Offending the Creator's Own

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Something is released to the public, and something in it offends a group of people, say for instance, Buddhists. Members of that group call in to complain and express their distaste, but there's a twist: the creator of the work, is also a Buddhist! Why would a Buddhist create something that offends Buddhists? Differences in opinion, most likely. Maybe this Buddhist isn't offended by certain things that offend others, and didn't realize there would be a problem. While it is a little condescending to assume that all members of the group have the same standards, it does make it more difficult to complain when it's one of your own who expresses a message you don't like.

Note that intentionally mocking your own group, particularly for comedic reasons, is Self-Deprecation (sometimes overlapping with N-Word Privileges), a different trope. Compare Stop Helping Me!, Stop Being Stereotypical.

Examples of Offending the Creator's Own include:

Artworks and Exhibitions

• Snow White and The Madness of Truth was an Swedish art-installation about suicide bombing that caused a lot of controversy. It was accused of being anti-Semitic and eventually the Israeli ambassador to Sweden personally went to vandalize the installation.^{[please verify]} The artist behind the installation is Israeli-born and Jewish.

Film

• Sex and the City 2 features a gay wedding scene. The problem? Said gay wedding scene is staged like a cross between Swan Lake and a bizarre Broadway musical number, complete with absurd, gaudy costumes. This led Salon‍'‍s Andrew O'Hehir to ask: "Can a gay wedding scene staged by a gay director still be homophobic and offensive?" The answer? Yes.
• Possibly the most famous example in film is Borat, whose title character is extremely anti-Semitic, fueling a massive controversy before the movie's release. Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish.
• Someone on the IMDB complained that the Bridge to Terabithia movie contained messages "mocking Christians, like so much of Hollywood" (not an exact quote). The messages in question are that God wouldn't go around damning people to Hell (delivered by a girl who'd never been to church before in response to a concerned, naive kindergartener's "warning"), and another character says later that this pagan girl would go to heaven after death for having been a good person, despite not being a Christian herself. The author of the book on which the movie is based is a Christian, though apparently a more moderate or liberal one than the Christians she offended with her open message. In fact, the author's parents were missionaries to China, and the author herself is married to a Presbyterian minister.
• Some Roman Catholics protested against Kevin Smith's Dogma as blasphemy. Smith is a practicing Roman Catholic himself - albeit one who may need to review his theology some.
• Some people criticized the film The Last Airbender because the good guys are played by white actors, but evil Zuko by an Indian. Which definitely wasn't like this in the series. Strange thing: Director M. Night Shyamalan is Indian himself (in case you didn't know or couldn't guess), and indeed stated in one interview that Anti-Villain Zuko was his favourite character. Presumably, this would have been lessened after Zuko's Character Development, but considering the original movie's negative reception, we're pretty much left with a world of mighty light people beating up evil dark people.
• The film Muhammad, Messenger of God was produced and directed by Moustapha Akkad, a Muslim who consulted Muslim clerics on how to avoid giving offense (for instance, any scene where Muhammad is present is shot from his point of view to avoid depicting him). That didn't prevent an extremist attack on the film's premiere.

Literature

• C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia has been alternately seen as too Christian and not Christian enough, depending on whom you're asking. (Lewis himself was a former atheist turned Christian.)
• Harry Potter is accused of being stealth propaganda for Satanists, but J. K. Rowling herself is a Christian and in interviews has stated that the magic in her books was inspired by Narnia.

Live Action TV

• Many Torchwood fans furiously denounced Ianto being Killed Off for Real in "Children Of Earth" as homophobic, even though the show's creator, Russell T. Davies, is probably the highest-profile openly gay man in British TV.
• The Wire creator David Simon has gotten flak for his portrayal of the shameless Jewish drug lawyer Maurice Levy. Simon is Jewish.
• Barry Letts co-wrote and directed the Doctor Who story "Planet of the Spiders" as a deliberate parable expressing his own Buddhist beliefs. He was upset to receive letters from Buddhists protesting about the use of the "Jewel in the Lotus" mantra "Om mani padme hum" in the context of villains summoning up alien monsters, although defending himself on the grounds that the story explicitly described it as the misuse of something usually good.
• Hogan's Heroes came under fire from various sides more or less for the implications of featuring the Third Reich in a comedic context. However, much like Mel Brooks' intent (see below), the Germans' roles were played by Jewish actors who had served in the U.S. armed forces and wouldn't have allowed the Nazis to be viewed in a positive light even once (one of them was a Holocaust survivor, two others had been in camps, and those three had lost family to Nazi atrocities). Despite using Politically-Correct History in many respects and fudging some of the facts for the sake of entertainment, the show does (correctly and importantly) make distinctions between POW camps and concentration camps, and between Nazis and the Germans simply caught up in the whole mess (the former being unambiguously villains when they did appear, the latter strongly embodied by Sgt. Schultz, the former toymaker and Minion with an F In Evil).

Music

• Mel Brooks' "Hitler Rap" was widely criticized as insensitive to Jews, if not actually anti-Semitic. In an interview for 60 Minutes, Brooks stated that his life's goal was to reduce Hitler to a figure of such ridiculousness that no one would ever take his ideas seriously again. (If the numerous Tonys that The Producers won are any indication, it's working.) Being both Jewish and a World War Two veteran, if anyone has N-Word Privileges to joke about Adolf Hitler it's him.

Music Video

• The late Michael Jackson's Thriller opens with a disclaimer that "Due to my strong personal convictions, I wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult. - Michael Jackson", inspired by Jackson's then-current involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
  • Parodied by Erfworld here.
• At one point, foul-mouthed proto-punk Ian Dury was accused of mocking the disabled with a song called "Spasticus Autisticus" by several disabled rights groups. Dury is himself disabled (crippled due to childhood polio) and recorded the song as a statement on society's tendency to ignore the disabled. He timed the release of the song to coincide with the International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981, which he (as a disabled person himself) thought was patronising.

Periodicals

• Cartoonist Robert "Buck" Brown did a great many cartoons for Playboy, many featuring his Granny character. Others had to do with race relations, in a humorous way. One, which featured a soul food restaurant in the inner city called "Sho 'Nuff Boss Chow", started a firestorm of protest that he was a racist. Brown was African-American.

Tabletop Games

• Gary Gygax was an outspoken Christian, and even included a verse from the Gospel of Matthew in his e-mail signature. Think about that one for a moment. If you still don't understand, Gary Gygax was the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, which has been the target of many Christian groups (incl. Jack Chick) due to perceived occult themes.
  • This led to rumors that a Christian children's charity had refused a donation made in Gygax's name when he died. GenCon, the donators, later released a statement saying that this was a misunderstanding on the con's part. The charity never refused to take money from the con.
• SPANC: Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls is a game that has Stripperiffic Ms. Fanservice Action Girls as the main characters, which resulted in some minor criticisms. The game was designed by female author Fade Manley (but was illustrated by Phil Foglio)

Video Games

• LittleBigPlanet has a song that had to be modified to have the lyrics removed, as it had verses from the Koran and "might offend Muslims", as many Muslim clerics and scholars agree not to make verses of the Qur'an incorporated into entertainment. The composer, however, is a Muslim himself.
• Sandy Petersen, one of the level designers for Doom, is a Mormon, and he said to John Romero, while making Doom, "I have no problems with the demons in the game. They're just cartoons. And, anyway, they're the bad guys." A stance he brings up in his classes.
• Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp includes a humourous depiction of The Garden of Eden including a Fat Girl version of Eve. Don Bluth, the director and producer of Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, is a Mormon.

Western Animation

• There have been instances where South Park‍'‍s Hate Dumb have accused the show of normalizing antisemitism, despite the fact that series co-creator, Matt Stone, is Jewish and Eric Cartman and other antisemitic characters are clearly shown to be in the wrong.