What's one cliche "Moral of the story" in media that you hate more than anything else?

when the "villain" is objectively correct, pointing out the failure of the establishment and that change is necessary, and then also skins puppies alive for no reason, and then the points they bring up are never addressed again

Anytime the moral is to not get angry about something that’s perfectly reasonable to be angry about

So tired of seeing revenge killing movies in Hollywood. As long as someone is truly evil and does something unforgivable in the 1st act, the "hero" is then justified in slaughtering like 100+ random people in a dark hallway in the 2nd act. I think it's the only sort of violence we're okay with anymore. Any other type of violence people might have a problem, but because it's done in the name of revenge for a dead wife/dog/kidnapped daughter, that's now been whitewashed as "good wholesome revenge killing." Or something.

I don't know if this is still a thing, but I feel there was a surge of media in the 90s and 00s telling us:

If you're not popular at school, all you have to do is cut your hair, get contacts, and buy the same expensive clothes as everyone else, THEN you'll finally be happy.

"This character is a freak, let's make fun of them for being different, even run them out of town." Character saves their lives, usually using the thing that makes them different "Hey everyone, this character is the best, we love them!"

Acceptable theoretical moral: Love everyone. Actual implied moral: Love everyone because you'll never know when they might be useful to you.

Character who hates being X suddenly realizes being X is helpful actually when something very contrived and unlikely happens.

They've got money for war, but can't feed the poor. Best they can do is spend ten times what they would spend to feed them to torture the poor more.

I hate it when they come up with something to help with someone's disability, but it's thrown out because the disability "is what makes them special"

I hate when media tells us that men should always agree with their wives even when the wife is clearly wrong and irrational. And I'm a woman. If I ever get married, I want a husband who will tell me when I'm wrong. Nobody should have to just put up with their partner behaving like an irrational lunatic without saying something.

I don't mind specific morals I think I mind the way they're told or if they're pushed down our throats in ways that don't feel genuine.

But any time media portrays war as good or cool or badass or necessary. Basically every movie from the 2000s carries a secret pro War message.

"We are not so different, you and I," soliloquies the villain.

Super cut from YouTube

The moral of every Hollywood Racism Movie^TM ends up boiling down to "We could eliminate racism if only every racist met a person of [RACE] that they actually liked."

The "We know this is a silly action movie, we're not taking it seriously ourselves, wink wink!" thing that some action movies do. If I thought action movies were cringe, I wouldn't be watching the movie in the first place. Can the folks making it please make a movie that they aren't themselves embarrassed of?

I'm tired of seeing the telling of "the scorpion and the frog" fable ham fisted into so many stories. I don't think I ever heard that one growing up, yet I've heard it a dozen times in shows.

Love/friendship/family/moral high ground/any virtue/you name it always wins and is the solution for all your problems.

Reality is never that simple. So there's nothing to take away from such a lesson except for false hopes.

Any kind, empathetic character in a book sacrifices themselves to help others? "Oh, that character is an allegory for Christ, that's why they acted that way." I used to hear this all the time in English classes from middle school on, and eventually it got annoying enough that I wound up sitting down and reading the whole damn bible, just so that I could ask "In what way are this character's actions better explained by them representing Jesus than by the fact that they've been an empathetic, kind character who looks out for others for the whole book?" and actually be able to call out teachers that were just using it lazily.

Yes, there are plenty such allegories out there in books, but it got to the point where it seemed like some sort of thought terminating cliché for literary analysis in middle school and high school.

Anyone can achieve great things, even if they come from nothing... As long as they secretly have a great background and heritage out the wazoo. Or it is pre-ordained and has to be them; all other attempts doomed to failure.

The initial message might be fine, but it then undermines itself.

I don't know if this counts but I hate when they do male makeovers and cut the guy's hair.

The power of love saves the day

I may be biased since im ace

Basically any moral plugged into hallmark movie channel or similarly designed crap. Things rarely “just”work out, and certainly never because of love, god, or good vibes.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Yeah I get it unless you're a morally corrupt psychopath.

I don't (at least, I try not to) consume media with typical "morals of the story" and narratives. But looking back into my childhood, I hate the stories about solving conflicts diplomatically, in a nonviolent way. I wish I had someone to teach me stand up for myself with my fists. I really lacked the skill of giving one a good smack when needed, and still do. Because in real life nobody listens to what you say, unless you can back your words with something sensable.

The villian being actualy some misunderstood broken character and that from their perspective they aren't doing anything wrong.

Remember when in Hollywood the bad guy was the bad guy because they wanted to do bad things, and the hero was the hero because they wanted to do good things. And at the end the good guy defeats the bad guy and saves the day. Now every bad guy must have this complex back story of abuse or some wrong doing against then, and now their evil actions are just some justified misguided revenge against the world. FUCK THAT.

I am 90% sure that the last 20 years of this being normalized by mainstream media has let to us not properly punishing literal real life pedophiles and power hungry sociopaths, because "Well we don't know their side of the story... there has to be due process." Yeah, not long ago the due process was that people got linched for doing a fraction behind closed doors of what degenrate billionaires do in the open today.

Moral of the story is that there's a side to everything... NO there isn't, there's pretty definitve bad and pretty definitive good. Sure there are morally ambiguous topics, but Hollywood has been bluring the line on literal genocide, rape and murder just for the sake of not wanting to write an actual interesting story.

Edit: I just want to drive home how much I despise that shit.

Jon Stewart and other political comedians including late night hosts. They're full of jokes and fallacies. Sure, they're better than Ben Shapiro or taco Carlson but that's setting a really low bar. I do like Jimmy Kimmel, though. And I like Jon. I'm not denying these guys are not funny! Where is the collaboration? Where is using these platforms for doing something actual useful besides guffaws? And if you think they're doing something useful then where is it?

I sure as fuck didn't cry over Charlie Kirk getting assassinated. Did you? And I sure as fuck wouldn't cry if any of these late night hosts got taken out by some right wing maga fucking psycho.

They encourage you to "want to" laugh at something you probably should "want to" kill somebody over. These aren't Martin Luther King's. These are Charlie Kirks with a democratic base. They're ultimately just as divisive as the bigots and fascists.

Maybe they're peace bringers. Maybe they're just fire starters. Maybe they're complicit. The way I look at it is classes. All warfare is class warfare. And I'm perfectly okay with putting all their millionaire/billionaire asses on a rocket to Mars.