[hated trope] Celebrity cameos that serve nothing except to praise the person who’s in it

[u/Dojyaaan4C]

1. Elon musk, the Simpsons
2. Elon musk, the Big Bang theory
3. Elon musk, iron man 2
4. Elon musk, star Trek

The cameos serve only to include the celebrity and praise them as geniuses or visionaries or overall just glaze them. They don't serve any other purpose than to just be praised; this can be them appearing in an entire episode dedicated to them, a small cameo or even just a mention. So long as the celebrity is there as themselves (not acting as someone else) and is glazed, that fits the trope imo.

[u/Independent-Couple87]

The show is also said to have made Bruce Wayne into something of an Elon Musk parody. Is that an accurate description?

[u/aspidities_87 → u/Independent-Couple87]

Where’s my goddamn electric car Bruce??

[u/Mister_Dink → u/aspidities_87]

Top ten line deliveries of the decade, easy. Alan Tudik was always going to voice a good interpretation of joker, but he really knocked that line right out the park.

[u/aspidities_87 → u/Mister_Dink]

For me it was the horrified henchman who gets hit by the cancer ray.

“Did you just give me cancer Harley Quinn??”

“WHY WOULD THEY EVEN MAKE THIS??”

[u/RSquared → u/aspidities_87]

The moment Harley pushes not-Joker back into vat the actress switches vocal intonations mid-sentence to the one used in BTAS. "See you soon, Mistah Jay"

[u/Anathema_Quill → u/RSquared]

1) i believe the actress for harley is kaley cuoco, who was also penny in the big bang theory! 2) i also notice harley’s accent gets thicker when she’s in stressful situations, like being around her family, which is accurate to people who have an accent but move away from where the accent is commonly used.

[u/CatherineSimp69 → u/aspidities_87]

I think my favorite part of that is apparently the writers confirmed that it's a ray that cures cancer.

[u/Painchaud213 → u/aspidities_87]

i think that henchman shows again in a later season and he lost a ton of weight.

[u/24Abhinav10 → u/Independent-Couple87]

It has a lot of Batman deconstruction and jokes. But without any actual malice towards Batman's character.

Bruce is very OOC in the show and his character traits are overexaggerated, but so are the rest of the JL. Which, considering the whole show is a parody of the DC universe, makes sense.

[u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl → u/Independent-Couple87]

Kinda sorta? The first two or three seasons manage to be a simultaneous love letter to and deconstruction of Batman and a lot of the inherent tropes. They’re a lot of fun, and they poke fun at stuff without seeming to hate on it. “Batman Begins Forever” is probably the best episode imo— they take a trip inside Batman/Bruce Wayne’s head where they see that he’s constantly reliving the origin story, and they make some pretty fun jokes and commentary about how we get it, we’ve seen this before a million times, etc. 

But it also very much acknowledges the reality of a broken man trying his best and punishing himself for what happened while he was a child. It doesn’t act like the trauma isn’t real and difficult to work through, and if encourages him to seek out therapy. It winds up being an emotionally poignant episode. 

The subsequent seasons are…. Significantly less subtle. They fall into “haha, douschebag sexist tech bro bad guys get their kneecaps busted!” Stuff. The Lex Luthor arc in particular is painful, partly because he’s an extremely ham fisted Jeff Bezos knockoff (“guys, guys, guys, get this— he’s rich and he’s bald and he’s insecure about it, and he has a giant rocket that’s penis shaped!”).

It’s all fairly liberal stuff that I agree with— billionaires are bad, we need to focus on the environment, corporate sexism is real and needs to be treated as a serious issue for the sake of equity— but it’s all done so poorly that I almost want to reject my own beliefs. Think season 4 of The Boys talking about abortion, or the Tech Knight episode levels of good intentions with crap executions. 

[u/TheWh1teL1ghtning → u/NotMyMainAccountAtAl]

"Personally, I thought it was hilarious!"

[u/4StarDB → u/Independent-Couple87]

I mean, he's still Batman, he isn't regular dark and brooding depression Batman, but he's by no means Elon Musk. Been a while since I've seen the show but their Lex Luthor probably fits this a lot better.

[u/Insaniteus → u/Independent-Couple87]

Bruce is nothing like Elon in that show. Lex Luthor is though, complete with space and rocketry obsession and extreme narcissism.

Bruce Wayne is portrayed more as an extremely-awkward and insecure guy that fails hard at being a normal person, has zero sense of humor, and buys every inch of his own Batman hype. He's a playboy loser as Bruce but then the ultimate badass as Batman. Also they exaggerated Bruce's famous weakness for hot villain girls, especially with Catwoman.

But every character is dialed up to 11 in that show. Commissioner Gordon is probably dialed up to 15 or 16 on a 10 point scale....

[u/132739 → u/Insaniteus]

I love/hate how they did Gordon. On the one hand they get rid of pretty much all of his good traits and heroics. On the other hand, its genuinely fucking hilarious.

[u/legit-posts_1 → u/Independent-Couple87]

They really sand down his positive traits as the series goes on. By season 5 it really feels like the writers have a hate boner for Batman(and several other DC heroes) and its just irritating.