Anti Role Model: Difference between revisions

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''I'll live to be a hundred, and go down in infamy!''|'''Warren Zevon'''}}

Similar to [[Strawman Political]], except that the message delivered through this method is usually not of a political nature and is generally geared towards children and what the executives view as [[Viewers ~~Are~~ Morons|moronic viewers]]. It is used to dissuade children from smoking, get them to eat a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables while avoiding foods containing fat, cholesterol, sugar, and caffeine, or to convince them not to use drugs. Other Aesops may also be delivered through this method.

Similar to [[Strawman Political]], except that the message delivered through this method is usually not of a political nature and is generally geared towards children and what the executives view as [[Viewers are Morons|moronic viewers]]. It is used to dissuade children from smoking, get them to eat a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables while avoiding foods containing fat, cholesterol, sugar, and caffeine, or to convince them not to use drugs. Other Aesops may also be delivered through this method.

How it works is that the character who partakes in the undesirable behavior is portrayed as being rude, crude, possibly ugly, bullying, obnoxious, antisocial, stupid, foolish, misguided, shallow, arrogant, or any combination of these traits. For example, teens who use drugs might be portrayed as juvenile delinquents with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. These characters are almost always one-dimensional, with their portrayals [[Accentuate the Negative|accentuating the negative]] as much as possible. It's nearly impossible to identify with these characters even if you yourself partake in the undesirable behavior. Back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, these juvenile delinquents and gang members might be shown wearing leather jackets, though this stereotype is no longer used since law abiding citizens are now allowed to wear leather jackets as well and it no longer carries the bad boy image that it once did.

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Notice that this is somewhat of an overcorrection from some of the "[[Smoking Is Cool]]" advertising that presumably got the kids to think so in the first place. So you've got a fight between the "people who smoke are the epitome of cool" and the "people who smoke are the epitome of lame" sides. (Obviously holds true for any negative cause that had a P.R. campaign before the [[Media Watchdogs]] got up in arms about the issue.)

When your own government is presenting you with this character, it's almost always as a part of a [[Public Service Announcement]]. May overlap with [[Scare Em Straight]] when the rule-breaking rebels are scary.

When your own government is presenting you with this character, it's almost always as a part of a [[Public Service Announcement]]. May overlap with [[Scare'Em Straight]] when the rule-breaking rebels are scary.

When [[Moral Guardians]] can't wrap their minds around even this [[Anvilicious]] method of delivery, you get [[But Not Too Evil]].

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Contrast [[The Paragon]].

== Advertising ==

* Anti-smoking groups ''love'' this trope. In one ad, a teenage girl runs around her neighborhood, licking trash can lids, car tires, and everything else she can find around her, ending with the insinuation that given the chemicals in cigarettes, ''this is what smokers might as well be doing all the time''. Then there was another campaign that would take images of teen smokers and digitally morph the images into monsters, including one where a young male smoker [[Space Whale Aesop|turns into a person with a fish head]].

* PSAs by anti-marijuana groups love to portray pot smokers as slovenly losers and borderline criminals who only want to sit on the couch all day and can't string together a coherent thought unless it involves sucking on a bong. One has to wonder how effective [[Scare Em Straight]] tactics are when the movies of [[Judd Apatow]] and [[Cheech and Chong]] do the same thing.

* PSAs by anti-marijuana groups love to portray pot smokers as slovenly losers and borderline criminals who only want to sit on the couch all day and can't string together a coherent thought unless it involves sucking on a bong. One has to wonder how effective [[Scare'Em Straight]] tactics are when the movies of [[Judd Apatow]] and [[Cheech and Chong]] do the same thing.

** Plus, there's the whole 'not as bad as those guys' attitude.

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== Live Action TV ==

* Cookie Monster from ''[[Sesame Street (TV)|Sesame Street]]'' used to be a mild case of this -- mild enough to still be endearing in his own way, but they decided that cookies were a sometimes food. Despite what you might think though, he was less often one for poor diet as he was for being gluttonous. He probably wouldn't be a good one for diet, because that would require him to actually become less healthy, otherwise the lesson would be lost.

** There's a chapter from ''[[Family Guy]]'', though, where this trope is mixed with [[I Can't Believe ~~Its~~ Not Heroin]]: One scene shows the Cookie Monster hiding in a bathroom stall, heating cookie dough in a spoon as if it were heroin.

** There's a chapter from ''[[Family Guy]]'', though, where this trope is mixed with [[I Can't Believe It's Not Heroin!]]: One scene shows the Cookie Monster hiding in a bathroom stall, heating cookie dough in a spoon as if it were heroin.

*** This, in fact, is acknowledged in his recent cameo on, of all shows, ''[[The Colbert Report]]'', where he notes, "Me have crazy times in seventies and eighties! Me am like, the Robert Downey Jr. of cookies!"

** Cookie Monster isn't the only ''Sesame Street'' example, of course. [[Grumpy Bear|Oscar]]'s grouchiness is, of course, meant to be a counter-example to children. And early on, Telly Monster [[Characterization Marches On|wasn't the worry wart]] he is today; his name is short for "Television Monster", and he was addicted to TV. The [[Irony]] was apparently enough to have him changed.

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* Roger on [[Nickelodeon]]'s ''[[Doug]]'' was often used for this purpose, though less so in the Disney version.

* Parodied in the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV", where Bender ''acts like himself'' on a TV show. Bender is an anti-role model (since he has no redeeming qualities) whom young viewers treat as a role model. At one point on the show, he says, "Try this at home, kids!" (while a brief disclaimer flashes across the bottom of the screen saying not to try it at home), and then he ''sets himself on fire''. Later in the episode, he protests his own presence on TV and the blame placed upon him. Note that the proverbial last straw for Bender here is that the children who emulated his behavior stole ''his'' stuff.

{{quote| '''Bender''': It's the parents' fault! [[Bread Eggs Milk Squick|Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them]]?}}

{{quote| '''Bender''': It's the parents' fault! [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick|Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them]]?}}

** Leela becomes an in-universe example in the episode "A Leela of Her Own", where she becames the first female ever to play major league Blernsball. She plays horribly (due to having one eye, and thus bad depth perception) but the New New York Mets signs her up, because she's so bad that people find it entertaining. At the end, Jackie Anderson, the first ''good'' female player, tells her that she was an inspiration, because she was "so awful that women everywhere set out to prove they don't stink as bad as you."

* ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]''. Unusual, as they're the leads.

** More than a few have suggested that this show was a [[Take That Audience|satire]] of its [[Target Audience]], and that Beavis and Butthead [[This Loser Is You|represented]] what its makers [[Viewers ~~Are~~ Morons|thought the viewers were like]]. Evidence for this hypothesis includes the fact that B&B creator [[Mike Judge]] would later make ''[[Idiocracy]]''.

** More than a few have suggested that this show was a [[Take That, Audience!|satire]] of its [[Target Audience]], and that Beavis and Butthead [[This Loser Is You|represented]] what its makers [[Viewers are Morons|thought the viewers were like]]. Evidence for this hypothesis includes the fact that B&B creator [[Mike Judge]] would later make ''[[Idiocracy]]''.

*** The original short "Frog Baseball" was based on a conversation Judge had with a boy of Beavis and Butthead's age.

* Captain K'nuckles from ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]'' defines this trope. Justified due to him having a rough childhood (both hands cut off when a teenager, his father dying in the sewers when he was but a lad).