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Author Tract
- 163 statements
- 30 feature instances
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All writers put something of themselves into their stories, but some of them go just that little bit further. For them, the real point of writing is not to shape worlds or create characters, but to preach their ideological beliefs. This is not always a bad thing. For some works, the premise is simply a way of putting a political point across in an interesting and imaginative way. Also, sometimes things just have to be said in the most blatant way possible to be understood. However, when the message comes across as forced or one-sided, it may prevent some readers from enjoying the book and it will hinge upon where an individual puts their line for where it becomes annoying. Note that this only applies when the entire universe and characters have been created to put forward the author's viewpoint. If an existing fictional universe or character has been altered to create a medium for a tract, then it's due to a Writer on Board (Author Filibuster is an extreme example of that). If the author's just filling up their story with stuff they like, that's Author Appeal. If it's gotten to the point where the tracting (or whatever personal issues the author has) has all but taken over the author's work, then the author has entered Filibuster Freefall. Contrast What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?. May overlap with Artistic License and Take That!. If being an Author Tract is the whole point of the work, see Propaganda Piece. Compare Philosophical Parable, when an ideology or philosophy is illustrated via a fictional work. |
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While Fillmore! is usually good at avoiding these, the episode about standardized tests went a wee bit overboard. One of the recurring dialogues of the episode is that standardized tests are not only ineffective but are damaging and counterproductive for more creative children (Ingrid noted a boy who was terrified of the test was also an amazing inventor "but that doesn't show up on the S.A.T.T.Y.9") and for others who do not test well. Although the points about "bad test-takers" are actually pretty valid, the constant reiteration of the observation reaches Author Tract levels when pretty much every child who takes the test either gripes about how pointless it is, or the children who actually want to take the test are depicted as rather neurotic overachievers. Notably Ingrid, who is the smartest girl in school, was shown to not really care about the test, whereas the other "good test takers" were all obnoxious stereotypes of The Smart Guy who used words like "Machiavellian" and "reprobate" to describe the person who stole the tests and cried about them being lost to the point of needing a counselor who says things like "they may have stolen your answer sheet, but they didn't steal the answers" while Ingrid cringes. |
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A writer for The Simpsons admitted that the creative team has deliberately made Ned Flanders, in later seasons, less of a 'turn the other cheek' Christian and more of an intolerant Moral Guardian, as a protest against the growing influence of Moral Guardians in Bush's America (as if that hadn't been a problem since the era of Hoover's America, and possibly earlier). Much of this has been viewed as being massively out of character compared with earlier seasons. Flanders was de-Flanderized in The Movie, though, being portrayed as a genuinely caring guy who just has some annoying quirks. Marge's opinion about guns in "The Cartridge Family" is also that of Matt Groening. Parodied with the film Left Below from "Thank God, It's Doomsday". The Itchy & Scratchy cartoon written and directed by Mr. Burns parodies this by being an author tract for his sociopolitical views: Groening himself stated in an interview that one of his favorite things about doing The Simpsons is how unfair (his actual word) they get to be to nuclear power. Just as Brian served as MacFarlane's mouthpiece, Lisa Simpson has been Groening's mouthpiece several times; just like Brian, mostly when politics or religion comes up on the show. |
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There were three Looney Tunes shorts co-produced with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation during the mid-1950s, at the height of the Red Scare (By Word of Mouse, Heir-Conditioned, and Yankee Dood-It) created to show how good capitalism is. | |
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Some videos by The Proper People venture into this, when at least one of the hosts will express admiration for the ornate or unusual architecture featured in their urban explorations, and lament that most modern architecture feels "disposable". | |
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Doonesbury is really just Gary Trudeau telling people what he thinks about politics day-in and day-out, with occasional asides for other things. In its later years, however, the comic has become as much about exploring the gigantic cast of characters' lives as it has about politics. In the beginning, it focused almost entirely on humor about the college life of the (much smaller cast of) main characters. | |
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Bill Watterson admitted that he wrote a lot of his troubles with the syndicate into Calvin and Hobbes, as well as his opinions on comics, film, TV, commercial and other industries, humans' role in nature, art, and general philosophy. However, he always tried to keep the tone of the comic consistent and would scrap ideas that diverged too far. In general, if the central character of a given strip is Calvin's dad, the strip is about to expound on Watterson's personal beliefs. | |
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Some post-cancellation reviews have the Critic/Walker critiquing certain elements of a movie/show and explaining why he thinks it doesn't work. His Barney's Great Adventure review has the Critic pointing out characters with "more emotions" than Barney (even if Barney displays many emotions throughout his TV show). | |
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DuckTales (1987) occasionally delved into this territory. Some episodes dealt with themes such as capitalism vs organized labor (showing the importance of responsible management, without totally demonizing, when Uncle Scrooge lost his memory). This was also a recurring theme in the original comics — making money by being stingy is OK. Making money by being totally unfair to consumers, the environment, or employees isn't. | |
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Seth MacFarlane has bluntly stated that American Dad!, a show about an extremely stupid conservative CIA agent and his family, was created primarily out of his frustration at George W. Bush's re-election in 2004. However, despite its overtly political premise, it has generally been far less preachy than the Family Guy episodes that have aired during the same years. An episode focused around Bush showed him to be pretty stupid. | |
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Whenever The Nostalgia Critic is complaining about a cliche in a film, it's based on the fact that the cliches are the ones that Doug Walker hates. The author tract is more common in his editorials where he's more discussing subjects than reviewing films. Most notably "The Dark Age Of Movies" was how Doug Walker felt about summer films from 1996 to 2001. Some post-cancellation reviews have the Critic/Walker critiquing certain elements of a movie/show and explaining why he thinks it doesn't work. His Barney's Great Adventure review has the Critic pointing out characters with "more emotions" than Barney (even if Barney displays many emotions throughout his TV show). |
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"Stewie's First Word" is mostly pot shots taken at Caillou, to the point where the episode feels like the crew was repeating the complaints brought on by the show's hatedom of YouTubers and American parents & educators. | |
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Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides is against human sacrifice as a whole. | |
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Gisaku mostly exists to tell viewers how awesome Spain is, forcing national science programs and wildlife protection funds into the story. For instance, one character is an anthropomorphic lynx-man who used to be an ordinary lynx but took on his new form to protect his species. Only now he's desperately searching for a way to return to normal because Spain's wildlife protection programme is so good that his change turned out to be unnecessary! Amusingly, the film was made shortly before the financial crisis of 2008 and talks up Spain's economy quite a bit. A few years later, Spain was hit by an economic recession and unemployment rates are still very high. | |
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TektonTV, and how! Justified as it's the official channel of a Christian apologetics ministry. | |
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The Boondocks, as well as its animated TV show adaptation. Often expresses the feelings of Aaron McGruder on race, entertainment, religion, and politics. Be warned, however, that some of that is also just Huey being Huey. This is subverted, however, by Huey being the character that often voices McGruder's beliefs, making it difficult to distinguish what the character thinks, and what the author thinks. Michael Caesar's role provides a bit of realism or Lampshade Hanging to make the tract less Anvilicious or provide a more temperate view. | |
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Mallard Fillmore started out as an attempt at a standard, character-driven comic, but quickly devolved into a platform for the author to state his conservative opinions on various current events. More often than not, Mallard acts as an Author Avatar speaking directly to the reader. | |
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Parodied with the film Left Below from "Thank God, It's Doomsday". | |
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Dick Tracy's later years often had quite a few blatant tracts where Chester Gould railed against reforms to due process and the expansion of the Rights of the Accused where sadistic and psychopathic criminals were often getting Off on a Technicality. | |
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Seder-Masochism is essentially a movie long rant on how supposedly sexist Judaism is, using a large amount of Straw Misogynists to support its points. | |
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SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists is explicitly meant to show the players that violent insurrection is a valid and honourable response to a sufficiently authoritarian government, and also that a startling number of governments past and present are sufficiently authoritarian and need to die die die DIE! The core book repeatedly stresses how absolutely and irredeemably evil the villainous Regime (which is a very thinly disguised caricature of the Trump administration) is, and not even the heroic Resistance factions are spared - the Old Men are violent chauvinists, the Faith start stoning abortionists at the drop of a hat, and let's not get started on the Makers, who are the very embodiment of unearned privilege. The only faction that escapes condemnation is the socialist Party, who are praised for their good works throughout history and with whose egalitarian ideals all the regular people of the world secretly agree - their only stated flaw is that they tend to be apologists for the Soviet Union. And of course no one who is a member of an ethnic or sexual minority has ever done anything wrong in the entire history of forever - any claims to the contrary is hateful Regime propaganda! | |
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B.C. went down this path after Johnny Hart became a born-again Christian in The '80s. From then until his 2007 death, many strips took on a religious and philosophical bent, such as a notorious Easter strip featuring a menorah turning into a cross, and another that was interpreted as a rant against Islam. | |
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South Park often devotes episodes to be heavy-handed over the top Author Tract, with Strawman Political. And then lampshades it in "Cartoon Wars". Repeatedly. Let it never be said that, whatever their views, Parker and Stone are not self-aware. | |
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For Pyrrhic the author went on a fairly lengthy one in the ending author's notes of the seventeenth chapter in regards to the Unfortunate Implications behind Double Standard Rape: Female on Male and how it's just as bad as the opposite. He also decried the use of Rape as Backstory, saying that it disgusted him. However, in-story, he justified the scene where Xenia rapes Tom in order to have a healthy discussion on why these dark subjects need to be stopped and to help people understand why mocking these tropes is a good way to demean those who have been affected by them. He then said he'd get off of his soapbox. | |
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Prickly City was sold to syndicates as "a girl and her coyote buddy" but turned into a conservative soapbox even faster than Mallard Fillmore. | |
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Sick Sad World: The hosts often state their political views during cases, sometimes for several minutes at a time. They've covered legalizing sex work, capitalism, gun control, socialism, lack of trust in police, disability, and more. | |
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In the 1950s and '60s, Al Capp's Li'l Abner and Walt Kelly's Pogo increasingly became vehicles for their creators' respective political views (conservative for Capp, liberal for Kelly). | |
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Family Guy An appearance of Bush depicted him as hopelessly inept with the intelligence of a child. Brian finds him hiding out in a treehouse reading Superfudge after Hurricane Katrina, Brian tries to tell him what happened and Bush tells him to go away and not to make him "do stuff". The one where Brian keeps 9/11 from happening, so Bush, not having any huge anti-American event to ride on creates a second Confederacy and starts American Civil War II: Time for Nukes. "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven", where Brian goes on a rant that says a loving God can't exist because Meg is ugly and has a bad family. Brian also seemed to serve as MacFarlane's mouthpiece for a very long time, mostly whenever the subject of religion or politics came up with the show. This was one of the many, many things that Quagmire brought up in his "The Reason You Suck" Speech. "Stewie's First Word" is mostly pot shots taken at Caillou, to the point where the episode feels like the crew was repeating the complaints brought on by the show's hatedom of YouTubers and American parents & educators. |
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The online flash series Broken Saints is deeply immersed in Author Tract, all taken Brooke Burgess' new-found (as of the original writing) philosophical outlook on life. He also makes no secret of his political views, particularly as regards the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq post-Gulf War I. One of the main protagonists is an Iraqi 'freedom fighter' who is struggling to balance his desire for justice against the Western invaders and the peaceful teachings of his religion. It is worth noting that the series was well under way before 9/11, and was almost completed before the second Gulf War. | |
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DarkMatter2525 is an Atheist channel that satirizes Christianity and Islam. Dark isn't too subtle. | |
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Braceface: Alicia Silverstone, one of the executive producers and main character Sharon's voice actress for the first two seasons, is both a vegetarian and an animal-rights activist. Early on in the series, Sharon becomes a vegetarian and an animal rights activist and there are several episodes that focus on her beliefs. | |
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