Discussion Main / ValuesDissonance

OK, so considering how overdosed this trope is, i propose separating this trope into two sub-tropes, with examples going under one or the other. The sub-tropes shall be Values Dissonance-Time, and Values Dissonance-Region/Culture, as I see those as differing in the manner of dissonance. Any thoughts?

I will abide by the rule in the interest of general harmony, but I still wish to lodge my frustration with the "20 year rule".

In The Sims 2, which came out in 2004, there is a mechanic where Sims (teens, adults and elders of both genders) can look in a fancy telescope at night and there is a small chance they will be abducted by aliens. They are missing for a few hours and come back at dawn. The details aren't mentioned but it's implied to be horrifying and Sims in general fear it and have a bad memory (with hints that they now see the world as a Cosmic Horror Story), but Sims with the "Knowledge" Aspiration actually like it, sometimes have a wish to be abducted by aliens and have a positive memory of it.

Oh and also male adult Sims (and only males) return pregnant with an alien baby. They have no say in the matter. The pregnancy is otherwise just like the regular female pregnancies, nobody seems to find it weird that there is a pregnant man walking around, this doesn't cause a massive media frenzy or scientific curiosity or anything, the male just gives birth (mercifully offscreen, this is a T-rated game), the alien baby is effectively just a regular baby but with green skin and black eyes, etc...

This is treated as a cutesy and funny thing, like "ha ha wouldn't it be funny if aliens forcibly made a man pregnant with an alien baby" and the male "mother" always ends up loving his little alien baby and raising it alone with no support from the aliens, apparently with no psychological or physiological trauma. The implications are not brought up other than a generic "wow it's crazy that I was abducted amirite?".

Oh and like I mentioned this doesn't happen to female Sims.

I pointed out in the YMMV of the Sims 2 how this was values dissonance back from 2004 when sexual assault on men and boys was much more taboo and not treated as seriously and how this mechanic has aged very poorly and is generally regarded as in very bad taste by the community and my edit got taken down because of the 20 year rule.

I'm so glad to know there's an arbitrary waiting period until 2024 when it's suddenly ok to point out the unfortunate implications behind a male-exclusive alien rape and impregnation mechanic being treated as cute, harmless and funny. Apparently pointing this out is highly controversial right now because it hasn't been 20 years yet.

This shouldn't be controversial. You shouldn't need 20 years of "hindsight" to point out how this mechanic is tasteless and problematic in the light of increased discussion of sexual violence, especially how it relates to male victims.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: May WordOfDante be considered along with WordOfGod?, started by Gilgameshkun on Feb 27th 2011 at 1:53:42 PM

Over on the Live Action film page someone removed this:

• Trading Places:
  • Dan Aykroyd appears in Black Face during the New Year's Eve train party. It's Played for Laughs for how ridiculous the disguise is, but they still probably couldn't get away with it today.
  • Billy Ray Valentine's liberal use of the word 'faggot' in the earlier portion of the film couldn't fly today, especially for a character the audience is supposed to like. It doesn't help that he says the word more than once in front of Denholm Elliott, who actually was bisexual in real life and Richard Hunt, the Dukes' agent on the floor, was openly gay.

With the edit reason: You can see that whoever wrote this entry does not know about the poor neighborhoods, saying things like "faggot" is something very common.

Yes, racism and homophobia are still distressingly common, but the point still stands that nowadays, in a major studio picture no less, things like blackface and derogatory language would not be allowed. I'd like to re-add without sparking an edit war

Considering it´s present in almost all medium, where do i put the fact that showing death (suicide, décapitation,etc,..) is mostly okay but the second a (female) nipple is shown, everyone scream scandal ?

So, why does Anime and Manga section have general folder while Western Animation don't have one? Obviously, not anyone that browses Tv tropes are from the United States. Myself included.

Why no real life examples allowed all of a sudden? They were perfectly fine! What happened that we could allow IRL examples of values dissonance before but not now?

Just to mention the paragraph:

"Across all the advanced civilizations of Earth's history, for example, we humans have been able to agree on very few acts that nobody should find justifiable: first-degree murder, rape, sex with prepubescent children, bullying the defenseless, property destruction, robbery (at least if done for completely selfish purposes), fraud, bestiality, and treason (at least in one's own country)."

Is actually incorrect. It's a value judgment. Rather than go into a ton of examples, let's just say that first-degree murder of a 30 year old Adolf Hitler, assuming you had a time machine, would not be something most people would consider wrong. I could make some other examples of these as well.

Yes, I know some people will say I'm nit picking, but the entire idea of TV Tropes is to take a good look at the underpinnings of fiction (and therefore society). Assuming something is set in stone as "all the advanced civilizations of Earth's history" is really a failure to think.

The one suggestion under Troper Tales about eliminating all monotheistic religions does not strike me as a "meaningful" philosophical question; it just seems like something a troll put up to get people at each other's throats. Should it be deleted?