Singularity of Loss of Knoweldge? TVTropes Deletes Rape Articles.

Ace-Angel

To sum it up, TVTropes has decided to delete all the articles pertaining to rape in Movies, Games, Comics, etc on their site, because Google didn't consider them 'Academic' in nature, so refused to run Banner Ads.

TVTropes essentially either lost Google Ads or had to pull the plug on said Articles.

They trying to restore them, but as of right now, any article that links to rape, will take you to a less then empty page.

Articles:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/118120-Update-TVTropes-Deletes-All-Rape-Tropes

http://www.themarysue.com/tv-tropes-rape-articles/

I can understand that with all the recent stuff going on, people are mad bonkers about stuff like Hitman, Tomb Raider, Chainsaw Lollipop, etc, but for Rape, the very subject that is more Taboo then Death to be considered 'obscene' and be put under the carpet?

Sweeping something under the carpet will not make things OK.

Discuss or not, I thought it's interesting to point out how farm we have come from Feminism being a pushing force to bettering the life of Women, to essentially a day and age where something is not "Academic" and needs to expunged due to the nature of the subject. Sad day indeed.

Also, this makes me very weary of Google as of now...

Andreas

Not sure this thread can end well. The whole subject of the horrific nature of rape can get very heated... and it's hardly relevant to us anyway, mostly it's about Google being weird. A bit too 'newsy' for GD IMO.

Ace-Angel

True, but this entire debacle kinda happened during, and most of it emerged as a fighting 'white-nerd' issue, around this year, and almost always it pertained to gaming culture being the paradox of it.

With the entire Street Fighter 'cast' issue, and the trailers getting everyone heated up, I'm curious as to what many of the artists reaction to this could, especially since the subject matter got touched by games recently in TR.

Overlord

Making information on the subject available should not be considered tacit approval nor support of the issue of rape or other morally sensitive issues. Bringing such issues to the public consciousness will actually compel people to take a good look at what direction authors, artists, and filmmakers take with our culture. To evade the subject entirely will only serve to make it worse. Fearing to speak on the subject only gives more power to problem. We should shine an analytical light on it or else we will be mired in fear and ignorance.

Ghostscape

Looks like it's up, if I'm following the links in those articles correctly - they link to the google webcache, but following those links puts you on TVTrope's site again.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SexualHarassmentAndRapeTropes?from=Main.RapeTropes

Specific callouts that those articles state were taken down (ie, Mind Rape) appear to be back up.

I think "Singularity of Loss of Knowledge" (whatever that's supposed to mean) is a bit dramatic for deleting some TV Tropes pages. I agree with the argument that tracking this kind of stuff is important for documenting the problematic issues surrounding rape as a narrative device and feminism, but this seems less like the sort of evil fucking censorship surrounding the declaration of "Vagina" from debates about abortion (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/jon-stewart-michigan-gop-vagina-video_n_1608421.html) and more like the site admin taking the path of least resistance to make a buck.

artquest

On a side note... after reading through a few of the pages listed I kind of have to agree with google. I wouldn't consider them "Academic" in nature either. It's put together poorly and has very little, if any references or examples. A lot of the stuff listed on that page I've never encountered in the things I've read/watched. Seems like maybe to be a trope it should actually BE overused... and how can anyone include fan-fiction as an example of a trope? Fan fiction tends to be the worst kind of writing one can imagine imo.

So while I think it's important to discuss and track these things... maybe we should do it in a more professional manner?