Straw Character: Difference between revisions

|'''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Bart Simpson]]''', in "Sideshow Bob Roberts," on finding the tomb of a [[Vote Early, Vote Often|"registered voter" who died in 1909]]}}

 

 

 

A strawman can have pretty much any ideological stance, with political and religious ones being the most common. Why bother addressing the real issues of, for example, firearm-ownership advocates, when you can instead portray them all as bearded, racist lunatics ranting about black helicopters and wanting to own their own nuclear warheads? And so it goes with other examples: capitalists literally worship the bottom line and would step over their own mothers for profit; liberals are all secret communists aiming to destroy morality; conservatives are bigoted, gun-toting money-grubbers; scientists shake their fist at God while plotting to surpass him; the religious are uneducated, superstitious maniacs; feminists want to kill all men; and so on. This is not to say that such extremists don't actually exist, but the straw character presents extreme or minority views as the ''typical'' beliefs of a group rather than those of a tiny subset of it.

The American strawmen sometimes fall into one of these categories (see [[Political Stereotype]]):

# Liberal. An [[New Age Retro Hippie|aging hippie]] who refuses to believe his movement is dead, a [[Straw Feminist]] who loathes anything with a Y chromosome, a [[Malcolm Xerox]] who thinks [[Everything Is Racist]], a self-righteous hipster (or [[Bourgeois Bohemian]] if they're older) who worships Michael Moore and is utterly convinced of his/her own moral superiority, or an insane environmentalist who will do anything to further his crazy agenda. Invokes First Amendment protection whenever people try to [[It's Not Porn, It's Art|censor pornography, no matter how graphic and/or obscene]], yet wishes to purge all references to [[Family-Unfriendly Violence|violence]] from our media.

# Libertarian. An insane survivalist with a stockpile of guns and supplies who smokes copious amounts of marijuana, or a [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] who obsessively follows [[Ayn Rand]], a snotty rich WASP teenager who thinks he's a member of the intellectual elite after reading Heinlein and Rand, or an overzealous activist who spams Internet message boards with ads for [[Ron Paul]]. Worships either [[Ron Paul]] or [[Ayn Rand]], one or the other, never both.

 

The strawman is a relative of the [[Windmill Political|Windmill]]. While a strawman is a dumbed down version of a real enemy or threat, a windmill is not at all the threat it's believed to be - if it even ''exists'' in the first place. A person who [[Windmill Crusader|honestly fights such windmills]] can be used as a [[Straw Loser]], while a [[Manipulative Bastard|dishonest person]] who tricks others into fighting windmills typically is a [[Straw Hypocrite]].

 

 

<big>{{noreallife|[[Poe's Law|While there are some people with views so extreme it's hard to believe they're not a joke]], these people are not in themselves straw characters, as they were not constructed for the specific purpose of mocking their own viewpoints. [[Stealth Parody|We hope.]]}}</big>

 

{{examples}}

* Almost every evangelist tract by [[Jack Chick]] features strawmen liberals as villains. Often he proves his arguments by having a character argue down a [[Strawman Political]].

** A particularly bad one is "Big Daddy", which consists mostly of a blatant [[Gary Stu]] debating evolution with a [[Strawman Political]] science teacher. Guess who wins?

* Silver Age comics had some Straw Man Communists, especially in ''[[Iron Man]]'' with guys like Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo. These guys come across as cartoonish caricatures of a what a communist is supposed to be rather then part of any criticism that has any depth. Your average communist villain in the Silver age was about as deep as a [[Captain Planet]] villain. Since the focus was on their ideology rather then their characters they have remained [[Flat Character]] types and kinda pointless after the Berlin Wall fell. The focus wasn't on their ideology (which was hardly even mentioned), the focus was on providing an [[Acceptable Targets|acceptable target]] for [[Iron Man]] to beat up. The writers were too lazy to think up a real motivation for enemies to attack, so they decided that the [[Monster of the Week]] attacked the hero because they were Communists, and [[Exclusively Evil|that's what Communists do]]. Communists were that era's equivalent to [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazis]]. Considering the Cold War nearly went multiple times in real life early in Iron Man's comic book career, its not much of a stretch to conceive of an aggressive soviet enemy responding to Tony's inadvertent escalation of the arms race. That said, it was probably still overused but it was more about the status of the relationship between the two nations and less about actual ideologies.

 

* In Penthouse Pictures' ''[[Caligula]]'', McDowell's titular role leads soldiers into Gaul, has them cut down reeds there, and returns claiming to have conquered Gaul.

* ''[[The American President]]'', the movie upon which ''[[The West Wing]]'' based, doesn't mention what party the President or his opponent represent. The opponent, however, is portrayed as a pretty standard strawman conservative who sits around with his cronies smoking cigars and plotting evil. At one point he sings, "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas" when he discovers that the incumbent President's girlfriend has a checkered past. It was pretty clear President Shepherd was a Democrat. His opponent's methods were based on the Republican rhetoric of the Bill Clinton era and he was attacked on his alleged lack of "family values", right-wing Newspeak ''par excellence''.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSQSx3OCrXQ This] cartoon from the documentary ''For the Bible Tells Me So'' gives us a painfully obvious Straw Christian by the name of - any guesses? - [[Meaningful Name|Christian]].

 

* The global government in the ''[[Left Behind]]'' series starts out on the Straw-Lib end of the scale.

** ''Edge of Apocalypse'' (written in part by Tim Lahaye, co-author of the above) features a senator who is actually ''named'' Straworth. He and the majority of the politicians in the book (President included) are corrupt straw liberals.

* One would have to dig deep to find a [[John Ringo]] work that ''doesn't'' have one of these, usually of the liberal variety. Ringo has himself acknowledged that he has problems with writing liberals, in a panel on politics in [[Science Fiction]] at the 2010 Dragon*Con.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s books all have strawmen since his presented political philosophies are black-and-white. They also jump between various extremes on the political spectrum, depending on the year they're written.

** In ''[[Starship Troopers]],'' Heinlein jumps to the opposite end of the spectrum, advocating disenfranchisement of all non-veterans, but also corporal punishment for convicted criminals, as well as ''capital'' punishment for insane persons who commit homicide. This is all justified with various arguments comparing people to dogs.

* [[Kurt Vonnegut]] was also quite the [[Strawman Political]] writer - using absurdly simplistic extremes which make a strawman look like [[Iron Man]]: in ''Welcome to the Monkey House'', he attacks population-control with a society that forces people to take drugs that kill their sex-drive. Meanwhile in ''[[Harrison Bergeron]]'' he attacks egalitarianism by featuring a society where everyone is forced to handicap themselves so that everyone will be ''truly'' "equal," with strong people being forced to carry weights, smart people being forced to wear noise-making headphones to disrupt their thinking and marry stupid ones, and good-looking people being forced to marry ugly ones etc.

** Harrison Bergeron [[Poe's Law|is most likely a parody]]. Unless Vonnegut felt being an ubermensch lets you defy gravity.

** This is hardly the biggest strawman character in the series... that honor goes to a conservative senator in the first book, who's a literal slobbering pedophile rapist (incestuous, at that). In general the series treats conservatives as being, nearly to a man (and they're all men), as misogynist assholes, while liberals (especially liberal politicians) are portrayed as being respectable if not likable. The series moves away from this a bit later on, able to treat at least some subjects considered conservative (such as religion) with respect, but at the same time goes back to referring to the conservative political party as the Republicans.

 

* ''[[Glee]]'':

** Sue Sylvester "Not everyone is gonna have the walnuts to take a pro-littering stance. But [[Insane Troll Logic|I will not rest until every inch of our fair state is covered in garbage]]."

* Subverted with Mike Baxter in ''[[Last Man Standing (U.S. TV series)|Last Man Standing]]'', in that while he's opinionated and set in his conservative ways, he's generally well-educated on the issues, unlike the ignorant Kristin and Ryan (who are liberal characters). Additionally, he's shown to be fairly liberal on social issues like gay rights and is against quite a few of the Republican Party's policies such as the Patriot Act. He often plays up the hardcore conservative for fun and annoying others, but he doesn't overtly attack others for having contrary beliefs and is willing to listen to liberal ideas.

 

* [http://conservapedia.com Conservapedia]: "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". All articles on Democratic/Liberal/Evolutionary topics are built of straw. Their article on President Obama is a stewed mixture of straw, insults and long-discredited smears.

* [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page RationalWiki] is a direct reaction against Conservapedia that takes constant potshots at conservatives, fundamentalists, Conservapedia, and ''especially'' its founder, Andrew Schlafly. Unlike Conservapedia, though, they make no claims to objectivity... or attempts at it. It's basically /r/atheism in wiki form.

* The site ''[http://www.derailingfordummies.com Derailing For Dummies]'' is dedicated to providing a snappy generic response to counter a variety of tangential, emotion-based arguments. But the strawman? It's in the very intention of the site. By using this site, you ''invoke the strawman'' that paints your opponent as a [[Insane Troll Logic|common troll]] who argues with only the over-the-top prescribed fallacies featured. And unless you are responding to a post that uses those arguments exclusively and word-for-word, you've just [[Derailing|obstructed any valid arguments from being addressed]]. If the irony isn't quite potent enough, just consider when it's used in advance to address [[I Know You Know I Know|"arguments I hear all the time"]].

 

* Just say that ''any'' political cartoonist has recurred to this, in fact, their profession demands it.

* Any liberal, Democrat, liberal Democrat, or member of a minority group that appears in Bruce Tinsley's ''[[Mallard Fillmore]]''.

* Use of the trope in newspaper editorial cartooning is satirized by ''[http://www.theonion.com/ The Onion]''{{'}}s "Kelly" (actually, Ward Sutton). In the persona of a cranky conservative, "Kelly" returns again and again to caricatures like the [[New Age Retro Hippie]] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20100225041655/http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/nov-17-2008 here]), [[Teens Are Monsters]] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20100223093350/http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/mar-02-2009 here]), using [[The Grim Reaper]] to symbolize disliked trends ([https://web.archive.org/web/20100223092836/http://www.theonion.com/content/cartoon/oct-20-2008 throughout]) and so on. Actually not too far off from the technique of newspaper cartoonist ''Chuck Asay''. And <s>half</s> almost ''all'' the comics ''have the Statue Of Liberty crying'' (when things are going well for Kelly, she's weeping with joy)

* The reason we have newspaper comic strips is that during the 19th century editors discovered funny, topical, easy-to-read drawings helped sell more papers—and the artists were expected to adhere to the paper's editorial slant.

 

* Louis Ironson of ''[[Angels in America]]'' reads very much like a [[Deconstruction]] of the Strawman Liberal stereotype.

* Mr Birling from ''[[An Inspector Calls]]'' is a prime example of a British conservative straw man. J.B. Priestly gives the audience no doubt that he is wrong about everything, including his political and social views.

{{quote|"I sent 'em over and I can bring 'em back. Re-elect me!"}}

 

* The Weasel News Network of ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' is a direct [[Take That]] against the [[Fox News]] Network. (Get the pun?). Everything about the network is portrayed as [[Crossing the Line Twice]]. For that matter, 90% of the satirical media in ''GTA IV'' is [[Straw Conservative]] (at the cost of laughs). ''GTA: [[Vice City]]'' had a talk show where right and left-wing strawmen tried to out-straw each other.

* The radio messages in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]: Bloodlines''. They add nothing to the story, and serve ''only'' to portray a fictional right-wing politician as a sleazeball. To be fair, the radio is purely there for comedy and everyone who appears on the radio is presented as a complete idiot. Most of ''Bloodlines'' doesn't really look favorably on anyone, except the liberal Nines, the conservative Bertram, and the independents Beckett and Jack. Or you could flip the first two, as Nines views government as needing to be small and Bertram as large.

** This is a world where the most popular game show on TV murders contestants, and has them murder each other, to a degree that would make Roman gladiatorial promoters go 'perhaps that's a bit too far'... while the game show host has the head of a cartoon cat grafted onto a human body. It is very unlikely that anything the Saints Row franchise says about violence or weapons was ever intended to be taken seriously.

 

* Every political web comic features an abundance of nameless straw men political opposing the author's political alignment. Occasionally, they will try to add in straw men of their own demographic in an attempt to show that they're not biased, but these straw men are either too subtle and argue about very minor points, or are ridiculously exaggerated in a way that makes them not even remotely believable.

* [http://www.shmorky.com/d/20060619.html This strip] beautifully summarizes ''so many'' political web comics.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Gyno Star]]'' the Feminist superhero, Gyno-Star, faces an array of straw foes, most notably a straw Libertarian super-villain knows as [http://www.gynostar.com/archives/426 The Glibertarian], created in a lab by an insurance company in order to spread pro-corporate ideology.

 

* ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'': [[General Ripper|General Eiling]] is shown to have sinister straw-conservative leanings, he's eager to drop [[Nuke'Em|nuclear bombs]] on the Justice League, blames the "bleeding hearts in Congress" for not getting his way and eventually turns himself into a supervillain in order to "defend" America from heroes. The series also features a cowardly straw-[[The O'Reilly Factor|Bill O'Reilly]]-type character.

** However, like the comic books, they avoid hinting which political side Lex Luthor leans toward in his policies when he runs for president. A quick line of dialogue revealed he was running as an independent.

'''Marge:''' "Ba-ba"?

'''Ms. Sinclair:''' It's saying "I am a leech"! Our aim here is to develop the bottle ''within''. }}

** Professor August from "That 90s Show" is a particularly heavy-handed Strawman Liberal. He managed to convince Marge that Homer's honest love and devotion were just his attempts to make her [[Stay in the Kitchen]], resulting in Marge dumping Homer for the Professor. In the end, he turns out to be just as bad, and Marge realizes her mistake and gets back with Homer.

* ''[[Harvey Birdman]]: Attorney at Law'' featured some Animal Liberation Nut Strawmen in "Free Magilla"; they freed all the animals from Mr. Peeble's pet store, even though this seemed to cause the creatures more anxiety than relief. When Magilla Gorilla later reunites with Mr. Peebles, he asks him to "Take me home - home to my nice, safe cage", the group who stole him splashes red paint on him and shouts "Animal freedom now!"

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:The War On Straw]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]