Twisting the Words: Difference between revisions

 

For victims of bullying, this trope is ''very'' [[Truth in Television]].

 

See also [[Quote Mine]].

 

{{examples}}

* Himeno of ''[[Prétear]]'' can barely open her mouth without someone claiming that she said or did something inappropriate. Especially in the manga adaptation, whenever she tries to explain the cavalcade of men who have taken to following her about.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'', the Fifth Mizukage [[Berserk Button|takes great offense]] to being called [[Christmas Cake|too old to get married]]--[http://read.mangashare.com/Naruto/chapter-456/page015.html which includes statements that only have a few words even vaguely related to such a topic] ''which weren't even directed to her or speaking of her in the first place''.

* [[Toriko|Chief Mansam]] always thinks someone's calling him handsome.

 

* In ''The [[Fantastic Four]] versus The [[X-Men]]'', Reed Richards' journal contains entries similar to what he remembers writing, but shifted to a context that suggests that he [[Engineer Exploited For Evil|deliberately arranged]] to expose the group to the cosmic rays that [[Super-Hero Origin|gave them their powers]] because [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|the world needed powerful defenders]]. The discovery of these entries nearly destroys the team. At the end of the story, Sue concludes that the journal had been altered by [[Doctor Doom]].

 

* In ''[[Mean Girls]]'', this is one of the first things Cady does that marks her [[The Dark Side|slide]] into the habit of being a two-faced liar. Her teacher talks to her privately about her performance in school, and Cady twists her words to make it sound as if she were confessing to being a drug dealer.

** There's also this early scene:

* The newspaper editor teases Sergeant Angel like this in ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'', asking him how he liked a production of ''Romeo and Juliet'', and when Angel says he enjoyed it, coming up with headlines like "Cop Enjoys Watching Young Lovers" and "Local Bobby Gives Thumbs Up to Teen Suicide." Angel describes the latter as 'just grossly inappropriate."

 

* In Louise Rennison's ''[[Georgia Nicolson]]'' series, prefect Lindsey uses this trope as an excuse to harass Georgia. It's not that the heroine is an angel herself, but Lindsey has a way of making a joke or off-hand remark seem like a lynching offence.

* The obnoxious journalist Rita Skeeter in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'', who has a magical quill that appears to have been enchanted to do exactly that.

* Early in the follow-on to ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' series, Admiral Geary is outraged to see a news headline reading that he expressed only "qualified support" for the government. His wife explains that he told a reporter that he'd follow any lawful orders—that's limiting his support, because he wouldn't follow '''any and all''' orders.

 

* In the ''[[The Prisoner]]'' episode "It's Your Funeral," one of the prisoners is being used by the powers behind the scenes to assassinate the current Number Two. Number Six attempts to warn him (to avert reprisals against the inhabitants of The Village); his warning is ignored because the current Number Two has seen a misleading recording that makes Number Six sound like a paranoid crank who has [[Crying Wolf|delivered several such warnings]] to his predecessors.

* Toby in ''[[The West Wing]]'' misreads his relationship with a Republican woman, who takes an inflammatory statement said in a "casual" conversation and uses it to attack the Democratic White House regarding the minimum wage in a televised press conference.

 

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' played with the newspaper version of this trope a few times.

** In "Call of the Simpsons", after Homer is mistaken for Bigfoot, Marge protests "That's not Bigfoot, that's my husband!" We are then treated to a tabloid headline reading "SHE MARRIED BIGFOOT!"

** Another unintentional variation turns up in the episode "And Then, She Was Gone." Ginger's teacher decides that her student's rather bleak poem is [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|obviously evidence of suicidal tendencies]] despite the girl's protests that it's just fiction. Everyone else who quotes the poem back to Ginger assumes that the poem is about the poet herself, and applies suitably morbid connotations to it. Ginger ends up at the school psychologist's office as a result.

 

* Done by the TV reporter in the second ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movie. "Whatever I say, you're just going to edit it to make it sound like '''I think Coolsville sucks!''' ''*[[Beat]]*'' No! Don't record that last part!"

* Often inverted in [[Real Life]] movie ads, which take quotes from negative reviews and use ellipses to make them sound flattering, or take the one positive word ("Spectacular!") in an otherwise disparaging sentence ("This film is a spectacular failure")<ref>Another good tip is the size of the quote's credit line. If it's from a local TV affiliate, and/or is close to unreadable on a standard-def TV, it's probably not a good movie.</ref>

* In the [[Adam Sandler]] version of ''[[Mr. Deeds]]'', Deeds rescues a woman and all her cats from a burning building, but corrupt reporters edit the footage to make it look like Deeds murdered the cats, then dragged the woman out to rape her.

 

* ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' lampshades it: GOB tells a reporter, "Don't edit this so it sounds like I killed Earl Milford!", which is of course reduced to "I killed Earl Milford!"

* In the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode "The Illusion Of Truth," a reporter's interview footage is taken out of context and combined with slanted commentary to produce a propaganda hit piece.

* ''[[Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In]]'' sometimes did a skit like this: they'd show an interview with a celebrity. Then they'd say, "Now here's what could be done by unscrupulous editing of this interview footage," and the "edited" version would have the celebrity making a number of inflammatory or self-incriminating remarks, such as [[John Wayne]] saying critics of his films "can kiss my Levi's!"

 

* One ''[[FoxTrot]]'' comic had Paige saying "Mr. Vivona says we have to cut three newspaper articles out for social studies every day this week, and the only pair of scissors I have is like totally dull" over the phone. Jason records the conversation and splices it into "I cut social studies every day this week. Mr. Vivona is totally dull" in order to get her in trouble.

* A [[Running Gag]] in the early years of ''[[Bloom County]]'' saw Milo call up the local senator in order to get stories for the newspaper, trying to get him to admit to outrageous crimes and misdealings by twisting everything he said.

'''Milo:''' ''(writing)'' "'We lost the body', Bedfellow admits." }}

 

* According to his autobiography, [[Mick Foley]] fell afoul of this in an interview about backyard wrestling. He was shown various amateur footage ranging from guys jumping around on a crash mat to stupid hardcore stunts, and then the interviewers showed his reactions out of order so that he appeared to be endorsing kids breaking light tubes over their heads as 'harmless fun'.

* Years later, interviewers tried to pull the same stunt with [[John Cena]] and steroid use. By this point, however, [[Vince McMahon]] was wise to the trick and had his own unedited footage of the interview.

 

* The third segment of Steve Reich's "video opera" ''Three Tales'' centers around Dolly the cloned sheep, featuring interviews from biologists ([[Richard Dawkins]], Stephen J. Gould), experts in computer research, and religious figures. Dawkins is only shown in single-sentence soundbites, and the audience is tempted to take what he says out of context (especially with the audio and video hijinks by Reich and his video collaborator: Dawkins is made to talk like an automaton, his hair is zoomed close to make it look like a devil's horn, and his "clones" appear all over the screen). In contrast, a [[Author Filibuster|Rabbi]] is given a whole uninterrupted minute to expound on his position.

 

* In the video game of ''[[Harry Potter (video game)|Harry Potter]] and the [[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix|Order of the Phoenix]]'', disabling Umbridge's loudspeakers has the effect of twisting every rule she announces over them. For example: "Walking is ''<interference>'' not permitted. Children must ''<interference>'' run everywhere!"

* Another similar example: In the Thomas Edison level of the ''Where in Time Is [[Carmen Sandiego]]'' game, one of the puzzles is solved by recording the store owner's message onto a series of wax cylinders and then rearranging them to have the completely opposite meaning.

* In Torin's passage near the end, there's a puzzle where you use crystals in a recording device to warp the words of Lycentia (The woman who kidnapped your parents) "You're not welcome here, you decrepit old creep!" to "Dreep, come here!" which makes a guard named Dreep, who works for her, to leave after you let the device float away (Via the lack of gravity).

 

* He's not a journalist, but Neilen from ''[[Dominic Deegan]]: Oracle for Hire'' uses a wind spell to literally rearrange the words of Dominic and Luna to try and break them up.

* This was used during the first Credomar story arc in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', to make the amorph look like a sociopathic villain instead of the [[Heroic Sociopath]] that he is. Mass rioting occurred later, though for different (but related) reasons.

 

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' again, in the episode "Homer Bad Man":

{{quote|'''Homer:''' "Eh, somebody had to take the babysitter home, and I noticed she was sitting on / her / sweet can-- / So I grabbed / her / sweet can-- / *drooling* / Just thinking about / her / can-- / I just wish I had / her / sweet-s-s-sweet can--"\}}

** In one Treehouse of Horror, Homer is thinking of detonating the nuclear plant, Ned Flanders comes in to stop him by yelling through a mic "Don't do it! Don't do it! You'll kill everyone!" but by interruptions Homer only hears: "<interruption>DO it! <interruption>DO it! <interruption> Kill everyone!"

 

* [[Michael Moore]] has been known to do this now and then, for an example of [[Truth in Television]].

* Andrew Breitbart got someone fired, participated in a similar incident to discredit a nonprofit group, and as of the summer of 2011 is being sued for Twisting the Words. For that matter, the list of politicians and political pundits who do this in real life would go on for pages.