Author Tract: Difference between revisions

'''Please do not use this page as an excuse to complain about an author you don't like. Keep in mind that the minimal requirement for a work to qualify here is that the message has to be obvious and heavy handed. Don't use this page to [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Like|Complain About Messages You Disagree With]]. <ref>Especially since disagreeing with the message is hardly a requirement for this trope.</ref> When adding examples, please restrict them to explaining what the tract is about and how this is shown. We don't want arguments.'''

 

 

== Anime ==

* ''[[Only Yesterday]]'' sometimes comes across as a tract about the importance of Japanese farming. It avoids being irritating through the sheer quality of the animation and storytelling--and it helps that the monologues are sometimes being interrupted by the character saying that he is getting too serious.

* Most of [[Hayao Miyazaki]]'s movies have at least one segment that preaches the importance of respecting and preserving nature. That is, if the plot itself isn't already completely built around the [[Aesop]].

*** Given his [http://www.ghibliworld.com/news.html#3103_02 criticism about capitalism and globalization], the latter claim atleast is pretty much just [[Blatant Lies]].

* Another [[Studio Ghibli]] movie, ''[[Grave of the Fireflies]]'' has a different [[Aesop]] altogether. Did you know that [[Captain Obvious|war is bad?]] Well, this movie goes out of its way to show you that [[War Is Hell]]. That is, if you can see that [[Tear Jerker|through all the tears]].

* [[Reginald Hudlin]]. His primary messages in ''[[Black Panther]]'': Africans (and thus African-Americans) are good and genetically superior, while white people are inferior and evil.

* Lest we forget, [[Jack Chick]] is famous for creating his "[[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Chick Tracts]]", which have thin stories whose only purpose is to provide a framing story for an illustrated extract from [[The Bible (Literature)|The Bible]] and/or rant about how [[The Pope]] [[Conspiracy Theory|secretly rules the world]] and ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' is a Satanic indoctrination tool.

** [http://www.yourmomsbasement.com/archives/2006/11/galactus_is_com.html This parody] uses the Chick tract format to promote [[Marvel Comics]] instead of Christianity.

** [http://cissie-king.livejournal.com/13838.html "Darkseid IS!"]

* One [[Chick Tracts]] explains where the idea came from -- Communist China found that Western children loved reading comics, so they decided that easy-to-understand comics would be an excellent medium with which to indoctrinate the people. Even though the comics in question are mostly Japanese.

** That said, basically every piece of official publication in Communist dictatorships is an example of this trope.

** In general comics are a popular form for propaganda because illustrated stories can reach across linguistic boundaries.

* ''[[The Invisibles]]'' was basically created as a way for [[Grant Morrison]] to explain his experiences with extraterrestrial contact and magic.

* ''[[An American Carol]]'' was David Zucker's stab at making a conservative comedy film, featuring a [[Strawman Political|straw-stuffed]] [[Michael Moore]] parody getting the shit beat out of him by Patton.

* The propaganda film ''[[Triumph of the Will]]'' was a tract for the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazis]]. After [[World War II]], director Leni Riefenstahl repeatedly insisted that she was not herself a true believing Nazi.

* ''[[Glen or Glenda]]'' is essentially Ed Wood's apology for crossdressers like himself; he even played the crossdressing title character under a pseudonym.

* [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s ''[[The Great Dictator]]'' in which Chaplin urges the viewers to resist the Nazis.

** C. S. Lewis did write ''deliberate'' Author Tracts, however:

*** ''[[The Great Divorce]],'' an allegory.

*** ''[[The Screwtape Letters]].'' In contrast to ''Pilgrim's Regress'', this is actually well-written, but since he deliberately used a [[Villain Protagonist]], it's better as literature than as a tract. This is especially true due to Lewis noting in the introduction that, being a demon, Screwtape is an [[Unreliable Narrator]].

* Another notable Narnian example comes at the end of ''[[The Silver Chair]]'', where the Lady of the Green Kirtle is set up as a [[Hollywood Atheist]] of the "completely evil" variety and Lewis puts into her mouth some deliberately skewed philosophical arguments against the existence of Aslan. (Particularly bad because the Green Lady actually ''knows'' that Aslan exists, and is just straight-up lying.)

* The ''[[Left Behind]]'' series of religious novels are overtly based on the authors' premillennial dispensationalist views on the Rapture. Only Christians with their very specific beliefs are shown to be worthy of going to heaven. Like any didactic religious story, the plot is clearly just a vessel to convert the readers or reinforce their already sympathetic views. Helpfully, the two main characters are both [[Mary Sue|Mary Sues]] of the authors, giving the reader a virtually unfiltered look into the authors' actual beliefs and point of view. [http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html Slacktivist] illuminates many of these beliefs in his page-by-page analysis.

** You know you're dealing with an [[Author Tract]] when you read a women's clinic employee saying that she's sad that all the world's children disappeared... '' because they can't perform any more abortions now''!

* A large part of [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Stranger in A Strange Land]]'' revolves around nudism and polyamory, both of which Heinlein practiced in his real life (''[[For Us the Living A Comedy of Customs (Literature)|For Us the Living A Comedy of Customs]]'', a [[Missing Episode|lost early Heinlein manuscript]] which was first published in 2003, contains similar themes). Indeed, his works can largely be divided into pre-''Stranger'' and post-''Stranger'', with the latter showing far more evidence of this. There's also a greater-than-average amount of incest, including a mention that in his distant future it's genetically safer in some cases for a woman to bear her brother's children than an unrelated man's -- a couple's decision to have children together (or not) is based purely on their gene scans, not on consanguinity. Not that that necessarily stops them from ''marrying''; there's a reference to a happily married couple who are raising seven children, "four his, three hers, none theirs," using donor sperm for hers and donor eggs for his because the genetic risks of having children together were too great. Apparently [[Hollywood Evolution]] leads to a world where [[Mary Suetopia|whatever the creator thinks is hottest happens]]. Heinlein was probably unaware of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westermarck_effect#Westermarck_effect Westermarck Effect], or he would have been less sanguine about the possibility of genetic scans completely replacing the incest taboo as society's method of minimizing pregnancies and births marred by reinforced harmful recessive genes.

** All of Robert A. Heinlein's heroes have the same views as he does. Some of his early writing was made solely for the purpose of [[Author Tract]]. However, even his stories that weren't solely designed for it still have plenty of it in there. It is just that he was such a good writer with good ideas that he could get away with it. He also does get you to think about the issues, as well. ''[[Starship Troopers (Literature)|Starship Troopers]]'' is the most popular story of his that has been accused of being an [[Author Tract]], with critics basically saying it is just about worshiping the military.

*** Weirdly, given that it suffers from such a severe dose of [[Author Tract]], ''[[Starship Troopers (Literature)|Starship Troopers]]'' comes closer than any of his other major novels to breaking the main character out of the 'Heinlein hero' mold. The protagonist ''isn't'' an attractive resourceful polymath; he's just a regular Joe (well, Juan) who believes the political line fed to him in school.

*** Heinlein is an unusual author tractist in that his political opinions and issue of choice evolved over time. While he never stopped writing author tracts, has later tracts effectively contradict his middle tracts, which in turn contradict his earlier tracts.

** Orwell's ''[[Animal Farm]]'' is also a thinly veiled satire of the Russian Revolution, and more generally of the nigh-universal cycle of revolution and corruption.

*** Animal Farm can also come off as a pro-Trotskyist [[Author Tract]] given the fact that the one semi-good pig was an idealized version of Trotsky.

** Let's not forget the evil Psychlos. This isn't a play on 'psycho'--it's a reference to ''psychologists'', who are considered evil in Scientology doctrine.

** His earlier work ''Masters of Sleep'' promotes Dianetics and features as a villain a mad psychiatrist, Doctor Dyhard, who persists in rejecting Dianetics after all his abler colleagues have accepted it, and believes in prefrontal lobotomies for everyone.

* [[Michael Crichton]]. ''[[State of Fear]]''. In fact, many of his books: starting with ''[[Jurassic Park]]'', and going on from there.

* [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]] hoped to convey a new way to understand religion through exemplifying the themes of guilt and free will in writing ''[[The Brothers Karamazov]]''. This can be seen in what many critics call the pivotal chapters of the book, which include the parable called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor ''The Grand Inquisitor''.] The way in which events play out conform with the Elder Zosima's idea expressed throughout of "everyone is guilty for all and before all."

** ''[[Notes From Underground]]'' is arguably an Author Tract; it highlights the societal chaos brought about by the then fashionable, and highly depressing, trend towards rational reductivism (often referred to as nihilism).

** The parts of ''Toll the Hounds'' where the readers seem to be directly addressed are actually told by Kruppe (who, as we know since the very first book, just loves the sound of his own voice).

* Even [[Edgar Allan Poe]] wasn't immune to this, though to either his credit or his fault, he restricted it to philosophy--''The Imp of the Perverse'' is entirely about his idea of a previously uncredited motivating force behind people's actions.

* ''King John of Canada'' by Scott Gardiner, although nominally a political satire, in reality consists of one [[Author Filibuster]] after another against Natives, Quebec Separatists, environmental activists, Saudi Royals, the Asper family, American-style conservatives...in short, everyone that the author doesn't like, all stuck together by a paper-thin plot and shallow characters. Even for someone who agrees with most of his points, it's painful to read.

* ''[[The Turner Diaries (Literature)|The Turner Diaries]]'', written under a pseudonym by William Pierce, who was leader of the neo-Nazi organization National Alliance until his death in 2002. Largely about ''eeeevil'' [[Strawman Political|liberals and Jews]] enslaving America, and the actions of the [[Designated Hero]] terrorist cell 'The Order' trying to overthrow said ''eeeevil'' strawmen. For a scary note, a scene in which the Order blow up a federal building probably inspired the actions of one of its biggest fans - Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City Bomber.

* ''Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded'' by Samuel Richardson was a very popular didactic novel to teach young women the importance of feminine virtues, including piety, domesticity, and most importantly chastity. The main character is basically a [[Mary Sue]] of the feminine ideal who repeatedly asserts her virtue against the advances of a rakish suitor.

** Even at the time the book was published, some were disgusted by the classification of "virtue" as "virginity". One author wrote a parody, ''Shamela'', that ridiculed the concept by having long conversations over the heroine's "vartue", pointing out just how meaningless the word "virtue" is when used in the original.

* ''[[Only the Super Rich Can Save Us]]'' by Ralph Nader. Yes, ''that'' Ralph Nader. Although- consumer advocate that he is- he never pretends that the book is anything other than 'how everything could be so much better if a few rich people got together and implemented my program.'

* Eugen Richter's ''Pictures of the Socialistic Future'', which has the [[Strawman Political]] as the viewpoint character who celebrates Germany's slide into Stalinist Communism and saves the [[Author Avatar]] for the very end. Interestingly, it was published in 1891 and managed to predict much of the [[Crapsack World]] the Soviet bloc would become.

* The ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' novels are one big [[Green Aesop]] after book three.

* ''[[Dragonrider (Literature)|Dragonrider]]'' by Cornelia Funke is flagrantly plagued by the author's numerous holier-than-thou agendas. Every character we are supposed to like is a vegetarian, a pacifist, and will never stop bemoaning mankind's need to put animals in cages even though this theme has cursory relevance to the actual plot, at best. The problematic nature of this aesop is artlessly dodged in that the good dragons subsist entirely off of moonlight and breathe fire that doesn't burn. In one particularly obnoxious scene, a main character sneaks into the campsite of a scientific expedition and releases several caged chickens and a monkey, an act that was not only entirely inconsequential to the plot but also failed to explore the ramifications of the fact that the newfound freedom of these creatures was in the Egyptian wilderness (lucky, lucky chickens). The author is further guilty of putting Eastern people high up on a pedestal over Western people to a point of othering them, not to mention betraying that she probably isn't as familiar with Asia as she would have us believe.

* The [[Jakub Wedrowycz]] stories are written by a conservative author, and it shows sometimes; in one of the stories, the bad guys are radical left-wing ecologists, and in another the heroes chase away an European Union official.

* In ''[[Does My Head Look Big in This]]?'' by Randa Abdel-Fattah, about a Muslim girl living in Australia who decides to wear a hijab regularly, this occurs a lot. The main character often has speeches about the fact that non-Muslims should just see it as a piece of cloth and not as her whole personality. While this is a worthwhile message, this is expressed through contrived situations.

* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sometimes has this happening, most likely because the host differs from week to week. Christina Aguilera hosted in the midst of her ''Dirrty'' phase, and about three-quarters of the sketches where she played a central role (either as herself or someone else) had her character lecturing the others on how she chose to express herself as a woman. Some sketches in this style were [[Anvilicious]], others were [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|anvilicious but got the point across with a good punchline]].

* ''[[The West Wing]]'' varied a lot over time - the writing staff was mostly Republican in later seasons, leading to things like Arnold Vinick being the better candidate in the Season 7 election, to the point where {{spoiler|he would have won had actor John Spencer not died, forcing a last-minute rewrite}}.

* ''[[MacGyver]]'' pretty much turned into a show protesting societal wrongs after a couple seasons. The most glaring was probably the one that opened with a warning about a graphic portrayal of a de-horned rhinoceros, then spent about half its running time explaining the poaching in Africa and ended with Richard Dean Anderson as himself narrating about what can be done about it. [[Very Special Episode]], indeed.

* ''[[Boston Legal]]'' frequently involved the writers concocting a storyline that would allow James Spader to sue and deliver increasingly lengthy closing arguments. Frequently [[Better Than a Bare Bulb|lampshaded]].

* "Long Leather Coat" by Paul McCartney, issued in 1993. If you are not in animal-lib, you will get chills listening to this.

* Several of John Lennon's works from '72 and '73. "Woman Is the Nigger of the World." There is even the Nutopian National Anthem- which is silent...

* ''Diary of an Unborn Child'' is an anti-abortion [[Author Tract]] that would possibly have been more effective had the titular protagonist not embodied [[Tastes Like Diabetes|Sickening Sweetness]] and [[Nightmare Fuel]] in equal measure, making its eventual demise [[Broken Aesop|more of a relief than anything]]. [[Narm|And then it starts singing.]]

** Not to mention that in trying to be strawmannishly [[Anvilicious]], the creator portrays the mother as literally quaking in fear at the very concept of her child, implying that she hates it and despises it. Of course, if your unborn fetus was chirping at you about every stage of its development in a Chipmunk-esque voice, it might scare you, too.

* ''[[Fans]]!'' is a little too vehement in its defense of fanboys. Claim that they're valuable, intelligent and worthwhile human beings, fine. Claim that fanboys have the [[Plot Tailored to The Party|specific combination of strengths]] that makes them the only ones capable of defending Earth, and that the biggest, geekiest fanboys alive will be revered by future generations as heroes who made all of society possible... that's taking things a bit too far.

** ''[[Shortpacked (Webcomic)|Shortpacked]]'' seems to take the opposite tack in its satire and often portrays fans with complaints of any sort as self-entitled morons. Not surprisingly, what is considered unfair and what is considered perfectly okay seems to coincide with the author's tastes...

*** Willis isn't afraid to take shots at himself, but also loves slamming people who disagree with his opinion on various message boards. One storyline in the comic in particular is a major Author Tract- it's a poorly-disguised attempt by Willis to get Dinobot to win an online poll that will enter him into the Transformers Hall Of Fame. One character from the strip is campaigning for Congress by also campaigning for Dinobot's entry.

** ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|The Order of the Stick]]'' unashamedly pokes fun at gamer attitudes which Rich Burlew finds obnoxious, such as players whose paladins use [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0251.html the letter of the rules] to act like [[Heroic Sociopath|Heroic Sociopaths]] until their class status is endangered, then perform a token good deed to retain it.

* Similar to and inspired by the above, ''[[Luminosity (Fanfic)|Luminosity]]'' is designed to explain [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|luminosity]]--i.e., self-awareness.

* "Harry Potter Turns to the Lord" is a fanfiction about a Gary Stu teaching Harry Potter that witchcraft is evil.

* Pretty much any time any fanfiction creates a [[Designated Villain|designated villain]] based on the author's personal experiences/views/current events, it's getting into an author's tract. It can be excused in some cases, if it's related to the plot, but if it comes [[Ass Pull|out of the blue]] it looks like a giant lecture in the middle of an otherwise unrelated story.