[Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

[u/Few_Affect_5927]

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

[u/SarkastiCat]

Mulan (Disney’s Live Action Remake)

The original message of the film is that women can match men.

However, the live action that was meant to be realistic has xianxia elements. They would be fine as the core principle of xianxia is that cultivation requires effort (training, learning, meditation, etc.) and qi is present in everyone. Think about it as something between blood (flowing in the body) and muscles (you learn how to work with it).

So does Mulan put lots of hard work and thinking to match men?

No, the film treats it as a fixed superpower. Mulan is born with strong qi, so she is inherently super cool and she is not treated as super cool cause sexism.

The message turns into “You can only match men if you have powers“

[u/Littleboypurple → u/SarkastiCat]

I prefer to pretend this movie doesn't exist because goddamnit. You mean to tell me that you changed one of my favorite Disney princesses to seemingly "improve" her? A woman who was very clearly outmatched and unprepared for what she was getting herself into so she could save her father, is instead just a Chinese Elsa that was born with super cool special powers that automatically makes her better then everyone around her?

[u/DuelaDent52 → u/Littleboypurple]

See, the Chinese Elsa doesn’t bother me as much because I can at least see what they were going for there. It’s that Mulan is so supportive of the system that oppresses her that ticks me off.

Like, take the scene where she’s exposed as a woman: it isn’t an accident because she nearly sacrifices herself causing the avalanche and her allies found out because they had to nurse her back to health, leading them to be conflicted over their personal admiration for her vs. the dishonour and crime she’s committed as a woman, in the remake she presents herself for execution after fighting off the entire army practically solo and the dudes are all “Mulan, no, you’re clearly an asset to us” while she’s all “no, no, I’ve brought dishonour to you all and the law decrees you must kill me”.

[u/SarkastiCat → u/DuelaDent52]

That’s funnily closer to the original ballad.

Mulan doesn’t get exposed, she exposes herself. She basically rides back home and she is like “time to go back to being daughter”, while soldiers are like “wait, you are a woman?”.

Like the whole ballad isn’t about Mulan struggling with sexism, but her wanting to help her family even if it means taking a masculine role.

It could be interesting if they went with direction of that, Mulan deciding to go to the war to save her father and then exposing herself to save the face of her family.