Generic Graffiti: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Graffiti (singular "graffito") in their modern form were born in the 1960s around Philadelphia, but rose to prominence only during the late 1970s in New York in connection with the birth of the Hip-Hop culture. In modern graffiti, every artist, or "writer", has a unique moniker, or "tag", which he paints on any available surface. Sometimes writers band up in "crews". Other important lingo includes "bomb", to tag as many places as possible; "piece", a large, elaborate painting of a tag or a crew's name, short for masterpiece; "buff", to remove graffiti, and "slash", to paint over another writer's tag ([[Slash Fic|and no, nothing like that]]).

 

 

Increasingly, since the 1970s, graffiti have become a common occurrence in urban areas, and you probably won't find a back alley or an underpass that doesn't have a handful of tags sprayed on, unless it's been recently buffed. Therefore, when works of fiction deal with modern urban settings, graffiti cannot be exactly ignored. In live-action movies and TV series, one can just film the real things, but with comics, animation and video games, the artists must stretch their own imagination.

 

{{examples}}

* The America episode in ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' featured hilariously [[Gratuitous English]] graffiti.

* ''[[Akira]]'' features plenty of graffiti written in English. Mostly simple, generic phrases ("DIE PUNKS", "FUCK YOU", etc).

* Averted in ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'', where some of the graffiti is thematically related (in a slightly [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|meta]] way) to the plot or surrounding scenery.

 

* ''[[Watchmen (comics)|Watchmen]]'' has no tags in sight. "Who Watches the Watchmen" is painted liberally on any available surface, as well as a lot of band names and other thematic stuff.

** There is one notable tag. Artist Dave Gibbons drew a stylzed "G" as part of the repeating graffiti, usually alongside "Who Watches the Watchmen?". So you could say that he tagged the landscape.

* In ''[[The Filth]]'', the tagged underside of a bridge has some tags, but mostly ties in with the theme of the story.

* ''[[The Phantom (comic strip)|The Phantom]]'' visits New York in one story, and one wall has a graffito reading "Lee Falk Was Here", Falk being the author of the strip.

* ''[[Hellblazer]]'' featured graffiti [[Shout-Out|reading notable fans names]].

* Averted by Brandon Graham, who is actually was a graffiti artist when he was younger so he usually has fairly authentic looking tags littered throughout the environments of his comics.

* in ''City Of Silence'' by [[Warren Ellis]] and Gary Erskine most of the Graffiti are scrawled phrases like "No Mercy No Future" or "Psycho Christian Rappers Suck".

* ''[[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]]'' may lack the more artistic forms of graffiti, but averts this trope when he takes advantage of using the graffiti to help set the mood, reference something, or poke fun at typical writings found on bathroom walls, Such as "If you looking for a good time, don't call me. I am boring."

* Averted in ''[[The Invisibles]]'', where King Mob is often portrayed as tagging properly.

* Much like the film of ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' the young girl does graffiti ("BOLLOCKS" and then a V) once the cameras go down. {{spoiler|Except she survives.}}

 

* ''[[Children of Men]]'', alongside realistic and real graffiti (including a Banksy piece, which is an anachronism, as someone painted over it some time after the movie's release), there is a lot of Arc Graffiti, such as "Last one alive please turn out the light"

* ''[[Return to Oz]]'', the words "Beware the Wheelers" is written on the wall of the ruined Emerald City.

* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', a young girl who idolizes V starts tagging his logo all over London. When a cop sees her doing it, he shoots her right in a public street. This does not sit well with the people watching.

 

* The hero in ''[[The Catcher in The Rye]]'' is angered when he sees the word "Fuck" scrawled on the wall in a public place where kids are likely to see it.

 

* ''[[Doctor Who]]'': "[[Arc Words|BAD WOLF]]"

* ''[[Look Around You]]'': "Maths"

* The opening titles ''[[Rome]]'' show that graffiti is, in fact, [[Older Than Feudalism]]. The tags come to life and dance to the opening theme music. Since the tags are in Latin, there's some [[Bilingual Bonus]] to be had, but a lot of it is pretty unambiguous.

* One of the classic sketches of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' was a fake commercial starring real-life New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. He announced a new anti-graffiti measure whereby first-time offenders would have "Sucks!" spray-painted under their tag. Second-timers would have a specially trained artist write "Sucks!" in the same script that you did. And woe be to third-timers: Their tags would be saddled with "Sucks Big Time!"

* In the earlier episodes of ''[[Republic of Doyle]]'', Des is usually seen tagging areas all over St. John's.

* In the very first scene of ''[[Citizen Smith]]'' Wolfie is singing while painting political graffiti on an estate block. "PLAN AHEA-" He ran out of room and then he comments that the structure of the building is wrong.

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' has "AVERLANCHE" [sic].

* ''[[Maple Story]]'' has basketball player portraits.

* ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops]]'' allows players above a certain rank to create their own emblems for their playercard, and at a certain higher rank, apply that emblem to their weapons. You're limited to specific shapes and objects, but you can position, rotate, resize, recolor and combine them in any way you see fit.

 

* In Step 4 of ''[[There She Is]]'', the spread of hateful graffiti mirrors the growing social intolerance toward Doki and Nabi's forbidden cat/rabbit relationship, covering even the vending machines where they first met. In the Final Step, we see them cleaning it off as a sign that things are going to get better (as well as offering a nice [[Book Ends]] finale).

 

* On ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', when Homer became the leader of [[Brotherhood of Funny Hats|Stonecutters]], he urged them to help the community, including painting over graffiti. The graffiti were just "Graffiti" written over and over again.

** Also Bart's tag "El Barto" violates common sense, since it directly references his name. [[Clark Kenting|Not that anybody notices the connection.]]