Author Filibuster: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:DefiedFilibuster 1283.png|link=Schlock Mercenary|frame|"Whew, glad we caught that one in the bud."]]

 

An '''Author Filibuster''' is the extreme [[Anvilicious]] case of [[Writer on Board]], where the plot stops dead in its tracks to give the author an opportunity to preach their message to the readers or audience, often very [[Strawman Political|political]] or [[An Aesop|ethical]] in nature.

 

If a character is delivering the rant, it's also a [[Character Filibuster]]. If the author's opinion is the purpose of the work, it's an [[Author Tract]]. A main cause of [[Don't Shoot the Message]]. Whether or not any specific reader considers an '''Author Filibuster''' a good or bad thing is usually dependent on [[Confirmation Bias|whether or not said reader agrees]] with the content of the filibuster, although this is not always the case.

{{examples}}

* The [[Mind Screw|infamous]] final two episodes of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' are essentially an Author Filibuster on the human condition and the nature of loneliness.

** [[The Movie]] ''End of Evangelion'' was pretty much the same, just not taking place on a "giant blue ball" and was... [[Gainax Ending|arguably ''even more confusing'']].

* The manga ''Gimmick!'' has a rather glaring example of this, after a flashback where {{spoiler|Kohei takes a job to do special effects for a video game commercial, which turns out to be a government conspiracy that takes the commercial and re-edits it into a post-9/11 pro-war viral video.}} After the revelation that {{spoiler|one of Kohei's friends from Hollywood joins the Iraq War because of it and gets killed}}, Kohei launches into a "Don't be fooled by images" rant about how Hollywood (and American media in general) is always sneaking subliminal messages into movies and commercials and such, saying how filmmakers just want to make movies, but [[Executive Meddling|executives keep interfering to cram their evil propaganda into every crack and crevice]].

** [[Sarcasm Mode|Because if there's one thing Hollywood was all in favor of, it was the Iraq war.]]

 

* As Jhonen Vazquez's comic ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' went on, more and more text began appearing that dealt with the main character's philosophical doubts, to the point that the panels would usually carry more text than drawings.

* As part of the legendary [[Creator Breakdown]] during the run of ''[[Cerebus]]'', Dave Sim replaced parts of his comic with fine-print screeds detailing his legendary misogyny, which even diehard fans who continued to read the comic do their very best to ignore.

* [[Steve Ditko]] may be a master comic book storyteller, but when he does not have a collaborator like [[Stan Lee]] to restrain him, his stories are notorious for his Objectivist philosophical lectures that dominate his more personal stories. The "Mr. A" stories are by far the worst, though "The Question" could be just as bad at times.

* The five issues long series ''[[Warrior (Comic Book)|Warrior]]'', a licensed comic about every [[Professional Wrestling]] fan's favorite crackpot, The [[Ultimate Warrior]], is one great big [[Wall of Text]] after another meant to elucidate the reader on Warrior's bizarre mystical-reactionary philosophy, and paint Warrior as [[Jesus]]. Between the sheer density of the text and the preponderance of made up words (just what in the blue hell is "Destrucity", anyway?), it confused its few readers so badly that both the third and the fourth issues had to open with an explanation of the previous issues (with the recap on the fourth issue being a footnote and unreadable due to being black text on black paper). The one issue this doesn't apply to? The Christmas special, a completely dialog-less issue in which Warrior goes to the North Pole, [[Squick|puts Santa in bondage]], steals his clothes ''{{spoiler|and possibly rapes him}}''. There's a reason that every wrestling fan on the planet has agreed that the guy is nucking futs. It's bad enough to [https://web.archive.org/web/20100414002104/http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/bt/spoonyone/reviews/7238-warrior1 mess with the space-time continuum!]

* Matt Fraction's first issue of the ''Invincible [[Iron Man]]'' comic has young villain supergenius Ezekiel Stane, fresh from his latest round of building and selling WMDs to genocidal terrorists, stop to spend four pages testing out his latest weaponry on the board of directors of a tobacco company, while delivering a rant on a) the evils of smoking and b) why, despite Ezekiel's long list of crimes against humanity, he is still infinitely morally superior to people who grow and sell tobacco.

* Oddly enough, the [[Doom (Comic Book)|Doom comic]] ([http://www.doomworld.com/10years/doomcomic/comic.php?page=11 here]) did this too, interrupting the plotless violence with a rant about how radioactive waste is killing the environment. This may well be a parody of the tradition, though, assuming that the comic is a [[Stealth Parody|parody]] to begin with.

* Warren Ellis' ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'', whose main character's inflammatory news articles, while only sometimes political, and definitely in-character (insofar as Spider is an homage to Hunter S. Thompson), are too long and detailed to NOT also be the author's viewpoint.

* [[Alan Moore]] responded to complaints about ''[[Promethea]]'' by saying something along the lines of, "There are hundreds of comics out there that aren't a didactic on magic, isn't there room for just one that is?"

* [[Garth Ennis]] can get into this. While it works in the context of the stories, [[Preacher (Comic Book)]] having the protagonists discuss how any God who made the world must be evil, [[Punisher]] having characters talk about the horrors of war and [[The Boys]] featuring long-winded [[Take That]] dialogue towards DC and Marvel style super heroes, there are also random, out of nowhere ones. In Preacher, Cassidy raves at Jesse about his distaste for the word 'insecure'. [[The Boys]] also has a scene where Butcher claims that every straight man is homophobic and anyone pretending otherwise is just lying.

 

 

* Overlapping with [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]], [[Alfred Hitchcock]]'s ''Foreign Correspondent'', like several other films of the era, ends with a call to Americans to enter [[World War II]].

* Steven Seagal finished off his movie ''[[On Deadly Ground]]'' by [https://web.archive.org/web/20130823111507/http://www.jabootu.com/ondeadlyground.htm delivering an author filibuster]... the uncut, ''ten minute'' version (the release version was three and a half) which caused test viewers to walk out. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yr-F8z74KM Check it out.] Seagal commonly ends his movies this way. The trend started in his very first movie, ''[[Above the Law (film)|Above the Law]]'', where he spends the finale battling corrupt government agents, then after all is said and done, just before the end credits, he gives a short voice-over about how even in real life, the further up the chain of command you go, the more people you find that think they're...[[Title Drop|above the law.]] The key word here being "short"; ''On Deadly Ground'' was his directorial debut, presumably to make room for his ego.

** Well, maybe it did. [[Wes Craven]] supposedly claimed that watching this movie made him a vegetarian, so maybe Hooper did have some success.

* ''[[The Human Centipede]]'' was originally conceived as a way for the director to express what the proper punishment for child predators should be, and to show what notorious Nazi doctors like Adolph Eichmann would be doing if they were still in business in modern times. When that factor is added in, the message isn't subtle...

 

* ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' has the definitive Author Filibuster in "This Is John Galt Speaking," where [[Ayn Rand]] gives her protagonist an opportunity to lecture the reader for ''sixty'' pages on end (''eighty'' pages in the paperback edition); since he's [[Do Not Adjust Your Set|taken over all channels]], the [[Strawman Political]] villains are made to sit through it for three hours of plot time. There are several shorter examples in the same book, such as the sermon explaining that "If money is the root of all evil, then what is the root of all money? Virtue is the only thing that can give money any value. Is virtue the root of all evil?" In an example of [[Did Not Do the Research]], Ayn Rand, in ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'', claims John Galt's radio monologue is only three hours. No one has ever been able to read, clearly and distinctly, the entire monologue aloud in less than '''SIX HOURS'''.

* Howard Roark of ''[[The Fountainhead]]'' also gets a such an opportunity in his courtroom scene, and the last chapter of ''Anthem'' is essentially devoted to this purpose ([[Ayn Rand]] seems to do this a lot). These examples aren't quite as extreme as ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''—in book form. In the movie adaptation of ''The Fountainhead'', Rand demanded that Roark's courtroom speech be performed ''exactly'' as she had written it (the version Rand wrote for the film's screenplay was significantly shorter than the book's version), resulting in a nearly six-minute long speech, one of the longest in film.

* [[Louisa May Alcott]] admits in ''[[Little Women]]'' that she was guilty of this at one point. Her [[Author Avatar]] Jo's literary exploits include, in a backlash against [[Executive Meddling]] insisting that [[True Art Is Angsty]], writing a book that failed because "it might more accurately have been called an essay or a sermon, so intensely moral was it".

* In ''[[Deception Point]]'', Dan Brown has several characters expose the pros and cons of letting NASA monopolize space exploration instead of opening it up to the private sector (though the arguments supporting NASA greatly outnumber the ones doing the opposite).

* Michael Crichton's ''[[Next]]'' warns of the dangers of Big Genetics, hamfists the point in at every available opportunity, has an epilogue followed by a didactic author's note, just to make sure that the subtlety of his point could in fact cause a concussion.

* ''Wakefield'' by Andrei Codrescu does this over and over on a wide variety of subjects, but at least has a certain self-knowledge. Kudos for when, after the main character gives a lengthy speech about the relationship between art and money, another character tells him he's "full of shit".

** Not an anti-communism message, actually, but more of an anti-totalitarianism message.

* The plot of ''[[Moby Dick]]'' is, basically, an excuse for myriad Author Filibusters about whaling, whaling culture, the anatomy of whales, and, of course, lots of [[Have a Gay Old Time|sperm-wringing]]. Not to mention [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|all the classical references]].

** In the category of "anvils that definitely should have stayed where they were," ''The Hippopotamus'' has a lengthy passage on the idea that [[All Women Are Prudes|women don't enjoy sex]] and [[The Oldest Ones in the Book|only say they do because they need to be in a relationship]]. This is something Fry said in at least one TV interview twentyish years ago.

* Neal Stephenson does this a ''lot''. He keeps you on your toes, too - sometimes he's just rambling about [[Restoration Comedy]] for no good reason, but sometimes the five-page demonstration of van Eck phreaking will turn out to be a key plot point.

* Terry Pratchett has, perhaps, started to succumb to this in later ''[[Discworld]]'' books, as he began to use the series to express his views on the world. A major example is the argument between Sacharissa and William in ''The Truth'' on the true purpose of news media, in which William may as well be holding a card that say "VIEWPOINT OF TERRY PRATCHETT". Actually, basically any point in the book where anyone (but especially William) starts talking about truth in journalism. Makes sense since Pratchett started his writing career in journalism.

** It could easily be argued that, as a satirical series, this is the entire point of Discworld. This is a questionable argument, though, since it didn't ''start'' satirical.

* In Joseph Heller's novel ''Good as Gold'', the narrative stops dead for about forty pages while the author delivers a massive rant about Henry Kissinger, how he's a lying, murdering scumbag and how, worst of all, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|he isn't even really Jewish]].

* Joseph Conrad's ''[[Heart of Darkness]]'' (1902) is a psychological thriller masquerading as an African adventure story, but even before the psychological element takes center stage, the novella's protagonist, Charlie Marlowe, veers away from pure narrative at times to talk about his spiritual awakening (or spiritual death, as the case may be) while in the Congo. For several pages at a time, we come upon extensive philosophical treatises that were considered long-winded and dull even in Conrad's time. Partly justified by the fact that Marlowe is actually, in-story, speaking to a group of friends on a boat, and it is an unnamed first-person narrator listening to Marlowe who both opens and concludes the whole thing.

 

* Very common in American TV cartoons and sitcoms during the 1980s and well into the '90s, with the characters (or, sometimes, the actors portraying them) [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]] at the end of the episode to advocate on behalf of a cause with which the episode had fictionally dealt. For more on this phenomenon, see [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle]].

* When ''[[Brookside]]'' was canceled, the show's creator Phil Redmond had his final say in a rebellious scripted rant about how 'TV and society's not like it was' voiced by its longest-running character.

** Lampshaded somewhat when Denny says "How come the other side always has short closings?"

** There were a very few occasions when they ended up getting totally shot down by the end of the episode, unfortunately this was phased out as the series went on.

* A non-moral example from [[Dan Schneider]], the creator of ''[[iCarly]]'': one episode of the show portrays [[Shipping]] and shippers in a bad light, then finally basically stops the show so Carly can tell them that the point of the show is comedy, not who is dating who.

** What makes this infuriating for some fans, is that the very next episode they filmed was a 'secret' episode which ended on a nuclear level shipping cliffhanger.

* Parodied in ''[[Garth Marenghi's Darkplace]]'', which frequently had awkwardly inserted scenes about such diverse topics as how great it would be for someone to make a school for psychic children, or what an underappreciated writer Garth Merenghi is. Most fitting the trope was the episode where numerous characters discuss at bizarre length the benefits of buying name-brand batteries from a reputable retailer. Seriously, they spend like ten percent of the show on it.

 

 

* Subverted in ''[[Three Sisters]]''. Vershinin gives a big long speech about how nobody really wants to be happy; they just want to want happiness. And then Tuzenbach asks if there are any chocolates left, deflating Vershinin's entire point: Tuzenbach, at least, wants to be happy ''now''.

* Some published versions of [[Arthur Miller]]'s ''[[The Crucible]]'' (commonly used in schools) contain notes from Miller himself interrupting Act One. Most of them discuss the [[Real Life]] characters who have just been introduced, but one devolves into practically a treatise on the Red Scare.

** Not to mention that Kushner is a huge fan of Brecht, and the subtitle of ''Angels In America'' is ''A Gay Fantasia On National Themes''. So really, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

 

* This happens a ''lot'' in the ''[[Metal Gear]]'' series. As a sly apology, more often than not it's the ''villains'' blathering on, and the protagonist greets their speeches with irreverence, frustration or bewilderment as appropriate. Not to mention that you get to ''beat the crap out of them'' once the cutscene's over.

** That said, in the final cutscene of each game, there's a character that always espouses for Hideo Kojima for a while. In MGS1 it's Naomi Hunter, in MGS2 it's Snake, and in MGS3 it's EVA (sort of, she doesn't nearly break the fourth wall). And you never get the chance to beat any of them up, because it's the final cutscene.

* Subverted in ''[[Resident Evil]] 4''. Antagonist Ramon Salazar starts what appears to be a long speech about a rather "special" fate he's got planned for Leon, following a brief quip about terrorism "(being) a popular word these days", but before he can finish his second sentence, Leon [[Shut UP, Hannibal|shuts him up by nailing his hand to a wall with a well-thrown knife.]]

* In ''[[Deus Ex]]'', JC can match wits with a Hong Kong bartender who has a '''lot''' to say about the nature of government and the consent of the governed. The monologue of the NSF leader met in the Statue of Liberty also qualifies.

 

* ''[[Pastel Defender Heliotrope]]'' used its first update after the results of the 2004 presidential elections to berate the readers for the re-election of George W. Bush.

** ''[[Venus Envy]]'' did much the same thing, with the [[Author Avatar]] not only berating the readers, but also [[Wangst|sobbing and collapsing in a heap]], along with the equivalent of "How could yoooou?!" at the end of the rant.

* ''[[Sinfest]]'' typically shows Tatsuya Ishida's liberal leanings both in the comics themselves and the rants. In particular, after the 2004 election, he posted a rant about how he "knew" [[George W. Bush]] had stolen the election because there was no way a dumbass like him could win fair and square.

* R.H. Junior, the man behind ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'', apparently thought that the subtle right-wing Christian elements of his comics and his very political journal weren't enough, and decided to interrupt his cutesy ''[[Narnia]]''-like allegory about an adventuring raccoon kit with a completely out-of-the-blue ramble. He quickly stopped doing this, though, and relegated it to a separate section - presumably too many people complained.

** Also happens in his other comics ''Nip and Tuck'' and ''Goblin Hollow''.

* ''[[Subnormality]]'', while excellent, often features a [[Wall of Text|level of verbosity]] rarely seen in its medium. Perhaps the most filibustering example is [http://www.viruscomix.com/page474.html this one]. (If you don't want to read the whole thing, here's a summary: "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem".)

** It's no coincidence that Subnormality's subtitle is "Comix with too many words since 2007."

* ''[[VG Cats]]'' has the infamous [http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/090423.jpg Nerd Rage], and several others almost equally non-subtle.

** Subverted in the same author's ''[[Original Life]]'': the ''[[Lord of the Flies]]'' arc- [[Halfway Plot Switch|picking up from a rather different one]]- was shaping up like this. Then it [[Aborted Arc|abruptly]] turned out to be [[All Just a Dream]] and wrapped up with a [[Stock Aesop]] about not stealing. Played straight in the later muffin arc, with little kids spouting out long speeches about justice right and left.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131014072628/http://somethingpositive.net/sp04262010.shtml This strip] of ''[[Something*Positive]]'', which contains a lengthy [[Take That]] against Iran and ends with a call to action and a hotlink.

* ''[[Sonichu]]'', especially during the troll-influenced issues, usually have the eponymous character or the [[Author Avatar]] complaining about stuff the author hates, mostly trolls and homosexuality. Issue 10 is the worst of the bunch, with at least three filibusters and, at one point, Sonichu even tells Chris to stop and get on with the story!

 

* The ''[[Camp Camp]] Holiday Special - A Camp Camp Christmas, or Whatever'' ends with the characters breaking the fourth wall and lecturing the audience. It's not exactly clear how compelling someone that thought climate change was a hoax would be swayed by this, and any viewers that believed it's a hoax could very well feel insulted (and thus admitting being wrong could feel like it comes with the extra baggage of validating the insults. And thus be counter productive to the Rooster Teeth's intent). Mercifully, this was at the very end of the episode, so it didn't grind the plot to a screeching halt as the plot was already wrapped up.

* A mild example occurs in ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'', when at one point Shin bursts into a long rant about DVD regional lockout and copy protection. This is actually pretty much exactly in character for her, given the situation, but it's a little jarring and has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever.

** Many reviews begin with long, angry rants about the industry as a whole rather than the specific game.

** Any military-based game review will manage to work in a good, long rant about how America and Americans are evil imperialistic murderous monsters... especially [[Acceptable Ethnic Targets|white male Americans]].

** He tends to also go off on political/social rants sometimes in his videos. A good example of this is the lengthy tirade about nuclear weapons in the ''Superman IV'' review. Some of it's justified given the movie's [[Clueless Aesop]] but it still comes off as [[Anvilicious]] at certain points.

** He also gave a rant about blatant and/or inappropriate [[Fan Service]] in modern comics to start off his "Athena #1" review. He cited examples such as [[All Star Batman and Robin|Vicki Vale's]] ass shot, a Wizard magazine outright saying women should be drawn sultry, and a shot at Stephanie Brown's ass when she was being ''tortured'' by Black Mask (among others) as examples. Given how many comic artists ''still'' don't get this, [[Tropes Are Not Bad|it usually comes off as]] [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped]].

** Averted in his review of "[[Superman]] #592-3"<ref>The one where Superman and [[New Gods|Big Barda]]</ref> are [[Aliens Made Them Do It|mind-controlled into filming a porno]], where instead of ranting about the use of rape as a plot device he links to a website that already has one and recommends that people read it instead.

* Animated web series ''[[Broken Saints]]'', steeped as it is in political and religious themes, comes dangerously close to this several times.

 

* ''[[Family Guy]]'' has done a lot of this in its post-revival episodes to express the writers' generally left-wing views, usually without any self-parody. There is one example of a parodical usage in the episode "Boys Do Cry", however. The message itself is completely sincere, but the way it's delivered is comedically heavy-handed, infused with [[Reality Subtext]]:

{{quote|"Like, for instance, if you're watching a TV show and you decide to take your values from that... you're an idiot. Maybe you should take responsibility for what values your kids are getting. Maybe you shouldn't be letting your kids watch certain shows in the first place if you have such a big problem with them, instead of blaming the shows themselves. [long pause] Yeah."}}

** This has become increasingly apparent in recent seasons. In a scene from "Whale Whores", the in-universe Larry King breaks character and diverts attention from the scene just to talk about how much he (that is, Matt and Trey) hates the host of ''Whale Wars''. A previous episode had a scene that made fun of ''Ghost Hunters'' [[Overly Long Gag|by repeating the same joke over and over again, that did not contribute anything to the plot of the episode and was basically a throwaway gag for something like five whole minutes]]. In other words, [[South Park]]'s instances of author filibuster have not only become more jarring and (even) less subtle, have become increasingly-focused upon more minor topics (such as currently-popular TV shows or trends).

** Ironically, South Park's actual morals are usually sarcastic and insincere, lampshaded in several episodes where the characters predict and rant against an upcoming moral following a series of misadventures. The sappy music as one of the characters (usually Stan or Kyle, though Cartman and other characters are sometimes given the moral for purposes of comedy and irony) lectures the entire town on some topic underscores the further aversion of this trope. It's possible that due to South Park's increasing reliance on themed episodes and their extremely rushed work schedule, this formula may just be a reliable way to end episodes.

** Meanwhile, there is a [https://web.archive.org/web/20150814003817/http://the-5th-turtle.blogspot.com/ guy on Mirage staff] who is very much an environmentalist and has mentioned working some of his views into scripts in the comics and cartoons. This may very well be an example.

*** The writer in question, Steve Murphy, was responsible for both the cited episode and the original comic from which it was adapted.

** Donatello's rant is [[Fantastic Aesop|really questionable when you consider the Turtles and Splinter's origins]]. Granted, it wasn't nuclear-related, but Donatello never railed against the Utroms for not taking better care of their potentially hazardous material.

** Interestingly enough, the episode in question was written by Paul Dini, who not only wrote the [[Batman: The Animated Series|best known grim animated Batman]] for quite some time, but even uses the episode to playfully take a jab at himself. Let's just say he doesn't look good in spandex and leave it at that. Regardless, if this had come from anyone else, it might not be nearly as effective.

 

== Other ==