This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Everybody Hates Mimes: From YKTTW
Indefatigable: I have a problem with transsexuals being on the list of "lifestyle choices", among furries and goths and students and the childfree (none of which I have a problem with, but they are choices). Transvestitism or crossdressing is something that people do because it's fun and a kink. Scientific evidence points towards transsexuality being a neurological issue, where the brain is wired for one gender and the body has the naughty bits of the other gender. It's easier to change the body than to change the brain, hence sex-reassignment surgery.
Sciatrix: Asexuality falls under the same category, too. Do we have a better category for those? Ethnic, maybe? It's been so bastardized that orientations might fit fine. (I kind of think Nationality should take on actual ethnic stereotypes and Ethnic should be renamed, by the way.)
Glooble: Deleted a repetitive entry, since obesity is already covered elsewhere in
Acceptable Targets.
The Nifty: A lot of these examples are kinda whiny in a "my particular subgroup is sooo persecuted!" way. Some trimming may be necessary.
Um...does anyone else feel the entries on drug dealers and users are a bit judgemental and thus hypocritical?
- I don't do drugs, so why would it be hypocritical?
- Do you mean the examples themselves or the people who added them? Because I don't remember being a hypocrite about drugs, I do remember adding an entry about a 60's movies that claimed weed can defy the laws of physics(that was the funniest movie I ever watched and it was meant to be dramatic too).
I don't entirely like the serious use of the term "feminazi" under Women in the Sex Industry.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: I went ahead and edited it out, along with the term Straw Feminist. There seems to be a bad habit on this wiki of tropers calling any feminist that they're criticizing a "Straw Feminist" to avoid causing any offence. The whole thing is a huge No True Scotsman (No True Scotswomyn?) fallacy - dumbass/extremist/hypocritical feminists are still feminists just like how Jack Chick is still a Christian. Acknowledging this doesn't mean that all (or even most) feminists or Christians are like these idiots.
Kilyle: Can we get these categories moved around so they make some sense comparing nearby entries? Either on this page or as sub-pages. Put the family-relations ones in one place, the sex-related ones in another place, the work-related (and studies-related) ones in a third, and the rest someplace else. I think it would make this page a lot more useful.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: Yeah, I was just about to suggest an Acceptable Sexual Targets page.
Elitist B 616: Deleted the comment about people laughing at furries simply because they find fucking Bugs Bunny amusing. Even furries find that topic funny, but it doesn't serve any particular relevance in this article.
Malchus: Removed the following bullet point since it doesn't really fit. Also, I'd like to reply to the misconception about natural selection presented in it.
- Technically speaking, depending of how you interpret "going against" it does. An asexual person won't reproduce and therefore won't pass forward his or her genes. That said, being is so is not necessarily bad. For example, extending even less than the asexuality, health care could be considered "against evolution" for stopping natural selection by not let people who would otherwise die, effectively die. And anyone who is absolutely against health care should be locked up in a white room.
Technically speaking, that's an oversimplification of natural selection. Part of natural selection is how the actions of the organisms in said environment also contribute to conditions in said environment, which then affect the selection process in the environment. Health care is just another factor in the many factors of natural selection in the modern human environment since health care is the action of an influential organism in said environment, i.e., humans. What many forget is that humans are themselves part of nature, thus everything they have done throughout human history is "natural" even though other creatures are incapable of shaping their environment to the extent to which we can. Evolution and natural selection are vastly more complex than what most people think they know about it.
Noimporta: moved the following text to a new trope, Acceptable Professional Targets, I removed all the examples and natter while moving, so some information might have been lost. Warning, huge walls of text:
removed text
- Lawyers. Since they're trained to defend anyone, even if their client is as guilty as the devil, lawyers are often being labeled being prolific, greedy liars who will find even the most vague of loopholes in the law to get a good verdict.
- The obvious subversion is, of course, is the Phoenix Wright series with the opposite happening in that the PROSECUTORS tend to be perfectionist or have a grudge on the defense attorney. Or is Winston Payne
- Yet TV shows, movies, and books about lawyers are extremely popular...
- The ultimate subversion: Atticus Finch, from To Kill A Mockingbird.
- In a way. The story made it so explicit that his client was innocent, and that the evidence proved it beyond any doubt, that the acceptable targets shifted to the total moron rednecks on the jury that convicted him anyway.
- Mimes: Nobody likes a mime. Writers are no exception. They, however, have a power that other law-abiding citizens do not; to inflict untold horrors and revenges upon those who would pretend to be trapped in an invisible box, walk against the wind or otherwise mutely annoy countless passers-by (within the realm of fiction, of course). No wonder there's a trope called Enemy Mime.
- Clowns, too. Interestingly enough, this troper has heard that clowns and mimes are mortal enemies.
- Animaniacs with its "Mime Time" Sketches.
- Also an episode when Plotz hired a clown of distinctly Jerry-Lewis-like demeanor to entertain Wakko on his birthday...unaware that Wakko was absurdly coulrophobic, and visited all manner of painful happenstances upon him, hoping something would make the clown go away.
- The Far Side: "If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around, and it hits a mime, does anybody care?"
- Lord Havelock Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork of Discworld, has banned both miming and the performance of street theatre within the walls of Ankh-Morpork, but the emphasis in the books and most attendant material is on the banning of mime. Anyone found wearing miming clothes in the city will be strung up over a scorpion pit opposite a sign which reads "Learn the words."
- Though its occasionally implied that Vetinari doesn't really hate mimes, but that he feels every good dictator needs to institute at least one irrational law, so why not get rid of something everybody hates already?
- Juggling is permitted, providing you pass the exam. The exam involves six razor-sharp knives and a live cat.
- The Internet Oracle an effort at collective humor which began on Usenet, often uses Mimes as a target. Of course, this began because of the use of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), which, when improperly used, would create messages that were annoying.
- The acting teacher on Family Guy puts Mimes on the bottom tier of the theater hierarchy.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus: "And now Marcel will mime a man being struck about the head by a sixteen-ton weight." (A sixteen-ton weight falls on the Marcel Marceau impersonator.)
- Die Hard With A Vengeance:
Zeus: "McClane, are you trying to hit these people?"
McClane: "No. Maybe that mime."
- Scary Go Round had a line something like that. "Why am I such a failure at life? I'm lower than a drug mule, or a mime".
- One episode of American Dragon Jake Long features Spud wanting to be a Mime. Jake and Trixie conspire to get him to use his Genius Ditz brain instead.
- The TBS commercial: "Which is funnier, mime pretending to be trapped in a glass box, or a mime really trapped in a glass box?"
- Weirdly used in The Adventures of Doctor McNinja, where it is revealed that Ronald McDonald is secretly a mime. However, the reason for their conflict is to do with him being a Corrupt Corporate Executive rather than a mime. Also, being a mime gives him supernatural powers, like creating an invisible wall that can block throwing stars.
- Weird Al's song "She Never Told Me She Was a Mime" [see http://tinyurl.com/5bfl7h for lyrics].
- On Empty Nest, a patient of Harry's who's a mime laments about how much hatred they are subject to. "People throw fruit at us!"
- As mimes become steadily rarer (possibly due to all the negative publicity), their place as 'most hated street entertainer' is perhaps being slowly but surely replaced by 'living statue' performers. Which is, come to think of it, a performance style not a million miles away from mime anyway.
- The "living statue" subtrope is exemplified in Hot Fuzz when the dreaded "Living Statue" comes up as the Sandford Town Council's main point of discussion in a council meeting. They end up murdering him. But You Should Know This By Now.
- There was a performer of this type in Bath, England who after more than a decade at least, retired and his spot immediately filled by another living statue with a different colour scheme. What the hell do they think about all day anyway?
- An episode of Monk set around a carnival features a mime who follows the main characters around mimicking their actions, which causes them no end of irritation. It gets so bad that the police captain ends up arresting him for "impersonating a police officer".
- Another one had an extremely unhelpful living statue that refuses to deviate from his schedule for any reason, and usually spent that insulting an officer (Who then try to get on the act for the money!)
- In Penny Arcade Adventures Vol. 1: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, one of the enemy types is mimes...who you get to beat up mercilessly. Joy for all!
- In Gabriel Knight, you have an irritating Mime that would follow Gabriel and just be generally annoying. Later on, you have to use the Mime to piss a Cop off so badly that he actually abandons his motorcycle to chase after him!
- In Shadow Madness, one small area of the game includes mimes as Random Encounters.
- In Fall Out Boy's "I Don't Care" video, Pete Wentz is shown harrasing a mime on the street.
- In Planescape Torment, a mime in the Clerk's Ward is the Butt-Monkey of a magical curse - he is really trapped by an invisible wall - and even the usually kind-hearted Fall-From-Grace makes a disparaging throwaway comment at Mimes.
- In The Invisible Man, Fawkes is trying to remember the people he attacked while he was in Quicksilver Madness.
Darien: There was a mime. I beat the hell out of a mime. What happened to him? Is he okay?
Hobbes: Relax. He did not recover.
Darien: Thank God.
- The character of Mime on Happy Tree Friends, created so the creators would be able to kill a mime, again and again and again.
- In Suburban Commando, Hulk Hogan beats up the same mime on two occasions. (The third time, he flees.) Ironically, Hogan (playing a disoriented space mercenary) is genuinely trying to help the guy, such as getting him out of the force field he's trapped in.
- YGO:TAS-
Yugi: He's still a human being!
Marik: He's also a mime.
Yugi: Oh, in that case, yeah, I'll kick his ass.
- The Marketing Department. Paradoxically, this group is highly inclusive (in that it accepts people of any race, creed, gender, etc.) while it is still portrayed as being somewhat elitist ("If you're not in sales, you're in overhead"). The basic stereotype assumes that every member of this department will try to sell their company's product or service to anyone, regardless of whether or not the client-to-be has any need for the product (such as the proverbial "selling snow to Eskimos") and will not take "No" for an answer.
Bill Hicks: "By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. There's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers. Okay? Kill yourself. Seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke. You're going, "There's going to be a joke coming." There's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul. Kill yourself. I know all the marketing people are going, "He's doing a joke." There's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market. He's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Goddammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!"
- In the book Jennifer Government marketing executives are portrayed as evil, manipulative, potential rapist bastards, who see everything in terms of marketing value (even the fact that hospital interiors are painted white) and are willing to commit murder in order to create hype around new products (although granted, the book is set 20 Minutes into the Future in a world of exterme Anarcho-Capitalism, so its more about taking marketing in such a world to its logical conclusion).
- "Direct" marketeers, especially Spammers and telemarketers are often especially hated. (Good Omens and Sluggy Freelance are two obvious examples.)
- Drug dealers. When you need a villain, look no further. All drug dealers are scum who cruise the playgrounds looking for kids (the younger the better) to sell dope to. If you need a Big Bad, just make him the leader of the gang. Of course, most of the time he isn't an American, so you get to get two for one here.
- Subverted by many hiphop artists from the '90s such as the Notorious BIG. He never glorified his trade, simply stated as a matter of fact that he got into dealing to support his daughter since his only other option was minimum wage.
- At the risk of sounding a holier-than-thou Knight Templar , this troper suspects that maybe drug dealers are given a negative portrayal because...well... they are committing a crime which, when it involves "heavy" drugs, ultimately causes the death of thousands of people? Seriously, what the hell do they have in common with the other people in this page, like Geeks, Mimes, Intellectuals, Nudists? (well, they do have something in common with the Marketing Department: they both sell crap). One doesn't have to be a Mercykiller of Planescape Torment memory to believe that selling drugs is not just a
lifestyle. Next thing, we'll be commenting on how the mainstream has the "strange" habit of painting perverts in an
unflattering light.
- Drug dealers are an acceptable target, and they always will be. We shall always accept portraying them as the bad guys,
because they are.
- Not that this troper supports the drug trade or anything, but are you suggesting that a person selling marijuana to
cancer patients is the same as the person selling LSD to high school kids?
- Bad example. LSD is snubbed by any serious pushers, since it's completely nonaddictive, and even most of the "heavy
users" take a dose maybe ten times in their entire lifetime. There's no money to be made in that drug.
- Completely subverted in The Wire. Hell, one of, if not THE most sympathetic characters in the show is D'Angelo
Barksdale, a mid-level drug lieutenant and dealer.
- In fictional works, the easiest way to know if a Gang is an Antagonist is if they deal in drugs. While it has loosened up
a bit,
Grand Theft Auto forbids your character from willingly take any hallucinogenic drugs at all.
- Totally subverted in Repo! The Genetic Opera. The drugs that Graverobber sells are harvested from corpses, and he's Chaotic Neutral at the very worst.
- In Real Life there's plenty of variation - a guy who sells a bit marijuana to his friends is hardly compareable to someone
pushing heroine at industrial pace to street kids.
- Heavily subverted in Illuminatus where the most protagonists sell and use mild drugs and LSD, and the leader of the good guys became millionaire as heroin dealer - his justification is that if he didn't do it, Mafia would have done it for him using subpar ingredients, causing thousands of more addict deaths than his product does. The wife of one of the protagonists almost died of heroin addiction, but the two never discuss the ethics of the trade, regardless.
- Nicely subverted in Pineapple Express, where the portrayals of the various drug dealers (and hit men) have less to do with they're shared occupation, and more with their actual personalities.
- Paparazzi. 'Nuff said.
- Traffic Wardens.
- Women in the Sex Industry: Whether they're strippers, adult models, porn actresses, or sex workers, these women are treated as victims of circumstance at best or amoral succubi at worst. Often, middle ground is found by treated them like brainless twits. This one of the few things the Religious Right and (quite a few) feminists can agree on. The former's position is understandable, but the latter is arguably hypocritical what with how much they rave about a woman's choice. Nobody is putting a gun to these ladies' heads, but apparently free choice doesn't apply if it's a choice that the feminists in question don't like.
CA Lieber: Question about this, rather than removing it outright:
- Nice Guys. Okay, they're able to get along with anyone, have many friends, are easy to talk too and pretty funny, but on the downside they're going to be portrayed as slightly reserved, never happy with themselves, have Jocks and assholes think they're easy targets and will generally be shown to be useless when chatting up women, and the woman will go for the Bad Boy anyway. Maybe the Dogged Nice Guy will get her in the end. Can be trapped in a weird subcultural purgatory of being too cool to be a nerd but not cool enough to be with the Popular clique - see the British TV show The Inbetweeners for more on this.
Really? I've never, ever seen this, and one instance does not a trope make. If you mean the sort of Manipulative Bastard Jerkass who calls himself a nice guy, thus, I'll grant that, but then we may as well add Villains as an acceptable target.
Won Sab: Asking about this, since theoretically either one of the
Large families examples could stand as the base and I don't know in which of the two to consolidate the examples. As to the
Emos… it has an extended section already.
One has to wonder if they were paying attention. Removed the second bit on
Emos because it really doesn't serve any purpose.
Both Emos and Large families are mentioned twice; the former as its own extended entry and as a one-line add-on to the Goths section, the latter as its own extended section and as a much shorter section with longer examples underneath the section on The childfree. This strikes me as people not reading what's already up. It's a tad repetitive.
Kersey475: Are racists Acceptable Targets?
