as soon as I get one person’s approval, even though I should be waiting if more people have a say on the matter. Not here, since this is something on a bigger scale.

Yea, now that I think about it, The crowner would be a better option, since we have a lot of entries that are being brought up.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 2nd 2020 at 12:09:31 PM

The rewritten description is much clearer.

I still think a crowner's a bit of a blunt instrument, since it doesn't really distinguish between examples that need rewriting and examples that simply won't fit.

Maybe the initial vote would be to keep-as is, yes or no. If it gets the Yes, no further action needed. If something gets the No, we discuss what to do with it in thread? Or back to vote on edit or delete?

That could work, but my main worry is that we'll get "drive by" votes that don't understand that nuance.

I propose two possibilities.

• If we trust crowner voters to read the description, we could state in the crowner that keep votes also include both those who want to rewrite the entry and those who want to keep the entry unchanged.
• We could require at least a supermajority (2:1 ish) of downvotes to boot off the page, and then a runoff of those falling in between 50-66% downvotes.