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King of the Hill / YMMV - TV Tropes

Acceptable Targets: Intellectuals, or rather, people who think they are intellectuals. Usually appearing without any advanced education, working experience in their field, or anything approaching common sense, the closest the series has to a …
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Practically everything in King of the Hill offends Tropers and hurts their feelings:

  • Acceptable Targets:
    • Intellectuals, or rather, people who think they are intellectuals. Usually appearing without any advanced education, working experience in their field, or anything approaching common sense, the closest the series has to a usual "villain" type are people who believe themselves competent activists, authors, philosophers or educators, who show up to denigrate or swindle the Hills. Perhaps lampshaded, as all these "intelligent" and "progressive" people are unable to find employment or acceptances anywhere except Arlen, Texas, and even there everybody knows how ridiculous they are.
    • Jokes about fictional town Durndle and the people from it are pretty commonplace, as well.
    • A good example of a recurring acceptable target would be Anthony Page, the activist / social worker who has: attempted a fruitless investigation into Hank's parenting of Bobby in the pilot episode, attempted to implement an ill-thought out Texan workers disability equality program at Strickland Propane that resulted in a druggie having free reign over the place in "Junkie Business", etc.
    • One episode had Hank get a thrown-out back. He attends Yoga sessions to relieve this, but he dislikes the self-absorbed, skirt chasing Yoga teacher (though softens slightly once he realizes the Yoga is helping). Immediately after he's healed a bit, Hank inadvertently makes himself look guilty of insurance fraud by resuming the activities he used to do before his injury and is reported to court. Hank's defense is that if he wasn't in agonizing pain, he would have punched the Yoga instructor out. This instantly convinces the judges.
    • From the same episode people who work in insurance, the claims investigator and the company doctor are depicted as jerkasses who are firmly convinced Hank's just faking to get a quick buck, the investigator is shown to be especially incompetent, only managing to get incriminating pictures of Hank after he's healed and even confronts about being a faker just as he's trying to go back to work.
    • People who actually do have advanced educations like the archeology professor and Bill's doctor are still often portrayed negatively, so the portrayal as self-important but unqualified may just be another aspect of the treatment of intellectuals, rather than unqualified intellectuals being the target itself.
      • It's worth noting that the doctors in Arlen all seem to be bitter, hostile burnouts who fully expect their patients to have done or are about to do incredibly stupid things and then lie about them. The show often bears them out in this regard. It may be a subtle bit of Lampshade Hanging.
      • Averted by Hank's proctologist (who, while irritating to Hank and far too quick to prescribe a colectomy, is friendly and professional) and the sports psychologist from the rifle episode, who, while wacky and dismissive when Hank actually opens up about his father, does genuinely help Hank out.
    • Anyone who owns a pet that isn't a dog is considered a freak no matter (or weirdly enough often because of) how much they love it.
    • In one episode, Hank seems to get harassed by a female cop, and nobody seems to find anything weird with it at all.
      • Zigzagged with one episode, which features a new employee who constantly makes sex jokes and slaps other coworkers' behinds. They at first find this funny and Hank is portrayed as overreacting, but it grows out of hand and everyone else starts to become annoyed. Hank tries to find legal help, and responds to the comments of "male on male sexual harassment" with "BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!". Enrique refuses to do anything about it because he's afraid of being made fun of (or not being taken seriously). This is actually startlingly truth in television. Aggressors of male-on-male or female-on-male sexual harassment are much more likely to get away with it than male on female aggressors, simply because most people, when confronted with this issue, respond like Hank and Enrique did.
    • California is a big one in the show (and to a lesser extent: Oklahoma and New York) especially with Hank. He never misses an opportunity to express his dislike towards those three states, especially the former. Bobby being into show business, however, loves California and New York so it balances out.
    • Much like in Beavis And Butthead, people with a history in the military are rarely depicted in a positive light. Cotton is a massive Jerkass, Mihn's father is an obnoxious in law, and Bill is a pathetic Stalker with a Crush. The sole exception seems to be the general who oversees Bill's army base, who's professional, tough, and appreciative of Bill's work (opposed to the many grunts who ignore him), though Peggy's gynecologist served in Vietnam and is well adjusted (even if Hank is creeped out by his line of work) and Cotton's fellow VFD members (minus Topsy) are at worst grumpy old men.
    • Artists are also attacked often, being depicted as unhygienic weirdos that make art of disturbing or nonsensical subjects.
    • Canada, surprisingly enough. The one prominent appearance by Canadian characters depicts them as the most negative possible stereotype, being passive-aggressive, faux-polite jerkasses who constantly drop belittling Stealth Insults at Hank and his family that they simply assume he's too dumb to catch.
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ProgKing of the North said:
If you don't get that King of the Hill is making fun of many of Hank's views while still presenting him as a decent person you're too stupid to watch the show.
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To tropers, everything must either be a woke role model or a Complete Monster. That someone can still be relatable and lovable despite his faults is totally alien to them.

TV Tropes said:
It's worth noting that the doctors in Arlen all seem to be bitter, hostile burnouts who fully expect their patients to have done or are about to do incredibly stupid things and then lie about them. The show often bears them out in this regard.

Artists are also attacked often, being depicted as unhygienic weirdos that make art of disturbing or nonsensical subjects.
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That's pretty realistic, what's the problem?
 
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Positron said:
To tropers, everything must either be a woke role model or a Complete Monster. That someone can still be relatable and lovable despite his faults is totally alien to them.
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I was wondering how they'd deal with Archie Bunker. Actually reasonably well. I'd make a wild guess the only tropers who watched it were boomers though and nobody else has touched it to ruin it and put ponies in it and whatever.
 
ProgKing of the North said:
If you don't get that King of the Hill is making fun of many of Hank's views while still presenting him as a decent person you're too stupid to watch the show.
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This is why I like King of the hills. It's a very down-to-earth show with bunch of flawed characters interacting each other and finding common ground to get along. Also it offends usual woke crowd without even trying so hard like South Park does.
 
ProgKing of the North said:
If you don't get that King of the Hill is making fun of many of Hank's views while still presenting him as a decent person you're too stupid to watch the show.
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Haha, I think honestly it's about being too far up your own ass. I think the degree of seriousness you treat Hank's character with is reflective of the degree of seriousness you have about your own character.

When I was younger, I hated King of the Hill, because I thought just that, it was presenting Hank as being in the right. It felt way too preachy.

But watching it now, it's hilarious. The difference between now and then is that back then I couldn't laugh at myself either.
 
Ambidextype said:
This is why I like King of the hills. It's a very down-to-earth show with bunch of flawed characters interacting each other and finding common ground to get along. Also it offends usual woke crowd without even trying so hard like South Park does.
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Everyone is flawed except for Hank, who thinks he's perfect. Could've been better, but I'm not really surprised that it triggered TVT.

So for something SJW-related, we have being a tranny doesn't mean that you're gay, even though you can be for reasons that I won't get into. And we have a draft that's saying the opposite and one of the resident troons is trying to shut it down.
 
NerdShamer said:
Everyone is flawed except for Hank, who thinks he's perfect. Could've been better, but I'm not really surprised that it triggered TVT.

So for something SJW-related, we have being a tranny doesn't mean that you're gay, even though you can be for reasons that I won't get into. And we have a draft that's saying the opposite and one of the resident troons is trying to shut it down.
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Notice how it's one of the few pages that straight up insults and borderline threatens the person reading.
 
Uncanny Valley said:
Notice how it's one of the few pages that straight up insults and borderline threatens the person reading.
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Because people like Bisected8 and DeadbeatLoser are trannies and the site is obviously pro-LGBT; of course they'll try to crush dissent before it happens.
 
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PeripheryHatedom
Female presence in video games is a big target for this, largely due to the ubiquity of the Nazi Worshipping, Testosterone Poisoning and Gendercide-obsessed Straw Misogynist demographic in gamer culture. Games such as Life Is Strange are bashed and mocked as "SJW games" by such demographics. Even real-life female gamers are an unfortunate target for this demographic, and are bashed for their allegedly "inferior" gaming skills (particularly in team-based games and when being marketed to), as mocked in this video by Jim Sterling. There were also some reports of this demographic making up the Unite The Right rally in 2017
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I actually went on this page to find one particular stupid "example", but this was too re.tarded to pass up. I swear, there was a time when politics was actually forbidden outside the forums.
This was the example I was looking for, if anyone is curious.
  • Lots of people in the hentai community hate the Sonic franchise as well. Though this stems more from the fact that a lot of Rule 34 artists that draw pornography images of Sonic and co. really can't draw Rule 34 all that well. This becomes especially obvious if you know that most artists in the community avert Sturgeon's Law.
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No they don't.
 
Muh Vagina said:
That's not even the most autistic Thomas subpage.

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Thomas the Tank Engine / Broken Base - TV Tropes

Even a children's show about talking trains is not without its divided fanbase. Whiff. Oh dear. Whiff. A filthy steam engine, wearing glasses. Some find him charming, but many fans were disheartened feeling the show at this point had abandoned …
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It is my sad TMI duty to inform you that the troper that posted that link is salivating at the actual show introducing a romance subplot between Thomas and Rosie the Tank Engine.
 
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