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Flanderization

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Re: Flanderization

#11

Post by ZeroGravitas »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #5

There is a tendency for this to happen in real life with influencers. Certain aspects resonate with an audience and so they overemphasize them. https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt...

Interesting post, though two of the examples have always been oddities.

Louise Mench was leading anti-bullying campaigns on Twitter and bullying people on Twitter for example.

And Quilliam are the ex-extremist Muslims who did a 180 and parroted whatever the weird anti-islam movement after 9/11 wanted to hear.

These were not sober thinkers led down a path by their audience.

Re: Flanderization

#12

Post by senorrib »

unnamed76ri wrote: post #8

I feel like most of the characters on Big Bang Theory were Flanderized pretty quickly.

I think the opposite happened in this show. Penny was a dumb midwestern actress wannabe and evolved into a complex character, for example.

In essence, they were all conceived as extremely flanderized and acquired complex traits over time.

Re: Flanderization

#13

Post by lekevicius »

I found one particular example of the opposite change quite annoying. In the TV Show “Suits”, the premise is that a character Mike has incredible photographic memory, can to read books and evidence at unbelievable speeds. As the show went on, this unique trait was almost completely removed. I think by season 3 it was just gone completely, turning the show into a regular law drama.

Re: Flanderization

#14

Post by 6stringmerc »

Sounds a lot like in music when dealing with RIAA labels and their business model:

“YES! That was a massive hit! Now do it again!”

…and Sir-Mix-a-Lot has said routinely in interviews the more of the novel element but turned up wasn’t the best idea as a follow up to “Baby Got Back” the legit smash.

Let’s just say his next album’s lead single became a punchline in Aqua Teen Hunger Force as spoken by the Moonenites.

Re: Flanderization

#15

Post by BlargMcLarg »

senorrib wrote: post #12
unnamed76ri wrote: post #8

I feel like most of the characters on Big Bang Theory were Flanderized pretty quickly.

I think the opposite happened in this show. Penny was a dumb midwestern actress wannabe and evolved into a complex character, for example. In essence, they were all conceived as extremely flanderized and acquired complex traits over time.

Penny is an obvious case of reverse-flanderization because she was the opposite of the typical nerds. When the show started appealing more to the common crowd and had to go beyond its original plot, it was obvious Penny had to be more than just a plot device centered around looks. Same happened to the guys.

Most of the later episodes where the focus isn't on Leonard and Penny, they are mostly about sex, or Penny asking Leonard whether something Sheldon said was a burn.

Howard is another obvious case. Goes from stereotypical creep to a more complex character and gets a crazy amount of screen time to deal with his issues. Then later on, he's mostly a whipped husband (largely caused by Bernadette being flanderized), but they give him some screen time where he's more than just a doormat for wife and a snark to every other male character except Leonard.

Most of the other main/recurring cast members have similar cases or go straight from A to C and skip B.

Re: Flanderization

#16

Post by pavlov »

My first guess was that Flanderization might mean the process where a region’s capital city outgrows the region and becomes culturally an entirely separate entity, as in the Belgian region of Flanders whose capital is Brussels and its inhabitants mostly don’t identify as Flemish.

Usage example: “London is undergoing strong Flanderization accelerated by Brexit.”

Turns out the Wikipedia definition is something pretty different!

Re: Flanderization

#17

Post by mc32 »

In some contexts this another expression of positive feedback loops and where there are few negative feedback loops, or they are ignored because they are annoying (like dismissing the high pitched alarm)

Whether induced by the audience (external) or by the creator(s) internal.

Re: Flanderization

#18

Post by themanmaran »

lekevicius wrote: post #13

I found one particular example of the opposite change quite annoying. In the TV Show “Suits”, the premise is that a character Mike has incredible photographic memory, can to read books and evidence at unbelievable speeds. As the show went on, this unique trait was almost completely removed. I think by season 3 it was just gone completely, turning the show into a regular law drama.

Also a very common fictional theme. The "Forgot about his powers" trope.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForgotAboutHisPo...

Re: Flanderization

#19

Post by kashunstva »

nkozyra wrote: post #9
kzrdude wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems very, very sad.

Well, it's a sad part of culture in 2022 - an enormous abandonment of creativity or authenticity for clicks. Even sadder that it works.

> Even sadder that it works.

As B.F. Skinner might have predicted.

Re: Flanderization

#20

Post by themanmaran »

adamgordonbell wrote: post #5

There is a tendency for this to happen in real life with influencers. Certain aspects resonate with an audience and so they overemphasize them. https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capt...

While we see this a lot with influencers (and I think Joe Rogan is another great example). The phenomenon isn't exactly new.

News anchors, writers, country singers, etc. have all been doing the exact same thing for decades. Doubling down on simple characteristics that resonate with their target audience.

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