As another week starts up, another entry about a trope from TV Tropes will pop up. Like I said, some of these tropes are basic tropes, some are YMMV tropes, and others are Trivia tropes. This week will be on a YMMV Trope.
Before going over the trope in detail, YMMV tropes are not about the events of the story, but rather about the audience reactions to the story. Basically stuff like fan reception. While regular tropes are factual about the story, these tropes are usually opinionated. Laser-Guided Karma is an example of a story trope, but Catharsis Factor (a similar trope to Laser-Guided Karma) is a YMMV trope since it’s more about the satisfaction of someone taking the suffering. What Happened to the Mouse is an example of a story trope, but They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot (a similar trope to What Happened to the Mouse) is a YMMV trope since it’s more about what fans wanted to see. And today’s trope is a YMMV trope, a rather controversial one.
Values Dissonance – Explanation:
One of the “time-based tropes”, Values Dissonance refers to aspects of media that audiences in today’s time (or from another country) would find odd, offensive, or just something they do not agree with. As time goes on, many things change. They include science, technology, society, culture, and law. But one thing that doesn’t change is works of art (such as film, literature, and paintings). Because works from the past stay the same while everything else changes, it will be by no surprise that it would contain something that would not fly by today. Had today’s works did the same thing, the creators could get in a lot of trouble.
A good percentage of examples of Values Dissonance would be related to racism or some other form of bigotry. Obviously, anything supporting slavery or the Jim Crow Laws would be frowned upon by both Hollywood in the past and today’s audiences. However, there are some things that were acceptable back then that would not be acceptable in today’s age. Those are like the old racial stereotypes (like blackface, violent Native Americans, and trigger-happy Asians), the sexualization of female characters, and the support/honor towards the Confederate US States. Even the 90’s and 2000’s aren’t exempt from this. Not only did we have stuff that are racist by today’s standards, but people were also more ignorant of LGBT issues (both sexual orientation and gender identity), disabilities, and lesser-known groups. Words like “redskin”, “gypsy”, and “Eskimo”, as well as the r-word (disabled slur) and the f-word (homosexual slur) were more commonly used back then, but they are not acceptable in today’s society. I can’t even let you use the words “homo” or “lesbo” in my comments. And yes, we did have racial stereotypes and gender stereotypes too (like “girls are pretty princesses who like pink”), but they are not the same as even older stereotypes (like “girls belong in the kitchen”).
The time-based aspect of this trope isn’t just limited to bigotry, stereotypes, or the objectification of women. It also covers actions that would not be acceptable in today’s age. Examples include, but aren’t limited to:
- In the past, children were allowed to fight back against the bullies. Today, anyone who fights a bully would get in just as much trouble as the bully would due to a zero-tolerance policy.
- In the past, it was okay for kids to go out on their own. Now you can’t even imagine letting children leave home without a supervisor or even stay home without a parent.
- In the past, there was a difference between a good billionaire and a bad billionaire. Today, you can’t even tell the difference because of how much wealth inequality has grown.
Society has also gotten more sensitive, thanks to the spread of horror stories on the news and other safety concerns. For instance, any harsher punishments of children would be considered child abuse, even if they don’t cross the line between acceptable and abuse by the standards of the 20th century. Even yelling at children can count as this. The sensitivity of society would also condemn certain childish behaviors since they would be deemed too extreme.
On the flipside of this, some things that were deemed more unacceptable back then would be allowed in today’s age. In the past, boys weren’t allowed to play with girl toys, for that would be inappropriate behavior. In the past, watching TV was associated with stupidity. In the past, using mild swear words can get you in a hell lot of trouble (oh wait, did I just use a mild curse word?). Today, it’s hard to imagine any of this would be deemed unacceptable. If someone were to be punished for doing any of that today, the ones in charge might be condemned for being overly harsh.
Effects of the Trope:
Although it wouldn’t mean much to the work, the disagreements with society in the past may result in some alteration in the adaptations. In extreme cases, the offensive parts would be censored, or even the entire work would be scrapped. Song of the South (1946) is the prime example of this. The depiction of happy slaves and the implication that sharecropping is a good thing makes the film offensive in today’s age and is thus the reason Disney will not release it in today’s age. There was also a SpongeBob episode that got banned because of some particular scene. There was a Simpsons episode that got banned because of some documentary.
When the objectionable parts are not retroactively scrapped, they do get modified in subsequent remakes or adaptations of the original. This is the reason why the bratty kids in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory had their personalities altered. This the reason why the part in the Odyssey when Telemachus executed the maids get omitted in modern adaptations of the Odyssey. This is why part of a certain ride in Disneyland (the burning cabin in the Mark Twain Riverboat) had been changed numerous times, to the point where they can’t even have the burning cabin anymore.
Of course, most cases of this wouldn’t result in bans or even censorship of the original work, as they would still be allowed in today’s society. But had they been made today, they wouldn’t have been as successful.
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