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[[Tropes Are Tools|In defense of all this]], the critics may at times have a point; creative works of art are inherently designed to reach and be consumed by a wide audience, can be used to transmit a wide range of messages and interpretations and can provoke very powerful emotional responses from their readers. This means they can act as potentially very powerful vessels for either propaganda or for transmitting subversive messages against various forms of authority. There's a reason why one of the first things most authoritarian governments do is impose strict controls and censors on art, after all; a work by itself might not bring down The Man, but it can potentially inspire ''someone else'' to do so. This trope is a problem not because constructing and interpreting art in a political sense is a bad thing, but because it's proponents erroneously assume that the political interpretations of art the ''only'' thing worth considering and usually tie themselves up in knots in order to do so.
A subset of [[Serious Business]], in that it only makes sense if people take art seriously enough to decide to overthrow The Man (or not to) based on art. Distinct from [[True Art Is Offensive]] in that it doesn't depend on gross outs, just on political points. Compare [[What Do You Mean It's Not Didactic?]], [[True Art Is Incomprehensible]]. See also [[What Do You Mean
{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* A lot of older films experienced [[Vindicated by History|renewed popularity]] in the 1960s, because they were perceived as this trope. That doesn't mean they're not good movies.
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** ''[[Freaks]]''
* This is one of of the reasons [[David Brin]] ''really'' hates [[Star Wars]], to the point where he decries it as nothing more than an organized conspiracy, headed by [[George Lucas]] to send society back into superstition and feudalism.
** In general, Brin's position is a bit more nuanced than that. To oversimplify, he thinks that Oligarchy and Monarchy are heavily romanticized in works like [[Star Wars]], which promote a reverence for elites that resonates quite strongly with many (if not most) people. This is undemocratic, and in the long run an unhealthy mentality for our post-Enlightenment civilization. Even though Brin occasionally [[
* The somewhat ignored 2010 movie ''The Joneses'' focused on a team of "stealth marketers" who move into a wealthy neighbohood pretending to be a family in order to provide [[Product Placement]] via their daily routine and encourage others to buy their products. While it does feature a fair amount of satire of [[Conspicuous Consumption]] and its effects on people (a subplot has one of the Jones' neighbors {{spoiler|getting into heavy debt by trying to "keep up with them" and ultimately comitting suicide}}), the movie then switches focus on the main character falling in love with his "wife" and the other tolls [[The Masquerade]] is having on the family. The critical reaction to the movie was [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/joneses/ split down the middle]: half the critics accepted the movie for what it was while the other lamented the "missed opportunity" for making a truly scathing satire of consumerism in one of the most appropriate times in history.
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* As one of the earliest and most well-known female novelists in western literature, [[Jane Austen]] is frequently the subject of a lot of back-and-forthing about exactly how much of a 'feminist' author she is, and whether her work suffers or not because of it; while she is undeniably astute and satirical about the roles, obligations and hardships forced on women at the time, her heroines [[Rule-Abiding Rebel|inevitably end up conforming to these social roles]]. Standards of feminism were quite different back then as they are today, however.
* Almost all of Russian classics are traditionally viewed as this, with the trope solidifying somewhere in the 1840's and surviving up to this day. Before the revolution, every major literary work (think ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' or ''[[War and Peace]]'') was seen as either overtly sticking it to [[Tsarist Russia|the Tsar]] or discussing [[Serious Business|social issues]] with shocking liberty. The trope pushed itself [[Up to Eleven|into double digits]] in Soviet times; taking a jab at the Party, slight as it may be, even if this [[Rule-Abiding Rebel|was knowingly sanctioned by the regime]], tended to greatly increase an artist's popularity. After [[The Great Politics Mess-Up]], this phenomenon briefly became a [[Dead Horse Trope|pile of decayed horseflesh]], with signs of revitalization in recent years.
** The rather punkish attitude is an old tradition in itself. Europhiles who constantly complained that St.Petersburg isn't Paris were in fact the ''tame'' side of it. The sharpest pen of the age, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, ripped
{{quote|'''
'''The Narrator''': I know this too. But
'''Laboulaye''': Illusions… ha-ha! and at that especially if… ''illusions perdues''<sup>''Lost Illusions'' - also a book by [[Balzac]]</sup>… ha-ha!
'''The Narrator''': So you see how it is. You think about us Russians: northern bears! And we meanwhile got the terminology… }}
* Quite a few scholars of Roman literature assume that Roman Imperial writers were covertly trying to criticise the excesses of the emperors in their writings, even if the writing is downright flattering when taken at face value. At least in some cases they may have a point: both Lucan and Seneca flattered Nero in their works, but later joined a failed conspiracy against him and [[Driven to Suicide|suffered for it]].
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== [[Music]] ==
* Music criticism of 1960s bands is made of this trope. Critics of [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] often don't seem to care if their music was any good, only if it freaked out the old fogies. These critics are in turn [[Broken Base|bitterly divided]] over whether '60s psychedelic bands were good because they encouraged rebellion, or bad because they encouraged getting high instead of opposing the Vietnam War.
** As a result, the bands that are considered today as the '60s' most iconic bands are the ones most associated with rebellion, [[Theme Park Version|not the ones who most people were actually listening to]]. Unless one believes that Grand Funk Railroad, Three Dog Night, and The Carpenters were revolutionaries.
** Almost every "hot current music genre" since the '60s ('70s [[punk]], '90s [[Grunge]], etc.) has gone through exactly the same thing, where the hardcore fans stop caring if the music is good, and care about whether it can actually do what the [[Moral Guardians]] are afraid of it doing {{spoiler|It can't}}. Each sub-genre and faction of the punk/grunge/etc scenes competes to show they are sticking it to The Man most, leading to depressing [[Fan Dumb]] as they accuse each other of betraying the cause. It would be [[We ARE Struggling Together!]] if it mattered that much.
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*** [[Elvis Presley|Elvis]] [[But Not Too Black|happened]].
* Bono, at the 1993 Grammy Awards, on [[U2]] winning Best Alternative Music Album: "We shall continue to abuse our position and fuck up the mainstream." And it was only the sixth Grammy they won...
* There can a little bit of this in the critical evaluation of the music of [[The Beatles (band)|John Lennon and Paul McCartney]]; Lennon wrote several overtly political songs, so he's cherished as a rebel. McCartney tends towards [[Silly Love Songs]], so his songs are frivolous pap. This is, of course, a drastic over-simplification.
** It's also vexed some critics that Lennon's most overtly political song with the group was "Revolution"/"Revolution 1", which is actually ''against'' the most strident radicals of the day, or is at least very ambiguous ("You can count me out -- in"). it's certainly particularly scathing to the kind of left-wing activists who "go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao."
*** Apparently Lennon claimed that the "out -- in" part was a dirty joke that he added on the spur of the moment. Given Lennon's love of wordplay the story might be true.
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* Norman Solomon's book ''The Trouble With [[Dilbert]]'' contends that ''Dilbert'' is an evil tool of corporate overlords because it's not an all-out attack on big business. [http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1998-02-02/ Scott Adams' response] was, of course, nonsensical silliness.
** It's better than that. The self-evident criteria angle is strong with Solomon's book. Basically, he takes it for granted that any work which comments on the business world must be an attack on capitalism and then spends the whole book pointing out all the ways in which ''Dilbert'' isn't an attack on capitalism. And Solomon doesn't miss the fact that Adams would readily acknowledge these shocking revelations are true. He digs up the relevant quotes from Adams to show us how evil he is.
== [[Web Comics]] ==▼
* ''[[Horndog]]''▼
* Parodied in ''DES Comics'' by [[El Goonish Shive|Dan Shive]]. [[Crazy Awesome|Tori Vector]] invokes [[Artistic License]] in a [http://danshive.deviantart.com/art/Some-Comic-of-Mine-005-77787372 rather stunning way].▼
== Philosophy ==
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** As one of the more prominent and well-known early female novelists within modern literature, Jane Austen gets quite a lot of this.
* An interesting take on this is Ayn Rand's novels, which are essentially just textbooks for her Objectivist philosophy. Many of Rand's novels have her protagonists sticking it to The Man, with The Man being strongly anti-capitalist and anti-individualist... which was the environment she grew up in. Thus she chose to praise monetary success and a certain (or large) degree of selfishness. Since these are traits that are associated with The Man by the "rebel" segment of society, they decry her works as evil capitalist propaganda... even though anti-capitalist movements are now decidedly mainstream, enough that many of them could be considered a Man themselves (and again, she was writing against the government standards she grew up with, so she was already sticking it to The Man in her opinion when she wrote them). Thus Rand's writings are technically subversive but considered by most critics to be the worst sort of establishment propaganda.
== [[Theatre]] ==▼
* This seems to be one of the major themes of ''[[Rent]]''. How much of it is satirical is up for debate.▼
** "Moo with me! Moo!" Even the other bohemian artists think Maureen is silly; but her performance brings people together anyway.▼
== Troping ==
* This belief is the only possible reason why the page on [[Deconstruction]] is so full of things that clearly are not examples.▼
** Or maybe it's just good old [[Fan Myopia]]-induced [[Entry Pimp|entry pimping.]]▼
* Most likely also the reason that [[Not a Subversion|the word "subversion" has been tossed around so much.]]▼
* Almost every mention of Shakespeare on this wiki presupposes that he really wanted to tell the whole unvarnished truth about English history, but was intimidated or censored by those eeeeevil royals who forced him to write pieces to their liking. This is such nonsense. He is known to have been quite happy to take royal money to write whatever the king or queen wanted. He liked writing for the nobs. He ''preferred'' writing for the nobs. They paid him a fat bonus on top of the money he eventually earned from staging the play. What's there to hate about it? And as for "telling the truth", Shakespeare only followed the (very few and very flawed) history books he had access to when they didn't get way of his art. His wholesale changes to history are not because he was intimidated into it: they're either because he didn't know any better (''[[Richard III]]'' is a prime example) or, more frequently, because he cared more about writing a play than teaching a lesson (''[[Macbeth]], [[Hamlet]]'', etc.). And thank God he did.▼
** Agreed, few historical lives or events play out in a way that works as drama. Best to look at it as a fictional story that uses an actual person or event as its starting point.▼
▲== [[Web Comics]] ==
▲* ''[[Horndog]]''
▲* Parodied in ''DES Comics'' by [[El Goonish Shive|Dan Shive]]. [[Crazy Awesome|Tori Vector]] invokes [[Artistic License]] in a [http://danshive.deviantart.com/art/Some-Comic-of-Mine-005-77787372 rather stunning way].
== [[Real Life]] ==
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* Relatedly to the [[American Idol]] example in the main text, this was the general theme behind the campaign to prevent the [[X Factor]] winner from getting the 2009 Christmas No.1 using Rage Against The Machine. The problem with this line of thinking was that ignored the fact that though Rage makes music that is intentionally confrontational and thought provoking—they're on the same exact record label as the X-Factor winner so the man still wins either way.
** Sort of - There were at least as many people simply getting behind it because they were bored of Christmas #1 going to 'Whoever won the X Factor' rather than not being able to predict it. They weren't exactly into sticking it to the man, more wanting to not know weather Eminem or [[Bob the Builder]] would get it. Basically, by those who didn't care who won as long as there was an actual race.
▲== [[Theatre]] ==
▲* This seems to be one of the major themes of ''[[Rent]]''. How much of it is satirical is up for debate.
▲** "Moo with me! Moo!" Even the other bohemian artists think Maureen is silly; but her performance brings people together anyway.
▲* This belief is the only possible reason why the page on [[Deconstruction]] is so full of things that clearly are not examples.
▲** Or maybe it's just good old [[Fan Myopia]]-induced [[Entry Pimp|entry pimping.]]
▲* Most likely also the reason that [[Not a Subversion|the word "subversion" has been tossed around so much.]]
▲* Almost every mention of Shakespeare on this wiki presupposes that he really wanted to tell the whole unvarnished truth about English history, but was intimidated or censored by those eeeeevil royals who forced him to write pieces to their liking. This is such nonsense. He is known to have been quite happy to take royal money to write whatever the king or queen wanted. He liked writing for the nobs. He ''preferred'' writing for the nobs. They paid him a fat bonus on top of the money he eventually earned from staging the play. What's there to hate about it? And as for "telling the truth", Shakespeare only followed the (very few and very flawed) history books he had access to when they didn't get way of his art. His wholesale changes to history are not because he was intimidated into it: they're either because he didn't know any better (''[[Richard III]]'' is a prime example) or, more frequently, because he cared more about writing a play than teaching a lesson (''[[Macbeth]], [[Hamlet]]'', etc.). And thank God he did.
▲** Agreed, few historical lives or events play out in a way that works as drama. Best to look at it as a fictional story that uses an actual person or event as its starting point.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:True Art Sticks It to The Man]]
[[Category:Banned On TV Tropes]]
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