Tropedia

  • Before making a single edit, Tropedia EXPECTS our site policy and manual of style to be followed. Failure to do so may result in deletion of contributions and blocks of users who refuse to learn to do so. Our policies can be reviewed here.
  • All images MUST now have proper attribution, those who neglect to assign at least the "fair use" licensing to an image may have it deleted. All new pages should use the preloadable templates feature on the edit page to add the appropriate basic page markup. Pages that don't do this will be subject to deletion, with or without explanation.
  • All new trope pages will be made with the "Trope Workshop" found on the "Troper Tools" menu and worked on until they have at least three examples. The Trope workshop specific templates can then be removed and it will be regarded as a regular trope page after being moved to the Main namespace. THIS SHOULD BE WORKING NOW, REPORT ANY ISSUES TO Janna2000, SelfCloak or RRabbit42. DON'T MAKE PAGES MANUALLY UNLESS A TEMPLATE IS BROKEN, AND REPORT IT THAT IS THE CASE. PAGES WILL BE DELETED OTHERWISE IF THEY ARE MISSING BASIC MARKUP.

READ MORE

Tropedia
Register
Advertisement
WikEd fancyquotesQuotesBug-silkHeadscratchersIcons-mini-icon extensionPlaying WithUseful NotesMagnifierAnalysisPhoto linkImage LinksHaiku-wide-iconHaikuLaconic
  • One simple possibility is the disconnect between the media and real life. Real life, for the most part, is rather repetitive and dull. This is a death sentence for most shows, who have to be continually funny and never be repetitive. So when they go through all of the possible jokes for a character as they are, they slowly exaggerate the character to give them more material. When they've used all the jokes they can for a slightly dim character, they slowly stretch them out to a Too Dumb to Live character.
  • This can become very annoying if the character's aspects were originally unique and subtle, only to become more stereotypical as the story progresses, to fit the requirements of more cliche' plots. Especially dangerous if executives think doing this will appeal with their demographic better and boost ratings. When it happens to a character favored by the fanbase, it will often be cited as the moment the show jumped the shark. Not every viewer likes it when a character becomes a parody of themself.
  • However, Flanderization is not necessarily a bad thing. In some cases, viewers may find the over the top version of a character more entertaining than their original, subtler version, and can also be a result of the author having more creative enthusiasm for the distilled version. There has been serious study on why this works with audiences. Philosopher Henri Bergson in his essay "Laughter" wrote that comedy is based on inflexible behaviour, i.e. living people acting mechanically in their trademark manner, however inappropriate the circumstances. Early examples: Malvolio (from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night) will always be self-important and anal-retentive and is thus easily gulled. Jack Benny will always be stingy, even with a gun to his head.
Advertisement