Tropes that became problematic

[u/KalzK]

The Persistent Suitor: A guy who is after the girl and just wont take no for an answer. Nowadays we just call stalking and harassment, but it used to be romantic. Example: The Notebook (2004), Noah asks Allie out while she's on a date with another man. She refuses, but he threatens to let go and fall unless she agrees to go out with him.

Comedic Woman On Man Violence: Mostly seen in anime, recently it has decreased a lot but years back every show had a woman hitting a guy and showed it as funny. Example: Toradora!, where the quintessential tsundere, Taiga, beats up the MC regularly.

Kid Bags Adult Baddie: I remember a few of these, sometimes it was to show how cool and awesome a kid was because an adult woman fell for him, now it's just seen as problematic shit. Example: Blank Check, the woman likes the kid and kisses him telling him to look for her in 10 years.

[u/Link_sega5486]

The “savage cannibal tribe” trope. Mostly because this archetype is primarily rooted in outdated stereotypes and exaggerations of indigenous populations and their cultural practices and also a justification for colonization.

[u/CadenVanV → u/Link_sega5486]

Which is not to say that cannibalism did not exist in isolated tribes, but it was usually more of a ritual practice than an “eat everyone not a part of the tribe” practice. Still not great though

[u/Unicycleterrorist → u/CadenVanV]

Does make me wonder what came first, the chicken or the egg...

Back in the days of the "exploration of the world" of the west, natives from all over would be written about in adventure stories in often not-so-flattering ways, but Columbus' stories prompted Queen Isabella (of Spain) to decree in 1503 that any cannibal could be taken as a slave.

Call me a cynic, but I do think it was likely about as easy as kidnapping people and claiming they were cannibals, which leads me back to the question...were people convinced a large amount of the non-white population consisted of cannibals already or did that happen when ships full of alleged cannibals (to be sold for massive profits) started arriving?

[u/MaddoxJKingsley → u/[deleted]]

If it helps, it was often an act of love in funerary practices. Like, "we can't move on to the other side if our bodies remain on earth", basically. So groups like the Wari would cremate the remains then put the ashes into a drink that the whole family consumes, and the Yanomami would do similar by waiting for the body to decay and then crushing the bones.

Disclaimer that my knowledge is specific to South America from a half-remembered anthropology class

[u/Silver-Winging-It → u/CadenVanV]

This is true but also Europeans and other cultures also engaged in cannibalism at times too (there were some interesting ingredients in old medicine/spells in Europe).

[u/CadenVanV → u/Silver-Winging-It]

True, but those practices were usually thoroughly condemned, at least in Europe. The church did not like spells

[u/iamdispleased → u/CadenVanV]

No? Ground up mummified remains were prescribed as medicine in the Victorian era

[u/SpeaksDwarren → u/CadenVanV]

According to the Catholic Church the magic spell of transubstantiation literally physically transforms the wafer and wine into flesh and blood, and is only distinguished from cannibalism by Jesus still being alive

[u/CadenVanV → u/SpeaksDwarren]

That does not make it literal cannibalism

[u/SpeaksDwarren → u/CadenVanV]

Please finish reading comments before replying to them

[u/Malagate3 → u/CadenVanV]

I think the aspect of treating cannibalism as a tribal or uncivilised behaviour is the trouble with this trope, cannibalism is a response to dwindling food sources and can occur within any society.

How many remote tribes were discovered whilst they were experiencing a crisis, and that first impression became the only impression? If that crisis has been multi-generational to the point where cannibalism is now part of the culture, that's still survival in the face of extinction.

[u/zeth0s → u/Malagate3]

This is not true. Cannibalism as last resort is rarer in history than ritual cannibalism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism

[u/Malagate3 → u/zeth0s]

I read that, the cannibalism due to revenge or simply a taste preference was interesting, however a whole lot of those sections had famine and survival cannibalism listed (the cannibalism due to low protein diets sounds like a modern gym crisis but was South America) - but yes cannibalism as a ritual practice seems the most common version over human history. Turns out a Donner party is rare, huh.

My earlier post I was thinking of the Ik (as written about in 1972, The Mountain People). That is a book written by an American anthropologist who studied the Ik whilst they were undergoing extreme crisis, so it was quite uncharitable and only reflective of the Ik as they're forced out of their homeland. That's probably even rarer than famine cannibalism eh?