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Clueless Aesop: Difference between revisions
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This is especially common in children's shows. There are many, many cases where a well-meaning show for children tries to explain [[Ripped from the Headlines|a newsworthy issue]]. Sadly, the characters just usually end up way out of their comfort zone and the message often goes ''way'' over the poor kids' heads, often because it's so different from the normal tone of the show.
Not that this is always the fault of the writers. Any attempt to tackle serious subject matter honestly is problematic when the [[Moral Guardians]] are watching. This is often due to the fact that many attempts to deal with such serious subject matter will usually have said Guardians responding with outrage ''at its mere inclusion''! Yes, even if you are explicitly attempting to discourage it.
And so you often end up with children being warned about something dangerous -- but exactly ''why'' that something is dangerous is often never explained (which is why this trope can be a rich well of [[Paranoia Fuel]]). It's hard to tell kids "don't play with power tools because you might get killed" when [[Never Say "Die"|you can't say die]] (so expect to hear something like "very, very badly hurt"). Likewise, gun safety is an improbable issue to address when [[Family-Friendly Firearms|everyone packs a laser gun or something]]. Most infamously, [[Drugs Are Bad|drug abuse]] isn't easy to deal with when you can't quantify ''why'' you shouldn't use drugs<ref>Even, in some cases, to well-informed adults. Especially to well-informed adults.</ref>or when you can't even acknowledge that drugs exist.
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* Then there's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvjFsZJqAPs this] [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]] ad from Warner Bros. using a scene from ''[[Casablanca]]''. Only trouble is anyone who has seen the movie knows Rick is actually angry at Ilsa for ''resisting the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazis]]!'' So WB is comparing themselves to... [[Godwin's Law|what]]?
** While not as uncomfortable in terms of subtext, the one where the [[Wizard of Oz]] yells at Dorothy and company for, er, pirating media is pretty terrible too.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfEG15CLTqo "Don't Drown Your Food"] is a PSA about not overloading your foods with high-calorie condiments, but the message is so vague that it makes it seem as if you shouldn't put any condiments on them at all.
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* ''[[The Garbage Pail Kids Movie]]'' was an attempt to turn a line of trading cards -- which were ''deliberately'' intended to be [[Gorn|violent]] [[Dead Baby Comedy|and thoroughly disgusting]] -- into an Aesop about [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|appreciating those who look different]]. It worked out about as well as you'd expect throwing [[An Aesop]] into a film based on ''Garbage Pail Kids'' would be. Bonus points for its being a [[Broken Aesop]]: the titular characters are just as ugly on the inside (some have even [[Alternate Character Interpretation|interpreted the Kids as being incarnations of the Seven Deadly Sins]]) -- but hey, they sure sang a catchy song about teamwork, right?
** While robbing a shop!
* ''[[
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* The Truth's line of anti-tobacco PSAs are often well written, but one is an [[Egregious]] case of [[Did Not Do the Research]], where they try to prove tobacco companies were aiming their products at kids because cigarettes were shown in ''[[The Muppet Movie]]'' -- because clearly a movie featuring Muppets can only be for kids. ''[[The Muppet Movie]]'' was released in 1979, when [[Jim Henson]] was out to prove puppets could appeal to ''older'' audiences and a film didn't need an R rating to be made for adults.
* The well-intentioned episode on ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' in which a member of a race of asexual women and Riker fall in love. As Cracked.com put it: "The episode's message ends up completely garbled. Intended as a condemnation of homophobia, the episode instead comes off as the story of one woman's brave quest for cock in the face of lesbian tyranny."
** Also their choice for all the 'asexual' aliens to be played by women, because you know it wouldn't do for Riker's [[Love Interest]] to look like a man. (Okay, it ''is'' [[Shown Their Work|scientifically accurate]] because the only vertebrates we know of who can [[wikipedia:Parthenogenesis|reproduce asexually]] are [[One-Gender Race|all female]]. Still...)
*** This actually annoyed [[Jonathan Frakes|Jonathan "Riker" Frakes]] a bit, but the producers didn't have the [[Stealth Pun|balls]] to have the <s>hot babe</s> androgynous alien played by a guy.
*** In fairness to the producers, casting androgynous or asexual aliens as women was a typical Star Trek trick, which had works previously for the Talosians (Original Series) and the Bynars (Next Generation). But [[Failed a Spot Check|no one seemed to connect the dots in this case]].
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* Due to [[Executive Meddling]], the entire ''[[The Weird Al Show|Weird Al]]'' Show ended up as [[Take That|clueless Aesops]]; which annoyed the star. My personal favorite is "The way to deal with bullies is open communication". ("I want your money." "Here it is, please stop hitting me." is open communication, isn't it?)
* ''[[Diff'rent Strokes]]'' decided to tackle sexual predators in the two-parter "The Bicycle Man". In the story, [[Gary Coleman|Arnold]] wants a bicycle. After becoming friends with Mr. Horton, the owner of the bicycle shop, over part one, he, and his friend [[Long-Lost Uncle Aesop|Dudley]] (''Diff'rent Strokes''' recurring [[Very Special Episode]] scapegoat), start spending time with Horton in the back room where he lives. After [[Squick|riding on Mr. Horton's back]] and playing "Neptune, God of the Sea," Horton offers them some alcohol (which only makes Arnold worried that he might be caught with it on his breath) and sits them down to watch some cartoons. "That mouse just lost his drawers! [audience laughter]" Yeah, so after enjoying a nice X-rated cartoon, Arnold is uncomfortable enough to leave. Dudley wants to stay, and Arnold goes home. After letting slip what happened, Mr. Drummond calls the police. They arrive right as Horton is about to... uh... begin. Dudley appears on screen drugged with tranquilizers and shirtless. Then they have a couch conversation about how important it is to tell an adult about such things. While this is admittedly far more direct and open than the "bad touch" [[PSA|PSAs]] of the 90s, there is laughter throughout the episodes right up to when Mr. Drummond calls the police. Yes, even during the set-up to the molestation. That must have been the most awkward studio audience ever.
** [[Harsher in Hindsight]] considering Todd Bridges came out later saying he was repeatedly molested during the show's run.
* Even ''[[Police Camera Action]]'' is not invulnerable to this trope. In fact, possibly more so than ''[[Hannah Montana]]''.
* The 1998 episode ''Rust Buckets'' is a possible [[Trope Codifier|example]] of this, and just ''could not'' handle the episode's issue (unroadworthy vehicles) well. In fact, in Part 2 after the commercial break, it went ''off-topic''!
** The episode ''Unfit to Drive'' from the 1996 series, ''Enough's Enough'' from the 1997 series, and (to a slightly lesser extent) the 1997 episode ''Don't Look Back In Anger'' tend to sometimes forget what the aesop they're dealing with is.
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** Be yourself? Sometimes, but not if you're fat. If you're fat, you need to lose weight so people will like you.
** Avoid violence? No, take up for yourself, even if it's for something trivial, like a stolen sandwich.
** Gambling is bad? Only if you haven't rigged the results for yourself (appears in numerous episodes).
** Never lie? Flexible depending on the situation.
** Money is the root of all evil ''if'' you have it. If you don't have money, money is the cause of all your problems, as is evidenced in episodes where a senior-citizens' home is being sold, a woman's animal shelter is being sold to developers, and an episode where kids won't have Christmas because their dad doesn't have a job.
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** ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' has some interesting things to say about justice that get completely lost due to the game's [[Black and White Morality]]. {{spoiler|[[Vigilante Man|Yuri]] murders Ragou and Cumore, two [[Complete Monster|Complete Monsters]]. Sodia later attempts to kill Yuri because she thinks of him as a criminal. This is supposed to question Yuri's actions and show that justice is sometimes a very subjective thing. Problem is, unlike Ragou and Cumore, Yuri does not fap to the screams of dying children but is a clearly heroic character. So the whole thing just makes Sodia come off as a dangerous psychopath trying to [[Murder the Hypotenuse]]. The justice plot is later dropped entirely for a [[Green Aesop]] that doesn't make much more sense.}}
*** Its even worse than that. {{spoiler|Ragou was caught red-handed for ''feeding people'' to his pets [[For the Evulz]] and was punished with a slap on the wrist. Cumore had the authority to keep sending people out to die in the desert because frankly no one cared to stop him. The justice system is obviously, hilariously broken and its apparent that Yuri's vigilante acts saved a lot more lives than Flynn's [[Lawful Stupid]] approach to things.}}
* The moral they try to get across in ''[[I.M. Meen]]'' is that you should read more. What we get is more like "Never ''ever'' touch a book or else that book might suck you into a horrible labyrinth and and an evil man will torture you like some kind of sadistic pedophile".
* [[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza]] 4 has a sidequest where orphaned kids who were separated from their illegal immigrant parents when said parents were deported are spraying graffiti to express their hate for Japan. Tanimura and Zhao pull them aside for an important lesson: Is it the fault of the clearly flawed process for dealing with illegal immigrants? Nope. Is it the fault of the hostile, zero-tolerance mentality that the Japanese people have towards illegal immigrants? Nope. Is it their parent's fault for thoughtlessly putting themselves at risk for this situation to begin with? Nope. IT'S NO ONE'S FAULT! SO JUST STICK YOUR NOSE TO THE GRINDSTONE AND FORGET ALL ABOUT IT! Never mind the kids who will fall victim to the same situation that you're in someday, and that you, as a casualty, are in the perfect position to be an activist.
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* ''[[Family Guy]]'' in general, since its [[Dead Baby Comedy]] status makes taking any Aesop it offers seriously near-impossible, especially when it comes to religion and gay rights.
** It gets bad when they introduce a character that's pretty much every offensive gay stereotype rolled into one, and [[Seth MacFarlane]] goes on record saying that the gay community is intended to ''identify'' with him. Or how they shove the "Being gay is not a choice" aesop in an episode where ''Peter is '''made''' gay through genetic research!''
* The (in)famous episode of ''[[Arthur (animation)|Arthur]]'' called "Arthur's Big Hit." Since it was discussed many times before, here's a summary: the episode was supposed to teach us a good moral like "Violence won't solve your problems"; instead, the story went out of its way to make Arthur the bad guy.
** What makes it even worse is that D.W. never got punished. Arthur spent an entire week making a model plane, and DW not only ruins the wet paint, then blames it on Arthur, but she then throws his plane out the window, after he specifically told her not to touch it. She's not even sorry that it broke, blaming the plane for being defective because it didn't fly. Arthur hits D.W. in retribution, but gets all the blame.
*** From what we've seen. [[Unreliable Narrator|Her punishment could have happened off-screen.]]
* [[Anvilicious]] as it could be at times, ''[[Captain Planet]]'' sometimes went in over its head. It gave us the following stellar examples, some of which can be viewed via [http://www.uproxx.com/feature/2010/09/5-weird-captain-planet-episodes-you-probably-dont-remember/ list of uncomfortable "Captain Planet" episodes]:
** The infamous "[[Stroke Country|If It's Doomsday, It Must Be Belfast]]" episode, which was meant to promote world peace. What it managed to do instead was become the single most offensive example of both the [[Oireland]] trope and [[The Troubles]] trope, making the struggle between Catholics and Protestants look like [[West Side Story|The Jets against The Sharks]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQJrovKgrTw Highlights can be seen here]. (And the comments. Dear God, the comments.)
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*** If you're trying to curb overpopulation, wouldn't a logical approach be to teach kids that orphans are perfectly good kids who need homes? That way you're teaching compassion for others instead of accidentally calling anyone who had quadruplets evil.
*** What's more, since this was a show aimed at kids, they had to execute the whole anti-overpopulation message without mentioning birth control or abstinence. So kids are told to make smart choices about family planning, but they're not explicitly told how.
* The infamous Saturday morning special ''[[Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue]]'' tried to deal with the dangers of marijuana -- by wasting a perfectly good [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]] and having beloved children's cartoon characters spew quaint little platitudes about how drugs are bad. And marijuana users are apparently angry, semi-violent hoodlums a la ''[[
** American children were treated to a similarly [[Anvilicious]] message from Bush, Sr.
** And Aussie kids got one from Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Kind of funny in retrospect, as he's the Prime Minister celebrated for downing a [[wikipedia:Yard glass|yard of ale]] in eleven seconds when he was younger (making it into the Guinness Book of records), so you have to wonder what else he got up to back then. But then, this is Australia, where you're looked upon as weird if you don't like to get smashed at least occasionally.
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** There is an even more ridiculous [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBDtu2AmktA Sonic Sez], that may suggest the writers knew exactly how silly this was. Grounder smashed himself while chasing a rabbit, a container of pills falling out of him in the process. The rabbit goes to take them, only for Sonic to stop him. The pill bottle reads, "For Grounder, Robot Headache Pills, Take One A Day With Oil."
* An episode of the ''[[Double Dragon (animation)|Double Dragon]]'' cartoon involved a kid obsessed with video games. He was taught that life is [[This Is Reality|not a video game]]... by a pair of magically-super-powered crime-fighters who summon dragons and shoot fire and stuff... in '''a show based off a video game.'''
* The [[Classic Disney Shorts|Classic Disney Short]] "[[Donald Duck|Donald's]] [[Blatant Lies|Happy Birthday]]" (1949) was about Huey, Dewey and Louie wanting to buy Donald a birthday present but Donald insists that the nephews save money. Once they get the money, they buy Donald a box of cigars. Donald jumps to a conclusion and thinks they want to start smoking, so he forces them to smoke the entire box only to later find out the cigars were meant for him. Here, the nephews are thinking of their uncle and working hard for the money, while Donald wants the boys to save money and not smoke, but the problem is, Donald is supposed to be seen as the bad guy--he becomes aware he's a smoker by forcing the nephews to smoke when they get punished for being good? You're left with a very screwed-up morality tale, and the disturbing ending doesn't help.
** The aesop seems more like "Don't jump to conclusions" or "Think before you act impulsively", rather than having anything to do with the risks of smoking...In fact, who says it's even playing out an aesop on the first place? It seems more like it's all [[Played for Laughs|Played for]] ([[Black Comedy|dark]]) [[Played for Laughs|laughs]].
** If you watch the third Donald Duck cartoon DVD collection called "The Chronological Donald Vol. 3 (1947-1950)", this episode is listed as "From the Vault". Reportedly because of the climax where Donald forces them to smoke the entire box, they may have been worried that it might confuse/upset some viewers, and doesn't it seem a bit [[Broken Aesop|hypocritical]] that Donald doesn't want the boys to start smoking when he's been seen smoking in several other cartoons?
*** That is somewhat [[Truth in Television]]. There are plenty of people who know that smoking is bad for them, but for whatever reason, they just aren't able to quit. However, they ''do'' do their best to keep their kids from starting down the same path and getting addicted along with them.
*** Donald doesn't even have to have any objections to smoking to be upset at the prospect of his nephews doing it. Keep in mind, they're children. The vast majority of parents drink, but it certainly wouldn't be hypocritical of them to get upset that their 11 year old is drinking.
*** Another twist though, is that despite the ''father makes kids smoke whole pack to set them straight'' plotline being common, it's counter-productive for preventing addiction and it's actually very dangerous, possibly '''fatal''' for young children with no experience with nicotine. So it isn't well used in any well-intentioned Aesop.
*** You know, in 1949 no one really though smoking was bad. Just saying.
* Ah, ''Tinkerbell & The Great Fairy Rescue''. This entry in the otherwise surprisingly good ''[[Disney Fairies]]'' movie series soured some viewers thanks to it's intended Aesop being presented in such a clueless way as to become downright [[Warped Aesop|warped]]. The morals of the story were probably originally meant as, "spend more time with your child" and "don't stifle your child's imagination" and "have an open mind". In practice, the moral instead became an alarmingly [[Anvilicious]] [[Science Is Bad|Science Is]] [[Science Is Wrong|Badong]] [[Script Wank]]. These days, do we really need a children's film where a skeptical biologist is the antagonist?
* [[In-Universe]] example from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'': In the episode [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1 E21 Over a Barrel|"Over A Barrel"]], Pinkie Pie's song about sharing is so annoying, [[Stop Helping Me!|it makes]] [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|things worse]].
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