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Issue Drift: Difference between revisions
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The trope name is designed for versatility. Drift can be used for just about anything that's magnetically pulling pop culture off-topic. Key streams of Issue Drift in the recent past include but are not limited to: Commie Drift in the 1950s, Dick Drift in the Nixon/Watergate era, up to the Bush Drift of today.
Think of it as a political [[Flanderization]]. See also [[Cerebus Syndrome]].
If we're lucky, the distraction is brief. In a worst-case scenario, our beloved entertainment has been sent spinning off into the dark recesses of punditry, never to return. But hey, maybe you're into that sort of thing.
{{examples}}
* ''[[Marvel Civil War]]'' was centered on government invasions of privacy and extreme rendition policies, had [[Reed Richards Is Useless|Mr. Fantastic]] construct Super Gitmo, and turned [[Iron Man]] into a [[Strawman Political]] (one who hired Nazi scientists to assassinate and clone his former teammates). This culminated with an [[Anvilicious]] bullet through [[Captain America (comics)]]'s skull. However, this is a special case of almost issue tug-of-war as it had [[Writer on Board|about a dozen writers on board]] who were all trying to express different, conflicting views and making different characters evil/incompetent accordingly.
* ''Inverted'' to some degree in ''[[American Dad]]''. At first nearly every episode was political, with [[Jerkass|Stan]] serving only as a [[Strawman Political]]. However, after the first season or so, political episodes have become rarer to the point that they're only a handful of episodes a season. Meanwhile Stan more often was shown in a sympathetic light (achieving, dare we say it, some degree of [[Character Development]]), with his faults falling more under general [[Comedic Sociopathy]]. All of this is generally considered [[Growing the Beard|for the better]].
** All of which does make it frustrating when people lump the show in as being virtually the same as [[Family Guy]], when not only was the general style of episode always different, it is in fact much more balanced as well despite the premise seeming to be overtly political at first glance.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIWTB8POnkg Speaking of Family Guy...]
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* Infamously, ''[[Li'l Abner]]'' in the late 1960s stooped to [[Take That|Take Thats]] against student protesters, with the introduction of the SDS-like organization [[Fun with Acronyms|SWINE]] (Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything) and "Joanie Phoanie" (who was like Joan Baez, only ugly-looking).
* Used, possibly subverted, in an episode of ''[[Scrubs]]'' where a wounded soldier serving in Iraq is brought into the hospital. Almost everybody gets involved in the political debate (except for JD who spends the entire episode reading "The Iraq War for Dummies" and the spineless Ted who takes a neutral stance). It ends with Dr. Kelso cutting off the employee discount at the hospital coffee shop to stop everybody's constant arguing about politics and get angry at him instead. The episode is very deliberate to not take any side and to treat the subject with some humour.
* The King Steve interludes in ''[[8-Bit Theater
* ''[[Sinfest]]'' went fully political for a while in the run-up to the 2008 US election, much to its detriment. It has largely gotten back to normal since the election.
* While [[Tom Clancy]]'s [[Jack Ryan]] novels always had a hint of Clancy's conservative beliefs in them, the trend towards right-wing preaching became increasingly prevalent over the years.
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** Not to mention Electronic Tigers last batch of comics was mostly arguments between a calm-minded Republican and a [[Strawman Political|crazy, shouting Democrat.]] Those strips are so infamously biased that the "dumb and so goddamn crazy" comic on the Strawman Political trope page is supposedly a parody of Electronic Tigers.
* ''[[King of the Hill]]'' became far less even handed toward the end of its run; what started as a nuanced comedy of manners about an unassuming small Texas town with multiple character arcs slowly wound down into repetitive [[Author Tract|Author Tracts]] on Household mold problems, Shoddy McMansion construction, [[Frivolous Lawsuit|Frivolous Lawsuits]] and ''Trans-Facism''. [[Flanderization]] set in, [[Character Development]] slowed considerably, and Hank, who had been more of a dogged [[Honor Before Reason]] type gradually turned into the [[Only Sane Man]] bordering on a conservative small town version of the [[Soapbox Sadie]].
** [[Subverted]] somewhat unintentionally by focusing on issues almost no one actually cares about.
* The 1970s TV show ''[[Quincy]]'' started off as a straightforward forensic-pathology whodunit. By the end of its run, every single episode was a soapbox rant about some political or social issue, always from a liberal POV.
* Compare ''[[The Simpsons]]''' [[Flanderization|Ned Flanders]] [[Good Samaritan|before]] and [[The Fundamentalist|after]] President Bush got elected. Now do the same with [[Soapbox Sadie|Li]][[Granola Girl|sa]]. Or Homer, the once-Republican who got eaten by an evil voting machine while trying to vote for Obama--you know what, you get the picture.
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