# Talk:Goncharov (meme)

Should this article use {{infobox film}}? The similarly imaginary Bowling Green massacre page uses {{infobox civilian attack}}, so I think we could use an infobox template in this article. CJ-Moki (talk) 06:03, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

I suppose we can try. silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 12:03, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
I think using the film infobox is rather misleading, especially all the "Directed by", "Written by", "Starring" etc credits. Moreover since the article is about the meme, the infobox should summarize the key features of the meme itself (e.g. where and when it originated), instead of summarizing the fictional film within the meme. Bennv123 (talk) 17:25, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Do we have a meme infobox? silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 18:04, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
I guess nothing is stopping me from making one. Maybe I'll do that. silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 18:04, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Yes perhaps a good approach would be to use a meme/cultural phenomenon infobox at the top of the article and a movie infobox within the article (for instance aside the section that talks about the synopsis). This is still a good way to display information about the fictional movie but in a way that makes it obvious that it is fictional. Alexander Doria (talk)
N.b., The usual practice of {{film date}} in {{infobox film}} automatically categorizes the page. In this case, it put Goncharov in Category:1973 films, which is not appropriate since the film isn't real. I edited the infobox to just give the plain date. --BDD (talk) 19:41, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Other than this, which implies but does not state that this is an inconsistency, I can't find any RS mentioning it. Would it be WP:SYNTH to mention this in some way? CharredShorthand (talk) 10:06, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I wonder to what extent this whole "fall of the Soviet Union" bit is basically citogenesis, though not a Wikipedia-driven example. There's little to no discussion of Goncharov on Tumblr that claims or presupposes that the film takes place after the fall of the Soviet Union; but at some point someone wrote up a plot synopsis on TV Tropes that stated that, and then all these journalists used that as their source for the description of the main plot elements despite it not actually being part of the emergent consensus. Even if that's the case, there's nothing we can do about it; this is all OR on my part at best and we've got to go with what reliable sources say. But it kinda grinds my gears anyway, and I wish we could at least downplay it a bit. AJD (talk) 14:37, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I suppose given the whole thing is created by a fuzzy consensus process based on people saying things in various venues and repetition of other people's 'plot details' they thought were funny or felt right, this is all perfectly natural. If the TVTropes poster did make the Soviet aspect up de novo, and news articles regurgitated it and copied each other, that's exactly in the spirit of the meme! CharredShorthand (talk) 14:46, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
This hasn't been a common element in content I've seen either, but the film always could've been set in a hypothetical future. (You know, if it was real, even in 1973.) There's plenty of fiction set after the fall of the United States, for example. --BDD (talk) 20:47, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
That's valid. CharredShorthand (talk) 06:50, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
Feels like the high likelihood that the "fall of the Soviet Union" bit might be citogenesis is worth mentioning? It's weird that it comes up without mentioning that this either would make it an alternate history/futuristic film, or is an anachronism. It really sticks out without some sort of clarification.
My guess would be it is a mistake by a TVTropes user who got some wires crossed and doesn't know their history. Not only have I never seen it on tumblr or other social media organically, most of the suggested plots and overall aesthetic seem to place it firmly during the Cold War. There's a particular kind of mafia/spy film that was of that era specifically.
(Also this is more a broader Wikipedia policy issue than one with this page specifically, but speaking as an academic, the idea that news sources are automatically more reliable when it comes to viral internet culture than organic examples of it from that platform, is not something I quite agree with. Or at least, it's less "reliability" than that the former are secondary sources, the latter primary sources.)Beggarsbanquet (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC) Beggarsbanquet (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The "homoerotic" has now several times been removed from the lede of the article, despite the fact that the homoerotic aspects are mentioned within the article and established within numerous reliable sources as an aspect of Goncharov's story. Personally I think since it's a significant part of the fiction and consistently mentioned in sources, there is plenty of basis for highlighting it as a defining trait and it should stay mentioned in the lede just as it is. I thought I should probably open a topic here, though, just so that it can be discussed and decided if there is consensus that this is appropriate, if necessary, or someone can tell me if I'm being stupid and overlooking some rule or another. silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 07:41, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps "homoerotic" should be moved out of the first sentence to elsewhere in the lede? It does seem to me to interrupt the flow of the first sentence a bit; while the fact that Goncharov is homoerotic is important to the meme, it's not as important as the fact that it's (1) nonexistent and (2) a gangster film. For instance the third sentence could be "It is usually described as a mafia film set in Naples, produced with the involvement of Martin Scorsese, with homoerotic subtext involving the main characters." AJD (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Even the most homoerotic films that actually exist don't have that adjective in the first sentence of their Wikipedia articles. MOS:FILMLEAD says to put that kind of detail later in the lead if we're writing about a film, MOS:LEADSENTENCE to not overload the first sentence by describing everything notable about the subject. --Belbury (talk) 08:59, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
it should be included, as it is included in nearly every source, but yes the word should be discluded from the lead.
Nucg5040 (talk) 12:37, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
It should probably be included in the lede somewhere, possibly in a new sentence that also describes that general fictional premise, which the lede does not currently have. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 15:34, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
i do see your point, but as others have said in the thread, the lead needs to be kept short and the term relegated to later in the article, or at least nearer the end of the lead.
Nucg5040 (talk) 16:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Everyone else in the thread is saying that it is perhaps sensible to had the term somewhere in the lead (which, to clarify, is the entire section of paragraphs), just not in the first sentence. I was broadly repeating with AJD is suggesting about the third sentence, and what Belbury said about MOS:FILMLEAD. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 16:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I have a photo of the poster (the one in the infobox) flyposted in Greenwich Village. Would it be a useful enough addition to the article for me to make the effort to poke around and investigate whether it's a nonfree image or can be uploaded to Commons? Note, the article currently already has two images already. ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 23:16, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

I'd need to see the image to be sure if it's worthwhile. One thing that we could try, even if the image is non-free, is to acquire permission for its use from the artist as they're apparently reachable via Tumblr and Twitter DMs (and since they're just a freelance individual who created this poster for fun, I can't imagine that it'd be too complicated to get it). I'm not sure how useful that might be, but it's probably worth a shot. silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 23:58, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
I guess WP:COPYREQ would apply in that case. It'd probably be fine since we're only asking specifically for copyright release on the image of the flyposted poster, and not the poster itself? I'm not completely sure of all the details here, since I've never looked into that or been involved in the process of acquiring such permission. I suppose we'll have to see. The possibility is there, nonetheless. silvia (User:BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4) (inquire within) 00:07, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Belatedly: A non-free copyrighted work simply cannot be rendered free without the consent of the copyright holder, not by photographing, nor drawing, nor sculpting (but see Commons:Freedom of panorama) from :commons:Commons:Derivative works § If I take a picture of an object with my own camera, I hold the copyright to the picture. Can't I license it any way I choose? Why do I have to worry about other copyright holders?. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:11, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
@Rotideypoc41352: Thank you! That was the exact sort of concept I was thinking of might be a problem! The term "derivative work" escaped my mind. Much gratitude for the reply and update on that! ~Cheers, TenTonParasol 03:24, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Goncharov (meme)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Nominator: SilviaASH (talk · contribs) 23:30, 20 June 2025 (UTC)
Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 06:58, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

Only a few comments from me:

an ostensibly psychopathic assassin suggests that the character is "ostensibly psychopathic"; I think the character is generally agreed to be psychopathic and this should be ostensibly a psychopathic assassin instead
Why is a Russian title included in the infobox? Yes, Goncharov is a Russian name, but the film is nominally an Italian–American production, set in Italy.
Lynda Carter, one of the film's fictionalized cast members, This reads awkwardly to me: what is a "fictionalized cast member"?! I'd suggest rewording.
Obviously for such an extremely online topic as this one we're going to be relying on sources like The Daily Dot which are not generally reliable but are okay for internet culture stuff. Even given that, though, I've literally never heard of The Focus and am struggling to find much out about it: is this a reliable source?  The fact that the author apparently doesn't get the joke at all does not give me great faith in its reporting...
Overall, this is pretty much there for GA status, I think. There are now a handful of academic articles about Goncharov which could potentially be included – currently only one is, for the fairly trivial claim that Goncharov was reported on in mainstream media – but I don't think any of them need to be included to reach GA's "broad in its coverage" standard. Two of the images are non-free but with adequate usage rationales; the image of Scorsese is freely licensed. Spotchecking the sources doesn't suggest any issues with copyright or verification, and Earwig also doesn't suggest any copyright issues. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:08, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Addressed each of these issues. Removed the Focus source, since it wasn't really adding much of anything anyway and I also couldn't find any indication that it's reliable. Hopefully it should all be good to go now. silviaASH (inquire within) 21:23, 22 June 2025 (UTC)
After doing a little more spotchecking, I've found a couple more things to be picky about:
The narrative includes a love triangle involving Goncharov is it really a love triangle? The source gives equal prominence to the Andrey/Goncharov and Katya/Sofia relationships
In Goncharov's metafiction, users have inconsistently described the film as being directed by either Matteo JWHJ0715 or Scorsese Is there a better source for this claim?  It's true, but Baker-Whitelaw's article doesn't explicitly support it
Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:24, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
I fixed the love triangle passage to instead say there is a romantic subplot, to keep it more in line with the sources.
Regarding the second point, I feel the Daily Dot article does support the claim with the passage saying Is it problematic for people to attribute Goncharov to Scorsese, when its true director is the curiously-named Matteo JWHJ0715? but I totally understand that's not being quite clear-cut enough to verify by itself. There's a less ambiguous indication in Linda Codega's Gizmodo article:
These characters were all created by Beelzeebub, who illustrated and named them, and who also clarified (on the poster) that the film was written by Matteo JWHJ 0715 and directed by Martin Scorsese. These are the only truths of Goncharov (1973), but even then people like to imagine that it was actually directed by Matteo JWHJ 0715 and not Martin Scorsese, but that’s a fandom problem. The truth is right there on the poster!
I added Codega's article there as well, to additionally verify the claim. Also got rid of the one name of the quoted Tumblr user whose name wasn't actually in that Daily Fix article, so, hopefully that resolves everything. silviaASH (inquire within) 11:56, 28 June 2025 (UTC)
Regarding the second point, I feel the Daily Dot article does support the claim with the passage saying "Is it problematic for people to attribute Goncharov to Scorsese, when its true director is the curiously-named Matteo JWHJ0715?" I don't think this is sufficiently clear. We might alternatively interpret this as saying that there is a (real-world/metafictional) dispute about an (imagined) discourse in the reality in which Goncharov exists about who the director is.  After all, the other things that Baker-Whitelaw cites people arguing about (it's relationship to Soviet cinema, the homoerotic subtext) are also things which exist in the world of the film rather than in our world. That said, the Gizmodo citation does support the point, so I'm happy now.  Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2025 (UTC)
I think you've now answered all of my points: congratulations on your new GA! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2025 (UTC)