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Acceptable Political Targets: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''You don't have Nixon to [[Hilarious in Hindsight|kick around any more]], because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference...''
|'''[[Richard Nixon]]''' after losing a race for governor in 1962, six years before becoming President}}
{{quote|''First rule of leadership: Everything is your fault.''
|'''Hopper''', ''[[A Bug's Life|A Bugs Life]]''}}
A subset of [[Acceptable Targets]]. This one deals with demonized political groups. It's gonna be a [[Long List]], because politics is one arena where (in a democratic society, at least) all groups not only have to compete against each other, but have to publicly compare themselves with each other. This too easily leads to making the other guy out to be a [[Strawman Political]].
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{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* In "[[Blazing Saddles]]", we see Nazis in line to try out for Hedley's army of thugs, and a (heavily implied) Jewish actor playing the dictator appears briefly. He is also visible repeatedly giving Nazi salutes in the background of the Great Pie Fight, as well as during the swearing in scene.
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** Even though its '[[Anti-Hero|heroes]]' similarly believe [[All Germans Are Nazis]].
* ''[[You Nazty Spy]]'' was the first film to ever lampoon the Nazis.
* ''[[The Manchurian Candidate (novel)|The Manchurian Candidate]]'' makes that explicit by having its McCarthy analogue actually ''be'' a Soviet agent. They also have him pick the number of communists off a ketchup bottle.
* [[George Clooney]]'s film ''[[Good Night and Good Luck]],'' telling the story of news reporter Edward R. Murrow's attacks on McCarthyism, featured actual footage of McCarthy speaking. When screened for test audiences, [[Reality Is Unrealistic|most of them thought]] [[Your Costume Needs Work|that it was an actor]] [[Large Ham|hamming up]] McCarthy's lines.
* This paranoia was brilliantly mocked in [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s ''[[Doctor Strangelove]]''. Also, chillingly, portrayed in ''[[Fail Safe]]'' was the dire consequences that many feared would be a result of the tensions between the USSR and the US.
* The film ''[[Network]]'' is all about satirizing these organizations.
* To a large extent they've<!--Who is "they"?--> replaced the USSR as the Communist [[Big Bad]] (see, for example, ''[[Tomorrow Never Dies]]''). Interestingly, for a few years after the fall of the USSR, the new Russian Federation (often incorrectly called things like the "Russian Republic") became a brief stand-in for the USSR due to the common misconception that it remained as powerful. ''[[Crimson Tide]]'' and ''[[GoldenEye (film)|GoldenEye]]'' were good examples of this.
* This was very ''much'' a [[Cold War]] era trope. Consider the [[James Bond]] films: the Red Chinese are [[Goldfinger]]'s backers (1964), and in they tolerate [[The Man with the Golden Gun|Scaramanga]] operating out of their country (1974).
== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Sherlock Holmes]] is a good example for how this trope changes over time. At the time people complained over how Arthur Conan Doyle demonized the KKK, but no one raised a eye-brow over how the Mormons were painted as a [[Church of Evil]] in the first Holmes-story.
* ''[[The Last Continent]]'' takes a swing at politicians in general:
{{quote|'''Neilette:''' We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they're elected, Don't you?
'''Rincewind:''' Why?
'''Neilette:''' It saves time.}}
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* How bad is North Korea? It's like this: [[The Daily Show|Jon Stewart]] had on a guy who wrote about his experiences helping North Koreans escape to the Freedom-Loving paradise that is...The People's Republic of China.
* Fox News Channel's political leanings are at a complete disjoint to its [[FOX|sister entertainment network]]. For example, an episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' in 2010 [[Anvilicious|heavily criticizes the health insurance industry]] that Fox News is advocating to leave alone.
* Much of the political satire and lampooning that both [[Stephen Colbert]] and [[The Daily Show|Jon Stewart]] do tends to be around this.
== [[Radio]] ==
* Notably,
== [[Theatre]] ==
* "''[[1776 (musical)|A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake I'd accept with some despair, but no! You sent us Congress! Good God, sir, was that fair?]]''"
** Also:
{{quote|"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace; that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress!"}}
*** Bear in mind that this comes from the mouth of someone who is both a member of Congress ''and'' a lawyer.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'' allows Hawke to make 'politicians' jokes at every turn, and at one point if you tell Varric that you are going to change the way Kirkwall works he tells you that entering politics is either "idealism or madness...so, either way, right up your alley."
* ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'' and ''[[Home Front]]'' both [[What Could Have Been|originally planned to have Chinese enemies]], but later changed them to North Koreans in order to avoid being [[Banned in China]] and losing a large part of the international market.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=000609 This] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' strip demonstrates that sometimes you don't even need to specify what political group you think is living excrement.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', Sideshow Bob, who has tried to kill Bart many times, had a tattoo saying 'die Bart die'. To explain it to his parole board he says it means in German "the Bart the". A woman exclaims that it's not like anyone who speaks German could be evil.
** ''The Simpsons'' also [[Biting the Hand Humor|mocked]] [[Fox News]] about their political leanings a few times which was so acrimonious that Fox nearly ''sued itself'' over it.
*** For example, ''Not racist, but #1 with racists.''
*** ''We're unbalanced and it's unfair!''
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' had an entire episode mocking Fox News.
* The country of Klopstokia in ''[[The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries]]'' episode "A Night Louse at the White House", whose ambassador and his wife were outed as spies attempting to steal classified information on the American space program, was a thinly-veiled jab at the Soviet Union, especially as it was customary to throw potshots at the Soviets during the Reagan era.
== Meta ==
* Stalin is mentioned along with [[Adolf Hitler]] on the [[Godwin's Law]] page. Calling someone a Stalinist is seen as worse than just a Communist (in Western Europe, Communist is not seen as that bad. Stalinist, for similar reasons to the Nazis, would be.)
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Public service announcements were directed at English fans traveling to the 2006 World Cup in Germany [[Fawlty Towers|not to mention the war]]. Special attention was paid to the fact that the German authorities wouldn't take kindly to people doing Hitler impressions and the like.
** Imitating stereotypical Nazi behavior is usually understood by modern Germans that a person believes these behaviors are still common in Germany and that rules and standards of society are still the same. Which is probably the single most guaranteed way to [[Dude, Not Funny|piss about every German seriously off]]. And the English are particularly infamous for doing it. In fact, it is ''illegal'' in Germany to make the Nazi salute in public.
** Also, being '''Hitler'''. Seriously, there is a [[Eddie Izzard]] routine that goes like this:
{{quote|Hitler ended up shot in the head, drowned in petrol, set on fire, buried in a ditch. So...that's fun. I mean, it's '''funny'''...[[Don't Explain the Joke|Because he was a mass-murdering]] ''fuckhead''...as many [[Sophisticated As Hell|eminent historians]] have pointed out. And it was his honey-moon too!}}
* This was helped in the U.S. by the backlash against feminism in the 1980s. Oh, and [[Rush Limbaugh]] helped cement this view by coining the term "feminazi."
* It also doesn't help that this is [[Truth in Television]] for a [[Vocal Minority|very very small and ridiculously angry minority]] who most actual feminists are [[Stop Helping Me!|ashamed to be]] [[Don't Shoot the Message|associated with]].
*
* Similarly the British House of Lords, largely made up of political appointees but formerly with many hereditary aristocrats, is generally portrayed as full of incredibly ancient out-of-touch people who're either permanently asleep or actually dead.
** To some extent, this reputation was even brought to American awareness when ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' did a sketch about it (or was it the House of Commons?) where, among other things, Will Ferrell's character kept pushing a resolution to declare Oasis the greatest band ever. The other points of order were equally trivial and/or outright rude.
** Recently the opinion of the House of Lords seems to be improving, because they're spending most of their time opposing nearly everything the government passes to them. The fights between the two are referred to as Parliamentary ping-pong, as both houses have to agree on something before it becomes law. (However the Commons can invoke the [[wikipedia:Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949|Parliament Acts]] to push laws through. There is also the [[wikipedia:Salisbury Convention|Salisbury Convention]] which states that if something is in the ruling party's manifesto, it should eventually be allowed to pass.)
* Both are often portrayed as spoiled, wealthy folk who don't understand the value the working poor place on hard work (if liberal) or the hardships others face (if conservative). Both can be libertarian idealists who believe [[Rousseau Was Right]] or [[Ludd Was Right]] (liberals want to return to nature to save the Earth from man's machines, conservatives want to go back to a time before modern civil rights). Alternately, they are closet communists, nazis, elitists, etc. who believe [[Hobbes Was Right]], because common folk can't be trusted.
** Liberals and conservatives who ''aren't'' rich aren't immune, either. Working class liberals are hippies who think that abandoning all the technological progress made over the past 100 years will save the world, while working class conservatives blame anything bigger and/or different from them for all their problems.
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* Conservatives are often portrayed as not really believing the positions they take; they are in it for the money. Alternately they are mindlessly devoted to outdated political, cultural, and religious beliefs and do not consider the consequences. Or they're sociopaths who vote against rape victims.
* Both ideologies are actually split between elitist and "common-man" factions, with a different set of stereotypes for each.
** Elitist liberals are [[Obstructive Bureaucrat|crypto-Orwellian dogmatists]] insidiously
** Elitist conservatives are [[Rich Bitch|snooty rich country-clubbers]] who drink cognac and smoke improbably long cigars. "Common-man" conservatives are [[Deep South|rabidly fundamentalist trailer-trash losers]] with no social skills and very few language skills. [[Shadow Archetype|Naturally, the two groups hate each other - but they'll always join forces when it comes to bashing liberals.]]
** The fact that a small minority of both groups (far more on the internet, due to [[GIFT]]) actually ''are'' like the above doesn't help matters.
* Liberals get attacked by socialists, left-anarchists and other people on the "hard left" for only wanting to reform the system, not create a new one through revolution and being in their view [[Not So Different]] from the conservatives.
* Former South Australian Attorney-General [[Moral Guardians|Michael Atkinson]], the ''sole reason'' Australia doesn't have an R rating for video games. Unfortunately, his seat was pretty secure thanks to the votes of other old people [[Pac-Man Fever|who think video games are all Pac-Man]]. After he resigned, much progress was made on moving toward getting that R rating in place.
* Stephen Conroy, the former Australian Minister for Broadband and the Digital Economy,
* John Howard, who somehow managed to be the second longest-serving Australian Prime Minister in history (possibly because his opponents were either devoid of charisma or [[Ax Crazy|Mark Latham]]). Considered a toady to [[George W. Bush]] (who was an Acceptable Target overseas long before he was in the US), racist, miserly and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|looking kinda weird]]. It was a moment of glorious ''schadenfreude'' for a large part of the Australian public when not only did his party lose the election, but he lost his actual seat in the House of Representatives—becoming only the second Prime Minister in Australian history to suffer this (the first being in 1929).
* Speaking of hated Australian political figures, Pauline Hanson and One Nation are considered the national mascots of racist, xenophobic, idiotic, trashy bogans led by a fish-and-chip shop owner and 'celebrity'. Even long after the One Nation furore blew over, Hanson was still pretty much everywhere milking the "celebrity" for all it was worth, memorably leaving Australia to emigrate to England... because she didn't like Australia's welcoming attitude to immigration... and then returning to Australia within a matter of months...
* The Australian Family First party have a rather deserved reputation for being fundamentalist, homophobic, heavy-handed and a large part of its leadership coming mostly from the congregation of a church that is very exclusive and selective of its members. They're also known for issuing contradicting statements and flip-flopping between sides on an issue depending on whether being deeply conservative is fashionable with the public. Their press conferences are very much a case of [[Think of the Children]] personified.
** Though not a political party, the Australian Christian Lobby is derided for similar reasons, and also for its support for the internet filter and opposition to the R rating for games, again both cases of [[Think of the Children]]. More than that is their audacity in claiming and acting like they represent the interests of all Australian Christians, which they kind of don't. Their leader also gained some infamy for using ANZAC Day as an opportunity to denounce immigration and the legalisation of gay marriage as [[No True Scotsman|"unAustralian"]].
* Julia Gillard, the current{{when}} Prime Minister, is susceptible to this owing to the circumstances which led to her taking the role; she's widely seen as [[The Starscream]] to her predecessor Kevin Rudd. The federal election which soon followed didn't help - her campaign was widely poked fun at for being inconsistent and unfocused, to the point that partway through she declared everything so far to be a mistake and said she'd change that and start being the "real Julia" ([[Memetic Mutation
** Her opponent, opposition leader Tony Abbott, doesn't fare much better for [[Not So Different|almost the exact same reasons]]. That, and how the most publicised event of his election campaign was, for some reason, [[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context|him burning a pair of his speedos on live morning radio]].
* They{{who}}<!-- MOD: Who are "they"?--> are quite infamous for imposing Sharia Law. "Strictly". Immigrants in other countries rally to impose it. While they say they're doing it peacefully, they're quite mean to those who think differently.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Acceptable Targets]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
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