I think that there is what we are accustomed to and what we are not.
We don't say a backlit scene with black silhouettes is unrealistic.
But when I look at it with my bare eyes I typically get much more colors and details than just black silhouettes. A good photographer will use it for artistic purpose but this is not at all realistic.
We don't say a B&W shoot or worse a sepia shoot is unrealistic
But I see photos in full colors and no color at all is far less realistic to me than over saturated colors.
We don't say a studio shoot with lot of artifical light and heavy post processing to smooth the skin is artificial.
When I look at the real person she don't stand all the time in perfect light and don't have a friend holding a reflector and adding some specular hightlight in her hair nor does I constantly look through binocular to see the features disminushed.
We don't think that night movie scenes with lot of light so we can see what happen are unrealistic...
Even through in the country, in a wood, a cave or something without added lighting I typically don't see anything in the night. Like I don't see anything in a bedroom at 3am if light is not on.
We don't think a photograph with a wide apperture is unrealistic
Even through I never see the world like that. There always much more deph of field when I look at some object than when a photographer take it with a wide apperture to isolate the subject.
Photographers don't hesitate one bit to hide/change the reality as we see it with all the tools they have at their disposal.
But if somebody use "eyes candy" colors then suddenly it is no more photography...
How strange !
I mean, everybody what so impressed by this shoot I taken (see just after) They said that it really show what the DA35 f/2.4 can do and so on. Do you really think the shoot has anything to do with the lense quality and that 18-55 couldn't have shoot it? Do you think it is at all realistic? I completely changed the tone curve, decreased saturation to -55 added +100% of contrast +33 of micro contrast, I used a film rendering "Fuji Velvia" and DxO SmartLighting was set to "50" (a bit useless I admit). There no way the sky was almost grey in reality, there no way the water was looking like that in reality and the tone to be mostly sepia. The picture you see was meant to be graphical, not at all realistic. It was heavily post processed but many liked it so it was ok to them.
Because many don't like the Lake Tahoe shoots doesn't mean this no longer a photo. That no less realistic than a studio portrait shoot with a 85mm f/1.4 or any B&W film shoot back in the day !
This is another shoot from the same place, a bit earlier, it look completely different: