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Accidental Aesop: Difference between revisions
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== [[Literature]] ==
* [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]] claimed to despise allegory, which didn't stop people seeing the One Ring in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' as an allegory for the atomic bomb. The key difficulty with this and any other theory that takes ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' as an allegory for [[World War II]]: the major plot details were planned out well before the war even started. Also, as Tolkien himself noted, if it ''had'' been about [[World War II]], they would have ''[[Downer Ending|used]]'' the Ring.
** But not [[World War I]], though Tolkien denied that too.
** This is why Tolkien made such a distinction between ''allegory'' and ''applicability''. You can ''apply'' as many meanings as you like; you just can't presume to [[God Never Said That|put them in the author's mouth]].
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*** To clarify, in the story, the narrator eventually gives in to trying the green eggs and ham. The message appears to be more positive, as in, it's good to try new things and it's ok to admit you changed your mind instead of being stuck in your original opinion.
* When [[Tom Clancy]] wrote ''[[Rainbow Six]]'', it was almost certainly intended as an [[Author Tract]] against environmentalists, especially the extremist fringe. But the only way he could make them into a credible threat was by putting them in charge of a [[Mega Corp|mega-corporation]] with near-limitless resources and political influence. Since anyone with extremist views could have done what they did with the resources they had, this turns the story into an Aesop about the dangers of corporate power, which is almost certainly not what Clancy had in mind given the strong conservative tone of his works...
* ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' is almost universally interpreted to be about government censorship on literature being used to control the population. As late as the 1980s, Bradbury himself stated that the book is about censorship. In his old age, however, Bradbury has come out insisting that [[Flip-Flop of God|he'd always intended]] the book to be about [https://web.archive.org/web/20131106001211/http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ how crappy television is]. Critics have wisely chosen to ignore Bradbury's assertions, and a UCLA class drove him from the room by telling him to his face that [[Death of the Author|he's simply wrong about his own book]].
** In all fairness the [[New Media Are Evil]] vibe comes across very strongly throughout the novel, perhaps it's just a question of where different people see the emphasis...
* The eighteenth century critic Thomas Rhymer said that there seemed to be two possible Aesops in ''[[Othello]]': either [[Values Dissonance|"Don't elope with blackamoors"]] or else "Take better care of your laundry." (The latter being a reference to Desdemona's handkerchief, which convinces [[Too Dumb to Live|Othello]] that his wife is cheating on him.)
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** "The Mysterious Mare Do-Well" was also problematic in that it came across to some fans as effectively saying, "It's totally okay to go behind your friends' backs, show them up and sabotage them if they act in a way that you don't like," as opposed to, you know, just talking to them about it like friends." The message the episode was supposed to have about how one shouldn't be boastful or a gloryhog is completely lost because, firstly, the Great and Powerful Trixie showed this lesson far more effectively and, secondly, because the other ponies ''do'' boast and brag about how awesome Mare Do-Well is and gladly receive accolades and talk up all their own successes. So, ultimately, the episode just comes across as the ponies being smug and hypocritical and contradicting the friendship message central to the show.
** In ''Winter Wrap-Up'', Twilight searches in vain for a way to help with the town's winter cleanup activities, but only comes into her own when she realizes everyone else needs organization and management (which are her specialties). The obvious aesop is that you should play to your own strengths rather than trying to fill anyone else's shoes, but some interpreted it as saying that the "elite" (Twilight, in this case, being from Canterlot) have to boss around the stupid common folk because they're too pathetic to do it themselves. Much like ''Feeling Pinkie Keen'', the people who saw this aesop didn't do so to agree with it, but apparently just so they could be outraged by it.
* An episode of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' had [[Granola Girl|Lisa]] taking part in a competition wherein the other team cheated (by using glow sticks, expressly against the rules) and won. She spends the rest of the episode appealing to progressively higher authorities until finally then-President Clinton himself overturns the results. The Aesop in this case is pretty explicitly spelled out: if things don't go your way, you can always whine to someone until they do. Thing is, it was clearly meant to be a [[Spoof Aesop]]; Marge points out that it's not a good moral to take away from this, and Clinton simply replies that he's not a very good president. Be that as it may, "Calmly and logically appeal to authority figures when faced with an injustice" isn't really that bad a moral.
* Parodied in-story in ''[[South Park]]'' episode "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs," the kids decide to write the most offensive book ever written, which to their surprise becomes an instant bestseller, even though people can't stop throwing up when they read it. Almost immediately, people start reading political messages in the story, only for others to angrily insist that the book says ''the exact opposite.'' The kids, who only wanted to be offensive, find this all very annoying.
* ''[[Family Guy]]'' every single time it tries to be pro-gay rights. One episode was pushing for gay marriage where the couple trying to get married was a human and ''a dog.'' A dog that acts like every [[Camp Gay]] stereotype you can imagine. Oh, and a deleted scene near the end shows that the person he's getting married to doesn't even speak English and doesn't know what's going on, with another character (Stewie) commenting in English that the human is going to be raped. The episode is supposed to be pro-gay rights but it instead comes off as "Gay people have sex with dogs, forcibly marry other people for their bodies and WILL RAPE YOU." You couldn't have messed that up even more if you ''tried.''
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