History HumansAreTheRealMonsters / LiveActionTV

** The FourHorsemenOfTheApocalypse also hold this view. War claims that he just gives people a little push, and then we kill each other on our own; Famine, similarly, states that our cravings for what we can't have are already there, and he just makes us realize. Pestilence notes that germs aren't destructive, ''we'' are. The one exception is Death, who just views us as [[InsignificantLittleBluePlanet insignificant.]]

** Not really avoided in ''Series/TheMuppetShow'' or its movie spin-offs. As far as the biggest bastard Kermit ever met is concerned, RogerEbert said it best: "As soon as Kermit gains legs, he meets a human with an unsavory use for them."

** Not really avoided in ''TheMuppetShow'' or its movie spin-offs. As far as the biggest bastard Kermit ever met is concerned, RogerEbert said it best: "As soon as Kermit gains legs, he meets a human with an unsavory use for them."

* ''KamenRiderWizard'': Sora, aka Phantom Gremlin, tells Haruto that he's the only Phantom to have "a human heart"; i.e. even after he became a Phantom, he still retains his humanity and original personality. (Conversely, both Phoenix and Medusa have drastically different personalities from their human selves.) Haruto hopes that this means Sora could be an ally. [[spoiler:Then he discovers that Sora was a serial killer who targeted women before he became a Phantom, and he's retained this part of his humanity as well.]]

* Creator/PeterWatts subverts this in "Bulk Food", a short story where we finally make the technological breakthrough that allows us to communicate to whales. As it turns out, whales are just as awful as we are, and orca Matriarchs are more than happy to sell off some their stragglers as food and entertainment.
-->Well, no one expected the whales to be such assholes.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'', particularly the revival series, sways between Humans Are The Real Monsters, HumansAreIdiots, Humans Are Misguided But Well-Meaning, and even on occasion Humans Are Absolutely Frickin' Awesome, sometimes within the same episode. Which is probably as close to reality as you can get really, since humans generally show capacity for all of these things, depending on all kinds of factors.

** Remember the Ood from "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit"? We get treated to this trope in a later episode "Planet of the Ood". [[spoiler:The humans who found them isolated the Ood Brain (the core of their ''hive mind'') and after an indefinite amount of time started to hack off the Oods' hind-mind (the external chunk of brain sticking out of their face that govern personality) and replace them with translator orbs.]] Of course, not ''all'' humans are bastards: there are still people protesting against the slavery.

** In "The Doctor's Daughter", humans are far more violent than the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Hath]].

*** Worse, each year every citizen would go into a room and find out the awful truth. They would then get a vote: Forget or Dissent. The first button caused the last few minutes to be erased from their memories, allowing them to live in blissful ignorance. The second button [[spoiler:dropped them into the basement to be fed to the Star Whale]]. Children who fail in class are also treated to the latter, although [[spoiler:the Star Whale doesn't want to eat them]].

** "Doctor Who and the Silurians" is practically made of this trope. Despite all the Doctor's best efforts the humans' greed, stubbornness and fear sends the situation spiralling out of control, culminating in the Brigadier murdering an entire race of hibernating people. While the Silurians wanted to destroy the humans at least as much (and one in particular was a xenocidal maniac) they do show nobler tendencies, as the Old Silurian is the only morally respectable character aside from the Doctor and Liz. Even the "bad" Silurian's choice to sacrifice himself for the good of his people contrasts with the petty, selfish and emotional reactions of the "bad" human characters.
*** Its not exactly that black and white, throughout the story both sides are presented as paranoid and xenophobic. While at the beginning several humans are acting out of selfish intent, they are quickly killed by the Silurians, so that by the end both sides trying to work for the good of there species. Even when the Brigadier blows the sleeping Silurians to kingdom come at the and earns the doctors disgust, its pretty hard to argue that he didn't have a point behind his actions as by this point the Silurians have caused thousands of deaths through infecting humans with a plague specifically designed to wipe them out and when that failed tried to alter the planet so that it was only possible for Silurians to live on it (in contrast despite all the xenophobia, up until the end the humans had killed practically no Silurians). The Young Silurian also outright murders the Old Silurian when the Doctor manages to convince him that that a peaceful solution between the two is possible purely out of xenophobia. The real moral ends up with them seeming just as bad as each other.
*** In fact, pretty much every appearance by the Silurians throughout the series will invoke this trope at least once or twice, to differing levels of success.

* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'': While the Cylons definitely hold that view towards humanity, at least in the first couple of seasons, Cylons are pretty much better than humanity at everything. Including self-righteous hypocrisy (given they make statements like "humans don't respect life like we do" after exterminating most of humanity in a nuclear holocaust and about to gun someone down).

** ''FraggleRock'' stands dedicatedly on the "humans are misguided" side. Uncle Traveling Matt quickly dubs us "the Silly Creatures", which really says it all. On the few occasions Doc threatened the FiveRaces, he did so without realizing it (shutting down the pipes in his house shuts down the water supply for the Fraggles, Doozers, and Gorgs). [[spoiler:When he finally meets Gobo face-to-face, he's careful to take this sort of thing into consideration.]]

* Given [[RousseauWasRight the kind of person]] JimHenson was, he usually had a more thoughtful take on this issue. To wit:

*** Its not exactly that black and white, throughout the story both sides are presented as Paranoid and Xenophobic, and while at the beginning several humans are acting out of selfish intent, they are quickly killed by the Silurians, so that by the end both sides trying to work for the good of there species. Even when the Brigadier blows the sleeping Silurians to kingdom come at the end and earns the doctors disgust, its pretty hard to argue that he was solely in the wrong and didn't have a point behind his actions as by this point the Silurians have caused thousands of deaths through infecting humans with a plague specifically designed to wipe them out and then when that failed tried to alter the planet so that it was only possible for Silurians to live on it, in contrast despite distain for them, up until the end the humans had killed almost none of Silurians. Likewise the Young Silurian outright murders the Old Silurian when the doctor manages to convince him that that a peaceful solution between the two is possible.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Anya felt this, which is why it was easy for her to be a vengeance demon. Three years of fighting alongside the Scoobies allowed her to see the goodness in people and made it hard to go back to vengeance.

** ''Doctor Who And The Silurians'' is practically made of this trope. Despite all the Doctor's best efforts the humans' greed, stubbornness and fear sends the situation spiralling out of control, culminating in the Brigadier murdering an entire race of hibernating people. While the Silurians wanted to destroy the humans at least as much, they do show nobler tendencies, as the Old Silurian is the only morally respectable character aside from the Doctor and Liz and even the young Silurian's choice to sacrifice himself for the good of his people contrasts with the petty, selfish and emotional reactions of the human characters.
*** Its not exactly that black and white, throughout the story both sides are presented as Paranoid and Xenophobic, and while at the beginning several humans are acting out of selfish intent, they are quickly killed by the Silurians, so that by the end both sides trying to work for the good of there species. Even when the Brigadier blows the sleeping Silurians to kingdom come at the end and earns the doctors disgust, its pretty hard to argue that he was solely in the wrong and didn't have a point behind his actions as by this point the Silurians have caused thousands of deaths through infecting humans with a plague specifically designed to wipe them out and then when that failed tried to alter the planet so that it was only possible for Silurians to live on it, in contrast despite distain for them, up until the end the humans had killed almost none of Silurians. Likewise the Young Silurian outright murders the elder, when the doctor manages to convince him that that a peaceful solution between the two is possible
*** In fact, pretty much every appearance by the Silurians throughout the series will at least invoke this trope once or twice, to differing levels of success.
** Some stories of the First Doctor feature this trope. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]", the first Doctor Who story to feature humans interacting with aliens outside the main cast, Sensorites fear humans because a previous expedition of humans that came to the Sensesphere have been poisoning the water supply.
*** Actually this is more of a subversion, it turns out the ones who have been poisoning the water supply only did so, cause they were driven mad by the Sensorite's telepathic interference (unintended, as a race of telepaths they did not realise the effects there abilities could have on humans minds) and believed that the Sensorite's had declared war on them. While the true main villain of the story is another Sensorite, who out of xenophobia is willing to murder his own kind, betray his leaders, bully others into following him and outright frame the heroes, simply cause he doesn't like the humans being different.

** In BigFinishDoctorWho the first of the 4th Doctor adventures has this, with a Victorian Lord stealing a spaceship and trying to take the British Empire into Space, leading to the aliens he attacked trying to wipe humanity out with ThePlague. Creator/NickBriggs lampshades this "I know that's nothing original in science fiction."
* The ''Series/DoctorWho'' spinoff ''{{Series/Torchwood}}'' uses this trope too. Perhaps the most disturbing example is the episode ''[[Recap/TorchwoodS1E6Countrycide Countrycide]]'', which is notable as [[spoiler:the only episode in the {{Whoniverse}} not to contain any science fiction elements (other than Jack's immortality and a few pieces of Torchwood technology, both of which are incidental to the plot). The villains are human cannibals who engage in horrifying acts purely ForTheEvulz]]. However, it is brought out on a truly large scale in ''TorchwoodChildrenOfEarth'' and ''TorchwoodMiracleDay'', where the primary antagonists that the Torchwood team must deal with are really evil humans, with the alien threat being more of a catalyst than a core issue.

* PeterWatts subverts this in "Bulk Food", a short story where we finally make the technological breakthrough that allows us to communicate to whales. As it turns out, whales are just as awful as we are, and orca Matriarchs are more than happy to sell off some their stragglers as food and entertainment.

*** Its not exactly that black and white, throughout the story both sides are presented as Paranoid and Xenophobic, and while at the beginning several humans are acting out of selfish intent, they are quickly killed by the Silurians, so that by the end both sides trying to work for the good of there species. Even when the Brigadier blows the sleeping Silurians to kingdom come at the end and earns the doctors disgust, its pretty hard to argue he was solely in the wrong as by this point the Silurians have caused thousands of deaths through infecting humans with a plague specifically designed to wipe them out and then when that failed tried to alter the planet so that it was only possible for Silurians to live on it, in contrast despite distain for them, up until the end the humans had killed almost none of Silurians. Likewise the Young Silurian outright murders the elder, when the doctor manages to convince him that that a peaceful solution between the two is possible

*** Its not exactly that black and white, throughout the story both sides are presented as Paranoid and Xenophobic, and while at the beginning several humans are acting out of selfish intent, they are quickly killed by the Silurians, so that by the end both sides trying to work for the good of there species. Even when the Brigadier blows the sleeping Silurians to kingdom come at the end and earns the doctors disgust, its pretty hard to argue he was solely in the wrong as by this point the Silurians have caused thousands of deaths through infecting humans with a plague specifically designed to wipe them out and then when that failed tried to alter the planet so that it was only possible for Silurians to live on it, in contrast despite distain for them, up until that point the humans had only killed a very small number of Silurians, with most purely out of fear or self defense.

*** In fact, pretty much every appearance by the Silurians throughout the series will at least invoke this trope once or twice.

** Some stories of the First Doctor feature this trope. In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E7TheSensorites The Sensorites]]", the Sensorites fear humans because a previous expedition of humans that came to the Sensesphere have been poisoning the water supply.

* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': While Sam and Dean usually fight supernatural monsters, the first season episode "The Benders" involves humans who hunt down other humans for fun, the second season episode "Houses of the Holy" involves a man with dead bodies in his basement, an email-using pedophile, and an attempted rapist, all of whom deserved their instant death, and the third season episode "Sin City" features a demon talking to Dean about how much humans suck. The fourth season episode "Family Remains" involves a man who raped his daughter and then shut the resulting twins away under the house, where they became animalistic scavengers. "The Benders" and "Family Remains" are notable for being the only episodes so far that don't actually involve anything supernatural, just urban legend-like events of a mundane sort. Dean: "Demons I get, people are crazy."

* In OnceUponATime , Giants see humans like this. They turned out to be right, because [[spoiler: Two humans fool the one giant that believed that humans are not only violent, ambitious creatures into giving a way the location of the beanstalk and thus allowing them to wipe most of the giants for treasure and beans]].