Overshadowed by Controversy: Difference between revisions

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There are some well-known works that gathered controversy throughout the years, and there are also famously controversial works in which the controversy, whether rightful or not, would overshadow most other aspects. Which isn't to say that works in the latter category have no other redeeming factor, just that most people would know little else aside from the controversial aspects.

 

* Perhaps hypocritically enough, EA [[No Such Thing as Bad Publicity|purposely courted controversy]] for ''[[Dante's Inferno (video game)|Dante's Inferno]]'' by staging a fake protest where twenty protesters picketed at E3 2009 and condemned EA for what was viewed as a sacrilegious and insensitive game. EA later confirmed that it was just a publicity stunt to drive up hype, only for ''actual'' Christian bloggers to condemn the video game giant for pulling off such a tasteless stunt.

* ''[[Doom (series)|Doom]]'' not only courted controversy for its gore and occult imagery, it also came under fire (pun not intended) for being associated with a number of school shootings in the United States, most notably the [[Columbine]] massacre where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 24 others. It didn't help that Harris and Klebold were avid players of the game and made WADs themselves (though contrary to sensationalist reports, the "Harris levels" were not at all based on the Columbine High School's layout and did not contain sprites of the school's students and faculty), and that Harris said that the killing would be "like playing Doom", and "it'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, World War II, Vietnam, Duke Nukem and Doom all mixed together", and that his shotgun was "straight out of the game". Upset by the mainstream media's stereotyping of video game players as degenerate youth, the ''Doom'' community distanced themselves from the shooters by deleting and/or banning any (re-)uploads of the Harris WADs and defended themselves and the game from any sort of direct responsibility. Prominent Doomworld community members Javier "Dukrous" Heredia and Scott "Covaro" Cover both explained their side of the story to news media (in Covaro's case during a round-table talk with Bill and Hillary Clinton on ''Good Morning America''), [https://web.archive.org/web/20010909175952/http://www.cnn.com/US/9904/28/dark.culture/ contending that the community is comprised of law-abiding citizens] and [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr2K3bfkLEg&t=3169s would not in any way emulate the actions depicted in the games.] Much of the controversy concerning ''Doom'' has died out though, as the usual moral guardians have moved on to the next scapegoat, despite the recent entries in the series featuring arguably more visceral and hellish imagery.

* ''[[Kingpin: Life of Crime]]'' also had the unfortunate timing of being released shortly after the Columbine tragedy. Xatrix Entertainment, later known as Grey Matter Interactive and merged with Treyarch, was faced with mounting pressure from legislators and [[Moral Guardians]] who were scrambling to seek the truth as to what motivated Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold into going on [[Going Postal|a blood-drenched rampage]]. American senators debated on the game's obscene content, and the National Institute on Media and the Family singled out ''Kingpin'' in its 1999 report on video game violence. Xatrix responded by implementing a [[Bowdlerise|safe mode]] option upon installation where players can opt for a censored experience devoid of blood and with bleeped-out profanities. Xatrix CEO Drew Markham assured in an install-time message that the game "was never intended for children" and was made "with mature themes made for a mature audience." Regardless, many retailers have chosen not to stock the game, making it a commercial failure and leading to Xatrix's demise; they would later reform as Grey Matter Interactive which only developed a few games before shutting down for good.

* The Atari 2600 game ''[[Dragster]]'' was a short but sweet game by [[Activision]], which simulated drag racing in as far as what the hardware of the time could muster. It became better remembered in recent years as the game which now-disgraced player Todd Rogers claimed to have a 5.51 second time; subsequent analysis of the game's assembly code and revelations about Rogers' other dubious high score records led Twin Galaxies to [[Persona Non Grata|permanently ban him]] from their leaderboards, as well as the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' to strip him of his titles.

* On top of recent entries in the ''[[NBA 2K]]'' series being peppered with increasingly pervasive monetization schemes like [[Loot Boxes]], ''NBA 2K20'' was condemned and ridiculed by gaming circles for its blatant and tasteless use of casino gambling mechanics in a game rated for players ''as young as three years old''. The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MQ1ZMZ-l4 pre-release trailer] was savaged for its in-your-face promotion of gambling towards youths, and doubts were thus cast towards the integrity of ratings organisations ESRB and PEGI for giving such a dubiously low age rating, as well as video game journalists whose praise of the game was seen as questionable and myopic. Alongside the likes of ''[[Star Wars: Battlefront (series)|Star Wars Battlefront II]]'', ''2K20'' and many others was seen as representative of the unabashed greed and avarice by corporate video game developers as well as ''laissez-faire'' capitalism in general.

* ''[[Star Wars: Battlefront (series)|Star Wars Battlefront II]]'' garnered the attention of legislators over its use of loot box mechanics and prompted ''Star Wars'' series owner [[Disney]] to force EA into toning down the use of microtransactions by removing the lootbox mechanic in favour of paid cosmetic items.

* Despite receiving critical acclaim from mainstream gaming press, ''[[The Last of Us Part II]]'' was [[Critical Dissonance|savaged]] by a number of gaming circles for its inclusion of LGBTQ+ content and themes, branding it a "[[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|social justice warrior]]" or a "woke" game as some perceive it as [[Anvilicious|pervasive agenda-pushing]] not unlike films featuring female, LGBT and racially diverse cast members. Kotaku's Riley MacLeod saw the controversy as a weak point with Metacritic's aggregation system, where he stated that the site "fails to take into account the diverse critical opinions of the game", instead focusing on the overall scores and seemingly padding it out to make the game appear better than it is, than the actual content of the review and provide a more even assessment of the game's critical both in the eyes of the press and the gaming public. It also didn't help that, like what happened with the ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' remake, the game's cast members were unfairly harassed and trolled by self-styled "edgelords" who take offense at anything remotely "diverse" or "feminist". Considering the disconcertingly divisive sociopolitical atmosphere in the United States in this day and age, the homophobic and anti-feminist sentiment thrown at ''The Last of Us Part II'' is unsurprising.

** The other part of the controversy was due to leaks of the game revealing that one of the main characters of the first game got [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|a very ignominious death at the hands of the new playable character]], while the other remaining characters received extreme [[Character Derailment]] compared with their previous characterization (and the actual release of the game revealing that the game has a bleak [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] story–with a lot of [[Shoot the Dog|figurative and literal dog shooting]]–with a [[Bittersweet Ending]] very high in the bitter that gave little emotional resolution). The leaks forced a definite release date of the game after some years in [[Development Hell]], and the ensuing takedowns of leaks and early critics only irritated gamers that were already angry with both Sony and Naughty Dog. The above was not helped by the heads of the project responding to their harassment by calling any critics that didn't like the game "regressive" and "misogynists", [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement|whenever they actually were or not]] due to lumping the people criticizing the game for their narrative choices with the misogynistic trolls mentioned above.

* While hailed as the first third-party video game developer since the late 70s, back when software for video game consoles such as the [[Atari 2600]] were developed in-house, [[Activision]] - more specifically its parent conglomerate, Activision [[Blizzard]] - suffered a major dent to its reputation when damning revelations about the company's treatment of female employees surfaced, particularly the suicide of a female employee, as well as CEO Bobby Kotick and his role in covering up years of alleged sexual assault. [[Not Helping Your Case|It didn't help that]] CEO Bobby Kotick was allegedly linked with convicted pedophile and former financier Jeffrey Epstein - the whole video game industry was so disgusted that the "big three" console manufacturers Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IImsDw5EX3o all lashed out at Kotick] for his actions in regards to the scandal.

** Ironically, PlayStation would be hit with [https://www.polygon.com/22798781/playstation-sony-gender-discrimination-lawsuit a gender discrimination lawsuit] not long after.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The Ford Pinto was an economy car deserving of merit, if not for its [[Achilles' Heel]] that is the gas tank flaw which [[Every Car Is a Pinto|made the car combust in a rear-end collision]], and the subsequent controversy ensuing from it. Ford reportedly decided that paying out on wrongful-death lawsuits would be cheaper than fixing it.

* Heck, even Henry Ford himself had his reputation smeared, no thanks to his antisemitic views. He was one of the few Americans whom [[Adolf Hitler]] admired and mentioned in ''[[Mein Kampf]]''. Ford also had the canard ''The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem'', as well as the forgery ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]'', republished. Ironically enough, he also hired black employees as well as women and people with disabilities, and if one source was to be believed, Ford was reportedly so distraught by the extent of the atrocities of the [[Holocaust]] that "he collapsed with a stroke – his last and most serious" after he was shown newsreel footage of what transpired at the time. Even more ironic was that he was a Freemason, a secretive fraternal society often if not always alleged to have been plotting for a New World Order amongst other conspiracies, and is generally viewed with contempt if not outright condemnation by most Christian denominations (especially the Roman Catholic Church), not to mention that Hitler had the Freemasonry, amongst other similar societies, purged during the Holocaust. If the likes of [[Alex Jones]] are virulently campaigning against Freemasonry and the NWO, the idea of an ''inducted Freemason'' [[Boomerang Bigot|believing in and espousing the same beliefs]] as Jones and co. would certainly confuse some people.

* Fashion designer [[Coco Chanel]] is arguably the most famous couturier in history, having popularised the little black dress, Chanel No. 5 and a few others. She was however known for her alleged anti-Semitism and collaboration with the Nazis, which unsurprisingly soured her reputation post-mortem, particularly when more details about the less-savoury aspects of her life were declassified in the 2010s. The company which now bears her name tried to refute and downplay her role as a Nazi agent, though the stigma still remains.

* Same goes with Hugo Boss, whose eponymous founder designed the uniforms worn by Nazi officers and utilised slave labour (from concentration camp inmates no less) in producing them.

* 5G cellular technology also had its reputation tainted no thanks to the above-mentioned pandemic. The reason? [[Cloudcuckoolander]] [[Conspiracy Theorist]]s accusing the radio standard of somehow facilitating the spread of the virus. This got to the point where paranoid and gullible people bought into the canard and left comments blindly accusing 5G for causing the disease (even though there's substantial evidence to the contrary, and 5G coverage hasn't been that widespread yet even in areas where it was deployed), and some took it [[Up To Eleven]] by [[What an Idiot!|raiding]] cell sites and firebombing the masts to knock them offline. Unsurprisingly, those who attempted to do such an imbecilic act were arrested for their antics, and social media users joked about how they were unable to get cellular coverage as a result of such idiocy-induced terrorism. Not helping matters are charlatans who are quick to cash in on the scare by selling (phony) deterrents against 5G radio waves in the form of USB-OTG devices to be plugged on a cellphone, and those spreading [[Chain Letter]]s on Facebook and elsewhere alleging a sinister scheme linked to 5G and vaccines against COVID-19, sometimes using the "satanic panic" canard for added shock value.

** Such mass paranoia over cellular technologies are nothing new, however. Back when cellphones and text messaging started gaining mainstream adoption in the late 90s to early 2000s, fears about electromagnetic radiation emitted by cellular towers and cellphones themselves started circulating on the internet and through word of mouth, and some cashed in by selling so-called "anti-radiation" decals meant to be placed on cellphones, purportedly to mitigate the radiation coming from said devices.

* As mentioned in the ''Toddlers and Tiaras'' example, child beauty pageants have earned something of a dubious reputation no thanks to controversies over age-appropriateness, working conditions and issues with sexualization of children participating in such contests. While some pageants are more or less innocuous and are by no means malicious in nature such as in the case of the "Little Miss Philippines" segment in ''[[Eat Bulaga!]]'', with which notable actresses such as [[Ryzza Mae Dizon]] and [[Ice Seguerra]] first became famous for, the over-the-top and borderline paedophilic things stage mothers have their daughters subjected to has led some jurisdictions to either restrict or outright ban pageants for children under 13.

* Once well-established as a leading and prestigious authority in human and natural superlatives, the ''[[Guinness Book Of World Records]]'' has since been viewed with scorn and ridicule over the past few years at least in some circles:

** Amongst gaming circles, the ''Records'' has also become something of a joke especially in light of the Billy Mitchell and Todd Rogers high score scandals. Mitchell in particular had his title stripped by Twin Galaxies due to issues as to the veracity of his records, but these were dubiously reinstated by Guinness shortly after. Their lack of expertise in games and overall reputation as an adjudicator of superlatives has led some gamers, one of them being speedrunning commentator Karl Jobst, to call for Guinness to stay out of video gaming as the community has already established reputable authorities to moderate and verify gaming records.

** A number of categories and records were also retired due to ethical and safety concerns, particularly with food and more dangerous stunts. The "youngest mother" record in particular was removed out of respect for a South American mother whose [[Squick|childhood pregnancy]] was an unfortunate story of its own.

* Junípero Serra was praised for establishing Franciscan missions in and around what was then Spanish-occupied California, and was beatified by [[The Pope|Pope John Paul II]] on 25 September 1988 in the [[Vatican City]]. His missionary work was however tainted and criticised especially in later years by Native American groups who accused the priest of genocide, subjugation and forced conversion of Indigenous American groups into Catholicism. Such was the outrage that several monuments erected in his honour were either [[Off with His Head|decapitated]] or otherwise desecrated in protest of Serra's alleged atrocities. Other Native Americans however were more positive towards Serra and his canonisation to sainthood, and had no ill feelings towards his missions in California.

* Photobucket used to be the go-to place to upload albums upon albums of images and videos for those who need to embed images on a website or forum, but don't have their own web space to host them to. But not only was the $399 subscription fee–first implemented in 2017 and required for users to embed images–tantamount to extortion (they later changed it to $4.48 to $11.48 monthly, but still...), it was also seen as a ''nightmare'' for internet historians, archivists and those who had years if not decades worth of irreplaceable images now replaced with watermarked versions due to Photobucket's draconian business model. This ultimately cemented Photobucket's contemporary reputation as a now-washed up and has-been image host, especially as the likes of Imgur have overshadowed it.

 

=== Sports ===

* [[O.J. Simpson]] is better remembered for the murder scandal and subsequent "Trial of the Century" than any of his acting and/or sports credentials. His notoriety also spilled over somewhat to the fifth-generation Ford Bronco, especially when it gained national attention for being the vehicle used in a police chase involving Simpson. Ford discontinued the model two years later, but not due to the notoriety from the O.J. Simpson case, though the spectre of the O.J. Simpson chase still somewhat lingered on when Ford announced that they were to unveil the 2021 Bronco on July 9th, 2020, which coincidentally fell on Simpson's birthday.

* Zinedine Zidane's [[Use Your Head|headbutt]] episode with Italian player Marco Materazzi gained so much notoriety that it's basically what most people, especially those who have next to no knowledge of football, know of him. It didn't help that Zidane getting booted out of the field with a red card cost France its victory in the 2006 World Cup game with Italy, though it didn't seem to matter with Zidane as hearing his opponent's denigrating remarks against his sister was too much for him to tolerate. Initial speculation from British tabloid newspapers ''The Times'', ''The Sun'' and ''Daily Star'' claimed they hired lip readers and stated that Materazzi scoffed Zidane as "the son of a terrorist whore"; Materazzi disputed said claims, eventually winning public apologies from ''The Sun'' and ''Daily Star'' in 2008, as well as libel damages from all three British newspapers.

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