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{{trope}}
[[File:smokingisnotcool2 5619.jpg|link=Smoking Is Cool|frame|Just look at these ''losers''.<ref>Top row, left to right: [[Humphrey Bogart]], [[Lauren Bacall]], [[Audrey Hepburn]], [[Paul McCartney]]. Second row: [[Bob Dylan]], [[Albert Camus]], [[Jimi Hendrix]], [[James Dean]]. Third row: [[Marilyn Monroe]], [[Che Guevara]], [[John Wayne]], [[Edie Sedgwick]]. Fourth row: [[Kurt Cobain]], [[Robert De Niro]], [[Clint Eastwood]], [[Johnny Cash]]. Fifth row: [[Jim Morrison]], [[Ann Dvorak]], [[Sophia Loren]], [[David Bowie]]</ref>]]
{{quote|''"You're watching '''[[Futurama]]''', the show that does not advocate the '''cool''' crime of robbery!"''
|''[[Futurama]]'', "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV"}}
You want to have [[An Aesop]] about something that [[Scare'Em Straight|we should avoid at all costs]]. Trouble is, just by showing or describing it in lavish detail, you end up [[Broken Aesop|undermining your message by showing just how damn appealing it is]] and cause the audience to [[Misaimed Fandom|get the wrong idea]].
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This trope is especially easy to fall into when a piece of media aims for a realistic portrayal of why people get lured into things like smoking, doing drugs, fighting awesome action sequences, etc., thereby identifying to the audience what others see in it, possibly causing them to view it in a light they hadn't previously seen it in. Conversely to this trope, if you gloss over the very real appeal, you end up with a bad habit that it seems no rational person would ever pick up (akin to an ad reading "Stop Punching Kittens"). The trick is finding the balance between getting the audience to understand the appeal and understanding why these things are bad. If the negative aspects don't come across as outweighing the appeal, this trope comes into effect. This makes the vice into [[Forbidden Fruit]] and therefore much more appealing when the audience is told not to do it.
A sub-trope of [[Broken Aesop]]. Sometimes the result of an [[Accidental Aesop]] or an [[Alternate Aesop Interpretation]]. Can overlap with [[Clueless Aesop]] or [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop]]. Sometimes a [[Spoof Aesop]] may attempt to show this works.
This can be caused by, and often leads to, a [[Misaimed Fandom]]. Can also lead to [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity]], [[Rooting for the Empire]], [[Sympathy for the Devil]], [[Springtime for Hitler]], or [[Unfortunate Implications]].
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The trope was formerly called "Truffaut was right", named for French director François Truffaut who noted that you simply cannot make a truly anti-war movie.
{{examples|Do Not Read These Cool Examples:}}
== General ==
* [[War Is Hell]]. Anti-war works suffer badly from this. The [[Renamed Tropes|former]] [[Trope Namer]] was French film director, François Truffaut. He once said that "There is no such thing as an anti-war movie" because it will invariably [[War Is Glorious|look exciting]] up on screen". Another old saying is; "Soldiers love anti-war movies but [[Misaimed Fandom|never the way the maker wants]]", though these descriptions actually apply to war in other media as well as film. Plus, Truffaut's theorem isn't the only problem. Even if the work is intended to show how horrible war is it almost always backfires. While certain aspects of the war can be portrayed negatively, it's near impossible to make a work that is completely anti-war, regardless of what approach the creator takes, to the point where trying to make an anti-war work is nothing short of futile. There's a couple of reasons for this;
*
*
* Junk food is one of those things that it is hard to have [[An Aesop]] about because of [[Food Porn|how colorful and tasty it always looks]]. Any diet commercial will backfire horribly if they show the foods you shouldn't be eating ''and'' say that you shouldn't be eating them.
** British TV chef Jamie Oliver tried to avert this by showing people their weekly intake of junk food all dumped together into a huge unappetizing mess. As [[Charlie Brooker]] pointed out, the resulting message was [[Broken Aesop|"don't eat your food that way"]].
** This backfired again on Jamie Oliver as he tried to explain to children why chicken nuggets made from mechanically separated poultry are terrible and non-
** Dara O'Briain mocked this one as well, talking about Gillian McKeith's tendency to show people a table covered in all the crap they shoveled down their throats over the course of the week - and noted that the looks on their faces tended to be a mixture of pride and lust.
* Any piece of anti-tobacco propaganda where [[Stealth Cigarette Commercial|the smoker/chewer]] actually looks [[Smoking Is Glamorous|pretty hot]] with a cigarette in his or her mouth or while chewing. Especially when it emphasizes someone trying to look cool by smoking or accuses the Tobacco industry of glamorizing the use and then clearly identifies how they've played up tobacco usage to look cool, which the viewer may not have noticed before.
* Almost any video game that tries to remind us that violence is wrong. OK, here's your [[BFS|Godslayer Blade]], [[BFG|Shootemup 6000]] and a ridiculously complicated combat system that you must learn in order to see the story. Oh, and don't [[What Measure Is a Mook?|kill people, unlike the villain.]]
* [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]]. That would be pretty much why a good portion of anti-piracy propaganda just doesn't work. As [[Something Awful|one of the goons]] [http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/dvd-piracy-posters.php?page=10 have put it...]
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*** And work around the region codes in a [[No Export for You]] situation. At least when you do not have to worry about a language barrier.
** And one of the same companies that are pushing anti-piracy also distributed file-sharing software, promoting the ability of the software to download copyrighted media illegally: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T67PPRc01aI\]
* [[Teen Pregnancy]]. Shows like ''Teen Mom'', ''[[The Secret Life of the American Teenager]]'', and ''[[16 and Pregnant|Sixteen and Pregnant]]'' do little to discourage it. The cameras step into the house of a teenage girl whose life was ended by pregnancy only to find that, somehow, her life goes on. It's harder to fear something with which you've become more familiar. It doesn't help that most of the "struggling teen mothers" portrayed in many of these media are rich white girls who don't have to get jobs or miss out on school or social events to take care of their baby, and can often still get a guy (whether or not he's the father of their child) to go out with them.
** Taking it further, there's almost inevitably- especially in documentary versions- a statement somewhere about how- at least in her own estimation- she's become twice the person she was and how it's really matured her, and how one just doesn't know what love is 'til one is a mother. Yeah, kids, don't do it!
* Anti-consumerism or anti-materialism messages can easily fall into this. The story often has to show all the things that people shouldn't waste their money on or shouldn't define themselves by, and it's extremely difficult to portray these things without them looking cool. This goes double when the message is aimed at kids.
** This happens a lot in Christmas works that try to reinforce the true meaning of the holiday, about family, about giving to the less fortunate, and how it's better to give than to receive, which is then undermined by showing all the awesome presents we shouldn't be so focused on getting.
* Body weight related issues, either getting too heavy or becoming too thin.
* [[Sex Is Evil]]. Works that make arguments against sex or portraying it openly, whether its discouraging sexual immorality and promoting abstinence or if it's arguing against the objectification of women.
*
*
==Advertising==
* The UK government attempted to steer kids off drugs in [[The Eighties]] with a series of TV advertisements featuring emaciated youths in dingy surroundings. The kids in question are reputed to have thought they looked really cool. It doesn't help this was during the second wave of [[Goth]] pop music! If only they had known "heroin chic" was an existing underground fashion trend waiting to break into the mainstream.
* In general, [[Drugs Are Bad|Anti-drug ads]] tend to fall victim to this, especially the ones aimed at kids and teens. In general they have the same problem as [[Stealth Cigarette Commercial]]s. That is, the ads are considered so stupid and lame and insulting to one's intelligence, that people who watch them will want go use drugs simply out of spite. This is far from their only problem, however.
** Some ads try to send the message of "Drugs aren't cool" or "Not doing drugs is totally cool". Except some of them do this by showing a person who does think drugs are cool, and the ad intentionally goes to great lengths to give them the traits typically associated with being cool, which usually makes the drug user look a lot cooler than the other person in the ad who chooses not to use drugs.
** Ads like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yudW0bfBweY this one] that show embarrassing things happening to people who get too drunk or too stoned at parties. Hindered by the problem that telling your friends all the crazy antics you did while drunk or stoned makes you look so cool.
** There are ads that show the dangers of driving while under the influence of drugs. While these ones are more honest and may actually discourage people from doing so, the message that viewers get from this is "Just stay home and use drugs" or "If you're going to get high, be sure to take a cab or have a designated driver."
*** Of course, this is arguably a step in the right direction. At least now you will only kill yourself.
* An advertisement to show the danger of anorexia shows a naked, [http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/1431209367_43f0312255.jpg cadaverous-looking young woman] (Warning—a confronting image). However, while non-anorexics might be disgusted by the sight (but it's not like they were going to suddenly become anorexic anyway), young anorexics looked up to this icon as a goal to reach, or blamed themselves "look at her, I couldn't even go as far as she did!" It also gave grounds for denial: "I'm not (my child isn't) anorexic, look, I don't (he/she doesn't) look nearly as bad as that!"
* One of the worst advertisements ever was a magazine ad, "An Unfair Comparison Between the Javelin and the Mustang." And boy, was it unfair: anyone could look at the huge, detailed photos of each car and see the Mustang was more attractive and better designed. Which worked out badly for the makers of the Javelin, who placed the ad.
* There was a series of PSAs aired by [[The BBC]] in 2007 warning against the dangers of excessive drinking, by showing people being ostracized and called names after getting massively drunk. It backfired: little did they knew, that telling your friends all the crazy antics you did while drunk makes you look so cool.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHmVcYOqGe0 This upbeat commercial for Gofer Cakes], a fictitious snack cake akin to Ding Dongs. Aimed at children and teens, it is a PSA for The President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports; the kids in the ad end up all sloppy and lazy from eating too much junk food. Unfortunately, many ads for real junk food work along similar principles—the real ones try to say "this food is so tasty that it's worth being anti-social over!" The comments on the PSA confirm that [[Poe's Law|the satire element went over most kids' heads,]] and seems to have turned a lot of youngsters '''on''' to [[The Red Stapler|Gofer Cakes.]]
* A lot of anti-gun PSA's and arguments. They start out by inflating the power and lethality of weapons currently available on the civilian market. Then they show someone somebody being victimized by a criminal with that powerful gun. Wouldn't you sleep better if you had a weapon of your own to use if someone scary like that came at you?
==Anime and Manga==
* The ''[[Black Cat (manga)|Black Cat]]'' anime took great pains to try to show the viewers that the way of life of an assassin was wrong, and that people who have pacifist ideals are, in the end, stronger. However, all this effort was undermined when Train was shown to be [[Badass|infinitely cooler and stronger]] when he was working for [[Nebulous Evil Organization|Chronos]]. His [[Evil Is Sexy|sleek black clothes]] complete with an awesome [[Black Cloak]], the way he managed to effortlessly defeat every single person who ever stepped in his way, and the way he [[The Stoic|tended to remain calm and collected]] all made him seem like he was much better off before he became a [[Technical Pacifist|pacifist]]. After he becomes a pacifist, he constantly ends up having to be saved by others, [[wangst]]s and throws temper tantrums, and wears clothes that aren't nearly as cool. One can understand why [[In Love with Your Carnage|Creed]] goes to such lengths to make him go back to being the way he was when he was an assassin...
* Most entries into the ''[[Gundam]]''
** And the [[Merchandise-Driven|Gundam models,]] let's not forget the models of those "beautiful, brightly coloured weapons of mass destruction."
** This trope is cruelly lampshaded in [[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket|Gundam 0080]], where the 11 year old protagonist Al - who started the series excited about Mobile Suits and space battles - ends the series crying his brains out after failing to stop {{spoiler|Bernie from needlessly sacrificing himself to destroy the Alex}}, all while his friends are [[Take That, Audience!|cheerfully talking about how the Mobile Suit battle that destroyed their school looked awesome, and that they can't wait for the next war to break out with even cooler Mobile Suits]].
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* The original ''[[Astro Boy (manga)|Astro Boy]]'' story "The Greatest Robot on Earth" attempted to have an anti-war message while still being a shonen fighting robots series.
* The original manga of ''[[Ghost in the Shell]]'' carries often painfully apparent warnings about the consequences of unchecked accumulation of power among not just government offices—including Section 9 itself—as well as commercial interests and, thanks to cybernetics, individuals themselves. The television series caries this further, demonstrating what happens when technology advances at a faster pace the law can hope to keep up with. And yet, the Major and her comrades come off as supremely professional and awesome, even as they consciously abuse the powers vested in them by the state.
* The manga of ''[[Dominion Tank Police]]'' comes right out and says it: any society that does not just
* ''[[Naruto]]'', and
** [[Lampshaded]] in [[Little Kuriboh]]'s Abridged Parody Spoof Series Show:
{{quote|'''Naruto''': "But being a ninja is the only job in Ninja Village!"
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'''Naruto''': "The prostitutes in Ninja Village are also ninjas, that's why we call them NINJA prostitutes!!!"
'''Jokage''': "Oh yeah, nice..." }}
* ''[[Full Metal Panic!]]''
== Comic Books ==
* Since [[Word of God]] [[Flip-Flop of God|finally made up their minds]] that the anti-registration side was in the wrong, this means ''[[Civil War (Comic Book)|Civil War]]'' was one of these for the message they were trying to send... [[Clueless Aesop|whatever the hell that was]].
** The Aesop was something along the lines of [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|"If you aren't doing anything wrong]], [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|you have nothing to hide."]] Not a good aesop to use when your main readers are nerds
** It also doesn't make much sense independent of the audience's political leanings. We're none of us perfect, so we're all doing ''something'' wrong and all have ''something'' to hide.
** It's also pretty stupid when your primary audience is in the United States, which has fundamental parts of its Constitution devoted to the idea that the government should need to show cause and get a permission slip before invading your privacy - i.e., that even entirely innocent people can hide stuff if they want, because that's part of being in a free country.
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* This was very much the reason for crime comics in the 1950s, particularly [[EC Comics]]. This got them (and American comics in general) busted and led to the [[Comics Code]] being imposed.
* In ''[[Batman]]'' #1, [[Catwoman (comics)|Catwoman]]'s debut, Batman had Robin fight a bunch of unarmed crooks to see how tough they really were without their guns. Robin trounces them with ease, leaving one of the crooks to say "If only I had my gun!" Batman breaks the fourth wall to point out that the readers shouldn't emulate crooks. Sadly, the aesop and the story were probably over shadowed because the comic book ''also'' introduced [[The Joker]], one of the most popular, and psychotic, comic book characters of all time.
* ''[[Watchmen]]'' has landed in this trope because of [[Misaimed Fandom]]. Many people thought it was a conventional hero vs. villain story, only [[Darker and Edgier]]. For instance, Rorschach's violent tendencies were copied by [[The Dark Age of Comic Books|Dark Age]] "[[Anti-Hero|antiheroes]]" to make them equally badass. Moore and Gibbons made Rorschach a dirt
* [[DC Comics]]' war books were often gritty, dark, and featured tortured protagonists (especially those written by actual veterans, such as Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher). They often ended with the sign-off, "MAKE WAR NO MORE!" But they were and are exciting adventure stories.
* [[Chick Tracts]] fall into this quite heavily
** In general, the antics in the tracts often send the unintended message of "God is a dick who will send even good people to hell for not accepting my religion, meanwhile serial killers who do get off with no punishment." "You can kill as many people and steal and burn as many things as you want, if you accept Jesus right before death, you'll be marked as a good person and thus won't have to face any consequences." Depending on the tracts, he'll even make the devils funny or sufficiently clever to provide comic relief... until the Big Boring White Guy In The Sky throws them into hell in the last panel.
** The notorious "Dark Dungeons" made roleplaying out to be an exciting life-or-death scenario that introduced real occultism and gave players fabulous supernatural powers that they can use to [[Mind Control|brainwash]] their parents to... ''gasp''... ''buying them stuff''. More than a few roleplayers love the tract and it has been parodied and affectionately referred to in innumerable ways among the subculture.
** In his anti-Catholic tracts, he shows very little downside to being one of those dastardly papists, since they seem to have nothing but crazy sex parties, oodles of cash and secretly run the world.
** ''The Contract'': Feel free to make a deal with the devil; you won't have to hold up your end.
** ''Wounded Children'': You should do what a demon tells you. No, really. {{spoiler|When some people attack Brian, the demon tells David to help him. Brian dies because he didn't.}}.
** ''[http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv324/immortalpictures/Lisa.jpg Lisa]'': It's okay to gang rape your children repeatedly as long as you accept Jesus and ask His forgiveness. The trauma will go away, just like the herpes. Children aren't even traumatized unless they're abused for ''more'' than several months. No one will even raise their voice to you when your victims out you as a child molester. It's normal for girls to bee abused by older relatives. ''Also'', a real man provides for his family instead of relying on his woman, and disturbing this natural order is likely to cause resentment, frustration and rape.
** A lot of fundamentalist messages in general can be boiled down to "feel free to indulge your darkest desires because you're probably going to [[Hell]] anyway", especially when Hell is depicted as a place where you can [[A Hell of a Time|carry on doing this for all eternity.]]
==
* ''[[Tiberium Wars]]'' tends to depict intense, action-packed battles that nonetheless also contains a rather deep-down moral that [[War Is Hell]]. Some reviewers picked up on this, while others simply read it for the visceral combat.
* ''[[Poke Wars]]'' depicts the gritty, brutal, [[Gorn|gory]] and just ''nasty'' side of war and there is a fairly obvious [[War Is Hell]] message. Unfortunately, few of the reviewers notice this, instead choosing to focus on the dazzling fight scenes.
== Films ==
* There has been discontent among some (such as the writer of [http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=25772 this article]) that so many historical dramas released utilize the Holocaust as a backdrop (one could cynically suggest because Holocaust films are prime [[Oscar Bait]]). Some have expressed worries that people are being desensitized to the Holocaust, and that one day it would become that somewhat nasty thing that they keep making movies about.
{{quote|'''Manohla Dargis:''' But [''The Reader''] is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it's about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.}}
==
* ''[[Apocalypse Now]].'' [[Francis Ford Coppola]] tried to make an anti-war movie. What do people remember? Attack Helicopters coming in over the beach to the sounds of Ride of the Valkyries—kickass!
** To elaborate, the helicopter attack is on a village, including a school, that they can't possibly hold. Why is it attacked? So the soldiers can [[Screw the War, We're Partying|go surfing]]...
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* ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' is another ''Apocalypse Now'' and ''Jarhead'' to some - the mercenaries are very obviously committing war crimes, but that didn't stop some people from enjoying that. It probably doesn't help that the Na'vi are demonstrably better than humans so that a lot of people see them as being a race of [[Mary Sue]].
** And that's not even getting started on the people that think that the Na'vi are ''worse'' than the humans, and that the humans' violence is hence completely justified.
** On top of that, the [[Word of God|supplemental material]] saying that unobtainium is an absolute necessity for maintaining Earth's infrastructure makes the Na'vi's position look even worse. By raising the stakes of the film to "the Na'vi's right to remain culturally pure vs. ''the continued survival of human civilization''"... well, you can see how the Na'vi come off worse in the comparison, even ''with'' all the various sins the humans in this movie commit.
* [[Word of God|The author]] of the novel ''[[Das Boot]]'' complained that the movie, grim as it was, undermined his anti-war perspective by being too engaging. (This is one of the tiny handful of examples where the ''fans'' disagree with the ''author'', as ''Das Boot'' is generally considered to be one of the most horrific depictions of modern warfare ever committed to film. Nobody ever marched to war due to ''this'' film!)
* ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]'' has a strong anti-war, anti-military message . . . but the scenes of Major Kong and his bomber crew are ''pure awesome.'' SAC crews (that is, people who fly bombers) were some of the biggest fans of the movie.
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** This trope also applies to the boot camp segment of the film as well as the Vietnam segment. While it's not meant to be an attack on the US military, it is intended to show how people have to become dehumanized in order to be effectively trained for war, and in the {{spoiler|case of Leonard, is so bad he ends up going insane and committing a [[Murder-Suicide]]}}. Despite this, the film is hugely popular among the US military largely because of the [[Badass]] [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|Gunnery Sergeant Hartman]].
** For that matter, the popularity of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is an example of this - he's become such an iconic character that pretty much ''every'' [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] in fiction since has been based on him (95% of them even being played by the [[R. Lee Ermey|original actor]]), despite the fact that getting shot and killed by one of his own recruits ([[Too Dumb to Live|who he continued verbally abusing despite the loaded rifle in said recruit's hands]]) means he's a demonstrable ''failure'' of a drill instructor.
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in a subtle, creepy way: there is a scene where [[Show Within a Show|Germans are watching]] a Nazi propaganda movie about a German sniper who [[One-Man Army|killed massive numbers of Allied troops]] while behind enemy lines. They are laughing and enjoying themselves watching people from our side get slaughtered, while [[You Bastard|you're laughing and enjoying yourself]] watching people from their side get slaughtered... which is arguably also a subversion of the trope, because making the audience confront this mental realization is the entire reason Tarantino made the movie.
* ''[[Jarhead]]'' also lampshades this trope. It's largely about that and the mindset of the Marines (such as author Anthony Swofford) stoked up and eager to [[A Real Man Is a Killer|lose their battlefield virginity with a kill]]. When they hear that they're about to be sent to the Persian Gulf, they rent a load of war movies to watch the cool battle scenes, including ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', where [[Lampshade Hanging|the irony of liking anti-war movies for the violence is explicitly pointed out and reveled in]]. In a [[Double Subversion]], this was [[Misaimed Fandom|misinterpreted by audiences]], who cheered along with the Marines. Additionally, the film ends {{spoiler|with none of the main characters killing any enemies in the war, which they are extremely disappointed about.}} In the book, Swofford points out how "It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are anti-war. The actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.".
* At the time ''[[Platoon]]'' came out, [[Roger Ebert]] opened his print review by mentioning the Truffaut quote and adding that "If Truffaut had lived to see ''Platoon'', the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion." Since this film has encouraged people to recruit, apparently not.
* ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' falls victim to this trope, partly because of [[Misaimed Fandom]] who have no personal war experience watching the visceral first 30 minutes [[Just Here for Godzilla|for the violence]], but also because of the increasingly [[melodrama]]tic last half of the film, {{spoiler|where the [[Armchair Military]] character temporarily freezes up, only to kill the assailant later, and the main characters sacrifice themselves one after another in ''[[Rambo]]'' like fashion to rescue [[No One Gets Left Behind|one man]].}} In this case, while the film is clearly anti-war, it does also try to encourage the viewer to understand and respect the soldiers who died during the war, but it goes a bit too far and falls into this instead.
* ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]''. The film is anti-war/anti-militarist, intended to be a parody of the fascist elements in our society, but many viewers couldn't see past all the [[Bug War|cool bug killing scenes]] (or the [[Everybody Remembers the Stripper|co-ed shower scene]]). Even for the viewers who are paying attention, the message is further hampered by [[Poe's Law]]. There are obvious spoofs of the Federation propaganda, but the rest of the movie is easy to take seriously because it suggests that the [[Show Within a Show]] is understating the Federation's case.
** Considering the book's portrayal of the Federation, it's unsurprising. Heinlein intended the book to portray the positives of civic duty, necessities of war and capital punishment, etc. This led Heinlein to be accused of fascism, among other things. The movie's creators decided to remake it as a [[Take That]] against militarism and fascism, but by even superficially sticking to the book, they made the 'evil, fascist government' look awesome - even at the end of the sequel, when a recruiter jokes about a newborn male infant as being "new meat for the grinder."
* ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' has Tony Stark develop a conscience and an anti-war sentiment after he witnesses the atrocities indirectly caused by his inventions. In the second movie, the propaganda proliferated by military defense contractors is condemned. However, Iron Man and all his high-tech gear are just straight-up awesome, and they are by-products of the weapons development industry.
* ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'' is another ''Apocalypse Now'' and ''Jarhead'' to some - the marines are very obviously committing war crimes, but that didn't stop some people from enjoying that.
==
History has demonstrated time and time again that this trope could easily be called "
* ''[[The Godfather]]'', as stylized and operatic as it was, was meant to be about the horrors of the mob. Instead, it kicked off a new generation of fascination with organized crime and even inspired actual mobsters to model themselves after it.
** A large part of it was that the Mafia was made indistinguishable from a mildly idealized picture of Medieval aristocrats. They took tribute but it was made to seem justified by the services they offered and lived in a world of debts and patronage. Most of the violence was about either carrying out the duties of protectors or vendettas against other mobsters (or corrupt cops which amounted to the same thing). They were not shown engaging in sex slaving, drug trafficking or stuff like that. In fact they are never shown acting like, well, ''criminals''.
* ''[[Goodfellas]]'' was intended in a way to be the anti-''Godfather.'' It was based on a true story and portrayed most mobsters as uneducated, crude, petty, sociopathic, and oftentimes downright incompetent and brutal. But it wound up having the same cultural effect as ''The Godfather'' anyhow. The gangster that [[Robert De Niro]]'s character was based on was reportedly thrilled such a great actor was portraying him, and kept trying to get in touch with DeNiro from prison to give him pointers. Similarly, the real Henry Hill wrecked his witness protection because he couldn't resist bragging about the movie.
** This one might have been partially because of the weird mixed messages the movie was sending. While the mob characters were usually portrayed as not so bright, unnecessarily violent, what have you, but Henry Hill's own comments at the end of the movie make it very clear that he wishes he was still in the life, and one would go as far as to say that getting caught is the only thing he regrets about being a gangster at all.
* ''[[Scarface]]''. Even though the entire film
* ''[[Angels with Dirty Faces]]'', a classic gangster film, suffers from this. It's intended to show gangsters in a negative light, but the lead gangster and one of the two main characters, Rocky Sullivan, steal the show and makes being a 1930s-era gangster look awesome. Even the ending, meant to show that gangsters weren't awesome, failed to do that for parts of the audience because it was also meant to show it [[In-Universe]] and the gangster did it for that exact reason, making it a [[Zero-Approval Gambit]] and possibly a [[Senseless Sacrifice]] to the pro-gangster contingent.
* ''[[Little Caesar]]'' attempts to show that hard, honest work will lead to success whilst crime does not pay. It makes the gangster cooler, more interesting, and more important than his straight-laced best friend.
=== Other ===
* ''[[American Beauty]]'' is a scathing indictment of suburbia with such gorgeous cinematography that it makes suburbs look, well, ''beautiful''. Someone forgot that [[Beauty Equals Goodness]].
* ''[[American History X]]'': The film's message is "racism is bad," but it portrays the opposite in some ways. Derek is portrayed as physically dominant over his adversaries, fiercely proud, and articulate about his beliefs. Derek and some of the other Nazis make make arguments about race issues, which while hurt by being taken to their logical extreme, [[Straw Man Has a Point|still have at least some basis of truth in them]] and are never refuted despite ample opening to do so (Dennis Vineyard's arguments are particularly poor, since they revolve around heavily superficial analyses of complex situations). With the exception of [[Fat Idiot]] Seth, the Neo-Nazis are never shown to be weak, stupid, or foolish. The Aryan Brotherhood in prison are villains, but they split with Derek over ''not being racist enough''. There are numerous speeches, but barely any explanation of Derek's unrealistically neat [[Heel Face Turn|180 degree turn]] in prison. Ultimately the film ends with {{spoiler|Derek's younger brother murdered in cold blood by a black youth}}. It's not hard to imagine neo-Nazis and other racists enjoying this film for unintended reasons.
* ''[[American Psycho]]''{{'}}s message on the banality and meaninglessness of mindless consumerism and dedicated following of fashion was undercut somewhat by how glamorous and stylish the characters looked strutting about their swanky penthouse apartments in designer suits. This is an interesting case as this trope only emerged in adaptation: in the source novel, the clothes the characters were wearing were described in exhaustive detail, but any reader who knew anything about contemporary fashion would realize that their outfits were clownishly mismatched. Its related point about the dark side of modern masculinity was also not aided by members of the audience [[Rooting for the Empire|cheering Patrick Bateman on]] while he [[Bloody Hilarious|gleefully]] murdered another prostitute.
* While ''[[Blazing Saddles]]'' is primarily a comedy, [[Mel Brooks]] also wanted the film to make a point about racism. But this trope is exactly why nowhere in ''Blazing Saddles'' is there a message that racism is bad. The message is more like "racism is stupid." That's why instead of making the racists cruel and evil, Brooks decided to make all the racists a bunch of bumbling idiots.
* [[Drugs Are Bad|Anti-drug]] Aesop films.
** ''[[Christiane F]]'' is a sad case. Many youngsters got curious about drugs due to the picture movie.
** ''[[Reefer Madness]]'' is a classic example of this backfiring, as the film is [[Watch It Stoned|considered better to watch when high]].
** ''[[Trainspotting]]''. Renton and his friends have quite a lot of fun and hijinks in the early parts of the film. It's also pretty surprising how easily and cleanly Renton manages to turn his back on the life when he's finally had enough.
** ''[[Limitless]]''. The wonder-drug Eddie takes immediately makes him a high-functioning genius, but is shown to have awful side-effects that include blackouts and
* ''[[Bruce Almighty]]'' and ''[[Click]]'' try and make it clear that you shouldn't want fantastic solutions to your life's problems like [[God]]'s powers or a magical remote control because [[This Loser Is You|you're selfish]] [[Butterfly of Doom|and you'll end up screwing up your life (and everyone else's) even more]]. But let's face it, people walked out of those films thinking "[[I Wish It Was Real]]" and if they learned anything, it was only [[Fantastic Aesop|what not to do if it were]]. Sure, that's useful...
* ''[[A Clockwork Orange (film)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' features scenes of violence and rape intended to be morally repulsive, but actually inspired some real-life copycat crimes. In fact, one could argue that the movie's popularity rests almost entirely on its sensational aspects.
* ''The Condemned''. The [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]] star vehicle
* ''[[Confessions of a Shopaholic]]'' spends so much time lovingly showing off gorgeous, high end fashion that it's a bit hard to take
** Trying to make compulsive shopping look like the hip thing to do during a ''recession'' didn't help much either. Nor was turning the debt collector into a [[Designated Villain]] by making him a jerk.
* ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (film)|The Count of Monte Cristo]]''
* [[Heath Ledger]]'s [[The Joker|Joker]] and his anarchist ideals in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'' have raised a bigger fandom and acclaim than [[Christian Bale]]'s Batman. That's probably attributable to his line in the hospital, though - it makes his character actually have a concrete purpose.
{{quote|'''[[The Joker]]''': You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds!}}
:*Even after he begins to come apart when [[Ironic Echo|things don't go according to his plans]], he clearly isn't deterred, outright saying to Batman that he believes [[Harsher in Hindsight|they're going to do this forever]].
* ''[[Death Sentence]]'' pulls this off, and rather clunkily at that. The film is a beautifully shot ode to violent vigilante justice, that tries to speak against violent vigilante justice. It was made by the director of ''[[Saw]]''. It doesn't come off right.
** The ending makes that point debatable: although the protagonist's [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] was done in a somewhat glorified fashion, the ending doesn't suggest that he was proud of his actions when all was said and done. Given that the protagonist
** To say nothing of its [[Spiritual Predecessor]], ''[[Death Wish]]'', which glorified vigilante killing to the point of making several sequels, and turning actor Charles Bronson into a cinema action hero icon for decades to come. For better or worse, [author] Brian Garfield absolutely ''loathed'' the movie adaptation of ''Death Wish'' for this reason, while being relatively satisfied with how ''[[Death Sentence]]'' turned out.
* ''[[Downfall (film)|Downfall]]'' depicts Hitler as a sadistic, delusional madman
* ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]''. François Truffaut himself directed a [[The Film of the Book|film adaptation of the novel]] which is about an anti-book [[Dystopia]]. The film makes a world without written words look attractive even as our protagonist rebels against it. In fact, the book also does this to some extent, aided by an intelligent, charismatic [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] villain.
* ''[[Fatherland]]'' shows a Europe where Germany won World War II. It is prosperous, clean and green, with posters advertising a concert with "Die Beatles" on the walls. Europe seems to be doing quite well, now without half of its economy ruined by communism. While German rule eventually falls because the American president refuses to sign a peace agreement, so that the strain from the continued war against the remnants of the Soviet Union somehow brings down the whole empire, it certainly doesn't look like a doom-and-gloom world to live in.
** Curious, because the book did a much better job of painting the Nazi Empire as place you could probably live with but would much rather be here - not East Germany, not today's world - but had a different and less black and white ending.
* ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'': The film was really meant to be an anti-consumerist tirade, or a condemnation of the people holding these views. But if the latter, it sure made their lifestyle seem fun and cool.
* ''[[G.I. Jane]]'' tries to make the argument that militaries should be [[Gender Is No Object|completely gender
* ''[[Heat]]''. The actions of the criminals are proposed as the reason the
* ''[[I Spit on Your Grave]]''. All those extended rape sequences, just to say that [[Captain Obvious Aesop|rape is bad]]? [[Roger Ebert]] noted to his horror that some of the audience members at the screening he attended actually cheered on the rapists.
* ''[[Jurassic Park]]''. The novel was intended as a warning about the dangers of playing God and tampering with nature. But let's face it. When it was adapted to film, thanks to improved special effects of the time and an epic score from [[John Williams]], how many people walked out of the theater after seeing it thinking, "Awesome! I wish we could bring dinosaurs back to life! Get cracking, scientists. [[FoxTrot|Increase dinosaur DNA research!]]"
* ''[[Kidulthood]]''
* ''[[Lolita]]'': While the novel suffers plenty of its own issues with this trope (see the entry for it below under Literature), the two film versions also end up hurting its message. It's intended to be a condemnation of pedophilia, with Dolores being 12 years old in the novel. However, in both of the film versions her age is raised to 14, which was to lessen the potential heat from the censors and the [[Moral Guardians]]
** It didn't help that the actress in the first movie looked about 16, and that the second Lolita ''was'' 16, which is a rather common age to start having sexual relationships. These days, the abusive relationship between Humbert Humbert and Lolita's mother in Kubrick's movie appears
* The first ''[[Mad Max]]'' film was meant to depict the dangers of reckless driving. The hoons and rev-heads who saw it left feeling that their lifestyle had been legitimised.
* ''[[Natural Born Killers]]'', which has been accused of having inspired enough copycats to have an [[wikipedia:List of Natural Born Killers copycat crimes|entire Wikipedia page devoted to the subject]].
** That isn't entirely a straight example though, since the aim of the movie was to point out that the media is fascinated with serial killers. That it ended up contributing to said media isn't unexpected.
* ''[[RoboCop]]'', another film of [[Paul Verhoeven]], suffers from this, much like his film, ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]'' (listed above under Films-War), and like the latter, also on account of [[Poe's Law]]. Verhoeven intended the film as a spoof of
* The novel ''[[The Running Man (novel)|The Running Man]]'' was intended as a warning as to what happens when society goes too far in thinking that violence is entertainment. The nation's most popular show is one where contestants compete for their lives and can be killed legally, live on television nationwide. Yet, in [[The Running Man (film)|the film version]], it ends up making this evil show look pretty damn cool and entertaining. A show where [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] takes on gladiators trying to kill him? Sounds awesome. It's also hurt by how, in the novel, all the contestants are volunteers who willingly choose to be on the show, whereas in the movie, the "contestants" are criminals who are forced to be on the show, and the show is advertised as giving them "exactly what they deserve"
** The German movie, ''Das Millionenspiel'', based on the same novel, plays this straight. The movie is made extremely realistic, featuring a known TV moderator of the time as moderator of the show and barely any unnatural camera positions. Creating an extremely convincing illusion of watching an actual show. The protagonist looks just like an average guy and so do the killers hired to stop him. In fact, when the movie aired, people phoned the channel and asked if they could be "hunters" or "hunted" in the next show. Sadly because of filming rights problems between this movie and ''The Running Man'', it's forbidden from being aired, having only been shown 4 times on German TV.
*** [[Self-Demonstrating Article|Great, now I want to see this forbidden show.]]
*** [[Sarcasm Mode|The most impressive thing about that movie is that it managed to adapt, in 1970, a novel published in 1982.]] It's actually based on [[Robert Sheckley]]'s 1958 short story ''The Prize of Peril'', and Stephen King's novel probably is, too.
* ''[[Saturday Night Fever]]'' portrays the protagonist's disco lifestyle as shallow, violent and ultimately pointless. It didn't stop millions of new fans from being drawn into disco culture after watching the movie.
* ''[[Scream (film)|Scream]]''. Director [[Wes Craven]] made the first film to kill the [[Slasher
* Discussed in the 1934 film ''[[Search for Beauty]]'', in which the publishers of a health magazine, realizing that [[Sex Sells]], starts publishing steamy romance stories with "just enough morals to sneak them through the mails." Their female readers see right through the tacked-on "paying the price" endings.
* The ''[[Sex and the City]]'' movie ostensibly had a message about how we shouldn't let labels (both in the designer sense and for relationships) determine how to live life—Carrie gets married in a label-less vintage dress in the end. But the rest of the movie is a love letter to designer labels and fashions, with a practically orgiastic scene of Carrie trying on designer wedding dresses.
** U.K.
{{quote|"The film has the gall to shove handbags down your throat for 120 minutes and then turn around and say "Hey, we aren't just handbags, you know."}}
* ''[[The Stepford Wives]]'' remake was obviously aiming for the message that the men were in the wrong for replacing their wives with robots, but the three main characters are utterly horrible human beings. Joanna is a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who could care less about the welfare of her own family, Bobbie is a moody [[Deadpan Snarker]] who can't speak a civil word to anyone and demeans her husband all the time, and Roger is an over the top [[Camp Gay]] stereotype who embarrasses his partner in public constantly. So with three
* ''[[Super Size Me]]''
** The first supersized meal was rather unappealing though, between a large hair found in the parfait and Spurlock vomiting spectacularly as he tried to force down the burger. Semi-lampshaded, too: When describing the rules of his experiment (summary: nothing but [[McDonald's]], and always supersized if the cashier asks), he even describes it as "every eight-year-old's dream".
* The ''[[Terminator]]'' series was intended as a warning that technology will eventually destroy humanity. While it does if a good job of showing a future [[Crapsack World]], the problem comes with the robots who cause the apocalypse and want to wipe out humanity. They're ''AWESOME''. The T-800's, T-1000's, TX's, HK's, and others; ask someone if they think it would be cool if these existed in real life or if they want their own. What do you think their response will be?
* Some critics believe there's one thing worse than a [[Torture Porn]] film - a film that tries to make a ''point'' about torture porn by focusing on long, drawn-out, salacious shots of human suffering, such as ''[[Funny Games]]'' or ''[[Untraceable]]''. "Oh, Jesus, look upon the sensationalization of violence and despair,
* Parodied in regards to various drugs in ''[[Walk Hard]]''. Dewey frequently opens a door to find Sam behind it, indulging in some illicit narcotics in the company of some beautiful women. Sam always insists that Dewey wants no part of it, only to then insistently list all the benefits of doing that particular drug. Dewey inevitably ends up hooked on it. But he really ''doesn't'' want none of that stuff that gives you a boner.
** "It's marijuana, Dewey. You don't want no part of this shit." "It's cocaine, Dewey. You don't want no part of this shit." "We're doing pills-- uppers and downers. It's the logical next step for you." "I want me some of that shit!"
* [[Pink Floyd]]'s [[Rock Opera]] ''[[The Wall]]'', both in movie and in music form, depicts an unstable rock star named "Pink" who builds a metaphorical wall around himself to defend himself against things that emotionally hurt him. He then becomes insane, delusional, "comfortably numb" and consumed with anger and fear as he gradually cuts himself from society. Onstage, he turns his concert into an almost [[Those Wacky Nazis|Neo-Nazi]] rally, leading his "Hammers" to destroy the city and terrorize all those that Pink mistrusts. Although this is meant to show the horrors of shutting yourself off from the world and becoming antisocial and paranoid, many true Neo-Nazi groups were formed around the "Hammers", based on the film [[The Wall]] and Gerald Scarfe's [[Deranged Animation]] depicting literal marching hammers smashing things and people to pieces.
** Further [[Misaimed Fandom]] involves interpretations of Pink's frustrations with women, particularly Pink's unfaithful wife, which is depicted in the animations as shrewish and snake-like.
* ''[[Shoot'Em Up (film)|Shoot 'Em Up]]'', a 2007 action film, could be easily be the [[Trope Codifier]], since it is possibly the most [[Egregious]] example of this. The film is both a [[Parody]] of the [[Gun Porn|genre it takes its name from]], and by [[Word of God]], an anti-gun movie
*
*
* The ''[[Hunger Games]]'' movies - the books themselves already had a sizable [[Misaimed Fandom]] of teenagers who think it would be ''so cool'' to fight in the Hunger Games (and who hated ''[[Mockingjay]]''). Like an anti-war movie, Suzanne Collins' work carries a message against something that is a dreadful, scarring experience yet deeply visually compelling on-screen - while that's kind of the whole point, putting it into a visual medium can undermine it ''hard''.
== Literature ==
Line 236 ⟶ 216:
** ''Get the Gimmies'', where we all genuinely ''wanted'' those toys, games, and candies that Brother and Sister acted like hellions in public in order to get.
** ''The Trouble With Junk Food''. All the candy they learned was bad for you was so colorful!
* ''[[Slaughterhouse-Five]]''
{{quote|"You were just babies then. But you won't write it like that, will you? You'll write it like you were men, and you'll be played by men in the movie, and everyone will think it's wonderful and have more wars and send more babies off to die, like those babies [their children] upstairs."}}
{{quote|"I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that."}}
* The scenes of sinful revelry and luxury (like the island of Acrasia) in ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'' are, to many, the most appealing parts of the work. This is largely due to [[Values Dissonance]].
** [[C. S. Lewis]] commented that one scene was intended to be ''sinful'' lust and another wholesome sexual desire (i.e. in a loving marriage) and so one would be played straight and the other an aversion. It was saying, "This is the cool thing you are supposed to be doing, that is an imitation."
* The entirety of the ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' Black Library manages to both embody and avoid this trope. On the one hand, the wars depicted are brutal and utterly hellish, the enemies often terrifyingly twisted and sadistic, conditions are generally miserable, and the heroes are surrounded by murderers, thieves and other lowlifes - often in the form of a superior officer or the protagonist himself; but on the other hand, every novel has the hero and his band of fellow soldiers being epic [[Badass|BAMFs]] and generally acting like the epitome of what a soldier should be.
** This can even be seen in stories where the protagonists are actually the bad guys in the wider 'verse, such as the Chaos Marines. You find yourself rooting for the protagonist even as the story tells you about the world of innocent humans that their race has invaded, enslaved, tortured or brutally slaughtered.
* One of Disney's kiddie books featured [[Donald Duck]] eating a poorly balanced, junk-filled meal... that the mouth waters just in childhood memory of it.{{context}}
* [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' has infamously run into this problem with its [[Misaimed Fandom]]. [[Satan]] ''is'' intended to be appealing, but Milton expects his readers will be mature enough to realize that underneath all his charisma, Satan is a small-minded, [[Parental Incest|incestuous]] bully who picks on [[Puny Earthlings|people smaller than him]] because he lost the fight against [[Kung Fu Jesus|someone bigger than him]]. Sadly, Milton expected too much of his readers, and a lot of them just drool over Satan and think he's [[The Hero]].
** This is parodied in [[National Lampoon]]'s ''[[Animal House]]'' in a scene where Professor Jennings ([[Donald Sutherland]]) is discussing the poem with his students, talks about how appealing Satan comes off as, and asks, "Is it possible that Milton was trying to tell us that being bad is more fun than being good?", and then proceeds to [[The Bible|take a bite]]
** Averted in that most modern literature classes looking at ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' include Byron's argument that Satan is a hero because as an ex-angel, he knows that he will lose against God, but fights him anyway. Satan is thus seen as the hero because [[Determinator|he's fighting a hopeless fight
* [[K. J. Parker]]'s works in general, with particular attention to ''[[The
* The first series of ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' covers the early life of a "kittypet" as he struggles to fit into his Clan, overcoming all of the racism and prejudice he faces because of his background as he grows into a hero. Of course, in order for this to work, the majority of the cast has to express some racist sentiments, meaning a lot of the more popular characters twist this lesson into "[[Misaimed Fandom|racism is good]]".
** The same could be said for the battles, which, combined with their irrational hatred for a pacifist character, doesn't just inspire reactions of "War is cool and pacifism is for [[Incredibly Lame Pun|pussies]]", but the occasional "Any book that doesn't contain as many gratuitous fight scenes as possible instantly sucks". The latter lesson can probably be connected to their love of ''The Darkest Hour'', the most violent book in the series - it is indeed also one of the best, but not for those reasons.
* ''[[Lolita]].'' Oh dear lord, ''Lolita.'' The whole book is one big condemnation of pedophilia (even the pedophile, narrator Humbert, [[You Are What You Hate|can't stand his actions]]), and yet it's a [[Trope Namer]] for [[Lolicon|a fetish for underage girls.]] This is because Humbert is [[Unintentionally Sympathetic]] and is probably the accidental [[Trope Codifier]] for [[Lolicon]]. Humbert comes off as a completely nice guy despite his despicable actions because throughout the whole book, he casually explains his actions to the reader, and while it may not be meant to justify them, [[Straw Man Has a Point|it certainly can]]. This book has a huge [[Misaimed Fandom]] among [http://www.cracked.com/article_18568_the-5-greatest-books-with-psychotic-fanbases_p2.html pedophiles and child molesters] who have undoubtedly used it, not only to justify their actions, but for tips on how to avoid getting caught (i.e., be sure not to write down your attraction for young girls and your plans for them in your diary, and if you do be sure to do a much better job of hiding it).
** Author and commentator [[John Derbyshire]], for example, has [https://web.archive.org/web/20100813002635/http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2006/05/18/pedophiliac-rape-fantasies-are-the-sign-of-a-cultivated-mind/ written enviously] about how misunderstood Humbert is, and how reading about him as a young man convinced him that it's only natural for grown men to be attracted to prepubescent girls, and darn the society that chastises them!
* In an interview celebrating the launching of his most recent{{when}} book, ''[[Imperial Bedrooms]]'', Bret Easton Ellis recounted how many fans of his work would come up to him and say "You're the guy who wrote ''[[Less Than Zero]]'', that's the book that made me want to live in L.A." Anyone who's read the book in question (or indeed anything by Ellis) will appreciate [[Misaimed Fandom|just how ridiculous this is]].
** One of his aims with ''Imperial Bedrooms'' was to respond to all the readers who perceived Clay as the hero in the first book by emphasising his near-sociopathic narcissism far more. YMMV on how much it worked, although {{spoiler|Ellis certainly shows him doing some horrific things, but gives him one or two very small [[Pet the Dog]] moments.}}
* A weird borderline example in ''[[Interesting Times]]''. Rincewind describing sticking fireworks up his nose is followed by a footnote saying [[Don't Try This At Home]]... which goes on to describe official municipal firework displays in a way that makes it clear they're very boring. Of course, [[Terry Pratchett]] is on record as saying that if stupidity kills, then it's better if it kills the stupid first,<ref>In the Mappe Of Lancre</ref> so this likely could be a stealth joke.
* Deliberately invoked by the entire Lesbian Pulp Erotica paperback market of the 1950s and 1960s. It was a cultural requirement that the lesbian characters end badly, either dying, getting imprisoned, or turning straight. However, the ''point'' was to sell lesbian erotica, so the "consequences" are always jammed in the last chapter, with the rest of the book glamorizing things as much as possible.
* Anthony Horvath's book ''Richard Dawkins, Anthony Flew and Mother Theresa Go To Heaven'' is supposed to make Dawkins look like an arrogant [[Jerkass]], while Flew and Theresa are supposed to be viewed as good. However, the way it's written, Theresa comes across as a pathetic sycophant and Flew like a doddering simpleton, while Dawkins sounds downright courageous and noble as he [[Defiant to the End|stands in defiance]] of this [[God Is Evil|frankly unsympathetic deity.]] It doesn't help when Heaven is depicted as a place where everyone spends the rest of eternity unable to do anything except praise God, [[Esoteric Happy Ending|and that's supposed to be desirable.]]
* Happens in-universe to a Nazi spy in ''[[The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
* In ''[[The Avatar Chronicles|Epic]]'', the [[An Aesop|Aesop]] is that you shouldn't get so involved in virtual worlds that you don't do things that need to be done in the real world. However, you can't deny that the game Epic would be ''freaking awesome'' if it were real. And the idea that doing well in video games = getting a good education and being rich is an appealing one to gamers out there.
* [[Robert Heinlein]] ''intended'' the message of ''[[Podkayne of Mars]]'' to be that parents should take better care of their children and not let them go gallivanting around the Solar System getting involved in espionage intrigues and having awesome adventures and ultimately being heroes by saving an entire planet from a villainous plot .
* If ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' is meant to be a condemnation of reality TV culture... well, all the action that the in-universe audience is reveling in is the same stuff that we're enjoying as readers. We are supposed at once to feel contemptuous of the audience for lapping up the romance presented to them between Katniss and Peeta but also care about the same romance as readers. While no one at this point would wish for death-based reality TV shows (probably), there are many Hunger Games fans who would love to see a non-lethal version of the Games brought to reality.
== Live
*
* Although bigoted, Alf Garnett from ''[[Till Death Do Us Part]]'' was intended to be a figure of fun showing the stupidity of racism. He became a cult hero for misogynists and xenophobes.
** The same goes for the show's loose American remake. ''[[All in The Family]]'' was, officially, intended to show that bigotry is bad, but Archie Bunker came across as a fairly fun, likable guy in spite of it. The more progressive "Meathead" often came across as self-righteous.
* ''[[Mad Men]]'' is about deconstructing the myth of [[Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be|the good ol' days]] and is supposed to be about the 'dark side' of social conformism, corporate careerism, and white male privilege in [[The Fifties|
* ''[[Life On Mars]]'', series one. The impression the viewer gets is that the first series of ''Life on Mars'' was written to paint Sam's contemporary attitudes as what the viewer was supposed to sympathise with, but the public response was overwhelmingly in favor of Gene Hunt's [[Good Old Ways]]. The second series and all of ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' was written accordingly.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' had a subtle anti-smoking message for the first season or two—every character who smoked either turned out to be a villain or died soon after they were introduced. But Spike, who started out as a villain, ended up being a regular and a well-liked character... who often smoked cigarettes. Sexily. Faith took up smoking in the last season.
** The fourth season episode "Beer Bad" tried to show that beer was evil by turning anyone who drank it into cavemen. But the transformation ends up mostly positive for Buffy, who finally gets over being dumped after a one night stand because of it. The concept might be seen as parody, but the episode was written as a sincere grab for government anti-alcohol PSA dollars. (It didn't work.)
* The show ''Manswers,'' on [[Spike TV]], when talking about illicit drug use or other criminal activities or dangerous acts, will include a disclaimer to not do so. But if you do do it, you can laid, according to them.
* [[Fox News Channel]],
* Most daytime [[Talk Show]]s are guilty of this, especially if the episode is about people (mostly attractive young women) scandalized to discover that someone had been secretly recording them. They then have no problem when they
** Even if they don't show the video, doing a story on it will guarantee that the number of people looking it up on the internet will skyrocket.
* When [[Commie Land|Communist]] [[Romania]] broadcast ''[[Dallas]]'', the idea was that the people would be disgusted with the pettiness and decadence of capitalism. This was, in fact, part of the reason the series was created in the first place—you probably are supposed to be vaguely disgusted with the way the Ewings live. It didn't work in either country. What was seen was, "[[Distracted By the Shiny|Ooh, shiny]]! I want!" In a few years, communism fell and the USA had a [[Misaimed Fandom]] for Wall Street.
* ''[[Dollhouse]]'': Turning people into objects is bad! Even when they're hot, attractive objects with [[Mind Control Eyes|blank stares]] and [[Foot Focus|bare feet]]... oh hey, it's time to show {{spoiler|Sierra}} getting raped again!
* Done intentionally on an episode of ''[[Community]]''. The main characters put on an anti-drug show for a group of elementary school children, but they love Pierce's performance as "Drugs" so much it backfires. The situation is ultimately remedied by forcing Pierce to leave and replacing him with Chang. It ends up being a ''more'' effective portrait of addiction as a result, because the children loved drugs then drugs turned on them.
* ''[[Law
** Not to mention, like the novel
* Many fans of ''[[The Wire]]'' tend to glamorize the gangsters of the show, talking about how cool they are, when the intent of the series is to provide a realistic view of the awful effects of crime and corruption in cities such as Baltimore.
** As the good people at [[Television Without Pity|TWoP]] said in one recap, "The wages of sin are death -
* Similarly, ''[[Breaking Bad]]'' has the same effect of showcasing the appealing aspects of the drug business, even when the bad parts are [[Paranoia Fuel|fueled with endless paranoia]], and by contributing to the business in some form or fashion, you'll hurt so many different people along the way. And oh yeah, [[Drugs Are Bad]]. But boy is it tough not to reap the rewards of selling pure meth, ain't it?
* In-universe example in ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' when George Sr. is invited as a "[[Scare'Em Straight|Scared Straight]]" speaker to talk teens out of
* ''[[The Sopranos]]'' was even
* [[Mandy Patinkin]] left ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' because he felt that this trope was in play and that the show was becoming some sort of sick fantasy fulfillment for people and couldn't be a part of it any more.
* Occasionally played with on ''[[Top Gear]]'' when, for instance, the presenters solemnly (and with perfect insincerity) state that they strictly obey the speed limit at all times, or state "this is something we mustn't do" before engaging in impromptu drag races on public streets.
* In-universe in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]''; Hal would tell his sons about his youthful escapades, supposedly as cautionary tales. As Lois puts it, "Cautionary tales do not end with 'It was so cool!'"
* ''[[
{{quote|'''Adam:''' Remember, kids, [[Lampshade Hanging|no matter how much fun I'm having]], under no circumstances should you try this at home.}}
** A great example would be when they were
* On ''[[Degrassi]]'', Ellie's storyline was meant to show people how cutting is not okay and should never be done no matter what the circumstances. However, despite this, many fans were inspired cut after seeing Ellie do so.
* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'''s false ad for "Amazin' Laser" was full of this. While Chris Elliot exalted the virtues of using this precise, powerful and ridiculously powerful disintegrator
* On the Investigation Discovery channel, this happens often with the [[dramatization]]s of real crimes. The most egregious examples are the shows ''Sins and Secrets'', ''Wicked Attraction'', and ''Deadly Women''. They usually discuss how sick and wrong the killer(s) are, but they then show reenactments of their scandalous affairs in about as much detail as you can have on cable TV. It's so bad that some of the shows have [[Content Warnings]].
* ''[[The Winds of War and War and Remembrance]]'' miniseries is a [[Zig-Zagging Trope|zig-zag]]. It actually does make war seem kind of, well, cool at times. But the Nazis are made so creepy that the only ones who could possibly want to be Nazis ''are'' Nazis.
** On the one hand, the [[Consummate Professional|sheer efficiency]] of Auschwitz can make someone weirdly admire it before he catches himself. And the Nazis sometimes do look rather like ordinary people. On the other hand, they do not just sadistic, but just straight up fucked-up things, like bullying old men, threatening to tear a baby in half in front of his mother, and so on. Not to mention [[Adolf Hitler]] himself looks more and more like a witless idiot as the series goes on (the show does a "splendid" Hitler). So yeah, while the show does sometimes say war is cool (the avoiding of which was not a particular intention anyway), it succeeds in making it clear that being a Nazi is not cool.
==Music==
* Anti-war songs are just as susceptible to this as anti-war films. The message of the song may be about the awful aspects of war, but it may have either too subtle of a title or a catchy, positive or cool sounding beat, as well as [[Lyrical Dissonance]] to keep it from getting its message across. This goes double if it's a popular song that many of the listeners only know the chorus too without knowing any other of the lyrics, often leading to cases of [[Isn't It Ironic?]].
** Edwin Starr's "War". The lyrics denounce the act of war quite [[anvilicious]]ly, but it sounds like a good song to kick ass to. It was used for fight scenes in ''[[Rush Hour]]'', ''[[Small Soldiers]]'', and ''Agent Cody Banks 2''.
** [[Metallica]]'s "For Whom the Bell Tolls". Despite being about the futility of war, it's a totally kick ass song that gets your adrenaline pumping.
** [[Rise Against]]'s "Hero of War" is definitely intended as an anti-war song. It tells the story of a teenager who joins the military because he'll get to see the world, [[Dare to Be Badass|carry a gun]], and he'll even get paid. The war psychologically destroys him, going through [[Training
** While not exactly a "catchy" song per say, Bob Dylan's "With God On Our Side" tends to get people thinking that it's a patriotic statement, despite being more about how having God on your side is little more than an excuse to go to war and force your ideals upon others because both sides will always claim this.
* [[Black Sabbath]]. Many of their early lyrics dealt with the horrors of things like violence, war, Satan and so on. This has inspired legions of metal bands to write lyrics about how ''awesome'' these same things are.
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** In the documentary, ''Metal: A Headbanger's Journey'' the band members talk about how they just fell headfirst into this trope. The audience saw what they wanted to see rather than what the band was really saying. They intended to portray Satanism as bad, but their use of satanic imagery and satanic references in their music made it seem a lot more awesome than bad.
* In fact, a lot of heavy metal bands of note either treat these themes negatively, ironically or with a sort of horrified fascination; while a lot may seem like they glorify violence or death, it's often necessary to tune into the particular subcultural lens of heavy metal to understand them properly. Unfortunately, [[Misaimed Fandom|some of the fans]] (especially for bands that hit the mainstream) and more than a few of the bands don't seem to get this.
* [[Megadeth]]'s album
* [[Slayer]]'s "Angel of Death" is often called a pro-Holocaust song, but guitarist Kerry King notes that the lyrics are as brutal as they are to reflect the real horror of the Holocaust, not to glorify it. The band is not trying to glorify the Holocaust—but they're not trying to dispel it, either. [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|They enjoy causing controversy]].
**
*** When it reminds him to much of the worst parts of High School? There are arrogant officers that remind one of [[Sadist Teacher|sanctimonious, dictatorial teachers]], thugs that remind one of [[The Bully]], humiliation, the feeling that one's life belongs to someone else, and all sorts of things that are intermittent flaws in school multiplied by a government that considers those things ''virtues'' rather than administrative errors. There is plenty about The Holocaust besides the horror of it and one is the sheer [[Evil Is Petty|pettyness.]]
* [[Bruce Springsteen]]'s "Born In the USA" is about the issues faced by returning veterans of [[The Vietnam War]]. Because of the refrain, the subtle title, and it being one of the catchiest songs musically The Boss has ever done, it's constantly mistaken for an [[Eagle Land|American patriotic song]]. It is frequently played at 4 July events. US President [[Ronald Reagan]]—a president who had threatened Mutually Assured Destruction on the Russians—wanted to use it as his 1984 campaign theme.
** "Born to Run", similarly, was named New Jersey's "Unofficial Youth Rock Anthem" by the New Jersey State Legislature in 1979. [[Isn't It Ironic?|A song about leaving New Jersey because of how terrible it is]]. No, seriously:
{{quote|''Baby this town rips the bones from your back
''It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
''We gotta get out while we're young }}
* [[Creedence Clearwater Revival]]'s "Fortunate Son" is about the class bias of [[The Vietnam War]]—lower and middle class kids being sent to fight and die while rich kids get to stay home. This doesn't stop it from being extremely catchy, and many listeners don't really get more than the first couplet of the lyrics. It also gets mistaken for a patriotic song, thanks largely to the opening lines of "Some folks were born, made to wave the flag, ooh, the red, white, and blue".
* [[Avril Lavigne]]'s "Girlfriend" is a sarcastic song that, if taken ''un''ironically, would send the message, "If you're a girl who follows the [[Rule of Cool]] ''and'' likes a taken boy, it's okay to throw yourself at the guy and steal him away because you ''know'' he likes you back, and his girlfriend is 'like, so whatever.'" The video points out it's okay to humiliate said girlfriend because she's [[Acceptable Targets|a nerdy girl with glasses]]. [[Word of God|Lavigne has said]] it's ''criticizing'' shallow boy-crazy girls who act like that. But the song [[Poe's Law|doesn't make this clear]], and try telling it to the song's [[Misaimed Fandom]].
* The [[Dropkick Murphys]]' cover of the old Irish anti
** The same tune was reused for "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", a song from the American Civil War that ''glorifies'' soldiers returning home from war.
* Gangsta Rap. What was said above re: gangsters in film & television goes double for many gangsta-rap music videos. Even when the lyrics are explicitly about the dangers and harshness of street life, expect the videos to be full of images of diamond studded cars, gold jewelry everywhere, beautiful women, and champagne overflowing.
** MTV and other "music" channels refuse to show any video with gunplay or shooting imagery regardless of context. This was particularly notable in the 1990s during the genre's rise to prominence (since they were airing more videos then).
*** This trope is deliberately invoked in Juvenile's song "Ha". The lyrics are a [[Take That]] against the glamour of rap excess (the chorus says, "You're a paper chaser, you got your block on fire, remaining a G until the moment you expire"), and in the video itself, the scenes are of poor and near-homeless residents living in housing projects in New Orleans... except during the chorus, when Juvenile and his crew visibly sing in front of expensive cars, stacks of money and visible jewellery.
*** [[Atmosphere]] has written a few songs attempting to address this issue too, including "Apple" which has a repeated refrain of "Just cause you're an MC doesn't mean you get to be an asshole" and "National Disgrace" which begins with the following dedication:
{{quote|Peace to Rick James, Anna Nicole Smith, [[Bill Clinton]] and Motley Crue, and anyone else who has ever utilised their 15 minutes of fame to realise their true dreams of being an absolute jerk-off, just to keep the masses entertained. This goes out to learning from the mistakes of others.}}
* Scavanger. Used for [[Black Comedy]] effect in ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100520080950/http://www.jamendo.com/en/track/539623 Assassins of Ankh Morpork]''. "[[Discworld|Here]] in [[Wretched Hive|Ankh Morpork]] they’re saint", indeed.
* [[Visual Kei]] as a genre has this problem: the point of the genre is artistic freedom and using shock value to express your artistic message. Except a large percentage of the fans, looking at the beautifully stylized bandmen, seem to be convinced that to be truly Visual Kei, one must be as pretty as they are - thoroughly breaking at least one of the major [[aesop]]s in a belief that art is only for the beautiful and sexy. The second problem, especially with Eroguro Kei, is the [[Misaimed Fandom]] factor - people that don't get that some of this stuff is meant to shock and disgust, not glorify. Which can be a very big [[Unfortunate Implications]] minefield with, say, the [[Gazett E]]'s Taion, which is meant to be a condemnation of rape and a lashout at the Japanese society for allowing such a rape to happen. When people start ''singing along,'' though... [[Squick]].
== Stand-Up Comedy ==
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{{quote|'''MacDonald:''' My doctor tried to scare me out of smoking. He showed me a picture of a smoker's lung. Oh! It was gross and disgusting. Then he showed me a picture of a healthy person's lung. Oh! It was gross and disgusting!}}
==Tabletop
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]''. Orignally intended as a ''parody'' of [[Darker and Edgier]], the fans latched onto those aspects with such fervour the creators decided [[Sure Why Not]] and magnified those aspects until a new word (GRIMDARK) was invented to describe the result. Then, in typical ''WH40K'' fashion, [[It Got Worse]] when despite [[Evil Versus Evil|all factions being firmly established as thoroughly evil]], the "Good" factions only so in comparison to their even more horrific enemies, there exist genuine supporters of almost everyone due to taking various elements of the fluff (at best heavy on the [[Unreliable Narrator]] and more commonly ''in-universe propaganda'') completely seriously.
** The two most glaring examples have to be the Space Marines and the Imperial Guard. To whit: the Space Marines are made up of (depending on the edition) everything from volunteers to inducted ''death row inmates''; go through so much genetic, cybernetic and hypnotic conditioning that it's argued about whether or not they're even still considered human; are conditioned to be unwaveringly loyal but even more so to literally not feel fear or ever give up, so if they do something questionable they will ''go rogue and declare war on the entire Imperium'' rather than submit to due process; and for about 98% of the chapters out there, the average Imperial citizens, members of other military branches - hell, even members of other Space Marine Chapters - consist at best of an excuse to always be at war and at worse a ''burden, distracting them from killing everything'' to which collateral damage isn't even a statistic to be counted; the [[We Have Reserves|Imperial Guard]] teaches you from day one that not only are you expendable, but you ''will'' die in service and your mission is to make your death ''mean'' something. It's [[Honor Before Reason|better to follow an order and die horribly]] than disobey an order and avert ''utter catastrophe'' (for which more than one hero who has saved an entire planet has been summarily executed), and if you have a choice between saving a dozen wounded squadmates and bringing back one piece of semi-arcane technology, you are ''legally obliged'' to leave them to their fates to save the tech.
** Then there's the Tau, an animesque culture whose army is based off of [[BFG]]s and [[Humongous Mecha]]. Their melee combatants are an allied race of brutal but more-or-less [[Noble Savage]]s. They were introduced ''specifically'' because of an outcry that there were no good factions, only visibly horribly evil and implicitly horribly evil. ''They were the Good Guys.'' Then the rest of the fandom cried out they were ''too'' good, so now there are more and more hints that the Ethereals [[Mind Control|have pheromone-based hypnotic control over the entire Tau culture]], the assimilated human worlds are usually subjected to internment camps and forced sterility, and the fact that they have next-to-no warp signature implies there may be something even ''more'' horrific about them, though we just don't know yet.
==Theater==
* In ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'', the "Dancing Through Life" song is ''meant'' to paint the singer as having the wrong idea about life in general; but it also seems to go out of its way to make his philosophy sound appealing.
** 'Dancing through Life' can be seen as a song about always and unconditionally being in the moment, rather than thinking about the future.
* This is true of Ben Jonson's plays. Both ''Volpone'' and ''The Alchemist'' make fraud look fun, although in the former play {{spoiler|harsh punishments are dished out to all the "villains" right at the end}}.
* The musical ''[[Catch Me If You Can]]'' runs into this—it's supposed to be ultimately condemning Frank Abegnale, Jr.'s, fraudulent and lawless life, except that the songs involving Frank's wild con artist life are ''much'' more enjoyable than the ones preaching strict [[Lawful Good
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/article_19333_5-video-game-adaptations-that-missed-point-movie.html ''5 Video Game Adaptations That Missed the Point of the Movie]'' A humorous article that shows five [[The Problem with Licensed Games|games based on movies or TV shows]] where this happens. The games take the bad things the original works denounce and manage to make doing them the whole point.
* Ineptly done [[Anti-Poopsocking]] features have a high chance of being one of these. In an attempt to limit peoples' gameplay rewards sharply drop after a certain amount of time. The hope is that instead of the player spending four hours a day on a game they only spend two after they realize that the third and fourth hours don't give much of a reward. This leads to some particularly dedicated players increasing gameplay time to
** Even a correctly done measure can have this effect regardless. ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' encourages players to log off and rest by providing Rest Experience: for every 8 hours your character spends logged out at a city or rest area, that character will gain twice the monster killing experience for one
* Many would argue that the idea of an anti-war war game is even more inherently hypocritical than that of an anti-war movie. See, games are generally expected to be fun; if they're not fun, nobody will want to play them, let alone spend money on them. This means that if you make your game well, all the people playing it will find your profound messages about the futility and destruction of war to be significantly diluted by the fact that blowing shit up and killing Nazis/Russians/terrorists/aliens by the dozens is such a clearly enjoyable and gratifying activity. (If you don't make your game well, no one will hear your messages in the first place because no one will play the game.) Multiplayer games are particularly susceptible to this brand of hypocrisy, since there is little to no story to provide context to the action and the entire point of the game is to compete with and kill your opponents (and presumably have fun doing so). The [[Moral Dissonance]] created by this is cleverly satirized in [https://web.archive.org/web/20100427183531/http://www.funnyordie.co.uk/videos/32d666a5cd/call-of-duty-secret-spielberg-level-unlocked?rel=player this video].
** The ''[[Call of Duty]]'' series as whole is a bit guilty of this hypocrisy due to the bizarre decision of the developers to include the appearing of anti-war quotes on the screen after the player gets killed in campaign mode. While not all of the quotes are anti-war, it's quite humorous reading the ones about how terrible war is while you're right in the middle of mowing down or blowing up dozens of human beings.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'' series (particularly from ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|MGS2]]'' onward), which is heavy on anti-war messages in the plot, avoids this trope by making it possible (albeit extremely difficult) to complete each game [[Technical Pacifist|without killing anybody]] (intentionally, at least). On the other hand, there's tons of cool-looking, stylized violence in the cutscenes and collectible weapons just begging to be used, and most of the non-[[Mook]] characters (a.k.a. characters with names, faces, and distinct voices) talk about how Snake is an honorable warrior and, if they die, do so in glorious, noble and/or bombastic ways. So really, it still has it both ways.
** Given the meta nature of the series, this kind of duality could be entirely deliberate.
* A more successful example might be ''[[DEFCON]]''. Almost everyone who has played it [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|tends to feel pretty guilty]].
** The conceptually similar ''Balance of Power'', from 1985, also tried hard to portray nuclear
*** Unfortunately, it didn't reward ''success'', either - your reward for shepherding the world through eight years of brinkmanship was a message stating "You have kept the peace". Maybe the ''real'' message was "Running a power bloc is difficult and unglamorous."
* ''[[Army of Two]]'' and ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' suffer from this. The games aren't intended to be anti-war, but rather, there is a specific aspect of war they're trying to denounce. Both games are based around of the concept of the military-industrial complex, [[War for Fun and Profit|the privatization of the military and turning war into a business]]. Yet, they both fall victim to Truffaut's theorem, just as the anti-war films do. To clarify;
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** ''Metal Gear Solid 4'' takes place in a future where the military has become mostly privatized, and the world's economy is dependent upon continuous war. While this time, the player isn't a PMC, and the game does a good job of showing the [[Crapsack World]] this has brought about, it again manages to make PMC's look extremely cool, thanks largely to the awesome technology they use, such as the Gekko robots, as well as the nanobites that turn ground troops into [[Super Soldier|super soldiers]].
* ''[[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]]'' does a pretty good job of getting its point across well, assuming that it's point is that a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] is lots and lots of fun. If it's trying to be anti-violence, not so much.
* ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'': [[War Is Hell]], everyone suffers, and the bad guys feel pain too. Except it's a strategy war game where [[Beauty Equals Goodness|the good guys are all adorable]], everything is rendered with a soft,
** Lampshaded by Unskipable's commentary on the game.
{{quote|'''Paul:''' You know, I know people are dying and stuff, but with these pastel colors and fuzzy frame...I can't help but think everything is going to be okay.}}
* [[Inverted Trope|Inversion]]: There were ''gamers'' who have gone as far as declare ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' to be horrible just based on ''[[Moral Event Horizon|No Russian]]'' alone.
** Played straight by other gamers who [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|cheerfully laughed while mowing down the civilians]], because it's fun shooting NPCs who can't defend themselves. Subverted by some players who ''refuse'' to shoot any civilians and "fake" it by shooting over the civilians' heads (or, perhaps, by not shooting at all). Subverted differently by other players who, regardless of how they play the scene, find it a genuinely disturbing way of saying "This is where you're headed when you start believing morality is obsolete in the name of security." Then there's the people who just say "It's a game." and went through the level with some impatience for a challenge. Averted further by people who use any of the game's '''numerous''' opportunities to avoid and skip the level.
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* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' insists often and firmly that [[War Is Hell]]. However, you play as an [[Ace Pilot]], arguably the most glamorous combat role in existence, your arrival bringing hope to allies and [[The Dreaded|sparking fear in enemies]]. Your distance from your targets means you never see in gory detail the aftermath of your passing and as a [[Featureless Protagonist]] you are spared the direct effects of deaths in the family. All these combine to dull the effect of the message, not helped by the [[Anvilicious]] [[Broken Aesop]].
* Best explanation for the popularity of [[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters|Gig]].
* ''[[Home Front]]'' somehow manages to mostly avoid becoming this trope. It bluntly and plainly shows that [[War Is Hell]] and since there is more focus on characters and the action is of a lower octane than in the [[Modern Warfare]] series, it really does deliver its antiwar message well.
* ''[[Heavy Rain]]'': The story's awesome and dramatic and everything, but the [[Dancing Bear|single most awesome thing in the game]] is ARI - [[Cool Shades]] that [[Goggles Do Something Unusual|do all kinds of awesome things]] via [[Cyberspace]]; [[Fingerprinting Air]], accessing the FBI [[Magical Database]], ''turning a prison cell of an office into [[Scenery Porn]]'', and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|letting you bounce a ball off a wall like in a prison flick without a ball or a wall.]] {{spoiler|'''[[Cybernetics Eat Your Soul|They Eat Your Soul.]]''' The game itself just about crosses the [[Uncanny Valley]] and they're saying ''''' VR EATS YOUR FUCKING SOUL.''''' What, are they saying anything more realistic than [[Heavy Rain]] are [[Things Man Was Not Meant to Know]]?}}
* ''[[Iji]]'': A poster on the [[TV Tropes Fora]] stated "I like kicking the bugs to death" (though admittedly the player who said this hadn't gotten very far into the game).
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** Dane Vogel also suffers from this. He's cool, manipulative, wealthy, spends most of the game in complete control of the situation, and his plan would have solved Stilwater's gang problem. The fact that he's a ruthless, self-serving [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who simply wants profit and is out to crush anyone in his way to get it—especially the poor and disenfranchised—and that his plan to eliminate the gangs involved making things much, much worse before they got better tends to be forgotten because he's ''awesome''.
* ''[[Armored Core]]'' has you play as a mercenary mech pilot who works for all the wrong reasons (money and being the strongest). The earlier games tend to end fairly positively, but it's pointed out repeatedly most Ravens do not give a damn about how much carnage they cause on the job. Just because your client is an evil [[Mega Corp]] doesn't excuse you from responsibility. In Nexus, your final mission results in millions of suicide robots devastating the planet. In 4, the mecha are [[Walking Wasteland]]s and are ruining the world, and in 4A, you've got the option of killing ''millions'' as one mission. Despite that, piloting a mech is goddamn fun, and you're only ever called out on your actions once,<ref>kill those millions and you earn yourself a fight against your [[Mission Control]], the [[Big Bad]], the Dragon, and your [[Worthy Opponent]]. They hate you ''that'' much.</ref> In other words: That coworker you just murdered? What was his name again? His bounty earned you money for new parts for your infinitely customizable robot. Yay!
* ''[[Wings (video game)|Wings]]'' arguably subverts this; the game ''does'' use [[World War I]] for entertainment, but is stated to be dedicated to those who died in it, and also calls attention to the foolishness of various aspects of it.
* ''[[Fable III]]'' has a morality system like the others. The system completely breaks when you are forced to raise funds to save civilians. The kingdom has 6.5 million people and they can be saved at the cost of one gold each (convenient). So that means if you give 10 gold to a beggar it is a morally good act but if you put it into saving 10 lives it is morally neutral. The biggest problem comes when you can choose to build a brothel. The net profit will same 1.5 million people but it is considered immoral. Why is this relevant here? Because every load screen shows you the projected casualties. Saving a community of hippies or 300 000 peoples lives? The whole section teaches that being a tyrant is the way to save your people... well that or buy every property in the kingdom and rent them out which could be argued is also a form of economic tyranny.
* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', both the games and the [[Pokémon (anime)|anime]], treating Pokémon as tools is "wrong". The evil teams and the rivals all lose because they treated their Pokémon bad, you won because you WUUUUUV them. Except the best strategy is to dump all the crappy Pokémon you catch into the PC forever and push the ones you keep in your party to their limits. Sure, they get sad if they faint and they get happy if you use Potions on them... but Happiness is a mostly useless stat and unless you horribly suck as a trainer they will simply be happy enough as time passes. The "best" competitive players even [[Tyke Bomb|breed new Pokémon to raise as weapons from the day they're hatched]]. (And throw the parents forever into the PC.)
** [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] in ''[[Pokémon Black and White]]'' by the bad guys, [[Animal Wrongs Group|Team Plasma]]. [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in that only one of the members, [[Anti-Villain|N]], actually believes in this; when he does fight you, he only uses Pokemon that can be found in the immediate area, and [[Pet the Dog|lets them go after he's done]]. By contrast, one of the first appearances of Plasma's [[Mook|grunts]] is [[Kick the Dog|kicking a Munna]], and their true leader, [[Complete Monster|Ghetsis]], simply wants people and Pokemon separated so he can conquer Unova.
* One of the main points of ''Ryoujoku Guerilla Gari'' (''Suck My Dick Or Die!'' in the English release) is that Lt. Prosper is an evil person for abusing his position and authority to rape women, and that in his bad end, Haresu is just as evil for buying into Prosper's lies. The problem is that, as an [[Eroge]], the sex scenes are a big part of the draw, and the most extreme ones are the rape scenes from Prosper's perspective and Haresu's bad end...so, "join the army, meet interesting women, and rape the hell out of them"?
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' [[Played for Laughs|
* ''Quitting Time'' presents: [https://web.archive.org/web/20150410032635/http://quitting-time.com/2009/02/04/customer-of-the-week-pure-evil/ Pure Evil].
* Invoked in [https://web.archive.org/web/20140109050010/http://somethingpositive.net/sp08312004.shtml this] ''[[Something
* Jason Love. "[https://web.archive.org/web/20150410032759/http://www.jasonlove.com/cartoons/00003-funny-cartoons-movies.gif Warning]" from Jason Love's cartoons.
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' [//questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2281 on] [[Artificial Limbs]]:
{{quote|'''Marten''': Modern cybernetics is really sending mixed messages to the kids. "Don't play with fireworks, or you'll end up with sweet robot body parts."}}
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Beavis and Butthead]]''
* ''[[Futurama]]''
{{quote|'''Bender (on TV, while lighting himself on fire)''': Try this, kids at home!
'''(on-screen subtitles)''': Don't try this, kids at home. }}
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** Made even funnier because *everybody* who saw the film immediately tried to put marbles up their nose, even the teacher and Brendon's mom.
** There's a similar situation in ''Little Men'' where Jo tells the children a story about a mother who warned her children not stick beans up their noses, prompting them to do just that. Jo says she stuck pebbles up her nose after hearing the story.
* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' parodied this in the episode of "Mojo Jonesin'
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' directly [[Spoof Aesop|spoofed]] this trope: Lisa is shown a short film where rap stars in costume represent tooth decay
** Also parodied when Bart's class is shown a sex-ed video. "So now that we've shown you how it's done... ''don't do it''."
** In the episode where Bart is working for the Mafia and leaves at the end: "Sorry Fat Tony, I've learned that crime doesn't pay". Fat Tony replies "Yeah, maybe you're right" and then leaves in an expensive limo filled with women. His henchmen have their own limos.
* ''[[South Park]]'' has several in-universe examples:
** In the episode "Pinkeye," when Mrs. Cartman sends her son to school dressed as [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]], the principal shows him an educational film to [[Scare'Em Straight|scare him straight]]. However, the film consists solely of the message "Adolf Hitler was a very, very naughty man," followed by (untranslated) clips of his speeches and goose-stepping, saluting Nazis. There's no mention of anything evil he actually did. Cartman thinks the movie is "cool", to the point of seeing himself in place of Hitler in the video, and asks to see it again. However, given [[Complete Monster|Cartman's]] stated antisemitism, he'd probably have thought it was even cooler had it been translated.
** "Major Boobage": "Schoolchildren are often experimenting with dangerous ways to get high, like sniffing glue, or huffing paint, but they're all bad, m'kay...male cats, when they're marking their territory spray a concentrated urine to fend off other male cats, and that can get you really high...like really, really, high...probably shouldn't have told you that just now, m'kay? That was probably bad."
** "Butt Out
** In "Sexual Healing," some of the kids ask what autoerotic asphyxiation is. The man they ask says he doesn't want to give them any ideas...but then describes it in detail, adding that it supposedly feels "really, ''really'' awesome." Three guesses how [[They Killed Kenny|Kenny died]] in that episode.
** "Kick A Ginger Day" is ''not'' something that should ever have been [[Defictionalized]]!
* ''[[The Iron Giant]]'' tries to present the message that the use of weapons of mass destruction is wrong, and in fact, it was the [[Trope Namer]] for [[I Am Not a Gun]]. Problem is, when you represent weapons of mass destruction
* Parodied on ''[[Archer]]'', with marijuana:
{{quote|'''[[Archer]]''': And I advocate its use. As a potential role model, I advocate it. }}
== Real Life ==
* There was a case where some cops took some pictures of an accident scene and, without the family's consent, started showing them to kids, apparently wanting to [[Scare'Em Straight]]. Instead, the kids thought they were cool and posted them on the internet. The family's attempts to get them taken them down have simply invoked the [[Streisand Effect]].
* Abstinence programs tend to fall prey to this as a result of trying to balance out the message of how evil and dirty pre-marital sex is with how great and wonderful sex is once you're married. Part of the problem is attributable to excessive idealism - the "abstinence until marriage" preaching, when unmarried sex is the norm, creates an issue in causing teens to think "this is BS, everyone has sex", and such programs also refuse to teach safe sex as well.
* During the [[Cold War]], several Eastern European [[La Résistance|resistance groups]] invoked this during the 60's to avoid government censorship. Instead of releasing propaganda directly, they distributed newspapers describing the treasonous publications [[Dirty Communists|their fine leaders]] had put down, refuted, or nipped in the bud. Of course, those publications were described in ''excruciating'' detail.
* [[Content Warnings]] can have this effect. They're supposed to serve as warnings to parents about what's appropriate for kids, but it's impossible to stop the kids from seeing them, and all they think is, "If I'm not supposed to be exposed to it then [[Forbidden Fruit|it must be totally awesome]]." Indeed, back in [[The Nineties]] when the Parental Advisory warning on CDs was just becoming well-known, TV advertisements for rap albums would proudly flash the "Tipper Sticker" as a point of pride, and [[George Carlin]] even recorded an album ''titled'' ''Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics''.<ref>Although this was more to ''mock'' the [[Moral Guardians]]'' than exploit them.</ref>
** This is also why the X rating in movies got changed to the less marketable (and ''trademarked'') NC-17.
* The [[Drugs Are Bad|DARE anti-drug program]]. Many school kids in the US have probably had to sit through this at some point in their lives. Hilariously, there are multiple studies saying that DARE programs not only fail to decrease the rate of drug and alcohol use among the DARE participants, in some places the rates actually ''increase''. There are different theories as to why this is. One is that it exposes drugs to kids at an earlier age. Another is that it makes drug use seem far more prevalent than it actually is, making kids think it's normal. Then, of course, when the participants get older and find out that ''some'' of the information given to them had been, at the very least, exaggerated in order to [[Scare'Em Straight]], they assume that ''[[Crying Wolf|all]]'' [[Crying Wolf|of it was]], and decide to try out drugs.
** The fact that their main message, resisting peer pressure, basically boils down to "everyone is doing drugs but you" doesn't exactly help.
** With anti-drug ads, there's also the factor that applies to a [[Stealth Cigarette Commercial]]. That is, the ads are considered so stupid and lame, that people who watch them will want go use drugs simply out of spite.
*** And of course, you have the new anti-smoking commercial playing up all of the ways that smoking has been made to look cool. Uh...
** There's also how describing the affects of certain drugs to kids doesn't exactly make them unappealing. "Marijuana makes you happy and makes thing funny. LSD and mushrooms makes you see bright colors and patterns. PCP turns you into [[Superman]]."
* The [[wikipedia:Meese Report|Meese Report]] on pornography. The commission's conclusions on the harmful effects of porn were transparently determined by the prejudices of Edwin Meese et al. rather than actual analysis, while the report also included plenty of excerpts and juicy descriptions of otherwise hard-to-find material.
* [[Animal Wrongs Group|PETA]] wants to put [https://web.archive.org/web/20080815175456/http://blog.peta.org/archives/2008/08/peta_warns_mexi.php a mural on the Mexican border fence] to "warn" Mexicans not to come to the US because they'll get fat from all the junk food and meat. The painting makes the USA look like a Carnival-land made of candy and barbecues, turning the ''actual'' message into "Hey, we've got all the awesome delicious food you could ever want!" Yeah, that'll scare 'em away.
** It's not like if they were starving, anyway. [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_obe-health-obesity Mexico is the among the
** Combine this with the explosion in the last few decades of cheap, fattening, nutrient-free junk food, and you have, for the first time in history, a situation where the poor are fatter than the rich on average. Indeed, many health workers in the developing world
* This trope can explain a part on why negative peer pressure is so prevalent.
* In '''The Western Way of War''', Victor Davis Hanson goes to extensive effort telling about how unpleasant hoplite warfare was, including describing rather gross physical reactions to fear in the bodily functions. He also says blatantly that the only reason they did it at all was to get the season's fighting over, get back to their farms quickly, and avoid being ground into another [[Aristocrats Are Evil|nobleman's protection racket.]] He still can't avoid giving the impression that ten thousand angry farmers smashing into each other over a few scraps of dirt just sounds [[Cool Versus Awesome|awesome]].
* It's against the law to drive while intoxicated in [[Canada]]... but [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/beer-road-signs-new-brunswick-1.4495818 New Brunswick has government-installed highway off-ramp signs directing people to microbreweries], and Ontario has government-installed highway off-ramp signs directing people to wineries.
* Prohibition. During the 1920's, when alcohol was outlawed in the US, some wineries would sell grape juice in wine bottles, and if you peeled off the label it had instructions on the back that basically said "don't follow these instructions or this grape juice will turn into wine".
** According to some historians, the makers of Vine-Glo (a grape juice concentrate sold during Prohibition) sent demonstrators out to stores to show how easy it was to convert the block into refreshing and legal grape juice. Those demonstrators ''also'' showed exactly what you should not do, lest your grape juice "accidentally" turn into wine.
* The Westboro Baptist Church. Since they've gone to such horrifying and sickening levels to preach their screed that homosexuality is wrong, they've probably gotten a lot of people who were previously on the fence to support gay rights so they won't be lumped in with them.
* David Hume intentionally used this in his ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.'' The opening and closing say that Cleanthes, the most orthodox proponent of religion, clearly wins the argument. In between those, he loses every point and the skeptical character of Philo carries the day.
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