The Tasteless But True Story: Difference between revisions

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If a work of fiction ''claims'' to be something that really happened, this is the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]] or [[Based on a Great Big Lie]]. If the work is ''toned down'', see [[Freakier Than Fiction]]. If this is invoked accidentally, it becomes [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]].

== [[Film]] ==

* Stories about concentration camps where the torture and degradation are presented to titillate. Prime example: ''[[Ilsa She Wolf of the SS]],'' which is [[Very Loosely Based On a True Story]]

* Stories about concentration camps where the torture and degradation are presented to titillate. Prime example: ''[[Ilsa She Wolf of the SS]],'' which is [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]]

* This happens pretty much any time the [[Lifetime Movie of the Week]] is [[Based On a True Story]]. While it's generally considered in bad taste to [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch|insult something you didn't watch]], somehow one doubts there was any redeeming value in "The [[Groin Attack|Lorena Bobbit]] story."

* This happens pretty much any time the [[Lifetime Movie of the Week]] is [[Based on a True Story]]. While it's generally considered in bad taste to [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch|insult something you didn't watch]], somehow one doubts there was any redeeming value in "The [[Groin Attack|Lorena Bobbit]] story."

* Averted by the film ''In the Light of the Moon''. Despite telling the story of one of the most widely referenced murderers in recent history, the movie doesn't spend much time wallowing in the disturbing details of Ed Gein's crimes, instead focusing on the utterly deranged mind that perpetrated them. Yes, you see some of what he did, but not much, and certainly not enough to titillate, as it were.

** ''Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield'' is the exact opposite.

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== [[Literature]] ==

* Back in the days of whipping up anti-Catholic hysteria, confessions of cloistered nuns, both as pamphlets and public lectures were common. Actually they tended to be [[Very Loosely Based On a True Story]] "And here we see one of the very bags in which the poor, unbaptised infants, fathered on nuns by priests are carried away for incineration..." The claim was that priests were raping nuns, then killing the babies and burning the bodies to destroy the evidence. The man who created the belief brainwashed a seriously mentally ill woman into believing she had been one of the nuns. Of course, when her story was proven to be a lie, she was the one blamed, not him.

* Back in the days of whipping up anti-Catholic hysteria, confessions of cloistered nuns, both as pamphlets and public lectures were common. Actually they tended to be [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]] "And here we see one of the very bags in which the poor, unbaptised infants, fathered on nuns by priests are carried away for incineration..." The claim was that priests were raping nuns, then killing the babies and burning the bodies to destroy the evidence. The man who created the belief brainwashed a seriously mentally ill woman into believing she had been one of the nuns. Of course, when her story was proven to be a lie, she was the one blamed, not him.

** And were reused in the [[Chick Tract]] "Alberto" series.

* True crime magazines, dating back to the ''[[Newgate Calendar]]''.

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[[Category:Truth in Television]]

[[Category:But It Really Happened]]

[[Category:Trope]]

[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]