Audience-Alienating Premise: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Precious]],'' a story about a 16-year-old illiterate obese girl having the baby resulting from her father's rapes while dealing with an abusive mother? That's something [[Oscar Bait|the Oscars]] might think went too far. [[It Gets Worse]], the baby has Down's Syndrome, a ''second'' incest-rape baby is on the way, her mother is ''also'' sexually abusive, ''and'' at the end she finds out her father is dead. From HIV. That she also has. And she's only ''sixteen'' (though fortunately for [[The Woobie|Precious]], she gets a few hopeful moments by the end: {{spoiler|she can read and write, her kids are HIV-negative, and she's finally escaped her parents}}). While these elements are typically Hollywood poison, they're [[True Art Is Angsty|extremely popular]] with [[Lit Fic]]. Being [[The Film of the Book]] of the critically acclaimed ''[[Push (novel)|Push]]'', the film already had the buzz of a hot literary property, plus the support of superstars like [[Tyler Perry]] and [[The Oprah Winfrey Show|Oprah]]. ''[[Precious]]'' made $62 million and earned two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress (Mo'Nique as Precious' mother Mary) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

* ''[[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]]'' failed to find an audience due to combining too many niches together: comic books, indie rock and video games from the 80s. Its audience would have to be a particular breed of hipster that appreciates all three. The fact that [[Michael Cera]] lacks drawing power, and that at the time of the film release he had been typecast into the same [[Cool Loser]] role too many times for the audience sympathy also didn't help.

* ''[[Tideland]]'' is about a 10-year-old girl who spends several weeks in an abandoned house with her father's bloating corpse. To pass the time, she has increasingly bizarre daydreams about her Barbie heads and befriends a mentally handicapped man, with whom she practices kissing. The DVD automatically plays an introduction by director [[Terry Gilliam]], who admits that the viewer might very well hate the film.

* ''[[Trash Humpers]]'': Grainy, camcorder footage of a trio of crazed elderly people that kill people and mutilate baby dolls. Basically, all of Harmony Korine's work can be deemed at this - even ''Spring Breakers'', his most accessible one.